{"post_id":"gk1l4k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any other anthropologists find this reddit a bit cringey sometimes? Great to see people asking genuine questions, but if I see another post asking why X is better\/more advanced\/civilised than Y, or asking for evidence to support prejudicial worldviews, I'm going to cry.","c_root_id_A":"fqp0ezx","c_root_id_B":"fqoxqhv","created_at_utc_A":1589530607,"created_at_utc_B":1589528107,"score_A":14,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Hearing this made me realise, even as someone with an archaeology BA \u2018shit, I do kind of assume that China has always been kind of \u2018classical Europe with Chinese characteristics\u2019 or \u2018medieval, with Chinese characteristics\u2019. It\u2019s not an area I\u2019m particularly interested in, but your post is great for reminding us that our education system leaves us with a set of assumptions and those assumptions (like most assumptions) have some pretty massive flaws.","human_ref_B":"Space and time questions imo is the way to solve it. Many people here are familiar with popular subjects and others with lesser known ones. Ten years ago reddit was a platform for knowledgeable to entice people not a pseudo Wikipedia. In short we need the sub to be resubmitting knowledgeable users rather than race baiting twats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2500.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"gk1l4k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any other anthropologists find this reddit a bit cringey sometimes? Great to see people asking genuine questions, but if I see another post asking why X is better\/more advanced\/civilised than Y, or asking for evidence to support prejudicial worldviews, I'm going to cry.","c_root_id_A":"fqrjil1","c_root_id_B":"g2qjpmm","created_at_utc_A":1589585612,"created_at_utc_B":1598306302,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I don't think we yet have a word for how cringe some of the questions are here. I think there are a lot of confused kids who use the subreddit as a way of trying to understand things that really should be in the realm of psychology.","human_ref_B":"For what it's worth, i just read through this entire thread after Reddit suggested this sub to me, and promptly subscribed to it. I fully realize that I may never be able to answer any question here, but I can get behind the goal of enlightening the cringe-inducing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8720690.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"gk1l4k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any other anthropologists find this reddit a bit cringey sometimes? Great to see people asking genuine questions, but if I see another post asking why X is better\/more advanced\/civilised than Y, or asking for evidence to support prejudicial worldviews, I'm going to cry.","c_root_id_A":"g2qjpmm","c_root_id_B":"fqrngkk","created_at_utc_A":1598306302,"created_at_utc_B":1589587927,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For what it's worth, i just read through this entire thread after Reddit suggested this sub to me, and promptly subscribed to it. I fully realize that I may never be able to answer any question here, but I can get behind the goal of enlightening the cringe-inducing.","human_ref_B":"I wish there was an adult swim side of reddit. If you've never paid taxes or written a resume, you're on read only mode in the professional discussion subs","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8718375.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fozdc4l","c_root_id_B":"fozffmv","created_at_utc_A":1588188759,"created_at_utc_B":1588189754,"score_A":25,"score_B":195,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not sure if this type of answer is allowed, but I\u2019d recommend watching the documentary Generation Wealth, it\u2019s like a photojournalism project about the culture of money and consumption in America. It\u2019s not just about billionaires but it\u2019s a really interesting take on the topic.","human_ref_B":"Brooke Harrington has done some ethnographic work on financial professionals in tax evasion\/tax havens which also covers their relationships to the individuals whose wealth they manage. Can dig out precise references\/conclusions when I\u2019m not on mobile if that sounds interesting to you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":995.0,"score_ratio":7.8} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fozdc4l","c_root_id_B":"fozlv2y","created_at_utc_A":1588188759,"created_at_utc_B":1588192832,"score_A":25,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not sure if this type of answer is allowed, but I\u2019d recommend watching the documentary Generation Wealth, it\u2019s like a photojournalism project about the culture of money and consumption in America. It\u2019s not just about billionaires but it\u2019s a really interesting take on the topic.","human_ref_B":"Being rich is associated with reduced empathy and compassion. Research has shown: CEO's are much more likely to meet criteria for psychopathy; wealthier people react less to videos of children with cancer; luxury car drivers are more likely to cut off other cars and ignore pedestrians; and more powerful and wealthy people are worse at reading emotions in other peoples faces. Unfortunately these people wield massive social and political power... and what adds to how stupid the system is, that creates huge inequality and billionaires, is that their excess wealth doesn't even make them happier (e.g. see the Easterlin paradox). Some research summarised here: https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/how-wealth-reduces-compassion\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4073.0,"score_ratio":3.28} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fozg9ua","c_root_id_B":"fozlv2y","created_at_utc_A":1588190156,"created_at_utc_B":1588192832,"score_A":22,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"Laura Nader wrote about \"elite anthropology\" or ethnographies of those in a society or company that make the decisions.","human_ref_B":"Being rich is associated with reduced empathy and compassion. Research has shown: CEO's are much more likely to meet criteria for psychopathy; wealthier people react less to videos of children with cancer; luxury car drivers are more likely to cut off other cars and ignore pedestrians; and more powerful and wealthy people are worse at reading emotions in other peoples faces. Unfortunately these people wield massive social and political power... and what adds to how stupid the system is, that creates huge inequality and billionaires, is that their excess wealth doesn't even make them happier (e.g. see the Easterlin paradox). Some research summarised here: https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/how-wealth-reduces-compassion\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2676.0,"score_ratio":3.7272727273} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fp170ra","c_root_id_B":"fp13d7e","created_at_utc_A":1588226207,"created_at_utc_B":1588223290,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Yes. This study found that their flesh was acting as a power bar. It's crazy, like human fertilizer. Makes you strong and your world vision more accurate. It's been then a great idea to eat the rich.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, a psychologist, but Dacher Keltner has done studies on compassion and wealth that might interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2917.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fp13d7e","c_root_id_B":"fp1e8ar","created_at_utc_A":1588223290,"created_at_utc_B":1588232587,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, a psychologist, but Dacher Keltner has done studies on compassion and wealth that might interest you.","human_ref_B":"You could also be interested in \"Elite Cultures- Anthropological Perspectives\", edited by Shore and Nugent. I could send you the pdf if you wish. From the introduction: >\"The anthropological study of elites has gained increasing prominence with the shift of the anthropological gaze toward issues of power, prestige and status in the societies of anthropologists themselves. However, our understanding of elites is often partial, obscured as it is by the theoretical weaknesses of Western models on the one hand and, on the other, by the difficulties in studying elites from the \u2018inside\u2019. Drawing on a diverse, comparative ethnographic literature, this new volume examines the intimate spaces and cultural practices of those elites who occupy positions of power and authority across a variety of different settings. >Using ethnographic case studies from a wide range of geographical areas, including Mexico, Peru Amazonia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Europe, North America and Africa, the contributors explore the inner worlds of meaning and practice that define and sustain elite identities.They also provide insights into the cultural mechanisms that maintain elite status, and into the complex ways that elite groups relate to, and are embedded within, wider social and historical processes.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9297.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gacjbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have billionaires ever been studied as a people group rather than just as individuals? If so, what observations have been made? What commonalities do they have? I'm particularly interested in views they have about their level of wealth.","c_root_id_A":"fp19jvy","c_root_id_B":"fp13d7e","created_at_utc_A":1588228373,"created_at_utc_B":1588223290,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There's a book called Uneasy Street that came out in 2017 on the subject of not billionaires but the very wealthy. It identified two separate attitudes, called \"upward facing\" and \"downward facing\" by the author, with the former primarily framing their wealth as being less than people who had more, and the later as people who think of themselves as having more wealth than the vast majority of people. There are differences in these attitudes between people who inherited vs people who were \"self made\". That's all I remember right now, I'm not an expert. I do recommend the book.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, a psychologist, but Dacher Keltner has done studies on compassion and wealth that might interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5083.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2x3np1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why do native populations (e.g. Native Americans, Inuits and Australian aboriginals) appear to have such high rates of substance abuse? It often seems like native populations in countries that were colonized by European nations, such as the Native Americans, Inuits in Greenland or Australian aboriginals, have much greater problems with substance abuse and other negative social issues (I recall something about incidence of child molestation on Australian reserves as well?). It seems that these ethnic groups are diverse enough that it can't be dismissed as genetic (i.e. by simple racism), but they all have similar histories regarding colonization by more \"advanced\" cultures. Are there any accepted theories regarding this phenomenon or am I simply suffering from confirmation bias?","c_root_id_A":"cowuqep","c_root_id_B":"cowolgo","created_at_utc_A":1424885783,"created_at_utc_B":1424874821,"score_A":1346,"score_B":69,"human_ref_A":"The impact of the widespread child abuse and sexual abuse that took place at residential schools cannot be overstated. In Canada, the United States, and Australia, children (sometimes as young as four years of age) were removed from their families and home communities and sent to remote boarding schools, with the stated goal of assimilating the children into mainstream society. This began in the late 19th century and continued into the mid\/late 20th century. Whether religious or government run, the accounts of abuse at these schools were horrific. So imagine this process taking place for three or four generations in a community, and what its lasting ramifications would be.","human_ref_B":"I recently read the book: \"The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit\" by Bruce Alexander. He regards the phenomenon of *dislocation* as the source of addiction. The reason for being dislocated is a lack of psychosocial integration. So when natives came into contact with colonizers they were forced to go to their schools, to abandon their own culture, rituals, identities and so on. This led to the natives losing their psychosocial integration into their own culture and subsequently to them developing addictions. Of course there are many factors that come into play since it wasn't exactly the same process everywhere but this is the underlying concept. EDIT: To be clear, in a biological sense addiction is seen as an adaption to Dislocation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10962.0,"score_ratio":19.5072463768} {"post_id":"2x3np1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why do native populations (e.g. Native Americans, Inuits and Australian aboriginals) appear to have such high rates of substance abuse? It often seems like native populations in countries that were colonized by European nations, such as the Native Americans, Inuits in Greenland or Australian aboriginals, have much greater problems with substance abuse and other negative social issues (I recall something about incidence of child molestation on Australian reserves as well?). It seems that these ethnic groups are diverse enough that it can't be dismissed as genetic (i.e. by simple racism), but they all have similar histories regarding colonization by more \"advanced\" cultures. Are there any accepted theories regarding this phenomenon or am I simply suffering from confirmation bias?","c_root_id_A":"cowuqep","c_root_id_B":"cowmpu7","created_at_utc_A":1424885783,"created_at_utc_B":1424869916,"score_A":1346,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"The impact of the widespread child abuse and sexual abuse that took place at residential schools cannot be overstated. In Canada, the United States, and Australia, children (sometimes as young as four years of age) were removed from their families and home communities and sent to remote boarding schools, with the stated goal of assimilating the children into mainstream society. This began in the late 19th century and continued into the mid\/late 20th century. Whether religious or government run, the accounts of abuse at these schools were horrific. So imagine this process taking place for three or four generations in a community, and what its lasting ramifications would be.","human_ref_B":"Offhandedly, many Native populations have been subjugated to the point of economic despair. Imagine being forced to live in a place with little to no economic opportunity such as a Native American reservation or in the middle of the Australian outback. Now imagine that the government that put you there offers little to no help in alleviating your plights despite the fact that they are chiefly responsible for them. What else would do but turn to drugs and alcohol? Couple that with genetic predispositions for addiction and you've got yourself a full blown epidemic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15867.0,"score_ratio":61.1818181818} {"post_id":"2x3np1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why do native populations (e.g. Native Americans, Inuits and Australian aboriginals) appear to have such high rates of substance abuse? It often seems like native populations in countries that were colonized by European nations, such as the Native Americans, Inuits in Greenland or Australian aboriginals, have much greater problems with substance abuse and other negative social issues (I recall something about incidence of child molestation on Australian reserves as well?). It seems that these ethnic groups are diverse enough that it can't be dismissed as genetic (i.e. by simple racism), but they all have similar histories regarding colonization by more \"advanced\" cultures. Are there any accepted theories regarding this phenomenon or am I simply suffering from confirmation bias?","c_root_id_A":"cowmpu7","c_root_id_B":"cowolgo","created_at_utc_A":1424869916,"created_at_utc_B":1424874821,"score_A":22,"score_B":69,"human_ref_A":"Offhandedly, many Native populations have been subjugated to the point of economic despair. Imagine being forced to live in a place with little to no economic opportunity such as a Native American reservation or in the middle of the Australian outback. Now imagine that the government that put you there offers little to no help in alleviating your plights despite the fact that they are chiefly responsible for them. What else would do but turn to drugs and alcohol? Couple that with genetic predispositions for addiction and you've got yourself a full blown epidemic.","human_ref_B":"I recently read the book: \"The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit\" by Bruce Alexander. He regards the phenomenon of *dislocation* as the source of addiction. The reason for being dislocated is a lack of psychosocial integration. So when natives came into contact with colonizers they were forced to go to their schools, to abandon their own culture, rituals, identities and so on. This led to the natives losing their psychosocial integration into their own culture and subsequently to them developing addictions. Of course there are many factors that come into play since it wasn't exactly the same process everywhere but this is the underlying concept. EDIT: To be clear, in a biological sense addiction is seen as an adaption to Dislocation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4905.0,"score_ratio":3.1363636364} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettz89l","c_root_id_B":"ettzzwb","created_at_utc_A":1563200234,"created_at_utc_B":1563200808,"score_A":66,"score_B":171,"human_ref_A":"I'm in favor of enhancing the quality of this subreddit, but I don't think AskHistorians's rules will work here because this sub isn't popular enough. AskHistorians posts often get dozens and sometimes get a few hundred responses. In contrast, if a post in this sub gets 20-30 replies, that's considered good. Culling 90% of replies (like AskHistorians does) is simply too severe for this subreddit. What could be a better approach is following the steps of \/r\/AskEconomics. Their size is more comparable to here. They utilize a filtering system that requires some substance in top-level replies, but it's not nearly as rigorous as AskHistorians. You can read the details here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskEconomics\/comments\/b0jind\/why\\_am\\_i\\_not\\_seeing\\_any\\_answers\/, but note that the mods are more lax than AskHistorians in enforcing the rules too.","human_ref_B":"The idea has been tossed around regularly. As a mod for both subs, here's my thoughts: * The public is generally less knowledgeable about anthropology than history. This means that we need much lower standards here for our questions. Broad statements about human nature aren't questions that any scholarly field is well-suited to answer, but that doesn't mean people won't ask them. Anthropology is much better suited than history to answer them, and we'd rather people ask them here than AskReddit. We also understand that people are going to use touchy words like race or gender in wildly incorrect ways not due to malice but due to genuinely not knowing better. This is a teaching opportunity. * We do already remove a lot of comments and ban plenty of users. Any thread with \"patriarchy\" or \"race\" in the title averages 1 ban per 7 or 8 users involved in the thread. * Part of anthropology is understanding and documenting the breadth of human experience. Questions here also deal with that. As such, a comment that simply recommends a relevant ethnography and explains its relevance can constitute a productive, worthwhile response to \"Does this ever happen in a culture?\" or \"How do diffy groups understand *X*.\" History, on the other hand, gets a lot more \"Why?\" questions that require a greater level of explanation. That's not as necessary for the kinds of anthropology questions people ask. * Something that turns me off, and many others as well, to answering some easy questions here is the amount of basic anthropology theory that needs to be explained beforehand. We don't need any more barriers to potential respondents. * As is, we get one thread a week that requires heavy moderation. That's slowly becoming two, and is one thread a week more than last year. But it's still not enough for is to be terribly concerned. The most helpful thing you can do is **ask people for sources** Neither our rules nor Ask Historians' require comments to be sourced; we both phrase it as \"be prepared to cite your sources.\" Another user calling out perceived BS is much more effective than a mod warning, and gives us a better platform for an eventual ban.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":574.0,"score_ratio":2.5909090909} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettzzwb","c_root_id_B":"ettyqr0","created_at_utc_A":1563200808,"created_at_utc_B":1563199860,"score_A":171,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"The idea has been tossed around regularly. As a mod for both subs, here's my thoughts: * The public is generally less knowledgeable about anthropology than history. This means that we need much lower standards here for our questions. Broad statements about human nature aren't questions that any scholarly field is well-suited to answer, but that doesn't mean people won't ask them. Anthropology is much better suited than history to answer them, and we'd rather people ask them here than AskReddit. We also understand that people are going to use touchy words like race or gender in wildly incorrect ways not due to malice but due to genuinely not knowing better. This is a teaching opportunity. * We do already remove a lot of comments and ban plenty of users. Any thread with \"patriarchy\" or \"race\" in the title averages 1 ban per 7 or 8 users involved in the thread. * Part of anthropology is understanding and documenting the breadth of human experience. Questions here also deal with that. As such, a comment that simply recommends a relevant ethnography and explains its relevance can constitute a productive, worthwhile response to \"Does this ever happen in a culture?\" or \"How do diffy groups understand *X*.\" History, on the other hand, gets a lot more \"Why?\" questions that require a greater level of explanation. That's not as necessary for the kinds of anthropology questions people ask. * Something that turns me off, and many others as well, to answering some easy questions here is the amount of basic anthropology theory that needs to be explained beforehand. We don't need any more barriers to potential respondents. * As is, we get one thread a week that requires heavy moderation. That's slowly becoming two, and is one thread a week more than last year. But it's still not enough for is to be terribly concerned. The most helpful thing you can do is **ask people for sources** Neither our rules nor Ask Historians' require comments to be sourced; we both phrase it as \"be prepared to cite your sources.\" Another user calling out perceived BS is much more effective than a mod warning, and gives us a better platform for an eventual ban.","human_ref_B":"Tbh I stopped following AskHistorians precisely because of their suffocating \u201crule enforcement\u201d. It seems every post in AskHistorians is filled with deleted comments. If the same were to happen to this great community, I\u2019d similarly stop following it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":948.0,"score_ratio":11.4} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettxgyy","c_root_id_B":"ettzzwb","created_at_utc_A":1563198866,"created_at_utc_B":1563200808,"score_A":14,"score_B":171,"human_ref_A":"As a non-anthropologist follower of this sub, I enjoy it in its current format. And this comment would get me banned under the rules you propose.","human_ref_B":"The idea has been tossed around regularly. As a mod for both subs, here's my thoughts: * The public is generally less knowledgeable about anthropology than history. This means that we need much lower standards here for our questions. Broad statements about human nature aren't questions that any scholarly field is well-suited to answer, but that doesn't mean people won't ask them. Anthropology is much better suited than history to answer them, and we'd rather people ask them here than AskReddit. We also understand that people are going to use touchy words like race or gender in wildly incorrect ways not due to malice but due to genuinely not knowing better. This is a teaching opportunity. * We do already remove a lot of comments and ban plenty of users. Any thread with \"patriarchy\" or \"race\" in the title averages 1 ban per 7 or 8 users involved in the thread. * Part of anthropology is understanding and documenting the breadth of human experience. Questions here also deal with that. As such, a comment that simply recommends a relevant ethnography and explains its relevance can constitute a productive, worthwhile response to \"Does this ever happen in a culture?\" or \"How do diffy groups understand *X*.\" History, on the other hand, gets a lot more \"Why?\" questions that require a greater level of explanation. That's not as necessary for the kinds of anthropology questions people ask. * Something that turns me off, and many others as well, to answering some easy questions here is the amount of basic anthropology theory that needs to be explained beforehand. We don't need any more barriers to potential respondents. * As is, we get one thread a week that requires heavy moderation. That's slowly becoming two, and is one thread a week more than last year. But it's still not enough for is to be terribly concerned. The most helpful thing you can do is **ask people for sources** Neither our rules nor Ask Historians' require comments to be sourced; we both phrase it as \"be prepared to cite your sources.\" Another user calling out perceived BS is much more effective than a mod warning, and gives us a better platform for an eventual ban.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1942.0,"score_ratio":12.2142857143} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettzzwb","c_root_id_B":"ettzm9p","created_at_utc_A":1563200808,"created_at_utc_B":1563200525,"score_A":171,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The idea has been tossed around regularly. As a mod for both subs, here's my thoughts: * The public is generally less knowledgeable about anthropology than history. This means that we need much lower standards here for our questions. Broad statements about human nature aren't questions that any scholarly field is well-suited to answer, but that doesn't mean people won't ask them. Anthropology is much better suited than history to answer them, and we'd rather people ask them here than AskReddit. We also understand that people are going to use touchy words like race or gender in wildly incorrect ways not due to malice but due to genuinely not knowing better. This is a teaching opportunity. * We do already remove a lot of comments and ban plenty of users. Any thread with \"patriarchy\" or \"race\" in the title averages 1 ban per 7 or 8 users involved in the thread. * Part of anthropology is understanding and documenting the breadth of human experience. Questions here also deal with that. As such, a comment that simply recommends a relevant ethnography and explains its relevance can constitute a productive, worthwhile response to \"Does this ever happen in a culture?\" or \"How do diffy groups understand *X*.\" History, on the other hand, gets a lot more \"Why?\" questions that require a greater level of explanation. That's not as necessary for the kinds of anthropology questions people ask. * Something that turns me off, and many others as well, to answering some easy questions here is the amount of basic anthropology theory that needs to be explained beforehand. We don't need any more barriers to potential respondents. * As is, we get one thread a week that requires heavy moderation. That's slowly becoming two, and is one thread a week more than last year. But it's still not enough for is to be terribly concerned. The most helpful thing you can do is **ask people for sources** Neither our rules nor Ask Historians' require comments to be sourced; we both phrase it as \"be prepared to cite your sources.\" Another user calling out perceived BS is much more effective than a mod warning, and gives us a better platform for an eventual ban.","human_ref_B":"No. They have over ten times our numbers, and need to be stricter. Let\u2019s avoid that as long as possible, it inhibits the free flow of thought.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":283.0,"score_ratio":24.4285714286} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettyqr0","c_root_id_B":"ettz89l","created_at_utc_A":1563199860,"created_at_utc_B":1563200234,"score_A":15,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"Tbh I stopped following AskHistorians precisely because of their suffocating \u201crule enforcement\u201d. It seems every post in AskHistorians is filled with deleted comments. If the same were to happen to this great community, I\u2019d similarly stop following it.","human_ref_B":"I'm in favor of enhancing the quality of this subreddit, but I don't think AskHistorians's rules will work here because this sub isn't popular enough. AskHistorians posts often get dozens and sometimes get a few hundred responses. In contrast, if a post in this sub gets 20-30 replies, that's considered good. Culling 90% of replies (like AskHistorians does) is simply too severe for this subreddit. What could be a better approach is following the steps of \/r\/AskEconomics. Their size is more comparable to here. They utilize a filtering system that requires some substance in top-level replies, but it's not nearly as rigorous as AskHistorians. You can read the details here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskEconomics\/comments\/b0jind\/why\\_am\\_i\\_not\\_seeing\\_any\\_answers\/, but note that the mods are more lax than AskHistorians in enforcing the rules too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":374.0,"score_ratio":4.4} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettxgyy","c_root_id_B":"ettz89l","created_at_utc_A":1563198866,"created_at_utc_B":1563200234,"score_A":14,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"As a non-anthropologist follower of this sub, I enjoy it in its current format. And this comment would get me banned under the rules you propose.","human_ref_B":"I'm in favor of enhancing the quality of this subreddit, but I don't think AskHistorians's rules will work here because this sub isn't popular enough. AskHistorians posts often get dozens and sometimes get a few hundred responses. In contrast, if a post in this sub gets 20-30 replies, that's considered good. Culling 90% of replies (like AskHistorians does) is simply too severe for this subreddit. What could be a better approach is following the steps of \/r\/AskEconomics. Their size is more comparable to here. They utilize a filtering system that requires some substance in top-level replies, but it's not nearly as rigorous as AskHistorians. You can read the details here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskEconomics\/comments\/b0jind\/why\\_am\\_i\\_not\\_seeing\\_any\\_answers\/, but note that the mods are more lax than AskHistorians in enforcing the rules too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1368.0,"score_ratio":4.7142857143} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettxgyy","c_root_id_B":"ettyqr0","created_at_utc_A":1563198866,"created_at_utc_B":1563199860,"score_A":14,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"As a non-anthropologist follower of this sub, I enjoy it in its current format. And this comment would get me banned under the rules you propose.","human_ref_B":"Tbh I stopped following AskHistorians precisely because of their suffocating \u201crule enforcement\u201d. It seems every post in AskHistorians is filled with deleted comments. If the same were to happen to this great community, I\u2019d similarly stop following it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":994.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"ettzm9p","c_root_id_B":"etu3nrz","created_at_utc_A":1563200525,"created_at_utc_B":1563203448,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"No. They have over ten times our numbers, and need to be stricter. Let\u2019s avoid that as long as possible, it inhibits the free flow of thought.","human_ref_B":"Perhaps you could do something in between? Require top-level posts be comprehensive and up-to-date with the latest scholarship, but allow open discussion in the replies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2923.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"etu5776","c_root_id_B":"ettzm9p","created_at_utc_A":1563204537,"created_at_utc_B":1563200525,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I would really wish more top-level comments in this sub would offer sources (or at least \"further reading\").","human_ref_B":"No. They have over ten times our numbers, and need to be stricter. Let\u2019s avoid that as long as possible, it inhibits the free flow of thought.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4012.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"etu2psa","c_root_id_B":"etu3nrz","created_at_utc_A":1563202780,"created_at_utc_B":1563203448,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I would argue for just a tick below their strictness due to the lack of expert anthropologists weighing in on this sub it might behoove us to allow some amateurs to weigh in that can then be corrected by experts if need be.","human_ref_B":"Perhaps you could do something in between? Require top-level posts be comprehensive and up-to-date with the latest scholarship, but allow open discussion in the replies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":668.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"etu2psa","c_root_id_B":"etu5776","created_at_utc_A":1563202780,"created_at_utc_B":1563204537,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I would argue for just a tick below their strictness due to the lack of expert anthropologists weighing in on this sub it might behoove us to allow some amateurs to weigh in that can then be corrected by experts if need be.","human_ref_B":"I would really wish more top-level comments in this sub would offer sources (or at least \"further reading\").","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1757.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"etumm81","c_root_id_B":"etu2psa","created_at_utc_A":1563215680,"created_at_utc_B":1563202780,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I feel like r\/askhistorians is too stricts. So many questions without any approved answers. I don\u2019t like when subs demand so much of redditors who aren\u2019t being compensated for their content. God bless them, but why should anyone spend hours drafting and citing a Reddit post out of the sheer generosity\/interest of their heart?","human_ref_B":"I would argue for just a tick below their strictness due to the lack of expert anthropologists weighing in on this sub it might behoove us to allow some amateurs to weigh in that can then be corrected by experts if need be.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12900.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"cdhnlc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"[Meta] We need rules as strict as AskHistorians Given the amount of subscribers it is clear that people are interested in anthropology, and while I'll be the first to bitch about the mods of r\/AskHistorians I have to admit, it works, it is a good subreddit for learning history. And so I think we must establish similarly strict rules. All primary comments must be either follow up questions or answers, all answers must cite sources, people who break the rules are banned for a day, a week, or however long is appropriate. I think this would make this a better community.","c_root_id_A":"etumm81","c_root_id_B":"etu8kgn","created_at_utc_A":1563215680,"created_at_utc_B":1563206854,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I feel like r\/askhistorians is too stricts. So many questions without any approved answers. I don\u2019t like when subs demand so much of redditors who aren\u2019t being compensated for their content. God bless them, but why should anyone spend hours drafting and citing a Reddit post out of the sheer generosity\/interest of their heart?","human_ref_B":"When I was going to school for conservation. I took anthropology for those that needed the credit. I thought I was really cool and actually paid attention. In that program, I had to write papers of all kinds from highly scientific to highly opinionated. With anthropology, I think if you restrict it to the rules askhistorians has it won't allow for a complete answer. With history you answering what happened and where. Yes the human part comes into it but that's kinda a secondary part of it. In anthropology, its more of why did people do this? Then useing history to add context. In class we had some great readings assigned. Now some of them for one reason or another, wouldn't qualify it as a primary source for a historic or scientific paper. Although when being used as trying to figure out what people were thinking it was an amazeing resource. With anthropology your dealing with a subjective subject. Take how the pyramids were built. You can get some crazy theories and people can even add citations at this point.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8826.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"jwsuo6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"YouTube channels about anthropology that aren\u2019t completely racist? Sorry if this doesn\u2019t fit the sub, but I thought I had found a great and interesting channel by the name of Atlantean Gardens, and then he started talking about how the white race is superior and a bunch of other racist drivel.","c_root_id_A":"gcsuivj","c_root_id_B":"gcspp0h","created_at_utc_A":1605762449,"created_at_utc_B":1605759265,"score_A":250,"score_B":226,"human_ref_A":"Well, I know that these are all focused on archaeology, but hopefully that\u2019s okay! I don\u2019t know if other channels in any of the other classic four fields. Hopefully this is what you are looking for! I\u2019ll update this post if I remember any more. Dig It With Raven , is a practicing archaeologist and has been on A Life In Ruins! Stefan Milo , is just a guy who is super into archaeology and makes well informed videos on it! Ethnocynology , is a member of A Life In Ruins. He has a pretty good Instagram page as well, or, I guess most of these guys do. A Life In Ruins , these guys have a podcast too that you can find on like every podcast platform! It\u2019s really quite excellent. They\u2019re all practicing archaeologists in the United States and have close ties to the Pawnee, and all (if I remember right) work in various parts of plains archaeology. They\u2019re what got me interested in studying anthropology for undergrad! History Time , is more historical, but still super great! He generally makes longer documentaries. Pete Kelly , covers archaeological news and makes short documentaries. The Fossil Vault , is a channel that focuses on documenting a dig that is currently ongoing in South Africa in the cradle of human kind! It\u2019s filmed on site, and although admittedly I haven\u2019t watched a whole lot of them, my ANT professor spoke highly of them. Evolution Soup , is a channel who focuses largely on human evolution. He doesn\u2019t have as much content as some of the others, but still pretty informative! I wish there was not so much misinformation on YouTube when it comes to anthropology as a whole, it is really quite a shame. All of these are people I watch on the regular though, and have been entirely trustworthy!","human_ref_B":"Is that why so many racist questions get posted here? Sometimes they're subtle, but a whole lot of them seem more about firming up a world view than not.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3184.0,"score_ratio":1.1061946903} {"post_id":"jwsuo6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"YouTube channels about anthropology that aren\u2019t completely racist? Sorry if this doesn\u2019t fit the sub, but I thought I had found a great and interesting channel by the name of Atlantean Gardens, and then he started talking about how the white race is superior and a bunch of other racist drivel.","c_root_id_A":"gcu1wui","c_root_id_B":"gctwf2p","created_at_utc_A":1605798442,"created_at_utc_B":1605795394,"score_A":38,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I can't really comment on Youtube channels. I avoid Youtube for anything that isn't music videos, the Try Guys, or the occasional cat or dog doing cute things. The rest of it is garbage, or leads quickly to garbage, in my view. The Youtube algorithm is poorly designed, and has a tendency to funnel people toward videos with high view counts and creative titles that manage to hit certain keywords. Many of those videos are made explicitly for the purpose of pulling in people and trying to expose them to radical \/ right-wing views for the explicit purpose of radicalization. Unfortunately, with archaeology and anthropology, it's relatively easy for racists and bigots to co-opt and spin the kind of information we produce, and the concepts we focus on, because of what we study and how we study it. It's one of the reasons we are *so* careful about what we put out into the world and how we discuss it. The problem is that anthropology and archaeology, and some history, are in many ways the direct descendants of explicitly colonialist, ethnocentric practices. In some areas, you can point to the early versions of the discipline having been essentially *created* as a way of explaining away often brutal, ethno- and genocidal colonialist practices. There is a good case that could be made that modern anthropology as a discipline is flawed fruit from a poisoned tree. Nevertheless, we are *trying* to separate the fruit from the tree. It's worth noting that a lot of that work comes down to critically and skeptically questioning everything in our past, from the information recorded, to the motivations of the recorders, to the translations, etc. A *lot* of what we use in the way of source information, especially from early \"explorers\" who wrote down what they saw in their travels (and this is not just Europeans I'm talking about here), is terribly biased. The first thing you have to do when looking at most early accounts is try to separate the overt racism and bigotry out, and *then* you have to do an even deeper dive to try to distill out what actual information is there. That means trying to separate out what's tinged with racist or ethnocentric views. Because the writers weren't concerned with unbiased reporting, that means that *most* of the information has to be heavily critiqued and evaluated. It's like standing in the crowd at a Metallica show trying to listen to a Vivaldi concerto playing on someone's phone three rows over. Unfortunately, because anthropology is what it is, it's *very* easy for people who are interested in promoting a racist agenda to use information from this field to *seem* to support their cause. The AK-47 was designed to kill in a military setting. While it can be used to hunt, it's *easy* to use it to gun people down. Just because we're trying to repurpose anthropology to \"hunt,\" the fact is that in many ways it was designed for other purposes. That means it's a little too easy to turn it back to those purposes. Those of us who are practitioners-- and who consider ourselves left-leaning and concerned about social justice, racism, etc.-- have to wrestle with the history of what it is that we do, and how to divorce it (if possible) from that history.","human_ref_B":"The channel\u2019s founder, Robert Sepehr, is a complete fraud who tries to disguise his blatant Nazi leanings with a veneer of logic (be it faulty). If you visit his Twitter or watch even a few minutes of his videos you quickly pick up that he has a lot of sympathies with ol\u2019 Adolf.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3048.0,"score_ratio":1.52} {"post_id":"jwsuo6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"YouTube channels about anthropology that aren\u2019t completely racist? Sorry if this doesn\u2019t fit the sub, but I thought I had found a great and interesting channel by the name of Atlantean Gardens, and then he started talking about how the white race is superior and a bunch of other racist drivel.","c_root_id_A":"gcu9wxr","c_root_id_B":"gcudvb8","created_at_utc_A":1605802480,"created_at_utc_B":1605804345,"score_A":10,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I hope it's ok if I piggyback off this question to ask if this channel YouTube has reccomended me is on the up and up. I'm pretty sure it is, especially given its recent video addressing how racist the Cleopatra question can be. Still, I wanted to ask because every time I watch one of their videos, YouTube starts reccomending some extremely questionable stuff to me, so I'm worried that maybe it does skew problematically in subtle ways that I'm unaware of. Hopefully it's just that YouTube's algorithm is absolute crap, because this channel has interviewed some pretty interesting people with interesting topics that I think OP would enjoy. :)","human_ref_B":"I wish I had some YouTube channels to share but since I don't, can I recommend that if you're interested in anthropology, why not read some of the books that are required reading for university anthro courses? Maybe not the anthro 101 style textbooks, but some of the ethnographic fieldwork?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1865.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"jwsuo6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"YouTube channels about anthropology that aren\u2019t completely racist? Sorry if this doesn\u2019t fit the sub, but I thought I had found a great and interesting channel by the name of Atlantean Gardens, and then he started talking about how the white race is superior and a bunch of other racist drivel.","c_root_id_A":"gcw5q5h","c_root_id_B":"gqzgs55","created_at_utc_A":1605833457,"created_at_utc_B":1615786169,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Professor Nicholas Herriman from La Trobe University has a pretty decent channel with lectures on basic concepts in anthropology, symbolism, and other topics. There's another good series on Youtube on the history of archaeology, albeit by a historian.","human_ref_B":"I reccomend Treytheexplainer, his content includes a mix of arthropology, archeology, biology(I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s a geneticist IRL), and paleontology+cryptozoology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9952712.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"jwsuo6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"YouTube channels about anthropology that aren\u2019t completely racist? Sorry if this doesn\u2019t fit the sub, but I thought I had found a great and interesting channel by the name of Atlantean Gardens, and then he started talking about how the white race is superior and a bunch of other racist drivel.","c_root_id_A":"gg7n2cq","c_root_id_B":"gqzgs55","created_at_utc_A":1608260420,"created_at_utc_B":1615786169,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you're still looking for suggestions here's a list of channels I follow Evolutionary history + Prehistory * PBS Eons * Moth Light Media * Trey the Explainer * Ben G Thomas * Steffan Milo Straight up History * History Time * From Nothing * Historia Civilis Political History * Kraut * Rare Earth Development of Religions * Religion for Breakfast * Cognito","human_ref_B":"I reccomend Treytheexplainer, his content includes a mix of arthropology, archeology, biology(I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s a geneticist IRL), and paleontology+cryptozoology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7525749.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"hegax1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"The youth of today are greatly affected by depression, which some psychologists say are directly linked to \"pressure to succeed\". Year after year, % of diagnosed kids, teens and young adults keep increasing. Is this phenomenon because of mental health awareness, or the result of modern society? Is there research on whether people have always been depressed, but are just diagnosed now, or is it because kids these days are indeed burdened with more pressure to succeed than in the past. Is this true for most societies (youth of developed countries vs developing countries), and how likely will a kid be depressed in a forager\/hunter gatherer society?","c_root_id_A":"fvudmqi","c_root_id_B":"fvujc79","created_at_utc_A":1593000176,"created_at_utc_B":1593004212,"score_A":25,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist, but I read a lot in this area. The Decline of Play and Rise in Children\u2019s Mental Disorders https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/intl\/blog\/freedom-learn\/201001\/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders Why Children Protest Going to School https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/freedom-learn\/201111\/why-children-protest-going-school-more-evo-mismatch Developmental Psychology\u2019s Marriage to the School System https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/freedom-learn\/200909\/developmental-psychology-s-marriage-the-school-system","human_ref_B":"As an anthropologist, I will cite a psychologist! Jean Twinge has argued that the jump in depression and suicide that we see among Generation Z is significantly linked to time spent online and mobile communication technologies and platforms. Here is an *Atlantic* article where she gives her argument that she also has published in the book, *iGen*. She has been criticized, among other thing for confusing correlation and causation. But she defends herself by citing double-blind intervention-based research that suggests that indeed mobile phone use does lead to greater unhappiness.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4036.0,"score_ratio":1.64} {"post_id":"hegax1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"The youth of today are greatly affected by depression, which some psychologists say are directly linked to \"pressure to succeed\". Year after year, % of diagnosed kids, teens and young adults keep increasing. Is this phenomenon because of mental health awareness, or the result of modern society? Is there research on whether people have always been depressed, but are just diagnosed now, or is it because kids these days are indeed burdened with more pressure to succeed than in the past. Is this true for most societies (youth of developed countries vs developing countries), and how likely will a kid be depressed in a forager\/hunter gatherer society?","c_root_id_A":"g9vnoxt","c_root_id_B":"fx5auvf","created_at_utc_A":1603529063,"created_at_utc_B":1594075021,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, but as a Gen Zer, I would argue the increased access to information combined with growing up in a batshit political culture is a big contributor (recession followed by trump, school shooting drills and surveillance state stuff being normal). However I think a big thing that gets ignored is that the existential dread of climate change really fucks kids up. Its led to increasing political engagement (rise of groups like sunrise movement, March for our lives, etc.) along with that depression. (This is personal experience however I can back it up through data as well)","human_ref_B":"I belive its for several reasons. Diet plays a role, aswell as the growing number of choices you have to make in a day. The stuff thats already been stated matters aswell.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9454042.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"hegax1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"The youth of today are greatly affected by depression, which some psychologists say are directly linked to \"pressure to succeed\". Year after year, % of diagnosed kids, teens and young adults keep increasing. Is this phenomenon because of mental health awareness, or the result of modern society? Is there research on whether people have always been depressed, but are just diagnosed now, or is it because kids these days are indeed burdened with more pressure to succeed than in the past. Is this true for most societies (youth of developed countries vs developing countries), and how likely will a kid be depressed in a forager\/hunter gatherer society?","c_root_id_A":"g9vnoxt","c_root_id_B":"fytc6nd","created_at_utc_A":1603529063,"created_at_utc_B":1595371319,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, but as a Gen Zer, I would argue the increased access to information combined with growing up in a batshit political culture is a big contributor (recession followed by trump, school shooting drills and surveillance state stuff being normal). However I think a big thing that gets ignored is that the existential dread of climate change really fucks kids up. Its led to increasing political engagement (rise of groups like sunrise movement, March for our lives, etc.) along with that depression. (This is personal experience however I can back it up through data as well)","human_ref_B":"A bit of both. My brother works in the UK and had a discussion with a guy from Nigeria,talking about the subject. The guy told him: \"depression? In Nigeria we do not have time for depression!\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8157744.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"hegax1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"The youth of today are greatly affected by depression, which some psychologists say are directly linked to \"pressure to succeed\". Year after year, % of diagnosed kids, teens and young adults keep increasing. Is this phenomenon because of mental health awareness, or the result of modern society? Is there research on whether people have always been depressed, but are just diagnosed now, or is it because kids these days are indeed burdened with more pressure to succeed than in the past. Is this true for most societies (youth of developed countries vs developing countries), and how likely will a kid be depressed in a forager\/hunter gatherer society?","c_root_id_A":"fy3xe64","c_root_id_B":"g9vnoxt","created_at_utc_A":1594783803,"created_at_utc_B":1603529063,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"children in western countries often find themselves alienated, anxious and depressed. it\u2019s the ideology of progress that has the west stifling with dislocated, lost souls.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, but as a Gen Zer, I would argue the increased access to information combined with growing up in a batshit political culture is a big contributor (recession followed by trump, school shooting drills and surveillance state stuff being normal). However I think a big thing that gets ignored is that the existential dread of climate change really fucks kids up. Its led to increasing political engagement (rise of groups like sunrise movement, March for our lives, etc.) along with that depression. (This is personal experience however I can back it up through data as well)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8745260.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvugqia","c_root_id_B":"gvufykv","created_at_utc_A":1619376770,"created_at_utc_B":1619376429,"score_A":272,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Below is the link to a NOVA documentary called \"What Darwin Never Knew\" that I often show in my introductory biological anthropology courses. It is a bit long (~2 hours) but it does a good job covering Darwin and the observations that led to his theory of evolution by means of natural selection covered in On The Origin of Species, as well as the ways that the science of evolution has advanced since then. https:\/\/youtu.be\/ov00SrBwjKQ","human_ref_B":"Here is a quick 101 on Darwin which is... well simple but has the main ideas you will need. I do warn against trying to purely educating via youtube but hopefully others can chime in with something more concrete. Happy to try and answer any questions you have but it has been a while since I have delved into evolution https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU","labels":1,"seconds_difference":341.0,"score_ratio":16.0} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvups0c","c_root_id_B":"gvuikl8","created_at_utc_A":1619381058,"created_at_utc_B":1619377597,"score_A":78,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Once you're more acquainted with the basic concepts, I highly recommend that you check out PBS' *Eons* channel. They cover practically everything that somebody like you ought to know and understand in regards to ancient history, evolutionary science, and geological\/environmental sciences. They're not documentaries, but they are short 3-10 minutes videos. * Ancient Fauna, Flora & Fungi * Human Evolution Learning * Early Life on Earth * Journeys Through Geologic Time SciShow is another good channel but the topics are far more generalized","human_ref_B":"Might I also suggest Your Inner Fish. Great documentary series about how the evolution of vertebrates influenced humans. Be advised that you need to pay to watch all three episodes. Your Inner Fish Episode 1-Your Inner Fish Your Inner Fish Episode 2-Your Inner Reptile Your Inner Fish Episode 3-Your Inner Monkey Happy learning, my friend!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3461.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvups0c","c_root_id_B":"gvufykv","created_at_utc_A":1619381058,"created_at_utc_B":1619376429,"score_A":78,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Once you're more acquainted with the basic concepts, I highly recommend that you check out PBS' *Eons* channel. They cover practically everything that somebody like you ought to know and understand in regards to ancient history, evolutionary science, and geological\/environmental sciences. They're not documentaries, but they are short 3-10 minutes videos. * Ancient Fauna, Flora & Fungi * Human Evolution Learning * Early Life on Earth * Journeys Through Geologic Time SciShow is another good channel but the topics are far more generalized","human_ref_B":"Here is a quick 101 on Darwin which is... well simple but has the main ideas you will need. I do warn against trying to purely educating via youtube but hopefully others can chime in with something more concrete. Happy to try and answer any questions you have but it has been a while since I have delved into evolution https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4629.0,"score_ratio":4.5882352941} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvukvyu","c_root_id_B":"gvups0c","created_at_utc_A":1619378701,"created_at_utc_B":1619381058,"score_A":13,"score_B":78,"human_ref_A":"The ones that have been mentioned are all excellent. There's this one that I watched, called Out of the Cradle, that was also interesting. It's on Curiosity Stream (which you can get a free trial of), and is about the evolution of early hominins. It combines paleo archaeological evidence with CGI so not only do you learn about these ancient hominins, you can also see how they may have looked, interacted, etc.","human_ref_B":"Once you're more acquainted with the basic concepts, I highly recommend that you check out PBS' *Eons* channel. They cover practically everything that somebody like you ought to know and understand in regards to ancient history, evolutionary science, and geological\/environmental sciences. They're not documentaries, but they are short 3-10 minutes videos. * Ancient Fauna, Flora & Fungi * Human Evolution Learning * Early Life on Earth * Journeys Through Geologic Time SciShow is another good channel but the topics are far more generalized","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2357.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvuikl8","c_root_id_B":"gvv86v2","created_at_utc_A":1619377597,"created_at_utc_B":1619390043,"score_A":30,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"Might I also suggest Your Inner Fish. Great documentary series about how the evolution of vertebrates influenced humans. Be advised that you need to pay to watch all three episodes. Your Inner Fish Episode 1-Your Inner Fish Your Inner Fish Episode 2-Your Inner Reptile Your Inner Fish Episode 3-Your Inner Monkey Happy learning, my friend!","human_ref_B":"I don't have a video to recommend, but as someone who also grew up in a fundie cult that believed the earth was 6,000 years old, etc. I want to say it's awesome you are willing to learn new things and find out for yourself what was kept from you!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12446.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvv86v2","c_root_id_B":"gvufykv","created_at_utc_A":1619390043,"created_at_utc_B":1619376429,"score_A":51,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I don't have a video to recommend, but as someone who also grew up in a fundie cult that believed the earth was 6,000 years old, etc. I want to say it's awesome you are willing to learn new things and find out for yourself what was kept from you!","human_ref_B":"Here is a quick 101 on Darwin which is... well simple but has the main ideas you will need. I do warn against trying to purely educating via youtube but hopefully others can chime in with something more concrete. Happy to try and answer any questions you have but it has been a while since I have delved into evolution https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13614.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvukvyu","c_root_id_B":"gvv86v2","created_at_utc_A":1619378701,"created_at_utc_B":1619390043,"score_A":13,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"The ones that have been mentioned are all excellent. There's this one that I watched, called Out of the Cradle, that was also interesting. It's on Curiosity Stream (which you can get a free trial of), and is about the evolution of early hominins. It combines paleo archaeological evidence with CGI so not only do you learn about these ancient hominins, you can also see how they may have looked, interacted, etc.","human_ref_B":"I don't have a video to recommend, but as someone who also grew up in a fundie cult that believed the earth was 6,000 years old, etc. I want to say it's awesome you are willing to learn new things and find out for yourself what was kept from you!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11342.0,"score_ratio":3.9230769231} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvv86v2","c_root_id_B":"gvv1cpr","created_at_utc_A":1619390043,"created_at_utc_B":1619386639,"score_A":51,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I don't have a video to recommend, but as someone who also grew up in a fundie cult that believed the earth was 6,000 years old, etc. I want to say it's awesome you are willing to learn new things and find out for yourself what was kept from you!","human_ref_B":"Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne is a really accessible book that goes into evolution. Coyne\u2019s given talks about it that you can find on youtube. The only catch Id say is he\u2019s kind of an ass to put it mildly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3404.0,"score_ratio":12.75} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvuikl8","c_root_id_B":"gvufykv","created_at_utc_A":1619377597,"created_at_utc_B":1619376429,"score_A":30,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Might I also suggest Your Inner Fish. Great documentary series about how the evolution of vertebrates influenced humans. Be advised that you need to pay to watch all three episodes. Your Inner Fish Episode 1-Your Inner Fish Your Inner Fish Episode 2-Your Inner Reptile Your Inner Fish Episode 3-Your Inner Monkey Happy learning, my friend!","human_ref_B":"Here is a quick 101 on Darwin which is... well simple but has the main ideas you will need. I do warn against trying to purely educating via youtube but hopefully others can chime in with something more concrete. Happy to try and answer any questions you have but it has been a while since I have delved into evolution https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JOk_0mUT_JU","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1168.0,"score_ratio":1.7647058824} {"post_id":"mye4pc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best documentary about evolution for someone who only learned about creationism in school? I grew up in a fundamentalist cult learning exclusively about creationism. Now that I\u2019m free of that, I want to learn about evolution. Can someone recommend a good documentary that is suitable for someone with NO background knowledge of the subject, that\u2019s not necessarily directed at kids? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gvwbel4","c_root_id_B":"gvv1cpr","created_at_utc_A":1619412821,"created_at_utc_B":1619386639,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"So many great suggestions in this thread... don\u2019t have any more to add, other than much respect to OP for changing your mind and putting in the effort to educate yourself","human_ref_B":"Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne is a really accessible book that goes into evolution. Coyne\u2019s given talks about it that you can find on youtube. The only catch Id say is he\u2019s kind of an ass to put it mildly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26182.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"x877uv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did humans survive with a screaming baby when we were hunter gatherers. A screaming crying baby at all hours of the day just doesn\u2019t seem like an evolutionary advantage. Wouldn\u2019t they attract predators, most of whom often seek out the young to hunt? Why do humans have such loud babies?!?","c_root_id_A":"injyyql","c_root_id_B":"inl3cdw","created_at_utc_A":1662615894,"created_at_utc_B":1662643355,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"They wouldn\u2019t have taken the screaming babies with them to hunt. Do you see modern day hunters taking babies with them? No, because it\u2019s both dangerous for the baby and the hunter\/s","human_ref_B":"I would guess environment. If real fear runs deep through generations.. babies would just sit quiet genetically. A crying baby would mean civilized community.. safe enough to cry out.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27461.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"huc3b6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I've heard that farming allowed for complex civilisation to develop because it gave a food surplus, giving some people time to engage in other crafts, but I've ALSO heard that hunter-gatherers had more free time than farmers - surely this means hunter-gatherers could have done the same? If hunter-gatherers had a lot of free time (relative to farmers), couldn't they also divide labour, and develop hierarchy, with only some of the people focused on food-gathering?","c_root_id_A":"fymf5zl","c_root_id_B":"fym98p5","created_at_utc_A":1595213885,"created_at_utc_B":1595210145,"score_A":212,"score_B":71,"human_ref_A":"Not sure I buy Oddmarc's theory. For starters, hunter-gatherer societies DID have a food surplus that often allowed for specialized individuals who didn't hunt. Frequently there'd be some sort of shaman-roll that wasn't directly involved in the hunting or gathering. In a band of 20, if everyone gathers enough food for 1.1 humans, you have a surplus. Even in early agricultural society the vast majority of people still worked at procuring food. I think a couple things come into play. First is what kind of food surpluses are present. In hunter-gatherer societies you had short term surpluses. A large creature was killed so everyone could eat their fill for a week, or it was the salmon spawn season and everyone could easily eat their fill. It's a bit different to have a grain type crop where you work all year long and then you finally get to harvest. At harvest you gather the crops in and you have a 'surplus' that is needed to last all year. It's a different kind of surplus, it's the kind of surplus where you can identify that yes, 8 people grew enough food to feed 10 people all year long, thereby allowing a bit more confidence in having 1-2 people of the group of 10 do something other than working the fields. And acutally often it was more of the case that 8 people grew enough food to feed 20 people but half of it would be wasted in some fashion. Often the first specialties after some sort of ruler were all centered around reducing that waste factor. Often the first specialists were those who crafted storage containers or were warrior types to drive off enemies who might come for the food surplus, or accountant types who could effectively measure and dole out the food supply so it properly lasted all year. Note this wasn't a case of 'everybody knows how to make reed baskets, so after the big fish surplus everyone makes baskets for a week. This is a skill that takes a degree of mastery. It likely started out with tasks that everyone did a bit of, but where some people were clearly better. If half the hunts the best pot-maker stayed at camp and made pots because he wasn't as valuable being the 7th guy out in the bushes vs staying at camp, and it was a craft that was such that he continued to accelerate at, you have the framework for a specialized task. And I do think hunter-gatherer societies had those individuals within the band, just were few in number, and may have been 'quasi-specialists' who were called to assist with hunting\/gathering at certain times and other times not. But then we see this in all sorts of agrarian society - you had the people who tended the fields all year long, and then you had certain periods like harvest season where a lot of people who were generally doing other tasks all year long were obliged to provide labor for the harvest.","human_ref_B":"Hunter-gatherers did\/do divide labour usually among sex, and they did\/do engage in other crafts such as making clothing, weapons and jewelry. The thing is, hunting and gathering doesn't allow for what we would consider civilisation sized groups of humans. Hunting and gathering requires movement, requires large enough territory to sustain the group, which is why they tend to split off into smaller groups when the original gets too large. So a hunter gatherer group doesn't need to divide labour as in one person only makes shoes and another only makes baskets, because there is no need for it. Their population isn't large enough to require one person focus on a single trade full time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3740.0,"score_ratio":2.985915493} {"post_id":"huc3b6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I've heard that farming allowed for complex civilisation to develop because it gave a food surplus, giving some people time to engage in other crafts, but I've ALSO heard that hunter-gatherers had more free time than farmers - surely this means hunter-gatherers could have done the same? If hunter-gatherers had a lot of free time (relative to farmers), couldn't they also divide labour, and develop hierarchy, with only some of the people focused on food-gathering?","c_root_id_A":"fymhyo4","c_root_id_B":"fynawdf","created_at_utc_A":1595215732,"created_at_utc_B":1595241624,"score_A":33,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I answered a variety of this question a few months ago. I'm sure there's stuff I could add or clarify, but I don't have the time right now. Basically, we all learned this standard idea in school (i.e. agricultural enables complex stuff, hunter-gatherers virtually never build monumental architecture, etc.) but it's really problematic and incorrect. For one, there are many monuments that are clearly built by hunter-gatherers (and we have known about some of these for a long time), and people who hunted and gathered clearly also had complex art and things like that. Now, as for \"civilization,\" that is a lot trickier to nail down. What exactly is civilization? It can be a pretty complicated and problematic concept and many of us no longer use it. \"Civilizations\" are often defined by a list of traits, but I think it is much more complicated, and is more of a know it when you see it kind of situation. And it is true that this is more associated with agricultural societies or those who interacted closely with agricultural ones. But there is a big risk here: are we only considering certain societies that look like what we expect a \"civilization\" to be, and then we automatically dismiss alternate (e.g. hunter-gatherer) lifestyles that were tremendously complex but don't fit our preconceived and often very Eurocentric ideas of what complexity should look like? I think this is quite likely. There is a lot going on and I think this is one area where we are starting to see some big changes of thinking as more BIPOC and non-western scholars enter the field. I think that what we recognize as civilization or complexity is a byproduct of specific actions, leadership decisions, power plays (both top-down and bottom-up), crises, etc. that created the ancient Egypts, Indus, Andes, etc. These changes probably all took place millennia after agriculture became common in those same areas; this makes it hard to say that agriculture causes complexity, if agriculture can be stable and lead to small village life for thousands of years before \"civilization\" develops. But these are some pretty rambly thoughts that might make their way into a book if I ever get around to writing one.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the excellent answers already posted, I wanted to add a thought from economic history. As a previous poster mentioned, hunter-gathering requires larger areas and more movement as opposed to fixed pastoral or agricultural lifestyles. It is far easier to build up a stock of capital in various forms if you more or less stay in place. Early fixed civilisations - to try and mellow the term - like in Mesopotamia and along the Nile carried out extensive land improvements, digging canals and ditches. Pottery and tools that you don't have to move so much can be larger and more numerous. This ties in with the question of specialisation: why bother making things to a high degree of skill, if it may just need to be left behind? Capital accumulation, specialisation, population density and economies of scale go hand-in-hand, as does the need to administrate. It's true that fixed, built-up sites (e.g. G\u00f6bekli Tepe) seem to predate fixed agriculture and it's difficult to claim that it doesn't represent \"civilisation\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25892.0,"score_ratio":1.1212121212} {"post_id":"l6ghqz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did poverty exist in hunter gatherer cultures, or is poverty the result of sedentary civilization? I suppose by poverty, I mean one subsection of a group having significantly less status and possessions compared to the rest of the group.","c_root_id_A":"gl0o5at","c_root_id_B":"gl0pxq9","created_at_utc_A":1611791197,"created_at_utc_B":1611791901,"score_A":80,"score_B":273,"human_ref_A":"Distribution of wealth began with agriculture. The surplus of food supplied by farming groups facilitated population growth, division of labour, specialisation, etc. These factors compounded required members of the community to control means of production (and control of behaviour; law, policing) which sooner or later led to the emergence of social classes. Trade with other agricultural groups and the concept of currency reinforced wealth inequality.","human_ref_B":"Also see Morris Berman's concept of the \"aggressive subgroup\" developing in complex societies. If its complex enough, a group-within-the-group can develop that are loyal to or at least cooperate with each other, at the expense of the larger group, while simultaneously exploiting the group loyalty and identity of the larger tribe. If that sounds familiar, its because it is.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":704.0,"score_ratio":3.4125} {"post_id":"w9v07e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Lot's wife looked back and turned to salt. Orpheus looked back and lost Eurydice. Other mythologies have similar messages. What is the underlying principle that so many cultures seemed to embrace? The gesture of looking back\/regret\/yearning for what you were supposed to leave behind\/curiosity seems to be punished across cultures. What was the underlying message these stories tried to teach?","c_root_id_A":"ihyt5ty","c_root_id_B":"ihywjg7","created_at_utc_A":1658997217,"created_at_utc_B":1658999943,"score_A":77,"score_B":147,"human_ref_A":"I've linked this comment from \/u\/itsallfolklore once already this week, so I might as well do it again. It asks the ever important question \"Are these things actually similar enough to merit an explanation?\" and the even more important one \"Why do we care?\" We could get into the specific details that really are the same, and we'd come back with something probably true but equally bland. \"Looking back represents hesitstion\" is more the product of us having eyes only on the front of our head than anything deeper or meaningful. \"Disobeying an Angel of God is bad\" or \"Doubting those who trust you\" are likewise so simple it's hard to imagine what could be said about why those lessons matter... ...if those are even the lessons. While Sodom and Gomorrah has one \"canonical\" version, there is not a canonical Orpheus and Eurydice story. Ovid's version, as with many myths is, might be the most familiar, but he was simply retelling a centuries old tale. Lot's story is referrenced many times in the Bible as well in s variety of contexts. As mentioned in the linked comment, these sre stories that were compiled from msny retellings into a \"master version\" that has now been retold and diverged itself. There's no underlying principle cross-culturally because there's no underlying OG story. More broadly, anthropology generally has little interest in cross-cultural \"underlying principles.\" One might call that the hallmark of the field ever since Boas. Sure, there were structuralists like L\u00e9vi-Strauss, but they were a lot more interested in the ways that humans create stories and organize their composite elements then they were in the meanings they carried. Symbolic Anthropology starts from the assumption that signs, be they a handshake, a look back over your shoulder, or a story about a person looking back over their shoulder, are not given facts but are produced and reacted to in context-dependent ways. Victor Turner's description of \"dominant symbols,\" for instance, emphasizes that they are important because they condense many different meanings into one expression. In doing so, they can endure cultural shifts and be relevant to people with diverse personal experiences. Narratives like Orpheus and Eurydice endure not because of an underlying principle that so many can relate to, but because the story can embody so many different principles. Consider that both the 2019 Tony for Best Musical (*Hadestown*) and most publications' best video game of 2020 (*Hades*) both retell the lovers' tale. Should we look for what these things were trying to teach that Sodom and Gomorrah was also trying to? That's not gonna be productive. \"Don't look back\" is a common motif because it can be applied to *so many* scenarios, not because it has one particularly powerful use.","human_ref_B":"For a Biblical scholarly perspective on this question, I'd recommend Bremmer, Jan Nicolaas. \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back: From the Wife of Lot to Orpheus and Eurydice.\u201d in *Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient near East*, 117\u201332. Leiden: Brill, 2008. If you're interested, I can send you a pdf.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2726.0,"score_ratio":1.9090909091} {"post_id":"ix92a4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Are there any traditions existing in modern Egypt that are directly descended from Ancient Egyptian traditions?","c_root_id_A":"g660ajp","c_root_id_B":"g6718cn","created_at_utc_A":1600734273,"created_at_utc_B":1600760841,"score_A":37,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"not an Anthropologist, but I'm Egyptian, there is a holiday in Egypt called Shamm El Neseem which translates to 'Smelling the Breeze' it falls on the day after Easter (Coptic ofc) here is an article on it by Al Ahram newspaper, according to Plutarch, Ancient Egyptians offered salted fish, lettuce, and onions, to the gods during a festival called Shemu, later this holiday would become associated with Easter day, as both are spring festivals and after the Islamic Conquest it would find a phono-semantic match in Sham El Nessim. Nowadays, every Sham El Neseem, we still eat salted fish (we call it Feseekh and we also eat Ringa, also salted fish. You can ofc look more into this and other traditions. This is just one that I know. Sources (mainly firsthand knowledge but I obv won't have anyone just trust me with stuff) https:\/\/m.marefa.org\/%D8%B4%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%85 this is an Islamist website denouncing it as 'Festival of the Non-believers' http:\/\/www.saaid.net\/mktarat\/aayadalkoffar\/41.htm https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/arabic\/art-and-culture-43662937","human_ref_B":"Coptic language, now used only for ceremonial purposes in the Christian Coptic church, but it is the descendant of the language spoken in Ancient Egypt","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26568.0,"score_ratio":1.7297297297} {"post_id":"rnkx2y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did primitive humans run naked? Whenever I run a little around my house after a shower, my testicles sway a lot uncomfortably and even hit my legs causing pain. Women without a bra would also be uncomfortable to run as their breasts would bounce uncomfortably. How did primitive humans sprint at full speed without discomfort or pain? Were testicles and breasts just smaller or did they just bare through the discomfort and get used to it?","c_root_id_A":"hptsdw3","c_root_id_B":"hptsew3","created_at_utc_A":1640366310,"created_at_utc_B":1640366323,"score_A":43,"score_B":209,"human_ref_A":"Humans are one of the best adapted animals when it comes to long distance running. As the complexity of our brains rose as our ancestors evolved into what we are now, we lost much of our physical prowess as a result. The primary hunting method for ancient humans was likely running after animals until the animals literally ran themselves to death. As for your question, it seems tribal peoples that live in warm climates around the world still do well with little to no clothing. Your body has likely adapted to wearing clothing regularly.","human_ref_B":"Just clarifying that the reason why your testicles hang uncomfortably low after a shower is because they are trying to regulate temperature and keep from overheating. When they are cold the opposite happens, and they contract into your body-- thereby also making it easier to walk. If you stay naked for any length of time outside your testicles will inevitably move into the contracted position. Only a tiny minority of women actually need bras for support while doing the activities of daily life. In fact a lot of bras actually push the breasts up and into a position that is not ideal for athleticism. Some researchers, like Jean-Denis Rouillon, theorize that women who never wear bras actually tend to develop breast tissue that holds itself together better. So having loose breasts isn't as big of a problem as you think, but you are definitely correct that being able to keep the breasts safely out of the way is quite useful for more athletic activities like running, climbing, throwing and shooting bows. Breasts can be bound flat to the body with a single piece of cloth (bandeau). This is a very simply piece of technology and it's closely related to an even more important piece of technology which is called the baby sling or wrap. Finding a way to carry your baby hands free is arguably way more important and useful than keeping your breasts or balls from swaying, so I would hazard a guess that baby wearing was invented first.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13.0,"score_ratio":4.8604651163} {"post_id":"lbm6se","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How much did the average neolithic person wander around, considering that we were across the whole globe by 10,000 BC I asked this a year ago but no responses so repost is fine i hope","c_root_id_A":"glw8iry","c_root_id_B":"glvk9ed","created_at_utc_A":1612379063,"created_at_utc_B":1612369455,"score_A":58,"score_B":57,"human_ref_A":"I encourage you to read the other responses which provide really good archeological examples, but one other way to think about this is that the circumference of the earth is only about 24,000 miles. That is to say that if the population only moved outward at a rate of 2 miles a year the earth would still be covered in about 12,000 years. (this doesn't account for indirect routes and all that of course). Given that the earliest homo sapiens remains date (according to a quick search) to around 300,000 years ago that means that although humans in general seem to have moved around quite a bit, they would not have needed to move all that fast to spread over the planet given that amount of time. This is another way of saying that the earth is actually rather small and prehistory is a colossally long amount of time.","human_ref_B":"There's analysis from teeth and bones, where you can identify sources of particular isotopic ratios that will be characteristic of particular locales, this can give you hard data on where people might have started out and where they ended up. There can also be archaeological data -- stone materials that are local to one source, say volcanic obsidian, that is found in many places (this doesn't tell you that one individual carried it all the way for source to arrival, it could have been traded in smaller trips). Also other kinds of data from plant and animal material that can leave traces of DNA, for example bits of food trapped in dental calculus -- and these can give evidence of where this food or other material might have been sourced. As one example, we have \"Kennewick Man\/The Old One\" -- a paleoAmerican from roughly 9 kya, remains found on the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. From a study of a bit of his bone, it emerges that he had been hunting marine mammals almost exclusively -- he was \\_not\\_ hunting elk, deer other kinds of game (which were and are plentiful). There's a suggestion that he'd lived on the coast (Kennewick is about 200 miles up river from the Pacific), and while marine mammals will swim up the Columbia today looking for salmon, there \\were\\] rapids that would have made it unlikely that he'd have found many seals working their way to far upriver; so the implication is that he'd been eating much farther West than his remains were found. So there's a suggestion that he may have grown up on the coast, but moved inland-- not thousands of miles, but hundreds. For other examples of these kinds of studies, see Rasmussen, M., Sikora, M., Albrechtsen, A. *et al.* The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man. *Nature* **523,** 455\u2013458 (2015). [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/nature14625 Catherine Perl\u00e8s, Turan Takao\u011flu & Bernard Gratuze (2011) Melian obsidian in NW Turkey: Evidence for early Neolithic trade, Journal of Field Archaeology, 36:1, 42-49, DOI: 10.1179\/009346910X12707321242313 Isotopic Data Pinpoint Iceman's Origins Permanent human occupation of the central Tibetan Plateau in the early Holocene Multi-isotope analysis reveals that feasts in the Stonehenge environs and across Wessex drew people and animals from throughout Britain \"Microremains from El Mir\u00f3n Cave human dental calculus suggest a mixed plant-animal subsistence economy during the Magdalenian in Northern Iberia.\" *Journal of Archaeological Science*; April 16, 2015, **DOI: 10.1016\/j.jas.2015.04.003**","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9608.0,"score_ratio":1.0175438596} {"post_id":"lbm6se","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How much did the average neolithic person wander around, considering that we were across the whole globe by 10,000 BC I asked this a year ago but no responses so repost is fine i hope","c_root_id_A":"glw5aqt","c_root_id_B":"glw8iry","created_at_utc_A":1612377797,"created_at_utc_B":1612379063,"score_A":12,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"From my understanding the average Neolithic person might be pretty tough to define. The Neolithic includes pre-potery Neolithic, which often includes highly mobile hunter-gatherers, all the way through to the beginning of the copper age. Those last folks are living in some pretty large permanent settlements. Not to say they didn't travel around, and as another commenter pointed out trade goods were definitely moving between far distant regions even before metallurgy.","human_ref_B":"I encourage you to read the other responses which provide really good archeological examples, but one other way to think about this is that the circumference of the earth is only about 24,000 miles. That is to say that if the population only moved outward at a rate of 2 miles a year the earth would still be covered in about 12,000 years. (this doesn't account for indirect routes and all that of course). Given that the earliest homo sapiens remains date (according to a quick search) to around 300,000 years ago that means that although humans in general seem to have moved around quite a bit, they would not have needed to move all that fast to spread over the planet given that amount of time. This is another way of saying that the earth is actually rather small and prehistory is a colossally long amount of time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1266.0,"score_ratio":4.8333333333} {"post_id":"lca0qb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How do remote tribes that have no new genetic material for thousands of years not die out because of inbreeding?","c_root_id_A":"gm0rcia","c_root_id_B":"glyx7yl","created_at_utc_A":1612464878,"created_at_utc_B":1612429819,"score_A":172,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, I'm a biologist, but I can explain how this works in animal breeding genetics. Inbreeding (in general) causes problems due to damaging recessive genes - where having one defective copy and one good copy of a gene is OK (or beneficial) but having two bad copies is harmful. Highly related people (or animals) are more likely to have the same recessive genes so for every recessive gene that they share, although they may each have one good copy and one bad copy, their kid has a 1\/4 chance of getting two bad copies, and therefore a disease. One of the reasons highly inbred populations don't die out is because if having two bad copies of the gene is lethal or highly damaging, the individuals with the worst of these will have no or fewer offspring, so they contribute less to the next generation. Over time, highly damaging recessive genes therefore get less and less common in that population. This is particularly the case in managed animal populations because the breeder will select animals with good traits to breed for the next generation. In outbred populations the recessive genes have a higher probability of staying hidden, so they stick around. Recessive genes which only cause moderate problems, or problems later in life, are more likely to persist even in inbred populations. Members of highly inbred populations also become increasingly genetically similar over time. This is all fine until something changes, because the population then lacks genetic variation, so they are not as able to adapt to new circumstances as well as an outbred population - so for example if there is a new disease outbreak everyone may be susceptible.","human_ref_B":"Firstly the situation you are describing is borderline unheard of: complete isolation for thousands of years. Isolation is a relative, political choice. Even highlands of Papa New Guinea had indirect contact with the outside world through coastal trade. To the spirit of your question L\u00e9vi-Strauss answers it directly in chapter 1 of Elementary Structures of Kinship. There are two viable strategies against genetic disease: diluting risk through marrying a wide pool, or intensely marrying a small pool (principally through cross cousin marriage). Like a genecist with their peas, within a few generations obvious diseases will be weeded out.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35059.0,"score_ratio":2.6875} {"post_id":"lca0qb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How do remote tribes that have no new genetic material for thousands of years not die out because of inbreeding?","c_root_id_A":"gm0rcia","c_root_id_B":"glyx3f0","created_at_utc_A":1612464878,"created_at_utc_B":1612429705,"score_A":172,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, I'm a biologist, but I can explain how this works in animal breeding genetics. Inbreeding (in general) causes problems due to damaging recessive genes - where having one defective copy and one good copy of a gene is OK (or beneficial) but having two bad copies is harmful. Highly related people (or animals) are more likely to have the same recessive genes so for every recessive gene that they share, although they may each have one good copy and one bad copy, their kid has a 1\/4 chance of getting two bad copies, and therefore a disease. One of the reasons highly inbred populations don't die out is because if having two bad copies of the gene is lethal or highly damaging, the individuals with the worst of these will have no or fewer offspring, so they contribute less to the next generation. Over time, highly damaging recessive genes therefore get less and less common in that population. This is particularly the case in managed animal populations because the breeder will select animals with good traits to breed for the next generation. In outbred populations the recessive genes have a higher probability of staying hidden, so they stick around. Recessive genes which only cause moderate problems, or problems later in life, are more likely to persist even in inbred populations. Members of highly inbred populations also become increasingly genetically similar over time. This is all fine until something changes, because the population then lacks genetic variation, so they are not as able to adapt to new circumstances as well as an outbred population - so for example if there is a new disease outbreak everyone may be susceptible.","human_ref_B":"I doubt that any human group has gone thousands of years without inter breeding with another group. You should think about the data you are basing the question on?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35173.0,"score_ratio":5.375} {"post_id":"lca0qb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How do remote tribes that have no new genetic material for thousands of years not die out because of inbreeding?","c_root_id_A":"gm0rcia","c_root_id_B":"glz5d1c","created_at_utc_A":1612464878,"created_at_utc_B":1612437221,"score_A":172,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, I'm a biologist, but I can explain how this works in animal breeding genetics. Inbreeding (in general) causes problems due to damaging recessive genes - where having one defective copy and one good copy of a gene is OK (or beneficial) but having two bad copies is harmful. Highly related people (or animals) are more likely to have the same recessive genes so for every recessive gene that they share, although they may each have one good copy and one bad copy, their kid has a 1\/4 chance of getting two bad copies, and therefore a disease. One of the reasons highly inbred populations don't die out is because if having two bad copies of the gene is lethal or highly damaging, the individuals with the worst of these will have no or fewer offspring, so they contribute less to the next generation. Over time, highly damaging recessive genes therefore get less and less common in that population. This is particularly the case in managed animal populations because the breeder will select animals with good traits to breed for the next generation. In outbred populations the recessive genes have a higher probability of staying hidden, so they stick around. Recessive genes which only cause moderate problems, or problems later in life, are more likely to persist even in inbred populations. Members of highly inbred populations also become increasingly genetically similar over time. This is all fine until something changes, because the population then lacks genetic variation, so they are not as able to adapt to new circumstances as well as an outbred population - so for example if there is a new disease outbreak everyone may be susceptible.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m curious at your premise of such isolated tribes? Do you have any examples of tribes being so severely isolated for so long, or did you create the premise just to ask this question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27657.0,"score_ratio":13.2307692308} {"post_id":"lca0qb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How do remote tribes that have no new genetic material for thousands of years not die out because of inbreeding?","c_root_id_A":"glyx3f0","c_root_id_B":"glyx7yl","created_at_utc_A":1612429705,"created_at_utc_B":1612429819,"score_A":32,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"I doubt that any human group has gone thousands of years without inter breeding with another group. You should think about the data you are basing the question on?","human_ref_B":"Firstly the situation you are describing is borderline unheard of: complete isolation for thousands of years. Isolation is a relative, political choice. Even highlands of Papa New Guinea had indirect contact with the outside world through coastal trade. To the spirit of your question L\u00e9vi-Strauss answers it directly in chapter 1 of Elementary Structures of Kinship. There are two viable strategies against genetic disease: diluting risk through marrying a wide pool, or intensely marrying a small pool (principally through cross cousin marriage). Like a genecist with their peas, within a few generations obvious diseases will be weeded out.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":114.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lfg5bj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is it true that pre-colonial Yoruba culture was genderless? I was perusing a guilty-pleasure sub and came across this. Supposedly the Yoruba people had no concept of \"man\" or \"woman\", worshiped genderless Gods, had female chiefs and politicians, and only acquired gender roles when they were imposed forcibly by the British. Some quick googling confirms that the Yoruba language is indeed genderless and that pre-colonial Yoruba women were relatively liberated. I was wondering if someone here could confirm or deny the rest?","c_root_id_A":"gmlqptv","c_root_id_B":"gmln1xb","created_at_utc_A":1612806631,"created_at_utc_B":1612805023,"score_A":620,"score_B":168,"human_ref_A":"My wife is Yoruba, and is a Yoruba speaker, so I actually get to hear the language spoken on a day to day basis. As you have said the language itself does not have gendered pronouns, but it is not quite true to say that the language is genderless, as you can still describe someone as male, female, masculine, feminine, as a father, as a mother, as a wife, as a husband, as a son, as a daughter and so on, and therefore the language is still armed with the necessary tools to proscribe gender roles. It is just that a person may say \"That one is a mother\" rather than \"She is a mother\" for example. You may be interested in looking into the traditional religion to gain some hints about pre-colonial Yoruba culture, as attitudes to gender might be preserved in the attributes of that pantheon. It centres around the Orisha (\u00f2r\u00ec\u1e63\u00e0), a huge (and some traditions say 'endless') number of gods and godesses. They are portrayed as having a certain gender, and the gender is often related to the profession or trait held by that Orisha For example \u00d2g\u00fan is the Orisha of metalworking and martial prowess, and is depicted as male, as is the Orisha of hunting Erinl\u1eb9\u0300 (who was also a kind of doctor to the gods, busy guy!) so we can see evidence here of culturally percieved 'jobs for men'. On the other hand we have \u1ecct\u00ecn, a river godess, and wife of the above Erinl\u1eb9\u0300. \u1eccb\u00e0, orisha of domesticity, is portrayed as female, and \u1ecc\u0300\u1e63un, presiding over beauty and intimacy, is also feminine. On the less proscriptive side you have the Orisha of twins, Ibeji, depicted as a pair of twins, one male and one female (Twins are very prominent in Yoruba culture, due to the notably high twinning rate for Yoruba people. There are even a culturally traditional set of names given to twins based on the order of birth). I would argue that a depiction of a 'set' containing both genders suggests a society that does in fact recognise gender. However, there ARE some Orisha that are genderless, such as Olukun, the diety of the sea, depicted and described as genderless. Most importantly, the god of all gods, Olodumare, the omnipotent creator, is genderless. In balance though, despite these examples in language and religion, I don't think we can say that Yoruba *culture* was truly genderless pre-colonialism. It may be fair though, to say that the gender agnostic elements of language and religion suggest that it was not taken as given that all things must be either male or female, and that this, in combination with a pantheon that contained a very wide number of both male and female Orishas, could have contributed to a society with more balanced gender roles. Yoruba culture is very deep and rich, and it is really nice to see people taking an interest and asking questions about it, so I couldn't resist contributing an answer. My own desire to learn more comes from the fact that, while I am English, my children will be half Nigerian, and I want to make sure I can represent to them the whole truth about who they are, and where they come from.","human_ref_B":"Dr. Oyewumi has asserted that the relative lack of gendered expressions, and the abundance of age-based expressions with respect to hierarchy and social status, is indicative of a cultural focus on age rather than gender roles. However, it's important to note that a lack of gendered nouns or expressions in a language doesn't equate to a lack of the *concept* of gender. Nor do I believe that Dr. Oyewumi's intent is to suggest that the concept of **a woman** did not exist in Yoruba. Gender roles are thought to arise from basic distinctions between men and women in the biological process of procreation, and while they vary from culture to culture, the idea that any culture lacks some kind of *concept* of gender is false. The question here is whether there are universal gender categories, and it's become abundantly clear that there are not. While the Western interpretation of gender roles *did* find their way into colonized cultures like the Yoruba, the notion of gender as a concept-- that is, that men and women are different-- is not purely a Western one. Dr. Oyewumi's interpretation has been criticized as overly dependent on linguistic analysis as a window into pre-colonial Yoruba society. However, the critique that Western colonial powers imposed much of their cultural viewpoint, including gender roles and status, onto the people and cultures whose land they seized \/ colonized is very much accurate. I also think that the text shown in that meme (a \"guilty pleasure\" sub, huh? Ugh.) is an oversimplification that's ripe for misinterpretation, which is what I think is going on here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1608.0,"score_ratio":3.6904761905} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eauodgt","c_root_id_B":"eauk9wg","created_at_utc_A":1543670213,"created_at_utc_B":1543664894,"score_A":49,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Not anthropology, actuarial science, but this paper said: >In actuarial modelling, future lifetimes of couples are usually assume d to be independent which apparently are not. Couples due to many reason s share risks together. Common life style, depression after bereavement of on e partner and common shock are the main reasons for dependence between the f uture lifetimes of couples. In ( Parkes and Brown , 1972 ), based on structured interviews, it is observed that widowers have experienced disturbance of appetit e and sleep, depression, restlessness during a period of 2 to 4 years after the bereavement. In ( Young et al. , 1963 ), it is shown that the mortality rate of the survived couple increases by 40% during the first six months of bereavement and af ter decreases gradually to normal rate. whit this citation: >M. Young, B. Benjamin, and C. Wallis. The mortality of widowers. Lancet , pages 454\u20136, 1963. Can't find a free version of that paper.","human_ref_B":"Do you have any source on that? It has been observed by whom?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5319.0,"score_ratio":2.7222222222} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eauodgt","c_root_id_B":"eaulbnf","created_at_utc_A":1543670213,"created_at_utc_B":1543666392,"score_A":49,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Not anthropology, actuarial science, but this paper said: >In actuarial modelling, future lifetimes of couples are usually assume d to be independent which apparently are not. Couples due to many reason s share risks together. Common life style, depression after bereavement of on e partner and common shock are the main reasons for dependence between the f uture lifetimes of couples. In ( Parkes and Brown , 1972 ), based on structured interviews, it is observed that widowers have experienced disturbance of appetit e and sleep, depression, restlessness during a period of 2 to 4 years after the bereavement. In ( Young et al. , 1963 ), it is shown that the mortality rate of the survived couple increases by 40% during the first six months of bereavement and af ter decreases gradually to normal rate. whit this citation: >M. Young, B. Benjamin, and C. Wallis. The mortality of widowers. Lancet , pages 454\u20136, 1963. Can't find a free version of that paper.","human_ref_B":"Well, life expectancy is lower for men of that generation. They will die sooner than women, which includes sooner than women who have lost their husband.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3821.0,"score_ratio":3.2666666667} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eauk9wg","c_root_id_B":"eaurznh","created_at_utc_A":1543664894,"created_at_utc_B":1543674052,"score_A":18,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Do you have any source on that? It has been observed by whom?","human_ref_B":"There's also the grandmother hypothesis. Basically it's the theory that women outlive men with the purpose of being able to take care of their grandkids.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9158.0,"score_ratio":2.0555555556} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eaurznh","c_root_id_B":"eaulbnf","created_at_utc_A":1543674052,"created_at_utc_B":1543666392,"score_A":37,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"There's also the grandmother hypothesis. Basically it's the theory that women outlive men with the purpose of being able to take care of their grandkids.","human_ref_B":"Well, life expectancy is lower for men of that generation. They will die sooner than women, which includes sooner than women who have lost their husband.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7660.0,"score_ratio":2.4666666667} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eauya25","c_root_id_B":"eauk9wg","created_at_utc_A":1543680146,"created_at_utc_B":1543664894,"score_A":36,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"For no practical reason I expect to die soon after if I am not lucky enough to go before my wife. I cannot imagine a life without her. I wish I were a true believer sometimes.","human_ref_B":"Do you have any source on that? It has been observed by whom?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15252.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"a22a5z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It has been observed that widowers often die shortly after their wives, while widows' life expectancy is unaffected by the death of their husbands. Is this a worldwide phenomenon, or primarily Western? Are there any theories as to why this is?","c_root_id_A":"eauya25","c_root_id_B":"eaulbnf","created_at_utc_A":1543680146,"created_at_utc_B":1543666392,"score_A":36,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"For no practical reason I expect to die soon after if I am not lucky enough to go before my wife. I cannot imagine a life without her. I wish I were a true believer sometimes.","human_ref_B":"Well, life expectancy is lower for men of that generation. They will die sooner than women, which includes sooner than women who have lost their husband.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13754.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"s64o7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some ancient civilizations we don't know much about?","c_root_id_A":"ht1vzbi","c_root_id_B":"ht27iq8","created_at_utc_A":1642436038,"created_at_utc_B":1642440473,"score_A":89,"score_B":154,"human_ref_A":"Tiwanaku people who lived in the area around Lake Titicaca before the Inca came along. They left some amazing stonework. The Inca likely borrowed from their skills in this regard. We don't know what they called themselves or have much of an idea about the language they spoke.","human_ref_B":"The Harappan culture, we know they were there. And some things we can learn from archeological digs, but not much else. Just like Minoan script, if we could decipher the language we'd know more. The difference being all the know examples of Harappan script very short lines of text. Makes it very difficult.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4435.0,"score_ratio":1.7303370787} {"post_id":"s64o7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some ancient civilizations we don't know much about?","c_root_id_A":"ht2kd2e","c_root_id_B":"ht1vzbi","created_at_utc_A":1642445313,"created_at_utc_B":1642436038,"score_A":120,"score_B":89,"human_ref_A":"The Mante\u00f1o people of coastal Ecuador. They controlled one of the largest maritime trade routes in ancient history, from central Chile to central Mexico, for hundreds of years. The Incas avoided fighting them, building instead some kind of alliance. Almost nothing is known of their history.","human_ref_B":"Tiwanaku people who lived in the area around Lake Titicaca before the Inca came along. They left some amazing stonework. The Inca likely borrowed from their skills in this regard. We don't know what they called themselves or have much of an idea about the language they spoke.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9275.0,"score_ratio":1.3483146067} {"post_id":"s64o7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some ancient civilizations we don't know much about?","c_root_id_A":"ht2kd2e","c_root_id_B":"ht2fc47","created_at_utc_A":1642445313,"created_at_utc_B":1642443418,"score_A":120,"score_B":74,"human_ref_A":"The Mante\u00f1o people of coastal Ecuador. They controlled one of the largest maritime trade routes in ancient history, from central Chile to central Mexico, for hundreds of years. The Incas avoided fighting them, building instead some kind of alliance. Almost nothing is known of their history.","human_ref_B":"Well, it depends on what you mean by \"we don't know much about\". Compared to, say, sixteenth century England we do not know very much about any of them, even for the Roman Empire, certainly the most studied \"ancient civilization\", there are many very things as basic as \"population\" that we can only guess at. Even zooming in to a site was well studied as Pompeii, there are houses where we can tell exquisitely detailed things about its construction history, the diet and nutrition of the inhabitants, the decorative changes in individual rooms, but we do not know something as basic as \"who lived there\". A second factor is that whether something is \"unknown\" or \"mysterious\" is usually less about how much is actually known about them and more about how familiar they are, how deeply embedded they are in our popular consciousness, and how we make connections to things that do feel deeply embedded and familiar. Take the Etruscans: if you read something about the Etruscans in the popular press, nine times out of ten they will be described as \"mysterious\" of there will be some comment about them having \"unknown origins\". In a way this is quite silly, we actually know who the Etruscans were: they were the Iron Age inhabitants of Northern Italy. We know a lot about them too, there has been much research into their settlement patterns and burial customs, their language is not fully deciphered but a bit chunk of it is, we even have actual history, like kings and dates and battles. If we are being honest more is probably known about the Etruscans than the early Latins, but nobody talks about the \"mysterious Latins\" because we know who the Latins were: they were the Romans! And we know who the Romans were, of course. This goes for a lot of the examples mentioned here. There has been *a lot* of research on the Minoans, we know more about what was going on in Crete in the year 1600 than we do what was going on in Attica, but nobody talks about the \"mysterious\" Middle Helladic, because we know who they were, they were the Myceneans! And they were the Greeks! And we know who the Greeks were, of course. There is tons we do not know about these examples, of course, but as I noted, there is a tone we do not know about *all* ancient cultures. Of course there are plenty of areas of the globe where we simply do not have much information, and that is usually because these are in poorer areas, or places where there has not been as much interest from modern researchers and research institutions. There are plenty of juicy examples, such as East Africa, Afghanistan (where it was the sole source of the lapis lazuli so characteristic of the Bronze Age), much of southeast Asia. And there are areas where the research interest is intense but new, such as Sichuan in southwest China, where a spectacular Bronze Age \"civilization\" was discovered only in 1986, and extensive research has only preceded in the last two decades. But a lot of these gaps are the result of the politics and resource distribution of the modern world.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1895.0,"score_ratio":1.6216216216} {"post_id":"s64o7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some ancient civilizations we don't know much about?","c_root_id_A":"ht3sgmp","c_root_id_B":"ht48ish","created_at_utc_A":1642462587,"created_at_utc_B":1642469492,"score_A":31,"score_B":71,"human_ref_A":"The Calcholithic culture of Vila Nova de Sao Pedro in Portugal (https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Castro_of_Vila_Nova_de_S%C3%A3o_Pedro). A potential Atlantic trade hub of coastal and inland protocities, related to the first Bell Beakers and somehow heir of early megalithism. The coetaneous Los Millares culture in Spain is comparatively better known (although there is still a lot to know yet). How did these people shaped preindoeuropean Western Europe?","human_ref_B":"I feel like we are still sadly lacking in information about the Hopewell and\/or Mississippian cultures. I'm old enough to remember when they were kind of glibly dismissed as \"mound-builders,\" in public education --if they were even mentioned at all-- when it's pretty obvious that they were highly-complex urban-adjacent societies with giant trade networks and, one has to imagine, the infrastructure needed to support the organization of such institutions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6905.0,"score_ratio":2.2903225806} {"post_id":"s64o7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some ancient civilizations we don't know much about?","c_root_id_A":"ht7e35c","c_root_id_B":"htynhu3","created_at_utc_A":1642528790,"created_at_utc_B":1642989109,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Anything regarding Doggerland in Northern Europe. As most of it has been submerged for thousands of years, it would be difficult to find well preserved sites to dig at, let alone physical evidence that has lasted that long beneath the waves. Also, just much of Africa. There are quite a few we know a good amount about, but there are so many that we only know of because of accounts from other civilizations in battle or trade with them. This goes similarly for quite a few North American civilizations as well. Difficult to get primary sources of history when much of what was used was sustainable and biodegradable, therefore not as long lasting as say....the Temple of Athena or the Parthenon. Even then, there are plenty of things still unknown or unsure of with those buildings\/people as well. Between the difficulty in finding long-lived evidence and the lower public interest about civilizations that are less well known and \"less interesting\" than the Maya or Hittites, getting the necessary funding, staffing, and support can be difficult to say the least, let alone someone who wants to devote their life and research to them. On an aside, how neat would it have been to be able to study these sites a thousand years ago, before much of the ancient sites were destroyed by time, looters, and wars (particularly when they begin to regularly use siege weapons and explosives). Even 100 years ago...WWI and WW2 destroyed a lot of land that could have revealed secrets of the past, things we will never get back.","human_ref_B":"The Burned House Horizon \\-- a place where ancient cultures around the Black Sea would burn their static settlements and migrate for unknown reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":460319.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"gudztos","c_root_id_B":"guece6f","created_at_utc_A":1618332387,"created_at_utc_B":1618337950,"score_A":32,"score_B":136,"human_ref_A":"Neanderthals and \"modern\" humans are both Homo sapiens. \"Anatomically modern\" humans are Homo sapiens sapiens while Neanderthals are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. However, that taxonomy isn't universally accepted. Before we were able to extract and analyze DNA from ancient bones, scientists had very little way of determining whether or not H. sapiens sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalensis were able to have biologically viable offspring. Since we have only really known that modern humans have some Neanderthal DNA for about 20 years or so, there is still some tug-of-war over whether Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are two separate Homo species, or whether they are both sub-species of Homo sapiens.","human_ref_B":"Because the definition of species is flexible and what you are taught early on in biology works *most* of the time... but not all the time. Dogs and wolves can be considered a separate species... but can breed to produce viable young. Species taxonomy is actually more to do with how much the genetics vary from one group to another. We are constantly finding new species at the moment, not because we didn't know these animals existed before, but because genetic analysis shows us they are genetically different enough to be classed as separate species. At the end of the day taxonomy is just a human way of naming and classifying organisms and there are many exceptions to taxonomy rules because it is a human concept rather than a law of nature. Human concepts are always evolving and improving as we learn more about the world around us, they are not perfect.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5563.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"guece6f","c_root_id_B":"gueb9ka","created_at_utc_A":1618337950,"created_at_utc_B":1618337443,"score_A":136,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Because the definition of species is flexible and what you are taught early on in biology works *most* of the time... but not all the time. Dogs and wolves can be considered a separate species... but can breed to produce viable young. Species taxonomy is actually more to do with how much the genetics vary from one group to another. We are constantly finding new species at the moment, not because we didn't know these animals existed before, but because genetic analysis shows us they are genetically different enough to be classed as separate species. At the end of the day taxonomy is just a human way of naming and classifying organisms and there are many exceptions to taxonomy rules because it is a human concept rather than a law of nature. Human concepts are always evolving and improving as we learn more about the world around us, they are not perfect.","human_ref_B":"The species definition of producing viable offspring is not a hard rule anymore. I believe that for a species, now, there has to be barriers or mechanisms that inhibit genetic exchange, but viable offspring can occur. Being separated by geography or environment such that they would not normally meet, while still capable of producing is also acceptable criteria for distinguishing species, eg polar bears and brown bears, or some birds who can produce viable offspring, have overlapping geographic ranges, but do not interbreed much due to difference in plumage\/birdsong or the like. Of course once you get into humans and their relations, sometimes people throw reason and consistency out the window and just wing it with whatever makes them feel good...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":507.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"gudztos","c_root_id_B":"gueewl8","created_at_utc_A":1618332387,"created_at_utc_B":1618339077,"score_A":32,"score_B":57,"human_ref_A":"Neanderthals and \"modern\" humans are both Homo sapiens. \"Anatomically modern\" humans are Homo sapiens sapiens while Neanderthals are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. However, that taxonomy isn't universally accepted. Before we were able to extract and analyze DNA from ancient bones, scientists had very little way of determining whether or not H. sapiens sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalensis were able to have biologically viable offspring. Since we have only really known that modern humans have some Neanderthal DNA for about 20 years or so, there is still some tug-of-war over whether Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are two separate Homo species, or whether they are both sub-species of Homo sapiens.","human_ref_B":"The species concept is a bit of a mess. Once upon a time we didn't know much about hybridization and introgression, so it was feasible to have a definition of species centered on interfertility. Now we know hybridization is so common it would be impossible to maintain a sane species definition based purely on whether organisms could or did reproduce. Look at birds, for example. Mallards are known to produce hybrids with 39 different other species, pheasants 14 hybrids, and European Herring Gull 11 hybrids. Check out the database on bird-hybrids.com for endless interspecies fun. Just about everybody knows lions and tigers are interfertile and produce ligers and tigons, though this happened in captivity and offspring were mostly infertile. Fewer people know that grizzlies and polar bears have produced offspring in the wild several times. Now we know modern humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans and some ghost population also produced offspring and that they left genes in the populations (introgression). There is little doubt that most populations about to split from another, and not being 100% physically separated, will have episodes of hybridization. At what point do we call them separate species? Who knows. After tens or hundreds of thousands of years we see separate populations with distinct morphologies and behaviour, and we proclaim them separate species (they may still interbreed a bit). So, hybridization and introgression has no bearing on whether Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH aka *Homo sapiens*) and Neanderthals (*Homo neanderthalensis*) should be considered one or two species. As Svante P\u00e4\u00e4bo, who discovered the Neanderthal introgression, said, these taxonomic wars are unresolveable, \"since there is no definition of species perfectly describing the case\" (in his book *Neanderthal man: in search of lost genomes*). There is no absolute consensus, but quite solid support for keeping the species separate among paleoanthropologists. If anything, there is now a hard fought move away from longtime mega-lumping of hominin species (minimalism). It is hard to look at Homo erectus\/ergaster skulls and proclaim them a single species. The Neanderthals and AMH split apart 500K years ago or so. We have sapiens fossils back to ~310K years. If\/when we find any further back, are they the same type of sapiens we are, or should we start calling them a subspecies?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6690.0,"score_ratio":1.78125} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"guecs7y","c_root_id_B":"gueewl8","created_at_utc_A":1618338122,"created_at_utc_B":1618339077,"score_A":18,"score_B":57,"human_ref_A":"Speciation is a label. It's not proscriptive, it's descriptive. It's also arbitrary to some extent. People required language to describe what they were seeing so they invented those words. When someone goes \"but aren't these words we invented saying that these things shouldn't happen?\" just remember that - the real world trumps all descriptive language we'll ever throw at it. If neanderthals and homo sapiens interbreed then... that's what they do. Period. The word's just wrong, limited, not covering every possibility. Biology's like that. For every \"that can't happen\" there's something out there going \"well actually...\" EDIT: For clarity","human_ref_B":"The species concept is a bit of a mess. Once upon a time we didn't know much about hybridization and introgression, so it was feasible to have a definition of species centered on interfertility. Now we know hybridization is so common it would be impossible to maintain a sane species definition based purely on whether organisms could or did reproduce. Look at birds, for example. Mallards are known to produce hybrids with 39 different other species, pheasants 14 hybrids, and European Herring Gull 11 hybrids. Check out the database on bird-hybrids.com for endless interspecies fun. Just about everybody knows lions and tigers are interfertile and produce ligers and tigons, though this happened in captivity and offspring were mostly infertile. Fewer people know that grizzlies and polar bears have produced offspring in the wild several times. Now we know modern humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans and some ghost population also produced offspring and that they left genes in the populations (introgression). There is little doubt that most populations about to split from another, and not being 100% physically separated, will have episodes of hybridization. At what point do we call them separate species? Who knows. After tens or hundreds of thousands of years we see separate populations with distinct morphologies and behaviour, and we proclaim them separate species (they may still interbreed a bit). So, hybridization and introgression has no bearing on whether Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH aka *Homo sapiens*) and Neanderthals (*Homo neanderthalensis*) should be considered one or two species. As Svante P\u00e4\u00e4bo, who discovered the Neanderthal introgression, said, these taxonomic wars are unresolveable, \"since there is no definition of species perfectly describing the case\" (in his book *Neanderthal man: in search of lost genomes*). There is no absolute consensus, but quite solid support for keeping the species separate among paleoanthropologists. If anything, there is now a hard fought move away from longtime mega-lumping of hominin species (minimalism). It is hard to look at Homo erectus\/ergaster skulls and proclaim them a single species. The Neanderthals and AMH split apart 500K years ago or so. We have sapiens fossils back to ~310K years. If\/when we find any further back, are they the same type of sapiens we are, or should we start calling them a subspecies?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":955.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"gueewl8","c_root_id_B":"gueb9ka","created_at_utc_A":1618339077,"created_at_utc_B":1618337443,"score_A":57,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"The species concept is a bit of a mess. Once upon a time we didn't know much about hybridization and introgression, so it was feasible to have a definition of species centered on interfertility. Now we know hybridization is so common it would be impossible to maintain a sane species definition based purely on whether organisms could or did reproduce. Look at birds, for example. Mallards are known to produce hybrids with 39 different other species, pheasants 14 hybrids, and European Herring Gull 11 hybrids. Check out the database on bird-hybrids.com for endless interspecies fun. Just about everybody knows lions and tigers are interfertile and produce ligers and tigons, though this happened in captivity and offspring were mostly infertile. Fewer people know that grizzlies and polar bears have produced offspring in the wild several times. Now we know modern humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans and some ghost population also produced offspring and that they left genes in the populations (introgression). There is little doubt that most populations about to split from another, and not being 100% physically separated, will have episodes of hybridization. At what point do we call them separate species? Who knows. After tens or hundreds of thousands of years we see separate populations with distinct morphologies and behaviour, and we proclaim them separate species (they may still interbreed a bit). So, hybridization and introgression has no bearing on whether Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH aka *Homo sapiens*) and Neanderthals (*Homo neanderthalensis*) should be considered one or two species. As Svante P\u00e4\u00e4bo, who discovered the Neanderthal introgression, said, these taxonomic wars are unresolveable, \"since there is no definition of species perfectly describing the case\" (in his book *Neanderthal man: in search of lost genomes*). There is no absolute consensus, but quite solid support for keeping the species separate among paleoanthropologists. If anything, there is now a hard fought move away from longtime mega-lumping of hominin species (minimalism). It is hard to look at Homo erectus\/ergaster skulls and proclaim them a single species. The Neanderthals and AMH split apart 500K years ago or so. We have sapiens fossils back to ~310K years. If\/when we find any further back, are they the same type of sapiens we are, or should we start calling them a subspecies?","human_ref_B":"The species definition of producing viable offspring is not a hard rule anymore. I believe that for a species, now, there has to be barriers or mechanisms that inhibit genetic exchange, but viable offspring can occur. Being separated by geography or environment such that they would not normally meet, while still capable of producing is also acceptable criteria for distinguishing species, eg polar bears and brown bears, or some birds who can produce viable offspring, have overlapping geographic ranges, but do not interbreed much due to difference in plumage\/birdsong or the like. Of course once you get into humans and their relations, sometimes people throw reason and consistency out the window and just wing it with whatever makes them feel good...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1634.0,"score_ratio":3.3529411765} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"gueix3b","c_root_id_B":"guecs7y","created_at_utc_A":1618340901,"created_at_utc_B":1618338122,"score_A":25,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"This question is NOT dumb at all. Most basic biology courses only teach one species concept: the Biological Species Concept (defined as groups of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring). This is\/has definitely been an accepted species concept, but it is not the only species concept. Defining \"what is a species?\" is a tricky philosophical question. It's basically about categorizing biological life, which is messy and shares genes and might interbreed and so on. In general, defining things is... hard near the boundaries. Maybe you've seen the memes where people are arguing over whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich? Basically they're asking what are the characteristics that define one type of food from another. Species concepts are similar. We need to be able to talk about meaningful taxonomic units, so we label things \"species\" so we can communicate about them. For example, if you go into a restaurant and you order a sandwich, you generally know the range of what to expect for your \"sandwich\" and you may (or may not) be surprised if you are given a hot dog. Likewise, scientists studying hominids need to be able to communicate generally which group they're talking about by using species names like \"Homo sapiens\" so other scientists know generally what they are talking about. The Biological Species Concept is good at drawing a line in the sand, saying \"look, we can literally check if something is a species or not by seeing if it makes fertile offspring\" but the problem with THAT is it doesn't apply to all biological life. For example, there are asexually reproducing organisms, like bacteria or New Mexico whiptail lizards. Since each one of those lizards can't produce fertile offspring with another lizard of the same \"species\" then is each individual lizard being its own species? Intuitively we'd say no, they are still one species. And then there is the matter of sexually reproducing organisms that can't be directly observed. There is also the problem of horizontal gene transfer. Sexual reproduction is not the only way you might share genes with another organism--if you're a bacterium you might pick up some antibiotic resistance genes from another species without reproducing with it! Or if you're a human you might get new genetic material from a retrovirus! And so on. At the time when Neanderthals were labeled a species, we had only fossil (not genetic) data, and they are extinct, so we couldn't observe if they could reproduce with humans or other hominid species or not. It might be somewhat possible to infer introgression (hybridization) if there had been sets of intermediate human-Neanderthal appearing bones that seemed to have offspring that were backcrossing (gaining more human or more Neanderthal traits over generations.) The Neanderthal fossils looked pretty, consistently different from human bones, so paleontologists and anthropologists said \"this collection of fossils belongs to a species and we will call it Homo neaderthalensis.\" Yes, fossils \"looking generally different\" is arbitrary. How much different do they have to look to be a different species? To describe a species, you have to list the morphological (appearance and anatomical) differences between it and similar species so they can be distinguished. For example, with the Neanderthal, we might talk about how they have a thicker brow-ridge and are more barrel-chested than humans and so forth. But there's no checklist of \"this many characteristics different = different species\" or some checklist defining what an important characteristic difference might be. This species concept is not the Biological Species Concept, but rather a Phylogenetic Species Concept based on diagnosability: fixed\/consistent differences between one species and all others, basically saying each species has a unique collection of traits. While this concept is an improvement in the sense that it can be applied to things that don't sexually reproduce or cannot easily be observed sexually reproducing (like fossils), it is difficult to talk about in the sense that there can be fixed differences in populations (subsets of species) that aren't necessarily things that we would philosophically want to label a whole different species. For example, is a sandwich still a sandwich if someone puts potato chips on it? Or, should humans that come from a population where everyone can digest lactose as adults be considered a different species than a population where everyone cannot digest lactose as adults? There are many other species concepts and it is a matter of debate among scientists what the \"best\" one is. Different species concepts tend to have dominance in different fields of study and about different groups of organisms. For example, you're not going to find many bacteriologists who go hard for the Biological Species Concept (which is meaningless for everything they study), and the person most likely to support, say, the Ecological Species Concept (each species fills a unique niche) is probably going to be an ecologist. So in the end, where does that leave us? What even is a species? Well, I tend to like the Evolutionary Species Concept (a species is defined by its unique evolutionary role and trajectory), but, while it nicely applies to all organisms extinct and extant, that concept is a little more abstract to talk about than the good old Biological Species Concept, which is one of the reasons that when species concepts are introduced, the main (or only) one talked about is going to be the BSC. I do not speak for all scientists, but I would say that the number of people who seriously follow the BSC is... not high. At least, not in this century. Lastly, I want to say something about the evolutionary process of hybridization. Every species has a different genome architecture (the way that genes are ordered and regulated (told when to be turned on and off)). When you take two individuals from different species (or, at least, whose ancestors have not exchanged a significant amount of DNA in a long, long time) you have two different, mildly to extremely incompatible genomic architectures. Generally this incompatibility is bad and will result in less genetic fitness until the incompatibilities are removed. The fastest way to remove the incompatibilities over the generations is to unequally get rid of the portions from the introgressing (minority) ancestor. So if a Neanderthal and human mate, and that offspring's descendants all backcross (mate) with their human community, the Neanderthal traits will be lost more quickly than would be expected if traits were lost randomly. We see this in modern humans with Neanderthal ancestry; Neanderthal DNA is consistently not found in major areas of the genome where the Neanderthal genes were probably disadvantageous. Sometimes you'll get an allele from the hybridization that is advantageous, and that will be likely to be retained. For example, Tibetans having alleles that help them live at high altitude that come from Denisovan ancestors. TL;DR: 1. Yes, according to the biological species concept, Neanderthals and humans would be one species. 2. Neanderthals were defined as a separate species under a different species concept before we knew they could\/did hybridize. 3. There are many species concepts accepted and used today, but the biological species concept isn't widely used; Neanderthals are generally accepted to be a separate species from humans. 4. Neanderthals and humans produced fertile offspring, but Neanderthal DNA was unequally removed from their descendants by the forces of evolution. Some of it remains.","human_ref_B":"Speciation is a label. It's not proscriptive, it's descriptive. It's also arbitrary to some extent. People required language to describe what they were seeing so they invented those words. When someone goes \"but aren't these words we invented saying that these things shouldn't happen?\" just remember that - the real world trumps all descriptive language we'll ever throw at it. If neanderthals and homo sapiens interbreed then... that's what they do. Period. The word's just wrong, limited, not covering every possibility. Biology's like that. For every \"that can't happen\" there's something out there going \"well actually...\" EDIT: For clarity","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2779.0,"score_ratio":1.3888888889} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"gueb9ka","c_root_id_B":"gueix3b","created_at_utc_A":1618337443,"created_at_utc_B":1618340901,"score_A":17,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"The species definition of producing viable offspring is not a hard rule anymore. I believe that for a species, now, there has to be barriers or mechanisms that inhibit genetic exchange, but viable offspring can occur. Being separated by geography or environment such that they would not normally meet, while still capable of producing is also acceptable criteria for distinguishing species, eg polar bears and brown bears, or some birds who can produce viable offspring, have overlapping geographic ranges, but do not interbreed much due to difference in plumage\/birdsong or the like. Of course once you get into humans and their relations, sometimes people throw reason and consistency out the window and just wing it with whatever makes them feel good...","human_ref_B":"This question is NOT dumb at all. Most basic biology courses only teach one species concept: the Biological Species Concept (defined as groups of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring). This is\/has definitely been an accepted species concept, but it is not the only species concept. Defining \"what is a species?\" is a tricky philosophical question. It's basically about categorizing biological life, which is messy and shares genes and might interbreed and so on. In general, defining things is... hard near the boundaries. Maybe you've seen the memes where people are arguing over whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich? Basically they're asking what are the characteristics that define one type of food from another. Species concepts are similar. We need to be able to talk about meaningful taxonomic units, so we label things \"species\" so we can communicate about them. For example, if you go into a restaurant and you order a sandwich, you generally know the range of what to expect for your \"sandwich\" and you may (or may not) be surprised if you are given a hot dog. Likewise, scientists studying hominids need to be able to communicate generally which group they're talking about by using species names like \"Homo sapiens\" so other scientists know generally what they are talking about. The Biological Species Concept is good at drawing a line in the sand, saying \"look, we can literally check if something is a species or not by seeing if it makes fertile offspring\" but the problem with THAT is it doesn't apply to all biological life. For example, there are asexually reproducing organisms, like bacteria or New Mexico whiptail lizards. Since each one of those lizards can't produce fertile offspring with another lizard of the same \"species\" then is each individual lizard being its own species? Intuitively we'd say no, they are still one species. And then there is the matter of sexually reproducing organisms that can't be directly observed. There is also the problem of horizontal gene transfer. Sexual reproduction is not the only way you might share genes with another organism--if you're a bacterium you might pick up some antibiotic resistance genes from another species without reproducing with it! Or if you're a human you might get new genetic material from a retrovirus! And so on. At the time when Neanderthals were labeled a species, we had only fossil (not genetic) data, and they are extinct, so we couldn't observe if they could reproduce with humans or other hominid species or not. It might be somewhat possible to infer introgression (hybridization) if there had been sets of intermediate human-Neanderthal appearing bones that seemed to have offspring that were backcrossing (gaining more human or more Neanderthal traits over generations.) The Neanderthal fossils looked pretty, consistently different from human bones, so paleontologists and anthropologists said \"this collection of fossils belongs to a species and we will call it Homo neaderthalensis.\" Yes, fossils \"looking generally different\" is arbitrary. How much different do they have to look to be a different species? To describe a species, you have to list the morphological (appearance and anatomical) differences between it and similar species so they can be distinguished. For example, with the Neanderthal, we might talk about how they have a thicker brow-ridge and are more barrel-chested than humans and so forth. But there's no checklist of \"this many characteristics different = different species\" or some checklist defining what an important characteristic difference might be. This species concept is not the Biological Species Concept, but rather a Phylogenetic Species Concept based on diagnosability: fixed\/consistent differences between one species and all others, basically saying each species has a unique collection of traits. While this concept is an improvement in the sense that it can be applied to things that don't sexually reproduce or cannot easily be observed sexually reproducing (like fossils), it is difficult to talk about in the sense that there can be fixed differences in populations (subsets of species) that aren't necessarily things that we would philosophically want to label a whole different species. For example, is a sandwich still a sandwich if someone puts potato chips on it? Or, should humans that come from a population where everyone can digest lactose as adults be considered a different species than a population where everyone cannot digest lactose as adults? There are many other species concepts and it is a matter of debate among scientists what the \"best\" one is. Different species concepts tend to have dominance in different fields of study and about different groups of organisms. For example, you're not going to find many bacteriologists who go hard for the Biological Species Concept (which is meaningless for everything they study), and the person most likely to support, say, the Ecological Species Concept (each species fills a unique niche) is probably going to be an ecologist. So in the end, where does that leave us? What even is a species? Well, I tend to like the Evolutionary Species Concept (a species is defined by its unique evolutionary role and trajectory), but, while it nicely applies to all organisms extinct and extant, that concept is a little more abstract to talk about than the good old Biological Species Concept, which is one of the reasons that when species concepts are introduced, the main (or only) one talked about is going to be the BSC. I do not speak for all scientists, but I would say that the number of people who seriously follow the BSC is... not high. At least, not in this century. Lastly, I want to say something about the evolutionary process of hybridization. Every species has a different genome architecture (the way that genes are ordered and regulated (told when to be turned on and off)). When you take two individuals from different species (or, at least, whose ancestors have not exchanged a significant amount of DNA in a long, long time) you have two different, mildly to extremely incompatible genomic architectures. Generally this incompatibility is bad and will result in less genetic fitness until the incompatibilities are removed. The fastest way to remove the incompatibilities over the generations is to unequally get rid of the portions from the introgressing (minority) ancestor. So if a Neanderthal and human mate, and that offspring's descendants all backcross (mate) with their human community, the Neanderthal traits will be lost more quickly than would be expected if traits were lost randomly. We see this in modern humans with Neanderthal ancestry; Neanderthal DNA is consistently not found in major areas of the genome where the Neanderthal genes were probably disadvantageous. Sometimes you'll get an allele from the hybridization that is advantageous, and that will be likely to be retained. For example, Tibetans having alleles that help them live at high altitude that come from Denisovan ancestors. TL;DR: 1. Yes, according to the biological species concept, Neanderthals and humans would be one species. 2. Neanderthals were defined as a separate species under a different species concept before we knew they could\/did hybridize. 3. There are many species concepts accepted and used today, but the biological species concept isn't widely used; Neanderthals are generally accepted to be a separate species from humans. 4. Neanderthals and humans produced fertile offspring, but Neanderthal DNA was unequally removed from their descendants by the forces of evolution. Some of it remains.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3458.0,"score_ratio":1.4705882353} {"post_id":"mq5u7n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why are Neanderthals a different species? Excuse me if this question is dumb, I\u2019m sorry. In class we\u2019ve just finished our evolution unit. We\u2019re taught that the difference between species is whether they can produce fertile offspring. (Realizing now this might have been a simplification from our textbooks) Anyways, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are different species (far as I know), yet they can produce fertile offspring. So what separates the two?","c_root_id_A":"guecs7y","c_root_id_B":"gueb9ka","created_at_utc_A":1618338122,"created_at_utc_B":1618337443,"score_A":18,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Speciation is a label. It's not proscriptive, it's descriptive. It's also arbitrary to some extent. People required language to describe what they were seeing so they invented those words. When someone goes \"but aren't these words we invented saying that these things shouldn't happen?\" just remember that - the real world trumps all descriptive language we'll ever throw at it. If neanderthals and homo sapiens interbreed then... that's what they do. Period. The word's just wrong, limited, not covering every possibility. Biology's like that. For every \"that can't happen\" there's something out there going \"well actually...\" EDIT: For clarity","human_ref_B":"The species definition of producing viable offspring is not a hard rule anymore. I believe that for a species, now, there has to be barriers or mechanisms that inhibit genetic exchange, but viable offspring can occur. Being separated by geography or environment such that they would not normally meet, while still capable of producing is also acceptable criteria for distinguishing species, eg polar bears and brown bears, or some birds who can produce viable offspring, have overlapping geographic ranges, but do not interbreed much due to difference in plumage\/birdsong or the like. Of course once you get into humans and their relations, sometimes people throw reason and consistency out the window and just wing it with whatever makes them feel good...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":679.0,"score_ratio":1.0588235294} {"post_id":"y2ut2n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did indigenous people make colonialists sick too? A question from my four year old at bedtime tonight. We were discussing the colonisation of Australia and I mentioned how the colonialists brought 'germs' that the Indigenous Australians couldn't fight and thus many died. She then asked did the Indigenous people not have their own germs? I didn't have an answer. From living in isolation for so long, wouldn't they have illnesses that would be totally novel to the colonisers and cause more severe illness?","c_root_id_A":"is6u331","c_root_id_B":"is5wy74","created_at_utc_A":1665686999,"created_at_utc_B":1665674029,"score_A":299,"score_B":132,"human_ref_A":"Not Australian, but American Indigenous: there is fairly good circumstantial evidence that rheumatoid arthritis originated in North America and wasn't spread beyond the Americas until European colonization. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, like type I diabetes, where your immune system attacks your own body. So how could it be contagious and spread by contact? It seems that a certain kind of mouth bacteria can prime the immune system into attacking joint tissue and causing inflammation around the body. This particular bacterial strain seems to have originated in North America. It seems that for rheumatoid arthritis to develop, you need both the bacteria and the genetic disposition towards this autoimmune response. The circumstantial evidence is very interesting: * Before \\~1500, there are no European, Asian, Middle Eastern, or African written medical texts that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, with the closest descriptions better matching ankylosing spondylitis or goiter. * Before \\~1500, there are no paintings or statuary in Europe, Africa, or Asia that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, like crabbed\/curled up hands with swollen joints, even in realistic artistic traditions. * There are no skeletons from archaeological sites older than \\~1500 outside the Americas that show RA symptoms (which affect joints so much they can be seen in the bone), while other skeletal problems like ankylosing spondylitis can be seen. * There ARE skeletons from American pre-Columbian archaeological sites that show RA symptoms. * Whether any non-American skeletons prior to \\~1500 fit rheumatoid arthritis diagnoses is debated, but overall evidence supports the above patterns. * These affected pre-Columbian skeletons are found at the oldest dates in the Tennessee Green Valley area and there is a pattern of RA spreading outwards in the population from that site, consistent with the spread of infectious agent (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/0049-0172(92)90018-990018-9) paywalled, but can be accessed via Sci-Hub or other methods). So, quite unexpectedly, rheumatoid arthritis?","human_ref_B":"I would hesitate to frame the question as whether indigenous people made colonialists sick, but it's certainly the case that colonizers (or would-be colonizers) encountered new diseases in many of the environments that they entered. This is particularly true of, for example, West Africa. The article \"'The White Man's Grave:' Image and Reality\" by the historian Philip Curtin considers the evidence for this, and finds that Europeans holed up in their coastal forts died in incredible numbers. Malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid were some of the diseases that they encountered. Many of these were transmitted by mosquitos or water. European sailors, slave traders, and colonizers would have little knowledge of these diseases or resources for treating them, in addition to very poor diets and living conditions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12970.0,"score_ratio":2.2651515152} {"post_id":"y2ut2n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did indigenous people make colonialists sick too? A question from my four year old at bedtime tonight. We were discussing the colonisation of Australia and I mentioned how the colonialists brought 'germs' that the Indigenous Australians couldn't fight and thus many died. She then asked did the Indigenous people not have their own germs? I didn't have an answer. From living in isolation for so long, wouldn't they have illnesses that would be totally novel to the colonisers and cause more severe illness?","c_root_id_A":"is5zmm1","c_root_id_B":"is6u331","created_at_utc_A":1665675094,"created_at_utc_B":1665686999,"score_A":26,"score_B":299,"human_ref_A":"Questions on this are very common, and the links here will give you a good set of answers. They address many of the popular misconceptions surrounding the topic. The takeaway is that there was nothing about the novel pathogens or indigenous peoples' immune systems that lead to mass depopulation. Rather, where disease did devastate communities, it was in tandem with other stressors: forced resettlement, slave trades, warfare, etc.","human_ref_B":"Not Australian, but American Indigenous: there is fairly good circumstantial evidence that rheumatoid arthritis originated in North America and wasn't spread beyond the Americas until European colonization. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, like type I diabetes, where your immune system attacks your own body. So how could it be contagious and spread by contact? It seems that a certain kind of mouth bacteria can prime the immune system into attacking joint tissue and causing inflammation around the body. This particular bacterial strain seems to have originated in North America. It seems that for rheumatoid arthritis to develop, you need both the bacteria and the genetic disposition towards this autoimmune response. The circumstantial evidence is very interesting: * Before \\~1500, there are no European, Asian, Middle Eastern, or African written medical texts that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, with the closest descriptions better matching ankylosing spondylitis or goiter. * Before \\~1500, there are no paintings or statuary in Europe, Africa, or Asia that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, like crabbed\/curled up hands with swollen joints, even in realistic artistic traditions. * There are no skeletons from archaeological sites older than \\~1500 outside the Americas that show RA symptoms (which affect joints so much they can be seen in the bone), while other skeletal problems like ankylosing spondylitis can be seen. * There ARE skeletons from American pre-Columbian archaeological sites that show RA symptoms. * Whether any non-American skeletons prior to \\~1500 fit rheumatoid arthritis diagnoses is debated, but overall evidence supports the above patterns. * These affected pre-Columbian skeletons are found at the oldest dates in the Tennessee Green Valley area and there is a pattern of RA spreading outwards in the population from that site, consistent with the spread of infectious agent (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/0049-0172(92)90018-990018-9) paywalled, but can be accessed via Sci-Hub or other methods). So, quite unexpectedly, rheumatoid arthritis?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11905.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"y2ut2n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did indigenous people make colonialists sick too? A question from my four year old at bedtime tonight. We were discussing the colonisation of Australia and I mentioned how the colonialists brought 'germs' that the Indigenous Australians couldn't fight and thus many died. She then asked did the Indigenous people not have their own germs? I didn't have an answer. From living in isolation for so long, wouldn't they have illnesses that would be totally novel to the colonisers and cause more severe illness?","c_root_id_A":"is6t3bx","c_root_id_B":"is6u331","created_at_utc_A":1665686618,"created_at_utc_B":1665686999,"score_A":20,"score_B":299,"human_ref_A":"The short answer is yes. Although we might commonly think of diseases that traveled from the \"Old World\" to the \"New World\", there were several that followed the opposite route. A specific, well known example is venereal syphilis. Although it is nonfatal and treatable today with penicillin, in the ~1500s it was frequently fatal.","human_ref_B":"Not Australian, but American Indigenous: there is fairly good circumstantial evidence that rheumatoid arthritis originated in North America and wasn't spread beyond the Americas until European colonization. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, like type I diabetes, where your immune system attacks your own body. So how could it be contagious and spread by contact? It seems that a certain kind of mouth bacteria can prime the immune system into attacking joint tissue and causing inflammation around the body. This particular bacterial strain seems to have originated in North America. It seems that for rheumatoid arthritis to develop, you need both the bacteria and the genetic disposition towards this autoimmune response. The circumstantial evidence is very interesting: * Before \\~1500, there are no European, Asian, Middle Eastern, or African written medical texts that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, with the closest descriptions better matching ankylosing spondylitis or goiter. * Before \\~1500, there are no paintings or statuary in Europe, Africa, or Asia that match rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, like crabbed\/curled up hands with swollen joints, even in realistic artistic traditions. * There are no skeletons from archaeological sites older than \\~1500 outside the Americas that show RA symptoms (which affect joints so much they can be seen in the bone), while other skeletal problems like ankylosing spondylitis can be seen. * There ARE skeletons from American pre-Columbian archaeological sites that show RA symptoms. * Whether any non-American skeletons prior to \\~1500 fit rheumatoid arthritis diagnoses is debated, but overall evidence supports the above patterns. * These affected pre-Columbian skeletons are found at the oldest dates in the Tennessee Green Valley area and there is a pattern of RA spreading outwards in the population from that site, consistent with the spread of infectious agent (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/0049-0172(92)90018-990018-9) paywalled, but can be accessed via Sci-Hub or other methods). So, quite unexpectedly, rheumatoid arthritis?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":381.0,"score_ratio":14.95} {"post_id":"hl7j0t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Guns, Germs & Steel - can I trust ANY of it?? I was that guy. Having never read an anthropology book before, someone recommended me Guns, Germs & Steel - which I read and swallowed whole, it almost immediately became \u201cthe best book I\u2019ve ever read\u201d. For quite a few years I recommended it to everyone I could find. Then I happened upon r\/askanthropology. Humbled by the ever-patient anthropologists gently, and repeatedly, explaining to other Jared Diamond devotees that the book I loved was essentially not much better than a conspiracy theory, I resolved to be a bit more careful about what I believed, and to improve my understanding of anthropology through other books. That process has only just begun, with Charles Mann\u2019s 1491, which I loved (and seems to be much better regarded by proper anthropologists than GGAS \u2026 please don\u2019t burst my bubble a second time r\/askanthropology). Still a long way to go. However, I would like to know exactly how inaccurate GGAS still is, presumably there must be aspects of it that I can still believe. I accept the broad, overarching theory is just too neat and simplistic to explain a complex world, and built on inaccurate assumptions. But a lot of what first captivated me in the book was the build up, more than the conclusion itself, the ruminations on agriculture and technology and why they spread faster in one part of the world than another. Lots of the little details I used to repeat to people as fascinating little factoids, like the idea that Europe\u2019s long history of herd animals meant our diseases were worse than those in the Americas. What I would like to know, dear anthropologists, if you have the time and patience to humour me, is this - what of Diamond\u2019s evidence base is reliable and broadly accepted, and in what areas does it fall flat? Which interesting factoids can I continue to repeat without further contributing to the public miseducation about anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fwxmdx5","c_root_id_B":"fwxlt39","created_at_utc_A":1593892769,"created_at_utc_B":1593892438,"score_A":190,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"***\"The problem isn't just in what Diamond has written, but how it is used and understood, Friedman says***. \"People think that when we say these things we are either (a) calling Diamond a racist, or (b) calling them racists for liking Diamond. We are doing no such thing. We are saying that the kinds of environmental arguments Diamond uses are a problematic way of addressing racism.\" (bold and italics added for emphasis) I'm a cultural anthropology PhD student, but I think Diamond is worth considering as the consequences of how we summarize and explain things to general audiences. It's been a long time since I've read Diamond years ago as an undergrad, but the jist that still sits with me is that *why yes, environments do affect the way people and societies in them develop.* However, I think that it leaves a lot of agency (and culpability!) out of the hands of people themselves. For instance, Diamond's coda on Japan argues that agriculture didn't \"appear\" until rice crops reached a critical mass of development where they were adapted to the colder, drier climate of the Korean peninsula. That made sense to me as an undergraduate and I even wrote a paper on it. But in my own seminar work as a PhD student, it became apparent that the answer is much more complex - and while environment is a factor, Diamond got some of the details backward and forgot to consider peoples' agency. *(It wasn't the crops needing to be adapted, but rather local environmental fluctuations and political\/civil unrest that was happening around the same time that encouraged people to move and find new places like the more hospital parts of south Japan right across the Tsushima Strait).* And from a sort of broad, superficial appearance of things (breadth over depth) it makes generalizations that \"look okay.\" But the problem with that is we can't assume that general audiences carry the same big mental asterisk that comes with these generalized assumptions. So my suggestion would be to approach any of these popular history\/social science books the same way we might think about how a topic is taught in 3rd grade, 6th grade, and 12th grade, and college. Diamond's intent to broadly interweave a lot of information and cover a lot of ground is admirable, but the problem is that when you write to a popular audience you can't or forget to qualify your generalizations. The problem with something like Diamond is that unlike Bill Nye or Mr. Wizard, Diamond isn't just simplifying scientific principles that sound like \"technobabble\" to people. He's minimizing complex socio-cultural actions and their consequences as circumstances of environmental causes. And that erases human agency, colonialism, imperialism, etc. Don't rely on popular books to be authoritative. Use them as a starting point... Diamond doesn't have a long list of citations, but Wikipedia does. :)","human_ref_B":"I've heard a lot of similar criticism of Guns Germs and Steel on this sub and I think what the guy said in essence is Jared Diamond isn't qualified in any way as an anthropologist to write such a text. His actual background is in geography and from what I understand this seeps into the work because of the overemphasis he puts on geographical or environmental factors into colonization in GGAS. It's oversimplifying a very, very dynamic scholarly conversation. My two cents would be that I'm sure there are certain parts of what he writes that are still factually true, but this all-encompassing critique makes it such that the problem with the text isn't the bug, it's the feature. The sheer perspective of Diamond is flawed and how he writes is informed by a very strong bias and is unqualified to adequately and holistically discuss such complex subject matter. I also read him early on in my discovery of anthropology and I think his oversimplifying of such topics can be really comforting. There's a reason why his book is so widespread in undergraduate courses. He's a compelling writer with a great narrative through line and shares a different historical perspective. Again, I'm sure there are a lot of parts of the work that you should still ponder on, especially because the book seemed to have a profound impact on you in coming to this field, but I would say to view it as a great first step venturing into an exciting field with a multitude of highly compelling and academically sound writings by other academics who you can now expose yourself to. I definitely want to hear a more expanded discussion so I'll keep an eye on this post hoping more folks from this community engage with it, but I guess .","labels":1,"seconds_difference":331.0,"score_ratio":6.7857142857} {"post_id":"fuoulk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did oral tradition record this meteor impact from 4500 years ago? I was reading about a meteor impact in Argentina that has been dated to c. 2500 BCE. This stood out: >In 1576, the governor of a province in Northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a huge mass of iron, which he had heard that Natives used for their weapons. The Natives claimed that the mass had fallen from the sky in a place they called Piguem Nonralta which the Spanish translated as Campo del Cielo (\"Field of Heaven\"). The expedition found a large mass of metal protruding out of the soil. This is remarkable\u2014I didn't realize geological\/astronomical events from prehistory were preserved in oral tradition like this. But the article is vague. Did the natives actually see the impact and pass down the memory for 4500 years, or did they just guess that the rock fell from the sky? The Spanish made their own (wrong) guess about the rock: they though it was a volcanic formation, which was later disproven. What are some other examples of oral tradition accurately recording events from thousands of years ago? As opposed to a natural disaster, are there examples for politics, war, etc?","c_root_id_A":"fme6koo","c_root_id_B":"fme97o8","created_at_utc_A":1585991507,"created_at_utc_B":1585994779,"score_A":17,"score_B":100,"human_ref_A":"In the New Guinea Highlands, there are numerous myths of a time of darkness, with ash falling from the sky, documenting the eruption of Long Volcano more than 300 years ago. Russell J. Blong wrote a whole book about it.","human_ref_B":"You might be interested in \"When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth\" by Elizabeth Weyland Barber. It discusses how storytelling, or oral traditions, work to transmit information between generations, and how the stories change over time. In particular, she contrasts the stories of northwestern Native Americans, who have occupied the same lands for millennia, with those from the middle east, which changed as the tribes migrated from one type of landscape to another (e.g., from a mountainous region to a plain), and how their informational stories about a previous landscape morph into mythology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3272.0,"score_ratio":5.8823529412} {"post_id":"fuoulk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did oral tradition record this meteor impact from 4500 years ago? I was reading about a meteor impact in Argentina that has been dated to c. 2500 BCE. This stood out: >In 1576, the governor of a province in Northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a huge mass of iron, which he had heard that Natives used for their weapons. The Natives claimed that the mass had fallen from the sky in a place they called Piguem Nonralta which the Spanish translated as Campo del Cielo (\"Field of Heaven\"). The expedition found a large mass of metal protruding out of the soil. This is remarkable\u2014I didn't realize geological\/astronomical events from prehistory were preserved in oral tradition like this. But the article is vague. Did the natives actually see the impact and pass down the memory for 4500 years, or did they just guess that the rock fell from the sky? The Spanish made their own (wrong) guess about the rock: they though it was a volcanic formation, which was later disproven. What are some other examples of oral tradition accurately recording events from thousands of years ago? As opposed to a natural disaster, are there examples for politics, war, etc?","c_root_id_A":"fme8lmc","c_root_id_B":"fme97o8","created_at_utc_A":1585994020,"created_at_utc_B":1585994779,"score_A":18,"score_B":100,"human_ref_A":"I really would like more information on that subject as I find it fascinating but it seems to be a bit of a fringe subject, possibly because we won't ever be able to prove those stories are really linked to the events and not cherrypicked but here is another paper on the subject about indigenous australians: http:\/\/research.usc.edu.au\/vital\/access\/manager\/Repository\/usc:14264 (I can't find a link to the whitepaper) Article about the paper: https:\/\/www.climatecentral.org\/news\/tales-of-sea-level-rise-told-for-10000-years-18586 Slides are here from the conference: https:\/\/www.cdu.edu.au\/sites\/default\/files\/the-northern-institute\/aboriginaltradsealevelscdu.pdf","human_ref_B":"You might be interested in \"When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth\" by Elizabeth Weyland Barber. It discusses how storytelling, or oral traditions, work to transmit information between generations, and how the stories change over time. In particular, she contrasts the stories of northwestern Native Americans, who have occupied the same lands for millennia, with those from the middle east, which changed as the tribes migrated from one type of landscape to another (e.g., from a mountainous region to a plain), and how their informational stories about a previous landscape morph into mythology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":759.0,"score_ratio":5.5555555556} {"post_id":"fuoulk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did oral tradition record this meteor impact from 4500 years ago? I was reading about a meteor impact in Argentina that has been dated to c. 2500 BCE. This stood out: >In 1576, the governor of a province in Northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a huge mass of iron, which he had heard that Natives used for their weapons. The Natives claimed that the mass had fallen from the sky in a place they called Piguem Nonralta which the Spanish translated as Campo del Cielo (\"Field of Heaven\"). The expedition found a large mass of metal protruding out of the soil. This is remarkable\u2014I didn't realize geological\/astronomical events from prehistory were preserved in oral tradition like this. But the article is vague. Did the natives actually see the impact and pass down the memory for 4500 years, or did they just guess that the rock fell from the sky? The Spanish made their own (wrong) guess about the rock: they though it was a volcanic formation, which was later disproven. What are some other examples of oral tradition accurately recording events from thousands of years ago? As opposed to a natural disaster, are there examples for politics, war, etc?","c_root_id_A":"fme6koo","c_root_id_B":"fme8lmc","created_at_utc_A":1585991507,"created_at_utc_B":1585994020,"score_A":17,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"In the New Guinea Highlands, there are numerous myths of a time of darkness, with ash falling from the sky, documenting the eruption of Long Volcano more than 300 years ago. Russell J. Blong wrote a whole book about it.","human_ref_B":"I really would like more information on that subject as I find it fascinating but it seems to be a bit of a fringe subject, possibly because we won't ever be able to prove those stories are really linked to the events and not cherrypicked but here is another paper on the subject about indigenous australians: http:\/\/research.usc.edu.au\/vital\/access\/manager\/Repository\/usc:14264 (I can't find a link to the whitepaper) Article about the paper: https:\/\/www.climatecentral.org\/news\/tales-of-sea-level-rise-told-for-10000-years-18586 Slides are here from the conference: https:\/\/www.cdu.edu.au\/sites\/default\/files\/the-northern-institute\/aboriginaltradsealevelscdu.pdf","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2513.0,"score_ratio":1.0588235294} {"post_id":"labcys","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How did ancient humans\/hunter gatherers stop bugs and things from crawling in their ears\/on them causing problems before people stopped sleeping on the floor\/invented relative modern bedding? Essentially back when humans lived in the rough of nature how did they stop the little things from being a nuisance. I struggle in the woods with full clothes on knowing that I have to check for ticks\/leeches along with any exposed skin being swarmed with mosquitoes, so my question is how did humans survive dealing with this before clothes became more easily attainable and being outside all the time was the norm? Or even after when huts were constructed but not fully understood and anything could get in","c_root_id_A":"gloy74g","c_root_id_B":"glogt9i","created_at_utc_A":1612239175,"created_at_utc_B":1612230546,"score_A":47,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"This thread is constantly bombarded with this basic misunderstanding about evolution (as is \/evolution and \/biology, so not unique), that people don't realize there was no Adam and Eve. All people for forever had parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents and other teachers. We come from a 3.5 billion year line, and few if any animals just sleep haphazardly on the ground. Primates have nests and bedding, co-sleeping, groom each other constantly, etc. I mean, ants and cockroaches make and use bedding...","human_ref_B":"I think there's some innate 'missing' information on how the OP is thinking. Animals and insects have a long history of interaction. Ticks, fleas, flies, lice, that's only the start. Even more so internal parasites. I suggest you google botfly human removal. Animal populations will evolve to be at least fairly tolerant of these pests, or they will be classified as a disease, and if you get unlucky enough to get an infestation, you'll get sick and die. And as human animals that did happen to us as well (and in certain circumstances stiil does) Now, our ancient ancestors living very primitively likely did learn some behaviors - maybe we rolled in the mud, dust, or sand maybe we plunged into ice cold streams. We can extrapolate from behavior observed in other apes that co-grooming was likely practiced. But it's also a case where the ancient individual probably had a fair amount of insects living on him and in him. Using the botfly example above, an adult would likely have half dozen scars from botfly larvae fully maturing on him.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8629.0,"score_ratio":1.1463414634} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0h98nk","c_root_id_B":"h0hiv5z","created_at_utc_A":1622749777,"created_at_utc_B":1622753888,"score_A":70,"score_B":110,"human_ref_A":"I haven\u2019t been to French Polynesia but my go to host gifts have been nice embroidered tea towels or some local cooking ingredients- something small for each person and then a few back up gifts for chance encounters\/hosts (for example: if you\u2019re from north east USA , Bring little bottles of maple Syrup; local honey; Virginia peanuts; local spice mix etc.) with a nice picture book of where you\u2019re from for your main host. They have always found it to be very interesting, a good conversation starter and I usually cook them a home traditional meal to the best of the local ingredients as a thank you.","human_ref_B":"I did something similar (not to Polynesia) but I brought some nice tea towels which had some beautiful illustrations of animals from my country, and I also baked some cookies which are a local delicacy for the host family while I stayed with them. I gave this to them at the start of my visit. However, I really wish that I had either saved the gift until the end, or brought two gifts so I could give the second at the end, because at that point I didn\u2019t have something to give them and I really wanted to. You could also consider some kind of sweets, alcohol, or other thing typical of where you\u2019re from that might be special to them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4111.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hd1zk","c_root_id_B":"h0hiv5z","created_at_utc_A":1622751386,"created_at_utc_B":1622753888,"score_A":34,"score_B":110,"human_ref_A":"Is there any way you can purchase some gifts for your host family from the place you are staying? I would recommend taking some smaller gifts from wherever you are from, but make them useful for the most part. For larger gifts, you could read into what people give others in French Polynesia. Both of these gifting methods would demonstrate that you want to bring a part of yourself to them, but you also want to understand what they value. Things like food and tshirts are good if they're small gifts but food\/spices are hard to use if you dont know how to cook with them already. My friends in Papua New Guinea loved any piece of clothing with a logo on it, and it will be personal to you if you do take those things, but you also might want to consider what the movement of second hand clothes to the pacific does for local clothing economies. Everywhere I went in PNG, there were logos from other countries. I ended up giving things like food, books, and nail polish (that might be a fun one for a daughter?) but I also gave bilums and money. I bought people food. I gave specific people things that I had worn and that were associated with me, like hats, at the end of my fieldwork. I also gave my frying pan and other kitchen items.","human_ref_B":"I did something similar (not to Polynesia) but I brought some nice tea towels which had some beautiful illustrations of animals from my country, and I also baked some cookies which are a local delicacy for the host family while I stayed with them. I gave this to them at the start of my visit. However, I really wish that I had either saved the gift until the end, or brought two gifts so I could give the second at the end, because at that point I didn\u2019t have something to give them and I really wanted to. You could also consider some kind of sweets, alcohol, or other thing typical of where you\u2019re from that might be special to them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2502.0,"score_ratio":3.2352941176} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hiv5z","c_root_id_B":"h0h002n","created_at_utc_A":1622753888,"created_at_utc_B":1622745845,"score_A":110,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I did something similar (not to Polynesia) but I brought some nice tea towels which had some beautiful illustrations of animals from my country, and I also baked some cookies which are a local delicacy for the host family while I stayed with them. I gave this to them at the start of my visit. However, I really wish that I had either saved the gift until the end, or brought two gifts so I could give the second at the end, because at that point I didn\u2019t have something to give them and I really wanted to. You could also consider some kind of sweets, alcohol, or other thing typical of where you\u2019re from that might be special to them.","human_ref_B":"I had a fellow grad student who did fieldwork in Polynesia back in the 90s. Plastic cups with his university's name and emblem on them was a very popular item. He actually had friends collecting old used cups that they had laying around to send to him to hand out. Those or T-shirts or caps with your university name on them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8043.0,"score_ratio":5.7894736842} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hi3m3","c_root_id_B":"h0hiv5z","created_at_utc_A":1622753558,"created_at_utc_B":1622753888,"score_A":12,"score_B":110,"human_ref_A":"When I visited foreign countries I would bring US 2 dollar bills and dollar coins for fun. People are usually interested to see what foreign currency looks like!","human_ref_B":"I did something similar (not to Polynesia) but I brought some nice tea towels which had some beautiful illustrations of animals from my country, and I also baked some cookies which are a local delicacy for the host family while I stayed with them. I gave this to them at the start of my visit. However, I really wish that I had either saved the gift until the end, or brought two gifts so I could give the second at the end, because at that point I didn\u2019t have something to give them and I really wanted to. You could also consider some kind of sweets, alcohol, or other thing typical of where you\u2019re from that might be special to them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":330.0,"score_ratio":9.1666666667} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0h002n","c_root_id_B":"h0h98nk","created_at_utc_A":1622745845,"created_at_utc_B":1622749777,"score_A":19,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"I had a fellow grad student who did fieldwork in Polynesia back in the 90s. Plastic cups with his university's name and emblem on them was a very popular item. He actually had friends collecting old used cups that they had laying around to send to him to hand out. Those or T-shirts or caps with your university name on them.","human_ref_B":"I haven\u2019t been to French Polynesia but my go to host gifts have been nice embroidered tea towels or some local cooking ingredients- something small for each person and then a few back up gifts for chance encounters\/hosts (for example: if you\u2019re from north east USA , Bring little bottles of maple Syrup; local honey; Virginia peanuts; local spice mix etc.) with a nice picture book of where you\u2019re from for your main host. They have always found it to be very interesting, a good conversation starter and I usually cook them a home traditional meal to the best of the local ingredients as a thank you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3932.0,"score_ratio":3.6842105263} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hd1zk","c_root_id_B":"h0h002n","created_at_utc_A":1622751386,"created_at_utc_B":1622745845,"score_A":34,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Is there any way you can purchase some gifts for your host family from the place you are staying? I would recommend taking some smaller gifts from wherever you are from, but make them useful for the most part. For larger gifts, you could read into what people give others in French Polynesia. Both of these gifting methods would demonstrate that you want to bring a part of yourself to them, but you also want to understand what they value. Things like food and tshirts are good if they're small gifts but food\/spices are hard to use if you dont know how to cook with them already. My friends in Papua New Guinea loved any piece of clothing with a logo on it, and it will be personal to you if you do take those things, but you also might want to consider what the movement of second hand clothes to the pacific does for local clothing economies. Everywhere I went in PNG, there were logos from other countries. I ended up giving things like food, books, and nail polish (that might be a fun one for a daughter?) but I also gave bilums and money. I bought people food. I gave specific people things that I had worn and that were associated with me, like hats, at the end of my fieldwork. I also gave my frying pan and other kitchen items.","human_ref_B":"I had a fellow grad student who did fieldwork in Polynesia back in the 90s. Plastic cups with his university's name and emblem on them was a very popular item. He actually had friends collecting old used cups that they had laying around to send to him to hand out. Those or T-shirts or caps with your university name on them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5541.0,"score_ratio":1.7894736842} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hzeso","c_root_id_B":"h0hur9r","created_at_utc_A":1622761206,"created_at_utc_B":1622758978,"score_A":30,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I did fieldwork in Polynesia (Samoan islands) and cases of corned beef (usually brands from New Zealand) were popular for gifts to hosts and generally to friends or family members. I also brought things that were harder to find that my host family really appreciated, like homemade canned plum jam\/preserves (from my family's orchard), ginseng tea and other types of loose leaf tea, etc. Cases of nonperishables are a great choice. While I lived there I would buy foods and cook special meals for them, but this may depend on your family. As a guest, some may not want you to cook or contribute to things like chores.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve found, on other pacific islands with perhaps less affluence than French Polynesia, that they really appreciate things they can also gift and share. For instance:in Fiji people really appreciated chapstick(I brought a multipack with spf to give to accommodation workers outside the main island), in raro they absolutely loved deflated soccer and rugby balls with the small pump, packs of squash balls and packs of pencils with sharpeners and notebooks and ask if they\u2019d deliver them with you to a small school or church. Small toiletries. Sunglasses, goggles, enamel pins and cute stickers. Sweets with a high melting point and packaged cookies(the packaging sucks but multi packs go further). Craziest thing they enjoyed most was pancakemix (a lot of people don\u2019t have ovens for cakes and cookies) but they have eggs and oil and cooking surfaces and absolutely enjoyed them and I left the rest there. People will absolutely enjoy t-shirts as well. Reusable items would also be appreciated I bet. I would see if there are any volunteer travel or missions forums\/posts that address these types of expensive and difficult to obtain sundries there that we have easy and affordable access to not being in the middle of the ocean. Consider asking the coordinator of your course what small things they\u2019ve found that were appreciated. Have a great time. The people in the pacific are fun. It\u2019s more conservative than you\u2019d think so act accordingly to be safe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2228.0,"score_ratio":1.0344827586} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0h002n","c_root_id_B":"h0hzeso","created_at_utc_A":1622745845,"created_at_utc_B":1622761206,"score_A":19,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"I had a fellow grad student who did fieldwork in Polynesia back in the 90s. Plastic cups with his university's name and emblem on them was a very popular item. He actually had friends collecting old used cups that they had laying around to send to him to hand out. Those or T-shirts or caps with your university name on them.","human_ref_B":"I did fieldwork in Polynesia (Samoan islands) and cases of corned beef (usually brands from New Zealand) were popular for gifts to hosts and generally to friends or family members. I also brought things that were harder to find that my host family really appreciated, like homemade canned plum jam\/preserves (from my family's orchard), ginseng tea and other types of loose leaf tea, etc. Cases of nonperishables are a great choice. While I lived there I would buy foods and cook special meals for them, but this may depend on your family. As a guest, some may not want you to cook or contribute to things like chores.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15361.0,"score_ratio":1.5789473684} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hzeso","c_root_id_B":"h0hi3m3","created_at_utc_A":1622761206,"created_at_utc_B":1622753558,"score_A":30,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I did fieldwork in Polynesia (Samoan islands) and cases of corned beef (usually brands from New Zealand) were popular for gifts to hosts and generally to friends or family members. I also brought things that were harder to find that my host family really appreciated, like homemade canned plum jam\/preserves (from my family's orchard), ginseng tea and other types of loose leaf tea, etc. Cases of nonperishables are a great choice. While I lived there I would buy foods and cook special meals for them, but this may depend on your family. As a guest, some may not want you to cook or contribute to things like chores.","human_ref_B":"When I visited foreign countries I would bring US 2 dollar bills and dollar coins for fun. People are usually interested to see what foreign currency looks like!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7648.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0h002n","c_root_id_B":"h0hur9r","created_at_utc_A":1622745845,"created_at_utc_B":1622758978,"score_A":19,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I had a fellow grad student who did fieldwork in Polynesia back in the 90s. Plastic cups with his university's name and emblem on them was a very popular item. He actually had friends collecting old used cups that they had laying around to send to him to hand out. Those or T-shirts or caps with your university name on them.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve found, on other pacific islands with perhaps less affluence than French Polynesia, that they really appreciate things they can also gift and share. For instance:in Fiji people really appreciated chapstick(I brought a multipack with spf to give to accommodation workers outside the main island), in raro they absolutely loved deflated soccer and rugby balls with the small pump, packs of squash balls and packs of pencils with sharpeners and notebooks and ask if they\u2019d deliver them with you to a small school or church. Small toiletries. Sunglasses, goggles, enamel pins and cute stickers. Sweets with a high melting point and packaged cookies(the packaging sucks but multi packs go further). Craziest thing they enjoyed most was pancakemix (a lot of people don\u2019t have ovens for cakes and cookies) but they have eggs and oil and cooking surfaces and absolutely enjoyed them and I left the rest there. People will absolutely enjoy t-shirts as well. Reusable items would also be appreciated I bet. I would see if there are any volunteer travel or missions forums\/posts that address these types of expensive and difficult to obtain sundries there that we have easy and affordable access to not being in the middle of the ocean. Consider asking the coordinator of your course what small things they\u2019ve found that were appreciated. Have a great time. The people in the pacific are fun. It\u2019s more conservative than you\u2019d think so act accordingly to be safe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13133.0,"score_ratio":1.5263157895} {"post_id":"nrkaa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family? There are no young children--it is a grandmother, her daughter and her grandaughter","c_root_id_A":"h0hi3m3","c_root_id_B":"h0hur9r","created_at_utc_A":1622753558,"created_at_utc_B":1622758978,"score_A":12,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"When I visited foreign countries I would bring US 2 dollar bills and dollar coins for fun. People are usually interested to see what foreign currency looks like!","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve found, on other pacific islands with perhaps less affluence than French Polynesia, that they really appreciate things they can also gift and share. For instance:in Fiji people really appreciated chapstick(I brought a multipack with spf to give to accommodation workers outside the main island), in raro they absolutely loved deflated soccer and rugby balls with the small pump, packs of squash balls and packs of pencils with sharpeners and notebooks and ask if they\u2019d deliver them with you to a small school or church. Small toiletries. Sunglasses, goggles, enamel pins and cute stickers. Sweets with a high melting point and packaged cookies(the packaging sucks but multi packs go further). Craziest thing they enjoyed most was pancakemix (a lot of people don\u2019t have ovens for cakes and cookies) but they have eggs and oil and cooking surfaces and absolutely enjoyed them and I left the rest there. People will absolutely enjoy t-shirts as well. Reusable items would also be appreciated I bet. I would see if there are any volunteer travel or missions forums\/posts that address these types of expensive and difficult to obtain sundries there that we have easy and affordable access to not being in the middle of the ocean. Consider asking the coordinator of your course what small things they\u2019ve found that were appreciated. Have a great time. The people in the pacific are fun. It\u2019s more conservative than you\u2019d think so act accordingly to be safe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5420.0,"score_ratio":2.4166666667} {"post_id":"l0g5mj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Since the urethra is relatively slim, is the bulk of the penis only for reproductive purposes? If so, is it larger in order to pleasure the vaginal canal or in order to create enough friction with the vagina so that ejaculation occurs? From an evolutionary perspective.","c_root_id_A":"gjtusol","c_root_id_B":"gjtrgfs","created_at_utc_A":1611063941,"created_at_utc_B":1611061807,"score_A":231,"score_B":120,"human_ref_A":"I think that its more a question of mechanics. Humans do not have a baculum, the bone in the penises of most other mammals that physically supports an erection. With ONLY the erectile tissue mechanism of maintaining an erection, those tissues needed to become thicker to actually maintain the blood pressure needed to stiffen the tissue.","human_ref_B":"Most animals have a penile bone, which provides the stiffness necessary for penetration. Humans, on the other hand, rely on hydraulic pressure. The requirements for a successful hydraulic system literally shape the penis. Why no bone? I don't know, but its absence has fueled a whole industry. Thanks Viagra.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2134.0,"score_ratio":1.925} {"post_id":"l0g5mj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Since the urethra is relatively slim, is the bulk of the penis only for reproductive purposes? If so, is it larger in order to pleasure the vaginal canal or in order to create enough friction with the vagina so that ejaculation occurs? From an evolutionary perspective.","c_root_id_A":"gjtusol","c_root_id_B":"gjtp5da","created_at_utc_A":1611063941,"created_at_utc_B":1611060170,"score_A":231,"score_B":77,"human_ref_A":"I think that its more a question of mechanics. Humans do not have a baculum, the bone in the penises of most other mammals that physically supports an erection. With ONLY the erectile tissue mechanism of maintaining an erection, those tissues needed to become thicker to actually maintain the blood pressure needed to stiffen the tissue.","human_ref_B":"Interesting question and hits on one of my favorite books, richard prum's evolution of beauty. Also not an anthropologist. Prum asserts that the human penis is largely shaped by female aesthetic selection. Like functional art, the size and shape of the penis has been selected due to how it looks and feels. Penises can come in all shapes and sizes because vaginas also come in all shapes and sizes. These two organs co-evolved and share gestational structures as well. Lots of form and function overlap within the act of creating the next generation. My best uneducated guess on girth? The stretching\/squeezing tension feels good for both parties! Another interesting question is if men orgasm to move reproductive fluid from point a to point b, then why do women orgasm? Since there's no obvious reproductive function, it seems that nature has jokes by gifting women multiple orgasms for no other reason than it feels really good.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3771.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"l0g5mj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Since the urethra is relatively slim, is the bulk of the penis only for reproductive purposes? If so, is it larger in order to pleasure the vaginal canal or in order to create enough friction with the vagina so that ejaculation occurs? From an evolutionary perspective.","c_root_id_A":"gjtrgfs","c_root_id_B":"gjtp5da","created_at_utc_A":1611061807,"created_at_utc_B":1611060170,"score_A":120,"score_B":77,"human_ref_A":"Most animals have a penile bone, which provides the stiffness necessary for penetration. Humans, on the other hand, rely on hydraulic pressure. The requirements for a successful hydraulic system literally shape the penis. Why no bone? I don't know, but its absence has fueled a whole industry. Thanks Viagra.","human_ref_B":"Interesting question and hits on one of my favorite books, richard prum's evolution of beauty. Also not an anthropologist. Prum asserts that the human penis is largely shaped by female aesthetic selection. Like functional art, the size and shape of the penis has been selected due to how it looks and feels. Penises can come in all shapes and sizes because vaginas also come in all shapes and sizes. These two organs co-evolved and share gestational structures as well. Lots of form and function overlap within the act of creating the next generation. My best uneducated guess on girth? The stretching\/squeezing tension feels good for both parties! Another interesting question is if men orgasm to move reproductive fluid from point a to point b, then why do women orgasm? Since there's no obvious reproductive function, it seems that nature has jokes by gifting women multiple orgasms for no other reason than it feels really good.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1637.0,"score_ratio":1.5584415584} {"post_id":"t6z7v8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why do humans get injured so much running when supposedly ancestral humans were selected for running ability? When I was in high school, my biology teacher told me that ancient humans developed adaptations to run because they would hunt animals by running at them until they got tired. In a 2004 paper in Nature, Daniel Liebermann speculated something similar, but he also added that perhaps endurance running evolved to outcompete other scavengers. Why then, are running injuries so common? I have been perusing the literature and it seems that annual injury rates are 30-70%, with \"injury\" commonly defined as something that stops you from running for at least 3 consecutive days or a week. One very conservative definition (stopping running for 2 weeks), found that 1\/5th of runners annually got this injury, and had to stop training for an average of 5 weeks (Marti et al., On the epidemiology of running injuries: The 1984 Bern Grand-Prix study). These definitions also don't capture feeling pain when running. Some people might try and tough pain out. Moreover, all of the possible explanations (running shoes, hard surfaces, heel striking, etc.) don't bear out in systematic reviews. Basically I haven't found any good explanation of why people get injured. I have come up with some possible explanations. 1) The above hunting\/scavenging theory is BS. 2) Ancestral humans (hominids?) didn't actually run like humans might in a modern running program. The ancestral humans might have run for a few minutes, then walked, rested for a bit, then started running again. They might have also only run very infrequently, perhaps once or twice a week. 3) They got injured all the time, but they just sucked it up because they would have starved if they didn't run. 4) Even if they were adapted to running, there have been many generations of humans who have lived in agricultural and industrial civilizations. The selective pressure to be good at running was not present in these circumstances and so modern humans have substantially worse running genetics than ancestral ones did. 5) Only a small percentage of humans are capable of running injury free (it seems this is the case for exercising in general beyond low amounts). In the past, these were the ones who accounted for most of the hunting, while the rest foraged or maintained tools\/clothing. 6) Hunter-gatherer under 15 mortality is around 50% according to Our World in Data. It's plausible that the remaining 50% are stronger and much less injury prone than the ones who died were. Thank you for your time and consideration.","c_root_id_A":"hzegox0","c_root_id_B":"hzeuld3","created_at_utc_A":1646447170,"created_at_utc_B":1646453815,"score_A":150,"score_B":202,"human_ref_A":"I believe \"Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding\" by Daniel Lieberman of this lab https:\/\/projects.iq.harvard.edu\/skeleton concluded that injuries are largely due to inadequate training and pushing too hard too fast. Or just too hard overall in elite athletics.","human_ref_B":"One thing that may apply to this question is, while you don't really find records of people *running* down deer and other animals. You do find accounts of people basically jogging\/walking after animals, following their tracks until the animals is too exhausted to get away anymore. Because while deer and other large grazers are much faster than humans, a fit person can keep up a moderate pace all day if they have water. It's not a very efficient way of hunting compared to almost any other traditional methods. (Takes a lot of time and energy) But, it can work. Some hunter gatherer tribes are documented as using this method at least some of the time. (Some tribes in the Kalahari Desert use persistence hunting, targeting specific prey species in specific conditions that give the hunters an advantage) As well as groups of people lacking suitable tools or weapons for hunting. (The Lykov family who lived in isolation in Siberia used persistence hunting, but seem to have depended far more on fairly crude traps) And when it comes to kind, and frequency of injuries, there is a difference between outright running, and moving at a more moderate pace.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6645.0,"score_ratio":1.3466666667} {"post_id":"t6z7v8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why do humans get injured so much running when supposedly ancestral humans were selected for running ability? When I was in high school, my biology teacher told me that ancient humans developed adaptations to run because they would hunt animals by running at them until they got tired. In a 2004 paper in Nature, Daniel Liebermann speculated something similar, but he also added that perhaps endurance running evolved to outcompete other scavengers. Why then, are running injuries so common? I have been perusing the literature and it seems that annual injury rates are 30-70%, with \"injury\" commonly defined as something that stops you from running for at least 3 consecutive days or a week. One very conservative definition (stopping running for 2 weeks), found that 1\/5th of runners annually got this injury, and had to stop training for an average of 5 weeks (Marti et al., On the epidemiology of running injuries: The 1984 Bern Grand-Prix study). These definitions also don't capture feeling pain when running. Some people might try and tough pain out. Moreover, all of the possible explanations (running shoes, hard surfaces, heel striking, etc.) don't bear out in systematic reviews. Basically I haven't found any good explanation of why people get injured. I have come up with some possible explanations. 1) The above hunting\/scavenging theory is BS. 2) Ancestral humans (hominids?) didn't actually run like humans might in a modern running program. The ancestral humans might have run for a few minutes, then walked, rested for a bit, then started running again. They might have also only run very infrequently, perhaps once or twice a week. 3) They got injured all the time, but they just sucked it up because they would have starved if they didn't run. 4) Even if they were adapted to running, there have been many generations of humans who have lived in agricultural and industrial civilizations. The selective pressure to be good at running was not present in these circumstances and so modern humans have substantially worse running genetics than ancestral ones did. 5) Only a small percentage of humans are capable of running injury free (it seems this is the case for exercising in general beyond low amounts). In the past, these were the ones who accounted for most of the hunting, while the rest foraged or maintained tools\/clothing. 6) Hunter-gatherer under 15 mortality is around 50% according to Our World in Data. It's plausible that the remaining 50% are stronger and much less injury prone than the ones who died were. Thank you for your time and consideration.","c_root_id_A":"hzgi0ky","c_root_id_B":"hzexcao","created_at_utc_A":1646492818,"created_at_utc_B":1646455235,"score_A":44,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"One thing that others haven't explicitly raised is the difference in foot morphology between people who grew up habitually barefoot and those who wore shoes. This article might provide a good starting point - the cited articles provide further info to back it up. Here's the key passage (emphasis added): >Differences in foot morphology between those who have never worn shoes and those who are habitually shod have been described since 1905.4 **The main developmental consequences of growing up shod compared with barefoot appear to be a reduction in arch height and a narrower foot**.62 63 These developmental differences are thought to contribute to higher peak pressure at the heel and metatarsals in shod populations.59 60 By contrast, **habitually barefoot populations demonstrate wider feet, a lower prevalence of flat feet and more equally distributed peak pressures towards the lateral foot and distal phalanges**.45 59 61 64 So while it is not only possible that differences in biomechanics arising from wearing shoes would play a role in injury rates, differences in the shape and musculature of the foot that started in childhood could also play a role. Anecdotally, I worked in a shoe store for a few years and people who grew up barefoot always had the widest feet - to the point that their selection was restricted to a few extra-wide styles.","human_ref_B":"Isn't persistence hunting considered to be a myth by now? >Despite the idea\u2019s foothold in popular culture, however, there is no hard evidence that ancient humans were persistence hunters, much less that persistence hunting shaped evolutionary traits. In fact, what evidence there is doesn\u2019t support the notion that early humans acquired their meaty meals through feats of running endurance; it flatly contradicts it. https:\/\/undark.org\/2019\/10\/03\/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":37583.0,"score_ratio":1.6923076923} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"eggv9dt","c_root_id_B":"egho0gh","created_at_utc_A":1550164126,"created_at_utc_B":1550183968,"score_A":23,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Someone who knows more on Roman history able to give me on of these for the beginning of the republic? What would a commoner living in Rome carry compared to a soldier living in gaul?","human_ref_B":"Teuchitlan culture, Tequila Valleys, Jalisco, 300 BC - 550 AD: For men, a club, booty shorts, and a nose ring. For women, a dozen shell earrings, painted breasts, and a ceramic vessel to balance on your shoulder","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19842.0,"score_ratio":1.5217391304} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egh5o7d","c_root_id_B":"egho0gh","created_at_utc_A":1550171178,"created_at_utc_B":1550183968,"score_A":4,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/edc] [Historic EDCs  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"Teuchitlan culture, Tequila Valleys, Jalisco, 300 BC - 550 AD: For men, a club, booty shorts, and a nose ring. For women, a dozen shell earrings, painted breasts, and a ceramic vessel to balance on your shoulder","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12790.0,"score_ratio":8.75} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egiirm5","c_root_id_B":"eggv9dt","created_at_utc_A":1550211430,"created_at_utc_B":1550164126,"score_A":29,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"\\-upright stance, child, maybe a rock for later (Plio-Pleistocene hominins)","human_ref_B":"Someone who knows more on Roman history able to give me on of these for the beginning of the republic? What would a commoner living in Rome carry compared to a soldier living in gaul?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":47304.0,"score_ratio":1.2608695652} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egi8hoe","c_root_id_B":"egiirm5","created_at_utc_A":1550200938,"created_at_utc_B":1550211430,"score_A":13,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Smartphone, headphones, t-shirt. Native Hawaiians today. ​ ETA: my research is looking at how people in my community use social media to express their identities.","human_ref_B":"\\-upright stance, child, maybe a rock for later (Plio-Pleistocene hominins)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10492.0,"score_ratio":2.2307692308} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egiirm5","c_root_id_B":"egh5o7d","created_at_utc_A":1550211430,"created_at_utc_B":1550171178,"score_A":29,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"\\-upright stance, child, maybe a rock for later (Plio-Pleistocene hominins)","human_ref_B":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/edc] [Historic EDCs  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40252.0,"score_ratio":7.25} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egil0qf","c_root_id_B":"eggv9dt","created_at_utc_A":1550214454,"created_at_utc_B":1550164126,"score_A":24,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"My grandpa used to always say 'spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch' and cross himself. It's an old joke about the religious ritual (he was raised Catholic) being to confirm that they had those items before leaving somewhere (you cross yourself from head (spectacles) to groin (testicles) and then left shoulder (breast pocket, money clip) to right (easy view of your wrist)). Entertained me.","human_ref_B":"Someone who knows more on Roman history able to give me on of these for the beginning of the republic? What would a commoner living in Rome carry compared to a soldier living in gaul?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":50328.0,"score_ratio":1.0434782609} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egil0qf","c_root_id_B":"egi8hoe","created_at_utc_A":1550214454,"created_at_utc_B":1550200938,"score_A":24,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"My grandpa used to always say 'spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch' and cross himself. It's an old joke about the religious ritual (he was raised Catholic) being to confirm that they had those items before leaving somewhere (you cross yourself from head (spectacles) to groin (testicles) and then left shoulder (breast pocket, money clip) to right (easy view of your wrist)). Entertained me.","human_ref_B":"Smartphone, headphones, t-shirt. Native Hawaiians today. ​ ETA: my research is looking at how people in my community use social media to express their identities.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13516.0,"score_ratio":1.8461538462} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egh5o7d","c_root_id_B":"egil0qf","created_at_utc_A":1550171178,"created_at_utc_B":1550214454,"score_A":4,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/edc] [Historic EDCs  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"My grandpa used to always say 'spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch' and cross himself. It's an old joke about the religious ritual (he was raised Catholic) being to confirm that they had those items before leaving somewhere (you cross yourself from head (spectacles) to groin (testicles) and then left shoulder (breast pocket, money clip) to right (easy view of your wrist)). Entertained me.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":43276.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egi8hoe","c_root_id_B":"egh5o7d","created_at_utc_A":1550200938,"created_at_utc_B":1550171178,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Smartphone, headphones, t-shirt. Native Hawaiians today. ​ ETA: my research is looking at how people in my community use social media to express their identities.","human_ref_B":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/edc] [Historic EDCs  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29760.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"aql4bo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What would the \"phone, wallet, keys\" for people have been in the time period you specialize in? What would the daily essentials, i.e. \"phone, wallet, keys,\" have been for people living during the time and in the place that you study?","c_root_id_A":"egjjvdw","c_root_id_B":"egh5o7d","created_at_utc_A":1550252593,"created_at_utc_B":1550171178,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Late Archaic-Early Woodland transition (~3500-2500 BP), NE US\/Canada: Increasing sedentism is leading to more groups using a settlement pattern in which there was an annual or near-annual base camp with specialized seasonal camps surrounding it, so your toolkit would vary depending on your camp. Most people would probably still be carrying the basics like a waterskin, flakes for expedient tools, a knife, a scraper, an awl, a drill, a chert core, etc. The economy shifted more heavily toward fishing for subsistence at this point, so spears, nets and netsinkers were a necessity if you were at a fishing camp. You would also of course need spears for hunting, usually deer or waterfowl, and they probably would have been used with an atlatl. Once you got your food back home, you might have cooked it in the latest, greatest invention: Pottery. However, for a great part of this period, you only had one brand to choose from, Vinette I. Otherwise you would have used steatite (soapstone) vessels. For personal adornment, you might have worn a stone or shell gorget, copper beads, or a birdstone, though it is still debated whether the birdstones were atlatl weights or worn as adornment.","human_ref_B":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/edc] [Historic EDCs  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":81415.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vkziua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Modern Taiwanese indigenous peoples are descended from a Chinese farmers who settled in Taiwan about 6000 years ago. Yet the oldest human fossils found in Taiwan (Zuozhen Man) are dated to 20k-30k years ago. What happened to this original population of Taiwanese people? Were they around when the Chinese arrived ~6000 years ago? Do modern Taiwanese have any genetic ties to them?","c_root_id_A":"idt61x7","c_root_id_B":"idtio9w","created_at_utc_A":1656254055,"created_at_utc_B":1656259707,"score_A":45,"score_B":167,"human_ref_A":"Back in the early 90s one of my anthropology courses touched on this. One of our main reference books was *The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society* edited by Emily Martin Ahern and Hill Gates initially published in 1981. It's been a while, but as I recall the sequence as considerably more complicated than simply mainland farmers coming over and replacing the indigenous population. I'm not sure how many cycles of \"indigenous\" people came and went before what we currently consider Chinese folks came across the strait, but that first wave of mainland Chinese both had conflicts with the indigenous population and interbred with them. Several other waves of mainland immigrants came across, leading to social changes in some of the Chinese based family structures (increased importance of the wife's side of the family being a notable one), and in families that had intermarried with indigenous people an increased knitting of that portion of the family as well. As I understand it, the 6000 years ago marker is a somewhat abrupt change in technologies and agriculture, but it's not clear that this represents an overturning of the indigenous population. It may be more an indication of adoption of new technologies. The high diversity of Austronesian languages in Taiwan, even to this day, somewhat supports this idea. It's also important to note that the initial indigenous people appear to have been both on the mainland and on the island of Taiwan. The first waves of people moving from the mainland into Taiwan in response to a growing Chinese population would have been members of the same (or similar) culture, linguistic groups, and of similar (or the same) ethnicities. As pressures in the mainland grew these people were eventually largely pushed out of the mainland entirely, and eventually mainland Chinese followed them to Taiwan, in response to themselves feeling the same sorts of pressures that the people they displaced faced. There are still indigenous populations in Taiwan, and still some of the indigenous Austronesian languages spoken, but I don't think any of them are \"pure\" blood any more. I'm not sure how well regarded *The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society* is today, but for a long time it was considered to be *the* seminal work on Taiwanese society. I suspect a lot more has been found out now, but with that there is an additional complication of accuracy due to the influence of Chinese nationalism on social and anthropological studies in the region.","human_ref_B":"* The Zuozhen Man lived in Taiwan 20k-30k years ago. This is the late Paleolithic period. At that point, Taiwan was still connected to the Asian mainland. As far as I'm aware, there has been no genetic studies done on the Zuozhen Man, but I would be surprised if Paleolithic Taiwanese and Paleolithic Fujianese had nothing to do with each other (because again, Taiwan was connected to Fujian 20k-30k years ago). * The \"Chinese farmers\" that arrived in Taiwan ~6000 years ago are thought to be an Austronesian or proto-Austronesian group. These people do not have much to do with the Yellow River civilizations that later became part of the Chinese civilization and these proto-Austronesians are very likely the ancestors of modern *Aboriginal Taiwanese* who make up ~2% of modern Taiwan's population. * The first wave of *Chinese* that arrived on Taiwan was during the Ming dynasty, roughly 600 years ago (note: 6 hundred, not 6 thousand years ago). Chinese migrations continued throughout the Ming-Qing dynasties and those who arrived prior to 1945 are known as *benshengren*. They and their descendants make up about 70-80% of modern Taiwan's population. * Chinese who arrived after 1945 are known as *waishengren*. They and their descendants make up around 20% of modern Taiwan's population. There are huge gaps in East Asian archaeology\/anthropology, so it should be very exciting in the years to come as more things are found.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5652.0,"score_ratio":3.7111111111} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx915bc","c_root_id_B":"fx84g3w","created_at_utc_A":1594159072,"created_at_utc_B":1594143415,"score_A":88,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"There's something to be said about the proximity of the meaning of the sounds used in a name and the use of the name to refer to a person. Sitting Bull's name could be considered more of a title (though it was also his name). It wasn't an arbitrary string of sounds, it literally referred to a bull that was sitting. Compare that to English names. Most English names had specific meanings 1000+ years ago. For example, Stanley was a combination of St\u0101n [stone] + L\u0113ah [meadow] and to people back then, the name stanley literally referred to the geographical existence of a stony meadow somewhere. Similarly, Ashley referred to a meadow with ash trees. Other names like Albert come from \u00e6\u00feel [noble] + beohrt [bright\/famous]. Family names like Smith and Taylor originally referred to professions as well. Today, we don't use names for their literal reference to objects or jobs, we use them because they reflect our ancestry for family names and because our given names are common in the culture we grew up in. If your last name was Smith because you actually were a smith, translating your name into another language might be useful, because it's your title, and it describes what you do. If your name is Smith because your father's name was Smith, translating your last name makes less sense, because you use your last name to connect you to a previous generation that called itself Smith. Basically, Sitting Bull wanted people to understand the meaning of his name. The specific sounds used to articulate it weren't important.","human_ref_B":"I'm similarly interested in that phenomenon in place names. A local example for me is Tsenacomoco, the Powhatan name for the part of Virginia I grew up in. It's been translated variously as \"densely populated place\" or \"our place\" or \"land dwelt upon\" but all those \"meanings\" seem kind of self-descriptive. Like if I was asked where I lived and I said Virginia, I could also describe it as a densely populated place I dwell in, but that's not the meaning of the word Virginia. And Contact period English who were encountering them for the first time were in less of a position to think about those subtleties when they recorded those exchanges.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15657.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx915bc","c_root_id_B":"fx90mki","created_at_utc_A":1594159072,"created_at_utc_B":1594158813,"score_A":88,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"There's something to be said about the proximity of the meaning of the sounds used in a name and the use of the name to refer to a person. Sitting Bull's name could be considered more of a title (though it was also his name). It wasn't an arbitrary string of sounds, it literally referred to a bull that was sitting. Compare that to English names. Most English names had specific meanings 1000+ years ago. For example, Stanley was a combination of St\u0101n [stone] + L\u0113ah [meadow] and to people back then, the name stanley literally referred to the geographical existence of a stony meadow somewhere. Similarly, Ashley referred to a meadow with ash trees. Other names like Albert come from \u00e6\u00feel [noble] + beohrt [bright\/famous]. Family names like Smith and Taylor originally referred to professions as well. Today, we don't use names for their literal reference to objects or jobs, we use them because they reflect our ancestry for family names and because our given names are common in the culture we grew up in. If your last name was Smith because you actually were a smith, translating your name into another language might be useful, because it's your title, and it describes what you do. If your name is Smith because your father's name was Smith, translating your last name makes less sense, because you use your last name to connect you to a previous generation that called itself Smith. Basically, Sitting Bull wanted people to understand the meaning of his name. The specific sounds used to articulate it weren't important.","human_ref_B":"My first wife was Lakota and I spent a fair bit of time with her family and extended community before her death and somewhat after. I remember asking once if it was considered offensive to refer to people by the English translation of their name such as Sitting Bull in your example. (Getting folks' names correct has been a concern of mine most of my life due to my own name preferences which weren't respected as a kid.) What was explained to me was the meaning of the name invoked by the words is their name, not the sounds made by our mouths. As far as other cultures, I really can't say but I'd expect this is not unique to Lakota culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":259.0,"score_ratio":3.1428571429} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx915bc","c_root_id_B":"fx8mex8","created_at_utc_A":1594159072,"created_at_utc_B":1594151855,"score_A":88,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"There's something to be said about the proximity of the meaning of the sounds used in a name and the use of the name to refer to a person. Sitting Bull's name could be considered more of a title (though it was also his name). It wasn't an arbitrary string of sounds, it literally referred to a bull that was sitting. Compare that to English names. Most English names had specific meanings 1000+ years ago. For example, Stanley was a combination of St\u0101n [stone] + L\u0113ah [meadow] and to people back then, the name stanley literally referred to the geographical existence of a stony meadow somewhere. Similarly, Ashley referred to a meadow with ash trees. Other names like Albert come from \u00e6\u00feel [noble] + beohrt [bright\/famous]. Family names like Smith and Taylor originally referred to professions as well. Today, we don't use names for their literal reference to objects or jobs, we use them because they reflect our ancestry for family names and because our given names are common in the culture we grew up in. If your last name was Smith because you actually were a smith, translating your name into another language might be useful, because it's your title, and it describes what you do. If your name is Smith because your father's name was Smith, translating your last name makes less sense, because you use your last name to connect you to a previous generation that called itself Smith. Basically, Sitting Bull wanted people to understand the meaning of his name. The specific sounds used to articulate it weren't important.","human_ref_B":"I don't think there's actually a set of rules for this. Why is Germany called Deutschland by Germans but not by Americans? Why is Japan called Nippon or Nihon? Part of the reason is that what people first call something or someone is often the name that sticks to them. \"America\" was the name put on one of the earliest maps, so it's remained. Did anyone in \"America\" call it that? Of course not. As for people, the name they're known by to those who record the names is the name they're remembered by. To Native Americans, the record is going to have one name, but to Anglo-Europeans it wil be another name. \"Sitting Bull\" is the translation of his name into English. His Native name probably seemed too difficult or even unpronounceable to other people, so wasn't used. Or some Europeans might have used his name after learning how to pronounce it but that usage of his actual real name fell out of favor over the years. What you're asking is why did English-speaking Europeans use names translated into English, and the answer to that is they did this to make it easier for themselves. Learning lots of Indians names, both for places and people, was too difficult. That 100s of Indian place names survive on our landscape is actually kind of remarkable since we might just as easily have renamed them with English (or French or Spanish) names, and often we did do that. As for Indian names having a descriptive meaning, it's simply a difference of tradition. In modern Europe, no one names their son \"Finance Master\" or \"Scholar\" or \"Football Boy\" because no one does that. It's not the tradition. It would be considered weird. But they could, and that's what Native Americans did. In fact, at one time in Europe \"Taylor\" did mean something. It meant you were a \"tailor\". Just like \"Smith\" mean you worked in metal. And so on. That's pretty much what Native Americans did. Today, these skills-based names aren't used that way any more as most children of Mr. \"Cooper\" (barrel maker) didn't become coopers. And so on. But we could do that. We just don't.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7217.0,"score_ratio":3.8260869565} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx8hu98","c_root_id_B":"fx915bc","created_at_utc_A":1594149689,"created_at_utc_B":1594159072,"score_A":11,"score_B":88,"human_ref_A":"The Spanish used guides and accepted their version of the names iirc, that's why you have Tamaulipas and Sinaloa which are names given by the Aztec guides the Spaniards used and accepted. Maybe they did the same thing with other tribes. I know that the blackfoots are another tribe that was a victim of being given a foreign name. Although the blackfeet is an Anglicazied version as well.","human_ref_B":"There's something to be said about the proximity of the meaning of the sounds used in a name and the use of the name to refer to a person. Sitting Bull's name could be considered more of a title (though it was also his name). It wasn't an arbitrary string of sounds, it literally referred to a bull that was sitting. Compare that to English names. Most English names had specific meanings 1000+ years ago. For example, Stanley was a combination of St\u0101n [stone] + L\u0113ah [meadow] and to people back then, the name stanley literally referred to the geographical existence of a stony meadow somewhere. Similarly, Ashley referred to a meadow with ash trees. Other names like Albert come from \u00e6\u00feel [noble] + beohrt [bright\/famous]. Family names like Smith and Taylor originally referred to professions as well. Today, we don't use names for their literal reference to objects or jobs, we use them because they reflect our ancestry for family names and because our given names are common in the culture we grew up in. If your last name was Smith because you actually were a smith, translating your name into another language might be useful, because it's your title, and it describes what you do. If your name is Smith because your father's name was Smith, translating your last name makes less sense, because you use your last name to connect you to a previous generation that called itself Smith. Basically, Sitting Bull wanted people to understand the meaning of his name. The specific sounds used to articulate it weren't important.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9383.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx8rzag","c_root_id_B":"fx915bc","created_at_utc_A":1594154584,"created_at_utc_B":1594159072,"score_A":4,"score_B":88,"human_ref_A":"One reason is that some Native American cultures were given names as children but could not get their adult name until they became of age and completed a right of passage. Their names were often reflective of the events of that right of passage.","human_ref_B":"There's something to be said about the proximity of the meaning of the sounds used in a name and the use of the name to refer to a person. Sitting Bull's name could be considered more of a title (though it was also his name). It wasn't an arbitrary string of sounds, it literally referred to a bull that was sitting. Compare that to English names. Most English names had specific meanings 1000+ years ago. For example, Stanley was a combination of St\u0101n [stone] + L\u0113ah [meadow] and to people back then, the name stanley literally referred to the geographical existence of a stony meadow somewhere. Similarly, Ashley referred to a meadow with ash trees. Other names like Albert come from \u00e6\u00feel [noble] + beohrt [bright\/famous]. Family names like Smith and Taylor originally referred to professions as well. Today, we don't use names for their literal reference to objects or jobs, we use them because they reflect our ancestry for family names and because our given names are common in the culture we grew up in. If your last name was Smith because you actually were a smith, translating your name into another language might be useful, because it's your title, and it describes what you do. If your name is Smith because your father's name was Smith, translating your last name makes less sense, because you use your last name to connect you to a previous generation that called itself Smith. Basically, Sitting Bull wanted people to understand the meaning of his name. The specific sounds used to articulate it weren't important.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4488.0,"score_ratio":22.0} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx8mex8","c_root_id_B":"fx90mki","created_at_utc_A":1594151855,"created_at_utc_B":1594158813,"score_A":23,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"I don't think there's actually a set of rules for this. Why is Germany called Deutschland by Germans but not by Americans? Why is Japan called Nippon or Nihon? Part of the reason is that what people first call something or someone is often the name that sticks to them. \"America\" was the name put on one of the earliest maps, so it's remained. Did anyone in \"America\" call it that? Of course not. As for people, the name they're known by to those who record the names is the name they're remembered by. To Native Americans, the record is going to have one name, but to Anglo-Europeans it wil be another name. \"Sitting Bull\" is the translation of his name into English. His Native name probably seemed too difficult or even unpronounceable to other people, so wasn't used. Or some Europeans might have used his name after learning how to pronounce it but that usage of his actual real name fell out of favor over the years. What you're asking is why did English-speaking Europeans use names translated into English, and the answer to that is they did this to make it easier for themselves. Learning lots of Indians names, both for places and people, was too difficult. That 100s of Indian place names survive on our landscape is actually kind of remarkable since we might just as easily have renamed them with English (or French or Spanish) names, and often we did do that. As for Indian names having a descriptive meaning, it's simply a difference of tradition. In modern Europe, no one names their son \"Finance Master\" or \"Scholar\" or \"Football Boy\" because no one does that. It's not the tradition. It would be considered weird. But they could, and that's what Native Americans did. In fact, at one time in Europe \"Taylor\" did mean something. It meant you were a \"tailor\". Just like \"Smith\" mean you worked in metal. And so on. That's pretty much what Native Americans did. Today, these skills-based names aren't used that way any more as most children of Mr. \"Cooper\" (barrel maker) didn't become coopers. And so on. But we could do that. We just don't.","human_ref_B":"My first wife was Lakota and I spent a fair bit of time with her family and extended community before her death and somewhat after. I remember asking once if it was considered offensive to refer to people by the English translation of their name such as Sitting Bull in your example. (Getting folks' names correct has been a concern of mine most of my life due to my own name preferences which weren't respected as a kid.) What was explained to me was the meaning of the name invoked by the words is their name, not the sounds made by our mouths. As far as other cultures, I really can't say but I'd expect this is not unique to Lakota culture.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6958.0,"score_ratio":1.2173913043} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx90mki","c_root_id_B":"fx8hu98","created_at_utc_A":1594158813,"created_at_utc_B":1594149689,"score_A":28,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"My first wife was Lakota and I spent a fair bit of time with her family and extended community before her death and somewhat after. I remember asking once if it was considered offensive to refer to people by the English translation of their name such as Sitting Bull in your example. (Getting folks' names correct has been a concern of mine most of my life due to my own name preferences which weren't respected as a kid.) What was explained to me was the meaning of the name invoked by the words is their name, not the sounds made by our mouths. As far as other cultures, I really can't say but I'd expect this is not unique to Lakota culture.","human_ref_B":"The Spanish used guides and accepted their version of the names iirc, that's why you have Tamaulipas and Sinaloa which are names given by the Aztec guides the Spaniards used and accepted. Maybe they did the same thing with other tribes. I know that the blackfoots are another tribe that was a victim of being given a foreign name. Although the blackfeet is an Anglicazied version as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9124.0,"score_ratio":2.5454545455} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx90mki","c_root_id_B":"fx8rzag","created_at_utc_A":1594158813,"created_at_utc_B":1594154584,"score_A":28,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"My first wife was Lakota and I spent a fair bit of time with her family and extended community before her death and somewhat after. I remember asking once if it was considered offensive to refer to people by the English translation of their name such as Sitting Bull in your example. (Getting folks' names correct has been a concern of mine most of my life due to my own name preferences which weren't respected as a kid.) What was explained to me was the meaning of the name invoked by the words is their name, not the sounds made by our mouths. As far as other cultures, I really can't say but I'd expect this is not unique to Lakota culture.","human_ref_B":"One reason is that some Native American cultures were given names as children but could not get their adult name until they became of age and completed a right of passage. Their names were often reflective of the events of that right of passage.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4229.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"hmxwmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do some cultures translate their names but others do not? We've all heard of Sitting Bull, the famous Lakota warrior. In spanish we call him Toro Sentado and in his native Lakota it was Thathanka Iyotake. All these names mean the same... but isn't this weird?. If I meet someone named Smith or Taylor I wouldn't translate their names to spanish as Herrero or Sastre, even though that's what they mean, because in our shared culture we see names as sounds, and any meaning they could have is secondary. This makes me think that maybe Lakota culture saw names as meaning something and the sounds were secondary. That's why Lakota people are known by the meaning of their names such as Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds, or Sitting Bull. Lakota culture would not be alone in this of course. In mayan records we read about a powerful teotihuacan man named Spearthrowing Owl, which is a very non mayan name... almost as if Spearthrower was asked his name, he translated it to mayan, and it was recorded as such. Then there is what Spanish people do. They pronounce names exactly as they read them, so for example if you watch the spanish dub of the Big Bang Theory you'll her how they pronounce Sheldon as \"Seldon\" because, they argue, \"the sh sound doesn't exist in Spanish\". And yet in other spanish speaking countries they would never do that. I'm fascinated by this. I want to learn how different cultures perceive names, sounds, meaning, both... and how do they deal with names of other cultures... perhaps Lakota people do indeed translate the meaning of names like Taylor and Smith... or maybe they don't... I don't know Please teach me, I want to learn everything I can about this","c_root_id_A":"fx8hu98","c_root_id_B":"fx8mex8","created_at_utc_A":1594149689,"created_at_utc_B":1594151855,"score_A":11,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"The Spanish used guides and accepted their version of the names iirc, that's why you have Tamaulipas and Sinaloa which are names given by the Aztec guides the Spaniards used and accepted. Maybe they did the same thing with other tribes. I know that the blackfoots are another tribe that was a victim of being given a foreign name. Although the blackfeet is an Anglicazied version as well.","human_ref_B":"I don't think there's actually a set of rules for this. Why is Germany called Deutschland by Germans but not by Americans? Why is Japan called Nippon or Nihon? Part of the reason is that what people first call something or someone is often the name that sticks to them. \"America\" was the name put on one of the earliest maps, so it's remained. Did anyone in \"America\" call it that? Of course not. As for people, the name they're known by to those who record the names is the name they're remembered by. To Native Americans, the record is going to have one name, but to Anglo-Europeans it wil be another name. \"Sitting Bull\" is the translation of his name into English. His Native name probably seemed too difficult or even unpronounceable to other people, so wasn't used. Or some Europeans might have used his name after learning how to pronounce it but that usage of his actual real name fell out of favor over the years. What you're asking is why did English-speaking Europeans use names translated into English, and the answer to that is they did this to make it easier for themselves. Learning lots of Indians names, both for places and people, was too difficult. That 100s of Indian place names survive on our landscape is actually kind of remarkable since we might just as easily have renamed them with English (or French or Spanish) names, and often we did do that. As for Indian names having a descriptive meaning, it's simply a difference of tradition. In modern Europe, no one names their son \"Finance Master\" or \"Scholar\" or \"Football Boy\" because no one does that. It's not the tradition. It would be considered weird. But they could, and that's what Native Americans did. In fact, at one time in Europe \"Taylor\" did mean something. It meant you were a \"tailor\". Just like \"Smith\" mean you worked in metal. And so on. That's pretty much what Native Americans did. Today, these skills-based names aren't used that way any more as most children of Mr. \"Cooper\" (barrel maker) didn't become coopers. And so on. But we could do that. We just don't.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2166.0,"score_ratio":2.0909090909} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez654ti","c_root_id_B":"ez65noz","created_at_utc_A":1567709077,"created_at_utc_B":1567709223,"score_A":16,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I always wonder what sort of medical\/herbal treatments were known then that are just lost forever now. As well as entertainments and cooking stuffs.","human_ref_B":"I think about this a lot when I go on long backpacking trips. I'll find myself in beautiful, remote areas of wilderness and come across a firepit, and wonder how many thousands of years it's been used, and how many different lives it's saved on cold nights.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":146.0,"score_ratio":1.5625} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez63mux","c_root_id_B":"ez65noz","created_at_utc_A":1567708769,"created_at_utc_B":1567709223,"score_A":12,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"All the time. Though someone brought up the fact here that humans practiced significant inbreeding which is really interesting. Apparently 34k years ago we began to realize it\u2019s a problem.","human_ref_B":"I think about this a lot when I go on long backpacking trips. I'll find myself in beautiful, remote areas of wilderness and come across a firepit, and wonder how many thousands of years it's been used, and how many different lives it's saved on cold nights.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":454.0,"score_ratio":2.0833333333} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez63mux","c_root_id_B":"ez654ti","created_at_utc_A":1567708769,"created_at_utc_B":1567709077,"score_A":12,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"All the time. Though someone brought up the fact here that humans practiced significant inbreeding which is really interesting. Apparently 34k years ago we began to realize it\u2019s a problem.","human_ref_B":"I always wonder what sort of medical\/herbal treatments were known then that are just lost forever now. As well as entertainments and cooking stuffs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":308.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez7cos7","c_root_id_B":"ez78rcm","created_at_utc_A":1567721826,"created_at_utc_B":1567720379,"score_A":12,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Yes! All day, every day, practically! Thank you for posting this! My favorite meditation is to just spend time dreaming about ancient hominids. The knowledge , the social dynamics, the thousands of full lifetimes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, passion and lessons learned and forever lost to time. Living in a world that was almost completely different than our own. This is my favorite train of thought!","human_ref_B":"It's crazy to think about how even though we consider ourselves so much more advanced than an ancient Sumerian merchant, we are both on page one of what could be a grand cosmic history of humanity. That is if we don't destroy ourselves, of course.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1447.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez78sla","c_root_id_B":"ez7cos7","created_at_utc_A":1567720392,"created_at_utc_B":1567721826,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Definitely. In my head, they were happier, but of course I have little evidence for that. There was also a lot more disease and malnutrition probably. And as a woman, I'd likely be raising my 7th kid (or 7th attempt anyway) or would have died in childbirth maybe, rather than a barren 36 year old.","human_ref_B":"Yes! All day, every day, practically! Thank you for posting this! My favorite meditation is to just spend time dreaming about ancient hominids. The knowledge , the social dynamics, the thousands of full lifetimes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, passion and lessons learned and forever lost to time. Living in a world that was almost completely different than our own. This is my favorite train of thought!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1434.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez71ogf","c_root_id_B":"ez7cos7","created_at_utc_A":1567717776,"created_at_utc_B":1567721826,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I like to daydream about advanced ancient societies. what kind of tech did they have? what societal structures did they implement? just how much have we lost of our ancient selves?","human_ref_B":"Yes! All day, every day, practically! Thank you for posting this! My favorite meditation is to just spend time dreaming about ancient hominids. The knowledge , the social dynamics, the thousands of full lifetimes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, passion and lessons learned and forever lost to time. Living in a world that was almost completely different than our own. This is my favorite train of thought!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4050.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez7cos7","c_root_id_B":"ez6vlcr","created_at_utc_A":1567721826,"created_at_utc_B":1567715650,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Yes! All day, every day, practically! Thank you for posting this! My favorite meditation is to just spend time dreaming about ancient hominids. The knowledge , the social dynamics, the thousands of full lifetimes filled with love, heartbreak, betrayal, passion and lessons learned and forever lost to time. Living in a world that was almost completely different than our own. This is my favorite train of thought!","human_ref_B":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6176.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez78rcm","c_root_id_B":"ez78sla","created_at_utc_A":1567720379,"created_at_utc_B":1567720392,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's crazy to think about how even though we consider ourselves so much more advanced than an ancient Sumerian merchant, we are both on page one of what could be a grand cosmic history of humanity. That is if we don't destroy ourselves, of course.","human_ref_B":"Definitely. In my head, they were happier, but of course I have little evidence for that. There was also a lot more disease and malnutrition probably. And as a woman, I'd likely be raising my 7th kid (or 7th attempt anyway) or would have died in childbirth maybe, rather than a barren 36 year old.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez78rcm","c_root_id_B":"ez8btdx","created_at_utc_A":1567720379,"created_at_utc_B":1567739104,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's crazy to think about how even though we consider ourselves so much more advanced than an ancient Sumerian merchant, we are both on page one of what could be a grand cosmic history of humanity. That is if we don't destroy ourselves, of course.","human_ref_B":"I think about a time when there were 5 (maybe more) hominin subspecies walking around who could interbreed. Some of them lived together, like that cave in Siberia that had evidence of H. sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all cohabitating. How different relationships must have been. What were the different cultures like? How did they all speak? What were their fashions, cuisines, music, dance? I would love to be an invisible floating eye watching them. So yeah, I think about it a lot.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18725.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez837sg","c_root_id_B":"ez78rcm","created_at_utc_A":1567733132,"created_at_utc_B":1567720379,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Yes, very much. There's a dreamy aspect to the very ancient past, and imagining the emergence of mores and social structures is fascinating and inspiring.","human_ref_B":"It's crazy to think about how even though we consider ourselves so much more advanced than an ancient Sumerian merchant, we are both on page one of what could be a grand cosmic history of humanity. That is if we don't destroy ourselves, of course.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12753.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez78rcm","c_root_id_B":"ez6vlcr","created_at_utc_A":1567720379,"created_at_utc_B":1567715650,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It's crazy to think about how even though we consider ourselves so much more advanced than an ancient Sumerian merchant, we are both on page one of what could be a grand cosmic history of humanity. That is if we don't destroy ourselves, of course.","human_ref_B":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4729.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez78sla","c_root_id_B":"ez71ogf","created_at_utc_A":1567720392,"created_at_utc_B":1567717776,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Definitely. In my head, they were happier, but of course I have little evidence for that. There was also a lot more disease and malnutrition probably. And as a woman, I'd likely be raising my 7th kid (or 7th attempt anyway) or would have died in childbirth maybe, rather than a barren 36 year old.","human_ref_B":"I like to daydream about advanced ancient societies. what kind of tech did they have? what societal structures did they implement? just how much have we lost of our ancient selves?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2616.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez6vlcr","c_root_id_B":"ez78sla","created_at_utc_A":1567715650,"created_at_utc_B":1567720392,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","human_ref_B":"Definitely. In my head, they were happier, but of course I have little evidence for that. There was also a lot more disease and malnutrition probably. And as a woman, I'd likely be raising my 7th kid (or 7th attempt anyway) or would have died in childbirth maybe, rather than a barren 36 year old.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4742.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez8btdx","c_root_id_B":"ez71ogf","created_at_utc_A":1567739104,"created_at_utc_B":1567717776,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I think about a time when there were 5 (maybe more) hominin subspecies walking around who could interbreed. Some of them lived together, like that cave in Siberia that had evidence of H. sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all cohabitating. How different relationships must have been. What were the different cultures like? How did they all speak? What were their fashions, cuisines, music, dance? I would love to be an invisible floating eye watching them. So yeah, I think about it a lot.","human_ref_B":"I like to daydream about advanced ancient societies. what kind of tech did they have? what societal structures did they implement? just how much have we lost of our ancient selves?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21328.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez6vlcr","c_root_id_B":"ez8btdx","created_at_utc_A":1567715650,"created_at_utc_B":1567739104,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","human_ref_B":"I think about a time when there were 5 (maybe more) hominin subspecies walking around who could interbreed. Some of them lived together, like that cave in Siberia that had evidence of H. sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all cohabitating. How different relationships must have been. What were the different cultures like? How did they all speak? What were their fashions, cuisines, music, dance? I would love to be an invisible floating eye watching them. So yeah, I think about it a lot.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23454.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez8btdx","c_root_id_B":"ez7kv2j","created_at_utc_A":1567739104,"created_at_utc_B":1567725011,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I think about a time when there were 5 (maybe more) hominin subspecies walking around who could interbreed. Some of them lived together, like that cave in Siberia that had evidence of H. sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all cohabitating. How different relationships must have been. What were the different cultures like? How did they all speak? What were their fashions, cuisines, music, dance? I would love to be an invisible floating eye watching them. So yeah, I think about it a lot.","human_ref_B":"It's crazy to think how many incredible human lives and unbelievable stories are lost forever. Just people experiencing crazy, amazing or terrible stuff. That's all just gone. I have great stories from games of dungeons and dragons, or paintball. Prehistoric people probably had some legendary stuff happen and we'll never know.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14093.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez8btdx","c_root_id_B":"ez7xi9r","created_at_utc_A":1567739104,"created_at_utc_B":1567729817,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think about a time when there were 5 (maybe more) hominin subspecies walking around who could interbreed. Some of them lived together, like that cave in Siberia that had evidence of H. sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all cohabitating. How different relationships must have been. What were the different cultures like? How did they all speak? What were their fashions, cuisines, music, dance? I would love to be an invisible floating eye watching them. So yeah, I think about it a lot.","human_ref_B":"A good fantasy series set in those times is Clan of the Cave Bear by Sue Harrison.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9287.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez837sg","c_root_id_B":"ez71ogf","created_at_utc_A":1567733132,"created_at_utc_B":1567717776,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Yes, very much. There's a dreamy aspect to the very ancient past, and imagining the emergence of mores and social structures is fascinating and inspiring.","human_ref_B":"I like to daydream about advanced ancient societies. what kind of tech did they have? what societal structures did they implement? just how much have we lost of our ancient selves?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15356.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez6vlcr","c_root_id_B":"ez71ogf","created_at_utc_A":1567715650,"created_at_utc_B":1567717776,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","human_ref_B":"I like to daydream about advanced ancient societies. what kind of tech did they have? what societal structures did they implement? just how much have we lost of our ancient selves?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2126.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez837sg","c_root_id_B":"ez6vlcr","created_at_utc_A":1567733132,"created_at_utc_B":1567715650,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Yes, very much. There's a dreamy aspect to the very ancient past, and imagining the emergence of mores and social structures is fascinating and inspiring.","human_ref_B":"That's like 40% of what archeology is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17482.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez7kv2j","c_root_id_B":"ez837sg","created_at_utc_A":1567725011,"created_at_utc_B":1567733132,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's crazy to think how many incredible human lives and unbelievable stories are lost forever. Just people experiencing crazy, amazing or terrible stuff. That's all just gone. I have great stories from games of dungeons and dragons, or paintball. Prehistoric people probably had some legendary stuff happen and we'll never know.","human_ref_B":"Yes, very much. There's a dreamy aspect to the very ancient past, and imagining the emergence of mores and social structures is fascinating and inspiring.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8121.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czy666","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do you ever get lost in thought thinking about ancient homonids, their lives and cultures, what we had in common and what is forever lost? This is more about fantasy than anything concerete, but do you guys ever just let your mind wander about what life was really like for people living in the distant past? There is so much we do know yet so much we will never know. To think of humans or other homonids living many multiples of of recorded history in the past. In many ways they seemed to have lives and thoughts and cultures that feel very familiar to us. Yet there must have been languages, cultures, mythologies, heroes and religions that came and went again and again, that are lost to us forever. Bits and pieces might have made it down through the ages but so much is gone forever. Who were these people really? Living in the plains, rivers, forests and other corners of the Earth, thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. I dunno but I just love to think about this stuff. I wonder if other people who hold an interest in anthro and the dawn of humanity feel this way as well?","c_root_id_A":"ez7xi9r","c_root_id_B":"ez837sg","created_at_utc_A":1567729817,"created_at_utc_B":1567733132,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"A good fantasy series set in those times is Clan of the Cave Bear by Sue Harrison.","human_ref_B":"Yes, very much. There's a dreamy aspect to the very ancient past, and imagining the emergence of mores and social structures is fascinating and inspiring.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3315.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"oaeksz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people keep eating foods that are edible but incredibly bitter\/stinky\/disgusting? There's this vegetable that's used a lot in South & SE Asian cuisines - in particular Bengali, which is part of my background. It's a cucurbit with star-shaped ridges aptly named the.... ***bitter gourd.*** I've come around to the earwaxy taste of this plant; in fact it's quite tasty golden-fried in some mustard oil and with some salt sprinkled. But I couldn't *stand* the stuff when I was younger, roughly until I hit puberty. And this is universal - my father and his parents hated it when they were younger, my brother still can't stand it, and neither can most people I introduce it to, if they haven't tried it before. I can't imagine how this plant must've tasted in the wild, before years of selective breeding took much of the sting away. But it doesn't end there - the durian, the ginkgo, and other foods exist that don't seem *edible* even after being cooked, but they are edible, and used in culinary traditions in parts of the world! So my question is, how did repulsive food items become a permanent part of people's food traditions? Why did people guess they'd be edible, and keep eating it even after tasting it? Is it a result of lack of resources?","c_root_id_A":"h3h71xa","c_root_id_B":"h3j5exj","created_at_utc_A":1624996452,"created_at_utc_B":1625033043,"score_A":78,"score_B":83,"human_ref_A":"It would appear there are psychological associations with taste that somehow influences people's eating patterns. Even if food wasn't the best tasting in a child's developmental stages, later on as an adult the same tastes from childhood still draws the adult to enjoy the nostalgia\/psychological phenomenon derived. Of course I'm oversimplifying here as gastronomy is immensely nuanced and complex. If you're keen on learning more, I'm sure the stack of resources over here could help: https:\/\/www.oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199828340\/obo-9780199828340-0249.xml","human_ref_B":"Hi, anthropologist here. While a lot of the comments are good, they're missing the evolutionary take on taste. Basically, children and adults have differing nutritional and vitamin needs. Children are developing, and are therefore susceptible to plant toxins more than adults while needing antioxidants from vitamins and minerals in greater amounts. Conversely, adults need oxidative foods more than children, to bolster the immune system in fighting diseases and cancer. Therefore, children are adverse to flavors that signal oxidants (bitter tastes) while adults favor them. Pregnancy sickness is essentially the same. Pregnant women's tastes change to help avoid tastes that signal toxins that might affect neonatal development. All plants bind toxins to their nutrients, though to differing degrees. However, we've selected against toxins in the plants we've domesticated.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36591.0,"score_ratio":1.0641025641} {"post_id":"oaeksz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people keep eating foods that are edible but incredibly bitter\/stinky\/disgusting? There's this vegetable that's used a lot in South & SE Asian cuisines - in particular Bengali, which is part of my background. It's a cucurbit with star-shaped ridges aptly named the.... ***bitter gourd.*** I've come around to the earwaxy taste of this plant; in fact it's quite tasty golden-fried in some mustard oil and with some salt sprinkled. But I couldn't *stand* the stuff when I was younger, roughly until I hit puberty. And this is universal - my father and his parents hated it when they were younger, my brother still can't stand it, and neither can most people I introduce it to, if they haven't tried it before. I can't imagine how this plant must've tasted in the wild, before years of selective breeding took much of the sting away. But it doesn't end there - the durian, the ginkgo, and other foods exist that don't seem *edible* even after being cooked, but they are edible, and used in culinary traditions in parts of the world! So my question is, how did repulsive food items become a permanent part of people's food traditions? Why did people guess they'd be edible, and keep eating it even after tasting it? Is it a result of lack of resources?","c_root_id_A":"h3i3qrt","c_root_id_B":"h3j5exj","created_at_utc_A":1625011618,"created_at_utc_B":1625033043,"score_A":63,"score_B":83,"human_ref_A":"Children are actually born more sensitive to both bitter and sweet flavors than adults: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4654709\/ That may explain why your family develops a preference for the bitter gourd in puberty.","human_ref_B":"Hi, anthropologist here. While a lot of the comments are good, they're missing the evolutionary take on taste. Basically, children and adults have differing nutritional and vitamin needs. Children are developing, and are therefore susceptible to plant toxins more than adults while needing antioxidants from vitamins and minerals in greater amounts. Conversely, adults need oxidative foods more than children, to bolster the immune system in fighting diseases and cancer. Therefore, children are adverse to flavors that signal oxidants (bitter tastes) while adults favor them. Pregnancy sickness is essentially the same. Pregnant women's tastes change to help avoid tastes that signal toxins that might affect neonatal development. All plants bind toxins to their nutrients, though to differing degrees. However, we've selected against toxins in the plants we've domesticated.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21425.0,"score_ratio":1.3174603175} {"post_id":"oaeksz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people keep eating foods that are edible but incredibly bitter\/stinky\/disgusting? There's this vegetable that's used a lot in South & SE Asian cuisines - in particular Bengali, which is part of my background. It's a cucurbit with star-shaped ridges aptly named the.... ***bitter gourd.*** I've come around to the earwaxy taste of this plant; in fact it's quite tasty golden-fried in some mustard oil and with some salt sprinkled. But I couldn't *stand* the stuff when I was younger, roughly until I hit puberty. And this is universal - my father and his parents hated it when they were younger, my brother still can't stand it, and neither can most people I introduce it to, if they haven't tried it before. I can't imagine how this plant must've tasted in the wild, before years of selective breeding took much of the sting away. But it doesn't end there - the durian, the ginkgo, and other foods exist that don't seem *edible* even after being cooked, but they are edible, and used in culinary traditions in parts of the world! So my question is, how did repulsive food items become a permanent part of people's food traditions? Why did people guess they'd be edible, and keep eating it even after tasting it? Is it a result of lack of resources?","c_root_id_A":"h3j5exj","c_root_id_B":"h3imeax","created_at_utc_A":1625033043,"created_at_utc_B":1625021037,"score_A":83,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Hi, anthropologist here. While a lot of the comments are good, they're missing the evolutionary take on taste. Basically, children and adults have differing nutritional and vitamin needs. Children are developing, and are therefore susceptible to plant toxins more than adults while needing antioxidants from vitamins and minerals in greater amounts. Conversely, adults need oxidative foods more than children, to bolster the immune system in fighting diseases and cancer. Therefore, children are adverse to flavors that signal oxidants (bitter tastes) while adults favor them. Pregnancy sickness is essentially the same. Pregnant women's tastes change to help avoid tastes that signal toxins that might affect neonatal development. All plants bind toxins to their nutrients, though to differing degrees. However, we've selected against toxins in the plants we've domesticated.","human_ref_B":"Children tend to enjoy umami flavors as these mimic the flavor profile of human breast milk. Sources of bitter and other \u201cacquired taste\u201d flavors tend to come from plants rather than animals. Very young children tend to be disinclined to touch and explore plant life because many plants are highly toxic and look extremely similar to common edible plants in a hunter gatherer diet. Foraging is a skill that takes time, practice, and much inter generational transmission of knowledge was necessary to become proficient. Usually about the time of puberty a child would be ready to start foraging unsupervised without serious risk of accidentally ingesting something deadly. A taste for these acquired flavors developing early on in life would increase the risk they would eat something toxic when their tiny body could not handle it, but also just due to inexperience. Adaptations to develop a taste for these flavors later on in life helps reduce accidental early child death in foraging populations. Around puberty the nutritional needs of an older child rapidly change with their growing body and these changes develop at a different rate and to different degrees for those experiencing male vs female pubertal trajectory. Female pubertal trajectory will often result in preference for bitter flavors at a slightly earlier age than in individuals experiencing male pubertal trajectory due to some of the biological differences of development these trajectories ultimately experience and can culminate in (menstruatuon\/pregnancy vs spermatogenesis). Bitter foods are high in things children don\u2019t need to the same degree as individuals of reproductive age. health benefits of bitter foods","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12006.0,"score_ratio":4.6111111111} {"post_id":"l74756","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are greetings and goodbyes found in all cultures? Do all cultures have words for \"hello\" and \"goodbye\" in some form?","c_root_id_A":"gl859g2","c_root_id_B":"gl7kq3m","created_at_utc_A":1611922079,"created_at_utc_B":1611906442,"score_A":17,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This is an interesting question, because a lot of languages greet each other in different ways with different meanings. In Arabic, asalamalakim means may peace be upon you. In Malagasy, manahoana means how are you (depending on the dialect), but they quickly ask after, inona vaovao meaning what's the news? From general linguistics readings I believe there are also linguistic examples of greetings that are references to good health both direct and indirect. Also in a lot of cultures you have different greetings based on the relationship & hierarchy of the person in relation to yourself. Sometimes greetings can be exclusive to offering respect to an elder. When I lived in Tanzania, my young host sisters always greeted me with shikamoo, an offer of respect. I used this greeting exclusively with anyone who looked like they were older than me. It'd be interesting to hear someone with more background in linguistics & their perspective on this topic.","human_ref_B":"Relevant: Duranti, A. (1997). Universal and culture-specific properties of greetings. *Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 7*(1), 63\u201397.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15637.0,"score_ratio":2.8333333333} {"post_id":"ovdmf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do Hindus believing in the caste system think of foreigners in relation to the hierarchy of castes? I'm sorry if I'm not using the correct words but I'm knowledgeable neither in anthropology nor in Hinduism. I was wondering how a Hindu (who is still believing in the caste system) will think of a foreigner (let's say Average Joe from America coming for tourism). Would that white secular guy be considered a lesser person (at least on a spiritual level) by a Brahmin? Would he be looked up to by a Dalit or Shudra? Or would people not think of him at all in relation to any level of the pyramid? Naively I would tend to believe Hindus wouldn't look at foreigners through the caste system's lens, to begin with. But then who's considered in the system and out? Is it all people of the \"community\"(whatever that encompasses)? Is it all Hindus? It doesn't seem you can opt out by stopping to believe in Hinduism. N.B.: I've heard the caste system is a dying belief in India (although the repercussions of it are still in place) but then, if it makes it more helpful, how would have Hindus considered foreigners in the 1930s? Also, feel free to reframe my question if you think a better, more insightful question could have been asked for greater understanding.","c_root_id_A":"h7a2uj1","c_root_id_B":"h79jwin","created_at_utc_A":1627792048,"created_at_utc_B":1627780781,"score_A":140,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Historically, the word used for foreigners who do not fit into the caste hierarchy is \"_mleccha_\" (attested to by Ibn Batutah himself), which has no true translation, but a crude translation might be \"dirty\" or \"barbarian\". I know that the English words are not equivalent, but such is the issue when translating words which do not have a 1:1 correspondence between languages. The connotations of the word _mleccha_ ought to be fairly obvious. The idea of the barbarian language and their place of residence is shared with the Ancient Greek idea of barbarianism, but the unique Hindu notion of pollution (_jootha_, a word which famously has no absolute English translation) meant that food or water, or even their containing vessels once touched by a _mleccha_ were considered too polluted for Hindus to touch. In other words, in case you were outside the geographical boundaries of Ancient India (_Aryavarta_, or the land of the _Aryans_) and did not speak Sanskrit, you were a barbarian. Since the boundaries of _Aryavarta_ were never really defined, notions of who was and wasn't a barbarian kept changing. A typical European, though, would be considered a barbarian by almost anyone. As far as I know, the historical practice of calling foreigners _mleccha_ does not exist to the same extent it used to back in the day. This is probably a result of the various invasions India underwent during the second millennium and her time under the British. Unfortunately, there still exists a stigma of marrying outside the caste hierarchy. Marrying a foreigner, regardless of how white (and the whiteness is important) does not absolve one of this sin. While more progressive elements of society have no issues with marrying foreigners, the issue is complicated by the fact that marrying Africans would still net you shame in most circles, educated or not. The very word used for Africans (_habashi_, from an old word for Ethiopia) is impolite and derogatory. However, Indian racism and bigotry deserves its own separate answer. Suffice it to say that Indian attitudes towards foreigners are complicated because of it. As to the caste system being a dying belief in India, that is true of some circles. However, the vast majority of Hindus still have a strong caste identity. In fact, not just Hindus, but all communities in India have a caste identity, including those following Abrahamic faiths such as Islam and Christianity. These distinctions were sharper in the '30s, and marrying outside the caste hierarchy would probably be seen as a major scandal, much less marrying outside the religion completely. Mahatma Gandhi famously declared that he would not attend any wedding which did not have an inter-caste\/inter-religious component to it in order to break these attitudes down: it is doubtful that he made any major dent. This is not to say that Indians remain as exclusionary as they used to be regarding foreigners. Taking another event from Gandhi's life, when he left for England he had to convince his mother that he would not eat pork or beef but would cook his own food in the foreign land he was going to. Eating food cooked by someone outside your caste is still somewhat frowned upon in Hinduism, and some communities still exist which frown upon leaving the borders of India. Leaving the boundaries of India had the potential to make you _mleccha_, so going abroad was something one gave a lot of thought to. **Sources** - The Travels of Ibn Batutah edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, ISBN 98033041879 - The Good Boatman, Rajmohan Gandhi, ISBN 9780140255638 - Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (I do not have the ISBN because I do not have my copy and so consulted my notes for this) - Religion in India, Tolerance and Segregation: Chapter 4, Attitudes about Caste, Pew Research Centre, 2021 **Edit:** Changed _malechha_ to _mleccha_ for more accurate transliteration. The word is a direct transliteration of \"\u092e\u0932\u0947\u091a\u094d\u091b\".","human_ref_B":"You should probably ask Hindus about this, expecting that there will be wide variation among those folks about this. I would try r\/AskReligion or r\/hinduism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11267.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"ovdmf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do Hindus believing in the caste system think of foreigners in relation to the hierarchy of castes? I'm sorry if I'm not using the correct words but I'm knowledgeable neither in anthropology nor in Hinduism. I was wondering how a Hindu (who is still believing in the caste system) will think of a foreigner (let's say Average Joe from America coming for tourism). Would that white secular guy be considered a lesser person (at least on a spiritual level) by a Brahmin? Would he be looked up to by a Dalit or Shudra? Or would people not think of him at all in relation to any level of the pyramid? Naively I would tend to believe Hindus wouldn't look at foreigners through the caste system's lens, to begin with. But then who's considered in the system and out? Is it all people of the \"community\"(whatever that encompasses)? Is it all Hindus? It doesn't seem you can opt out by stopping to believe in Hinduism. N.B.: I've heard the caste system is a dying belief in India (although the repercussions of it are still in place) but then, if it makes it more helpful, how would have Hindus considered foreigners in the 1930s? Also, feel free to reframe my question if you think a better, more insightful question could have been asked for greater understanding.","c_root_id_A":"h7azrs8","c_root_id_B":"h7b4b4v","created_at_utc_A":1627819372,"created_at_utc_B":1627822515,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Follow up question on this if that is allowed? How does this translate in Indonesian Hinduism? Did they have castes too? Did they see outsiders as \u2018barbarians\u2019 as well?","human_ref_B":"Foreigners are outside of the caste system in theory but in my experience traveling various parts of south india as a foreigner and socializing with hindus of different castes, i felt treated more or less as if i would belong to one of the two middle castes (warrior, trader), based on my behavior and finances at the time and who i was with. When someone liked me, they treated me as an equal and invited me into their circles obviously. I was always treated with more respect than low caste or untouchable people just because i have a lot more money, and less respect than brahmin because they are basically the aristocracy and often have some religious duties and special outfits in addition to economic status. Of course most young and educated indians don\u2019t take this stuff seriously but you can still see the caste system\u2019s strength in how they are treated by family and pressured into good marriages, as well as cultural and economic differences in social interactions (much like anywhere else).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3143.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"omu292","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are the biggest debates in current anthropology? I'm aware that decolonizing is an ongoing struggle, but are there any big overarching theoretical issues? Its hard to get news on it as someone from another social science. I like to stay up to date with the most recent breaking developments. If you're passionate about some particular topic, please tell me as much as you like.","c_root_id_A":"h5nqknq","c_root_id_B":"h5nh08a","created_at_utc_A":1626632419,"created_at_utc_B":1626628352,"score_A":149,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s recently been heavy controversy over a new theory of state formation from David Wengrow and David Graeber that argues social inequality is not a prerequisite for societal complexity. I don\u2019t believe the book has been published yet, but there was a lot of debate when it was announced.","human_ref_B":"I think maybe returning \"borrowed indefinitely\" artifacts and remains from museums. It was very common for colonizers to take thing from groups to put in museums and in private collections. NAGPRA might be something worth looking into as well. I believe the French are returning artifacts to Africa on request.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4067.0,"score_ratio":3.6341463415} {"post_id":"omu292","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are the biggest debates in current anthropology? I'm aware that decolonizing is an ongoing struggle, but are there any big overarching theoretical issues? Its hard to get news on it as someone from another social science. I like to stay up to date with the most recent breaking developments. If you're passionate about some particular topic, please tell me as much as you like.","c_root_id_A":"h5nr8md","c_root_id_B":"h5nh08a","created_at_utc_A":1626632708,"created_at_utc_B":1626628352,"score_A":121,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"The peopling of the Americas is a pretty hot topic in North American archaeology. Basically the original model that humans crossed the Bering Strait land bridge ~13,000 years ago and established Clovis culture has gotten a bit more complicated with more recent finds. The biggest complication is probably Monte Verde in Chile, where dates for human occupation range from nearly 15,000 years ago to as early as 33,000 years ago. It\u2019s just very strange that humans would have gotten that far south that early without leaving evidence for widespread migration from the north. Another alleged pre-Clovis site which I\u2019m less familiar with is the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter where the alleged dates of occupation go back as early as 16,000-19,000 years ago. The way finds such as these are pretty anomalous has inevitably led to some pretty heated debate between Clovis-first types and pre-Clovis types. There\u2019s also some other, much more dubious alleged pre-Clovis sites which add a lot of muddiness to it all. There\u2019s a few different alternative theories for the peopling of the Americas which might help explain these alleged pre-Clovis anomalies. The coastal migration model suggests travel via canoe along the west coasts of the Americas which could facilitate long-distance travel without much need to travel very far inland since they could just live on coastal resources. There\u2019s also the Solutrean hypothesis that suggests travel from Europe based on similarities between the making of Clovis points and Solutrean points, but as far as I know this is pretty dubious. I\u2019m sure I didn\u2019t do enough justice covering every alleged pre-Clovis hypothesis, but hopefully that gives you some idea of the debate. It\u2019s pretty complicated and often controversial. I\u2019m still an undergrad, so if anyone smarter than me wants to chime in with their expertise, please do. Edit: Chile, not Peru. \ud83d\ude43 Edit 2: made some corrections, didn\u2019t realize this post would gain this much steam and I had just woken up when I wrote it.","human_ref_B":"I think maybe returning \"borrowed indefinitely\" artifacts and remains from museums. It was very common for colonizers to take thing from groups to put in museums and in private collections. NAGPRA might be something worth looking into as well. I believe the French are returning artifacts to Africa on request.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4356.0,"score_ratio":2.9512195122} {"post_id":"omu292","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are the biggest debates in current anthropology? I'm aware that decolonizing is an ongoing struggle, but are there any big overarching theoretical issues? Its hard to get news on it as someone from another social science. I like to stay up to date with the most recent breaking developments. If you're passionate about some particular topic, please tell me as much as you like.","c_root_id_A":"h5nx0o2","c_root_id_B":"h5nh08a","created_at_utc_A":1626635248,"created_at_utc_B":1626628352,"score_A":121,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I think one of the more below-the-radar debates occuring, at least in biological anthropology\/paleoanthropology and archaeology (although possibly to a lesser extent), is accessibility to data. For decades, biological anthropology has been ruled by access. When I was considering my dissertation topic 15 years ago, the first thing my advisor and I discussed was who he and his connections knew well enough to allow me access to data\/specimens. I couldn't just develop a hypothesis and then pursue it, I had to work around what was actually available to me and work backwards from that. Yes, there is reason to restrict access to priceless specimens and artifacts. But that doesn't preclude researchers with access from sharing data openly so others can either confirm their work or approach different hypotheses without direct access to the specimens themselves. There are researchers, such as Lee Berger in South Africa, actively working to provide open source access to data so other researchers can access it without the gatekeeper control. Open access to data allows for replication of results, or more accurate refutations, all of which strengthens the research and field. But gatekeeping has a long history in the field and provides considerable advantages to the gatekeepers, so it isn't likely to end soon.","human_ref_B":"I think maybe returning \"borrowed indefinitely\" artifacts and remains from museums. It was very common for colonizers to take thing from groups to put in museums and in private collections. NAGPRA might be something worth looking into as well. I believe the French are returning artifacts to Africa on request.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6896.0,"score_ratio":2.9512195122} {"post_id":"omu292","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are the biggest debates in current anthropology? I'm aware that decolonizing is an ongoing struggle, but are there any big overarching theoretical issues? Its hard to get news on it as someone from another social science. I like to stay up to date with the most recent breaking developments. If you're passionate about some particular topic, please tell me as much as you like.","c_root_id_A":"h5nx0o2","c_root_id_B":"h5ns5jd","created_at_utc_A":1626635248,"created_at_utc_B":1626633104,"score_A":121,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I think one of the more below-the-radar debates occuring, at least in biological anthropology\/paleoanthropology and archaeology (although possibly to a lesser extent), is accessibility to data. For decades, biological anthropology has been ruled by access. When I was considering my dissertation topic 15 years ago, the first thing my advisor and I discussed was who he and his connections knew well enough to allow me access to data\/specimens. I couldn't just develop a hypothesis and then pursue it, I had to work around what was actually available to me and work backwards from that. Yes, there is reason to restrict access to priceless specimens and artifacts. But that doesn't preclude researchers with access from sharing data openly so others can either confirm their work or approach different hypotheses without direct access to the specimens themselves. There are researchers, such as Lee Berger in South Africa, actively working to provide open source access to data so other researchers can access it without the gatekeeper control. Open access to data allows for replication of results, or more accurate refutations, all of which strengthens the research and field. But gatekeeping has a long history in the field and provides considerable advantages to the gatekeepers, so it isn't likely to end soon.","human_ref_B":"Decolonizing is a set of theoretical debates as well as an equity practice. It has social theorists in all social sciences confronting the taken-for-granted beliefs the disciplines are based on, and considering how much of their epistemology is rooted in culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2144.0,"score_ratio":5.7619047619} {"post_id":"omu292","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are the biggest debates in current anthropology? I'm aware that decolonizing is an ongoing struggle, but are there any big overarching theoretical issues? Its hard to get news on it as someone from another social science. I like to stay up to date with the most recent breaking developments. If you're passionate about some particular topic, please tell me as much as you like.","c_root_id_A":"h5ns5jd","c_root_id_B":"h5qeala","created_at_utc_A":1626633104,"created_at_utc_B":1626685376,"score_A":21,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Decolonizing is a set of theoretical debates as well as an equity practice. It has social theorists in all social sciences confronting the taken-for-granted beliefs the disciplines are based on, and considering how much of their epistemology is rooted in culture.","human_ref_B":"I studied at was once one of the major hubs of Anthropology in the USA. I had the good luck of taking classes with some very prominent anthropologists. It is also where I got my bachelor's degree in Anthropology. I was fascinated every day but one thing became clear. **Anthropology is having existential \/ identity crisis, and has been for a long time.** This may not be the type of debate you're seeking, but one of the largest debates, at least in the USA, that seems to touch all of the subfields of anthropology is: *What is the value, purpose, and direction of anthropology. What are the foundations of the discipline?* Without exhausting all the particulars: **1.** **Some people believe that Anthropology should become more like a hard science. That it should distance itself away from postmodern theories, and anything that can't be proven via scientific testing and observation.** The presuppositions of modernist and structuralist thinking were somewhat compatible with a scientific approach, but post-structuralist and postmodern theories kind of blew a wide hole in the approaches to things like 'culture' and language. It has been suggested that the influence of all sorts of theory from the humanities and philosophy has damaged anthropology as a discipline and its reputation because it consistently fails to produce anything of lasting scientific merit (Apart from Biological Anthropology, and Archaeology.) 2. **Others think that the notion of hard science as it pertains to human beings has been extremely reductive, clings too tightly to the current paradigm of science, which has undergone constant revolutionary changes over time. Moreover a major problem is that the value of various discoveries, ideas and theoretical approaches are dangerously influenced by capital and hierarchies of power.** *What gets funded is what people in power decide is worth the effort and funds, and these people have no nuanced understanding of the field,* is a claim that gets repeated. In short they do not advocate for the abandonment of science, but rather a thorough reinvestigation of the influences of: capitalism, colonialism, power dynamics, governments on science, ideas, the environment, the evaluation of living \/ past humans, upon the study of human subjects. **This is an inherently political stance, which pulls the discipline toward engaged activism and earns it no friends among the elite, wealthy and powerful. Something many of their colleagues resent because they want to continue their scientific research.** Essentially, according to this camp, the whole discipline needs to be overhauled once again beginning with fundamental ideas. An immense undertaking. 3. Some people seek to reconcile the two camps, and very few are wholly on one side, but they do have a bias toward one side or the other. Many are understandably biased by their own survival and career stability. There is an existential threat to the social sciences, and the humanities. Anthropology is very caught in this struggle. There is another issue related to the above discussion. **Survival.** **Anthropology departments in the USA are increasingly being defunded because their perceived lack of value.** Administrations, state and federal governments, invest based on their own value judgments. The demands of the community, the demands of the economy etc. Corporations and their donations to universities also play a major role in what gets prioritized. Anthropology is not often favored, especially not in the case of the more philosophical, humanities based, postcolonial stuff etc. This a broader problem in other areas like the humanities and other social sciences. Anthropology is right there in the thick of it. It's a shame that this is the condition, because I'm sure everyone would love to explore their individual research interests free from the stresses, and time-swallowing problems caused by the cliff we're on. It becomes even harder for grand debates and major theoretical exchanges to take place. The Anthropologists I studied with were all well respected in their fields, and yet we would often hear of department members who refused to speak to one another, cloistered away in their labs, embroiled in bitter fruitless mandatory meetings that did little to ameliorate the issues. While funding, TAs, and student research opportunities dwindled. Meanwhile we as students were offered a grab bag of classes with wildly different theoretical approaches that seemed be to so different that you really struggled to find a way to connect the things you were learning. I don't regret it for a second because I was just experiencing the tumultuous current milieu of this department, I was profoundly changed by what I learned. So this debate is one of dire importance because the field's survival, integrity, and purpose are on the line.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":52272.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"megxpc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How would hunter gatherers have sex living in such large groups? It\u2019s not like they had bedrooms or anything. Is privacy a new concept?","c_root_id_A":"gsiqp3p","c_root_id_B":"gsi3hdv","created_at_utc_A":1616885142,"created_at_utc_B":1616876358,"score_A":192,"score_B":146,"human_ref_A":"My advisor has spent the last 40 years studying hunter-gatherers and living with various HG groups in South America as part of his research career. He told me that when he first started going to the field for research was only a couple years after one of these groups made \"first\" contact with the larger world that people would have sex in the middle of the night as they slept near each other in a big group surrounded by their campfires. First sexual education in these kind of contexts seems to be just seeing you kin or other group members just having sex right near you in the middle of the night.","human_ref_B":"There are a few good answers on an AskHistorians thread on the topic of privacy. In essence, western notions of privacy are a cultural invention that is a few hundred years old. People used to sleep in the same bed their siblings were getting made in.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8784.0,"score_ratio":1.3150684932} {"post_id":"imjxhm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did Homo Sapiens pick up the languages of other human species (Neanderthals & Denisovans), when they eventually absorbed them into the Homo Sapiens species? Does a theory like this exist? If the other human species spoke a language, did our forefathers adopt it? Are we speaking the languages of Neanderthals and other human species after all?","c_root_id_A":"g40vdtc","c_root_id_B":"g40sn3j","created_at_utc_A":1599245373,"created_at_utc_B":1599244451,"score_A":76,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"This could be explained from a physiological stand point (the physical ability of homo species to produce speech), or a linguistic one. I'm much more comfortable with the linguistic side. The problem with trying to dive so far back into the linguistic history of humans begins with modern language. Every modern language is fitted into a language family based on its similarities to other languages, and those families are not always universally agreed upon. For example the Japonic language family consists of the languages spoken in the Japanese archipelago but some linguists also categorize some languages spoken on the Korean Peninsula at various times as fitting into the Japonic family while others do not call those languages \"Peninsular Japonic\". Peninsular Japonic only went extinct in the first millennium C.E., so running into a roadblock in categorization in only the last thousand years or so makes classifying and dissecting older languages from that region all the more difficult. These problems occur all over the world once we go back from modern language families to their prototypical fore-bearers. Finding the relationship between Proto-Indo-European (P.I.E.) and Proto-Afro-Asiatic (P.A.A.) depends on knowing that we have a very reliable knowledge base for those Proto languages, but they're largely built on many many educated hypotheses and some level of conjecture. And the ancestor of those proto languages only split into P.I.E. and P.A.A. around 16,000 B.C.E. at the earliest. We honestly have no strong evidence for how, where or when that split actually happened. We don't even know IF that split happened, if the two languages were ever actually related at all or if they developed from two or more unrelated ancestral languages. With Neanderthals dying out around 40,000 years ago and our linguistic history kind of dead ending (for the time being) around 20,000 years ago (or fewer) there's a huge gap between our understanding of language and our interactions with other Homo species. I hope that helps to explain why, even if we did exchange language with those other humans, we don't currently have any evidence of that.","human_ref_B":"There is a theory like this. http:\/\/www.cog.brown.edu\/people\/lieberman\/pdfFiles\/Lieberman%20P.%202007.%20The%20evolution%20of%20human%20speech,%20Its%20anatom.pdf My linguistics dept in my anth program was not geared towards anth and they were far too big on language being exclusively modern human, so if you chat with a linguist about this, don\u2019t be deterred.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":922.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"e4lvdh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I've often heard that Romanis originated in India and its influence is clear in their culture. What cultural aspects of India can we see today in Romani people?","c_root_id_A":"f9dhqsg","c_root_id_B":"f9deyhd","created_at_utc_A":1575233603,"created_at_utc_B":1575232893,"score_A":188,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"Well for one the Romani language is an Indo-Aryan language that still shares many grammatical features and vocabulary with other languages from North-Western India, such as Kashmiri and Marwari. The remnants of Hindu concepts of purity also still remain in Romani culture. For instance, traditionally, underwear is washed separately from other clothes as genitalia is considered \"impure.\" This extends beyond just the human body as well. Eating utensils are also washed separately from other things. Edit: Another thing I guess I can touch on is why Romani culture doesn't have a ton of similarities to other cultures from their homeland of North-Western India. The main reason is because the Romani migration was very slow. There were around 600 years in between when they first started to migrate out of India, and when they first reached Europe through Greece. The Romani spent a good chunk of the Late Antiquity and pretty much the entirety of the Early Middle Ages in the Middle East and Central Asia. The time they spent there had a huge impact on their culture, religion, and general way of life. Living as nomads in foreign lands for so long led to the Romani developing a unique cultural identity where they did not see themselves as inherently tied to any particular place or having any particular \"homeland.\" Thus, by the time the Romani even first got to Europe, they had already ceased to be \"Indian\" centuries ago. The subsequent centuries that they would spend in Europe also dramatically changed their culture into the forms we see today.","human_ref_B":"Well the language to start. Rroman\u00ebs has roots in Sanskritic like Hindi. Extended families live together. And marriages are often arranged. Romani display their wealth on their body, like with gold jewelry. That's about all I've seen","labels":1,"seconds_difference":710.0,"score_ratio":4.7} {"post_id":"s5f595","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"The Columbian Exchange wiped out 70-90% of Native Americans. Should we assume similar cataclysmic disease epidemics ravaged old world populations before the start of recorded history? Or did old-world humans always have better disease resistance?","c_root_id_A":"hsygkla","c_root_id_B":"hsyft16","created_at_utc_A":1642370855,"created_at_utc_B":1642370556,"score_A":34,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"There's a theory that the original Indo-Europeans spread through so much of the world hand-in-hand with them domesticating horses. But the debate is, did the horse give them an insurmountable advantage in battle no matter how populous or well fortified the opponent (because yea, horses are going to be a significant advantage). Or did these first Indo-Europeans bring with them new and novel diseases which decimated the existing populations, opening up new lands, and as they kept on moving into the lands made open there were new neighbors to infect. Note, we aren't talking about moving daily or monthly, more like every generation is able to expand into new land due to disease. And it's not that disease wipes out everyone, but if 50% of a population dies due to a disease, the whole fabric of society is in shambles (It's also important to note that even in the Columbian Exchange the figure of 70-90% wiped out due to disease does not mean direct disease death. If half the hunters get sick and die, the other half can't provide enough food for the tribe, and the entire tribe starves or falls apart)","human_ref_B":"Another question: why weren't the Native Americans resistant to Old World diseases when there was contact between the continents (through the Bering Strait)?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":299.0,"score_ratio":3.7777777778} {"post_id":"5lgp11","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why do we \"translate\" Native American names but not Chinese names? For example, the Lakota chief we (in English) call \"Sitting Bull\" would not have been addressed that way by, say, his mother, who would have used a different combination of sounds to address him (According to wikipedia she would have called him \"T\u021fat\u021f\u00e1\u014bka \u00cdyot\u021fake\"). However, when English speakers discuss Chinese\/Japanese figures, whose names also have meanings, we prefer to use the sounds from that language rather than translate the meaning. For example, we speak of Chairman Mao Zedong, not Chairman East-Marsh, and we say that the Japanese Tokugawa dynasty was founded by Shogun Ieyasu, not that the Virtuous-River dynasty was founded by General Peaceful-Family. Is there a reason for the difference of how we treat names from the different cultural traditions? Is this even the right subreddit to be asking this?","c_root_id_A":"dbvu7w2","c_root_id_B":"dbvrmgu","created_at_utc_A":1483315023,"created_at_utc_B":1483311566,"score_A":36,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"This is less an answer than a follow-up I'd like someone who actually knows to weigh in on. My general impression is that you could as well ask why we don't translate European names. Most of our names have meanings, but we don't call a Leonard \"Lion-heart\". We may or may not be aware of the meanings, but they're not much more than an interesting note. In the same way, my impression is that Japanese name meanings are more interesting notes and used for wordplay, but still, Hajime's names is \"Hajime\", not \"First\". It's more a name with a meaning, than a vocabulary word used as a name. (This impression is probably reinforced by the fact that there are lists of commonly-used Japanese names, rather than people just taking words from a dictionary or daily life.) I'm falling more into uncertainty and speculation with this, but the impression I have is that some Native American names are more likely to be literal - for instance his name actually being intended to invoke a sitting bull who won't be moved. It's not a name that happens to have a meaning, but rather he is actually being called a bull. However, and this is where I get to hoping someone actually knows, I wonder if that impression is formed by how we translate them, or don't. I'm more familiar with Japanese than any other Asian culture, but I've also had the very vague impression that Chinese names may be somewhere between the two, or closer to literal than just names, though I might be wrong about that. If it is so, I'm also wondering if that plays a part in why Chinese expats insist on adopting English names, in my experience.","human_ref_B":"In addition, north american indigenous people were colonized by Europeans - their language, culture and land were all manipulated if not outright taken away by European colonizers. Their names were taken or changed as well. Britain, Spain or France would have no authority over Chinese citizens in the same way that they had over indigenous people in north america.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3457.0,"score_ratio":1.44} {"post_id":"5lgp11","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why do we \"translate\" Native American names but not Chinese names? For example, the Lakota chief we (in English) call \"Sitting Bull\" would not have been addressed that way by, say, his mother, who would have used a different combination of sounds to address him (According to wikipedia she would have called him \"T\u021fat\u021f\u00e1\u014bka \u00cdyot\u021fake\"). However, when English speakers discuss Chinese\/Japanese figures, whose names also have meanings, we prefer to use the sounds from that language rather than translate the meaning. For example, we speak of Chairman Mao Zedong, not Chairman East-Marsh, and we say that the Japanese Tokugawa dynasty was founded by Shogun Ieyasu, not that the Virtuous-River dynasty was founded by General Peaceful-Family. Is there a reason for the difference of how we treat names from the different cultural traditions? Is this even the right subreddit to be asking this?","c_root_id_A":"dbwjquf","c_root_id_B":"dbwhdch","created_at_utc_A":1483368150,"created_at_utc_B":1483362416,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Don't names have meanings in literally all languages? Isn't the Occam's Razor explanation about the treatment of Native American names just that the Plains Indians often had particularly evocative names given to them as adults which reflected their personality in some way? \"Traditionally men and women among the tribes of the Northern Plains usually carried several names during the course of their lives. Each child would be given a name shortly after birth. As the child grew older and began to acquire unique personal characteristics, another name might be given which reflected these characteristics. Upon entering adulthood, another name was often given which might reflect specific deeds of valor or visions.\" \"The Sioux leader Gall was initially given the name Little Cub Bear when his mother noticed that he resembled a grizzly cub in constant motion. Later, when he was seen eating the gallbladder of a freshly killed buffalo, he was given the name Gall. He was also known as The-Man-That-Goes-in-the-Middle and Walks-in-Red-Clothing (sometimes translated as Red Walker).\" The fact that these names reflected something about the bearer, unlike the names in the old world, which are just inherited from one's father, and might at best reflect the character of a distant ancestor or just mean \"son of\" someone, means that you don't get the sense of them unless translated.","human_ref_B":"I imagine it has a lot to do with ease of reading for the dominant culture. I can read Mao Zedong, and understand that. I can get by and butcher a name like Sacajawea (until I hear somebody pronounce it as it should be). Shogun Ieyasu; same thing. Now tell me how to pronounce T\u021fat\u021f\u00e1\u014bka \u00cdyot\u021fake. Because I don't know how to read accented letters (having never worked in a language that notates them); and I imagine that the marks after each letter are already there to help make the word easier to pronounce. My google-fu tells me that those inverted chevrons don't appear in their alphabets These things combined, and the fact that Sitting Bull assimilated into western society relatively well (written, latin-script signature, good handwriting) makes me think that he was best-known by Sitting Bull, and that's how he's remembered.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5734.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"f89vva","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"In Europe folklore about wolves has mostly been highly negative \u201clittle red riding hood\u201d and Fernir. While Native Americans had a more positive view of wolves could this be explain on the lack of wolf attacks in North America? Could the various horticulture culture practiced by native Americans by less conductive to Wolf attacks?","c_root_id_A":"fim91o5","c_root_id_B":"fimkooi","created_at_utc_A":1582521770,"created_at_utc_B":1582534610,"score_A":4,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"When it comes to human dog relations this guy has traditionally been my starting point. There are loads of other people out there and he seems to have deviated from wolves\/dogs a fair bit in the past 6 years but he has publications on the subject that at least should have bibliographies that will interest you https:\/\/twitter.com\/pacoanth?lang=en","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s worth noting that in Norse mythology, it is explicitly stated that Fenrir* was tricked and deceived by the gods, so his destruction of the earth during Ragnarok is almost a warranted comeuppance due to their treatment of him. Also, Odin has two wolves (Geri and Freki) which are portrayed positively. In addition, there are the \u00dalfhednar, which are \u201cwolf-warriors,\u201d and if you look into it, a lot of rituals wherein a man would \u201cbecome\u201d a wolf. There are also manifold Norse artifacts which depict wolves as venerated animals\u2014 see the Torslunda plates, for example. I wouldn\u2019t oversimplify things just because one aspect of a mythological cycle has a \u201cbig bad wolf\u201d.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12840.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rqfa4","c_root_id_B":"h7rb8z5","created_at_utc_A":1628139640,"created_at_utc_B":1628131125,"score_A":298,"score_B":77,"human_ref_A":"Historically, none of them have. Professor of Sociology Kylan Mattias de Vries, notes that the term was created \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada\". \\1\\] This English term was not a translation of an original Ojibwe term, nor did it represent a traditional Ojibwe concept or cultural practice. De Vries explains \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance\", and adds that the corresponding term in the Ojibwe language was also created at this time. He observes \"Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes\". \\[2\\] Journalist Mary Annette Pember, an Ojibwe woman, describes her discomfort with this term, and its lack of cultural connection to the native peoples with whom it is associated. Taking particular issue with the fact that the \"two spirit\" concept has been used to misrepresent the traditional culture of native people, she writes \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true\". \\[3\\] Pember\u2019s concerns are borne out by the fact that misrepresentations of the term \u201ctwo-spirit\u201d are not only ubiquitous in pop culture, but also widespread even in current academic discourse. The book \u201cTransphobic Hate Crime\u201d, written by Dr Joanna Jamel of Kingston University and published in 2018, says \u201cWithin First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people\u201d. \\[4\\] Yet as Pember explained two years before, this sweeping statement is a completely inaccurate generalization. Not only is it untrue that trans people are referred to as two spirited in First Nation Native American culture, this statement fails to reveal the modern origin of the phrase, and the fact that it was created specifically to categorize traditional indigenous roles using non-traditional, non-indigenous, Western frames of reference.\r \r This is an issue on which Pember comments specifically. Pember identifies the fact that well-meaning non-indigenous Westerners have co-opted indigenous terms in order to represent indigenous cultures as holding to modern Western concepts which did not exist in those traditional indigenous cultures. She writes \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation\". \\[5\\] Pember's article is particularly important for its portrayal of gender identity and roles in traditional Ojibwe society. She quotes Ojibwe tribe member Anton Treuer, Professor of Ojibwe linguistics, commenting on traditional Ojibwe views of gender identities and roles. Treuer writes \"Sex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation\". He also writes that the Ojibwe described men who wanted to function as women with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a woman\", and that the Ojibwe described women who wanted to function as men with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a man\". \\[6\\] This information provides a useful insight into how the Ojibwe traditionally viewed gender identities and roles. The past tense is used here specifically to highlight the fact that the traditional Ojibwe view is being referred to. Firstly the Ojibwe viewed gender itself as typically determined by sex. They did not view sex and gender as distinct from each other. Biological sex usually determined an individual\u2019s gender. Secondly, they viewed roles in society as strictly gendered. Men were expected to act in one way, and women were expected to act in a different way. So biological sex not only determined a person's gender, it also determined their social roles. Thirdly, the Ojibwe viewed gender in strictly binary terms; man and woman. They did not have a term for a third gender, and they did not have a term for non-binary gender. A man who wanted to function as a woman was still gendered as a man. He was described as a man who performed as a woman. Likewise a woman who wanted to function as a man was still gendered as a woman. She was described as a woman who performed as a man.\r \r Pember quotes Treuer as saying that people in Ojibwe society who chose the gender roles of the opposite sex, \"assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions\", and that the roles were consequently considered sacred. \\[7\\]\r \r This is nothing like the Western understanding of gender identity. There is nothing here about a man having a spiritual experience after which he realises that he is actually a woman, or a woman having a dream or vision which convinces her that she is actually a man. There is no reference to gender identity at all. Instead there is a strict sexual binary, which produces a strict gender binary, which in turn produces strict gender binary roles. The socially accepted method of taking on the role of the opposite sex is a spiritual experience which does not involve any change in either sex or gender. The individual remains a man or a woman, just as they were before, and engages in the socially accepted performativity of their new gender role, within specific accepted cultural conventions. This is not only the case with the Ojibwe people, it is very typical of indigenous people all around the world. \\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_ \\[1\\] \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the term two-spirit was designated as a replacement for berdache.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[2\\] \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance, and the Ojibwa words were not combined to create the term niizh manidoowag, or two-spirit, until this conference. Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[3\\] \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\4\\] \"Within First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people;\", Joanna Jamel, Transphobic Hate Crime (Springer, 2017), 9.\r \\[5\\] \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\6\\] \"In Treuer\u2019s stunning book The Assassination of Hole in the Day about the great 19th-century Ojibwe chief, he notes, \u201cSex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation. Men who chose to function as women were called ikwekanaazo, meaning \u2018one who endeavors to be like a woman. Women who functioned as men were called ininiikaazo, meaning, one who endeavors to be like a man.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\7\\] \"He further notes, \u201cthe role of ikwekanaazo and ininiikaazo in Ojibwe society was considered to be sacred, often because they assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes.","human_ref_B":"Two-spirit is not a specific identity that's ubiquitous amongst american indians, it was created in the 1990's as an umbrella term for the various indigenous gender identities outside of the western gender binary. There isn't really an answer to your question because there is no such thing as a single monolithic group of two-spirit people stretching across ethnic and cultural lines.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8515.0,"score_ratio":3.8701298701} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rjtr0","c_root_id_B":"h7rqfa4","created_at_utc_A":1628135719,"created_at_utc_B":1628139640,"score_A":42,"score_B":298,"human_ref_A":"It's neither my field of study nor my heritage, so I'm not going to add on to the answer you already got, but i think there is one very important clarification here: you should not be using the past tense here. Native American cultures, tribes, and individuals still exist and are still doing their best against the odds to pass their heritage along to future generations. This includes indigenous peoples who do identify as two-spirit and who are very engaged in their tribal communities. This is a current ongoing thing, not merely a relic or the past.","human_ref_B":"Historically, none of them have. Professor of Sociology Kylan Mattias de Vries, notes that the term was created \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada\". \\1\\] This English term was not a translation of an original Ojibwe term, nor did it represent a traditional Ojibwe concept or cultural practice. De Vries explains \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance\", and adds that the corresponding term in the Ojibwe language was also created at this time. He observes \"Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes\". \\[2\\] Journalist Mary Annette Pember, an Ojibwe woman, describes her discomfort with this term, and its lack of cultural connection to the native peoples with whom it is associated. Taking particular issue with the fact that the \"two spirit\" concept has been used to misrepresent the traditional culture of native people, she writes \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true\". \\[3\\] Pember\u2019s concerns are borne out by the fact that misrepresentations of the term \u201ctwo-spirit\u201d are not only ubiquitous in pop culture, but also widespread even in current academic discourse. The book \u201cTransphobic Hate Crime\u201d, written by Dr Joanna Jamel of Kingston University and published in 2018, says \u201cWithin First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people\u201d. \\[4\\] Yet as Pember explained two years before, this sweeping statement is a completely inaccurate generalization. Not only is it untrue that trans people are referred to as two spirited in First Nation Native American culture, this statement fails to reveal the modern origin of the phrase, and the fact that it was created specifically to categorize traditional indigenous roles using non-traditional, non-indigenous, Western frames of reference.\r \r This is an issue on which Pember comments specifically. Pember identifies the fact that well-meaning non-indigenous Westerners have co-opted indigenous terms in order to represent indigenous cultures as holding to modern Western concepts which did not exist in those traditional indigenous cultures. She writes \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation\". \\[5\\] Pember's article is particularly important for its portrayal of gender identity and roles in traditional Ojibwe society. She quotes Ojibwe tribe member Anton Treuer, Professor of Ojibwe linguistics, commenting on traditional Ojibwe views of gender identities and roles. Treuer writes \"Sex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation\". He also writes that the Ojibwe described men who wanted to function as women with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a woman\", and that the Ojibwe described women who wanted to function as men with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a man\". \\[6\\] This information provides a useful insight into how the Ojibwe traditionally viewed gender identities and roles. The past tense is used here specifically to highlight the fact that the traditional Ojibwe view is being referred to. Firstly the Ojibwe viewed gender itself as typically determined by sex. They did not view sex and gender as distinct from each other. Biological sex usually determined an individual\u2019s gender. Secondly, they viewed roles in society as strictly gendered. Men were expected to act in one way, and women were expected to act in a different way. So biological sex not only determined a person's gender, it also determined their social roles. Thirdly, the Ojibwe viewed gender in strictly binary terms; man and woman. They did not have a term for a third gender, and they did not have a term for non-binary gender. A man who wanted to function as a woman was still gendered as a man. He was described as a man who performed as a woman. Likewise a woman who wanted to function as a man was still gendered as a woman. She was described as a woman who performed as a man.\r \r Pember quotes Treuer as saying that people in Ojibwe society who chose the gender roles of the opposite sex, \"assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions\", and that the roles were consequently considered sacred. \\[7\\]\r \r This is nothing like the Western understanding of gender identity. There is nothing here about a man having a spiritual experience after which he realises that he is actually a woman, or a woman having a dream or vision which convinces her that she is actually a man. There is no reference to gender identity at all. Instead there is a strict sexual binary, which produces a strict gender binary, which in turn produces strict gender binary roles. The socially accepted method of taking on the role of the opposite sex is a spiritual experience which does not involve any change in either sex or gender. The individual remains a man or a woman, just as they were before, and engages in the socially accepted performativity of their new gender role, within specific accepted cultural conventions. This is not only the case with the Ojibwe people, it is very typical of indigenous people all around the world. \\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_ \\[1\\] \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the term two-spirit was designated as a replacement for berdache.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[2\\] \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance, and the Ojibwa words were not combined to create the term niizh manidoowag, or two-spirit, until this conference. Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[3\\] \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\4\\] \"Within First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people;\", Joanna Jamel, Transphobic Hate Crime (Springer, 2017), 9.\r \\[5\\] \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\6\\] \"In Treuer\u2019s stunning book The Assassination of Hole in the Day about the great 19th-century Ojibwe chief, he notes, \u201cSex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation. Men who chose to function as women were called ikwekanaazo, meaning \u2018one who endeavors to be like a woman. Women who functioned as men were called ininiikaazo, meaning, one who endeavors to be like a man.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\7\\] \"He further notes, \u201cthe role of ikwekanaazo and ininiikaazo in Ojibwe society was considered to be sacred, often because they assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3921.0,"score_ratio":7.0952380952} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rqfa4","c_root_id_B":"h7rjjua","created_at_utc_A":1628139640,"created_at_utc_B":1628135562,"score_A":298,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Historically, none of them have. Professor of Sociology Kylan Mattias de Vries, notes that the term was created \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada\". \\1\\] This English term was not a translation of an original Ojibwe term, nor did it represent a traditional Ojibwe concept or cultural practice. De Vries explains \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance\", and adds that the corresponding term in the Ojibwe language was also created at this time. He observes \"Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes\". \\[2\\] Journalist Mary Annette Pember, an Ojibwe woman, describes her discomfort with this term, and its lack of cultural connection to the native peoples with whom it is associated. Taking particular issue with the fact that the \"two spirit\" concept has been used to misrepresent the traditional culture of native people, she writes \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true\". \\[3\\] Pember\u2019s concerns are borne out by the fact that misrepresentations of the term \u201ctwo-spirit\u201d are not only ubiquitous in pop culture, but also widespread even in current academic discourse. The book \u201cTransphobic Hate Crime\u201d, written by Dr Joanna Jamel of Kingston University and published in 2018, says \u201cWithin First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people\u201d. \\[4\\] Yet as Pember explained two years before, this sweeping statement is a completely inaccurate generalization. Not only is it untrue that trans people are referred to as two spirited in First Nation Native American culture, this statement fails to reveal the modern origin of the phrase, and the fact that it was created specifically to categorize traditional indigenous roles using non-traditional, non-indigenous, Western frames of reference.\r \r This is an issue on which Pember comments specifically. Pember identifies the fact that well-meaning non-indigenous Westerners have co-opted indigenous terms in order to represent indigenous cultures as holding to modern Western concepts which did not exist in those traditional indigenous cultures. She writes \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation\". \\[5\\] Pember's article is particularly important for its portrayal of gender identity and roles in traditional Ojibwe society. She quotes Ojibwe tribe member Anton Treuer, Professor of Ojibwe linguistics, commenting on traditional Ojibwe views of gender identities and roles. Treuer writes \"Sex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation\". He also writes that the Ojibwe described men who wanted to function as women with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a woman\", and that the Ojibwe described women who wanted to function as men with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a man\". \\[6\\] This information provides a useful insight into how the Ojibwe traditionally viewed gender identities and roles. The past tense is used here specifically to highlight the fact that the traditional Ojibwe view is being referred to. Firstly the Ojibwe viewed gender itself as typically determined by sex. They did not view sex and gender as distinct from each other. Biological sex usually determined an individual\u2019s gender. Secondly, they viewed roles in society as strictly gendered. Men were expected to act in one way, and women were expected to act in a different way. So biological sex not only determined a person's gender, it also determined their social roles. Thirdly, the Ojibwe viewed gender in strictly binary terms; man and woman. They did not have a term for a third gender, and they did not have a term for non-binary gender. A man who wanted to function as a woman was still gendered as a man. He was described as a man who performed as a woman. Likewise a woman who wanted to function as a man was still gendered as a woman. She was described as a woman who performed as a man.\r \r Pember quotes Treuer as saying that people in Ojibwe society who chose the gender roles of the opposite sex, \"assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions\", and that the roles were consequently considered sacred. \\[7\\]\r \r This is nothing like the Western understanding of gender identity. There is nothing here about a man having a spiritual experience after which he realises that he is actually a woman, or a woman having a dream or vision which convinces her that she is actually a man. There is no reference to gender identity at all. Instead there is a strict sexual binary, which produces a strict gender binary, which in turn produces strict gender binary roles. The socially accepted method of taking on the role of the opposite sex is a spiritual experience which does not involve any change in either sex or gender. The individual remains a man or a woman, just as they were before, and engages in the socially accepted performativity of their new gender role, within specific accepted cultural conventions. This is not only the case with the Ojibwe people, it is very typical of indigenous people all around the world. \\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_ \\[1\\] \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the term two-spirit was designated as a replacement for berdache.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[2\\] \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance, and the Ojibwa words were not combined to create the term niizh manidoowag, or two-spirit, until this conference. Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[3\\] \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\4\\] \"Within First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people;\", Joanna Jamel, Transphobic Hate Crime (Springer, 2017), 9.\r \\[5\\] \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\6\\] \"In Treuer\u2019s stunning book The Assassination of Hole in the Day about the great 19th-century Ojibwe chief, he notes, \u201cSex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation. Men who chose to function as women were called ikwekanaazo, meaning \u2018one who endeavors to be like a woman. Women who functioned as men were called ininiikaazo, meaning, one who endeavors to be like a man.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\7\\] \"He further notes, \u201cthe role of ikwekanaazo and ininiikaazo in Ojibwe society was considered to be sacred, often because they assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes.","human_ref_B":"Check out the book, *The bow and the burden strap : a new look at institutionalized homosexuality in native North America.* It's an ethnography of two-spirit people and cultural practices.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4078.0,"score_ratio":12.9565217391} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rnx3u","c_root_id_B":"h7rqfa4","created_at_utc_A":1628138107,"created_at_utc_B":1628139640,"score_A":8,"score_B":298,"human_ref_A":"The term Shaman originated to describe a person of both sexes that have mastery over spirits. It is derived from Turkic-Tungusia word *\u0161\u00e1man* of reindeer herders of Northern Siberia. 'Origin of the Word \r Shaman.\u2019 American Anthropologist In the greater anthropological context they are considered communal leaders that are trained to engage with non human entities (spirits and divine). However they operate within a substance schema that is different than a priest. While I'm certain that every indigenous American grpup likely had a Shaman under the second definition, I am not specifically familiar with those that would fit the description of the first. You can see how the word becomes problematic as it's scope increases. From an evolutionary perspective if Shamans are intersexed or non binary this could be a way for them to invest in their genes within the family group outside of marriage and offspring. Some people we call *Shamans* are married and have children, again favoring the second definition as a spiritual mediator.","human_ref_B":"Historically, none of them have. Professor of Sociology Kylan Mattias de Vries, notes that the term was created \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada\". \\1\\] This English term was not a translation of an original Ojibwe term, nor did it represent a traditional Ojibwe concept or cultural practice. De Vries explains \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance\", and adds that the corresponding term in the Ojibwe language was also created at this time. He observes \"Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes\". \\[2\\] Journalist Mary Annette Pember, an Ojibwe woman, describes her discomfort with this term, and its lack of cultural connection to the native peoples with whom it is associated. Taking particular issue with the fact that the \"two spirit\" concept has been used to misrepresent the traditional culture of native people, she writes \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true\". \\[3\\] Pember\u2019s concerns are borne out by the fact that misrepresentations of the term \u201ctwo-spirit\u201d are not only ubiquitous in pop culture, but also widespread even in current academic discourse. The book \u201cTransphobic Hate Crime\u201d, written by Dr Joanna Jamel of Kingston University and published in 2018, says \u201cWithin First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people\u201d. \\[4\\] Yet as Pember explained two years before, this sweeping statement is a completely inaccurate generalization. Not only is it untrue that trans people are referred to as two spirited in First Nation Native American culture, this statement fails to reveal the modern origin of the phrase, and the fact that it was created specifically to categorize traditional indigenous roles using non-traditional, non-indigenous, Western frames of reference.\r \r This is an issue on which Pember comments specifically. Pember identifies the fact that well-meaning non-indigenous Westerners have co-opted indigenous terms in order to represent indigenous cultures as holding to modern Western concepts which did not exist in those traditional indigenous cultures. She writes \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation\". \\[5\\] Pember's article is particularly important for its portrayal of gender identity and roles in traditional Ojibwe society. She quotes Ojibwe tribe member Anton Treuer, Professor of Ojibwe linguistics, commenting on traditional Ojibwe views of gender identities and roles. Treuer writes \"Sex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation\". He also writes that the Ojibwe described men who wanted to function as women with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a woman\", and that the Ojibwe described women who wanted to function as men with a term meaning \"one who endeavours to be like a man\". \\[6\\] This information provides a useful insight into how the Ojibwe traditionally viewed gender identities and roles. The past tense is used here specifically to highlight the fact that the traditional Ojibwe view is being referred to. Firstly the Ojibwe viewed gender itself as typically determined by sex. They did not view sex and gender as distinct from each other. Biological sex usually determined an individual\u2019s gender. Secondly, they viewed roles in society as strictly gendered. Men were expected to act in one way, and women were expected to act in a different way. So biological sex not only determined a person's gender, it also determined their social roles. Thirdly, the Ojibwe viewed gender in strictly binary terms; man and woman. They did not have a term for a third gender, and they did not have a term for non-binary gender. A man who wanted to function as a woman was still gendered as a man. He was described as a man who performed as a woman. Likewise a woman who wanted to function as a man was still gendered as a woman. She was described as a woman who performed as a man.\r \r Pember quotes Treuer as saying that people in Ojibwe society who chose the gender roles of the opposite sex, \"assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions\", and that the roles were consequently considered sacred. \\[7\\]\r \r This is nothing like the Western understanding of gender identity. There is nothing here about a man having a spiritual experience after which he realises that he is actually a woman, or a woman having a dream or vision which convinces her that she is actually a man. There is no reference to gender identity at all. Instead there is a strict sexual binary, which produces a strict gender binary, which in turn produces strict gender binary roles. The socially accepted method of taking on the role of the opposite sex is a spiritual experience which does not involve any change in either sex or gender. The individual remains a man or a woman, just as they were before, and engages in the socially accepted performativity of their new gender role, within specific accepted cultural conventions. This is not only the case with the Ojibwe people, it is very typical of indigenous people all around the world. \\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_ \\[1\\] \"In 1990, at the third annual Native American\/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the term two-spirit was designated as a replacement for berdache.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[2\\] \"The concept and word two-spirit has no traditional cultural significance, and the Ojibwa words were not combined to create the term niizh manidoowag, or two-spirit, until this conference. Because this term was recently created, it has no linguistic equivalent or meaning in other nations and tribes.\", Kylan Mattias de Vries, \u201cBerdache (Two-Spirit),\u201d in Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Vol. 1&2, ed. Jodi A O\u2019Brien (Los Angeles \\[etc.: Sage, 2009), 64. \\[3\\] \"As a journalist and Ojibwe woman, I am troubled by the claims that Native peoples historically described LGBTQ folks as two-spirited and celebrated them as healers and shamans, because the claims are mostly unfounded or only partially true.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\4\\] \"Within First Nation Native American culture, trans people are referred to as being two-spirited people;\", Joanna Jamel, Transphobic Hate Crime (Springer, 2017), 9.\r \\[5\\] \"My concern is not so much over the use of the words but over the social meme they have generated that has morphed into a cocktail of historical revisionism, wishful thinking, good intentions, and a soupcon of white, entitled appropriation.\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\6\\] \"In Treuer\u2019s stunning book The Assassination of Hole in the Day about the great 19th-century Ojibwe chief, he notes, \u201cSex usually determined one\u2019s gender, and therefore one\u2019s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation. Men who chose to function as women were called ikwekanaazo, meaning \u2018one who endeavors to be like a woman. Women who functioned as men were called ininiikaazo, meaning, one who endeavors to be like a man.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes. \\7\\] \"He further notes, \u201cthe role of ikwekanaazo and ininiikaazo in Ojibwe society was considered to be sacred, often because they assumed their roles based on spiritual dreams or visions.\u201d\", Mary Annette Pember, \u201c\u2018Two Spirit\u2019 Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes,\u201d Rewire.News, 13 October 2016, [https:\/\/rewire.news\/article\/2016\/10\/13\/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1533.0,"score_ratio":37.25} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rjtr0","c_root_id_B":"h7rjjua","created_at_utc_A":1628135719,"created_at_utc_B":1628135562,"score_A":42,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"It's neither my field of study nor my heritage, so I'm not going to add on to the answer you already got, but i think there is one very important clarification here: you should not be using the past tense here. Native American cultures, tribes, and individuals still exist and are still doing their best against the odds to pass their heritage along to future generations. This includes indigenous peoples who do identify as two-spirit and who are very engaged in their tribal communities. This is a current ongoing thing, not merely a relic or the past.","human_ref_B":"Check out the book, *The bow and the burden strap : a new look at institutionalized homosexuality in native North America.* It's an ethnography of two-spirit people and cultural practices.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":157.0,"score_ratio":1.8260869565} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rtlz6","c_root_id_B":"h7rjjua","created_at_utc_A":1628141736,"created_at_utc_B":1628135562,"score_A":34,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I couldn't list off **all** indigenous cultures with gender roles falling under the umbrella of two-spirit, but I do know the Inuit were very genderfluid. Unfortunately this link omits some of the crucial pages on it (couldn't seem to find a free, full access preview of the chapter), so my apologies for that, but I'll summarize best I can. (Past-tense is because I am unsure if this stuff is still practiced in contemporary Inuit culture) Essentially, Inuit believe that people possess two souls, and names are considered to hold the essence of a persons I*nua,* which is one of the 'souls'. When a newborn was given the name of a deceased relative, it was believed they took on some degree of the traits of that person: wisdom, skills, and gender, for example. People could also take on the names and Inua of multiple people as they progress in life, effectively holding the identity of different people. Barbara Crass' example is that of an Inuit couple with a seven year old son, his father addressed him as his stepmother, and his mother knew him as her aunt. Since an Inuk can have many identities like this, there exist no gender-specific pronouns in the language. As a result of this kind of fluidity of gender identity, activities that we might expect to be restricted by the sexual division of labor could be taken on by anyone, and sex did not restrict a person from taking part in hunting, cooking, producing clothes, and so on -- both a men and women did any of these things (usually depending on what was needed at the time). There is evidence in the ethnographic record that clothing was used to reflect gender, but that this did not have to conform to the biological sex of a person, and indeed many Inuit children given the name and Inua of a person of the opposite sex would also wear clothing associated with that gender. The Inuit even had an annual ritual known as the Mitarneq in which part of the clothing a person would wear for their gender identity could include artificial genitals of the opposite sex; in one case, an opened-mouth catfish was attached between the legs to represent a female pudendum. That you bring up Shamans is rather interesting as well, because they were some of the most genderfluid individuals around. Shamans were viewed as being rather androgynous, may shift between male and female, and even combine clothing associated with either or to create a blended gender-identity.","human_ref_B":"Check out the book, *The bow and the burden strap : a new look at institutionalized homosexuality in native North America.* It's an ethnography of two-spirit people and cultural practices.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6174.0,"score_ratio":1.4782608696} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7rtlz6","c_root_id_B":"h7rnx3u","created_at_utc_A":1628141736,"created_at_utc_B":1628138107,"score_A":34,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I couldn't list off **all** indigenous cultures with gender roles falling under the umbrella of two-spirit, but I do know the Inuit were very genderfluid. Unfortunately this link omits some of the crucial pages on it (couldn't seem to find a free, full access preview of the chapter), so my apologies for that, but I'll summarize best I can. (Past-tense is because I am unsure if this stuff is still practiced in contemporary Inuit culture) Essentially, Inuit believe that people possess two souls, and names are considered to hold the essence of a persons I*nua,* which is one of the 'souls'. When a newborn was given the name of a deceased relative, it was believed they took on some degree of the traits of that person: wisdom, skills, and gender, for example. People could also take on the names and Inua of multiple people as they progress in life, effectively holding the identity of different people. Barbara Crass' example is that of an Inuit couple with a seven year old son, his father addressed him as his stepmother, and his mother knew him as her aunt. Since an Inuk can have many identities like this, there exist no gender-specific pronouns in the language. As a result of this kind of fluidity of gender identity, activities that we might expect to be restricted by the sexual division of labor could be taken on by anyone, and sex did not restrict a person from taking part in hunting, cooking, producing clothes, and so on -- both a men and women did any of these things (usually depending on what was needed at the time). There is evidence in the ethnographic record that clothing was used to reflect gender, but that this did not have to conform to the biological sex of a person, and indeed many Inuit children given the name and Inua of a person of the opposite sex would also wear clothing associated with that gender. The Inuit even had an annual ritual known as the Mitarneq in which part of the clothing a person would wear for their gender identity could include artificial genitals of the opposite sex; in one case, an opened-mouth catfish was attached between the legs to represent a female pudendum. That you bring up Shamans is rather interesting as well, because they were some of the most genderfluid individuals around. Shamans were viewed as being rather androgynous, may shift between male and female, and even combine clothing associated with either or to create a blended gender-identity.","human_ref_B":"The term Shaman originated to describe a person of both sexes that have mastery over spirits. It is derived from Turkic-Tungusia word *\u0161\u00e1man* of reindeer herders of Northern Siberia. 'Origin of the Word \r Shaman.\u2019 American Anthropologist In the greater anthropological context they are considered communal leaders that are trained to engage with non human entities (spirits and divine). However they operate within a substance schema that is different than a priest. While I'm certain that every indigenous American grpup likely had a Shaman under the second definition, I am not specifically familiar with those that would fit the description of the first. You can see how the word becomes problematic as it's scope increases. From an evolutionary perspective if Shamans are intersexed or non binary this could be a way for them to invest in their genes within the family group outside of marriage and offspring. Some people we call *Shamans* are married and have children, again favoring the second definition as a spiritual mediator.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3629.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"oy7ycl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and what roles did they play? A while back I saw a meme about how **ALL** Native American tribes had \"two-spirit\" people and **ALL** of them were treated as revered shamans because of their \"unique insight\" into a nonbinary spirit world. I admit the meme bothered me a little because it treated all Native Americans as some monolithic culture. (All or the hundreds of tribes had identical roles for gender non-conforming individuals?) However, I do remember reading about certain tribes that had places for what we would call transgender\/non-binary individuals. I'm interested in learning what tribes actually accepted such individuals and what roles they played within the tribe.","c_root_id_A":"h7v1f1s","c_root_id_B":"h7uco58","created_at_utc_A":1628200720,"created_at_utc_B":1628190333,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"From someone who is indigenous and 2 spirit: Many tribes have historically had a variety of gender roles, including those that would fall under the notion of 2 spirit. The term itself was creating in modern day times and is generally used as an English umbrella term for these and to separate how we view gender roles across tribes from other ethnicities. Of course, not every tribe had labels or even fluidity of gender roles, but many had different ideas of what gender, sex, and the subsequent roles were and how they translated into life. As it is now, there are currently those of us who identify as 2 spirit in every tribe.","human_ref_B":"Mescalero Apache & 2 spirit here Yes they have us & our role was that of Advisory, teaching & child care especially among orphans. The most famous (of what we now call 2 spirit) was Lozan & Dahteste (both of Chiricahua band). Lozan was the sister of Goyaa\u0142\u00e9 (Geronimo) & Dahteste was her battle buddy *& they were roommates* Lozan was a military strategists, Goyaa\u0142\u00e9's right-hand-man & even rumors of a high rank in the Black Legion. Which was a very fitting role. Our role was & still is valued, though christianity & the overall colonizer mindset diminished that greatly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10387.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"pm99jo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are the top controversies or disagreements within anthropology? Sorry if a dumb question! As someone new to Anthropology I and finding all the questions and discussions on this thread super interesting. Just wondering what are the topics that anthropologists disagree with?","c_root_id_A":"hcjqak6","c_root_id_B":"hcircoc","created_at_utc_A":1631442676,"created_at_utc_B":1631417943,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The Science Wars. Anthropologists tend to be pro-science (traditional view), or anti-science (more modern view). >In recent decades the field of anthropology has been characterized as sharply divided between proscience and antiscience factions. The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate that characterization. We survey anthropologists in graduate programs in the United States regarding their views of science and advocacy, moral and epistemic relativism, and the merits of evolutionary biological explanations. We examine anthropologists\u2019 views in concert with their varying appraisals of major controversies in the discipline (Chagnon\/Tierney, Mead\/Freeman, and Mench\u00fa\/Stoll). We find that disciplinary specialization and especially gender and political orientation are significant predictors of anthropologists\u2019 views. We interpret our findings through the lens of an intuitionist social psychology that helps explain the dynamics of such controversies as well as ongoing ideological divisions in the field. Related to their pro- \/anti-science argument, is the discussion of whether science has a place in anthropology. Anti-science anthropologists are naturally inclined to say no, and to insulate their research from the scientific method.","human_ref_B":"In my university theres a never ending debate about how anthropology and sociology should just be one career and then specialise in whatever but yeah... next year ill gradute from my bachelors degree in anthropology and i do think that there should me no division between both disciplines, to separate this things seems redundant to me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24733.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"rztsjv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"We know humans are good survivalists, but what brought ancient peoples to settle in regions with hostile climate and features such as the Andean mountains, the Sahara or the arctic? Why would a people travel all across eurasia just to settle in Yakutia? Basically the title. In school we were thaught what features human tend to seek, with examples such as the fertile crescent. What i am wondering is why we have long-lasting communities living in extremely harsh environments. Early humans moved around a lot, so why would for example the Inuit peoples stay in the Arctic living in freezing cold temperatures with an extremely small selection of foods and resources instead of moving south to more fertile lands? I understand those processes take centuries, so i am not asking why they didn't just pack and go, but rather why they decided to stop there instead of going on until a better place to live was found.","c_root_id_A":"hry4l2e","c_root_id_B":"hry2nuu","created_at_utc_A":1641753996,"created_at_utc_B":1641753326,"score_A":31,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Food and competition. Humans (like all living creatures) are designed to reproduce at a rate that is higher than death rate. So populations will grow. A given area of land can only support so much food at any give technology level. (For example, an acre of wild grassland can have it's native grasses harvested for seeds, which may provide enough food for 1 person for 1 year. Later after early agriculture is invented, maybe that land can provide enough food for 5 people for 1 year. Further developments increase that, but it's never going to be an infinite supply) So like most animal species, there's pressure to expand. This can be a tendency to drive off offspring after they are weaned, or offspring will hang around hungry until wandering off on their own, or groups might tend to fracture and an entire mix of ages and sexes might set off for new territory. So humans expanded from their central starting point A to new area B because of food supply. And people moved from new area B to even newer are C for food supply. Repeat repeat repeat until area Z is full too. So why stay in area Z? Well, where else are you going to go? Y, W, and X are already full of people. You'd have to fight and kill them or drive them off, which is really dangerous. Also, a group that's in a specific area is going to have had made at least some technological advances (which might be materials but possibly just techniques - know how to sneak up on seals really well) so if they go to a new area they'd be starting at square 1, so the new area which to us might seem more food abundant (but only because we are ignorant in the food harvesting tech) is effectively less abundant than the traditional home area. But this does happen sometimes. When the Ojibwa traded with the europeans and got firearms, they had a military advantage over the Dakota which were also living in the woods. The Ojibwa attacked the Dakota and drove them out of the woods where they had lived and gathered\/hunted food for hundreds of generations into the prairie where the Dakota had little knowledge of how to find food. So many Dakota died fighting to stay. Many other Dakota died starving on the plains. But gradually, they adapted to the lands they were forced into. And eventually (especially after horses were added) became masters of the Prairie. If they would have decided to attack the Ojibwa and fight to reclaim their old forest homes, the people who knew the best hunting spots, the patterns of the fish, when the different food plants ripened and where were all dead by at least 100 years if not more. That info was lost. Had they forced their way back into the forest they would have not been able to harvest as many calories as they could in the plains, and would have had many starvation deaths.","human_ref_B":"I just wanted to add to u\/amp1212's great answer that James C Scott, in *The Art of Not Being Governed* describes how people took on difficult terrain to live away from the reach of organized power.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":670.0,"score_ratio":1.9375} {"post_id":"rztsjv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"We know humans are good survivalists, but what brought ancient peoples to settle in regions with hostile climate and features such as the Andean mountains, the Sahara or the arctic? Why would a people travel all across eurasia just to settle in Yakutia? Basically the title. In school we were thaught what features human tend to seek, with examples such as the fertile crescent. What i am wondering is why we have long-lasting communities living in extremely harsh environments. Early humans moved around a lot, so why would for example the Inuit peoples stay in the Arctic living in freezing cold temperatures with an extremely small selection of foods and resources instead of moving south to more fertile lands? I understand those processes take centuries, so i am not asking why they didn't just pack and go, but rather why they decided to stop there instead of going on until a better place to live was found.","c_root_id_A":"hrzq4jf","c_root_id_B":"hs04l3f","created_at_utc_A":1641774740,"created_at_utc_B":1641780487,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Sahara was green only a few thousand years ago(Like 5k) before that it was a fairly green area and lots of people lived there. The climate changed and the few people who figured out how to live there are the ones who lives there now.","human_ref_B":"Because the most dangerous thing to people is people. We expand to fill a niche. Once it\u2019s fill we starve or we kill each other to survive. Or we leave to greener pastures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5747.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"m6hj00","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"History of Chewing with the Mouth Closed Currently, I am researching about misophonia, and while most of the triggers seem to be auditory and a few papers seem to point to visual triggers as not being a part of misophonia, one of the participants I interviewed in my study stated that after moving to Thailand, he was extremely aggravated with the eating mannerisms of the people there. He would find that they had a habit of chewing with their mouths open, which not only made it easier for him to hear triggers, but he assuredly associated the visual stimuli with the sound. This made me curious about how different cultures view eating with mouths open\/closed and how they came to be. Or if there\u2019s even any difference between cultural eating mannerisms and if it\u2019s just something based on economic class or some other form of social stratification. There\u2019s little research on misophonia, but it would be interesting if it somehow played a part in how some groups view eating with their mouths open\/closed.","c_root_id_A":"gr96sps","c_root_id_B":"gr9f4tj","created_at_utc_A":1616000090,"created_at_utc_B":1616003777,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"For the specific noise it makes I cant say I know any research that might be culturally relevant. I cant say for certain that its brought up in Norbert Elias - The Civilizing Process. Although the work is a bit dated and has some critique I find it talks about cultural manerism interesting, and perhaps can guide a bit. I also assume Mary Douglas work could shed some light on the reaction chewing with the mouth open can cause. As it makes food a somewhat of an anomolie between the plate and the stomach. Specific cultures position towards this would probably require a quite deep analysis of taxonomies according to Douglas. Anecdotaly perhaps it would be interesting to look at how many cultures view cutting you food with a knife at the table while consuming it to be very barbaric and \u201dwrong\u201d, but perhaps not chewing it openly.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to suggest checking \"r\/askfoodhistorians\" as I think there may be some people with interesting etiquette references that can help out.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3687.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"p47z1d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Female bedouin tattoos Hey! I'm an Arab female who has been contemplating getting a very niche kind of tattoo in homage to my roots. Not too long ago, female Bedouins used to get face tattoos to mark various life events. Here's a photo of one such woman: https:\/\/c8.alamy.com\/comp\/B2RRM1\/bedouin-woman-near-tartus-syria-B2RRM1.jpg However, I'm finding it difficult to find clear reference images. In addition, I'm finding it difficult to find definitions for the various symbols the women have tattood. I've done a bit of research online, which while limited, informed me that some of the tattoos were given to mark times of tragedy, such as the death of a child. I'd like to avoid getting such a tattoo, for obvious reasons (respect for their losses and maybe abit of superstition too). Are there any resources I can consult? Would love more information! PS: I'm predominantly interested in Syrian Bedouins, although I know Berber women also have similar facial tattoos, because my heritage traces back to Syria and not North Africa.","c_root_id_A":"h8yauxu","c_root_id_B":"h8xd8l9","created_at_utc_A":1628973560,"created_at_utc_B":1628958617,"score_A":56,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Hiya, not sure where you live but I\u2019d recommend getting in touch with current wearers. Cultural practices can change quite a bit since publication. I have family members with a similar kind of tattoo: https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/9k95ey\/its-transformative-maori-women-talk-about-their-sacred-chin-tattoos There\u2019s a cultural awareness in NZ that makes this a bit easier than in some countries though.","human_ref_B":"There is a Kurdish\/South Eastern Turkey (Syrian Border) woman face tattoo tradition called \"deq\". I believe they must be very similar. You might look into it as there are some resources about it. * Here is a (Turkish) documentary about it: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xWzODvSZRmQ * There is also this Turkish documentary movie which i couldn't find a place to watch. * Here's a Kurdish documentary on the subject. Sorry but I couldn't find any Arabic or English sources on the subject. I hope these may help you somehow as they ask about the meanings (albeit not a lot) in some interviews. If you can't find anything else, I can help with translation of those parts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14943.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} {"post_id":"p23ha9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"how do sleeping practices come to be? for instance egyptian headrests look insanely uncomfortable- even if it preserved your hairstyle. How do you go from sleeping with no pillow to this because it seems worse imo Also - I am fascinated about a comment regarding the neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and how they slept sitting up.... how do we know that? And what's the benefit?","c_root_id_A":"h8ivgpa","c_root_id_B":"h8j3sec","created_at_utc_A":1628682781,"created_at_utc_B":1628687604,"score_A":38,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":">I am fascinated about a comment regarding the neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and how they slept sitting up As am I, especially because I can find no reference to that inference in any credible source, primary or secondary. Can you please provide a reference for that? Edit: ignoring requests for citations of specific claims in this sub is ground for reporting, u\/kittyluxe.","human_ref_B":"It won\u2019t cover ancient Egypt or Skara Brae but have you read Sleep in Early Modern England by Dr Sasha Handley? It\u2019s discussed here along with a very brief description of Tudors sleeping sitting up. In reality it wasn\u2019t a bolt upright position like sleeping in a chair would achieve, more that they\u2019d arrange their bed straw so there was a bit more height at the head end and they\u2019d be semi-propped up. Dr Lucy Worsley slept in that position for one of her documentaries and reported it to be very comfortable.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4823.0,"score_ratio":1.2368421053} {"post_id":"ovrzlu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Has there ever been an exploration of common \"monster\" myths possibly describing earlier humans? Could an ogre have just been the village neanderthal ?","c_root_id_A":"h7c323c","c_root_id_B":"h7c2u36","created_at_utc_A":1627839490,"created_at_utc_B":1627839386,"score_A":75,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I think it's important to note just how long ago the Neanderthals were around. Most populations were starting to die out by around 40,000 years ago, which is still firmly in the \"Ice Age.\" The people and cultures who live throughout Eurasia today are NOT the ones who first encountered the Neanderthals. They're their biological descendants to an extent, but culturally, linguistically, religiously, and even phenotypically, they are completely different people. It's likely that most tales about Neanderthals were simply forgotten just as the meanings behind cave paintings from that period were forgotten.","human_ref_B":"Michael Witzel's book: The Origins of the World's Mythologies He traces myths back to essentially Africa. I view this as essential reading for anyone with a scholarly interest in myth. Its a bit dense though. Don't expect a page turner.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":104.0,"score_ratio":5.3571428571} {"post_id":"ovrzlu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Has there ever been an exploration of common \"monster\" myths possibly describing earlier humans? Could an ogre have just been the village neanderthal ?","c_root_id_A":"h7c323c","c_root_id_B":"h7bzq0v","created_at_utc_A":1627839490,"created_at_utc_B":1627837949,"score_A":75,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I think it's important to note just how long ago the Neanderthals were around. Most populations were starting to die out by around 40,000 years ago, which is still firmly in the \"Ice Age.\" The people and cultures who live throughout Eurasia today are NOT the ones who first encountered the Neanderthals. They're their biological descendants to an extent, but culturally, linguistically, religiously, and even phenotypically, they are completely different people. It's likely that most tales about Neanderthals were simply forgotten just as the meanings behind cave paintings from that period were forgotten.","human_ref_B":"Not really as \"common monster myth\" as you may be looking for, but several cultures tell stories about people who lived in the area before them, sometimes turning them into almost folklore-like beings. The Tuniit appearing in Inuit stories, or the many different peoples of the Leobor Gab\u00e1la \u00c9renn (although that one is mostly considered mythical), for example. You might wanna look into those kinds of stories","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1541.0,"score_ratio":5.3571428571} {"post_id":"ovrzlu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Has there ever been an exploration of common \"monster\" myths possibly describing earlier humans? Could an ogre have just been the village neanderthal ?","c_root_id_A":"h7c6dv1","c_root_id_B":"h7c2u36","created_at_utc_A":1627841044,"created_at_utc_B":1627839386,"score_A":26,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I've dropped this comment in a couple threads recently because the links are important for understanding contemporary perspectives on this idea. \"Euhemerism\" is an fun idea, but it's ultimately not very helpful for the folklorists and anthropologists who want to study the role of folklore in its cultural contexts and the ways it moves and spreads.","human_ref_B":"Michael Witzel's book: The Origins of the World's Mythologies He traces myths back to essentially Africa. I view this as essential reading for anyone with a scholarly interest in myth. Its a bit dense though. Don't expect a page turner.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1658.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"ovrzlu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Has there ever been an exploration of common \"monster\" myths possibly describing earlier humans? Could an ogre have just been the village neanderthal ?","c_root_id_A":"h7c6dv1","c_root_id_B":"h7bzq0v","created_at_utc_A":1627841044,"created_at_utc_B":1627837949,"score_A":26,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I've dropped this comment in a couple threads recently because the links are important for understanding contemporary perspectives on this idea. \"Euhemerism\" is an fun idea, but it's ultimately not very helpful for the folklorists and anthropologists who want to study the role of folklore in its cultural contexts and the ways it moves and spreads.","human_ref_B":"Not really as \"common monster myth\" as you may be looking for, but several cultures tell stories about people who lived in the area before them, sometimes turning them into almost folklore-like beings. The Tuniit appearing in Inuit stories, or the many different peoples of the Leobor Gab\u00e1la \u00c9renn (although that one is mostly considered mythical), for example. You might wanna look into those kinds of stories","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3095.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"q14zjh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is the raven's ability to talk so underrepresented in folklore? Being scavengers, crows and ravens are most commonly associated with themes of war and death - but I couldn't find a single mention of their ability to mimic sounds, including human speech. I struggle to believe that it was a complete mystery to the ancient\/medieval people - so why is it never talked about? Isn't it an exciting thing to interpret through legend?.. Or was it just so irrelevant that it didn't stick?","c_root_id_A":"hfckg99","c_root_id_B":"hfcn9xt","created_at_utc_A":1633354490,"created_at_utc_B":1633355889,"score_A":69,"score_B":228,"human_ref_A":"You'll have to check this but I think I once read an ancient source about Odin's ravens Hugin and Munin being taught to speak by Odin at some point. Anyway Odin uses them to keep himself informed about what's happening in the 9 words, and it seems that the ravens talk to him to do so, so yeah, they talk! And they are associated with the god of knowledge\/poetry\/magic Hope this will help!","human_ref_B":"Perhaps you just need to look outside of Europe. \r In Europe Ravens & corvids are often associated with death.\r But in the Pacific Northwest & Siberia Raven is a trickster & a culture hero. He is a cunning liar and spinner of tales. He also likes dressing up in various disguises to pass himself off as human or another animal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1399.0,"score_ratio":3.3043478261} {"post_id":"bjw6ty","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"It feels like every other week I see some article claiming that new evidence of human habitation of the Americas has totally upended the usual timeline, then everyone forgets about it, what are currently the mostly accepted theories on the peopling of the Americas? For example here's an article from a couple of years ago pushing back the usual timeline by whooping 100,000 years! But I never see any indication that this turned out to be anything other than a damp squib. A more reasonable one pushing back the dates around 10,000 years, like I said I always feel like I see something like this pop up every few months but it doesn't seem to leave much lasting impression and the rough Timeline I hear about still seems to be 20,000-15,000 years ago for people to get down to the end of Chile. What is the current consensus, if one can be said to exist, wrt human habitation of the New World, both in terms of when people arrived and what direction they arrived from?","c_root_id_A":"emdh3vk","c_root_id_B":"emdaiiq","created_at_utc_A":1556849426,"created_at_utc_B":1556845055,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Not on me, so I can\u2019t say what they are called at the moment, but I have a few books from a grad seminar class I took last semester on this subject that are a collection of articles. There\u2019s some isolated, but flawed evidence suggesting people were here earlier than the currently accepted dates. 100,000 years is a little extreme, but Monte Verde being a contemporary of a lot of North American sites is what people often jump on. A few things to remember is it took a while for Monte Verde to be widely accepted as legitimate and considering how far out the prehistoric shorelines were compared to now, there is probably a lot of evidence that is now gone to us. It\u2019s a very complex topic that is still waiting for the smoking gun(s). Please just don\u2019t try convince me the Solutrean Hypothesis is accurate \ud83e\udd23","human_ref_B":"The most recent article is about a 15,600 year old human footprint in southern Chile. Unless they went from Alaska to Chile as fast as possible I could see generations taking many more thousands of years to get there. I'd agree 20,000 years at minimum. If you look at linguistic maps of western north America the linguistic density is incredible. There was a recent post on r\/linguisticmaps showing this map.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4371.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnnzeog","c_root_id_B":"gnnwgr3","created_at_utc_A":1613495924,"created_at_utc_B":1613494634,"score_A":72,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Two things, first a general idea of how to find more stuff to watch, and then my favorite documentary. 1. If you haven't used it yet, check if your local library (or school) grants you access to an online video provider called Kanopy. Their anthropology (and general documentary) selections are preposterously good. 2. This doesn't have to do with the paleolithic, is fairly old, and both the film and sound quality are often poor. That being said: *Ongka's Big Moka* \\- an ethnographic film that follows Ongka, a leader in a Highland New Guinea community, as he plans a feast - is a great, great film.","human_ref_B":"Stefan Milosavljevich on Youtube!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1290.0,"score_ratio":2.0571428571} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnnwebg","c_root_id_B":"gnnzeog","created_at_utc_A":1613494604,"created_at_utc_B":1613495924,"score_A":15,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"My favorite is The Rise Of Man: Homo Sapiens Invents Civilization. It's a 2 disc set, The first disc covering the science of Neolithic development, and the second a fictional depiction of the Neolithic through 4 eras and characters.","human_ref_B":"Two things, first a general idea of how to find more stuff to watch, and then my favorite documentary. 1. If you haven't used it yet, check if your local library (or school) grants you access to an online video provider called Kanopy. Their anthropology (and general documentary) selections are preposterously good. 2. This doesn't have to do with the paleolithic, is fairly old, and both the film and sound quality are often poor. That being said: *Ongka's Big Moka* \\- an ethnographic film that follows Ongka, a leader in a Highland New Guinea community, as he plans a feast - is a great, great film.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1320.0,"score_ratio":4.8} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnnz4ev","c_root_id_B":"gnnzeog","created_at_utc_A":1613495798,"created_at_utc_B":1613495924,"score_A":9,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"archaeological docs or films is what you want by the looks of it... Just going to let you know there is a fiction film called The Dig on Netflix at the moment and while people are being uppity about issues of misrepresentation of women (well those people call it sexism, and honestly I would just call it hypocrisy considering the subject of the film) but I digress, it is a nice watch. Mummifying Alen may be neat, I dont know how complete the link is as the film I had in mind was a one hour BBC but maybe this was a one off and then it was turned into a feature... if you DM me I can see if I cant track it down. https:\/\/vimeo.com\/38924547 Sorry to go back to fiction, but there is a show written by Mackenzie Crook (the pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean who loses his fake eye) called Detectorists. Its quirky but a good pandemic watch https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NgN7z0SD8v8 Sorry not to be more helpful but I would suggest doing a look through episodes of The Nature of Things on the CBC website and see if there is anything there you can find. The host David Suzuki is a Canadian treasure as an environmentalist but I would say about 2 episodes a year are archaeologically focused. Also, the PBS website may well have quite a few docs that are produced with the BBC so maybe try Nova episodes to start","human_ref_B":"Two things, first a general idea of how to find more stuff to watch, and then my favorite documentary. 1. If you haven't used it yet, check if your local library (or school) grants you access to an online video provider called Kanopy. Their anthropology (and general documentary) selections are preposterously good. 2. This doesn't have to do with the paleolithic, is fairly old, and both the film and sound quality are often poor. That being said: *Ongka's Big Moka* \\- an ethnographic film that follows Ongka, a leader in a Highland New Guinea community, as he plans a feast - is a great, great film.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":126.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnnwebg","c_root_id_B":"gnnwgr3","created_at_utc_A":1613494604,"created_at_utc_B":1613494634,"score_A":15,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"My favorite is The Rise Of Man: Homo Sapiens Invents Civilization. It's a 2 disc set, The first disc covering the science of Neolithic development, and the second a fictional depiction of the Neolithic through 4 eras and characters.","human_ref_B":"Stefan Milosavljevich on Youtube!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gno8ae6","c_root_id_B":"gnnz4ev","created_at_utc_A":1613499806,"created_at_utc_B":1613495798,"score_A":10,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"For French speakers, the great paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin has been giving a series of lectures every fall at the Coll\u00e8ge de France for the past few years. The videos are all available for viewing and download on the Coll\u00e8ge de France website. These lectures are amazing and such a treat to watch, highly recommend.","human_ref_B":"archaeological docs or films is what you want by the looks of it... Just going to let you know there is a fiction film called The Dig on Netflix at the moment and while people are being uppity about issues of misrepresentation of women (well those people call it sexism, and honestly I would just call it hypocrisy considering the subject of the film) but I digress, it is a nice watch. Mummifying Alen may be neat, I dont know how complete the link is as the film I had in mind was a one hour BBC but maybe this was a one off and then it was turned into a feature... if you DM me I can see if I cant track it down. https:\/\/vimeo.com\/38924547 Sorry to go back to fiction, but there is a show written by Mackenzie Crook (the pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean who loses his fake eye) called Detectorists. Its quirky but a good pandemic watch https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NgN7z0SD8v8 Sorry not to be more helpful but I would suggest doing a look through episodes of The Nature of Things on the CBC website and see if there is anything there you can find. The host David Suzuki is a Canadian treasure as an environmentalist but I would say about 2 episodes a year are archaeologically focused. Also, the PBS website may well have quite a few docs that are produced with the BBC so maybe try Nova episodes to start","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4008.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnqfezn","c_root_id_B":"gnqskx8","created_at_utc_A":1613538715,"created_at_utc_B":1613547864,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Tribe with Bruce Parry - British outdoorsman (like a less annoying, more thoughtful Bear Grylls) goes and spends a month living with a tribe in a different part of the world each episode. Meet the Natives - Tribesmen from Tanna, Vanuatu, go to the UK (there is also a US version) and stay with a series of different families, giving their opinions on British life, culture and society.","human_ref_B":"I liked Cannibal Tours (1988) by Dennis O\u2019Rourke. It\u2019s not quite a documentary but it plays around with the form of ethnographic film in an interesting way. There was a 1995 BBC documentary about the US law NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) called Bones of Contention that was really good as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9149.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnqskx8","c_root_id_B":"gnp3oaj","created_at_utc_A":1613547864,"created_at_utc_B":1613513758,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I liked Cannibal Tours (1988) by Dennis O\u2019Rourke. It\u2019s not quite a documentary but it plays around with the form of ethnographic film in an interesting way. There was a 1995 BBC documentary about the US law NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) called Bones of Contention that was really good as well.","human_ref_B":"\"Aluna\" available on Vimeo. Follows the Kogi people of Colombia in their quest to inform the world of what they think is happening to our ecology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34106.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnqskx8","c_root_id_B":"gnqgbpi","created_at_utc_A":1613547864,"created_at_utc_B":1613539247,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I liked Cannibal Tours (1988) by Dennis O\u2019Rourke. It\u2019s not quite a documentary but it plays around with the form of ethnographic film in an interesting way. There was a 1995 BBC documentary about the US law NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) called Bones of Contention that was really good as well.","human_ref_B":"It's a little cheesy, but museum secrets is sooooo fun. I adore anthropology museums and I love getting to look behind the veil a little bit!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8617.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ll70gz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of your favourite anthropology documentaries? Or just documentaries you've watched and enjoyed, including docuseries and YouTube stuff - any media, really. I love PBS Eons on YouTube but they don't have a tonne of anthropology stuff, I'd love for a BBC style documentary on this stuff. Extra marks if it's paleolithic! I thought it's better to ask here rather than Google as you lot will have an eye for inaccuracies and such. Lots of love from an environmental scientist. \ud83d\udc9a","c_root_id_A":"gnqskx8","c_root_id_B":"gnqjurl","created_at_utc_A":1613547864,"created_at_utc_B":1613541464,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I liked Cannibal Tours (1988) by Dennis O\u2019Rourke. It\u2019s not quite a documentary but it plays around with the form of ethnographic film in an interesting way. There was a 1995 BBC documentary about the US law NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) called Bones of Contention that was really good as well.","human_ref_B":"Not really documentary (ethnofilm) but I love Jean Rouch. His films should be viewed in context but they're wonderful. I'm surprised to have taken two visual anthropology courses that completely ignore him.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6400.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"p90f10","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why do people have a Problem with Guns, Germs and Steel? I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel in 2015, and it's what got me into anthro in the first place. The arguments in the book made a lot of sense to me, and answered questions that had always been at the back of my mind. Nowadays, I see a lot of criticism for the book on history reddit, and I'm wondering why. What are the flaws people point out in Diamond's reasoning, and what better theory do they have to explain the huge technological disparity between 16th-century Eurasia and the rest of the world?","c_root_id_A":"h9w4qz0","c_root_id_B":"h9wc00e","created_at_utc_A":1629624963,"created_at_utc_B":1629631171,"score_A":11,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"If you want a much more thoughtful version of the ideas in that book, by a historian who actually understands the limits of the evidence he uses, check out Alfred Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*","human_ref_B":"AskHistorians has many threads, worth mining, but I thought part of this one was notable: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/wd6jt\/what_do_you_think_of_guns_germs_and_steel\/ Diamond being an island biogeographer and bringing that approach of \"determinism\". E.g. the particular species of an island aren't determined, but the number of species and how competitive they'll be compared to those of bigger islands kind of are. I'd also note that a more accurate summary of late European advantages might be \"guns, GERMS, and ships\". The germs were really key vs. the Americas (as were malaria and yellow fever in keeping Europeans out of Africa), per Mann's *1491* and *1493*. But being able to sail around the world was big too: Europeans could keep bothering everyone else, without retribution.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6208.0,"score_ratio":2.4545454545} {"post_id":"p90f10","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why do people have a Problem with Guns, Germs and Steel? I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel in 2015, and it's what got me into anthro in the first place. The arguments in the book made a lot of sense to me, and answered questions that had always been at the back of my mind. Nowadays, I see a lot of criticism for the book on history reddit, and I'm wondering why. What are the flaws people point out in Diamond's reasoning, and what better theory do they have to explain the huge technological disparity between 16th-century Eurasia and the rest of the world?","c_root_id_A":"h9w4qz0","c_root_id_B":"h9wjq95","created_at_utc_A":1629624963,"created_at_utc_B":1629636561,"score_A":11,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"If you want a much more thoughtful version of the ideas in that book, by a historian who actually understands the limits of the evidence he uses, check out Alfred Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*","human_ref_B":"One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that Diamond accepts some dubious primary sources claims from conquistadors. Some of the battles which say things like 200 defeated 200,000 are hotly contested with a belief that (a. The Spanish overstated enemy (b. The Spanish do not include a sizable allied native force.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11598.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"p90f10","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why do people have a Problem with Guns, Germs and Steel? I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel in 2015, and it's what got me into anthro in the first place. The arguments in the book made a lot of sense to me, and answered questions that had always been at the back of my mind. Nowadays, I see a lot of criticism for the book on history reddit, and I'm wondering why. What are the flaws people point out in Diamond's reasoning, and what better theory do they have to explain the huge technological disparity between 16th-century Eurasia and the rest of the world?","c_root_id_A":"h9w4qz0","c_root_id_B":"h9xby28","created_at_utc_A":1629624963,"created_at_utc_B":1629649917,"score_A":11,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"If you want a much more thoughtful version of the ideas in that book, by a historian who actually understands the limits of the evidence he uses, check out Alfred Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*","human_ref_B":"People have a problem with it because it's just wrong. He takes 100 facts, finds 5 that support his theory, list the 5 and then acts like there's 100% match between facts and his theory Now, this part is going to be longer, skip if you wish. The area he writes about that I have the most experience with is animal domestication. His argument is that there were so few domesticated animals in the Americas because there just weren't good candidates to be domesticated, and by not living in close proximity to animals there was lower disease exposure meaning that Americans didn't have resistance to disease, nor did they have any sort of unique disease which would spread to the Europeans. So why where there so few domesticated animals? According to Diamond, America just got 'unlucky' and had no species that had the traits that made them good choices to domesticate. Well that's just wrong. Diamond writes as if he thinks there were white fluffy docile sheep wandering around the middle east just waiting to be domesticated. Take a look at the wild ancestors of sheep - the Mouflon. The Mouflon lacks all the characteristics to make it a good candidate for domestication - yet it was domesticated. And compare the Mouflon with the Dall Sheep and Bighorn Sheep - there are exact parallels that were available for the Indigenous Americans to domesticate. Take a look at the wild ancestor of cattle - the Aurochs. It too lacks all the characterizes to make it a good candidate. It possesses all the traits that supposedly make the buffalo impossible to domesticate. And yet it was domesticated. Take a look at the caribou. This was domesticated in Europe and Asia, so fully the same access in the 'new world' Have you ever seen a mallard duck in the Americas? Yes, they are everywhere. This is the same species that was domesticated to become the farmyard duck. So again, you can't claim that all the animals in the Americas except for the Llama were just unfit for domestication. Further, the animals that were domesticated, - the Llama and kin - they never spread. Whereas in the 'old world' domesticated animals spread very far from their point of origin. Additionally, Diamond looked only at large animals. Well size of animals has nothing to do with how likely they are to have a disease that can jump from one species to the next. Ever hear of bird flu? And finally, plenty of diseases have been know to jump from animals to people just through the practice of eating wild animal - the 'African bush meat' practice has been thought to be likely the source of HIV. There's lots of evidence Covid-19 came from bats, as did tons of other dieases. The risk factor is people butchering and handling the bush meat, bats, or whatever else. Well, it's not like the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas had grocery stores to go to. No, they were out there butchering their own meats being exposed to potential diseases.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24954.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ols678","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Could a human-like species have lived and gone extinct on Earth while leaving no trace? I'm not totally sure if this question falls into the category of anthropology (it also has archeology, geology, etc.), but I'm not sure where else to ask so here goes: Given the scarcity of the fossil record (we only find fragments of other humans like denisovans, homo floresiensis etc.) it is clear that even in the last 100k or so years we have lost an incredible amount of information about \"intelligent\" species that have lived on Earth as contemporarily as having been here at the same time as our own ancestors. Our own species may have once numbered fewer than 10k individuals some 70kya. Further, since the KT extinction 66M years ago, there have been eras in the Earth's history with polar jungles, megafauna, and more. In this time period (specifically the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene epochs (\\~66-23Mya), the new world monkeys came to America, while primate precursors like Aegyptopithecus were hanging around the region humans would eventually kickstart civilization from. Furthermore, since there was a land bridge between Europe and North America at this time (with an inland sea-like Arctic Ocean), and a hot climate meant that surviving in the far north was very much doable, so much so that palm trees and a ton of crocodile fossils have been found on Ellesmere Island in northern Canada. Since this time period, the Earth has undergone several ice ages, and obviously the far north pole (and Antarctica for that matter, which was certainly inhabitable for a large portion of this time period) have become extremely inhospitable. This is bad for the preservation of fossil materials and also for the archeological\/paleontological expeditions that would uncover such material. To compound these issues, major geological activity such as the formation of the Rocky Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay Impact occurred over this time period as well. With all this in mind, here's the question: How possible would it be for an intelligent species to arise and die out in within this time period while leaving no detectable trace? This is the part that gets into anthropology. I suppose it would depend on how far the species \"progresses\" along the technological timeline of humanity, what materials are available and how much of a trace these leave, the location of population centers, etc., but I am interested to hear more qualified others' thoughts on this. For context, I've been writing a series of stories with this premise, and while I don't actually believe such a thing happened (\\*cough cough Graham Hancock cough cough\\*), I am interested in understanding how plausible or implausible such a premise is. Any thoughts\/discussion, or directing me to a more appropriate sub would be awesome. Tl;dr: Could an \"intelligent\" species have developed in the paleogene period (66-23Mya), and how far could such a civilization advance along a humanity-like trajectory before dying out to leave absolutely no trace for us in the contemporary era?","c_root_id_A":"h5gn3u3","c_root_id_B":"h5goldi","created_at_utc_A":1626481219,"created_at_utc_B":1626481992,"score_A":19,"score_B":125,"human_ref_A":"Paleoanthropology is quite dependant on what have been found. Therefore, it is possible, but if there is no possible way to test that hypothesis it is (at this point) outside of the realm of proper science. Its just speculation and fiction. Still, for you purposes, I think there are some pieces of anthropological history that might be insightful. For example, for a long time the main theory on how people came to America was \"clovis first\". That is, the first human population in America was defined by a certain type of projectile point, \"clovis point\". Since the 90s, \"clovis first\" started to die, mainly because of discoveries of older archeological remains in other sites of the continent. Monteverde (one of the most well known examples) in Chile is an interesting example. AFAIR, the evidence of lithic use was scarce, but there was strong evidence of wood structures and bonefires. So, considering how late it was discovered, I would say that a culture with little or no use of lithic would have a greater chance of remaining undiscovered. This is specially true in areas with lots of humidity. Of course, that doesn't mean that there were other non-hominid cultures before us; but it may be useful for fictional purposes. Hope it helps","human_ref_B":"I believe this is almost exactly what you're wanting info on: https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/could-an-industrial-prehuman-civilization-have-existed-on-earth-before-ours\/ It's a paper which disscusses the sort of remains and traces an industrial scale society from tens of thousands to millions of years ago or more would leave and how we could detect them or not if it were to exist (not that the researchers believe one did, of course)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":773.0,"score_ratio":6.5789473684} {"post_id":"ols678","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Could a human-like species have lived and gone extinct on Earth while leaving no trace? I'm not totally sure if this question falls into the category of anthropology (it also has archeology, geology, etc.), but I'm not sure where else to ask so here goes: Given the scarcity of the fossil record (we only find fragments of other humans like denisovans, homo floresiensis etc.) it is clear that even in the last 100k or so years we have lost an incredible amount of information about \"intelligent\" species that have lived on Earth as contemporarily as having been here at the same time as our own ancestors. Our own species may have once numbered fewer than 10k individuals some 70kya. Further, since the KT extinction 66M years ago, there have been eras in the Earth's history with polar jungles, megafauna, and more. In this time period (specifically the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene epochs (\\~66-23Mya), the new world monkeys came to America, while primate precursors like Aegyptopithecus were hanging around the region humans would eventually kickstart civilization from. Furthermore, since there was a land bridge between Europe and North America at this time (with an inland sea-like Arctic Ocean), and a hot climate meant that surviving in the far north was very much doable, so much so that palm trees and a ton of crocodile fossils have been found on Ellesmere Island in northern Canada. Since this time period, the Earth has undergone several ice ages, and obviously the far north pole (and Antarctica for that matter, which was certainly inhabitable for a large portion of this time period) have become extremely inhospitable. This is bad for the preservation of fossil materials and also for the archeological\/paleontological expeditions that would uncover such material. To compound these issues, major geological activity such as the formation of the Rocky Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay Impact occurred over this time period as well. With all this in mind, here's the question: How possible would it be for an intelligent species to arise and die out in within this time period while leaving no detectable trace? This is the part that gets into anthropology. I suppose it would depend on how far the species \"progresses\" along the technological timeline of humanity, what materials are available and how much of a trace these leave, the location of population centers, etc., but I am interested to hear more qualified others' thoughts on this. For context, I've been writing a series of stories with this premise, and while I don't actually believe such a thing happened (\\*cough cough Graham Hancock cough cough\\*), I am interested in understanding how plausible or implausible such a premise is. Any thoughts\/discussion, or directing me to a more appropriate sub would be awesome. Tl;dr: Could an \"intelligent\" species have developed in the paleogene period (66-23Mya), and how far could such a civilization advance along a humanity-like trajectory before dying out to leave absolutely no trace for us in the contemporary era?","c_root_id_A":"h5gtxfc","c_root_id_B":"h5gn3u3","created_at_utc_A":1626484798,"created_at_utc_B":1626481219,"score_A":75,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Intelligent? Possibly. But if they advanced to the point of harvesting the atom or significantly affecting the carbon cycle as humans have, there would be evidence in the global geological record (which there is not). Even if some species arose to human tech levels in, say, the jurassic or cretaceous (before K-pg), there would be evidence in the geological record that wouldn't require unearthing of direct fossil evidence to be fairly conclusive. We also would likely have found evidence of visitation on the lunar surface (the jury is out on how dynamic the lunar landscape is) or debris in very high orbit if we're talking about a nascent space-faring species like ourselves. I don't have any links at hand, but there have been scholarly analyses of what is called \"the Silurean Hypothesis\". It's been examined seriously, and the consensus is that while it's possible highly intelligent species have arisen in the past, unknown to us (yet), no species has existed on earth that has advanced to technology levels roughly equal to humans in the 17th century.","human_ref_B":"Paleoanthropology is quite dependant on what have been found. Therefore, it is possible, but if there is no possible way to test that hypothesis it is (at this point) outside of the realm of proper science. Its just speculation and fiction. Still, for you purposes, I think there are some pieces of anthropological history that might be insightful. For example, for a long time the main theory on how people came to America was \"clovis first\". That is, the first human population in America was defined by a certain type of projectile point, \"clovis point\". Since the 90s, \"clovis first\" started to die, mainly because of discoveries of older archeological remains in other sites of the continent. Monteverde (one of the most well known examples) in Chile is an interesting example. AFAIR, the evidence of lithic use was scarce, but there was strong evidence of wood structures and bonefires. So, considering how late it was discovered, I would say that a culture with little or no use of lithic would have a greater chance of remaining undiscovered. This is specially true in areas with lots of humidity. Of course, that doesn't mean that there were other non-hominid cultures before us; but it may be useful for fictional purposes. Hope it helps","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3579.0,"score_ratio":3.9473684211} {"post_id":"uxb5wt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Are there any popular pop culture anthropology concepts that are outdated or dangerously misunderstood? Or just very popular 19th and 20th century ones that later turned out to just be racist\/ classist\/ not enough data.","c_root_id_A":"i9wt6w3","c_root_id_B":"i9wzr31","created_at_utc_A":1653465874,"created_at_utc_B":1653471822,"score_A":286,"score_B":320,"human_ref_A":"Where do I begin. There is a lot to unpack. 1) The civilisational process seen as a single llinear progress. The whole, deeply flawed, notion of \"primitive\" and \"advanced\" cultures is so inherently embedded into our *current* culture it is a headache to unravel. Hell, it's very easy to fall into this trap, with how narratives are spun around not only historical cultures, but also various peoples living in \"exotic\" (ugh) parts of the world today. 1a) For me, as a medievalist, this is especially prevalent in (but not limited to) the infantilisation of the people of the past. There is this persistent idea that people of the past were not as smart, not as capable of complex thought and emotion as modern societies are. Bullshit. 2) The vicious circle of \"no warrior women\" - graves in the past were identified through grave goods. Even if identifying parts of skeletons were intact (and this is the minority of graves), the \"easiest\" way to identify whether the grave belonged to a woman or a man was through domestic items and weapons (respectively) found inside. That was it, that was the whole process: weapon - male, domestic - female. The vicious circle is that graves of males were considered to be the ones containing weapons, so any grave containing a weapon was automatically classified as a grave of a male. This bolstered the ideas of strong gender roles and division in earlier societies. For the longest time there was doubt whether there were even any warrior women among viking societies. There was just \"no evidence\" - \"all\" warrior graves of vikings were that of males. Until skeletons were analysed a bit more closely and lo and behold, some of those weapon-containing graves turned out to be that of biological females, but were previously considered that of males, as they *contained weapons*. The whole \"no, Scandinavians only liked the *idea* of warrior women, there were no shieldmaidens, only stories of fictitious valkyries\" narrative fell apart almost overnight. ...and many more, but I need to get back to work. Edit: Continued here, because I'm not good at Reddit Edit: Mobile woes, clarity.","human_ref_B":"There's the whole \"Alpha\" nonsense from outdated and hardly correlated research on captured wolves. It's not correct regarding wolves and is it even less applicable to humans. Not conventional literature or studies but here goes: https:\/\/wolf.org\/headlines\/44265\/ https:\/\/greatergood.berkeley.edu\/article\/item\/the\\_myth\\_of\\_the\\_alpha\\_male","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5948.0,"score_ratio":1.1188811189} {"post_id":"uxb5wt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Are there any popular pop culture anthropology concepts that are outdated or dangerously misunderstood? Or just very popular 19th and 20th century ones that later turned out to just be racist\/ classist\/ not enough data.","c_root_id_A":"i9xcf4g","c_root_id_B":"i9xaali","created_at_utc_A":1653480765,"created_at_utc_B":1653479522,"score_A":120,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"My personal pet peeve is the concept of \"human nature\" which really doesn't make sense to me. Generally nature exists constructed as the antonym of \"culture\". As one wise man once said \"nature is the green area on the map\" - which of course isn't even mildly true, because most of the forests and greenery around people have been affected by human society and\/or cultivation for hundreds if not tens of thousands of years. We call the forests of my home region a cultural landscape, despite being associated with wilderness in common parlance. The idea of humans *really* being this or that way if they weren't entrenched in technology or culture doesn't make sense since technology has existed while we've evolved into modern humans - the oldest stone tools being three million years old. Little survives of cultural artefacts not made from stone so it's hard to say what kind of cultural diversity existed or what forms it took until relatively recently, but it undermines the idea that there is a \"real\" or \"true\" human nature underneath all of that culture - we are cultural animals.","human_ref_B":"By popular demand (a friend asked me to continue) and because it's my lunch break: 3) More meta-anthropology: School curriculums and \"common\" versions of history were introduced in the 19th and 20th centuries that have carried on until today. The version of history you learn at school is highly edited to fit a certain narrative. Mine focused on royal dynasties, wars and battles, the \"great\" people from the past, some very artificially and\/or intentionally made to be firmly embedded in our culture. Heavy focus on (local) nobility. Playing favourites with \"our\" and \"their\" sides. The concept of nationality and the national had its renaissance in the 19th century and a history was a tool used in building national identities. Major editing happened there to suit this new need. What followed was neglect in the education on other countries and especially non-European countries. To this day my knowledge of non-European history is elementary or fragmentary, at least up until colonialism happened. Oh, colonialism! The whole power dynamic is often relayed to our kids through a matter-of-fact lists of conquests and conflicts; and struggles, though not that of the colonies themselves (not looking at you, USA, you're a major exception here), but as stories of colonisers struggling to keep dominion over their territories. 4) Data collection. So scholars of yore were white, highly priviliged, and mostly male. They would descend upon undepriviliged populations and demand to be told of local customs and stories. They would *very literally* collect them, like we would, idk, rare pokemans or something. Let's be clear, this was exploitative. Moreover, a lot of the collected material went through at least several filters - what the representatives of the ethnicities were willing to share, how it was interpreted and written down (which brings forth a larger debate on orality vs script\/literacy, but hey), and then how it was edited in post-production by the collector, and finally interpreted by his peers. Special shout out to my white-man armchair anthropologist superstar James Frazer and his unfortunately brilliant read *The Golden Bough*. 5) Museum collections. Not only how they were collected (ugh), but also how they were (and in many instances are) curated. 6) Editing out or stigmatising the undesired. Scholarship was not, nor will it ever be, objective. Non-heteronormative sexual preferences or gender expresssion not commmon and universally reviled before, what, 20-40 years ago? Have I got news for you about editing history for specific purposes! Note that this does not mean that the opposite was true, but that there was more occurrence and nuance to it that we can plainly see today. Because mainstream culture was firmly negative about it, we can gather that a lot of primary sources were either never created (as that would be dangerous) or destroyed somewhere along the way, but we have a lot of secondary sources from the critics and lawmakers who'd tried to curb the reach and spread of the undesirable in their vicinity. And, again, this was applied both contemporarily, when the phenomena occurred historically, or in post-production much later. Also (but not solely) applicable to non-\/unorthodox religions, social class tensions (peasant revolts? Happened at the *most* unfortunate times, were treated like bad weather), or sex.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1243.0,"score_ratio":1.4634146341} {"post_id":"uxb5wt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Are there any popular pop culture anthropology concepts that are outdated or dangerously misunderstood? Or just very popular 19th and 20th century ones that later turned out to just be racist\/ classist\/ not enough data.","c_root_id_A":"i9yrjyz","c_root_id_B":"i9ys6n0","created_at_utc_A":1653502404,"created_at_utc_B":1653502655,"score_A":26,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"judging by the usual questions on this sub, the idea that there are universals. I click the hide button very quickly. Time and space is the minimum requirement if you want to learn about a human characteristic","human_ref_B":"If i may post a pop anthropology i picked up that led me to ask a question here. There was a period where hunter gathere life was thought to be \"Nasty, short and brutish\" that was rightly corrected starting in the middle of the 20th century. However by the time me in the 2010s comes across the topic it has evolved into hunter gatherer life being some kind of perfect utopia where everybodies basic needs are met and nobody works for more than a few hours everyday with no downsides vs those nasty brutish agriculturalists keeling over and dying from disease and nutritional deficiencies. This post did a good job showing me some of the drawbacks that ultimately led to agricultural societies dominating most parts of the globe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":251.0,"score_ratio":2.1538461538} {"post_id":"lodm35","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why did humans evolve to have such flat faces compared to other animals \/ human species? I know we have more osteoblasts than osteoclasts (or the other way round?), but was there a reason that this occurred?","c_root_id_A":"go5fpj0","c_root_id_B":"go5pbk8","created_at_utc_A":1613850648,"created_at_utc_B":1613855623,"score_A":15,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"When it comes to how the shape of our faces changed from monkeys it likely had somethong to do with the change in diet, as early hominids had eaten things that were harder to chew. I may misremember the details but I think some of it was described in \"How Humans Evolved\" by Boyd and Silk. EDIT: plus there's a hypothesis that the shape of our chins changed because we punched each other in fights: https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/brv.12112","human_ref_B":"A lot of the human face shape is due to the decrease in jaw size. The reason for this is: 1) humans have tools to cook and eat with. This means teeth are much less necessary to tear and grind food, and we also don\u2019t need the musculature to chew as much. So the jaw muscles decreased a lot and teeth got smaller. 2) humans have tools to use as weapons so teeth aren\u2019t needed for defense and aggressive, intimidating display. This further encouraged the jaw and snout to get smaller 3) humans exhibit neoteny\u2014a retention into adulthood of newborn traits. Probably a lot of this is due to encouraging the neural growth and plasticity of newborns, but it could be that some of this process encouraged a more baby-like face because some genes might be involved with both. So basically as humans emphasized brains and the tools and weapons we could create, evolution stopped selecting for mouth as weapon and tool. There might also be evolution selecting for a different mouth shape to facilitate speech.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4975.0,"score_ratio":2.0666666667} {"post_id":"j5flf1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis most likely interbred. Do we know if this was male Sapiens and female Neanderthalensis or vice versa or both or impossible to tell with our level of science?","c_root_id_A":"g7sd7kg","c_root_id_B":"g7se6n1","created_at_utc_A":1601905395,"created_at_utc_B":1601905981,"score_A":26,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"I'd say it's much stronger than \"most likely\". The evidence of sapiens and neanderthal interbreeding is overwhelming, for both types of matings. There are upwards of a half dozen interbreeding events *demonstrable* in analysis of ancient and modern genomes. For those to be detectable after tens or hundreds of thousands of years, how many more such events must have happened without leaving evidence? I'd wager hundreds or thousands more. Here is a very recent study showing that the AMH Y chromosome (male-only chromosome) replaced the neanderthal Y in the European neanderthal population. It also mentions the previous finding that the neanderthal mitochondrial (female-inherited) genome was descended from an AMH ancestor. https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/www.the-scientist.com\/news-opinion\/y-chromosome-from-early-modern-humans-replaced-neanderthal-y-67963\/amp","human_ref_B":"Living humans lack any H. neanderthalensis mtDNA contribution which requires explanation. One is that we had it but lost it at some point. There is evidence for selection against neanderthal y-chromosomal dna (see link below). It could also be that hybrids of human-male\/neanderthal-female produced non-reproductive or non-viable young. It could also be that this pairing didn\u2019t survive in modern genomes due to social reasons. https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosgenetics\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pgen.1006340 Here is a quote from the Smithsonian on the subject: \u201cBecause mtDNA is passed down exclusively from mother to offspring, if Neanderthal males were the only ones contributing to the human genome, their contributions would not be present in the mtDNA line. It is also possible that while interbreeding between Neanderthal males and human females could have produced fertile offspring, interbreeding between Neanderthal females and modern human males might not have produced fertile offspring, which would mean that the Neanderthal mtDNA could not be passed down. Finally, it is possible that modern humans do carry at least one mtDNA lineage that Neanderthals contributed to our genome, but that we have not yet sequenced that lineage in either modern humans or in Neanderthals. Any of these explanations could underlie the lack of Neanderthal mtDNA in modern human populations.\u201d https:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/genetics\/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals\/interbreeding","labels":0,"seconds_difference":586.0,"score_ratio":2.4230769231} {"post_id":"lv97i1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Are there any studies done on cultural differences in \"corniness\/cheesiness\"? I've noticed certain things done in some cultures would be seen as too \"dramatic\", \"cheesy\", or \"corny\" in other cultures. Has there been any actual studies done on these cultural differences in what is considered socially okay? Or is it too vague and difficult to define to do work on? Much thanks for any answers.","c_root_id_A":"gpb6gew","c_root_id_B":"gpazzh9","created_at_utc_A":1614614421,"created_at_utc_B":1614611329,"score_A":73,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I think the best point of reference would be the notion of authenticity as it is variously experienced within cultures. Walter Benjamin wrote short reflections on kitsch along these lines. The authentic work of art is viewed in his terms as having an aura of some sort - the inauthentic has no aura or an imperfect one, often because it indexes social or generational difference. You\u2019d find this research in cultural sociology and cultural studies fields more often than anthropological fields I suspect.","human_ref_B":"The problem with looking at this kind of pop-culture category is that it's very difficult to quantify or problematize. How do you define \"cheesy\" or \"corny\" in a way that can be actually scored and analyzed? And more difficult, how do you evaluate it cross culturally? So many of these kinds of concepts are wrapped up in language and cultural context. How would you, for example, score \"corniness\" across linguistic and cultural boundaries? Is something that a native speaker views as corny seen by a non-native speaker in a different way? You're basically talking about trying to rate the level of \"corniness\" of something in one culture based on how people in another culture view it. That's pretty bad anthropologically, because in essence it places decontextualized cultural values or perspectives into a \"ranking\" or similar classification that is not internal to the culture. It might be possible to objectively define or describe a phenomenon like \"corniness\" enough that you might be able to try to identify how such a phenomenon *within a particular culture* is experienced or identified by people in that culture, it would be inappropriate (and anthropologically fairly useless) to pull individual examples of \"corny\" behavior from one culture and ask people with a different cultural background (lacking context, cultural competence, etc.) whether that was \"corny\" to them as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3092.0,"score_ratio":3.1739130435} {"post_id":"z6yjmv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do nomadic people have a concept of \"home\"? Would they ever feel homesick, by extension? I've never really suffered from that much myself, but I've seen friends of mine completely go to pieces over missing home when they went off to university. And this has me wondering: the concept of home - the house we grew up in, our belongings, familiar surroundings, etc seem very deeply ingrained in settled people. But is this a sentiment or a feeling we only developed when we settled down? Or do hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads have similar feelings, just expressed with a different focus maybe?","c_root_id_A":"iy4ugj9","c_root_id_B":"iy4t1vc","created_at_utc_A":1669664116,"created_at_utc_B":1669663545,"score_A":81,"score_B":73,"human_ref_A":"\\- I mostly heard this from anthropologists studying Mongolia (and a book *The Silent Steppe* written by a Kazakh nomad) but pastoral nomads tend to move with the same group of families between a few seasonal locations. So they would associate these familiar locations as their home. \\- The book *Nomadic Life in Mongolia: Stories of the Enkhbat Family and Their Belongings* (I think made for a Japanese museum exhibit, not super high quality) shows 40 objects which the family carries with them in their ger \/ yurt home, talks about where they acquired them etc. But they had hundreds of objects when they did a full \\*inventory\\* (edited).","human_ref_B":"Yes, absolutely! The idea of \"nomadic\" peoples, who kind of just move around and don't have a specific home, is an example of how anthropology was a handmaiden to colonialism. For example the Sami people - it is easier to disenfranchise people and steal their lands if you first are able to \"prove\" that they have no home on them. The reality is that nomadic people know their lands very well, and do have homes on them. They might have multiple homes, but they tend to move pretty predictably with the seasons, weather patterns, animal migrations, and other food sources. Traditional pastoralists in the Andes tend to move up and down the mountains at different times of year so their animals will always have food to graze on. As for the concept of \"home,\" I have to imagine that varies culturally as it does with non-nomadic peoples. Maybe home is the place you come to be with your community and hunker down for winter, or maybe it is with your extended family, or just the lands you occupy in general. I'm not a nomad, but I know when I return to my hometown it isn't as much seeing my family or visiting my childhood home that feels like I've really returned home, it's the landscape and being out in nature, or even hearing the very specific accents, which is not too different from where I live now, but different enough that I notice it!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":571.0,"score_ratio":1.1095890411} {"post_id":"z6yjmv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do nomadic people have a concept of \"home\"? Would they ever feel homesick, by extension? I've never really suffered from that much myself, but I've seen friends of mine completely go to pieces over missing home when they went off to university. And this has me wondering: the concept of home - the house we grew up in, our belongings, familiar surroundings, etc seem very deeply ingrained in settled people. But is this a sentiment or a feeling we only developed when we settled down? Or do hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads have similar feelings, just expressed with a different focus maybe?","c_root_id_A":"iy4ugj9","c_root_id_B":"iy4r6wj","created_at_utc_A":1669664116,"created_at_utc_B":1669662788,"score_A":81,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"\\- I mostly heard this from anthropologists studying Mongolia (and a book *The Silent Steppe* written by a Kazakh nomad) but pastoral nomads tend to move with the same group of families between a few seasonal locations. So they would associate these familiar locations as their home. \\- The book *Nomadic Life in Mongolia: Stories of the Enkhbat Family and Their Belongings* (I think made for a Japanese museum exhibit, not super high quality) shows 40 objects which the family carries with them in their ger \/ yurt home, talks about where they acquired them etc. But they had hundreds of objects when they did a full \\*inventory\\* (edited).","human_ref_B":"This is an interesting question. Don't some nomadic people travel with their own lodging? Tents and such? If so, it stands to reason that it *might* feel a little like home, if they arranged their familiar belongings in the familiar domicile in a familiar way, even if the location was new. Don't some people who travel excessively for work deck out their hotel rooms with photos and knick-knacks in an attempt to give the environment a \"home\" feeling?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1328.0,"score_ratio":5.7857142857} {"post_id":"z6yjmv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do nomadic people have a concept of \"home\"? Would they ever feel homesick, by extension? I've never really suffered from that much myself, but I've seen friends of mine completely go to pieces over missing home when they went off to university. And this has me wondering: the concept of home - the house we grew up in, our belongings, familiar surroundings, etc seem very deeply ingrained in settled people. But is this a sentiment or a feeling we only developed when we settled down? Or do hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads have similar feelings, just expressed with a different focus maybe?","c_root_id_A":"iy4t1vc","c_root_id_B":"iy4r6wj","created_at_utc_A":1669663545,"created_at_utc_B":1669662788,"score_A":73,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Yes, absolutely! The idea of \"nomadic\" peoples, who kind of just move around and don't have a specific home, is an example of how anthropology was a handmaiden to colonialism. For example the Sami people - it is easier to disenfranchise people and steal their lands if you first are able to \"prove\" that they have no home on them. The reality is that nomadic people know their lands very well, and do have homes on them. They might have multiple homes, but they tend to move pretty predictably with the seasons, weather patterns, animal migrations, and other food sources. Traditional pastoralists in the Andes tend to move up and down the mountains at different times of year so their animals will always have food to graze on. As for the concept of \"home,\" I have to imagine that varies culturally as it does with non-nomadic peoples. Maybe home is the place you come to be with your community and hunker down for winter, or maybe it is with your extended family, or just the lands you occupy in general. I'm not a nomad, but I know when I return to my hometown it isn't as much seeing my family or visiting my childhood home that feels like I've really returned home, it's the landscape and being out in nature, or even hearing the very specific accents, which is not too different from where I live now, but different enough that I notice it!","human_ref_B":"This is an interesting question. Don't some nomadic people travel with their own lodging? Tents and such? If so, it stands to reason that it *might* feel a little like home, if they arranged their familiar belongings in the familiar domicile in a familiar way, even if the location was new. Don't some people who travel excessively for work deck out their hotel rooms with photos and knick-knacks in an attempt to give the environment a \"home\" feeling?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":757.0,"score_ratio":5.2142857143} {"post_id":"z6yjmv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do nomadic people have a concept of \"home\"? Would they ever feel homesick, by extension? I've never really suffered from that much myself, but I've seen friends of mine completely go to pieces over missing home when they went off to university. And this has me wondering: the concept of home - the house we grew up in, our belongings, familiar surroundings, etc seem very deeply ingrained in settled people. But is this a sentiment or a feeling we only developed when we settled down? Or do hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads have similar feelings, just expressed with a different focus maybe?","c_root_id_A":"iy5871s","c_root_id_B":"iy4r6wj","created_at_utc_A":1669669464,"created_at_utc_B":1669662788,"score_A":16,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"It's in the distinction between Occupation and habitation. You inhabit your home vs you occupy a hotel room. Tim Ingold brings up this idea and I personnally find it really appropriate to explain why some nomadic people make the world their home cause they inhabit instead of Occupying it. It goes all the that idea of \u00ab Being in the world \u00bb. Type of questions that make us think about the way we see our territory, do you inhabit your neighbourhood or do you occupy it? Do you inhabut the planet or do you occupy it? ​ I'm not answering the question at all I know but I think I'm at least bringing up an avenue of discussion and reflexion about the possible answers to your question.","human_ref_B":"This is an interesting question. Don't some nomadic people travel with their own lodging? Tents and such? If so, it stands to reason that it *might* feel a little like home, if they arranged their familiar belongings in the familiar domicile in a familiar way, even if the location was new. Don't some people who travel excessively for work deck out their hotel rooms with photos and knick-knacks in an attempt to give the environment a \"home\" feeling?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6676.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ioh2g4b","c_root_id_B":"iohdee3","created_at_utc_A":1663204967,"created_at_utc_B":1663209983,"score_A":46,"score_B":145,"human_ref_A":"In this video on behavioral genetics, R. Sapolsky talks about the Dutch hunger winter andits effects on offspring conceived during that period (the whole video is interesting, I just linked to where this specific discussion starts). Here's a study on the phenomenon.","human_ref_B":"There's a link and studies have shown, see below https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/south-asian-health-colonial-history_uk_620e74fee4b055057aac0e9f \"South Asians have a tendency to generate and store fat and not burn it off, amassing low lean muscle mass. This, he points out, is because South Asians are \u201cstarvation-adapted\u201d, due to having to survive at least 31 famines, especially during the 18th and 19th century. Surviving just one famine doubles the risk of diabetes and obesity in the next generation, even without a famine,\u00a0according to a study by Brown university. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases 2.7 times for their grandchildren.\u00a0 Exposure to even one famine has a multi-generational effect of causing metabolic disorders including diabetes, hyperglycemia and cardiovascular diseases. Imagine having an exposure to at least 24 major famines in a 50-year period.\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5016.0,"score_ratio":3.152173913} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohaapb","c_root_id_B":"iohdee3","created_at_utc_A":1663208523,"created_at_utc_B":1663209983,"score_A":42,"score_B":145,"human_ref_A":"Rachel Yehuda studies epigenetics at Mt Sinai. She's worked with plenty of mice and rats to show that they can pass down fear responses to their offspring. She's also worked with descendants of Holocaust victims and pregnant people who were in the twin towers and escaped. It's astonishing and pretty awful.","human_ref_B":"There's a link and studies have shown, see below https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/south-asian-health-colonial-history_uk_620e74fee4b055057aac0e9f \"South Asians have a tendency to generate and store fat and not burn it off, amassing low lean muscle mass. This, he points out, is because South Asians are \u201cstarvation-adapted\u201d, due to having to survive at least 31 famines, especially during the 18th and 19th century. Surviving just one famine doubles the risk of diabetes and obesity in the next generation, even without a famine,\u00a0according to a study by Brown university. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases 2.7 times for their grandchildren.\u00a0 Exposure to even one famine has a multi-generational effect of causing metabolic disorders including diabetes, hyperglycemia and cardiovascular diseases. Imagine having an exposure to at least 24 major famines in a 50-year period.\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1460.0,"score_ratio":3.4523809524} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ioh7qma","c_root_id_B":"iohdee3","created_at_utc_A":1663207355,"created_at_utc_B":1663209983,"score_A":11,"score_B":145,"human_ref_A":"It's definitely not that DNA codes are modified by going through the survival. However, having certain genes before the famine even starts, and these genes giving you an edge on survival (let's say you are smaller than average, so you can survive on less food - or the genes for the roots of your teeth give you bigger roots than normal, so you lose your teeth less readily than other people in the midst of a famine, making it easier for you to eat really rough\/tough food). The people who lack those traits have less children. Those genes are reduced by percentage in the overall population\/genome.","human_ref_B":"There's a link and studies have shown, see below https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/south-asian-health-colonial-history_uk_620e74fee4b055057aac0e9f \"South Asians have a tendency to generate and store fat and not burn it off, amassing low lean muscle mass. This, he points out, is because South Asians are \u201cstarvation-adapted\u201d, due to having to survive at least 31 famines, especially during the 18th and 19th century. Surviving just one famine doubles the risk of diabetes and obesity in the next generation, even without a famine,\u00a0according to a study by Brown university. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases 2.7 times for their grandchildren.\u00a0 Exposure to even one famine has a multi-generational effect of causing metabolic disorders including diabetes, hyperglycemia and cardiovascular diseases. Imagine having an exposure to at least 24 major famines in a 50-year period.\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2628.0,"score_ratio":13.1818181818} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iogzmar","c_root_id_B":"iohdee3","created_at_utc_A":1663203693,"created_at_utc_B":1663209983,"score_A":2,"score_B":145,"human_ref_A":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","human_ref_B":"There's a link and studies have shown, see below https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/south-asian-health-colonial-history_uk_620e74fee4b055057aac0e9f \"South Asians have a tendency to generate and store fat and not burn it off, amassing low lean muscle mass. This, he points out, is because South Asians are \u201cstarvation-adapted\u201d, due to having to survive at least 31 famines, especially during the 18th and 19th century. Surviving just one famine doubles the risk of diabetes and obesity in the next generation, even without a famine,\u00a0according to a study by Brown university. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases 2.7 times for their grandchildren.\u00a0 Exposure to even one famine has a multi-generational effect of causing metabolic disorders including diabetes, hyperglycemia and cardiovascular diseases. Imagine having an exposure to at least 24 major famines in a 50-year period.\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6290.0,"score_ratio":72.5} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohzlfk","c_root_id_B":"ioh2g4b","created_at_utc_A":1663223152,"created_at_utc_B":1663204967,"score_A":61,"score_B":46,"human_ref_A":"Hello Angrynut750, What you\u2019re talking is epigenetics, rather than genetics per se. The famine won\u2019t effect effect which genes are passed from generation to generation (beyond perhaps those under the influence of natural selection), but environmental stress can influence which genes are expressed, active and when and some of these changes can be achieved through passed on. This is where epigenetics comes in. Epigenetics refers to the inheritance of changes that do not result in an alteration of an individual\u2019s DNA sequence. The most well known form of epigenetic modification is the binding of a methyl group binds to a cytosine (one of the four DNA nucleotide bases). With regards to your question about the Irish then, if they differ genetically from the rest of Europe, it would not be because of any epigenetic changes that resulted from the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century. In fact, I would be surprised if they differed markedly at all anyway. They may be identifiable as Irish (i.e. they may have an increased likelihood to possess some particular gene variants and be missing others), but Ireland has simply never been isolated long enough for its human population to diverge significantly from the rest of Europe. Indeed, Ireland has had successive waves of visitors, migrants and invaders (e.g., Romans traders, Vikings, the English etc) contributing to and mixing with its gene pool.","human_ref_B":"In this video on behavioral genetics, R. Sapolsky talks about the Dutch hunger winter andits effects on offspring conceived during that period (the whole video is interesting, I just linked to where this specific discussion starts). Here's a study on the phenomenon.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18185.0,"score_ratio":1.3260869565} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohaapb","c_root_id_B":"iohzlfk","created_at_utc_A":1663208523,"created_at_utc_B":1663223152,"score_A":42,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"Rachel Yehuda studies epigenetics at Mt Sinai. She's worked with plenty of mice and rats to show that they can pass down fear responses to their offspring. She's also worked with descendants of Holocaust victims and pregnant people who were in the twin towers and escaped. It's astonishing and pretty awful.","human_ref_B":"Hello Angrynut750, What you\u2019re talking is epigenetics, rather than genetics per se. The famine won\u2019t effect effect which genes are passed from generation to generation (beyond perhaps those under the influence of natural selection), but environmental stress can influence which genes are expressed, active and when and some of these changes can be achieved through passed on. This is where epigenetics comes in. Epigenetics refers to the inheritance of changes that do not result in an alteration of an individual\u2019s DNA sequence. The most well known form of epigenetic modification is the binding of a methyl group binds to a cytosine (one of the four DNA nucleotide bases). With regards to your question about the Irish then, if they differ genetically from the rest of Europe, it would not be because of any epigenetic changes that resulted from the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century. In fact, I would be surprised if they differed markedly at all anyway. They may be identifiable as Irish (i.e. they may have an increased likelihood to possess some particular gene variants and be missing others), but Ireland has simply never been isolated long enough for its human population to diverge significantly from the rest of Europe. Indeed, Ireland has had successive waves of visitors, migrants and invaders (e.g., Romans traders, Vikings, the English etc) contributing to and mixing with its gene pool.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14629.0,"score_ratio":1.4523809524} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohzlfk","c_root_id_B":"ioh7qma","created_at_utc_A":1663223152,"created_at_utc_B":1663207355,"score_A":61,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Hello Angrynut750, What you\u2019re talking is epigenetics, rather than genetics per se. The famine won\u2019t effect effect which genes are passed from generation to generation (beyond perhaps those under the influence of natural selection), but environmental stress can influence which genes are expressed, active and when and some of these changes can be achieved through passed on. This is where epigenetics comes in. Epigenetics refers to the inheritance of changes that do not result in an alteration of an individual\u2019s DNA sequence. The most well known form of epigenetic modification is the binding of a methyl group binds to a cytosine (one of the four DNA nucleotide bases). With regards to your question about the Irish then, if they differ genetically from the rest of Europe, it would not be because of any epigenetic changes that resulted from the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century. In fact, I would be surprised if they differed markedly at all anyway. They may be identifiable as Irish (i.e. they may have an increased likelihood to possess some particular gene variants and be missing others), but Ireland has simply never been isolated long enough for its human population to diverge significantly from the rest of Europe. Indeed, Ireland has had successive waves of visitors, migrants and invaders (e.g., Romans traders, Vikings, the English etc) contributing to and mixing with its gene pool.","human_ref_B":"It's definitely not that DNA codes are modified by going through the survival. However, having certain genes before the famine even starts, and these genes giving you an edge on survival (let's say you are smaller than average, so you can survive on less food - or the genes for the roots of your teeth give you bigger roots than normal, so you lose your teeth less readily than other people in the midst of a famine, making it easier for you to eat really rough\/tough food). The people who lack those traits have less children. Those genes are reduced by percentage in the overall population\/genome.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15797.0,"score_ratio":5.5454545455} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohzlfk","c_root_id_B":"iogzmar","created_at_utc_A":1663223152,"created_at_utc_B":1663203693,"score_A":61,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello Angrynut750, What you\u2019re talking is epigenetics, rather than genetics per se. The famine won\u2019t effect effect which genes are passed from generation to generation (beyond perhaps those under the influence of natural selection), but environmental stress can influence which genes are expressed, active and when and some of these changes can be achieved through passed on. This is where epigenetics comes in. Epigenetics refers to the inheritance of changes that do not result in an alteration of an individual\u2019s DNA sequence. The most well known form of epigenetic modification is the binding of a methyl group binds to a cytosine (one of the four DNA nucleotide bases). With regards to your question about the Irish then, if they differ genetically from the rest of Europe, it would not be because of any epigenetic changes that resulted from the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century. In fact, I would be surprised if they differed markedly at all anyway. They may be identifiable as Irish (i.e. they may have an increased likelihood to possess some particular gene variants and be missing others), but Ireland has simply never been isolated long enough for its human population to diverge significantly from the rest of Europe. Indeed, Ireland has had successive waves of visitors, migrants and invaders (e.g., Romans traders, Vikings, the English etc) contributing to and mixing with its gene pool.","human_ref_B":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19459.0,"score_ratio":30.5} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ioh2g4b","c_root_id_B":"iogzmar","created_at_utc_A":1663204967,"created_at_utc_B":1663203693,"score_A":46,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In this video on behavioral genetics, R. Sapolsky talks about the Dutch hunger winter andits effects on offspring conceived during that period (the whole video is interesting, I just linked to where this specific discussion starts). Here's a study on the phenomenon.","human_ref_B":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1274.0,"score_ratio":23.0} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iohaapb","c_root_id_B":"ioh7qma","created_at_utc_A":1663208523,"created_at_utc_B":1663207355,"score_A":42,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Rachel Yehuda studies epigenetics at Mt Sinai. She's worked with plenty of mice and rats to show that they can pass down fear responses to their offspring. She's also worked with descendants of Holocaust victims and pregnant people who were in the twin towers and escaped. It's astonishing and pretty awful.","human_ref_B":"It's definitely not that DNA codes are modified by going through the survival. However, having certain genes before the famine even starts, and these genes giving you an edge on survival (let's say you are smaller than average, so you can survive on less food - or the genes for the roots of your teeth give you bigger roots than normal, so you lose your teeth less readily than other people in the midst of a famine, making it easier for you to eat really rough\/tough food). The people who lack those traits have less children. Those genes are reduced by percentage in the overall population\/genome.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1168.0,"score_ratio":3.8181818182} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"iogzmar","c_root_id_B":"iohaapb","created_at_utc_A":1663203693,"created_at_utc_B":1663208523,"score_A":2,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","human_ref_B":"Rachel Yehuda studies epigenetics at Mt Sinai. She's worked with plenty of mice and rats to show that they can pass down fear responses to their offspring. She's also worked with descendants of Holocaust victims and pregnant people who were in the twin towers and escaped. It's astonishing and pretty awful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4830.0,"score_ratio":21.0} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ioh7qma","c_root_id_B":"iogzmar","created_at_utc_A":1663207355,"created_at_utc_B":1663203693,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It's definitely not that DNA codes are modified by going through the survival. However, having certain genes before the famine even starts, and these genes giving you an edge on survival (let's say you are smaller than average, so you can survive on less food - or the genes for the roots of your teeth give you bigger roots than normal, so you lose your teeth less readily than other people in the midst of a famine, making it easier for you to eat really rough\/tough food). The people who lack those traits have less children. Those genes are reduced by percentage in the overall population\/genome.","human_ref_B":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3662.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"xehohe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any truth to the theory that survivors of a famine pass on different or modified genes to their descendants? While doing some research into the Irish famine in my free time I came across a video claiming that descendants of the famine have unique genetic features. As someone not well versed in genetics or anthropology i'm wondering is there any truth to this claim? I'm particulary interested in the Irish experience and would like to know how they differ genetically from the rest of Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ioi3ah2","c_root_id_B":"iogzmar","created_at_utc_A":1663226027,"created_at_utc_B":1663203693,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Radiolab did a podcast episode about this. Not specifically about Ireland but it explains the phenomenon in an interesting way.","human_ref_B":"Here's a paper on it related to the dutch famine: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2579375\/ Popular press article on it:https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/31\/science\/dutch-famine-genes.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22334.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"wpzn11","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Chinampas (floating gardens) were invented by the Aztec civilization. They were artificial islands used in Mesoamerican agriculture in Xochimilco (modern day Mexico City). Are there any examples of this technology used outside of Mesoamerica? Why aren't Chinampas used in large scale today? I watched this video by Andrew Millison and the thought of Xochimilco being surrounded by these \"floating gardens\" is amazing to me. Why has this technology died? Is this a useable agricultural technique in different climates like the Pacific Northwest?","c_root_id_A":"ikninjo","c_root_id_B":"ikn8k6l","created_at_utc_A":1660742383,"created_at_utc_B":1660737373,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Aztecs were a late arrival to the Mesoamerican scene and didn\u2019t \u201cinvent\u201d the chinampas system. Similar systems have been used long before, not only in Mesoamerica but in South America too, from Colombia to Bolivia. Here in Ecuador they occupied vast areas, from the lowland rivers to the highlands wetlands and lakes.","human_ref_B":"There's evidence to suggest that chinampas were in use in the Tequila Valleys approximately 1500 years ago, though the evidence isn't as solid as we would like. That would mean that chinampas predate the Aztecs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5010.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7sflq","c_root_id_B":"fs867n7","created_at_utc_A":1590770733,"created_at_utc_B":1590777184,"score_A":14,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"I would highly recommend Who We Are and How We Got Here by geneticist David Reich https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who_We_Are_and_How_We_Got_Here","human_ref_B":"Just FYI, Sapiens is chockfull of errors. His central thesis is good, but he gets so many of the details wrong. He is also a historian, not a biological anthropologist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6451.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs72sg0","c_root_id_B":"fs867n7","created_at_utc_A":1590757648,"created_at_utc_B":1590777184,"score_A":10,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"\"Our Kind\" by Marvin Harris, a bit older but still great as an intro. \"Masters of the Planet\" by Ian Tattersall about human evolution.","human_ref_B":"Just FYI, Sapiens is chockfull of errors. His central thesis is good, but he gets so many of the details wrong. He is also a historian, not a biological anthropologist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19536.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs81zlc","c_root_id_B":"fs867n7","created_at_utc_A":1590775179,"created_at_utc_B":1590777184,"score_A":6,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"You may like Catching Fire: Did Cooking Make Us Human? by Richard Wrangham which explores a chunk of human evolution.","human_ref_B":"Just FYI, Sapiens is chockfull of errors. His central thesis is good, but he gets so many of the details wrong. He is also a historian, not a biological anthropologist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2005.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs867n7","c_root_id_B":"fs7m2gb","created_at_utc_A":1590777184,"created_at_utc_B":1590767777,"score_A":30,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Just FYI, Sapiens is chockfull of errors. His central thesis is good, but he gets so many of the details wrong. He is also a historian, not a biological anthropologist.","human_ref_B":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9407.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs867n7","c_root_id_B":"fs864xt","created_at_utc_A":1590777184,"created_at_utc_B":1590777148,"score_A":30,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just FYI, Sapiens is chockfull of errors. His central thesis is good, but he gets so many of the details wrong. He is also a historian, not a biological anthropologist.","human_ref_B":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":36.0,"score_ratio":10.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs72sg0","c_root_id_B":"fs8tymk","created_at_utc_A":1590757648,"created_at_utc_B":1590788930,"score_A":10,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"\"Our Kind\" by Marvin Harris, a bit older but still great as an intro. \"Masters of the Planet\" by Ian Tattersall about human evolution.","human_ref_B":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31282.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8tymk","c_root_id_B":"fs8rxbm","created_at_utc_A":1590788930,"created_at_utc_B":1590787891,"score_A":14,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","human_ref_B":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1039.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs81zlc","c_root_id_B":"fs8tymk","created_at_utc_A":1590775179,"created_at_utc_B":1590788930,"score_A":6,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"You may like Catching Fire: Did Cooking Make Us Human? by Richard Wrangham which explores a chunk of human evolution.","human_ref_B":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13751.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7m2gb","c_root_id_B":"fs8tymk","created_at_utc_A":1590767777,"created_at_utc_B":1590788930,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","human_ref_B":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21153.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8tymk","c_root_id_B":"fs88i02","created_at_utc_A":1590788930,"created_at_utc_B":1590778273,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","human_ref_B":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10657.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs864xt","c_root_id_B":"fs8tymk","created_at_utc_A":1590777148,"created_at_utc_B":1590788930,"score_A":3,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","human_ref_B":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11782.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8tymk","c_root_id_B":"fs869s4","created_at_utc_A":1590788930,"created_at_utc_B":1590777212,"score_A":14,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I would absolutely recommend *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber. It's less 'anthropology' and more an application of anthropological theory, but it's written in a very catchy & easy to understand language, and can really put things like economics, money, civilization etc into perspective.","human_ref_B":"A couple of other works that came to mind: * *Tristes Tropiques* by Claude Levi-Strauss * The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11718.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7sflq","c_root_id_B":"fs72sg0","created_at_utc_A":1590770733,"created_at_utc_B":1590757648,"score_A":14,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I would highly recommend Who We Are and How We Got Here by geneticist David Reich https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who_We_Are_and_How_We_Got_Here","human_ref_B":"\"Our Kind\" by Marvin Harris, a bit older but still great as an intro. \"Masters of the Planet\" by Ian Tattersall about human evolution.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13085.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7m2gb","c_root_id_B":"fs7sflq","created_at_utc_A":1590767777,"created_at_utc_B":1590770733,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","human_ref_B":"I would highly recommend Who We Are and How We Got Here by geneticist David Reich https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who_We_Are_and_How_We_Got_Here","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2956.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8rxbm","c_root_id_B":"fs72sg0","created_at_utc_A":1590787891,"created_at_utc_B":1590757648,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","human_ref_B":"\"Our Kind\" by Marvin Harris, a bit older but still great as an intro. \"Masters of the Planet\" by Ian Tattersall about human evolution.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30243.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs81zlc","c_root_id_B":"fs8rxbm","created_at_utc_A":1590775179,"created_at_utc_B":1590787891,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"You may like Catching Fire: Did Cooking Make Us Human? by Richard Wrangham which explores a chunk of human evolution.","human_ref_B":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12712.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7m2gb","c_root_id_B":"fs8rxbm","created_at_utc_A":1590767777,"created_at_utc_B":1590787891,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","human_ref_B":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20114.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8rxbm","c_root_id_B":"fs88i02","created_at_utc_A":1590787891,"created_at_utc_B":1590778273,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","human_ref_B":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9618.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs864xt","c_root_id_B":"fs8rxbm","created_at_utc_A":1590777148,"created_at_utc_B":1590787891,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","human_ref_B":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10743.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8rxbm","c_root_id_B":"fs869s4","created_at_utc_A":1590787891,"created_at_utc_B":1590777212,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"*The Story of the Human Body* by Daniel Lieberman -- Great for biological anthropology, evolution, mismatch disease. *Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice* by Mark Plotkin -- One of the best ethnobotany books I've ever read.","human_ref_B":"A couple of other works that came to mind: * *Tristes Tropiques* by Claude Levi-Strauss * The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10679.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs81zlc","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590775179,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"You may like Catching Fire: Did Cooking Make Us Human? by Richard Wrangham which explores a chunk of human evolution.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27872.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs7m2gb","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590767777,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35274.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs88i02","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590778273,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24778.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs8z19p","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590791600,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"Yes! I really recommend Primate Change by Vybarr Cregan-Reid. It\u2019s a great intro-moderate anthropology book. Also, The Social Leap by William Von-Hippel is really good!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11451.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs864xt","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590777148,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25903.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs9iyjv","c_root_id_B":"fs869s4","created_at_utc_A":1590803051,"created_at_utc_B":1590777212,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"*1491: New Relavations of the Americas Before Columbus* is an excellent introduction to the Precolumbian Americas, though it''s pretty generalist, so it's skipping from location to location, culture to culture, etc without going into too much depth on a particular area or subject. It's an amazing book to drill into people's heads that the Precolumbian Americas had noteworthy stuff going on, but after reading it you'd probably be best off then using it as a springboard to do a deeper dive into a specific area. Here's an excerpt it has about Aztec Poetry: >Like Greek philosophy, the teachings of the tlamatinime were only tenuously connected to the official dogma...But the tlamatinime shared the religion\u2019s sense of the evanescence of existence. >\u201cTruly do we live on Earth?\u201dasked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl (1402\u201372), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >*Be it jade, it shatters.* >*Be it gold, it breaks.* >*Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart.* >*Not forever on earth; only a little while here.* >In another verse assigned to Nezahualc\u00f3yotl this theme emerged even more baldly: >*Like a painting, we will be erased.* >*Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.* >*Like plumed vestments of the precious bird,* >*That precious bird with the agile neck,* >*We will come to an end.* >In Nahuatl rhetoric, things were frequently represented by the unusual device of naming two of their elements\u2014a kind of doubled Homeric epithet. Instead of directly mentioning his body, a poet might refer to \u201cmy hand, my foot\u201d (noma nocxi), which the savvy listener would know was a synecdoche, in the same way that readers of English know that writers who mention \u201cthe crown\u201d are actually talking about the entire monarch, and not just the headgear. Similarly, the poet\u2019s speech would be \u201chis word, his breath\u201d (itlatol ihiyo). A double-barreled term for \u201ctruth\u201d is neltilitztli tzintliztli, which means something like \u201cfundamental truth, true basic principle.\u201d >In Nahuatl, the words almost shimmer with connotation: what was true was well grounded, stable and immutable, enduring above all. Because we human beings are transitory, our lives as ephemeral as dreams, the tlamatinime suggested that immutable truth is by its nature beyond human experience. On the ever-changing earth, wrote Le\u00f3n-Portilla, the Mexican historian, \u201cnothing is \u2018true\u2019 in the Nahuatl sense of the word.\u201d Time and again, the tlamatinime wrestled with this dilemma. How can beings of the moment grasp the perduring? It would be like asking a stone to understand mortality. >According to Le\u00f3n-Portilla, one exit from this philosophical blind alley was seen by the fifteenth-century poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin, who described it metaphorically, as poets will, by invoking the coyolli bird, known for its bell-like song: >*He goes his way singing, offering flowers.* >*And his words rain down* >*Like jade and quetzal plumes.* >*Is this what pleases the Giver of Life?* >*Is that the only truth on earth?* >Ayocuan\u2019s remarks cannot be fully understood out of the Nahuatl context, Le\u00f3n-Portilla argued. \u201cFlowers and song\u201d was a standard double epithet for poetry, the highest art; \u201cjade and quetzal feathers\u201d was a synecdoche for great value, in the way that Europeans might refer to \u201cgold and silver.\u201d The song of the bird, spontaneously produced, stands for aesthetic inspiration. Ayocuan was suggesting, Le\u00f3n-Portilla said, that there is a time when humankind can touch the enduring truths that underlie our fleeting lives. That time is at the moment of artistic creation. \u201cFrom whence come the flowers [the artistic creations] that enrapture man?\u201d asks the poet. \u201cThe songs that intoxicate, the lovely songs?\u201d And he answers: \u201cOnly from His [that is, Ometeotl\u2019s] home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven.\u201d Through art alone, the Mexica said, can human beings approach the real.","human_ref_B":"A couple of other works that came to mind: * *Tristes Tropiques* by Claude Levi-Strauss * The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25839.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs7m2gb","c_root_id_B":"fs81zlc","created_at_utc_A":1590767777,"created_at_utc_B":1590775179,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"\"Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs\" by Norma Mendoza-Denton was a really great read. The last chapters get a little heavy with the linguistic theory but I'd say the bulk of the book can be engaged with ease and interest by non-anthropologists and non-academics. I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound like another opaque read but the content is informative (regarding both the youth gangs study and of broader reflexive ethnographic practice) without losing the reader in complexity. Chapters 1-6 are the most engaging while chapters 7-9 are geared more toward linguists, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy the first six chapters without trying to engage the sociophonetic stuff at the end. Highly recommend :)","human_ref_B":"You may like Catching Fire: Did Cooking Make Us Human? by Richard Wrangham which explores a chunk of human evolution.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7402.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs88i02","c_root_id_B":"fs8z19p","created_at_utc_A":1590778273,"created_at_utc_B":1590791600,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","human_ref_B":"Yes! I really recommend Primate Change by Vybarr Cregan-Reid. It\u2019s a great intro-moderate anthropology book. Also, The Social Leap by William Von-Hippel is really good!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13327.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs88i02","c_root_id_B":"fs864xt","created_at_utc_A":1590778273,"created_at_utc_B":1590777148,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","human_ref_B":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1125.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs869s4","c_root_id_B":"fs88i02","created_at_utc_A":1590777212,"created_at_utc_B":1590778273,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"A couple of other works that came to mind: * *Tristes Tropiques* by Claude Levi-Strauss * The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict","human_ref_B":"Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes is thrilling and REAL and so relevant Tsukiji by Ted Bestor is a life\u2019s work and is perfect for foodie\u2019s with a travel bug.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1061.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs8z19p","c_root_id_B":"fs864xt","created_at_utc_A":1590791600,"created_at_utc_B":1590777148,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Yes! I really recommend Primate Change by Vybarr Cregan-Reid. It\u2019s a great intro-moderate anthropology book. Also, The Social Leap by William Von-Hippel is really good!","human_ref_B":"One of the best primers on the archaeology sub-field is *Biography of a Hacienda: Work and Revolution in Rural Mexico* by Elizabeth Newman. It's a specific case study of historical archaeology, but it does a better job of conveying the broader field to the laypeople in my life than I can with a PhD in the field. Add to that the fact that it's very concise\/accessible and you have a great primer!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14452.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"gsriyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books related to Anthropology that will spark interest in a layman like \"Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari\"?","c_root_id_A":"fs869s4","c_root_id_B":"fs8z19p","created_at_utc_A":1590777212,"created_at_utc_B":1590791600,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"A couple of other works that came to mind: * *Tristes Tropiques* by Claude Levi-Strauss * The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict","human_ref_B":"Yes! I really recommend Primate Change by Vybarr Cregan-Reid. It\u2019s a great intro-moderate anthropology book. Also, The Social Leap by William Von-Hippel is really good!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14388.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"h0q62l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there any truth to the idea that Archaeologists are a bit too prone to simply labeling items with unclear functions Ritual or Ceremonial objects, or this grossly unfair? How exactly do archaeologist quantify that something might have had religious significance, and is there a possible temptation to read a bit too much into things without much foundation when it might be better to just say that the function and purpose of what they found is unclear at present time?","c_root_id_A":"ftnruxc","c_root_id_B":"ftnt0bu","created_at_utc_A":1591846863,"created_at_utc_B":1591847583,"score_A":43,"score_B":166,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly related to *objects*, but: There is definitely literature that asserts that one of the most generalized characteristics of ritual *spaces* is extreme cleanliness and an absence of portable artifacts. This no doubt leaves open some potential for interpreting structures or spaces that are simply lightly used as ceremonial.","human_ref_B":"I think it's both true and unfair. It certainly seems true that the ritual\/ceremonial label is placed on many objects that have unknown purposes, but it's unfair to think that it is due to laziness on the part of archaeologists. It's unfair because people assume ritual, ceremony, and religion are all the same but they aren't. There are entirely secular ceremonies and rituals. Militaries across the world are full of ceremony and ritual. The Changing of the Guard is a perfect example of a ceremony. Similarly, handing out awards or promotions in the military often includes a ritual. Here's a ceremonial object that has no relation to religion what so ever: an aircrew badge. It doesn't have a function. It isn't a tool. It isn't designed to do anything except be worn on a uniform. There are rules about who can wear them and how to wear them. If one of those was pulled out of the ground by archaeologists 1000 years from now, they'd rightly call it a ceremonial object.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":720.0,"score_ratio":3.8604651163} {"post_id":"h0q62l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there any truth to the idea that Archaeologists are a bit too prone to simply labeling items with unclear functions Ritual or Ceremonial objects, or this grossly unfair? How exactly do archaeologist quantify that something might have had religious significance, and is there a possible temptation to read a bit too much into things without much foundation when it might be better to just say that the function and purpose of what they found is unclear at present time?","c_root_id_A":"ftnsgp0","c_root_id_B":"ftnt0bu","created_at_utc_A":1591847232,"created_at_utc_B":1591847583,"score_A":15,"score_B":166,"human_ref_A":"If the utility of an object is unknown almost all researchers will state so. They may make educated estimates about their use. There is no shame in not having a clear picture. This will invite scrutiny and analyses, which will in turn help clarify their role.","human_ref_B":"I think it's both true and unfair. It certainly seems true that the ritual\/ceremonial label is placed on many objects that have unknown purposes, but it's unfair to think that it is due to laziness on the part of archaeologists. It's unfair because people assume ritual, ceremony, and religion are all the same but they aren't. There are entirely secular ceremonies and rituals. Militaries across the world are full of ceremony and ritual. The Changing of the Guard is a perfect example of a ceremony. Similarly, handing out awards or promotions in the military often includes a ritual. Here's a ceremonial object that has no relation to religion what so ever: an aircrew badge. It doesn't have a function. It isn't a tool. It isn't designed to do anything except be worn on a uniform. There are rules about who can wear them and how to wear them. If one of those was pulled out of the ground by archaeologists 1000 years from now, they'd rightly call it a ceremonial object.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":351.0,"score_ratio":11.0666666667} {"post_id":"h0q62l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there any truth to the idea that Archaeologists are a bit too prone to simply labeling items with unclear functions Ritual or Ceremonial objects, or this grossly unfair? How exactly do archaeologist quantify that something might have had religious significance, and is there a possible temptation to read a bit too much into things without much foundation when it might be better to just say that the function and purpose of what they found is unclear at present time?","c_root_id_A":"ftnypva","c_root_id_B":"ftnsgp0","created_at_utc_A":1591851586,"created_at_utc_B":1591847232,"score_A":31,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Sounds like somebody read about the Nacerima, lol. People can debate me here, but I think the answer to your question lies in how someone defines ritual. Does ritual require a religious aspect? Is it simply a habitual practice? But ritual has to serve a cultural purpose, right? \"Ritual\" can be applied to supposedly secular practices, as long as it is a practice that evokes the feeling of \"sacredness\" (picture a crowd of people standing for the national anthem. This is a \"ritual\", yes? But secular?). Or is the key to \"ritual\" the cultural function it serves? Is a high school graduation ceremony \"ritual\"? A large group of family and friends and authority figures gather. The graduates are isolated from the rest of the community and dress in clothing that erases their individual identities (graduation gowns). You can apply all the steps of a rite of passage ritual to your typical high school graduation. \"Ritual\" and \"ceremony\" are words which can be used to describe any number of secular cultural practices. Yes, many archaeologists will refer to something as \"ritual\" or \"ceremonial\" but in some cases that label does not inherently mean religious. It may be misleading at times, but not necessarily unfair. I'm struggling to put this in words right now because I'm exhausted. It's not exactly archaeology related, more cultural anthropology, but if you're really into talking about ritual, look into \"the ritual process\" by Victor Turner if you're unfamiliar with it. That book, along with Emile Durkiem's writing about religion changed the way I view so many things. Despite the intention in anthropology to examine all data within its unique context: archaeologists are humans with their own cultural identies, beliefs, and faults which contribute to their biases. So yeah, sometimes people jump to conclusions. It may be out of excitement, laziness, or frustration, but people can be too quick to slap a label on something. But that's why collaboration and discussion is so important in any field of study. It's important that people have the opportunity to potentially challenge your ideas. But it's important to recognize that human beings love rituals. We are social animals that strive to feel a sense of belonging within a community: rituals are what make that happen.","human_ref_B":"If the utility of an object is unknown almost all researchers will state so. They may make educated estimates about their use. There is no shame in not having a clear picture. This will invite scrutiny and analyses, which will in turn help clarify their role.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4354.0,"score_ratio":2.0666666667} {"post_id":"h0q62l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there any truth to the idea that Archaeologists are a bit too prone to simply labeling items with unclear functions Ritual or Ceremonial objects, or this grossly unfair? How exactly do archaeologist quantify that something might have had religious significance, and is there a possible temptation to read a bit too much into things without much foundation when it might be better to just say that the function and purpose of what they found is unclear at present time?","c_root_id_A":"ftnsgp0","c_root_id_B":"ftooquv","created_at_utc_A":1591847232,"created_at_utc_B":1591875025,"score_A":15,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"If the utility of an object is unknown almost all researchers will state so. They may make educated estimates about their use. There is no shame in not having a clear picture. This will invite scrutiny and analyses, which will in turn help clarify their role.","human_ref_B":"It's a common joke among field archaeologists, but in truth most of the time when some object with no clear use or identification is found it is usually described in terms of what it looks like, is made of, etc. But context matters, of course. For instance, if I was working on a Roman site in London and found a strip of mangled iron that appears to be a fragment of a sword in a pit together with bits of broken pottery and disarticulated and possibly butchered animal bones, I might conclude that it was discarded because it was broken and deemed useless -- it was found in a nondescript pit with other items that suggest general trash. On the other hand, if I found that object in a pit together with an intact pot, an articulated and deliberately buried animal skeleton, or in a group with other bent items that appear to be swords, then the interpretation changes. In that case I might suggest the pit and the group of bent metal objects was \"ritual\" or \"ceremonial\", because it seems like there was a group of swords that were deliberately bent, destroyed, and buried together; or a damaged sword was buried with a favourite hunting dog, or with some kind of offering. But that is not necessarily a religious explanation, and it might not even be a ritual or ceremony that was repeated. You can come up with any number of stories to explain how that deposit came to be, which can lead you into pure speculation and fiction, but the core idea that an anomalous deposit was the result of something not purely functional is sensible.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27793.0,"score_ratio":1.7333333333} {"post_id":"bf055l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Almost every scientific study has concluded that corporal punishment for criminals is severely ineffective at its intended purpose. Consider this, why is institutional corporal punishment so common across many cultures in human history and even today? I'm mainly referring to judicial corporal punishment on adults not necessarily parent-child physical discipline. I understand that in the latter case, it's usually because parents have internalized the practice as normal and don't want to think of themselves as being victims and\/or their parents as abusers. However, in terms of justice systems across *thousands* of years of history ranging from Europe to Asia to Africa it seems like the practice emerged independently and was continually practiced for several generations. In many areas it's been recently outlawed in the last 2-3 centuries but there are still many places today that use it. Since it's not effective, why has it been able to persist for so long? Obviously people centuries ago didn't have the scientific methods and statistical infrastructure to study the effects of the practice, but how come on the scale of thousands of years, rulers didn't catch on to the fact that they were beating people only for the problem to continue? How come more effective means of deterring crime didn't arise to compete with civilizations that used corporal punishment?","c_root_id_A":"el9w2i6","c_root_id_B":"el9zjud","created_at_utc_A":1555688682,"created_at_utc_B":1555690730,"score_A":41,"score_B":60,"human_ref_A":"Michelle Foucault would probably say it's more about the state demonstrating power over the bodies of its people than anything else. It's more about the narrative that ultimately we're alive and whole only by the grace of the governing body.","human_ref_B":"I had a prof say that punishment is used so widely because it\u2019s positive reinforcement for the the punisher. He said that using positive reinforcement to avoid bad behaviour rather than punishing the bad behaviour is way more effective but it\u2019s not as instinctive as punishment. Punishment is positive reinforcement for the punisher because the bad behaviour always stops immediately when the punishment is enforced, however because it\u2019s highly unlikely the punisher will always catch the bad behaviour it will still happen because people know they\u2019ll only be punished if they are caught. The prof continued to say that the reason that rewarding an alternative behaviour is more effective is because even if you only get rewarded some of the time when you do something you\u2019ll still do it because there\u2019s always a chance you\u2019ll get something out of it, punishment won\u2019t work because there\u2019s a chance you won\u2019t get caught.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2048.0,"score_ratio":1.4634146341} {"post_id":"bf055l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Almost every scientific study has concluded that corporal punishment for criminals is severely ineffective at its intended purpose. Consider this, why is institutional corporal punishment so common across many cultures in human history and even today? I'm mainly referring to judicial corporal punishment on adults not necessarily parent-child physical discipline. I understand that in the latter case, it's usually because parents have internalized the practice as normal and don't want to think of themselves as being victims and\/or their parents as abusers. However, in terms of justice systems across *thousands* of years of history ranging from Europe to Asia to Africa it seems like the practice emerged independently and was continually practiced for several generations. In many areas it's been recently outlawed in the last 2-3 centuries but there are still many places today that use it. Since it's not effective, why has it been able to persist for so long? Obviously people centuries ago didn't have the scientific methods and statistical infrastructure to study the effects of the practice, but how come on the scale of thousands of years, rulers didn't catch on to the fact that they were beating people only for the problem to continue? How come more effective means of deterring crime didn't arise to compete with civilizations that used corporal punishment?","c_root_id_A":"ela4snk","c_root_id_B":"el9w2i6","created_at_utc_A":1555693915,"created_at_utc_B":1555688682,"score_A":48,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"Two points. First, practicality. Compared to alternatives like imprisonment, corporal punishment is very cheap. All you need is one person to physically deal out the punishment, and afterwards the convicted is free to go, his debt to society having been paid. Imprisonment at any scale requires a prison, guards, and food for the prisoners. So for a small village or ancient city-state, that would be a tremendous burden. Also considering a small community, a person in prison is someone not contributing to the overall productivity of the community. So the direct and opportunity costs combined are very large. Second, justice. Before modern times, justice wasn\u2019t really about rehabilitation or even deterrence. Older ideas of justice are more about balance. If you hurt someone, you create an imbalance in the natural order of things. You\u2019ve incurred a debt that must be paid by you being hurt to a similar level, even if not in the same way. The same with the ultimate corporate punishment: death. If you murder someone, you\u2019ve wounded the entire community, and the only way to rebalance the scales and restore \u201crightness,\u201d however defined, to the community is to forfeit your life in payment. These ideas are not long gone. See above where I used the common phrase of paying one\u2019s debt to society. The general principle is that while we live in a very individualistic age, most of human history saw much more collectivist identities, and justice is for the sake of the collective and not about the individual.","human_ref_B":"Michelle Foucault would probably say it's more about the state demonstrating power over the bodies of its people than anything else. It's more about the narrative that ultimately we're alive and whole only by the grace of the governing body.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5233.0,"score_ratio":1.1707317073} {"post_id":"bf055l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Almost every scientific study has concluded that corporal punishment for criminals is severely ineffective at its intended purpose. Consider this, why is institutional corporal punishment so common across many cultures in human history and even today? I'm mainly referring to judicial corporal punishment on adults not necessarily parent-child physical discipline. I understand that in the latter case, it's usually because parents have internalized the practice as normal and don't want to think of themselves as being victims and\/or their parents as abusers. However, in terms of justice systems across *thousands* of years of history ranging from Europe to Asia to Africa it seems like the practice emerged independently and was continually practiced for several generations. In many areas it's been recently outlawed in the last 2-3 centuries but there are still many places today that use it. Since it's not effective, why has it been able to persist for so long? Obviously people centuries ago didn't have the scientific methods and statistical infrastructure to study the effects of the practice, but how come on the scale of thousands of years, rulers didn't catch on to the fact that they were beating people only for the problem to continue? How come more effective means of deterring crime didn't arise to compete with civilizations that used corporal punishment?","c_root_id_A":"ela0vol","c_root_id_B":"ela4snk","created_at_utc_A":1555691542,"created_at_utc_B":1555693915,"score_A":4,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"Do you have sources for it not being effective. I was sea Ching for this exact thing a few weeks ago, but was only able to find work about corporal punishment against children.","human_ref_B":"Two points. First, practicality. Compared to alternatives like imprisonment, corporal punishment is very cheap. All you need is one person to physically deal out the punishment, and afterwards the convicted is free to go, his debt to society having been paid. Imprisonment at any scale requires a prison, guards, and food for the prisoners. So for a small village or ancient city-state, that would be a tremendous burden. Also considering a small community, a person in prison is someone not contributing to the overall productivity of the community. So the direct and opportunity costs combined are very large. Second, justice. Before modern times, justice wasn\u2019t really about rehabilitation or even deterrence. Older ideas of justice are more about balance. If you hurt someone, you create an imbalance in the natural order of things. You\u2019ve incurred a debt that must be paid by you being hurt to a similar level, even if not in the same way. The same with the ultimate corporate punishment: death. If you murder someone, you\u2019ve wounded the entire community, and the only way to rebalance the scales and restore \u201crightness,\u201d however defined, to the community is to forfeit your life in payment. These ideas are not long gone. See above where I used the common phrase of paying one\u2019s debt to society. The general principle is that while we live in a very individualistic age, most of human history saw much more collectivist identities, and justice is for the sake of the collective and not about the individual.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2373.0,"score_ratio":12.0} {"post_id":"bf055l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Almost every scientific study has concluded that corporal punishment for criminals is severely ineffective at its intended purpose. Consider this, why is institutional corporal punishment so common across many cultures in human history and even today? I'm mainly referring to judicial corporal punishment on adults not necessarily parent-child physical discipline. I understand that in the latter case, it's usually because parents have internalized the practice as normal and don't want to think of themselves as being victims and\/or their parents as abusers. However, in terms of justice systems across *thousands* of years of history ranging from Europe to Asia to Africa it seems like the practice emerged independently and was continually practiced for several generations. In many areas it's been recently outlawed in the last 2-3 centuries but there are still many places today that use it. Since it's not effective, why has it been able to persist for so long? Obviously people centuries ago didn't have the scientific methods and statistical infrastructure to study the effects of the practice, but how come on the scale of thousands of years, rulers didn't catch on to the fact that they were beating people only for the problem to continue? How come more effective means of deterring crime didn't arise to compete with civilizations that used corporal punishment?","c_root_id_A":"ela0vol","c_root_id_B":"ela70aw","created_at_utc_A":1555691542,"created_at_utc_B":1555695242,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Do you have sources for it not being effective. I was sea Ching for this exact thing a few weeks ago, but was only able to find work about corporal punishment against children.","human_ref_B":"You're assuming deterrence is the intended purpose of legal punishment. That's a secondary goal, at best, for most people in most cultures, especially throughout history.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3700.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"bf055l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Almost every scientific study has concluded that corporal punishment for criminals is severely ineffective at its intended purpose. Consider this, why is institutional corporal punishment so common across many cultures in human history and even today? I'm mainly referring to judicial corporal punishment on adults not necessarily parent-child physical discipline. I understand that in the latter case, it's usually because parents have internalized the practice as normal and don't want to think of themselves as being victims and\/or their parents as abusers. However, in terms of justice systems across *thousands* of years of history ranging from Europe to Asia to Africa it seems like the practice emerged independently and was continually practiced for several generations. In many areas it's been recently outlawed in the last 2-3 centuries but there are still many places today that use it. Since it's not effective, why has it been able to persist for so long? Obviously people centuries ago didn't have the scientific methods and statistical infrastructure to study the effects of the practice, but how come on the scale of thousands of years, rulers didn't catch on to the fact that they were beating people only for the problem to continue? How come more effective means of deterring crime didn't arise to compete with civilizations that used corporal punishment?","c_root_id_A":"elabrso","c_root_id_B":"ela0vol","created_at_utc_A":1555698141,"created_at_utc_B":1555691542,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"\"Effective\" at what? It may not deter crime effectively, but it sure makes some people _feel_ like justice has been done, which might be its real purpose.","human_ref_B":"Do you have sources for it not being effective. I was sea Ching for this exact thing a few weeks ago, but was only able to find work about corporal punishment against children.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6599.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"apk8dp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What would an anthropology grad student in 1960 be most surprised to hear is accepted knowledge in the field circa 2019? What are the most significant changes in beliefs and assertions the discipline is broadly making?","c_root_id_A":"eg9laca","c_root_id_B":"eg9k37q","created_at_utc_A":1549927991,"created_at_utc_B":1549927183,"score_A":121,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"As a cultural anthropologist, I would say the critiques of positivism would really surprise someone from the 1960s. The discourse on anthropology's complicity in colonialism would likely also surprise them, although it shouldn't. Those critiques did exist before 1960, but were ignored for decades and are still underemphasized today.","human_ref_B":"Thinking of socio-cultural anthropology, one might want to look at two article by Sherry Ortner which give quick overviews of the field. The first is \"Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties\" (published in 1984). Ungated PDF here. The second is her more recent \"Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties\". Open Access article here. The first article was widely praised, the second article seems to have gotten less traction, but that I think also is reflective that socio-cultural anthropology is *much* less centralized, much less carrying on one or two major conversations than it was fifty years ago. Obviously, there are a lot of trends she doesn't cover (I don't remember if she covers, for instance, the rise of medical anthropology as a major subfield), these trends tend to play out more in some areas than others (in anthropology of the Middle East, thinking around \"hegemony\" and \"resistance\" were more both important and dominant for a longer period of time than they were in anthropology of, say, the South Pacific), and many of these trends started earlier and continued longer than she discusses. Still, I cannot imagine two articles that can better acquaint you with the important developments of the field. She gives you a sense of what books, articles, and argument were important, why, and what the stakes were. One thing that is perhaps most surprising to our hypothetical graduate student is how far anthropology has moved away from trying to find general rules for man and general patterns of human societies and, conversely, how closely anthropology engaged anthropology has engaged with Marxist thought and critical theory (which didn\u2019t really exist in 1960). A 1960s anthropology graduate student would likely be shocked at how few assertions the discipline is making general. Likewise, most anthropology books, especially first books, published before the 1960\u2019s tended to be community studies having a general overview of one community (*Life Among the Whomever: Continuity and Change*): maybe a chapter on kinship, a chapter on agriculture, a chapter on religion, etc. These communities would be almost exclusively non-Western and predominantly Rita. These days, the studies focus on a particular aspect (LGBT sex workers in X city or poetry among Y nomads, rather than being titled the Whoever: an Adjective people), and are more likely to study both urbanites and Westerners.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":808.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"kjng2v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did pagans actually worship nature? I was wondering about the opinion of experts regarding this piece, \"Sorry, Ancient Pagans Didn\u2019t Really Worship Nature\". Its main thesis is stated in its introduction: >*If you go around and ask a bunch of people what \u201cpaganism\u201d is, chances are, most people will tell you something like \u201cnature worship.\u201d It is true that some contemporary Neopagans do indeed worship nature, albeit in various forms and in various ways. Even many Neopagans who do not literally worship nature still hold nature in very high regard.* > >*When we look at the ancient pre-Christian religions that are often lumped together as \u201cpaganism,\u201d though, we actually find a rather startling absence of nature-worshippers. For most people in the ancient world, nature was a frightening and dangerous thing that could never really be trusted. Most of the deities worshipped in ancient times by so-called \u201cpagans\u201d were not seen as personifications of nature or natural forces, but rather as supernatural beings governing certain areas of human endeavor.* > >*Some deities were associated with aspects of the natural world, but the deities themselves were almost always clearly distinguished from the phenomena they were associated with. Furthermore, even those deities associated with natural phenomena were usually associated with cultural phenomena as well.* I understand that, firstly, it's difficult to talk about \"what pagans believed\", as we are talking about a great many widely different societies. The author provides some evidence against nature worship for Greeks and Sumerians, and implies that the same goes for at least most of the rest pagan societies. However, just a Wikipedia search on the term \"Nature Worship\" brings up pre-christianic examples that don't seem to fit the simple distinction between \"divine beings\" and \"the natural phenomena that these beings caused\". I've also found a widely supported answer on an \/r\/AskHistorians question, claiming that even the Greek gods weren't viewed so much as persons, as much as \"aspects of divine power\", which seems to run counter to the author's thesis. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"ggxs0uw","c_root_id_B":"ggy41f4","created_at_utc_A":1608849139,"created_at_utc_B":1608856571,"score_A":14,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"That piece seems to be about the extant religions that \"worshipped deities\" in the greater Mediterranean region at the time of the invention of Christianity. They were called pagans by Christians but theists by animists. Animism is the more nature worshiping mode of religion. They do not worship deities. The traditional animists I have known understand the forces of nature as spirits and hang out in sacred groves.","human_ref_B":"This is a very arbitrary and semantic definition of \"nature.\" pre-enlightenment, enlightenment, romantic, modern, and postmodern periods all conceptualize nature differently. That's literally just the past 400 years. It is very fair to say that what you consider natural would not be considered natural, and vice versa, for any arbitrary time period in history. That is before even addressing the fact that \"pagans\" are not a monolithic group, culturally, temporally, or even individually.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7432.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"kjng2v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did pagans actually worship nature? I was wondering about the opinion of experts regarding this piece, \"Sorry, Ancient Pagans Didn\u2019t Really Worship Nature\". Its main thesis is stated in its introduction: >*If you go around and ask a bunch of people what \u201cpaganism\u201d is, chances are, most people will tell you something like \u201cnature worship.\u201d It is true that some contemporary Neopagans do indeed worship nature, albeit in various forms and in various ways. Even many Neopagans who do not literally worship nature still hold nature in very high regard.* > >*When we look at the ancient pre-Christian religions that are often lumped together as \u201cpaganism,\u201d though, we actually find a rather startling absence of nature-worshippers. For most people in the ancient world, nature was a frightening and dangerous thing that could never really be trusted. Most of the deities worshipped in ancient times by so-called \u201cpagans\u201d were not seen as personifications of nature or natural forces, but rather as supernatural beings governing certain areas of human endeavor.* > >*Some deities were associated with aspects of the natural world, but the deities themselves were almost always clearly distinguished from the phenomena they were associated with. Furthermore, even those deities associated with natural phenomena were usually associated with cultural phenomena as well.* I understand that, firstly, it's difficult to talk about \"what pagans believed\", as we are talking about a great many widely different societies. The author provides some evidence against nature worship for Greeks and Sumerians, and implies that the same goes for at least most of the rest pagan societies. However, just a Wikipedia search on the term \"Nature Worship\" brings up pre-christianic examples that don't seem to fit the simple distinction between \"divine beings\" and \"the natural phenomena that these beings caused\". I've also found a widely supported answer on an \/r\/AskHistorians question, claiming that even the Greek gods weren't viewed so much as persons, as much as \"aspects of divine power\", which seems to run counter to the author's thesis. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"ggz1zhv","c_root_id_B":"ggyob93","created_at_utc_A":1608882592,"created_at_utc_B":1608870791,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Well paganism is a broad term, but I can tell you about the religion or culture of stone age (and bronze age) central Europe. There is a famous anthropologist called Kurt Derungs who is researching this. His books are in German, as he focuses on Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But I can summarize it for you. He reconstructed his findings based on holy stones (archaeological sites), as well as folk lore and rituals that survive to this very day. He also compares the religion of stone age Europe (animism) to other surviving forms of animism today (e.g. Shintoism in Japan). The gist of it is yes, this particular branch of paganism was worshipping nature. There was no afterlife in the form of another dimension for Stone age humans in Germany\/ Austria\/ Switzerland (no heaven, hell etc.). This may be just a \"new\" concept from outside of Europe. They only had this world, all human souls come from this world (nature) and return to it again, after death. That's why young women slid down stones or took a bath in holy ponds before they got pregnant. They took up a soul from nature, to bring it back to life later (by giving birth). Everything in nature has a soul. That's why it is called animism, and that's why they worshipped nature. They worshipped the land they lived on: mountains, rivers, trees and so on. Those had names and were symbolized by women, snakes, etc., but were not a \"God\" like we know it today. The holy stones and rituals survive to this very day. I can take stroll in the forest and have a look at the stone, I can even see the ridge the girls slid down for centuries. The holy pond still exists today, but the whole background story is Christianized, unfortunately. The monastery, which was later built around it, now just calls it healing water. But if you ask the nuns, they still know the ritual of girls bathing before marriage. Those people also worshipped the yearly cycles (e.g. the coming and going of winter) with rituals that survive to this very day. So again, it's nature worship. Derungs figured out lots of additional things, if you want to I can summarize more about the aspects of nature, holy women and so on. I'm no professional anthropologist, so I let you guys judge. I checked it out for myself and it makes sense to me. Derungs is a professional with a PhD in anthropology and a lecturer at different universities. I believe his theories for the most part. But I know it's hard to reconstruct beliefs from 3000 years ago, so take it with a grain of salt. Some of his books: * ISBN 978-3-905581-10-2 * ISBN 978-3-905581-08-9","human_ref_B":"After reading the article and the author's bio page, I can say with confidence this is the myopic opinion of someone who has a very admirable passion for history and a lovely style of writing, but whose zeal for history appears to far outstrip their actual knowledge. I'm sure they had good intentions with this article, but it's the absolute epitome of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (basically they don't know enough to know how little they know). That's a all a very nice way of saying **it's a bullshit article.* Though written with authority the entire piece is strictly about the Hellanistic pantheon. Towards the end of the article he acknowledges that, and to prove he really really knows what he's talking about he goes a grand total of the geographic equivalent of next door, to Sumeria. Looking at their gods, which he lists off in bullet points, they all do indeed control an aspect of nature, *but* they were also each taken as the patron god of different cities and therefore they somehow how don't in fact contradict his very flimsy hypothesis. Sorry buddy, they do. So he uses literally only two cultures to prove his point, and literally at least 50% of his own \"evidence\" contradicts him. He does a knowledge that the term \"pagan\" covers thousands of religions and yet is very satisfied he's more that thoroughly proved his point with one, and a superficial mention of a second. He also very confidently asserts several times that in \"pre-Christian\" times, all cultures were pagan. This is of course absurd, not least of all because Judaism predates Christianity by a solid millennium at least. He also very sweepingly declares that *all* \"pre-Christian\" religions practiced animal and human sacrifice - to prove this fact he cites another article *written by himself.* That's his only citation by the way. His statements of \"fact\" about pagan sacrifice is not just absurd, it's plain stupid and bigoted. While I could keep tearing this travesty apart, I'll simply say **he's wrong.** He's so wrong that it's actually amazing. He's an absolute prodigy at being wrong. An incalculable number of religions did in fact \"worship nature\". It's very likely the basis of religion itself. By personifying powerful, uncontrollable natural forces as super natural beings, or attributing natural forced to the direct action of supernatural beings, people could explain what was happening in their world. By believing natural phenomena were under the direct control of supernatural beings they empowered themselves with the potential to persuade those beings to act in their favor. In this way many early religions were an attempt to both make sense of and gain control over the overwhelming power of the natural world. Even when a being wasn't a personification of a natural force it was still typical that they could offer the group protection, which is another way of fulfilling the same desire for control over or protection from natural phenomena. Most if not all such religions involve rituals they believe will appease or win the favor of supernatural being, who will then act in the people's best interests. Honestly there's far too much wrong with this article to address, it's easier and quite frankly accurate to say it's an absolutely worthless piece of ignorant generalization.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11801.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"kjng2v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did pagans actually worship nature? I was wondering about the opinion of experts regarding this piece, \"Sorry, Ancient Pagans Didn\u2019t Really Worship Nature\". Its main thesis is stated in its introduction: >*If you go around and ask a bunch of people what \u201cpaganism\u201d is, chances are, most people will tell you something like \u201cnature worship.\u201d It is true that some contemporary Neopagans do indeed worship nature, albeit in various forms and in various ways. Even many Neopagans who do not literally worship nature still hold nature in very high regard.* > >*When we look at the ancient pre-Christian religions that are often lumped together as \u201cpaganism,\u201d though, we actually find a rather startling absence of nature-worshippers. For most people in the ancient world, nature was a frightening and dangerous thing that could never really be trusted. Most of the deities worshipped in ancient times by so-called \u201cpagans\u201d were not seen as personifications of nature or natural forces, but rather as supernatural beings governing certain areas of human endeavor.* > >*Some deities were associated with aspects of the natural world, but the deities themselves were almost always clearly distinguished from the phenomena they were associated with. Furthermore, even those deities associated with natural phenomena were usually associated with cultural phenomena as well.* I understand that, firstly, it's difficult to talk about \"what pagans believed\", as we are talking about a great many widely different societies. The author provides some evidence against nature worship for Greeks and Sumerians, and implies that the same goes for at least most of the rest pagan societies. However, just a Wikipedia search on the term \"Nature Worship\" brings up pre-christianic examples that don't seem to fit the simple distinction between \"divine beings\" and \"the natural phenomena that these beings caused\". I've also found a widely supported answer on an \/r\/AskHistorians question, claiming that even the Greek gods weren't viewed so much as persons, as much as \"aspects of divine power\", which seems to run counter to the author's thesis. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"ggzh3z4","c_root_id_B":"ggyob93","created_at_utc_A":1608901070,"created_at_utc_B":1608870791,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The main problem of this article is the click-bait title and several of its sweeping statements refer to all pagans, but then the author incorrectly states the word paganism \"is most often applied to the various polytheistic religions that were practiced in the greater Mediterranean region\". This is only true if you are a classicist, which the author states he is. To anyone working in the history of any different region of the world where the word \"pagan\" has been applied this is laughable. Furthermore, he quotes Neopagans who are not clarified as being Classical revivalist pagans to further his argument that Neopagans are incorrect in attributing nature worship to their forebears. In reality though, the vast majority of Neopagans today are not Classical revivalists. It's certainly true that Neopaganism is influenced by the Romantic movement, but to ignore the non-Classical pagan influences, which constitute the *vast majority* of both historical pagan traditions and of Neopagan inspirations, is intellectually dishonest. It seems to be done for the sole purpose of portraying modern Neopagans as ignorant of the realities of historical pagan worship, but this is only accomplished by falsely characterizing Neopagans as solely derivative of Classical religion. The author shows himself to have very little knowledge (and I would say little respect) of the diversity of Neopagan practice, only a small fraction of which is derived from the ancient Mediterranean. Neopagans aren't going to pass your \"test\" because the vast majority of them are not Classical reconstructionists. There's also a flaw in this article with the assumption that Neopagans believe that nature is always friendly and welcoming, and that by extension pagans who worship nature (instead of deities who cause natural phenomena) believe the same thing. The Inuit are a great example of animists who know full well the dangers of nature, and that is part of what motivates their worship. Inuit religious beliefs can make for pretty grim reading at times because of this. Many Neopagans also consider the natural phenomena they worship powerful forces who need to be pacified. While New Thought's brand of \"postive manifestation all the time please\" has certainly had a big impact on Neopaganism, there are many branches of Neopaganism that have maintained a much stronger interest in the darker side of nature and incorporate that as a fundamental part of their worship. The author's lack of familiarity with the diversity of Neopagan intellectual thought makes this yet another strawman he is arguing against. Furthermore, many Neopagans don't just \"worship nature\" but are dedicated to particular deities with a full awareness of their various qualities. If you were to actually frequent even Classically-minded Neopagan communities, you would find people asking for advice on how to best satisfy Hecate, Aphrodite, Apollo, etc. as individual deities with powerful personalities, not as just personifications of natural forces. Neopagans tend to love the variety of characterizations in Classical texts, or whatever texts or folkloric traditions they draw their practice from. Many Neopagans, particularly those who are inspired by northern European rather than Mediterranean pagan histories, worship outside because early Christian texts in these regions make reference to outdoor worship in groves and other such places, but this is not the same as \"worshipping nature\". Although the author has been claiming in the comments that he never intended to speak on non-Classical paganisms, he has to account for claims like this: >Virtually every ancient people prior to the rise of Christianity practiced animal sacrifice and animal sacrifice was seen absolutely central to keeping the gods happy. \\[...\\] Other ancient cultures, such the Celts, seem to have continued to practice human sacrifice until much later in their history. The first sentence is just painful to read, and I think Ronald Hutton might have shed a tear somewhere when you wrote that sentence about the Celts. If you are a Classicist setting out to write an article about Classical paganism, please just stay in your lane. Edit: I just noticed that you (the author) are an undergraduate so I am sorry if my post came off as mean-spirited. The thing is though that it's quite frustrating to see you neglecting to apply the same level of intellectual rigour to the pagans you are setting out to criticize that you do to Classical sources. This is a common bias of Classicists, to think that ideas in the popular parlance such as \"paganism\" are primarily being applied to *their* materials and that anyone who uses these words in ways that don't match *their* materials are doing it incorrectly. At the crux of the problem in your article and why it has ignited so much discontent in this sub is that you are arguing against strawmen and acting as if the Classical past is the main thing that Neopagans are interpreting (and therefore, in your view, getting wrong). This will not serve you well in academia, especially as soon as you step outside Classics into other disciplines who won't take so kindly to the idea that everyone must, of course, be referencing Classics when they talk about \"ancient\" peoples. I hope you have a good Christmas and take to heart some of what I've said.","human_ref_B":"After reading the article and the author's bio page, I can say with confidence this is the myopic opinion of someone who has a very admirable passion for history and a lovely style of writing, but whose zeal for history appears to far outstrip their actual knowledge. I'm sure they had good intentions with this article, but it's the absolute epitome of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (basically they don't know enough to know how little they know). That's a all a very nice way of saying **it's a bullshit article.* Though written with authority the entire piece is strictly about the Hellanistic pantheon. Towards the end of the article he acknowledges that, and to prove he really really knows what he's talking about he goes a grand total of the geographic equivalent of next door, to Sumeria. Looking at their gods, which he lists off in bullet points, they all do indeed control an aspect of nature, *but* they were also each taken as the patron god of different cities and therefore they somehow how don't in fact contradict his very flimsy hypothesis. Sorry buddy, they do. So he uses literally only two cultures to prove his point, and literally at least 50% of his own \"evidence\" contradicts him. He does a knowledge that the term \"pagan\" covers thousands of religions and yet is very satisfied he's more that thoroughly proved his point with one, and a superficial mention of a second. He also very confidently asserts several times that in \"pre-Christian\" times, all cultures were pagan. This is of course absurd, not least of all because Judaism predates Christianity by a solid millennium at least. He also very sweepingly declares that *all* \"pre-Christian\" religions practiced animal and human sacrifice - to prove this fact he cites another article *written by himself.* That's his only citation by the way. His statements of \"fact\" about pagan sacrifice is not just absurd, it's plain stupid and bigoted. While I could keep tearing this travesty apart, I'll simply say **he's wrong.** He's so wrong that it's actually amazing. He's an absolute prodigy at being wrong. An incalculable number of religions did in fact \"worship nature\". It's very likely the basis of religion itself. By personifying powerful, uncontrollable natural forces as super natural beings, or attributing natural forced to the direct action of supernatural beings, people could explain what was happening in their world. By believing natural phenomena were under the direct control of supernatural beings they empowered themselves with the potential to persuade those beings to act in their favor. In this way many early religions were an attempt to both make sense of and gain control over the overwhelming power of the natural world. Even when a being wasn't a personification of a natural force it was still typical that they could offer the group protection, which is another way of fulfilling the same desire for control over or protection from natural phenomena. Most if not all such religions involve rituals they believe will appease or win the favor of supernatural being, who will then act in the people's best interests. Honestly there's far too much wrong with this article to address, it's easier and quite frankly accurate to say it's an absolutely worthless piece of ignorant generalization.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30279.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ixnfwy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How close ethnically are modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks?","c_root_id_A":"g68cj7q","c_root_id_B":"g68yjzd","created_at_utc_A":1600794680,"created_at_utc_B":1600805454,"score_A":49,"score_B":120,"human_ref_A":"How are you defining \"ethincally?\"","human_ref_B":"From a genetic perspective (as limited as our understandings of ancient Greeks from a genetic perspective is) modern Greeks are close to Mycenaean era Greeks (no classical era genomes yet) but modern Greeks tend to have a noticeable Slavic-like shift in their ancestry (20-25% if my memory serves me well, wich it regularly does not) that is lacking in Mycenaean Greeks and Greek islanders to a lesser degree.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10774.0,"score_ratio":2.4489795918} {"post_id":"ixnfwy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How close ethnically are modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks?","c_root_id_A":"g68usvx","c_root_id_B":"g68yjzd","created_at_utc_A":1600803629,"created_at_utc_B":1600805454,"score_A":24,"score_B":120,"human_ref_A":"Modern dialects of the Greek language spoken today are directly descended from dialects of the ancient Greek language spoken in the past, the same way that Mandarin and Cantonese are descended from classical Chinese, and French and Italian are descended from Latin. Clearly the modern Greeks do not practice pagan religion anymore, having converted to Christianity. And they have inter-mixed with other populations from around the Mediterranean region for millennia.","human_ref_B":"From a genetic perspective (as limited as our understandings of ancient Greeks from a genetic perspective is) modern Greeks are close to Mycenaean era Greeks (no classical era genomes yet) but modern Greeks tend to have a noticeable Slavic-like shift in their ancestry (20-25% if my memory serves me well, wich it regularly does not) that is lacking in Mycenaean Greeks and Greek islanders to a lesser degree.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1825.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"ixnfwy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How close ethnically are modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks?","c_root_id_A":"g692ctj","c_root_id_B":"g68cj7q","created_at_utc_A":1600807338,"created_at_utc_B":1600794680,"score_A":53,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"So by the time of Jesus, essentially half of the Roman empire spoke Greek, but a slightly more modern dialect called Koine Greek that creolized earlier regional dialects, and afaik its in many ways much more similar to modern Greek than Homeric Greek. However, the Ancient Greek ethnic group (the Hellenes) was understood to be much more limited: smaller clouty communities in cities of the empire who bragged about practicing the Original Authentic Greek Paganism, having Spartan and Athenian ancestors, etc. Romans in the western empire would call the eastern half Greeks (became \u201cIgriegos\u201d which became \u201cGringos\u201d, interestingly enough), but there was an understanding that most of them were a greek-speaking type of Roman, not True Hellenes. The later Eastern Roman Empire (\u201cByzantines\u201d) continued into the middle ages, and understood themselves as Romans, a continuation of Roman civilization. The fact that Roman folklore traced their descent to Troy in Anatolia may have helped this. Some might dismiss this, but there is good evidence that they kept this Greek-speaking Roman identity even after the Ottoman conquest and destruction of the byzantine empire, with the Ottoman Sultan taking the title Qaysar-e-Rum (Caesar of Rome), soldiers chanting \u201cRoma Roma\u201d as the Ottoman army advanced, the labelling of Anatolians as Romans. There are even the famous reports of Cretan villagers in the 19th-20th centuries thinking of themselves as \u201cRomans under Caesar\u201d. That said, as modern Greek nationalist movements happened, it tended to make the modern Greek identity around 1) speaking Greek and 2) being Christian. When Turkish nationalism defined itself around speaking Turkish and being Muslim, (iirc) it created a nationality line along religious lines for people who spoke both, and there were large and often violent population transfers across the modern borders, reminiscent of the partition of India and Pakistan. In the same way, this history has given the two countries kinda oppositional identities and a fair amount of bad blood into the 20th century. EDIT\/UPDATE: Apparently there is a Greek language not descended from Roman-era Koine Greek but directly descended from Laconic\/Spartan Greek. It only has a few hundred fairly old speakers, and is fairly unintelligible with standard Greek. Here's a sample","human_ref_B":"How are you defining \"ethincally?\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12658.0,"score_ratio":1.0816326531} {"post_id":"ixnfwy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How close ethnically are modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks?","c_root_id_A":"g68usvx","c_root_id_B":"g692ctj","created_at_utc_A":1600803629,"created_at_utc_B":1600807338,"score_A":24,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"Modern dialects of the Greek language spoken today are directly descended from dialects of the ancient Greek language spoken in the past, the same way that Mandarin and Cantonese are descended from classical Chinese, and French and Italian are descended from Latin. Clearly the modern Greeks do not practice pagan religion anymore, having converted to Christianity. And they have inter-mixed with other populations from around the Mediterranean region for millennia.","human_ref_B":"So by the time of Jesus, essentially half of the Roman empire spoke Greek, but a slightly more modern dialect called Koine Greek that creolized earlier regional dialects, and afaik its in many ways much more similar to modern Greek than Homeric Greek. However, the Ancient Greek ethnic group (the Hellenes) was understood to be much more limited: smaller clouty communities in cities of the empire who bragged about practicing the Original Authentic Greek Paganism, having Spartan and Athenian ancestors, etc. Romans in the western empire would call the eastern half Greeks (became \u201cIgriegos\u201d which became \u201cGringos\u201d, interestingly enough), but there was an understanding that most of them were a greek-speaking type of Roman, not True Hellenes. The later Eastern Roman Empire (\u201cByzantines\u201d) continued into the middle ages, and understood themselves as Romans, a continuation of Roman civilization. The fact that Roman folklore traced their descent to Troy in Anatolia may have helped this. Some might dismiss this, but there is good evidence that they kept this Greek-speaking Roman identity even after the Ottoman conquest and destruction of the byzantine empire, with the Ottoman Sultan taking the title Qaysar-e-Rum (Caesar of Rome), soldiers chanting \u201cRoma Roma\u201d as the Ottoman army advanced, the labelling of Anatolians as Romans. There are even the famous reports of Cretan villagers in the 19th-20th centuries thinking of themselves as \u201cRomans under Caesar\u201d. That said, as modern Greek nationalist movements happened, it tended to make the modern Greek identity around 1) speaking Greek and 2) being Christian. When Turkish nationalism defined itself around speaking Turkish and being Muslim, (iirc) it created a nationality line along religious lines for people who spoke both, and there were large and often violent population transfers across the modern borders, reminiscent of the partition of India and Pakistan. In the same way, this history has given the two countries kinda oppositional identities and a fair amount of bad blood into the 20th century. EDIT\/UPDATE: Apparently there is a Greek language not descended from Roman-era Koine Greek but directly descended from Laconic\/Spartan Greek. It only has a few hundred fairly old speakers, and is fairly unintelligible with standard Greek. Here's a sample","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3709.0,"score_ratio":2.2083333333} {"post_id":"thmu7d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you were to take one of the first ever homo sapiens babies and raise them in the world as it is today, would there be a difference in their development when compared with someone born today? Is there anything about us that has changed between then and now which makes us different \u2013 or are we essentially the same? Sorry if this is a silly question!","c_root_id_A":"i1a2fss","c_root_id_B":"i19eqbd","created_at_utc_A":1647697394,"created_at_utc_B":1647680012,"score_A":125,"score_B":75,"human_ref_A":"There are certain long term trends in physical appearance that means we would be able to distinguish between say, a 300 ka old anatomically modern human (AMH) from Jebel Irhoud and people living today. Earlier AMH had heavier brow ridges than more recent humans, and the more recent skull is more rounded. These differences are larger than the physical differences between any two ethnic groups living today. One often overlooked difference that would almost certainly doom this early Homo sapiens baby brought into our world is hundreds of thousands of years of immune system adaptation, along with a comparable evolution in pathogens. There is a mostly invisible arms race between disease and immune systems ongoing continuously in all species. Time travelers beware! Are there mental differences between older and recent Homo sapiens? We don't know. Speculations by certain popular authors about a \"Cognitive Revolution\" 70-50 ka ago or something like that has been completely shot down, as there is no evidence for and a lot against it. There may be some slow gradual change in mental capacity over these vast timespans - the brain has changed shape somewhat alongside skull morphology. Then again, we know upper Paleolithic humans had bigger brains than us, which may mean something, or nothing at all. Skulls fossilize but thoughts do not.","human_ref_B":"We dont know, is my take on it. People who categorise such things create this category 'Homo Sapien' based on a set of limited physical data. We dont have a full check list of every simple aspect of what makes a modern human what they are and we have no way of measuring some of these aspects in 300,000 year old fossil data. Did they have the same imagination as 'us', were they as intelligent as us (given the difficulty of measuring that), did they understand abstract concepts like we can, did they have the same degree of social skills, or communication abilities? We dont know, they could have been better or worse at any of these. What we DO know though is that it doesnt appear that animals like us evolve fast, we dont make dramatic leaps in what makes us us. There are far less generations in 300k years than there are in bacteria and generally mammals evolve slowly compared to some groups. So its unlikely that any clear and major changes would have changed in that time frame. Its probable if you got 300 modern humans and compared them very carefully with 300k year old humans that SOME differences would be observed. But I suspect that on average on a one to one basis they would seem indistinguishable. For example the very smartest of 'them' might be slightly less smart than the smartest of 'us', but the very smartest would also be smarter than most of 'us'. So there may be some statistical differences, but few observable ones. We will have evolved in some way in 300,000 years, we dont involve in lumps, but its not clear how much that difference would be. As such I disagree with others here who say we must be the same, if that was true than when we evolve to the point we're considered to be the next species in line then is that mean to occur in one giant leap. The attributes that are evident in the 'start' of one species must be different than the ones at the 'end' when they are moving to another, or else you wouldnt be evolving.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17382.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ml9s8t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Before the widespread adoption of footwear, is there any anthropological evidence for humans being more toe-walkers (digitigrades) than we are now?","c_root_id_A":"gtlrxh5","c_root_id_B":"gtlit6z","created_at_utc_A":1617737301,"created_at_utc_B":1617733270,"score_A":31,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"From what I remember most of our hominid ancestors were plantigrade (ie the laetoli footprints). Given our primate origins I don\u2019t think there\u2019d be much need or advantage to being digitigrade, we were going from the trees to the plains. If you look at homo floresiensis (the hobbits), which many believe to be descended from homo erectus, they had really weird feet (and everything else). Their feet were really long compared to their body but this was more for tree climbing and they were still relatively competent bipeds. All of that to say even major outliers go more towards plantigrade. Thinking about our og divergent big toe, on our way to becoming bipeds toe-walking would have been extremely laborious. As for humans there are many sets of footprints recorded and none of them have presented as digitigrade as far as I know.","human_ref_B":"I'm sure I remember reading how the wearing of soft soled shoes in the Middle Ages affected our gait to make it more tentative and toe-first. There's no way for me to find that paper now, so I'm hoping someone will come forward with any info.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4031.0,"score_ratio":1.8235294118} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gt9s64y","c_root_id_B":"gt9rufk","created_at_utc_A":1617476040,"created_at_utc_B":1617475880,"score_A":142,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"I carried a .45 when I worked in Yellowstone as an archaeologist but it was only for grizzly bear protection. It was in an undershirt armpit harness so it wasn\u2019t visible at all especially under my hi vis vest. It wasn\u2019t super necessary honestly and I never drew it even though I bear sprayed multiple bears during the years I worked there. I mostly just felt safer at night with it since it\u2019s not like I was going to let loose with the bear spray while I was in my tent and a bear was ripping it\u2019s way in. Bears would usually just sniff around your tent at night and lumber off anyway. Edit: just so you know I\u2019m only in my late 20\u2019s so this wasn\u2019t a \u201cback in my day\u201d thing and it is perfectly legal through my employers and the park to carry a firearm","human_ref_B":"I'm just imagining the ethics approval board upon reading that I plan to have a kalashnikov on me. I work in an area with insurgents and lots of armed folks, so getting basic approval was hard enough. Never mind how that would never be permitted with whatever visa I was travelling under. I can't imagine a single case where being armed would be anything but a liability, all other issues aside. I carry a machete but that's more in case I run into some animal where it might be helpful (so not elephants), but really more to hack away at jungle growth. Safest thing you can do if you need to travel in areas where a weapon ever occurs to you as a good idea is to just not go to those areas. Second safest thing you can do is to trust your handlers, as you should be anyway, and gtfo if it ever comes down to actual threats to your life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":160.0,"score_ratio":2.7843137255} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gt9c7lt","c_root_id_B":"gt9s64y","created_at_utc_A":1617467947,"created_at_utc_B":1617476040,"score_A":16,"score_B":142,"human_ref_A":"Why would you need to be armed in the field? Seriously though practicality is really the main reason. Have fun explaining to an IRB why you're packing heat, that project is going to have a hard time getting past review. We can also look towards parallels in investigative journalism. There are plenty of journalists who go into super dangerous territory unarmed, because people find firearms, weapons, etcetera kinda off putting. Developing rapport with our informants is already hard enough. People often mistake anthropologists for government agents, or are leary of us, bringing a firearm into the mix can at worst confirm those suspicions.","human_ref_B":"I carried a .45 when I worked in Yellowstone as an archaeologist but it was only for grizzly bear protection. It was in an undershirt armpit harness so it wasn\u2019t visible at all especially under my hi vis vest. It wasn\u2019t super necessary honestly and I never drew it even though I bear sprayed multiple bears during the years I worked there. I mostly just felt safer at night with it since it\u2019s not like I was going to let loose with the bear spray while I was in my tent and a bear was ripping it\u2019s way in. Bears would usually just sniff around your tent at night and lumber off anyway. Edit: just so you know I\u2019m only in my late 20\u2019s so this wasn\u2019t a \u201cback in my day\u201d thing and it is perfectly legal through my employers and the park to carry a firearm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8093.0,"score_ratio":8.875} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gt9c7lt","c_root_id_B":"gt9rufk","created_at_utc_A":1617467947,"created_at_utc_B":1617475880,"score_A":16,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"Why would you need to be armed in the field? Seriously though practicality is really the main reason. Have fun explaining to an IRB why you're packing heat, that project is going to have a hard time getting past review. We can also look towards parallels in investigative journalism. There are plenty of journalists who go into super dangerous territory unarmed, because people find firearms, weapons, etcetera kinda off putting. Developing rapport with our informants is already hard enough. People often mistake anthropologists for government agents, or are leary of us, bringing a firearm into the mix can at worst confirm those suspicions.","human_ref_B":"I'm just imagining the ethics approval board upon reading that I plan to have a kalashnikov on me. I work in an area with insurgents and lots of armed folks, so getting basic approval was hard enough. Never mind how that would never be permitted with whatever visa I was travelling under. I can't imagine a single case where being armed would be anything but a liability, all other issues aside. I carry a machete but that's more in case I run into some animal where it might be helpful (so not elephants), but really more to hack away at jungle growth. Safest thing you can do if you need to travel in areas where a weapon ever occurs to you as a good idea is to just not go to those areas. Second safest thing you can do is to trust your handlers, as you should be anyway, and gtfo if it ever comes down to actual threats to your life.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7933.0,"score_ratio":3.1875} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gta8ipf","c_root_id_B":"gt9u9kt","created_at_utc_A":1617484487,"created_at_utc_B":1617477073,"score_A":24,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"My work in Madagascar was rough for sure, no electricity or running water. 9 hour to 12 hour drive until the nearest road system. Bandits were common. Someone was beheaded near my house. But the reality, I was so safe there, anyone who messed with me got a mob of community elders & residents outside of their house ready to cuss them out & make their lives miserable if they continued (mob justice is very real in Madagascar). Which did happen a few times. After that, no one bothered me. There are different measures for safety, Americans would still label my town as unsafe, but it was realistically the safest I've ever been & probably ever will be. That being said, I was VERY FORTUNATE that I had a community that was so willing to welcome, love, & protect me! Others in Madagascar doing the same work were not so lucky.","human_ref_B":"If you're talking about firearms... generally, no. Cultural anthropologists typically would not go into areas where they are in any significant danger. Biological anthropologists \/ paleontologists \/ primatologists, and some archaeologists, sometimes work in some fairly unstable or dangerous areas, but typically the matter of protection is handled by an escort. One other person here mentioned carrying a .45 in Yellowstone as proof against bears. I have to wonder what the circumstances were for that. I know a few archaeologists who've worked in Alaska, and none of them went armed. However, they were *accompanied* by at least one person, provided by the client \/ government agency, who was armed with a rifle. Not sure how much a .45 would do against a grizzly. I do know and have worked with some gun enthusiast archaeologists who would *like* to go into the field armed, but in any circumstances these guys are in, it would be no different than going into the field with a pacifier or security blanket, and would serve essentially the same purposes. And pretty much any company that provides cultural resource \/ heritage management services (as well as clients) is going to prohibit their employees from carrying firearms in the field as a rule. Insurance \/ safety concerns would be astronomically problematic. Some people *do* consider pocket knives or machetes to be weapons. And if you want to take it that far and count that as being \"armed,\" then sure. I carry a pocket knife with me in the field (and pretty much the rest of the time, too). And I've been known to carry a machete or a fixed-blade knife on survey as well. But I would characterize those as tools, and they're used as such.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7414.0,"score_ratio":1.0434782609} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gt9c7lt","c_root_id_B":"gta8ipf","created_at_utc_A":1617467947,"created_at_utc_B":1617484487,"score_A":16,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Why would you need to be armed in the field? Seriously though practicality is really the main reason. Have fun explaining to an IRB why you're packing heat, that project is going to have a hard time getting past review. We can also look towards parallels in investigative journalism. There are plenty of journalists who go into super dangerous territory unarmed, because people find firearms, weapons, etcetera kinda off putting. Developing rapport with our informants is already hard enough. People often mistake anthropologists for government agents, or are leary of us, bringing a firearm into the mix can at worst confirm those suspicions.","human_ref_B":"My work in Madagascar was rough for sure, no electricity or running water. 9 hour to 12 hour drive until the nearest road system. Bandits were common. Someone was beheaded near my house. But the reality, I was so safe there, anyone who messed with me got a mob of community elders & residents outside of their house ready to cuss them out & make their lives miserable if they continued (mob justice is very real in Madagascar). Which did happen a few times. After that, no one bothered me. There are different measures for safety, Americans would still label my town as unsafe, but it was realistically the safest I've ever been & probably ever will be. That being said, I was VERY FORTUNATE that I had a community that was so willing to welcome, love, & protect me! Others in Madagascar doing the same work were not so lucky.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16540.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"mjb1r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Do anthropologists ever go armed into the field these days? I'm currently reading Clastres' *Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians*, in which at one point he references carrying a .38. This is during a stint of fieldwork conducted in the early 60s and he is presumably armed against the dangers of wild animals such as are present in the remote Paraguayan forest. Previously I was reading *Tristes Tropiques*, in which Levi-Strauss also references going into the field armed\u2014together with his whole company of gauchos. The arms are only mentioned in the context of hunting (incidentally, not an applicable consideration in the case of Clastres). Levi-Strauss' fieldwork was conducted in the 30s. My question is: do anthropologists ever carry weapons into the field anymore? If not, when and why did this practice cease? If so, in what cases and what is the process of doing so legally and ethically (I assume there's a lot of paperwork, especially when working abroad)? Are there disiplinary restrictions or taboos against this these days? Have you or any of your colleagues ever gone armed into the field?","c_root_id_A":"gt9u9kt","c_root_id_B":"gt9c7lt","created_at_utc_A":1617477073,"created_at_utc_B":1617467947,"score_A":23,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"If you're talking about firearms... generally, no. Cultural anthropologists typically would not go into areas where they are in any significant danger. Biological anthropologists \/ paleontologists \/ primatologists, and some archaeologists, sometimes work in some fairly unstable or dangerous areas, but typically the matter of protection is handled by an escort. One other person here mentioned carrying a .45 in Yellowstone as proof against bears. I have to wonder what the circumstances were for that. I know a few archaeologists who've worked in Alaska, and none of them went armed. However, they were *accompanied* by at least one person, provided by the client \/ government agency, who was armed with a rifle. Not sure how much a .45 would do against a grizzly. I do know and have worked with some gun enthusiast archaeologists who would *like* to go into the field armed, but in any circumstances these guys are in, it would be no different than going into the field with a pacifier or security blanket, and would serve essentially the same purposes. And pretty much any company that provides cultural resource \/ heritage management services (as well as clients) is going to prohibit their employees from carrying firearms in the field as a rule. Insurance \/ safety concerns would be astronomically problematic. Some people *do* consider pocket knives or machetes to be weapons. And if you want to take it that far and count that as being \"armed,\" then sure. I carry a pocket knife with me in the field (and pretty much the rest of the time, too). And I've been known to carry a machete or a fixed-blade knife on survey as well. But I would characterize those as tools, and they're used as such.","human_ref_B":"Why would you need to be armed in the field? Seriously though practicality is really the main reason. Have fun explaining to an IRB why you're packing heat, that project is going to have a hard time getting past review. We can also look towards parallels in investigative journalism. There are plenty of journalists who go into super dangerous territory unarmed, because people find firearms, weapons, etcetera kinda off putting. Developing rapport with our informants is already hard enough. People often mistake anthropologists for government agents, or are leary of us, bringing a firearm into the mix can at worst confirm those suspicions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9126.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} {"post_id":"lilmrc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is the perception that men have a more visual sex drive than women culture-specific? The popular perception in Western culture is that men, on average, are more visual than women. There are some studies, mostly on biological responses (brain, amygdala, genital organs) that try to find a scientific understanding of it. Since they are not conclusive, somewhat controversial and have small sample I don't see the point of citing them. Other studies focus on questionaries in dating sites but they are still not conclusive. I am interested in a response from an anthropological point of view. Are there cultures where men are required to cover themselves more \"to avoid tempting women\"? Are there cultures where the belief is that men revealing skin is distracting? An important disclaimer. The belief that \"men, on average, are more visual than women\" in this context means \"a significantly larger portion of women are believed to possess a body that could distract most men because of its attractiveness, so the body should be covered\". Anecdotal evidence on particularly attractive\/distracting *individuals* is *off-topic*. I am speaking of the perception that a *great disparity* exists in the perception of the other sex's bodies between the sexes, so individual examples do not prove or disprove the point. This is the reason I am asking here, since it is more a society thing.","c_root_id_A":"gn86v07","c_root_id_B":"gn8f4hd","created_at_utc_A":1613229766,"created_at_utc_B":1613231959,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m by no means a specialist, I\u2019m a psychology student, so take my comment with all the grains of salt you possibly can, but I am trying to think if your question is framed correctly. First, the idea of being more visual is not necessarily clear. \u201cMore visual\u201d might not be a biological concept and might not correlate with biological responses: hypothetically, men and women might have the same physiological response to visual stimuli e.g. both are sexually aroused to the same extent but they might value or act upon their sexual arousal differently, e.g. men might not value other variables such as social status, rapport (again, grain of salt as this is probably biased by my culture and anecdotal evidence) and thus act more on their visual stimuli even though the response is present both in males and females. Measuring stimuli with biological markers, then, might have little to say about \u201cbeing more visual\u201d in the sense we usually see in everyday talk, because response in that case does not equate to behavior. Also, if you want to study female sexual behavior, you probably have to consider where in the menstrual cycle the participants should be to assess the data, since ovulation, for example, might alter the results. (Women prefer more stereotypical masculine men when they are ovulating, are more likely to have extra pair mating etc) In addition to that, there are at least two completely different (albeit valid) questions: are men more visual (1) and is there a culture where men are required to cover themselves (2). There might be no causal links between them, or other causal links that are more important i.e., men might be more visual but actually having control of the positions of power is the determining factor to explain why women and not men are supposed to be fully clothed in a society. So \u2014 hypothetically \u2014 you might have a culture where men are biologically more visual and yet they\u2019re clothed because women occupy the positions of power in that society or vice versa. My uneducated hunch is that men tend to be \u201cmore visual\u201d when their mating patterns correlate to a polygamous sexual pattern. But the biological urge is basically there either way, its expression depending on the way it amalgamates with culture and manifests in behavior. Women probably are not that far off, but differences in hormonal levels, mating strategies and evolutionary pressures might be sufficiently relevant.","human_ref_B":"Check out the book Wayward Women by Holly Wardlow. It discusses sex work among the Huli people of Papua New Guinea, where men are considered the more desirable gender and women are regarded as more lustful. That isn't the main focus of the book, but it's a good introduction and very well written.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2193.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"lilmrc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is the perception that men have a more visual sex drive than women culture-specific? The popular perception in Western culture is that men, on average, are more visual than women. There are some studies, mostly on biological responses (brain, amygdala, genital organs) that try to find a scientific understanding of it. Since they are not conclusive, somewhat controversial and have small sample I don't see the point of citing them. Other studies focus on questionaries in dating sites but they are still not conclusive. I am interested in a response from an anthropological point of view. Are there cultures where men are required to cover themselves more \"to avoid tempting women\"? Are there cultures where the belief is that men revealing skin is distracting? An important disclaimer. The belief that \"men, on average, are more visual than women\" in this context means \"a significantly larger portion of women are believed to possess a body that could distract most men because of its attractiveness, so the body should be covered\". Anecdotal evidence on particularly attractive\/distracting *individuals* is *off-topic*. I am speaking of the perception that a *great disparity* exists in the perception of the other sex's bodies between the sexes, so individual examples do not prove or disprove the point. This is the reason I am asking here, since it is more a society thing.","c_root_id_A":"gn8eplq","c_root_id_B":"gn86v07","created_at_utc_A":1613231795,"created_at_utc_B":1613229766,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have never encountered an academic analysis of this subject, perhaps because most competent academics are justly wary and shy for generalizations of soft assumptions, especially ones encompassing an entire gender. The fertility studies focus more on social group issues, and cultural attitudes surrounding fertility\/virility as well as biopower in the context of international relations.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m by no means a specialist, I\u2019m a psychology student, so take my comment with all the grains of salt you possibly can, but I am trying to think if your question is framed correctly. First, the idea of being more visual is not necessarily clear. \u201cMore visual\u201d might not be a biological concept and might not correlate with biological responses: hypothetically, men and women might have the same physiological response to visual stimuli e.g. both are sexually aroused to the same extent but they might value or act upon their sexual arousal differently, e.g. men might not value other variables such as social status, rapport (again, grain of salt as this is probably biased by my culture and anecdotal evidence) and thus act more on their visual stimuli even though the response is present both in males and females. Measuring stimuli with biological markers, then, might have little to say about \u201cbeing more visual\u201d in the sense we usually see in everyday talk, because response in that case does not equate to behavior. Also, if you want to study female sexual behavior, you probably have to consider where in the menstrual cycle the participants should be to assess the data, since ovulation, for example, might alter the results. (Women prefer more stereotypical masculine men when they are ovulating, are more likely to have extra pair mating etc) In addition to that, there are at least two completely different (albeit valid) questions: are men more visual (1) and is there a culture where men are required to cover themselves (2). There might be no causal links between them, or other causal links that are more important i.e., men might be more visual but actually having control of the positions of power is the determining factor to explain why women and not men are supposed to be fully clothed in a society. So \u2014 hypothetically \u2014 you might have a culture where men are biologically more visual and yet they\u2019re clothed because women occupy the positions of power in that society or vice versa. My uneducated hunch is that men tend to be \u201cmore visual\u201d when their mating patterns correlate to a polygamous sexual pattern. But the biological urge is basically there either way, its expression depending on the way it amalgamates with culture and manifests in behavior. Women probably are not that far off, but differences in hormonal levels, mating strategies and evolutionary pressures might be sufficiently relevant.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2029.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"fm6rkd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Hollywood depicts poisoned blowgun darts and arrows as acting almost instantaneously on humans, either killing someone or knocking them unconscious without fail. How realistic are these depictions, and what plants and animals were the poisons gathered from?","c_root_id_A":"fl2vv52","c_root_id_B":"fl3anjt","created_at_utc_A":1584761273,"created_at_utc_B":1584775269,"score_A":62,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":">Dendrobatids include some of the most toxic animals on Earth. The two-inch-long golden poison frog has enough poison to kill 10 grown men. Indigenous Ember\u00e1 people of Colombia have used its powerful poison for centuries to tip their blowgun darts when hunting, hence the genus' common name. From here. There are also desert scorpion on the Negev Desert in Israel that can kill a man almost instantly. Their venom paralyzes a grown man immediately, and then the toxin keeps working in the target's body, first coagulating the target's blood, then giving terrible cramps that make muscles, including the heart and diaphragm, to stop. So, the target dies suffocating while paralyzed. Not a good way to go. And in Australia and Brazil they have small poisonous spiders that can also paralyze and kill a grown man with just a single bite by stopping his heart.","human_ref_B":"So the classic blowdart poison is curare, which is structurally similar to modern pharmaceutical grade paralytic agents like vecuronium and rocuronium. These drugs can sometimes be delivered intramuscularly, though most docs prefer intravenous due to more rapid and predictable onset. Time to onset IM is still several minutes: https:\/\/www.annemergmed.com\/article\/S0196-0644(14)00665-9\/abstract Probably not a very comfortable time, as the drugs don't cause unconsciousness until complete paralysis sets in, the victim stops breathing, and oxygen levels dwindle too low to support consciousness.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13996.0,"score_ratio":1.1290322581} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14bld9","c_root_id_B":"g14ebtu","created_at_utc_A":1597166010,"created_at_utc_B":1597167303,"score_A":34,"score_B":192,"human_ref_A":"It definitely has received a lot of criticism, which is pretty inevitable considering how broad its ambitions were and how many sub disciplines it breezed through. Here for example is a review by Christopher Hallpike https:\/\/www.newenglishreview.org\/C_R_Hallpike\/A_Response_to_Yuval_Harari's_'Sapiens:_A_Brief_History_of_Humankind'\/","human_ref_B":"Sapiens attempts to explain all of human civilization in a few hundred pages. It's an interesting read that paints in broad brush strokes and raises some interesting points, but like its spiritual kin \"Guns, Germs, and Steel,\" and \"Salt,\" it's super reductive. When you zoom that far out, nuance disappears. I found myself saying \"yeah, but . . .\" more than a few times each chapter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1293.0,"score_ratio":5.6470588235} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14ebtu","c_root_id_B":"g14e7z6","created_at_utc_A":1597167303,"created_at_utc_B":1597167251,"score_A":192,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Sapiens attempts to explain all of human civilization in a few hundred pages. It's an interesting read that paints in broad brush strokes and raises some interesting points, but like its spiritual kin \"Guns, Germs, and Steel,\" and \"Salt,\" it's super reductive. When you zoom that far out, nuance disappears. I found myself saying \"yeah, but . . .\" more than a few times each chapter.","human_ref_B":"I very much appreciated the review below. that said there have been several threads about this book on the sub and r\/anthropology sub previously https:\/\/www.petermichaelbauer.com\/sapiens-or-how-i-decide-to-read-a-book\/?fbclid=IwAR1w8HnA9ohXw6U7uWvvJnRMkJaL0imWgdE3zDAqRzGvUjVEFeMUtFvHF5k","labels":1,"seconds_difference":52.0,"score_ratio":27.4285714286} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14iaye","c_root_id_B":"g14nm0l","created_at_utc_A":1597169169,"created_at_utc_B":1597171681,"score_A":12,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"You may also be interested in reading what AskHistorians has to say about specific claims made in Harari's book.","human_ref_B":"There is a very detailed essay on the book by C. R. Hallpike, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Canada. References and sources are at the bottom of the linked article. Short summary of the account: He did not find any \"serious contribution to knowledge\". Hallpike suggested that \"...whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, sometimes seriously\". He considered it an infotainment publishing event offering a \"wild intellectual ride across the landscape of history, dotted with sensational displays of speculation, and ending with blood-curdling predictions about human destiny.\" Quotes from his essay: >it soon became clear that its claim to be a work of science is questionable, beginning with his notion of culture. >He is just in a philosophical muddle that confuses what is material with what is real, and what is immaterial with fiction. >When it comes to the task of explaining social institutions, the idea of culture as fiction is about as useful as a rubber nail >More unsustainable claims do not take long to appear. >No, we're not full of fears and anxieties about our position in the food chain, and never have been, because a species is not a person who can remember things like having been the underdog of the savannah tens of millennia in the past. Knowledge of our life on the savannah has only been vaguely reconstructed by archaeologists and anthropologists in modern times. >Harari's belief that the Cognitive Revolution provided the modes of thought and reasoning that are the basis of our scientific civilisation could not therefore be further from the truth. >Harari clearly has no knowledge at all of cross-cultural developmental psychology, and of how modes of thought develop in relation to the natural and socio-cultural environments. >The people who carved the Stadel lion-man around 30,000 years ago and the Piraha had the same ability to learn as we do, which is why Piraha children can learn to count, but these cognitive skills have to be learnt: we are not born with them all ready to go. Cross-cultural developmental psychology has shown that the development of the cognitive skills of modern humans actually requires literacy and schooling >But then he launches into some remarkable speculations about what they might nevertheless have achieved in the tens of thousands of years between the Cognitive Revolution and the beginning of agriculture. >All these imagined triumphs of the hunter-gatherers would actually have required a basis of large populations, centralized political control and probably literate civilisation, which in turn would have required the development of agriculture. >Unfortunately, Harari not only knows very little about tribal societies but seems to have read almost nothing on the literature on state formation either >'Over the next 300 years the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up all the other worlds', by which he actually means the expanding colonial empires of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British. But to refer to these nations as 'Afro-Asian' is conspicuously absurd, and the whole concept of Afro-Asia is actually meaningless from every point of view. >Summing up the book as a whole, one has often had to point out how surprisingly little he seems to have read on quite a number of essential topics. >This is a nineteenth-century view of what science does, whereas the really distinctive feature of modern science is that it tests theory by experiment, and does not simply collect empirical observations. As you can see, it's incredibly damning. Much of the book is \/r\/badhistory fodder. It's a shame that such a poor example of scholarship, with lots of wrong opinions, has become such a popular and often quoted \"science\" book despite Harari clearly not understanding what science actually is.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2512.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14e7z6","c_root_id_B":"g14nm0l","created_at_utc_A":1597167251,"created_at_utc_B":1597171681,"score_A":7,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I very much appreciated the review below. that said there have been several threads about this book on the sub and r\/anthropology sub previously https:\/\/www.petermichaelbauer.com\/sapiens-or-how-i-decide-to-read-a-book\/?fbclid=IwAR1w8HnA9ohXw6U7uWvvJnRMkJaL0imWgdE3zDAqRzGvUjVEFeMUtFvHF5k","human_ref_B":"There is a very detailed essay on the book by C. R. Hallpike, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Canada. References and sources are at the bottom of the linked article. Short summary of the account: He did not find any \"serious contribution to knowledge\". Hallpike suggested that \"...whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, sometimes seriously\". He considered it an infotainment publishing event offering a \"wild intellectual ride across the landscape of history, dotted with sensational displays of speculation, and ending with blood-curdling predictions about human destiny.\" Quotes from his essay: >it soon became clear that its claim to be a work of science is questionable, beginning with his notion of culture. >He is just in a philosophical muddle that confuses what is material with what is real, and what is immaterial with fiction. >When it comes to the task of explaining social institutions, the idea of culture as fiction is about as useful as a rubber nail >More unsustainable claims do not take long to appear. >No, we're not full of fears and anxieties about our position in the food chain, and never have been, because a species is not a person who can remember things like having been the underdog of the savannah tens of millennia in the past. Knowledge of our life on the savannah has only been vaguely reconstructed by archaeologists and anthropologists in modern times. >Harari's belief that the Cognitive Revolution provided the modes of thought and reasoning that are the basis of our scientific civilisation could not therefore be further from the truth. >Harari clearly has no knowledge at all of cross-cultural developmental psychology, and of how modes of thought develop in relation to the natural and socio-cultural environments. >The people who carved the Stadel lion-man around 30,000 years ago and the Piraha had the same ability to learn as we do, which is why Piraha children can learn to count, but these cognitive skills have to be learnt: we are not born with them all ready to go. Cross-cultural developmental psychology has shown that the development of the cognitive skills of modern humans actually requires literacy and schooling >But then he launches into some remarkable speculations about what they might nevertheless have achieved in the tens of thousands of years between the Cognitive Revolution and the beginning of agriculture. >All these imagined triumphs of the hunter-gatherers would actually have required a basis of large populations, centralized political control and probably literate civilisation, which in turn would have required the development of agriculture. >Unfortunately, Harari not only knows very little about tribal societies but seems to have read almost nothing on the literature on state formation either >'Over the next 300 years the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up all the other worlds', by which he actually means the expanding colonial empires of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British. But to refer to these nations as 'Afro-Asian' is conspicuously absurd, and the whole concept of Afro-Asia is actually meaningless from every point of view. >Summing up the book as a whole, one has often had to point out how surprisingly little he seems to have read on quite a number of essential topics. >This is a nineteenth-century view of what science does, whereas the really distinctive feature of modern science is that it tests theory by experiment, and does not simply collect empirical observations. As you can see, it's incredibly damning. Much of the book is \/r\/badhistory fodder. It's a shame that such a poor example of scholarship, with lots of wrong opinions, has become such a popular and often quoted \"science\" book despite Harari clearly not understanding what science actually is.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4430.0,"score_ratio":3.1428571429} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14iaye","c_root_id_B":"g15bz80","created_at_utc_A":1597169169,"created_at_utc_B":1597182695,"score_A":12,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"You may also be interested in reading what AskHistorians has to say about specific claims made in Harari's book.","human_ref_B":"Yes. Both lapses in reasoning and things that were factually incorrect. This comment maybe not the most useful because I do not have the time or energy to break things down more (others have) but I think that is clear that a vast majority of bio anths, paleoanths and archaeologists hate the book with good reasons. There are books that are supposed to be written for general audiences that never gain traction by anthropologists. Maybe we suck at writing. Maybe not reducing are arguments enough for a single simple answer to life. Maybe we have shit agents. I wish that people would read those instead of J. Diamond and Harari who do more harm than good.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13526.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14iaye","c_root_id_B":"g14e7z6","created_at_utc_A":1597169169,"created_at_utc_B":1597167251,"score_A":12,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"You may also be interested in reading what AskHistorians has to say about specific claims made in Harari's book.","human_ref_B":"I very much appreciated the review below. that said there have been several threads about this book on the sub and r\/anthropology sub previously https:\/\/www.petermichaelbauer.com\/sapiens-or-how-i-decide-to-read-a-book\/?fbclid=IwAR1w8HnA9ohXw6U7uWvvJnRMkJaL0imWgdE3zDAqRzGvUjVEFeMUtFvHF5k","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1918.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"i7v3ab","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the professional\/expert consensus on Sapiens? The book seems to be catered to the general public (since I, a layman, can follow along just fine) so I wanted to know what the experts and professionals thought of the book. Did you notice any lapses in Yuval Harari's reasoning, or any points that are plain factually incorrect? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"g14e7z6","c_root_id_B":"g15bz80","created_at_utc_A":1597167251,"created_at_utc_B":1597182695,"score_A":7,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I very much appreciated the review below. that said there have been several threads about this book on the sub and r\/anthropology sub previously https:\/\/www.petermichaelbauer.com\/sapiens-or-how-i-decide-to-read-a-book\/?fbclid=IwAR1w8HnA9ohXw6U7uWvvJnRMkJaL0imWgdE3zDAqRzGvUjVEFeMUtFvHF5k","human_ref_B":"Yes. Both lapses in reasoning and things that were factually incorrect. This comment maybe not the most useful because I do not have the time or energy to break things down more (others have) but I think that is clear that a vast majority of bio anths, paleoanths and archaeologists hate the book with good reasons. There are books that are supposed to be written for general audiences that never gain traction by anthropologists. Maybe we suck at writing. Maybe not reducing are arguments enough for a single simple answer to life. Maybe we have shit agents. I wish that people would read those instead of J. Diamond and Harari who do more harm than good.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15444.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"hsoz09","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How come humans (and some apes?) need pillows to sleep comfortably It seems like our necks physically need some soft support beneath them in order for us to sleep comfortably. Is this just a \"flaw\" in our design, part of us standing straight? Does needing a pillow (or leaves I guess) relate to some evolutionary advantage? I saw in a previous thread here that some apes use \"pillows\" as well.","c_root_id_A":"fydcoij","c_root_id_B":"fycu3o7","created_at_utc_A":1595001475,"created_at_utc_B":1594991701,"score_A":74,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"It's because we have a curvature of our C spine, which is why pillows are used when laying on our backs. Our heads are also heavy, so when sleeping on our side they tend to put our head at an angle unless supported. This can cause pain over time. Many apes and people who don't use pillows sleep with their arm tucked under their head as a \"pillow\" and that is, probably, the evolutionary answer to why this is still a thing. Plus, it just makes us less comfortable. It doesn't harm us. No evolutionary advantage to do away with it. Many cultures don't even use pillows, especially if they're still living close to nature. Edited with a little bit more explanation.","human_ref_B":"I feel like you haven't gotten great answers to this yet. Like, okay, we don't \"need\" them, but why is elevating our head and neck more comfortable to begin with?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9774.0,"score_ratio":2.4666666667} {"post_id":"kshax9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How integrated was Sami culture with other people groups inhabiting Sweden, like the Vikings, by the early 20th century? Sorry if this question is not specific enough! I am doing some family history research to create a cookbook of my great great grandma\u2019s recipes. She came from Jamtland, which is included in maps denoting Sami area. While looking at Swedish folk art and Sami art and clothes, I couldn\u2019t help noticing common attributes. Would cultures in that region by the 1900s have melded together to make one artistic style? Did people mix together a lot through marriage? Or were the Sami still a very separate group and culture at that time?","c_root_id_A":"gigiv3b","c_root_id_B":"gig9avw","created_at_utc_A":1610048351,"created_at_utc_B":1610044146,"score_A":72,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"Icelandic sources mention trade with the Sami dating back at least 1000 years, and the gradual influx of settled agri- and horticulturalists (Germanic and Finno-Ugric) starts not long thereafter and by the 1200's, mixing of culture and economies was a fact (the Sami where still mainly pastoralists and hunter-gatherers focused on reindeer and fishing for protein). The gradual colonization of Sami territory in what is now Sweden crept northward but was halted by the Black Death that saw much of the settled population in the southern part heavily decimated. It was not until the 1600's that all of Sami land was colonized. You mention your relative being from J\u00e4mtland, which is in the southern belt of Sami lands that was probably one of the earliest to see a mix of (Germanic) agriculturalists and Sami that would have blended over time, probably from the 1100's onward. Since then, sharing and blending of art and crafts would have been common, although crafts having to do with Sami nomadism and reindeer keeping might have stayed specific for longer (and now form a base for Sami identity, politics and organizing). There have been polices of separation of Sami and 'Swedes' but it is unknown if they were effective or not. Many Sami changed their names in the early 1900's to avoid discrimination which makes tracing ancestry more difficult. The separation of Sami and 'Swede' was increasingly popular due to racial theories in the 1900's, not least that led by the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology founded in 1922. Most Sami of J\u00e4mtland speak Southern Sami, which is a language that is very different from other Sami languages to the point where it is almost completely separate. J\u00e4mtland also has close ties to the Nowegian Tr\u00f8ndelag on the other side of the border, including the Sami groups. Artistic styles can come together and separate over time, and there is never only one. That part of the question is thus not easy to answer, but rather points to our current understanding of what is different enough to constitute something 'other'. Since you are focusing on recipes, I think you can assume that the diet was a mix of the rewards of agriculture, gathering and hunting\/fishing possible in the region.","human_ref_B":"I think you are mixing things together. Vikings were not a people, it was an occupation. It just means pirate in old Norse. And the Scandinavians stopped going on viking raids around the 11th century.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4205.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"kshax9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How integrated was Sami culture with other people groups inhabiting Sweden, like the Vikings, by the early 20th century? Sorry if this question is not specific enough! I am doing some family history research to create a cookbook of my great great grandma\u2019s recipes. She came from Jamtland, which is included in maps denoting Sami area. While looking at Swedish folk art and Sami art and clothes, I couldn\u2019t help noticing common attributes. Would cultures in that region by the 1900s have melded together to make one artistic style? Did people mix together a lot through marriage? Or were the Sami still a very separate group and culture at that time?","c_root_id_A":"gigiv3b","c_root_id_B":"giggssr","created_at_utc_A":1610048351,"created_at_utc_B":1610047439,"score_A":72,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"Icelandic sources mention trade with the Sami dating back at least 1000 years, and the gradual influx of settled agri- and horticulturalists (Germanic and Finno-Ugric) starts not long thereafter and by the 1200's, mixing of culture and economies was a fact (the Sami where still mainly pastoralists and hunter-gatherers focused on reindeer and fishing for protein). The gradual colonization of Sami territory in what is now Sweden crept northward but was halted by the Black Death that saw much of the settled population in the southern part heavily decimated. It was not until the 1600's that all of Sami land was colonized. You mention your relative being from J\u00e4mtland, which is in the southern belt of Sami lands that was probably one of the earliest to see a mix of (Germanic) agriculturalists and Sami that would have blended over time, probably from the 1100's onward. Since then, sharing and blending of art and crafts would have been common, although crafts having to do with Sami nomadism and reindeer keeping might have stayed specific for longer (and now form a base for Sami identity, politics and organizing). There have been polices of separation of Sami and 'Swedes' but it is unknown if they were effective or not. Many Sami changed their names in the early 1900's to avoid discrimination which makes tracing ancestry more difficult. The separation of Sami and 'Swede' was increasingly popular due to racial theories in the 1900's, not least that led by the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology founded in 1922. Most Sami of J\u00e4mtland speak Southern Sami, which is a language that is very different from other Sami languages to the point where it is almost completely separate. J\u00e4mtland also has close ties to the Nowegian Tr\u00f8ndelag on the other side of the border, including the Sami groups. Artistic styles can come together and separate over time, and there is never only one. That part of the question is thus not easy to answer, but rather points to our current understanding of what is different enough to constitute something 'other'. Since you are focusing on recipes, I think you can assume that the diet was a mix of the rewards of agriculture, gathering and hunting\/fishing possible in the region.","human_ref_B":"This is a brief response, but the cultures we call Vikings mainly lived around southern Scandinavia, with the S\u00e1mi living much farther north and inland, with very little contact. It was not until the Middle Ages that settlement started in earnest, after the Viking Age. This is the first time you could really say there was a lot of interaction between S\u00e1mi and other Scandinavians. The Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway engaged in resettlement policies, moving people into \"unoccupied\" S\u00e1mi lands starting in the late medieval period. After that policies to \"civilise\" the S\u00e1mi began, including forced Christianisation, banning their native language, and forcing children into schools where they are raised to be members of the encroaching Kingdom's culture, be it Sweden, Norway or Finland\/Russia. By the 20th century in Norway, one had to prove that they spoke Norweigan to buy land, and in 1913 the government passed an act seizing much of the best land in the hands of the S\u00e1mi. The worst of it may have come with the Nazi occupation of Norway and the alliance with Finland, with scorched earth policies further harming the S\u00e1mi people. Sweden, despite their neutrality, also carried out horrors in this time though. \"Race biology\" was an ideology that ran rampant in 1940s Sweden, and that reflected in political policy. Later still, oppression continued, though usually less frequent and openly racist once the Holocaust made ethnic cleansing unfashionable. In 1979 controversy over a hydroelectric station in Alta brought S\u00e1mi rights into the spotlight again, and nowadays the S\u00e1mi are recognized minority groups with rights in all three countries. The majority of S\u00e1mi today are urbanised and have (on paper) equal standing with the other peoples in their countries, but continued discrimination and the massive damage from especially the 20th century still put them in a precarious situation, with many S\u00e1mi dialects on the verge of extinction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":912.0,"score_ratio":1.2203389831} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx2wjw","c_root_id_B":"gfwyqmn","created_at_utc_A":1608038571,"created_at_utc_B":1608035326,"score_A":78,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"Copying an answer from a saved comment that is now deleted \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- India (I'm British). Seriously, you start with one of the most mysterious of all early civilisations - the Indus Valley civilisation which was contemporary to Egypt and arose independently from any other civilisation. Despite this, we know very little about these people - they didn't seem all that big on monumental architecture despite being organised enough to plan huge cities and create their own (still undeciphered) system of writing. We don't know who ruled them (the lack of monumental architecture suggests it may not have been a single central figurehead). We don't know why they vanished either, but they did. Fast forward to the Vedic period - have any of you guys read any Hindu mythology? Seriously, it's as good if not better then the ancient Greek stuff, and originates in this time. Cities and kingdoms begin to form over a subcontinent that is a dream for a location scout in a fantasy film - you have the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya, vast scorched deserts in Rajasthan, impenetrable jungles haunted by tigers, elephants, and asiatic lions, and thousands of miles of coastline surrounding it all. The next period, from 500-200 BCE, is literally insane. Buddhism and Jainism are both founded during this time, each of which is an epic tale in its own right. Kingdoms and Empires rise and fall, wars and trade are both equally prevalent in a thousand incredible stories. The Persians and Alexander the Great both try to invade at this point, whilst Greek, Phoenecian and Chinese sailors start to traverse the Indian Ocean, bringing in the seeds of globalisation. Seriously, have you ever wondered why so many Buddhist statues look classically Greek? It stems from this time period, which ends when the Mauryans managed to unite almost the entire subcontinent. Its most famous ruler, Asoka, has another movie worthy story - a classic redemption arc where, after fighting a ton of battles and therefore being responsible for thousands of deaths, he felt such remorse that he converted to Buddhism, lead him to shun violence, and he even wrote a code of social and moral precepts including animal welfare laws. In the fucking 3rd Century BC. The millennia from 0 AD - 1000 AD is known as the Classical period, and with bloody good reason as there are hundreds of kingdoms and empires to read about during this time. Beautiful temples, forts and cities were built, brutal wars were fought, dynasties rose and fell. India is even more globalised at this time, situated in a vast trade network that stretched from Spain through to China. Christianity also reaches India early in the millennia, although it never enjoys widespread support. The rise of Islam at this time means a (temporarily) united middle east under the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates - powerful new neighbours who reinvigorate the trade that had declined once Rome had fallen. We also see the first Islamic incursions into India from around 800 AD - a phenomenon which will define much of the subcontinents later history. From around 1000-1600 AD these Islamic invasions are incredible to read about. Firstly, the wars are on a monumental scale - upon sacking Delhi, Timur the Lame was reported to have ordered the executions of 100,000 prisoners of war in one day. That's some next level game of thrones style shit going down. However, this period is equally intriguing in that it wasn't all war. The new Muslim rulers of the North could be remarkable tolerant of other religions (compared to Europe at the time) and fascinating hybrid cultures were formed, blending Islamic, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and various India norms into something completely new. This cultural hodgepodge resulted in art, literature, architecture, and sculpture that is exquisitely beautiful - just look at the Taj Mahal. The south of India forms the main opposition to the Muslim North at this time and has its own amazing culture, with equally beautiful and strikingly different art, architecture, and literature. Now it's time for the bad guys! The Europeans start to arrive, and at first they're just here to trade. Considering that this has been going on for around 2000 years it's no biggie, but then the Portugese, Dutch, French, Danish and of course the British show up in greater numbers, annexing land and playing off rival states in order to acquire more land and more trading rights. Fun fact - for a century, it wasn't the British state that ruled empire, but the East India Trading Company. Yeah, corporations have been dicks for a lot longer than you thought. In fact, they were such dicks that there was a rebellion, which led to the British crown taking the land from the company in 1858. The colonial period is a riveting period to explore. How people adapted to this strange situation where a tiny number of Europeans ruled over a massive amount of Indians is interesting, and there are 'goodies' and 'baddies' aplenty on both sides. You have fascinating characters like the Raja Ram Mohan Roy who campaigned (successfully) to stop the practice of sati and was an early proponent for independence (and also founded a new religious movement on the side), but you also have Indian landowners who used the British rule to increase their own wealth and power by aligning with them. The 20th Century is another whirlwind - the struggle for independence is one of the great stories of the century in my opinion. The range of people involved (Gandhi, Churchill, Nehru), the optimism of a brighter future, the brutal tragedies of the massacres which occurred during the partition of India and Pakistan. And then, afterwards, we have the formation of the worlds largest democracy - a country on the brink of becoming one of the greatest economies of the 21st Century, yet at the same time struggling with poverty, corruption, religious divides and more. A country that has embraced globalisation yet at the same time remains quintessentially Indian - just look at Bollywood or Chicken Tikka Masala. At the same time, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all building their own futures and facing their own problems. Basically, the story of the Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest stories in human history - it contains beauty, heroism, violence, tragedy, defeat and victory across thousands of years, and has a wealth of infinitely complex historical characters to study and dissect. TLDR - The history of the Indian Subcontinent is awesome. EDIT - thank you to whoever gave me my first ever reddit gold, much appreciated! :)","human_ref_B":"Check out the Fall of Civilizations channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew Probably the most comprehensive, accurate and accessible introduction for laymen, covering a dozen major civilizations globally.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3245.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx2wjw","c_root_id_B":"gfwv61o","created_at_utc_A":1608038571,"created_at_utc_B":1608031986,"score_A":78,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Copying an answer from a saved comment that is now deleted \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- India (I'm British). Seriously, you start with one of the most mysterious of all early civilisations - the Indus Valley civilisation which was contemporary to Egypt and arose independently from any other civilisation. Despite this, we know very little about these people - they didn't seem all that big on monumental architecture despite being organised enough to plan huge cities and create their own (still undeciphered) system of writing. We don't know who ruled them (the lack of monumental architecture suggests it may not have been a single central figurehead). We don't know why they vanished either, but they did. Fast forward to the Vedic period - have any of you guys read any Hindu mythology? Seriously, it's as good if not better then the ancient Greek stuff, and originates in this time. Cities and kingdoms begin to form over a subcontinent that is a dream for a location scout in a fantasy film - you have the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya, vast scorched deserts in Rajasthan, impenetrable jungles haunted by tigers, elephants, and asiatic lions, and thousands of miles of coastline surrounding it all. The next period, from 500-200 BCE, is literally insane. Buddhism and Jainism are both founded during this time, each of which is an epic tale in its own right. Kingdoms and Empires rise and fall, wars and trade are both equally prevalent in a thousand incredible stories. The Persians and Alexander the Great both try to invade at this point, whilst Greek, Phoenecian and Chinese sailors start to traverse the Indian Ocean, bringing in the seeds of globalisation. Seriously, have you ever wondered why so many Buddhist statues look classically Greek? It stems from this time period, which ends when the Mauryans managed to unite almost the entire subcontinent. Its most famous ruler, Asoka, has another movie worthy story - a classic redemption arc where, after fighting a ton of battles and therefore being responsible for thousands of deaths, he felt such remorse that he converted to Buddhism, lead him to shun violence, and he even wrote a code of social and moral precepts including animal welfare laws. In the fucking 3rd Century BC. The millennia from 0 AD - 1000 AD is known as the Classical period, and with bloody good reason as there are hundreds of kingdoms and empires to read about during this time. Beautiful temples, forts and cities were built, brutal wars were fought, dynasties rose and fell. India is even more globalised at this time, situated in a vast trade network that stretched from Spain through to China. Christianity also reaches India early in the millennia, although it never enjoys widespread support. The rise of Islam at this time means a (temporarily) united middle east under the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates - powerful new neighbours who reinvigorate the trade that had declined once Rome had fallen. We also see the first Islamic incursions into India from around 800 AD - a phenomenon which will define much of the subcontinents later history. From around 1000-1600 AD these Islamic invasions are incredible to read about. Firstly, the wars are on a monumental scale - upon sacking Delhi, Timur the Lame was reported to have ordered the executions of 100,000 prisoners of war in one day. That's some next level game of thrones style shit going down. However, this period is equally intriguing in that it wasn't all war. The new Muslim rulers of the North could be remarkable tolerant of other religions (compared to Europe at the time) and fascinating hybrid cultures were formed, blending Islamic, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and various India norms into something completely new. This cultural hodgepodge resulted in art, literature, architecture, and sculpture that is exquisitely beautiful - just look at the Taj Mahal. The south of India forms the main opposition to the Muslim North at this time and has its own amazing culture, with equally beautiful and strikingly different art, architecture, and literature. Now it's time for the bad guys! The Europeans start to arrive, and at first they're just here to trade. Considering that this has been going on for around 2000 years it's no biggie, but then the Portugese, Dutch, French, Danish and of course the British show up in greater numbers, annexing land and playing off rival states in order to acquire more land and more trading rights. Fun fact - for a century, it wasn't the British state that ruled empire, but the East India Trading Company. Yeah, corporations have been dicks for a lot longer than you thought. In fact, they were such dicks that there was a rebellion, which led to the British crown taking the land from the company in 1858. The colonial period is a riveting period to explore. How people adapted to this strange situation where a tiny number of Europeans ruled over a massive amount of Indians is interesting, and there are 'goodies' and 'baddies' aplenty on both sides. You have fascinating characters like the Raja Ram Mohan Roy who campaigned (successfully) to stop the practice of sati and was an early proponent for independence (and also founded a new religious movement on the side), but you also have Indian landowners who used the British rule to increase their own wealth and power by aligning with them. The 20th Century is another whirlwind - the struggle for independence is one of the great stories of the century in my opinion. The range of people involved (Gandhi, Churchill, Nehru), the optimism of a brighter future, the brutal tragedies of the massacres which occurred during the partition of India and Pakistan. And then, afterwards, we have the formation of the worlds largest democracy - a country on the brink of becoming one of the greatest economies of the 21st Century, yet at the same time struggling with poverty, corruption, religious divides and more. A country that has embraced globalisation yet at the same time remains quintessentially Indian - just look at Bollywood or Chicken Tikka Masala. At the same time, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all building their own futures and facing their own problems. Basically, the story of the Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest stories in human history - it contains beauty, heroism, violence, tragedy, defeat and victory across thousands of years, and has a wealth of infinitely complex historical characters to study and dissect. TLDR - The history of the Indian Subcontinent is awesome. EDIT - thank you to whoever gave me my first ever reddit gold, much appreciated! :)","human_ref_B":"To add to the other commenter: native american agriculture is goshdarn impressive. I\u2019d recommend reading about Scythians, an ancient (semi-mythical) nomadic people. Australian aboriginals are also fascinating but much history talks about australian aboriginals after colonization. Phoenicians and ancient Egyptians and Babylonians are fascinating because that is where much of classical greek and roman culture comes from.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6585.0,"score_ratio":2.7857142857} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx2wjw","c_root_id_B":"gfx0nud","created_at_utc_A":1608038571,"created_at_utc_B":1608036877,"score_A":78,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Copying an answer from a saved comment that is now deleted \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- India (I'm British). Seriously, you start with one of the most mysterious of all early civilisations - the Indus Valley civilisation which was contemporary to Egypt and arose independently from any other civilisation. Despite this, we know very little about these people - they didn't seem all that big on monumental architecture despite being organised enough to plan huge cities and create their own (still undeciphered) system of writing. We don't know who ruled them (the lack of monumental architecture suggests it may not have been a single central figurehead). We don't know why they vanished either, but they did. Fast forward to the Vedic period - have any of you guys read any Hindu mythology? Seriously, it's as good if not better then the ancient Greek stuff, and originates in this time. Cities and kingdoms begin to form over a subcontinent that is a dream for a location scout in a fantasy film - you have the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya, vast scorched deserts in Rajasthan, impenetrable jungles haunted by tigers, elephants, and asiatic lions, and thousands of miles of coastline surrounding it all. The next period, from 500-200 BCE, is literally insane. Buddhism and Jainism are both founded during this time, each of which is an epic tale in its own right. Kingdoms and Empires rise and fall, wars and trade are both equally prevalent in a thousand incredible stories. The Persians and Alexander the Great both try to invade at this point, whilst Greek, Phoenecian and Chinese sailors start to traverse the Indian Ocean, bringing in the seeds of globalisation. Seriously, have you ever wondered why so many Buddhist statues look classically Greek? It stems from this time period, which ends when the Mauryans managed to unite almost the entire subcontinent. Its most famous ruler, Asoka, has another movie worthy story - a classic redemption arc where, after fighting a ton of battles and therefore being responsible for thousands of deaths, he felt such remorse that he converted to Buddhism, lead him to shun violence, and he even wrote a code of social and moral precepts including animal welfare laws. In the fucking 3rd Century BC. The millennia from 0 AD - 1000 AD is known as the Classical period, and with bloody good reason as there are hundreds of kingdoms and empires to read about during this time. Beautiful temples, forts and cities were built, brutal wars were fought, dynasties rose and fell. India is even more globalised at this time, situated in a vast trade network that stretched from Spain through to China. Christianity also reaches India early in the millennia, although it never enjoys widespread support. The rise of Islam at this time means a (temporarily) united middle east under the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates - powerful new neighbours who reinvigorate the trade that had declined once Rome had fallen. We also see the first Islamic incursions into India from around 800 AD - a phenomenon which will define much of the subcontinents later history. From around 1000-1600 AD these Islamic invasions are incredible to read about. Firstly, the wars are on a monumental scale - upon sacking Delhi, Timur the Lame was reported to have ordered the executions of 100,000 prisoners of war in one day. That's some next level game of thrones style shit going down. However, this period is equally intriguing in that it wasn't all war. The new Muslim rulers of the North could be remarkable tolerant of other religions (compared to Europe at the time) and fascinating hybrid cultures were formed, blending Islamic, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and various India norms into something completely new. This cultural hodgepodge resulted in art, literature, architecture, and sculpture that is exquisitely beautiful - just look at the Taj Mahal. The south of India forms the main opposition to the Muslim North at this time and has its own amazing culture, with equally beautiful and strikingly different art, architecture, and literature. Now it's time for the bad guys! The Europeans start to arrive, and at first they're just here to trade. Considering that this has been going on for around 2000 years it's no biggie, but then the Portugese, Dutch, French, Danish and of course the British show up in greater numbers, annexing land and playing off rival states in order to acquire more land and more trading rights. Fun fact - for a century, it wasn't the British state that ruled empire, but the East India Trading Company. Yeah, corporations have been dicks for a lot longer than you thought. In fact, they were such dicks that there was a rebellion, which led to the British crown taking the land from the company in 1858. The colonial period is a riveting period to explore. How people adapted to this strange situation where a tiny number of Europeans ruled over a massive amount of Indians is interesting, and there are 'goodies' and 'baddies' aplenty on both sides. You have fascinating characters like the Raja Ram Mohan Roy who campaigned (successfully) to stop the practice of sati and was an early proponent for independence (and also founded a new religious movement on the side), but you also have Indian landowners who used the British rule to increase their own wealth and power by aligning with them. The 20th Century is another whirlwind - the struggle for independence is one of the great stories of the century in my opinion. The range of people involved (Gandhi, Churchill, Nehru), the optimism of a brighter future, the brutal tragedies of the massacres which occurred during the partition of India and Pakistan. And then, afterwards, we have the formation of the worlds largest democracy - a country on the brink of becoming one of the greatest economies of the 21st Century, yet at the same time struggling with poverty, corruption, religious divides and more. A country that has embraced globalisation yet at the same time remains quintessentially Indian - just look at Bollywood or Chicken Tikka Masala. At the same time, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all building their own futures and facing their own problems. Basically, the story of the Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest stories in human history - it contains beauty, heroism, violence, tragedy, defeat and victory across thousands of years, and has a wealth of infinitely complex historical characters to study and dissect. TLDR - The history of the Indian Subcontinent is awesome. EDIT - thank you to whoever gave me my first ever reddit gold, much appreciated! :)","human_ref_B":"Chinese. Everyone knows or has heard about Egypt and Greece and Rome and what not but Chinese had\/has the longest running culture in history, arguably still going on to this day. It\u2019s a vastly rich and complicated history and takes awhile to understand and appreciate but I as a layman white American, I find it incredibly interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1694.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx2sx4","c_root_id_B":"gfx2wjw","created_at_utc_A":1608038498,"created_at_utc_B":1608038571,"score_A":11,"score_B":78,"human_ref_A":"The Indus Valley Civilization doesn't often get its fair share of attention - especially considering its geographical spread, massive public infrastructure (search for the Great Bath and the Great Granary), wide trade networks, (almost) egalitarian society and its enigmatic, (and still undeciphered) script. Wikipedia","human_ref_B":"Copying an answer from a saved comment that is now deleted \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- India (I'm British). Seriously, you start with one of the most mysterious of all early civilisations - the Indus Valley civilisation which was contemporary to Egypt and arose independently from any other civilisation. Despite this, we know very little about these people - they didn't seem all that big on monumental architecture despite being organised enough to plan huge cities and create their own (still undeciphered) system of writing. We don't know who ruled them (the lack of monumental architecture suggests it may not have been a single central figurehead). We don't know why they vanished either, but they did. Fast forward to the Vedic period - have any of you guys read any Hindu mythology? Seriously, it's as good if not better then the ancient Greek stuff, and originates in this time. Cities and kingdoms begin to form over a subcontinent that is a dream for a location scout in a fantasy film - you have the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya, vast scorched deserts in Rajasthan, impenetrable jungles haunted by tigers, elephants, and asiatic lions, and thousands of miles of coastline surrounding it all. The next period, from 500-200 BCE, is literally insane. Buddhism and Jainism are both founded during this time, each of which is an epic tale in its own right. Kingdoms and Empires rise and fall, wars and trade are both equally prevalent in a thousand incredible stories. The Persians and Alexander the Great both try to invade at this point, whilst Greek, Phoenecian and Chinese sailors start to traverse the Indian Ocean, bringing in the seeds of globalisation. Seriously, have you ever wondered why so many Buddhist statues look classically Greek? It stems from this time period, which ends when the Mauryans managed to unite almost the entire subcontinent. Its most famous ruler, Asoka, has another movie worthy story - a classic redemption arc where, after fighting a ton of battles and therefore being responsible for thousands of deaths, he felt such remorse that he converted to Buddhism, lead him to shun violence, and he even wrote a code of social and moral precepts including animal welfare laws. In the fucking 3rd Century BC. The millennia from 0 AD - 1000 AD is known as the Classical period, and with bloody good reason as there are hundreds of kingdoms and empires to read about during this time. Beautiful temples, forts and cities were built, brutal wars were fought, dynasties rose and fell. India is even more globalised at this time, situated in a vast trade network that stretched from Spain through to China. Christianity also reaches India early in the millennia, although it never enjoys widespread support. The rise of Islam at this time means a (temporarily) united middle east under the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates - powerful new neighbours who reinvigorate the trade that had declined once Rome had fallen. We also see the first Islamic incursions into India from around 800 AD - a phenomenon which will define much of the subcontinents later history. From around 1000-1600 AD these Islamic invasions are incredible to read about. Firstly, the wars are on a monumental scale - upon sacking Delhi, Timur the Lame was reported to have ordered the executions of 100,000 prisoners of war in one day. That's some next level game of thrones style shit going down. However, this period is equally intriguing in that it wasn't all war. The new Muslim rulers of the North could be remarkable tolerant of other religions (compared to Europe at the time) and fascinating hybrid cultures were formed, blending Islamic, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and various India norms into something completely new. This cultural hodgepodge resulted in art, literature, architecture, and sculpture that is exquisitely beautiful - just look at the Taj Mahal. The south of India forms the main opposition to the Muslim North at this time and has its own amazing culture, with equally beautiful and strikingly different art, architecture, and literature. Now it's time for the bad guys! The Europeans start to arrive, and at first they're just here to trade. Considering that this has been going on for around 2000 years it's no biggie, but then the Portugese, Dutch, French, Danish and of course the British show up in greater numbers, annexing land and playing off rival states in order to acquire more land and more trading rights. Fun fact - for a century, it wasn't the British state that ruled empire, but the East India Trading Company. Yeah, corporations have been dicks for a lot longer than you thought. In fact, they were such dicks that there was a rebellion, which led to the British crown taking the land from the company in 1858. The colonial period is a riveting period to explore. How people adapted to this strange situation where a tiny number of Europeans ruled over a massive amount of Indians is interesting, and there are 'goodies' and 'baddies' aplenty on both sides. You have fascinating characters like the Raja Ram Mohan Roy who campaigned (successfully) to stop the practice of sati and was an early proponent for independence (and also founded a new religious movement on the side), but you also have Indian landowners who used the British rule to increase their own wealth and power by aligning with them. The 20th Century is another whirlwind - the struggle for independence is one of the great stories of the century in my opinion. The range of people involved (Gandhi, Churchill, Nehru), the optimism of a brighter future, the brutal tragedies of the massacres which occurred during the partition of India and Pakistan. And then, afterwards, we have the formation of the worlds largest democracy - a country on the brink of becoming one of the greatest economies of the 21st Century, yet at the same time struggling with poverty, corruption, religious divides and more. A country that has embraced globalisation yet at the same time remains quintessentially Indian - just look at Bollywood or Chicken Tikka Masala. At the same time, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all building their own futures and facing their own problems. Basically, the story of the Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest stories in human history - it contains beauty, heroism, violence, tragedy, defeat and victory across thousands of years, and has a wealth of infinitely complex historical characters to study and dissect. TLDR - The history of the Indian Subcontinent is awesome. EDIT - thank you to whoever gave me my first ever reddit gold, much appreciated! :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":73.0,"score_ratio":7.0909090909} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx1g3t","c_root_id_B":"gfx2wjw","created_at_utc_A":1608037491,"created_at_utc_B":1608038571,"score_A":5,"score_B":78,"human_ref_A":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","human_ref_B":"Copying an answer from a saved comment that is now deleted \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- India (I'm British). Seriously, you start with one of the most mysterious of all early civilisations - the Indus Valley civilisation which was contemporary to Egypt and arose independently from any other civilisation. Despite this, we know very little about these people - they didn't seem all that big on monumental architecture despite being organised enough to plan huge cities and create their own (still undeciphered) system of writing. We don't know who ruled them (the lack of monumental architecture suggests it may not have been a single central figurehead). We don't know why they vanished either, but they did. Fast forward to the Vedic period - have any of you guys read any Hindu mythology? Seriously, it's as good if not better then the ancient Greek stuff, and originates in this time. Cities and kingdoms begin to form over a subcontinent that is a dream for a location scout in a fantasy film - you have the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya, vast scorched deserts in Rajasthan, impenetrable jungles haunted by tigers, elephants, and asiatic lions, and thousands of miles of coastline surrounding it all. The next period, from 500-200 BCE, is literally insane. Buddhism and Jainism are both founded during this time, each of which is an epic tale in its own right. Kingdoms and Empires rise and fall, wars and trade are both equally prevalent in a thousand incredible stories. The Persians and Alexander the Great both try to invade at this point, whilst Greek, Phoenecian and Chinese sailors start to traverse the Indian Ocean, bringing in the seeds of globalisation. Seriously, have you ever wondered why so many Buddhist statues look classically Greek? It stems from this time period, which ends when the Mauryans managed to unite almost the entire subcontinent. Its most famous ruler, Asoka, has another movie worthy story - a classic redemption arc where, after fighting a ton of battles and therefore being responsible for thousands of deaths, he felt such remorse that he converted to Buddhism, lead him to shun violence, and he even wrote a code of social and moral precepts including animal welfare laws. In the fucking 3rd Century BC. The millennia from 0 AD - 1000 AD is known as the Classical period, and with bloody good reason as there are hundreds of kingdoms and empires to read about during this time. Beautiful temples, forts and cities were built, brutal wars were fought, dynasties rose and fell. India is even more globalised at this time, situated in a vast trade network that stretched from Spain through to China. Christianity also reaches India early in the millennia, although it never enjoys widespread support. The rise of Islam at this time means a (temporarily) united middle east under the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates - powerful new neighbours who reinvigorate the trade that had declined once Rome had fallen. We also see the first Islamic incursions into India from around 800 AD - a phenomenon which will define much of the subcontinents later history. From around 1000-1600 AD these Islamic invasions are incredible to read about. Firstly, the wars are on a monumental scale - upon sacking Delhi, Timur the Lame was reported to have ordered the executions of 100,000 prisoners of war in one day. That's some next level game of thrones style shit going down. However, this period is equally intriguing in that it wasn't all war. The new Muslim rulers of the North could be remarkable tolerant of other religions (compared to Europe at the time) and fascinating hybrid cultures were formed, blending Islamic, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, and various India norms into something completely new. This cultural hodgepodge resulted in art, literature, architecture, and sculpture that is exquisitely beautiful - just look at the Taj Mahal. The south of India forms the main opposition to the Muslim North at this time and has its own amazing culture, with equally beautiful and strikingly different art, architecture, and literature. Now it's time for the bad guys! The Europeans start to arrive, and at first they're just here to trade. Considering that this has been going on for around 2000 years it's no biggie, but then the Portugese, Dutch, French, Danish and of course the British show up in greater numbers, annexing land and playing off rival states in order to acquire more land and more trading rights. Fun fact - for a century, it wasn't the British state that ruled empire, but the East India Trading Company. Yeah, corporations have been dicks for a lot longer than you thought. In fact, they were such dicks that there was a rebellion, which led to the British crown taking the land from the company in 1858. The colonial period is a riveting period to explore. How people adapted to this strange situation where a tiny number of Europeans ruled over a massive amount of Indians is interesting, and there are 'goodies' and 'baddies' aplenty on both sides. You have fascinating characters like the Raja Ram Mohan Roy who campaigned (successfully) to stop the practice of sati and was an early proponent for independence (and also founded a new religious movement on the side), but you also have Indian landowners who used the British rule to increase their own wealth and power by aligning with them. The 20th Century is another whirlwind - the struggle for independence is one of the great stories of the century in my opinion. The range of people involved (Gandhi, Churchill, Nehru), the optimism of a brighter future, the brutal tragedies of the massacres which occurred during the partition of India and Pakistan. And then, afterwards, we have the formation of the worlds largest democracy - a country on the brink of becoming one of the greatest economies of the 21st Century, yet at the same time struggling with poverty, corruption, religious divides and more. A country that has embraced globalisation yet at the same time remains quintessentially Indian - just look at Bollywood or Chicken Tikka Masala. At the same time, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are all building their own futures and facing their own problems. Basically, the story of the Indian subcontinent is one of the greatest stories in human history - it contains beauty, heroism, violence, tragedy, defeat and victory across thousands of years, and has a wealth of infinitely complex historical characters to study and dissect. TLDR - The history of the Indian Subcontinent is awesome. EDIT - thank you to whoever gave me my first ever reddit gold, much appreciated! :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1080.0,"score_ratio":15.6} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfwv61o","c_root_id_B":"gfwyqmn","created_at_utc_A":1608031986,"created_at_utc_B":1608035326,"score_A":28,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"To add to the other commenter: native american agriculture is goshdarn impressive. I\u2019d recommend reading about Scythians, an ancient (semi-mythical) nomadic people. Australian aboriginals are also fascinating but much history talks about australian aboriginals after colonization. Phoenicians and ancient Egyptians and Babylonians are fascinating because that is where much of classical greek and roman culture comes from.","human_ref_B":"Check out the Fall of Civilizations channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew Probably the most comprehensive, accurate and accessible introduction for laymen, covering a dozen major civilizations globally.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3340.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxeqjb","c_root_id_B":"gfx2sx4","created_at_utc_A":1608045608,"created_at_utc_B":1608038498,"score_A":17,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Really as many as possible, but in my opinion African civilisations are insanely overlooked, whilst also being to crucial to dismantling old theories of mino-linear cultural evolution and set societal structures. Names and groupings are still getting hotly debated, but check out Great Zimbabwe and also Niger delta, in particular the archaeology of Benin. If I had more time right now I'd give some details on it, but heading out. Might come back with more information if anyone is curious and reminds me. On a research front I also want to mention the Balkans has a huge dark spot in terms of research even though it likely was pretty instrumental in the movement of people from Mesopotamia to Europe.","human_ref_B":"The Indus Valley Civilization doesn't often get its fair share of attention - especially considering its geographical spread, massive public infrastructure (search for the Great Bath and the Great Granary), wide trade networks, (almost) egalitarian society and its enigmatic, (and still undeciphered) script. Wikipedia","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7110.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx5mtq","c_root_id_B":"gfxeqjb","created_at_utc_A":1608040411,"created_at_utc_B":1608045608,"score_A":6,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I took a degree in archaeology and greek\/Roman studies. I started out most interested in Roman Italy, then Roman Britain. But I also got to learn about scythians, vikings, Mongolians, the Inca, indigenous tribes throughout South America, the Blackfoot people, the Altai people (specifically the Siberian ice maiden, which was neat), a modern day tribe in Kenya (I forget their name), Samoa (specifically Margaret Mead's work there, which is amusing because the population she worked with basically just pranked her by lying about everything, which is common for their style of humour there), the mosuo in China (a matriarchal society), and probably a dozen others I can't remember! All were incredibly fascinating. My partner is currently studying Mesopotamia, which is neat to hear about. The technological abilities they had were astounding. I don't think there's any civilizations anyone *should* learn, but rather we should just have an interest in history as a whole. Pick a country you'd like to travel to (or one you'd have no interest in travelling to!), then just research their ancient history. Read the Wikipedia article, see if anything grabs your attention, then go from there. Plus (depending on how old the civilization is) specific facets of civilizations can be really neat. I'm a sucker for learning about religions, but my degree got me interested in technology specifically. Researching groups that existed at the same time as what you're most interested in is also fun!","human_ref_B":"Really as many as possible, but in my opinion African civilisations are insanely overlooked, whilst also being to crucial to dismantling old theories of mino-linear cultural evolution and set societal structures. Names and groupings are still getting hotly debated, but check out Great Zimbabwe and also Niger delta, in particular the archaeology of Benin. If I had more time right now I'd give some details on it, but heading out. Might come back with more information if anyone is curious and reminds me. On a research front I also want to mention the Balkans has a huge dark spot in terms of research even though it likely was pretty instrumental in the movement of people from Mesopotamia to Europe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5197.0,"score_ratio":2.8333333333} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxeqjb","c_root_id_B":"gfx1g3t","created_at_utc_A":1608045608,"created_at_utc_B":1608037491,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Really as many as possible, but in my opinion African civilisations are insanely overlooked, whilst also being to crucial to dismantling old theories of mino-linear cultural evolution and set societal structures. Names and groupings are still getting hotly debated, but check out Great Zimbabwe and also Niger delta, in particular the archaeology of Benin. If I had more time right now I'd give some details on it, but heading out. Might come back with more information if anyone is curious and reminds me. On a research front I also want to mention the Balkans has a huge dark spot in terms of research even though it likely was pretty instrumental in the movement of people from Mesopotamia to Europe.","human_ref_B":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8117.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxeqjb","c_root_id_B":"gfx82d9","created_at_utc_A":1608045608,"created_at_utc_B":1608041927,"score_A":17,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Really as many as possible, but in my opinion African civilisations are insanely overlooked, whilst also being to crucial to dismantling old theories of mino-linear cultural evolution and set societal structures. Names and groupings are still getting hotly debated, but check out Great Zimbabwe and also Niger delta, in particular the archaeology of Benin. If I had more time right now I'd give some details on it, but heading out. Might come back with more information if anyone is curious and reminds me. On a research front I also want to mention the Balkans has a huge dark spot in terms of research even though it likely was pretty instrumental in the movement of people from Mesopotamia to Europe.","human_ref_B":"From the perspective of cultivating personal growth, I think it's important to find a wide diversity of cultures. It really helps improve your appreciation for other ways of being. I'm going to throw out an obvious choice and say China. Chinese history is great. It's got everything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3681.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxeqjb","c_root_id_B":"gfx8lqj","created_at_utc_A":1608045608,"created_at_utc_B":1608042244,"score_A":17,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Really as many as possible, but in my opinion African civilisations are insanely overlooked, whilst also being to crucial to dismantling old theories of mino-linear cultural evolution and set societal structures. Names and groupings are still getting hotly debated, but check out Great Zimbabwe and also Niger delta, in particular the archaeology of Benin. If I had more time right now I'd give some details on it, but heading out. Might come back with more information if anyone is curious and reminds me. On a research front I also want to mention the Balkans has a huge dark spot in terms of research even though it likely was pretty instrumental in the movement of people from Mesopotamia to Europe.","human_ref_B":"I think it's important to learn how we got to where we are now. Learning about the origins of civilization and how we went from hunter gatherers to farmers, how Sumer and macedonia where some of the beginnings of the world we live in.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3364.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx1g3t","c_root_id_B":"gfx2sx4","created_at_utc_A":1608037491,"created_at_utc_B":1608038498,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","human_ref_B":"The Indus Valley Civilization doesn't often get its fair share of attention - especially considering its geographical spread, massive public infrastructure (search for the Great Bath and the Great Granary), wide trade networks, (almost) egalitarian society and its enigmatic, (and still undeciphered) script. Wikipedia","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1007.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxocw9","c_root_id_B":"gfxgfsi","created_at_utc_A":1608050417,"created_at_utc_B":1608046488,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Not necessarily a \"civilization\" in the traditional sense but I do think more people should take the time to learn about different Native American tribes, either from a geographical region you find interesting or just your local tribes (assuming you live in North America). There's a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans that can easily be fixed by doing some research, and many tribes had levels of sociopolitical complexity that the average person wouldn't think. If you really are more into big civilizations, then Cahokia. There were massive pyramids and mounds in North America that don't get discussed nearly as much as they should.","human_ref_B":"Looks like everyone has already suggested a bunch of Mesoamerican and old-world civilizations, which are always a great and popular choice for folks to dive into history, and I absolutely +1 to learning about those! That said, my two cents: North America is an equally fascinating (and hugely diverse) place to explore history. The Ancestral Puebloans in the Southwest built places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and farmed the desert regions there for hundreds of years before abandoning the cities. The Mississippian cultures constructed towns and trade networks throughout the Midwest, and connected half the continent via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. There are plenty of others, such as the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Eastern Woodlands cultures, the Great Plains cultures, let alone the First Nations of Canada and Alaska. Any of these cultures are great places to start learning, and Charles Mann's *1491* is a good synthesis of archaeological and historic information from across the continent, geared toward a general audience, and can serve as a good starting point. Additionally, the US National Parks have several resources available for anyone interested in learning about First Peoples across the continent. Here's a link to the Mesa Verde Park history page: https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/historyculture\/index.htm. Pretty much every park has a page dedicated to the history of the place and First Peoples who lived there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3929.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxocw9","c_root_id_B":"gfx5mtq","created_at_utc_A":1608050417,"created_at_utc_B":1608040411,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Not necessarily a \"civilization\" in the traditional sense but I do think more people should take the time to learn about different Native American tribes, either from a geographical region you find interesting or just your local tribes (assuming you live in North America). There's a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans that can easily be fixed by doing some research, and many tribes had levels of sociopolitical complexity that the average person wouldn't think. If you really are more into big civilizations, then Cahokia. There were massive pyramids and mounds in North America that don't get discussed nearly as much as they should.","human_ref_B":"I took a degree in archaeology and greek\/Roman studies. I started out most interested in Roman Italy, then Roman Britain. But I also got to learn about scythians, vikings, Mongolians, the Inca, indigenous tribes throughout South America, the Blackfoot people, the Altai people (specifically the Siberian ice maiden, which was neat), a modern day tribe in Kenya (I forget their name), Samoa (specifically Margaret Mead's work there, which is amusing because the population she worked with basically just pranked her by lying about everything, which is common for their style of humour there), the mosuo in China (a matriarchal society), and probably a dozen others I can't remember! All were incredibly fascinating. My partner is currently studying Mesopotamia, which is neat to hear about. The technological abilities they had were astounding. I don't think there's any civilizations anyone *should* learn, but rather we should just have an interest in history as a whole. Pick a country you'd like to travel to (or one you'd have no interest in travelling to!), then just research their ancient history. Read the Wikipedia article, see if anything grabs your attention, then go from there. Plus (depending on how old the civilization is) specific facets of civilizations can be really neat. I'm a sucker for learning about religions, but my degree got me interested in technology specifically. Researching groups that existed at the same time as what you're most interested in is also fun!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10006.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxocw9","c_root_id_B":"gfx1g3t","created_at_utc_A":1608050417,"created_at_utc_B":1608037491,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Not necessarily a \"civilization\" in the traditional sense but I do think more people should take the time to learn about different Native American tribes, either from a geographical region you find interesting or just your local tribes (assuming you live in North America). There's a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans that can easily be fixed by doing some research, and many tribes had levels of sociopolitical complexity that the average person wouldn't think. If you really are more into big civilizations, then Cahokia. There were massive pyramids and mounds in North America that don't get discussed nearly as much as they should.","human_ref_B":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12926.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx82d9","c_root_id_B":"gfxocw9","created_at_utc_A":1608041927,"created_at_utc_B":1608050417,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"From the perspective of cultivating personal growth, I think it's important to find a wide diversity of cultures. It really helps improve your appreciation for other ways of being. I'm going to throw out an obvious choice and say China. Chinese history is great. It's got everything.","human_ref_B":"Not necessarily a \"civilization\" in the traditional sense but I do think more people should take the time to learn about different Native American tribes, either from a geographical region you find interesting or just your local tribes (assuming you live in North America). There's a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans that can easily be fixed by doing some research, and many tribes had levels of sociopolitical complexity that the average person wouldn't think. If you really are more into big civilizations, then Cahokia. There were massive pyramids and mounds in North America that don't get discussed nearly as much as they should.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8490.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx8lqj","c_root_id_B":"gfxocw9","created_at_utc_A":1608042244,"created_at_utc_B":1608050417,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I think it's important to learn how we got to where we are now. Learning about the origins of civilization and how we went from hunter gatherers to farmers, how Sumer and macedonia where some of the beginnings of the world we live in.","human_ref_B":"Not necessarily a \"civilization\" in the traditional sense but I do think more people should take the time to learn about different Native American tribes, either from a geographical region you find interesting or just your local tribes (assuming you live in North America). There's a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans that can easily be fixed by doing some research, and many tribes had levels of sociopolitical complexity that the average person wouldn't think. If you really are more into big civilizations, then Cahokia. There were massive pyramids and mounds in North America that don't get discussed nearly as much as they should.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8173.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx5mtq","c_root_id_B":"gfxgfsi","created_at_utc_A":1608040411,"created_at_utc_B":1608046488,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I took a degree in archaeology and greek\/Roman studies. I started out most interested in Roman Italy, then Roman Britain. But I also got to learn about scythians, vikings, Mongolians, the Inca, indigenous tribes throughout South America, the Blackfoot people, the Altai people (specifically the Siberian ice maiden, which was neat), a modern day tribe in Kenya (I forget their name), Samoa (specifically Margaret Mead's work there, which is amusing because the population she worked with basically just pranked her by lying about everything, which is common for their style of humour there), the mosuo in China (a matriarchal society), and probably a dozen others I can't remember! All were incredibly fascinating. My partner is currently studying Mesopotamia, which is neat to hear about. The technological abilities they had were astounding. I don't think there's any civilizations anyone *should* learn, but rather we should just have an interest in history as a whole. Pick a country you'd like to travel to (or one you'd have no interest in travelling to!), then just research their ancient history. Read the Wikipedia article, see if anything grabs your attention, then go from there. Plus (depending on how old the civilization is) specific facets of civilizations can be really neat. I'm a sucker for learning about religions, but my degree got me interested in technology specifically. Researching groups that existed at the same time as what you're most interested in is also fun!","human_ref_B":"Looks like everyone has already suggested a bunch of Mesoamerican and old-world civilizations, which are always a great and popular choice for folks to dive into history, and I absolutely +1 to learning about those! That said, my two cents: North America is an equally fascinating (and hugely diverse) place to explore history. The Ancestral Puebloans in the Southwest built places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and farmed the desert regions there for hundreds of years before abandoning the cities. The Mississippian cultures constructed towns and trade networks throughout the Midwest, and connected half the continent via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. There are plenty of others, such as the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Eastern Woodlands cultures, the Great Plains cultures, let alone the First Nations of Canada and Alaska. Any of these cultures are great places to start learning, and Charles Mann's *1491* is a good synthesis of archaeological and historic information from across the continent, geared toward a general audience, and can serve as a good starting point. Additionally, the US National Parks have several resources available for anyone interested in learning about First Peoples across the continent. Here's a link to the Mesa Verde Park history page: https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/historyculture\/index.htm. Pretty much every park has a page dedicated to the history of the place and First Peoples who lived there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6077.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfxgfsi","c_root_id_B":"gfx1g3t","created_at_utc_A":1608046488,"created_at_utc_B":1608037491,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Looks like everyone has already suggested a bunch of Mesoamerican and old-world civilizations, which are always a great and popular choice for folks to dive into history, and I absolutely +1 to learning about those! That said, my two cents: North America is an equally fascinating (and hugely diverse) place to explore history. The Ancestral Puebloans in the Southwest built places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and farmed the desert regions there for hundreds of years before abandoning the cities. The Mississippian cultures constructed towns and trade networks throughout the Midwest, and connected half the continent via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. There are plenty of others, such as the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Eastern Woodlands cultures, the Great Plains cultures, let alone the First Nations of Canada and Alaska. Any of these cultures are great places to start learning, and Charles Mann's *1491* is a good synthesis of archaeological and historic information from across the continent, geared toward a general audience, and can serve as a good starting point. Additionally, the US National Parks have several resources available for anyone interested in learning about First Peoples across the continent. Here's a link to the Mesa Verde Park history page: https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/historyculture\/index.htm. Pretty much every park has a page dedicated to the history of the place and First Peoples who lived there.","human_ref_B":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8997.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx82d9","c_root_id_B":"gfxgfsi","created_at_utc_A":1608041927,"created_at_utc_B":1608046488,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"From the perspective of cultivating personal growth, I think it's important to find a wide diversity of cultures. It really helps improve your appreciation for other ways of being. I'm going to throw out an obvious choice and say China. Chinese history is great. It's got everything.","human_ref_B":"Looks like everyone has already suggested a bunch of Mesoamerican and old-world civilizations, which are always a great and popular choice for folks to dive into history, and I absolutely +1 to learning about those! That said, my two cents: North America is an equally fascinating (and hugely diverse) place to explore history. The Ancestral Puebloans in the Southwest built places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and farmed the desert regions there for hundreds of years before abandoning the cities. The Mississippian cultures constructed towns and trade networks throughout the Midwest, and connected half the continent via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. There are plenty of others, such as the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Eastern Woodlands cultures, the Great Plains cultures, let alone the First Nations of Canada and Alaska. Any of these cultures are great places to start learning, and Charles Mann's *1491* is a good synthesis of archaeological and historic information from across the continent, geared toward a general audience, and can serve as a good starting point. Additionally, the US National Parks have several resources available for anyone interested in learning about First Peoples across the continent. Here's a link to the Mesa Verde Park history page: https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/historyculture\/index.htm. Pretty much every park has a page dedicated to the history of the place and First Peoples who lived there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4561.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx8lqj","c_root_id_B":"gfxgfsi","created_at_utc_A":1608042244,"created_at_utc_B":1608046488,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think it's important to learn how we got to where we are now. Learning about the origins of civilization and how we went from hunter gatherers to farmers, how Sumer and macedonia where some of the beginnings of the world we live in.","human_ref_B":"Looks like everyone has already suggested a bunch of Mesoamerican and old-world civilizations, which are always a great and popular choice for folks to dive into history, and I absolutely +1 to learning about those! That said, my two cents: North America is an equally fascinating (and hugely diverse) place to explore history. The Ancestral Puebloans in the Southwest built places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, and farmed the desert regions there for hundreds of years before abandoning the cities. The Mississippian cultures constructed towns and trade networks throughout the Midwest, and connected half the continent via the Mississippi River and its tributaries. There are plenty of others, such as the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Eastern Woodlands cultures, the Great Plains cultures, let alone the First Nations of Canada and Alaska. Any of these cultures are great places to start learning, and Charles Mann's *1491* is a good synthesis of archaeological and historic information from across the continent, geared toward a general audience, and can serve as a good starting point. Additionally, the US National Parks have several resources available for anyone interested in learning about First Peoples across the continent. Here's a link to the Mesa Verde Park history page: https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/historyculture\/index.htm. Pretty much every park has a page dedicated to the history of the place and First Peoples who lived there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4244.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"kdhd2q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What ancient civilizations should everyone learn about? Sorry if this doesn't belong here I ask because ancient culture is so fascinating to me. I just read about the Minoans and Mycenaeans, and I want to keep reading about as many ancient civilizations as I can. Just throw as many as you know at me I guess (also if there is a book or documentary that you recommend please tell me about it)","c_root_id_A":"gfx1g3t","c_root_id_B":"gfx5mtq","created_at_utc_A":1608037491,"created_at_utc_B":1608040411,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Any and all of them. Understanding how civilizations arose and conducted themselves in their various environments will always be enriching, imo. I personally dont like over-focus on one particular area (when I was younger, my school system pushed Rome like no one else was doing anything until the Romans came). Nor do I feel that focus on a particular society should be based primarily on what they have given us. Understanding and studying various civilizations for the primary sake of knowing about them is what interests me.","human_ref_B":"I took a degree in archaeology and greek\/Roman studies. I started out most interested in Roman Italy, then Roman Britain. But I also got to learn about scythians, vikings, Mongolians, the Inca, indigenous tribes throughout South America, the Blackfoot people, the Altai people (specifically the Siberian ice maiden, which was neat), a modern day tribe in Kenya (I forget their name), Samoa (specifically Margaret Mead's work there, which is amusing because the population she worked with basically just pranked her by lying about everything, which is common for their style of humour there), the mosuo in China (a matriarchal society), and probably a dozen others I can't remember! All were incredibly fascinating. My partner is currently studying Mesopotamia, which is neat to hear about. The technological abilities they had were astounding. I don't think there's any civilizations anyone *should* learn, but rather we should just have an interest in history as a whole. Pick a country you'd like to travel to (or one you'd have no interest in travelling to!), then just research their ancient history. Read the Wikipedia article, see if anything grabs your attention, then go from there. Plus (depending on how old the civilization is) specific facets of civilizations can be really neat. I'm a sucker for learning about religions, but my degree got me interested in technology specifically. Researching groups that existed at the same time as what you're most interested in is also fun!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2920.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"g4i5s4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"If civilization collapsed right now, how long would there still be evidence that we were here? For example, let\u2019s say there was an advanced society of humans, just like ours, 50,000 years ago. Would there be any evidence left of their existence?","c_root_id_A":"fny69hz","c_root_id_B":"fny8evz","created_at_utc_A":1587354437,"created_at_utc_B":1587355983,"score_A":8,"score_B":71,"human_ref_A":"You need to define what you mean by civilization and collapse. In almost all cases of collapse, the collapse is limited to the socio-political systems in which the elite navigate. Your average person is largely unaffected from any kind of major catastrophe. Just look at the Maya. The Classic period collapse is a misnomer at this point. Yes, Lowland centers were abandoned, but they were abandoned over the course of several centuries. And during that time other centers continued, thrived, and even prospered. Whole new cities were built or previously abandoned Preclassic or Early Classic cities were reoccupied\/renewed. The biggest change you see in the archaeological record for the Maya from the Classic to the Postclassic is the loss of divine ruler ship among the elite. Instead, there are just kings (and sometimes councils) that do not have that divine and heavenly mandate backing their station.","human_ref_B":"There is actually a paper that investigates this over a longer time scale! It has the joking title *The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial society in the geological record?* They answer the question by analyzing what evidence our society would leave behind. (Link) Our society is expected to leave clear evidence for millions of years. Plastics can last for millions of years in particulate form and aren't formed by any known natural process, so if we found plastic from 50KYA and it was reliably dated that'd be slam dunk level evidence. As far as more complex evidence, we have stone tools dating back 1.7 million years and there are plenty of modern buildings partially constructed with durable stones. They won't look pretty but *something* will be left behind for a long time. After a few million years though, the list of possible evidence gets more narrow. Eventually stone does break down after all. Plastics, at least in microscopic form, will last for an unknown but presumed long amount of time since there aren't many processes that break it down. There will be an interesting mix of elements in our geologic layer. A huge spike in metals, especially some rare earth elements. Huge spikes in carbon and nitrogen. Most of those could be explained away by natural processes though, so they wouldn't be great evidence for an intelligent species with a society like ours. tldr; Our society will leave evidence in the geological record, so essentially for all of the Earth's future, assuming future researchers know what they're looking for and get lucky enough to find it. Pre-Industrial societies will leave evidence only for a few million years max. ​ Edit: I forgot to emphasize, the authors are **not** proposing there were intelligent societies millions of years ago. They were investigating it as a joke on the idea that there used to be lizard people millions of years ago. 2nd edit: I totally forgot to mention space debris. *Some* space debris should be up there practically for forever.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1546.0,"score_ratio":8.875} {"post_id":"zl4cpv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the culture like along the Chinese-Russian border? Do European and Asian influences bleed into each other, do the borderlands skew towards one culture over another, or are the cultural boundaries rigid? Hi there everyone! I hope my question is pertinent to this sub. I recently read that China and Russia share over 2,000 miles of border. That's not what one would call an insignificant stretch of land. This fact then had me thinking about how different the two countries are, culturally speaking. Hence my title questions! If anyone has any insight, I would love to hear it. Thanks in advance, guys!","c_root_id_A":"j03xo1c","c_root_id_B":"j03n8xk","created_at_utc_A":1670969240,"created_at_utc_B":1670965335,"score_A":147,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"Historically, very very few ethnic Chinese lived in outer Manchuria (current Russian Far East) before the Russian takeover. There were however many indigenous peoples, some of whom are related to Chinese minority groups. For example, in present day Russian Siberia there are ethnic groups like the Buryat, who speak a Mongolian dialect and practice Buddhism, and share many common traditions with the Mongolian minority in China. There used to be a sizable population of ethnic Russians in Harbin but very few remained after WW2.","human_ref_B":"I can't speak much to the specifics of the Chinese-Russian border, but cultural boundaries are never rigid unless a place is *truly* isolated. It's important to keep in mind that political borders are social constructs (albeit ones that the powers that be take great effort to enforce). Borders on a contemporary map don't reflect the complexity of historic settlement patterns, migrations, and so on. In some places, for instance, a single cultural group may find itself split in half: residents of the homes on one side of a river become citizens of Country A and those on the opposite bank become citizens of Country B. This seems to be the case at the Chinese-Russian border; it's shifted a lot in the last few centuries. The wikipedia page for the border has historic maps that show some of the major shifts. In short, since there are whole regions that were once China and now Russia, there is inherently some cultural mixing going on. And before the rise of nation states and borders, I'm sure these folks had a fair degree of interaction with one another! Lastly, I'm curious to know what you mean by European vs. Asian influences. Those are *very* broad categories and it's hard to use them without making extreme generalizations. The idea that the West and East are opposite poles has a problematic history. You may want to check out Edward Said's Orientalism, a controversial but famous (and regularly assigned) text. Some sources that may interest you even though they're focussed on different regions: Amadife, Emmanuel N., and James W. Warhola. \u201cAfrica\u2019s Political Boundaries: Colonial Cartography, the OAU, and the Advisability of Ethno-National Adjustment.\u201d International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 6, no. 4 (1993): 533\u201354. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20007111. Flynn, Donna K. \u201c\u2018We Are the Border\u2019: Identity, Exchange, and the State along the B\u00e9nin-Nigeria Border.\u201d American Ethnologist 24, no. 2 (1997): 311\u201330. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/646753. Griffiths, Ieuan. \u201cThe Scramble for Africa: Inherited Political Boundaries.\u201d The Geographical Journal 152, no. 2 (1986): 204\u201316. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/634762.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3905.0,"score_ratio":2.8823529412} {"post_id":"zl4cpv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the culture like along the Chinese-Russian border? Do European and Asian influences bleed into each other, do the borderlands skew towards one culture over another, or are the cultural boundaries rigid? Hi there everyone! I hope my question is pertinent to this sub. I recently read that China and Russia share over 2,000 miles of border. That's not what one would call an insignificant stretch of land. This fact then had me thinking about how different the two countries are, culturally speaking. Hence my title questions! If anyone has any insight, I would love to hear it. Thanks in advance, guys!","c_root_id_A":"j05mewz","c_root_id_B":"j05z9vy","created_at_utc_A":1670997626,"created_at_utc_B":1671007311,"score_A":7,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Cultural boundaries are anything but rigid. They're a constantly evolving paradigm. What I noticed in my research elsewhere is that once a community forms it will begin to develop different \"identities of scale\". Individuals have their personal or family culture, and they will create in and out groups at various levels of comparison (family to community, community to polity, polity to region, region to state, interstate etc.) Where one fits in each of those separate and synchronus negotiations is what culture one belongs to... at that time. Being raised Mennonite there are communities in Transbaikala and Manchuria that I would feel familiar with despite them being fairly rare groups even for the area. They've developed a new community cultural paradigm, as has my family, but enough currently would likely remain that they'd be more familiar to me than say, Jurchens or Manchu communities.","human_ref_B":"Chinese and Russian, as it has been said, are newer colonial powers so it's not like they were living in proximity to each other for centuries. Actually, what was going on is that there was mixing of Paleosiberian, Turkic, Mongolian and Manchurian\/Tungusic populations in the region of South Siberia and Far East, but not exactly Han Chinese and Slavic (ethnic) Russians. Later, when Russia began colonising Siberia, there was not a lot of mixing with Han Chinese. Colonisers either had relationships with local population because it was a tool of suppression, or kept to themselves for religious reasons - for example, communities of Old-believers were sent to Siberia and they used to be a closed ethno-religious group up to probably 1910-1920. I'd like to add that probably only East Asian (I mean non-indigenous to current Russian territory but Asian) cultural influence in Russian Far East was Korean. There used to be a pretty large (in proportion) Korean population in later annexed region of Far East (see Primorsky region\/Vladivostok region) in the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. In some smaller villages Korean population was pretty big - up to 60-70 percent with real cultural artefacts - schools, theatres, a college, etc. However, during Stalin purges all far east Korean population was forcibly deported to Central Asia (Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) so very few remained there. Also, there is Korean population on Sakhalin island (they were brought there during Japanese rule in Korea, also Japan owned Sakhalin at that time), so there's that. I am neither an anthropologist nor a historian, but I was born there and this is basically my family history (ancestors: Buryats (Mongol people of Siberia), Russian old-believers and Koreans). Sorry, I am not a native speaker and I really don't have to time to recheck my grammar.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9685.0,"score_ratio":3.2857142857} {"post_id":"ehqdf3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Is it a universal human experience across all cultures that the arts (drawing, dancing, singing, etc) are neglected in adulthood unless you are sufficiently good at them? In Western cultures, at least, children are encouraged to do all sorts of drawing, painting, dancing, and singing... but as they approach adulthood they start to become discouraged from continuing to do so unless they are relatively proficient at them and are told to focus on standars school subjectics like literature, history, maths, science, etc. I am wondering if this is something that is experienced in many different cultures around the world. I have a theory that this phenomenon is entirely market driven. It's very hard to make money as a dancer or artist but very easy as an accountant. Therefore the supply of dancers is too high for the demand and only the most elite dancers are making money doing so professionally, while the demand for accountants is nearly infinite so everyone can decide to be an accountant and still find someone willing to pay for their services.","c_root_id_A":"fcl4gse","c_root_id_B":"fclv7ag","created_at_utc_A":1577739605,"created_at_utc_B":1577757265,"score_A":31,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"it's probably a bit much lumping together drawing, painting, dancing and singing. after all, song and dance still exist as a social\/leisure activities when we're adults, but for different reasons than making money from them... but at the same time, children are taught these things for entirely different reasons too. in post-soviet states, things such as ice-skating are practiced by young children, but not adults - but that's because the adults only have to be proficient at the activity enough to enjoy it with friends or with their children later. none of these reasons are particularly market driven, unless their from the point of the view of the leisure seeking consumer. tbh, i doubt that the accountant example really explains anything. it's more likely that some peoples' backgrounds (family influences, culture, capital, etc.) allow them more opportunities re: creative type jobs, but even then there are going to be people who go for those jobs anyway","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ll answer based on my background in Arts education, please remove if it\u2019s off topic. The attitude towards the Arts you describe wasn\u2019t even common in recorded history. Medieval aristocratic culture saw the arts as a mark of an educated person. Later, accomplished philosophers and scientists were expected to engage in Arts and literature and they were complementary of sciences and mathematics. In eastern cultures, arts were part of self-discipline and personal growth as well as to communicate culture. It was the introduction of public schooling (at least in places like America, the UK, Australia etc) which forced the discussion of what was \u201cneeded\u201d for educated people - particularly those who were needed for the workforce. The debate on the place of the Arts in modern schooling is relatively recent (late 19th Century with strong debates in the 20th Century starting with Dewey). It is still being discussed right now in discussions of curriculum where ALL students are entitled to an Arts education from early childhood to adolescence. Scholars like Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene discuss the place of the Arts in education as crucial but these arguments are in response to relatively recent debates. So, to answer your question, it is not universal or ingrained into human experiences, at least evidenced in the way it is dealt with from an educational perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17660.0,"score_ratio":2.6451612903} {"post_id":"ehqdf3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Is it a universal human experience across all cultures that the arts (drawing, dancing, singing, etc) are neglected in adulthood unless you are sufficiently good at them? In Western cultures, at least, children are encouraged to do all sorts of drawing, painting, dancing, and singing... but as they approach adulthood they start to become discouraged from continuing to do so unless they are relatively proficient at them and are told to focus on standars school subjectics like literature, history, maths, science, etc. I am wondering if this is something that is experienced in many different cultures around the world. I have a theory that this phenomenon is entirely market driven. It's very hard to make money as a dancer or artist but very easy as an accountant. Therefore the supply of dancers is too high for the demand and only the most elite dancers are making money doing so professionally, while the demand for accountants is nearly infinite so everyone can decide to be an accountant and still find someone willing to pay for their services.","c_root_id_A":"fclr6ju","c_root_id_B":"fclv7ag","created_at_utc_A":1577754482,"created_at_utc_B":1577757265,"score_A":5,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"There might be merit to the theory. Money often has a binarification effect on humanity, because you can either purchase something or you cannot. There is no market value to unpurchasable goods. In a pre- or post- capitalist society the music\/dance\/art\/etc. that is produced in children's play scenarios continues to develop into adulthood, there is no disconnect, there is no dis-identification with one's own art, no matter what level of complexity it is, because it is always created in the spirit of play \/ genuine expression. It is only when people conceive of society as valuing that art as a skill for \"work\" that the judgement, the disconnect, becomes a reality.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ll answer based on my background in Arts education, please remove if it\u2019s off topic. The attitude towards the Arts you describe wasn\u2019t even common in recorded history. Medieval aristocratic culture saw the arts as a mark of an educated person. Later, accomplished philosophers and scientists were expected to engage in Arts and literature and they were complementary of sciences and mathematics. In eastern cultures, arts were part of self-discipline and personal growth as well as to communicate culture. It was the introduction of public schooling (at least in places like America, the UK, Australia etc) which forced the discussion of what was \u201cneeded\u201d for educated people - particularly those who were needed for the workforce. The debate on the place of the Arts in modern schooling is relatively recent (late 19th Century with strong debates in the 20th Century starting with Dewey). It is still being discussed right now in discussions of curriculum where ALL students are entitled to an Arts education from early childhood to adolescence. Scholars like Elliot Eisner and Maxine Greene discuss the place of the Arts in education as crucial but these arguments are in response to relatively recent debates. So, to answer your question, it is not universal or ingrained into human experiences, at least evidenced in the way it is dealt with from an educational perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2783.0,"score_ratio":16.4} {"post_id":"iajml1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How have previously uncontacted peoples react when they encountered modern technology such as photography, electricity, telephones, etcetera for the first time? Are there any reports by anthropologists and ethnographers that have worked with uncontacted groups about this?","c_root_id_A":"g1q3w0k","c_root_id_B":"g1q1rqa","created_at_utc_A":1597574515,"created_at_utc_B":1597572223,"score_A":106,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"From Wade Davis' The Wayfinders: >\"The Waorani [people]...were not peacefully contacted until 1958, though their homeland is scarcely 150 kms from Quito, the national capital of Ecuador and a city settled for well over 400 years. In 1957, five missionaries attempted to contact the Waorani and made a critical mistake. They dropped from the air eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white photographs of themselves in what we would describe as friendly gestures, forgetting that the people of the forest had never seen anything two-dimensional in their lives. The Waorani picked up the prints from the forest floor and looked behind the faces to try to find the figure. Seeing nothing, they concluded that these were calling cards from the devil, and when the missionaries arrived they promptly speared them to death.\"","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s not exactly what you are asking, since they weren\u2019t uncontacted, but I think it\u2019s still what you are looking for: in napoleon chagnon\u2019s (somewhat controversial) book \u201cYanomami: the fierce people\u201d, some of the last chapters describes specific instances of Yanomami people dealing with modern technologies. For instance, one of chagnons Yanomami friends join him in visiting a huge city (I can\u2019t remember - maybe Brasilia?). Chagnon describes how he reacts to the plane ride, how he deals with his first meeting with a car, and his first meeting with a vending machine. When they get back, he simply does not try to explain how large the city was, because he knows they won\u2019t be able to grasp it and wants him to compare it to other nearby settlements. Edit: I also remember an instance, maybe in \u201cthe innocent anthropologist\u201d, where the anthropologist claims that some peoples who didn\u2019t grow up with photographs struggle with interpreting what they see in a picture. But this claim always seemed strange to me, and i have never heard it mentioned any other place.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2292.0,"score_ratio":2.9444444444} {"post_id":"f7fk85","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Did Otzi the Iceman belong to an identified culture? Was Otzi recognized as belonging to a certain culture of ancient Europe (i.e., Baden culture, Corded Ware culture, etc.)? If so, what would be the signs of him belonging to one culture and not another?","c_root_id_A":"fibf5d7","c_root_id_B":"fib6n8k","created_at_utc_A":1582320655,"created_at_utc_B":1582315698,"score_A":85,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"What I have read is that the most accepted theory is that he was part of an Alpine culture called Tamins-Carasso-Isera 5, but that is not certain as he did not have any ceramics in his possession. His knife and arrows bear a strong resemblance to artifacts of the Remedello culture which was nearby lower land culture in the Po valley.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve followed the research regarding \u00d6tzi since I was a kid. I\u2019ve never read anything about a specific culture association but I do know that DNA and pollen analysis points to him being from a specific region in southern Austria.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4957.0,"score_ratio":1.9318181818} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghydxz1","c_root_id_B":"ghyjhn5","created_at_utc_A":1609684401,"created_at_utc_B":1609687310,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Archaeologist and \"high functioning\"...I went to school to satisfy my special interests and anthropology seems to encapsulate everything within the human experience, so I went for it. Also, Indiana Jones a little...lol. I loved it. I noticed it draws some interesting characters that I would guess to be on the spectrum but I dunno. Good luck to you!","human_ref_B":"My 30F first degree was in Anthropology\/Applied Sociology and I'm autistic. I personally grew up feeling kind of like a foreigner\/alien\/cultural outsider, and taking anthropology 101 as an elective in my second year of college really changed my view of the world. I absolutely loved it, still do really. I would have liked to go farther but I didn't think I'd be good enough to do a PhD, and long story short I got a federal job and ran with it. But I think for certain autistics studying people is such an interest that Anthropology really is just the perfect degree, so I'm not entirely surprised to know I'm not the only one. If you get bored Bones is a pretty fun tv show that features a forensic anthropologist and she was kind of my 'ah ha' moment because she reminded me of myself - the main character reads as autistic. I was formally diagnosed a few months later.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2909.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghxvps9","c_root_id_B":"ghyjhn5","created_at_utc_A":1609675071,"created_at_utc_B":1609687310,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I can't think of studies about this or of anthropologists who have been diagnosed with autism or asperger's, sorry. I do think, as you, that an anthropology researcher with autistic traits could achieve very interesting results in his\/her research. It is a common trait among autistic individuals that they take fewer things for granted, and have to struggle to learn some norms and behaviours which come instinctively to neurotypical members of the population---this also means that they are able to look at these patterns and behaviours as if from outside. I am also interested in others' answers, looking forward to them!","human_ref_B":"My 30F first degree was in Anthropology\/Applied Sociology and I'm autistic. I personally grew up feeling kind of like a foreigner\/alien\/cultural outsider, and taking anthropology 101 as an elective in my second year of college really changed my view of the world. I absolutely loved it, still do really. I would have liked to go farther but I didn't think I'd be good enough to do a PhD, and long story short I got a federal job and ran with it. But I think for certain autistics studying people is such an interest that Anthropology really is just the perfect degree, so I'm not entirely surprised to know I'm not the only one. If you get bored Bones is a pretty fun tv show that features a forensic anthropologist and she was kind of my 'ah ha' moment because she reminded me of myself - the main character reads as autistic. I was formally diagnosed a few months later.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12239.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghydxz1","c_root_id_B":"ghyka0x","created_at_utc_A":1609684401,"created_at_utc_B":1609687709,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Archaeologist and \"high functioning\"...I went to school to satisfy my special interests and anthropology seems to encapsulate everything within the human experience, so I went for it. Also, Indiana Jones a little...lol. I loved it. I noticed it draws some interesting characters that I would guess to be on the spectrum but I dunno. Good luck to you!","human_ref_B":"You may find this special issue of Ethos from 2010 \u201dRethinking Autism, Rethinking Anthropology\" covers some of the ground you're interested in, and points the way to scholars who share that interest. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2913303\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3308.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghxvps9","c_root_id_B":"ghyka0x","created_at_utc_A":1609675071,"created_at_utc_B":1609687709,"score_A":2,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I can't think of studies about this or of anthropologists who have been diagnosed with autism or asperger's, sorry. I do think, as you, that an anthropology researcher with autistic traits could achieve very interesting results in his\/her research. It is a common trait among autistic individuals that they take fewer things for granted, and have to struggle to learn some norms and behaviours which come instinctively to neurotypical members of the population---this also means that they are able to look at these patterns and behaviours as if from outside. I am also interested in others' answers, looking forward to them!","human_ref_B":"You may find this special issue of Ethos from 2010 \u201dRethinking Autism, Rethinking Anthropology\" covers some of the ground you're interested in, and points the way to scholars who share that interest. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2913303\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12638.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghxvps9","c_root_id_B":"ghydxz1","created_at_utc_A":1609675071,"created_at_utc_B":1609684401,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I can't think of studies about this or of anthropologists who have been diagnosed with autism or asperger's, sorry. I do think, as you, that an anthropology researcher with autistic traits could achieve very interesting results in his\/her research. It is a common trait among autistic individuals that they take fewer things for granted, and have to struggle to learn some norms and behaviours which come instinctively to neurotypical members of the population---this also means that they are able to look at these patterns and behaviours as if from outside. I am also interested in others' answers, looking forward to them!","human_ref_B":"Archaeologist and \"high functioning\"...I went to school to satisfy my special interests and anthropology seems to encapsulate everything within the human experience, so I went for it. Also, Indiana Jones a little...lol. I loved it. I noticed it draws some interesting characters that I would guess to be on the spectrum but I dunno. Good luck to you!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9330.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kpf6oc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Autism & Anthropology Hello I\u2019m an anthropology grad student who at 23 has been told I should be evaluated for autism. It\u2019s rather jarring at this age but also as relieving as you might imagine. I\u2019m working in education issues too so this is very complicated to think about, but it makes too much sense. I\u2019ve poked around and haven\u2019t been able to find much good research, but I was hoping with at least the strides in awareness and discourse about neurodivergence in recent years, anthropology may have found ways to discuss autism in adults well and in a representative, relativistic way. I was also wondering if anyone on here is autistic or knows of autistic anthropologists? I just cant help but shake the feeling that in many ways neurodivergence and anthropology can work so beautifully together and I was hoping someone could give some insight? Thank you to anyone in these complicated times.","c_root_id_A":"ghxvps9","c_root_id_B":"gi0329p","created_at_utc_A":1609675071,"created_at_utc_B":1609712548,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I can't think of studies about this or of anthropologists who have been diagnosed with autism or asperger's, sorry. I do think, as you, that an anthropology researcher with autistic traits could achieve very interesting results in his\/her research. It is a common trait among autistic individuals that they take fewer things for granted, and have to struggle to learn some norms and behaviours which come instinctively to neurotypical members of the population---this also means that they are able to look at these patterns and behaviours as if from outside. I am also interested in others' answers, looking forward to them!","human_ref_B":"I recently wrote a paper on a case study of adult ADHD diagnosis, and what I found is that within anthropology there is very very little study thus far on the sociocultural factors leading to and the sociocultural ramifications of late diagnosis of neurological divergence. There's also very little anthropological research on ADHD as a whole, so I would guess that the same is more or less true for autism (although, as another user posted, such research does exist to some degree). That could potentially be a good area to look at for your own research though!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37477.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"7xfcir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is there a culture where evil lives in the sky and good lives below ground? Today in Northern Geography class, we learned that in all shamanistic religions, the ground\/underground is believed to inhabit evil spirits, whereas the sky holds gods\/good spirits. This seems quite similar to our own mythology\/Greek mythology\/etc. I always thought that people viewed the ground as the \"land of the dead\" because they buried their dead there, but we also learned today that many northern cultures do *not* bury their dead, and it occurred to me that many other cultures don't, as well, but cremate or set people out to sea. So is there any culture where ground = good and sky = evil? Is there an exception to this?","c_root_id_A":"du8n0g5","c_root_id_B":"du8glva","created_at_utc_A":1518625769,"created_at_utc_B":1518619235,"score_A":42,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Geek mythology doesn't see \"underground gods\" as inherently evil, tho In fact, their version of human heaven is located in the underground","human_ref_B":"I know that the maya considered caves sacred and would build artificial ones underneath their temples to represent to place where humanity emerged from the womb of the earth. Least I think that is how it went.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6534.0,"score_ratio":1.6153846154} {"post_id":"fq05kp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Are there any cultures with more or fewer than 4 cardinal directions? I know that there are cultures who don't use cardinal directions at all or don't have a concept of cardinal directions, but for those cultures who do have a concept of cardinal directions, are there any with fewer or more than 4? And if so, which cultures are like that? What directions do they have? How do they implement them?","c_root_id_A":"flotqvp","c_root_id_B":"flq6urr","created_at_utc_A":1585345302,"created_at_utc_B":1585381561,"score_A":21,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure if you will find this useful, as I am not an antropologist, but take a look at Kevin Lynch's the Image of the City, chaprter about Types of Reference sytems, he summarizes some antropological research. He mentions, for example, the island Tikopia where islanders use only expressions inland or seaward for orientation.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not an anthropologist but...I moved to New Orleans with my then partner whose earliest ancestor is recorded in documents as having arrived from France in 1719. The city of New Orleans is surrounded on one side by the Mississippi River where it flows in strange curves and on the other side by Lake Ponchartrain. It was disorienting for this outsider that the sun, because of the odd crescent curve of the river, appeared to rise and set not quite where one expected it depending on where you were. The sun simply did not appear to rise in the East nor set in the West. Everyone who lives there finds directions like East, West, North, South completely useless in knowing one\u2019s location or in navigating about the city. So, there was \u201criverside\u201d, \u201clakeside\u201d, \u201cuptown\u201d and \u201cdowntown\u201d. To convey a broader sense of location or direction \u201cupriver\u201d or \u201cdownriver\u201d was also used. Native New Orleanians who came of age before Hurricane Katrina were proud of their geographic quirk and the directional and linguistic change that resulted from it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36259.0,"score_ratio":1.0476190476} {"post_id":"vci67l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"why do humans traditionally shame prostitution but not those who consume it?","c_root_id_A":"icefu2f","c_root_id_B":"icf0tzl","created_at_utc_A":1655255553,"created_at_utc_B":1655266532,"score_A":32,"score_B":152,"human_ref_A":"Is there a particular time or place you are interested in?","human_ref_B":"This video manages to indirectly address your question through the philosophy of the social construct. To summarize, and also apply to your question, I would answer that in it's most simplest form: The John, one who solicits sex work, is a person of privilege and power. Whereas the worker is the one in a disadvantaged position. This is, of course, relative. But relatively speaking, societies in which sex workers are considered a proud people are few and far between. At least in my limited understanding (I'd love to stand corrected.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10979.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7p13p","c_root_id_B":"gf7hfhw","created_at_utc_A":1607550995,"created_at_utc_B":1607547360,"score_A":95,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","human_ref_B":"Got my undergrad degree in cultural anthro in 2014. Immediately I started in the workforce in hunger relief, with my expertise now being in federal child nutrition programs. My minor in global health helped me bring my 2 passions together. ​ I would say that while I'm not an anthropologist, my training and degree gave me the opportunity to better serve our younger generation in a more culturally competent way. Food is such a great way to connect people to their culture while also exploring others, and now I get to do that on a massive scale!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3635.0,"score_ratio":2.1590909091} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7p13p","c_root_id_B":"gf7fn3z","created_at_utc_A":1607550995,"created_at_utc_B":1607546534,"score_A":95,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","human_ref_B":"I got my BA in Cultural Anthro in 2012. Wanted to get a job in Organizational Effectiveness but roles were scarce when I got out of school from the recession. Spent the first 5-7 years working as a recruiter and finally got a chance to switch over to an Cultural engagement OE role. Best thing that ever happened to me. The work was fulfilling and related very closely to what I loved about the field. I was doing focus groups and field word, engagement surveys. I recently took on a new role as the company's Performance, Learning, and Talent Manager, and honestly I miss the work of my old role but this job is a lot more challenging in a good. way and I find my degree has definitely helped me across my who career. I just started working towards a master in I\/O Psych as that would be a better professional degree at this point for my field than an Anthro masters. ​ Also, my ex had a masters in anthro and she ended up doing data science for a non-profit but she had a focus on physical anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4461.0,"score_ratio":2.3170731707} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7dpn0","c_root_id_B":"gf7p13p","created_at_utc_A":1607545639,"created_at_utc_B":1607550995,"score_A":15,"score_B":95,"human_ref_A":"I did mine at the University of Calgary. The hands on labs were the best part of my entire 4 years. U of A offers the same program as far as I remember. It also depends on whether you want to take Cultural Anthropology or Biological Anthropology. Cultural Anth in Calgary was lacking in my opinion. But I can't speak for Cultural Anthropology in Edmonton.","human_ref_B":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5356.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7p13p","c_root_id_B":"gf7kpe0","created_at_utc_A":1607550995,"created_at_utc_B":1607548887,"score_A":95,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in Anthro (in 2009), and immediately did a Masters in Management (similar to an MBA). I think there is one person from my cohort who is still in anthropology, going down an incredibly long and expensive PhD road. I\u2019m in Project Management\/Marketing now and love it. It\u2019s been a few years, but in probably my first 2-3 jobs out of school I got asked \u201cAnthropology...what\u2019s that and how does it help\u201d...I don\u2019t think they really cared, but it was always a good talking point. I would say things how it\u2019s the study of people, culture, etc, and having that open world view is great in marketing. I love my career path. I don\u2019t think my anthropology degree hurt, but I also don\u2019t think it really helped. If money was never an issue, I would have gone down the PhD path...I find the subject fascinating.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2108.0,"score_ratio":7.9166666667} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7ipsw","c_root_id_B":"gf7p13p","created_at_utc_A":1607547953,"created_at_utc_B":1607550995,"score_A":9,"score_B":95,"human_ref_A":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","human_ref_B":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3042.0,"score_ratio":10.5555555556} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7p13p","c_root_id_B":"gf7mx1a","created_at_utc_A":1607550995,"created_at_utc_B":1607549958,"score_A":95,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","human_ref_B":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1037.0,"score_ratio":13.5714285714} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf7p13p","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607550995,"score_A":5,"score_B":95,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1393.0,"score_ratio":19.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf7p13p","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607550995,"score_A":4,"score_B":95,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"BA and MA in Anthropology. Currently a clinical educator and researcher at a med school in New Zealand focussing on cultural safety in interaction, communication theory and decolonising practice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1687.0,"score_ratio":23.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7fn3z","c_root_id_B":"gf7hfhw","created_at_utc_A":1607546534,"created_at_utc_B":1607547360,"score_A":41,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"I got my BA in Cultural Anthro in 2012. Wanted to get a job in Organizational Effectiveness but roles were scarce when I got out of school from the recession. Spent the first 5-7 years working as a recruiter and finally got a chance to switch over to an Cultural engagement OE role. Best thing that ever happened to me. The work was fulfilling and related very closely to what I loved about the field. I was doing focus groups and field word, engagement surveys. I recently took on a new role as the company's Performance, Learning, and Talent Manager, and honestly I miss the work of my old role but this job is a lot more challenging in a good. way and I find my degree has definitely helped me across my who career. I just started working towards a master in I\/O Psych as that would be a better professional degree at this point for my field than an Anthro masters. ​ Also, my ex had a masters in anthro and she ended up doing data science for a non-profit but she had a focus on physical anthro.","human_ref_B":"Got my undergrad degree in cultural anthro in 2014. Immediately I started in the workforce in hunger relief, with my expertise now being in federal child nutrition programs. My minor in global health helped me bring my 2 passions together. ​ I would say that while I'm not an anthropologist, my training and degree gave me the opportunity to better serve our younger generation in a more culturally competent way. Food is such a great way to connect people to their culture while also exploring others, and now I get to do that on a massive scale!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":826.0,"score_ratio":1.0731707317} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7dpn0","c_root_id_B":"gf7hfhw","created_at_utc_A":1607545639,"created_at_utc_B":1607547360,"score_A":15,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"I did mine at the University of Calgary. The hands on labs were the best part of my entire 4 years. U of A offers the same program as far as I remember. It also depends on whether you want to take Cultural Anthropology or Biological Anthropology. Cultural Anth in Calgary was lacking in my opinion. But I can't speak for Cultural Anthropology in Edmonton.","human_ref_B":"Got my undergrad degree in cultural anthro in 2014. Immediately I started in the workforce in hunger relief, with my expertise now being in federal child nutrition programs. My minor in global health helped me bring my 2 passions together. ​ I would say that while I'm not an anthropologist, my training and degree gave me the opportunity to better serve our younger generation in a more culturally competent way. Food is such a great way to connect people to their culture while also exploring others, and now I get to do that on a massive scale!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1721.0,"score_ratio":2.9333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7fn3z","c_root_id_B":"gf7dpn0","created_at_utc_A":1607546534,"created_at_utc_B":1607545639,"score_A":41,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I got my BA in Cultural Anthro in 2012. Wanted to get a job in Organizational Effectiveness but roles were scarce when I got out of school from the recession. Spent the first 5-7 years working as a recruiter and finally got a chance to switch over to an Cultural engagement OE role. Best thing that ever happened to me. The work was fulfilling and related very closely to what I loved about the field. I was doing focus groups and field word, engagement surveys. I recently took on a new role as the company's Performance, Learning, and Talent Manager, and honestly I miss the work of my old role but this job is a lot more challenging in a good. way and I find my degree has definitely helped me across my who career. I just started working towards a master in I\/O Psych as that would be a better professional degree at this point for my field than an Anthro masters. ​ Also, my ex had a masters in anthro and she ended up doing data science for a non-profit but she had a focus on physical anthro.","human_ref_B":"I did mine at the University of Calgary. The hands on labs were the best part of my entire 4 years. U of A offers the same program as far as I remember. It also depends on whether you want to take Cultural Anthropology or Biological Anthropology. Cultural Anth in Calgary was lacking in my opinion. But I can't speak for Cultural Anthropology in Edmonton.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":895.0,"score_ratio":2.7333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7dpn0","c_root_id_B":"gf7r44t","created_at_utc_A":1607545639,"created_at_utc_B":1607552031,"score_A":15,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I did mine at the University of Calgary. The hands on labs were the best part of my entire 4 years. U of A offers the same program as far as I remember. It also depends on whether you want to take Cultural Anthropology or Biological Anthropology. Cultural Anth in Calgary was lacking in my opinion. But I can't speak for Cultural Anthropology in Edmonton.","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6392.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7r44t","c_root_id_B":"gf7kpe0","created_at_utc_A":1607552031,"created_at_utc_B":1607548887,"score_A":27,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in Anthro (in 2009), and immediately did a Masters in Management (similar to an MBA). I think there is one person from my cohort who is still in anthropology, going down an incredibly long and expensive PhD road. I\u2019m in Project Management\/Marketing now and love it. It\u2019s been a few years, but in probably my first 2-3 jobs out of school I got asked \u201cAnthropology...what\u2019s that and how does it help\u201d...I don\u2019t think they really cared, but it was always a good talking point. I would say things how it\u2019s the study of people, culture, etc, and having that open world view is great in marketing. I love my career path. I don\u2019t think my anthropology degree hurt, but I also don\u2019t think it really helped. If money was never an issue, I would have gone down the PhD path...I find the subject fascinating.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3144.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7r44t","c_root_id_B":"gf7qols","created_at_utc_A":1607552031,"created_at_utc_B":1607551815,"score_A":27,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","human_ref_B":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":216.0,"score_ratio":2.4545454545} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7ipsw","c_root_id_B":"gf7r44t","created_at_utc_A":1607547953,"created_at_utc_B":1607552031,"score_A":9,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4078.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7mx1a","c_root_id_B":"gf7r44t","created_at_utc_A":1607549958,"created_at_utc_B":1607552031,"score_A":7,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2073.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7r44t","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607552031,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":27,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2429.0,"score_ratio":5.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7r44t","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607552031,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":27,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I have a bachelor's in Anthropology with a focus in archaeology and with the hope of getting hired by the park service after, I did the Peace Corps and lived in Madagascar for two years. The park service didn't work out, but I wouldn't change my trajectory much if I had the option. I'm currently working as a laborer in southern California and many of my coworkers are Mexican. I'm going back for an electrical certification. I definitely consider my education to be fundamental to my life choices and I'm happy with my status as am unofficial anthropologist. I've also studied a handful of languages in the last ten years.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2723.0,"score_ratio":6.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7kpe0","c_root_id_B":"gf7ipsw","created_at_utc_A":1607548887,"created_at_utc_B":1607547953,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in Anthro (in 2009), and immediately did a Masters in Management (similar to an MBA). I think there is one person from my cohort who is still in anthropology, going down an incredibly long and expensive PhD road. I\u2019m in Project Management\/Marketing now and love it. It\u2019s been a few years, but in probably my first 2-3 jobs out of school I got asked \u201cAnthropology...what\u2019s that and how does it help\u201d...I don\u2019t think they really cared, but it was always a good talking point. I would say things how it\u2019s the study of people, culture, etc, and having that open world view is great in marketing. I love my career path. I don\u2019t think my anthropology degree hurt, but I also don\u2019t think it really helped. If money was never an issue, I would have gone down the PhD path...I find the subject fascinating.","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":934.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vkgz","c_root_id_B":"gf7qols","created_at_utc_A":1607554303,"created_at_utc_B":1607551815,"score_A":12,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","human_ref_B":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2488.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7ipsw","c_root_id_B":"gf7qols","created_at_utc_A":1607547953,"created_at_utc_B":1607551815,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","human_ref_B":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3862.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7mx1a","c_root_id_B":"gf7qols","created_at_utc_A":1607549958,"created_at_utc_B":1607551815,"score_A":7,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","human_ref_B":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1857.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf7qols","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607551815,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2213.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7qols","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607551815,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Teaching high school English language learners. I still get experience with cultures and history, but also have to do biology, Earth science, and algebra. I actually love my job.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2507.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vkgz","c_root_id_B":"gf7ipsw","created_at_utc_A":1607554303,"created_at_utc_B":1607547953,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6350.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7mx1a","c_root_id_B":"gf7vkgz","created_at_utc_A":1607549958,"created_at_utc_B":1607554303,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","human_ref_B":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4345.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7v37n","c_root_id_B":"gf7vkgz","created_at_utc_A":1607554054,"created_at_utc_B":1607554303,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","human_ref_B":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":249.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf7vkgz","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607554303,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4701.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vkgz","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607554303,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":12,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4995.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vhbx","c_root_id_B":"gf7vkgz","created_at_utc_A":1607554258,"created_at_utc_B":1607554303,"score_A":4,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","human_ref_B":"I have a masters in anthro and used to be an archeologist in the private sector; I'm an environmental scientist now. The background research, report writing, and field work skills I learned as an archeologist definitely translate to other professions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":45.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7ipsw","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607547953,"score_A":10,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in 2017 and I do community education and outreach. I wouldn't say I use my degree directly but having a better understanding in how culture plays a role in communities really helps me be more effective at my job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10608.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf7yoeu","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607555912,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5345.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf7mx1a","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607549958,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11299.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7v37n","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607554054,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7203.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3771.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zrco","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607556482,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4775.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11655.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11949.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6999.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4832.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf827dc","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607557818,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3439.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf835zc","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607558337,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2920.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf844zu","c_root_id_B":"gf88lsj","created_at_utc_A":1607558852,"created_at_utc_B":1607561257,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I started at University in 2009 and pursued a degree for 4 years. Due to some personal issues and administrative technicalities I was 2 classes shy of graduating with a degree in 2013. With no degree and no job prospects in the field; I had originally wanted to get into international development\/diplomacy, government, or peace corps but with no degree and no ability to pursue a master's degree I was kind of lost. I moved across the country to a state id never been to and started a new life I worked in 2 restaraunts as a cook over 2 years before starting as a driver and vehicle detailer for a major car rental company. During that time I went back to school online and was able to transfer my credits back to my 4 year university to finish my BA in Cultural Anthropology 3 years after I should have graduated. From there I stayed in the company and advanced to a sales, customer service, and operations position for two years learning how to run a business and develop various skills in the industry. After 2 years I was promoted to a regional corporate office in a niche department that focused on business relationships and purchasing with administration oversight of the daily operation locations as well. My days were full of calls, emails, and spreadsheets. I was happy with this job and the opportunity to build a career and excelled at the position. But after 18 months COVID hit and my department was caught up in the initial wave of layoffs, just 2 months before my 5 year anniversary with the company. The just let me go after telling us we'd all be safe and they would take care of us. After 5 or 6 months of unemployment, I was able to evaluate what was really important in my life and what I wanted out of it. As much as I liked my job, I hated the pressure, long hours, and commute. So I applied at a distribution center for an international grocery wholesaler that is highly regarded and now work very close to home with better hours, a higher pay scale that I'll work up to faster than my previous jobs, and much less stress. So now I work in a refrigerated warehouse using heavy equipment and moving boxes by hand, but there's plenty to learn and a lot of room to grow in the company. Thankfully I live within 25 miles of the company's international headquarters and want to pursue a long-term career moving up that direction. It does feel weird starting at the ground floor at 30, and even though I had a chance to go back to my old job at one point I knew it wouldn't be right. I don't necessarily regret my degree, and plenty of people build careers and passions outside of their degree area or what they went to school for. I just wish I'd have done more with it at the time or focused on another area as well that would set me up for more success down the road. I guess my point is that you never know what will happen in life or where you'll be 10 years down the road. I'm glad I studied Anthropology and experienced what I did with the degree and in my life after.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2405.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf85rpc","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607559713,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in anthropology and a master\u2019s in social work and then stuck with social work. My first job was a foster care caseworker but then I moved into being a therapist. I\u2019m no longer working outside the home (I have MS) but I am a stay at home mom. If I had known I was going to become disabled so young (I\u2019m 40) I would have gotten my master\u2019s in applied anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1544.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf88lsj","c_root_id_B":"gf866ib","created_at_utc_A":1607561257,"created_at_utc_B":1607559931,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthro. Realized I had absolutely no idea what to do with the degree so I went to grad school for museum studies. I also have an art background so I work for a small art museum as a curator.","human_ref_B":"I got my BS in Archaeological Science in 2012. I worked in CRM for about 4 years. I worked for the university in parking while getting my degree, and ended up back there as a manager making almost twice what I was making in the field. Being married certainly made the appeal of working away from home fade pretty quickly. I do find the degree helped and would not trade that field time for anything. While the work was hard and not always rewarding(finding clear routes around sites SUUUUUUUCKS) the hiking in often remote wilderness and the crews made it fun. The degree itself helped me become more organized and definitly learn to budget time better. Time in the field dealing with crew drama helped make me a better manager. Working in remote areas taught me to plan ahead, or you get to walk 3 miles back to the truck..... And the chance to learn about different cultures from an Anthro perspective was nice, it helps put differences in perspective when dealing with different groups. I use Arc GIS all the time for my work now. There are days I wish I was back there, but then it's blowing snow an below 0, and I can just sit and watch from my office, so there is that. But quick tip, you get to go back to the hotel if you break the shovel on the frozen ground enough times in one morning. The field is saturated at times, it's boom or bust. But be a good worker who does not cause drama and shows up each morning and the crew chiefs will call you for work. It's a small field, you reputation travels quickly. And if you are considering it, look at the more technical aspects. I use ArcGIS in my job, and it's made me invaluable. Those who picked up skills in the litho lab found lab work easier to get into. If you like biology, there are a ton of specialties you can look at, niche but stable jobs. Demography was picking up when I was leaving college, lots of places looking to project the future.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1326.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7yoeu","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607555912,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2649.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7mx1a","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607549958,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8603.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7v37n","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607554054,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4507.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1075.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2079.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf83kvu","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607558561,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8959.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf83kvu","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607558561,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9253.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4303.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf83kvu","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607558561,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2136.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf83kvu","c_root_id_B":"gf827dc","created_at_utc_A":1607558561,"created_at_utc_B":1607557818,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":743.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf835zc","c_root_id_B":"gf83kvu","created_at_utc_A":1607558337,"created_at_utc_B":1607558561,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","human_ref_B":"I did my undergrad in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Went back to school to become a registered nurse. I am now halfway through to my masters as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I feel as though I am still working in the field of anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":224.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7mx1a","c_root_id_B":"gf7yoeu","created_at_utc_A":1607549958,"created_at_utc_B":1607555912,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5954.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7yoeu","c_root_id_B":"gf7v37n","created_at_utc_A":1607555912,"created_at_utc_B":1607554054,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","human_ref_B":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1858.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7yoeu","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607555912,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6310.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7yoeu","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607555912,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6604.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vhbx","c_root_id_B":"gf7yoeu","created_at_utc_A":1607554258,"created_at_utc_B":1607555912,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in Anthro in 2014, originally with an archaeology focus but I ended up switching to medical anthropology and wrote my honors thesis on childbirth. My faculty mentor in medical anthro advised me to get a MPH, which I finished in 2016. I\u2019m now a public health researcher working on maternal morbidity and mortality. I was always most interested in working with pregnant women and I accomplished that. The absolute best thing my anthro degree did for me was teach me how to write, I\u2019ve consistently impressed my bosses with my writing skills and I\u2019m pretty well published for my career level. My anthro background also helped me with qualitative research skills, I\u2019m the qual lead for my research team. I don\u2019t regret my anthro degree at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1654.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf7mx1a","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607549958,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":356.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf7mx1a","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607549958,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"Started out with a BA in philosophy and history, then did a masters in social anthropology. I then started a PhD in anthropology but dropped out for lack of financing. it was in France so tuition wasn't a problem, but I definitely realised rapidly that without a stipend and research money I'd lose my mind if I continued. So for now the PhD is on hold, and while I hope to be able to resume in better conditions, I've done a variety of different kinds of work, more or less related to the field. One of the more interesting was working as a tribal art expert for auction houses and museum curation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":650.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7v37n","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607554054,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3432.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7v37n","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607554054,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15490.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7v37n","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607554054,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4452.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf7v37n","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607554054,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"I have a BA and MA in anthropology (archaeology). My goal was to pursue employment in CRM. I have been fortunate enough to be consistently employed in my chosen field since earning my MA. I\u2019m currently the PI for a direct support contractor to a federal agency. I lead the CRM program at a large field office under that agency.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4746.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf81lje","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607557486,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1004.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7884.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8178.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf81lje","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607557486,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3228.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf81lje","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607557486,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"I actually don't have my bachelor's yet (graduating next semester), but I'm currently employed full time in the cultural resource management field as an archaeological field technician and research assistant, and have a position as a research associate lined up for after I graduate. It's a good job if you want to make a living in your field without advanced degrees, but the pay isn't great and you will be overworked and likely will destroy your body if you stay in the field long term. I feel like I'll have messed up my body by my 30s if I stay in this field, but I love it. I'm really close with my coworkers and I get to hike, camp, and excavate prehistoric sites for a job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1061.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13062.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18377.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15536.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7174.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7vhbx","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607554258,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2224.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf7zrco","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607556482,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"Got a BS in Anthropology (and a BS in Biology) in 2013. After some trial and error, I'm doing customer accounts and social media part time at two different libraries and considering a Masters in Library Science so I am eligible for full time library jobs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":57.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19942.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20236.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15286.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7385.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13119.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf827dc","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607557818,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11726.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8nhhr","c_root_id_B":"gf835zc","created_at_utc_A":1607569544,"created_at_utc_B":1607558337,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","human_ref_B":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11207.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf844zu","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607558852,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I started at University in 2009 and pursued a degree for 4 years. Due to some personal issues and administrative technicalities I was 2 classes shy of graduating with a degree in 2013. With no degree and no job prospects in the field; I had originally wanted to get into international development\/diplomacy, government, or peace corps but with no degree and no ability to pursue a master's degree I was kind of lost. I moved across the country to a state id never been to and started a new life I worked in 2 restaraunts as a cook over 2 years before starting as a driver and vehicle detailer for a major car rental company. During that time I went back to school online and was able to transfer my credits back to my 4 year university to finish my BA in Cultural Anthropology 3 years after I should have graduated. From there I stayed in the company and advanced to a sales, customer service, and operations position for two years learning how to run a business and develop various skills in the industry. After 2 years I was promoted to a regional corporate office in a niche department that focused on business relationships and purchasing with administration oversight of the daily operation locations as well. My days were full of calls, emails, and spreadsheets. I was happy with this job and the opportunity to build a career and excelled at the position. But after 18 months COVID hit and my department was caught up in the initial wave of layoffs, just 2 months before my 5 year anniversary with the company. The just let me go after telling us we'd all be safe and they would take care of us. After 5 or 6 months of unemployment, I was able to evaluate what was really important in my life and what I wanted out of it. As much as I liked my job, I hated the pressure, long hours, and commute. So I applied at a distribution center for an international grocery wholesaler that is highly regarded and now work very close to home with better hours, a higher pay scale that I'll work up to faster than my previous jobs, and much less stress. So now I work in a refrigerated warehouse using heavy equipment and moving boxes by hand, but there's plenty to learn and a lot of room to grow in the company. Thankfully I live within 25 miles of the company's international headquarters and want to pursue a long-term career moving up that direction. It does feel weird starting at the ground floor at 30, and even though I had a chance to go back to my old job at one point I knew it wouldn't be right. I don't necessarily regret my degree, and plenty of people build careers and passions outside of their degree area or what they went to school for. I just wish I'd have done more with it at the time or focused on another area as well that would set me up for more success down the road. I guess my point is that you never know what will happen in life or where you'll be 10 years down the road. I'm glad I studied Anthropology and experienced what I did with the degree and in my life after.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10692.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf85rpc","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607559713,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in anthropology and a master\u2019s in social work and then stuck with social work. My first job was a foster care caseworker but then I moved into being a therapist. I\u2019m no longer working outside the home (I have MS) but I am a stay at home mom. If I had known I was going to become disabled so young (I\u2019m 40) I would have gotten my master\u2019s in applied anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9831.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf866ib","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607559931,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I got my BS in Archaeological Science in 2012. I worked in CRM for about 4 years. I worked for the university in parking while getting my degree, and ended up back there as a manager making almost twice what I was making in the field. Being married certainly made the appeal of working away from home fade pretty quickly. I do find the degree helped and would not trade that field time for anything. While the work was hard and not always rewarding(finding clear routes around sites SUUUUUUUCKS) the hiking in often remote wilderness and the crews made it fun. The degree itself helped me become more organized and definitly learn to budget time better. Time in the field dealing with crew drama helped make me a better manager. Working in remote areas taught me to plan ahead, or you get to walk 3 miles back to the truck..... And the chance to learn about different cultures from an Anthro perspective was nice, it helps put differences in perspective when dealing with different groups. I use Arc GIS all the time for my work now. There are days I wish I was back there, but then it's blowing snow an below 0, and I can just sit and watch from my office, so there is that. But quick tip, you get to go back to the hotel if you break the shovel on the frozen ground enough times in one morning. The field is saturated at times, it's boom or bust. But be a good worker who does not cause drama and shows up each morning and the crew chiefs will call you for work. It's a small field, you reputation travels quickly. And if you are considering it, look at the more technical aspects. I use ArcGIS in my job, and it's made me invaluable. Those who picked up skills in the litho lab found lab work easier to get into. If you like biology, there are a ton of specialties you can look at, niche but stable jobs. Demography was picking up when I was leaving college, lots of places looking to project the future.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9613.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8gpxl","c_root_id_B":"gf8nhhr","created_at_utc_A":1607565763,"created_at_utc_B":1607569544,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"BA in archaeology. I currently work as an analyst for a major healthcare system. I mainly work with electronic medical records, but do other odds and ends too. While it has nothing to do with archaeology, I think my degree taught me valuable analytical skills. Also, field school helped me learn about project and time management too, which is a crucial part of my job. Do I wish I was digging in the dirt somewhere? Absolutely, but all things considered I'm pretty happy with where I am.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology undergraduate, took a master\u2019s in Popular Music Studies. Now I co-own a recording studio. So, at least I get to study interesting people still. Ha!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3781.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf8wady","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607574859,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25257.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7llbd","c_root_id_B":"gf8wady","created_at_utc_A":1607549308,"created_at_utc_B":1607574859,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25551.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20601.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12700.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf7zni2","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607556425,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18434.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf827dc","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607557818,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17041.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf835zc","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607558337,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16522.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf844zu","c_root_id_B":"gf8wady","created_at_utc_A":1607558852,"created_at_utc_B":1607574859,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I started at University in 2009 and pursued a degree for 4 years. Due to some personal issues and administrative technicalities I was 2 classes shy of graduating with a degree in 2013. With no degree and no job prospects in the field; I had originally wanted to get into international development\/diplomacy, government, or peace corps but with no degree and no ability to pursue a master's degree I was kind of lost. I moved across the country to a state id never been to and started a new life I worked in 2 restaraunts as a cook over 2 years before starting as a driver and vehicle detailer for a major car rental company. During that time I went back to school online and was able to transfer my credits back to my 4 year university to finish my BA in Cultural Anthropology 3 years after I should have graduated. From there I stayed in the company and advanced to a sales, customer service, and operations position for two years learning how to run a business and develop various skills in the industry. After 2 years I was promoted to a regional corporate office in a niche department that focused on business relationships and purchasing with administration oversight of the daily operation locations as well. My days were full of calls, emails, and spreadsheets. I was happy with this job and the opportunity to build a career and excelled at the position. But after 18 months COVID hit and my department was caught up in the initial wave of layoffs, just 2 months before my 5 year anniversary with the company. The just let me go after telling us we'd all be safe and they would take care of us. After 5 or 6 months of unemployment, I was able to evaluate what was really important in my life and what I wanted out of it. As much as I liked my job, I hated the pressure, long hours, and commute. So I applied at a distribution center for an international grocery wholesaler that is highly regarded and now work very close to home with better hours, a higher pay scale that I'll work up to faster than my previous jobs, and much less stress. So now I work in a refrigerated warehouse using heavy equipment and moving boxes by hand, but there's plenty to learn and a lot of room to grow in the company. Thankfully I live within 25 miles of the company's international headquarters and want to pursue a long-term career moving up that direction. It does feel weird starting at the ground floor at 30, and even though I had a chance to go back to my old job at one point I knew it wouldn't be right. I don't necessarily regret my degree, and plenty of people build careers and passions outside of their degree area or what they went to school for. I just wish I'd have done more with it at the time or focused on another area as well that would set me up for more success down the road. I guess my point is that you never know what will happen in life or where you'll be 10 years down the road. I'm glad I studied Anthropology and experienced what I did with the degree and in my life after.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16007.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf85rpc","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607559713,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"I got a BA in anthropology and a master\u2019s in social work and then stuck with social work. My first job was a foster care caseworker but then I moved into being a therapist. I\u2019m no longer working outside the home (I have MS) but I am a stay at home mom. If I had known I was going to become disabled so young (I\u2019m 40) I would have gotten my master\u2019s in applied anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15146.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf866ib","c_root_id_B":"gf8wady","created_at_utc_A":1607559931,"created_at_utc_B":1607574859,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got my BS in Archaeological Science in 2012. I worked in CRM for about 4 years. I worked for the university in parking while getting my degree, and ended up back there as a manager making almost twice what I was making in the field. Being married certainly made the appeal of working away from home fade pretty quickly. I do find the degree helped and would not trade that field time for anything. While the work was hard and not always rewarding(finding clear routes around sites SUUUUUUUCKS) the hiking in often remote wilderness and the crews made it fun. The degree itself helped me become more organized and definitly learn to budget time better. Time in the field dealing with crew drama helped make me a better manager. Working in remote areas taught me to plan ahead, or you get to walk 3 miles back to the truck..... And the chance to learn about different cultures from an Anthro perspective was nice, it helps put differences in perspective when dealing with different groups. I use Arc GIS all the time for my work now. There are days I wish I was back there, but then it's blowing snow an below 0, and I can just sit and watch from my office, so there is that. But quick tip, you get to go back to the hotel if you break the shovel on the frozen ground enough times in one morning. The field is saturated at times, it's boom or bust. But be a good worker who does not cause drama and shows up each morning and the crew chiefs will call you for work. It's a small field, you reputation travels quickly. And if you are considering it, look at the more technical aspects. I use ArcGIS in my job, and it's made me invaluable. Those who picked up skills in the litho lab found lab work easier to get into. If you like biology, there are a ton of specialties you can look at, niche but stable jobs. Demography was picking up when I was leaving college, lots of places looking to project the future.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14928.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8wady","c_root_id_B":"gf8gpxl","created_at_utc_A":1607574859,"created_at_utc_B":1607565763,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology. I currently work as an analyst for a major healthcare system. I mainly work with electronic medical records, but do other odds and ends too. While it has nothing to do with archaeology, I think my degree taught me valuable analytical skills. Also, field school helped me learn about project and time management too, which is a crucial part of my job. Do I wish I was digging in the dirt somewhere? Absolutely, but all things considered I'm pretty happy with where I am.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9096.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8qnav","c_root_id_B":"gf8wady","created_at_utc_A":1607571389,"created_at_utc_B":1607574859,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got my BS in Anthropology in 2018. After that I became a field technician with an environmental consulting firm. After doing that for a year and a half, I quit to work on an MA in Anthropology. I just finished my first semester, and if all goes according to plan I\u2019ll be finishing in a year and a half. After that I plan to work for my state\u2019s State Historic Preservation Office. I interned there for my last semester of undergrad.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural Anthro in 2017. Now I work at a museum in their office of visitor services. I also did a BA in Art which is why I was interested in museums. I would say though that the reason I have my current job is because I did a relevant internship at an art gallery beforehand. I really loved anthro when I did it but looking back I wish I did something more relevant to what I do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3470.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf7m74y","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607549602,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22416.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7m74y","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607549602,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently back in grad school pursuing a PhD in Anthro, but I spent 5 years after my BS in Anthro working in international education and exchange programming, which my anthropology background certainly helped with.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":294.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf7llbd","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607549308,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"Got my BA in anth at UBCO. I'm not currently working in my field (job hunting is difficult) but I'm hoping to transition into it from my current government job.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22710.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf7vhbx","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607554258,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"I have an BA in anthro (and am MSc in science communication) and I work in science comm. I\u2019m currently an editor (which includes writing and doing things like planning and commissioning videos, infographics etc), working for big science orgs. I also previously worked in museums doing education and a bit of exhibits and collections work. My degree\u2019s been very helpful in my work over the years, but sometimes employers haven\u2019t seem how it\u2019s applicable until I justify\/explain why I think it will help. Working in a human-focused field and in multiple intergovernmental organisations where working with people from different cultures is an important skill helps make it relevant but those features are in lots of jobs. (Edited to fix a typo)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17760.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9859.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf7zni2","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607556425,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15593.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf827dc","c_root_id_B":"gf8rp4a","created_at_utc_A":1607557818,"created_at_utc_B":1607572018,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","human_ref_B":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14200.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf835zc","c_root_id_B":"gf8rp4a","created_at_utc_A":1607558337,"created_at_utc_B":1607572018,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","human_ref_B":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13681.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf844zu","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607558852,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"I started at University in 2009 and pursued a degree for 4 years. Due to some personal issues and administrative technicalities I was 2 classes shy of graduating with a degree in 2013. With no degree and no job prospects in the field; I had originally wanted to get into international development\/diplomacy, government, or peace corps but with no degree and no ability to pursue a master's degree I was kind of lost. I moved across the country to a state id never been to and started a new life I worked in 2 restaraunts as a cook over 2 years before starting as a driver and vehicle detailer for a major car rental company. During that time I went back to school online and was able to transfer my credits back to my 4 year university to finish my BA in Cultural Anthropology 3 years after I should have graduated. From there I stayed in the company and advanced to a sales, customer service, and operations position for two years learning how to run a business and develop various skills in the industry. After 2 years I was promoted to a regional corporate office in a niche department that focused on business relationships and purchasing with administration oversight of the daily operation locations as well. My days were full of calls, emails, and spreadsheets. I was happy with this job and the opportunity to build a career and excelled at the position. But after 18 months COVID hit and my department was caught up in the initial wave of layoffs, just 2 months before my 5 year anniversary with the company. The just let me go after telling us we'd all be safe and they would take care of us. After 5 or 6 months of unemployment, I was able to evaluate what was really important in my life and what I wanted out of it. As much as I liked my job, I hated the pressure, long hours, and commute. So I applied at a distribution center for an international grocery wholesaler that is highly regarded and now work very close to home with better hours, a higher pay scale that I'll work up to faster than my previous jobs, and much less stress. So now I work in a refrigerated warehouse using heavy equipment and moving boxes by hand, but there's plenty to learn and a lot of room to grow in the company. Thankfully I live within 25 miles of the company's international headquarters and want to pursue a long-term career moving up that direction. It does feel weird starting at the ground floor at 30, and even though I had a chance to go back to my old job at one point I knew it wouldn't be right. I don't necessarily regret my degree, and plenty of people build careers and passions outside of their degree area or what they went to school for. I just wish I'd have done more with it at the time or focused on another area as well that would set me up for more success down the road. I guess my point is that you never know what will happen in life or where you'll be 10 years down the road. I'm glad I studied Anthropology and experienced what I did with the degree and in my life after.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13166.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf85rpc","c_root_id_B":"gf8rp4a","created_at_utc_A":1607559713,"created_at_utc_B":1607572018,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in anthropology and a master\u2019s in social work and then stuck with social work. My first job was a foster care caseworker but then I moved into being a therapist. I\u2019m no longer working outside the home (I have MS) but I am a stay at home mom. If I had known I was going to become disabled so young (I\u2019m 40) I would have gotten my master\u2019s in applied anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12305.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf866ib","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607559931,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"I got my BS in Archaeological Science in 2012. I worked in CRM for about 4 years. I worked for the university in parking while getting my degree, and ended up back there as a manager making almost twice what I was making in the field. Being married certainly made the appeal of working away from home fade pretty quickly. I do find the degree helped and would not trade that field time for anything. While the work was hard and not always rewarding(finding clear routes around sites SUUUUUUUCKS) the hiking in often remote wilderness and the crews made it fun. The degree itself helped me become more organized and definitly learn to budget time better. Time in the field dealing with crew drama helped make me a better manager. Working in remote areas taught me to plan ahead, or you get to walk 3 miles back to the truck..... And the chance to learn about different cultures from an Anthro perspective was nice, it helps put differences in perspective when dealing with different groups. I use Arc GIS all the time for my work now. There are days I wish I was back there, but then it's blowing snow an below 0, and I can just sit and watch from my office, so there is that. But quick tip, you get to go back to the hotel if you break the shovel on the frozen ground enough times in one morning. The field is saturated at times, it's boom or bust. But be a good worker who does not cause drama and shows up each morning and the crew chiefs will call you for work. It's a small field, you reputation travels quickly. And if you are considering it, look at the more technical aspects. I use ArcGIS in my job, and it's made me invaluable. Those who picked up skills in the litho lab found lab work easier to get into. If you like biology, there are a ton of specialties you can look at, niche but stable jobs. Demography was picking up when I was leaving college, lots of places looking to project the future.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12087.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8rp4a","c_root_id_B":"gf8gpxl","created_at_utc_A":1607572018,"created_at_utc_B":1607565763,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology. I currently work as an analyst for a major healthcare system. I mainly work with electronic medical records, but do other odds and ends too. While it has nothing to do with archaeology, I think my degree taught me valuable analytical skills. Also, field school helped me learn about project and time management too, which is a crucial part of my job. Do I wish I was digging in the dirt somewhere? Absolutely, but all things considered I'm pretty happy with where I am.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6255.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8qnav","c_root_id_B":"gf8rp4a","created_at_utc_A":1607571389,"created_at_utc_B":1607572018,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I got my BS in Anthropology in 2018. After that I became a field technician with an environmental consulting firm. After doing that for a year and a half, I quit to work on an MA in Anthropology. I just finished my first semester, and if all goes according to plan I\u2019ll be finishing in a year and a half. After that I plan to work for my state\u2019s State Historic Preservation Office. I interned there for my last semester of undergrad.","human_ref_B":"I got a bachelor's in Anthropology at the end of 2018. I worked in retail, at a drug treatment center, and now I am a barista. I would love to focus on reproductive health in my future, but I am not sure how. For me, anthropology has helped me to have a kinder view of people in the world and that is priceless. When people hear that I majored in anthropology they do not understand. I wouldn't change majoring in anthropology at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":629.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf7zni2","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607556425,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I graduated in 2013 with a BA in Anthropology and a Minor in Biological Sciences. I now work in Big Tech doing Technical Escalations for Enterprise customers. Anthropolgy helps with the relating to people aspect and understanding that people have different cultural lenses and expectations.","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5734.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8a7yj","c_root_id_B":"gf827dc","created_at_utc_A":1607562159,"created_at_utc_B":1607557818,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","human_ref_B":"I got my BA in Anthropology in 2006, and a Masters in Social Work in 2015. Currently unemployed but I've worked mainly in community mental health. Trying to transition more to research and community development\/public policy stuff.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4341.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8a7yj","c_root_id_B":"gf835zc","created_at_utc_A":1607562159,"created_at_utc_B":1607558337,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","human_ref_B":"MA in cultural anth 2018, I'm an adjunct lecturer. If I knew what I did now I would have chosen something more practical, as much as I love anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3822.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf844zu","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607558852,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I started at University in 2009 and pursued a degree for 4 years. Due to some personal issues and administrative technicalities I was 2 classes shy of graduating with a degree in 2013. With no degree and no job prospects in the field; I had originally wanted to get into international development\/diplomacy, government, or peace corps but with no degree and no ability to pursue a master's degree I was kind of lost. I moved across the country to a state id never been to and started a new life I worked in 2 restaraunts as a cook over 2 years before starting as a driver and vehicle detailer for a major car rental company. During that time I went back to school online and was able to transfer my credits back to my 4 year university to finish my BA in Cultural Anthropology 3 years after I should have graduated. From there I stayed in the company and advanced to a sales, customer service, and operations position for two years learning how to run a business and develop various skills in the industry. After 2 years I was promoted to a regional corporate office in a niche department that focused on business relationships and purchasing with administration oversight of the daily operation locations as well. My days were full of calls, emails, and spreadsheets. I was happy with this job and the opportunity to build a career and excelled at the position. But after 18 months COVID hit and my department was caught up in the initial wave of layoffs, just 2 months before my 5 year anniversary with the company. The just let me go after telling us we'd all be safe and they would take care of us. After 5 or 6 months of unemployment, I was able to evaluate what was really important in my life and what I wanted out of it. As much as I liked my job, I hated the pressure, long hours, and commute. So I applied at a distribution center for an international grocery wholesaler that is highly regarded and now work very close to home with better hours, a higher pay scale that I'll work up to faster than my previous jobs, and much less stress. So now I work in a refrigerated warehouse using heavy equipment and moving boxes by hand, but there's plenty to learn and a lot of room to grow in the company. Thankfully I live within 25 miles of the company's international headquarters and want to pursue a long-term career moving up that direction. It does feel weird starting at the ground floor at 30, and even though I had a chance to go back to my old job at one point I knew it wouldn't be right. I don't necessarily regret my degree, and plenty of people build careers and passions outside of their degree area or what they went to school for. I just wish I'd have done more with it at the time or focused on another area as well that would set me up for more success down the road. I guess my point is that you never know what will happen in life or where you'll be 10 years down the road. I'm glad I studied Anthropology and experienced what I did with the degree and in my life after.","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3307.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf85rpc","c_root_id_B":"gf8a7yj","created_at_utc_A":1607559713,"created_at_utc_B":1607562159,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a BA in anthropology and a master\u2019s in social work and then stuck with social work. My first job was a foster care caseworker but then I moved into being a therapist. I\u2019m no longer working outside the home (I have MS) but I am a stay at home mom. If I had known I was going to become disabled so young (I\u2019m 40) I would have gotten my master\u2019s in applied anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2446.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k9xqiw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"People with anthropology degrees: what is your career now? For those who have degrees in anthropology, what are you doing or what have you done for work? Is your job related to your degree? Did you find the degree useful? Did you get a masters or only undergraduate degree?","c_root_id_A":"gf8a7yj","c_root_id_B":"gf866ib","created_at_utc_A":1607562159,"created_at_utc_B":1607559931,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Masters and PhD; I've seen all sides of archaeology: I'm now working in Government (Heritage Management) which is where I'd like to see out the rest of my career. I've previously worked in the consulting Heritage Management industry (4 years) and well as in an academic role at University (3 years). The degrees were definitely useful!","human_ref_B":"I got my BS in Archaeological Science in 2012. I worked in CRM for about 4 years. I worked for the university in parking while getting my degree, and ended up back there as a manager making almost twice what I was making in the field. Being married certainly made the appeal of working away from home fade pretty quickly. I do find the degree helped and would not trade that field time for anything. While the work was hard and not always rewarding(finding clear routes around sites SUUUUUUUCKS) the hiking in often remote wilderness and the crews made it fun. The degree itself helped me become more organized and definitly learn to budget time better. Time in the field dealing with crew drama helped make me a better manager. Working in remote areas taught me to plan ahead, or you get to walk 3 miles back to the truck..... And the chance to learn about different cultures from an Anthro perspective was nice, it helps put differences in perspective when dealing with different groups. I use Arc GIS all the time for my work now. There are days I wish I was back there, but then it's blowing snow an below 0, and I can just sit and watch from my office, so there is that. But quick tip, you get to go back to the hotel if you break the shovel on the frozen ground enough times in one morning. The field is saturated at times, it's boom or bust. But be a good worker who does not cause drama and shows up each morning and the crew chiefs will call you for work. It's a small field, you reputation travels quickly. And if you are considering it, look at the more technical aspects. I use ArcGIS in my job, and it's made me invaluable. Those who picked up skills in the litho lab found lab work easier to get into. If you like biology, there are a ton of specialties you can look at, niche but stable jobs. Demography was picking up when I was leaving college, lots of places looking to project the future.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2228.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"uzd4u6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How long does someone has to be dead to stop being consider grave robbering and start be consider an archeology site? Genuinely asking","c_root_id_A":"ia9qhwc","c_root_id_B":"ia9wkml","created_at_utc_A":1653705649,"created_at_utc_B":1653708902,"score_A":25,"score_B":187,"human_ref_A":"It's less about time, and more about intent and methodology. Bad archaeology, when done unconseually, and unrespectfully, for material gain, could definitely be considered graverobbing.","human_ref_B":"Time isn't the deciding factor, the purpose is the deciding factor. Grave robbers dig up graves and loot structures to obtain artifacts to legally or illegally sell (depending on the host country's antiquities laws, most disallow looting). The only thing grave robbers are interested in is making money. That's it. They have little to no interest in actually learning about the culture or people that made the item. They have no interest in understanding how humans adapted to that region, lived their lives, and influenced other people around them. Their only interest is money. Archaeologists, on the other hand, are interested in answering research questions that hopefully benefit humanity by providing a better understanding of our past and where we came from. Yes, archaeologists dig up graves and study the artifacts, but they do so to answer questions. Questions like, where was this item made? How was it made? Is it decorated and if so, do the decorations mean anything? Is the quantity of material recovered in a grave significant? Did the person have great status alive or was their status through grave goods one given by others upon their death? And so forth. Under no circumstance are archaeologists selling the artifacts they discover. If they are, and are caught, they go to jail and pay heavy fines. Any material recovered either goes to a local university or museum within that country or to a storage area for future research and analysis. That means if an archaeologist has a research question that is only answerable by examining remains from a few decades ago, they must go out and examine those remains. But then, an archaeologist doesn't necessarily need remains to answer research questions. They can examine the remains of agricultural infrastructure, buildings, temples, the landscape itself, lake sediments, middens, artifacts, and so forth. In fact, a group of archaeologists did a research project aimed at understanding homelessness and what homeless people may need that they are not getting (Zimmerman et al 2010). By taking an archaeological approach to understanding the material culture left at homeless encampments as young as a few weeks, researchers determined that Bibles and soap were the least needed things given by aid groups to the homeless. Bibles were useless because they could not be eaten and soap was useless because there was no water in which to use it. What the researchers did find was numerous exploded cans of food caused from heating the cans without opening them. What the homeless needed, instead, were can openers. They had all this canned food given to them to eat and the ability to heat the food with a fire, but no effective way to open the cans. I would like to note that there is an entire field called forensic anthropology which deals with understanding death, how people die, and how they were killed usually in regards to a crime. Out of necessity, forensic anthropologists dig up and work with human remains that can be quite fresh. So as you can see, there is a difference between grave robbing and archaeology. And while that difference may not seem significant to some, it makes a world of difference. * Zimmerman, Larry J., Courtney Singleton, and Jessica Welch. \"Activism and creating a translational archaeology of homelessness.\" World archaeology 42.3 (2010): 443-454. As \/u\/ThesaurusRex84 pointed out in older thread archaeologists need the permission of the landowner to excavate. They also need permission from any local, state\/province\/territory, and country\/federal along with any necessary permits. You cannot just go in and start digging wherever and whenever you want. Grave robbers, on the other hand, don't always seek permission. If they do, it's usually to give the landowners a cut of the profits or objects found. Another difference is documentation and publications. Archaeologists document everything about their work from specific location of the site, where excavation units were placed, what objects were found, the frequency of objects, any remains recovered, etc. They then write any necessary reports to the levels of government that require them. After that, archaeologists will publish some or all of their findings in a peer-reviewed source so that others can weigh in and judge their work. Grave robbers don't submit reports and don't publish their findings. They may document where they robbed, but it's only for future robbing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3253.0,"score_ratio":7.48} {"post_id":"uzd4u6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How long does someone has to be dead to stop being consider grave robbering and start be consider an archeology site? Genuinely asking","c_root_id_A":"ia9qhwc","c_root_id_B":"iaaxsn1","created_at_utc_A":1653705649,"created_at_utc_B":1653738701,"score_A":25,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"It's less about time, and more about intent and methodology. Bad archaeology, when done unconseually, and unrespectfully, for material gain, could definitely be considered graverobbing.","human_ref_B":"You've gotten some good answers here from the perspective of the archaeologist, but I think it worth remembering that \"grave robbing\" and \"archaeology\" can also represent two perspectives on the same act, as well. Archaeologists today are increasingly having to recognize (or being forced to recognize) that they're not the only voice in the conversation anymore. (They actually never were, but many marginalized communities lacked a voice to be able to really object to archaeologists' actions.) The truth is that to some descendant communities, the length of time doesn't matter. To them, it's grave robbing whether it was 10 years ago or 1000... or 10,000. While this perspective rankles many archaeologists, and *many* non-archaeologists who are of a similar perspective to the archies, we can't take the view that *our* perspective is right and theirs is wrong. That's explicitly non-anthropological. So to the question: the action of disinterring the dead can be interpreted many ways. It can be archaeology, it can be grave robbing. It's not just a methodological question, it's also a cultural one.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33052.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"uzd4u6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How long does someone has to be dead to stop being consider grave robbering and start be consider an archeology site? Genuinely asking","c_root_id_A":"iaaxsn1","c_root_id_B":"iaabhq2","created_at_utc_A":1653738701,"created_at_utc_B":1653719401,"score_A":30,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"You've gotten some good answers here from the perspective of the archaeologist, but I think it worth remembering that \"grave robbing\" and \"archaeology\" can also represent two perspectives on the same act, as well. Archaeologists today are increasingly having to recognize (or being forced to recognize) that they're not the only voice in the conversation anymore. (They actually never were, but many marginalized communities lacked a voice to be able to really object to archaeologists' actions.) The truth is that to some descendant communities, the length of time doesn't matter. To them, it's grave robbing whether it was 10 years ago or 1000... or 10,000. While this perspective rankles many archaeologists, and *many* non-archaeologists who are of a similar perspective to the archies, we can't take the view that *our* perspective is right and theirs is wrong. That's explicitly non-anthropological. So to the question: the action of disinterring the dead can be interpreted many ways. It can be archaeology, it can be grave robbing. It's not just a methodological question, it's also a cultural one.","human_ref_B":"There isn't really one answer to this question, because the answer you get will determine on who you are asking and what their perspective is. You could take this question from a legal perspective. The answer will be different based on where you are. I'm not familiar with legislation everywhere, but in the pacific either pre-1900, or 100 years before the present is a common date. The legal definition of what is considered archaeology is important, as this dictates what legislation a burial falls under, and how it should be treated. Should police be involved? Should an archaeologist be called? Do local indigenous populations need to be informed? That sort of thing: who has jurisdiction and what needs to happen according to the law. Alternatively, you could take it from the perspective of a given local community. Say, for example, an archaeologist is working on an indigenous burial which dates back 400 years. The burial is in the middle of where a new road is being built and so needs to be moved. While legally, this may be considered archaeology, to the local community, this may be considered grave robbing, as they have a strong connection to the deceased and may have little say over what happens to the buried individual. Obviously, this is a simplified example, but I think it demonstrates how archaeology may be grave robbing to those people, due to a lack of say, as well as previous negative experiences with archaeologists. In this situation, one side may consider what is happening to be \"archaeology\" because it is legally sanctified and the work is well recorded, and yet others (with very good reason) may consider it to be \"grave robbing\". Another example of this could be mummies held at the British Museum. They were dug up by archaeologists in what was viewed as \"best practice\" at the time (plot twist: it would no longer be considered close to best practice). Yet, many today would call this grave robbing, as they were white, English, colonial archaeologists coming into Egyptian land, doing their archaeology, and taking everything with them to England. All of this without the support or consent of the community where excavations took place, taking archaeology away from them for their own gain. You may also find disagreements between archaeologists, and what they consider to be \"best practice\". I've seen arguments happen over a group of bioarchaeologists who were investigating a series of burials in a cemetery, who had consent from the cemetery owners, and were seen as \"grave robbing\" by other archaeologists because they were digging up the dead for research rather than because there was disturbance in the cemetery that was going to destroy or disturb the buried individuals. Even archaeologists may not agree on what is \"grave robbing\" vs \"archaeology\", and what is considered ethical or best practice will differ based on who you ask. Really what I'm trying to get at here is illustrating the point that there is no one answer as to what is grave robbing vs archaeology, it all depends on who you are asking, and how they are defining the terms \"archaeology\" and \"grave robbing\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19300.0,"score_ratio":2.3076923077} {"post_id":"r3jrgc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any larger subtext to the story that, only recently, did we learn Roman hairstyles weren't wigs but were done with needle and thread? I recently discovered the story of Janet Stephens who is a lay-person who changed the field of Roman archaeology by showing lots of hairstyles were not in fact wigs but done with needle and thread: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Janet\\_Stephens I work as a journalist and am thinking of pitching this story to some places. I am curious if there is any larger subtext here, some reason that people got it wrong about wigs for so long that reveals larger information about the field of Roman archaeology. I'm just trying to find a way to situate this story into a larger story about the field. ​ Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"hmdha5b","c_root_id_B":"hmbxlox","created_at_utc_A":1638082840,"created_at_utc_B":1638054237,"score_A":101,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Sort of, though I don't know it makes great journalism. The latter half of the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first saw the rise of what's called the \"history of private life\" \u2013 which includes the history of clothing and personal adornment, as well as culinary history, the history of childrearing, the history of home decor, and so on \u2013 as an academic field. Previously, history, as an academic field, was almost exclusively focused on what has been described as \"great man\" history and nation-states and warfare. Across the the twentieth century there was a wave of academic interest in the history of private life and many other hitherto neglected branches of historical inquiry, such as the history of science, technology, and medicine, history of philosophy and thought, history of music, dance, and games, etc. Because these branches of history are comparatively young, prior work was often done by people who may be professional historians, but were amateurs at the field in history they were studying. For instance, this (I was informed by a culinary historian roommate) came up in a big way in culinary history in the mid-20th centuries, where most of the people translating late medieval cookbooks were men who had never cooked, and had no idea what was reasonable in a recipe. In particular, a lot of them where white middle aged middle-class men in the US and the UK, where the food conventions of the time used very few seasonings; indeed, I've heard a compelling argument that at that time and place highly seasoned food was considered a low-prestige class marker, associated with \"immigrants\" and \"foreigners\" and \"ethnic people\" (i.e. racialized people). But late medieval cookbooks are all precious objects intended for highest-social status people \u2013 before the printing press, most books were! \u2013 and having many different hard-to-source ingredients like imported seasonings is a form of ostentatious consumption engaged in by the wealthy and powerful. These recipe books gave no measurements for how much of any one spice, but called for many different spices in single dishes. These middle-class white male non-cooking Anglophone academics from the 1950s may have checked with their wives and learned that the number of spices or other seasonings called for in these medieval recipes were much higher than for the recipes for food they were familiar with in their own homes, but what they took from it was that medieval people ate heavily spiced food. That is, they equated many different spices with using large amounts of spice. Since enjoying highly seasoned food was not something high-status people did in their own culture, these historians felt these kings and princes enjoying what they assumed were highly-seasoned dishes therefore needed some explanation beyond it just being the fashion in food then. So they floated a hypothesis, one of the most notorious Wrong Ideas in the history of European history: that medieval people used a lot of spices in their cooking because their meat was rancid and they needed to disguise the taste. Now we have several decades of culinary historians who are actual competent cooks and chefs, who have broad palates educated in foodways from around the world and a much clearer notion of the diversity of human opinion about how to make something tasty to eat. And we're now pretty sure that that hypothesis is simple nonsense, born of sexism + racism. We're pretty sure that medieval Europeans who could afford to import seasonings all the way from Sri Lanka could afford fresh meat. Which brings us to Janet Stephens, who is, to the best of my knowledge, the very first actual professional hairdresser to work in the field of the history of hairstyles. Previous ideas about hairstyles came from academics who may have been professional historians, but were not professional cosmetologists. Their assumptions were likely based on what they knew of history from more recent periods (such as the use of wigs in English fashion from the 17th century on) and what seemed likely and plausible to them as amateurs in hairdressing. Since thread-and-needle hairstyles are not currently used today, that \"acus\", a word which can also mean \"hair pin\", could possibly mean \"needle-and-thread\" in the case of hairstyles \u2013 a thing they had never heard of \u2013 probably literally never occurred to them. So what we're seeing is the maturation of young branches of historical inquiry, particularly in the history of private life, where the original work was done by semi-amateurs \u2013 professional historians who were way out of their lanes, in terms of their subjects of study \u2013 and now is being corrected by people with scholarly expertise in the subject studied.","human_ref_B":"You may want to cross post at r\/askhistorians","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28603.0,"score_ratio":2.6578947368} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3lsvrk","c_root_id_B":"g3lsvb3","created_at_utc_A":1598976999,"created_at_utc_B":1598976995,"score_A":73,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Depends on your interest. A lot of the folks I went to undergrad with work in NGOs or non-profits, went on to teach in primary & secondary ed, museums, and\/or switched fields. Grad school peers: NGOs or non-profits, academia, started their own foundations, start-ups, a few are in game development, too.","human_ref_B":"It depends on your area of specialty. For example, a forensic anthropologist might work for some kind of international agency investigating war crimes and inspecting mass graves. However, I think this type of work requires an advanced degree.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4.0,"score_ratio":2.28125} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3lul3a","c_root_id_B":"g3lsvb3","created_at_utc_A":1598977614,"created_at_utc_B":1598976995,"score_A":39,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"I went into GIS and ended up doing population statistics in human geography. The cultural aspects are only kind of related, since I was studying to be an archaeologist, but GIS and remote sensing are critically useful there too.","human_ref_B":"It depends on your area of specialty. For example, a forensic anthropologist might work for some kind of international agency investigating war crimes and inspecting mass graves. However, I think this type of work requires an advanced degree.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":619.0,"score_ratio":1.21875} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3m1a4a","c_root_id_B":"g3nexch","created_at_utc_A":1598979917,"created_at_utc_B":1598998923,"score_A":18,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Depending on local planning legislation, Archaeology is paying work. Historic building management, excavations, surveys, watching briefs and the like are often part of obtaining planning permission. Certainly in the UK if you want to build stuff you need to provide evidence that you've had the area investigated, usually by hiring archaeologists to do geophysical survey, examine records and archives, and by doing trial trenches. And if something big comes up, then archaeologists are often brought in to excavate and record everything so building can commence.","human_ref_B":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19006.0,"score_ratio":1.0555555556} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3nexch","c_root_id_B":"g3m3awc","created_at_utc_A":1598998923,"created_at_utc_B":1598980625,"score_A":19,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve worked nearly 20 years in software development (ughh) and I once worked with a wonderful colleague who was formally trained as a anthropologist. A lot of large companies (Apple\/Facebook\/Google) or smaller companies who care about doing good work have roles that focus on usability\/user research (understanding the tools\/context that people are attempting to solve problems or complete some task). I worked with a wonderful colleague who had a formal background in anthropology who worked in this area and it seemed like a pretty good overlap of skill set. I\u2019m not sure how satisfied they were in this role, but they were very good at it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18298.0,"score_ratio":1.1176470588} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3mvsk3","c_root_id_B":"g3nexch","created_at_utc_A":1598991041,"created_at_utc_B":1598998923,"score_A":12,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Of my cohort: * nurse * computer programmer * working for an NGO doing CRM surveys * managing an NGO * academia * government Two out of six went back to school and got an associate's in a different field and are now working in those fields. Studying anthro was not necessary for their jobs although the BA opens doors even if it's unrelated. It did shape how they view the world and made them better at their jobs but they could have gotten those jobs without spending the time or money studying anthropology. I'd guess that around half of college graduates overall end up working in a field that's unrelated to their degree. That doesn't necessarily make the degree a poor investment.","human_ref_B":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7882.0,"score_ratio":1.5833333333} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3nexch","c_root_id_B":"g3makc4","created_at_utc_A":1598998923,"created_at_utc_B":1598983281,"score_A":19,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","human_ref_B":"After getting an anthropology degree, i did data entry, fell into accounting, and then data management. After a while gave up on trying to get into something related to anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15642.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3nexch","c_root_id_B":"g3ndm3y","created_at_utc_A":1598998923,"created_at_utc_B":1598998344,"score_A":19,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","human_ref_B":"I have a b.a. in anthro. I graduated in 2011 and the job market was not great. I worked at home depot at the time designing kitchen cabinets and I really enjoyed that. Decided to go back to school for interior design and graduated last year with a b.f.a. & now work in the commercial design field. I think my anthro and sociology studies really helped to shape my design philosophy. I love thinking about people and culture and how design can be a conduit for social justice and change. Designers can really influence how people feel, interact with each other, build community etc. I would love to figure out how to become a design anthropologist or something like that. It's my end goal to do a lot of community engagement design work which involves user surveys, local culture studies etc. to figure out what the people actually want\/need.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":579.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ndj4v","c_root_id_B":"g3nexch","created_at_utc_A":1598998309,"created_at_utc_B":1598998923,"score_A":4,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Anthro grads are peppered throughout the government, NGO, and international organization space - especially those connected to development or humanitarian work. I've known some PhD anthropologists who did monitoring and evaluation for development programs or were on staff at IOs like the World Bank or WHO. People with undergrad degrees in anthro, but masters in other fields like international relations, public policy, or public health are pretty common.","human_ref_B":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":614.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3nexch","c_root_id_B":"g3n0pe5","created_at_utc_A":1598998923,"created_at_utc_B":1598992850,"score_A":19,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm, uh, doing a long-term, immersive study of local kitchens and the culture of restaurant workers. It's an unauthorized participant observation, really - they're even paying me for my labour. I've learned quite a lot. Really, though, even though this isn't what I planned on doing after my degree, studying humans in school really did prepare me for working in kitchen culture, and I could easily write several papers about it.","human_ref_B":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6073.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3mvsk3","c_root_id_B":"g3makc4","created_at_utc_A":1598991041,"created_at_utc_B":1598983281,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Of my cohort: * nurse * computer programmer * working for an NGO doing CRM surveys * managing an NGO * academia * government Two out of six went back to school and got an associate's in a different field and are now working in those fields. Studying anthro was not necessary for their jobs although the BA opens doors even if it's unrelated. It did shape how they view the world and made them better at their jobs but they could have gotten those jobs without spending the time or money studying anthropology. I'd guess that around half of college graduates overall end up working in a field that's unrelated to their degree. That doesn't necessarily make the degree a poor investment.","human_ref_B":"After getting an anthropology degree, i did data entry, fell into accounting, and then data management. After a while gave up on trying to get into something related to anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7760.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ndm3y","c_root_id_B":"g3ndj4v","created_at_utc_A":1598998344,"created_at_utc_B":1598998309,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I have a b.a. in anthro. I graduated in 2011 and the job market was not great. I worked at home depot at the time designing kitchen cabinets and I really enjoyed that. Decided to go back to school for interior design and graduated last year with a b.f.a. & now work in the commercial design field. I think my anthro and sociology studies really helped to shape my design philosophy. I love thinking about people and culture and how design can be a conduit for social justice and change. Designers can really influence how people feel, interact with each other, build community etc. I would love to figure out how to become a design anthropologist or something like that. It's my end goal to do a lot of community engagement design work which involves user surveys, local culture studies etc. to figure out what the people actually want\/need.","human_ref_B":"Anthro grads are peppered throughout the government, NGO, and international organization space - especially those connected to development or humanitarian work. I've known some PhD anthropologists who did monitoring and evaluation for development programs or were on staff at IOs like the World Bank or WHO. People with undergrad degrees in anthro, but masters in other fields like international relations, public policy, or public health are pretty common.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3n0pe5","c_root_id_B":"g3ndm3y","created_at_utc_A":1598992850,"created_at_utc_B":1598998344,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","human_ref_B":"I have a b.a. in anthro. I graduated in 2011 and the job market was not great. I worked at home depot at the time designing kitchen cabinets and I really enjoyed that. Decided to go back to school for interior design and graduated last year with a b.f.a. & now work in the commercial design field. I think my anthro and sociology studies really helped to shape my design philosophy. I love thinking about people and culture and how design can be a conduit for social justice and change. Designers can really influence how people feel, interact with each other, build community etc. I would love to figure out how to become a design anthropologist or something like that. It's my end goal to do a lot of community engagement design work which involves user surveys, local culture studies etc. to figure out what the people actually want\/need.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5494.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ndj4v","c_root_id_B":"g3ney64","created_at_utc_A":1598998309,"created_at_utc_B":1598998935,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Anthro grads are peppered throughout the government, NGO, and international organization space - especially those connected to development or humanitarian work. I've known some PhD anthropologists who did monitoring and evaluation for development programs or were on staff at IOs like the World Bank or WHO. People with undergrad degrees in anthro, but masters in other fields like international relations, public policy, or public health are pretty common.","human_ref_B":"When people learn I majored in anthropology they sometimes ask \"what can you do with that?\" And my response is \"go to gradschool for anthropology.\" Kinda depressing, but i already knew that reality when i decided on my major. I do wanna do gradschool eventually though. I always wonder how many people get involved in careers adjacent to biological anthro. I can see people with interest in cultural anthro working in gis or something relating to human ecology, and i know people who are more interested in archaeology may end up in cultural resource management, but what about those who focused on biological anthro? Any anthropology majors here end up working as a death investigator or a zoo worker or something else bio anthro related?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":626.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ney64","c_root_id_B":"g3n0pe5","created_at_utc_A":1598998935,"created_at_utc_B":1598992850,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"When people learn I majored in anthropology they sometimes ask \"what can you do with that?\" And my response is \"go to gradschool for anthropology.\" Kinda depressing, but i already knew that reality when i decided on my major. I do wanna do gradschool eventually though. I always wonder how many people get involved in careers adjacent to biological anthro. I can see people with interest in cultural anthro working in gis or something relating to human ecology, and i know people who are more interested in archaeology may end up in cultural resource management, but what about those who focused on biological anthro? Any anthropology majors here end up working as a death investigator or a zoo worker or something else bio anthro related?","human_ref_B":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6085.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ntgm0","c_root_id_B":"g3ndj4v","created_at_utc_A":1599005671,"created_at_utc_B":1598998309,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Of my cohort, we have two psychology professors, two anthropology researchers, two medical doctors, a marine biologist, one in publishing, one science TV producer, a couple of teachers, a couple in HR, and a couple in counselling\/clin psych\/social work.","human_ref_B":"Anthro grads are peppered throughout the government, NGO, and international organization space - especially those connected to development or humanitarian work. I've known some PhD anthropologists who did monitoring and evaluation for development programs or were on staff at IOs like the World Bank or WHO. People with undergrad degrees in anthro, but masters in other fields like international relations, public policy, or public health are pretty common.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7362.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ndj4v","c_root_id_B":"g3n0pe5","created_at_utc_A":1598998309,"created_at_utc_B":1598992850,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anthro grads are peppered throughout the government, NGO, and international organization space - especially those connected to development or humanitarian work. I've known some PhD anthropologists who did monitoring and evaluation for development programs or were on staff at IOs like the World Bank or WHO. People with undergrad degrees in anthro, but masters in other fields like international relations, public policy, or public health are pretty common.","human_ref_B":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5459.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3nnzzj","c_root_id_B":"g3ntgm0","created_at_utc_A":1599003310,"created_at_utc_B":1599005671,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I majored in Anthro and Political Science in college and now I'm the Director of Support for a software company. I think depending on how tech-savvy you are, support, UX\/UI design, and QA are great options. When people ask how my degrees relate to what I do I usually just point out that at the core Anthropology is the study of people and political science is the study of interactions, so they are actually quite helpful. When I'm hiring employees I honestly don't really care what they got their degree in as long as they either have a degree or experience. If you're fresh out of school and this is your first job just be ready to explain how your degree can be useful.","human_ref_B":"Of my cohort, we have two psychology professors, two anthropology researchers, two medical doctors, a marine biologist, one in publishing, one science TV producer, a couple of teachers, a couple in HR, and a couple in counselling\/clin psych\/social work.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2361.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3ntgm0","c_root_id_B":"g3n0pe5","created_at_utc_A":1599005671,"created_at_utc_B":1598992850,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Of my cohort, we have two psychology professors, two anthropology researchers, two medical doctors, a marine biologist, one in publishing, one science TV producer, a couple of teachers, a couple in HR, and a couple in counselling\/clin psych\/social work.","human_ref_B":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12821.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ikmdt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What careers outside of anthropology do anthropology majors most often (or are more than likely to) get into? Title says it all","c_root_id_A":"g3n0pe5","c_root_id_B":"g3nnzzj","created_at_utc_A":1598992850,"created_at_utc_B":1599003310,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Most of them (that I know personally) work for an NGO, but your degree doesn't have to define you in the age of the internet. Rack up those skills if you must.","human_ref_B":"I majored in Anthro and Political Science in college and now I'm the Director of Support for a software company. I think depending on how tech-savvy you are, support, UX\/UI design, and QA are great options. When people ask how my degrees relate to what I do I usually just point out that at the core Anthropology is the study of people and political science is the study of interactions, so they are actually quite helpful. When I'm hiring employees I honestly don't really care what they got their degree in as long as they either have a degree or experience. If you're fresh out of school and this is your first job just be ready to explain how your degree can be useful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10460.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"g9c1a5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any cultures in which all names are unisex (i.e. no personal name has a male or female connotaion)? From what I can find, while pretty much every major culture (especially nowadays) has unisex names, there are also definitely \"male\" and \"female\" names. Has there been any culture which lacked gendered personal names, in which all names could equally be applied to a man or woman?","c_root_id_A":"fot6d1h","c_root_id_B":"fothp38","created_at_utc_A":1588045659,"created_at_utc_B":1588054256,"score_A":9,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Pretty sure most Chinese names are unisex, so much so that it's standard to put your sex on resume and formal documents because no one would know otherwise.","human_ref_B":"Tibetans and related people often have two-part names where the first part is unisex, for example Tshering (long life) with the second part kind of indicating the gender, for example Dolma (the female bodhisattva Tara). Sonam and Pema are also very common unisex names, often used alone. But it can be confusing too as in the case of the Dalai Lama, who was born as Lhamo Thondup, Lhamo meaning goddess. In my husband\u2019s birth culture (Punjabi Pakistani) unisex names used to be really common too, like with the Sikhs. But women usually had Bibi as ending, meaning lady. So there\u2019s lots of old ladies there still whose names are Anwar Bibi, Rasool Bibi, Manzoor Bibi, Rehmat Bibi, and so on. I\u2019m not aware of a culture with exclusively unisex names.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8597.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"ayrlt4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is \"shhh\" universal? Or do different cultures have different ways of quieting a person?","c_root_id_A":"ei3ih1w","c_root_id_B":"ei3mipz","created_at_utc_A":1552079630,"created_at_utc_B":1552082644,"score_A":16,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"In Polish we use \"Shhh\" but often we use also \"Ciii\" which is a prefix of the world \"Cicho!\" That translates to \"be quite\". I don't know how to translate its pronunciation, but you can type \"Ciiiiii\" into Google translate. It also has a little \"Shhh\" when pronouncing \"iiii\".","human_ref_B":"The theory I have heard about this (from the pop baby care book *the Happiest Baby on the Block*, so treat this as a theory not *the* answer) is that this and its variations are the natural sounds for soothing and quieting a baby. Why? Because it\u2019s the sound that the baby has heard for months as it develops in utero\u2014the sound of fluid moving. I forget if it\u2019s amniotic fluid or blood pumped by the heart or both, but that books whole theory of early baby care is about recreating the noises, movement, and snug environment of the womb for what the author calls the \u201cfourth trimester\u201d as the baby continues to develop and yet be pretty much helpless. Notice that all of the sounds given here\u2014shhh, hsss, ciii\u2014are all sounds that count be given to water flowing. Now, baby treatments don\u2019t necessarily lead to permanent social customs. For instance, while kissing babies seems near universal, the romantic kiss is definitely not universal. In fact, while in some places the romantic kiss is just seen as \u201cdirty\u201d, in others, such as among the Nuer, it is seen as specifically infantilizing. Lover shouldn\u2019t kiss their partner because that\u2019s only for parents and babies and would therefore be weird. (For more on the non-universality of the romantic kiss, see here. There\u2019s a theory that the maternal kiss allows the mother to detect what germs her baby has and create breastmilk that has those antibodies in them.) Similarly, I can imagine that\u2014if this is indeed a human universal practice for babies because of the babies pre-delivery uterine environment\u2014in places shushing is seen as huge infantilizing and only appropriate for children, never adults. Again, I can\u2019t think of an example of such a culture off the top of my head, but by analogy it\u2019s easy for me to imagine it exists.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3014.0,"score_ratio":4.375} {"post_id":"ayrlt4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is \"shhh\" universal? Or do different cultures have different ways of quieting a person?","c_root_id_A":"ei4exbx","c_root_id_B":"ei4g3dn","created_at_utc_A":1552108231,"created_at_utc_B":1552109601,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't believe it works in Thai. In Thai it would be more common to say \"chuu chuu\" to mean \"shush\". Saying \"shh\" is liable to be not understood, unless the listener has picked it up from Western media. Edit: Although it might be common enough now that everyone understands and uses \"shh\" anyway. But my impression is that that's a more recent loanword, rather than something that's always been used in Thai.","human_ref_B":"In South Africa, I have seen \u201cshhh\u201d sounds used by Bantu cultures for calming babies but not for \u201cshushing\u201d people, that is more of a European thing (though definitely used by South Africans of European decent), though of course there is bleed over. For their shushing, the Bantu peoples either tell the person to be quiet or to lower their voice directly, or they use a high-pitched \u201ctsss\u201d or \u201ctsk\u201d sound. But with well over 11 primary cultural groupings it\u2019s hard to say what is exactly the norm. But I have seen that they all do understand \u201cshhh\u201d even if it\u2019s not what they specifically use. The finger to the lips motion also seems to mostly be European thing,","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1370.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc6607m","c_root_id_B":"gc6b46t","created_at_utc_A":1605289044,"created_at_utc_B":1605291560,"score_A":7,"score_B":100,"human_ref_A":"We don't have many examples of human mitochondria and Y- chromosomes from a variety of ancient populations. It might be that non-observance of archaic human mDNA and Y-chromosome in modern populations is merely due to sampling error.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, but my research is in genetics (although not on ancient human genomics but I keep a pulse on the field as I find it interesting). For the case of Y haplogroups, the lack of Neanderthal and Denisovan ones is probably due to neutral evolutionary forces (\"luck and genetic drift\") but also negative selective pressure. I strongly doubt any non-Sapiens Y haplotypes will be recovered. Sampling of haplotypes is already quite extensive across human lineage and we would not expect to find any because in theory it would be a huge evolutionary disadvantage to have an admixed Y chromosome. When two species hybridize and the offspring backcross to one of the parent lineages, you see a strong selection against the regions of the genome inherited from the minority contributor (which would be Neanderthals and\/or Denisovans in this case). There are three main reasons. First, species have divergent genomes with different regulatory mechanisms. Simply put, the signals to switch certain genes on and off under different circumstances can be different, not to mention the differences in the structural genes themselves. If the regulatory mechanisms mismatch, extremely bad outcomes can occur, such as uncontrolled gene expression that results in the development of cancers (E.g.: \"Natural hybridization reveals incompatible alleles that cause melanoma in swordtail fish\"). Secondly, alleles from one parent species may be disadvantageous and will be broadly selected against. For example, examination of Melanesian genomes shows stretches of the genome where no Denisovan DNA can be found, especially in regions important to brain development. Sometimes the introgressing parent species may have advantageous alleles that are positively selected for and sweep through the population, as in the case of Denisovan alleles that increase oxygenation at high altitude in modern Tibetan humans. Thirdly and most importantly to your question, it is particularly disadvantageous to have mismatches in your genome versus the rest of the population in any genes that have an impact on reproductive compatibility. Genes from other species that introduce reproductive incompatibilities will be quickly winnowed out of the population through extremely strong negative selective pressure. Sex chromosomes have many regions that have a strong impact on reproductive compatibility. Therefore, in cases of hybridization, the sex chromosomes from one parent species usually \"win\" and go to fixation while the other will generally disappear. This is speculated to be the reason that there are no Neanderthal Y haplogroups in modern Homo sapiens--there are reproductive incompatibilities on the Neanderthal Y! The histocompatibility problem would mean that male fetuses with Neanderthal Y chromosomes or certain Neanderthal Y chromosome regions would cause an immune reaction in the mother, which would result in miscarriage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2516.0,"score_ratio":14.2857142857} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc6b46t","c_root_id_B":"gc61348","created_at_utc_A":1605291560,"created_at_utc_B":1605286660,"score_A":100,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, but my research is in genetics (although not on ancient human genomics but I keep a pulse on the field as I find it interesting). For the case of Y haplogroups, the lack of Neanderthal and Denisovan ones is probably due to neutral evolutionary forces (\"luck and genetic drift\") but also negative selective pressure. I strongly doubt any non-Sapiens Y haplotypes will be recovered. Sampling of haplotypes is already quite extensive across human lineage and we would not expect to find any because in theory it would be a huge evolutionary disadvantage to have an admixed Y chromosome. When two species hybridize and the offspring backcross to one of the parent lineages, you see a strong selection against the regions of the genome inherited from the minority contributor (which would be Neanderthals and\/or Denisovans in this case). There are three main reasons. First, species have divergent genomes with different regulatory mechanisms. Simply put, the signals to switch certain genes on and off under different circumstances can be different, not to mention the differences in the structural genes themselves. If the regulatory mechanisms mismatch, extremely bad outcomes can occur, such as uncontrolled gene expression that results in the development of cancers (E.g.: \"Natural hybridization reveals incompatible alleles that cause melanoma in swordtail fish\"). Secondly, alleles from one parent species may be disadvantageous and will be broadly selected against. For example, examination of Melanesian genomes shows stretches of the genome where no Denisovan DNA can be found, especially in regions important to brain development. Sometimes the introgressing parent species may have advantageous alleles that are positively selected for and sweep through the population, as in the case of Denisovan alleles that increase oxygenation at high altitude in modern Tibetan humans. Thirdly and most importantly to your question, it is particularly disadvantageous to have mismatches in your genome versus the rest of the population in any genes that have an impact on reproductive compatibility. Genes from other species that introduce reproductive incompatibilities will be quickly winnowed out of the population through extremely strong negative selective pressure. Sex chromosomes have many regions that have a strong impact on reproductive compatibility. Therefore, in cases of hybridization, the sex chromosomes from one parent species usually \"win\" and go to fixation while the other will generally disappear. This is speculated to be the reason that there are no Neanderthal Y haplogroups in modern Homo sapiens--there are reproductive incompatibilities on the Neanderthal Y! The histocompatibility problem would mean that male fetuses with Neanderthal Y chromosomes or certain Neanderthal Y chromosome regions would cause an immune reaction in the mother, which would result in miscarriage.","human_ref_B":"Maybe in r\/Askscience!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4900.0,"score_ratio":33.3333333333} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc6607m","c_root_id_B":"gc7gsoq","created_at_utc_A":1605289044,"created_at_utc_B":1605313138,"score_A":7,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"We don't have many examples of human mitochondria and Y- chromosomes from a variety of ancient populations. It might be that non-observance of archaic human mDNA and Y-chromosome in modern populations is merely due to sampling error.","human_ref_B":"Great question! The reason modern humans don't carry Neanderthal, Denisovan, or other archaic hominids' Y chromosome is really interesting and probably different to what would be intuitively expected, which is that humans somehow bred other ancient hominids' (but let's focus on Neanderthals, who are best documented, and bearing in mind Denisovans were more accurately a subset of Neanderthal) Y chromosome out of our species over time. The truth is much weirder. Basically that humans bred the Neanderthal Y chromosome out of Neanderthals themselves and replaced it with our own human Y chromosome. So the reason Neanderthals couldn't pass on their Y chromosome is basically because the Neanderthal Y chromosome no longer existed in either populations, so a male Neanderthal mating with a human woman would (if the mating produced a male child) still pass on a human Y chromosome to the child. The male Neanderthals we've been able to sequence all have human Y chromosomes. As for why the human Y chromosome was so successful over the Neanderthal one, we don't exactly know because we don't have a Neanderthal Y chromosome to look at, but obviously the human Y chromosome must have conferred a significant survival advantage. While we don't know what that advantage was, we do know that Neanderthals were much less genetically diverse than the humans which cohabited the continent with them, and the Neanderthals may have racked up deleterious genetic diseases which were resolved with the addition of thr human Y chromosome. It's also possible that the human Y chromosome conferred a fitness advantage which over time resulted in the less fit carriers of Neanderthal Y chromosome to simply die out. I've also heard it suggested that the male offspring of male human\/female Neanderthal matings may have been viable, whereas the male offspring from male Neanderthal\/female human matings may have been either non-viable or sterile, leading to the Neanderthal Y chromosome being bred out over time. It's really fascinating and we don't have any proven answers yet, just educated guesses. But we'll get there eventually! https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/how-human-y-chromosomes-replaced-those-neanderthals-quiet-genetic-takeover-180975944\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24094.0,"score_ratio":2.8571428571} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc7gsoq","c_root_id_B":"gc6qu8i","created_at_utc_A":1605313138,"created_at_utc_B":1605299300,"score_A":20,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Great question! The reason modern humans don't carry Neanderthal, Denisovan, or other archaic hominids' Y chromosome is really interesting and probably different to what would be intuitively expected, which is that humans somehow bred other ancient hominids' (but let's focus on Neanderthals, who are best documented, and bearing in mind Denisovans were more accurately a subset of Neanderthal) Y chromosome out of our species over time. The truth is much weirder. Basically that humans bred the Neanderthal Y chromosome out of Neanderthals themselves and replaced it with our own human Y chromosome. So the reason Neanderthals couldn't pass on their Y chromosome is basically because the Neanderthal Y chromosome no longer existed in either populations, so a male Neanderthal mating with a human woman would (if the mating produced a male child) still pass on a human Y chromosome to the child. The male Neanderthals we've been able to sequence all have human Y chromosomes. As for why the human Y chromosome was so successful over the Neanderthal one, we don't exactly know because we don't have a Neanderthal Y chromosome to look at, but obviously the human Y chromosome must have conferred a significant survival advantage. While we don't know what that advantage was, we do know that Neanderthals were much less genetically diverse than the humans which cohabited the continent with them, and the Neanderthals may have racked up deleterious genetic diseases which were resolved with the addition of thr human Y chromosome. It's also possible that the human Y chromosome conferred a fitness advantage which over time resulted in the less fit carriers of Neanderthal Y chromosome to simply die out. I've also heard it suggested that the male offspring of male human\/female Neanderthal matings may have been viable, whereas the male offspring from male Neanderthal\/female human matings may have been either non-viable or sterile, leading to the Neanderthal Y chromosome being bred out over time. It's really fascinating and we don't have any proven answers yet, just educated guesses. But we'll get there eventually! https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/how-human-y-chromosomes-replaced-those-neanderthals-quiet-genetic-takeover-180975944\/","human_ref_B":"Because of the way Y chromosomes and MDNA are inherited marginal DNA for both tend to be overwhelmed by more popular DNA. This doesn't happened with other Chromosomes because those are recombined.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13838.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc61348","c_root_id_B":"gc7gsoq","created_at_utc_A":1605286660,"created_at_utc_B":1605313138,"score_A":3,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Maybe in r\/Askscience!","human_ref_B":"Great question! The reason modern humans don't carry Neanderthal, Denisovan, or other archaic hominids' Y chromosome is really interesting and probably different to what would be intuitively expected, which is that humans somehow bred other ancient hominids' (but let's focus on Neanderthals, who are best documented, and bearing in mind Denisovans were more accurately a subset of Neanderthal) Y chromosome out of our species over time. The truth is much weirder. Basically that humans bred the Neanderthal Y chromosome out of Neanderthals themselves and replaced it with our own human Y chromosome. So the reason Neanderthals couldn't pass on their Y chromosome is basically because the Neanderthal Y chromosome no longer existed in either populations, so a male Neanderthal mating with a human woman would (if the mating produced a male child) still pass on a human Y chromosome to the child. The male Neanderthals we've been able to sequence all have human Y chromosomes. As for why the human Y chromosome was so successful over the Neanderthal one, we don't exactly know because we don't have a Neanderthal Y chromosome to look at, but obviously the human Y chromosome must have conferred a significant survival advantage. While we don't know what that advantage was, we do know that Neanderthals were much less genetically diverse than the humans which cohabited the continent with them, and the Neanderthals may have racked up deleterious genetic diseases which were resolved with the addition of thr human Y chromosome. It's also possible that the human Y chromosome conferred a fitness advantage which over time resulted in the less fit carriers of Neanderthal Y chromosome to simply die out. I've also heard it suggested that the male offspring of male human\/female Neanderthal matings may have been viable, whereas the male offspring from male Neanderthal\/female human matings may have been either non-viable or sterile, leading to the Neanderthal Y chromosome being bred out over time. It's really fascinating and we don't have any proven answers yet, just educated guesses. But we'll get there eventually! https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/how-human-y-chromosomes-replaced-those-neanderthals-quiet-genetic-takeover-180975944\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26478.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc61348","c_root_id_B":"gc6607m","created_at_utc_A":1605286660,"created_at_utc_B":1605289044,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Maybe in r\/Askscience!","human_ref_B":"We don't have many examples of human mitochondria and Y- chromosomes from a variety of ancient populations. It might be that non-observance of archaic human mDNA and Y-chromosome in modern populations is merely due to sampling error.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2384.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"jthg8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Despite modern human populations around the world having DNA from multiple different extinct human species, no modern human has a Y-Chromosome\/mitochondrial haplogroup descending from them. Why is this? The closest proposal I've seen is that Haplogroup A00 might come from an archaic sapiens population, that only recently interbred with cognitively modern human population, passing on their Y-Chromsome. But there's no examples of a Denisovan or Neanderthal or archaic non-Sapiens African species passing their Y-Chromosome or mtDNA onto modern humans, despite modern humans having some descent from these species. Is this just luck and genetic drift? Might we one day find e.g. a Denisovan Y-Chromosome in a modern human somewhere in Asia?","c_root_id_A":"gc6qu8i","c_root_id_B":"gc61348","created_at_utc_A":1605299300,"created_at_utc_B":1605286660,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Because of the way Y chromosomes and MDNA are inherited marginal DNA for both tend to be overwhelmed by more popular DNA. This doesn't happened with other Chromosomes because those are recombined.","human_ref_B":"Maybe in r\/Askscience!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12640.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9y0weh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies? My toddler is gaga for trains. He threw a tantrum the other night because I wouldn't let him get on the train while we were waiting for his mother at the station. From my discussions with other parents and from an Onion article, this is apparently a common thing for children his age. He is not limited to his \"choo choo\"s though; he also loves airplanes, busses, trucks, cars and bikes, pretty much anything involved with human transportation. But all these technologies have only existed in the past couple hundred years or so, nor are they present in every contemporary society. Do toddlers in pre-industrial societies go nuts for anything? Did Roman tots point at all the carts going down the street? Did Viking tykes go nuts for longboats? Are there commonalities between or patterns across what toddlers obsess over?","c_root_id_A":"e9xnve3","c_root_id_B":"e9y51wa","created_at_utc_A":1542510283,"created_at_utc_B":1542531212,"score_A":36,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly answering your question but I just covered this in my modern European history class. What we consider a \u201cnormal\u201d childhood now, with toys, games, etc wasn\u2019t really a concept until the Enlightenment era and during that time period it was restricted to the upper class. Before that, at least in Europe, kids were treated as workers which was related to the fact that families were also working units. So my point is that children didn\u2019t have time or their imagination wasn\u2019t fostered to obsess over whatever version of trains they had at the time. I read this in a spread of primary sources in the Sherman west in the world textbook, but I just started thanksgiving break and left it at school.","human_ref_B":"There are very few writings from Ancient Rome about the daily life and thoughts of children and almost none focused on those under seven when they would start to socialize. But it should be safe to assume that children could be obsessed with anything you can think of. There weren't trains and airplanes, but there were horses, chariots, and ships. There weren't football stars, but there were famous athletes. There weren't movies, TV, and radio, but there were plays, concerts, and shows. And those are just some of the more \"exciting\" obsessions. Note: the following is focused on the children of relatively wealthy Roman citizens.] Today, many children are obsessed with animals, and we can see that in Ancient Rome too. Marcus Cornelius Fronto writing to update his son-in-law, Gaius Aufidius Victorinus, about Victorinus's young son, in circa A.D. 164: >He is very fond of grapes: it was the very first food he sucked down, and for whole days almost he did not cease licking a grape with his tongue... He is also devoted to little birds; he delights in chickens, young pigeons, and sparrows. I have often heard from those who were my tutors and masters that I had from my earliest infancy a passion for such things. [[source] See also: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3292469 There are mentions and some depictions of children playing all kinds of games, swimming, fishing, building sand castles, playing with dolls and toy soldiers, and playing all types of sport. And we can find examples of developing a fondness for leadership during childhood: >It is a topos of ancient biography that children who grow up to be powerful adults were often the leaders in games they played as children, thus predicting their future positions. Poor Rufrius Crispus played at being an emperor and a king, but Nero was his stepfather and this proved to have been a bad idea: he ended up drowned by his own slaves (Suet.Nero 35.5; see also Wiedemann 1989: 49\u201383 on imperial children). And on the negative side of obsession, there are writings about children heading for a life of excess and depravity concerning food, sex, violence, and money. Horace wrote in his *Satires* about his worry over his son hording knucklebones (analogous to jacks) and nuts that were won at play\/gambling. --- Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence. *Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome*. 2002. Routlege.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20929.0,"score_ratio":1.5277777778} {"post_id":"9y0weh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies? My toddler is gaga for trains. He threw a tantrum the other night because I wouldn't let him get on the train while we were waiting for his mother at the station. From my discussions with other parents and from an Onion article, this is apparently a common thing for children his age. He is not limited to his \"choo choo\"s though; he also loves airplanes, busses, trucks, cars and bikes, pretty much anything involved with human transportation. But all these technologies have only existed in the past couple hundred years or so, nor are they present in every contemporary society. Do toddlers in pre-industrial societies go nuts for anything? Did Roman tots point at all the carts going down the street? Did Viking tykes go nuts for longboats? Are there commonalities between or patterns across what toddlers obsess over?","c_root_id_A":"e9y51wa","c_root_id_B":"e9xu4aw","created_at_utc_A":1542531212,"created_at_utc_B":1542516803,"score_A":55,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are very few writings from Ancient Rome about the daily life and thoughts of children and almost none focused on those under seven when they would start to socialize. But it should be safe to assume that children could be obsessed with anything you can think of. There weren't trains and airplanes, but there were horses, chariots, and ships. There weren't football stars, but there were famous athletes. There weren't movies, TV, and radio, but there were plays, concerts, and shows. And those are just some of the more \"exciting\" obsessions. Note: the following is focused on the children of relatively wealthy Roman citizens.] Today, many children are obsessed with animals, and we can see that in Ancient Rome too. Marcus Cornelius Fronto writing to update his son-in-law, Gaius Aufidius Victorinus, about Victorinus's young son, in circa A.D. 164: >He is very fond of grapes: it was the very first food he sucked down, and for whole days almost he did not cease licking a grape with his tongue... He is also devoted to little birds; he delights in chickens, young pigeons, and sparrows. I have often heard from those who were my tutors and masters that I had from my earliest infancy a passion for such things. [[source] See also: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3292469 There are mentions and some depictions of children playing all kinds of games, swimming, fishing, building sand castles, playing with dolls and toy soldiers, and playing all types of sport. And we can find examples of developing a fondness for leadership during childhood: >It is a topos of ancient biography that children who grow up to be powerful adults were often the leaders in games they played as children, thus predicting their future positions. Poor Rufrius Crispus played at being an emperor and a king, but Nero was his stepfather and this proved to have been a bad idea: he ended up drowned by his own slaves (Suet.Nero 35.5; see also Wiedemann 1989: 49\u201383 on imperial children). And on the negative side of obsession, there are writings about children heading for a life of excess and depravity concerning food, sex, violence, and money. Horace wrote in his *Satires* about his worry over his son hording knucklebones (analogous to jacks) and nuts that were won at play\/gambling. --- Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence. *Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome*. 2002. Routlege.","human_ref_B":"The standard gauge for railroads derives from the specs for Roman chariots gliding along Roman ways, those masterpieces of civil engineering. How cool is that? That you might play with them, together with boys you never met from about 2000 years ago?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14409.0,"score_ratio":18.3333333333} {"post_id":"9y0weh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies? My toddler is gaga for trains. He threw a tantrum the other night because I wouldn't let him get on the train while we were waiting for his mother at the station. From my discussions with other parents and from an Onion article, this is apparently a common thing for children his age. He is not limited to his \"choo choo\"s though; he also loves airplanes, busses, trucks, cars and bikes, pretty much anything involved with human transportation. But all these technologies have only existed in the past couple hundred years or so, nor are they present in every contemporary society. Do toddlers in pre-industrial societies go nuts for anything? Did Roman tots point at all the carts going down the street? Did Viking tykes go nuts for longboats? Are there commonalities between or patterns across what toddlers obsess over?","c_root_id_A":"e9z2gut","c_root_id_B":"e9yw4sh","created_at_utc_A":1542560145,"created_at_utc_B":1542557276,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Some of the surviving children\u2019s toys from the viking age in Ireland include toy boats and animals such as a horse. This could suggest some obsession from kids around the 10th C. Ireland.","human_ref_B":"In pre industrial societies, children are engaged in chores\/work early on and pick up cultural knowledge, not through formal teaching, but through exposure. But that doesn't really answer your question about play and childhood obsessions. Of course, content of play is naturally going to relate to specific cultures and environments. Some common if not not universal themes are you will see girls playing with dolls and boys playing with implements of hunting and\/or war. Not necessarily exclusively, but this is generally true. Wish I knew more on the specific topic, but a couple of resources are here: The Association for the Study of Play Children's Play in Diverse Cultures Play and Cultural Context And, an excerpt from the last article is here: >Studies on play in different cultural contexts enlighten the various ways in which culture flows throughout play activities. The availability of time and space, of objects and playmates; adult role models and attitudes toward play are some of the contextual aspects that affect the frequency, duration and nature of children's play. In a South American Indian community, boys often play bow-and-arrows; boys and girls of varied ages dive and swim in the river and play chase around the village, with little or no adult supervision. They use primarily natural objects in their pretend play (i.e., sand, water, stone, plants). Urban children in large towns play more often with manufactured toys, at home, at school or playgroups, playgrounds or parks, usually with some adult supervision, especially when they are younger; locomotor play and chase play tend to occur in protected spaces. ​","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2869.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"9y0weh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies? My toddler is gaga for trains. He threw a tantrum the other night because I wouldn't let him get on the train while we were waiting for his mother at the station. From my discussions with other parents and from an Onion article, this is apparently a common thing for children his age. He is not limited to his \"choo choo\"s though; he also loves airplanes, busses, trucks, cars and bikes, pretty much anything involved with human transportation. But all these technologies have only existed in the past couple hundred years or so, nor are they present in every contemporary society. Do toddlers in pre-industrial societies go nuts for anything? Did Roman tots point at all the carts going down the street? Did Viking tykes go nuts for longboats? Are there commonalities between or patterns across what toddlers obsess over?","c_root_id_A":"e9z2gut","c_root_id_B":"e9xu4aw","created_at_utc_A":1542560145,"created_at_utc_B":1542516803,"score_A":17,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Some of the surviving children\u2019s toys from the viking age in Ireland include toy boats and animals such as a horse. This could suggest some obsession from kids around the 10th C. Ireland.","human_ref_B":"The standard gauge for railroads derives from the specs for Roman chariots gliding along Roman ways, those masterpieces of civil engineering. How cool is that? That you might play with them, together with boys you never met from about 2000 years ago?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":43342.0,"score_ratio":5.6666666667} {"post_id":"9y0weh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies? My toddler is gaga for trains. He threw a tantrum the other night because I wouldn't let him get on the train while we were waiting for his mother at the station. From my discussions with other parents and from an Onion article, this is apparently a common thing for children his age. He is not limited to his \"choo choo\"s though; he also loves airplanes, busses, trucks, cars and bikes, pretty much anything involved with human transportation. But all these technologies have only existed in the past couple hundred years or so, nor are they present in every contemporary society. Do toddlers in pre-industrial societies go nuts for anything? Did Roman tots point at all the carts going down the street? Did Viking tykes go nuts for longboats? Are there commonalities between or patterns across what toddlers obsess over?","c_root_id_A":"e9yw4sh","c_root_id_B":"e9xu4aw","created_at_utc_A":1542557276,"created_at_utc_B":1542516803,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In pre industrial societies, children are engaged in chores\/work early on and pick up cultural knowledge, not through formal teaching, but through exposure. But that doesn't really answer your question about play and childhood obsessions. Of course, content of play is naturally going to relate to specific cultures and environments. Some common if not not universal themes are you will see girls playing with dolls and boys playing with implements of hunting and\/or war. Not necessarily exclusively, but this is generally true. Wish I knew more on the specific topic, but a couple of resources are here: The Association for the Study of Play Children's Play in Diverse Cultures Play and Cultural Context And, an excerpt from the last article is here: >Studies on play in different cultural contexts enlighten the various ways in which culture flows throughout play activities. The availability of time and space, of objects and playmates; adult role models and attitudes toward play are some of the contextual aspects that affect the frequency, duration and nature of children's play. In a South American Indian community, boys often play bow-and-arrows; boys and girls of varied ages dive and swim in the river and play chase around the village, with little or no adult supervision. They use primarily natural objects in their pretend play (i.e., sand, water, stone, plants). Urban children in large towns play more often with manufactured toys, at home, at school or playgroups, playgrounds or parks, usually with some adult supervision, especially when they are younger; locomotor play and chase play tend to occur in protected spaces. ​","human_ref_B":"The standard gauge for railroads derives from the specs for Roman chariots gliding along Roman ways, those masterpieces of civil engineering. How cool is that? That you might play with them, together with boys you never met from about 2000 years ago?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40473.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"s6t536","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any evidence for \"lone wolf\" hunter-gatherers? Could a paleolithic person have survived on their own for extended periods? The idea of the lone wolf character is often romanticized, but how feasible would it be for a lone man to survive largely on his own in a stone age environment? I'd assume there would probably be some contact with other groups of people, but could a hunter with enough skills be able to reasonably survive largely alone? Is there any evidence for hunter-gatherers or other stone age persons having done this? For context, I'm writing fantasy stories set in stone age\/paleolithic settings, and recently had an idea for a lone wolf type of character. And while being fantasy, I can technically do whatever I want, I've been trying to do my research into various stone age and hunter-gatherer cultures and the Earth they would've lived on. Any information is helpful and appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"ht8xwvm","c_root_id_B":"ht8w0pa","created_at_utc_A":1642549783,"created_at_utc_B":1642548994,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together. Maybe the story requires speed and they have to go alone for that reason.","human_ref_B":"There are many cases in indigenous cultures where young men traditionally go on solo journeys for several months as part of initiation into adulthood: eg walkabouts for aboriginal Australians. People usually live in groups because they face greater danger living alone, but I believe it\u2019s common for hunter gatherers to possess the necessary tools to survive alone, when needed, and traditionally do so for limited periods.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":789.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi18wq5","c_root_id_B":"gi0sovt","created_at_utc_A":1609733413,"created_at_utc_B":1609724991,"score_A":23,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"The podcast \"Tides of history\" is currently doing a series about pre-history and the development of civilisation. The host is an history professor, and does a great job presenting the subject matter in a very interesting way. Just skip the interview episodes, he's kind of rubbish at interviews.","human_ref_B":"Sapiens is good for a popular audience, New Books in Anthropology is good if you want to know about what is happening in socio-cultural right now","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8422.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi18wq5","c_root_id_B":"gi0xddv","created_at_utc_A":1609733413,"created_at_utc_B":1609727353,"score_A":23,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The podcast \"Tides of history\" is currently doing a series about pre-history and the development of civilisation. The host is an history professor, and does a great job presenting the subject matter in a very interesting way. Just skip the interview episodes, he's kind of rubbish at interviews.","human_ref_B":"One of my favorites: https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/6J5jo82HvMgNdrqhNf2ITd?si=8shpjOuvQ5y64Ru3B4nRPw","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6060.0,"score_ratio":1.7692307692} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi18wq5","c_root_id_B":"gi0sm0s","created_at_utc_A":1609733413,"created_at_utc_B":1609724951,"score_A":23,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The podcast \"Tides of history\" is currently doing a series about pre-history and the development of civilisation. The host is an history professor, and does a great job presenting the subject matter in a very interesting way. Just skip the interview episodes, he's kind of rubbish at interviews.","human_ref_B":"I really enjoy a podcast called Sapiens, from sapiens.org","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8462.0,"score_ratio":2.5555555556} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi18wq5","c_root_id_B":"gi11fl4","created_at_utc_A":1609733413,"created_at_utc_B":1609729486,"score_A":23,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The podcast \"Tides of history\" is currently doing a series about pre-history and the development of civilisation. The host is an history professor, and does a great job presenting the subject matter in a very interesting way. Just skip the interview episodes, he's kind of rubbish at interviews.","human_ref_B":"The familiar strange","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3927.0,"score_ratio":5.75} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi0sovt","c_root_id_B":"gi0sm0s","created_at_utc_A":1609724991,"created_at_utc_B":1609724951,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Sapiens is good for a popular audience, New Books in Anthropology is good if you want to know about what is happening in socio-cultural right now","human_ref_B":"I really enjoy a podcast called Sapiens, from sapiens.org","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} {"post_id":"kpvqio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts to listen to?","c_root_id_A":"gi0sm0s","c_root_id_B":"gi0xddv","created_at_utc_A":1609724951,"created_at_utc_B":1609727353,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I really enjoy a podcast called Sapiens, from sapiens.org","human_ref_B":"One of my favorites: https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/6J5jo82HvMgNdrqhNf2ITd?si=8shpjOuvQ5y64Ru3B4nRPw","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2402.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"czu385","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I am an Anthro major who graduated in 2009 but did not continue in anthropology. What are some of the biggest changes or most exciting discoveries in the field over the last 10 years? Most of my classes\/areas of interest included Paleolithic Europe, human evolution, prehistoric art, primate biology. Did not gravitate to cultural anthropology beyond the one required class. I\u2019ve followed the big stories that make it to newspapers\/social media, but am curious to hear about the just as big but not quite headline worthy studies\/discoveries. Or the medium sized stories. Or just a small story that is so fascinating in a way only those with a passion for the subject may understand.","c_root_id_A":"ez1opzr","c_root_id_B":"ez1t0f4","created_at_utc_A":1567649485,"created_at_utc_B":1567650362,"score_A":28,"score_B":75,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d say the discovery of Homo denisovans in Siberia","human_ref_B":"Very recently, there was a discovery in western Idaho that pushed back our presence in the Americas to 16,000 years ago. That's roughly 1,500 years back from what was previously known, and it's a pretty big deal considering how much it further debunks the ice-free corridor theory. Here's an article https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/culture\/2019\/08\/coopers-landing-idaho-site-americas-oldest\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":877.0,"score_ratio":2.6785714286} {"post_id":"czu385","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I am an Anthro major who graduated in 2009 but did not continue in anthropology. What are some of the biggest changes or most exciting discoveries in the field over the last 10 years? Most of my classes\/areas of interest included Paleolithic Europe, human evolution, prehistoric art, primate biology. Did not gravitate to cultural anthropology beyond the one required class. I\u2019ve followed the big stories that make it to newspapers\/social media, but am curious to hear about the just as big but not quite headline worthy studies\/discoveries. Or the medium sized stories. Or just a small story that is so fascinating in a way only those with a passion for the subject may understand.","c_root_id_A":"ez2w1fj","c_root_id_B":"ez1opzr","created_at_utc_A":1567659018,"created_at_utc_B":1567649485,"score_A":63,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Our knowledge of hominin diversity continues to expand. Many new species have been named (although the validity of some of these is debated, on top of the usual lumper\/splitter divide), including new australopithicines (sediba, deiyremida) and Homo (naledi, luzonensis, denisovans). There's also been some spectacular new finds on previously known species (the new Au. anamenis cranium that was announced this week, the juvenile Au. afarensis partial skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia, the big boy Au. afarensis male partial skeleton from Woranso-Mille Ethiopia, and the long-awaited unveiling of \"Little Foot\" from Sterkfontein, South Africa. Researchers in Morocco presented skulls from Jebel Irhoud as earliest Homo Sapiens at \\~300kya. A bunch more of cool new early Homo stuff has come out of the Dmanisi site in the republic of Georgia. The discovery of additional hominin footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania is also huge, especially because they're much bigger than the ones excavated by Mary Leakey's team. Lesser known finds that have potentially huge impacts includes the \"Burtele Foot\" from Ethiopia that while contemporaneous with \"Lucy\" (3.4ma), shares a lot of affinities with the Ardipithecus ramidus foot, providing evidence of diversity\/experimentation in bipedality even in the Pliocene. DNA continues to revolutionize how we think about hominin dispersal and evolution, and to what degree we interbred with other hominin species. More sites have provided evidence of Pre-clovis peoples in the Americas, there was one in Idaho that was recently in the news. Nothing shocking date-wise, but further adding to the pile of evidence that humans took the coastal route around the glaciers to get into the Americas. debates about the earliest stone tools\/evidence of butchery by hominins continues to rage. Researchers working at Dikika, Ethiopia argued they found cut-marked bone at 3.3mya, but the evidence is very slim, and the methods shoddy. That has been continuously debated about for the last decade. There were also some \\~3mya pre-Oldowan tools (Lomekwian they call them) argued to have been found in Kenya as well, announced a couple years ago. but the oldest most definitive evidence still hovers around \\~2.6mya New finds at Olorgesaille, Kenya show Middle stone age artifacts and potential ochre use and trade networks further back than previously thought \\~300kya, which is really cool.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d say the discovery of Homo denisovans in Siberia","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9533.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"czu385","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I am an Anthro major who graduated in 2009 but did not continue in anthropology. What are some of the biggest changes or most exciting discoveries in the field over the last 10 years? Most of my classes\/areas of interest included Paleolithic Europe, human evolution, prehistoric art, primate biology. Did not gravitate to cultural anthropology beyond the one required class. I\u2019ve followed the big stories that make it to newspapers\/social media, but am curious to hear about the just as big but not quite headline worthy studies\/discoveries. Or the medium sized stories. Or just a small story that is so fascinating in a way only those with a passion for the subject may understand.","c_root_id_A":"ez29iuv","c_root_id_B":"ez2w1fj","created_at_utc_A":1567653690,"created_at_utc_B":1567659018,"score_A":8,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"Have you heard about Homo naledi?","human_ref_B":"Our knowledge of hominin diversity continues to expand. Many new species have been named (although the validity of some of these is debated, on top of the usual lumper\/splitter divide), including new australopithicines (sediba, deiyremida) and Homo (naledi, luzonensis, denisovans). There's also been some spectacular new finds on previously known species (the new Au. anamenis cranium that was announced this week, the juvenile Au. afarensis partial skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia, the big boy Au. afarensis male partial skeleton from Woranso-Mille Ethiopia, and the long-awaited unveiling of \"Little Foot\" from Sterkfontein, South Africa. Researchers in Morocco presented skulls from Jebel Irhoud as earliest Homo Sapiens at \\~300kya. A bunch more of cool new early Homo stuff has come out of the Dmanisi site in the republic of Georgia. The discovery of additional hominin footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania is also huge, especially because they're much bigger than the ones excavated by Mary Leakey's team. Lesser known finds that have potentially huge impacts includes the \"Burtele Foot\" from Ethiopia that while contemporaneous with \"Lucy\" (3.4ma), shares a lot of affinities with the Ardipithecus ramidus foot, providing evidence of diversity\/experimentation in bipedality even in the Pliocene. DNA continues to revolutionize how we think about hominin dispersal and evolution, and to what degree we interbred with other hominin species. More sites have provided evidence of Pre-clovis peoples in the Americas, there was one in Idaho that was recently in the news. Nothing shocking date-wise, but further adding to the pile of evidence that humans took the coastal route around the glaciers to get into the Americas. debates about the earliest stone tools\/evidence of butchery by hominins continues to rage. Researchers working at Dikika, Ethiopia argued they found cut-marked bone at 3.3mya, but the evidence is very slim, and the methods shoddy. That has been continuously debated about for the last decade. There were also some \\~3mya pre-Oldowan tools (Lomekwian they call them) argued to have been found in Kenya as well, announced a couple years ago. but the oldest most definitive evidence still hovers around \\~2.6mya New finds at Olorgesaille, Kenya show Middle stone age artifacts and potential ochre use and trade networks further back than previously thought \\~300kya, which is really cool.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5328.0,"score_ratio":7.875} {"post_id":"czu385","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I am an Anthro major who graduated in 2009 but did not continue in anthropology. What are some of the biggest changes or most exciting discoveries in the field over the last 10 years? Most of my classes\/areas of interest included Paleolithic Europe, human evolution, prehistoric art, primate biology. Did not gravitate to cultural anthropology beyond the one required class. I\u2019ve followed the big stories that make it to newspapers\/social media, but am curious to hear about the just as big but not quite headline worthy studies\/discoveries. Or the medium sized stories. Or just a small story that is so fascinating in a way only those with a passion for the subject may understand.","c_root_id_A":"ez29iuv","c_root_id_B":"ez3orqs","created_at_utc_A":1567653690,"created_at_utc_B":1567671890,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Have you heard about Homo naledi?","human_ref_B":"The field of ancient DNA has really taken off in the past decade and it is incredible how much we're learning through that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18200.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"czu385","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"I am an Anthro major who graduated in 2009 but did not continue in anthropology. What are some of the biggest changes or most exciting discoveries in the field over the last 10 years? Most of my classes\/areas of interest included Paleolithic Europe, human evolution, prehistoric art, primate biology. Did not gravitate to cultural anthropology beyond the one required class. I\u2019ve followed the big stories that make it to newspapers\/social media, but am curious to hear about the just as big but not quite headline worthy studies\/discoveries. Or the medium sized stories. Or just a small story that is so fascinating in a way only those with a passion for the subject may understand.","c_root_id_A":"ez3orqs","c_root_id_B":"ez31zjx","created_at_utc_A":1567671890,"created_at_utc_B":1567660285,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The field of ancient DNA has really taken off in the past decade and it is incredible how much we're learning through that.","human_ref_B":"I recently read that some fluted points found in the PNW are distinctly similar to those found in the ancient far east, specifically Japan iirc. Can't seem to find a link, sorry. If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing if not anthro?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11605.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"wkx5hr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why are there \u201cwoman in white\u201d legends across so many seperated cultures","c_root_id_A":"ijqczzm","c_root_id_B":"ijpz9v9","created_at_utc_A":1660146478,"created_at_utc_B":1660141095,"score_A":94,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I would say its due to universally recognizable themes. They are young women who died in distress. Betrayed by lover (husband or otherwise), wearing white\\* a symbol of a broken marriage or the lost opportunity for one, sometimes killing their children (also could be attributed to what we now know as post-partum psychosis) and then dying by suicide. Due to the intense emotions around her death, her spirit wanders and tempts unfaithful young men to their death. Women being cheated on or treated poorly by their lovers happens across cultures. Women going through post partum psychosis is a culture-agnostic medical condition. Hopeful men following women into dark corners I would say is commonly recognizable. Known abusers are found killed in the woods and its easier to blame the local ghost than to actually find the killer, similar to 'small town justice.' And then a universal 'scary woman in the woods is going to eat you', to keep children obedient and not wander into the woods. I'm more surprised that this motif isn't listed in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index. The Motif-Index of Folk-Literature categories E200\u2013E599 seem to have some possibilities, but I don't have a copy and can't find summaries at this moment. Edit: This is what I get trying to info dump before a meeting. \\*White is a symbol of purity\/spirituality and marriage in western cultures. Wearing white as a ghost represents the distortion of such. Lover out of wedlock, unfaithful husband, killer mother, etc. Ghost wants to return to purity\/marriage, but cannot. In Eastern cultures white represents mourning, death, misfortune, which fits within theme.","human_ref_B":"Could you provide some examples?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5383.0,"score_ratio":4.9473684211} {"post_id":"wkx5hr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why are there \u201cwoman in white\u201d legends across so many seperated cultures","c_root_id_A":"ijqenj3","c_root_id_B":"ijpz9v9","created_at_utc_A":1660147101,"created_at_utc_B":1660141095,"score_A":86,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"The missing element here is: what is the historical age of these various legends, and how many shared examples of it can be attributed to sharing of ideas \/ stories from cultural interaction?","human_ref_B":"Could you provide some examples?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6006.0,"score_ratio":4.5263157895} {"post_id":"rbfm8k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"I'm a woman in the Bronze Age with no special access to prestige items. Do I own a knife? What kind? What do I use it for? *Note: I* *was told* *by* u\/MolotovCollective *to post this here instead of* r\/AskHistorians *because it deals with questions material culture is better suited to answer than written histories.* The impression I've gotten is that copper and bronze knives were prestige items, not necessarily something that every household would have used for cutting meat or fibers, but what about stone knives? Obsidian blades? How common a tool was a knife for the average person? Do we know? I've read about the mass production of bone tools, and I imagine that stone knives were relatively common, but were they necessary for every individual, or were they the sort of thing a community leader might have and allow to be used as needed, like how bread ovens were basically one-per-community? I'm trying to get a sense of when metal knives became a common household \/ personal item and what would have been normal before that time. Also, I realize that \"the Bronze Age\" is pretty broad, but I'm interested in broad trends and would be happy with an answer about any region, urban or rural, settled or nomadic. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hnom0wf","c_root_id_B":"hno77kx","created_at_utc_A":1638939297,"created_at_utc_B":1638931214,"score_A":62,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":">The impression I've gotten is that copper and bronze knives were prestige items, not necessarily something that every household would have used for cutting meat or fibers, but what about stone knives? Obsidian blades? How common a tool was a knife for the average person? Do we know? Just on this point, you might have to consider how broad your definition of a 'knife' is. A lot of the work that you might do with a pocket knife in the modern era could be done with a flake or blade knocked straight off a larger piece of flint or obsidian, and hardly retouched at all - perhaps a bit of blunting on the back edge so you didn't cut your hand when applying pressure. These were manufactured in great volume and probably used by a wide range of people for a wide range of tasks rather than being carefully curated prestige items. The edge of a simple freshly struck flake or blade is often much sharper than a carefully retouched flint dagger. Common toolkits vary significantly by location and time (and the Bronze Age is defined very differently in different areas) but a good source on flintwork in Bronze Age Britain, which confirms the continued use of simple flakes and blades for basic cutting tasks (as well as more elaborate discoidal knives and plano-convex knives) is Chris Butler's 'Prehistoric Flintwork'.","human_ref_B":"There are lots of daggers and knives in Bronze Age burial sites, for example Jones, Andy M., and Henrietta Quinnell. \"Daggers in the West: Early Bronze Age daggers and knives in the south-west Peninsula.\" Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Vol. 79. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Most often we see knives and daggers as grave goods for men, as in >If grave R24 can be identified as burial of a high-ranking man, probably a chieftain, theremaining graves (R2, R5, R6, and R9) seem to be the funerary area related to \u201cretainers\u201d(Branigan 1975: 45). Two features need to be stressed. First, these tombs are clustered at theeastern side of the necropolis and they are also located around the richest grave (R7), that is,its putative chieftain grave (Branigan 1975: 45). Secondly, all tombs are related to male adultswho were buried with a panoply consistent of spearhead and dagger. > >With regard to the female burials, four of them (R1, R4, pyre R15b, and R17A) containedsilver and gold ornaments (gold necklace, gold earring, and silver bangle; fig. 5.8:2). Like themale burials, the female graves are characterized by the selective presence of personal objectsand materials of high status. Moreover, it is worth noting that two female tombs (R1 and R26)are the largest tumuli of the necropolis, suggesting the probable link between energy investment in tomb construction and the emerge of \u201cstatus-consciousness\u201d elite > >Laneri, Nicola. \"Performing death: social analysis of funerary traditions in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.\" Oriental Institute seminars. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2007. Similarly, in Greener, Aaron. \"The symbolic and social meanings of the Intermediate Bronze Age copper daggers.\" Palestine exploration quarterly 144.1 (2012): 33-46. >\"Of the 22 Jericho skeletons whose sex could be determined, 16 were men (Kenyon 1965, 664\u2013665; Shay 1983, 26). Shay further examined the excavation report to identify the approximate age of 46 individuals (among them are 18 of the ones whose sex could be determined; Shay 1981, 62\u20134). Shay recognised that adult men were exclusively provided with daggers and other \u2018valuable\u2019 artifacts. Women\u2019s burials, on the other hand, were provided with a more limited selection of items, most of them of a domestic nature, such as spindle whorls and small spouted pots. These distinctions were suggested already by Kenyon who wrote that the tombs with daggers belonged to men and that the pins (and possibly beads) found in the tombs should be associated with female burials (Kenyon 1956, 46; 1960, 180).\" So in these cases -- which are funerary rite, rather than the day to day utility- the men have daggers and knives and the women don't. Does that tell you anything much even about these people in their daily lives? Not really. And you're asking about an \"average woman\" -- who probably doesn't leave us a grave with valuables at all, so we couldn't know. Knives were valuable, burying them a luxury; if a woman who wasn't well off had died, one might guess that that valuable would have gone to someone else, rather than being burieds, but who can say? In general, the idea of \"average person\" obscures more than it informs-- look instead to the graves we do have, none of whom are \"average\" -- because they've survived for three thousand years. So I'd imagine that some women had them, and some of them are surviving in some graves, but no way to know what \"average\" means, if it means anything ago all. So, very generally, in bronze age burials, when we can associate daggers or knives as grave goods to human remains we can identify (already a big filter), it is more often to a male. That doesn't tell us what people walked around with in their daily lives.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8083.0,"score_ratio":1.24} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz77ilu","c_root_id_B":"fz7dkai","created_at_utc_A":1595688336,"created_at_utc_B":1595691865,"score_A":107,"score_B":128,"human_ref_A":"Gloria Jean Frank is a First Nations woman who wrote a fairly well known article discussing some issues she had with the exhibits about her people in a history museum. The curator also wrote his own response to her, although I think that was it for their back and forth it\u2019s still discussed in museum studies classes at least. link","human_ref_B":"I visited Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and there is a person at the Rapa Nui Museum who's job is basically to explain to people that Jared Diamond's book \"Collapse\" is a racist, imperialist screed. It completely ignores European Colonial contact, decades of slave raids, attacks on the island by Europeans raiding for food or valuables, epidemics, cultural shifts brought on by Europeans bringing other Polynesians to the island and leaving them there, and all other effects of colonial contact, and creates a false narrative that the island's ecology collapsed because the native population mismanaged their resources. The people at the museum are friendly and patient about it, and so are most of the tour guides, but go around generally talking about Diamond and you're likely to get punched.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3529.0,"score_ratio":1.1962616822} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz7dkai","c_root_id_B":"fz6uesx","created_at_utc_A":1595691865,"created_at_utc_B":1595678896,"score_A":128,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"I visited Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and there is a person at the Rapa Nui Museum who's job is basically to explain to people that Jared Diamond's book \"Collapse\" is a racist, imperialist screed. It completely ignores European Colonial contact, decades of slave raids, attacks on the island by Europeans raiding for food or valuables, epidemics, cultural shifts brought on by Europeans bringing other Polynesians to the island and leaving them there, and all other effects of colonial contact, and creates a false narrative that the island's ecology collapsed because the native population mismanaged their resources. The people at the museum are friendly and patient about it, and so are most of the tour guides, but go around generally talking about Diamond and you're likely to get punched.","human_ref_B":"Vine Deloria has great commentary and criticism about North American anthropologists and Native American tribes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12969.0,"score_ratio":2.3272727273} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz6uesx","c_root_id_B":"fz77ilu","created_at_utc_A":1595678896,"created_at_utc_B":1595688336,"score_A":55,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"Vine Deloria has great commentary and criticism about North American anthropologists and Native American tribes.","human_ref_B":"Gloria Jean Frank is a First Nations woman who wrote a fairly well known article discussing some issues she had with the exhibits about her people in a history museum. The curator also wrote his own response to her, although I think that was it for their back and forth it\u2019s still discussed in museum studies classes at least. link","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9440.0,"score_ratio":1.9454545455} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz7jfba","c_root_id_B":"fz6uesx","created_at_utc_A":1595695135,"created_at_utc_B":1595678896,"score_A":87,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"I'm one of the unwashed that took exactly one anthropology class at university, but I still think about the cognitive experience of reading Body Ritual Among the Nacirema for the first time. The professor sold it straight faced as a typical reading assignment and it sailed right over the heads of the majority of the class (me included).","human_ref_B":"Vine Deloria has great commentary and criticism about North American anthropologists and Native American tribes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16239.0,"score_ratio":1.5818181818} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz7iuot","c_root_id_B":"fz7jfba","created_at_utc_A":1595694819,"created_at_utc_B":1595695135,"score_A":18,"score_B":87,"human_ref_A":"I'm sure there was no intent, but \"natives\" in this context is a pretty loaded term due to its dehumanising use by colonial powers who used their cultural differences as justification for forced conversion and removal of autonomy. \"People\" would have been a better word to use.","human_ref_B":"I'm one of the unwashed that took exactly one anthropology class at university, but I still think about the cognitive experience of reading Body Ritual Among the Nacirema for the first time. The professor sold it straight faced as a typical reading assignment and it sailed right over the heads of the majority of the class (me included).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":316.0,"score_ratio":4.8333333333} {"post_id":"hxkwlv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has there been any natives who respond to what anthropologists say about their culture? Anthropologists write about foreign cultures. Malinowski writes about Trobriand islanders. Geertz writes about Balinese. Ferguson writes about Thaba-Tseka. Has any of those natives write back responding to what the anthropologists wrote?","c_root_id_A":"fz7odkm","c_root_id_B":"fz7iuot","created_at_utc_A":1595697811,"created_at_utc_B":1595694819,"score_A":26,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"~~Seconding \"Here come the anthros\" by Deloria.~~ edit: My mistake, \"Here come the anthros\" is actually by Cecil King. Still a good read. Audra Simpson is a mohawk \/ Kanien\u02bckeh\u00e1\ua789ka' anthropologist who works with her own people. Her book *Mohawk Interruptus* is widely-cited in the field. Michel Rolph Trouillot is Haitian, not indigenous, but wrote his first book in Creole, and his essay \"The Savage Slot\" in *Global Transformations* tackles the question you raise from an anti-colonial perspective. bell hooks is Black and US-based, not indigenous, but her critique of *Writing Culture* in her book *Yearning* is brilliant, is exactly about the question you raise and absolutely worth tracking down. *Writing Culture* itself is an influential work by largely-white anthropologists addressing power dynamics between anthropologists and the people they write about.","human_ref_B":"I'm sure there was no intent, but \"natives\" in this context is a pretty loaded term due to its dehumanising use by colonial powers who used their cultural differences as justification for forced conversion and removal of autonomy. \"People\" would have been a better word to use.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2992.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"iihxuc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the Romans realize they had shared linguistic heritage with the Indo-European peoples they met\/conquered, or is PIE really a relatively new discovery?","c_root_id_A":"g385xjb","c_root_id_B":"g38dyqy","created_at_utc_A":1598693436,"created_at_utc_B":1598701688,"score_A":15,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m terribly sorry but I can\u2019t remember the source where I first picked up the notion of a common ancestral language. It had to do with European colonialism where scholars now had unprecedented and relatively safe access to resources to put the puzzle of a common language together. Something to do with a British officer\/amateur linguist making the observation that several words in Sanskrit and Latin were very similar despite the two languages being separated in two different parts of the world.","human_ref_B":"I asked a related question before, and someone told me that in Julius's book on the Gaulic Wars he says that he and his comrades spoke Greek to each other because the celtic people they were fighting would have a harder time figuring out what they were saying. Apparently latin and Celtic languages of mainland Europe were quite similar.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8252.0,"score_ratio":2.5333333333} {"post_id":"cgsrgh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has the notion of a \"walkable distance\" in cities changed through history and if so, how? Transportation seems to be a very important aspect in how cities evolve; I would at least guess that the development of, say, streetcars plays a big role in the creation of industrial and residential districts as opposed to a very compact and centralized city model, automobiles later allowing suburbanization and so on. It seems reasonable to assume that as different modes of transportation evolve the attitude towards walking changes somewhat as it is always an alternative but often not a very efficient one \u2013 I would assume people usually don't walk, say, 10 kilometers from their home to their jobs if a more or less direct bus line covers it, but it would be much more likely if the distance was, say, 1 kilometer. This is essentially my question: how far would the average person be willing to walk in cities and has this notion of a walkable distance changed with different modes of transportation being introduced into society? If so, is the distance actually increasing or decreasing and is the change probably more related to available alternatives or factors such as the quality of roads?","c_root_id_A":"eulwc3s","c_root_id_B":"eukrtqa","created_at_utc_A":1563908379,"created_at_utc_B":1563892346,"score_A":53,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"This isn't a complete answer, but I know that, in \"Victorian London,\" a book by historian Liza Picard, she repeatedly notes that Victorian-era Londoners thought very little of walking \"astonishing\" distances that we would not consider walkable today. I hope that might be helpful!","human_ref_B":"You'll probably get good responses here but you may also want to ask this over at \/r\/urbanplanning as well","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16033.0,"score_ratio":1.5588235294} {"post_id":"cgsrgh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Has the notion of a \"walkable distance\" in cities changed through history and if so, how? Transportation seems to be a very important aspect in how cities evolve; I would at least guess that the development of, say, streetcars plays a big role in the creation of industrial and residential districts as opposed to a very compact and centralized city model, automobiles later allowing suburbanization and so on. It seems reasonable to assume that as different modes of transportation evolve the attitude towards walking changes somewhat as it is always an alternative but often not a very efficient one \u2013 I would assume people usually don't walk, say, 10 kilometers from their home to their jobs if a more or less direct bus line covers it, but it would be much more likely if the distance was, say, 1 kilometer. This is essentially my question: how far would the average person be willing to walk in cities and has this notion of a walkable distance changed with different modes of transportation being introduced into society? If so, is the distance actually increasing or decreasing and is the change probably more related to available alternatives or factors such as the quality of roads?","c_root_id_A":"eukrtqa","c_root_id_B":"eumg30i","created_at_utc_A":1563892346,"created_at_utc_B":1563915270,"score_A":34,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"You'll probably get good responses here but you may also want to ask this over at \/r\/urbanplanning as well","human_ref_B":"This question really caught my attention. I started as an undergrad in Anthropology looking at transportation systems across cultures and then transitioned that into a Masters in Urban Planning specializing in Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation. My expertise has largely focused in on how transportation systems impact public health and over time I drifted further from Anthropology, so a lot of my input here will mostly be anecdotal commentary from studies I've seen over the years. Apologies for the incoming rant, there's a TL:DR at the end. Unfortunately there is a lot more nuance to the general question you're asking and so there is no short answer. There is no real consensus to what the average person would be willing to walk because of all the other factors you mentioned. Different modes of transportation, quality of roads, changes in technology, etc. all factor in to the walkability of an area. All of those things impact the culture of a region's transportation system in different ways, which creates a kind of feedback loop for attitudes towards walking. Ex: attitudes towards a reasonable walking distance in NYC will be vastly different than someplace just an hour away like Kingston, NY - and those attitudes will be different from places like Paris, Mumbai, Hong Kong, etc. Each individual city will have factors like the quality of its transit system, climate, quality of sidewalks, cost of car ownership, cultural values, etc. When you really get down to the details those perceptions can even change on a neighborhood to neighborhood basis - think of the differences in walkability between a place like Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan near Central Park. Behavioral psych plays a big role in walking attitudes: if the buildings are too tall or facades along the street aren't permeable it can lead to subconscious feelings of anxiety that dissuade people from walking further. I had a professor that used to say that being a pedestrian is \"death by a thousand of tiny cuts\" - the fine details matter. Things like shade on the street, feeling safe while crossing intersections, or having interesting buildings to look at all impact how far a person is willing to walk. For more on this look at anything published by Jan Gehl or generally look into human scale design principles. I also think your comment about the efficiency of walking could be interpreted as slightly ethnocentric - cultural context matters here. Efficiency from an energy expenditure standpoint is vastly different from efficiency from a time perspective. A car might get you someplace in half the time but think about all the energy being used to transport the additional 3,000lbs of metal those couple of miles with you - not very efficient. Does the society you are looking at value time, the environment, public health, public space, etc.? I look at the Netherlands as a good case study for this. Car ownership in the Netherlands is about on par with car ownership in the U.S., yet nearly 60% of all trips are taken by bicycle there. This was the result of a cultural protest in the 70's where residents decided they placed a higher priority on road safety than getting around quickly. This led to infrastructure investments for bicycling over time and now most dutch residents have no idea that their bicycling culture is even unique. They have good roads, good cars, and cold seasons which would suggest a high rate of driving, yet they still bike everywhere. TL;DR: yes, attitudes towards reasonable walking distances certainly change over time and also across geographies. But there is no one direction in which they're changing (increasing distance vs decreasing) and no single reason why. This is precisely what makes it such an interesting field to study. There are infinite layers of context that matter and each city is unique in its history, design, culture, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22924.0,"score_ratio":1.4411764706} {"post_id":"m9yuhs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are women expected to have long hair and men have short hair?","c_root_id_A":"grqpgka","c_root_id_B":"grs0ifb","created_at_utc_A":1616361293,"created_at_utc_B":1616386315,"score_A":15,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/63p3cl\/how_did_the_idea_of_men_having_short_hair_women\/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share","human_ref_B":"American forefathers wore ornate wigs. Many women in Africa shave their heads. Mongolian men keep their hair very long. As did men in medieval Japan. Monks in medieval Europe would shave the tops of their heads. So your question is unanswerable, because it is built on faulty assumptions. But as to why it's become common in the western world for the last century... the invention of shock absorbing helmets, gas masks, and the prevalence of lice in the trenches made short hair and a clean shave the normal mo in every army during two world wars that encompassed hundreds of millions of men for decades","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25022.0,"score_ratio":1.0666666667} {"post_id":"pkgmka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is it likely that some of our oldest customs and traditions may have originated in prior species of human, then adopted by homo sapiens?","c_root_id_A":"hc3tauf","c_root_id_B":"hc5mmxw","created_at_utc_A":1631135134,"created_at_utc_B":1631171414,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s no way to track this, but there\u2019s really no way to refute this. One thing about anthropology is that you can\u2019t think like these people did, so it is impossible to determine the why. There is evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead and included grave goods (implying some degree of spirituality), but there is no way to determine if this is why modern humans do the same. There are a number of things that happened globally that occurred independently, but there is really no way to determine the impact of customs from other groups on Homo sapiens.","human_ref_B":"Approaching the question from a biological perspective, we might flag any behavior seen early on in both sapiens and Neanderthals. When two closely related groups share physical features, it is generally assumed their last common ancestor also shared that feature. Sometimes however, similarities do arise due to convergence and, in the case of behavior, it\u2019s difficult to know what information may have transmitted between the two species. There is cranial morphological evidence for linguistic capability in erectus. Given a broad interpretation where traditions constitute behaviors that are learned rather than genetically inherited, language could be a candidate for a pre-sapiens tradition. Despite a paucity of material evidence, it also seems likely that erectus created rafts or boats, so some sort of maritime tradition such as weaving reed boats may be a practice that predates our species. Though contested, some argue that our reduced sexual dimorphism as compared to many other primates suggests that fairly monogamous pair-bonding has been a dominant mating pattern for basically our entire genus. If I\u2019m not mistaken it\u2019s in Australopithecus that reduced sexual dimorphism becomes apparent. Other behaviors I would think of as potential candidates would include the use of medicinal and culinary herbs (there is evidence of Neanderthals drinking chamomile tea for example), decorative use of red ochre and the punishment of antisocial conduct.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36280.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"dbiqtr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do the Indo-European and Mesopotamian\/Semitic religions share a myth about a storm god fighting a serpent? My favorite archetypal myth is that of the storm or thunderer god facing off and defeating a giant serpent or dragon. A variation of this myth occurs in practically all Indo-European religions and is most likely occured in the theorized Proto-Indo-European mythology. Thor fighting Jormunandr in the Germanic mythos, the Hittite storm god Tarhunt slayed the serpent Illuyanka, Zeus and Typhon, Perun and Veles in Slavic mythology, Indra and Vrita in the Vedic religion and many more variations. The gods I just mentioned were all thunder\/storm gods in their respective mythologies and they all killed a serpent in their stories. A similar myth exists in the religions of the ancient Near East. Hadad Ba'al was a storm and rain god in the Canaanite and Mesopotamian religion. Hadad Ba'al fought and defeated Lotan, a sea serpent who was the servant of the sea god Yam. A varation of this myth is als found in the Hebrew religion with Yahweh fighting the Leviathan. Yahweh had some storm god qualities and an association with thunder. I initially figured that the near East adapted the myth from the Hittites, who entered Anatolia around 2000 BC and took over the lands of the Hatti and the Hurrians. However it seems to be that this myth also occurred amongst Hurrians and Hatti. I now think it was a myth that originated in the Proto-Indo-European Mythology, which was most likely practiced by nomadic pastoralists of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. These people used horse carts and were really mobile, which lead to an expansion of their culture. The Uruk period in Mesopotamia started in 4500 BC and lasted until 3100 BC. During this same period the Kvalynhsk culture of the Pontic steppe developed into the Yamnaya culture, which around 3300 BC started the initial waves of the Indo-European migrations. Given their regional proximity and the mobility of the steppe pastoralists, there certainly could have been contact between these early cultures around that time, and maybe this is what lead to the existence of a Storm god vs Dragon Serpent story in both Indo-European and ancient Near Eastern religions. These are my thoughts on this subject, what I want to know is what are the main theories for why these two cultures share this myth, if there are any? Did the Mesopotamian adopted this myth from interactions with Indo-European cultures or vice versa? Or is it actually a case of a myth which independently developed amongst two separate cultures? I also posted this question in \/r\/askhistorians which hopefully results in an interesting response.","c_root_id_A":"f23jz31","c_root_id_B":"f23jykc","created_at_utc_A":1569928408,"created_at_utc_B":1569928391,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I don't know for sure, but cultural anthropologists would say that the reason is probably due to cultural proximity and contact rather than \"biology\" or the \"collective unconscious\". I would avoid calling this kind of \"mythic theme\" or \"mytheme\" an \"archetype\". If there is that large of a similarity, then it is hard to imagine independent development. It seems that you have answered your own question when you talk about their regional proximity","human_ref_B":"Well I\u2019ve heard of this being referred to as the Chaoskampf and I\u2019ve also seen it being broader as an event with more of a sky god in general fighting a lizard or serpent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"dbiqtr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why do the Indo-European and Mesopotamian\/Semitic religions share a myth about a storm god fighting a serpent? My favorite archetypal myth is that of the storm or thunderer god facing off and defeating a giant serpent or dragon. A variation of this myth occurs in practically all Indo-European religions and is most likely occured in the theorized Proto-Indo-European mythology. Thor fighting Jormunandr in the Germanic mythos, the Hittite storm god Tarhunt slayed the serpent Illuyanka, Zeus and Typhon, Perun and Veles in Slavic mythology, Indra and Vrita in the Vedic religion and many more variations. The gods I just mentioned were all thunder\/storm gods in their respective mythologies and they all killed a serpent in their stories. A similar myth exists in the religions of the ancient Near East. Hadad Ba'al was a storm and rain god in the Canaanite and Mesopotamian religion. Hadad Ba'al fought and defeated Lotan, a sea serpent who was the servant of the sea god Yam. A varation of this myth is als found in the Hebrew religion with Yahweh fighting the Leviathan. Yahweh had some storm god qualities and an association with thunder. I initially figured that the near East adapted the myth from the Hittites, who entered Anatolia around 2000 BC and took over the lands of the Hatti and the Hurrians. However it seems to be that this myth also occurred amongst Hurrians and Hatti. I now think it was a myth that originated in the Proto-Indo-European Mythology, which was most likely practiced by nomadic pastoralists of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. These people used horse carts and were really mobile, which lead to an expansion of their culture. The Uruk period in Mesopotamia started in 4500 BC and lasted until 3100 BC. During this same period the Kvalynhsk culture of the Pontic steppe developed into the Yamnaya culture, which around 3300 BC started the initial waves of the Indo-European migrations. Given their regional proximity and the mobility of the steppe pastoralists, there certainly could have been contact between these early cultures around that time, and maybe this is what lead to the existence of a Storm god vs Dragon Serpent story in both Indo-European and ancient Near Eastern religions. These are my thoughts on this subject, what I want to know is what are the main theories for why these two cultures share this myth, if there are any? Did the Mesopotamian adopted this myth from interactions with Indo-European cultures or vice versa? Or is it actually a case of a myth which independently developed amongst two separate cultures? I also posted this question in \/r\/askhistorians which hopefully results in an interesting response.","c_root_id_A":"f242y0k","c_root_id_B":"f23jykc","created_at_utc_A":1569943711,"created_at_utc_B":1569928391,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This may be more of a human thing: Native American Tribes mostly in the Northeast have myths of thunderbird fighting the great horned serpent. https:\/\/www.legendsofamerica.com\/thunderbird-native-american\/","human_ref_B":"Well I\u2019ve heard of this being referred to as the Chaoskampf and I\u2019ve also seen it being broader as an event with more of a sky god in general fighting a lizard or serpent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15320.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"epf5pu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did early humans start wearing clothes as a mean to warm up because of their lack of fur and excess body fat, or did they lose the need for these two over time because of the clothes they started wearing ?","c_root_id_A":"fekdya7","c_root_id_B":"feklwg5","created_at_utc_A":1579198038,"created_at_utc_B":1579202774,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"So if the out of Africa theory is true then the hair loss would\u2019ve occurred over time because those who couldn\u2019t let out heat as effectively would be selected against by nature. Hair by the point of Homo and probably earlier genuses is much too sparse for keeping in heat and probably serves more of a tactile sensory purpose. As humans moved out of Africa into northern areas there would become the need for clothing. Humans have been behaviorally modern for ~50KYA. It\u2019s thought that sowing tighter clothing, jewelry, and many other early clothing was inspired by Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis prior to us being in those regions. Neanderthals and Sapiens split potentially due to the Sahara?? And differences in temperature were responsible for many adaptive changes. Source: tutored an intro physical anthropology class","human_ref_B":"The genetic data from lice divergence indicate a date of 170,000 years ago for the adoption of clothing. Initially, a date of around 80,000 years ago was reported, but subsequent more careful analysis pushed the date back. I apologize in advance for the production quality (this was only the second video I ever made), but I did make a video about this startling discovery, and it\u2019s here if anyone is interested: https:\/\/youtu.be\/yTVgv7ScXwk","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4736.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"q0s58a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"The Darien Gap of Panama is so inhospitable to human settlement that even in 2021 we still cannot manage to build so much as a highway across it. In pre-columbian societies was it also known as a \"border\" between empires where few dared to travel?","c_root_id_A":"hfac21h","c_root_id_B":"hfac7t2","created_at_utc_A":1633302850,"created_at_utc_B":1633302925,"score_A":42,"score_B":405,"human_ref_A":"it's more like no one wants to build a highway through it. it is an incredibly dangerous route for migrants but tens of thousands do it.. drug runners have used it for years. so too colombian guerillas. here's an interesting piece from outside from a few years ago. the guna lived in there in pre-columbian times. so too the embera. meantime, the mayan empire didn't stretch down to that region and the incan empire didn't stretch that far north so having it as a border is kind of a moot point.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure I agree with your claim that \"it's so inhospitable to human settlement\" that we can't even build a road across it. What you're really saying is that it's inhospitable to **roads**, not to people. Plenty of indigenous people live in the Darien gap, and have lived there since times immemorial. The Embera- Wounaan people live there, as do some Kuna-speaking groups. People have lived there for thousands of years. This is a fairly resource rich part of the rainforest. There are plenty of food-bearing trees and plants, and the rivers are chock full of fish. And there are even patches of land (especially towards higher ground in the west) that can be farmed. It's capable of supporting a fair sized population, and it does. The problem with roads is that most of the width of the Darien gap is marshland, which turns extremely swampy in the rainy season. People who live here tend to build their huts on high ground, and even then, the huts are raised on stilts to remain above the water level when it floods. But traveling is not hard even without roads, because locals travel by canoe over the numerous rivers in the region. The western (Pacific) side of the gap has mountains, part of the American cordillera - the range of mountains that runs all the way from Alaska down to the tip of South America. The mountains are rather patchy though, going from only a couple hundred feet to over 6000 feet in altitude, so they are more like a mix of mountains and marsh, which is also pretty bad terrain for building roads. But people can live there just fine, and in fact, those mountains are also populated with indigenous people. In modern times there have also been political problems, namely FARC guerillas fighting the Colombian government who use the area as their hideout, and the funneling of the south-to-north drug traffic which has to pass through the gap. This makes it a risky place for tourism. I don't know if it was a \"barrier in pre-Colombian societies\". In terms of human habitation, it's no worse than plenty of places in the Amazon rainforest that were inhabited by indigenous people, just as the Darien gap was. It wasn't a barrier to the locals who lived there. It may have been a barrier to larger, more urbanized empires. If you can't build a road there, you can't build a city. Places to farm that don't get flooded are scanty. It has little economic value for farming or urbanization, but it's fine for supporting hunter-gatherer populations, as it's done in the past and does now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":75.0,"score_ratio":9.6428571429} {"post_id":"jjtqv8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How's impactul is Corona compared to other \"flashbulb memories\" like 9\/11 and Pearl Harbor? Is it even close to that culturally intense, is it worse? Etc","c_root_id_A":"gaevz6w","c_root_id_B":"gaey7eo","created_at_utc_A":1603913596,"created_at_utc_B":1603914643,"score_A":66,"score_B":168,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not sure what the best answer to this is, but a small issue with your question is pegging it to flashbulb memories and not an overall experience. Flashbulb memories are basically vivid snapshots of an intense, typically surprising, experience, like watching the towers fall on 9\/11 or finding out JFK had died. Corona is a bit different as it\u2019s a longer and slower. So people might have flashbulb memories during it (I have a few that feel flashbulb-y), but for me it\u2019s more defined by the opposite: lots of monotony that bleeds together. That monotony contains a lot of stress, uncertainty, and fear, but on the other hand I think from mid-March to mid-May I remember very few specific events or days at all. That doesn\u2019t mean this can\u2019t be a culturally intense\/awful experience, nor that it won\u2019t shape us and our cultures in ways that will carry forward, just that it\u2019s a very different kind of experience. (Apologies, typing on phone and without many references, so apologise in advance for errors)","human_ref_B":"I work with an anthropologist who is currently interviewing\/documenting the human experience of COVID-19 globally, to help write a book for future generations. In tandem, we are releasing the interviews via a podcast, called Stories of COVID, and you can listen (and sign up for your own interview!) here: www.storiesofcovid.co","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1047.0,"score_ratio":2.5454545455} {"post_id":"ij92j0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"The Tradition\/Culture for travelers to stay at strangers houses During many old stories that I hear from the 1800\u2019s to early 1910\u2019s set in the America they often talk about on how they would stop from house to house while traveling. That whenever they were tired they would knock on a houses door and ask to lodge. It seems that many of the homeowners were more than happy to house a stranger for the day. Where did this culture of being so comfortable come from and when and why did this stop?","c_root_id_A":"g3cj0a9","c_root_id_B":"g3chwa4","created_at_utc_A":1598791293,"created_at_utc_B":1598790598,"score_A":92,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I think the better question might be why isn\u2019t this an aspect of culture that\u2019s still in place today? I\u2019m an amateur genealogist. Throughout the censuses of the late 1800s and early 1900s it\u2019s extremely common for families to rent out rooms in their homes. If you were unmarried or new to the country it was cheaper than renting an apartment for yourself, and was an easy way for a family to make some extra money. I think this stopped sometime after World War II. While I don\u2019t know for sure, I think the booming economy made it much easier for people to rent or own their own place. My guess is also that some laws meant to end the most egregious of tenement housing also made it more difficult for individuals to rent out rooms. Landlords\/renters were probably more liable for aspects of leasing out rooms, and didn\u2019t want to deal with legal or financial risks. If you\u2019re traveling a long distance before the advent of the automobile, you\u2019re not going to have a lot of choice in where to spend a night. It\u2019s not like driving across the country now, where you can say, okay just 50 more miles today then we\u2019ll hit the next big city where I\u2019ll find a hotel. It might seem weird to us 21st century folk to just take in a stranger for the night, but it\u2019s probably something everyone had to do at some point. So you\u2019d do it for this passing stranger, and next time you\u2019re traveling a different stranger would take you in. TLDR; I\u2019m not a historian or anthropologist, but my guess is economic and legal changes made it easier for people to rent, and put more risk on landlords\/renters. The advent of the automobile also made it easier for travelers to get to their destination quickly, or to stop in major cities with hotels. E: minor typos","human_ref_B":"OP you might consider asking this question to \/r\/askhistorians","labels":1,"seconds_difference":695.0,"score_ratio":4.1818181818} {"post_id":"b65mwd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is aggressive Incel-like behaviour a recent development? I got into this discussion with my friend today and it made me wonder if this aggressive, (now) stereotypical incel behaviour is a recent development (as opposed to men simply accepting it and maintaining the lifestyle). With the increase in popularity and availability of the internet over the past ~30 years, it would make sense to me that such people could end up in an \"echo chamber\" and lead to an increase in extreme behaviour and beliefs, but I wonder if it was at all prevalent in the past.","c_root_id_A":"ejigj40","c_root_id_B":"ejia1ke","created_at_utc_A":1553711280,"created_at_utc_B":1553707238,"score_A":161,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"\u201cIncel\u201d is a modern term and only makes sense within modernity. In many earlier cultures, the abduction of women was \u201cthe way its done\u201d. We\u2019ve got plenty of Bronze Age tales of abductions \u2014 sometimes ostensibly consensual (Helen & Paris); other times explicitly not (\u201cthe rape of the Sabine women\u201d). Mythologies were filled with it - Zeus was a particularly notable aggressor. And one notes that in the New Testament the Christian God has a decidedly Zeus-like character in his relations with Mary (who Luke says was OK with the announcement that she was going to be impregnated by the Deity . . .) And what were real behaviors? On aboriginal communities in Australia today, sexual violence is common. It\u2019s described as different than it was pre-contact, and it's not easy to disentangle premodern norms (a young man \u201cgoing across the river\u201d to find a woman) from contemporary pathology. One guide would be \"does the community itself view the behavior as aberrant and criminal\". Generals and warlords frequently motivated their warriors with promises of rape and treasure. Vikings made a culture out of it, and you\u2019ll find plenty of other pre modern warriors out looking to carry off a woman. So, for example, Boko Haram's abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls isn't an unfamiliar act in human social history. Are these young males analogous to \u201cincels\u201d? In the most important sense: no- their perception and the perception of their own community was that they were normal, and their actions lawful. So when Mehmet II conquers Constantinople, he gives his troops the allotted three days of pillage and rape that was their due as an anwatan conquest (had the city surrendered, this wouldn\u2019t have been permitted). Similarly Hulegu Khan\u2019s Mongols in Baghdad or the Japanese Army in Shanghai. We may consider this behavior monstrous, but it was not a novelty or aberration in these societies. So \u201cincel\u201d is a bit like ISIS - an anachronistic cosplay of a premodern behavior in a modern world where it\u2019s explicitly unacceptable. Humanity has lots of social behaviors which at one time we thought were acceptable, or noble even - infanticide, fratricide, human sacrifice Just because \u201csomething was a norm once, somewhere\u201d doesn\u2019t make today\u2019s reenactors any less pathological","human_ref_B":"Is incel an analytical term that is accepted within anthropology? That is does it accurately and comprehensively describe a social tendency that can be made subject to anthropological study?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4042.0,"score_ratio":8.05} {"post_id":"b65mwd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is aggressive Incel-like behaviour a recent development? I got into this discussion with my friend today and it made me wonder if this aggressive, (now) stereotypical incel behaviour is a recent development (as opposed to men simply accepting it and maintaining the lifestyle). With the increase in popularity and availability of the internet over the past ~30 years, it would make sense to me that such people could end up in an \"echo chamber\" and lead to an increase in extreme behaviour and beliefs, but I wonder if it was at all prevalent in the past.","c_root_id_A":"ejifxyk","c_root_id_B":"ejigj40","created_at_utc_A":1553710919,"created_at_utc_B":1553711280,"score_A":15,"score_B":161,"human_ref_A":"Here's a chapter of the book *Is there anything good about men*. It discusses the fact that about one third of all men through history never had sex and the strategies males have when facing the - for most men pretty gloomy - dating scene. https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/367783984\/The-Most-Underappreciated-Fact-About-Men-by-Roy-Baumeister","human_ref_B":"\u201cIncel\u201d is a modern term and only makes sense within modernity. In many earlier cultures, the abduction of women was \u201cthe way its done\u201d. We\u2019ve got plenty of Bronze Age tales of abductions \u2014 sometimes ostensibly consensual (Helen & Paris); other times explicitly not (\u201cthe rape of the Sabine women\u201d). Mythologies were filled with it - Zeus was a particularly notable aggressor. And one notes that in the New Testament the Christian God has a decidedly Zeus-like character in his relations with Mary (who Luke says was OK with the announcement that she was going to be impregnated by the Deity . . .) And what were real behaviors? On aboriginal communities in Australia today, sexual violence is common. It\u2019s described as different than it was pre-contact, and it's not easy to disentangle premodern norms (a young man \u201cgoing across the river\u201d to find a woman) from contemporary pathology. One guide would be \"does the community itself view the behavior as aberrant and criminal\". Generals and warlords frequently motivated their warriors with promises of rape and treasure. Vikings made a culture out of it, and you\u2019ll find plenty of other pre modern warriors out looking to carry off a woman. So, for example, Boko Haram's abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls isn't an unfamiliar act in human social history. Are these young males analogous to \u201cincels\u201d? In the most important sense: no- their perception and the perception of their own community was that they were normal, and their actions lawful. So when Mehmet II conquers Constantinople, he gives his troops the allotted three days of pillage and rape that was their due as an anwatan conquest (had the city surrendered, this wouldn\u2019t have been permitted). Similarly Hulegu Khan\u2019s Mongols in Baghdad or the Japanese Army in Shanghai. We may consider this behavior monstrous, but it was not a novelty or aberration in these societies. So \u201cincel\u201d is a bit like ISIS - an anachronistic cosplay of a premodern behavior in a modern world where it\u2019s explicitly unacceptable. Humanity has lots of social behaviors which at one time we thought were acceptable, or noble even - infanticide, fratricide, human sacrifice Just because \u201csomething was a norm once, somewhere\u201d doesn\u2019t make today\u2019s reenactors any less pathological","labels":0,"seconds_difference":361.0,"score_ratio":10.7333333333} {"post_id":"b65mwd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is aggressive Incel-like behaviour a recent development? I got into this discussion with my friend today and it made me wonder if this aggressive, (now) stereotypical incel behaviour is a recent development (as opposed to men simply accepting it and maintaining the lifestyle). With the increase in popularity and availability of the internet over the past ~30 years, it would make sense to me that such people could end up in an \"echo chamber\" and lead to an increase in extreme behaviour and beliefs, but I wonder if it was at all prevalent in the past.","c_root_id_A":"ejiiaxl","c_root_id_B":"ejia1ke","created_at_utc_A":1553712380,"created_at_utc_B":1553707238,"score_A":21,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"I think there are a few ways to approach this problem from an academic angle, rather than a popular culture one. Off the top of my head: 1. What have we learned about historical communities where there were far more males than females for a significant period of time? How did the lack of available mates affect the behaviors of the male population? 2. Conversely, what do we know about the same scenario, but where the male population had been dramatically depleted (post-WW1 Europe immediately springs to mind) disproportionate to the female population? What impact did this have on mate-seeking individuals? What was the impact on behaviors in the female population? 3. Ditto the above but in primate behaviors I don't know that you'll find a good historical precedent for the impact of something like the Internet on human mate-seeking behaviors, but one similar phenomenon occurs to me: The Werther Effect. \\[TL\/DR: The publication of *Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers* in 1774 caused a cultural sensation among the young, and gave rise to large numbers of young men shooting themselves when their love-interests rejected them, mimicking the main character in the story. The book was banned in a few countries, and there was much controversy.\\] Human behaviors aside, take a look at what happens in communal mammal populations when you have a large quantity of males who, for whatever reason, cannot successfully breed. You will find greater stress among those animals, and this will manifest as antisocial behavior throughout the population. It's an oversimplification, and it ignores the higher brain function that humans have, but I think it is telling. It sucks to feel trapped like a rat in a cage. Hopefully this helps to answer your question.","human_ref_B":"Is incel an analytical term that is accepted within anthropology? That is does it accurately and comprehensively describe a social tendency that can be made subject to anthropological study?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5142.0,"score_ratio":1.05} {"post_id":"b65mwd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is aggressive Incel-like behaviour a recent development? I got into this discussion with my friend today and it made me wonder if this aggressive, (now) stereotypical incel behaviour is a recent development (as opposed to men simply accepting it and maintaining the lifestyle). With the increase in popularity and availability of the internet over the past ~30 years, it would make sense to me that such people could end up in an \"echo chamber\" and lead to an increase in extreme behaviour and beliefs, but I wonder if it was at all prevalent in the past.","c_root_id_A":"ejifxyk","c_root_id_B":"ejiiaxl","created_at_utc_A":1553710919,"created_at_utc_B":1553712380,"score_A":15,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Here's a chapter of the book *Is there anything good about men*. It discusses the fact that about one third of all men through history never had sex and the strategies males have when facing the - for most men pretty gloomy - dating scene. https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/367783984\/The-Most-Underappreciated-Fact-About-Men-by-Roy-Baumeister","human_ref_B":"I think there are a few ways to approach this problem from an academic angle, rather than a popular culture one. Off the top of my head: 1. What have we learned about historical communities where there were far more males than females for a significant period of time? How did the lack of available mates affect the behaviors of the male population? 2. Conversely, what do we know about the same scenario, but where the male population had been dramatically depleted (post-WW1 Europe immediately springs to mind) disproportionate to the female population? What impact did this have on mate-seeking individuals? What was the impact on behaviors in the female population? 3. Ditto the above but in primate behaviors I don't know that you'll find a good historical precedent for the impact of something like the Internet on human mate-seeking behaviors, but one similar phenomenon occurs to me: The Werther Effect. \\[TL\/DR: The publication of *Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers* in 1774 caused a cultural sensation among the young, and gave rise to large numbers of young men shooting themselves when their love-interests rejected them, mimicking the main character in the story. The book was banned in a few countries, and there was much controversy.\\] Human behaviors aside, take a look at what happens in communal mammal populations when you have a large quantity of males who, for whatever reason, cannot successfully breed. You will find greater stress among those animals, and this will manifest as antisocial behavior throughout the population. It's an oversimplification, and it ignores the higher brain function that humans have, but I think it is telling. It sucks to feel trapped like a rat in a cage. Hopefully this helps to answer your question.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1461.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"jqbegq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why are humans who crossed the Bering Strait to N. America always portrayed as having light skin if the mutation hadn\u2019t happened yet?","c_root_id_A":"gblzhuk","c_root_id_B":"gbm2gtm","created_at_utc_A":1604842263,"created_at_utc_B":1604844220,"score_A":24,"score_B":199,"human_ref_A":"Could you provide an example of this?","human_ref_B":">always First, I'm unfamiliar with any recent depictions of early Americans as light skinned (at least in the sense of \"European-looking\" light skin. And I'm familiar with a number of depictions of them as non-light skinned. So the use of \"always\" is certainly incorrect. However, I would be interested in seeing what depictions you're referring to, and seeing when they were produced. It's certainly the case that artistic renderings of ancient peoples have been updated as information about those peoples has changed. But artistic renderings rarely-- unless the artist is carefully supervised-- reflect the current understanding of the science. Artists typically take some license in their depictions, either because of a lack of supervision by scientists, or because scientists *extend* to them that license because of uncertainty about the data. The fact is that we don't know what early Americans really looked like. Many early American skeletal remains bear features that are not totally reminiscent of modern Native Americans, but are well established to be indigenous American. We can speculate, based on shared features of modern Native American peoples, what their early ancestors may have looked like. But the reality is that many of the features that we today associate with people from different parts of the world may not be that ancient. Features like eye shape, hair, or skin tones, have had tens of millennia to change within populations, as well as due to migration, admixture, climate change, etc. And because many modern features are difficult to link to particular gene expressions, it can be hard to trace some of them backward. That all said, it's true that it's not possible that early Americans had light colored skin depriving from the mutation that contributed to European skin tones. However, given the climate \/ region from which early Americans' ancestors originated (probably northeastern Asia \/ Siberia), it's possible that skin tones of the people who first arrived here may not have been especially dark. Regardless of whether or not the European \"light skin\" mutation occurred or not, we see a variety of skin tones around the world that reflect regional variations in UV radiation intensity and other factors. Generally, the distribution of skin tones globally shows gradation from relatively dark in equatorial \/ high UV areas to light-**er** tones as you move out of those equatorial regions. So while any depictions of early American colonists as \"light skinned\" in the \"western European\" sense are almost certainly not accurate, it may not be entirely unrealistic that early Americans may have had skin tones not entirely dissimilar to (for example) modern indigenous Siberian peoples like this man. Again, though, it's important to remember that we're talking about probably 20,000 years ago, give or take a few millennia. Human phenotypes appear to be fairly plastic, and so we need to be careful not to look at modern populations-- who are the product of millennia of change-- and project them uncritically and unskeptically backward. --- It's also important to note that artistic renderings can certainly be just plain wrong. They can be politically motivated, intended to serve an agenda. Take, for example, Kennewick Man. This is a terrific example of incredibly bad artistic license that was actually *influenced* by scientists. And worse, influenced by scientists with an agenda. The original recreation was directly a reflection of some poor phrasing by Jim Chatters, who described the features of the skull as \"Caucasoid.\" The resulting recreation was described as looking like Patrick Stewart. This depiction likely did nothing to help the situation with Native American tribes who were pursuing repatriation under the new federal NAGPRA statutes. Later descriptions of Kennewick suggested that he might have had Polynesian background, and so the next recreation looked a little like \"the Dude\" if he had a heavy tan. These depictions were likely both *very* inaccurate, since genetic information since collected and analyzed indicated that Kennewick Man was closely related to the people who originally claimed his remains, Native American tribes living in the Pacific Northwestern US. What does this show? In the case of Kennewick Man, we have depictions that were immediately released to the media by the people who commissioned them. Kennewick Man was an early test of NAGPRA, and pretty much everything that could have been done wrong on the side of the scientific community *was* done wrong. That includes very public arguments with Native American groups, poorly phrased press releases from the scientists who publicly repudiated NAGPRA and any Tribal claims, and lawsuits. There's no question that the visual depictions of Kennewick Man, who was consistently framed by the scientific side of things as *anything* but Native American, inflamed the issue and were probably intended to shift public opinion. --- **edit:** I took a quick look at your post history. I see the source of your current question. I certainly understand some of your frustration. It's absolutely the case that representation (in terms of skin color, especially) in artistic depictions of ancient people has lagged along with representation in most other media. It's certainly true also that depictions (as noted above) are often very much linked to political or social agendas. Unfortunately, anthropology and archaeology have long been the playground of Western Europeans and their American relatives. I would like to think that's changing, but the reality is that like most scientific fields, we still are strongly white-dominated. And it's a slow process, because many of the older generations have implicit biases that they are reluctant to address. The blowback against NAGPRA in the archaeological community among older archaeologists was *extreme*. So many of my professors when I was coming up in college (in the mid-90s, just after NAGPRA was passed) were anti-NAGPRA. In the years since I entered the discipline as a practicing professional, though, I've seen a general shift among my colleagues, both those my age and younger, and even among those older. Most of us now view NAGPRA not just as the way things are, but a net benefit to the discipline for basically forcing archaeologists to work with the Native American community. It's too bad we had to be forced, but that's often how progress is made.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1957.0,"score_ratio":8.2916666667} {"post_id":"lawzya","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Why is Darwin studied more frequently than Wallace? I theorize that it\u2019s due to Darwin\u2019s privileged upbringing. Thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"glstk13","c_root_id_B":"glsol4t","created_at_utc_A":1612310422,"created_at_utc_B":1612308085,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I understand this has been answered perfectly but I remembered an anecdote from a class I took 2 semesters ago. Darwin went through I guess depression whilst he was writing his book so essentially he was dragging his feet a lot. That is until Wallace sent him his finished manuscript and Darwin was basically like 0-0, and then tried to publish his first. My class was about the sociology\/culture of science essentially so I also learnt that Newton hated the idea of sharing credit as well and other people had very similar ideas in the time of Newton but essentially when he caught wind of this he worked his ass off to publish first. \ud83d\ude02 he was quite the whiney little shit.","human_ref_B":"I think Darwins work was more thorough and complete in it explanations. But its always hard to determine why A becomes more popular than B despite both being fairly similar. Its hard now, harder to guess why 'back then' as we lack the granular details of the time. However I think that over time the Meme element of events takes over and things get truncated to their simplest parts. So whereas back in the 1800s you could describe live ongoing events in great detail as they unfold in front of you and how both Darwin and Wallace had similar ideas at the same time, by 50 or 100 years later its been condensed and so Darwin, with his greater prominence at the time, becomes the notable character of the situation. Its why Einstein is incredibly famous and his most famous 'invention' is E=mc^2 to the vast majority of people, despite this being a simplistic distillation of his discoveries and that there were many nearly almost as famous people in his time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2337.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"k4gusq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Have sibling relationships changed over time and do they differ greatly in different cultures? I was discussing siblings with someone who never speaks to his older brother even though they live in the same house. He doesn\u2019t even know what he\u2019s interested in or what to get him for Christmas, and this made me wonder if this sort of separation is a cultural thing (they\u2019re Chinese, I am not) or maybe if this is something that has been fairly common everywhere throughout human history and I just didn\u2019t realise.","c_root_id_A":"geb54tr","c_root_id_B":"geafb10","created_at_utc_A":1606863164,"created_at_utc_B":1606850927,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"When I lived in the same house with my 3 years younger sister when we were in high school, there was was probably a good 2+ years we hardly spoke. Just didn\u2019t have a reason to. Divergent adolescent paths and personalities played a role. We\u2019re not Chinese. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an ethnicity thing. We get along great now btw. Along robojod\u2019s note on family reproduction, my (Latin American) mother is the second youngest of 11 siblings total. She hardly knew her oldest brother until after they both emigrated here to the US. My uncle is old enough to be my grandfather and then some. I think those structures have a more consistent pattern like the one they referred to.","human_ref_B":"I can\u2019t speak for time, but across cultures very anecdotally it seems like sibling relationships are more or less the same. I.e. they entirely depend on the family and the people. Of my Chinese friends however none of them have siblings due to the One Child Policy so I can\u2019t speak for that (I also wonder how this law in particular might affect the rare cases).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12237.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"k4gusq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Have sibling relationships changed over time and do they differ greatly in different cultures? I was discussing siblings with someone who never speaks to his older brother even though they live in the same house. He doesn\u2019t even know what he\u2019s interested in or what to get him for Christmas, and this made me wonder if this sort of separation is a cultural thing (they\u2019re Chinese, I am not) or maybe if this is something that has been fairly common everywhere throughout human history and I just didn\u2019t realise.","c_root_id_A":"geb54tr","c_root_id_B":"gearly9","created_at_utc_A":1606863164,"created_at_utc_B":1606856629,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"When I lived in the same house with my 3 years younger sister when we were in high school, there was was probably a good 2+ years we hardly spoke. Just didn\u2019t have a reason to. Divergent adolescent paths and personalities played a role. We\u2019re not Chinese. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an ethnicity thing. We get along great now btw. Along robojod\u2019s note on family reproduction, my (Latin American) mother is the second youngest of 11 siblings total. She hardly knew her oldest brother until after they both emigrated here to the US. My uncle is old enough to be my grandfather and then some. I think those structures have a more consistent pattern like the one they referred to.","human_ref_B":"I don't remember the exact details but during the Pellopenesian War (Ancient Greek) a female of extensive power was ask to turn on her brother or they'd kill her son. Her response: I only have one brother but can always have more sons","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6535.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"k4gusq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Have sibling relationships changed over time and do they differ greatly in different cultures? I was discussing siblings with someone who never speaks to his older brother even though they live in the same house. He doesn\u2019t even know what he\u2019s interested in or what to get him for Christmas, and this made me wonder if this sort of separation is a cultural thing (they\u2019re Chinese, I am not) or maybe if this is something that has been fairly common everywhere throughout human history and I just didn\u2019t realise.","c_root_id_A":"geafb10","c_root_id_B":"gearly9","created_at_utc_A":1606850927,"created_at_utc_B":1606856629,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I can\u2019t speak for time, but across cultures very anecdotally it seems like sibling relationships are more or less the same. I.e. they entirely depend on the family and the people. Of my Chinese friends however none of them have siblings due to the One Child Policy so I can\u2019t speak for that (I also wonder how this law in particular might affect the rare cases).","human_ref_B":"I don't remember the exact details but during the Pellopenesian War (Ancient Greek) a female of extensive power was ask to turn on her brother or they'd kill her son. Her response: I only have one brother but can always have more sons","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5702.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"k4gusq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Have sibling relationships changed over time and do they differ greatly in different cultures? I was discussing siblings with someone who never speaks to his older brother even though they live in the same house. He doesn\u2019t even know what he\u2019s interested in or what to get him for Christmas, and this made me wonder if this sort of separation is a cultural thing (they\u2019re Chinese, I am not) or maybe if this is something that has been fairly common everywhere throughout human history and I just didn\u2019t realise.","c_root_id_A":"geb6gwr","c_root_id_B":"geafb10","created_at_utc_A":1606863841,"created_at_utc_B":1606850927,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This isn\u2019t very helpful to ur question, more like a vent, but wow, it\u2019s not very common that I hear siblings experiencing the same thing as me. I am 25 and my older brother is 5 years older. I guess it\u2019s also good to mention that we\u2019re immigrants. When we moved to the US when I was 12, I felt like my brother and I never got to bond or got close at all. When I got to college, we lived in the same house for the most part and it felt like I just didn\u2019t know him anymore. The fact that he\u2019s very secretive and never shares anything doesn\u2019t help. It makes it hard to talk about me to him because idk his interests or how he thinks and what he likes. There\u2019s not much there to connect. He has a deep rooted grudge against my parents too because he grew up feeling like they were so strict on him. So now he avoids spending time with family. He moved to California for travel work and doesn\u2019t even tell us where he lives or never even updates us about his day to day life. Like at all. Just feels like he wants to be alienated. It makes me sad. Anyway, just wanted to share that. I always just wish that I had a normal relationship with my brother.","human_ref_B":"I can\u2019t speak for time, but across cultures very anecdotally it seems like sibling relationships are more or less the same. I.e. they entirely depend on the family and the people. Of my Chinese friends however none of them have siblings due to the One Child Policy so I can\u2019t speak for that (I also wonder how this law in particular might affect the rare cases).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12914.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qrtos6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Anthropologists, what are your thoughts on the 2021 \u201cDune\u201d movie? After seeing this movie, there is plenty to ponder. From white saviorism, colorism, exploitation of peoples and natural resources, colonialism and imperialism, islamic mysticism, Messiah stories, and the main characters fascination with the planets indigenous people, there is a lot. I think plenty can be said from the plot, the subjects, and the production\/marketing, as well as commentary from the original 1960s source material. I myself have a bachelors of science in anthropology so I do have some background. I think the movie does some things well and has some good things to say, and also fall short on messages and ends up reinforcing certain ideas it maybe shouldn\u2019t. Wanted to hear other anthropology-oriented thoughts!","c_root_id_A":"hk9944y","c_root_id_B":"hk8zby5","created_at_utc_A":1636668265,"created_at_utc_B":1636664216,"score_A":151,"score_B":146,"human_ref_A":"I'm a massive fan of Dune. Before you look into anything too deep go read the books. You'll be very surprised about the path that our little desert rat goes (white saviorism is definitely not the course).","human_ref_B":"IANAA (but I am interested in the field and have read a lot) Have you read all six of Herbert's Dune books? While it might seem a bit \"white savior-ish\" in the first, by the end, Paul is very clearly *not* a savior of the Fremen. >!He destroys them.!< Here's a solid video from a huge fan of the books. Just ignore his citation of Jared Diamond. The movie does hint a little about the darkness in Paul, so I'm very curious to see how Villeneuve handles it in Part 2. Also, here's a quote from Frank Herbert: \u201cI wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: May be dangerous to your health.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4049.0,"score_ratio":1.0342465753} {"post_id":"qrtos6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Anthropologists, what are your thoughts on the 2021 \u201cDune\u201d movie? After seeing this movie, there is plenty to ponder. From white saviorism, colorism, exploitation of peoples and natural resources, colonialism and imperialism, islamic mysticism, Messiah stories, and the main characters fascination with the planets indigenous people, there is a lot. I think plenty can be said from the plot, the subjects, and the production\/marketing, as well as commentary from the original 1960s source material. I myself have a bachelors of science in anthropology so I do have some background. I think the movie does some things well and has some good things to say, and also fall short on messages and ends up reinforcing certain ideas it maybe shouldn\u2019t. Wanted to hear other anthropology-oriented thoughts!","c_root_id_A":"hk9a63c","c_root_id_B":"hk9agzf","created_at_utc_A":1636668711,"created_at_utc_B":1636668836,"score_A":24,"score_B":79,"human_ref_A":"I absolutely loved the movie. Any movie that puts the effort in to have multiple unique languages is a huge win in my mind. Atriedes hand signals, Femen, Sardaukar, and Harkonnen all have their own languages that actually feel distinct! So cool! I feel the Dune series does a good job of showing the terrible issues that arise from colonialism and occupation. Arbitrary changes in perspective, such as Harkonnen violence towards Fremen followed by peace efforts from the Atriedes, only to turn back to Harkonnen\/Imperial violence neatly parallels violence against Native American groups by colonial powers. It highlights how a simple change in colonial governance can have terrible effects for the occupied groups, and why people living under an occupation would be hesitant to work with \"good\" occupiers. This can also be clearly seen in Afghanistan, where Generals would embrace dramatically different policies, leading the Afghans to disengage from American efforts as much as they can. Why buy into COIN when the next General might throw that policy out? I think how it plays with white saviorism is interesting, because Paul is *a* prophesied figure (the Bene Gesserit's Kwisatz Haderach) but he isn't the Fremen's Lisan al-Gaib. Or more accurately, the idea of the Lisan al-Gaib isn't originally an indigenous Fremen belief. That idea was planted by the Bene Gesserit. There are a few lines between Paul and Jessica discussing how the Bene Gesserit seed prophecies in different indigenous groups, and whether they are legitimate prophecies from the Bene Gesserit or actually are stories crafted for the Bene Gesserits to later cash in on (metaphorically). I hope Part 2 goes into this aspect more!","human_ref_B":"**Short answer:** Ethnographically, its an engaging gemisch of movies, history, religion, war stories, daydreams, philosophical, ecological, the Pacific Northwest and mycological experience. Very much the world of a mid century Anglo American, with a taste for the exotic. Treat it as being \"about\" the author's frame, not the reality of the ostensible subjects: as an ethnographic exploration, it's more Trader Vic's than Clifford Geertz. The 2021 version is seemingly more weighted to Afghanistan than Herbert's original; in 1965 SE Asia was more salient. The faux- Arabic and faux Islam is also dialed down in 2021. **Discussion:** The 1965 book was substantially 1960s orientalist fantasy, with a heavy dose of Kipling, Richard Burton (the Victorian explorer and translator, not the movie actor) and Lawrence of Arabia ( the 1962 movie more than the person). But even as its \"exotic\" -- it's also very regional, themes that are authentic to a Northwesterner of the time. The 2021 filmed version shades the iconography somewhat more towards the contemporary (eg Afghanistan), but the essentials of Herbert's mid-century vision seem essentially intact. Although it's overlooked, Indonesia was one of the greatest successes of the Cold War, a place where Americans found allies and aided in the defeat of a Communist insurgency; this is a notably brutal moment in 1965, \"The Year of Living Dangerously\" . . . Dune was written and published at a time when instability in Indonesia was much more on people's minds than today. Notable too that American social scientists, substantially supported by the Ford Foundation, are integral to this- from 1953 on. Indeed Geertz himself does cover the range of environments in Herbert- working in Java and then Morocco Herbert was an interesting guy, had seen a bit of of the world (briefly) in the Seabees, was famously influenced by his native Northwest -- the \"Dune\" of southern Oregon is fascinating for being both a bit like the Rub al-Khali Empty Quarter (if a giant sand dune spurs your imagination, and you've never been to Arabia) and at the same time a few miles farther being dense wet forest. As ecology, if you know the coast of Oregon, you have massive dunes and then a huge amount of water nearby, then just over the mountains in the rain shadow its bone dry again-- these were the places Herbert actually knew, and the ecological vision seems seated there. There's even a possible echo of a bit of Northwest cryptozoology, less well known than Sasquatch, the \"Giant Palouse Earthworm\" (is a real thing, *Driloleirus americanus* and big - perhaps 1 meter- but in local legend it looms much, much bigger). A Northwesterner of the period would have been familiar with the giant dams and reclamation projects of the Columbia -- quite literally turning the high desert of Eastern Washington and Oregon into farmland, and Herbert apparently experimented with Cascadia's own local \"spice\" - abundant hallucinogenic mushrooms. The cultures that he's referencing -- well, its sorta Islamic, the Fremen are sorta Bedouins\/ The Guild is sorta like the Venetian Republic (think of how the Byzantines depended on the Venetian Navy). And of course, the Venetians were in the business of transporting spice from the East to Europe, and do the Byzantines dirty when it suits their purposes; and of course, \"spice\" operates a bit like oil too; Herbert was good at merging several bits of historical detail into a new invention that isn't any one thing. The noble houses evoke historical precedents -- \"House Atreides\" is reminiscent of the House of Atreus, but they also resemble the Byzantines (the poisonings, betrayals, concubines, politics). The Harkonnen are vaguely Viking, seeming a pastiche of \"Haakon\" which is Swedish\/Viking, and a Finnish sounding spelling. \"Padishah\" is Turkish\/Persian and so on. The Bene Gesserit- well the nomenclature vibrates to Jewish\/Islamic tradition (B'nai\/Banu\/Bene are terms for \"Children of\" a tribe)l but the powerful sisterhood is more akin to Anglo-Saxon abbesses of the English Dark Ages, and Herbert apparently was familiar with some ferociously Catholic Irish relatives of his experience. And of course, \"Gesserit\" sounds a lot like \"Jesuit\", and the notion of the head of the order as a master political player in service to the Empire, and a power of its own beyond the Emperor, well that's very Ignatius Loyola. One interesting note is that the Herbert is channeling both Near and far East; for 2021, the Islamic\/Afghan overtones are more salient, but in 1965 there's much more of an East Asian flavor, only a little still remains in the 2021 film. \"Wellington Yueh\" as a name has a particular echo to an American engagement in China, \"Wellington Koo\" \\[Koo Vi Kyuin\\] was an important Chinese statesman, ROC Ambassador to the United States- a name that would have been familiar to someone reading the newspapers in the 1960s. Also in the newspapers at the time, the Diem Coup in South Vietnam (1963), which has a complex political religious tension between Buddhists and Catholics. While Herbert's Dune has \"Crysknives\", Indonesia has magical *kris* knives . . . Indonesia was very much at the center of American political concerns in the early '60s, we have the example of a young Barack Obama who was attending Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia at just the time when Dune is published. Clifford Geertz does his famous fieldwork in Java in the 1950s and 60s, Obama's mother, Ann Dunham does it in the '60s. Much of this work in Indonesia supported by US Government and the Ford Foundation; you may consider a parallel with Liet Kynes, the planetary ecologist and \"Judge of the Change\" as mix of NGOs and UN mandate. The most visible Southeast Asia notes in the 2021 production come from the art and set design, some of the wood carvings. The movie is fun, but it's not \"about\" Islam any more than Gunga Din is about Hinduism. It's about American Empire, an empire that spanned the globe, part of the cultural milieu that give us \"South Pacific\" \\[1958\\], \"Blue Hawaii\" \\[1961\\], and \"55 Days at Peking\" \\[1963\\]. Its an imperial romance, with a cast of characters drawn from the places that an American soldier might have been posted in 1965 (notably omitting African Americans). Those massive transports disgorging soldiers competing for a contested ~~Pacific island~~ \"planet\" . . . More than a hint of Guadalcanal Diary there. Robert Heinlein came at these things with a different point of view, but basically \"Starship Troopers\" has the same imperial logic, just no interest in the cultural or ecological nuance of Herbert. Both Herbert and Heinlein tell a story of a \"war against the aliens\" -- where \\_we\\_ invade the alien world; albeit in Dune with a sort of UN -mandate like fool's errand and yet redeemed by some higher purpose. That idea, of \"us\" as the invader, albeit with a perfectly good reason, that's a very mid-century New Frontier framing. Attempts at updating the story a bit in 2021 for political relevance only slightly obscure the issue; to be heavy handed would have been disastrous -- like taking a G\u00e9r\u00f4me painting and trying to make it conform to some contemporary idea of equity. It's a piece of its period, about the ecology of the Northwest and the American mid century Empire; the 2021 additions aim ever so slightly for relevance, but in so doing slightly obscure the very Kennedy-era vibe of the book. No way to make \"The Man who would be King\" into something more relevant than the \"Boys Own\" adventure that it is; but the 2021 version is beautiful, and the minor changes to suit contemporary tastes don't drown out Herbert's themes. It's an idiosyncratic and personal collage, a cultural artifact that is authentically the product of a very clever American of the early 1960s, bound to that place and time. See: Bissell, William Cunningham. \"Engaging colonial nostalgia.\" Cultural Anthropology 20.2 (2005): 215-248. Konzett, Delia Malia. \"The South Pacific as the Final Frontier: Hollywood\u2019s South Seas Fantasies, the Beachcomber, and Militarization.\" Cinematic Settlers. Routledge, 2020. 13-25. Hotchkiss, Jane. \"The jungle of Eden: Kipling, wolf boys, and the colonial imagination.\" Victorian literature and culture 29.2 (2001): 435-449. Toffler, Alvin, Stephen Hawking, and Ursula K. Le Guin. \"Extraterrestrial Anthropology and Science Fiction.\" Centering the Margins of Anthropology's History: Histories of Anthropology Annual, Volume 14 14 (2021): 165. Ashtor, Eliyahu. \"The Venetian supremacy in Levantine trade: monopoly or pre-colonialism?.\" Journal of European Economic History 3.1 (1974): 5. Webster, David. \"Regimes in Motion: The Kennedy Administration and Indonesia's New Frontier, 1960\u20131962.\" Diplomatic History 33.1 (2009): 95-123. Zurbuchen, Mary S. \"History, memory, and the\" 1965 incident\" in Indonesia.\" Asian Survey 42.4 (2002): 564-581.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":125.0,"score_ratio":3.2916666667} {"post_id":"le0gcq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"In Neolithic Europe (let\u2019s say around 4,000 BCE) Do we have any indication of men\/women performing outside of their roles? For example an exceptionally fit woman joining the men to hunt? Or was the concept of breaking outside of the \u201cgender role\u201d not necessarily a thing?","c_root_id_A":"gm9eplf","c_root_id_B":"gm9qasv","created_at_utc_A":1612639703,"created_at_utc_B":1612643806,"score_A":79,"score_B":137,"human_ref_A":"Be wary of now-ism. There's a fascination with contemporary notions of transgression, the most we can say is that gender roles were substantially consistent, with occasional exceptional examples. . . . to find a woman in a grave with weapons and armor doesn't necessarily imply a pattern of behavior. Consider the example of the Birka Viking grave, from around the year 1000 CE. This is just over a thousand years ago -- eg much more recent than the neolithic-- and we're still not sure of what would be meant by \"gender role\" in this case. The body is that of a woman, and there are military grave goods, nothing else like that previously recorded beyond a few weapons. Is this someone who actually was a warrior? There are folks who are eager to think so. But as we know from other graves, choices of funerary portrayal need not connote actual behavior in one's lifetime. This could be a Brienne of Tarth, or it equally could be some much admired woman, given a heroic burial an aspirational warrior rather than an actual one. Was it something inspired by the Norse Edda -- the Valkyrie were a popular story, and one doesn't know what the meaning of the associations might be. 4000 years earlier into the neolithic, it's even harder to know. It takes more than one off examples to understand patterns of behavior, fascinating and suggestive as they may be. See: Hedenstierna\u2010Jonson, C, Kjellstr\u00f6m, A, Zachrisson, T, et al. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics. *Am J Phys Anthropol*. 2017; 164: 853\u2013 860. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/ajpa.23308","human_ref_B":"Just wanted to add that not all hunter-gatherer societies adhered to the Man-the-hunter hypothesis. Women hunted too, and were also buried according to rituals that were reserved for hunters or warriors. I think in short it if fair to say that every society has its gender roles, but those roles are always (to some extent) fluid.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4103.0,"score_ratio":1.7341772152} {"post_id":"hfnhcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some approachable books for a lay audience about Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples? \"Approachable\" as in \"not requiring a deep theoretical background.\" Long and complex books are more than welcome.","c_root_id_A":"fvyrvrv","c_root_id_B":"fvyxdes","created_at_utc_A":1593100918,"created_at_utc_B":1593103629,"score_A":20,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Contact and Conflict by Robin Fisher is an oldie but a goodie. It's an academic study but very readable for nonspecialists. I took a class with him during my MA studies and he's big on the interdisciplinary approach as well.","human_ref_B":"Great start for Indigenous authors about their own histories. Though, not solely focused on PNW peoples.https:\/\/ravenreads.org\/blogs\/news\/canadian-history-books-by-indigenous-authors I've acquired a few books over the years published in small runs independently, by Indigenous people themselves, but they're often hard to find unless you visit the community. If you're really interested in specific Nations' books, an email to specific band offices might help you find books not written by white people.Use the Native Land map https:\/\/native-land.ca\/ to find which areas you're interested in and which Nations are in those areas.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2711.0,"score_ratio":1.95} {"post_id":"hfnhcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some approachable books for a lay audience about Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples? \"Approachable\" as in \"not requiring a deep theoretical background.\" Long and complex books are more than welcome.","c_root_id_A":"fvyvq8o","c_root_id_B":"fvyxdes","created_at_utc_A":1593102830,"created_at_utc_B":1593103629,"score_A":13,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Here's a Journal of PCNW anthropology with a lot of great book reccos. https:\/\/www.northwestanthropology.com\/books-on-the-pnw","human_ref_B":"Great start for Indigenous authors about their own histories. Though, not solely focused on PNW peoples.https:\/\/ravenreads.org\/blogs\/news\/canadian-history-books-by-indigenous-authors I've acquired a few books over the years published in small runs independently, by Indigenous people themselves, but they're often hard to find unless you visit the community. If you're really interested in specific Nations' books, an email to specific band offices might help you find books not written by white people.Use the Native Land map https:\/\/native-land.ca\/ to find which areas you're interested in and which Nations are in those areas.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":799.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"hfnhcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some approachable books for a lay audience about Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples? \"Approachable\" as in \"not requiring a deep theoretical background.\" Long and complex books are more than welcome.","c_root_id_A":"fw1rkre","c_root_id_B":"fw0sbpm","created_at_utc_A":1593166539,"created_at_utc_B":1593138349,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"(I'm Haida so this is gonna be a very biased list) * *A Story as Sharp as A Knife* by Robert Bringhurst translates and compiles Haida stories, myths, poetry and histories as transcribed by anthropologist Ron Swanton in the early 20th century, interspersed with commentary, analysis and historical background. In my professional opinion, it slaps. * *Looking At Indian Art of the Northwest Coast* by Hilary Stewart. You can't learn about PNW peoples without learning about formline art. There are tons of books on the topic, but this one is physically the closest to me right now so it's the one I'm recommending * *Athlii Gwaii: Upholding Haida Law on Lyell Island* I haven't personally read this one yet, but the protests on Lyell Island are v important and definitely worth learning about * *The Golden Spruce* by John Vaillant. Though not an ethnography, this book gives a pretty solid history of Haida Gwaii and the Haida Nation, and is an easy read * *This Is Our Life: Haida Material Heritage and Changing Museum Practice.* I've only read a few chapters of this for a paper I wrote but if you're interested in museology and issues pertaining to repatriation this book's got you covered.","human_ref_B":"This was a really fun book I read in university, it might have been for Anthropology class but I think it was actually History class. It's set in the Blackfoot tribe in Alberta so not really PNW but still a good read. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Green_Grass,_Running_Water","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28190.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dq92jm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Why was the idea of sacrifice, be it human, animal, whatever, such a widespread ancient religious practice, even showing up across cultures that had no contact with each other?","c_root_id_A":"f61rp0b","c_root_id_B":"f61rndn","created_at_utc_A":1572645336,"created_at_utc_B":1572645305,"score_A":92,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a value transfer exercise. In early religious expressions - which typically featured a more direct relationship between the individual and the supernatural - it was probably a simple calculation that what was valuable to the individual was also valuable to the supernatural. As religion became more codified, and followers more numerous, bureaucracies formed to manage, defend and evangelize the faith and sacrifice was further encouraged as a form of capital transfer between individual followers and the religious institution. As these organizations grew, their demand for resources increased and sacrifice became more formalized (eventually culminating in currency donations in most of today\u2019s religions).","human_ref_B":"Azim Shariff, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, suggests: When human groups grew too large for reputation to be known throughout the community, religion arose to serve as a proxy for reputation. By giving up (sacrificing) something of value, practitioners demonstrate \"trustable cues, credibility-enhancing displays of people's genuine religiosity which indicates that you actually can trust them.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31.0,"score_ratio":1.3939393939} {"post_id":"pu82ew","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Does new evidence from New Mexico conclusively prove that humans reached the Americas about five thousand years earlier than previous estimates? Here's a link to a CNN article on this issue: https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2021\/09\/23\/americas\/footprints-humans-arrive-in-north-america-scn\/index.html?utm\\_source=feedburner&utm\\_medium=feed&utm\\_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition\\_americas+%28RSS%3A+CNNi+-+Americas%29 I've asked here before about what seems to me to be the somewhat elastic estimates about human arrival in America, is this new research solid enough for us to finally push the date past the 20000 year mark with reasonable confidence?","c_root_id_A":"he1kts0","c_root_id_B":"he1anhh","created_at_utc_A":1632450562,"created_at_utc_B":1632445689,"score_A":90,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"All I know is that it is a good thing that this did not come out until today. Because yesterday I just finished grading papers asking students to explain the current theories of how and when people first populated the Americas. I agree that this does't necessarily match up with the genetic data, but its possible an earlier wave of people may have died out or were so small their genetic contributions aren't noticed in modern Native populations. I'm curious to see what happens if they try the optically stimulated luminescence dating of the sediment the footprints are in rather than seeds as some archaeologists have pointed out, just because seeds can technically have gotten there in other ways, especially in a context that was near water. But footprints are so intriguing since they are unequivocally human not a is this or is this not a crude stone tool.","human_ref_B":"The 20,000 mark is designated for the Kelp Highway availability. 21,000 before present could be argued to only extend the Kelp Highway window. However, I'm interested in all finds regardless of age. I kinda think of the Americas in this way, \"The oceans were large barriers to humans reaching the Americas; however, it would have been difficult to miss the Americas if you found a means to get here.\" It should be noted that most of the genetic data suggests a Kelp Highway \/ Beringia crossing. I don't know how this early date jives with that data. Having said that, if a small group got here by some other means as could be evidenced by certain genetic data from small, South American groups, they might not have had the genetic diversity to people the Americas until the Kelp Highway \/ Beringia route allowed for a greater genetic population.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4873.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"pu82ew","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Does new evidence from New Mexico conclusively prove that humans reached the Americas about five thousand years earlier than previous estimates? Here's a link to a CNN article on this issue: https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2021\/09\/23\/americas\/footprints-humans-arrive-in-north-america-scn\/index.html?utm\\_source=feedburner&utm\\_medium=feed&utm\\_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition\\_americas+%28RSS%3A+CNNi+-+Americas%29 I've asked here before about what seems to me to be the somewhat elastic estimates about human arrival in America, is this new research solid enough for us to finally push the date past the 20000 year mark with reasonable confidence?","c_root_id_A":"he1ksxq","c_root_id_B":"he1kts0","created_at_utc_A":1632450550,"created_at_utc_B":1632450562,"score_A":19,"score_B":90,"human_ref_A":"Came here to see if anyone else had seen this awesome news! This helps to solidify evidence at other sites such as stone tool that date back 30,000 years being found in central Mexico. So we could have been here before the last ice age. And although it is also highly probable that there were successive waves of new peoples arriving over the milinea and adding their DNA, I have always thought that linguistics should be given a great deal more attention. As there were over 500 distinct languages spoken here and it takes a long time for languages to grow so far apart that them become distinctly different.","human_ref_B":"All I know is that it is a good thing that this did not come out until today. Because yesterday I just finished grading papers asking students to explain the current theories of how and when people first populated the Americas. I agree that this does't necessarily match up with the genetic data, but its possible an earlier wave of people may have died out or were so small their genetic contributions aren't noticed in modern Native populations. I'm curious to see what happens if they try the optically stimulated luminescence dating of the sediment the footprints are in rather than seeds as some archaeologists have pointed out, just because seeds can technically have gotten there in other ways, especially in a context that was near water. But footprints are so intriguing since they are unequivocally human not a is this or is this not a crude stone tool.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12.0,"score_ratio":4.7368421053} {"post_id":"pu82ew","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Does new evidence from New Mexico conclusively prove that humans reached the Americas about five thousand years earlier than previous estimates? Here's a link to a CNN article on this issue: https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2021\/09\/23\/americas\/footprints-humans-arrive-in-north-america-scn\/index.html?utm\\_source=feedburner&utm\\_medium=feed&utm\\_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition\\_americas+%28RSS%3A+CNNi+-+Americas%29 I've asked here before about what seems to me to be the somewhat elastic estimates about human arrival in America, is this new research solid enough for us to finally push the date past the 20000 year mark with reasonable confidence?","c_root_id_A":"he25b57","c_root_id_B":"he1ksxq","created_at_utc_A":1632462438,"created_at_utc_B":1632450550,"score_A":36,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"No, it doesn't come close to conclusively proving that. What the article doesn't go into is that there is a long history of finding footprints but a huge struggle in dating them. In this case, the scientists attempted to determine the age of some aquatic seeds detected above and below the footprints. While not an unreasonable approach, it's not something that's considered reliable. ​ Generally when you don't have a well established methodology to determine the age of something, you come up with something reasonable and give it a shot. You then hopefully find 2 or 3 alternative methods, and then you see if those 4 methods are giving you roughly the same answer. Even then, such dating techniques are considered quite tentative until other researchers who bump into similar circumstances start using the method, and get results that align with more traditional methods. This is why we often see studies 'item X appears to be much younger\/older than scientists originally believed' It's because the preliminary work might on it's face seem reasonable but once people start trying different methods, if method A points to 10, 000 YA and method B, C and D all point to 20,000 YA then people will view it as 20,000 YA is the more likely date. It doesn't mean the people who did method A were doing bad science or cheating or anything like that. There's generally never a 'single' finding that proves X vs Y. It is a gradual building of dozens of cites and hundreds of studies at each and a gradual shift of consensus due to many new points of data.","human_ref_B":"Came here to see if anyone else had seen this awesome news! This helps to solidify evidence at other sites such as stone tool that date back 30,000 years being found in central Mexico. So we could have been here before the last ice age. And although it is also highly probable that there were successive waves of new peoples arriving over the milinea and adding their DNA, I have always thought that linguistics should be given a great deal more attention. As there were over 500 distinct languages spoken here and it takes a long time for languages to grow so far apart that them become distinctly different.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11888.0,"score_ratio":1.8947368421} {"post_id":"hwp1jz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are examples of human evolution over the last 2000 years? Also does incresing heights count as an example, or is that due to us being increasing wealthy and having more food over time? I've always wondered this, it'd be nice to find out more about it and where we might be going over the next 2000 years","c_root_id_A":"fz2hi6v","c_root_id_B":"fz25rif","created_at_utc_A":1595575370,"created_at_utc_B":1595565902,"score_A":28,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Since c-sections are common, there is a trend of bigger heads, because under normal circumstances mother and baby wouldn\u2019t survive birth. source","human_ref_B":"One thing to keep in mind is that evolution is more than new genetic mutations. Evolution describes how populations change. One common definition is the change in allele frequencies within a population over time. So for example the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, Australia and other places have radically altered the gene pools of the populations within these areas. Go to Mexico and most of the population there might be classed as Mestizo or being descended from both European and indigenous ancestors. This kind of ethnogenesis from migration and conquest is evolution in action. The allele distributions present in the current Mexican population are very different from 2000 years ago.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9468.0,"score_ratio":1.4736842105} {"post_id":"g2avj1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were people night owls before electricity? Did people stay up late to work or party? Or is this a modern \"vice\"?","c_root_id_A":"fnlird2","c_root_id_B":"fnm6xgw","created_at_utc_A":1587054257,"created_at_utc_B":1587066154,"score_A":18,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"The ethnographic record of a number of Northwest Coast groups (North America) reflects that they held dances that lasted late into the night. Some of them lasted all night. The dances were religious practices and involved 20-30 people - an extended family\/village. Also a number of fishing practices took place at night.","human_ref_B":"When they lived together in France, John Adams complained that Ben Franklin would come home every night past 2am and often nap in meetings. This is surprising as Franklin is known for the saying \"Early to bed early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise\" and claimed to go to bed at 10pm and work at 5am. When Adams confronted home, Franklin claimed that, in Europe, politicking is done after midnight, and implied that \"Early to bed...\" is good for the farmers but not for the cultured.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11897.0,"score_ratio":2.0555555556} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxxhfk","c_root_id_B":"gjxvyrq","created_at_utc_A":1611149572,"created_at_utc_B":1611148596,"score_A":24,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In these kinds of cases, I think it's appropriate to suggest Google Scholar as a resource. Google Scholar: \"Inuit mythology\" Google Scholar: \"Inuit folklore\" Note that in addition to these searches returning a variety of sources, you can also find published reviews of those sources, which can help you to narrow down what your chosen readings will be. I encourage this approach, because it helps you to develop your own researching abilities, so that you aren't forced to rely on others to provide you with information.","human_ref_B":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","labels":1,"seconds_difference":976.0,"score_ratio":4.8} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjy9g5b","c_root_id_B":"gjyos56","created_at_utc_A":1611156035,"created_at_utc_B":1611163076,"score_A":12,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"A Kayak Full of Ghosts by Lawrence Millman is a good read. Lots of stories, and great variety of different folklore. They're rather dated, but you might check out Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen, & Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo by Henry Rink.","human_ref_B":"Depending on your purposes (and especially because you work for a university), it may be more appropriate to look for works by Inuit Peoples than non-Inuit anthropologists. Indigenous knowledge systems are an important topic to work with Indigenous sources when possible. You may have a resource at your university that contacts various groups like this, or you may be able to reach out to public education groups directly. For example, the University of Saskatchewan in Canada has a department of Indigenous Engagement.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7041.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxvyrq","c_root_id_B":"gjyos56","created_at_utc_A":1611148596,"created_at_utc_B":1611163076,"score_A":5,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","human_ref_B":"Depending on your purposes (and especially because you work for a university), it may be more appropriate to look for works by Inuit Peoples than non-Inuit anthropologists. Indigenous knowledge systems are an important topic to work with Indigenous sources when possible. You may have a resource at your university that contacts various groups like this, or you may be able to reach out to public education groups directly. For example, the University of Saskatchewan in Canada has a department of Indigenous Engagement.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14480.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjyos56","c_root_id_B":"gjymxan","created_at_utc_A":1611163076,"created_at_utc_B":1611162283,"score_A":20,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Depending on your purposes (and especially because you work for a university), it may be more appropriate to look for works by Inuit Peoples than non-Inuit anthropologists. Indigenous knowledge systems are an important topic to work with Indigenous sources when possible. You may have a resource at your university that contacts various groups like this, or you may be able to reach out to public education groups directly. For example, the University of Saskatchewan in Canada has a department of Indigenous Engagement.","human_ref_B":"Never in Anger by Jean Briggs","labels":1,"seconds_difference":793.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxvyrq","c_root_id_B":"gjy9g5b","created_at_utc_A":1611148596,"created_at_utc_B":1611156035,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","human_ref_B":"A Kayak Full of Ghosts by Lawrence Millman is a good read. Lots of stories, and great variety of different folklore. They're rather dated, but you might check out Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen, & Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo by Henry Rink.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7439.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxvyrq","c_root_id_B":"gjyqakx","created_at_utc_A":1611148596,"created_at_utc_B":1611163703,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","human_ref_B":"Out of curiosity, why source mythology etc. from a university etc. rather than actual Inuit people? The colonial approaches to gathering information with first nation peoples is notoriously incomplete and at times even incompatible, incorrect, or harmful to the communities they study.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15107.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjymxan","c_root_id_B":"gjyqakx","created_at_utc_A":1611162283,"created_at_utc_B":1611163703,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Never in Anger by Jean Briggs","human_ref_B":"Out of curiosity, why source mythology etc. from a university etc. rather than actual Inuit people? The colonial approaches to gathering information with first nation peoples is notoriously incomplete and at times even incompatible, incorrect, or harmful to the communities they study.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1420.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxvyrq","c_root_id_B":"gjzkjna","created_at_utc_A":1611148596,"created_at_utc_B":1611176798,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","human_ref_B":"Dr. Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar, independent curator and art historian from from Nunatsiavut. I'd highly recommend starting with her and her collaborators in terms of scholarship on Inuit worldview. https:\/\/www.concordia.ca\/finearts\/art-history\/faculty.html?fpid=heather-igloliorte https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heather\\_Igloliorte","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28202.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjymxan","c_root_id_B":"gjzkjna","created_at_utc_A":1611162283,"created_at_utc_B":1611176798,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Never in Anger by Jean Briggs","human_ref_B":"Dr. Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar, independent curator and art historian from from Nunatsiavut. I'd highly recommend starting with her and her collaborators in terms of scholarship on Inuit worldview. https:\/\/www.concordia.ca\/finearts\/art-history\/faculty.html?fpid=heather-igloliorte https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heather\\_Igloliorte","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14515.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjz7ssr","c_root_id_B":"gjzkjna","created_at_utc_A":1611171228,"created_at_utc_B":1611176798,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"William Fitzhugh is an archaeologist at the Smithsonian who works on arctic peoples. might find something relevant in his works","human_ref_B":"Dr. Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar, independent curator and art historian from from Nunatsiavut. I'd highly recommend starting with her and her collaborators in terms of scholarship on Inuit worldview. https:\/\/www.concordia.ca\/finearts\/art-history\/faculty.html?fpid=heather-igloliorte https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heather\\_Igloliorte","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5570.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjzkjna","c_root_id_B":"gjzgic0","created_at_utc_A":1611176798,"created_at_utc_B":1611175033,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Dr. Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar, independent curator and art historian from from Nunatsiavut. I'd highly recommend starting with her and her collaborators in terms of scholarship on Inuit worldview. https:\/\/www.concordia.ca\/finearts\/art-history\/faculty.html?fpid=heather-igloliorte https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heather\\_Igloliorte","human_ref_B":"\"The Netsilik Eskimo\" by Asen Balikci (1970). It's an ethnography on the Arviligjuarmiut of Pelly Bay, Canada, the research itself was done in the 50's and 60's, prior to Canada's efforts to modernize their lifestyles. It has a section dedicated to religion and spiritual beliefs. A pretty interesting read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1765.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjxvyrq","c_root_id_B":"gjzs6x5","created_at_utc_A":1611148596,"created_at_utc_B":1611180232,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You can find a lot of Inuit in *Franz Boas* works. In case you don't know, Franz Boas is a german classic Anthropologist that moved to America and created Cultural Anthropology in US. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and others. But I don't know about contemporary works","human_ref_B":"The Quamajuk Centre might be a wonderful starting resource. They have the Niizwhaaso Collaborative Research Centre, Knowledge and Sharing Centre, Visual Vault, etc. It is art based but that will tie in very closely with Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. https:\/\/winnipegartgallerylibrary.follettdestiny.ca\/cataloging\/servlet\/presentadvancedsearchredirectorform.do?l2m=Library%20Search&tm=TopLevelCatalog&l2m=Library+Search https:\/\/wag.ca\/learn\/knowledge-centre\/ https:\/\/wag.ca\/qaumajuq\/ I should add that the Niizwhaaso Centre has accessible scholarly resources specifically on Inuit myths and folklore.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31636.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjzs6x5","c_root_id_B":"gjymxan","created_at_utc_A":1611180232,"created_at_utc_B":1611162283,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The Quamajuk Centre might be a wonderful starting resource. They have the Niizwhaaso Collaborative Research Centre, Knowledge and Sharing Centre, Visual Vault, etc. It is art based but that will tie in very closely with Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. https:\/\/winnipegartgallerylibrary.follettdestiny.ca\/cataloging\/servlet\/presentadvancedsearchredirectorform.do?l2m=Library%20Search&tm=TopLevelCatalog&l2m=Library+Search https:\/\/wag.ca\/learn\/knowledge-centre\/ https:\/\/wag.ca\/qaumajuq\/ I should add that the Niizwhaaso Centre has accessible scholarly resources specifically on Inuit myths and folklore.","human_ref_B":"Never in Anger by Jean Briggs","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17949.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjzs6x5","c_root_id_B":"gjz7ssr","created_at_utc_A":1611180232,"created_at_utc_B":1611171228,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The Quamajuk Centre might be a wonderful starting resource. They have the Niizwhaaso Collaborative Research Centre, Knowledge and Sharing Centre, Visual Vault, etc. It is art based but that will tie in very closely with Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. https:\/\/winnipegartgallerylibrary.follettdestiny.ca\/cataloging\/servlet\/presentadvancedsearchredirectorform.do?l2m=Library%20Search&tm=TopLevelCatalog&l2m=Library+Search https:\/\/wag.ca\/learn\/knowledge-centre\/ https:\/\/wag.ca\/qaumajuq\/ I should add that the Niizwhaaso Centre has accessible scholarly resources specifically on Inuit myths and folklore.","human_ref_B":"William Fitzhugh is an archaeologist at the Smithsonian who works on arctic peoples. might find something relevant in his works","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9004.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"l18ej0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Books on Inuit mythology\/folklore I\u2019m asking for recommendations for books written about Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. Preferably books written by an anthropologist or published by a university. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gjzgic0","c_root_id_B":"gjzs6x5","created_at_utc_A":1611175033,"created_at_utc_B":1611180232,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"\"The Netsilik Eskimo\" by Asen Balikci (1970). It's an ethnography on the Arviligjuarmiut of Pelly Bay, Canada, the research itself was done in the 50's and 60's, prior to Canada's efforts to modernize their lifestyles. It has a section dedicated to religion and spiritual beliefs. A pretty interesting read.","human_ref_B":"The Quamajuk Centre might be a wonderful starting resource. They have the Niizwhaaso Collaborative Research Centre, Knowledge and Sharing Centre, Visual Vault, etc. It is art based but that will tie in very closely with Inuit mythology and\/or folklore. https:\/\/winnipegartgallerylibrary.follettdestiny.ca\/cataloging\/servlet\/presentadvancedsearchredirectorform.do?l2m=Library%20Search&tm=TopLevelCatalog&l2m=Library+Search https:\/\/wag.ca\/learn\/knowledge-centre\/ https:\/\/wag.ca\/qaumajuq\/ I should add that the Niizwhaaso Centre has accessible scholarly resources specifically on Inuit myths and folklore.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5199.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"jk9hht","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some other ancient meso- and south-American cultures instead of Aztecs, Incas and Mayans? Title says it all. Today we still find some natives tribes in the jungle and somehow if you dive into history there only these three cultures. Maybe the other ones just get categorised as Incas\/Aztec\/Mayan because they looked\/behave similair to the colonists? Or did we have any archeological sites that are not from the mayas\/inca\/aztecs etc?","c_root_id_A":"gahtj1s","c_root_id_B":"gahuo3o","created_at_utc_A":1603982812,"created_at_utc_B":1603983375,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ve worked on the coast of Northern Peru and they had the Wari, Moche, Chimu, and Lambayeque (Sivan) cultures before the Inca showed up. Aspects of each of these groups bled into one another at the site I was excavating.","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of interesting and overlooked societies in these areas. The Kingdom of Tzintzuntzan or Purepecha Empire was a contemporary of the Aztec Triple Alliance. It is known for its bronzework and two decisive victories over Aztec armies. Unfortunately information about it is scarce; the only colonial source is the damaged Relacion de Michoacan, and precious little archaeology has been undertaken on the state. There are some upcoming expeditions that could radically change our understanding of it though, so stay tuned. Before that, in the same area, is the Teuchitlan tradition, a tragically under researched stateless society known for its large monumental architecture, likely built by cooperation between lineages. Teotihuacan was the head of a massive empire until the 700s, when it fell. It had a great deal of influence across Mesoamerica, and left some precious written language, mostly about medical traditions. The city was likely called \"Place of Reeds\" by its natives. It is known to have conquered into Maya territory under its ruler Striker Owl (more commonly known under the name Spearthrower Owl), under whom the Teotihuacano general Siyaj K'ak' (\"Fire is born\") conquered Tikal and Copan. The Olmecs were another massive and influential society centered around the gulf coast of Veracruz. They had written language, but it remains undeciphered; there is a common idea that their language was Mixe-Zoquean. The Tlaxcala were part of a confederacy surrounded entirely by the Aztecs. They endured a decades-long siege by Aztec forces and joined Hernan Cortez in the Triple Alliance's destruction. In El Salvador was the state of Kuskatan, ruled by the Pipil, a Nahua people closely related to the Aztecs and Tlaxcala but separated by distance and language. They are also tragically not commonly known. There are many others, but those are a few than came to mind.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":563.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"jk9hht","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some other ancient meso- and south-American cultures instead of Aztecs, Incas and Mayans? Title says it all. Today we still find some natives tribes in the jungle and somehow if you dive into history there only these three cultures. Maybe the other ones just get categorised as Incas\/Aztec\/Mayan because they looked\/behave similair to the colonists? Or did we have any archeological sites that are not from the mayas\/inca\/aztecs etc?","c_root_id_A":"gaiah75","c_root_id_B":"gainpx2","created_at_utc_A":1603990819,"created_at_utc_B":1603996220,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I live in Brazil, and in here there's a LOT of different tribes with a lot of different cultures. Search about brazilian indigenous, is a very interesting topic and many people need to know about this, because these tribes are getting massacared even today by farmers and even the brazilian government.","human_ref_B":"I will speak only to that which I know well: the Zapotec people of southern Mexico (modern day Oaxaca) are a very underrepresented people who built one of the earliest cities in Mesoamerica (Monte Alban) which maintained relevancy for over a thousand years. Surrounding them were the Mixe and the Mixtec; all of whom have contributed greatly to Mexican culture with a fascinating and well documented history that I implore you to research further.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5401.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htl3iio","c_root_id_B":"htkadgn","created_at_utc_A":1642764276,"created_at_utc_B":1642743373,"score_A":144,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"I'm going to give you a reading list of more academic sources. I think others have covered some of the journalistic pieces well. But there actually is academic work on this topic. A couple are paywalled but you might be able to find copies online. Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on youtube. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.08293. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2001.08293 O\u2019Malley, R. L., Holt, K., & Holt, T. J. (2020). An exploration of the involuntary celibate (Incel) subculture online. Journal of interpersonal violence, 0886260520959625. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0886260520959625 Cottee, S. (2020). Incel (e) motives: Resentment, shame and revenge. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44(2), 93-114. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/1057610X.2020.1822589 Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Daly, S. E., & Reed, S. M. (2022). \u201cI Think Most of Society Hates Us\u201d: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Interviews with Incels. Sex Roles, 86(1), 14-33. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11199-021-01250-5 Heritage, F., & Koller, V. (2020). Incels, in-groups, and ideologies: The representation of gendered social actors in a sexuality-based online community. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 152-178. https:\/\/www.jbe-platform.com\/content\/journals\/10.1075\/jls.19014.her Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., ... & Zannettou, S. (2020). From pick-up artists to incels: a data-driven sketch of the manosphere. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07600. https:\/\/xyonline.net\/sites\/xyonline.net\/files\/2020-08\/Horta%20Ribeiro%2C%20From%20Pick-Up%20Artists%20to%20Incels%202020.pdf Jaki, S., De Smedt, T., Gw\u00f3\u017ad\u017a, M., Panchal, R., Rossa, A., & De Pauw, G. (2019). Online hatred of women in the Incels. me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic detection. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 7(2), 240-268.https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Tranchese, A., & Sugiura, L. (2021). \u201cI Don\u2019t Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches\u201d: How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny. Violence against women, 1077801221996453. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1077801221996453 Note: sometimes Google scholar indicated the pdf was hosted somewhere so I included that link but it isn't intended to be an endorsement of that non-journal site or hosting This piece from professor Halpin is accessible: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/incels-are-surprisingly-diverse-but-united-by-hate-163414 Take a look. If you have any follow up questions about these pieces I'm happy to discuss!","human_ref_B":"I hope this is allowed, but I can delete it if not. Innuendo Studios on YouTube has done a ton of research on GamerGate and the Alt-Right movement which spun out of that. They trace the roots back through 4chan and 8chan and the intersection with incel culture, which I think should answer your questions and then fill your head with new ones.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20903.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkeidn","c_root_id_B":"htl3iio","created_at_utc_A":1642745734,"created_at_utc_B":1642764276,"score_A":51,"score_B":144,"human_ref_A":">As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement One BIG part of the \"incel\" culture, at least judging by their behavior and rhetoric, is that they are not simply unhappy and insecure with the lack of female attention in their life. They are deeply, deeply, angry and feel that someone (usually women, but also often men who don't seem to be in the same situation) are directly to blame for their unhappyness. And they pretty often talk about how they'd like to hurt, \"punish\" or \"teach a lesson to\" the people they personally blame for their being so unhappy with their life. I've seen a number of rants some of them have posted in various places, that basicly boil down to they feel that if they had gotten the amount and kind of female attention they wanted at some previous point in their life, they would not have any of the problems they currently have. And because of that they feel justified in their anger at whole groups of people, most of whom have never interacted with them in any way. In short, people in this socio-political movement base their whole identity on not having their sexual fantasies gratified, and being very angry about it. Or have had one or more really, bad breakups or divorces, and now feel that all women are basically interchangeable, entirely unredeemable, subhumans. I'm not sure what spawned it exactly, other than the ease of finding echo chambers online. Allowing almost anyone to find someone somewhere who will tell them exactly what they want to hear, no matter what it is, while also isolating themselves from other viewpoints. And that allows feelings and attitudes to move more and more to the extreme end of the possible range, while also normalizing those extreme views to the people in those echo chambers. Terry Pratchett put it very well when he said >Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are...well... human beings.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to give you a reading list of more academic sources. I think others have covered some of the journalistic pieces well. But there actually is academic work on this topic. A couple are paywalled but you might be able to find copies online. Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on youtube. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.08293. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2001.08293 O\u2019Malley, R. L., Holt, K., & Holt, T. J. (2020). An exploration of the involuntary celibate (Incel) subculture online. Journal of interpersonal violence, 0886260520959625. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0886260520959625 Cottee, S. (2020). Incel (e) motives: Resentment, shame and revenge. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44(2), 93-114. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/1057610X.2020.1822589 Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Daly, S. E., & Reed, S. M. (2022). \u201cI Think Most of Society Hates Us\u201d: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Interviews with Incels. Sex Roles, 86(1), 14-33. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11199-021-01250-5 Heritage, F., & Koller, V. (2020). Incels, in-groups, and ideologies: The representation of gendered social actors in a sexuality-based online community. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 152-178. https:\/\/www.jbe-platform.com\/content\/journals\/10.1075\/jls.19014.her Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., ... & Zannettou, S. (2020). From pick-up artists to incels: a data-driven sketch of the manosphere. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07600. https:\/\/xyonline.net\/sites\/xyonline.net\/files\/2020-08\/Horta%20Ribeiro%2C%20From%20Pick-Up%20Artists%20to%20Incels%202020.pdf Jaki, S., De Smedt, T., Gw\u00f3\u017ad\u017a, M., Panchal, R., Rossa, A., & De Pauw, G. (2019). Online hatred of women in the Incels. me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic detection. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 7(2), 240-268.https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Tranchese, A., & Sugiura, L. (2021). \u201cI Don\u2019t Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches\u201d: How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny. Violence against women, 1077801221996453. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1077801221996453 Note: sometimes Google scholar indicated the pdf was hosted somewhere so I included that link but it isn't intended to be an endorsement of that non-journal site or hosting This piece from professor Halpin is accessible: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/incels-are-surprisingly-diverse-but-united-by-hate-163414 Take a look. If you have any follow up questions about these pieces I'm happy to discuss!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18542.0,"score_ratio":2.8235294118} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkckp2","c_root_id_B":"htl3iio","created_at_utc_A":1642744598,"created_at_utc_B":1642764276,"score_A":31,"score_B":144,"human_ref_A":"It's a reactionary movement against feminism and women's liberation. Over the course of the last century or so, women have gained a tremendous amount of legal, personal, and sexual freedom. And a lot more than you think has been only in the last 50 years. It wasn't until the 1970s that women could petition for divorce without having to prove before a court that their husband had been adulterous, cruel, or had abandoned them. That is, the burden of proof *was on the woman* to show that she deserved to be granted a divorce. Modern birth control has been a huge factor as well, since it allows women to be proactive in their avoidance of pregnancy without resorting to abstinence. Before \"the pill\", there were condoms and similar methods of birth control, but notably, most of them put the power in the hands of the man to use them or not. Other cultural and legal changes have also contributed. In the not so distant past, it was not possible to be convicted of rape against your spouse for instance. Women had (and still do, but it's gotten much better) greatly reduced career opportunities, which made them more dependent on men financially and more likely to marry just for a sense of stability. Add in the fact that what would once have been called \"assertive\" sexual behaviors from men are now regarded as creepy or even criminal, especially in certain settings. And the fact that society is becoming much less religious, removing yet another bulwark of heteronormativity and monogamy. What this all adds up to is that: **Yes, it has become harder for the average guy to get laid than it would have been 50, and certainly 100 years ago. And that's a GOOD thing!** But many frustrated young men, particularly those who struggle to attract a partner in this new sexual ecosystem who would have benefitted from the oppressive and frankly disgusting world of earlier generations, feel that they've been robbed of something they are entitled to. This is why they specifically hate feminism and outspoken feminists, or any woman in a position of authority. That is the seed of the incel movement. In some fairness to them, our toxic, hypermasculine machismo culture that shames boys and men who don't engage in regular sexual activity also plays a large role in the self-loathing that leads them to radicalize when they can't attract a partner. I didn't address your question about 4chan specifically as I think that's already been answered very well in this thread, but I wanted to provide some more background context.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to give you a reading list of more academic sources. I think others have covered some of the journalistic pieces well. But there actually is academic work on this topic. A couple are paywalled but you might be able to find copies online. Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on youtube. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.08293. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2001.08293 O\u2019Malley, R. L., Holt, K., & Holt, T. J. (2020). An exploration of the involuntary celibate (Incel) subculture online. Journal of interpersonal violence, 0886260520959625. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0886260520959625 Cottee, S. (2020). Incel (e) motives: Resentment, shame and revenge. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44(2), 93-114. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/1057610X.2020.1822589 Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Daly, S. E., & Reed, S. M. (2022). \u201cI Think Most of Society Hates Us\u201d: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Interviews with Incels. Sex Roles, 86(1), 14-33. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11199-021-01250-5 Heritage, F., & Koller, V. (2020). Incels, in-groups, and ideologies: The representation of gendered social actors in a sexuality-based online community. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 152-178. https:\/\/www.jbe-platform.com\/content\/journals\/10.1075\/jls.19014.her Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., ... & Zannettou, S. (2020). From pick-up artists to incels: a data-driven sketch of the manosphere. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07600. https:\/\/xyonline.net\/sites\/xyonline.net\/files\/2020-08\/Horta%20Ribeiro%2C%20From%20Pick-Up%20Artists%20to%20Incels%202020.pdf Jaki, S., De Smedt, T., Gw\u00f3\u017ad\u017a, M., Panchal, R., Rossa, A., & De Pauw, G. (2019). Online hatred of women in the Incels. me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic detection. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 7(2), 240-268.https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Tranchese, A., & Sugiura, L. (2021). \u201cI Don\u2019t Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches\u201d: How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny. Violence against women, 1077801221996453. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1077801221996453 Note: sometimes Google scholar indicated the pdf was hosted somewhere so I included that link but it isn't intended to be an endorsement of that non-journal site or hosting This piece from professor Halpin is accessible: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/incels-are-surprisingly-diverse-but-united-by-hate-163414 Take a look. If you have any follow up questions about these pieces I'm happy to discuss!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19678.0,"score_ratio":4.6451612903} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkaioh","c_root_id_B":"htl3iio","created_at_utc_A":1642743452,"created_at_utc_B":1642764276,"score_A":21,"score_B":144,"human_ref_A":"Your post made me think of 2 things. First, an amazing podcast episode where they interview the person who coined the term \u201cincel\u201d & created the first ever online incel forum & saw it take on a life of its own (hint: it\u2019s not who you\u2019d think!) https:\/\/gimletmedia.com\/amp\/shows\/reply-all\/76h59o Also, this video \u201chow to radicalize a normie\u201d is more about how normal dudes get into alt-right stuff, but incel culture is a major station on that train to radical conservatism: https:\/\/youtu.be\/P55t6eryY3g These two resources helped me understand this subculture better, bc I am equal parts horrified & fascinated","human_ref_B":"I'm going to give you a reading list of more academic sources. I think others have covered some of the journalistic pieces well. But there actually is academic work on this topic. A couple are paywalled but you might be able to find copies online. Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on youtube. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.08293. https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2001.08293 O\u2019Malley, R. L., Holt, K., & Holt, T. J. (2020). An exploration of the involuntary celibate (Incel) subculture online. Journal of interpersonal violence, 0886260520959625. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0886260520959625 Cottee, S. (2020). Incel (e) motives: Resentment, shame and revenge. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44(2), 93-114. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/1057610X.2020.1822589 Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Daly, S. E., & Reed, S. M. (2022). \u201cI Think Most of Society Hates Us\u201d: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Interviews with Incels. Sex Roles, 86(1), 14-33. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11199-021-01250-5 Heritage, F., & Koller, V. (2020). Incels, in-groups, and ideologies: The representation of gendered social actors in a sexuality-based online community. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 152-178. https:\/\/www.jbe-platform.com\/content\/journals\/10.1075\/jls.19014.her Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., ... & Zannettou, S. (2020). From pick-up artists to incels: a data-driven sketch of the manosphere. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07600. https:\/\/xyonline.net\/sites\/xyonline.net\/files\/2020-08\/Horta%20Ribeiro%2C%20From%20Pick-Up%20Artists%20to%20Incels%202020.pdf Jaki, S., De Smedt, T., Gw\u00f3\u017ad\u017a, M., Panchal, R., Rossa, A., & De Pauw, G. (2019). Online hatred of women in the Incels. me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic detection. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 7(2), 240-268.https:\/\/www.organisms.be\/downloads\/incels.pdf Tranchese, A., & Sugiura, L. (2021). \u201cI Don\u2019t Hate All Women, Just Those Stuck-Up Bitches\u201d: How Incels and Mainstream Pornography Speak the Same Extreme Language of Misogyny. Violence against women, 1077801221996453. https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/1077801221996453 Note: sometimes Google scholar indicated the pdf was hosted somewhere so I included that link but it isn't intended to be an endorsement of that non-journal site or hosting This piece from professor Halpin is accessible: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/incels-are-surprisingly-diverse-but-united-by-hate-163414 Take a look. If you have any follow up questions about these pieces I'm happy to discuss!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20824.0,"score_ratio":6.8571428571} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkeidn","c_root_id_B":"htkckp2","created_at_utc_A":1642745734,"created_at_utc_B":1642744598,"score_A":51,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":">As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement One BIG part of the \"incel\" culture, at least judging by their behavior and rhetoric, is that they are not simply unhappy and insecure with the lack of female attention in their life. They are deeply, deeply, angry and feel that someone (usually women, but also often men who don't seem to be in the same situation) are directly to blame for their unhappyness. And they pretty often talk about how they'd like to hurt, \"punish\" or \"teach a lesson to\" the people they personally blame for their being so unhappy with their life. I've seen a number of rants some of them have posted in various places, that basicly boil down to they feel that if they had gotten the amount and kind of female attention they wanted at some previous point in their life, they would not have any of the problems they currently have. And because of that they feel justified in their anger at whole groups of people, most of whom have never interacted with them in any way. In short, people in this socio-political movement base their whole identity on not having their sexual fantasies gratified, and being very angry about it. Or have had one or more really, bad breakups or divorces, and now feel that all women are basically interchangeable, entirely unredeemable, subhumans. I'm not sure what spawned it exactly, other than the ease of finding echo chambers online. Allowing almost anyone to find someone somewhere who will tell them exactly what they want to hear, no matter what it is, while also isolating themselves from other viewpoints. And that allows feelings and attitudes to move more and more to the extreme end of the possible range, while also normalizing those extreme views to the people in those echo chambers. Terry Pratchett put it very well when he said >Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are...well... human beings.","human_ref_B":"It's a reactionary movement against feminism and women's liberation. Over the course of the last century or so, women have gained a tremendous amount of legal, personal, and sexual freedom. And a lot more than you think has been only in the last 50 years. It wasn't until the 1970s that women could petition for divorce without having to prove before a court that their husband had been adulterous, cruel, or had abandoned them. That is, the burden of proof *was on the woman* to show that she deserved to be granted a divorce. Modern birth control has been a huge factor as well, since it allows women to be proactive in their avoidance of pregnancy without resorting to abstinence. Before \"the pill\", there were condoms and similar methods of birth control, but notably, most of them put the power in the hands of the man to use them or not. Other cultural and legal changes have also contributed. In the not so distant past, it was not possible to be convicted of rape against your spouse for instance. Women had (and still do, but it's gotten much better) greatly reduced career opportunities, which made them more dependent on men financially and more likely to marry just for a sense of stability. Add in the fact that what would once have been called \"assertive\" sexual behaviors from men are now regarded as creepy or even criminal, especially in certain settings. And the fact that society is becoming much less religious, removing yet another bulwark of heteronormativity and monogamy. What this all adds up to is that: **Yes, it has become harder for the average guy to get laid than it would have been 50, and certainly 100 years ago. And that's a GOOD thing!** But many frustrated young men, particularly those who struggle to attract a partner in this new sexual ecosystem who would have benefitted from the oppressive and frankly disgusting world of earlier generations, feel that they've been robbed of something they are entitled to. This is why they specifically hate feminism and outspoken feminists, or any woman in a position of authority. That is the seed of the incel movement. In some fairness to them, our toxic, hypermasculine machismo culture that shames boys and men who don't engage in regular sexual activity also plays a large role in the self-loathing that leads them to radicalize when they can't attract a partner. I didn't address your question about 4chan specifically as I think that's already been answered very well in this thread, but I wanted to provide some more background context.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1136.0,"score_ratio":1.6451612903} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkaioh","c_root_id_B":"htkeidn","created_at_utc_A":1642743452,"created_at_utc_B":1642745734,"score_A":21,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"Your post made me think of 2 things. First, an amazing podcast episode where they interview the person who coined the term \u201cincel\u201d & created the first ever online incel forum & saw it take on a life of its own (hint: it\u2019s not who you\u2019d think!) https:\/\/gimletmedia.com\/amp\/shows\/reply-all\/76h59o Also, this video \u201chow to radicalize a normie\u201d is more about how normal dudes get into alt-right stuff, but incel culture is a major station on that train to radical conservatism: https:\/\/youtu.be\/P55t6eryY3g These two resources helped me understand this subculture better, bc I am equal parts horrified & fascinated","human_ref_B":">As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement One BIG part of the \"incel\" culture, at least judging by their behavior and rhetoric, is that they are not simply unhappy and insecure with the lack of female attention in their life. They are deeply, deeply, angry and feel that someone (usually women, but also often men who don't seem to be in the same situation) are directly to blame for their unhappyness. And they pretty often talk about how they'd like to hurt, \"punish\" or \"teach a lesson to\" the people they personally blame for their being so unhappy with their life. I've seen a number of rants some of them have posted in various places, that basicly boil down to they feel that if they had gotten the amount and kind of female attention they wanted at some previous point in their life, they would not have any of the problems they currently have. And because of that they feel justified in their anger at whole groups of people, most of whom have never interacted with them in any way. In short, people in this socio-political movement base their whole identity on not having their sexual fantasies gratified, and being very angry about it. Or have had one or more really, bad breakups or divorces, and now feel that all women are basically interchangeable, entirely unredeemable, subhumans. I'm not sure what spawned it exactly, other than the ease of finding echo chambers online. Allowing almost anyone to find someone somewhere who will tell them exactly what they want to hear, no matter what it is, while also isolating themselves from other viewpoints. And that allows feelings and attitudes to move more and more to the extreme end of the possible range, while also normalizing those extreme views to the people in those echo chambers. Terry Pratchett put it very well when he said >Individuals aren't naturally paid-up members of the human race, except biologically. They need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society, which is a mechanism by which human beings constantly remind one another that they are...well... human beings.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2282.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htkckp2","c_root_id_B":"htkaioh","created_at_utc_A":1642744598,"created_at_utc_B":1642743452,"score_A":31,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"It's a reactionary movement against feminism and women's liberation. Over the course of the last century or so, women have gained a tremendous amount of legal, personal, and sexual freedom. And a lot more than you think has been only in the last 50 years. It wasn't until the 1970s that women could petition for divorce without having to prove before a court that their husband had been adulterous, cruel, or had abandoned them. That is, the burden of proof *was on the woman* to show that she deserved to be granted a divorce. Modern birth control has been a huge factor as well, since it allows women to be proactive in their avoidance of pregnancy without resorting to abstinence. Before \"the pill\", there were condoms and similar methods of birth control, but notably, most of them put the power in the hands of the man to use them or not. Other cultural and legal changes have also contributed. In the not so distant past, it was not possible to be convicted of rape against your spouse for instance. Women had (and still do, but it's gotten much better) greatly reduced career opportunities, which made them more dependent on men financially and more likely to marry just for a sense of stability. Add in the fact that what would once have been called \"assertive\" sexual behaviors from men are now regarded as creepy or even criminal, especially in certain settings. And the fact that society is becoming much less religious, removing yet another bulwark of heteronormativity and monogamy. What this all adds up to is that: **Yes, it has become harder for the average guy to get laid than it would have been 50, and certainly 100 years ago. And that's a GOOD thing!** But many frustrated young men, particularly those who struggle to attract a partner in this new sexual ecosystem who would have benefitted from the oppressive and frankly disgusting world of earlier generations, feel that they've been robbed of something they are entitled to. This is why they specifically hate feminism and outspoken feminists, or any woman in a position of authority. That is the seed of the incel movement. In some fairness to them, our toxic, hypermasculine machismo culture that shames boys and men who don't engage in regular sexual activity also plays a large role in the self-loathing that leads them to radicalize when they can't attract a partner. I didn't address your question about 4chan specifically as I think that's already been answered very well in this thread, but I wanted to provide some more background context.","human_ref_B":"Your post made me think of 2 things. First, an amazing podcast episode where they interview the person who coined the term \u201cincel\u201d & created the first ever online incel forum & saw it take on a life of its own (hint: it\u2019s not who you\u2019d think!) https:\/\/gimletmedia.com\/amp\/shows\/reply-all\/76h59o Also, this video \u201chow to radicalize a normie\u201d is more about how normal dudes get into alt-right stuff, but incel culture is a major station on that train to radical conservatism: https:\/\/youtu.be\/P55t6eryY3g These two resources helped me understand this subculture better, bc I am equal parts horrified & fascinated","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1146.0,"score_ratio":1.4761904762} {"post_id":"s8z9ue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Origin of \"incel\" culture?? Whenever I use the Internet\/social media, especially on sites like youtube\/reddit, i notice every now and then an \"incel\" culture. From what i've read, the \"incels\" are a movement of males who blame their lack of sexual activity on inappropriate female standards, or something. But it seems to me that it extends beyond that. Apparently, the \"incel\" mindset often also has political connotations. They are mostly conservative-minded, and are quite tribalist. And they seem obsessed with some idea of \"masculinity\" that they believe is being targeted by the \"feminist\/lgbt agenda\". It also seems like this is not a US only thing. I sometimes notice hard core Muslim\/Hindu males band together online and seem to share similar beliefs. Does this have to do with some internet movement? I feel like sites like 4chan have become breeding grounds for it, or are responsible for spawning this culture. They also seem to be invested in meme culture, and use a certain jargon frequently, which include \"beta\/simp\/cuck\/based\/soy\" etc. They also seem to create a lot of the \"right wing\" youtube videos with exaggerated titles, mostly about \"destroying\" an adversary in a discussion. As a male who is a little insecure with himself with the belief that he lacks female attention others have, and thus technically fitting of the term \"incel\", it still somewhat surprises me that the lack of a partner has become inter-twined with this somewhat strange, mostly online socio-political movement. So my question is, when did this internet subculture begin? What spawned it? And have there been studies as to the demographics behind such members in it, and what their motivations are? Would be curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"htldk67","c_root_id_B":"htkaioh","created_at_utc_A":1642770524,"created_at_utc_B":1642743452,"score_A":30,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I'm doing research in this area! It's late where I am so I'll only answer your first question. The others are more subjective... There's no simple answer to explain how the subculture has got to where it is today. It's also quite challenging to provide accurate demographic data, although some informal surveys within incel forums have been conducted. **when did this internet subculture begin?** Incel was actually a term coined by a woman known only as Alana, in a humble website back in the late 90s. Check it out! Although this was a tolerant space to begin with that's quite unrecognisable today, the movement gradually became dominated by misogynistic men. Here's a great article by Zack Beauchamp for Vox on the history of the movement. For an in-depth, quantitative academic reference which shows how the incels movement has grown and overlapped with other related subcultures, I recommend this article that another user mentioned too: Ribeiro, M. H., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S., ... & Zannettou, S. (2020). From pick-up artists to incels: a data-driven sketch of the manosphere. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07600. https:\/\/xyonline.net\/sites\/xyonline.net\/files\/2020-08\/Horta%20Ribeiro%2C%20From%20Pick-Up%20Artists%20to%20Incels%202020.pdf","human_ref_B":"Your post made me think of 2 things. First, an amazing podcast episode where they interview the person who coined the term \u201cincel\u201d & created the first ever online incel forum & saw it take on a life of its own (hint: it\u2019s not who you\u2019d think!) https:\/\/gimletmedia.com\/amp\/shows\/reply-all\/76h59o Also, this video \u201chow to radicalize a normie\u201d is more about how normal dudes get into alt-right stuff, but incel culture is a major station on that train to radical conservatism: https:\/\/youtu.be\/P55t6eryY3g These two resources helped me understand this subculture better, bc I am equal parts horrified & fascinated","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27072.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"n38re2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the threshhold for \"absence of evidence\" to begin to be considered as evidence? Sorry for the awkwardly-worded question, but it'll make sense when I explain what prompted it: I got sucked down a Wikipedia hole on the Clovis culture. I remember learning way back in gradeschool that it was widely considered to be the oldest etablished culture in the Americas. Well, reading about it now I see that is not the case anymore. Apparently the reason for the \"Clovis first\" hypothesis was that nothing older had been found. Which, fair enough. However, I then started branching out to the several possible candidates for older cultures, and found this interesting statement on the page for the Topper Site: >Until increasing challenges in the first decade of the 21st century to the Clovis theory based on this site and others, it was unusual for archaeologists to dig deeper than the layer of the Clovis culture, as they then believed that no human artifacts would be found older than Clovis. I am well aware that I am reading Wikipedia and not academic research, which is why I came here to get some clarity. Was it *really* the case that people just said, \"Clovis is first so we won't dig deeper\"? That seems rather circular. On the other hand, I do see the practical value in limiting your effort based on reasonable assumptions of the limits of your possible gain. So where and how do you draw the line? How many sites did they have to dig deeper than Clovis to eventually decide there was no value in doing so anymore, and then what prompted the reversal in opinion that allowed for the discovery of all these older sites in more recent years?","c_root_id_A":"gwoxshv","c_root_id_B":"gwpxthc","created_at_utc_A":1619979183,"created_at_utc_B":1619996288,"score_A":24,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"I can\u2019t speak to your answer specifically with Clovis but one of the things that\u2019s done in terms of finding the quitting point is dependent on a couple of factors. One is the purpose of the dig, if it\u2019s just about making sure there\u2019s nothing there or mitigation you generally want to get it done ASAP. With low costs so you\u2019d try and get enough to justify calling a site \u201cdone\u201d. I worked on a project where we might have made a sampling error, and dug south when we should have dug north. However we called it because it was all volunteer labor and we kept pulling the same artifacts from every test pit and unit we opened. There wasn\u2019t enough to justify opening more units. The other is that you would consult the Geological data, specifically the soil profile for the area. There\u2019s nothing that holds people back from digging deep but when you know that the base layer of soil is a light red\/tan clay once you hit that and see no evidence of human interaction you\u2019d just close up shop. Especially if as I said before you\u2019re on a time crunch or have limited resources.","human_ref_B":">Until increasing challenges in the first decade of the 21st century to the Clovis theory based on this site and others, it was unusual for archaeologists to dig deeper than the layer of the Clovis culture, as they then believed that no human artifacts would be found older than Clovis. This is something of an oversimplification of the then-state of the art when it came to understanding the cultural sequence in the Americas. You need to understand the historical context of the effort to understand how and when the Americas came to be colonized. In the early 20th century, the view was that people had arrived in the Americas only a few thousand years earlier. The notion of populations living here-- and having reached here-- prior to the end of the Pleistocene was roundly rejected. It took literally finding human-made artifacts in direct association with extinct Pleistocene megafauna at the Clovis and Folsom type sites in the 1920s to settle that debate and \"prove\" (as much as anything can be proven in science) that humans had co-existed in the Americas with animals whose remains were only found in Pleistocene-aged sediments (i.e., that had not lived appreciably into the Holocene). Archaeology shifted mostly to trying to establish how people had gotten here, spread out, and colonized the western hemisphere. Clovis was \"the oldest\" anyone had found, and it was found in Pleistocene sediments. The trouble was that when you start digging that far back, you're dealing with a couple big problems. First, the farther back you go in time in the Americas, the smaller the population of people you're looking at, and that means you had fewer sites to work with from the start. And then you take over 13,000+ years of time, geological processes, and so on, and that means you're going to have *very* few sites left. And there's no guarantee that a Clovis site is going to be sitting on top of on of those very few potential earlier sites. But... if you don't have a Clovis site sitting on top to establish that you have your Clovis time period, then without radiocarbon dating (which wasn't developed until the late 40s and then still was only really good for a general idea of time for another couple decades) you have no way of knowing that the little bits of flaked stone you found are *older* than Clovis. It's entirely possible that there were pre-Clovis aged sites that were dug up in the 1940s and 1950s that no one recognized as pre-Clovis at the time. But what all this means is that for a long time, the sparsity of the archaeological record and the limited tools archaeologists had available to them made *finding* anything earlier than Clovis exceedingly unlikely. You literally needed Clovis to find pre-Clovis, or you needed an easily identifiable stratigraphic marker, and those are rare (the \"Black Mat\" in the American SW is one example). >I am well aware that I am reading Wikipedia and not academic research, which is why I came here to get some clarity. Was it really the case that people just said, \"Clovis is first so we won't dig deeper\"? That seems rather circular. On the other hand, I do see the practical value in limiting your effort based on reasonable assumptions of the limits of your possible gain. So, what do you think, based on what I wrote above? Does it sound like the view was just \"Clovis is first, so we're not going deeper?\" Or does it sound like the truth was a lot more complex? >So where and how do you draw the line? How many sites did they have to dig deeper than Clovis to eventually decide there was no value in doing so anymore, and then what prompted the reversal in opinion that allowed for the discovery of all these older sites in more recent years? Sites purportedly pre-dating Clovis began appearing in the literature in the 2nd half of the 20th century. But there was usually some kind of problem with them. The context of archaeological materials or datable carbon wasn't as well documented as it should have been, or the dates that came back from the C14 were just too wide to be reliable. Early C14-dating standard deviations were 500 years on either side of the estimate. A date of 11,500 +\/- 500 isn't all that good for arguing a firm case. And of course, there might also be a possibility of contamination. And then there also *were* those who argued-- often loudly, angrily, and ferociously-- that there was **no fucking way anyone was here before Clovis**. There are a couple folks in North American archaeology in the last 30 years who will go down in history as being very wrong, and kind of assholes to boot (Stu Fiedel). The effect of those attacks was to quash a lot of academic discussion, but it also forced anyone who was going to propose a site as preceding Clovis to be damned sure they had their ducks in a row. So when Monte Verde in Chile was published, even with a few issues, the principal investigators had done their due diligence. The data were hard to dismiss out of hand. The momentum built after that. In the ensuing 20+ years since Monte Verde was published, a handful of new and much more carefully excavated and documented sites have been investigated that basically put the nail in the coffin of Clovis First. In Florida, in Texas, in Idaho, along the Pacific Coast, and in South America (among others). As with any scientific field and significant advance, rapid progress isn't always desirable or ideal. It takes work, building on earlier efforts, and sometimes making significant discoveries that change things. Some may argue that Clovis First should have died long ago. And maybe it should have. But without viable alternatives *supported by strong evidence* you don't just up and change things around for the hell of it. That's not how science works.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17105.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"qlfoim","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Gender roles in prehistory - Is the stereotype of men being hunters and women being child nurturers in prehistory generally true? I'm having a discussion with a friend who claims that the division of labour between men and women in prehistoric times was more likely to be fairly even and also that strength differences between men and women were a lot smaller than they are today. Is there a consensus that the stereotypical view of labour in prehistory is wrong?","c_root_id_A":"hj76onn","c_root_id_B":"hj679vs","created_at_utc_A":1635973249,"created_at_utc_B":1635959734,"score_A":13,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"> Different subsistence strategies involve different kinds of work, allocated to different people. In foraging societies, most work is assigned according to gender. In general, men do most of the hunting and fishing, and women do most of the gathering of food from plants. *However* these patterns are rarely rigid. Instead, in practice, the roles of men and women overlap so that men may participate in gathering and women may assist in hunting and fishing. **The stereotypical view of men as the sole hunters and women as gatherers is not supported by actual data and practice**. So basically, in a lot of foraging and hunter-gatherer societies, men did do the hunting and women the foraging. But these roles tended to overlap a lot and also tended to be reversed in a lot of societies. So the stereotype of men being the hunters and women being only \u201enurturers\u201c is wrong. Women did of course nurture their offspring but they also had the role of hunting and gathering. In fact, it should also be added that in societies where men hunted and women foraged: > [based off a study on the Ju\/hoansi foraging people] Men spent more time and energy in subsistence work than did women, [but] women provided the bulk of the calories (55 percent). Women were more productive than men because success in hunting is appreciably lower than success in food collecting. On average, men killed one animal for every four days of hunting. And on average, women gathered enough plants, fruits, insects, and nuts in a few hours work several times a week to feed everyone in a camp each night. TLDR; Women were very important figures in early hunter-gathering societies. They did not only nurture their offspring but also played the roles of gatherers and hunters. The stereotype that generalizes women as playing solely a \u201enurturer\u201c role is false. Source: Cultural Anthropology, 4th edition - Nancy Bonvillain","human_ref_B":"I just read this article on Japanese National Geographic (this is the English version) a few weeks ago about growing evidence for your friend's perspective.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13515.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"xo74ch","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do hunter-gatherers trim their finger- and toenails? This is a question I've been asking myself for years, and in all the anthropological literature I read I've never seen any reference whatsoever. I know people in the middle ages used sharp knifes, but I'd like to know how prehistoric or isolated hunter-gatherers do this, since stone knifes are obviously not usable for this purpose. I \\*suspect\\* (without having any evidence) that people might use certain stones to file them down? I've heard it suggested that their nails wear down naturally from heavy use, which is utter nonsense if you ask me. I am a subsistence farmer and work more hours than average hunter-gatherers in the climate zone I inhabit (tropics), and I use my bare hands all the time (I practice \"primitive permaculture\"), even sometimes for digging (hunter-gatherers usually use digging sticks). My nails don't get worn down by simply foraging and subsisting, so there must be a different method. A friend once jokingly proposed that they simply bite off their nails, which might be possible for fingernails but is obviously less practicable for toenails. Does anyone have a reference for how indigenous societies without metal tools do this?","c_root_id_A":"ipyx394","c_root_id_B":"ipyj5ei","created_at_utc_A":1664199871,"created_at_utc_B":1664192523,"score_A":114,"score_B":87,"human_ref_A":"I don't have any specific answers (and I suspect they vary widely between communities), but I do want to challenge two of your assumptions: 1. Stone knives and flakes, especially those made from glass-like stones like obsidian, can actually be sharper than steel knives. You certainly could used sharp flakes from stone-knapping to trim your nails, and it would be especially easy after soaking your hands and feet in water to soften them. 2. Almost all children under a certain age are flexibile enough to chew their own toenails, and it's likely if you were chewing your toenails once a week from childhood, you'd retain this flexibility.","human_ref_B":"Fingernails can be trimmed by picking, by biting, or by cutting with a sharp flake of stone. And yes, fingernails will wear \/ break if they get to a certain length and are not otherwise truncated. Toenails can be trimmed with a stone flake, but can also be picked or will break \/ wear once they get too long. It's generally not covered in the anthropological literature because it's irrelevant, and frankly, obvious. And I have to confess to surprise whenever I see this question come up (and it's come up numerous times since I've been reading \/ replying to posts on this sub). I think what it shows, more than anything else, is that there are a surprising number of people who do not bite their nails, who have never used a pocket knife to trim a nail, and who apparently think that the only way to trim nails is with purpose-made \"nail trimmers \/ clippers.\" Which is, in its own way, informative. (I confess I'm something of a nail biter, but even when I make an effort to trim my nails rather than biting them, I use my pocket knife, not nail clippers.)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7348.0,"score_ratio":1.3103448276} {"post_id":"mmtmgs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Anyone know of good texts about the Ainu? I've recently become interested in learning about the Ainu and was wondering if there are any interesting books or articles that people here would recommend. I'm mainly interested in their ceremonies and religious practices, though I would be happy to read anything you guys suggest.","c_root_id_A":"gtwe71f","c_root_id_B":"gtvfhnp","created_at_utc_A":1617945808,"created_at_utc_B":1617925912,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"\"Environment and Planning A2010, volume 42, pages 268 ^ 284\" \"What does Ainu cultural revitalisation mean to Ainu and Wajin youth in the 21st century? Case study of Urespa as a place to learn Ainu culture in the city of Sapporo, Japan\" \"The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan FocusVolume 6 | Issue 11 | Nov 01, 20081Indigenous at last! Ainu Grassroots Organizing and theIndigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir\" If you plug those into google and hit the first link, those are some articles I read for a class that talked about the Ainu, it's just a small selection but you could probably find more about the rest of the book.","human_ref_B":"Mark Watson at Concordia. He has studied how indigenous customs translate to urban settings in 2004ish I think","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19896.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms88yi","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612932185,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":28,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1567.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrood1","c_root_id_B":"gms88yi","created_at_utc_A":1612921569,"created_at_utc_B":1612932185,"score_A":17,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"This is really surprising to me! No academic perspective on this but I view women with tattoos as sexy and confident... and as varied as any other women. I have tattoos, all on my back, and I love them. I want many more.","human_ref_B":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10616.0,"score_ratio":1.6470588235} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrskxj","c_root_id_B":"gms88yi","created_at_utc_A":1612923621,"created_at_utc_B":1612932185,"score_A":11,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ve never wanted tattoos, mostly because it is a huge commitment I was sure I would regret. Also most ink I see in my community is inferior artistry in my opinion. HOWEVER, I recently had major surgery, and I could now see myself getting a tattoo to cover my scar. It would be a celebration of overcoming adversity.","human_ref_B":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8564.0,"score_ratio":2.5454545455} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms109g","c_root_id_B":"gms88yi","created_at_utc_A":1612928080,"created_at_utc_B":1612932185,"score_A":12,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","human_ref_B":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4105.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrxy7j","c_root_id_B":"gms88yi","created_at_utc_A":1612926434,"created_at_utc_B":1612932185,"score_A":5,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","human_ref_B":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5751.0,"score_ratio":5.6} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrvtj2","c_root_id_B":"gms88yi","created_at_utc_A":1612925308,"created_at_utc_B":1612932185,"score_A":4,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","human_ref_B":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6877.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms88yi","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612932185,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":28,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I find this academic perspective so interesting because it's the opposite of how I feel about my tattoos! To me (23F), my tattoos symbolize freedom, bodily autonomy, beauty, and my values. I've never seen my tattoos as an outlet of emotional instability, but rather as a form of self expression and ownership of the body that I live in.","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1901.0,"score_ratio":14.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrood1","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612921569,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":17,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"This is really surprising to me! No academic perspective on this but I view women with tattoos as sexy and confident... and as varied as any other women. I have tattoos, all on my back, and I love them. I want many more.","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9049.0,"score_ratio":1.2941176471} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms5khv","c_root_id_B":"gmrskxj","created_at_utc_A":1612930618,"created_at_utc_B":1612923621,"score_A":22,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve never wanted tattoos, mostly because it is a huge commitment I was sure I would regret. Also most ink I see in my community is inferior artistry in my opinion. HOWEVER, I recently had major surgery, and I could now see myself getting a tattoo to cover my scar. It would be a celebration of overcoming adversity.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6997.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms109g","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612928080,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":12,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2538.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrxy7j","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612926434,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":5,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4184.0,"score_ratio":4.4} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrvtj2","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612925308,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":4,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5310.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms4zdt","c_root_id_B":"gms5khv","created_at_utc_A":1612930284,"created_at_utc_B":1612930618,"score_A":2,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","human_ref_B":"I am an extremely stereotypically feminine woman. I have a quarter sleeve of flowers that are pulled from my daughter\u2019s newborn gown. I have a bracelet of a vine. A scythe. And a tiny heart. In my opinion, I feel like my tattoos highlight my femininity through juxtaposition. I was unstable as an adolescent. I sought intensive therapy and medical treatment and am now a mother, wife, and student pursuing a STEM degree. I had a fear of tattoos because the idea of permanence scared me because I had never experienced it. Now that I have grown, I can actually describe myself as stable and reliable and consistent and \u201cokay\u201d and THAT is when I started getting tattoos; they represented something unchanging, permanent, eternal, and all of those things are me. I feel like my tattoos are representative of how I am a fully formed person. I will forever be this person. Only expanding, not changing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":334.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrood1","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612921569,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":17,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"This is really surprising to me! No academic perspective on this but I view women with tattoos as sexy and confident... and as varied as any other women. I have tattoos, all on my back, and I love them. I want many more.","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18809.0,"score_ratio":1.1176470588} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrskxj","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612923621,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":11,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ve never wanted tattoos, mostly because it is a huge commitment I was sure I would regret. Also most ink I see in my community is inferior artistry in my opinion. HOWEVER, I recently had major surgery, and I could now see myself getting a tattoo to cover my scar. It would be a celebration of overcoming adversity.","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16757.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms109g","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612928080,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":12,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12298.0,"score_ratio":1.5833333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmserih","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612936476,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":10,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3902.0,"score_ratio":1.9} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrxy7j","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612926434,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":5,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13944.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsjr33","c_root_id_B":"gmsbr53","created_at_utc_A":1612940378,"created_at_utc_B":1612934399,"score_A":19,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5979.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsjr33","c_root_id_B":"gmrvtj2","created_at_utc_A":1612940378,"created_at_utc_B":1612925308,"score_A":19,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","human_ref_B":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15070.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbul5","c_root_id_B":"gmsjr33","created_at_utc_A":1612934466,"created_at_utc_B":1612940378,"score_A":3,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I follow a few tattooists on Instagram and this korean tattooists has posted a few times about her thoughts on tattoos in society and specifically about women. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CIFSa2cnQa_\/?igshid=1923wqmy714q2","human_ref_B":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5912.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsjr33","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612940378,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":19,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"> The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. What? People are publishing that statement in peer-reviewed literature? Today?","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10094.0,"score_ratio":9.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms109g","c_root_id_B":"gmrskxj","created_at_utc_A":1612928080,"created_at_utc_B":1612923621,"score_A":12,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve never wanted tattoos, mostly because it is a huge commitment I was sure I would regret. Also most ink I see in my community is inferior artistry in my opinion. HOWEVER, I recently had major surgery, and I could now see myself getting a tattoo to cover my scar. It would be a celebration of overcoming adversity.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4459.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms109g","c_root_id_B":"gmrxy7j","created_at_utc_A":1612928080,"created_at_utc_B":1612926434,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","human_ref_B":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1646.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrvtj2","c_root_id_B":"gms109g","created_at_utc_A":1612925308,"created_at_utc_B":1612928080,"score_A":4,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","human_ref_B":"You probably have already seen this article as it was published a while ago, but I think this is very interesting discovery. https:\/\/siberiantimes.com\/culture\/others\/features\/siberian-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2772.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmserih","c_root_id_B":"gmrxy7j","created_at_utc_A":1612936476,"created_at_utc_B":1612926434,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","human_ref_B":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10042.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmserih","c_root_id_B":"gmsbr53","created_at_utc_A":1612936476,"created_at_utc_B":1612934399,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2077.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmserih","c_root_id_B":"gmrvtj2","created_at_utc_A":1612936476,"created_at_utc_B":1612925308,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","human_ref_B":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11168.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbul5","c_root_id_B":"gmserih","created_at_utc_A":1612934466,"created_at_utc_B":1612936476,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I follow a few tattooists on Instagram and this korean tattooists has posted a few times about her thoughts on tattoos in society and specifically about women. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CIFSa2cnQa_\/?igshid=1923wqmy714q2","human_ref_B":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2010.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms4zdt","c_root_id_B":"gmserih","created_at_utc_A":1612930284,"created_at_utc_B":1612936476,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","human_ref_B":"Yes! My senior thesis in undergrad (degree in anthro) was on embodiment and concepts of self\/self ownership. Sure we all have bodily autonomy, but on a more intangible level, we decide how to decorate our bodies based on culture, and that culture is determined by society in general (aka other people). Therefore, ultimately, the choices we make regarding how\/what\/where\/why to tattoo ourselves comes from others. So where do we draw the line between \"i got this tattoo because *i* wanted to\" and \"all of the things i want are created by society\". So who does the tattoo *really* belong to? Etc etc lol one of my fave rabbit holes to go down!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6192.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrxy7j","c_root_id_B":"gmsugbx","created_at_utc_A":1612926434,"created_at_utc_B":1612950256,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","human_ref_B":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23822.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbr53","c_root_id_B":"gmsugbx","created_at_utc_A":1612934399,"created_at_utc_B":1612950256,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","human_ref_B":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15857.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrvtj2","c_root_id_B":"gmsugbx","created_at_utc_A":1612925308,"created_at_utc_B":1612950256,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","human_ref_B":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24948.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsugbx","c_root_id_B":"gmsbul5","created_at_utc_A":1612950256,"created_at_utc_B":1612934466,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","human_ref_B":"I follow a few tattooists on Instagram and this korean tattooists has posted a few times about her thoughts on tattoos in society and specifically about women. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CIFSa2cnQa_\/?igshid=1923wqmy714q2","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15790.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsugbx","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612950256,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19972.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmskbu2","c_root_id_B":"gmsugbx","created_at_utc_A":1612940862,"created_at_utc_B":1612950256,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Of all the things I do that impact my femininity, my tattoo certainly does not. And the tattoos I am planing do not. I am much more insecure about my decision to stop shaving my legs, or about my love of nail polish. To most of my friends, tattoos seem to be a representation of strength and freedom rather than vulnerable and unstable.","human_ref_B":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9394.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsugbx","c_root_id_B":"gmsnbw5","created_at_utc_A":1612950256,"created_at_utc_B":1612943464,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","human_ref_B":"I'm not a woman nor do I have tattoos but I feel I should point you to researching the role of tattoos in Kalinga society. For women tattoos served an aesthetic purpose, almost like makeup.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6792.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsraol","c_root_id_B":"gmsugbx","created_at_utc_A":1612947128,"created_at_utc_B":1612950256,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Not yet inked (because of covid, otherwise I would have gotten my first in november) but f22 and many people look at me and think I am very stereotypically feminine (they also always seem to think I am fragile and dumb- and I am actually hoping that tattoos will make me look a bit tougher) so if you still need someone I'd be down to talk :)","human_ref_B":"Really cool that you're writing about this! I've always had a weird relationship with the idea of femininity. I'm a lesbian, which I only realized when I was 20, so I'd always had the ~not like other girls~ feeling without understanding why. I was always really uncomfortable with my body for as long as I can remember - I vividly recall being 8 and girls in my class were on diets and comparing measurements. That eventually escalated into a weird type of body dysmorphia. I was so uncomfortable with being perceived. I hated having a physical form, particularly a gendered one. It's hard to describe the experience lmao. But it got so bad that I ended up terrified to go out in public because I couldn't handle people looking at me. Last year I ended up spending a month in a psychiatric hospital because it got so bad. It's still something I struggle with, but I'm more able to manage it now. Anyway, regarding tattoos: they have been my saving grace. One of my biggest issues with my body is that I didnt feel like it was \"mine.\" I saw it as just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and blood. Even on a molecular level, I had no input in what my cells were doing. I also had that weird vibe of I hated being seen by straight men, yet also I had internalized wanting their approval, and it was like my physical body was the battleground. I hated being my body being seen as a gendered object, and yet I still chose to perform the gendered expectations (wearing makeup etc) and I hated myself even more for that. I can't describe my relationship with tattoos without sounding like a maniac. I love the culture, the history, the art form...but it's much more than that for me. It's like they helped me make my body my own. I still hate being perceived, and I HATE people asking me about the tattoos, but that's a price I'm willing to pay lmao. It's much deeper than aesthetics for me. They make me feel like a person rather than A Woman (as designated by society.) I wouldn't say that I love my body, but I can accept it as mine which is pretty major for me. I wouldn't be able to without tattoos. TLDR (basically that Margharet Atwood quote about being your own voyeur)[https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/329778-male-fantasies-male-fantasies-is-everything-run-by-male-fantasies]. Tattoos help me to handle that feeling and it's like they alienate me from that internal voyeur, and let me just comfortably exist as a person. Sorry for rambling, lol.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3128.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrxy7j","c_root_id_B":"gmsbr53","created_at_utc_A":1612926434,"created_at_utc_B":1612934399,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7965.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsw7qb","c_root_id_B":"gmrxy7j","created_at_utc_A":1612952022,"created_at_utc_B":1612926434,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","human_ref_B":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25588.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmrvtj2","c_root_id_B":"gmrxy7j","created_at_utc_A":1612925308,"created_at_utc_B":1612926434,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","human_ref_B":"I am a woman identifying person, who studied anthropology, specific theoretical focus on personhood and pet animals. My tattoos are based on pazyryk tattoos of animals and one stone relic from a burial. one e.a. wallis budge drawing of a bennu bird \"from a ritual.\" Cool project and one... Close to my body. I'm happy to help.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1126.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbr53","c_root_id_B":"gmrvtj2","created_at_utc_A":1612934399,"created_at_utc_B":1612925308,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","human_ref_B":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9091.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbr53","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612934399,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d love to have discussions with you. I\u2019m a 30ish female with many tattoos. I\u2019d also invite you to check out this YouTube video about Asian tatted grandmas as I feel like it might be of interest to you. Feel free to AMA here, or inbox me. I\u2019m a open book with anything but identifying myself.","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4115.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsw7qb","c_root_id_B":"gmrvtj2","created_at_utc_A":1612952022,"created_at_utc_B":1612925308,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","human_ref_B":"Love this topic! I'm (31F) definitely down to talk! (For what it's worth, I've got half my back done and am working on a thigh piece for when COVID restrictions let up).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26714.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsw7qb","c_root_id_B":"gmsbul5","created_at_utc_A":1612952022,"created_at_utc_B":1612934466,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","human_ref_B":"I follow a few tattooists on Instagram and this korean tattooists has posted a few times about her thoughts on tattoos in society and specifically about women. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CIFSa2cnQa_\/?igshid=1923wqmy714q2","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17556.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms4zdt","c_root_id_B":"gmsw7qb","created_at_utc_A":1612930284,"created_at_utc_B":1612952022,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","human_ref_B":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21738.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsw7qb","c_root_id_B":"gmskbu2","created_at_utc_A":1612952022,"created_at_utc_B":1612940862,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","human_ref_B":"Of all the things I do that impact my femininity, my tattoo certainly does not. And the tattoos I am planing do not. I am much more insecure about my decision to stop shaving my legs, or about my love of nail polish. To most of my friends, tattoos seem to be a representation of strength and freedom rather than vulnerable and unstable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11160.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsnbw5","c_root_id_B":"gmsw7qb","created_at_utc_A":1612943464,"created_at_utc_B":1612952022,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm not a woman nor do I have tattoos but I feel I should point you to researching the role of tattoos in Kalinga society. For women tattoos served an aesthetic purpose, almost like makeup.","human_ref_B":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8558.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsw7qb","c_root_id_B":"gmsraol","created_at_utc_A":1612952022,"created_at_utc_B":1612947128,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Three of our MPs (politicians, representatives at a national level) from three different political parties have facial tattoos (ta moko) including the woman foreign minister. Moko kauae seem to be having a revival, hopefully it's lasting cultural revival. Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, seems an unlikely fashion icon or Instagram model. It's a statement of mana not of fragility or vulnerability. https:\/\/www.labour.org.nz\/nanaiamahuta https:\/\/www.parliament.nz\/en\/mps-and-electorates\/members-of-parliament\/ngarewa-packer-debbie\/ Here are a lot more https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=nga+wahine+moko+kauae&tbm=isch","human_ref_B":"Not yet inked (because of covid, otherwise I would have gotten my first in november) but f22 and many people look at me and think I am very stereotypically feminine (they also always seem to think I am fragile and dumb- and I am actually hoping that tattoos will make me look a bit tougher) so if you still need someone I'd be down to talk :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4894.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsbul5","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612934466,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I follow a few tattooists on Instagram and this korean tattooists has posted a few times about her thoughts on tattoos in society and specifically about women. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CIFSa2cnQa_\/?igshid=1923wqmy714q2","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4182.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmszym9","c_root_id_B":"gms4zdt","created_at_utc_A":1612955635,"created_at_utc_B":1612930284,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman with plenty of tattoos and I\u2019d be happy to talk to you. Also, it took me a few solid seconds of going YOU WHAT? YOU TATTOO BABIES?? before I realized what you actually said. \ud83d\ude02","human_ref_B":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25351.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmszym9","c_root_id_B":"gmskbu2","created_at_utc_A":1612955635,"created_at_utc_B":1612940862,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman with plenty of tattoos and I\u2019d be happy to talk to you. Also, it took me a few solid seconds of going YOU WHAT? YOU TATTOO BABIES?? before I realized what you actually said. \ud83d\ude02","human_ref_B":"Of all the things I do that impact my femininity, my tattoo certainly does not. And the tattoos I am planing do not. I am much more insecure about my decision to stop shaving my legs, or about my love of nail polish. To most of my friends, tattoos seem to be a representation of strength and freedom rather than vulnerable and unstable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14773.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsnbw5","c_root_id_B":"gmszym9","created_at_utc_A":1612943464,"created_at_utc_B":1612955635,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm not a woman nor do I have tattoos but I feel I should point you to researching the role of tattoos in Kalinga society. For women tattoos served an aesthetic purpose, almost like makeup.","human_ref_B":"I am a woman with plenty of tattoos and I\u2019d be happy to talk to you. Also, it took me a few solid seconds of going YOU WHAT? YOU TATTOO BABIES?? before I realized what you actually said. \ud83d\ude02","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12171.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmszym9","c_root_id_B":"gmsraol","created_at_utc_A":1612955635,"created_at_utc_B":1612947128,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am a woman with plenty of tattoos and I\u2019d be happy to talk to you. Also, it took me a few solid seconds of going YOU WHAT? YOU TATTOO BABIES?? before I realized what you actually said. \ud83d\ude02","human_ref_B":"Not yet inked (because of covid, otherwise I would have gotten my first in november) but f22 and many people look at me and think I am very stereotypically feminine (they also always seem to think I am fragile and dumb- and I am actually hoping that tattoos will make me look a bit tougher) so if you still need someone I'd be down to talk :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8507.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gms4zdt","c_root_id_B":"gmt19u2","created_at_utc_A":1612930284,"created_at_utc_B":1612956812,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I for one, as a modern woman, feel very empowered by my tattoos! Ive got two fairly small but noticeable ones that both have very important meanings (and were designed by me) and i honestly cant wait to get my next one","human_ref_B":"I (24F) only got my first tattoo at 22 (actually in commemoration of my undergrad anthropology fieldwork lol). Since then, I got three more because I loved how it made me feel *so much.* I think for me, tattoos are part of my progress towards self-realisation. For all my teens, I was a tomboy and quite intimidated\/afraid of showing femininity. I didn't put much effort into myself, or how I was perceived. But at uni, I got a lot more confidence, felt a lot more feminine, and started doing the things I've always wanted to do. Tattoos were one of them! I didn't get them to impress anybody, but to remind myself that I shouldn't be afraid of investing in myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26528.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmskbu2","c_root_id_B":"gmt19u2","created_at_utc_A":1612940862,"created_at_utc_B":1612956812,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Of all the things I do that impact my femininity, my tattoo certainly does not. And the tattoos I am planing do not. I am much more insecure about my decision to stop shaving my legs, or about my love of nail polish. To most of my friends, tattoos seem to be a representation of strength and freedom rather than vulnerable and unstable.","human_ref_B":"I (24F) only got my first tattoo at 22 (actually in commemoration of my undergrad anthropology fieldwork lol). Since then, I got three more because I loved how it made me feel *so much.* I think for me, tattoos are part of my progress towards self-realisation. For all my teens, I was a tomboy and quite intimidated\/afraid of showing femininity. I didn't put much effort into myself, or how I was perceived. But at uni, I got a lot more confidence, felt a lot more feminine, and started doing the things I've always wanted to do. Tattoos were one of them! I didn't get them to impress anybody, but to remind myself that I shouldn't be afraid of investing in myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15950.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmsnbw5","c_root_id_B":"gmt19u2","created_at_utc_A":1612943464,"created_at_utc_B":1612956812,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm not a woman nor do I have tattoos but I feel I should point you to researching the role of tattoos in Kalinga society. For women tattoos served an aesthetic purpose, almost like makeup.","human_ref_B":"I (24F) only got my first tattoo at 22 (actually in commemoration of my undergrad anthropology fieldwork lol). Since then, I got three more because I loved how it made me feel *so much.* I think for me, tattoos are part of my progress towards self-realisation. For all my teens, I was a tomboy and quite intimidated\/afraid of showing femininity. I didn't put much effort into myself, or how I was perceived. But at uni, I got a lot more confidence, felt a lot more feminine, and started doing the things I've always wanted to do. Tattoos were one of them! I didn't get them to impress anybody, but to remind myself that I shouldn't be afraid of investing in myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13348.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmt19u2","c_root_id_B":"gmsraol","created_at_utc_A":1612956812,"created_at_utc_B":1612947128,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I (24F) only got my first tattoo at 22 (actually in commemoration of my undergrad anthropology fieldwork lol). Since then, I got three more because I loved how it made me feel *so much.* I think for me, tattoos are part of my progress towards self-realisation. For all my teens, I was a tomboy and quite intimidated\/afraid of showing femininity. I didn't put much effort into myself, or how I was perceived. But at uni, I got a lot more confidence, felt a lot more feminine, and started doing the things I've always wanted to do. Tattoos were one of them! I didn't get them to impress anybody, but to remind myself that I shouldn't be afraid of investing in myself.","human_ref_B":"Not yet inked (because of covid, otherwise I would have gotten my first in november) but f22 and many people look at me and think I am very stereotypically feminine (they also always seem to think I am fragile and dumb- and I am actually hoping that tattoos will make me look a bit tougher) so if you still need someone I'd be down to talk :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9684.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lgi6dz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Seeking Participants: Dissertation on Tattoos and Feminine Personhood I\u2019m a university student\/baby tattoo artist planning to study the impact of tattoos on feminine personhood and social relations. If anybody would like to discuss this please let me know! If you have tattoos, or don\u2019t, and you feel they may impact your femininity, please get in touch. So far I have been gathering historical and modern examples of tattooed women, and drawing comparisons to male counterparts. The academic consensus at the moment seems to be that tattooed women are fragile, vulnerable and unstable. In my experience, this is certainly not the whole picture when it comes to tattooing, nor has it ever been. From mummified priestesses, to the free-spirited circus freaks of America, to my work colleagues today, there are plenty of tales of strength yet to be celebrated by scholars. @dandy.tattoo on insta :)","c_root_id_A":"gmt0mgk","c_root_id_B":"gmt19u2","created_at_utc_A":1612956234,"created_at_utc_B":1612956812,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Glad someone else mentioned ta moko. It can be a way of showing your whakapapa without words. Moko kauae is reserved for Maori women only. I\u2019m a pakeha and have 5 (non-maori) tattoos. They can be a little like armour, help me cover up my shyness and be more confident :)","human_ref_B":"I (24F) only got my first tattoo at 22 (actually in commemoration of my undergrad anthropology fieldwork lol). Since then, I got three more because I loved how it made me feel *so much.* I think for me, tattoos are part of my progress towards self-realisation. For all my teens, I was a tomboy and quite intimidated\/afraid of showing femininity. I didn't put much effort into myself, or how I was perceived. But at uni, I got a lot more confidence, felt a lot more feminine, and started doing the things I've always wanted to do. Tattoos were one of them! I didn't get them to impress anybody, but to remind myself that I shouldn't be afraid of investing in myself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":578.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cwup56","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Were any mummies\/icemen DNA-sequenced? If so, were they matched to any modern day ethnic groups? Were anything from Egyptian mummies or bogmen or anything ever DNA sequenced?","c_root_id_A":"eygb6hc","c_root_id_B":"eyg16yv","created_at_utc_A":1567065559,"created_at_utc_B":1567059222,"score_A":20,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Yes, many. The genome of the Mal'ta boy from Lake Baikal was sequenced a few years ago. \"A boy whose remains were found near Mal'ta is usually known by the abbreviation MA-1 (or MA1). Discovered in the 1920s, the remains have been dated to 24,000 BP. According to research published since 2013, MA-1 belonged to a population related to the genetic ancestors of Siberians, American Indians, and Bronze Age Yamnaya people of the Eurasian steppe.[1][2] In particular, modern-day Native Americans, Kets, Mansi, Nganasans and Yukaghirs have been found to harbour a lot of ancestry related to MA-1.[3]\" Also the Ust'-Ishim man: \"Examination of the sequenced genome indicates that Ust'-Ishim man lived at a point in time (270,000 to 45,000 years ago) between the first wave of anatomically modern humans that migrated out of Africa and the divergence of that population into distinct populations, in terms of autosomal DNA in different parts of Eurasia.[2] Consequently, Ust'-Ishim man is not more closely related to the first two major migrations of Homo Sapiens eastward from Africa into Asia: a group that migrated along the coast of South Asia, or a group that moved north-east through Central Asia.[8] When compared to other ancient remains, Ust'-Ishim man is more closely related, in terms of autosomal DNA to Tianyuan man, found near Beijing and dating from 42,000 to 39,000 years ago; Mal'ta boy (or MA-1), a child who lived 24,000 years ago along the Bolshaya Belaya River near today's Irkutsk in Siberia, or; La Bra\u00f1a man \u2013 a hunter-gatherer who lived in La Bra\u00f1a (modern Spain) about 8,000 years ago.[3][9][10]\" https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mal%27ta%E2%80%93Buret%27_culture https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ust%27-Ishim_man Come and check out r\/Archaeogenetics!","human_ref_B":"The ice man Otzi's DNA was apparently done https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/sciencemain\/scientists-say-otzi-iceman-has-living-relatives-5-300-years-8C11392771#targetText=Scientists%20say%20%C3%96tzi%20the%20Iceman%20has%20living%20relatives%2C%205%2C300%20years%20later&targetText=No%20next%2Dof%2Dkin%20was,living%20in%20Austria's%20Tyrol%20region.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6337.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jaal78","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"If we take newly born babies from let's say hunter-gatherer era and raise it in current modern society, will the babies be able to learn just as well as babies from current society?","c_root_id_A":"g8qn9uj","c_root_id_B":"g8pq5p6","created_at_utc_A":1602628291,"created_at_utc_B":1602612117,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I feel the need to point out that there are animals that rival our own intelligence in many areas, the reason we took over is more due to our language abilities than our intelligence.","human_ref_B":"I think prenatal nutrition would be a large factor. If they lived somewhere with a varied diet, I\u2019m with the others saying they\u2019d grow up just fine.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16174.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"hc406z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Can someone tell me about the Denisovans? I came to know about them from a video on YouTube and some articles. All I know that we do not have many proofs of their existence, but a few large teeth and bracelets were discovered near Russia. One bracelet had a very fine hole which is speculated to only possible to be made using a high power drill. I just want to know more about them. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"fvd0uvc","c_root_id_B":"fvd4ov3","created_at_utc_A":1592590578,"created_at_utc_B":1592592484,"score_A":45,"score_B":104,"human_ref_A":"Here's a handful of articles on the Denisovans that you may be interested in: Siberia\u2019s ancient ghost clan starts to surrender its secrets Denisovans were artists, cave dates suggest How We Found an Elusive Hominin in China A late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan mandible from the Tibetan Plateau Mysterious human relatives moved into \u2018penthouse\u2019 Siberian cave 100,000 years earlier than thought","human_ref_B":"Almost everything we know about Denisovans comes from their DNA because very few bones and potential material culture findings exist. There are assembled genomes for multiple Denisovans individuals. Usually, DNA degrades quickly as bodies decay, but Denisova cave in Siberia happens to have a year round 0 Celsius temperature, perfect to help preserve the DNA. In that cave was also found material (I think a finger bone?) that was found to be an individual who was the offspring of one Denisovan and one Neanderthal parent. Scientists have used vast databases of present human genomes to try to see which populations of human beings might have some Denisovan ancestry. The fact that Papuan and other Austronesian peoples were found to have Denisovan ancestry as well as other bone finds have shown that Denisovans probably lived all the way down into the tropics, not just in Siberia where their DNA was recoverable from remains. Finally, I think the coolest fact about Denisovan DNA is that modern Tibetan populations with a more high altitude adapted highly oxygenating blood, have inherited this adaptation from Denisovans. This research is spearheaded by Svante Paabo's ancient human DNA lab, so if you are intrigued and open to reading genomics research, I recommend searching his name in the literature.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1906.0,"score_ratio":2.3111111111} {"post_id":"hc406z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Can someone tell me about the Denisovans? I came to know about them from a video on YouTube and some articles. All I know that we do not have many proofs of their existence, but a few large teeth and bracelets were discovered near Russia. One bracelet had a very fine hole which is speculated to only possible to be made using a high power drill. I just want to know more about them. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"fvd4ov3","c_root_id_B":"fvcxwul","created_at_utc_A":1592592484,"created_at_utc_B":1592589126,"score_A":104,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Almost everything we know about Denisovans comes from their DNA because very few bones and potential material culture findings exist. There are assembled genomes for multiple Denisovans individuals. Usually, DNA degrades quickly as bodies decay, but Denisova cave in Siberia happens to have a year round 0 Celsius temperature, perfect to help preserve the DNA. In that cave was also found material (I think a finger bone?) that was found to be an individual who was the offspring of one Denisovan and one Neanderthal parent. Scientists have used vast databases of present human genomes to try to see which populations of human beings might have some Denisovan ancestry. The fact that Papuan and other Austronesian peoples were found to have Denisovan ancestry as well as other bone finds have shown that Denisovans probably lived all the way down into the tropics, not just in Siberia where their DNA was recoverable from remains. Finally, I think the coolest fact about Denisovan DNA is that modern Tibetan populations with a more high altitude adapted highly oxygenating blood, have inherited this adaptation from Denisovans. This research is spearheaded by Svante Paabo's ancient human DNA lab, so if you are intrigued and open to reading genomics research, I recommend searching his name in the literature.","human_ref_B":"Check out http:\/\/johnhawks.net. His blog has been around for decades and he's done tons of great research and meta-research on the denisovans, and their cultural impact, not to mention his work on other branches of Homo.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3358.0,"score_ratio":2.7368421053} {"post_id":"hc406z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Can someone tell me about the Denisovans? I came to know about them from a video on YouTube and some articles. All I know that we do not have many proofs of their existence, but a few large teeth and bracelets were discovered near Russia. One bracelet had a very fine hole which is speculated to only possible to be made using a high power drill. I just want to know more about them. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"fvcxwul","c_root_id_B":"fvd0uvc","created_at_utc_A":1592589126,"created_at_utc_B":1592590578,"score_A":38,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Check out http:\/\/johnhawks.net. His blog has been around for decades and he's done tons of great research and meta-research on the denisovans, and their cultural impact, not to mention his work on other branches of Homo.","human_ref_B":"Here's a handful of articles on the Denisovans that you may be interested in: Siberia\u2019s ancient ghost clan starts to surrender its secrets Denisovans were artists, cave dates suggest How We Found an Elusive Hominin in China A late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan mandible from the Tibetan Plateau Mysterious human relatives moved into \u2018penthouse\u2019 Siberian cave 100,000 years earlier than thought","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1452.0,"score_ratio":1.1842105263} {"post_id":"hc406z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Can someone tell me about the Denisovans? I came to know about them from a video on YouTube and some articles. All I know that we do not have many proofs of their existence, but a few large teeth and bracelets were discovered near Russia. One bracelet had a very fine hole which is speculated to only possible to be made using a high power drill. I just want to know more about them. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"fvdxceb","c_root_id_B":"fvdehfg","created_at_utc_A":1592607505,"created_at_utc_B":1592597310,"score_A":14,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"As Zig_anon said, there were at least three populations of Denisovans, with the variation between populations being almost as large as between the original Denisovans genome and Neanderthals. I\u2019m working on a short YouTube video about the last 300,000 years of Human Evolution, and needless to say Denisovans are covered.","human_ref_B":"Someone above mentioned we know about Denisovans from one sequence originally from a small bone. I understand now there are 2-3 introgression of \u201cDenisovan\u201d deduced in the genomes of living people over a great time period and geographic area. The different presumed Denisovan genomes themselves are very divergent lineages from each other Denisovan could really be a catch all for Asian archaic humans that were pretty diverse. I wonder if they were defined based on fossils only if we\u2019d say there were more than one species Also I believe there are some old samples in Asia that were archaic human but never clearly classified that could well be Denisovan.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10195.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"5zjakt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Many Asian cultures have traditional ways of eating and sleeping that often occur on the floor, without a chair or a bed. What are the reasons for this?","c_root_id_A":"dez2dk0","c_root_id_B":"deyqbha","created_at_utc_A":1489607788,"created_at_utc_B":1489594845,"score_A":20,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I have a related question, Chinese people don't sit on the floor or sleep on the ground. When did Chinese start using beds and chairs and what caused this difference between how things are done in China and how things are done in Japan or Korea?","human_ref_B":"in korea it is because the floor was heated","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12943.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"5zjakt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Many Asian cultures have traditional ways of eating and sleeping that often occur on the floor, without a chair or a bed. What are the reasons for this?","c_root_id_A":"dez1w43","c_root_id_B":"deyqbha","created_at_utc_A":1489607273,"created_at_utc_B":1489594845,"score_A":21,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Korean architecture developed around the idea of spreading heat through the house via the floor.","human_ref_B":"in korea it is because the floor was heated","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12428.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"v94whh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do all cultures clap their hands at impressive, public displays of skill such as dance performances, etc.?","c_root_id_A":"ibwkrr0","c_root_id_B":"ibwbb1g","created_at_utc_A":1654896966,"created_at_utc_B":1654892597,"score_A":34,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In Ancient Rome if a crowd did Not like a performer\/speaker they would clap to drowned them out until they give up and leave the stage. This is the origin of the word \"explode\" to exit with applause. When people tried to describe the sound of gunpowder\/nitro etc it was described as \"explosive\".","human_ref_B":"How about the double pat - I'm done with the hands. When I rub my daughters' backs I'll finish with a double pat. I don't know why I do that. I told them it was \"the international way to say 'I'm done.'\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4369.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"pvv52v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I can't wrap my head around how It is possible for societies all around the world that never had any contact with each other to share so many similarities. What are your thoughts? Looking at human societies in pre modern times one tends to see very similar structures. Caste systems, slavery, aristocracies, kings, etc. No matter the Continent this does seem to be the default conditions of all complex societies. How do anthropologists explain such commonalities?","c_root_id_A":"hedb30r","c_root_id_B":"heev03k","created_at_utc_A":1632677219,"created_at_utc_B":1632701070,"score_A":19,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"You're actually asking about social inequality and social stratification. It occurs in all societies, and its probably more of an r\/AskSociology question. Marx wrote about conflict theory - basically society is in constant conflict due to competition over limited resources. That creates different classes and competition between them which then leads to all the things you describe. ​ https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/c\/conflict-theory.asp Another is functionalist theory. Society requres certain prequisites to function. One is role allocation. Certain roles are more important and based on rank in society, which creates competiton which leads to stratification. https:\/\/www.sociologyguide.com\/social-stratification\/index.php It's technically not an anthropological question, because its not actually universal behaviour - hunter gatherer societies don't do this stuff.","human_ref_B":"I teach the anthropology of religion and get asked this a lot regarding myths, with the assumption that all \u201ccommon\u201d myths come from one, singular \u201coriginal\u201d myth. This isn\u2019t true, of course. If you remove the lens of culture\/society from the biological entity of a human being, we are all the same - we experience things, process incoming information and data, and we get a \u201cresult.\u201d The reason so many cultures have stories about the rising and setting of the sun is because all humans, regardless of culture, look at the sun rising and setting and think \u201chuh. I wonder why it does that? OMG WHAT IF IT JUST STOPPED DOING THAT!?!\u201d \u2026 and lo, Helios, Ra, and their ilk arrive to carry the sun across the sky every day and make us feel a little more secure about things we don\u2019t understand, and more importantly - things we can\u2019t control.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23851.0,"score_ratio":1.4736842105} {"post_id":"pvv52v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I can't wrap my head around how It is possible for societies all around the world that never had any contact with each other to share so many similarities. What are your thoughts? Looking at human societies in pre modern times one tends to see very similar structures. Caste systems, slavery, aristocracies, kings, etc. No matter the Continent this does seem to be the default conditions of all complex societies. How do anthropologists explain such commonalities?","c_root_id_A":"heev03k","c_root_id_B":"hed91w2","created_at_utc_A":1632701070,"created_at_utc_B":1632676411,"score_A":28,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I teach the anthropology of religion and get asked this a lot regarding myths, with the assumption that all \u201ccommon\u201d myths come from one, singular \u201coriginal\u201d myth. This isn\u2019t true, of course. If you remove the lens of culture\/society from the biological entity of a human being, we are all the same - we experience things, process incoming information and data, and we get a \u201cresult.\u201d The reason so many cultures have stories about the rising and setting of the sun is because all humans, regardless of culture, look at the sun rising and setting and think \u201chuh. I wonder why it does that? OMG WHAT IF IT JUST STOPPED DOING THAT!?!\u201d \u2026 and lo, Helios, Ra, and their ilk arrive to carry the sun across the sky every day and make us feel a little more secure about things we don\u2019t understand, and more importantly - things we can\u2019t control.","human_ref_B":"I recommend reading Against The Grain by James Scott. It was actually a recommendation from a earlier thread, but also does well to answer this question. Further, Scott would probably argue that for thousands of years, the \u2018similarities\u2019 you list were actually very far from the human norm, and those are all relatively recent constructs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24659.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"pvv52v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I can't wrap my head around how It is possible for societies all around the world that never had any contact with each other to share so many similarities. What are your thoughts? Looking at human societies in pre modern times one tends to see very similar structures. Caste systems, slavery, aristocracies, kings, etc. No matter the Continent this does seem to be the default conditions of all complex societies. How do anthropologists explain such commonalities?","c_root_id_A":"hedb30r","c_root_id_B":"hed91w2","created_at_utc_A":1632677219,"created_at_utc_B":1632676411,"score_A":19,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"You're actually asking about social inequality and social stratification. It occurs in all societies, and its probably more of an r\/AskSociology question. Marx wrote about conflict theory - basically society is in constant conflict due to competition over limited resources. That creates different classes and competition between them which then leads to all the things you describe. ​ https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/c\/conflict-theory.asp Another is functionalist theory. Society requres certain prequisites to function. One is role allocation. Certain roles are more important and based on rank in society, which creates competiton which leads to stratification. https:\/\/www.sociologyguide.com\/social-stratification\/index.php It's technically not an anthropological question, because its not actually universal behaviour - hunter gatherer societies don't do this stuff.","human_ref_B":"I recommend reading Against The Grain by James Scott. It was actually a recommendation from a earlier thread, but also does well to answer this question. Further, Scott would probably argue that for thousands of years, the \u2018similarities\u2019 you list were actually very far from the human norm, and those are all relatively recent constructs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":808.0,"score_ratio":1.5833333333} {"post_id":"defzpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a possibility of an ancient civilization that we haven\u2019t yet discovered due to a lack of evidence? redirected from r\/askhistorians","c_root_id_A":"f2v1e83","c_root_id_B":"f2uww21","created_at_utc_A":1570440693,"created_at_utc_B":1570433207,"score_A":100,"score_B":90,"human_ref_A":"The North Sea Viking culture is an example of a disappeared culture that has been found due to modern archeology. It was wood based and deteriorated quickly. Until the last century no one knew where to dig.","human_ref_B":"Yes. Until an archaeological survey has been carried out over every inch of the planet's surface there's always a chance someone could find the remains of some long lost culture. Does this mean you should believe in Atlantis or the like? No.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7486.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"defzpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a possibility of an ancient civilization that we haven\u2019t yet discovered due to a lack of evidence? redirected from r\/askhistorians","c_root_id_A":"f2vi9m3","c_root_id_B":"f2whjvu","created_at_utc_A":1570452962,"created_at_utc_B":1570465874,"score_A":15,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I mean sure. The Bolivian civilisation was only really discovered a few decades ago. Indigenous Australian civilisation was known for a long time but were considered to be basically hunter gatherers until fairly recently (there's still debate, but we're coming around to seeing them as a complex transitional agricultural society with permanent villages and seasonal harvests). There's room for surprises still.","human_ref_B":"We didn't know about Gobekli Tepe until very, very recently. This was a very complex site, so it won't be surprising if we find older civilizations as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12912.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"defzpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a possibility of an ancient civilization that we haven\u2019t yet discovered due to a lack of evidence? redirected from r\/askhistorians","c_root_id_A":"f2whjvu","c_root_id_B":"f2vl7ss","created_at_utc_A":1570465874,"created_at_utc_B":1570454143,"score_A":21,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"We didn't know about Gobekli Tepe until very, very recently. This was a very complex site, so it won't be surprising if we find older civilizations as well.","human_ref_B":"The lost city before the Xia Dynasty, it is supposed a civilization existed before the Xia Dynasty (whose only existence was discovered through recorded records of oracle bones). Some anthropologists, suggest there was a civilized culture as far back as 8,000 BCE, not to be confused with other cultures like the Jiahu cultures. Such speculations believe a city was even constructed, but no concrete evidence has been agreed upon.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11731.0,"score_ratio":5.25} {"post_id":"defzpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a possibility of an ancient civilization that we haven\u2019t yet discovered due to a lack of evidence? redirected from r\/askhistorians","c_root_id_A":"f2xdqx8","c_root_id_B":"f2xlfe4","created_at_utc_A":1570477040,"created_at_utc_B":1570479721,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Ghost Populations are peoples that no longer exist on their own but are detectable in the genomes of modern populations.","human_ref_B":"There was pretty significant flooding due to sea level rise across the world, and definitely so in the Mediterranean where you had many of the more advanced prehistoric civilizations. As other commenters have pointed out, due to that sea level rise and people's tendency to live near the ocean, it is likely that there are many prehistoric sites that are now submerged and lost to history. http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2019\/june\/return-to-aquaterra It's pretty difficult to find good information online though because there is a lot of woo out there about lost civilization of Atlantis, etc. A good example of that is Malta. We know from existing archeological evidence that there was a sophisticated Neolithic culture there, and if you look at some of the actual studies done, it would appear that the Maltese islands were once not separate but part of a much larger island - most of which has been submerged by rising sea levels. Between 20k years ago and 14kya in history, there's some evidence that the islands were once connected to Sicily by a long stretch of low coastal land...exactly the sort of thing that humans have always preferred to settle on. At around 12kya you still have a significantly larger single island of Malta, and even just 10kya the islands would have likely remained connected. On Malta today you have evidence of things that look like cart tracks that run from dry land out into the water. Malta map 20kya to present: https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/7KGEIB2.png Full study: https:\/\/core.ac.uk\/download\/pdf\/153557260.pdf 12kya you have pretty serious monumental construction at G\u00f6bekli Tepe (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe) which is sited at pretty far inland in Turkey. I don't think that it is beyond reason to assume that if that could be built around 12kya, that there might be a lot of stuff lost in the more coastal areas of the Mediterranean that would have been much more attractive places to site settlements even earlier than G\u00f6bekli Tepe. Again though, search at your own peril...all of this is fodder for crazy theories online!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2681.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"defzpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a possibility of an ancient civilization that we haven\u2019t yet discovered due to a lack of evidence? redirected from r\/askhistorians","c_root_id_A":"f2vl7ss","c_root_id_B":"f2xlfe4","created_at_utc_A":1570454143,"created_at_utc_B":1570479721,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The lost city before the Xia Dynasty, it is supposed a civilization existed before the Xia Dynasty (whose only existence was discovered through recorded records of oracle bones). Some anthropologists, suggest there was a civilized culture as far back as 8,000 BCE, not to be confused with other cultures like the Jiahu cultures. Such speculations believe a city was even constructed, but no concrete evidence has been agreed upon.","human_ref_B":"There was pretty significant flooding due to sea level rise across the world, and definitely so in the Mediterranean where you had many of the more advanced prehistoric civilizations. As other commenters have pointed out, due to that sea level rise and people's tendency to live near the ocean, it is likely that there are many prehistoric sites that are now submerged and lost to history. http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2019\/june\/return-to-aquaterra It's pretty difficult to find good information online though because there is a lot of woo out there about lost civilization of Atlantis, etc. A good example of that is Malta. We know from existing archeological evidence that there was a sophisticated Neolithic culture there, and if you look at some of the actual studies done, it would appear that the Maltese islands were once not separate but part of a much larger island - most of which has been submerged by rising sea levels. Between 20k years ago and 14kya in history, there's some evidence that the islands were once connected to Sicily by a long stretch of low coastal land...exactly the sort of thing that humans have always preferred to settle on. At around 12kya you still have a significantly larger single island of Malta, and even just 10kya the islands would have likely remained connected. On Malta today you have evidence of things that look like cart tracks that run from dry land out into the water. Malta map 20kya to present: https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/7KGEIB2.png Full study: https:\/\/core.ac.uk\/download\/pdf\/153557260.pdf 12kya you have pretty serious monumental construction at G\u00f6bekli Tepe (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe) which is sited at pretty far inland in Turkey. I don't think that it is beyond reason to assume that if that could be built around 12kya, that there might be a lot of stuff lost in the more coastal areas of the Mediterranean that would have been much more attractive places to site settlements even earlier than G\u00f6bekli Tepe. Again though, search at your own peril...all of this is fodder for crazy theories online!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25578.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gy0k8m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"turning the lens around Does anyone know of any ethnographies written about western cultures by researchers from non western cultures? Hope I haven\u2019t used the wrong terminology, I\u2019m not from this field. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"ft8icxq","c_root_id_B":"ft8ih30","created_at_utc_A":1591501919,"created_at_utc_B":1591501994,"score_A":11,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"While it's not written by a non-westerner, James Todd wrote his doctoral dissertation on NASCAR and evangelical witnessing in the Bible Belt. You can read it, I think, on The Chronicle.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not sure of any full ones but there\u2019s a book called distant mirrors: America as Foreign Culture which is a book with a few (21?) outside, not always fully outside I think the Nacirema article is one chapter, perspectives on America. It\u2019s written by my understanding for students. So as I said it\u2019s more of an intro level of understanding but not like a full on examination of America from a non american perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":75.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhmrym","c_root_id_B":"iuh8lmb","created_at_utc_A":1667218863,"created_at_utc_B":1667208510,"score_A":114,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I think as someone said, what you want to do is consider how your background in engineering can apply to anthropology. I can easily see an engineer working with non-profits, the UN, and a host of other such groups on projects that combine anthropology and engineering. Most anthropologists these days take a more practical approach to the work. It's not just about describing, but about applying solutions, develop systems to help, etc. An anthropology-engineer could be extremely useful in working with developing infrastructure, food production, water solutions, etc. in places where you are working with smaller communities or marginalized groups. I would do some research into anthropologists and the work they do, and then reach out to departments\/faculty\/people in NGOs, to discuss your position and your interests. I don't think going blindly into it is a good idea. Do your homework and see how your skills can be applied and combined. Once you know that, doing a degree in Anthropology might be on the table. But, research first. I'd be more optimistic of your chances of employment in the field than most of the people who have actual degrees to be honest. Anthropology is incredibly interdisciplinary these days.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve got at least 35 years left of working. That\u2019s a long time to be miserable. Having a stable, well defined career path is good. Also, doing invigorating work that you love is good. There are very few situations where you will get both so it comes down to what is more important for you personally. Just don\u2019t be super unhappy. Your 30\u2019s are a great time in life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10353.0,"score_ratio":3.0810810811} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhmrym","c_root_id_B":"iuhmajo","created_at_utc_A":1667218863,"created_at_utc_B":1667218582,"score_A":114,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I think as someone said, what you want to do is consider how your background in engineering can apply to anthropology. I can easily see an engineer working with non-profits, the UN, and a host of other such groups on projects that combine anthropology and engineering. Most anthropologists these days take a more practical approach to the work. It's not just about describing, but about applying solutions, develop systems to help, etc. An anthropology-engineer could be extremely useful in working with developing infrastructure, food production, water solutions, etc. in places where you are working with smaller communities or marginalized groups. I would do some research into anthropologists and the work they do, and then reach out to departments\/faculty\/people in NGOs, to discuss your position and your interests. I don't think going blindly into it is a good idea. Do your homework and see how your skills can be applied and combined. Once you know that, doing a degree in Anthropology might be on the table. But, research first. I'd be more optimistic of your chances of employment in the field than most of the people who have actual degrees to be honest. Anthropology is incredibly interdisciplinary these days.","human_ref_B":"as someone that left anthropology for engineering, you're looking at school and a lot of competition to write grants aka ask people for money. a lot of us looked to anthropology to find something we thought was missing in ourselves. making a career out of that is not a wise move, imo, unless you have a trust fund to fall back on. i would bet that your biggest point of frustration would be feeling ineffective. if my anthro friends somehow managed to stay out of customer service jobs, it seems like they can't make changes they'd wish to in the world. i felt this myself... i worked with indigenous people and yeah, i documented some stuff, but i didn't do anything for them. I've said this before, as someone who loved french and linguistics and anthropology: don't major in something you can learn on your own time. you can read about this stuff and write about it. see if you can do it on your own part time for a year... read about subjects you're interested, then write up some research just for yourself. after a year of dedicating some attention to it, then reassess if you really want to be at the bottom of the academic food chain.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":281.0,"score_ratio":3.9310344828} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iui3s9l","c_root_id_B":"iuh8lmb","created_at_utc_A":1667227061,"created_at_utc_B":1667208510,"score_A":56,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"My partner is a hardware engineer and I majored in anthropology. I now work in communications. Most people don't realize that when you get a degree in anthropology, you'll probably not end up working in that field. Not to say you can't, but most don't. So maybe look into taking some anthro-related classes, but keep your day job. You can expand your breadth of knowledge and use the skills you learn in your current position, but even more so if you move into an engineering people-management role.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve got at least 35 years left of working. That\u2019s a long time to be miserable. Having a stable, well defined career path is good. Also, doing invigorating work that you love is good. There are very few situations where you will get both so it comes down to what is more important for you personally. Just don\u2019t be super unhappy. Your 30\u2019s are a great time in life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18551.0,"score_ratio":1.5135135135} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iui3s9l","c_root_id_B":"iuhmajo","created_at_utc_A":1667227061,"created_at_utc_B":1667218582,"score_A":56,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"My partner is a hardware engineer and I majored in anthropology. I now work in communications. Most people don't realize that when you get a degree in anthropology, you'll probably not end up working in that field. Not to say you can't, but most don't. So maybe look into taking some anthro-related classes, but keep your day job. You can expand your breadth of knowledge and use the skills you learn in your current position, but even more so if you move into an engineering people-management role.","human_ref_B":"as someone that left anthropology for engineering, you're looking at school and a lot of competition to write grants aka ask people for money. a lot of us looked to anthropology to find something we thought was missing in ourselves. making a career out of that is not a wise move, imo, unless you have a trust fund to fall back on. i would bet that your biggest point of frustration would be feeling ineffective. if my anthro friends somehow managed to stay out of customer service jobs, it seems like they can't make changes they'd wish to in the world. i felt this myself... i worked with indigenous people and yeah, i documented some stuff, but i didn't do anything for them. I've said this before, as someone who loved french and linguistics and anthropology: don't major in something you can learn on your own time. you can read about this stuff and write about it. see if you can do it on your own part time for a year... read about subjects you're interested, then write up some research just for yourself. after a year of dedicating some attention to it, then reassess if you really want to be at the bottom of the academic food chain.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8479.0,"score_ratio":1.9310344828} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iui3s9l","c_root_id_B":"iuhnuk9","created_at_utc_A":1667227061,"created_at_utc_B":1667219480,"score_A":56,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"My partner is a hardware engineer and I majored in anthropology. I now work in communications. Most people don't realize that when you get a degree in anthropology, you'll probably not end up working in that field. Not to say you can't, but most don't. So maybe look into taking some anthro-related classes, but keep your day job. You can expand your breadth of knowledge and use the skills you learn in your current position, but even more so if you move into an engineering people-management role.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/sustainability.asu.edu\/person\/john-anderies This was one of the instructors I had in college. He does math modeling a lot and coauthors academic papers in anthropology. Great guy. Check out some of the research interests and some of the papers he's on. Some are basic anthro, others archaeology, others complexity science. Engineering is a mindset and a toolkit and can be very compatible with understanding humans...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7581.0,"score_ratio":9.3333333333} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuh8lmb","c_root_id_B":"iuhy6cq","created_at_utc_A":1667208510,"created_at_utc_B":1667224621,"score_A":37,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"You\u2019ve got at least 35 years left of working. That\u2019s a long time to be miserable. Having a stable, well defined career path is good. Also, doing invigorating work that you love is good. There are very few situations where you will get both so it comes down to what is more important for you personally. Just don\u2019t be super unhappy. Your 30\u2019s are a great time in life.","human_ref_B":"You would not be any happier in anthropology - especially if you don't already have an idea of what you want to pursue or how far you want to go. You can't do anything with a BA or BS and a graduate degree in anthropology is one of the longest out there with little return in terms of pay. Why do you want to do anthropology? It's not easier - if anything it would take up way more of your time to stay relevant in your field because you have to if you want to get a job. You might not be happy with engineering but you need to find out why first. I'm an anthropologist in a US PhD program. I would not recommend it to anyone trying to be happy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16111.0,"score_ratio":1.5135135135} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhmajo","c_root_id_B":"iuhy6cq","created_at_utc_A":1667218582,"created_at_utc_B":1667224621,"score_A":29,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"as someone that left anthropology for engineering, you're looking at school and a lot of competition to write grants aka ask people for money. a lot of us looked to anthropology to find something we thought was missing in ourselves. making a career out of that is not a wise move, imo, unless you have a trust fund to fall back on. i would bet that your biggest point of frustration would be feeling ineffective. if my anthro friends somehow managed to stay out of customer service jobs, it seems like they can't make changes they'd wish to in the world. i felt this myself... i worked with indigenous people and yeah, i documented some stuff, but i didn't do anything for them. I've said this before, as someone who loved french and linguistics and anthropology: don't major in something you can learn on your own time. you can read about this stuff and write about it. see if you can do it on your own part time for a year... read about subjects you're interested, then write up some research just for yourself. after a year of dedicating some attention to it, then reassess if you really want to be at the bottom of the academic food chain.","human_ref_B":"You would not be any happier in anthropology - especially if you don't already have an idea of what you want to pursue or how far you want to go. You can't do anything with a BA or BS and a graduate degree in anthropology is one of the longest out there with little return in terms of pay. Why do you want to do anthropology? It's not easier - if anything it would take up way more of your time to stay relevant in your field because you have to if you want to get a job. You might not be happy with engineering but you need to find out why first. I'm an anthropologist in a US PhD program. I would not recommend it to anyone trying to be happy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6039.0,"score_ratio":1.9310344828} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhnuk9","c_root_id_B":"iuhy6cq","created_at_utc_A":1667219480,"created_at_utc_B":1667224621,"score_A":6,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/sustainability.asu.edu\/person\/john-anderies This was one of the instructors I had in college. He does math modeling a lot and coauthors academic papers in anthropology. Great guy. Check out some of the research interests and some of the papers he's on. Some are basic anthro, others archaeology, others complexity science. Engineering is a mindset and a toolkit and can be very compatible with understanding humans...","human_ref_B":"You would not be any happier in anthropology - especially if you don't already have an idea of what you want to pursue or how far you want to go. You can't do anything with a BA or BS and a graduate degree in anthropology is one of the longest out there with little return in terms of pay. Why do you want to do anthropology? It's not easier - if anything it would take up way more of your time to stay relevant in your field because you have to if you want to get a job. You might not be happy with engineering but you need to find out why first. I'm an anthropologist in a US PhD program. I would not recommend it to anyone trying to be happy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5141.0,"score_ratio":9.3333333333} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhnuk9","c_root_id_B":"iuigxl8","created_at_utc_A":1667219480,"created_at_utc_B":1667232463,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/sustainability.asu.edu\/person\/john-anderies This was one of the instructors I had in college. He does math modeling a lot and coauthors academic papers in anthropology. Great guy. Check out some of the research interests and some of the papers he's on. Some are basic anthro, others archaeology, others complexity science. Engineering is a mindset and a toolkit and can be very compatible with understanding humans...","human_ref_B":"Hello. I'm a data engineer, living in Germany, that started working for an NGO as project manager and process design to do research on social and political impact of social media. Some hints from somebody that went to a moment of rupture that might look similar to what you're about to go through. 1) Most IT work is meaningless or outright toxic. Even if you actively sabotage what your company does, you will still feel complicit in an industry that does way more harm than good. Once you quit, you will feel better. 2) Moving to a job you care about might be doubly stressing because you actually care about the output and impact of what you do. Engineers are just often children focused on enjoying the process rather than taking responsibility for the outcome. Making this kind of choice might require you to truly become an adult, something that psychologically we are not used to as millenials. 3) You might have problems with work in itself, not with work as an engineer. Working is bad for humans, we are not made to sit in front of a screen for 8+ hours a day to make somebody else rich. If you turn your passion into your work, you will lose your passion and that's it. Don't replace a career with another career, it might destroy you. Rather, find a path to have an impact that is meaningful to you and that's economically sustainable. This could include continuing your career as an engineer, find a spot where nobody cares about what you do or with managers that are completely oblivious of what's going on and just spend that time studying, writing, thinking, doing whatever you think it's good. 4) Entering the fields you describe doesn't necessarily require starting over as if you were 18. Sure, if you want to write papers and reviews you definitely need the knowledge, credibility and connections given by the academic path. That's not the only way to get involved into humanities. As many other people suggested, there are spaces where technical skill can meet antropology or other humanities. There's a whole adversarial space to big tech that revolves on the need to create technology that is more ethical, more human-aware, community-driven etc etc. That's a smaller jump than starting over. It's something you can get initially involved with without even dropping your job. Going back to my experience, I didn't drop my job and studied for 5 years to get where I am now. My interest is not in anthropology (even though I read and apply a bit of organizational and corporate anthropology) but in organizational sciences, especially in their horizontal and democratic flavors (sociocracy, organizational ecosystems, functional differentiation etc etc). I didn't start with a course in Organizational Sciences or Management Engineering. I started studying by myself, then I happened to be asked by a school I networked with to teach this stuff in a cybernetic lens and I had to study a fuckload by myself to root my shallow knowledge into more academic material. Then I just started practicing: I created new organizations (mostly alt-labor and leftist small-scale collectives), did consultancy to other orgs. This while keeping a startup job. Then one year ago I was like: fuck it, I'm leaving and now I apply this knowledge in a setting that is meaningful to me and also makes use of my technical skills. I recognize that organizational sciences is an interest that is easier to apply than more theoretical humanities but nonetheless, I told the whole story to try to suggest that if you stick to the beaten path, first of all you're gonna compete with hordes of younger and self-exploiting anthropologists. Second you will waste your existing skills. Third you will miss the most interesting stuff going on that requires multi-disciplinary backgrounds.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12983.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuhnuk9","c_root_id_B":"iuj0n8u","created_at_utc_A":1667219480,"created_at_utc_B":1667240286,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/sustainability.asu.edu\/person\/john-anderies This was one of the instructors I had in college. He does math modeling a lot and coauthors academic papers in anthropology. Great guy. Check out some of the research interests and some of the papers he's on. Some are basic anthro, others archaeology, others complexity science. Engineering is a mindset and a toolkit and can be very compatible with understanding humans...","human_ref_B":"BS in Anthropology & Sociology here and I\u2019ve been clawing my way out of limited job prospects for the past decade. I now work as a dev at a major tech company and I would never go back. Anthropology and capitalism don\u2019t mix well and you\u2019ll need to eat and pay rent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20806.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuj0n8u","c_root_id_B":"iuija5r","created_at_utc_A":1667240286,"created_at_utc_B":1667233401,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"BS in Anthropology & Sociology here and I\u2019ve been clawing my way out of limited job prospects for the past decade. I now work as a dev at a major tech company and I would never go back. Anthropology and capitalism don\u2019t mix well and you\u2019ll need to eat and pay rent.","human_ref_B":"I have my degree in anthropology because I love the subject, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t get a fancy job. I was really hoping I\u2019d be able to utilize my education to get into HR especially with the push centered around implicit bias, diversity, and inclusion. I never heard back from any of the HR jobs I applied to except for 1 that was part time and $13\/hr where you just post jobs on Indeed, but the hiring manager said I wasn\u2019t qualified. I wouldn\u2019t go into anthropology unless you know you want to become a professor or pursue something with biological anthropology and become some forensic pathologist maybe. You could also focus on archaeology and become a surveyor as that\u2019s the other field where having an anthropology degree can be helpful. Personally for me the best job I could land when I graduated was as a receptionist I then got promoted to legal assistant and now I work from home for a company that generates leads for other businesses. My work is laidback and I\u2019m actually done for the day (it\u2019s noon where I am) so things worked out for me in terms of not having a job that sucks. Although I believe anthropology is incredibly useful and would encourage to study it for yourself. In terms of a career I\u2019m not sure how helpful it would be especially since most people don\u2019t even understand what anthropology is. You could try getting into marketing I suppose.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6885.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuj87qd","c_root_id_B":"iuj1zqg","created_at_utc_A":1667243307,"created_at_utc_B":1667240823,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hi, Im an anthropologist that is literally doing the opposite, Im trying to go into a career into computer science. Im 27 and just want to wish you the best luck. If I can help you with my experience I strongly recommend trying to use your age and maturity to get closer to teachers so you can get recommended for small jobs in research. Also, salaries in some sectors (mining, marketing) can get really high.","human_ref_B":"Just from an \"old dood\" perspective (I'm mid 60s): First, always read and memorize Albert Ellis \"A Guide to Rational Living\" -- he was one of the co-inventors of cognitive psychology and it's kind of a \"user manual\" for your brain. Helped me stay happy no matter what. I'm a philosopher\/historian at heart but got stuck in a super successful technical career partly because of my ADHD\/philosopher\/historian ramblings. I worked for XYZ huge corp and w\/in months I knew everyone of consequence in every environment. I wasn't \"networking\", I was kind of an anthropologist, I was just fascinated by how this big corporation worked. I started connecting people, became a hub, talked with the CEO to improve a matter (he totally agreed with me, thanked me for bringing it to his attention, I even got a division award, but he didn't implement what I said -- that taught me a lot!). But, I soon became a maverick technical manager (I was shit at management, total ADHD, never followed instructions or rules), but all the best people wanted to work under me because I only gave the goals and philosophy of work, never managed them -- but great people don't have to be managed. I started some external tech by motivating my people to the vision of it -- I promise you, you use this tech every day. I was frequently threatened with being fired because I just never did what they wanted me to do, but it kept working out -- I got my company 10s of millions in free publicity for something I was warned not to do, and then ended up getting another division award for. I was then put on their speaking circuit internally and externally for how to manage\/inspire workforce\/how to network. I was a speaker at Woman in Engineering conferences despite being a DOOD simply because some super sharp female engineers attached themselves to my group and did well. It was such a joke to me, because everything I did was just out of my curiosity. Germans never like to talk about work outside of work. I mostly like to talk about work because I'm interested. It's led me to work in AI, Robotics, Medicine, Film, Social Nets, and now Agricultural tech. Anyhow, since I didn't actually \"like\" what I was doing, I was always moving around (yeah, Zuck wanted me early on, I was terrible at coding interviews, but he asked me clever problems that I happened to know because of my outside interests. I turned him down 3 times. I calculated that as worth $250M thrown away. But, instead, I turned towards founding companies instead. At least I was free of hierarchy (well except for f\\*ing VCs). People in the EU don't found companies much because you MUST NOT FAIL. Heh, I became really popular after I blew $10M on a stupid idea. The VC sold it to another company, I told him \"I\"m not working for that other company\", he threatened to sue me for breach of fiducial duty ... but eventually worked it out. God, I was once actually sued. 9 months of pure, sleepless HELL, by a very wealthy dude who wanted to ruin me. He eventually gave up because (a) it was all BS, (b) he got tangled in a divorce. Years later, he recently friended me on FB WTF!? If you can start companies, I'd recommend you doing it. I've always gotten a small group of people (often drawn from those early people who wanted me to \"manage\" them) and ... it is pure adventure (adventure is often scary, mostly cold, hard, painful but occasionally you reach that peak). I've met people and had times that wouldn't believe. Mostly it sucks however. I've done moderately well, in that I could have retired and lived well anywhere in any style supporting my family more than a decade ago -- but that group of doods and gals keep coming to me with new plans and ideas. Sigh, can't stop, I am growing ambivalent because I want to dig dirt on an archeology site etc. My basic advice -- you've earned some hard skills in your journey so far. Find out how to use them to do other stuff. I became friendly with a Stanford prof, told him how I could boost the productivity of his grad students. Ended up advising\/helping them and getting an official position there. I'm thinking of going back now to sort of get archeology, ME, CS and other departments to work together since I feel they are missing some of the really important stuff that could be done. That's how I work. For sure, I'm going to take the agriculture tech stuff and bring it over to archeology since, pretty sure they could make use of it. I just want to assure you, that I have NEVER loved or liked what I do and still had a great\/fun career. I just talk\/network and try to be of help for no real reason except I'm an obsessive, compulsive intellectual. I talked to a Prof of Russian literature. I don't know squat about it, but she thought I couldn't actually be interested in it because I'm a nerd. Well f\\*ck her! I actually know a bunch of Mongol history and wanted to know how that intersected. So, find some ways of using what you have in new ways. Could be inventing things by figuring out what's needed using anthropological skills. Could be making tools for anthropologists. Who knows? Finally, I want to assure you that the best life is the life lived badly, less than potential, hitting below your mark, less happy than you could have. That's always been my motto, because it takes the stress off. Allows you to just let chance happen. What that saying: \"Stay hungry, stay foolish\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2484.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuija5r","c_root_id_B":"iuj87qd","created_at_utc_A":1667233401,"created_at_utc_B":1667243307,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have my degree in anthropology because I love the subject, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t get a fancy job. I was really hoping I\u2019d be able to utilize my education to get into HR especially with the push centered around implicit bias, diversity, and inclusion. I never heard back from any of the HR jobs I applied to except for 1 that was part time and $13\/hr where you just post jobs on Indeed, but the hiring manager said I wasn\u2019t qualified. I wouldn\u2019t go into anthropology unless you know you want to become a professor or pursue something with biological anthropology and become some forensic pathologist maybe. You could also focus on archaeology and become a surveyor as that\u2019s the other field where having an anthropology degree can be helpful. Personally for me the best job I could land when I graduated was as a receptionist I then got promoted to legal assistant and now I work from home for a company that generates leads for other businesses. My work is laidback and I\u2019m actually done for the day (it\u2019s noon where I am) so things worked out for me in terms of not having a job that sucks. Although I believe anthropology is incredibly useful and would encourage to study it for yourself. In terms of a career I\u2019m not sure how helpful it would be especially since most people don\u2019t even understand what anthropology is. You could try getting into marketing I suppose.","human_ref_B":"Hi, Im an anthropologist that is literally doing the opposite, Im trying to go into a career into computer science. Im 27 and just want to wish you the best luck. If I can help you with my experience I strongly recommend trying to use your age and maturity to get closer to teachers so you can get recommended for small jobs in research. Also, salaries in some sectors (mining, marketing) can get really high.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9906.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuj87qd","c_root_id_B":"iuj33w6","created_at_utc_A":1667243307,"created_at_utc_B":1667241268,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hi, Im an anthropologist that is literally doing the opposite, Im trying to go into a career into computer science. Im 27 and just want to wish you the best luck. If I can help you with my experience I strongly recommend trying to use your age and maturity to get closer to teachers so you can get recommended for small jobs in research. Also, salaries in some sectors (mining, marketing) can get really high.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know if that can help at all but two years ago I did a fully online and free master from a Swedish university and it allowed me to manage my time how I needed it (I was studying for a second master). I\u2019ve been thinking about doing another master because studying is very cool, but now I am working so I will 100% do another one fully online. Maybe you don\u2019t need to quit your job now to change career path ? And then once you\u2019re few months\/a year in it will be easier to take a decision on what you actually want to do ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2039.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iuj1zqg","c_root_id_B":"iuija5r","created_at_utc_A":1667240823,"created_at_utc_B":1667233401,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Just from an \"old dood\" perspective (I'm mid 60s): First, always read and memorize Albert Ellis \"A Guide to Rational Living\" -- he was one of the co-inventors of cognitive psychology and it's kind of a \"user manual\" for your brain. Helped me stay happy no matter what. I'm a philosopher\/historian at heart but got stuck in a super successful technical career partly because of my ADHD\/philosopher\/historian ramblings. I worked for XYZ huge corp and w\/in months I knew everyone of consequence in every environment. I wasn't \"networking\", I was kind of an anthropologist, I was just fascinated by how this big corporation worked. I started connecting people, became a hub, talked with the CEO to improve a matter (he totally agreed with me, thanked me for bringing it to his attention, I even got a division award, but he didn't implement what I said -- that taught me a lot!). But, I soon became a maverick technical manager (I was shit at management, total ADHD, never followed instructions or rules), but all the best people wanted to work under me because I only gave the goals and philosophy of work, never managed them -- but great people don't have to be managed. I started some external tech by motivating my people to the vision of it -- I promise you, you use this tech every day. I was frequently threatened with being fired because I just never did what they wanted me to do, but it kept working out -- I got my company 10s of millions in free publicity for something I was warned not to do, and then ended up getting another division award for. I was then put on their speaking circuit internally and externally for how to manage\/inspire workforce\/how to network. I was a speaker at Woman in Engineering conferences despite being a DOOD simply because some super sharp female engineers attached themselves to my group and did well. It was such a joke to me, because everything I did was just out of my curiosity. Germans never like to talk about work outside of work. I mostly like to talk about work because I'm interested. It's led me to work in AI, Robotics, Medicine, Film, Social Nets, and now Agricultural tech. Anyhow, since I didn't actually \"like\" what I was doing, I was always moving around (yeah, Zuck wanted me early on, I was terrible at coding interviews, but he asked me clever problems that I happened to know because of my outside interests. I turned him down 3 times. I calculated that as worth $250M thrown away. But, instead, I turned towards founding companies instead. At least I was free of hierarchy (well except for f\\*ing VCs). People in the EU don't found companies much because you MUST NOT FAIL. Heh, I became really popular after I blew $10M on a stupid idea. The VC sold it to another company, I told him \"I\"m not working for that other company\", he threatened to sue me for breach of fiducial duty ... but eventually worked it out. God, I was once actually sued. 9 months of pure, sleepless HELL, by a very wealthy dude who wanted to ruin me. He eventually gave up because (a) it was all BS, (b) he got tangled in a divorce. Years later, he recently friended me on FB WTF!? If you can start companies, I'd recommend you doing it. I've always gotten a small group of people (often drawn from those early people who wanted me to \"manage\" them) and ... it is pure adventure (adventure is often scary, mostly cold, hard, painful but occasionally you reach that peak). I've met people and had times that wouldn't believe. Mostly it sucks however. I've done moderately well, in that I could have retired and lived well anywhere in any style supporting my family more than a decade ago -- but that group of doods and gals keep coming to me with new plans and ideas. Sigh, can't stop, I am growing ambivalent because I want to dig dirt on an archeology site etc. My basic advice -- you've earned some hard skills in your journey so far. Find out how to use them to do other stuff. I became friendly with a Stanford prof, told him how I could boost the productivity of his grad students. Ended up advising\/helping them and getting an official position there. I'm thinking of going back now to sort of get archeology, ME, CS and other departments to work together since I feel they are missing some of the really important stuff that could be done. That's how I work. For sure, I'm going to take the agriculture tech stuff and bring it over to archeology since, pretty sure they could make use of it. I just want to assure you, that I have NEVER loved or liked what I do and still had a great\/fun career. I just talk\/network and try to be of help for no real reason except I'm an obsessive, compulsive intellectual. I talked to a Prof of Russian literature. I don't know squat about it, but she thought I couldn't actually be interested in it because I'm a nerd. Well f\\*ck her! I actually know a bunch of Mongol history and wanted to know how that intersected. So, find some ways of using what you have in new ways. Could be inventing things by figuring out what's needed using anthropological skills. Could be making tools for anthropologists. Who knows? Finally, I want to assure you that the best life is the life lived badly, less than potential, hitting below your mark, less happy than you could have. That's always been my motto, because it takes the stress off. Allows you to just let chance happen. What that saying: \"Stay hungry, stay foolish\".","human_ref_B":"I have my degree in anthropology because I love the subject, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t get a fancy job. I was really hoping I\u2019d be able to utilize my education to get into HR especially with the push centered around implicit bias, diversity, and inclusion. I never heard back from any of the HR jobs I applied to except for 1 that was part time and $13\/hr where you just post jobs on Indeed, but the hiring manager said I wasn\u2019t qualified. I wouldn\u2019t go into anthropology unless you know you want to become a professor or pursue something with biological anthropology and become some forensic pathologist maybe. You could also focus on archaeology and become a surveyor as that\u2019s the other field where having an anthropology degree can be helpful. Personally for me the best job I could land when I graduated was as a receptionist I then got promoted to legal assistant and now I work from home for a company that generates leads for other businesses. My work is laidback and I\u2019m actually done for the day (it\u2019s noon where I am) so things worked out for me in terms of not having a job that sucks. Although I believe anthropology is incredibly useful and would encourage to study it for yourself. In terms of a career I\u2019m not sure how helpful it would be especially since most people don\u2019t even understand what anthropology is. You could try getting into marketing I suppose.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7422.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iujqozr","c_root_id_B":"iuija5r","created_at_utc_A":1667250869,"created_at_utc_B":1667233401,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was working in advertising after undergrad and hated it, quit, went to grad school for anthropology, got a PhD, now a university lecturer. I was younger than you - 24 - and already had a bachelors in anthropology, and had a supportive partner, but oh my god I'm so glad I took that risk. You only get one short life (probably), and we spend so much of it working, so if you have a chance to make that work meaningful, that is life-changing. The people suggesting an engineering-anthro hybrid are smart. In anthro, you're always applying anthropological approaches *to something else*, so if you already have a degree in another field that's super useful. The anthropology of engineering would be fascinating. I've done some work on how infrastructure is embedded with social values that endure in bridges and motorways long after the social values have shifted, and how that means infrastructure is a powerful structuring force that reproduces social inequalities and creates health disparities. Your engineering knowledge would be so valuable to this sort of research.","human_ref_B":"I have my degree in anthropology because I love the subject, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t get a fancy job. I was really hoping I\u2019d be able to utilize my education to get into HR especially with the push centered around implicit bias, diversity, and inclusion. I never heard back from any of the HR jobs I applied to except for 1 that was part time and $13\/hr where you just post jobs on Indeed, but the hiring manager said I wasn\u2019t qualified. I wouldn\u2019t go into anthropology unless you know you want to become a professor or pursue something with biological anthropology and become some forensic pathologist maybe. You could also focus on archaeology and become a surveyor as that\u2019s the other field where having an anthropology degree can be helpful. Personally for me the best job I could land when I graduated was as a receptionist I then got promoted to legal assistant and now I work from home for a company that generates leads for other businesses. My work is laidback and I\u2019m actually done for the day (it\u2019s noon where I am) so things worked out for me in terms of not having a job that sucks. Although I believe anthropology is incredibly useful and would encourage to study it for yourself. In terms of a career I\u2019m not sure how helpful it would be especially since most people don\u2019t even understand what anthropology is. You could try getting into marketing I suppose.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17468.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iujqozr","c_root_id_B":"iuj33w6","created_at_utc_A":1667250869,"created_at_utc_B":1667241268,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was working in advertising after undergrad and hated it, quit, went to grad school for anthropology, got a PhD, now a university lecturer. I was younger than you - 24 - and already had a bachelors in anthropology, and had a supportive partner, but oh my god I'm so glad I took that risk. You only get one short life (probably), and we spend so much of it working, so if you have a chance to make that work meaningful, that is life-changing. The people suggesting an engineering-anthro hybrid are smart. In anthro, you're always applying anthropological approaches *to something else*, so if you already have a degree in another field that's super useful. The anthropology of engineering would be fascinating. I've done some work on how infrastructure is embedded with social values that endure in bridges and motorways long after the social values have shifted, and how that means infrastructure is a powerful structuring force that reproduces social inequalities and creates health disparities. Your engineering knowledge would be so valuable to this sort of research.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know if that can help at all but two years ago I did a fully online and free master from a Swedish university and it allowed me to manage my time how I needed it (I was studying for a second master). I\u2019ve been thinking about doing another master because studying is very cool, but now I am working so I will 100% do another one fully online. Maybe you don\u2019t need to quit your job now to change career path ? And then once you\u2019re few months\/a year in it will be easier to take a decision on what you actually want to do ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9601.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iujqozr","c_root_id_B":"iujbbw1","created_at_utc_A":1667250869,"created_at_utc_B":1667244579,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was working in advertising after undergrad and hated it, quit, went to grad school for anthropology, got a PhD, now a university lecturer. I was younger than you - 24 - and already had a bachelors in anthropology, and had a supportive partner, but oh my god I'm so glad I took that risk. You only get one short life (probably), and we spend so much of it working, so if you have a chance to make that work meaningful, that is life-changing. The people suggesting an engineering-anthro hybrid are smart. In anthro, you're always applying anthropological approaches *to something else*, so if you already have a degree in another field that's super useful. The anthropology of engineering would be fascinating. I've done some work on how infrastructure is embedded with social values that endure in bridges and motorways long after the social values have shifted, and how that means infrastructure is a powerful structuring force that reproduces social inequalities and creates health disparities. Your engineering knowledge would be so valuable to this sort of research.","human_ref_B":"Take a sabbatical, study anthropology for a year abroad... come back and see how it feels. You might not need to do it for your career. Maybe you just want a deep dive into it and a break from engineering. Education is much easier to find (and cheaper) when you don't need the credentials to make a career out of it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6290.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iujqozr","c_root_id_B":"iujbvpz","created_at_utc_A":1667250869,"created_at_utc_B":1667244804,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was working in advertising after undergrad and hated it, quit, went to grad school for anthropology, got a PhD, now a university lecturer. I was younger than you - 24 - and already had a bachelors in anthropology, and had a supportive partner, but oh my god I'm so glad I took that risk. You only get one short life (probably), and we spend so much of it working, so if you have a chance to make that work meaningful, that is life-changing. The people suggesting an engineering-anthro hybrid are smart. In anthro, you're always applying anthropological approaches *to something else*, so if you already have a degree in another field that's super useful. The anthropology of engineering would be fascinating. I've done some work on how infrastructure is embedded with social values that endure in bridges and motorways long after the social values have shifted, and how that means infrastructure is a powerful structuring force that reproduces social inequalities and creates health disparities. Your engineering knowledge would be so valuable to this sort of research.","human_ref_B":"Unless you\u2019re a terrible engineer, you will probably have higher income as an engineer than as an anthropologist. But if you\u2019re unhappy as an engineer and happy as an anthropologist, go for it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6065.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"yi4izf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Would I be crazy to leave engineering and pursue a career in in anthropology at age 30? So I just turned 30, I have a clear path in my career as a hardware engineer, I have a respectable job, with decent pay, and I'm relatively successful. Only problem is, I'm super unhappy. I changed jobs and what I do now is as good as I could ask for, but I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong career altogether. My real interests lie in history, politics, law, sociology, and philosophy. I'm drawn to anthropology for how it straddles all these disciplines. Because my background is so drastically different, and I have no network in the humanities, I would probably have to start from the absolute bottom of the ladder. I live in Germany and while the cost of going back to university would be manageable, not making any money for 3,4,5+ years, would be a huge gamble at my age. I know anthropology has a poor reputation in terms of employment prospects, even for people who've been pursuing it since their undergraduate years, so maybe it's just a pipe dream? The people closest to me are skeptical and think I should just keep a passing interest in these topics and try to make peace with my lot. I would really appreciate honest, constructive opinions from people already in Anthropology. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"iujqozr","c_root_id_B":"iujhm9m","created_at_utc_A":1667250869,"created_at_utc_B":1667247116,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I was working in advertising after undergrad and hated it, quit, went to grad school for anthropology, got a PhD, now a university lecturer. I was younger than you - 24 - and already had a bachelors in anthropology, and had a supportive partner, but oh my god I'm so glad I took that risk. You only get one short life (probably), and we spend so much of it working, so if you have a chance to make that work meaningful, that is life-changing. The people suggesting an engineering-anthro hybrid are smart. In anthro, you're always applying anthropological approaches *to something else*, so if you already have a degree in another field that's super useful. The anthropology of engineering would be fascinating. I've done some work on how infrastructure is embedded with social values that endure in bridges and motorways long after the social values have shifted, and how that means infrastructure is a powerful structuring force that reproduces social inequalities and creates health disparities. Your engineering knowledge would be so valuable to this sort of research.","human_ref_B":"I had worked at the bottom of the unqualified for anything ladder from 11to 33 when I went to uni. I studied anthropology because I was interested in it as a subject , the adjustment from working to earn money to working to earn grades was REALLY difficult. I passed with a Desmond, I have never worked in anthropology and see the career in it as one for privileged children of the wealthy who can support their children in unpaid placements that require large amounts of cash to fly to and from. Then theres the other sort of anthropologist who loves the job but has to teach it (regardless of their desire or ability to be an educator) they have to play the game to finance the time it takes to write the articles that win the sponsorship to go in the field. Round and round the articles go ,picking each others work to bits . Studying people who's entire ways of life have changed by the time the original work has been recognised as worthy. Call me jaded but I do not think that is a career. I love history just as much as I love anthropology, I'd have loved to do a degree in history instead of anthropology, I'd love to teach history at school. Anthropology is not viable in my opinion.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3753.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ekx8sy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why do poor people tend to have many kids? Is there any ethnography investigating what having many children means for parents? Poor people, especially in developing worlds, tend to have more kids because they see their kids as investment. Their kids are safety nets when they grow older. By this logic, meanwhile, richer people tend to have less kids. Because the more kids, the more expense. And they can support themselves anyway. At least that's the common assumption. My questions: * Is it true that poor people tend to have many kids? If so, why? * Is the notion about \"children as investment\" true - and is it only common in modern, Western societies? * Any ethnographies dealing with the meaning of having many children for parents within this context? I'm curious if anthropology has dealt with this topic since anthro loves to talk about kinship.","c_root_id_A":"fdgok29","c_root_id_B":"fdgsgp6","created_at_utc_A":1578404079,"created_at_utc_B":1578407163,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Responding on the go since this is a subject very close to my heart and work. To your first two points about why \u201cpoor\u201d people have fewer children in developing countries, research has shown that there are a couple of factors at play that all have an independent AND interlinked impact. Before I go into them, I\u2019d like to spend a minute to broaden out this idea of poor more to say that rather than use poor as simply a marker of economic status, the question, and therefore your answers are better served if you use \u201cpoor\u201d as a proxy for a number of allied factors like poor quality of work, lower education achievements, low awareness, low health outcomes etc. Having said that, now to jump into reasons for why developing countries show higher replacement rates as compared to developed countries : 1. While investment in the future, is one lens to look at, another strong reason for having more kids is that more kids = more sources of income for a household dependent on daily-wage work. 2. Such countries are marked by lower quality of public health services - therefore child mortality rates are high. Having more children is a way to hedge your bets and make sure at least one or two of your children make it to adulthood. 3. Patriarchy is a sucks and son-preference is a real thing, especially since boys are seen as productive, economic agents and girls are not. (See point one) People will keep having children until they have sons, often with no luck. 4. Combine point 3 with the point about the lack of female agency and right over their bodies and choice of contraception. Hope this helps! Since I\u2019m typing this up on my phone, I can\u2019t add in any references at the moment, but happy to share any on any point that catches your eye :)","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of great answers up here already, but wanted to leave a recommendation for a good ethnography on the subject: \u201cPromises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage\u201d by Edin & Kefalas It\u2019s a great read that digs into this very vividly in an eye-opening way.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3084.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"oesoy5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I read that gourds are likely the first plant crop domesticated by humans, and spread across the globe with humans similarly to dogs. How essential were they to prehistoric people and what were some of their uses? I know they were used as containers and water bottles, are there any other uses we know of? The idea of a plant-grown practical object really fascinates me. I'm growing some bottle gourds myself right now and I'd love to know more about how primitive people used them.","c_root_id_A":"h49rjv0","c_root_id_B":"h49rqlw","created_at_utc_A":1625599590,"created_at_utc_B":1625599675,"score_A":18,"score_B":69,"human_ref_A":"Gourds are also for musical instruments. Both for percussion and resonating chamber for harped instruments. Similar to the body of a guitar. Examples: Balafon and Kora).","human_ref_B":"Because they are organic, they don\u2019t necessarily preserve well in many contexts or seeds will preserve but the gourds themselves won\u2019t. This can make it pretty difficult to determine how they were used in many contexts and so we are left with many, not necessarily mutually exclusive, theories. In all likelihood, bottle gourds probably had many uses. Immature gourds are technically edible. Additionally, dried gourds could be rattles used in entertainment and ritual purposes for example. In many parts of West Africa, the gourds were historically decorated and used in divination rituals or containers for ritual substances and its no stretch to suppose they had similar functions in other places and times. As you point out, more practical uses would be bottles for liquids (water, beer, milk, etc\u2026) or as containers and tools like bowls or ladles. For early hunter gatherers though, the most vital and attractive feature probably was for storing water. Consider how wide-spread and populous humanity became after the end of the Pleistocene coinciding with the hypothetical domestication of the bottle gourd. That kind of distribution and adaptation could only have been possible in many parts of the world if humans had a way to store and transport potable water in areas where such water was scarce. Though biologically humans can live a few days without water, that doesn\u2019t consider how rapidly our capabilities decline once we begin to dehydrate. Without the ability to transport water, even a day\u2019s walk over an arid terrain could be a limiting factor in humans\u2019 successful dispersal over an area or adaptation to that area.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":85.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"oesoy5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I read that gourds are likely the first plant crop domesticated by humans, and spread across the globe with humans similarly to dogs. How essential were they to prehistoric people and what were some of their uses? I know they were used as containers and water bottles, are there any other uses we know of? The idea of a plant-grown practical object really fascinates me. I'm growing some bottle gourds myself right now and I'd love to know more about how primitive people used them.","c_root_id_A":"h49rqlw","c_root_id_B":"h49h4vu","created_at_utc_A":1625599675,"created_at_utc_B":1625594867,"score_A":69,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Because they are organic, they don\u2019t necessarily preserve well in many contexts or seeds will preserve but the gourds themselves won\u2019t. This can make it pretty difficult to determine how they were used in many contexts and so we are left with many, not necessarily mutually exclusive, theories. In all likelihood, bottle gourds probably had many uses. Immature gourds are technically edible. Additionally, dried gourds could be rattles used in entertainment and ritual purposes for example. In many parts of West Africa, the gourds were historically decorated and used in divination rituals or containers for ritual substances and its no stretch to suppose they had similar functions in other places and times. As you point out, more practical uses would be bottles for liquids (water, beer, milk, etc\u2026) or as containers and tools like bowls or ladles. For early hunter gatherers though, the most vital and attractive feature probably was for storing water. Consider how wide-spread and populous humanity became after the end of the Pleistocene coinciding with the hypothetical domestication of the bottle gourd. That kind of distribution and adaptation could only have been possible in many parts of the world if humans had a way to store and transport potable water in areas where such water was scarce. Though biologically humans can live a few days without water, that doesn\u2019t consider how rapidly our capabilities decline once we begin to dehydrate. Without the ability to transport water, even a day\u2019s walk over an arid terrain could be a limiting factor in humans\u2019 successful dispersal over an area or adaptation to that area.","human_ref_B":"Hmmm That\u2019s very interesting. Can you post where you read that? Having a geographic context and timeframe would be helpful. Whether domesticated or cultivated would be a big difference.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4808.0,"score_ratio":4.3125} {"post_id":"oesoy5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"I read that gourds are likely the first plant crop domesticated by humans, and spread across the globe with humans similarly to dogs. How essential were they to prehistoric people and what were some of their uses? I know they were used as containers and water bottles, are there any other uses we know of? The idea of a plant-grown practical object really fascinates me. I'm growing some bottle gourds myself right now and I'd love to know more about how primitive people used them.","c_root_id_A":"h49rjv0","c_root_id_B":"h49h4vu","created_at_utc_A":1625599590,"created_at_utc_B":1625594867,"score_A":18,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Gourds are also for musical instruments. Both for percussion and resonating chamber for harped instruments. Similar to the body of a guitar. Examples: Balafon and Kora).","human_ref_B":"Hmmm That\u2019s very interesting. Can you post where you read that? Having a geographic context and timeframe would be helpful. Whether domesticated or cultivated would be a big difference.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4723.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"bfzpdq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"If the Pleistocene was an Ice Age and lasted from around 2.5m years ago to 11,700 years ago, it implies that around 95% of the history of Homo Sapiens was one of living in an Ice Age. Is that right?","c_root_id_A":"elhfdmn","c_root_id_B":"elhnbyy","created_at_utc_A":1555924152,"created_at_utc_B":1555935774,"score_A":34,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"To be pedantic but we are still in the same glacial.","human_ref_B":"Well, *technically*, if there's pack ice on Earth, as there is now at the poles, then it's an Ice Age. However, there are warmer and cooler periods, referred to as glacial and interglacial - check out this page for a useful overview and some terms like 'interglacial period'. The Younger Dryas was the last time it was really cold and hostile, and behaviourally modern humans were definitely around for that, and before that there was the Last Glacial Maximum, and behaviourally modern humans were around for that too, but in between those times it wasn't so very bad. The last warm period is the Eemian period, around 127 000 years ago, which was more or less like it is now, and lasted until around 106 000 years ago, and Homo sapiens sapiens was arguably around then, wandering the continent of Africa which was obviously bearably warm. They moved out at around 70 000 years ago, and adapted to cold climes, then at the start of the Holocene, around 12 000 years ago, took up agriculture at several different places. So, humans have always lived in an ice age, but not always the glacial periods, and climate has bounced around rather a lot. This, now, is technically one of many interglacial periods that have been around during a very long Ice Age. The green and white table at the bottom of this page shows how the Eemian, a nice bright green, was like now, and then it got cool, warm, cool, warm, really really cold and then very warm again and stayed warm until now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11622.0,"score_ratio":1.8529411765} {"post_id":"bfzpdq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"If the Pleistocene was an Ice Age and lasted from around 2.5m years ago to 11,700 years ago, it implies that around 95% of the history of Homo Sapiens was one of living in an Ice Age. Is that right?","c_root_id_A":"elhnbyy","c_root_id_B":"elhlwff","created_at_utc_A":1555935774,"created_at_utc_B":1555934126,"score_A":63,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Well, *technically*, if there's pack ice on Earth, as there is now at the poles, then it's an Ice Age. However, there are warmer and cooler periods, referred to as glacial and interglacial - check out this page for a useful overview and some terms like 'interglacial period'. The Younger Dryas was the last time it was really cold and hostile, and behaviourally modern humans were definitely around for that, and before that there was the Last Glacial Maximum, and behaviourally modern humans were around for that too, but in between those times it wasn't so very bad. The last warm period is the Eemian period, around 127 000 years ago, which was more or less like it is now, and lasted until around 106 000 years ago, and Homo sapiens sapiens was arguably around then, wandering the continent of Africa which was obviously bearably warm. They moved out at around 70 000 years ago, and adapted to cold climes, then at the start of the Holocene, around 12 000 years ago, took up agriculture at several different places. So, humans have always lived in an ice age, but not always the glacial periods, and climate has bounced around rather a lot. This, now, is technically one of many interglacial periods that have been around during a very long Ice Age. The green and white table at the bottom of this page shows how the Eemian, a nice bright green, was like now, and then it got cool, warm, cool, warm, really really cold and then very warm again and stayed warm until now.","human_ref_B":"Hi, this is not correct. The pleistocene was not 2.5m years of continuous ice age - rather, it was a series of repeated ice ages, where glaciers would advance and retreat over time. According to Wiki (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pleistocene) this has occurred at least 11 times over the past 2.5 million years - \"The Pleistocene covers the recent period of repeated glaciations. The name Plio-Pleistocene has, in the past, been used to mean the last ice age. The revised definition of the Quaternary, by pushing back the start date of the Pleistocene to 2.58 Ma, results in the inclusion of all the recent repeated glaciations within the Pleistocene.\" Adding an edit as per u\/amandapanda2784 - I've conflated ice ages and glacial periods.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1648.0,"score_ratio":2.0322580645} {"post_id":"nz1b2b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeologists, how do you properly store early plastic materials (i.e. from 19th and early 20th century sites). Question for other archaeologists who might have 20th century materials, how are you storing plastic artifacts? I've been excavating at a few late 19th and early 20th century sites and have celluloid (which is very unstable), bakelite, and other early (and later) plastics. Now my issue is what to do with them long-term. I know they aren't supposed to be kept in airtight containers because that can cause degradation and explosions, so all the (archival) plastic bags they are currently in have holes poked in them for air. But them I'm reading guidelines about how they shouldn't be stored in any plastic or wood and only acid free materials. And that they have to be stored with like materials only, away from any other artifacts, including plastics of different types, and that they have to be kept at temperatures lower than 68 degrees at all times. This is all what NOT TO DO and I'm having a hard time figuring out what TO DO. And all the storage rules I am seeing appear to assume you are in a museum with all of those resources. Not a PhD student whose collections are going back to property owners who won't have the perfect ideal museum storage conditions to keep artifact boxes. Heck, even my house where they are currently is never 68 degrees because I can't function in temperatures that low. Any advice or suggestions? Or even a better subreddit to post in (I couldn't seem to find anything for conservation related stuff).","c_root_id_A":"h1oeiyd","c_root_id_B":"h1nt04f","created_at_utc_A":1623629264,"created_at_utc_B":1623617663,"score_A":36,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Hey! Conservator here. Celluloid is the biggest risk in this collection. Keep the collection in the pastic mylar you've got it in. Get some archival quaility boxes and tissue paper and store the collection in a cool, stable area such as a basement or fridge with low humidity (if it's a fridge or freezer it can't be opened regularly). The celluloid boxes will need to off-gas so don't seal them tightly and leave them well away from other collections. The other plastics you have will need a similar treatment but they probably won't be off-gassing and don't need to be stored at such precise conditions. Bakelite is pretty stable and could just be stored under normal museum conditions- cooler room temp, relatively stable conditions, low RH, no light etc. Depending on what you've got, the plastics could all be housed together (obvioulsy not anything like celluloid that is off-gassing). I would make a point of only giving the celluloid and other off-gassing and vulnerable materials to the church or museum who already have collection practices in place. Make it clear to them what you are giving them and why. Edit** you can also post on r\/askconservation","human_ref_B":"this is a very interesting question and I would ask @bobmuckle on twitter as he has done excavations on Japanese internment camps in canada. I would really like to see what he or his followers respond to on this topic. Also I think he took a class to excavate an Ataris dump site.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11601.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"nz1b2b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeologists, how do you properly store early plastic materials (i.e. from 19th and early 20th century sites). Question for other archaeologists who might have 20th century materials, how are you storing plastic artifacts? I've been excavating at a few late 19th and early 20th century sites and have celluloid (which is very unstable), bakelite, and other early (and later) plastics. Now my issue is what to do with them long-term. I know they aren't supposed to be kept in airtight containers because that can cause degradation and explosions, so all the (archival) plastic bags they are currently in have holes poked in them for air. But them I'm reading guidelines about how they shouldn't be stored in any plastic or wood and only acid free materials. And that they have to be stored with like materials only, away from any other artifacts, including plastics of different types, and that they have to be kept at temperatures lower than 68 degrees at all times. This is all what NOT TO DO and I'm having a hard time figuring out what TO DO. And all the storage rules I am seeing appear to assume you are in a museum with all of those resources. Not a PhD student whose collections are going back to property owners who won't have the perfect ideal museum storage conditions to keep artifact boxes. Heck, even my house where they are currently is never 68 degrees because I can't function in temperatures that low. Any advice or suggestions? Or even a better subreddit to post in (I couldn't seem to find anything for conservation related stuff).","c_root_id_A":"h1oeiyd","c_root_id_B":"h1nqoo9","created_at_utc_A":1623629264,"created_at_utc_B":1623616545,"score_A":36,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hey! Conservator here. Celluloid is the biggest risk in this collection. Keep the collection in the pastic mylar you've got it in. Get some archival quaility boxes and tissue paper and store the collection in a cool, stable area such as a basement or fridge with low humidity (if it's a fridge or freezer it can't be opened regularly). The celluloid boxes will need to off-gas so don't seal them tightly and leave them well away from other collections. The other plastics you have will need a similar treatment but they probably won't be off-gassing and don't need to be stored at such precise conditions. Bakelite is pretty stable and could just be stored under normal museum conditions- cooler room temp, relatively stable conditions, low RH, no light etc. Depending on what you've got, the plastics could all be housed together (obvioulsy not anything like celluloid that is off-gassing). I would make a point of only giving the celluloid and other off-gassing and vulnerable materials to the church or museum who already have collection practices in place. Make it clear to them what you are giving them and why. Edit** you can also post on r\/askconservation","human_ref_B":"Contact the repository and ask how they would like to handle it. There may be a discard policy in place, and object curation may not be required if sufficient documentation is submitted. Edit: I work at a repository for archaeological collections, and I believe our staff would rather not curate unstable materials (a bunch of those materials were recently deaccessioned from history collections because they were causing problems). Sometimes things get submitted that get discarded during collection processing. Deciding what to keep is a balancing act.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12719.0,"score_ratio":12.0} {"post_id":"nz1b2b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeologists, how do you properly store early plastic materials (i.e. from 19th and early 20th century sites). Question for other archaeologists who might have 20th century materials, how are you storing plastic artifacts? I've been excavating at a few late 19th and early 20th century sites and have celluloid (which is very unstable), bakelite, and other early (and later) plastics. Now my issue is what to do with them long-term. I know they aren't supposed to be kept in airtight containers because that can cause degradation and explosions, so all the (archival) plastic bags they are currently in have holes poked in them for air. But them I'm reading guidelines about how they shouldn't be stored in any plastic or wood and only acid free materials. And that they have to be stored with like materials only, away from any other artifacts, including plastics of different types, and that they have to be kept at temperatures lower than 68 degrees at all times. This is all what NOT TO DO and I'm having a hard time figuring out what TO DO. And all the storage rules I am seeing appear to assume you are in a museum with all of those resources. Not a PhD student whose collections are going back to property owners who won't have the perfect ideal museum storage conditions to keep artifact boxes. Heck, even my house where they are currently is never 68 degrees because I can't function in temperatures that low. Any advice or suggestions? Or even a better subreddit to post in (I couldn't seem to find anything for conservation related stuff).","c_root_id_A":"h1nqoo9","c_root_id_B":"h1nt04f","created_at_utc_A":1623616545,"created_at_utc_B":1623617663,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Contact the repository and ask how they would like to handle it. There may be a discard policy in place, and object curation may not be required if sufficient documentation is submitted. Edit: I work at a repository for archaeological collections, and I believe our staff would rather not curate unstable materials (a bunch of those materials were recently deaccessioned from history collections because they were causing problems). Sometimes things get submitted that get discarded during collection processing. Deciding what to keep is a balancing act.","human_ref_B":"this is a very interesting question and I would ask @bobmuckle on twitter as he has done excavations on Japanese internment camps in canada. I would really like to see what he or his followers respond to on this topic. Also I think he took a class to excavate an Ataris dump site.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1118.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"lsa3ni","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How has money come to be associated with illegitimacy and used as a rhetorical strategy to delegitimize protest movements? I believe this fits this sub very well because I'm interested in the cultural logic behind this phenomenon. So here goes! Back in 2018, the Indian Prime Minister accused the people protesting police brutality against students as \"paid protesters\". Elsewhere, activists have faced similar accusation (2020 Hong Kong protests, anti-Trump rally in United States, women's right activists in Malaysia, etc etc). Activists typically would vehemently deny that money is involved. Usually they would say, if you're being paid then you wouldn't have the \"conviction\" or \"conscience\" in genuinely supporting the cause. It's interesting to me because we usually wouldn't say the same about a job. You can be genuinely passionate about your job while still being paid. My question is two-fold. 1. How has money come to be associated with illegitimacy in activism? What's wrong with being paid? 2. How did it become an effective rhetorical strategy to delegitimize protest movements? I've been reading Marcel Mauss' The Gift and perhaps he might be onto something? It signals a change from gift economy to money economy in capitalist society? I don't know, I'm just mumbling here. Help me form a coherent thought!","c_root_id_A":"goqb8ny","c_root_id_B":"goq764h","created_at_utc_A":1614275846,"created_at_utc_B":1614274170,"score_A":56,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I think the simple answer is: since activist movements are supposed to be grassroots movements in nature, then discrediting them is as simple as saying that they're NOT grassroots. Implying that they're paid protesters implies that the movement isn't real. A slightly deeper answer is that in the U.S., when these movements are dismissed by the right, they generally claim that Jewish financiers (Soros) are behind it, which evokes old racist \"jewish cabal\" theories.","human_ref_B":"I studied American protest movements as a professional photojournalist from 2009-2016 so maybe I can help move the conversation along. First let me say that the movements I studied were of the leftist variety: OWS, BLM, and the anti-oil pipeline movements. Leftist protest movements - specifically the marxists and anarchists - are pretty generally anti-capitalism. Marx would have argued that the reason for protesting should be a yearning for liberation **from** capitalism - not a desire **for** capital. The anarchists would argue that by taking the money, you are complicit to the system which is oppressing us. There is a saying, I believe by Voltaire; \"The perfect is the enemy of the good\". This stands so, so very true within the leftist activist circles I've studied. There are some circles where it has been checked, but people are always judging each other for not being \"radical enough\". That no matter where you are on your journey, that 'if you stand anywhere to the right of me, you're a fascist who deserves to be stomped'. A lot of this phenomenon I attribute to (mostly white) people liking the sound of their own voice - and that you can elevate you own status within a group by denouncing anyone less radical than yourself. People who take money are easy targets for anti-capitalists who, in contrast, are there purely out of passion. TL;DR \"They're not activists when they get paid; they're lobbyists.\" (this is not an endorsement) Edit for supporting citations: The Occupied Wall Street Journal, Pg 3 \"No excuses left. It\u2019s now or never\" >\"...Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.\" \"Youre Not Radical Enough: Reflections on Philippine Leftist exclusionism\" >People refused to see speaking up and doing what you could with what you have as enough to qualify to be part of the struggle. I experienced discomfort and eventually some form of trauma from discrimination and harassment in activist spaces, predominantly from encounters with \u201cprogressive\u201d or \u201cradical\u201d men. Our idea of activism is still classist, ableist, and sexist. Our idea of activism is still highly exclusive, as if activism was something people performed to be included in a Cool Kids Club rather than something anyone could participate in, whoever they are, in any way they can. \"Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex\" *Regarding an anarchist perspective on money in activism* >\"The ally industrial complex has been established by activists whose careers depend on the \"issues\" they work to address. These nonprofit capitalists advance their careers off the struggles they ostensibly support. They often work in the guise of \"grassroots\" or \"community-based\" and are not necessarily tied to any organization. They build organizational or individual capacity and power, establish themselves comfortably among the top ranks in their hierarchy of oppression as they strive to become the ally \"champions\" of the most oppressed. While the exploitation of solidarity and support is nothing new, the commodification and exploitation of allyship is a growing trend in the activism industry.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1676.0,"score_ratio":2.24} {"post_id":"lsa3ni","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How has money come to be associated with illegitimacy and used as a rhetorical strategy to delegitimize protest movements? I believe this fits this sub very well because I'm interested in the cultural logic behind this phenomenon. So here goes! Back in 2018, the Indian Prime Minister accused the people protesting police brutality against students as \"paid protesters\". Elsewhere, activists have faced similar accusation (2020 Hong Kong protests, anti-Trump rally in United States, women's right activists in Malaysia, etc etc). Activists typically would vehemently deny that money is involved. Usually they would say, if you're being paid then you wouldn't have the \"conviction\" or \"conscience\" in genuinely supporting the cause. It's interesting to me because we usually wouldn't say the same about a job. You can be genuinely passionate about your job while still being paid. My question is two-fold. 1. How has money come to be associated with illegitimacy in activism? What's wrong with being paid? 2. How did it become an effective rhetorical strategy to delegitimize protest movements? I've been reading Marcel Mauss' The Gift and perhaps he might be onto something? It signals a change from gift economy to money economy in capitalist society? I don't know, I'm just mumbling here. Help me form a coherent thought!","c_root_id_A":"goqmim9","c_root_id_B":"goq764h","created_at_utc_A":1614279911,"created_at_utc_B":1614274170,"score_A":34,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"**Short answer:** A great question, because it's one of those things which \"everyone knows\" -- and yet the more you look at it, the deeper you dig and the more complex it gets. The issue isn't so much the money itself - its the insinuation of inauthenticity, a species of \"bad faith\" as elaborated by Sartre. The particulars of such allegations will be matters of political opportunity; as rhetoric it's often but not necessarily a flavor of ad hominem argument. Cash has a provenance in antiquity for this freighted rhetoric-- for example Judas' 30 pieces of silver-- and though an ancient theme, it has preserved its currency. **Discussion:** The appearance of inauthenticity is perceived negatively. It is understood, more often implicitly than explicitly, that \"the act of misrepresenting one\u2019s wants under perceived social pressures\" imposes costs to society and such allegations cut deeply into the perceived legitimacy of a position. A logically defective position perceived by its exponents as sincere will often meet with greater public approval than a better reasoned one that is perceived as inauthentic; a reason that someone seeking to sway opinion may argue ad hominem rather than dispute facts. It has been a commonplace in reaction against progressive movements, an allegation that \"organizers\" are scheming for their own self interest. In the 19th century, you can see this in Catholic social justice (e.g. *Rerum Novarum*) that while the social duties and obligations of the community to labor are moral and religious, there's suspicion about secret societies and other organizing that isn't; Christian Democrats could at once support the dignity of the working man and his family, and argue against the dubious interests of \"organizers\". \"Authenticity\" is a burdened term in our public language. The suspicion that self interest might give lie to a proclaimed moral high ground has always been a rhetorical weapon for those who style themselves as serving the public good or high minded. During the Profumo Affair, that most acute political anthropologist Mandy Rice-Davies laughed when Lord Astor had denied meeting or even knowing her: \"well he would \\deny that\\], wouldn't he\"-- a contemporary newsreading public found this rejoinder both empirically convincing and morally satisfying. The power and economy of that skepticism, that a noble posture ought be measured against the possibility that the speaker's motives reflect their own interests rather than an authentic feeling-- that's everywhere in political rhetoric, and money is just one of many flavors of this argument. **Sources** For an anthropologist's approach to authenticity: Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios. \u201cINTRODUCTION: Laying Claim to Authenticity: Five Anthropological Dilemmas.\u201d *Anthropological Quarterly*, vol. 86, no. 2, 2013, pp. 337\u2013360. *JSTOR*, [www.jstor.org\/stable\/41857329. Bubandt, Nils. \u201cTrust in an Age of Inauthenticity: Power and Indonesian Modernity.\u201d *Anthropology and Philosophy: Dialogues on Trust and Hope*, edited by Sune Liisberg et al., 1st ed., Berghahn Books, 2015, pp. 141\u2013157. *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt9qd2f4.18. and for a political economist's : Kuran, Timur. \"Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification\" Harvard University Press 1997 and for views of cultural and intellectual historians PESTEL, FRIEDEMANN. \u201cOn Counterrevolution: Semantic Investigations of a Counterconcept during the French Revolution.\u201d *Contributions to the History of Concepts*, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, pp. 50\u201375. *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org\/stable\/26876098 Umbach and Humphrey, \"Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept\", Springer:2017 Buchan and Hill, \"Conceptions of Political Corruption in Antiquity\" Springer 2014 and a philosopher's view of bad faith -- particularly important to Sartre Hymers, Michael. \u201cBad Faith.\u201d *Philosophy*, vol. 64, no. 249, 1989, pp. 397\u2013402. *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org\/stable\/3751475 Santoni, Ronald E. \u201cIs Bad Faith Necessarily Social?\u201d *Sartre Studies International*, vol. 14, no. 2, 2008, pp. 23\u201339. *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org\/stable\/23512651 and even a neurological perspective! John Valentine. \u201cNeuroscience and Sartre's Account of Bad Faith.\u201d *The Journal of Speculative Philosophy*, vol. 27, no. 4, 2013, pp. 349\u2013364. *JSTOR*, www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.5325\/jspecphil.27.4.0349","human_ref_B":"I studied American protest movements as a professional photojournalist from 2009-2016 so maybe I can help move the conversation along. First let me say that the movements I studied were of the leftist variety: OWS, BLM, and the anti-oil pipeline movements. Leftist protest movements - specifically the marxists and anarchists - are pretty generally anti-capitalism. Marx would have argued that the reason for protesting should be a yearning for liberation **from** capitalism - not a desire **for** capital. The anarchists would argue that by taking the money, you are complicit to the system which is oppressing us. There is a saying, I believe by Voltaire; \"The perfect is the enemy of the good\". This stands so, so very true within the leftist activist circles I've studied. There are some circles where it has been checked, but people are always judging each other for not being \"radical enough\". That no matter where you are on your journey, that 'if you stand anywhere to the right of me, you're a fascist who deserves to be stomped'. A lot of this phenomenon I attribute to (mostly white) people liking the sound of their own voice - and that you can elevate you own status within a group by denouncing anyone less radical than yourself. People who take money are easy targets for anti-capitalists who, in contrast, are there purely out of passion. TL;DR \"They're not activists when they get paid; they're lobbyists.\" (this is not an endorsement) Edit for supporting citations: The Occupied Wall Street Journal, Pg 3 \"No excuses left. It\u2019s now or never\" >\"...Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.\" \"Youre Not Radical Enough: Reflections on Philippine Leftist exclusionism\" >People refused to see speaking up and doing what you could with what you have as enough to qualify to be part of the struggle. I experienced discomfort and eventually some form of trauma from discrimination and harassment in activist spaces, predominantly from encounters with \u201cprogressive\u201d or \u201cradical\u201d men. Our idea of activism is still classist, ableist, and sexist. Our idea of activism is still highly exclusive, as if activism was something people performed to be included in a Cool Kids Club rather than something anyone could participate in, whoever they are, in any way they can. \"Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex\" *Regarding an anarchist perspective on money in activism* >\"The ally industrial complex has been established by activists whose careers depend on the \"issues\" they work to address. These nonprofit capitalists advance their careers off the struggles they ostensibly support. They often work in the guise of \"grassroots\" or \"community-based\" and are not necessarily tied to any organization. They build organizational or individual capacity and power, establish themselves comfortably among the top ranks in their hierarchy of oppression as they strive to become the ally \"champions\" of the most oppressed. While the exploitation of solidarity and support is nothing new, the commodification and exploitation of allyship is a growing trend in the activism industry.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5741.0,"score_ratio":1.36} {"post_id":"gvykg0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why isn\u2019t vernacular architecture dominant in the United States? This may not just be the US, although as a North American archaeologist my understanding of other continents is admittedly limited. It seems as though all homes built in the US tend to be very similar regardless of the climate they are built in. My apartment in Florida is very similar to my friend\u2019s apartment in Utah, for example, although we certainly have more hurricane-adapted features. Is this the new form of vernacular architecture, or adapting our buildings to our environment? Indigenous cultures had many different kinds of dwelling that were suited for their environments. When\/why did this practice fall out of favor? It seems counterintuitive to me. Thanks in advance! \u263a\ufe0f","c_root_id_A":"fsrzhl6","c_root_id_B":"fsrwf1e","created_at_utc_A":1591211022,"created_at_utc_B":1591209627,"score_A":111,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"As an architect i can suggest that the disappearance of vernacular building was brought about specifically by the advent of professional architects in the early modern era. To take the example of English architecture ( which directly influenced American architecture) local materials and techniques were abandoned in favour of neoclassical architectural fashions originating mostly in renaissance Italy from the 16th to 18th centuries- the transition was completed by industrialisation in the 19c whereby construction materials could be transported long distances from their sources - at this point displays of status and prestige superseded practical and ecological concerns and ultimately resulted in first, international modernism, and then postmodernism where aesthetic and technological concerns became completely detached from practical considerations. It is only with the ecological movement in the 1970s and heritage movement in the 80s that questions of context and energy embodied in materials and appropriate technologies became relevant once again and resulted in the reassessment of vernacular traditions.","human_ref_B":"I just finished reading The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler, and he discusses this topic. The tl;dr is that there was a strong vernacular architectural tradition prior to the Great Depression\/WW2. After that the combination of ugly, inhuman, but trendy Modernist planning (Le Coubosier), the privatization of public spaces dues to capitalism, and the rise of the automobile led us to rapidly build out cites with generic buildings. The other thing he points out is that in many places, it is illegal to build buildings that are human scaled and attract pedestrians. Think of regulations like curb setbacks, parking requirements, height limits, and the elimination of mixed use zoning.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1395.0,"score_ratio":3.46875} {"post_id":"fens6o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"We had thousands of years of fighting with blade weapons. How did ancient people deal with their wounds? Cuts are very painful and can be deadly serious. Deep cuts sever blood vessels and even tendons. What kind of accounts do we have of battle first-aid from various cultures from the past? What evidence is there that prehistoric people survived slashes and arrows from flint or obsidian blades and the infections that likely followed? Do we have any archaeology or numbers that illustrates the reality of these situations? What happened on the battlefield up through the middle ages when men were slashing each other with metal blades? How can people survive this kind of thing? Woulds even one deep cut to the hand or arm permanently disable a warrior? Did warriors faint on the battlefield from blood loss, even as they fought? A pretty nasty subject, but I don't think it is discussed much.","c_root_id_A":"fjprndr","c_root_id_B":"fjr1xhi","created_at_utc_A":1583559320,"created_at_utc_B":1583580496,"score_A":61,"score_B":88,"human_ref_A":"This may be best asked in r\/AskHistorians. there are a number of ancient medical texts from around the world that could potentially provide your answer. For the sake of getting a quicker answer it could help to narrow down the question to a specific time period as well. Perhaps ask about a roman legionary or a medieval knight and how they would be treated in their time period.","human_ref_B":"Hi I'm a demographer and one thing I learned in grad school health and mortality class (taught my Sam Preston if that's a source) is that among hunter gatherers injury was one of the leading causes of death (it was that + childbirth iirc), before populations got big enough to spread infectious diseases. So commonly the way they dealt with it was by dying.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21176.0,"score_ratio":1.4426229508} {"post_id":"bf9c3t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did your typical ancient Greek have the resources & capabilities to build their bodies to be as fit as those commonly seen in the statues of their gods? We know today that to build muscle, one needs to eat at a constant caloric surplus, train effectively, and consume a certain ratio of macronutrients to prevent muscle catabolism and promote proper growth and development of said muscle. However, these are facts that have been proven true by modern science. I'm wondering how often ancient Greeks were exposed to individuals who looked the way they depict their gods to be, because even by today's standards, some of these characters are in ridiculous shape. So I have several questions regarding this matter ​ 1. Did the common Greek have the resources or the knowledge to build a body like this? If so, through what means would they have obtained such knowledge? 2. Different classes would have had access to different types of foods. Assuming that the lower class didn't have much access to animal flesh, what type of person would be the most likely to look as fit as the examples above? 3. Did gladiators (yes I know they're Roman) look like this, or were they somewhat chubby, as many people claim? I really appreciate all the answers. This is a topic that I've started becoming more curious about after my trip to historical art museums across Europe. It struck me as odd that there were statues and paintings of soldiers (Leonidas, etc...) that were significantly less fit (but obviously not out of shape) than some of the mythical characters","c_root_id_A":"elchhpk","c_root_id_B":"elcazfg","created_at_utc_A":1555766465,"created_at_utc_B":1555760276,"score_A":75,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Greek statues show an idealized, perfect human form reflective of their standards of beauty, even when the pose, face etc is naturalistic, so they\u2019re not the best source if we want to know what the average Ancient Greek\u2019s body looked like. Greek physicians were aware of the connection between food and physical fitness. Athletes were advised to go on special diets during training, including abstaining from sweets and alcohol, and another diet called xerophagy in which only dry foods were consumed. Some of the beliefs Greeks held about food may have been accidentally true; for instance, Greeks encouraged athletes to eat more meat, not because they knew protein helps build muscle, but because they thought eating meat makes you more fierce. The wealthier you were in Ancient Greece, the more access you had to food, and to less-healthy foods like sugar (usually in the form of honey) and meat (and pork was the favorite meat, because other livestock animals that provided labor, hair or milk were considered more valuable alive than dead). However, we shouldn\u2019t assume wealthy Greeks led lives of leisure even if their diet was less-healthy than the lower classes. Many kings and nobles led active lifestyles (through hunting, going to war, etc), and moderation from excess was a big Greek cultural value in general.","human_ref_B":"You might also receive a great answer from the wonderful folks over at r\/AskHistorians if you haven't already posted this question there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6189.0,"score_ratio":4.1666666667} {"post_id":"bf9c3t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did your typical ancient Greek have the resources & capabilities to build their bodies to be as fit as those commonly seen in the statues of their gods? We know today that to build muscle, one needs to eat at a constant caloric surplus, train effectively, and consume a certain ratio of macronutrients to prevent muscle catabolism and promote proper growth and development of said muscle. However, these are facts that have been proven true by modern science. I'm wondering how often ancient Greeks were exposed to individuals who looked the way they depict their gods to be, because even by today's standards, some of these characters are in ridiculous shape. So I have several questions regarding this matter ​ 1. Did the common Greek have the resources or the knowledge to build a body like this? If so, through what means would they have obtained such knowledge? 2. Different classes would have had access to different types of foods. Assuming that the lower class didn't have much access to animal flesh, what type of person would be the most likely to look as fit as the examples above? 3. Did gladiators (yes I know they're Roman) look like this, or were they somewhat chubby, as many people claim? I really appreciate all the answers. This is a topic that I've started becoming more curious about after my trip to historical art museums across Europe. It struck me as odd that there were statues and paintings of soldiers (Leonidas, etc...) that were significantly less fit (but obviously not out of shape) than some of the mythical characters","c_root_id_A":"elchhpk","c_root_id_B":"elc6fw9","created_at_utc_A":1555766465,"created_at_utc_B":1555754816,"score_A":75,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Greek statues show an idealized, perfect human form reflective of their standards of beauty, even when the pose, face etc is naturalistic, so they\u2019re not the best source if we want to know what the average Ancient Greek\u2019s body looked like. Greek physicians were aware of the connection between food and physical fitness. Athletes were advised to go on special diets during training, including abstaining from sweets and alcohol, and another diet called xerophagy in which only dry foods were consumed. Some of the beliefs Greeks held about food may have been accidentally true; for instance, Greeks encouraged athletes to eat more meat, not because they knew protein helps build muscle, but because they thought eating meat makes you more fierce. The wealthier you were in Ancient Greece, the more access you had to food, and to less-healthy foods like sugar (usually in the form of honey) and meat (and pork was the favorite meat, because other livestock animals that provided labor, hair or milk were considered more valuable alive than dead). However, we shouldn\u2019t assume wealthy Greeks led lives of leisure even if their diet was less-healthy than the lower classes. Many kings and nobles led active lifestyles (through hunting, going to war, etc), and moderation from excess was a big Greek cultural value in general.","human_ref_B":"Follow up questions. If so, how did they train? How did their machines or their gym look like? How was a typical ancient Greek workout?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11649.0,"score_ratio":9.375} {"post_id":"bf9c3t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did your typical ancient Greek have the resources & capabilities to build their bodies to be as fit as those commonly seen in the statues of their gods? We know today that to build muscle, one needs to eat at a constant caloric surplus, train effectively, and consume a certain ratio of macronutrients to prevent muscle catabolism and promote proper growth and development of said muscle. However, these are facts that have been proven true by modern science. I'm wondering how often ancient Greeks were exposed to individuals who looked the way they depict their gods to be, because even by today's standards, some of these characters are in ridiculous shape. So I have several questions regarding this matter ​ 1. Did the common Greek have the resources or the knowledge to build a body like this? If so, through what means would they have obtained such knowledge? 2. Different classes would have had access to different types of foods. Assuming that the lower class didn't have much access to animal flesh, what type of person would be the most likely to look as fit as the examples above? 3. Did gladiators (yes I know they're Roman) look like this, or were they somewhat chubby, as many people claim? I really appreciate all the answers. This is a topic that I've started becoming more curious about after my trip to historical art museums across Europe. It struck me as odd that there were statues and paintings of soldiers (Leonidas, etc...) that were significantly less fit (but obviously not out of shape) than some of the mythical characters","c_root_id_A":"elc6fw9","c_root_id_B":"elcazfg","created_at_utc_A":1555754816,"created_at_utc_B":1555760276,"score_A":8,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Follow up questions. If so, how did they train? How did their machines or their gym look like? How was a typical ancient Greek workout?","human_ref_B":"You might also receive a great answer from the wonderful folks over at r\/AskHistorians if you haven't already posted this question there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5460.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"bf9c3t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did your typical ancient Greek have the resources & capabilities to build their bodies to be as fit as those commonly seen in the statues of their gods? We know today that to build muscle, one needs to eat at a constant caloric surplus, train effectively, and consume a certain ratio of macronutrients to prevent muscle catabolism and promote proper growth and development of said muscle. However, these are facts that have been proven true by modern science. I'm wondering how often ancient Greeks were exposed to individuals who looked the way they depict their gods to be, because even by today's standards, some of these characters are in ridiculous shape. So I have several questions regarding this matter ​ 1. Did the common Greek have the resources or the knowledge to build a body like this? If so, through what means would they have obtained such knowledge? 2. Different classes would have had access to different types of foods. Assuming that the lower class didn't have much access to animal flesh, what type of person would be the most likely to look as fit as the examples above? 3. Did gladiators (yes I know they're Roman) look like this, or were they somewhat chubby, as many people claim? I really appreciate all the answers. This is a topic that I've started becoming more curious about after my trip to historical art museums across Europe. It struck me as odd that there were statues and paintings of soldiers (Leonidas, etc...) that were significantly less fit (but obviously not out of shape) than some of the mythical characters","c_root_id_A":"eldfigl","c_root_id_B":"elc6fw9","created_at_utc_A":1555790541,"created_at_utc_B":1555754816,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"> No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training\u2026what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. Socrates","human_ref_B":"Follow up questions. If so, how did they train? How did their machines or their gym look like? How was a typical ancient Greek workout?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35725.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6bl44w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"The massive flow of porn available today is unprecedented in human history. What kind of studies exist on what changes, if any, that has had on humans? I wonder what have anthropologists come up with in regards to modern porn. Has it made a difference?","c_root_id_A":"dho2gr1","c_root_id_B":"dhnz05s","created_at_utc_A":1495013653,"created_at_utc_B":1495003770,"score_A":38,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"So heres one academic article, if you have access to the journal \"Porn Studies\" this might be interesting: \"\u2018It is disgusting, but\u2009\u2026\u2009\u2019: adolescent girls\u2019 relationship to internet pornography as gender performance\" (Scarcelli 2015). There is also a fair amount of moralising\/handwringing papers about, such as: \"Social bonds and Internet pornographic exposure among adolescents\" (Mesch 2009) This is a topic that I think most contemporary textbooks\/readers on gender and sexuality will cover indirectly, and feminist journals would be a good place to look for more material. Sexuality and private sexual behaviour generally are always tricky subjects to research accurately, as people simply don't tell you the truth, and it is extremely difficult to elicit information about something that is socially frowned upon. A general anthropological point to make is that the volume of mass communication in the latter 20th century and early 21st has had profound effects on social relations, but in many cases has not radically altered their content. From my own research background, for instance, the family and parental relations of Filipinos working overseas are not radically altered by distance and the mediation of their relations by the internet; rather the online\/mediated relations tend to resemble those people make in real life (see Daniel Miller and Maria Madianou's book on this for more detail). So I would imagine that, in general, porn usage and its outcomes will tend to *reflect* RL social orientations to gender and sexuality more than it will *affect* them. Sorry I don;t have more specific answers, but I'm sure there are better analyses out there.","human_ref_B":"I don't think 10-15 years is enough time to tell.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9883.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"jdygzi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and how did the heart start being associated with love, romance and emotions in general? So we know now that emotions are ultimately a product of and generated in the brain. So I was wondering when and how did feelings and emotions in general start being associated with the heart?","c_root_id_A":"g9b5dk4","c_root_id_B":"g9bvimb","created_at_utc_A":1603101269,"created_at_utc_B":1603118743,"score_A":10,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I think you may be looking for r\/askpsychology - if it exists. Again, Anthropology will be *very* contextual to people within a snapshot of time. Edit: oh hey! It exists!","human_ref_B":"r\/askhistorians should have your answer. It has to do with the Roman Empire and a plant they used as birth control. Look through their frequently asked questions, if not I gave you the keywords for your google search.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17474.0,"score_ratio":4.1} {"post_id":"jdygzi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and how did the heart start being associated with love, romance and emotions in general? So we know now that emotions are ultimately a product of and generated in the brain. So I was wondering when and how did feelings and emotions in general start being associated with the heart?","c_root_id_A":"g9ctvjs","c_root_id_B":"g9b5dk4","created_at_utc_A":1603134432,"created_at_utc_B":1603101269,"score_A":15,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently reading Aztec & Maya: The Complete Illustrated History and they talk about ancient Aztec beliefs about the body. They believed the human body had 3 essential parts [Chapter 11: \"After Death\" pg 220] : 1) The head: \"where a person's destiny was housed\" 2) The liver: \"home to the spirit\" 3) The heart: \"where one's consciousness lived\" So not 100% exactly what you are talking about, but I think it adds context.","human_ref_B":"I think you may be looking for r\/askpsychology - if it exists. Again, Anthropology will be *very* contextual to people within a snapshot of time. Edit: oh hey! It exists!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33163.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"jdygzi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and how did the heart start being associated with love, romance and emotions in general? So we know now that emotions are ultimately a product of and generated in the brain. So I was wondering when and how did feelings and emotions in general start being associated with the heart?","c_root_id_A":"g9ctvjs","c_root_id_B":"g9cki5y","created_at_utc_A":1603134432,"created_at_utc_B":1603129905,"score_A":15,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently reading Aztec & Maya: The Complete Illustrated History and they talk about ancient Aztec beliefs about the body. They believed the human body had 3 essential parts [Chapter 11: \"After Death\" pg 220] : 1) The head: \"where a person's destiny was housed\" 2) The liver: \"home to the spirit\" 3) The heart: \"where one's consciousness lived\" So not 100% exactly what you are talking about, but I think it adds context.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know the answer to this question, however I can give some information. The Bible makes reference a few times to the kidneys as the source of love. Also, romans thought that love came from the liver","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4527.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"jdygzi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and how did the heart start being associated with love, romance and emotions in general? So we know now that emotions are ultimately a product of and generated in the brain. So I was wondering when and how did feelings and emotions in general start being associated with the heart?","c_root_id_A":"g9cki5y","c_root_id_B":"g9d2w4i","created_at_utc_A":1603129905,"created_at_utc_B":1603138358,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know the answer to this question, however I can give some information. The Bible makes reference a few times to the kidneys as the source of love. Also, romans thought that love came from the liver","human_ref_B":"Its the shape of a plant the romans used for contraception. They used it so much it went extinct. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Silphium If you go down to \"connection to heart (symbol)\" it links to \"main article: heart\" which has more info for your ask.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8453.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"hpnyih","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why do most cultures around the world traditionally have conservative sexual practices? In most cultures that I\u2019m aware of (let me know if I\u2019m wrong, I love being wrong cause then I get to learn something), it seems like there are concepts and values like 1. Virginity (mainly of women) 2. Marriage 3. Monogamy and 4. Loyalty. There are clear outliers but I\u2019m curious why cultures that had no way to be known to each other all managed to be relatively similar in these ways? Beyond this question, what about more recent events and changes in humanity globally do you think is driving people to be more curious about rejecting these older notions? How much of my perception of most cultures acting in these ways is accurate? Very curious about this topic and general commonalities of human behavior in cultures that were isolated from each other","c_root_id_A":"fxt4wlw","c_root_id_B":"fxt1n4w","created_at_utc_A":1594538560,"created_at_utc_B":1594535537,"score_A":118,"score_B":60,"human_ref_A":"Short Answer: Because there was no contraception and women couldn't raise children without the help of a man. Long answers: 1.Virginity - (Evolutionary speaking) men do not want to raise the children of others, but only theirs. Non-virgins can be pregnant with another's child. Thus, only take virgins. In Islam there is a 3 month waiting period before re-marriage after divorce\/widowhood to avoid this possibility. 2. Marriage - Societal contract that ensures both men and women get their interests enforced in an union. Men: Faithful wife that takes care of house\/kids. Women: (At least financially) faithful husband, that works and provides for his wife and children. 3. Monogamy is in the interest of high-status women and low-status men and was actually most strict in historic europe, not elsewhere. High-status women get to have (most) recources of one high-status man, they (at least officially) don't have to share. Low-status men have access to a wife, which otherwise may share a higher-status man with other women. 4. Loyalty - Infidelity and other forms illoyality undermine the shared interest of husband and wife in a union to raise their children and provide them with the best possible resources.","human_ref_B":"What do you even mean by \"conservative sexual practices\" ? The Islamic world until the 18th and 19th century would accept and respect homosexuality as part of their culture, often through poetry and arts. Edo period Japan was notorious for acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality and gender-non-conforming behaviour like transgender and\/or transvestic behaviour very often seen in art. India is famous for the Hijrah gender which exist for millennia and used to have political and religious status before the British domination. Those are just a few societies that in the modern period were not practicing, as european gender and sexuality patterns would describe, \"conservative sexual practices\". And these are among the most militarily powerful, urbanized and rich non-european societies and states in the modern age.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3023.0,"score_ratio":1.9666666667} {"post_id":"b5g1qi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Stone Age Cave Symbols May All Be Part of a Single Prehistoric Proto-Writing System ​ i'd love to read some opinions about this: ​ https:\/\/kottke.org\/19\/03\/stone-age-cave-symbols-may-all-be-part-of-a-single-prehistoric-proto-writing-system?fbclid=IwAR112OTBH3AtbBAtQSvnvDMg4-6IC1M35Ml007gCqe8dbDh4XfTXZ-n30vA","c_root_id_A":"ejeh78u","c_root_id_B":"ejeg39n","created_at_utc_A":1553584478,"created_at_utc_B":1553582867,"score_A":23,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Check out some of the youtube comments on this video. Why are conspiracy theories always only a step away if it's about something prehistorical? \"Why does nobody investigate \\[insert ridiculous theory here, probably about aliens\\]???!!!\" It seems as if there are always way more people who believe \"ALIENS!\" than people who believe the somewhat less sensational but well researched information out there. And it's not like the origin of symbolic thought or the building of the pyramids is boring. How impressive is it that people without cranes and modern equipment built the pyramids? No no, it has to be aliens to be interesting enough for the mouth-breathing hordes of youtube. Ugh, sorry for the little rant, but the cesspool that is the youtube comment section just drains my faith in mankind.","human_ref_B":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/linguistics] [Is this r\\\/badlinguistics worthy?  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1611.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"b5g1qi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Stone Age Cave Symbols May All Be Part of a Single Prehistoric Proto-Writing System ​ i'd love to read some opinions about this: ​ https:\/\/kottke.org\/19\/03\/stone-age-cave-symbols-may-all-be-part-of-a-single-prehistoric-proto-writing-system?fbclid=IwAR112OTBH3AtbBAtQSvnvDMg4-6IC1M35Ml007gCqe8dbDh4XfTXZ-n30vA","c_root_id_A":"ejeg39n","c_root_id_B":"ejeylqf","created_at_utc_A":1553582867,"created_at_utc_B":1553606943,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/linguistics] [Is this r\\\/badlinguistics worthy?  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"Tangentially related, I love this article about cave paintings. It's beautifully-written and posits that the cave paintings we see are only the ones that have survived, and that the outside world may once have been covered in paintings as well. Something to think about","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24076.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ypwbas","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Toxic foods in human cultures: did we not know or not care? The Romans used rue as a herb and it is still popular in Ethiopia, despite it being thought worth a call to poison control here (lead ore as a spice was also probably a bad move). And the Nuu-Chah-Nulth of the North American pacific coast (Koreans too, to a lesser extent) ate\/eat carcinogenic bracken rhizome as a staple, and have high incidences of gut cancer that may be related to this. Even fenugreek has got some bad toxicity press despite being a fave in India. Traditional diets are widely though of as healthy, varied, and natural, especially those of Indigenous groups. It seems unlikely for some cases but is it possible that nutrition science is extrapolating from incomplete knowledge and that these foods aren't really harmful when prepared the traditional way (like cassava or olives)? Otherwise what were humans doing guzzling rue, lead, & cancer fern? Could we not figure it out through trial and error, like we did with most of the plant kingdom? Or did we know but just not care about the slow toxic buildup, because these were abundant sources of calories and flavour? Could these foods have even been antiparasitic?","c_root_id_A":"ivleij9","c_root_id_B":"ivldfba","created_at_utc_A":1667939843,"created_at_utc_B":1667939431,"score_A":130,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"None of those things make people keel over dead or violently sick after eating them, so why would anyone have assumed they might be unhealthy?","human_ref_B":"What incidence is it calling gut cancer? How would a large population know that a certain food is causing a certain issue? Especially if it\u2019s one that affects in later life? Unless it kills you quick it would be difficult to know it\u2019s an issue","labels":1,"seconds_difference":412.0,"score_ratio":5.652173913} {"post_id":"ypwbas","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Toxic foods in human cultures: did we not know or not care? The Romans used rue as a herb and it is still popular in Ethiopia, despite it being thought worth a call to poison control here (lead ore as a spice was also probably a bad move). And the Nuu-Chah-Nulth of the North American pacific coast (Koreans too, to a lesser extent) ate\/eat carcinogenic bracken rhizome as a staple, and have high incidences of gut cancer that may be related to this. Even fenugreek has got some bad toxicity press despite being a fave in India. Traditional diets are widely though of as healthy, varied, and natural, especially those of Indigenous groups. It seems unlikely for some cases but is it possible that nutrition science is extrapolating from incomplete knowledge and that these foods aren't really harmful when prepared the traditional way (like cassava or olives)? Otherwise what were humans doing guzzling rue, lead, & cancer fern? Could we not figure it out through trial and error, like we did with most of the plant kingdom? Or did we know but just not care about the slow toxic buildup, because these were abundant sources of calories and flavour? Could these foods have even been antiparasitic?","c_root_id_A":"ivldfba","c_root_id_B":"ivm1rbt","created_at_utc_A":1667939431,"created_at_utc_B":1667949095,"score_A":23,"score_B":116,"human_ref_A":"What incidence is it calling gut cancer? How would a large population know that a certain food is causing a certain issue? Especially if it\u2019s one that affects in later life? Unless it kills you quick it would be difficult to know it\u2019s an issue","human_ref_B":"First of all, humans are terrible practical epidemiologists. Unless something is so toxic that it kills the majority of people who ingest \/ use it so quickly that there can be no mistaking the cause, we generally don't do a very good job picking up on those patterns. And it's not as if we're any better at that today. We're not figuring these things out ourselves. We rely on large medical studies over years to figure them out for us. You mention lead. We *still* have lead pipes in municipal water systems. Lead as an additive in paint is less than 100 years old. Lead in gasoline was used up into the mid-90s. Literally according to the statistics I'm slightly dumber than I could have been because I was born in the 70s when lead gasoline burning was near its peak. We only recently became aware of the true cost of lead in our environment. Or how about asbestos filters for cigarettes? Or cigarettes, for that matter? What about the wide variety of food additives that we keep having to remove because studies are finding them to be toxic? BPA in water bottles? Potassium bromate in bread. Accumulating plastic particles in our bodies? Teflon? Did you or I discover that these were problematic? Of course not. The only phrase I can really find in my head to describe this post is \"modern, unearned smugness.\" Yes, it irritates me. And it irritates me because in the modern media environment, when we see recall after recall, warning after warning, about things that we eat regularly, it smacks of a total lack of critical thinking. Basically your post implicates ancient people with far less understanding of chemistry and biology than you have literally at your fingertips as ignorant for not figuring out that lead-- which acts as a sweetener-- causes developmental issues over one's lifetime, while simultaneously drinking Mountain Dew with high fructose corn syrup and Yellow 5 in it, or doing something else we'll find out in five years is equally bad for you. >**Could we not figure it out through trial and error, like we did with most of the plant kingdom? Or did we know but just not care about the slow toxic buildup, because these were abundant sources of calories and flavour?** Imagine someone posting this in 100 years about all the shit we all eat today that's killing us. Did you figure out through trial and error that BPA was bad?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9664.0,"score_ratio":5.0434782609} {"post_id":"kyqctz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has any civilisation existed that fed itself on hunting and\/or domestic animals but not agriculture? Is agriculture required for a civilisation to exist?","c_root_id_A":"gjj7s04","c_root_id_B":"gji2kum","created_at_utc_A":1610850244,"created_at_utc_B":1610829556,"score_A":81,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"This may not be the definition of \"civilization\" you're thinking of but the Chumash of the Central California Coast were primarily hunter-gatherers with large trade networks and a rather complex sociopolitical system. They mostly ate fish, shellfish, and sea mammals, as well as some terrestrial animals and plants. They definitely didn't exclusively hunt, especially if you don't count fishing and gathering shellfish as hunting, and they didn't domesticate any livestock until they were forced to by the Spanish. But they're somewhat unique in that they were notably socially complex hunter-gatherers, if you want I could recommend some books and\/or papers.","human_ref_B":"What are you counting as \"civilization?\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20688.0,"score_ratio":1.265625} {"post_id":"kyqctz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has any civilisation existed that fed itself on hunting and\/or domestic animals but not agriculture? Is agriculture required for a civilisation to exist?","c_root_id_A":"gjj7s04","c_root_id_B":"gjipa3j","created_at_utc_A":1610850244,"created_at_utc_B":1610840441,"score_A":81,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"This may not be the definition of \"civilization\" you're thinking of but the Chumash of the Central California Coast were primarily hunter-gatherers with large trade networks and a rather complex sociopolitical system. They mostly ate fish, shellfish, and sea mammals, as well as some terrestrial animals and plants. They definitely didn't exclusively hunt, especially if you don't count fishing and gathering shellfish as hunting, and they didn't domesticate any livestock until they were forced to by the Spanish. But they're somewhat unique in that they were notably socially complex hunter-gatherers, if you want I could recommend some books and\/or papers.","human_ref_B":"One example that maybe comes close might be highland tibetans - and by that i mostly mean eastern southern amdo and kham, in what is currently southern and western qinghai province and north western sichuan - but also definitely in some parts of central tibet). Of course, many of these people traded with other people from 'different civilizations' such as china, and other people loosely connected within their own civilization (in central tibet) for agricultural products. (i believe the tibetan term for tibetans \"bod pa\" probably, before pan-tibetan national consciousness, probably only referred to south\/central tibetans and is probably related to the concept of agriculture) but the highland herders had very limited access to (their own) agriculture. Barley can be cultivated at significant elevation but, for the most part, many herders may not have had their own fields and could only obtain agrarian products through trade. tradition, high-elevation tibetans live off a diet of more meat and milk products than anywhere i've ever seen. Im not joking. One year I got the gout because of it! But, as the other commenter asked: this largely depends on where you draw the boundaries of a civilization. Because the vast majority of people would argue that these nomads were part of the same CIVILIZATION as central tibet (similar languages, religion, cosmology, etc). Agrarian history is not my area of expertise at all, but if you are looking for some leads, my suggestions would be in this area (or mongolia) - the higher the elevation the more likely i think you are to find people who might be the answer to your question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9803.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"kyqctz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has any civilisation existed that fed itself on hunting and\/or domestic animals but not agriculture? Is agriculture required for a civilisation to exist?","c_root_id_A":"gjk382m","c_root_id_B":"gjlpxrr","created_at_utc_A":1610870931,"created_at_utc_B":1610898309,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Many nomadic herding cultures such as on the Eurasian steppe hunted on the side, as did peoples in Siberia that raised reindeer and hunted. The plains Native Americans raised horses and hunted bison but some also had agriculture on the side. Before the Bantu expansion in Africa many Savannah Africans where hunter gatherers and cattle herders. There are cultures that lived by this lifestyle but they generally need to move to find game and grass for livestock so they usually don't build cities and form what most call a civilization.","human_ref_B":"Looks like you've received multiple answers already, but to add to those below. Where we've seen city-states develop absent agriculture, they've almost always been reliant on the bounty of the sea.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27378.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"jnx5tl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What did hunter-gatherer societies think about the stars? Sometimes I think about this. Imagine you spend the whole day hunting, you feast at night and after dinner you look to the sky and what do you see? A black sky full of small bright dots. You don't know what they are, but you see them and you get astonished by their inmense beauty. And these small bright and beautiful dots are there every night, with the milky way in the sky. What did they think about this? I guess they must have had some religious significance.","c_root_id_A":"gb6a7f5","c_root_id_B":"gb67esv","created_at_utc_A":1604534916,"created_at_utc_B":1604533443,"score_A":19,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There have actually been several scientific papers recently touching on skygazing in the stone age. Last year Martin Sweatman and Alistair Coombs proposed that some Paleolithic cave paintings and rock art depict symbolic\u00a0 constellation configurations that can be dated to specific catastrophic events like comet and asteroid strikes that caused climate changes like the Younger Dryas. The dates they gave ranged from circa 15,500 BCE to 38,000 BCE. \u00a0\u00a0 The Study is in the January 2019 issue of the Athens Journal of History: \"Decoding European Palaeolithic Art: Extremely Ancient knowledge of Precession of the Equinoxes\" \u00a0\u00a0 The second paper edited by Camilla Power cites studies of hunter gatherer societies which still existed in the last few hundred years. \u00a0\u00a0 That paper emphasizes the importance of the moon and the lunar cycles on everything from sexual equality to hunting and even to how safe the group was at night (more campfires would be needed to protect against beasts on moonless nights). \u00a0\u00a0 It proposes that the lunar observations were at least or even more important than solar observations in a hunter gatherer society in part because it did not need a solar calendar to calculate when to plant and harvest their food, or when to bring the livestock in from the fields.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 That paper is \"Reconstructing a source cosmology for African hunter gatherers,\" from January 2017, DOI:\u00a010.2307\/j.ctvswx6tg.11","human_ref_B":"I think this link is applicable to your question: https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/27154194\/#:\\~:text=Results%20indicate%20that%20the%20oldest,by%20shamanism%20and%20ancestor%20worship. I would bet a lot of these beliefs got tied into the stars at one point or another. But every culture is different and it's hard to paint with a broad brush.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1473.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu56owh","c_root_id_B":"gu539jw","created_at_utc_A":1618145339,"created_at_utc_B":1618142786,"score_A":124,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"A question you might ask yourself is whether patriarchy vs matriarchy is actually the best way to look at the extraordinarily diverse and varied societies that have existed on earth. For e.g., we'd assume that 13th Century France was a patriarchal society, but it doesn't really help historians who are interested in Southern France and the different community structures that we find there. For e.g., the many women who attained leadership positions in the Cathar Heresy which is probably linked to the survival of Roman law in the South meaning that men and women would often jointly inherit. But this sort of stuff gets forgotten about because primogeniture from the North takes over, etc., etc., etc., and society does appear in the South to become more and more male-dominated over time. Now, this isn't to say that Southern France was 'matriarchal' or 'patriarchal', it's simply to point out that neither are particularly useful if you really want to know the nitty-gritty details. OK. So is 'patriarchy' (with all the criticisms made in the para. above held in mind) the 'norm'? Well. Kinda? There are LOADS of examples of matriarchal societies and some really good theory on why early human society must have been matriarchal. \\[I don't think we'll ever know, but I do find the argument that in extended kinship groups identifying your genes because the group is centred around women (and you can be 100% sure who your mother is, which is not the case with fathers) does make sense... But i actually think it's far too simplistic an answer.\\] A quick google search for matriarchal societies will find you lots of results. Why would we search for matriarchal or patriarchal societies? Because the simple binary of man\/woman is really important in the West. Associated binaries might be: strong\/weak along with work\/home and so on. But how about a 'strong' woman? Well, our society created a space for them under the term 'matriarch' (and to fulfil that role you're sort of expected to be some wife\/grandmother or 'matron' who's the glue of their family, school, nursery, hospital, etc. Those were the terms we knew and when we saw things in other parts of the world we went, \"huh, matriarchal\" or \"huh, patriarchal\" when the society in question is actually far more nuanced. Consider for e.g. describing a herd of elephants as being lead by a matriarch (classic wildlife doc sentence) tells us a hell of a lot more about us and our society than it does elephants! Now, this isn't to say that there hasn't been oppression. And I salute those answers that already mention Sylvia Federici's amazing Caliban and the Witch. Or even Engels. What I would say is that society's reproduce themselves (always with variations and changes) and sometimes have to drastically change. To understand these dynamics and how men\/women interacted (and it's not just men\/women mind but also intersex. Or why not elders, children, etc.) and instead of looking at the balance of oppression, I think that 'gender roles' rather than 'patriarchy, matriarchy, oppression' gets you further into asking the questions you want answers to. After that, you can take a step back and then judge it as oppression, but you'll have understood the ways in which that particular society has reproduced itself successfully including the gender relations therein.","human_ref_B":"If you can find her work translated or dubbed in English, Francoise H\u00e9ritier, a French anthropologist, has worked on this. I can't quite recall what her hypotheses were but I remember she had some explanations related to how humans see duality in all things as a core foundation of human psyche and she also extended this notion to the concept of the \"other\" and how differences were then construed from that. I think that's the one, but only in French unfortunately (perhaps YouTube can enable subtitles on that): https:\/\/youtu.be\/2Hts9-yg8rk Edit: typo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2553.0,"score_ratio":5.1666666667} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu56owh","c_root_id_B":"gu533ny","created_at_utc_A":1618145339,"created_at_utc_B":1618142656,"score_A":124,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"A question you might ask yourself is whether patriarchy vs matriarchy is actually the best way to look at the extraordinarily diverse and varied societies that have existed on earth. For e.g., we'd assume that 13th Century France was a patriarchal society, but it doesn't really help historians who are interested in Southern France and the different community structures that we find there. For e.g., the many women who attained leadership positions in the Cathar Heresy which is probably linked to the survival of Roman law in the South meaning that men and women would often jointly inherit. But this sort of stuff gets forgotten about because primogeniture from the North takes over, etc., etc., etc., and society does appear in the South to become more and more male-dominated over time. Now, this isn't to say that Southern France was 'matriarchal' or 'patriarchal', it's simply to point out that neither are particularly useful if you really want to know the nitty-gritty details. OK. So is 'patriarchy' (with all the criticisms made in the para. above held in mind) the 'norm'? Well. Kinda? There are LOADS of examples of matriarchal societies and some really good theory on why early human society must have been matriarchal. \\[I don't think we'll ever know, but I do find the argument that in extended kinship groups identifying your genes because the group is centred around women (and you can be 100% sure who your mother is, which is not the case with fathers) does make sense... But i actually think it's far too simplistic an answer.\\] A quick google search for matriarchal societies will find you lots of results. Why would we search for matriarchal or patriarchal societies? Because the simple binary of man\/woman is really important in the West. Associated binaries might be: strong\/weak along with work\/home and so on. But how about a 'strong' woman? Well, our society created a space for them under the term 'matriarch' (and to fulfil that role you're sort of expected to be some wife\/grandmother or 'matron' who's the glue of their family, school, nursery, hospital, etc. Those were the terms we knew and when we saw things in other parts of the world we went, \"huh, matriarchal\" or \"huh, patriarchal\" when the society in question is actually far more nuanced. Consider for e.g. describing a herd of elephants as being lead by a matriarch (classic wildlife doc sentence) tells us a hell of a lot more about us and our society than it does elephants! Now, this isn't to say that there hasn't been oppression. And I salute those answers that already mention Sylvia Federici's amazing Caliban and the Witch. Or even Engels. What I would say is that society's reproduce themselves (always with variations and changes) and sometimes have to drastically change. To understand these dynamics and how men\/women interacted (and it's not just men\/women mind but also intersex. Or why not elders, children, etc.) and instead of looking at the balance of oppression, I think that 'gender roles' rather than 'patriarchy, matriarchy, oppression' gets you further into asking the questions you want answers to. After that, you can take a step back and then judge it as oppression, but you'll have understood the ways in which that particular society has reproduced itself successfully including the gender relations therein.","human_ref_B":"Caliban and the Witch is a great book about how many of the patriarchal structures and societal attitudes we have today trace their origins only to around the 15-1800s. Many are largely associated with the primitive accumulation of capital and need to enforce coerced labour as the normative work relation in response to the collapse of the feudal system. Not to say that gender relations were equal prior to this, but the nature of oppression and severity has only increased exponentially in the recent centuries as a direct result of the enclosure of common land and transition to capitalism","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2683.0,"score_ratio":6.2} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu53aky","c_root_id_B":"gu56owh","created_at_utc_A":1618142808,"created_at_utc_B":1618145339,"score_A":16,"score_B":124,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the answers given, it also became a more global phenomenon because of colonization. Because the Western invaders were predominantly men and only dealt with the men of the regions they invaded, the women in those societies also got less and less influence. An example of this is the Maasai, where they did used to have different roles for each gender, but they were seen as equally valuable. It was a custom that women dealt with the women of different groups and men dealt with the men. Because only Western men came to the region, it was custom that their men 'dealt' with them, which eventually lead to a much more oppressed role for the women.","human_ref_B":"A question you might ask yourself is whether patriarchy vs matriarchy is actually the best way to look at the extraordinarily diverse and varied societies that have existed on earth. For e.g., we'd assume that 13th Century France was a patriarchal society, but it doesn't really help historians who are interested in Southern France and the different community structures that we find there. For e.g., the many women who attained leadership positions in the Cathar Heresy which is probably linked to the survival of Roman law in the South meaning that men and women would often jointly inherit. But this sort of stuff gets forgotten about because primogeniture from the North takes over, etc., etc., etc., and society does appear in the South to become more and more male-dominated over time. Now, this isn't to say that Southern France was 'matriarchal' or 'patriarchal', it's simply to point out that neither are particularly useful if you really want to know the nitty-gritty details. OK. So is 'patriarchy' (with all the criticisms made in the para. above held in mind) the 'norm'? Well. Kinda? There are LOADS of examples of matriarchal societies and some really good theory on why early human society must have been matriarchal. \\[I don't think we'll ever know, but I do find the argument that in extended kinship groups identifying your genes because the group is centred around women (and you can be 100% sure who your mother is, which is not the case with fathers) does make sense... But i actually think it's far too simplistic an answer.\\] A quick google search for matriarchal societies will find you lots of results. Why would we search for matriarchal or patriarchal societies? Because the simple binary of man\/woman is really important in the West. Associated binaries might be: strong\/weak along with work\/home and so on. But how about a 'strong' woman? Well, our society created a space for them under the term 'matriarch' (and to fulfil that role you're sort of expected to be some wife\/grandmother or 'matron' who's the glue of their family, school, nursery, hospital, etc. Those were the terms we knew and when we saw things in other parts of the world we went, \"huh, matriarchal\" or \"huh, patriarchal\" when the society in question is actually far more nuanced. Consider for e.g. describing a herd of elephants as being lead by a matriarch (classic wildlife doc sentence) tells us a hell of a lot more about us and our society than it does elephants! Now, this isn't to say that there hasn't been oppression. And I salute those answers that already mention Sylvia Federici's amazing Caliban and the Witch. Or even Engels. What I would say is that society's reproduce themselves (always with variations and changes) and sometimes have to drastically change. To understand these dynamics and how men\/women interacted (and it's not just men\/women mind but also intersex. Or why not elders, children, etc.) and instead of looking at the balance of oppression, I think that 'gender roles' rather than 'patriarchy, matriarchy, oppression' gets you further into asking the questions you want answers to. After that, you can take a step back and then judge it as oppression, but you'll have understood the ways in which that particular society has reproduced itself successfully including the gender relations therein.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2531.0,"score_ratio":7.75} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu5h4q1","c_root_id_B":"gu539jw","created_at_utc_A":1618153809,"created_at_utc_B":1618142786,"score_A":32,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"It simply isn't true that patriarchy was the norm everywhere until a century or so ago. Take for example the Haudenosaunee. This has traditionally been a matrilineal and matrilocal society with some matriarchal elements. Clan Mothers are the ones who nominate the chiefs and also have the power to take their position away. One of the conditions that can disqualify a chief under this system is violence against women. Because families are matrilocal, woman can initiate divorce without risking losing their home. While the Clan Mothers' council and the chiefs' council typically met separately and presided over separate affairs to some degree, the ability for men to go to war was controlled by the women's control over the food. Clan Mothers could agree to withhold access to food if the chiefs wanted to initiate a war the women did not support. After the forced introduction of Christianity and the imposition of Euro-American gender and economic systems, however, Haudenosaunee women lost a lot of their political power. Not entirely, of course - in fact, white American feminists in New York in the 1840s were heavily inspired by the rights their female Haudenosaunee neighbours had which they lacked. (Read about Matilda Gage in particular for this.) However, the Dawes Roll system which enforced male heads of household for the individual allotment of land ownership, as opposed to communal ownership which had prevailed before, put the men in an unnatural position of power over women. Haudenosaunee women have suffered like all Native women due to the ways that colonialism has put them in greater danger such as the MMIWG crisis. This has worsened with the proliferation of \"man camps\" for pipeline and other 20th and 21st century fossil fuel development projects. In other words, over the past few hundred years, the status of Haudenosaunee women has noticeably worsened. That isn't to say they don't still maintain many of the same power roles they had - there are still Clan Mothers, for example, and Haudenosaunee women often have a great deal of \"soft power\" in their communities. But this is just one example of how the move from oppression to liberation for women is not a straight line forward.","human_ref_B":"If you can find her work translated or dubbed in English, Francoise H\u00e9ritier, a French anthropologist, has worked on this. I can't quite recall what her hypotheses were but I remember she had some explanations related to how humans see duality in all things as a core foundation of human psyche and she also extended this notion to the concept of the \"other\" and how differences were then construed from that. I think that's the one, but only in French unfortunately (perhaps YouTube can enable subtitles on that): https:\/\/youtu.be\/2Hts9-yg8rk Edit: typo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11023.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu5h4q1","c_root_id_B":"gu533ny","created_at_utc_A":1618153809,"created_at_utc_B":1618142656,"score_A":32,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"It simply isn't true that patriarchy was the norm everywhere until a century or so ago. Take for example the Haudenosaunee. This has traditionally been a matrilineal and matrilocal society with some matriarchal elements. Clan Mothers are the ones who nominate the chiefs and also have the power to take their position away. One of the conditions that can disqualify a chief under this system is violence against women. Because families are matrilocal, woman can initiate divorce without risking losing their home. While the Clan Mothers' council and the chiefs' council typically met separately and presided over separate affairs to some degree, the ability for men to go to war was controlled by the women's control over the food. Clan Mothers could agree to withhold access to food if the chiefs wanted to initiate a war the women did not support. After the forced introduction of Christianity and the imposition of Euro-American gender and economic systems, however, Haudenosaunee women lost a lot of their political power. Not entirely, of course - in fact, white American feminists in New York in the 1840s were heavily inspired by the rights their female Haudenosaunee neighbours had which they lacked. (Read about Matilda Gage in particular for this.) However, the Dawes Roll system which enforced male heads of household for the individual allotment of land ownership, as opposed to communal ownership which had prevailed before, put the men in an unnatural position of power over women. Haudenosaunee women have suffered like all Native women due to the ways that colonialism has put them in greater danger such as the MMIWG crisis. This has worsened with the proliferation of \"man camps\" for pipeline and other 20th and 21st century fossil fuel development projects. In other words, over the past few hundred years, the status of Haudenosaunee women has noticeably worsened. That isn't to say they don't still maintain many of the same power roles they had - there are still Clan Mothers, for example, and Haudenosaunee women often have a great deal of \"soft power\" in their communities. But this is just one example of how the move from oppression to liberation for women is not a straight line forward.","human_ref_B":"Caliban and the Witch is a great book about how many of the patriarchal structures and societal attitudes we have today trace their origins only to around the 15-1800s. Many are largely associated with the primitive accumulation of capital and need to enforce coerced labour as the normative work relation in response to the collapse of the feudal system. Not to say that gender relations were equal prior to this, but the nature of oppression and severity has only increased exponentially in the recent centuries as a direct result of the enclosure of common land and transition to capitalism","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11153.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu5h4q1","c_root_id_B":"gu53aky","created_at_utc_A":1618153809,"created_at_utc_B":1618142808,"score_A":32,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"It simply isn't true that patriarchy was the norm everywhere until a century or so ago. Take for example the Haudenosaunee. This has traditionally been a matrilineal and matrilocal society with some matriarchal elements. Clan Mothers are the ones who nominate the chiefs and also have the power to take their position away. One of the conditions that can disqualify a chief under this system is violence against women. Because families are matrilocal, woman can initiate divorce without risking losing their home. While the Clan Mothers' council and the chiefs' council typically met separately and presided over separate affairs to some degree, the ability for men to go to war was controlled by the women's control over the food. Clan Mothers could agree to withhold access to food if the chiefs wanted to initiate a war the women did not support. After the forced introduction of Christianity and the imposition of Euro-American gender and economic systems, however, Haudenosaunee women lost a lot of their political power. Not entirely, of course - in fact, white American feminists in New York in the 1840s were heavily inspired by the rights their female Haudenosaunee neighbours had which they lacked. (Read about Matilda Gage in particular for this.) However, the Dawes Roll system which enforced male heads of household for the individual allotment of land ownership, as opposed to communal ownership which had prevailed before, put the men in an unnatural position of power over women. Haudenosaunee women have suffered like all Native women due to the ways that colonialism has put them in greater danger such as the MMIWG crisis. This has worsened with the proliferation of \"man camps\" for pipeline and other 20th and 21st century fossil fuel development projects. In other words, over the past few hundred years, the status of Haudenosaunee women has noticeably worsened. That isn't to say they don't still maintain many of the same power roles they had - there are still Clan Mothers, for example, and Haudenosaunee women often have a great deal of \"soft power\" in their communities. But this is just one example of how the move from oppression to liberation for women is not a straight line forward.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the answers given, it also became a more global phenomenon because of colonization. Because the Western invaders were predominantly men and only dealt with the men of the regions they invaded, the women in those societies also got less and less influence. An example of this is the Maasai, where they did used to have different roles for each gender, but they were seen as equally valuable. It was a custom that women dealt with the women of different groups and men dealt with the men. Because only Western men came to the region, it was custom that their men 'dealt' with them, which eventually lead to a much more oppressed role for the women.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11001.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu533ny","c_root_id_B":"gu539jw","created_at_utc_A":1618142656,"created_at_utc_B":1618142786,"score_A":20,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Caliban and the Witch is a great book about how many of the patriarchal structures and societal attitudes we have today trace their origins only to around the 15-1800s. Many are largely associated with the primitive accumulation of capital and need to enforce coerced labour as the normative work relation in response to the collapse of the feudal system. Not to say that gender relations were equal prior to this, but the nature of oppression and severity has only increased exponentially in the recent centuries as a direct result of the enclosure of common land and transition to capitalism","human_ref_B":"If you can find her work translated or dubbed in English, Francoise H\u00e9ritier, a French anthropologist, has worked on this. I can't quite recall what her hypotheses were but I remember she had some explanations related to how humans see duality in all things as a core foundation of human psyche and she also extended this notion to the concept of the \"other\" and how differences were then construed from that. I think that's the one, but only in French unfortunately (perhaps YouTube can enable subtitles on that): https:\/\/youtu.be\/2Hts9-yg8rk Edit: typo","labels":0,"seconds_difference":130.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu533ny","c_root_id_B":"gu6d876","created_at_utc_A":1618142656,"created_at_utc_B":1618169448,"score_A":20,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Caliban and the Witch is a great book about how many of the patriarchal structures and societal attitudes we have today trace their origins only to around the 15-1800s. Many are largely associated with the primitive accumulation of capital and need to enforce coerced labour as the normative work relation in response to the collapse of the feudal system. Not to say that gender relations were equal prior to this, but the nature of oppression and severity has only increased exponentially in the recent centuries as a direct result of the enclosure of common land and transition to capitalism","human_ref_B":"I've read all the answers and still haven't got it. What is the origin of women being seen as sexual property and having fewer rights in so many unrelated cultures across the world? That's the questions I want to answer but everyone seems to throw counterexamples at you. Is it about inheritance?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26792.0,"score_ratio":1.05} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu5q2vj","c_root_id_B":"gu6d876","created_at_utc_A":1618158223,"created_at_utc_B":1618169448,"score_A":16,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Very quickly: a comment \\[since deleted\\] said that it's because men are stronger. I wrote out this reply but the comment was deleted before I could post. But I still think it's important. Other redditor's comment: women not having testosterone; being childlike; not being as strong. My reply: Not the biggest fan of this theory. Although I do think that Levi-Strauss' alliance theory and especially the work of Lucy Irigary is really impressive, i.e., society is based on the exchange of women and how this relates to your points about ensuring fidelity and so on. I think the juvenile\/childlike thing isn't really worth mentioning. It's clearly related to the great cultural pressures that come along in the modern era where women are confined to the house and taught to become weak but effeminate. Men calling women childlike in intelligence boomed in the late early-modern and modern. And we're stuck with the inheritance of that. But the idea that it's simply down to 'physical strength' while seeming obvious is too simplistic. Instead of thinking about men and women as individuals with women having to protect themselves from men; consider that violence (given the energy expenditure, ramifications, etc.) is primarily social, i.e., not between an individual man and an individual woman - though I do think that the prevalence of this sort of crime today reflects the fact that our society is currently one of individuals in mass society. But we shouldn't project that onto the past. The past is violent. Horribly so. But the violence is usually group on group. Within that group on group violence there will be gendered forms of violence (for e.g., sexualised 'coming of age' type ritualised violence in parts of europe until fairly recently) but that does not mean that in the beginning of history only physical strength mattered. No. The strength of the group as a whole (and when i say strength i mean all the advantages a group could muster) and the decisions it made to protect its members and survive and reproduce were likely the more pressing questions. As you say, the ability to be organised and co-operate is critical. And society will have oft-gendered ritualised ways of ensuring that co-operation that is their social organisation. But each society's organisation is different and responds - I think - to a hellava lot more than mere physical strength. Let's not forget that men are also dependent on women for most of history and vice versa. As women are more and more excluded from the world of manual labour you find that their position vis-a-vis men often falls. That's got nothing to do with physical strength, but social power stopping them from using their physical strength. And you end up with this idea that's then ideologised into 'women should be weak, childlike, and without strength.' And low and behold, women start to fulfil this and start fainting every other page of a victorian novel. An e.g., of how this social power might come about: we know that the burning of witches and heretics was pretty much unheard of before 1000 AD. We also know that around that year there's a veritable renaissance in literacy that spawns a new clerical class. Immediately afterwards, there is suddenly a power that is able to adjudicate right and wrong and prescribe and enforce social roles whether related to gender, class, trade, religion, etc. If I was to look for a rise in oppression during this period of history, then it's surely this societal development rather than 'physical strength' especially given most women are still working the land and making a major contribution to any given community's resources. And again, lo and behold, women who don't toe the new line are suddenly bring burnt left right and centre along with the men who haven't gotten with the new program. These seem to me, to be more nuanced and complicated ideas about how women came to be in this position - and you don't need recourse to easy fallacies such as 'it's because men are stronger'","human_ref_B":"I've read all the answers and still haven't got it. What is the origin of women being seen as sexual property and having fewer rights in so many unrelated cultures across the world? That's the questions I want to answer but everyone seems to throw counterexamples at you. Is it about inheritance?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11225.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"mooevz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why were women so oppressed through history? From as far back as I read in history, patriarchy was the norm, and it wasn\u2019t until a century or so ago that women finally began experiencing equal rights. What was the reason for all this oppression? Was it decided early on by people and then ended up snowballing horribly wrong, or what?","c_root_id_A":"gu53aky","c_root_id_B":"gu6d876","created_at_utc_A":1618142808,"created_at_utc_B":1618169448,"score_A":16,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the answers given, it also became a more global phenomenon because of colonization. Because the Western invaders were predominantly men and only dealt with the men of the regions they invaded, the women in those societies also got less and less influence. An example of this is the Maasai, where they did used to have different roles for each gender, but they were seen as equally valuable. It was a custom that women dealt with the women of different groups and men dealt with the men. Because only Western men came to the region, it was custom that their men 'dealt' with them, which eventually lead to a much more oppressed role for the women.","human_ref_B":"I've read all the answers and still haven't got it. What is the origin of women being seen as sexual property and having fewer rights in so many unrelated cultures across the world? That's the questions I want to answer but everyone seems to throw counterexamples at you. Is it about inheritance?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26640.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"cracg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did, in colonial times, Spanish, Portuguese and French men marry native women while British men preferred to take British women with them?","c_root_id_A":"ex3ehus","c_root_id_B":"ex3n1p7","created_at_utc_A":1565984304,"created_at_utc_B":1565988162,"score_A":35,"score_B":150,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d recommend xposting this on r\/askhistorians","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not sure the distinction is quite as clear cut as you seem to imply. British men **did** marry local women, for example, in India. The entire Anglo-Indian community in India (2 million strong at the time of independence in 1947) is the result of British men marrying Indian women. It varied by circumstances. When the British arrived in India under the East India Company, it was as traders. They obtained trading permits from the local rulers of several port cities, set up warehouses. At the time, the average Englishman only stayed in India for a few months for the turnaround time, while the ship was repaired and re-provisioned, laden with goods for the voyage back. There were no marriages because visits were short. By the middle of the 18th century, some of British trading posts had grown fairly large, especially the one at Kolkota in the province of Bengal. At this time, the Mughal Empire broke apart due to a decades long war with the Maratha Confederacy, and Bengal, which used to be a Mughal vassal, became autonomous. The Nawab of Bengal died, and there was a struggle for succession. An Indian man named Mir Jafar, who was a minister to the new Nawab, plotted against him and supported his rival. It came down to a pitched battle between the two contenders to the throne, and during the battle Mir Jafar turned traitor and took half the army and joined the Nawab\u2019s rival. Mir Jafar also had a secret arrangement with the British traders at Kolkota to help him, in return for greatly expanded trade deals. This was the Battle of Plassey, in 1757. In the end, both Indian armies annihilated each other, and the British saw the opportunity to jump in and grab power. This is how the British established their first foothold in the subcontinent, as they became the *de facto* rulers of Bengal. Now the circumstances changed. The British were no longer just traders, no longer confined to their warehouses along a narrow strip of coast. They were rulers, in for the long haul. They arrived in India expecting to stay for years, or decades, and many never returned to Britain. This is when they began to establish themselves in India, build homes, marry Indian women, raise families. Between 1757 and the early 1800\u2019s, the Anglo-Indian community grew quite dramatically, to number in the tens of thousands. As the British became more established in India and felt more confident and comfortable there, British women started arriving. These were the unmarried sisters, mothers, aunts or other female dependents of British soldiers and clerks posted in India. As these women arrived, so did their traditional marriage-making networks \u2013 older women seeking husbands for their daughters, much as they did back home. Except that in India, the pool of eligible British men was much smaller, so there was perhaps some extra opposition if one of them \u201cwent native\u201d and married an Indian woman, becoming a net loss to the British matchmaking community. At any rate, beginning with the 1820\u2019s and the arrival of British women in significant numbers, we begin to see some social pressure against mixed marriages. This social pressure continued to increase, and led to the ostracization of the Anglo-Indian community, who were looked down upon by both sides. To the newly arriving British, they were inferior. To the Indians, they had broken caste and therefore dirtied themselves, they were the bottom rung of society. After the Indian mutiny of 1857, the Crown took over from the East India Company, and the British began arriving in large numbers. Now it wasn\u2019t just single men, it was entire British families arriving with women and children, to set up permanent homes in India. Mixed marriages became socially unacceptable. So the history is actually a bit more complex than simply \u201cthe British took British women with them\u201d. They didn\u2019t to begin with, and during that time there were a lot of mixed marriages. There is also the development of racial ideology that ran concurrent with these events. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not well developed, there were no sharp barriers between races. You can see a parallel in most countries. Mixed marriages between British and Native Americans were quite common in this period in the Americas, also mixed marriages between British and Africans imported to the Americas. Racial miscegenation laws became progressively stronger as time went by, but in the beginning they were quite loose. There\u2019s an opposite side to it too, which is often overlooked. Those early sea voyages were dangerous, and it wasn\u2019t unusual for half the crew to die during a voyage to India. Arriving ships were chronically understaffed, and they hired Indian sailors for the return trip to Britain. Many of these Indian sailors settled down in Britain and took British wives. There is in fact a second Anglo-Indian community in the UK, the descendants of Indian men and British women, who also number in the hundreds of thousands.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3858.0,"score_ratio":4.2857142857} {"post_id":"bib1ne","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Is there anything specific which caused Western culture to \"realize\" in a remarkably short amount of time that slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia etc., were \"wrong\"? Disclaimers: 1) I am not arguing objectively that these things are wrong and I am not making a case for objective morality (although just to make my biases clear, I do hold that there is a notion of morality being objective.) I am merely trying to find the cause of why public attitudes towards these topics shifted. 2) I realize that not everyone held these ideas in the past, and there are plenty of people who still hold to them today. I am trying to find the cause for the general societal shift. 3) I realize there were other cultures that, at various times, did not hold to these ideas. This post focuses primarily on Western culture, and yes, I know \"Western culture\" is itself a vague term. If you really want to press me for a definition, I suppose I would say I am primarily talking about European Christian nations and the nations that came from them such as the United States, Australia, Canada, etc. To a lesser extent, this also includes nations that have ideas \"inspired\" by these nations, such as Japan in the 19th century. Thesis: I realize I live in a bubble. I know that the thoughts I have are heavily inspired by the culture I grew up in (Midwestern United States). But no matter how long I study history, I simply cannot come to a conclusion on a question that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. To me, and for that matter, almost everyone I talk to, it's a given that something like slavery is appalling. It isn't a question that keeps anyone up at night. It's just obvious and not even questioned. It's a given that women should be given the right to vote. Of course, why wouldn't they? Women have thinking ability as men do, with decisions being made that affect them, so yes, women should be able to vote. Done. Not much to examine or think about. But what astonishes me is how remarkably recent this attitude is. Not one human lifetime ago, the vast majority of nations either didn't, or were just barely coming around to this seemingly obvious fact. And another lifetime before that, slavery was just a normal everyday phenomena. And going back thousands of years before that, it was never questioned that women were inferior, gay people are abominations, slavery was ok, etc. There was almost no conception of human rights until maybe the 19th century. My question is, why? I feel like this question is all too easily brushed off as ancient people being \"ignorant\" or \"stupid\" or something. But even if that was true, these aren't difficult questions! Is slavery something that is harmful? Yes, therefore it's wrong. Ancient cultures didn't seem to struggle with the concepts of murder, theft, lying, etc. Sure, a bunch did it anyway, but it was still frowned upon and various religions condemn them. Why is this different? Why did it take such a ludicrous amount of time for even the notion of slavery being wrong to be thought of by the majority of people? Isn't this something you can figure out after less than 2 minutes of thought? Why did people \"all of a sudden\" start figuring out that these things might be wrong in the 18th-19th-20th centuries? Is it just better technology and communication? Does that really explain it all? It seems really insufficient to me. Is it just post-Enlightenment ideals? Well, what caused those ideals to be common in the first place? I'm not expecting a complete answer to this. I think a part of me will always wonder why ancient humans didn't seem to realize that the love they felt for their families and friends extended to other people and cultures as well. But I am hoping to maybe get an insight into why the thoughts I have aren't as obvious as I want them to be. Perhaps it is me that is the ignorant one.","c_root_id_A":"elz9198","c_root_id_B":"elzcei7","created_at_utc_A":1556457087,"created_at_utc_B":1556459944,"score_A":22,"score_B":98,"human_ref_A":"Short answer: they didn't. Longer answer: human beings have always been empathetic creatures. We feel what others feel. We go through what they go through. We've always known that slavery was wrong. Always. This is why slaves always tried to escape or rebelled. What this speaks to is the power of culture over human behavior. The types of societies they were living in back then were different. Authoritarian almost purely. The King or Emperor might as well have been god. They could do what they want, and it would be okay. Not only okay but thats the King! He's the best of us right? Whatever he does we must follow his example. Fast forward to the 1600-1700s and you begin to see the rapid rise and spread of modern democracy. Now it's not just about the top dog. Everyone is involved. As democracy developed and became more inclusive, more people felt they had a voice and could actually oppose cultural constructs. This really comes to a head in the 60s with the Flower Power Revolution. So it's not that we didn't know things were wrong before. Remember, were the same animal we were then. It's just that our context has changed, and context can be just as vital as anything else when it comes to humans.","human_ref_B":"Complex question really, but in a nutshell, these things go in cycles. For example, slavery was abolished in western Europe after the fall of the western Roman empire (proportionally the biggest slave-holding state in recorded history, at one point over 1\/3 of the empire's population were slaves), then reestablished through the colonial system, following the Valladolid controversy on whether native Americans were in fact human. Say what you want about feudalism, but at least serfs could own property, marry, raise families, even travel sometimes... If you look at historical records, you will see that there is no linear progression in the formation of a humane ideology. We often get taught that all previous cultures were archaic, exploitative, tyrannical and prejudiced, and that civilisation gradually became enlightened throughout modern history. The truth is that racism, for example, is a surprisingly modern idea, with its roots in the colonial mindset and the 19th century's often misleading notions of science. The same for sexism, in a way: the idea that women were inferior because their sphere of power was in private spaces only arose after male universal suffrage in the middle of the 19th c. Until then, the power of women was recognised in many areas, including literature for example : men weren't expected to read fiction or poetry until the early 20th century (history and philosophy were considered more masculine) so women basically decided on who the important writers of their age would be. But posterity was not kind to them because the modern canon was established by European men (at a time when women weren't supposed to teach). It's only in the 19th c that women writers started using male pseudonyms for example. This is not to say that historically there haven't been forms of oppression, but we kid ourselves when we think that 47 centuries of human history were all characterised by the ideologies you describe, and then humans educated themselves out of them. I think instead it is useful to think of human societies going through ideological cycles of prejudice and tolerance, according to what is most convenient to their rulers at the time. Knowledge and learning always lead away from prejudice, inequality and power imbalance always lead towards it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2857.0,"score_ratio":4.4545454545} {"post_id":"bib1ne","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Is there anything specific which caused Western culture to \"realize\" in a remarkably short amount of time that slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia etc., were \"wrong\"? Disclaimers: 1) I am not arguing objectively that these things are wrong and I am not making a case for objective morality (although just to make my biases clear, I do hold that there is a notion of morality being objective.) I am merely trying to find the cause of why public attitudes towards these topics shifted. 2) I realize that not everyone held these ideas in the past, and there are plenty of people who still hold to them today. I am trying to find the cause for the general societal shift. 3) I realize there were other cultures that, at various times, did not hold to these ideas. This post focuses primarily on Western culture, and yes, I know \"Western culture\" is itself a vague term. If you really want to press me for a definition, I suppose I would say I am primarily talking about European Christian nations and the nations that came from them such as the United States, Australia, Canada, etc. To a lesser extent, this also includes nations that have ideas \"inspired\" by these nations, such as Japan in the 19th century. Thesis: I realize I live in a bubble. I know that the thoughts I have are heavily inspired by the culture I grew up in (Midwestern United States). But no matter how long I study history, I simply cannot come to a conclusion on a question that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. To me, and for that matter, almost everyone I talk to, it's a given that something like slavery is appalling. It isn't a question that keeps anyone up at night. It's just obvious and not even questioned. It's a given that women should be given the right to vote. Of course, why wouldn't they? Women have thinking ability as men do, with decisions being made that affect them, so yes, women should be able to vote. Done. Not much to examine or think about. But what astonishes me is how remarkably recent this attitude is. Not one human lifetime ago, the vast majority of nations either didn't, or were just barely coming around to this seemingly obvious fact. And another lifetime before that, slavery was just a normal everyday phenomena. And going back thousands of years before that, it was never questioned that women were inferior, gay people are abominations, slavery was ok, etc. There was almost no conception of human rights until maybe the 19th century. My question is, why? I feel like this question is all too easily brushed off as ancient people being \"ignorant\" or \"stupid\" or something. But even if that was true, these aren't difficult questions! Is slavery something that is harmful? Yes, therefore it's wrong. Ancient cultures didn't seem to struggle with the concepts of murder, theft, lying, etc. Sure, a bunch did it anyway, but it was still frowned upon and various religions condemn them. Why is this different? Why did it take such a ludicrous amount of time for even the notion of slavery being wrong to be thought of by the majority of people? Isn't this something you can figure out after less than 2 minutes of thought? Why did people \"all of a sudden\" start figuring out that these things might be wrong in the 18th-19th-20th centuries? Is it just better technology and communication? Does that really explain it all? It seems really insufficient to me. Is it just post-Enlightenment ideals? Well, what caused those ideals to be common in the first place? I'm not expecting a complete answer to this. I think a part of me will always wonder why ancient humans didn't seem to realize that the love they felt for their families and friends extended to other people and cultures as well. But I am hoping to maybe get an insight into why the thoughts I have aren't as obvious as I want them to be. Perhaps it is me that is the ignorant one.","c_root_id_A":"elz9198","c_root_id_B":"elze81z","created_at_utc_A":1556457087,"created_at_utc_B":1556461390,"score_A":22,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Short answer: they didn't. Longer answer: human beings have always been empathetic creatures. We feel what others feel. We go through what they go through. We've always known that slavery was wrong. Always. This is why slaves always tried to escape or rebelled. What this speaks to is the power of culture over human behavior. The types of societies they were living in back then were different. Authoritarian almost purely. The King or Emperor might as well have been god. They could do what they want, and it would be okay. Not only okay but thats the King! He's the best of us right? Whatever he does we must follow his example. Fast forward to the 1600-1700s and you begin to see the rapid rise and spread of modern democracy. Now it's not just about the top dog. Everyone is involved. As democracy developed and became more inclusive, more people felt they had a voice and could actually oppose cultural constructs. This really comes to a head in the 60s with the Flower Power Revolution. So it's not that we didn't know things were wrong before. Remember, were the same animal we were then. It's just that our context has changed, and context can be just as vital as anything else when it comes to humans.","human_ref_B":"Your question may be better suited for \/r\/AskHistorians, you should consider posting there if you haven't already.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4303.0,"score_ratio":1.7727272727} {"post_id":"k8k01m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is exactly a moiety? I just stomped on this term, and I can't understand what it means. I've looked it up on Wikipedia, but it is not clear at all. What I could understand is a system where you can only marry between two families? Can someone explain to me with a practical example? I found it on a linguistics text, \"female relation of the opposite moiety\" should be the meaning of a reconstructed term according to this text, that became another word meaning \"husband's sister\", but I cannot get what kind of relationship the original one was, and now I'm curious.","c_root_id_A":"geyj8w3","c_root_id_B":"geyf7p6","created_at_utc_A":1607361440,"created_at_utc_B":1607359710,"score_A":200,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"My tribe, the Tlingit, is divided into two moieties along matrilineal lines, the Ravens and the Eagle\/Wolf. Every community has at least one Raven clan and one Wolf clan. Tribal members traditionally may only marry a member of the opposite moiety, and children inherit the clan of their mother. The result is two inter-related clans that regard one another as their \u201copposite\u201d to whom they are indebted, reliant and responsible for. Important clan functions require the participation and acknowledgment of the opposite clan. So for instance, in naming a new head of the Raven clan the Wolf side clan must be invited to witness, and by attending they acknowledge the Raven\u2019s new leader. Through this process two clans are dependent on one another and balance in the community is achieved. It is likely that the origins of these moieties is an ancient encounter between two tribes who decided to marry across tribal lines to seal an alliance. A lot of the oral history of the dozens of Tlingit clans hints at this. You can imagine that two peoples forming such an alliance would want to establish inter marrying with one another as a standing custom, and engage in highly formal recognition of one another and indebtedness to one another to seal a partnership that would ultimately result in the two sides becoming one people.","human_ref_B":"Not an expert, but a system in which the society is divided into two. Kind of like clans but dual rather than multiple groups. Often the two systems have rules about intermarriage and physical and ritual space between the two moieties. For example, you may need someone from the other moiety to perform funeral rituals for one of your kin members. Generally, the moieties are unranked.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1730.0,"score_ratio":5.2631578947} {"post_id":"nsio4s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What's the best native, minimally-colonial Uyghur name for Xinjiang? It obviously isn't Xinjiang, as that literally means \"new frontiers\" in pure Chinese. I know that the native Uyghur Turks of the region were never really a unified body, and that there are other groups also native to the area, but that gets complicated fast. Also, \u0634\u0649\u0646\u062c\u0627\u06ad \u0626\u06c7\u064a\u063a\u06c7\u0631 \u0626\u0627\u067e\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0648\u0645 \u0631\u0627\u064a\u0648\u0646\u0649 doesn't count as that literally says \"Xinjiang Autonomous Region\" in Uyghur.","c_root_id_A":"h0ogecd","c_root_id_B":"h0nm9cm","created_at_utc_A":1622895720,"created_at_utc_B":1622870426,"score_A":33,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr)? Your question requires Xinjiang to exist as a geographical or cultural region prior to becoming a Chinese administrative region. There may not be a satisfactory answer. It looks like at least two geographical regions, and, as you said, more than one cultural and language family. 'At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by steppe dwelling, nomadic Mongolic speaking, Tibetan Buddhist Dzungar people, while the Tarim Basin (Altishahr) was inhabited by sedentary, oasis dwelling, Turkic speaking Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghur people. They were governed separately until 1884.' - Wikipedia","human_ref_B":"\u0130n Turkey it is often referred to a Do\u011fu T\u00fcrkistan which translates to East Turkestan. \u0130 believe this was the name used when it was briefly independent. \u0130 have also heard it called variations on Cin T\u00fcrkistan (i.e. Chinese controlled Turkestan)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25294.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nsio4s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What's the best native, minimally-colonial Uyghur name for Xinjiang? It obviously isn't Xinjiang, as that literally means \"new frontiers\" in pure Chinese. I know that the native Uyghur Turks of the region were never really a unified body, and that there are other groups also native to the area, but that gets complicated fast. Also, \u0634\u0649\u0646\u062c\u0627\u06ad \u0626\u06c7\u064a\u063a\u06c7\u0631 \u0626\u0627\u067e\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0648\u0645 \u0631\u0627\u064a\u0648\u0646\u0649 doesn't count as that literally says \"Xinjiang Autonomous Region\" in Uyghur.","c_root_id_A":"h0ogecd","c_root_id_B":"h0ni2hf","created_at_utc_A":1622895720,"created_at_utc_B":1622867510,"score_A":33,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr)? Your question requires Xinjiang to exist as a geographical or cultural region prior to becoming a Chinese administrative region. There may not be a satisfactory answer. It looks like at least two geographical regions, and, as you said, more than one cultural and language family. 'At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by steppe dwelling, nomadic Mongolic speaking, Tibetan Buddhist Dzungar people, while the Tarim Basin (Altishahr) was inhabited by sedentary, oasis dwelling, Turkic speaking Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghur people. They were governed separately until 1884.' - Wikipedia","human_ref_B":"I highly recommend Peter C Perdue's *China Marches West* as it discusses with great attention the Chinese perspectives on Central Asia and Xinjiang in particular. He covers some of the Ming Dynasty but the attention is mostly on the Qing Dynasty, Russian\/Moscovite expansion, and the Zunghars. I'm only on page 100 (of 700) and I'm loving it. But I do wish that he was a little more succinct with his writing, then his book wouldn't be 700 pages long. The whole massive region, which some may also allude to it as Turkestan, can quite fairly be called a liminal space of merging cultural identities for different, mostly economical, reasons (page 41). > The Western Mongols during the Ming had been known as the Derben Oirat (Four Oirats), designated variously as including the Khoshot, Zunghar, Derbet, Torghut, and later Khoit and Choros tribes. In fact the term \"Four Oirats\" rarely indicated any formal confederation of these trees, who spent most of their efforts fighting one another (Page 94)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28210.0,"score_ratio":1.65} {"post_id":"nsio4s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What's the best native, minimally-colonial Uyghur name for Xinjiang? It obviously isn't Xinjiang, as that literally means \"new frontiers\" in pure Chinese. I know that the native Uyghur Turks of the region were never really a unified body, and that there are other groups also native to the area, but that gets complicated fast. Also, \u0634\u0649\u0646\u062c\u0627\u06ad \u0626\u06c7\u064a\u063a\u06c7\u0631 \u0626\u0627\u067e\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0648\u0645 \u0631\u0627\u064a\u0648\u0646\u0649 doesn't count as that literally says \"Xinjiang Autonomous Region\" in Uyghur.","c_root_id_A":"h0ogecd","c_root_id_B":"h0nly5k","created_at_utc_A":1622895720,"created_at_utc_B":1622870202,"score_A":33,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr)? Your question requires Xinjiang to exist as a geographical or cultural region prior to becoming a Chinese administrative region. There may not be a satisfactory answer. It looks like at least two geographical regions, and, as you said, more than one cultural and language family. 'At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by steppe dwelling, nomadic Mongolic speaking, Tibetan Buddhist Dzungar people, while the Tarim Basin (Altishahr) was inhabited by sedentary, oasis dwelling, Turkic speaking Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghur people. They were governed separately until 1884.' - Wikipedia","human_ref_B":"r\/Orangutanion, you're trying to fit a very western-colonial-centric concept into a region that whose history doesn't support the concept you want. The region known as Xinjiang as always been a migratory, fairly sparse, border area between Slavic, Persian, and Chinese cultures, as well as the thousands of Central Asian groups that inhabited and moved through the area. There's no \"indigenous\" population whose \"ancestors have inhabited the land since time immemorial\" or whatever you're imagining. Accordingly, it's not an \"evil empire comes in and oppresses ethnic minorities\" story. That narrative only really fits 19th century Western colonialism, because those empires were very sudden in their founding and caused sweeping, catastrophic changes to the established indigenous cultures they acted upon. In contrast, Xinjiang has always been this place controlled by one group or another, or sometimes by nobody.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25518.0,"score_ratio":4.7142857143} {"post_id":"nsio4s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What's the best native, minimally-colonial Uyghur name for Xinjiang? It obviously isn't Xinjiang, as that literally means \"new frontiers\" in pure Chinese. I know that the native Uyghur Turks of the region were never really a unified body, and that there are other groups also native to the area, but that gets complicated fast. Also, \u0634\u0649\u0646\u062c\u0627\u06ad \u0626\u06c7\u064a\u063a\u06c7\u0631 \u0626\u0627\u067e\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0648\u0645 \u0631\u0627\u064a\u0648\u0646\u0649 doesn't count as that literally says \"Xinjiang Autonomous Region\" in Uyghur.","c_root_id_A":"h0ni2hf","c_root_id_B":"h0nm9cm","created_at_utc_A":1622867510,"created_at_utc_B":1622870426,"score_A":20,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I highly recommend Peter C Perdue's *China Marches West* as it discusses with great attention the Chinese perspectives on Central Asia and Xinjiang in particular. He covers some of the Ming Dynasty but the attention is mostly on the Qing Dynasty, Russian\/Moscovite expansion, and the Zunghars. I'm only on page 100 (of 700) and I'm loving it. But I do wish that he was a little more succinct with his writing, then his book wouldn't be 700 pages long. The whole massive region, which some may also allude to it as Turkestan, can quite fairly be called a liminal space of merging cultural identities for different, mostly economical, reasons (page 41). > The Western Mongols during the Ming had been known as the Derben Oirat (Four Oirats), designated variously as including the Khoshot, Zunghar, Derbet, Torghut, and later Khoit and Choros tribes. In fact the term \"Four Oirats\" rarely indicated any formal confederation of these trees, who spent most of their efforts fighting one another (Page 94)","human_ref_B":"\u0130n Turkey it is often referred to a Do\u011fu T\u00fcrkistan which translates to East Turkestan. \u0130 believe this was the name used when it was briefly independent. \u0130 have also heard it called variations on Cin T\u00fcrkistan (i.e. Chinese controlled Turkestan)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2916.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"nsio4s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What's the best native, minimally-colonial Uyghur name for Xinjiang? It obviously isn't Xinjiang, as that literally means \"new frontiers\" in pure Chinese. I know that the native Uyghur Turks of the region were never really a unified body, and that there are other groups also native to the area, but that gets complicated fast. Also, \u0634\u0649\u0646\u062c\u0627\u06ad \u0626\u06c7\u064a\u063a\u06c7\u0631 \u0626\u0627\u067e\u062a\u0648\u0646\u0648\u0645 \u0631\u0627\u064a\u0648\u0646\u0649 doesn't count as that literally says \"Xinjiang Autonomous Region\" in Uyghur.","c_root_id_A":"h0nly5k","c_root_id_B":"h0nm9cm","created_at_utc_A":1622870202,"created_at_utc_B":1622870426,"score_A":7,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"r\/Orangutanion, you're trying to fit a very western-colonial-centric concept into a region that whose history doesn't support the concept you want. The region known as Xinjiang as always been a migratory, fairly sparse, border area between Slavic, Persian, and Chinese cultures, as well as the thousands of Central Asian groups that inhabited and moved through the area. There's no \"indigenous\" population whose \"ancestors have inhabited the land since time immemorial\" or whatever you're imagining. Accordingly, it's not an \"evil empire comes in and oppresses ethnic minorities\" story. That narrative only really fits 19th century Western colonialism, because those empires were very sudden in their founding and caused sweeping, catastrophic changes to the established indigenous cultures they acted upon. In contrast, Xinjiang has always been this place controlled by one group or another, or sometimes by nobody.","human_ref_B":"\u0130n Turkey it is often referred to a Do\u011fu T\u00fcrkistan which translates to East Turkestan. \u0130 believe this was the name used when it was briefly independent. \u0130 have also heard it called variations on Cin T\u00fcrkistan (i.e. Chinese controlled Turkestan)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":224.0,"score_ratio":3.1428571429} {"post_id":"stsgst","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"In English and some other languages, given names are almost uniformly gendered. However, a select handful of names are unisex. Why is that? Is this pattern true cross-culturally? Names are an incredibly strong indicator of gender, to the extent that any cross-gendered usage of a name is always used to generate humor or offense. In American pop culture, Shel Silverstein's *A Boy Named Sue* does not need to explain why a female name would be the subject of profound lifelong embarassment for the speaker. Archaic homophobic slurs \"nancy\" and \"nelly\" used feminine names to indicate an effeminacy unacceptable throughout much of American history. If names are strongly associated with a gender binary that could essentially never be breached in traditional Anglo-American culture, how the English language come to possess a very small handful of unisex given names? Aubrey, Madison, Morgan, Taylor, and Tracy can be found among both men and women, while the names Ashley, Evelyn, Kelsey, Leslie, and Marion were once unisex but now almost exclusively female. How can some names slip through the cracks of this binary? Is there a general trend of unisex names like Ashley names becoming unacceptable for men due to their association with femininity? This holds true in other languages. Arabic has at least three common unisex names, Noor, Amal, and Iman. In Spanish, \u00c1ngel is a unisex given names despite being exclusively female in English-speaking countries, as is Ariel (except in Orthodox Jewish communities). Marie and Maria appear as male baptismal names in French and Italian culture despite being perceived as exclusively feminine in English. What causes some names to slip through the cracks of gender binary? Is there any correlation between usage of unisex names and gender rigidity? From what I understand, most Korean names are unisex to some extent while this is true of almost no Japanese names, despite both of these societies being typically regarded as patriarchal.","c_root_id_A":"hx72ztb","c_root_id_B":"hx6mp2j","created_at_utc_A":1645032093,"created_at_utc_B":1645025912,"score_A":57,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"> Marie and Maria appear as male baptismal names in French and Italian culture despite being perceived as exclusively feminine in English. For Italian (and I think French as well), the pattern is somewhat more complex: it is true that you can find men named Maria, but only as the second half of a double name. You can find someone called Carlo Maria, Alessandro Maria, Giovanni Maria and so on, but never just Maria (which remains a female name only) Something similar happens with Jes\u00fas as a female name in Spanish-speaking countries: You can meet women named Maria Jes\u00fas, but not just Jes\u00fas","human_ref_B":"Croatian has maybe a couple of unisex names, such as *Sa\u0161a*, but it's a more common for a boy than a girl. One thing maybe specific for Croatian is that there are many nicknames, and in some regions it's not uncommon for a girl to have a masculine nickname. Gradually, some nicknames can be used as true names. Actually, *Sa\u0161a* is a nickname for the masculine name *Aleksandar*, but it could be a nickname for the feminine version of the name, *Aleksandra*. Furthermore, it ends in *-a* like a typical feminine name, because many nicknames (for both sexes) are in *-a*, or get typical feminine case endings (despite not being grammatically feminine). I don't think there's any relation to gender rigidity, this is simply an idea: is it OK that a girl has a masculine-sounding nickname? In some parts of Croatia, why not? In others: no way. I absolutely don't know anything about the history of that idea and likely nobody ever researched that. (It's true that this \"mixing\" is absent in some very traditional areas of Croatia, but it's also absent from some \"modern\" areas as well). Such things might start with some local influential figure giving their daughter a masculine nick-name. If the duke did that, than it's OK. It could be some literary character, in societies where reading had larger impact (so not Croatia).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6181.0,"score_ratio":2.4782608696} {"post_id":"stsgst","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"In English and some other languages, given names are almost uniformly gendered. However, a select handful of names are unisex. Why is that? Is this pattern true cross-culturally? Names are an incredibly strong indicator of gender, to the extent that any cross-gendered usage of a name is always used to generate humor or offense. In American pop culture, Shel Silverstein's *A Boy Named Sue* does not need to explain why a female name would be the subject of profound lifelong embarassment for the speaker. Archaic homophobic slurs \"nancy\" and \"nelly\" used feminine names to indicate an effeminacy unacceptable throughout much of American history. If names are strongly associated with a gender binary that could essentially never be breached in traditional Anglo-American culture, how the English language come to possess a very small handful of unisex given names? Aubrey, Madison, Morgan, Taylor, and Tracy can be found among both men and women, while the names Ashley, Evelyn, Kelsey, Leslie, and Marion were once unisex but now almost exclusively female. How can some names slip through the cracks of this binary? Is there a general trend of unisex names like Ashley names becoming unacceptable for men due to their association with femininity? This holds true in other languages. Arabic has at least three common unisex names, Noor, Amal, and Iman. In Spanish, \u00c1ngel is a unisex given names despite being exclusively female in English-speaking countries, as is Ariel (except in Orthodox Jewish communities). Marie and Maria appear as male baptismal names in French and Italian culture despite being perceived as exclusively feminine in English. What causes some names to slip through the cracks of gender binary? Is there any correlation between usage of unisex names and gender rigidity? From what I understand, most Korean names are unisex to some extent while this is true of almost no Japanese names, despite both of these societies being typically regarded as patriarchal.","c_root_id_A":"hx6mp2j","c_root_id_B":"hx7j31f","created_at_utc_A":1645025912,"created_at_utc_B":1645038606,"score_A":23,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Croatian has maybe a couple of unisex names, such as *Sa\u0161a*, but it's a more common for a boy than a girl. One thing maybe specific for Croatian is that there are many nicknames, and in some regions it's not uncommon for a girl to have a masculine nickname. Gradually, some nicknames can be used as true names. Actually, *Sa\u0161a* is a nickname for the masculine name *Aleksandar*, but it could be a nickname for the feminine version of the name, *Aleksandra*. Furthermore, it ends in *-a* like a typical feminine name, because many nicknames (for both sexes) are in *-a*, or get typical feminine case endings (despite not being grammatically feminine). I don't think there's any relation to gender rigidity, this is simply an idea: is it OK that a girl has a masculine-sounding nickname? In some parts of Croatia, why not? In others: no way. I absolutely don't know anything about the history of that idea and likely nobody ever researched that. (It's true that this \"mixing\" is absent in some very traditional areas of Croatia, but it's also absent from some \"modern\" areas as well). Such things might start with some local influential figure giving their daughter a masculine nick-name. If the duke did that, than it's OK. It could be some literary character, in societies where reading had larger impact (so not Croatia).","human_ref_B":"It is definitely not true universally cross-culturally, as you yourself have noted. The most popular Tibetan names for example, are commonly for either gender, although a few names (Drolma, Pema) are most commonly female. It\u2019s just tradition, I think, but has no relation that I can tell to how patriarchal a society is. For Tibetans, Bhutanese and others in that cultural-religious region, children are often named by a lama (religious figure) a while after birth, and the lama often gives one of his or her names. So for example, a whole bunch of kids could be named Tenzin in a village if they were born at the same time and named by the same lama. (Tibetans generally get two given names, so one would be Tenzin and the other would be different for each kid).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12694.0,"score_ratio":1.1739130435} {"post_id":"stsgst","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"In English and some other languages, given names are almost uniformly gendered. However, a select handful of names are unisex. Why is that? Is this pattern true cross-culturally? Names are an incredibly strong indicator of gender, to the extent that any cross-gendered usage of a name is always used to generate humor or offense. In American pop culture, Shel Silverstein's *A Boy Named Sue* does not need to explain why a female name would be the subject of profound lifelong embarassment for the speaker. Archaic homophobic slurs \"nancy\" and \"nelly\" used feminine names to indicate an effeminacy unacceptable throughout much of American history. If names are strongly associated with a gender binary that could essentially never be breached in traditional Anglo-American culture, how the English language come to possess a very small handful of unisex given names? Aubrey, Madison, Morgan, Taylor, and Tracy can be found among both men and women, while the names Ashley, Evelyn, Kelsey, Leslie, and Marion were once unisex but now almost exclusively female. How can some names slip through the cracks of this binary? Is there a general trend of unisex names like Ashley names becoming unacceptable for men due to their association with femininity? This holds true in other languages. Arabic has at least three common unisex names, Noor, Amal, and Iman. In Spanish, \u00c1ngel is a unisex given names despite being exclusively female in English-speaking countries, as is Ariel (except in Orthodox Jewish communities). Marie and Maria appear as male baptismal names in French and Italian culture despite being perceived as exclusively feminine in English. What causes some names to slip through the cracks of gender binary? Is there any correlation between usage of unisex names and gender rigidity? From what I understand, most Korean names are unisex to some extent while this is true of almost no Japanese names, despite both of these societies being typically regarded as patriarchal.","c_root_id_A":"hx7j548","c_root_id_B":"hx8zuhm","created_at_utc_A":1645038629,"created_at_utc_B":1645060070,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"In Hebrew there are many unisex names, like Sharon, Tal, Gil etc. Unfortunately, I can't give any academic source or reason for this, but I believe it was more common in the past for names to be unisex and then later gendered. Might be relevant to look into :)","human_ref_B":">Aubrey, Madison, Morgan, Taylor, and Tracy An observation about all of the above names is that they are all primarily British surnames and only secondarily, in terms of frequency of use, given names. I'm not sure what kind of insight that might provide, but unless it's pure coincidence, it probably indicates something about surnames as given names not being as uniformly gendered as specifically given names in English. But here's an interesting sidenote; in the US at least, you don't see people using German or Polish or Italian (or whatever else) surnames as given names. No, they pretty much all are either British or Irish so while there are plenty of Kennedies, Cassidies, McCaulays, Carsons, Tates, Pattons and the like, you almost never meet someone who's given name is something like Schmidt, Liebowitz, Bukowski or Gambino or something, no matter what gender. I think that's another clue about something, though what that is I do not claim to know. A final observation that isn't new to me at all is that once a name fully crosses over the gender divide --and in English it's almost always from male to female-- it almost never goes back, hence your Ashley, Evelyn, Kelsey, Leslie, Marion and the like.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21441.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"r13nqo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Did Native Americans Have Public Houses or Inns? I'm doing research into Native American trade and travel. I know there were extensive trails and trading all across ancient America. But I can't seem to figure out anything about where people would stay like a public house. If I was a native merchant and I came to a village or town, is there any archeological or historical evidence for where people would stay if they did not know anyone in town and didn't feel like camping? It might seem like an odd question but I have been researching this for almost a year now and I can find no record or even a mention. But obviously some system must have existed for people to travel on their own. Any help you might or a suggestion for where I might continue my research would be great.","c_root_id_A":"hlx8zjh","c_root_id_B":"hlwm55c","created_at_utc_A":1637774564,"created_at_utc_B":1637765321,"score_A":97,"score_B":85,"human_ref_A":">But obviously some system must have existed for people to travel on their own. \"Obviously\" is always a dangerous assumption, and I can only speak of some of the sites on the Columbia Plateau where I'm a little familiar with the research. We have lots of accounts of travel and trade, but it in most cases it appears that an organized group travels to a place like The Dalles, a particularly well known trading entrepot, at the intersection of Chinookian and Sahaptian language groups. A number of explorer accounts (Lewis and Clark, Alexander Ross) credit the Dalles\/Wyam trade site as a \"great emporium...where all the neighboring nations assemble,\" and the most densely populated that they had encountered. I'd question \"travel on their own\" - when we're speaking of these kinds of trade patterns, they appear to be organized, conducted in groups, entering the territory of others at a specific time, rather than just \"a trader wandering into town with something to sell, on his own initiative\", though presumably some did. Note that \"merchant\" is maybe a less good word, since we don't have any sense of specialization. We have plenty of accounts of villages, but I don't see any mention of traders in this context being invited into homes or \"inns\". What we hear reference to most commonly is that a group peaceably entering the territory of another might be offered a camp and fishing site. The travel\/trade season was summer, with mild temperatures and little rain - sleeping outdoors pretty much anywhere on the Columbia Plateau from June through August was and still is pleasant. With a place to fish, and a campsite -- you've got food and water and are unlikely to see rain. Looking at a group like the Lower Chinook, seen from the Lewis and Clark diaries, they appear as \"middlemen\", moving their wares in large canoes-- presumably they'd stick close by their property as they camped for the night. >\"Parties of Tenino men occasionally undertook short trading expeditions in all directions, but in the main it was visitors from the surrounding tribes who brought their wares to the Dalles to exchange them for native products and imports from elsewhere. The trading season reached its height in late summer when the salmon run began to slacken. The visitors went from house to house, bartering with the local women. No form of true money was used, although strings of dentalium shells were widely accepted in exchange for other goods. > >To this trade the Tenino contributed their own products chiefly dried salmon, fish oil, and furs and the goods they had obtained from other visitors. The principal imports were dentalia and other shells from the west; coiled baskets from the north; horses, buffalo hides, and parfleches from the east; and slaves, California baskets and beads, eagle feathers, and Pit River bows from the south. The Klamath, who mediated most of the commerce with the south, obtained dried salmon, dentalia, and horses in return for products brought from California. The Chinookan traders from the lower Columbia exchanged their shells for twined bags, bows, and skins. Trade from the north was mediated by the Wishram, who brought baskets and some horses in return for slaves, fish, and shells. Furs, hides, dentalia, bows, and dried fish were traded to the Umatilla for products obtained by the latter from tribes farther to the east.\" \\Murdock, 1980\\] Farther east in Nez Perce\/Nimiipuu territory, indigenous peoples traveled along the \"Buffalo Road\" (Qoq'aabc 'iskit). Archaeological investigation of these trails reveals stone cairns, evidence of habitation, and occasional \"stone forts\". While there's archaeological and oral historical evidence of people traveling this route for the better part of a thousand years, the stone forts seem to have been military in character -- not traders, who seem to have been sleeping rough. Unfortunately, many of the accounts we have of this trade are after and substantially affected by contact, but see: \\----------------------------------------------- Elliott, Thompson Coit. \"The Dalles-Celilo Portage; Its History and Influence.\" The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 16.2 (1915): 133-174. Murdock, George Peter. \"The tenino indians.\" Ethnology 19.2 (1980): 129-149. Boyd, Robert Thomas \"People of the Dalles: The Indians of Wascopam Mission: A Historical Ethnography Based on the Papers of the Methodist Missionaries.\", University of Nebraska Press 2004 Scott, Sara A. \u201cIndian Forts and Religious Icons: The Buffalo Road (Qoq\u2019aalx \u2019Iskit) Trail Before and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition.\u201d International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol. 19, no. 2, Springer, 2015, pp. 384\u2013415, [http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24572795. James T. Davis, Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey No. 54, \"Trade Routes and Economic Exchange among the Indians of California\", 1961 https:\/\/digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu\/anthpubs\/ucb\/text\/ucas054-001.pdf","human_ref_B":"Might be worth considering, for yourself, what the difference is between a public house \/ inn vs. a person's house who welcomes guests. The former seems to require a particular set of cultural distinctions for a society regarding money and public\/private separation, whereas the latter can be considered universal.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9243.0,"score_ratio":1.1411764706} {"post_id":"r13nqo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Did Native Americans Have Public Houses or Inns? I'm doing research into Native American trade and travel. I know there were extensive trails and trading all across ancient America. But I can't seem to figure out anything about where people would stay like a public house. If I was a native merchant and I came to a village or town, is there any archeological or historical evidence for where people would stay if they did not know anyone in town and didn't feel like camping? It might seem like an odd question but I have been researching this for almost a year now and I can find no record or even a mention. But obviously some system must have existed for people to travel on their own. Any help you might or a suggestion for where I might continue my research would be great.","c_root_id_A":"hlx8zjh","c_root_id_B":"hlwdp6k","created_at_utc_A":1637774564,"created_at_utc_B":1637761310,"score_A":97,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":">But obviously some system must have existed for people to travel on their own. \"Obviously\" is always a dangerous assumption, and I can only speak of some of the sites on the Columbia Plateau where I'm a little familiar with the research. We have lots of accounts of travel and trade, but it in most cases it appears that an organized group travels to a place like The Dalles, a particularly well known trading entrepot, at the intersection of Chinookian and Sahaptian language groups. A number of explorer accounts (Lewis and Clark, Alexander Ross) credit the Dalles\/Wyam trade site as a \"great emporium...where all the neighboring nations assemble,\" and the most densely populated that they had encountered. I'd question \"travel on their own\" - when we're speaking of these kinds of trade patterns, they appear to be organized, conducted in groups, entering the territory of others at a specific time, rather than just \"a trader wandering into town with something to sell, on his own initiative\", though presumably some did. Note that \"merchant\" is maybe a less good word, since we don't have any sense of specialization. We have plenty of accounts of villages, but I don't see any mention of traders in this context being invited into homes or \"inns\". What we hear reference to most commonly is that a group peaceably entering the territory of another might be offered a camp and fishing site. The travel\/trade season was summer, with mild temperatures and little rain - sleeping outdoors pretty much anywhere on the Columbia Plateau from June through August was and still is pleasant. With a place to fish, and a campsite -- you've got food and water and are unlikely to see rain. Looking at a group like the Lower Chinook, seen from the Lewis and Clark diaries, they appear as \"middlemen\", moving their wares in large canoes-- presumably they'd stick close by their property as they camped for the night. >\"Parties of Tenino men occasionally undertook short trading expeditions in all directions, but in the main it was visitors from the surrounding tribes who brought their wares to the Dalles to exchange them for native products and imports from elsewhere. The trading season reached its height in late summer when the salmon run began to slacken. The visitors went from house to house, bartering with the local women. No form of true money was used, although strings of dentalium shells were widely accepted in exchange for other goods. > >To this trade the Tenino contributed their own products chiefly dried salmon, fish oil, and furs and the goods they had obtained from other visitors. The principal imports were dentalia and other shells from the west; coiled baskets from the north; horses, buffalo hides, and parfleches from the east; and slaves, California baskets and beads, eagle feathers, and Pit River bows from the south. The Klamath, who mediated most of the commerce with the south, obtained dried salmon, dentalia, and horses in return for products brought from California. The Chinookan traders from the lower Columbia exchanged their shells for twined bags, bows, and skins. Trade from the north was mediated by the Wishram, who brought baskets and some horses in return for slaves, fish, and shells. Furs, hides, dentalia, bows, and dried fish were traded to the Umatilla for products obtained by the latter from tribes farther to the east.\" \\Murdock, 1980\\] Farther east in Nez Perce\/Nimiipuu territory, indigenous peoples traveled along the \"Buffalo Road\" (Qoq'aabc 'iskit). Archaeological investigation of these trails reveals stone cairns, evidence of habitation, and occasional \"stone forts\". While there's archaeological and oral historical evidence of people traveling this route for the better part of a thousand years, the stone forts seem to have been military in character -- not traders, who seem to have been sleeping rough. Unfortunately, many of the accounts we have of this trade are after and substantially affected by contact, but see: \\----------------------------------------------- Elliott, Thompson Coit. \"The Dalles-Celilo Portage; Its History and Influence.\" The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 16.2 (1915): 133-174. Murdock, George Peter. \"The tenino indians.\" Ethnology 19.2 (1980): 129-149. Boyd, Robert Thomas \"People of the Dalles: The Indians of Wascopam Mission: A Historical Ethnography Based on the Papers of the Methodist Missionaries.\", University of Nebraska Press 2004 Scott, Sara A. \u201cIndian Forts and Religious Icons: The Buffalo Road (Qoq\u2019aalx \u2019Iskit) Trail Before and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition.\u201d International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol. 19, no. 2, Springer, 2015, pp. 384\u2013415, [http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24572795. James T. Davis, Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey No. 54, \"Trade Routes and Economic Exchange among the Indians of California\", 1961 https:\/\/digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu\/anthpubs\/ucb\/text\/ucas054-001.pdf","human_ref_B":"I agree with mphillips018 that this is entirely dependent on which period, geographical region, and tribes we are looking at. The agriculturalists of the North East had very interconnected villages and presumably traders had interconnected family ties and would likely stay in their relative's long house. In the southwest it probably wasn't as necessary as each trader band would likely bring a small village worth of tents along with them. I know long distance trade to people the traders were not related to occurred, but I would imagine a trader from far off with rare goods the tribe needs would be well cared for by the tribe while they were around. Of course traveling so far they would likely be with a pretty large band so even then they might have set up their pop up village next to the town they are trading with. I'm sure many towns didn't want a band of foreign traders and fighters occupying their town. Just conjecture though. I hope someone posts some good knowledge because this is actually a pretty fascinating topic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13254.0,"score_ratio":4.2173913043} {"post_id":"r13nqo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Did Native Americans Have Public Houses or Inns? I'm doing research into Native American trade and travel. I know there were extensive trails and trading all across ancient America. But I can't seem to figure out anything about where people would stay like a public house. If I was a native merchant and I came to a village or town, is there any archeological or historical evidence for where people would stay if they did not know anyone in town and didn't feel like camping? It might seem like an odd question but I have been researching this for almost a year now and I can find no record or even a mention. But obviously some system must have existed for people to travel on their own. Any help you might or a suggestion for where I might continue my research would be great.","c_root_id_A":"hlwm55c","c_root_id_B":"hlwdp6k","created_at_utc_A":1637765321,"created_at_utc_B":1637761310,"score_A":85,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Might be worth considering, for yourself, what the difference is between a public house \/ inn vs. a person's house who welcomes guests. The former seems to require a particular set of cultural distinctions for a society regarding money and public\/private separation, whereas the latter can be considered universal.","human_ref_B":"I agree with mphillips018 that this is entirely dependent on which period, geographical region, and tribes we are looking at. The agriculturalists of the North East had very interconnected villages and presumably traders had interconnected family ties and would likely stay in their relative's long house. In the southwest it probably wasn't as necessary as each trader band would likely bring a small village worth of tents along with them. I know long distance trade to people the traders were not related to occurred, but I would imagine a trader from far off with rare goods the tribe needs would be well cared for by the tribe while they were around. Of course traveling so far they would likely be with a pretty large band so even then they might have set up their pop up village next to the town they are trading with. I'm sure many towns didn't want a band of foreign traders and fighters occupying their town. Just conjecture though. I hope someone posts some good knowledge because this is actually a pretty fascinating topic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4011.0,"score_ratio":3.6956521739} {"post_id":"i4z3ps","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are Homo Sapiens really genetically closer to neanderthals, than African and Eurasian Homo Sapiens are to each other, as this paper seems to say? This paper from the University of Australia says (end of p13 in pdf): >We estimate the mean distance between H. sapiens and \u00abterminal\u00bb H. neanderthalensis from 16 distances to be around 0.08%. This is a very small distance and is less than half the estimated genetic difference between living sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians (Starr & McMillan 2001) The paper goes on to say that the distance between modern humans and *homo erectus* is equivalent to the difference between modern sub-Saharan humans and modern Eurasian humans. So what gives? This doesn't seem to make much sense with the idea of Sapiens being a separate species to neanderthals and erectus. Am I misunderstanding something?","c_root_id_A":"g0m1ocn","c_root_id_B":"g0m1h8n","created_at_utc_A":1596751522,"created_at_utc_B":1596751419,"score_A":102,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Garbage in, garbage out. The paper proposes a definition of speciation based upon statistics - calculation of distance between two DNA strands, rather than based upon taxonomy. Genetic Distance is calculated in many different ways, but in essence it is calculated in a similar way as the pythagorean theorem is calculated, but rather than in two dimensions, it is across all of the dimensions of all of the 46 or n chromosomes. Another way of calling this method is, \"Principal Component Analysis,\" which basically is a way of map-reducing information, generalizing information by looking at the main components or drivers, and plotting them out onto an ellipse based upon these two components (or three if you do it in three dimensions), and then calculating the distance between these components. Then you have a, \"Cluster\" of different types, which may overlap, or may be very distinct. However, there is always a chance for non-optimization and overlapping, as the transform used to move everything into two dimensions may have been flawed. There many different ways of applying these transform and computing an N dimensional array and changing it into two dimensions so it can be plotted. While genetic distance may be a predictor of reproductive isolation, it is not a designator of reproductive isolation. On top of this, I believe we may only have around 70% of Homo Erectus \/ Neanderthals DNA, and we don't even know how may pairs of chromosomes each had, they may have had 24 pairs as opposed to 23 as we do. Within the very paper you cited it says: > Similarly, application of the same distance measure to the same paired organisms by different researchers may lead to differing estimates of distance, resulting from the study of different loci, varying sample sizes and laboratory techniques. Basically the paper is grasping at straws, trying to argue that Homo Erectus is arguably the same as Homo Sapiens, because if you use statistical analysis, based upon these cherry picked methods and lacking data, and look at averages within other mammals, and look at the variation within homo sapiens and the fact that we are not an extremely genetically diverse species to begin with, then therefore Homo Erectus must be, \"statistically the same as Homo Sapiens,\" whereas Chimpanzees are arguably within the same genus, as are Australopithecus. However this is a weak argument because the definition of species is basically, \"Capable of interbreeding and having healthy offspring,\" and we don't know if that would be possible with homo erectus as we don't have enough information. I think the labs that this paper cited, who produced the genetic distance calculations used in the paper, may have not agreed with the person who wrote the paper going to such lengths with their calculations. Yes, you can hypothetically compute distance between a data set that includes a lot of null sets, and yes you can then compare those distances between different sets and say, \"See look, they are closer together,\" but that doesn't actually *predict* anything, it's just like arguing about sports statistics, it's all opinion about which team is better and a waste of time when you are talking about two different teams in the same division, vs. comparing something widely different like an NFL team and high school football team or something.","human_ref_B":"The problem is, I think, with the assumptions. The paper assumes there is no evolution or adaptation, only mutations and genetic drift. It was written in 2003, well before we had sequenced the Neanderthal nuclear genome. We still don't have any H. erectus genome. The paper is based on an assumption of totally uniform genetic change over time, and the assumed distance in time between the LCU of modern humans and chimpanzees. So the authors simply divide the human-chimp genetic difference and normalize it to a timespan of ~7 ma, and half of that is the total genetic difference between us (assuming no selective pressures making a difference here). So, if the distance *in time* between two other hominin species is one tenth of that, it must be one tenth the genetic distance between them, and so on. I tried to follow their source for the divergence between living human populations, and it appears to be the textbook Starr & McMillan(2001) \"Human Biology\" 4th ed. which I don't have access to. I am not sure, but I agree with you that this sounds completely dubious and I would not be surprised if these are undue comparisons of different parameters. Be that as it may, this paper looks like a flawed exercise that ignores adaptation, morphology and actual genomic evidence and operates with the most primitive conception of speciation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":103.0,"score_ratio":3.9230769231} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91yj9v","c_root_id_B":"e91g0dy","created_at_utc_A":1541364183,"created_at_utc_B":1541349821,"score_A":17,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","human_ref_B":"This is not my experience as a person living in and well travelled throughout the UK and mainland Europe. The main difference (in my anecdotal experience) is the times eating happens at. The French tend to eat much later than a \"normal\" British dinner (tea oop north) for example, but the food sizes isn't all that different....boeuf bourguignon is basically a beef stew with a couple ingredient changes and we'd both eat that. I'd argue we're more likely to smash that for a lunch than the French as well...love a cooked lunch if time permits! Tapas may look lighter but you can put away enough of it to easily match the meal size of a plate of haggis and tatties. In Italy they eat plates of pasta at dinner just like us. Edit: it's been too long since I was last in Germany to really compare, but I don't remember being wildly astounded by any food\/meal times\/sizes and indeed enjoyed a most delicious kebab at the designated kebab eating time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14362.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91k54i","c_root_id_B":"e91yj9v","created_at_utc_A":1541353134,"created_at_utc_B":1541364183,"score_A":10,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"A lot has to do with the type and region even within the US. My dad always talked about farmers and folks in the country back in the day used to have lunch and call it dinner and have a lighter supper later. This might have been a hold over from immigrants from Europe. Also it makes sense if you basically work at home the way farmers do. Working in a factory it makes sense to have just a small meal at work.","human_ref_B":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11049.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91jb6w","c_root_id_B":"e91yj9v","created_at_utc_A":1541352468,"created_at_utc_B":1541364183,"score_A":10,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"the english eat to be able to keep working. the french work to be able to keep eating. all generalizations are wrong.","human_ref_B":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11715.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91bjbt","c_root_id_B":"e91yj9v","created_at_utc_A":1541346140,"created_at_utc_B":1541364183,"score_A":8,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"As a guy from Pakistan I'd say every meal here is a big meal no matter what time of the day Idk why tho maybe because we feel the fear of not gerting the chance to eat properly in the next meal or maybe being too busy to not eat at all","human_ref_B":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18043.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e918c6p","c_root_id_B":"e91yj9v","created_at_utc_A":1541343330,"created_at_utc_B":1541364183,"score_A":6,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"It's not really like this in Belgium. Sandwiches are a big lunch thing.","human_ref_B":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20853.0,"score_ratio":2.8333333333} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91pxmf","c_root_id_B":"e91yj9v","created_at_utc_A":1541357715,"created_at_utc_B":1541364183,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'm from the Mediterranean and I'd say that lunch is usually more copious than dinner, but not by much. What I can say for sure is that dinner is usually later (between 8pm and 10pm) than Nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries where from what I've seen happens around 7pm.","human_ref_B":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6468.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91yj9v","c_root_id_B":"e91im3s","created_at_utc_A":1541364183,"created_at_utc_B":1541351886,"score_A":17,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Your premise about Nordic lunches might be a bit off. The different Nordic countries have different lunch traditions. Norway typically has the type of light lunch you refer to, but a Swedish lunch is generally a full, hot meal. From my experience Finland seems more like Sweden and Denmark is somewhere between Norway and Sweden. The most consistent difference between the Nordics and southern Europe is the dinner time. Traditionally dinner in the Nordics is eaten a few hours earlier (5-6 pm) than in southern Europe (8-10 pm). This could be due to differences in outdoor temperature; it's nicer to eat when the temperature has had time to go down a bit.","human_ref_B":"We don't have siesta in the Nordics. And afaik our lunch breakes tend to be shorter. And we eat dinner earlier as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12297.0,"score_ratio":8.5} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91g0dy","c_root_id_B":"e91bjbt","created_at_utc_A":1541349821,"created_at_utc_B":1541346140,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"This is not my experience as a person living in and well travelled throughout the UK and mainland Europe. The main difference (in my anecdotal experience) is the times eating happens at. The French tend to eat much later than a \"normal\" British dinner (tea oop north) for example, but the food sizes isn't all that different....boeuf bourguignon is basically a beef stew with a couple ingredient changes and we'd both eat that. I'd argue we're more likely to smash that for a lunch than the French as well...love a cooked lunch if time permits! Tapas may look lighter but you can put away enough of it to easily match the meal size of a plate of haggis and tatties. In Italy they eat plates of pasta at dinner just like us. Edit: it's been too long since I was last in Germany to really compare, but I don't remember being wildly astounded by any food\/meal times\/sizes and indeed enjoyed a most delicious kebab at the designated kebab eating time.","human_ref_B":"As a guy from Pakistan I'd say every meal here is a big meal no matter what time of the day Idk why tho maybe because we feel the fear of not gerting the chance to eat properly in the next meal or maybe being too busy to not eat at all","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3681.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91g0dy","c_root_id_B":"e918c6p","created_at_utc_A":1541349821,"created_at_utc_B":1541343330,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This is not my experience as a person living in and well travelled throughout the UK and mainland Europe. The main difference (in my anecdotal experience) is the times eating happens at. The French tend to eat much later than a \"normal\" British dinner (tea oop north) for example, but the food sizes isn't all that different....boeuf bourguignon is basically a beef stew with a couple ingredient changes and we'd both eat that. I'd argue we're more likely to smash that for a lunch than the French as well...love a cooked lunch if time permits! Tapas may look lighter but you can put away enough of it to easily match the meal size of a plate of haggis and tatties. In Italy they eat plates of pasta at dinner just like us. Edit: it's been too long since I was last in Germany to really compare, but I don't remember being wildly astounded by any food\/meal times\/sizes and indeed enjoyed a most delicious kebab at the designated kebab eating time.","human_ref_B":"It's not really like this in Belgium. Sandwiches are a big lunch thing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6491.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91k54i","c_root_id_B":"e91bjbt","created_at_utc_A":1541353134,"created_at_utc_B":1541346140,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"A lot has to do with the type and region even within the US. My dad always talked about farmers and folks in the country back in the day used to have lunch and call it dinner and have a lighter supper later. This might have been a hold over from immigrants from Europe. Also it makes sense if you basically work at home the way farmers do. Working in a factory it makes sense to have just a small meal at work.","human_ref_B":"As a guy from Pakistan I'd say every meal here is a big meal no matter what time of the day Idk why tho maybe because we feel the fear of not gerting the chance to eat properly in the next meal or maybe being too busy to not eat at all","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6994.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91k54i","c_root_id_B":"e918c6p","created_at_utc_A":1541353134,"created_at_utc_B":1541343330,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"A lot has to do with the type and region even within the US. My dad always talked about farmers and folks in the country back in the day used to have lunch and call it dinner and have a lighter supper later. This might have been a hold over from immigrants from Europe. Also it makes sense if you basically work at home the way farmers do. Working in a factory it makes sense to have just a small meal at work.","human_ref_B":"It's not really like this in Belgium. Sandwiches are a big lunch thing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9804.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91k54i","c_root_id_B":"e91im3s","created_at_utc_A":1541353134,"created_at_utc_B":1541351886,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A lot has to do with the type and region even within the US. My dad always talked about farmers and folks in the country back in the day used to have lunch and call it dinner and have a lighter supper later. This might have been a hold over from immigrants from Europe. Also it makes sense if you basically work at home the way farmers do. Working in a factory it makes sense to have just a small meal at work.","human_ref_B":"We don't have siesta in the Nordics. And afaik our lunch breakes tend to be shorter. And we eat dinner earlier as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1248.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91bjbt","c_root_id_B":"e91jb6w","created_at_utc_A":1541346140,"created_at_utc_B":1541352468,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"As a guy from Pakistan I'd say every meal here is a big meal no matter what time of the day Idk why tho maybe because we feel the fear of not gerting the chance to eat properly in the next meal or maybe being too busy to not eat at all","human_ref_B":"the english eat to be able to keep working. the french work to be able to keep eating. all generalizations are wrong.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6328.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91jb6w","c_root_id_B":"e918c6p","created_at_utc_A":1541352468,"created_at_utc_B":1541343330,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"the english eat to be able to keep working. the french work to be able to keep eating. all generalizations are wrong.","human_ref_B":"It's not really like this in Belgium. Sandwiches are a big lunch thing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9138.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91jb6w","c_root_id_B":"e91im3s","created_at_utc_A":1541352468,"created_at_utc_B":1541351886,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"the english eat to be able to keep working. the french work to be able to keep eating. all generalizations are wrong.","human_ref_B":"We don't have siesta in the Nordics. And afaik our lunch breakes tend to be shorter. And we eat dinner earlier as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":582.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91bjbt","c_root_id_B":"e918c6p","created_at_utc_A":1541346140,"created_at_utc_B":1541343330,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As a guy from Pakistan I'd say every meal here is a big meal no matter what time of the day Idk why tho maybe because we feel the fear of not gerting the chance to eat properly in the next meal or maybe being too busy to not eat at all","human_ref_B":"It's not really like this in Belgium. Sandwiches are a big lunch thing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2810.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9u3lo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is it that in English speaking and Nordic countries lunch is only a light meal and dinner is the main one, while in the rest of Europe it's vice versa? One would think that it has something to do with climate, but it's not only the Mediterranean countries where lunch is the main meal. In colder countries such as Russia, Poland or Germany lunch usually is the biggest meal, too. It seems to me that it may have something to do with the Protestant work ethic: you don't deserve a big meal if you haven't done all the deeds of the day. I may be wrong though.","c_root_id_A":"e91im3s","c_root_id_B":"e91pxmf","created_at_utc_A":1541351886,"created_at_utc_B":1541357715,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"We don't have siesta in the Nordics. And afaik our lunch breakes tend to be shorter. And we eat dinner earlier as well.","human_ref_B":"I'm from the Mediterranean and I'd say that lunch is usually more copious than dinner, but not by much. What I can say for sure is that dinner is usually later (between 8pm and 10pm) than Nordic and Anglo-Saxon countries where from what I've seen happens around 7pm.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5829.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ubr2dg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did human sacrifice die out in the Old World by the beginning of the classical era, but continued to be actively practised in the New World until European contact?","c_root_id_A":"i67j2qp","c_root_id_B":"i65ymrx","created_at_utc_A":1650936159,"created_at_utc_B":1650912660,"score_A":154,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"There's a bit of an Eurocentric lens to \"human sacrifice\"; if you look at rituals of torture and execution in Europe, they really don't look too dissimilar to Central America. And here's the extraordinary truth, hiding in plain sight: ask yourself -- have you ever noticed that the defining symbol of Christianity is, itself, an instrument of torture and execution? And the variety of bloody and painful deaths of martyrs are essential to the creation of a shared understanding of life, death and meaning? Europeans exoticised what they found in the Americas, but the *auto-da-f\u00e9* occurring at precisely the same time that the Conquistadors were arriving . . . were much more similar than you might think. A comparable brutality, enacting a worldview through performance in blood . . . the irony it all is that what Cortes saw was not at all far from the world across the ocean, and continued in Europe for several more centuries Consider the extraordinary iconography and brutality of \"breaking on the wheel\", see Mitchell B. Merback. \"The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe\". University of Chicago Press, 1999. . . . and the Inquisition made its way to the New World, where similar brutalities were meted out Timmer, David E. \"Providence and perdition: Fray Diego de Landa justifies his inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya.\" Church History 66.3 (1997): 477-488.","human_ref_B":"Human sacrifice is a practice that has developed in a multitude of human societies at different times, and in a variety of different ways. I don't have a full history of human sacrifice, nor do I have a full listing of cultures-- ancient through modern-- who have practiced sacrifice literally, metaphorically (e.g., \"body and the bread\"), or a combination. A basic listing and history of human sacrifice is easily found on Wikipedia. So let's just glance at that... **https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Human_sacrifice#History_by_region** We see human sacrifice occurring in a number of places and in a number of different societies and cultures over thousands of years. How about this question: * Why did ancient Egyptian culture start (and then stop) the practice of human sacrifice? * Why did ancient Greek cultures start \/ stop human sacrifice practice? * Roman? * Celtic cultures? * etc. The critical factor here is that the \"Old World\" cultures that started and then stopped human sacrifice as a practice either stopped on their own, or were influenced or compelled through communication \/ interaction with other non-sacrificing cultures to stop. But they did it more or less on their own recognizance, at their own pace. Here's my question: **Why should we presume that American cultures that practiced human sacrifice should be any different?** Why should \"Old World\" cultures be setting the timer for when human sacrifice stops? Across \"\"the Old World,\" we see it starting and stopping at multiple time periods, same as in the Americas.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23499.0,"score_ratio":3.0196078431} {"post_id":"ubr2dg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did human sacrifice die out in the Old World by the beginning of the classical era, but continued to be actively practised in the New World until European contact?","c_root_id_A":"i67j2qp","c_root_id_B":"i66co1q","created_at_utc_A":1650936159,"created_at_utc_B":1650918141,"score_A":154,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"There's a bit of an Eurocentric lens to \"human sacrifice\"; if you look at rituals of torture and execution in Europe, they really don't look too dissimilar to Central America. And here's the extraordinary truth, hiding in plain sight: ask yourself -- have you ever noticed that the defining symbol of Christianity is, itself, an instrument of torture and execution? And the variety of bloody and painful deaths of martyrs are essential to the creation of a shared understanding of life, death and meaning? Europeans exoticised what they found in the Americas, but the *auto-da-f\u00e9* occurring at precisely the same time that the Conquistadors were arriving . . . were much more similar than you might think. A comparable brutality, enacting a worldview through performance in blood . . . the irony it all is that what Cortes saw was not at all far from the world across the ocean, and continued in Europe for several more centuries Consider the extraordinary iconography and brutality of \"breaking on the wheel\", see Mitchell B. Merback. \"The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe\". University of Chicago Press, 1999. . . . and the Inquisition made its way to the New World, where similar brutalities were meted out Timmer, David E. \"Providence and perdition: Fray Diego de Landa justifies his inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya.\" Church History 66.3 (1997): 477-488.","human_ref_B":"Short answer: it didn't. We just started calling it Justice. A slightly longer answer: We don't know how prevalent human sacrifice was in the Americas. In order to establish prevalence, we'd have to know the overall population and the number sacrificed. In other words, what percentage of people were put to death as a percentage of the overall population? We don't know this number. In the book 1491 (which everyone should read), Mann describes the brutality and capital punishment of the monarchs of Europe and comes up with a percentage of Europe's population put to death each year. This doesn't include captured soldiers put to death after battles. It would be very interesting to compare the human sacrifice number of the New World with the old. But, we just don't know the New World percentage number. Ironically, corn from the New World actually became a huge crop in the Old World and spurred overpopulation. That overpopulation is theorized to have spurred the African slave trade. So, do we think slavery is better than murder? I don't think you can compare the two. But, what might be drawn from this, is that the New World might have dealt with excess populations via human sacrifice. Is it any better that we pushed people into slavery when presented with the same overpopulation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18018.0,"score_ratio":6.16} {"post_id":"ubr2dg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did human sacrifice die out in the Old World by the beginning of the classical era, but continued to be actively practised in the New World until European contact?","c_root_id_A":"i67j2qp","c_root_id_B":"i66z3v6","created_at_utc_A":1650936159,"created_at_utc_B":1650927404,"score_A":154,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"There's a bit of an Eurocentric lens to \"human sacrifice\"; if you look at rituals of torture and execution in Europe, they really don't look too dissimilar to Central America. And here's the extraordinary truth, hiding in plain sight: ask yourself -- have you ever noticed that the defining symbol of Christianity is, itself, an instrument of torture and execution? And the variety of bloody and painful deaths of martyrs are essential to the creation of a shared understanding of life, death and meaning? Europeans exoticised what they found in the Americas, but the *auto-da-f\u00e9* occurring at precisely the same time that the Conquistadors were arriving . . . were much more similar than you might think. A comparable brutality, enacting a worldview through performance in blood . . . the irony it all is that what Cortes saw was not at all far from the world across the ocean, and continued in Europe for several more centuries Consider the extraordinary iconography and brutality of \"breaking on the wheel\", see Mitchell B. Merback. \"The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe\". University of Chicago Press, 1999. . . . and the Inquisition made its way to the New World, where similar brutalities were meted out Timmer, David E. \"Providence and perdition: Fray Diego de Landa justifies his inquisition against the Yucatecan Maya.\" Church History 66.3 (1997): 477-488.","human_ref_B":"Do anthropologists consider Christian\u2019s burning hundreds of thousands of people at the stake to appease their god as human sacrifice? Or christians and other middle eastern religions killing gay people to appease their gods? If not what is the difference? Just wonder why the Aztecs always come up but christians never do.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8755.0,"score_ratio":10.2666666667} {"post_id":"sagvzn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Looking for book recommendations as rebuttals to guns germs and steel? Hi all, this is my first post here. I was recommended Jared Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel and finished reading it. I am from a natural science background and don't know much in anthropology. In my experience, usually when I read a popular literature about any scientific concept that I actually know about I often find them making claims without sufficient evidence or driving a point way too hard for the sake of the book. I liked reading guns germs and steel. It gave me some new ideas and I'd say changed my mind about some things. But, at the end I came out with the feeling that it was a bit too well explained. It seemed too simple how one thing led to another and led to another. I should read it a few more times to comment more, but I was wondering if you guys could suggest some books which propose different theories or ones that comment on the analysis in guns germs and steel. I don't know how famous\/accepted Jared Diamond is in the anthropology community but I am hoping there's stuff out there that can look at this critically because I surely can't. Also, it would be nice if it was also a book I probably won't understand an anthropology paper. But if you know a review or something that really goes into this I will give it a shot.","c_root_id_A":"htuv4xx","c_root_id_B":"httscx8","created_at_utc_A":1642925122,"created_at_utc_B":1642904924,"score_A":64,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"There is an intrinsic problem in asking for rebuttals to \"grand theory\" ideas in that the problem with those theories is that they elide over troublesome details. So the rebutting often takes the form of focused, nuanced explorations of topics contained within the grand theory, whose details expose the threadbare fabric of the theory. You can easily get lost down a million tangents, so it's worth asking: What did you find enlightening about Diamond's book, and what did you find off about it? Also, it's perfectly fine to like *Guns, Germs, and Steel*, if you put in context. The text is (rightfully) deprecated, but it is useful to understand the context in which Diamond was writing. The man is in his 80s. His PhD thesis (in physiology) is almost old enough to be collecting social security checks. He grew up in a world where the superiority of \"The West\" and particularly of the United States was accepted as foregone conclusion, with the only debate being what particular intrinsic quality about Northern Europeans made them the best. Was it the Protestant Work Ethic^TM or maybe just innate racial superiority? *GG&S* was an attempt to explain the state of the world in way that did not rely on lazy ideas of some people just being better than others. Of course, it ended up making its own set of faulty assumptions and replicating a lot of the same ethnocentric ideas it wanted to refute. But hey, it tried, even if it basically just copied Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*, published 15 years earlier. There are also some glaring holes in Diamond\u2019s argument that can easily get lost in the swift current of his narrative. China, for instance, gets hand-waved away on the basis of being too centralized or something, despite the long history of political fragmentation. The Indian subcontinent may as well not exist. It's also important to note that Diamond's theory is really a Frankenstein's monster of two different explanatory frameworks smashed together. The first aims to understand why Europeans conquered the Americas. The second is explaining European global dominance in the Modern era (roughly 1850 onward). Diamond treats these problems as though they are the same, and therefore soluble with a singular explanation, rather than the former presaging the latter. I have some very strong thoughts on the former, but you aren\u2019t here to hear me blather (as I have already done). Anyways, some suggestions: - Pomeranz *The Great Divergence*: Tackles the second question above, by looking at a comparison of Europe and China from an economic perspective. The book basically argues that the key element to Northwest European prominence comes down to readily abundant coal along with exploitation of American resources serving to allow that region to develop alternatives to labor intensive agricultural and industrial techniques. - Ca\u00f1izares-Esguerra *Nature, Empire, and Nation*: A collection of essays by the author, with a running theme that a key element of Western European dominance, the Enlightenment, was not so much a product of inherited Greco-Roman wisdom as it was the result of the intellectual shock of encountering a \u201cNew World\u201d in the Americas which challenged received wisdom. Moreover, the Enlightenment, so often seen as product of French-German-British intellectuals was preceded by political, scientific, and religious changes in Spain, which was the first of the European powers to grapple with a new reality of a previously unknown continent. These Spanish adaptations to a new world were often done in collaboration with Indigenous and Creole peoples. - Thornton *Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World*: Thornton has developed the idea of an \u201cAtlantic World\u201d which eschews broad continental delinations in exchange for viewing those regions connected by Atlantic trade as operating in a single system. This book, in particular, explores how Africans were never passive recipients of European dominance, but active and crucial participants in building the foundations of the modern world. - Hassig *Mexico and the Spanish Conquest*: Dealing with the first question above, Hassig refutes the idea that the first conquest of an organized, state-level society in the Americas by a European power was a foregone conclusion. Drawing upon Mexica sources, the author illustrates hows the fall of the Aztecs was not some miraculous outcome by divinely inspired and superiorly armored Spanish, but the result of rational decision by the major political players. Finally, the topic of race is a bit of tangent, but Sussman\u2019s *The Myth of Race* and Martinez\u2019s *Genealogical Fictions* are both excellent books on the topic of how European imperialism gave rise to the racial categories in which we still live, and how they both justified colonialism and gave impetus to more exploitation. EDIT: Almost forget the classic, published in an actual academic journal, call-out of Diamond, which is Correia's Fuck Jared Diamond.","human_ref_B":"Don\u2019t have time to do a real write up, but check out Escape from Rome by Walter Scheidel. Basically seeking to explain why the industrial Revolution and concomitant exponential growth occurred in Europe and not somewhere else. Thesis emphasizes competitive fragmentation as contrasted with other macro-regions, China in particular. Also explains why the rise of Rome (as a hegemonic empire in Europe) was a highly contingent event that would not be repeated, again in major contrast to the persistent hegemony of imperial polities in China. A very very well researched and conceived work, IMO a masterpiece of dialectical \u201cBig History\u201d.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20198.0,"score_ratio":1.5238095238} {"post_id":"sagvzn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Looking for book recommendations as rebuttals to guns germs and steel? Hi all, this is my first post here. I was recommended Jared Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel and finished reading it. I am from a natural science background and don't know much in anthropology. In my experience, usually when I read a popular literature about any scientific concept that I actually know about I often find them making claims without sufficient evidence or driving a point way too hard for the sake of the book. I liked reading guns germs and steel. It gave me some new ideas and I'd say changed my mind about some things. But, at the end I came out with the feeling that it was a bit too well explained. It seemed too simple how one thing led to another and led to another. I should read it a few more times to comment more, but I was wondering if you guys could suggest some books which propose different theories or ones that comment on the analysis in guns germs and steel. I don't know how famous\/accepted Jared Diamond is in the anthropology community but I am hoping there's stuff out there that can look at this critically because I surely can't. Also, it would be nice if it was also a book I probably won't understand an anthropology paper. But if you know a review or something that really goes into this I will give it a shot.","c_root_id_A":"htuv4xx","c_root_id_B":"htu3vlp","created_at_utc_A":1642925122,"created_at_utc_B":1642909988,"score_A":64,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"There is an intrinsic problem in asking for rebuttals to \"grand theory\" ideas in that the problem with those theories is that they elide over troublesome details. So the rebutting often takes the form of focused, nuanced explorations of topics contained within the grand theory, whose details expose the threadbare fabric of the theory. You can easily get lost down a million tangents, so it's worth asking: What did you find enlightening about Diamond's book, and what did you find off about it? Also, it's perfectly fine to like *Guns, Germs, and Steel*, if you put in context. The text is (rightfully) deprecated, but it is useful to understand the context in which Diamond was writing. The man is in his 80s. His PhD thesis (in physiology) is almost old enough to be collecting social security checks. He grew up in a world where the superiority of \"The West\" and particularly of the United States was accepted as foregone conclusion, with the only debate being what particular intrinsic quality about Northern Europeans made them the best. Was it the Protestant Work Ethic^TM or maybe just innate racial superiority? *GG&S* was an attempt to explain the state of the world in way that did not rely on lazy ideas of some people just being better than others. Of course, it ended up making its own set of faulty assumptions and replicating a lot of the same ethnocentric ideas it wanted to refute. But hey, it tried, even if it basically just copied Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*, published 15 years earlier. There are also some glaring holes in Diamond\u2019s argument that can easily get lost in the swift current of his narrative. China, for instance, gets hand-waved away on the basis of being too centralized or something, despite the long history of political fragmentation. The Indian subcontinent may as well not exist. It's also important to note that Diamond's theory is really a Frankenstein's monster of two different explanatory frameworks smashed together. The first aims to understand why Europeans conquered the Americas. The second is explaining European global dominance in the Modern era (roughly 1850 onward). Diamond treats these problems as though they are the same, and therefore soluble with a singular explanation, rather than the former presaging the latter. I have some very strong thoughts on the former, but you aren\u2019t here to hear me blather (as I have already done). Anyways, some suggestions: - Pomeranz *The Great Divergence*: Tackles the second question above, by looking at a comparison of Europe and China from an economic perspective. The book basically argues that the key element to Northwest European prominence comes down to readily abundant coal along with exploitation of American resources serving to allow that region to develop alternatives to labor intensive agricultural and industrial techniques. - Ca\u00f1izares-Esguerra *Nature, Empire, and Nation*: A collection of essays by the author, with a running theme that a key element of Western European dominance, the Enlightenment, was not so much a product of inherited Greco-Roman wisdom as it was the result of the intellectual shock of encountering a \u201cNew World\u201d in the Americas which challenged received wisdom. Moreover, the Enlightenment, so often seen as product of French-German-British intellectuals was preceded by political, scientific, and religious changes in Spain, which was the first of the European powers to grapple with a new reality of a previously unknown continent. These Spanish adaptations to a new world were often done in collaboration with Indigenous and Creole peoples. - Thornton *Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World*: Thornton has developed the idea of an \u201cAtlantic World\u201d which eschews broad continental delinations in exchange for viewing those regions connected by Atlantic trade as operating in a single system. This book, in particular, explores how Africans were never passive recipients of European dominance, but active and crucial participants in building the foundations of the modern world. - Hassig *Mexico and the Spanish Conquest*: Dealing with the first question above, Hassig refutes the idea that the first conquest of an organized, state-level society in the Americas by a European power was a foregone conclusion. Drawing upon Mexica sources, the author illustrates hows the fall of the Aztecs was not some miraculous outcome by divinely inspired and superiorly armored Spanish, but the result of rational decision by the major political players. Finally, the topic of race is a bit of tangent, but Sussman\u2019s *The Myth of Race* and Martinez\u2019s *Genealogical Fictions* are both excellent books on the topic of how European imperialism gave rise to the racial categories in which we still live, and how they both justified colonialism and gave impetus to more exploitation. EDIT: Almost forget the classic, published in an actual academic journal, call-out of Diamond, which is Correia's Fuck Jared Diamond.","human_ref_B":"Charles C. Mann's *1491* and *1492* are excellent, but the first is mainly focused on the Americas. You should ask \/u\/anthropology_nerd about this question though, they've got some strong and well sourced criticism of Diamond and likely have some recommendations.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15134.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"sagvzn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Looking for book recommendations as rebuttals to guns germs and steel? Hi all, this is my first post here. I was recommended Jared Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel and finished reading it. I am from a natural science background and don't know much in anthropology. In my experience, usually when I read a popular literature about any scientific concept that I actually know about I often find them making claims without sufficient evidence or driving a point way too hard for the sake of the book. I liked reading guns germs and steel. It gave me some new ideas and I'd say changed my mind about some things. But, at the end I came out with the feeling that it was a bit too well explained. It seemed too simple how one thing led to another and led to another. I should read it a few more times to comment more, but I was wondering if you guys could suggest some books which propose different theories or ones that comment on the analysis in guns germs and steel. I don't know how famous\/accepted Jared Diamond is in the anthropology community but I am hoping there's stuff out there that can look at this critically because I surely can't. Also, it would be nice if it was also a book I probably won't understand an anthropology paper. But if you know a review or something that really goes into this I will give it a shot.","c_root_id_A":"htuqjmg","c_root_id_B":"htuv4xx","created_at_utc_A":1642921808,"created_at_utc_B":1642925122,"score_A":14,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"This might be a good place to start: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/wiki\/historians_views\/#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22","human_ref_B":"There is an intrinsic problem in asking for rebuttals to \"grand theory\" ideas in that the problem with those theories is that they elide over troublesome details. So the rebutting often takes the form of focused, nuanced explorations of topics contained within the grand theory, whose details expose the threadbare fabric of the theory. You can easily get lost down a million tangents, so it's worth asking: What did you find enlightening about Diamond's book, and what did you find off about it? Also, it's perfectly fine to like *Guns, Germs, and Steel*, if you put in context. The text is (rightfully) deprecated, but it is useful to understand the context in which Diamond was writing. The man is in his 80s. His PhD thesis (in physiology) is almost old enough to be collecting social security checks. He grew up in a world where the superiority of \"The West\" and particularly of the United States was accepted as foregone conclusion, with the only debate being what particular intrinsic quality about Northern Europeans made them the best. Was it the Protestant Work Ethic^TM or maybe just innate racial superiority? *GG&S* was an attempt to explain the state of the world in way that did not rely on lazy ideas of some people just being better than others. Of course, it ended up making its own set of faulty assumptions and replicating a lot of the same ethnocentric ideas it wanted to refute. But hey, it tried, even if it basically just copied Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism*, published 15 years earlier. There are also some glaring holes in Diamond\u2019s argument that can easily get lost in the swift current of his narrative. China, for instance, gets hand-waved away on the basis of being too centralized or something, despite the long history of political fragmentation. The Indian subcontinent may as well not exist. It's also important to note that Diamond's theory is really a Frankenstein's monster of two different explanatory frameworks smashed together. The first aims to understand why Europeans conquered the Americas. The second is explaining European global dominance in the Modern era (roughly 1850 onward). Diamond treats these problems as though they are the same, and therefore soluble with a singular explanation, rather than the former presaging the latter. I have some very strong thoughts on the former, but you aren\u2019t here to hear me blather (as I have already done). Anyways, some suggestions: - Pomeranz *The Great Divergence*: Tackles the second question above, by looking at a comparison of Europe and China from an economic perspective. The book basically argues that the key element to Northwest European prominence comes down to readily abundant coal along with exploitation of American resources serving to allow that region to develop alternatives to labor intensive agricultural and industrial techniques. - Ca\u00f1izares-Esguerra *Nature, Empire, and Nation*: A collection of essays by the author, with a running theme that a key element of Western European dominance, the Enlightenment, was not so much a product of inherited Greco-Roman wisdom as it was the result of the intellectual shock of encountering a \u201cNew World\u201d in the Americas which challenged received wisdom. Moreover, the Enlightenment, so often seen as product of French-German-British intellectuals was preceded by political, scientific, and religious changes in Spain, which was the first of the European powers to grapple with a new reality of a previously unknown continent. These Spanish adaptations to a new world were often done in collaboration with Indigenous and Creole peoples. - Thornton *Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World*: Thornton has developed the idea of an \u201cAtlantic World\u201d which eschews broad continental delinations in exchange for viewing those regions connected by Atlantic trade as operating in a single system. This book, in particular, explores how Africans were never passive recipients of European dominance, but active and crucial participants in building the foundations of the modern world. - Hassig *Mexico and the Spanish Conquest*: Dealing with the first question above, Hassig refutes the idea that the first conquest of an organized, state-level society in the Americas by a European power was a foregone conclusion. Drawing upon Mexica sources, the author illustrates hows the fall of the Aztecs was not some miraculous outcome by divinely inspired and superiorly armored Spanish, but the result of rational decision by the major political players. Finally, the topic of race is a bit of tangent, but Sussman\u2019s *The Myth of Race* and Martinez\u2019s *Genealogical Fictions* are both excellent books on the topic of how European imperialism gave rise to the racial categories in which we still live, and how they both justified colonialism and gave impetus to more exploitation. EDIT: Almost forget the classic, published in an actual academic journal, call-out of Diamond, which is Correia's Fuck Jared Diamond.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3314.0,"score_ratio":4.5714285714} {"post_id":"qtx8gk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"A friend found some artifacts that I believe could be import evidence for North American history I live in British Columbia. A while ago a friend of mine was kayaking in the Kootenay river in the fall when the water was quite low. He came to a and bar that's normally a few feet under water and there he found a handfull of arrow heads, two stone hammers and what he thought was an obsidian axe head. He took the ace head to a local rock shop where the owner was fairly confident that the ace head is made from jade. The only place jade naturally occurs (as far as I know) is the Yukan\/British Columbia boarder. The peopling of North America has always been an interest of mine. We know people came by some form near the bering straight. We know one of the oldest settlements was found along the Columbia River, which the Kootenay river is a major tributary. There's also a carved stone in our local museum that's believed to be 9,000 years old and at one point was one of the oldest man made objects ever discovered in North America. Our local native band the Yaqan Nukiy people have a unique traditional way of building kayaks, interestingly the only other culture that makes kayaks in the same fashion is found in Siberia. I believe my friends discovery may be of historical significance but my friend is afraid to tell anyone because he wants to keep the items and doesn't want them taken away. Can anyone with knowledge on the subject way in? Can I get some advice on how to talk to him about it?","c_root_id_A":"hkmk69j","c_root_id_B":"hkmlrhp","created_at_utc_A":1636918975,"created_at_utc_B":1636919581,"score_A":38,"score_B":155,"human_ref_A":"They're out of context finds, so pretty worthless on their own. Get a GPS location from your friend, tell him to log the finds and hand them over to whichever organisation handles archeology in that area and let them deal with it.","human_ref_B":"Artifacts \"out of context\" are still significant to Tribes. Perhaps contact one of the local tribes in the area. *Im an Archaeolgist for a Tribe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":606.0,"score_ratio":4.0789473684} {"post_id":"qtx8gk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"A friend found some artifacts that I believe could be import evidence for North American history I live in British Columbia. A while ago a friend of mine was kayaking in the Kootenay river in the fall when the water was quite low. He came to a and bar that's normally a few feet under water and there he found a handfull of arrow heads, two stone hammers and what he thought was an obsidian axe head. He took the ace head to a local rock shop where the owner was fairly confident that the ace head is made from jade. The only place jade naturally occurs (as far as I know) is the Yukan\/British Columbia boarder. The peopling of North America has always been an interest of mine. We know people came by some form near the bering straight. We know one of the oldest settlements was found along the Columbia River, which the Kootenay river is a major tributary. There's also a carved stone in our local museum that's believed to be 9,000 years old and at one point was one of the oldest man made objects ever discovered in North America. Our local native band the Yaqan Nukiy people have a unique traditional way of building kayaks, interestingly the only other culture that makes kayaks in the same fashion is found in Siberia. I believe my friends discovery may be of historical significance but my friend is afraid to tell anyone because he wants to keep the items and doesn't want them taken away. Can anyone with knowledge on the subject way in? Can I get some advice on how to talk to him about it?","c_root_id_A":"hkmk69j","c_root_id_B":"hkmmc4j","created_at_utc_A":1636918975,"created_at_utc_B":1636919793,"score_A":38,"score_B":89,"human_ref_A":"They're out of context finds, so pretty worthless on their own. Get a GPS location from your friend, tell him to log the finds and hand them over to whichever organisation handles archeology in that area and let them deal with it.","human_ref_B":"Ugh I wish people would stop taking objects out of context. A piece of cloth is worthless on its own. A piece of cloth with special dyes from a far-away place indicates trade, maybe a hierarchical society, what the cloth may have been used for, and why or when it was originally deposited. Another reason to report is that archaeologists will want to investigate the site as soon as possible, especially by a riverbed. If those objects were exposed, there may be a site further up the river. Morally and ethically, it's simply not his heritage to keep. The British Museum and hundreds here in America are full of objects people stole, took out of context, and hid away for years. \"Finders keepers\" is why many local tribes here in the Midwest and indigenous societies elsewhere are reluctant to work with us. Imagine if someone \"found\" one of his relative's important possessions and kept it on a shelf to collect dust, instead of returning it to the rightful heirs or giving it to a place that would preserve it for descendants. Now imagine people had been doing the same to his family for a few hundred years. Regardless, report the find. At the very least, some of the CRM professionals can do their thing and hopefully find something more at the site.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":818.0,"score_ratio":2.3421052632} {"post_id":"qtx8gk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"A friend found some artifacts that I believe could be import evidence for North American history I live in British Columbia. A while ago a friend of mine was kayaking in the Kootenay river in the fall when the water was quite low. He came to a and bar that's normally a few feet under water and there he found a handfull of arrow heads, two stone hammers and what he thought was an obsidian axe head. He took the ace head to a local rock shop where the owner was fairly confident that the ace head is made from jade. The only place jade naturally occurs (as far as I know) is the Yukan\/British Columbia boarder. The peopling of North America has always been an interest of mine. We know people came by some form near the bering straight. We know one of the oldest settlements was found along the Columbia River, which the Kootenay river is a major tributary. There's also a carved stone in our local museum that's believed to be 9,000 years old and at one point was one of the oldest man made objects ever discovered in North America. Our local native band the Yaqan Nukiy people have a unique traditional way of building kayaks, interestingly the only other culture that makes kayaks in the same fashion is found in Siberia. I believe my friends discovery may be of historical significance but my friend is afraid to tell anyone because he wants to keep the items and doesn't want them taken away. Can anyone with knowledge on the subject way in? Can I get some advice on how to talk to him about it?","c_root_id_A":"hkp2qqw","c_root_id_B":"hkp0lt3","created_at_utc_A":1636962477,"created_at_utc_B":1636960823,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I get that your friend wants to keep the artifacts. It\u2019s wrong, but I get it. But wouldn\u2019t this friend at least be willing to reveal the location so the site could be investigated by a professional?","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not familiar with BC archaeology or it\u2019s laws regarding finding Native American items. However, I did a lot of surveys on privately owned land after cannabis cultivation went legal in California. Some people would happily show us to areas where they had found items, or grab a box of collected items out of their house for us to document. Others would refuse to disclose anything to us, and insist on keeping the items if we located any (it was found on land they owned, so legally they own everything on it even if it doesn\u2019t technically \u201cbelong\u201d to them). Everyone\u2019s different, but most would come around to letting the tribe have it back once we explained to them how important these things were to them. Again, not familiar with tribes in your area and what they believe\/practice, but just for an example; some tribes here believe that everything is alive. The stones, trees, grasses, dirt, they\u2019re all living, breathing things. So having a box full of pestles and projectile points sitting in a box in their dark closet collecting dust isn\u2019t where they\u2019re meant to be. If they wanted to keep the items, we\u2019d at least ask that they put them outside in a nice spot. The tribes don\u2019t always want stuff back (they may not have the space or need for it). But if nothing has been found in that area before, your friend would be so helpful in letting them know what he found and where he found it. At the minimum this could just give some good info, providing more proof that X people did inhabit that area. At the maximum it could expand X\u2019s tribal territory if they previously didn\u2019t have physical proof of inhabiting that area. Hopefully this helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1654.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv1zm5","c_root_id_B":"ggv2rfx","created_at_utc_A":1608778160,"created_at_utc_B":1608778607,"score_A":8,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","human_ref_B":"I'm an archaeologist In England, so forgive me if I misunderstand some of the context for this. I would have thought you have a pretty brilliant opportunity to work with these communities. Scientists can often be pretty bad at communicating with those outside of their field, and people are often untrusting of those outside of their community. As a member of both groups, I would have thought your in a brilliant position to help bridge a bit of this gap. Someone that knows what both groups want, and that both groups will listen too as an insider. Some people might get pissed off, but surely you could do a lot of good?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":447.0,"score_ratio":6.625} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv8gfa","c_root_id_B":"ggv9bbt","created_at_utc_A":1608781998,"created_at_utc_B":1608782523,"score_A":38,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"I am a former archaeologist and worked at native sites in Virginia. I was fortunate to have good mentors in this regard. They worked with native tribes to train them in archaeology so that they could be a part of the process and take control of their past. Because of that, I think being a member of a tribe could be very positive and empowering for your community. If you want an example of how archaeological cooperation with native tribes can be done correctly, I would look up the excavations at Werowocomoco near Gloucester, VA under Dr. Martin Gallivan of the College of William & Mary. He helped train several members of the Pamunkey tribe in archaeological techniques and helped ensure that the Pamunkey nation maintained control over a significant cultural location after the excavations were complete.","human_ref_B":"1. You'll never make everyone happy no matter what you do. 2. People avoid tribal politics by not working for their own nation, generally. 3. Ice age archaeology in North America still has ties to living people. 4. Maybe look up indigenous archeology? It's a sub-discipline focused on doing research by, for, and with the nations impacted. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Tribal Historic Preservation Office runs a field school with the University of Washington. There might be other similar field schools but that's the one I'm familiar with.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":525.0,"score_ratio":1.1842105263} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv74h0","c_root_id_B":"ggv9bbt","created_at_utc_A":1608781186,"created_at_utc_B":1608782523,"score_A":18,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Have you ever heard the Life In Ruins\/Our Ruined Lives Podcast? One of the hosts is Indigenous and a few episodes talk about Indigenous Archaeology in the USA...also there is another one on the Archpod network, Heritage Voices (I think) that talk about what you are asking, maybe try reaching out to them as well","human_ref_B":"1. You'll never make everyone happy no matter what you do. 2. People avoid tribal politics by not working for their own nation, generally. 3. Ice age archaeology in North America still has ties to living people. 4. Maybe look up indigenous archeology? It's a sub-discipline focused on doing research by, for, and with the nations impacted. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Tribal Historic Preservation Office runs a field school with the University of Washington. There might be other similar field schools but that's the one I'm familiar with.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1337.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv9bbt","c_root_id_B":"ggv6f0d","created_at_utc_A":1608782523,"created_at_utc_B":1608780747,"score_A":45,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"1. You'll never make everyone happy no matter what you do. 2. People avoid tribal politics by not working for their own nation, generally. 3. Ice age archaeology in North America still has ties to living people. 4. Maybe look up indigenous archeology? It's a sub-discipline focused on doing research by, for, and with the nations impacted. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Tribal Historic Preservation Office runs a field school with the University of Washington. There might be other similar field schools but that's the one I'm familiar with.","human_ref_B":"A very good and important question. You might ask around about schools that specifically have reputations for doing work that is actively engaged with local tribal communities. You may also see if your tribe has tribal archaeologist\/historical preservation positions, which would allow you to work with your own tribe\u2019s artifacts\/historical records and would be a great way to promote historical preservation. As you said, another good option would be to place your focus earlier, although there are still potentially some similar ethical quandaries there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1776.0,"score_ratio":3.75} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv1zm5","c_root_id_B":"ggv9bbt","created_at_utc_A":1608778160,"created_at_utc_B":1608782523,"score_A":8,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","human_ref_B":"1. You'll never make everyone happy no matter what you do. 2. People avoid tribal politics by not working for their own nation, generally. 3. Ice age archaeology in North America still has ties to living people. 4. Maybe look up indigenous archeology? It's a sub-discipline focused on doing research by, for, and with the nations impacted. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Tribal Historic Preservation Office runs a field school with the University of Washington. There might be other similar field schools but that's the one I'm familiar with.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4363.0,"score_ratio":5.625} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv9bbt","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608782523,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":45,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"1. You'll never make everyone happy no matter what you do. 2. People avoid tribal politics by not working for their own nation, generally. 3. Ice age archaeology in North America still has ties to living people. 4. Maybe look up indigenous archeology? It's a sub-discipline focused on doing research by, for, and with the nations impacted. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Tribal Historic Preservation Office runs a field school with the University of Washington. There might be other similar field schools but that's the one I'm familiar with.","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":129.0,"score_ratio":11.25} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv74h0","c_root_id_B":"ggv8gfa","created_at_utc_A":1608781186,"created_at_utc_B":1608781998,"score_A":18,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Have you ever heard the Life In Ruins\/Our Ruined Lives Podcast? One of the hosts is Indigenous and a few episodes talk about Indigenous Archaeology in the USA...also there is another one on the Archpod network, Heritage Voices (I think) that talk about what you are asking, maybe try reaching out to them as well","human_ref_B":"I am a former archaeologist and worked at native sites in Virginia. I was fortunate to have good mentors in this regard. They worked with native tribes to train them in archaeology so that they could be a part of the process and take control of their past. Because of that, I think being a member of a tribe could be very positive and empowering for your community. If you want an example of how archaeological cooperation with native tribes can be done correctly, I would look up the excavations at Werowocomoco near Gloucester, VA under Dr. Martin Gallivan of the College of William & Mary. He helped train several members of the Pamunkey tribe in archaeological techniques and helped ensure that the Pamunkey nation maintained control over a significant cultural location after the excavations were complete.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":812.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv6f0d","c_root_id_B":"ggv8gfa","created_at_utc_A":1608780747,"created_at_utc_B":1608781998,"score_A":12,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"A very good and important question. You might ask around about schools that specifically have reputations for doing work that is actively engaged with local tribal communities. You may also see if your tribe has tribal archaeologist\/historical preservation positions, which would allow you to work with your own tribe\u2019s artifacts\/historical records and would be a great way to promote historical preservation. As you said, another good option would be to place your focus earlier, although there are still potentially some similar ethical quandaries there.","human_ref_B":"I am a former archaeologist and worked at native sites in Virginia. I was fortunate to have good mentors in this regard. They worked with native tribes to train them in archaeology so that they could be a part of the process and take control of their past. Because of that, I think being a member of a tribe could be very positive and empowering for your community. If you want an example of how archaeological cooperation with native tribes can be done correctly, I would look up the excavations at Werowocomoco near Gloucester, VA under Dr. Martin Gallivan of the College of William & Mary. He helped train several members of the Pamunkey tribe in archaeological techniques and helped ensure that the Pamunkey nation maintained control over a significant cultural location after the excavations were complete.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1251.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv8gfa","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608781998,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":38,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I am a former archaeologist and worked at native sites in Virginia. I was fortunate to have good mentors in this regard. They worked with native tribes to train them in archaeology so that they could be a part of the process and take control of their past. Because of that, I think being a member of a tribe could be very positive and empowering for your community. If you want an example of how archaeological cooperation with native tribes can be done correctly, I would look up the excavations at Werowocomoco near Gloucester, VA under Dr. Martin Gallivan of the College of William & Mary. He helped train several members of the Pamunkey tribe in archaeological techniques and helped ensure that the Pamunkey nation maintained control over a significant cultural location after the excavations were complete.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3838.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv74h0","c_root_id_B":"ggv6f0d","created_at_utc_A":1608781186,"created_at_utc_B":1608780747,"score_A":18,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Have you ever heard the Life In Ruins\/Our Ruined Lives Podcast? One of the hosts is Indigenous and a few episodes talk about Indigenous Archaeology in the USA...also there is another one on the Archpod network, Heritage Voices (I think) that talk about what you are asking, maybe try reaching out to them as well","human_ref_B":"A very good and important question. You might ask around about schools that specifically have reputations for doing work that is actively engaged with local tribal communities. You may also see if your tribe has tribal archaeologist\/historical preservation positions, which would allow you to work with your own tribe\u2019s artifacts\/historical records and would be a great way to promote historical preservation. As you said, another good option would be to place your focus earlier, although there are still potentially some similar ethical quandaries there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":439.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv74h0","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608781186,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":18,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Have you ever heard the Life In Ruins\/Our Ruined Lives Podcast? One of the hosts is Indigenous and a few episodes talk about Indigenous Archaeology in the USA...also there is another one on the Archpod network, Heritage Voices (I think) that talk about what you are asking, maybe try reaching out to them as well","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3026.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv6f0d","c_root_id_B":"ggv9nfq","created_at_utc_A":1608780747,"created_at_utc_B":1608782736,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"A very good and important question. You might ask around about schools that specifically have reputations for doing work that is actively engaged with local tribal communities. You may also see if your tribe has tribal archaeologist\/historical preservation positions, which would allow you to work with your own tribe\u2019s artifacts\/historical records and would be a great way to promote historical preservation. As you said, another good option would be to place your focus earlier, although there are still potentially some similar ethical quandaries there.","human_ref_B":"This is such a great topic and one that has been written on extensively where I work (Australia). I'm not Indigenous and wouldn't dare speak on behalf of another community; I do work with a number of archaeological colleagues who are Indigenous and we've had discussions similar to this regarding respectful practices and engaging with the archaeological record. I'll try to offer some insight from an Australian perspective: The situation might be different here, but promotion of Indigenous sovereignty (we refer to it in my State as \"self-determination\"), restoration of material (Ancestral Remains in particular), and community-based work\/research projects are what most of us archaeologists strive for. The latter is especially important - the majority of large projects that occur outside of the Heritage Management space are done at the invitation of Indigenous communities. My PhD project, for example, was driven by a community wanting to reconnect with their Country and obtain an archaeological understanding of their past\/sacred places. It was about taking that Western scientific knowledge, and integrating it with traditional knowledge systems. In terms of specific actions: in some cases the Indigenous archaeologists will only work on their Country; in others they will only work on another clan's Country after obtaining additional permissions from the relevant Elders. I have witnessed a bit of backlash and conflict from their Indigenous friends and family, however that seems to stem from a general distrust of Government institutions (such as the agency where I work) and the past practices of Universities\/researchers rather than looking down on the Indigenous archaeologists themselves. That backlash fades after we've earned the trust of the communities we are working with. As a non-Indigenous archaeologist I think it's so important that more Indigenous archaeologists join the discipline in all its facets. It builds greater bridges between the archaeological communities and Indigenous groups, after decades of abuse, mistrust, and horrible archaeological practices. More importantly it gives non-Indigenous archaeologists, like myself, an opportunity to expand our worldviews and ways of seeing the archaeological record. I've certainly grown in my career and approaches as a result. That's probably a bit of a ramble, but I hope there are some threads in there that are helpful or offer some insight.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1989.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv9nfq","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608782736,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":14,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"This is such a great topic and one that has been written on extensively where I work (Australia). I'm not Indigenous and wouldn't dare speak on behalf of another community; I do work with a number of archaeological colleagues who are Indigenous and we've had discussions similar to this regarding respectful practices and engaging with the archaeological record. I'll try to offer some insight from an Australian perspective: The situation might be different here, but promotion of Indigenous sovereignty (we refer to it in my State as \"self-determination\"), restoration of material (Ancestral Remains in particular), and community-based work\/research projects are what most of us archaeologists strive for. The latter is especially important - the majority of large projects that occur outside of the Heritage Management space are done at the invitation of Indigenous communities. My PhD project, for example, was driven by a community wanting to reconnect with their Country and obtain an archaeological understanding of their past\/sacred places. It was about taking that Western scientific knowledge, and integrating it with traditional knowledge systems. In terms of specific actions: in some cases the Indigenous archaeologists will only work on their Country; in others they will only work on another clan's Country after obtaining additional permissions from the relevant Elders. I have witnessed a bit of backlash and conflict from their Indigenous friends and family, however that seems to stem from a general distrust of Government institutions (such as the agency where I work) and the past practices of Universities\/researchers rather than looking down on the Indigenous archaeologists themselves. That backlash fades after we've earned the trust of the communities we are working with. As a non-Indigenous archaeologist I think it's so important that more Indigenous archaeologists join the discipline in all its facets. It builds greater bridges between the archaeological communities and Indigenous groups, after decades of abuse, mistrust, and horrible archaeological practices. More importantly it gives non-Indigenous archaeologists, like myself, an opportunity to expand our worldviews and ways of seeing the archaeological record. I've certainly grown in my career and approaches as a result. That's probably a bit of a ramble, but I hope there are some threads in there that are helpful or offer some insight.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4576.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv93y5","c_root_id_B":"ggv9nfq","created_at_utc_A":1608782394,"created_at_utc_B":1608782736,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","human_ref_B":"This is such a great topic and one that has been written on extensively where I work (Australia). I'm not Indigenous and wouldn't dare speak on behalf of another community; I do work with a number of archaeological colleagues who are Indigenous and we've had discussions similar to this regarding respectful practices and engaging with the archaeological record. I'll try to offer some insight from an Australian perspective: The situation might be different here, but promotion of Indigenous sovereignty (we refer to it in my State as \"self-determination\"), restoration of material (Ancestral Remains in particular), and community-based work\/research projects are what most of us archaeologists strive for. The latter is especially important - the majority of large projects that occur outside of the Heritage Management space are done at the invitation of Indigenous communities. My PhD project, for example, was driven by a community wanting to reconnect with their Country and obtain an archaeological understanding of their past\/sacred places. It was about taking that Western scientific knowledge, and integrating it with traditional knowledge systems. In terms of specific actions: in some cases the Indigenous archaeologists will only work on their Country; in others they will only work on another clan's Country after obtaining additional permissions from the relevant Elders. I have witnessed a bit of backlash and conflict from their Indigenous friends and family, however that seems to stem from a general distrust of Government institutions (such as the agency where I work) and the past practices of Universities\/researchers rather than looking down on the Indigenous archaeologists themselves. That backlash fades after we've earned the trust of the communities we are working with. As a non-Indigenous archaeologist I think it's so important that more Indigenous archaeologists join the discipline in all its facets. It builds greater bridges between the archaeological communities and Indigenous groups, after decades of abuse, mistrust, and horrible archaeological practices. More importantly it gives non-Indigenous archaeologists, like myself, an opportunity to expand our worldviews and ways of seeing the archaeological record. I've certainly grown in my career and approaches as a result. That's probably a bit of a ramble, but I hope there are some threads in there that are helpful or offer some insight.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":342.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggv6f0d","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608780747,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"A very good and important question. You might ask around about schools that specifically have reputations for doing work that is actively engaged with local tribal communities. You may also see if your tribe has tribal archaeologist\/historical preservation positions, which would allow you to work with your own tribe\u2019s artifacts\/historical records and would be a great way to promote historical preservation. As you said, another good option would be to place your focus earlier, although there are still potentially some similar ethical quandaries there.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2587.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvo0hz","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608793328,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Not an archaeologist, but someone who works with many. Representation in your field as a Native person is absolutely critical. Excuse me to others here, but Archaeology has been led by old whites guys for so long, the narratives are often through their conclusions and interpretations, absent any tribal perspective. Even with your period of choice, some communities still have understandings of this time period or those \u201cfirst people\u201d or \u201cancient\u201d people. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a conflict at all, but I think your work and representation has a huge impact on illuminating those ties.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15168.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvo0hz","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608793328,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Not an archaeologist, but someone who works with many. Representation in your field as a Native person is absolutely critical. Excuse me to others here, but Archaeology has been led by old whites guys for so long, the narratives are often through their conclusions and interpretations, absent any tribal perspective. Even with your period of choice, some communities still have understandings of this time period or those \u201cfirst people\u201d or \u201cancient\u201d people. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a conflict at all, but I think your work and representation has a huge impact on illuminating those ties.","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10934.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvh9tm","c_root_id_B":"ggvo0hz","created_at_utc_A":1608787847,"created_at_utc_B":1608793328,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","human_ref_B":"Not an archaeologist, but someone who works with many. Representation in your field as a Native person is absolutely critical. Excuse me to others here, but Archaeology has been led by old whites guys for so long, the narratives are often through their conclusions and interpretations, absent any tribal perspective. Even with your period of choice, some communities still have understandings of this time period or those \u201cfirst people\u201d or \u201cancient\u201d people. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a conflict at all, but I think your work and representation has a huge impact on illuminating those ties.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5481.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvva27","c_root_id_B":"ggv1zm5","created_at_utc_A":1608800671,"created_at_utc_B":1608778160,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Does your tribe have a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) or an office that deals with repatriation and CRM issues? If so, I'd start there. Reach out and ask for a meeting to talk this through. Tribes have developed some very interesting ways to manage the issues you are talking about and many have introduced new perspectives to the field based on their own priorities. There are a number of well-known native archaeologists in academia including at the Smithsonian. They tend to be very friendly and would happily talk to you. There are some great opportunities ahead for you and it is good that you are taking a deliberate and thoughtful path. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t help at all, but it\u2019s a great question and it\u2019s a big thing to consider when coming into this field. I\u2019ve even considered giving up archaeology because of it. It might be more helpful asking archaeologists who are native, if you can. I know that there are jobs in repatriation, maybe that\u2019s something to consider. I\u2019d suggest looking into working under tribal historic preservation offices, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22511.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvqgog","c_root_id_B":"ggvva27","created_at_utc_A":1608795667,"created_at_utc_B":1608800671,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Non-indigenous non-white person commenting to second u\/cindrane 's comment with a similarly long post from doing de-colonization advocacy in+with other institutions and academic fields and communities--you may need to create and set the policy for how to prioritize honoring sovereignty, culture, elders, the nation's council, etc. You may benefit from crossposting to r\/nativeamerican r\/indigenous and the like as well. As in: find something like ways to set up in the contracts and proposals a participatory\/co-creative approach and agreement. Because some institutions, including their esteemed Ph.D holding professors, can or will be complete jerks if not straight up colonizers about how they uphold their institutional norms at the expense of the community despite their claims. There are also non-intrusive tools and approaches which may be worth pursuing use and expertise in. i.e. remote sensing with LIDAR \/ seismic resonance\/imaging, Geographic Information Systems for cartography or other data-overlayed purposes related to land, sites, geo-locating stories or known communities, etc. So maybe get a resolution and set up a standard for non-intrusive\/extractive approaches to archeology instead; or stipulate specific things like loose artifacts (stray arrowheads?) Etc. But at the very least start by consulting the elders and knowledge holders + other folks in the community; read into alternative paradigms for research (there's an article on 5 paradigms for research in the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Fein 2003; also Jennifer Gidley's futures studies youtube videos which might give a similar overview of the current ways folks look behind classics academia's conventions for doing research) especially participatory action. And remember, NAGPRA + US treaties are written mostly from a US perspective but often are \/supposed to be\/ interpreted in court of law favorably towards the First Nations. Most folks know that the written US treaties were not upheld or even designed stacked against the first nations' favor. Sometimes you'll need to find elders and heritage keepers to see what their treaty belts and whether any oral history etc. Are preserved from their nation's records as well. If\/when Sen. Haaland gets confirmed as Sec. To the Dept. Of Interior, that will affect NAGPRA and treaty policy for sure, so keep that in mind just in case. Also, tokenization and grad student exploitation is a real issue even among advisors and students who seem to get along so be vigilant about whether they try shuffling you or using your identity as a way to access and exploit a community of interest. Check with past students, sites, and projects about how and who had been engaged+what their experience with the researchers was. The fact that other folks are hostile towards the institution, may also hold true for other places that were affected by your own too. So if you need to buy yourself some time or are more interested in keeping stuff in the ground out of respect, maybe just go completely meta and focus on publishing critiques about the way archeology is done altogether and side with the various folks you might engage to get a more representative critique articulated plus develop approaches as they desire. Check these out also: https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/theresa-kintz-radical-archaeology-as-dissent Also, this panel discussion on indigenous and black feminist reimaginings for archeology is coming up January 13th: https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/archaeology\/reimagining-archaeological-knowledge\/ Maybe some of the folks there might have thoughts or an existing body of praxis too. And maybe on the cartography front this can be a branch to look into too: http:\/\/radicalcartography.net From there, check to see if any other subreddit and facebook groups exist using similar key terms too. Pasting in random articles partly for my own curiosity as well, can't vouch for any of them but looks like there's a real strain of folks active in decolonizing archeology--whether it's just talk and paper critiques from mostly white people or actual action with repatriation\/rematriation etc. Is TBD. https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/realarchaeology\/2017\/09\/17\/decolonizing-archaeology\/ https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/a-voice-to-confront-one-woman-s-journey-to-decolonize-archeology-1.5137875 https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/282663062_Decolonising_Archaeological_Theory https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/324721961_Decolonial_archaeology_as_social_justice https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/antiquity\/article\/abs\/decolonial-archaeology-as-social-justice\/F97869B66D55FD9782A0839A152A77C0","human_ref_B":"Does your tribe have a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) or an office that deals with repatriation and CRM issues? If so, I'd start there. Reach out and ask for a meeting to talk this through. Tribes have developed some very interesting ways to manage the issues you are talking about and many have introduced new perspectives to the field based on their own priorities. There are a number of well-known native archaeologists in academia including at the Smithsonian. They tend to be very friendly and would happily talk to you. There are some great opportunities ahead for you and it is good that you are taking a deliberate and thoughtful path. Good luck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5004.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvva27","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608800671,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Does your tribe have a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) or an office that deals with repatriation and CRM issues? If so, I'd start there. Reach out and ask for a meeting to talk this through. Tribes have developed some very interesting ways to manage the issues you are talking about and many have introduced new perspectives to the field based on their own priorities. There are a number of well-known native archaeologists in academia including at the Smithsonian. They tend to be very friendly and would happily talk to you. There are some great opportunities ahead for you and it is good that you are taking a deliberate and thoughtful path. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18277.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvh9tm","c_root_id_B":"ggvva27","created_at_utc_A":1608787847,"created_at_utc_B":1608800671,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","human_ref_B":"Does your tribe have a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) or an office that deals with repatriation and CRM issues? If so, I'd start there. Reach out and ask for a meeting to talk this through. Tribes have developed some very interesting ways to manage the issues you are talking about and many have introduced new perspectives to the field based on their own priorities. There are a number of well-known native archaeologists in academia including at the Smithsonian. They tend to be very friendly and would happily talk to you. There are some great opportunities ahead for you and it is good that you are taking a deliberate and thoughtful path. Good luck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12824.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvqgog","c_root_id_B":"ggx3bfa","created_at_utc_A":1608795667,"created_at_utc_B":1608834274,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Non-indigenous non-white person commenting to second u\/cindrane 's comment with a similarly long post from doing de-colonization advocacy in+with other institutions and academic fields and communities--you may need to create and set the policy for how to prioritize honoring sovereignty, culture, elders, the nation's council, etc. You may benefit from crossposting to r\/nativeamerican r\/indigenous and the like as well. As in: find something like ways to set up in the contracts and proposals a participatory\/co-creative approach and agreement. Because some institutions, including their esteemed Ph.D holding professors, can or will be complete jerks if not straight up colonizers about how they uphold their institutional norms at the expense of the community despite their claims. There are also non-intrusive tools and approaches which may be worth pursuing use and expertise in. i.e. remote sensing with LIDAR \/ seismic resonance\/imaging, Geographic Information Systems for cartography or other data-overlayed purposes related to land, sites, geo-locating stories or known communities, etc. So maybe get a resolution and set up a standard for non-intrusive\/extractive approaches to archeology instead; or stipulate specific things like loose artifacts (stray arrowheads?) Etc. But at the very least start by consulting the elders and knowledge holders + other folks in the community; read into alternative paradigms for research (there's an article on 5 paradigms for research in the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Fein 2003; also Jennifer Gidley's futures studies youtube videos which might give a similar overview of the current ways folks look behind classics academia's conventions for doing research) especially participatory action. And remember, NAGPRA + US treaties are written mostly from a US perspective but often are \/supposed to be\/ interpreted in court of law favorably towards the First Nations. Most folks know that the written US treaties were not upheld or even designed stacked against the first nations' favor. Sometimes you'll need to find elders and heritage keepers to see what their treaty belts and whether any oral history etc. Are preserved from their nation's records as well. If\/when Sen. Haaland gets confirmed as Sec. To the Dept. Of Interior, that will affect NAGPRA and treaty policy for sure, so keep that in mind just in case. Also, tokenization and grad student exploitation is a real issue even among advisors and students who seem to get along so be vigilant about whether they try shuffling you or using your identity as a way to access and exploit a community of interest. Check with past students, sites, and projects about how and who had been engaged+what their experience with the researchers was. The fact that other folks are hostile towards the institution, may also hold true for other places that were affected by your own too. So if you need to buy yourself some time or are more interested in keeping stuff in the ground out of respect, maybe just go completely meta and focus on publishing critiques about the way archeology is done altogether and side with the various folks you might engage to get a more representative critique articulated plus develop approaches as they desire. Check these out also: https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/theresa-kintz-radical-archaeology-as-dissent Also, this panel discussion on indigenous and black feminist reimaginings for archeology is coming up January 13th: https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/archaeology\/reimagining-archaeological-knowledge\/ Maybe some of the folks there might have thoughts or an existing body of praxis too. And maybe on the cartography front this can be a branch to look into too: http:\/\/radicalcartography.net From there, check to see if any other subreddit and facebook groups exist using similar key terms too. Pasting in random articles partly for my own curiosity as well, can't vouch for any of them but looks like there's a real strain of folks active in decolonizing archeology--whether it's just talk and paper critiques from mostly white people or actual action with repatriation\/rematriation etc. Is TBD. https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/realarchaeology\/2017\/09\/17\/decolonizing-archaeology\/ https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/a-voice-to-confront-one-woman-s-journey-to-decolonize-archeology-1.5137875 https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/282663062_Decolonising_Archaeological_Theory https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/324721961_Decolonial_archaeology_as_social_justice https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/antiquity\/article\/abs\/decolonial-archaeology-as-social-justice\/F97869B66D55FD9782A0839A152A77C0","human_ref_B":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38607.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggw8mpm","c_root_id_B":"ggx3bfa","created_at_utc_A":1608815040,"created_at_utc_B":1608834274,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I am an archaeologist in the US that works with many Native American tribes on the recovery and repatriation of NAGPRA items including inadvertent discoveries ( human remains). As you know, tribal views on human remains vary throughout the US. The answer to your question will really depend on your job and what agency you represent. Archaeology needs more tribal archaeologists. Our discipline has lacked, and disregarded, the tribal perspective for far too long. You are exactly right, some people will get pissed and not understand. But it\u2019s very important that you help archaeologists understand the native perspective and vice versa. It will be your job to bridge the gap. A very important job that will \u201cdo a lot of good\u201d","human_ref_B":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19234.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggx3bfa","c_root_id_B":"ggw8tk5","created_at_utc_A":1608834274,"created_at_utc_B":1608815206,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","human_ref_B":">I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? Many of the Tribes I consult with employ their own archaeologists. Some of them are stuck relying on non-Native contractors because Native American archaeologists are somewhat rare. Many of them have Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and employ archaeologists in those departments. The Native American community doesn't \"hate\" archaeology, and many Tribes consider it critical to understanding their history in the Americas. Ultimately, it's very individualized how different people feel about it. You're never going to avoid offense entirely, no matter what you do. If you really want to do archaeology in North America and want to focus on Native American history, there's a place for you in the field. >I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Questions about the colonization of the Americas are contentious. The topic is anything but controversy free. In fact, it's one of the more contentious parts of American archaeology. If your goal is to avoid controversy and conflict, \"peopling of the Americas\" isn't the subject for you. The subject also is a sore point for some Native American groups, in part because it's seen by some as trying to co-opt their primacy in the Americas. The fact is that any archaeological research focused on Native American history-- pre-Columbian or post-Contact-- in the US is subject to potential Native American consultation and involvement. There's not a cutoff before which Native American communities aren't going to get involved if you're working in the US. At any rate, the goal isn't to avoid, it's to collaborate. Many Tribes would welcome a Native American archaeologist on consultations, on either side. There are job postings I've seen *recently* for Tribal archaeologists (saw one the other day for the Osage in Oklahoma). You seem to be taking the view that I recognize as one held by archaeologists in the era immediately before NAGPRA was passed and in the era immediately afterward, that interaction with and cooperation with Native American Tribes was best avoided. That's not the prevalent attitude among most practicing archaeologists today, and I would encourage you to look at a bit more information about indigenous American archaeology and representation. Some of the replies in this thread can help you focus your inquiries in that direction. >I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. Your other goals seem counter to this. How can you do these things while going to great pains to avoid interacting with Native American groups in the US?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19068.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggx3bfa","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608834274,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":51880.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggx3bfa","c_root_id_B":"ggvh9tm","created_at_utc_A":1608834274,"created_at_utc_B":1608787847,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","human_ref_B":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":46427.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggx3bfa","c_root_id_B":"ggx197c","created_at_utc_A":1608834274,"created_at_utc_B":1608833110,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm a California Indian and retired archaeologist. How to do archaeology without offending other natives: You do this by talking to them. Most archaeology that is done in the US is done in the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) arena. That is, it is done as part of the legal compliance for construction and development projects. Tribes in the US know all about this process and most large tribes have Tribal Historic Preservation offices and officers (THPO). THPOs often have training in archaeology and\/or CRM. You need to find one near you and talk to them. It makes absolutely no difference how old remains are, tribal people have an interest and feel a connection with them. The Kennewick Man fiasco proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. I started my career in the 1970s following grad school by working for a native conservation agency doing surveys and participating in excavations where I was the liaison between CRM firms and native groups. I went on to do major CRM surveys and excavations working as part of a native organization. I later became a consulting archaeologist and did that for 20 years before becoming an agency archaeologist and environmental compliance guy. The way you make this work is by being open, honest and diligent in contacting the pertinent native people and explaining the necessity of doing the archaeological research, and asking for their input on what should be done within the parameters of the CRM laws. If you want to do pure research (non-CRM work), the process is the same. You need to find the pertinent natives related to the area you want to work in and explain your rationale for your project. You need to brace yourself for pushback on doing non-CRM work as most of the native people I have met have been opposed to doing archaeological work that is not absolutely necessary to protect resources from destruction. Do not expect to be able to pick a specialty like \"Ice Age Archaeology\" and find work in it. As I stated above most archaeology in the states is CRM work. It is very \"blue collar\" work. You take it where you can get it. You will need to follow the construction work and be prepared to quickly catch up on the ethnographic and archaeological contexts of your project area. Good luck.","human_ref_B":"*Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists* by Margaret M. Bruchac is a fantastic read about some native American experiences in 20th century anthropology. Highly recommend it, even though it's more oriented towards sociocultural work compared to archaeology. There's room for archaeology in the tribes, it's the grave robbing and religious desecration that's the big concern(ymmv). Like others say, collaboration is essential. Does your local tribe have a museum? I would recommend contacting them about volunteering or interning, that'll give you a much more profound perspective on what is acceptable or not for your community. If yours doesn't have a museum, but another one does, try that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1164.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvqgog","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608795667,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Non-indigenous non-white person commenting to second u\/cindrane 's comment with a similarly long post from doing de-colonization advocacy in+with other institutions and academic fields and communities--you may need to create and set the policy for how to prioritize honoring sovereignty, culture, elders, the nation's council, etc. You may benefit from crossposting to r\/nativeamerican r\/indigenous and the like as well. As in: find something like ways to set up in the contracts and proposals a participatory\/co-creative approach and agreement. Because some institutions, including their esteemed Ph.D holding professors, can or will be complete jerks if not straight up colonizers about how they uphold their institutional norms at the expense of the community despite their claims. There are also non-intrusive tools and approaches which may be worth pursuing use and expertise in. i.e. remote sensing with LIDAR \/ seismic resonance\/imaging, Geographic Information Systems for cartography or other data-overlayed purposes related to land, sites, geo-locating stories or known communities, etc. So maybe get a resolution and set up a standard for non-intrusive\/extractive approaches to archeology instead; or stipulate specific things like loose artifacts (stray arrowheads?) Etc. But at the very least start by consulting the elders and knowledge holders + other folks in the community; read into alternative paradigms for research (there's an article on 5 paradigms for research in the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Fein 2003; also Jennifer Gidley's futures studies youtube videos which might give a similar overview of the current ways folks look behind classics academia's conventions for doing research) especially participatory action. And remember, NAGPRA + US treaties are written mostly from a US perspective but often are \/supposed to be\/ interpreted in court of law favorably towards the First Nations. Most folks know that the written US treaties were not upheld or even designed stacked against the first nations' favor. Sometimes you'll need to find elders and heritage keepers to see what their treaty belts and whether any oral history etc. Are preserved from their nation's records as well. If\/when Sen. Haaland gets confirmed as Sec. To the Dept. Of Interior, that will affect NAGPRA and treaty policy for sure, so keep that in mind just in case. Also, tokenization and grad student exploitation is a real issue even among advisors and students who seem to get along so be vigilant about whether they try shuffling you or using your identity as a way to access and exploit a community of interest. Check with past students, sites, and projects about how and who had been engaged+what their experience with the researchers was. The fact that other folks are hostile towards the institution, may also hold true for other places that were affected by your own too. So if you need to buy yourself some time or are more interested in keeping stuff in the ground out of respect, maybe just go completely meta and focus on publishing critiques about the way archeology is done altogether and side with the various folks you might engage to get a more representative critique articulated plus develop approaches as they desire. Check these out also: https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/theresa-kintz-radical-archaeology-as-dissent Also, this panel discussion on indigenous and black feminist reimaginings for archeology is coming up January 13th: https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/archaeology\/reimagining-archaeological-knowledge\/ Maybe some of the folks there might have thoughts or an existing body of praxis too. And maybe on the cartography front this can be a branch to look into too: http:\/\/radicalcartography.net From there, check to see if any other subreddit and facebook groups exist using similar key terms too. Pasting in random articles partly for my own curiosity as well, can't vouch for any of them but looks like there's a real strain of folks active in decolonizing archeology--whether it's just talk and paper critiques from mostly white people or actual action with repatriation\/rematriation etc. Is TBD. https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/realarchaeology\/2017\/09\/17\/decolonizing-archaeology\/ https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/a-voice-to-confront-one-woman-s-journey-to-decolonize-archeology-1.5137875 https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/282663062_Decolonising_Archaeological_Theory https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/324721961_Decolonial_archaeology_as_social_justice https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/antiquity\/article\/abs\/decolonial-archaeology-as-social-justice\/F97869B66D55FD9782A0839A152A77C0","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13273.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvqgog","c_root_id_B":"ggvh9tm","created_at_utc_A":1608795667,"created_at_utc_B":1608787847,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Non-indigenous non-white person commenting to second u\/cindrane 's comment with a similarly long post from doing de-colonization advocacy in+with other institutions and academic fields and communities--you may need to create and set the policy for how to prioritize honoring sovereignty, culture, elders, the nation's council, etc. You may benefit from crossposting to r\/nativeamerican r\/indigenous and the like as well. As in: find something like ways to set up in the contracts and proposals a participatory\/co-creative approach and agreement. Because some institutions, including their esteemed Ph.D holding professors, can or will be complete jerks if not straight up colonizers about how they uphold their institutional norms at the expense of the community despite their claims. There are also non-intrusive tools and approaches which may be worth pursuing use and expertise in. i.e. remote sensing with LIDAR \/ seismic resonance\/imaging, Geographic Information Systems for cartography or other data-overlayed purposes related to land, sites, geo-locating stories or known communities, etc. So maybe get a resolution and set up a standard for non-intrusive\/extractive approaches to archeology instead; or stipulate specific things like loose artifacts (stray arrowheads?) Etc. But at the very least start by consulting the elders and knowledge holders + other folks in the community; read into alternative paradigms for research (there's an article on 5 paradigms for research in the Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Fein 2003; also Jennifer Gidley's futures studies youtube videos which might give a similar overview of the current ways folks look behind classics academia's conventions for doing research) especially participatory action. And remember, NAGPRA + US treaties are written mostly from a US perspective but often are \/supposed to be\/ interpreted in court of law favorably towards the First Nations. Most folks know that the written US treaties were not upheld or even designed stacked against the first nations' favor. Sometimes you'll need to find elders and heritage keepers to see what their treaty belts and whether any oral history etc. Are preserved from their nation's records as well. If\/when Sen. Haaland gets confirmed as Sec. To the Dept. Of Interior, that will affect NAGPRA and treaty policy for sure, so keep that in mind just in case. Also, tokenization and grad student exploitation is a real issue even among advisors and students who seem to get along so be vigilant about whether they try shuffling you or using your identity as a way to access and exploit a community of interest. Check with past students, sites, and projects about how and who had been engaged+what their experience with the researchers was. The fact that other folks are hostile towards the institution, may also hold true for other places that were affected by your own too. So if you need to buy yourself some time or are more interested in keeping stuff in the ground out of respect, maybe just go completely meta and focus on publishing critiques about the way archeology is done altogether and side with the various folks you might engage to get a more representative critique articulated plus develop approaches as they desire. Check these out also: https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/theresa-kintz-radical-archaeology-as-dissent Also, this panel discussion on indigenous and black feminist reimaginings for archeology is coming up January 13th: https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/archaeology\/reimagining-archaeological-knowledge\/ Maybe some of the folks there might have thoughts or an existing body of praxis too. And maybe on the cartography front this can be a branch to look into too: http:\/\/radicalcartography.net From there, check to see if any other subreddit and facebook groups exist using similar key terms too. Pasting in random articles partly for my own curiosity as well, can't vouch for any of them but looks like there's a real strain of folks active in decolonizing archeology--whether it's just talk and paper critiques from mostly white people or actual action with repatriation\/rematriation etc. Is TBD. https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/realarchaeology\/2017\/09\/17\/decolonizing-archaeology\/ https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/a-voice-to-confront-one-woman-s-journey-to-decolonize-archeology-1.5137875 https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/282663062_Decolonising_Archaeological_Theory https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/324721961_Decolonial_archaeology_as_social_justice https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/antiquity\/article\/abs\/decolonial-archaeology-as-social-justice\/F97869B66D55FD9782A0839A152A77C0","human_ref_B":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7820.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggw8mpm","c_root_id_B":"ggw8tk5","created_at_utc_A":1608815040,"created_at_utc_B":1608815206,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I am an archaeologist in the US that works with many Native American tribes on the recovery and repatriation of NAGPRA items including inadvertent discoveries ( human remains). As you know, tribal views on human remains vary throughout the US. The answer to your question will really depend on your job and what agency you represent. Archaeology needs more tribal archaeologists. Our discipline has lacked, and disregarded, the tribal perspective for far too long. You are exactly right, some people will get pissed and not understand. But it\u2019s very important that you help archaeologists understand the native perspective and vice versa. It will be your job to bridge the gap. A very important job that will \u201cdo a lot of good\u201d","human_ref_B":">I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? Many of the Tribes I consult with employ their own archaeologists. Some of them are stuck relying on non-Native contractors because Native American archaeologists are somewhat rare. Many of them have Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and employ archaeologists in those departments. The Native American community doesn't \"hate\" archaeology, and many Tribes consider it critical to understanding their history in the Americas. Ultimately, it's very individualized how different people feel about it. You're never going to avoid offense entirely, no matter what you do. If you really want to do archaeology in North America and want to focus on Native American history, there's a place for you in the field. >I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Questions about the colonization of the Americas are contentious. The topic is anything but controversy free. In fact, it's one of the more contentious parts of American archaeology. If your goal is to avoid controversy and conflict, \"peopling of the Americas\" isn't the subject for you. The subject also is a sore point for some Native American groups, in part because it's seen by some as trying to co-opt their primacy in the Americas. The fact is that any archaeological research focused on Native American history-- pre-Columbian or post-Contact-- in the US is subject to potential Native American consultation and involvement. There's not a cutoff before which Native American communities aren't going to get involved if you're working in the US. At any rate, the goal isn't to avoid, it's to collaborate. Many Tribes would welcome a Native American archaeologist on consultations, on either side. There are job postings I've seen *recently* for Tribal archaeologists (saw one the other day for the Osage in Oklahoma). You seem to be taking the view that I recognize as one held by archaeologists in the era immediately before NAGPRA was passed and in the era immediately afterward, that interaction with and cooperation with Native American Tribes was best avoided. That's not the prevalent attitude among most practicing archaeologists today, and I would encourage you to look at a bit more information about indigenous American archaeology and representation. Some of the replies in this thread can help you focus your inquiries in that direction. >I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. Your other goals seem counter to this. How can you do these things while going to great pains to avoid interacting with Native American groups in the US?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":166.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggw8mpm","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608815040,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I am an archaeologist in the US that works with many Native American tribes on the recovery and repatriation of NAGPRA items including inadvertent discoveries ( human remains). As you know, tribal views on human remains vary throughout the US. The answer to your question will really depend on your job and what agency you represent. Archaeology needs more tribal archaeologists. Our discipline has lacked, and disregarded, the tribal perspective for far too long. You are exactly right, some people will get pissed and not understand. But it\u2019s very important that you help archaeologists understand the native perspective and vice versa. It will be your job to bridge the gap. A very important job that will \u201cdo a lot of good\u201d","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":32646.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvh9tm","c_root_id_B":"ggw8mpm","created_at_utc_A":1608787847,"created_at_utc_B":1608815040,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","human_ref_B":"I am an archaeologist in the US that works with many Native American tribes on the recovery and repatriation of NAGPRA items including inadvertent discoveries ( human remains). As you know, tribal views on human remains vary throughout the US. The answer to your question will really depend on your job and what agency you represent. Archaeology needs more tribal archaeologists. Our discipline has lacked, and disregarded, the tribal perspective for far too long. You are exactly right, some people will get pissed and not understand. But it\u2019s very important that you help archaeologists understand the native perspective and vice versa. It will be your job to bridge the gap. A very important job that will \u201cdo a lot of good\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27193.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggw8tk5","c_root_id_B":"ggv93y5","created_at_utc_A":1608815206,"created_at_utc_B":1608782394,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? Many of the Tribes I consult with employ their own archaeologists. Some of them are stuck relying on non-Native contractors because Native American archaeologists are somewhat rare. Many of them have Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and employ archaeologists in those departments. The Native American community doesn't \"hate\" archaeology, and many Tribes consider it critical to understanding their history in the Americas. Ultimately, it's very individualized how different people feel about it. You're never going to avoid offense entirely, no matter what you do. If you really want to do archaeology in North America and want to focus on Native American history, there's a place for you in the field. >I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Questions about the colonization of the Americas are contentious. The topic is anything but controversy free. In fact, it's one of the more contentious parts of American archaeology. If your goal is to avoid controversy and conflict, \"peopling of the Americas\" isn't the subject for you. The subject also is a sore point for some Native American groups, in part because it's seen by some as trying to co-opt their primacy in the Americas. The fact is that any archaeological research focused on Native American history-- pre-Columbian or post-Contact-- in the US is subject to potential Native American consultation and involvement. There's not a cutoff before which Native American communities aren't going to get involved if you're working in the US. At any rate, the goal isn't to avoid, it's to collaborate. Many Tribes would welcome a Native American archaeologist on consultations, on either side. There are job postings I've seen *recently* for Tribal archaeologists (saw one the other day for the Osage in Oklahoma). You seem to be taking the view that I recognize as one held by archaeologists in the era immediately before NAGPRA was passed and in the era immediately afterward, that interaction with and cooperation with Native American Tribes was best avoided. That's not the prevalent attitude among most practicing archaeologists today, and I would encourage you to look at a bit more information about indigenous American archaeology and representation. Some of the replies in this thread can help you focus your inquiries in that direction. >I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. Your other goals seem counter to this. How can you do these things while going to great pains to avoid interacting with Native American groups in the US?","human_ref_B":"You might want to look into what people have written about museum ethics in regards to sacred objects and human remains. I know there have been journal articles on this subject in the US. As well, New Zealand\u2019s national museum has really handled this topic well, and are a leader in international museum ethics. (I\u2019m a museum person so I tend to see things from that POV but there\u2019s a lot of overlap with anthropology\/archaeology, etc)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":32812.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kj6e0o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Archaeology and NAGPRA and native american policy and opinion. How should I go about being an archaeologist in the USA? I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Anybody here have experience with this topic? I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like I said, I think working on ice age archaeology might be the way to go. Otherwise im moving to Europe.","c_root_id_A":"ggvh9tm","c_root_id_B":"ggw8tk5","created_at_utc_A":1608787847,"created_at_utc_B":1608815206,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The professors of archaeology I know have good relations with the tribes they work with afaik, I would reach out to the tribes in your area\/that were local to your area and also to nearby universities that have anthropology departments and see who you can get into contact with.","human_ref_B":">I'm going into archaeology. Im in the USA and also a member of a tribe here. I have many native friends. My quandary is, how am I going to take part in excavations without disturbing and offending the native community? Many of the Tribes I consult with employ their own archaeologists. Some of them are stuck relying on non-Native contractors because Native American archaeologists are somewhat rare. Many of them have Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and employ archaeologists in those departments. The Native American community doesn't \"hate\" archaeology, and many Tribes consider it critical to understanding their history in the Americas. Ultimately, it's very individualized how different people feel about it. You're never going to avoid offense entirely, no matter what you do. If you really want to do archaeology in North America and want to focus on Native American history, there's a place for you in the field. >I'm wanting to get involved with research. If I remain in the US, im thinking research into Paleolithic migrations would be far enough removed from extant tribes that it would not be looked down upon by my native friends. Questions about the colonization of the Americas are contentious. The topic is anything but controversy free. In fact, it's one of the more contentious parts of American archaeology. If your goal is to avoid controversy and conflict, \"peopling of the Americas\" isn't the subject for you. The subject also is a sore point for some Native American groups, in part because it's seen by some as trying to co-opt their primacy in the Americas. The fact is that any archaeological research focused on Native American history-- pre-Columbian or post-Contact-- in the US is subject to potential Native American consultation and involvement. There's not a cutoff before which Native American communities aren't going to get involved if you're working in the US. At any rate, the goal isn't to avoid, it's to collaborate. Many Tribes would welcome a Native American archaeologist on consultations, on either side. There are job postings I've seen *recently* for Tribal archaeologists (saw one the other day for the Osage in Oklahoma). You seem to be taking the view that I recognize as one held by archaeologists in the era immediately before NAGPRA was passed and in the era immediately afterward, that interaction with and cooperation with Native American Tribes was best avoided. That's not the prevalent attitude among most practicing archaeologists today, and I would encourage you to look at a bit more information about indigenous American archaeology and representation. Some of the replies in this thread can help you focus your inquiries in that direction. >I am also very motivated to help tribes and promote their sovereignty and restoration of their material history and lands. Your other goals seem counter to this. How can you do these things while going to great pains to avoid interacting with Native American groups in the US?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27359.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"vj3k1b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do anthropologists distinguish religious practices from other rituals (e.g. modern Olympic torch, flag protocol, athletic superstition)? In today's world there are some practices that superficially resemble religious rituals: * If the Olympic torch goes out while enroute to the stadium, it must be relit from a backup flame that was lit at the same place as the torch and is transported in a support vehicle. * In many countries, while handling the flag you should not let it touch the ground, and worn-out flags should be disposed of respectfully. While this has been codified into law in a few countries, presumably the idea came long before the law. * Many athletes eat a specific meal before an important game not part of the usual training, or wear specific items not part of the standard uniform. However, if you were to ask any of the people involved in these practices what their religious beliefs are, I imagine they would in the aggregate have the same religious beliefs of the populations from which they come, and compartmentalize their religion from the above sort of practices. E.g. an athlete would think of their superstition differently from how they think of their religion. **Do anthropologists have a word for these kinds of practices?** When researching cultures distant from themselves in time or in familiarity, especially where there are few written records, how do they determine whether a practice that that culture carried out (other than functional or aesthetic I suppose) was a religious practice, or whether it was something more like this?","c_root_id_A":"idhf6yy","c_root_id_B":"idhij0u","created_at_utc_A":1656020707,"created_at_utc_B":1656022170,"score_A":27,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"The place to start if you want to do some research on this is with the Turners' (yes plural) \"The Ritual Process\" ... Turner, V., & Abrahams, R. D. (2017). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Routledge. You may also be interested in the notion of 'secular ritual' My understanding, though I cannot say whether this jives exactly wtih turner's because it's bene a long time since i've been in that book, is that: The things you name are indeed ceremonies, but they may not be rituals and they are certainly not religious rituals. For once, religious rituals, in order to be religious, must to some degree subvert the 'taken for granted' laws of reality that exist in normal times and, suspending those, replace them with a different set of 'norms' that govern what can happen and how it is to be interpreted. To put it simply, if there is no transcending the \"normal laws\" of space-time that we usually inhabit whatsoever, then you do not have a religious ritual. Rituals, and the ones you describe might meet this kind of criteria, create liminality - a 'being on the borders of the normal' as i just described. Without the suspension of norms, it is difficult\/impossible to achieve the deep community (communitas) that develops between people who experience liminality together. One difficulty you may be facing is that many of things you name (or may be thinking of) are indeed rituals - but they are not necessarily *religious* rituals. Religions necessarily link threads of reality across space-time that are not evidently linked to normal, naked perception. For most people in most places, this is something comparable to 'magic' in that it 'breaks' the normal laws of space-time\/reality\/physics. One common way, for undergrads anyway, of identifying what is a religion and what is not is the presence of the three C's: creed, code, and cult. Creed: beliefs Code: ethics Cult: practice If you dont have a shared set of beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, a shared code of ethics, and a shared way of practicing, then you probably dont have a religion. One could make the argument that people in the military (who may treat the flag a certain way) are 'like a religion' and come up with reasons for why they meet all three of these criteria. But they would likely fall short on the 'practice' aspect.","human_ref_B":"This is a big question. A popular place to start would be Geertz's \"Religion as a Cultural System\". It's a pretty good read; I'll post his definition of religion here: > a religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realist And that's a good one! But if you know anything about Geertz, you know that, for him, everything cultural is about symbols and the way symbols are shared and affect behavior. Are there any other definitions? In the introduction to a recent-ish collection of essays on the anthropology of religion, Michael Lambek gives the following summary of ways anthropologists have defined religion: > In place of substantive definitions, is religion better seen as an ongoing function of society or mind, rather than a distinct object within the former or discrete product of the latter? Is it society's means or moment of recognizing (or misrecognizing) itself, as Durkheim argued, or perhaps of motivating its members, as Weber proposed? Is it culture\u2019s means or mode of establishing truth and anchoring reality, as suggested variously by Berger and Luckmann , Geertz, or Rappaport? Is religion social hierarchy\u2019s means of asserting its legitimacy and mystifying the workings of power and exploitation, as conveyed in the Marxist tradition? (During the Cold War, the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erd\u00f6s impishly referred to God as The Supreme Fascist.) Is it the inevitable product or by-product of the workings of the mind, whether of fantasy and projection, as in Freud, or as elaborations of the rational impulse to distinguish, classify, compare, mediate, order, and unify things in the world, as in L\u00e9vi-Strauss, Douglas, or theorists of rhetoric or cognition? Is it the places where the mind acknowledges the limits of its own understanding, or is it the recognition of authentically transcendental experiences, the acknowledgment of manifestly extra-human sources of well-being (and misfortune), beauty (and horror), power (and abjection), goodness (and evil), truth (and perplexity)? Is it only when some set of these diverse functions conjoin in perduring symbols and practices or manifest in ritual performances, or when the mental products and experiences coalesce and are rationalized and stabilized in scriptural traditions, material artifacts, or formal institutions that we speak, or should speak, of \u201creligion\u201d? Clearly, there are many things that one author would consider religious and another would not, and things that they would both consider religion but mean entirely different things by that designation. The entire intro is free to read, if a bit dense. Still, I find it a good overview of the ways anthropology has approached religion because it challenges us to rephrase the question \"What *is* religion?\" to \"What can anthropology contribute to studies of religion?\" and vice versa. Like any big meta-level term, spending too much time delineating what *is* religious and what *isn't* will say a lot more about the definition of religion I've chosen to use than about the phenomena at hand. \"How do you define religion?\" is a sort of Rorschach test for theorists; their answer will tell you a lot about how they view human culture. Thus, it can better to ask instead: *If I interpret this ritual as religious, how does that help me understand it?* If I define a given ritual as \"religious,\" I would rarely do so to make any solid, ontological claims about its nature. Such claims should derive from my observation of the practice and participants' understandings of it. Rather, I am positioning the practice within a larger body of knowledge about \"religion\" generally, as if to signal to you, the reader, what lens it should be read through. Generally, anthropologists will engage with the discourse on Religion when they are interested in the institutionalization of beliefs (e.g. ritual specialists, dedicated spaces, formal ways of passing down knowledge), in public rather than private ritual (e.g. ceremonies with open participation and with a commonly understood meaning ), in explicit engagement with otherworldly beings (e.g. with a god in \"heaven\"), or in ways people rationalize and construct their cosmology as a whole. As such, while it's possible to interpret *anything* as a religious act, and, indeed, there are many who would understand everything they do to be religious on some level, that doesn't mean it will be the most fruitful way to discuss a practice. An athlete's pre-game meal, for instance, is usually a personal ritual not shared with others and not formally \"official,\" and it needn't involve some higher power or have any significance to the rest of the player's life. Likewise, the torch ceremony has no meaning outside the Olympics and is watched but not participated in. If I start talking about these things the way people have talked about \"obvious\" example of religion, will it get me anywhere? Will it contextualize anything? Probably not. But what happens when this player says a short prayer before eating that meal? They've tied themselves up in a larger, socially shared, cosmologically significant practice. It might be interesting, then to consider how this ritual is an individual expression of a cultural idea, i.e. of religion.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1463.0,"score_ratio":1.3703703704} {"post_id":"vj3k1b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do anthropologists distinguish religious practices from other rituals (e.g. modern Olympic torch, flag protocol, athletic superstition)? In today's world there are some practices that superficially resemble religious rituals: * If the Olympic torch goes out while enroute to the stadium, it must be relit from a backup flame that was lit at the same place as the torch and is transported in a support vehicle. * In many countries, while handling the flag you should not let it touch the ground, and worn-out flags should be disposed of respectfully. While this has been codified into law in a few countries, presumably the idea came long before the law. * Many athletes eat a specific meal before an important game not part of the usual training, or wear specific items not part of the standard uniform. However, if you were to ask any of the people involved in these practices what their religious beliefs are, I imagine they would in the aggregate have the same religious beliefs of the populations from which they come, and compartmentalize their religion from the above sort of practices. E.g. an athlete would think of their superstition differently from how they think of their religion. **Do anthropologists have a word for these kinds of practices?** When researching cultures distant from themselves in time or in familiarity, especially where there are few written records, how do they determine whether a practice that that culture carried out (other than functional or aesthetic I suppose) was a religious practice, or whether it was something more like this?","c_root_id_A":"idhij0u","c_root_id_B":"idhh3eh","created_at_utc_A":1656022170,"created_at_utc_B":1656021538,"score_A":37,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This is a big question. A popular place to start would be Geertz's \"Religion as a Cultural System\". It's a pretty good read; I'll post his definition of religion here: > a religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realist And that's a good one! But if you know anything about Geertz, you know that, for him, everything cultural is about symbols and the way symbols are shared and affect behavior. Are there any other definitions? In the introduction to a recent-ish collection of essays on the anthropology of religion, Michael Lambek gives the following summary of ways anthropologists have defined religion: > In place of substantive definitions, is religion better seen as an ongoing function of society or mind, rather than a distinct object within the former or discrete product of the latter? Is it society's means or moment of recognizing (or misrecognizing) itself, as Durkheim argued, or perhaps of motivating its members, as Weber proposed? Is it culture\u2019s means or mode of establishing truth and anchoring reality, as suggested variously by Berger and Luckmann , Geertz, or Rappaport? Is religion social hierarchy\u2019s means of asserting its legitimacy and mystifying the workings of power and exploitation, as conveyed in the Marxist tradition? (During the Cold War, the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erd\u00f6s impishly referred to God as The Supreme Fascist.) Is it the inevitable product or by-product of the workings of the mind, whether of fantasy and projection, as in Freud, or as elaborations of the rational impulse to distinguish, classify, compare, mediate, order, and unify things in the world, as in L\u00e9vi-Strauss, Douglas, or theorists of rhetoric or cognition? Is it the places where the mind acknowledges the limits of its own understanding, or is it the recognition of authentically transcendental experiences, the acknowledgment of manifestly extra-human sources of well-being (and misfortune), beauty (and horror), power (and abjection), goodness (and evil), truth (and perplexity)? Is it only when some set of these diverse functions conjoin in perduring symbols and practices or manifest in ritual performances, or when the mental products and experiences coalesce and are rationalized and stabilized in scriptural traditions, material artifacts, or formal institutions that we speak, or should speak, of \u201creligion\u201d? Clearly, there are many things that one author would consider religious and another would not, and things that they would both consider religion but mean entirely different things by that designation. The entire intro is free to read, if a bit dense. Still, I find it a good overview of the ways anthropology has approached religion because it challenges us to rephrase the question \"What *is* religion?\" to \"What can anthropology contribute to studies of religion?\" and vice versa. Like any big meta-level term, spending too much time delineating what *is* religious and what *isn't* will say a lot more about the definition of religion I've chosen to use than about the phenomena at hand. \"How do you define religion?\" is a sort of Rorschach test for theorists; their answer will tell you a lot about how they view human culture. Thus, it can better to ask instead: *If I interpret this ritual as religious, how does that help me understand it?* If I define a given ritual as \"religious,\" I would rarely do so to make any solid, ontological claims about its nature. Such claims should derive from my observation of the practice and participants' understandings of it. Rather, I am positioning the practice within a larger body of knowledge about \"religion\" generally, as if to signal to you, the reader, what lens it should be read through. Generally, anthropologists will engage with the discourse on Religion when they are interested in the institutionalization of beliefs (e.g. ritual specialists, dedicated spaces, formal ways of passing down knowledge), in public rather than private ritual (e.g. ceremonies with open participation and with a commonly understood meaning ), in explicit engagement with otherworldly beings (e.g. with a god in \"heaven\"), or in ways people rationalize and construct their cosmology as a whole. As such, while it's possible to interpret *anything* as a religious act, and, indeed, there are many who would understand everything they do to be religious on some level, that doesn't mean it will be the most fruitful way to discuss a practice. An athlete's pre-game meal, for instance, is usually a personal ritual not shared with others and not formally \"official,\" and it needn't involve some higher power or have any significance to the rest of the player's life. Likewise, the torch ceremony has no meaning outside the Olympics and is watched but not participated in. If I start talking about these things the way people have talked about \"obvious\" example of religion, will it get me anywhere? Will it contextualize anything? Probably not. But what happens when this player says a short prayer before eating that meal? They've tied themselves up in a larger, socially shared, cosmologically significant practice. It might be interesting, then to consider how this ritual is an individual expression of a cultural idea, i.e. of religion.","human_ref_B":"Hi, BA in Anthropology here. It's Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology. The flame itself is considered a ceremonial act. Rituals don't necessitate religion. This one takes on a symbolic nature as a stand-in. The ritual is not very old. The torch was introduced in 1928. Lighting the torch pays homage to the original, ancient Greek Olympics and creates a sense of continuity between the ancient and contemporary games. It also conveys a hopeful sentiment that the games will endure indefinitely, and the peaceful global cooperation they facilitate will endure. I don't know the ins and outs of determining religious significance. You would probably observe these rituals and symbols being used in funeral traditions and burial sites due to the culture's distinct religious beliefs and practices surrounding death and dying if they were religiously significant. The terminology would be Traditions, Rituals, Symbolism, and Iconography.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":632.0,"score_ratio":5.2857142857} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8dorof","c_root_id_B":"h8drccs","created_at_utc_A":1628574816,"created_at_utc_B":1628576812,"score_A":22,"score_B":80,"human_ref_A":"\"You study stars, right?\" Also, my bachelor title is S.Ant, S is for Sarjana (undergraduate degree) and Ant if for antropologi (anthropology) so yeah, probably I should study ants","human_ref_B":"Related story: When I was in college my major was Anthropology while one of my best friends was studying Biology. One semester, he took an introductory Paleontology course. One project involved collecting small marine fossils from the coastal formations. Because the site was close to where I lived, he asked me to accompany him while he did his thing. I became interested and he taught some simple techniques to help him with the task. At some point a woman approached us, observing while we used the picks and brushes to carefully unearth ancient worms and clams from the rock. After some 20 minutes she inquired about what we were looking for and to my friend's explanation she promptly exclaimed, 'oh, so you're anthropologists!'. She was 50% right, but I didn't say anything. I still chuckle about that","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1996.0,"score_ratio":3.6363636364} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8dz723","c_root_id_B":"h8dorof","created_at_utc_A":1628583520,"created_at_utc_B":1628574816,"score_A":23,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I usually get the \"oh, you study dinosaurs? That's so cool\"-thing. It was funny the first ten million times. Now, it's just getting tedious.","human_ref_B":"\"You study stars, right?\" Also, my bachelor title is S.Ant, S is for Sarjana (undergraduate degree) and Ant if for antropologi (anthropology) so yeah, probably I should study ants","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8704.0,"score_ratio":1.0454545455} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8f7bpw","c_root_id_B":"h8gn3x2","created_at_utc_A":1628610347,"created_at_utc_B":1628632328,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Someone in my anthropology faculty was kicked out of a Facebook group of a population she was studying, and the main image they had of anthropologists is that we all wear thick socks made of goats wool, and are limp, weak, tree huggers. Also a common one i get is 'how do you spell that', which os honestly the hardest part of getting an MA in anthropology","human_ref_B":"When I told my very Christian grandfather that I was going to study Anthropology he said, \"heh! Say hello to Charles Darwin for me. It's probably nice and warm where he's at.\" I just laughed. Good ol' Gramps.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21981.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8gn3x2","c_root_id_B":"h8gilo8","created_at_utc_A":1628632328,"created_at_utc_B":1628630335,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"When I told my very Christian grandfather that I was going to study Anthropology he said, \"heh! Say hello to Charles Darwin for me. It's probably nice and warm where he's at.\" I just laughed. Good ol' Gramps.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, but told someone I enjoyed learning about anthropology and he said \u201coh cool! I\u2019m a Capricorn, is that what you would have guessed?\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1993.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8gn3x2","c_root_id_B":"h8g1blq","created_at_utc_A":1628632328,"created_at_utc_B":1628622914,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"When I told my very Christian grandfather that I was going to study Anthropology he said, \"heh! Say hello to Charles Darwin for me. It's probably nice and warm where he's at.\" I just laughed. Good ol' Gramps.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m still in undergrad but one of my coworkers asked me what i was studying so i said anthropology with a minor in bio and he said \u201ci didn\u2019t know bones (the tv show) was real! i thought all that stuff was fake!\u201d. i had to explain to him that forensic anthropology is indeed real, just not the same as what they show on tv \ud83d\ude2d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9414.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"p1g5dv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Funniest response you\u2019ve ever gotten when telling someone you\u2019re an anthropologist? This is a question for any professional anthropologists or students of anthropology. When you tell people what you do or what you study and people don\u2019t know what it is, what\u2019s the funniest thing they\u2019ve assumed that it is? Example: most people think I studied ants.","c_root_id_A":"h8g1blq","c_root_id_B":"h8gilo8","created_at_utc_A":1628622914,"created_at_utc_B":1628630335,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m still in undergrad but one of my coworkers asked me what i was studying so i said anthropology with a minor in bio and he said \u201ci didn\u2019t know bones (the tv show) was real! i thought all that stuff was fake!\u201d. i had to explain to him that forensic anthropology is indeed real, just not the same as what they show on tv \ud83d\ude2d","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, but told someone I enjoyed learning about anthropology and he said \u201coh cool! I\u2019m a Capricorn, is that what you would have guessed?\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7421.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"ca9qq1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why do some cultures worship animal gods, and some worship human gods? Why are some polytheistic and others monotheistic?","c_root_id_A":"et7ryey","c_root_id_B":"et7sfkb","created_at_utc_A":1562536768,"created_at_utc_B":1562537027,"score_A":34,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Not sure if I can do a follow up question. Why do mostly all cultures worship a god. Is there a culture that ever existed that didn\u2019t. Does it come from the question of how life began?","human_ref_B":"The origins of religion tend to reflect the society of the believers. In a more \"primitive\" society that lacks a sophisticated scientific community understanding nature is incredibly important. Nature rules over the people and determines whether you live or die, when you plant the crops, when seasonal flooding occurs, and so much more. This is also a major reason why the zodiac is so important to religions. The importance of the calendar cannot be over stated. Most polytheistic religions have gods that are tied to the zodiac and as a collective whole they represent an understanding of nature as a whole. As societies become more cosmopolitan and an elite class of rulers emerge you see a personification of the deities. Egyptian religion is a good example. In the early portion of the society the gods were very anthropomorphic. The religion was incredibly tied to understanding the timing of annual floods. The function of the religion was what kept society together. As time progressed and scientific knowledge became more understood society no longer needed to look to the mysteries of nature for guidance. Instead they needed to understand the importance of revering human leadership. Knowing who is important politically or who commands respect or reverence now became more important. It also begins to solidify the status quo and is very utilitarian for leadership. A divine leader is much more difficult to replace than one who does not make this type of a claim. Think about North Korea or pre war Japan. The evolution and consolidation of religious beliefs into a singular personification of the great leader or the emperor allowed the societies to mobilize like never before. TLDR: Religion is ultimately utilitarian and the type of society you live in greatly impacts the form it takes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":259.0,"score_ratio":1.1470588235} {"post_id":"wj6gd6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Were hunter-gatherers monogamous? I recently started dating someone who's polyamorous. I try not to be judgmental but I really don't get why an adult would choose this. On an intellectual level I can understand the concept, but on a personal plane it just seems to overcomplicate relationships - which are already super complex and delicate. I like to take in the historical perspective, and in this case I think the earliest humans could hold an answer, or at least nuance, this question. Were hunter-gatherers monogamous? Why? Why not? Any other historical anedcote that might be interesting to my question is appreacited as well:)","c_root_id_A":"ijg4odp","c_root_id_B":"ijg42us","created_at_utc_A":1659970208,"created_at_utc_B":1659969966,"score_A":156,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":">I really don't get why an adult would choose this. I don't, either, but that's a perspective that is not shared by everyone everywhere and everywhen. There are plenty of historical and modern examples of all kinds of poly- relationships *and* various types of mono- relationships across history and cultures. >I like to take in the historical perspective, and in this case I think the earliest humans could hold an answer, or at least nuance, this question. Were hunter-gatherers monogamous? The short answer is twofold. 1) It doesn't matter. 2) Some were \/ are, some were \/ are not. \"Hunter gatherers\" encompasses practically the entire human species's existence, not to mention the total existence of our ancestors and cousins. Given that you're talking about potentially as much as 6 million years or more of bipedalism and \"hunter gatherers,\" you're not going to get a simple yes \/ no answer. And as to \"why \/ why not,\" it's even more complex. Mating partnerships among non-human primates are a bit easier to hypothesize about, but here's the thing: we aren't non-human primates. We're cultural creatures and have been since well before humans walked the earth. So you can't look at biological reasons and assume that cultural factors are just some kind of veneer overlaid on a biological substrate. We engage in relationships with other people for all kinds of reasons, not purely procreative. >On an intellectual level I can understand the concept, but on a personal plane it just seems to overcomplicate relationships - which are already super complex and delicate. Not so much. It's just a different approach. Unfortunately, it's not really something that you can break down in the way you seem to be trying to do. Which strikes me more as an attempt to either: (1) convince yourself that this doesn't bother you, or (2) convince your romantic interest that they shouldn't be doing what they want to do. This isn't r\/relationship_advice, so I'm not going to weigh in on that. But I *will* say that looking for a biological \/ anthropological basis to reconcile yourself with something that clearly makes you uncomfortable is a fool's errand.","human_ref_B":"There have been thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of cultures that practiced mainly hunting and gathering for subsistence over the majority of humanity history. They likely had as many marriage patterns as we can imagine. The one pattern that is unlikely is the mythical pattern of all people having sex with whoever they want, being clueless about who the fathers of children were, and not having a family structure to guide sexuality or parenting. Human children need more help to get to adulthood than any other species we know of. Humans have always been social animals -- our behaviors and relationships structured by our groups. There has likely never been a human group that did not know the relationship between sex and parenthood. There are very few things that are true across all cultures (that we know of) and the incest taboo is one of them (even though incest can be defined differently in different cultures and in rare cases can be overruled). So the link between sex and parentage was probably one of the first things our big brains figured out and stored in our memories, followed closely by the existence of lineage over generations. \\[Of course this is conjecture, we simply don't have the data we need to say for sure\\]. From what we know of human groups over time (which is very little), most cultures prefer serial monogamy -- one partner at a time, but more than one partner over the lifetime. However, humans are capable of a wide range of sex and marriage patterns. Polyandry and Polygyny, sex outside of marriage (approved or unapproved), temporary marriage, lifetime marriage, etc. There is nothing \"more natural\" about humans in the past compared to humans in the present. But patterns of marriage and sexuality are never separate from the social and cultural context. So given your social structure, some patterns may be more likely than others. What may be unique about today's world is that we have reconfigured the connection between everyday economic life and family life. It is possible to support yourself economically with a variety of family forms -- polyamorous, monogamous, single, child free, same sex, single generation or multiple generation, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":242.0,"score_ratio":3.7142857143} {"post_id":"wj6gd6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Were hunter-gatherers monogamous? I recently started dating someone who's polyamorous. I try not to be judgmental but I really don't get why an adult would choose this. On an intellectual level I can understand the concept, but on a personal plane it just seems to overcomplicate relationships - which are already super complex and delicate. I like to take in the historical perspective, and in this case I think the earliest humans could hold an answer, or at least nuance, this question. Were hunter-gatherers monogamous? Why? Why not? Any other historical anedcote that might be interesting to my question is appreacited as well:)","c_root_id_A":"ijg42us","c_root_id_B":"ijg58ck","created_at_utc_A":1659969966,"created_at_utc_B":1659970435,"score_A":42,"score_B":156,"human_ref_A":"There have been thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of cultures that practiced mainly hunting and gathering for subsistence over the majority of humanity history. They likely had as many marriage patterns as we can imagine. The one pattern that is unlikely is the mythical pattern of all people having sex with whoever they want, being clueless about who the fathers of children were, and not having a family structure to guide sexuality or parenting. Human children need more help to get to adulthood than any other species we know of. Humans have always been social animals -- our behaviors and relationships structured by our groups. There has likely never been a human group that did not know the relationship between sex and parenthood. There are very few things that are true across all cultures (that we know of) and the incest taboo is one of them (even though incest can be defined differently in different cultures and in rare cases can be overruled). So the link between sex and parentage was probably one of the first things our big brains figured out and stored in our memories, followed closely by the existence of lineage over generations. \\[Of course this is conjecture, we simply don't have the data we need to say for sure\\]. From what we know of human groups over time (which is very little), most cultures prefer serial monogamy -- one partner at a time, but more than one partner over the lifetime. However, humans are capable of a wide range of sex and marriage patterns. Polyandry and Polygyny, sex outside of marriage (approved or unapproved), temporary marriage, lifetime marriage, etc. There is nothing \"more natural\" about humans in the past compared to humans in the present. But patterns of marriage and sexuality are never separate from the social and cultural context. So given your social structure, some patterns may be more likely than others. What may be unique about today's world is that we have reconfigured the connection between everyday economic life and family life. It is possible to support yourself economically with a variety of family forms -- polyamorous, monogamous, single, child free, same sex, single generation or multiple generation, etc.","human_ref_B":"Like most things dealing with human societies, there isn't a single one-size-fits-all answer to that, and hunter-gatherer societies are not the same all over the world through all times. Additionally, there are differences between what we mean by monogamy at present and what monogamy meant for certain groups in the past. Currently we associate monogamy with both sexual and a degree of social fidelity, but those are sometimes decoupled. Accounts of Lewis and Clarke's expedition, as well as accounts from people encountering Inuit societies report a degree of sexual openness to strangers, while remaining in a single-partner relationship that we would otherwise call monogamous. There are similar accounts from many places around the world, but caution must be taken with many of these accounts as there is also a large degree of sexualization of the 'exotic' that goes on and accounts were exaggerated, behaviors misinterpreted, and events sometimes outright fabricated. There are few hunter gatherer societies left to provide any insight, and the small number means that, as previously mentioned, it's not a great idea to try to draw broad generalizations from them, but of the ones studied it appears that a loose monogamy is the more common approach. This comes with a lot of caveats, of course, and 'serial monogamy' may be practiced, where partners are monogamous while together, but breaking the pairbond and starting one with another person may be easier and more fluid in some societies than others. Some societies are reported to have systems where partnerships must be actively maintained and renewed otherwise they naturally disbond, others a partnership remains intact unless actively disbonded. When it comes to past societies, especially early ones, we really have very little information. We can make guesses and propose often conflicting hypotheses backed up by a variety of equally valid starting points, but it's very much a mix of somewhat informed guesswork and researcher bias when it gets to issues of relationships between people in ancient human populations.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":469.0,"score_ratio":3.7142857143} {"post_id":"opetoi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any free encyclopedia for non-Westerners to better understand Westerners and Western culture? Bangladeshi here. I am looking for a free encyclopedia of contemporary Western culture, to better understand Westerners and Western culture. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"h65e6z5","c_root_id_B":"h65k5ty","created_at_utc_A":1626974788,"created_at_utc_B":1626977307,"score_A":4,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"I mean, probably media is the best encyclopedia to understand what Westerners observe in terms of mainstream ideals, morality, narrative tropes, day to day life and role models. I'd watch mainly teen TV, stuff like 13 Reasons Why or Riverdale or the Avengers movies. So that my comment isn't taken entirely as trash, I suggest you also read the satirical anthropological article \"Body Ritual between the Nacirema\" by Mitchell Miner.","human_ref_B":"What a fun basic question! How is a non-Westerner supposed to learn about Western culture, especially for free and easily available online? First up - Western culture is very broad and includes a diverse and often quite contradictory groupings of peoples from the omni-present American culture to the less globally present ones of Scandinavia. Worth noting that even these cultural groupings have many differences with them. So, first of all you're gonna want to narrow it down to make it manageable. Second of all, likely you already have a strong introduction to Western culture - likely US dominant. We produce a whole lot of media - especially movies, social media, and such. This will \"gently\" introduce you to some of our core values, though often obfuscated by the needs of storytelling. Wikipedia is the grandaddy of free encyclopedias, and indeed, they very much have an entry for Western Culture. As others have mentioned, take a look at the sources for further reading. It links to related and deeper concepts such as Western Religion (i.e. Christianity and its variants). Deeper anthropological examinations of Western Culture have often been hampered by the tendency for anthropology to be about \"the other\". Anthropology has historically been couched in colonial and Western-centric ideas. This is easily seen by the fact that studies of Western culture tended to be done in other disciplines such as history, sociology, economics, etc. Anthropologists were the people who went elsewhere for their fieldwork and came to \"normal\" society to report on it. Of course, for many decades anthropology has worked to counter this bias and has led to a growth in anthropological studies about our own culture. I am most familiar with anthropologists who look at American culture, alas my information is years out of date. (For example, one of my favorite books was published in 1988 - *The Moral Order of a Suburb* by M. P. Baumgartner) I do know there was quite some debate about how anthropologist should study America and what they should study. I do hope someone with more current information. A helpful term for further information on such information is American Studies. Of course, American culture is just one aspect of Western Culture.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2519.0,"score_ratio":11.75} {"post_id":"opetoi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any free encyclopedia for non-Westerners to better understand Westerners and Western culture? Bangladeshi here. I am looking for a free encyclopedia of contemporary Western culture, to better understand Westerners and Western culture. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"h65e6z5","c_root_id_B":"h66rwh1","created_at_utc_A":1626974788,"created_at_utc_B":1626997118,"score_A":4,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I mean, probably media is the best encyclopedia to understand what Westerners observe in terms of mainstream ideals, morality, narrative tropes, day to day life and role models. I'd watch mainly teen TV, stuff like 13 Reasons Why or Riverdale or the Avengers movies. So that my comment isn't taken entirely as trash, I suggest you also read the satirical anthropological article \"Body Ritual between the Nacirema\" by Mitchell Miner.","human_ref_B":"As a Bangladeshi-American, and to gently disagree with many of the comments here, I think your question is too broad. I lived in Japan, Bangladesh, and was born and raised in the U.S. This is like me asking \"how do I understand Asia?\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22330.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"opetoi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any free encyclopedia for non-Westerners to better understand Westerners and Western culture? Bangladeshi here. I am looking for a free encyclopedia of contemporary Western culture, to better understand Westerners and Western culture. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"h66rwh1","c_root_id_B":"h65wggi","created_at_utc_A":1626997118,"created_at_utc_B":1626982604,"score_A":22,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"As a Bangladeshi-American, and to gently disagree with many of the comments here, I think your question is too broad. I lived in Japan, Bangladesh, and was born and raised in the U.S. This is like me asking \"how do I understand Asia?\"","human_ref_B":"a bit off topic, but is western culture regarded by anthropologists as the area of influence of european cultures, or rather as that side of the earth that starts \u2013or ends\u2013 somewhere around 30th meridian east?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14514.0,"score_ratio":4.4} {"post_id":"opetoi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any free encyclopedia for non-Westerners to better understand Westerners and Western culture? Bangladeshi here. I am looking for a free encyclopedia of contemporary Western culture, to better understand Westerners and Western culture. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"h65e6z5","c_root_id_B":"h65wggi","created_at_utc_A":1626974788,"created_at_utc_B":1626982604,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I mean, probably media is the best encyclopedia to understand what Westerners observe in terms of mainstream ideals, morality, narrative tropes, day to day life and role models. I'd watch mainly teen TV, stuff like 13 Reasons Why or Riverdale or the Avengers movies. So that my comment isn't taken entirely as trash, I suggest you also read the satirical anthropological article \"Body Ritual between the Nacirema\" by Mitchell Miner.","human_ref_B":"a bit off topic, but is western culture regarded by anthropologists as the area of influence of european cultures, or rather as that side of the earth that starts \u2013or ends\u2013 somewhere around 30th meridian east?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7816.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"opetoi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any free encyclopedia for non-Westerners to better understand Westerners and Western culture? Bangladeshi here. I am looking for a free encyclopedia of contemporary Western culture, to better understand Westerners and Western culture. Any suggestions?","c_root_id_A":"h66ukym","c_root_id_B":"h67fdhv","created_at_utc_A":1626998704,"created_at_utc_B":1627009269,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m married to someone from Bangladesh and the way they learned was really being involved in the community. Keep watch for local events, make friends from the area through work, school, or the events. Once you start making friends from the area, go out on the town with them. This will show you what they like to do for fun, and you can witness how they communicate with each other. Watching popular shows and movies is great as well. One big difference my significant other noticed when moving was that it is not ok to stare at people. Also men are not as close physically, even if they\u2019re best friends.","human_ref_B":"In the West we are often taught \"Western History\" during our school years. I would suggest looking for some on-line textbooks on the topic and starting there. We gather it together in this way as it traces influence and empires that established our modern civilization, but often skips other people and cultures that did not provide as much contribution or leave much of a written record. As a result you'll learn a lot about ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, and Rome, and so on, but very little about the Celts, Rus, and Carthaginians for example. It'll also often include areas far outside of what's typically considered \"the West\" such as Australia and New Zealand, Eastern Europe, North Africa, parts of Asia as well. Different Western countries also have different ideas on what's important and as a result their versions of the Western History will be a little different as well. For example, in the U.S. we focus a lot on our founding histories, our Civil War, and the Cold War, but often exclude important historical information from Europe after 1500. I would try to find some good college-level history books as they'll probably be less imposed on by various politics and philosophical ideas and provide a deeper and more nuanced coverage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10565.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cutinh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How Do Historians Know that Mythologies Weren't Contemporary Pop Culture? In various American towns, it is not uncommon to find various references to our pop culture. For example, a statue of Rocky on the steps of a monument, or the numerous superhero grafitti and statues that you can find. This made me think: how do we know that the mythologies we hear about weren't just popular stories that happened to have produced physical objects in reference to them?","c_root_id_A":"ey09fvt","c_root_id_B":"exzjso0","created_at_utc_A":1566676174,"created_at_utc_B":1566667288,"score_A":17,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"You should consider cross posting in r\/AskHistorians, you might be able to get some really detailed answers.","human_ref_B":"Isn't religion in general a part of pop culture?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8886.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2ui64","c_root_id_B":"do2ugvg","created_at_utc_A":1507476968,"created_at_utc_B":1507476919,"score_A":112,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"The problem is that species is a difficult concept to define. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, but this does not account for cases like a species complex, a group of closely related species that are very similar in appearance to the point that the boundaries between them are often unclear, and members may often hybridize with one another. Scientists still dispute whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species\u2014Homo neanderthalensis\u2014or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC33580\/","human_ref_B":"Anthropologists here! Not everyone thinks of them as a separate species. A Google Scholar search of \u201c*Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*\u201d will yield a lot of results. While categorizing Neanderthals, or any extinct taxa, has heuristic value, it also has other consequences. For one, it conveys a finality to the classification and that the species are separate. While there is discontinuity between *H. s. sapiens* and *H. s. neanderthalensis* interbreeding makes them bring different species precarious. Is heidelbergensis a different species that sapiens or merely archaic. It\u2019s likely continuous with both neanderthalensis and humans and those subsequent groups interbred so is it really a separate group? We don\u2019t know but you have to commit to something so we can talk about it. On a side note, the species concept itself is pretty precarious as we designate things as separate species or subspecies for various reasons including: ability to produce viable offspring, conservation, morphological difference, relationship to humans (see dogs), mate-recognition, ecological niche, etc. This gets even worse when talking about extinct taxa because usually all we have is morphology. We have more in neanderthalensis\u2019 case and so the literature reflects that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":49.0,"score_ratio":4.48} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2udwy","c_root_id_B":"do2ui64","created_at_utc_A":1507476808,"created_at_utc_B":1507476968,"score_A":13,"score_B":112,"human_ref_A":"The Homo Sapiens you're thinking of are actually designated Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Neanderthals are formally known as Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. Source: college anthropology, 20+ years ago.","human_ref_B":"The problem is that species is a difficult concept to define. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, but this does not account for cases like a species complex, a group of closely related species that are very similar in appearance to the point that the boundaries between them are often unclear, and members may often hybridize with one another. Scientists still dispute whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species\u2014Homo neanderthalensis\u2014or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC33580\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":160.0,"score_ratio":8.6153846154} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2ui64","c_root_id_B":"do2u4oo","created_at_utc_A":1507476968,"created_at_utc_B":1507476461,"score_A":112,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The problem is that species is a difficult concept to define. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, but this does not account for cases like a species complex, a group of closely related species that are very similar in appearance to the point that the boundaries between them are often unclear, and members may often hybridize with one another. Scientists still dispute whether Neanderthals should be classified as a distinct species\u2014Homo neanderthalensis\u2014or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of H. sapiens. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC33580\/","human_ref_B":"I don't know how recent a source you're basing your knowledge off of, given there's a lot of current dialogue about renaming them *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":507.0,"score_ratio":37.3333333333} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2udwy","c_root_id_B":"do2ugvg","created_at_utc_A":1507476808,"created_at_utc_B":1507476919,"score_A":13,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"The Homo Sapiens you're thinking of are actually designated Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Neanderthals are formally known as Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. Source: college anthropology, 20+ years ago.","human_ref_B":"Anthropologists here! Not everyone thinks of them as a separate species. A Google Scholar search of \u201c*Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*\u201d will yield a lot of results. While categorizing Neanderthals, or any extinct taxa, has heuristic value, it also has other consequences. For one, it conveys a finality to the classification and that the species are separate. While there is discontinuity between *H. s. sapiens* and *H. s. neanderthalensis* interbreeding makes them bring different species precarious. Is heidelbergensis a different species that sapiens or merely archaic. It\u2019s likely continuous with both neanderthalensis and humans and those subsequent groups interbred so is it really a separate group? We don\u2019t know but you have to commit to something so we can talk about it. On a side note, the species concept itself is pretty precarious as we designate things as separate species or subspecies for various reasons including: ability to produce viable offspring, conservation, morphological difference, relationship to humans (see dogs), mate-recognition, ecological niche, etc. This gets even worse when talking about extinct taxa because usually all we have is morphology. We have more in neanderthalensis\u2019 case and so the literature reflects that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":111.0,"score_ratio":1.9230769231} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2ugvg","c_root_id_B":"do2u4oo","created_at_utc_A":1507476919,"created_at_utc_B":1507476461,"score_A":25,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anthropologists here! Not everyone thinks of them as a separate species. A Google Scholar search of \u201c*Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*\u201d will yield a lot of results. While categorizing Neanderthals, or any extinct taxa, has heuristic value, it also has other consequences. For one, it conveys a finality to the classification and that the species are separate. While there is discontinuity between *H. s. sapiens* and *H. s. neanderthalensis* interbreeding makes them bring different species precarious. Is heidelbergensis a different species that sapiens or merely archaic. It\u2019s likely continuous with both neanderthalensis and humans and those subsequent groups interbred so is it really a separate group? We don\u2019t know but you have to commit to something so we can talk about it. On a side note, the species concept itself is pretty precarious as we designate things as separate species or subspecies for various reasons including: ability to produce viable offspring, conservation, morphological difference, relationship to humans (see dogs), mate-recognition, ecological niche, etc. This gets even worse when talking about extinct taxa because usually all we have is morphology. We have more in neanderthalensis\u2019 case and so the literature reflects that.","human_ref_B":"I don't know how recent a source you're basing your knowledge off of, given there's a lot of current dialogue about renaming them *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":458.0,"score_ratio":8.3333333333} {"post_id":"751yij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why is Homo Neanderthalensis considered a different species than Homo Sapiens while they could interbreed and produced fertile descendents?","c_root_id_A":"do2u4oo","c_root_id_B":"do2udwy","created_at_utc_A":1507476461,"created_at_utc_B":1507476808,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I don't know how recent a source you're basing your knowledge off of, given there's a lot of current dialogue about renaming them *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*","human_ref_B":"The Homo Sapiens you're thinking of are actually designated Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Neanderthals are formally known as Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. Source: college anthropology, 20+ years ago.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":347.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"pct2os","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why does the lack of neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern humans suggest it was male neanderthals and female homo sapiens who were successfully interbreeding? That's the claim made on wikipedia here. >No evidence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has been found in modern humans.[29][30][31] This suggests that successful Neanderthal admixture happened in pairings with Neanderthal males and modern human females But there's no Neanderthal Y-chromosome in modern humans either...? So why focus only on the mitochondrial DNA?","c_root_id_A":"ham4223","c_root_id_B":"halh7ok","created_at_utc_A":1630103218,"created_at_utc_B":1630093330,"score_A":60,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Okay so I agree with your overall point, that we cannot infer the nature of modern human-Neanderthal pairings simply from the absence of Neanderthal mtDNA or Y-chromosome haplotypes. They could easily have been lost after interbreeding, particularly by genetic drift if Neanderthal individuals were substantially outnumbered by modern humans in the reproductive group (I.e. if the offspring were raised in a modern human population). This seems to be the most likely explanation, since there is a near absence of modern human DNA in late Neanderthal genomes, indicating hybrid offspring were not raised in Neanderthal populations. However, we cannot be sure if Neanderthal men, women, or both were added to modern human groups. What I will say, is that the Neanderthal mtDNA lineage appears to have been replaced by one more closely related to modern human haplotypes between 400,000 and 270,000 years ago (https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/ncomms16046). This has recently been replicated for the Neanderthal Y-chromosome (https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/369\/6511\/1653.abstract). This suggests that, in at least one earlier interbreeding event, modern human women *and men* interbred with Neanderthals, and the offspring were raised as Neanderthals. This is also suggested by the limited amount of modern human DNA in the Altai Neanderthal (https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature12886?report=reader). This is what allowed the modern-human like mtDNA and Y-chromosome to become fixed in Neanderthal groups by genetic drift. As such, we can conclude in this earlier interbreeding event, that an early modern human group is likely to have been subsumed into a Neanderthal population, which is really cool!","human_ref_B":"There's a flaw in the logic here. It is true that there is no known Neanderthal mtDNA in modern humans. However, this does not mean that pairings happened this way. It could mean something as simple as the relative population sizes favored the survival of modern human mtDNA lineages. In other words, I agree with you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9888.0,"score_ratio":1.2765957447} {"post_id":"pct2os","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why does the lack of neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern humans suggest it was male neanderthals and female homo sapiens who were successfully interbreeding? That's the claim made on wikipedia here. >No evidence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has been found in modern humans.[29][30][31] This suggests that successful Neanderthal admixture happened in pairings with Neanderthal males and modern human females But there's no Neanderthal Y-chromosome in modern humans either...? So why focus only on the mitochondrial DNA?","c_root_id_A":"ham4223","c_root_id_B":"halbjrf","created_at_utc_A":1630103218,"created_at_utc_B":1630090975,"score_A":60,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Okay so I agree with your overall point, that we cannot infer the nature of modern human-Neanderthal pairings simply from the absence of Neanderthal mtDNA or Y-chromosome haplotypes. They could easily have been lost after interbreeding, particularly by genetic drift if Neanderthal individuals were substantially outnumbered by modern humans in the reproductive group (I.e. if the offspring were raised in a modern human population). This seems to be the most likely explanation, since there is a near absence of modern human DNA in late Neanderthal genomes, indicating hybrid offspring were not raised in Neanderthal populations. However, we cannot be sure if Neanderthal men, women, or both were added to modern human groups. What I will say, is that the Neanderthal mtDNA lineage appears to have been replaced by one more closely related to modern human haplotypes between 400,000 and 270,000 years ago (https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/ncomms16046). This has recently been replicated for the Neanderthal Y-chromosome (https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/369\/6511\/1653.abstract). This suggests that, in at least one earlier interbreeding event, modern human women *and men* interbred with Neanderthals, and the offspring were raised as Neanderthals. This is also suggested by the limited amount of modern human DNA in the Altai Neanderthal (https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature12886?report=reader). This is what allowed the modern-human like mtDNA and Y-chromosome to become fixed in Neanderthal groups by genetic drift. As such, we can conclude in this earlier interbreeding event, that an early modern human group is likely to have been subsumed into a Neanderthal population, which is really cool!","human_ref_B":"Because mitochondria are *only* passed down in the egg. There are no means by which a male can pass down mitochondria to offspring, mitochondrial DNA follows the female line. The Y chromosome is the same as the other chromosomes - it's not passed down in its whole form, unchanged, but is a mixture of the genes of the grandparents. So there is no completely Neanderthal Y chromosome, but Neanderthal genes which are scattered throughout the nuclear DNA.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12243.0,"score_ratio":1.935483871} {"post_id":"pct2os","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why does the lack of neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern humans suggest it was male neanderthals and female homo sapiens who were successfully interbreeding? That's the claim made on wikipedia here. >No evidence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has been found in modern humans.[29][30][31] This suggests that successful Neanderthal admixture happened in pairings with Neanderthal males and modern human females But there's no Neanderthal Y-chromosome in modern humans either...? So why focus only on the mitochondrial DNA?","c_root_id_A":"halh7ok","c_root_id_B":"halbjrf","created_at_utc_A":1630093330,"created_at_utc_B":1630090975,"score_A":47,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"There's a flaw in the logic here. It is true that there is no known Neanderthal mtDNA in modern humans. However, this does not mean that pairings happened this way. It could mean something as simple as the relative population sizes favored the survival of modern human mtDNA lineages. In other words, I agree with you.","human_ref_B":"Because mitochondria are *only* passed down in the egg. There are no means by which a male can pass down mitochondria to offspring, mitochondrial DNA follows the female line. The Y chromosome is the same as the other chromosomes - it's not passed down in its whole form, unchanged, but is a mixture of the genes of the grandparents. So there is no completely Neanderthal Y chromosome, but Neanderthal genes which are scattered throughout the nuclear DNA.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2355.0,"score_ratio":1.5161290323} {"post_id":"lmtkim","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"The Calusa were a complex society while still being hunter gatherers. Where they unique? The Calusa people of Southwest Florida(https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Calusa) had a stratified society, with nobles and a king on top, controlling a large area and having the highest density of Florida. Yet, unlike many other civilizations, they did not develop agriculture. Where they an outlier, or were there other groups like them? If so, is it possible that such societies were common before the discovery of agriculture?","c_root_id_A":"gnxbses","c_root_id_B":"gnxacrv","created_at_utc_A":1613679119,"created_at_utc_B":1613678509,"score_A":26,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Is this random, or did you asks this because of the *Aeon* article \"Beyond the !Kung: A grand research project created our origin myth that early human societies were all egalitarian, mobile and small-scale\" from earlier this month? Because that's the first I'd ever heard of the Calusa, and the author makes an argument that the \"original affluent society\" picture (to use Marshall Sahlins's turn of phrase) anthropology tends to teach about hunter-gatherers is wrong: there was more hierarchy and less mobility than commonly assumed. Now, the Calusa are one extreme of what's occurred for hunter gatherer societies in terms of hierarchy and sedentary society, but the author argues that the !Kung, who are often taken as the prototypical hunter-gatherer society, were really just towards the other side of the spectrum of what's occurred in human history. I thought the argument was really interesting, coming so recently after James C. Scott's *Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States*, which is sort of a culmination of the \"original affluent society\" school of thinking, and was wondering if others had read it and had thoughts about it.","human_ref_B":"My latest studies talk about how agriculture can lead to more complex societies, but it is not a requirement. Especially among coastal dwellers who have \u201clegitimate surplus\u201d, it seems like food storage may be a larger factor than agriculture. See Hayden\u2019s \u201cBig Man, Big Heart\u201d and Alain Testart\u2019s \u201cThe Significance of Food Storage among Hunter-Gatherers...\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":610.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"cfrwnh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What do People think is Universal To humanity but isn\u2019t.","c_root_id_A":"eucq6wz","c_root_id_B":"eud8mdr","created_at_utc_A":1563682846,"created_at_utc_B":1563707452,"score_A":106,"score_B":139,"human_ref_A":"Colours. Colour identification\/labelling is not universal so some cultures see blue and green as the same. Medieval descriptions of green seas is also people seeing blue and calling it green.","human_ref_B":"That all cultures progress from hunter-gatherer to agricultural to industrial. There were maritime peoples in North and Mesoamerica that developed agriculture for industrial purposes (e.g. growing plants for fibers for nets) before they used it for sustenance purposes. I always found that fascinating.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24606.0,"score_ratio":1.3113207547} {"post_id":"cfrwnh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What do People think is Universal To humanity but isn\u2019t.","c_root_id_A":"eud8mdr","c_root_id_B":"eucwjpa","created_at_utc_A":1563707452,"created_at_utc_B":1563689703,"score_A":139,"score_B":86,"human_ref_A":"That all cultures progress from hunter-gatherer to agricultural to industrial. There were maritime peoples in North and Mesoamerica that developed agriculture for industrial purposes (e.g. growing plants for fibers for nets) before they used it for sustenance purposes. I always found that fascinating.","human_ref_B":"One I remember from my undergrad is showing affection in specific ways. For example, kissing on the lips is by no means universal. Another concept, more in my field, is related to money. It is a myth that everything can universally be valued and measured by the same scale (like the dollar, euro, or even something like ounces of gold). (an example would be that a house costs 400,000 dollars, an iPhone costs 1000 dollars and at McDonald's costs 20 dollars. We all can agree to that in Canada based on our shared concept of what a dollar is worth, and what things are worth x dollars.) Lots of historical and present examples show that people don't always value things like this, and often value them on their own terms that are not necessarily compatible\/convertible with the way they value other things.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17749.0,"score_ratio":1.6162790698} {"post_id":"52crnc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Was suicide as prevalent in ancient societies as it is now? Suicide right now is among the leading cause of deaths for young adults. Is this something that has been normal throughout history? Have there been societies that it was much more common than now? Were there any that it was completely taboo? I know in some societies it was viewed as an honorable death. In these societies, how great did the mistake have to be that suicide was the socially correct answer?","c_root_id_A":"d7jpswr","c_root_id_B":"d7k4mpk","created_at_utc_A":1473697832,"created_at_utc_B":1473716413,"score_A":11,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":">Suicide right now is among the leading cause of deaths for young adults Suicide rates are between 5 and 8 per 100.000 (source)","human_ref_B":"I know this isn't the best of sources, and I know Dan Everett is a controversial linguist, but I was immediately reminded of this story from a Freakonomics podcast about the amazonian Piraha tribe. If any resident anthropologists with expertise about the region know about this, please chime in about the plausibility: EVERETT:\u00a0I originally went to the Piraha as a missionary to translate the Bible into their language, but over the course of many years, they wound up converting me, and I became a scientist instead, and studied their culture and its effects on their language. DUBNER:\u00a0The Piraha live in huts, sleep on the ground, hunt with bows and arrows. But what really caught Everett\u2019s attention is that they are relentlessly happy. Really happy. EVERETT:\u00a0This happiness and this contentment really had a lot to do with me abandoning my religious goals, and my religion altogether, because they seemed to have it a lot more together than most religious people I knew. DUBNER:\u00a0But this isn\u2019t just another story about some faraway tribe that\u2019s really happy even though they don\u2019t have all the stuff that we have. It\u2019s a story about something that happened during Everett\u2019s early days with the tribe. He and his wife and their three young kids had just finished dinner. Everett gathered about thirty Piraha in his hut to preach to them. EVERETT:\u00a0I was still a very fervent Christian missionary, and I wanted to tell them how God had changed my life. So, I told them a story about my stepmother and how she had committed suicide because she was so depressed and so lost, for the word depressed I used the word sad. So she was very sad. She was crying. She felt lost. And she shot herself in the head, and she died. And this had a large spiritual impact on me, and I later became a missionary and came to the Piraha because of all of this experience triggered by her suicide. And I told this story as tenderly as I could, and tried to communicate that it had a huge impact on me. And when I was finished everyone burst out laughing. [THEME] ANNOUNCER:\u00a0From WNYC and APM, American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio. Today: The Suicide Paradox. Here\u2019s your host, Stephen Dubner. DUBNER:\u00a0All right, so Dan Everett was sharing this sad, intimate story about his step-mother\u2019s suicide with the Piraha \u2026 EVERETT:\u00a0When I asked them why are you laughing, they said: \u201cShe killed herself. That\u2019s really funny to us. We don\u2019t kill ourselves. You mean, you people, you white people shoot yourselves in the head? We kill animals, we don\u2019t kill ourselves.\u201d They just found it absolutely inexplicable, and without precedent in their own experience that someone would kill themselves. DUBNER:\u00a0In the thirty years that Everett has been studying the Piraha, there have been zero suicides. Now, it\u2019s not that suicide doesn\u2019t happen in the Amazon \u2013 for other tribes, it\u2019s a problem. EVERETT:\u00a0And as I\u2019ve told this story, some people have suggested that, well it\u2019s because they don\u2019t have the stresses of modern life. But that\u2019s just not true. There is almost one hundred percent endemic malaria among the people. They\u2019re sick a lot. Their children die at probably about seventy-five percent. Seventy-five percent of the children die before they reach the age of five or six. These are astounding pressures. It goes on, very interesting episode; http:\/\/freakonomics.com\/2011\/06\/21\/the-suicide-paradox-full-transcript\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18581.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"52crnc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Was suicide as prevalent in ancient societies as it is now? Suicide right now is among the leading cause of deaths for young adults. Is this something that has been normal throughout history? Have there been societies that it was much more common than now? Were there any that it was completely taboo? I know in some societies it was viewed as an honorable death. In these societies, how great did the mistake have to be that suicide was the socially correct answer?","c_root_id_A":"d7k4mpk","c_root_id_B":"d7k3y1w","created_at_utc_A":1473716413,"created_at_utc_B":1473715503,"score_A":33,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I know this isn't the best of sources, and I know Dan Everett is a controversial linguist, but I was immediately reminded of this story from a Freakonomics podcast about the amazonian Piraha tribe. If any resident anthropologists with expertise about the region know about this, please chime in about the plausibility: EVERETT:\u00a0I originally went to the Piraha as a missionary to translate the Bible into their language, but over the course of many years, they wound up converting me, and I became a scientist instead, and studied their culture and its effects on their language. DUBNER:\u00a0The Piraha live in huts, sleep on the ground, hunt with bows and arrows. But what really caught Everett\u2019s attention is that they are relentlessly happy. Really happy. EVERETT:\u00a0This happiness and this contentment really had a lot to do with me abandoning my religious goals, and my religion altogether, because they seemed to have it a lot more together than most religious people I knew. DUBNER:\u00a0But this isn\u2019t just another story about some faraway tribe that\u2019s really happy even though they don\u2019t have all the stuff that we have. It\u2019s a story about something that happened during Everett\u2019s early days with the tribe. He and his wife and their three young kids had just finished dinner. Everett gathered about thirty Piraha in his hut to preach to them. EVERETT:\u00a0I was still a very fervent Christian missionary, and I wanted to tell them how God had changed my life. So, I told them a story about my stepmother and how she had committed suicide because she was so depressed and so lost, for the word depressed I used the word sad. So she was very sad. She was crying. She felt lost. And she shot herself in the head, and she died. And this had a large spiritual impact on me, and I later became a missionary and came to the Piraha because of all of this experience triggered by her suicide. And I told this story as tenderly as I could, and tried to communicate that it had a huge impact on me. And when I was finished everyone burst out laughing. [THEME] ANNOUNCER:\u00a0From WNYC and APM, American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio. Today: The Suicide Paradox. Here\u2019s your host, Stephen Dubner. DUBNER:\u00a0All right, so Dan Everett was sharing this sad, intimate story about his step-mother\u2019s suicide with the Piraha \u2026 EVERETT:\u00a0When I asked them why are you laughing, they said: \u201cShe killed herself. That\u2019s really funny to us. We don\u2019t kill ourselves. You mean, you people, you white people shoot yourselves in the head? We kill animals, we don\u2019t kill ourselves.\u201d They just found it absolutely inexplicable, and without precedent in their own experience that someone would kill themselves. DUBNER:\u00a0In the thirty years that Everett has been studying the Piraha, there have been zero suicides. Now, it\u2019s not that suicide doesn\u2019t happen in the Amazon \u2013 for other tribes, it\u2019s a problem. EVERETT:\u00a0And as I\u2019ve told this story, some people have suggested that, well it\u2019s because they don\u2019t have the stresses of modern life. But that\u2019s just not true. There is almost one hundred percent endemic malaria among the people. They\u2019re sick a lot. Their children die at probably about seventy-five percent. Seventy-five percent of the children die before they reach the age of five or six. These are astounding pressures. It goes on, very interesting episode; http:\/\/freakonomics.com\/2011\/06\/21\/the-suicide-paradox-full-transcript\/","human_ref_B":"You are asking a question that might be more historical or archaeological in my opinion. Dagenais at Concordia university wrote a book on suicide from a sociological perspective and I am sure you would find lots of resources in his bibliography. Sadly I have not had a chance to read his book (yet) so best of luck.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":910.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"fjay7d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How have people on the Autism Spectrum looked across time and cultures? I got diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult and I'm very grateful for the name and diagnosis, I feel like it explains a lot about me, like my inability to read people, sensitivity to sensation and my obsession with finding patterns. But I feel like I'm lacking a historical and cultural context. * If neurodiversity is natural and has been with us, have there always been people like me? Are there signs of neurodiversity in the past and across cultures? What roles have neurodiverse people played in the past? * In one of her TED Talks, Temple Grandin says pretty confidently that the first person to make a throwing spear was autistic because they weren't spending their time chit-chatting around a fire. How do you feel about that? Does that feel like a simplified characterization of inventors and technical people? * And if you can't answer this question, are there common social characteristics of inventors and mathematicians across cultures?","c_root_id_A":"fkmps12","c_root_id_B":"fkmmsd3","created_at_utc_A":1584335742,"created_at_utc_B":1584333148,"score_A":13,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Massa_chief response is good, although a bit harsh. Because of the reasons they stated, prehistoric autism has been worked mainly through evolutionary psychology, as it generally needs less evidence to support their claims. Anthropology tend to highlight material evidence and culture, both things that harder to trace for the problem you are presenting. The evidence presented by some sholars, like some similarities in painting between autistic childs and prehistoric caves (spikins et al., 2016) is very narrow. There are additional aspects of autism that I would like to highlight: - high functional autism may just be interpret in other cultures as part of the normal human variation. Still, low functional autism is probably a whole other story. For example, being unable (or having big issues) to communicate verbally is hardly represented as part of the 'normal' (as a cultural category) spectrum in most cultures. - there is a line of ethnographic investigations of mental diversity, as part of medical anthropology. I would be surprised if noone has worked with autism in different cultures. The variations on how different cultures interact with autism may give us clues about how it was treated in prehistoric contexts. - there are some interesting biological aspects to be taken into consideration. For example, one of the few identified factors of autism is being borned from an 'old' male. Old people having children was generally less common in prehistoric contexts, as life expectancy was much lower than today. This presents some interesting questions regarding how unusual it was to be on the autistic spectrum before modern times. As autism investigations develop, we may have a bunch of new factors to consider.","human_ref_B":"Mental disorders were not usually well documented parts of public record so it\u2019s tough to say with any degree of accuracy. In Europe pre and post Enlightenment people with sensory issues that were severely affected were usually cloistered in some way. As well, many diseases experienced by people in developed countries don\u2019t seem to happen with those in undeveloped ones so records are scarce. Anecdotal stories about human calculators, \u201cmentats\u201d, idiot savants, etc are often just stories. People displaying aberrant traits may have faced exploitation or persecution, eg witch trials, court fools, village idiots etc","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2594.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"fjay7d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How have people on the Autism Spectrum looked across time and cultures? I got diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult and I'm very grateful for the name and diagnosis, I feel like it explains a lot about me, like my inability to read people, sensitivity to sensation and my obsession with finding patterns. But I feel like I'm lacking a historical and cultural context. * If neurodiversity is natural and has been with us, have there always been people like me? Are there signs of neurodiversity in the past and across cultures? What roles have neurodiverse people played in the past? * In one of her TED Talks, Temple Grandin says pretty confidently that the first person to make a throwing spear was autistic because they weren't spending their time chit-chatting around a fire. How do you feel about that? Does that feel like a simplified characterization of inventors and technical people? * And if you can't answer this question, are there common social characteristics of inventors and mathematicians across cultures?","c_root_id_A":"fknb9u0","c_root_id_B":"fkrahkl","created_at_utc_A":1584360797,"created_at_utc_B":1584465002,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The Temple Grandin comment strikes me as a joke, but if she meant it seriously then I would strongly object. It's a complete over-simplification on the same lines as all the \"palaeo diet\" nonsense. As an archaeologist, I'm not sure how we could ever get evidence that was fine-grained enough to argue that a particular phenomenon is the result of any particular kind of neurological or psychological condition. Even in rock art, which is one of the most direct links we have to individual thoughts, it would be impossible to say for sure that people who might have been on the spectrum (or had conditions like schizophrenia or what have you) were responsible for the images. I feel pretty confident that people have always been neurodiverse, simply because there is nothing to suggest that ancient people were fundamentally different from modern people. But I don't think we can really say what role people who thought or acted differently might have played in any particular context. I would imagine that most of the time they got along as well as modern people do -- sometimes they might be seen as a little \"off\" or \"strange\", but unless there was a dramatic difference in behavior they were just people.","human_ref_B":"> In one of her TED Talks, Temple Grandin says pretty confidently that the first person to make a throwing spear was autistic because they weren't spending their time chit-chatting around a fire. How do you feel about that? Does that feel like a simplified characterization of inventors and technical people? honestly? as an autistic person? autistic people would probably be chatting around the fire too. a lot of autistic people occupy much of their free time socializing. it just has to be the right kind of socializing. once I find the right group of people I don't feel like someone with a social impediment and I don't get socially exhausted so fast. I have a feeling that less conventionalized society (i.e. society without many levels of hierarchy and social rule) would actually be a lot friendlier to autistic people, and the line between autistic and non-autistic would really blur in societies like that ... they say we like \"structure\" but it's our great difficulty conforming to our culture's rules\/structure that makes us \"autistic\" in the first place. not all autistic people are specifically apt at physical technical skills. I have pretty poor motor skills, a poor sense of physical awareness and need to be given very exact instructions to be able to perform technical tasks. I know a lot of autistic people like this. it's an aspect of autism that is often overlooked because the autistic people who have very exceptional technical skill are more interesting to the general public. on the flipside you can be non-autistic and still be very engaged with a non-social skill ... and in archaic society, technical prowess would actually be a pretty socially important thing, you would get a lot of respect from being able to produce certain things. a person could have social reasons motivating them to invent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":104205.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6i4691","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What fascinating examples of human diversity are NOT known to the general public, but lie hidden in the footnotes of dusty anthropology journals? An example is the \"sound painting\" of the Siwu, as covered by this dissertation. (Not from anthropology but that kind of social and cultural practice).","c_root_id_A":"dj3q7m7","c_root_id_B":"dj3mlnz","created_at_utc_A":1497875890,"created_at_utc_B":1497867734,"score_A":62,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"The Tocharians are a people who potentially inhabited the Tarim Basin, spoke a language with similarities to both Turkish and Tibetan, were largely Buddhists and wrote in characters based on India's Brahmi script. They're also seems to be some rumbling that they were potentially \"European\" looking. Most of the stuff I've read doesn't talk about that though so I don't want to pass that off as fact until verified. The Kushan dynasty was a group which potentially spoke the same language and seemed to mix elements of Nomadic Horse cultures with Greek and Indian elements. There are even coins which they minted with Shiva on one side and Mercury on the other.","human_ref_B":"Not cultural diversity but genetic. TLDR: The most distantly related Asians or Europeans are more genetically similar to each other than two Africans from the same tribe. Longer Version: Humans as we know them evolved in what is now Ethiopia and Kenya (East Africa). Obviously only some humans left Africa and as humans spread out away from that original area their population went through various bottlenecks. As you can imagine, if a small tribe is migrating and settled into a new area only their genome will propagate into the future. As a general rule as you move father away from Africa they less genetic diversity the population will have. I'm not sure of the percent genetic difference but as a rule of thumb Native Americans are the least diverse, next would be east Asians, then European\/Middle Eastern then Indians, and finally Africans.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8156.0,"score_ratio":1.3777777778} {"post_id":"xyqnit","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of the best YouTube channels that have bite sized videos on interesting topics in Anthropology with a high production value similar to NatGeo? I am looking for a free YouTube channel that produces bite sized videos on interesting Anthropological topics. I am looking for videos that are not more than 15 minutes in length and have good production value. Basically something like The History Channel or NatGeo but for Anthropology.","c_root_id_A":"iridb3h","c_root_id_B":"iribulj","created_at_utc_A":1665232614,"created_at_utc_B":1665231608,"score_A":61,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"I really like PBS Eons. Although is more of a biology channel than an only anthropology one, this is a very good playlist https:\/\/youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLi6K9w_UbfFSxHPEDWcXxIxSA6gDR4OeZ about hominids and evolution. Hope you enjoy!","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/youtube.com\/c\/StefanMilo https:\/\/youtu.be\/0UnJIf_WTQs 12 mins was making a handaxe Sexy? https:\/\/youtu.be\/fXFQEMQ1nrk 14 mins on early human ancestors https:\/\/youtu.be\/u6kc7rEQXpI 15 mins on the life and death of Lucy and her kin https:\/\/youtu.be\/9kakBfGxhpM 14 mins on the old narrative on bipedalism coming into doubt https:\/\/youtu.be\/OgBJmdpqWsU 12 mins on Homo Naledi However, his videos do vary in length a lot. From 5 mins to an hour depending on how broad the topic is. But he is unmatched in production value.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1006.0,"score_ratio":1.5641025641} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4pg33p","c_root_id_B":"i4pc0y6","created_at_utc_A":1649947677,"created_at_utc_B":1649946028,"score_A":31,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"It might help if you pick a niche to focus on too, there's a lot of topics in anth if you're looking for something other than general\/introductory theory, which is also a valid interest too!","human_ref_B":"Marvin Harris 's \"Cannibals and Kings\". Marston Bates': \"Gluttons and Libertines\". They're old works (1977 and 1968 respectively... I'm old, too...), but they are the books that made me fall in love with the discipline. Also \"The Mismeasure of Man\" and \"The Panda's Thumb\" by Stephen Jay Gould. These works certainly don't represent the \"cutting edge\" in either physical and cultural anthropology or evolutionary theory but... They're GOOD reads and they'll certainly help you wrap your head around the history of the discipline and present possible ways to approach the questions that it brings to the fore. Good luck!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1649.0,"score_ratio":1.4761904762} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qyr6d","c_root_id_B":"i4pc0y6","created_at_utc_A":1649969197,"created_at_utc_B":1649946028,"score_A":22,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","human_ref_B":"Marvin Harris 's \"Cannibals and Kings\". Marston Bates': \"Gluttons and Libertines\". They're old works (1977 and 1968 respectively... I'm old, too...), but they are the books that made me fall in love with the discipline. Also \"The Mismeasure of Man\" and \"The Panda's Thumb\" by Stephen Jay Gould. These works certainly don't represent the \"cutting edge\" in either physical and cultural anthropology or evolutionary theory but... They're GOOD reads and they'll certainly help you wrap your head around the history of the discipline and present possible ways to approach the questions that it brings to the fore. Good luck!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23169.0,"score_ratio":1.0476190476} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4q7f8z","c_root_id_B":"i4qyr6d","created_at_utc_A":1649958365,"created_at_utc_B":1649969197,"score_A":17,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Some incredibly important books in archaeology\/anthropology: The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent V. Flannery, Joyce Marcus The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard W. Wrangham","human_ref_B":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10832.0,"score_ratio":1.2941176471} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4q6sr4","c_root_id_B":"i4qyr6d","created_at_utc_A":1649958120,"created_at_utc_B":1649969197,"score_A":14,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Are you interested in biological anthropology at all? If so, I compiled a list of book recommendations from the anthropologists I interview on my bio anth podcast. The whole list is on my website here.","human_ref_B":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11077.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qjd40","c_root_id_B":"i4qyr6d","created_at_utc_A":1649963102,"created_at_utc_B":1649969197,"score_A":11,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I'm just a dumbo art school drop out but \"the dawn of everything\" was a great read that covers a lot of ground. I think its pretty controversial too, which is fun.","human_ref_B":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6095.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4pjryw","c_root_id_B":"i4qyr6d","created_at_utc_A":1649949137,"created_at_utc_B":1649969197,"score_A":10,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Some unis display subject syllabus at their programs website, which is great because it follows an order. You can google the books and articles online. I find it much easier than trying to start from a random book. My advice is to look for history of anthropology and dive in the niches historically first to understand the conversations going.","human_ref_B":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20060.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qtpto","c_root_id_B":"i4qyr6d","created_at_utc_A":1649967211,"created_at_utc_B":1649969197,"score_A":2,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","human_ref_B":"I use this open access textbook from the American Anthropological Association when I teach introductory-level cultural anthropology: https:\/\/perspectives.americananthro.org\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1986.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4q6sr4","c_root_id_B":"i4q7f8z","created_at_utc_A":1649958120,"created_at_utc_B":1649958365,"score_A":14,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Are you interested in biological anthropology at all? If so, I compiled a list of book recommendations from the anthropologists I interview on my bio anth podcast. The whole list is on my website here.","human_ref_B":"Some incredibly important books in archaeology\/anthropology: The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent V. Flannery, Joyce Marcus The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard W. Wrangham","labels":0,"seconds_difference":245.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4pjryw","c_root_id_B":"i4q7f8z","created_at_utc_A":1649949137,"created_at_utc_B":1649958365,"score_A":10,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Some unis display subject syllabus at their programs website, which is great because it follows an order. You can google the books and articles online. I find it much easier than trying to start from a random book. My advice is to look for history of anthropology and dive in the niches historically first to understand the conversations going.","human_ref_B":"Some incredibly important books in archaeology\/anthropology: The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent V. Flannery, Joyce Marcus The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard W. Wrangham","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9228.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4pjryw","c_root_id_B":"i4q6sr4","created_at_utc_A":1649949137,"created_at_utc_B":1649958120,"score_A":10,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Some unis display subject syllabus at their programs website, which is great because it follows an order. You can google the books and articles online. I find it much easier than trying to start from a random book. My advice is to look for history of anthropology and dive in the niches historically first to understand the conversations going.","human_ref_B":"Are you interested in biological anthropology at all? If so, I compiled a list of book recommendations from the anthropologists I interview on my bio anth podcast. The whole list is on my website here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8983.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qjd40","c_root_id_B":"i4pjryw","created_at_utc_A":1649963102,"created_at_utc_B":1649949137,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm just a dumbo art school drop out but \"the dawn of everything\" was a great read that covers a lot of ground. I think its pretty controversial too, which is fun.","human_ref_B":"Some unis display subject syllabus at their programs website, which is great because it follows an order. You can google the books and articles online. I find it much easier than trying to start from a random book. My advice is to look for history of anthropology and dive in the niches historically first to understand the conversations going.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13965.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4r5wb5","c_root_id_B":"i4qtpto","created_at_utc_A":1649972128,"created_at_utc_B":1649967211,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology has 4 subdivisions that honestly each are entirely their own discipline (although they are quite powerful when linked together, its like an academic voltron lol). The purpose of these are together to create a holistic look at \"what does it mean to be human\". You sound the most interested in cultural anthropology - the study of cultures and human interactions both at a macro and micro level. It has a lot in common with sociology, but tends to be a little more focused on qualitative evidence and observation (as opposed to quantitative data collection and social theory supported by quantitative data trends). It can be a little tricky to appraoch anthropology because you either are going to find a lot of really specific works (i.e. somebody studying scientists in a specific community and their internal culture like Thomas Kuhn) or a text book (which while informative, is probably overall pretty boring). If you really want a broad look, different ahtropology text books are the way to go but I hope you are mentally prepared. If you want something more engaging, pick a specific culture, identity group, or cultural phenomena that excites you. I enjoyed braiding sweet grass by Robin Kimmerer, the structure of scientific revolutions by thomas kuhn and travesti by don kulick. If you want a more broad look, the Sapiens podcast by Jen Shannon et al is great and easy to get into. Unfortunately, there isn't a great open exploration into anthropology as a whole that isn't a text book right now. Most of them are focused on a subject inside anthro, not explaining the discipline as a whole (which is actually a quite interesting hole I have not considered before) ​ edit - don't bother with sapiens (edit - the book not the podcast) . Its not really great science (a quick google search of scholarly reviews will tell you the same). Its interesting but largely unsupported in any conjectures it makes\/reviews old theories and cherry picks the ones it wants as if fact rather than trying to really explain the pros\/cons\/uncertainties. If you want to get deeper into human evolutionary theory, there are just better books out there. You could absolutely read the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins or even Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan is a really good overview into the science although its not necessarily cutting edge science.","human_ref_B":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4917.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4rkd51","c_root_id_B":"i4qtpto","created_at_utc_A":1649978451,"created_at_utc_B":1649967211,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d also add, be critical of the field and know it\u2019s history, here is an interesting read The Racist Anti-Racism of American Anthropology, (Baker 2021.)","human_ref_B":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11240.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4r75kc","c_root_id_B":"i4rkd51","created_at_utc_A":1649972660,"created_at_utc_B":1649978451,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d also add, be critical of the field and know it\u2019s history, here is an interesting read The Racist Anti-Racism of American Anthropology, (Baker 2021.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5791.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qtpto","c_root_id_B":"i4rjton","created_at_utc_A":1649967211,"created_at_utc_B":1649978215,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","human_ref_B":"David Harvey is a geographer with a youtube series titled, \u201cUnderstanding Marx\u201d and it\u2019s a super helpful and expansive journey <3","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11004.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4rjton","c_root_id_B":"i4r75kc","created_at_utc_A":1649978215,"created_at_utc_B":1649972660,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"David Harvey is a geographer with a youtube series titled, \u201cUnderstanding Marx\u201d and it\u2019s a super helpful and expansive journey <3","human_ref_B":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5555.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qtpto","c_root_id_B":"i4rrqjd","created_at_utc_A":1649967211,"created_at_utc_B":1649981830,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","human_ref_B":"Not by Genes Alone, by Richerson and Boyd","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14619.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4rrqjd","c_root_id_B":"i4r75kc","created_at_utc_A":1649981830,"created_at_utc_B":1649972660,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Not by Genes Alone, by Richerson and Boyd","human_ref_B":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9170.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4rohf9","c_root_id_B":"i4rrqjd","created_at_utc_A":1649980304,"created_at_utc_B":1649981830,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local community college will offer some introductory courses that are either very affordable or basically free. I would look into that.","human_ref_B":"Not by Genes Alone, by Richerson and Boyd","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1526.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4s1i7e","c_root_id_B":"i4qtpto","created_at_utc_A":1649986401,"created_at_utc_B":1649967211,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I suggest looking up syllabus PDF\u2019s. Anything you want to learn about is probably out there. Also ask professors who study what you\u2019re interested for syllabi or their papers, they\u2019ll be happy to help.","human_ref_B":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19190.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4r75kc","c_root_id_B":"i4s1i7e","created_at_utc_A":1649972660,"created_at_utc_B":1649986401,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","human_ref_B":"I suggest looking up syllabus PDF\u2019s. Anything you want to learn about is probably out there. Also ask professors who study what you\u2019re interested for syllabi or their papers, they\u2019ll be happy to help.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13741.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4s1i7e","c_root_id_B":"i4rohf9","created_at_utc_A":1649986401,"created_at_utc_B":1649980304,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I suggest looking up syllabus PDF\u2019s. Anything you want to learn about is probably out there. Also ask professors who study what you\u2019re interested for syllabi or their papers, they\u2019ll be happy to help.","human_ref_B":"Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local community college will offer some introductory courses that are either very affordable or basically free. I would look into that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6097.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qtpto","c_root_id_B":"i4s70v2","created_at_utc_A":1649967211,"created_at_utc_B":1649988993,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology and the Study of Humanity By: Scott M. Lacey, The Great Courseshttps:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/Anthropology-and-the-Study-of-Humanity-Audiobook\/B07193MCXL?qid=1649988917&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=Z7GDTTFA8R9FW9M3G1AX","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21782.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4r75kc","c_root_id_B":"i4s70v2","created_at_utc_A":1649972660,"created_at_utc_B":1649988993,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology and the Study of Humanity By: Scott M. Lacey, The Great Courseshttps:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/Anthropology-and-the-Study-of-Humanity-Audiobook\/B07193MCXL?qid=1649988917&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=Z7GDTTFA8R9FW9M3G1AX","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16333.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4s70v2","c_root_id_B":"i4rohf9","created_at_utc_A":1649988993,"created_at_utc_B":1649980304,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology and the Study of Humanity By: Scott M. Lacey, The Great Courseshttps:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/Anthropology-and-the-Study-of-Humanity-Audiobook\/B07193MCXL?qid=1649988917&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=Z7GDTTFA8R9FW9M3G1AX","human_ref_B":"Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local community college will offer some introductory courses that are either very affordable or basically free. I would look into that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8689.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4qtpto","c_root_id_B":"i4sneea","created_at_utc_A":1649967211,"created_at_utc_B":1649997798,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest looking at Franz Boas' study of Baffin Island if you want to get a perspective on the origins of the field. I read some of his original diaries but you could probably also find a more modern book like maybe this one that would be a bit more readable.","human_ref_B":"Hey, Anthro student here. I\u2019ll drop two of my favourite reads here: 1. From Boas to Black Power by Mark Anderson: An awesome look at the ideology and driving forces of arguably the most important figure in cultural Anthropology. Not a super long\/dense read but a great work that I find myself coming back to time and time again. 2. VITA: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment: This is my favourite ethnography I\u2019ve ever read. It follows Biehl\u2019s relationship with a woman named Catarina who suffered from varying Illnesses living in a volunteer-run care home in Brazil. Biehl integrates photography as well as Catarina\u2019s own \u201cdictionary\u201d, collections of words which read like poetry where She expresses her lived experience and past trauma. It\u2019s definitely a denser, more academic work but I really believe that it presents such a strong ethnographic voice and innovative methods It\u2019s well worth the read. Also if there are any other questions or specific recommendations you have you can always PM me and I\u2019m happy to talk :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30587.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4sneea","c_root_id_B":"i4r75kc","created_at_utc_A":1649997798,"created_at_utc_B":1649972660,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hey, Anthro student here. I\u2019ll drop two of my favourite reads here: 1. From Boas to Black Power by Mark Anderson: An awesome look at the ideology and driving forces of arguably the most important figure in cultural Anthropology. Not a super long\/dense read but a great work that I find myself coming back to time and time again. 2. VITA: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment: This is my favourite ethnography I\u2019ve ever read. It follows Biehl\u2019s relationship with a woman named Catarina who suffered from varying Illnesses living in a volunteer-run care home in Brazil. Biehl integrates photography as well as Catarina\u2019s own \u201cdictionary\u201d, collections of words which read like poetry where She expresses her lived experience and past trauma. It\u2019s definitely a denser, more academic work but I really believe that it presents such a strong ethnographic voice and innovative methods It\u2019s well worth the read. Also if there are any other questions or specific recommendations you have you can always PM me and I\u2019m happy to talk :)","human_ref_B":"My all time favorite is To Hunt in the Morning by Janet Siskind. Whenever you finish a book, look at the end for references and you'll find further reading. If you don't have money to study anthropology, don't plan on anthropology giving you any money btw. I'm a PhD in the field and after a while it gets depressing to write grants, begging people to help you do what's important to you. Unless you want to sell out and work in tech or something.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25138.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u3glj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"where do I start if I wanna read books? I'd like to get my feet wet in anthropology and since I can't afford to go to college to study it, could I get some book recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"i4rohf9","c_root_id_B":"i4sneea","created_at_utc_A":1649980304,"created_at_utc_B":1649997798,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Depending on where you live, there's a good chance that your local community college will offer some introductory courses that are either very affordable or basically free. I would look into that.","human_ref_B":"Hey, Anthro student here. I\u2019ll drop two of my favourite reads here: 1. From Boas to Black Power by Mark Anderson: An awesome look at the ideology and driving forces of arguably the most important figure in cultural Anthropology. Not a super long\/dense read but a great work that I find myself coming back to time and time again. 2. VITA: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment: This is my favourite ethnography I\u2019ve ever read. It follows Biehl\u2019s relationship with a woman named Catarina who suffered from varying Illnesses living in a volunteer-run care home in Brazil. Biehl integrates photography as well as Catarina\u2019s own \u201cdictionary\u201d, collections of words which read like poetry where She expresses her lived experience and past trauma. It\u2019s definitely a denser, more academic work but I really believe that it presents such a strong ethnographic voice and innovative methods It\u2019s well worth the read. Also if there are any other questions or specific recommendations you have you can always PM me and I\u2019m happy to talk :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17494.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"t52vm4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there written history of Moses in the Egyptian records? If I have heard it before, I don't remember. As extensive as the written record is in Egypt I would think that Moses being pulled from the Nile and raised in the house of the Pharoh would be recorded.","c_root_id_A":"hz35cx0","c_root_id_B":"hz379f6","created_at_utc_A":1646249010,"created_at_utc_B":1646249744,"score_A":36,"score_B":54,"human_ref_A":"Just to be absolutely clear since no one has underlined this point yet: The entire narrative of a Jewish origin or exile in Egypt, Jewish slavery in Egypt, Jewish slaves building the pyramids, all of it, is fiction. The Exodus narrative is not based on anything from Egyptian history at all. It is a literary invention, and any parts of it that are based in reality are based in a reality in other parts of the Near East, not Egypt.","human_ref_B":"In brief - no corroboration of the biblical accounts has ever been found in Egyptian writings. There's a handful of mentions of the later Kingdoms of Israel & Judah, of which the most famous is probably the Merneptah Stele (also called the Israel Stele). But there's nothing that directly corresponds to the Biblical account. The whole of the early books of the bible should be understood as the collected bodies of tribal lore, assembled years later by multiple authors and multiple editors. This post from AskHistorians is a good explanation of the situation in Egypt during the era. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/gxdy62\/was_the_exodus_real\/ftav6i2\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":734.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"s9m18d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"\u00bfDid anthropologists draw any conclusions about the Gombe Chimpanzee War? First post ever in reddit! I've been reading about the Gombe Chimpanzee War, a conflict between communities of chimpanzees in Tanzania. Jane Goodall, the ethologist that observed the conflict and the behavior of these groups, was shocked to see the \"darker side\" of the chimpanzees: cannibalistic infanticide, chimps celebrating the assassination of fellow members, limb dismemberment, etc. Was there a discussion among anthropologists about how this could be related to ancient hominids? Or was this only of interest to primatologists\/biologists?","c_root_id_A":"hto58pk","c_root_id_B":"htol2eo","created_at_utc_A":1642808701,"created_at_utc_B":1642815184,"score_A":49,"score_B":110,"human_ref_A":"Hello!! I don\u2019t have time to type up a long response here as I\u2019m running late for something but I HIGHLY recommend you read In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall. It will answer all your questions. It isn\u2019t specifically about the Chimpanzee War but it is about her research. She was sent to Africa by Louis Leakey (a very well known anthropologists if you aren\u2019t familiar) specifically to learn about potential relationships between modern chimpanzee behaviors and ancient hominids. So, in short, yes, anthropologists have always been interested in her work and it\u2019s implications for ancient humans.","human_ref_B":"A quick search would show you that lot of anthropology research papers have been published on the Gombe Chimpanzee War. Primatology is a mix of biology and anthropology, but it\u2019s most often classified as a sub-branch of anthropology, especially studies involving the great areas. Many of the studies of this particular incident involve the implications for long term pre-planning, calculated and intentional violence, and potential causes of the incident. Something that\u2019s important to recognize, chimpanzees are not necessarily great models for our ancestors. In the public they are commonly thought to be more-or-less the same as our ancestors, but they\u2019ve been evolving along their own particular track, just as we have, ever since the divergence from our common ancestor. Behaviors we see in them that we also see in humans are *likely* indications of archaic behaviors that our mutual ancestors also had, but some may als be a result of convergent evolution. Chimpanzees (including Bonobos) are the best analogy we have to our common ancestor, but it\u2019s not a perfect match and we have to be wary of making too many assumptions based on chimpanzee behavior and lifestyles. This is something that comes up periodically at the IPS conferences I attend, where even among professional primatologists it\u2019s felt by some researchers that they need to remind other researchers of this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6483.0,"score_ratio":2.2448979592} {"post_id":"pwskx3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"New dad here: Looking for a comprehensive book on ancient human infant care We have a 6 week old baby boy, and the whole process has just made me fascinated about how humans did this for the hundreds of thousands of years when we just lived in small tribes of hunter gatherers. I'd love a comprehensive book (maybe text book?) on everything related. Even if these are unanswerable for ancient humans, what about modern hunter-gatherer tribes? Types of questions I have: * What's the evolutionary trade-off between babies crying all-the-fucking time and alerting predators \/ enemies? * How much of a new-born's time was spent being carried vs laid down somewhere? * What were the most frequent methods of carrying a baby? * What was the birth mother's life like in the first 2 months? How much work did she do? were tribes frequently \"on the move\", or were mom's spending a lot of time lying down? * Did mothers often only nurse their own children? Or was there like a \"communal\" nursing thing going on with all lactating women? * did fathers \/ men often sleep near newborn babies and nursing mothers? or did they GTFO to try to get some sleep? * how did they deal with babies shitting and peeing everywhere all the time? Were they often naked? Or wrapped in skins \/ clothes? How did they deal with clothes getting shit all over them 7 times a day? * when were children typically weaned?","c_root_id_A":"heluphj","c_root_id_B":"helly5j","created_at_utc_A":1632843534,"created_at_utc_B":1632839848,"score_A":36,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":">What's the evolutionary trade-off between babies crying all-the-fucking time and alerting predators \/ enemies? There's this myth that people cling to for some reason that before civilization came around that people were helpless prey animals or were locked in constant combat with other tribes. That's a myth, though. Adult human beings have always been the biggest bad asses around, even if animals like lions and such are bigger and stronger than us. A bite from a lion *might* kill a human being, but a stab from a spear *will* kill an adult lion. Can you think of where on your body you could be stabbed and not need medical care to live? Even basic care like a bandage or a guy to hold pressure is beyond a lion. As long as we're in groups, we're untouchable. That's why babies cry, because they need to be part of the group. If they're on the ground in the middle of a field, they're vulnerable to exposure even if they're quiet and still and no predator finds them. If they cry, they might attract a predator, but hopefully mom or dad will show up with weapons and a safe group first. They're dead for sure if they're quiet, but they have a chance if they cry. Similar situation for warring tribes, but that was much less of a problem when *Sapiens* was evolving, since there were a lot fewer of us. Babies crying might be aggravating, and I've had two, I've been there, but it is *the* mark of our dominance over this world. Our babies, some of the most useless and dependent children evolution has ever produced, scream at the top of their lungs without any innate fear because they don't have an evolutionary need to be afraid because daddy and mommy will banish the darkness with fire and banish the predators at the point of a spear.","human_ref_B":"Also a pretty new dad here (he's almost one! Which is crazy, how has it been a year already?) I don't have any book recommendations on this and it's actually a question I meant to ask myself, as my wife was telling me about a podcast episode where a journalist interviewed women in several cultures about motherhood or something like that. Ever the anthropologist, I told my wife I'd look for some good books on child-rearing worldwide (and I didn't get far). Anyway, I see a few interesting recommendations in the comments but just want to say as an archaeologist that most or all of your questions would be unanswerable using direct archaeological evidence, as they would not leave any material traces of these practices. Instead, to answer questions like this we would compare cross-cultural examples and maybe include some non-human primate examples all to give ideas, and then infer what human childcare might have looked like, say, 100,000 years ago. There may be some art and dolls\/toys and other things from more recent times that could also help interpret things. It's also worth noting that feminist and gendered archaeologies only started in the 1980s, really (before that everything was focused on men and things that modern society typically perceives as masculine). Children were basically not even an afterthought for archaeologists, they just weren't considered. This has slowly changed in recent decades, but it's still fairly new and less common than those perceived as masculine things, so that really limits evidence too. That's an important caveat to keep in mind. Anything written by an actual anthropologist\/archaeologist should take this into account and be conservative with their conclusions, but if you find books written by non-specialists they could make sweeping claims and generalizations that aren't really based on good evidence, or that are based on how people do things today (or in the recent past) that could be totally different from millennia ago. That's also to say that you may be interested in anthropological perspectives on parenting that aren't necessarily focused on evolution or the deep past. Just keep in mind, as others have noted, that humans are very adaptable and this whole culture thing means that any practices are relevant and applicable to that culture, but might not be generalizable. And every culture changes through time, constantly. Just because one hunter-gatherer community on a Pacific island in the 1920s did things one way, for instance, absolutely does not mean that that is the way that people did things 100,000 years ago. Also, 100,000 years ago (or 300,000, or 1,000,000 years ago) there were probably thousands of humans (and a few different species) in geographically distant places, and they had culture too, and different communities very likely had different practices too. Teasing out what is evolutionary or typical or anything can be very hard but also maybe doesn't mean anything, because we as a species (and genus) are so adaptable, and culture plays such a huge role in our lives, that any practices need to be understood in their cultural context. Anyway, this is probably a useless comment because I don't have any recommendations, but just wanted to share some thoughts as someone who has also become more interested in this topic lately.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3686.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"nf2vhg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What social conditions lead to 'honor killings' in cultures? Why do they even occur in the first place? It seems they only occur amongst nations\/cultures with a strong tribal background and absence of rule of law, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, India etc. Prior to the 1900's, were 'honor killings' present in Europe, the Americas and China?","c_root_id_A":"gylc0rp","c_root_id_B":"gykx9vy","created_at_utc_A":1621358634,"created_at_utc_B":1621352618,"score_A":31,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Interesting question, though I feel there may be better indicators than \"strong tribal background\" or \"absence of rule of law.\" These are ill-defined quantities and represent colonial arguments taken apart pretty well by Guyatri Spivak in Can the Subaltern Speak and other scholars elsewhere. I suspect hierarchical \/ patriarchal social organization that sees some groups (generally women and folks who don't use sunscreen heavily) as having value primarily in service (physical labor or something less material like preserving honor) might be better indicators.","human_ref_B":"Yes, they were, socialist - starting with the 1860ies Austria, and, subsequently, communist, parties did a lot to eradicate this issue. Honor killings are mentioned in the criminal justice system of Imperial Russia - among Russians, White Russians and Malorossians (Ukrainians), and are analysed in a cursory retrospective look in the \"Socialism doesn't create crime: serial murder and sexual crime in the USSR\" and \"Criminal history of the Russian Empire\" by A. Rakitin. I have requested my wife to send some references to similar works regarding China, but she's busy, currently. Regarding other countries and anecdotally, you can read about this in the French classical literature, and you can find the cases of honor killing, round about 16th and 17th century (meaning - *those are the ones that I have read about*, it doesn't mean honor killings disappeared in France after that), in the French national archives online (Gallica\/BNF).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6016.0,"score_ratio":2.0666666667} {"post_id":"io6ofz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before agriculture, where did humans get their carbohydrate requirements needed for hunting? I've heard two theories about what technique was used to hunt game before the invention of bows and spears One, that humans used to run after their prey until it was exhausted Two, that humans used to ambush prey and make sudden sprints on full speed. The first one sounds more prolonged jogging or even running, so I guess this is the theory that has posed this question in my mind. I would not know which or if both theories are correct since I am a layman","c_root_id_A":"g4c4fxe","c_root_id_B":"g4cv7h8","created_at_utc_A":1599490179,"created_at_utc_B":1599501306,"score_A":25,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Hunting takes time, and was done in conjunction with things like _gathering,_ because you just can\u2019t rely on what game you managed to hunt alone. Fruits, wild plants, and root vegetables like squash and potatoes were actually major aspects of one\u2019s diet, and they have maintained that status even to this day.","human_ref_B":"Important to note is that even in the total absence of carbohydrates in the diet, the human body will produce glucose through gluconeogenesis, since a certain level of blood sugar is absolutely essential for many physiological processes. Thus, it's not important to eat carbs for the sake of filling your muscles with glucose and use it for explosive physical activity, a diet of only meat works as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11127.0,"score_ratio":1.16} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hscvbsy","c_root_id_B":"hsd5w8a","created_at_utc_A":1642000954,"created_at_utc_B":1642005060,"score_A":13,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"I suggest you also ask in r\/AskHistorians","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m familiar with a number of stories a bit further up the coast. There are many stories about strange people, some described as white, or harry, or even red heads. Stories often follow a similar structure. Locals find a big wreck out on the coast. Strange people come out of it. The strange people stay around for a while, but are either killed off for causing problems, or eventually sail away back where they came from. Problem you quickly run into is, there\u2019s very little info ever given on the timing of the stories. Could these be East Asians or Polynesians from hundreds of years ago? Or could they be Spanish on the Manilla Galleons, from a couple hundred years ago? Or could they be more recent fur traders wrecked coming down from Alaska? There\u2019s very little to go off of. Just for fun, I tracked down the story from the notes Here's a link Again, very little to go off of as far as details in the story. The author even mentions the possibility of Japanese Junks, or Spanish ships.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4106.0,"score_ratio":4.2307692308} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsej6o8","c_root_id_B":"hscvbsy","created_at_utc_A":1642023426,"created_at_utc_B":1642000954,"score_A":33,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"yes, Japanese sailors - \"sea drifters\" washed ashore in solid historical accounts of the Tokugawa era. Could easily have happened previously, but I think the first documented accounts are circa 1600. The story of Japanese sailors arriving on the Washington coast circa 1800 is particularly well known - they lived for a time with the Makah tribe -- but there are others. See Katherine Plummer's excellent book THE SHOGUN\u2019S RELUCTANT AMBASSADORS: Japanese Sea Drifters in the North Pacific by (Oregon Historical Society Press: 1991). There's also some tantalizing suggestion of earlier Japanese arrivals, including to Ecuador, circa 3000 BCE Meggers, Betty J., and Clifford Evans. \"A transpacific contact in 3000 BC.\" Scientific American 214.1 (1966): 28-35. \\-- this is archaeological evidence, an apparent similarity to Jomon pottery found in Ecuador, suggesting a real cultural connection. I can't assess how solid this is. We've also now got solid evidence of Polynesian voyages to and from South America, see: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . with that said, the evidence for the more fanciful theories isn't there. So the pyramids in central America are no connection to the pyramids in Egypt, to dispel one common - but popular-- bit of silliness. Similarly, there's no evidence of travels from Africa to South America-- there are some fanciful ideas about this, but again no evidence. Its plain that plants and animals did float from Africa to the New World - there's biological evidence for that-- but no signs of a civilizational impact. The genetics show a very slight Polynesian signal in South America, but none in North America before 1492. We've got archaeologically and historically documented visits by Europeans before 1492 (Vikings) and probably accidental arrivals from across the Pacific. We see nothing in the genetics of Native Americans to show that these folks left a genetic legacy that we can detect. After 1492, of course, there is substantial gene flow-- not just across the Atlantic, but also across the Pacific. Mexico has a significant genetic legacy of people who came with Spanish galleons, Filipinos and Chinese. I posted a bit about this previously There's a beautiful survey of genetics in Mexico, see: Moreno-Estrada, Andr\u00e9s, et al. \"The genetics of Mexico recapitulates Native American substructure and affects biomedical traits.\" Science 344.6189 (2014): 1280-1285.DOI: 10.1126\/science.1251688in part >\"Mexico harbors great cultural and ethnic diversity, yet fine-scale patterns of human genome-wide variation from this region remain largely uncharacterized. We studied genomic variation within Mexico from over 1000 individuals representing 20 indigenous and 11 mestizo populations. We found striking genetic stratification among indigenous populations within Mexico at varying degrees of geographic isolation. Some groups were as differentiated as Europeans are from East Asians. Pre-Columbian genetic substructure is recapitulated in the indigenous ancestry of admixed mestizo individuals across the country. So there's nothing really \"average\" about indigenous populations-- they can be genetically distinct from each other, dramatically through isolation before 1492, and then by all sorts of new arrivals from Africa, Asia and Europe. See: Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Juan Esteban, et al. \"Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon.\" bioRxiv (2021).https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2021.10.09.463780","human_ref_B":"I suggest you also ask in r\/AskHistorians","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22472.0,"score_ratio":2.5384615385} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsdygil","c_root_id_B":"hsej6o8","created_at_utc_A":1642015713,"created_at_utc_B":1642023426,"score_A":12,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"The currents in the Pacific certainly does bring debris from Japan to the Pacific Northwest. It's a well known phenomenon for things from Japan to wash up on shore on the other side of the ocean after bad tsunamis and storms in general, and this was one of the big concerns following the Fukushima disaster. There's even been a few cases where people have survived the trip as castaways like Otokichi. So it's not impossible that other survivors have washed ashore over the centuries, who now only live on through oral history. There's no reason to believe that the very first Japanese castaways arrived to the region only just after the Europeans had arrived to record it.","human_ref_B":"yes, Japanese sailors - \"sea drifters\" washed ashore in solid historical accounts of the Tokugawa era. Could easily have happened previously, but I think the first documented accounts are circa 1600. The story of Japanese sailors arriving on the Washington coast circa 1800 is particularly well known - they lived for a time with the Makah tribe -- but there are others. See Katherine Plummer's excellent book THE SHOGUN\u2019S RELUCTANT AMBASSADORS: Japanese Sea Drifters in the North Pacific by (Oregon Historical Society Press: 1991). There's also some tantalizing suggestion of earlier Japanese arrivals, including to Ecuador, circa 3000 BCE Meggers, Betty J., and Clifford Evans. \"A transpacific contact in 3000 BC.\" Scientific American 214.1 (1966): 28-35. \\-- this is archaeological evidence, an apparent similarity to Jomon pottery found in Ecuador, suggesting a real cultural connection. I can't assess how solid this is. We've also now got solid evidence of Polynesian voyages to and from South America, see: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . with that said, the evidence for the more fanciful theories isn't there. So the pyramids in central America are no connection to the pyramids in Egypt, to dispel one common - but popular-- bit of silliness. Similarly, there's no evidence of travels from Africa to South America-- there are some fanciful ideas about this, but again no evidence. Its plain that plants and animals did float from Africa to the New World - there's biological evidence for that-- but no signs of a civilizational impact. The genetics show a very slight Polynesian signal in South America, but none in North America before 1492. We've got archaeologically and historically documented visits by Europeans before 1492 (Vikings) and probably accidental arrivals from across the Pacific. We see nothing in the genetics of Native Americans to show that these folks left a genetic legacy that we can detect. After 1492, of course, there is substantial gene flow-- not just across the Atlantic, but also across the Pacific. Mexico has a significant genetic legacy of people who came with Spanish galleons, Filipinos and Chinese. I posted a bit about this previously There's a beautiful survey of genetics in Mexico, see: Moreno-Estrada, Andr\u00e9s, et al. \"The genetics of Mexico recapitulates Native American substructure and affects biomedical traits.\" Science 344.6189 (2014): 1280-1285.DOI: 10.1126\/science.1251688in part >\"Mexico harbors great cultural and ethnic diversity, yet fine-scale patterns of human genome-wide variation from this region remain largely uncharacterized. We studied genomic variation within Mexico from over 1000 individuals representing 20 indigenous and 11 mestizo populations. We found striking genetic stratification among indigenous populations within Mexico at varying degrees of geographic isolation. Some groups were as differentiated as Europeans are from East Asians. Pre-Columbian genetic substructure is recapitulated in the indigenous ancestry of admixed mestizo individuals across the country. So there's nothing really \"average\" about indigenous populations-- they can be genetically distinct from each other, dramatically through isolation before 1492, and then by all sorts of new arrivals from Africa, Asia and Europe. See: Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Juan Esteban, et al. \"Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon.\" bioRxiv (2021).https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2021.10.09.463780","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7713.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsej6o8","c_root_id_B":"hsdu1fz","created_at_utc_A":1642023426,"created_at_utc_B":1642014044,"score_A":33,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"yes, Japanese sailors - \"sea drifters\" washed ashore in solid historical accounts of the Tokugawa era. Could easily have happened previously, but I think the first documented accounts are circa 1600. The story of Japanese sailors arriving on the Washington coast circa 1800 is particularly well known - they lived for a time with the Makah tribe -- but there are others. See Katherine Plummer's excellent book THE SHOGUN\u2019S RELUCTANT AMBASSADORS: Japanese Sea Drifters in the North Pacific by (Oregon Historical Society Press: 1991). There's also some tantalizing suggestion of earlier Japanese arrivals, including to Ecuador, circa 3000 BCE Meggers, Betty J., and Clifford Evans. \"A transpacific contact in 3000 BC.\" Scientific American 214.1 (1966): 28-35. \\-- this is archaeological evidence, an apparent similarity to Jomon pottery found in Ecuador, suggesting a real cultural connection. I can't assess how solid this is. We've also now got solid evidence of Polynesian voyages to and from South America, see: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . with that said, the evidence for the more fanciful theories isn't there. So the pyramids in central America are no connection to the pyramids in Egypt, to dispel one common - but popular-- bit of silliness. Similarly, there's no evidence of travels from Africa to South America-- there are some fanciful ideas about this, but again no evidence. Its plain that plants and animals did float from Africa to the New World - there's biological evidence for that-- but no signs of a civilizational impact. The genetics show a very slight Polynesian signal in South America, but none in North America before 1492. We've got archaeologically and historically documented visits by Europeans before 1492 (Vikings) and probably accidental arrivals from across the Pacific. We see nothing in the genetics of Native Americans to show that these folks left a genetic legacy that we can detect. After 1492, of course, there is substantial gene flow-- not just across the Atlantic, but also across the Pacific. Mexico has a significant genetic legacy of people who came with Spanish galleons, Filipinos and Chinese. I posted a bit about this previously There's a beautiful survey of genetics in Mexico, see: Moreno-Estrada, Andr\u00e9s, et al. \"The genetics of Mexico recapitulates Native American substructure and affects biomedical traits.\" Science 344.6189 (2014): 1280-1285.DOI: 10.1126\/science.1251688in part >\"Mexico harbors great cultural and ethnic diversity, yet fine-scale patterns of human genome-wide variation from this region remain largely uncharacterized. We studied genomic variation within Mexico from over 1000 individuals representing 20 indigenous and 11 mestizo populations. We found striking genetic stratification among indigenous populations within Mexico at varying degrees of geographic isolation. Some groups were as differentiated as Europeans are from East Asians. Pre-Columbian genetic substructure is recapitulated in the indigenous ancestry of admixed mestizo individuals across the country. So there's nothing really \"average\" about indigenous populations-- they can be genetically distinct from each other, dramatically through isolation before 1492, and then by all sorts of new arrivals from Africa, Asia and Europe. See: Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Juan Esteban, et al. \"Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon.\" bioRxiv (2021).https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2021.10.09.463780","human_ref_B":"The absence of evidence is not to be taken as evidence for the absence. What can be said is that we have no archaeological evidence. Note that it is doubtful to have a tale with weird specific details like paler skin. A tale with fanciful features like a human with a tail or wings would be more likely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9382.0,"score_ratio":6.6} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsetqr8","c_root_id_B":"hsdygil","created_at_utc_A":1642027480,"created_at_utc_B":1642015713,"score_A":13,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I don't know about this specific thing, \"wogies\". But I wrote a post a while ago elsewhere about Japanese shipwrecks on the northwest coast of North America in general, which were not uncommon and likely happened hundreds of times over the last millennium or two; some theorize the number to be in the thousands. The known wrecks of the late 1700s and early 1800s usually had some survivors. Copying it here with a little editing (it was in response to the pre-contact presence of iron among natives of the NW coast, thus the mentions of metals): There's an interesting academic article called Japanese Wrecks, Iron Tools, and Prehistoric Indians of the Northwest Coast (on JSTOR) which theorizes that \"some thousands of disabled Japanese] vessels reached American shores during the first 17 centuries of the Christian era\". Some other historians have expressed doubts about the scale and whether shipwrecks were really the primary source of iron among PNW indigenous peoples (I think some argue that trade routes across the Bering Strait and on into Asia account for most of the iron). I myself don't know enough to say, but we know that disabled Japanese vessels were wrecking in North America after Russians and other colonizing empires started writing about them in the late 1700s. It is harder to be certain about wrecks that happened without written documentation (I think some indigenous oral histories support the idea, but I don't know very much about that). Small wooden boats wrecked on the PNW Coast don't last very long. Even the large Spanish galleon that wrecked in Oregon in 1693 has not been found, despite lots of its cargo being found, its identity known, and the general location of the wreck pretty well known. The PNW Coast tends to smash up wrecks rather quickly. This academic paper, [Foreign Ships along the Shores of Russian America says that between 1782-1833 there were seven known Japanese wrecks between Alaska and Oregon (all damaged and adrift), \"but there were probably more\". Just counting known wrecks that's more than one per decade. There were also some wrecks found by early Russian fur traders in the Aleutians that were *probably* Japanese. Apparently these vessels were all relatively small cargo boats, mainly for transporting rice and other food, built for coastal sailing and easily damaged in storms. If I'm not mistaken these kind of vessels were used in Japan for a long long time. It's weird to think that they only started getting damaged and drifting to America after the Russians started documenting the wrecks. Perhaps the number of wrecks was lower in past centuries and not \"some thousands\". Still it seems unlikely that there weren't a fair number going back a long time. Anyway, it's a curious and little known bit of history that Japanese wrecks\u2014usually with some survivors\u2014were part of the early contact-era on the PNW coast. A few better known cases: The *Wakamiya-maru* vessel that wrecked in the Aleutians in 1793. Oguri Jukichi, one of the survivors of the *Tokujomaru*, which drifted to near Santa Barbara in 1815. Otokichi, one of the \"three kichis\" whose vessel wrecked on the Olympic Peninsula in 1834. There were some Spanish wrecks too, like the *Santo Cristo de Burgos*, a Manila Galleon that wrecked on the Oregon Coast in 1693, known as the Beeswax Wreck (see also this OHS issue). This wreck seems to have had a fair number of survivors. It's thought that Tillamook Chief Kilchis was likely a descendant of one of the survivors.","human_ref_B":"The currents in the Pacific certainly does bring debris from Japan to the Pacific Northwest. It's a well known phenomenon for things from Japan to wash up on shore on the other side of the ocean after bad tsunamis and storms in general, and this was one of the big concerns following the Fukushima disaster. There's even been a few cases where people have survived the trip as castaways like Otokichi. So it's not impossible that other survivors have washed ashore over the centuries, who now only live on through oral history. There's no reason to believe that the very first Japanese castaways arrived to the region only just after the Europeans had arrived to record it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11767.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsdu1fz","c_root_id_B":"hsetqr8","created_at_utc_A":1642014044,"created_at_utc_B":1642027480,"score_A":5,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The absence of evidence is not to be taken as evidence for the absence. What can be said is that we have no archaeological evidence. Note that it is doubtful to have a tale with weird specific details like paler skin. A tale with fanciful features like a human with a tail or wings would be more likely.","human_ref_B":"I don't know about this specific thing, \"wogies\". But I wrote a post a while ago elsewhere about Japanese shipwrecks on the northwest coast of North America in general, which were not uncommon and likely happened hundreds of times over the last millennium or two; some theorize the number to be in the thousands. The known wrecks of the late 1700s and early 1800s usually had some survivors. Copying it here with a little editing (it was in response to the pre-contact presence of iron among natives of the NW coast, thus the mentions of metals): There's an interesting academic article called Japanese Wrecks, Iron Tools, and Prehistoric Indians of the Northwest Coast (on JSTOR) which theorizes that \"some thousands of disabled Japanese] vessels reached American shores during the first 17 centuries of the Christian era\". Some other historians have expressed doubts about the scale and whether shipwrecks were really the primary source of iron among PNW indigenous peoples (I think some argue that trade routes across the Bering Strait and on into Asia account for most of the iron). I myself don't know enough to say, but we know that disabled Japanese vessels were wrecking in North America after Russians and other colonizing empires started writing about them in the late 1700s. It is harder to be certain about wrecks that happened without written documentation (I think some indigenous oral histories support the idea, but I don't know very much about that). Small wooden boats wrecked on the PNW Coast don't last very long. Even the large Spanish galleon that wrecked in Oregon in 1693 has not been found, despite lots of its cargo being found, its identity known, and the general location of the wreck pretty well known. The PNW Coast tends to smash up wrecks rather quickly. This academic paper, [Foreign Ships along the Shores of Russian America says that between 1782-1833 there were seven known Japanese wrecks between Alaska and Oregon (all damaged and adrift), \"but there were probably more\". Just counting known wrecks that's more than one per decade. There were also some wrecks found by early Russian fur traders in the Aleutians that were *probably* Japanese. Apparently these vessels were all relatively small cargo boats, mainly for transporting rice and other food, built for coastal sailing and easily damaged in storms. If I'm not mistaken these kind of vessels were used in Japan for a long long time. It's weird to think that they only started getting damaged and drifting to America after the Russians started documenting the wrecks. Perhaps the number of wrecks was lower in past centuries and not \"some thousands\". Still it seems unlikely that there weren't a fair number going back a long time. Anyway, it's a curious and little known bit of history that Japanese wrecks\u2014usually with some survivors\u2014were part of the early contact-era on the PNW coast. A few better known cases: The *Wakamiya-maru* vessel that wrecked in the Aleutians in 1793. Oguri Jukichi, one of the survivors of the *Tokujomaru*, which drifted to near Santa Barbara in 1815. Otokichi, one of the \"three kichis\" whose vessel wrecked on the Olympic Peninsula in 1834. There were some Spanish wrecks too, like the *Santo Cristo de Burgos*, a Manila Galleon that wrecked on the Oregon Coast in 1693, known as the Beeswax Wreck (see also this OHS issue). This wreck seems to have had a fair number of survivors. It's thought that Tillamook Chief Kilchis was likely a descendant of one of the survivors.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13436.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsdygil","c_root_id_B":"hsdu1fz","created_at_utc_A":1642015713,"created_at_utc_B":1642014044,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The currents in the Pacific certainly does bring debris from Japan to the Pacific Northwest. It's a well known phenomenon for things from Japan to wash up on shore on the other side of the ocean after bad tsunamis and storms in general, and this was one of the big concerns following the Fukushima disaster. There's even been a few cases where people have survived the trip as castaways like Otokichi. So it's not impossible that other survivors have washed ashore over the centuries, who now only live on through oral history. There's no reason to believe that the very first Japanese castaways arrived to the region only just after the Europeans had arrived to record it.","human_ref_B":"The absence of evidence is not to be taken as evidence for the absence. What can be said is that we have no archaeological evidence. Note that it is doubtful to have a tale with weird specific details like paler skin. A tale with fanciful features like a human with a tail or wings would be more likely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1669.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"s27s9d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"A question about a passage in Dawn of Everything that startled me I've been reading *The Dawn of Everything* and immensely enjoying it so far, and on page 192 the authors explain the origins of the term \"wogie\", the indigenous term for white settlers. They explain that the Chetco peoples of Oregon have a story about a group of white people who showed up in the Pacific Northwest a long, long time ago, and were enslaved by the native peoples, then escaped to freedom and were never heard from again - until Europeans showed up, and the natives thought they were the Wogies coming back for vengeance. In the footnotes to this passage (pg 557), the authors explain, \"this particular tale survived only because Chase believed the Wogies might have been shipwrecked Japanese!\" I really wanted to read a lot more about this, but the authors don't really address the implications at all, they just move on. I understand that indigenous oral storytelling can be incredibly accurate, even over thousands of years. So, I'm guessing it is likely that if some group of light-skinned people randomly showed up on the west coast hundreds of years (or longer?) before European colonizers, the Chetco people would be able to accurately remember it. It seems like there is an incredible event here, buried and nearly forgotten. I guess my question is, what do you think of the possibility that light-skinned Asian seafarers shipwrecked on the west coast, or are there any other stories or evidence that might corroborate this theory? Did some other group of white people accidentally land on the west coast somehow, way before European settlers made it there overland? Aside from the Vikings, who else may have \"discovered\" the Americas before Columbus? Sorry if this is overly broad or hypothetical, I've just been dying to talk to someone about this! Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hsf41wf","c_root_id_B":"hsfl2wf","created_at_utc_A":1642031698,"created_at_utc_B":1642039655,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Not under the strong (and completely legit) constraints of r\/AskHistorians, I would just say that stories of isolated shipwrecked groups around the world are very likely based on either directly witnessed or experienced reality or a story based on same that travelled around the region and became somewhat mythic or legendary. It's increasingly clear that throughout the entirety of what we might call human history, people have tried to undertake extreme and risky journeys into the unknown, possibly just for the hell of it, sometimes because they didn't like the way things were being done where they were. (Which is the draw for the authors of The Dawn of Everything.) Most of those journeys likely ended in death in some forbidding region or on the ocean, and those that didn't amounted only to \"wow, weird and interesting strangers who live among us for a while and then die of old age\". But still.","human_ref_B":"There are artifacts thought to be of Asian origin in the Ozette Site on the coast of Washington State. The artifacts, ferrous metal blade fragments with bamboo hafting elements were found on a house floor dated to around 1700, some 74 years prior to recorded contact. The site has excellent preservation because six or more houses were buried in a mudslide that created anaerobic conditions. Keddie, Grant (1994). B.C\u2019s First Japanese Tourists. Royal British Columbia Discovery, News and Events, 23:2:1-2. Gleeson, Paul F. (1980). Ozette Woodworking Technology. Project Reports 3. Laboratory of Archaeology and History, Washington University, Pullman. Ames, Kenneth and Herbert D.G. Maschner. (1999) Peoples of the Northwest Coast. Their Archaeology and Prehistory. Thames and Hudson Ltd., London.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7957.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"qymr1m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Can anyone explain the 'fertility symbol' hypothesis regarding the Venus figurines from the paleolithic? Was fertility (or the survival of children\/newborns) really such a big issue for people back then? What basis is there to assume that the figurines could be related to fertility?","c_root_id_A":"hlh4k6u","c_root_id_B":"hlhdk9i","created_at_utc_A":1637471584,"created_at_utc_B":1637477663,"score_A":35,"score_B":133,"human_ref_A":"Yes, fertility WAS a big deal. Note that biologically humans haven't changed any since the paleolithic. And humans today often struggle to get pregnant, and keep that pregnancy once it does happen. Add in the likely violatile lifestyle with challenges in getting enough calories, nutrients, clean drinking water, more frequent mold\/germs on food due to inadequate storage, inability to wash, etc etc, that all adds up to being even less likely to both get pregnant and carry that baby to term. Further, once at term, there's a huge risk at the moment of childbirth. A lot of that is based on the age of the person when she is giving birth for the first time. A 13 year old giving birth is just at higher risk than a 23 year old due to human females becoming fertile before their body has fully developed into the best baby-machine possible, although regardless of age a woman with 'wide hips, good for birthing many babies' is always going to haves an advantage vs a small-hipped woman. And yes, women were evaluated for that kind of thing in many cultures until just recently (and probably some people are still doing it today) and not just by some patriarchy, by mothers and aunts and sisters as well. And, a huge part of babies surviving more than a few days is good access to breast milk. This can be a real problem in areas where calories are not readily available. And even where they are, lacking a balanced diet can often mean enough calories per day fails to equate to decent breastmilk production. This is why infant formula donated to poor countries is such a critical part of keeping babies alive - because many of the women due to various diet issues cannot produce enough milk to keep the baby alive let alone healthy. SO...when we see a figurine that highlights above all the overall body structure that relates to giving birth\/sustaining life, it's a reasonable link. Add onto this the fact that we do have a LOT of evidence in history of fertility practice using figurines - this might be fields, livestock, etc - where you've got some small figure you makes some sort of sacrifice to - like pouring wine on it etc. And plenty of evidence from a ton of religions of people praying to or making sacrifices to gods and goddesses often represented by idols to get pregnant, to carry the baby successfully to term, and to safely give birth. Heck, the Catholic Church has both Mother Mary who gets involved in a million things but especially pregancy\/motherhood but also St Anne, who is the Patroness of pregnant woman, safe pregancies, peaceful childbirth, healthy baby, and good breastmilk production. Note, when just viewing images, men are attracted to women based on 'fertility clues' along with other factors, such as youth (do you want a woman who can have many children over a hopefully long lifetime or do you want a woman who is at peak fertility but may only have a handful of breed-able years left?) Perceived fertility plays just a part in attractiveness. Studies have shown that men recognize these fertility figurines as depicting the bodystructures linked to fertility not directly linked to attractiveness. (especially the ones that appeared to depict a woman who was pregnant) Making it more likely they were linked to fertility than porn https:\/\/www.hindawi.com\/journals\/janthro\/2011\/569120\/ Can we rule out that this is instead paeolithic porn? No. But the evidence seems to be pointing the other way. \\*and another point, we don't have very much art from paleolithic times that seems to be connected to just art for art's sake, for entertainment. It's almost always linked to some sort of ritual or purpose\\*","human_ref_B":"We do not know who made these figurines, or possessed them, or why. We don't know that they're \"fertility\" figures. That's something that some hypothesize, but there's no evidence for it beyond \"what someone in the 21st century thinks\" We don't find them as part of grave goods or other archaeological finds that would tell us whose these were and so on. We also don't know that the uses might not have changed over time -- artwork can mean something to someone in 1000 CE, and the same artwork can mean something very different to a later collector who acquires it many years later. So, for example, Leonardo's (probably) painting \"Salvador Mundi\", depicting Jesus, plainly \"means\" something very different to Prince Badr bin Abdullah of Abu Dhabi who purchased it a few years ago than it meant when first painted in 1500. Some anthropologists, like the Abb\u00e9 Breuil, have suggested that these were to amuse men; others have suggested that they're by and for women. We have no evidence that argues conclusively for either-- those are just speculations. Indeed it's quite possible that these meant different things to different people at different times- we find so called \"Venus figurines\" from 35,000 years ago to about 11,000 years ago. Its reasonable to ask \"over this span of 25,000 years -- is there any evidence to suggest some continuity in meaning?\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6079.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"qymr1m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Can anyone explain the 'fertility symbol' hypothesis regarding the Venus figurines from the paleolithic? Was fertility (or the survival of children\/newborns) really such a big issue for people back then? What basis is there to assume that the figurines could be related to fertility?","c_root_id_A":"hlh91b0","c_root_id_B":"hlhdk9i","created_at_utc_A":1637474435,"created_at_utc_B":1637477663,"score_A":19,"score_B":133,"human_ref_A":"The over-exaggeration of the breasts and hips is often cited as evidence that these figurines could be related to fertility. And the fact that they are faceless points towards them being a depiction of a goddess rather than any particular human being. There\u2019s always the theory that ancient cultures possibly believed in a female creator, since female fertility is so linked in with nature. Menstrual cycles are connected with the cycles of the moon, women give birth just as the creator gives birth to the world, etc. If people back then wanted the land to be fertile for their crops to grow, they\u2019d probably pray to the same goddess that controls human fertility. Having enough food was essential to being able to carry a healthy baby to full term, which could be why the venus figurines are overweight. It would\u2019ve been ideal to be heavier because it meant you had enough food to eat.","human_ref_B":"We do not know who made these figurines, or possessed them, or why. We don't know that they're \"fertility\" figures. That's something that some hypothesize, but there's no evidence for it beyond \"what someone in the 21st century thinks\" We don't find them as part of grave goods or other archaeological finds that would tell us whose these were and so on. We also don't know that the uses might not have changed over time -- artwork can mean something to someone in 1000 CE, and the same artwork can mean something very different to a later collector who acquires it many years later. So, for example, Leonardo's (probably) painting \"Salvador Mundi\", depicting Jesus, plainly \"means\" something very different to Prince Badr bin Abdullah of Abu Dhabi who purchased it a few years ago than it meant when first painted in 1500. Some anthropologists, like the Abb\u00e9 Breuil, have suggested that these were to amuse men; others have suggested that they're by and for women. We have no evidence that argues conclusively for either-- those are just speculations. Indeed it's quite possible that these meant different things to different people at different times- we find so called \"Venus figurines\" from 35,000 years ago to about 11,000 years ago. Its reasonable to ask \"over this span of 25,000 years -- is there any evidence to suggest some continuity in meaning?\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3228.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"qymr1m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Can anyone explain the 'fertility symbol' hypothesis regarding the Venus figurines from the paleolithic? Was fertility (or the survival of children\/newborns) really such a big issue for people back then? What basis is there to assume that the figurines could be related to fertility?","c_root_id_A":"hlh4k6u","c_root_id_B":"hlhgtyw","created_at_utc_A":1637471584,"created_at_utc_B":1637480045,"score_A":35,"score_B":75,"human_ref_A":"Yes, fertility WAS a big deal. Note that biologically humans haven't changed any since the paleolithic. And humans today often struggle to get pregnant, and keep that pregnancy once it does happen. Add in the likely violatile lifestyle with challenges in getting enough calories, nutrients, clean drinking water, more frequent mold\/germs on food due to inadequate storage, inability to wash, etc etc, that all adds up to being even less likely to both get pregnant and carry that baby to term. Further, once at term, there's a huge risk at the moment of childbirth. A lot of that is based on the age of the person when she is giving birth for the first time. A 13 year old giving birth is just at higher risk than a 23 year old due to human females becoming fertile before their body has fully developed into the best baby-machine possible, although regardless of age a woman with 'wide hips, good for birthing many babies' is always going to haves an advantage vs a small-hipped woman. And yes, women were evaluated for that kind of thing in many cultures until just recently (and probably some people are still doing it today) and not just by some patriarchy, by mothers and aunts and sisters as well. And, a huge part of babies surviving more than a few days is good access to breast milk. This can be a real problem in areas where calories are not readily available. And even where they are, lacking a balanced diet can often mean enough calories per day fails to equate to decent breastmilk production. This is why infant formula donated to poor countries is such a critical part of keeping babies alive - because many of the women due to various diet issues cannot produce enough milk to keep the baby alive let alone healthy. SO...when we see a figurine that highlights above all the overall body structure that relates to giving birth\/sustaining life, it's a reasonable link. Add onto this the fact that we do have a LOT of evidence in history of fertility practice using figurines - this might be fields, livestock, etc - where you've got some small figure you makes some sort of sacrifice to - like pouring wine on it etc. And plenty of evidence from a ton of religions of people praying to or making sacrifices to gods and goddesses often represented by idols to get pregnant, to carry the baby successfully to term, and to safely give birth. Heck, the Catholic Church has both Mother Mary who gets involved in a million things but especially pregancy\/motherhood but also St Anne, who is the Patroness of pregnant woman, safe pregancies, peaceful childbirth, healthy baby, and good breastmilk production. Note, when just viewing images, men are attracted to women based on 'fertility clues' along with other factors, such as youth (do you want a woman who can have many children over a hopefully long lifetime or do you want a woman who is at peak fertility but may only have a handful of breed-able years left?) Perceived fertility plays just a part in attractiveness. Studies have shown that men recognize these fertility figurines as depicting the bodystructures linked to fertility not directly linked to attractiveness. (especially the ones that appeared to depict a woman who was pregnant) Making it more likely they were linked to fertility than porn https:\/\/www.hindawi.com\/journals\/janthro\/2011\/569120\/ Can we rule out that this is instead paeolithic porn? No. But the evidence seems to be pointing the other way. \\*and another point, we don't have very much art from paleolithic times that seems to be connected to just art for art's sake, for entertainment. It's almost always linked to some sort of ritual or purpose\\*","human_ref_B":"So first things first, the term 'venus figurine' is a bit problematic. It lumps together a variety of figurines that aren't necessarily related, and leads to a lot of speculation being blanketed across many cultures across a huge period of time. This issue originates with their discovery in a time when archaeology was not concerned with the scientific method, but rather culture-histories, where artifacts were classified by 'common-sense' interpretation without much thought going into their actual context and the evidence we could gather off of them to figure out their use (this went on to about the mid 20th century). The first figurine was found in the mid 19th century, and given the attitudes towards women at that time, plus the assumption that past peoples were primitive, the common-sense was \"Women = fertility. Primitive = Goddess... Fertility Goddess!\" The arrival of women into archaeology, and gender\/feminist archaeology changed this, and began a contentious debate about Venus figurines that still rages on today. When one actually assesses these artifacts on a case by case basis you find a lot of interesting things that challenge the nomenclature and assumptions we have about them. For example, some figurines lack overtly sexual features; some appear with lopsided breasts, and fat stomachs, and may be more appropriately classed as representing obesity and maturity61065-3) rather than fertility. In this sense, the figurines could be more about female power, than their value as sexual objects. If the fertility hypothesis rests on the observation that these women were nude, well, many of them weren't. There is a huge variety in the appearance of clothing items, face coverings, faces being shown, and so on. In fact, that same article argues pretty strongly that these figurines may have depicted various wealthy women and\/or the various labor roles of women rather (based on their clothing items) than a singular Goddess. Today we are asking *a lot* of questions about these figurines. Why are they so varied, who made them, and for what reasons? How do we interpret these features? Is the lack of a face an indication that the artist was female and could not see her own face? Or Is it because the objects were indeed for sexual objectification and pornographic purposes, making a face irrelevant to the person consuming this artwork? You'll hear all sorts of things if you run a search on scholarly work about 'Venus figurines'. Perhaps more pressing a question is why some of them may be identified as male or sexually ambiguous. This last link I highly recommend you read, as it specifically addresses the fertility goddess hypothesis, but to summarize: lot of cultural bias and assumptions, lot of sexism, lot of research that still needs to be done, lot of questions to address. Ultimately, we really don't know as much about these figurines as we'd like to, but we do know that the fertility goddess hypothesis is contentious and problematic. edit: fixing links","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8461.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"qymr1m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Can anyone explain the 'fertility symbol' hypothesis regarding the Venus figurines from the paleolithic? Was fertility (or the survival of children\/newborns) really such a big issue for people back then? What basis is there to assume that the figurines could be related to fertility?","c_root_id_A":"hlhgtyw","c_root_id_B":"hlh91b0","created_at_utc_A":1637480045,"created_at_utc_B":1637474435,"score_A":75,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"So first things first, the term 'venus figurine' is a bit problematic. It lumps together a variety of figurines that aren't necessarily related, and leads to a lot of speculation being blanketed across many cultures across a huge period of time. This issue originates with their discovery in a time when archaeology was not concerned with the scientific method, but rather culture-histories, where artifacts were classified by 'common-sense' interpretation without much thought going into their actual context and the evidence we could gather off of them to figure out their use (this went on to about the mid 20th century). The first figurine was found in the mid 19th century, and given the attitudes towards women at that time, plus the assumption that past peoples were primitive, the common-sense was \"Women = fertility. Primitive = Goddess... Fertility Goddess!\" The arrival of women into archaeology, and gender\/feminist archaeology changed this, and began a contentious debate about Venus figurines that still rages on today. When one actually assesses these artifacts on a case by case basis you find a lot of interesting things that challenge the nomenclature and assumptions we have about them. For example, some figurines lack overtly sexual features; some appear with lopsided breasts, and fat stomachs, and may be more appropriately classed as representing obesity and maturity61065-3) rather than fertility. In this sense, the figurines could be more about female power, than their value as sexual objects. If the fertility hypothesis rests on the observation that these women were nude, well, many of them weren't. There is a huge variety in the appearance of clothing items, face coverings, faces being shown, and so on. In fact, that same article argues pretty strongly that these figurines may have depicted various wealthy women and\/or the various labor roles of women rather (based on their clothing items) than a singular Goddess. Today we are asking *a lot* of questions about these figurines. Why are they so varied, who made them, and for what reasons? How do we interpret these features? Is the lack of a face an indication that the artist was female and could not see her own face? Or Is it because the objects were indeed for sexual objectification and pornographic purposes, making a face irrelevant to the person consuming this artwork? You'll hear all sorts of things if you run a search on scholarly work about 'Venus figurines'. Perhaps more pressing a question is why some of them may be identified as male or sexually ambiguous. This last link I highly recommend you read, as it specifically addresses the fertility goddess hypothesis, but to summarize: lot of cultural bias and assumptions, lot of sexism, lot of research that still needs to be done, lot of questions to address. Ultimately, we really don't know as much about these figurines as we'd like to, but we do know that the fertility goddess hypothesis is contentious and problematic. edit: fixing links","human_ref_B":"The over-exaggeration of the breasts and hips is often cited as evidence that these figurines could be related to fertility. And the fact that they are faceless points towards them being a depiction of a goddess rather than any particular human being. There\u2019s always the theory that ancient cultures possibly believed in a female creator, since female fertility is so linked in with nature. Menstrual cycles are connected with the cycles of the moon, women give birth just as the creator gives birth to the world, etc. If people back then wanted the land to be fertile for their crops to grow, they\u2019d probably pray to the same goddess that controls human fertility. Having enough food was essential to being able to carry a healthy baby to full term, which could be why the venus figurines are overweight. It would\u2019ve been ideal to be heavier because it meant you had enough food to eat.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5610.0,"score_ratio":3.9473684211} {"post_id":"qymr1m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Can anyone explain the 'fertility symbol' hypothesis regarding the Venus figurines from the paleolithic? Was fertility (or the survival of children\/newborns) really such a big issue for people back then? What basis is there to assume that the figurines could be related to fertility?","c_root_id_A":"hlh91b0","c_root_id_B":"hli0lc7","created_at_utc_A":1637474435,"created_at_utc_B":1637495383,"score_A":19,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"The over-exaggeration of the breasts and hips is often cited as evidence that these figurines could be related to fertility. And the fact that they are faceless points towards them being a depiction of a goddess rather than any particular human being. There\u2019s always the theory that ancient cultures possibly believed in a female creator, since female fertility is so linked in with nature. Menstrual cycles are connected with the cycles of the moon, women give birth just as the creator gives birth to the world, etc. If people back then wanted the land to be fertile for their crops to grow, they\u2019d probably pray to the same goddess that controls human fertility. Having enough food was essential to being able to carry a healthy baby to full term, which could be why the venus figurines are overweight. It would\u2019ve been ideal to be heavier because it meant you had enough food to eat.","human_ref_B":"One explanation for these figurines is that they were made by women looking at their own body and sculpting it as they viewed it. This would explain the strange proportions - big breasts as they're the closest to one's own eyes, big belly, small feet - and the fact that they're faceless and with their heads turned downwards.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20948.0,"score_ratio":1.2631578947} {"post_id":"oz209y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How did prehistoric humans treat people born with disability such as blindness?","c_root_id_A":"h7ysyop","c_root_id_B":"h7ymnlf","created_at_utc_A":1628275295,"created_at_utc_B":1628272579,"score_A":29,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I like when Margaret Mead says that the first sign of civilization was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed because that was evidence of someone taking care of another person instead of abandoning them to death. \"Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery.\" I think that this makes a lot more sense than thinking about civilization as we building up houses around rivers.","human_ref_B":"This video talks about archaeological findings that have shown that (some) pre-history humans were very kind to their mates with disabilities.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2716.0,"score_ratio":2.9} {"post_id":"oz209y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How did prehistoric humans treat people born with disability such as blindness?","c_root_id_A":"h7x9lr9","c_root_id_B":"h7ysyop","created_at_utc_A":1628249916,"created_at_utc_B":1628275295,"score_A":9,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"If I recall correctly, Graeber and Sahlin's recent book \"On Kings\" discusses this heavily and suggests the earliest examples of Kings were frequently deformed, sometimes disabled.","human_ref_B":"I like when Margaret Mead says that the first sign of civilization was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed because that was evidence of someone taking care of another person instead of abandoning them to death. \"Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery.\" I think that this makes a lot more sense than thinking about civilization as we building up houses around rivers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25379.0,"score_ratio":3.2222222222} {"post_id":"oz209y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How did prehistoric humans treat people born with disability such as blindness?","c_root_id_A":"h7x9lr9","c_root_id_B":"h7ymnlf","created_at_utc_A":1628249916,"created_at_utc_B":1628272579,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"If I recall correctly, Graeber and Sahlin's recent book \"On Kings\" discusses this heavily and suggests the earliest examples of Kings were frequently deformed, sometimes disabled.","human_ref_B":"This video talks about archaeological findings that have shown that (some) pre-history humans were very kind to their mates with disabilities.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22663.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"g30110","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What happened to old \"pre-Indoeuropean\" population of Europe after Indo-European migration? We today believe that some people, notably Basques, maintained stronger \"connection\" to the pre-Indoeuropean population, aka they have a more genetic connection to what is believed to be \"Old Europeans\". I also heard some stories about the population of Western Balkan (allegedly genetic studies showed specific haplogroup for this area). My question is do we know of any other major genetic anomaly in some areas that can be connected to a strong \"connection\" to the pre-Indoeuropean population? Do we know, or have at least some good guesses, what happened to the pre-Indoeuropean population in Europe after the arrival of Indo-Europeans?","c_root_id_A":"fnpoex7","c_root_id_B":"fnpn3kq","created_at_utc_A":1587149071,"created_at_utc_B":1587148407,"score_A":48,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The modern western European population is made up of three principal components: Early Neolithic (LBK), mostly agriculturalists who emigrated to Europe from Anatolia 8-7Ka BP; Western European Hunter-Gatherers aka Old Europe; and Indo-Europeans aka Yamnaya, who invaded from the steppes from ~4.5Ka BP. Generally, in northern Europe there is more Yamnaya and in the south more neolithic. There is a notable minority of hunter-gatherers in all populations, which is what we'd expect since their populations were much smaller than that of agriculturalists. Language is not genes is not pots. The current Basque speakers do not have significantly more or less old Europe or neolithic anestory than the rest of the Iberian population, but they preserve an ancient language family from, probably, the neolithic population. Genes show somebody's direct ancestry. The archaeological evidence show cultural produce, but people can and do change which style of pots they use. Likewise, people learn new languages when it is opportune to do so. You would expect that anyone's ancestors have switched kitchenware and language around a few times, so the genomes tell an important story, but not the whole story. Possibly the most important paper on the European historical genome is Haak et al 2015, aka \"Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe\" PDF See especially figure 3 at the end of this document.","human_ref_B":"Genetic evidence ( to date) is that after the ice age surviving populations repopulated northern Europe as the ice sheets retreated- so for example the British are genetically similar to the Basque population indicating common ancestry - later admixture are relatively minor which flies in the face of the traditional view of sweeping waves of invasion, mass genocide and population replacement. The last major population replacement in British genetics seems to have occurred toward the end of the neolithic and broadly contemporary with the final phase at Stonehenge. Heres a Spanish source https:\/\/english.elpais.com\/elpais\/2015\/10\/29\/inenglish\/1446130797_461971.html and a British one https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-34175224","labels":1,"seconds_difference":664.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"e9v5qk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did humans evolve to appreciate the beauty of nature, natural earth forms seem to be the default standard for beauty. What drives our species profound appreciation for natural beauty?","c_root_id_A":"fan62ae","c_root_id_B":"fan2lqj","created_at_utc_A":1576225511,"created_at_utc_B":1576221211,"score_A":26,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I don't think it's evolution so much as it is social constructs. This is coming from an anthro class on the social and political aspects of the environment, but my understanding is that profound appreciation for nature only became a thing as we know it in the 1700-1800s, with the rise of industrialization. A sort of nostalgic appreciation for what used to be which has carried on. I'm not saying people didn't use to appreciate nature, but our relationship to it has fundamentally changed. Since we don't live near it, it seems more \"otherly\" and beautiful. To the question \"what drives our species profound appreciation for natural beauty,\" it's important to remember that \"our species\" is incredibly socially and culturally determined, and appreciations\/standards vary from culture to culture.","human_ref_B":"What unnatural forms are natural forms competing with here?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4300.0,"score_ratio":2.8888888889} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8tked0","c_root_id_B":"f8tlugk","created_at_utc_A":1574805231,"created_at_utc_B":1574806136,"score_A":19,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Many desert environments are also relatively stable for settlement with minimal flooding, insect (disease vectors) and challenging weather. With a low population density, deserts are often very accommodating for human habitation...","human_ref_B":"You overestimate the hazards of an arid climate. Properly irrigated, desert soil is *excellent* for farming. The oldest continuously inhabited area in the US is Tucson, Arizona. Egypt. Iraq. Desert areas also tend to be geologically stable, and have predictable weather patterns. Flood season is X. Dry season is Y. Heat is generally less deadly than extreme cold. There are few large predators. As long as you have a predictable water source, human habitation in the desert is actually easier in many respects than elsewhere.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":905.0,"score_ratio":1.7894736842} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8tlugk","c_root_id_B":"f8t15sn","created_at_utc_A":1574806136,"created_at_utc_B":1574793551,"score_A":34,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You overestimate the hazards of an arid climate. Properly irrigated, desert soil is *excellent* for farming. The oldest continuously inhabited area in the US is Tucson, Arizona. Egypt. Iraq. Desert areas also tend to be geologically stable, and have predictable weather patterns. Flood season is X. Dry season is Y. Heat is generally less deadly than extreme cold. There are few large predators. As long as you have a predictable water source, human habitation in the desert is actually easier in many respects than elsewhere.","human_ref_B":"All I have to say is that you should read Papago Woman, by Ruth Underhill. I think that will help you truly understand.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12585.0,"score_ratio":17.0} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8tked0","c_root_id_B":"f8t15sn","created_at_utc_A":1574805231,"created_at_utc_B":1574793551,"score_A":19,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Many desert environments are also relatively stable for settlement with minimal flooding, insect (disease vectors) and challenging weather. With a low population density, deserts are often very accommodating for human habitation...","human_ref_B":"All I have to say is that you should read Papago Woman, by Ruth Underhill. I think that will help you truly understand.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11680.0,"score_ratio":9.5} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8t15sn","c_root_id_B":"f8toiq7","created_at_utc_A":1574793551,"created_at_utc_B":1574807885,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"All I have to say is that you should read Papago Woman, by Ruth Underhill. I think that will help you truly understand.","human_ref_B":"Inertia is the first obstacle. Migration away from the type environment of your birth to a radically different environment is as radical an action as there is, even for Nomads. Not being welcome is the second obstacle, people having pointy sticks and all. It's a balance of Needs and Prospects. If needs are met, then why risk pointy sticks? And everyone who lives outside of Society develops immense pride in being separate from the rest, so the impetus is often directly against \"going to Babylon\", across cultures. So, the third reason is Lack of Desire to migrate away. Perhaps a fourth would be, for many, no knowledge of a better place. No Google Nav on their phones or adverts saying how great it is there. LOL","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14334.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8t15sn","c_root_id_B":"f8tyxl4","created_at_utc_A":1574793551,"created_at_utc_B":1574814778,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"All I have to say is that you should read Papago Woman, by Ruth Underhill. I think that will help you truly understand.","human_ref_B":"The lusher lands already had people living there. Probably enough people that there was no spare carrying capacity for immigrants. The modern industrial world, with more food than people, is very unusual.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21227.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"e20nnz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did people live in the desert in pre-modern times? Why didn't they just migrate to lusher lands? It's obvious that most people wouldn't migrate into the desert if they had the freedom not to. It's also obvious that if a land that was previously lush became a desert, most people would leave. What I'm curious about is why *anyone* would choose to live in a desert in a pre-modern times without electricity, air conditioner or refrigeration, where dehydration and other hazards loom. Given the choice, I don't think most people would want to be be a nomad or a hunter-gatherer in a land with few natural resources and little water. So what explains the various hunter-gatherer bands, nomad tribes and other groups of people who ended up calling deserts their permanent home? Are we really talking about the select few populations who were so deep into the newly desertified land, they had no notion of escaping to greener pastures when the climate changed, then their children gradually got used to it? Or are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? What do anthropologists think explains the tendency of some humans to live in these difficult environments?","c_root_id_A":"f8t15sn","c_root_id_B":"f8u0ib8","created_at_utc_A":1574793551,"created_at_utc_B":1574815959,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"All I have to say is that you should read Papago Woman, by Ruth Underhill. I think that will help you truly understand.","human_ref_B":">are we talking about people who were effectively exiles from the societies who controlled the greener lands all around the desert, who preferred desert life to conflict with other people? Indeed some populations might have been driven into such desolate areas, having been (economically) displaced by other populations. One good example might be the Kalahari Zhu. I highly recommend this book: https:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/L\/bo3774732.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22408.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"60jqiy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Are there any cultures that don't put a high value on treating a guest in their home well?","c_root_id_A":"df7ere5","c_root_id_B":"df8ndg8","created_at_utc_A":1490072082,"created_at_utc_B":1490140643,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Watch \"The Feast\" by Napoleon Chagnon. Somehow, I think the custom of pretend stabbing one's guests is less than welcoming. The fact that occasionally guests are actually stabbed doesn't help. Then of course, look into medieval politics, banquets and poisonings.","human_ref_B":"I think the question that you're asking is a little too general... Are there any *cultures* that recognizably do this? Not that can be defined by any social or behavioral norm. However, in my field, animosity between clan groups in certain Southwest Indian tribes, and even between some Australian Aboriginal peoples who are delineated by clan membership, exists fervently (yes, to the point where some groups or families will deny entry of members of opposing clans into their homes). I recognize that I've given a situational answer to a very specific question, but I'm not sure that there is a documented instance of a group of people living in close quarters that deny access to literally *everybody*. Certain individuals or groups, yes, but universally imposed animosity toward guests is anomalous behavior. This would probably be labeled as a functionalist negative feedback cycle, which would eventually collapse the society. Think about it like a rubber band being stretched and let go, and how it makes a sort of wavelength fluctuation. If it's pulled to far, however, it will snap. This snapping happens if a cultural norm or behavior was maladaptive to maintaining balance in the environmental and interpersonal worlds. Behavioral norms are \"selected\" (not using this term in a biological sense) out of practice if they are not beneficial to the cultural unit. A lot of people have labeled this as group selection, but the argument for that is unending and full of biological equivalences and pseudoscientific nonsense that only aims to equate Anthropology to hard science (which it's not). ANYWAY... These behaviors that are intrinsically maladaptive eventually either snap the proverbial rubber band, or bounce back to a more stable middle ground of cultural practice or behavior, or else can be utilized in a ritual sense. Malinowski (1926) wrote about this like a lot of functionalists did. However, Roy Rappaport in Pigs for the Ancestors (sorry can't find a link for it) started to show how these cultural maladaptations can be turned into mythologized or ritualized components or facets of life, recognizing the past while simultaneously avoiding the same mistakes. It just goes to show how seriously complex some of this stuff can be. In my experience with cultural anthropology, reciprocity and hosting go hand-in-hand. One cannot theoretically expect to do well in a community under such a practice. Sources: http:\/\/www.sjsu.edu\/people\/annapurna.pandey\/courses\/RLS122\/s1\/Malinowski.pdf The Power of Reciprocity","labels":0,"seconds_difference":68561.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jt8urz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are most \u201cWhite\u201d Americans and Canadians of English (or more broadly, British) descent, or are there major subgroups consisting of those of French, German or Italian descent? (I am well aware of the problems inherent to this question, but would appreciate any \u201crough\u201dapproximations.)","c_root_id_A":"gc4fyre","c_root_id_B":"gc4jvi6","created_at_utc_A":1605241510,"created_at_utc_B":1605244204,"score_A":18,"score_B":140,"human_ref_A":"This is a question better answered by referencing public census data. It's not necessarily anthropology related. The United States has had numerous waves of immigrants through the last few hundred years from different areas of the world. The immigrants near the turn of the 20th century included a lot of Eastern European immigrants from places like Poland and Germany. So no, most modern caucasian Americans aren't English, at least not only English. If you're really this curious, look up the census data.","human_ref_B":"English heritage is actually one of the largest contributors to the white American gene pool. The problem is that censuses reporting is often unreliable. German and Irish heritage especially tend to be overreported. In fact, it's not unusual for someone who has one grandparent or great grandparent of, say, Italian birth, to claim to be Italian-American, full stop, when in reality, they may have several other ethnic backgrounds, and they may only be of 1\/4 or 1\/8 Italian ancestry. English and other British ethnicity is highly underreported. This is because in early American history, English-, Welsh-, and Scottish-Americans began to consider themselves as simply Americans, rather than British Americans. Some regions, like the upland South, which was settled primarily by English and Scots-Irish settlers, mainly report being \"American\" on ethnicity reports today. Over generations, immigrants married into some British-American families, and suddenly, the focus was placed on the newer added ethnicity, perhaps because it seemed more interesting. Over time, people lose knowledge of their family story. If you want additional support for this, contrast this with the Mormons in the mountain west. Mormons are obsessed with geneology and can commonly rattle off even regional or town origins in Europe for ancestors who came to America 200 or more years ago. They commonly research their heritage in great detail, even making trips to Europe to look at local town records from centuries ago. They do this for unrelated religious reasons (baptism on behalf of dead ancestors). Utah is typically the top or in the top 3 reported states for English, Welsh, and Scottish ancestries reported in census data. This is even considering the fact that they have experienced their own local small waves of later immigrants from Scandinavia, Greece and other places. With modern DNA ancestry testing, British ancestry is showing more prevalence than some previously thought as well. The lack of awareness of our British heritage is due more to cultural attitudes than to objective research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2694.0,"score_ratio":7.7777777778} {"post_id":"foqaz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What evidence is there for H. Erectus living in hunter-gatherer societies\/being social at all? In several articles I've read on H. Erectus, its been described as living in hunter-gatherer societies and being\/becoming increasingly socially similar to modern humans, however all the citations I've found for such claims just lead to articles\/books which take H. Erectus existing in a hunter-gatherer society to be a given. As well it seems like all fossils they've found of it have been isolated. I'm sure there's some good evidence or explanation somewhere but I've been unable to find it, so if someone could point me in the right direction I'd greatly appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"flh5nkp","c_root_id_B":"flhlw5g","created_at_utc_A":1585156545,"created_at_utc_B":1585165145,"score_A":18,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"I decided to do some google scholar searching, and this is what I found: https:\/\/books.google.ca\/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sJbypgtChw8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA98&dq=homo+erectus+social+habits&ots=B4EtiofbR7&sig=70g2O7WmOnF8Q27bHR-G45epiqs#v=onepage&q=homo%20erectus%20social%20habits&f=false >This spacial differentiation most likely reflects a social differentiation within the group of early humans. Together with the sophisticated acquisition of different types of food that also involved organised big game hunting the site shows the level of cultural adaptation that was necessary to survive in the temperate climate regions of Central Europe. [...] > The almost permanent settlement for the base camp at Bilzingsleben almost certainly had consequences for the structuring of social groups here. Within each of the relatively small living structures there was enough space for up to six persons. This structure points to the existence of certain social units among the inhabitants of Bilzingsleben. pp. 100-103","human_ref_B":"This is an important question. Though hominins demonstrate social (at times hypersocial) behavior throughout all of their existence, including us, we should always have an open mind about the possibility that some species were different. There are several examples of camp sites in caves (where they are preserved for our benefit, unlike outdoor sites) associated with H. erectus which include evidence of stone tool knapping and eating around hearths. These are obviously communal activities, as is the control and preservation of fire (Gao et al. 2017, Goren-Inbar et al. 2004). We also have evidence of art, which is hard to imagine any non-communal species bothering with. We have engravings on shells from Java half a million years ago, certainly one of the oldest examples of hominin art, and almost certainly by H. erectus (Joordens et al. 2015). Finally, it is very difficult to imagine how a solitary human-sized primate could master climate zones, terrain and fauna in areas ranging from African woodlands & savannahs, the mountains of Georgia and Beijing, China and the tropical environment on Java. Tool-making, fire control, varied diets and the diverse strategies for survival surely would depend on communal groups and cooperation. References: Gao, Xing, Shuangquan Zhang, Yue Zhang, and Fuyou Chen. \u2018Evidence of Hominin Use and Maintenance of Fire at Zhoukoudian\u2019. Current Anthropology 58, no. S16 (August 2017): S267\u201377. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1086\/692501. Goren-Inbar, N. \u2018Evidence of Hominin Control of Fire at Gesher Benot Ya\\textasciigraveaqov, Israel\u2019. Science 304, no. 5671 (April 2004): 725\u2013727. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.1095443. Joordens, Josephine C. A., Francesco d\u2019Errico, Frank P. Wesselingh, Stephen Munro, John de Vos, Jakob Wallinga, Christina Ankj\u00e6rgaard, et al. \u2018Homo Erectus at Trinil on Java Used Shells for Tool Production and Engraving\u2019. Nature 518, no. 7538 (February 2015): 228\u201331. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/nature13962.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8600.0,"score_ratio":2.6111111111} {"post_id":"df2f49","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why and how are Assyrians not Arabs? Hello all! I have a question. I am Assyrian, and I speak Aramaic. Yet constantly where I live Assyrians are called and labelled (namely by Arab cultures, like the Lebanese for example) Arabs. I tell them that we are not, but still they go on about how we are, and they make fun of us as we have no country (not cool ): ) I\u2019d really like to know in a much more educated sense how and why we are not Arabs. I have said that we (the Assyrians) had our own state, how we were never \u201carabised\u201d, how we speak the language of Jesus (I bring this fact up because we\u2019re all Christians), and how our empire was one of the strongest empires that had ever existed, how we weren\u2019t conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and various other reasons (its 3am, so bear with me haha. Sorry if there are any spelling or grammatical errors. Also my apologises if I\u2019m not going into depth). Yet they still mock us about how we have no country and how we are fake by not identifying as Arabs when in fact we are Arabs, and so forth. Could someone explain to me (so that I may explain to them I guess, or maybe so that I understand the topic better, because honestly it doesn\u2019t seem like what I\u2019m doing is working - maybe if I speak in a more educated manner then they\u2019ll understand? or maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m 16 and they automatically oust me because solely of my age?) how and why Assyrians are NOT Arabs? Thanks so much! Also sorry for the huge task, I know it\u2019s a lot to ask and I\u2019m terribly sorry. It\u2019s just that the constant berating happens on social media and irl too. I understand that it\u2019s mostly jokes (I think, but some people genuinely believe that we\u2019re Arabs) but being called Arabs, being told that we don\u2019t exist because we don\u2019t have a country really really sucks.","c_root_id_A":"f329d66","c_root_id_B":"f30vi6b","created_at_utc_A":1570598298,"created_at_utc_B":1570563133,"score_A":26,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"This is a very interesting question and goes to the heart of what ethnicity even means and how it changes over time. The middle east and mesopotamia has a long, known history of different ethnic groups living there. Today most of the people would identify as being arab, yet their ancestors may not have identified this way. As you said, Assyrians today trace their ancestry to the ancient Assyrian people from almost 5,000 years ago. Of course, over the course of those 5,000 years a lot has changed; what it means to be Assyrian today is likely very different than it was back then and genetics have undoubtedly also changed significantly. Are Egyptians Arab? Many might today consider themselves to be Arab. They speak Arabic, worship an Arab god and the name of their country has the word Arab in it. And yet Egyptians as a people pre-date the Arab conquest and are just as ancient as the Assyrians. Yet if they mostly believe themselves to be Arab today, then perhaps they are Arab. Maybe they have become Arab. Nobody speaks Coptic anymore, except for some ritual language in Coptic Churches, and all the old Egyptian gods are dead. Egyptians lost their gods when Christianity and Rome took over. Then they mostly lost their Christian god and lost their language and separate ethnic identity when the Arabs took over. Assyrians lost their Akkadian language when the Neo-Assyrian empire spread and absorbed alien people and Aramaic took over as the lingua-franca. Assyrians also ultimately lost their gods like Assur to the Christian god, just like the Egyptians. Unlike the Egyptians, the Assyrians did not lose the Christian god or Aramaic or their ethnic identity after the Arab conquest. Although given enough time, this may eventually happen to Assyrian communities remaining in Ninevah. History is not over, but with recent events, even if Assyrians ultimately disappear in their native lands, they will likely live on in the global diaspora. The Hebrews ultimately returned, maybe one day in different times the Assyrians may return as well.","human_ref_B":"A lot of Assyrians and Arameans assimilated into Arabs after Muslim conquest of Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. You and your family didn't. Ignore the haters. I would be proud that you can trace your people history thousands years before BC. You cannot say the same about Arabs or virtually any nation on Earth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35165.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpezu8","c_root_id_B":"ddpeykx","created_at_utc_A":1487023478,"created_at_utc_B":1487023437,"score_A":30,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I believe you're question is unanswerable because it's a loaded question. In asking it, you have to assume that yes, antebellum south values are the aspect of prime America. But... it's not. By no stretch of the imagination is it as such. Arguably, there are eleven distinct forms of culture and values in America, the south is only one of these, with the even further south being another, and left south yet another.","human_ref_B":"I would argue that its mainly internalized propaganda for the patriotism bit. the most patriotic are the ones that scream it the loudest and then it turns into identity politics, but in the end people bleed for their country regardless of their state or whether their from a city\/rural town. I could say more but politics has put a sour taste in my mouth about this topic. ~a Californian as for why country music adopted primarily southern accents, thats easy, it mainly has to do with demographics and regional origins. The heart of the country music industry is Nashville Tennessee, the primary consumers of country are in the south and midwest, and even though there are pockets of country all over the country, its still mainly entrenched in the American south.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpezu8","c_root_id_B":"ddpctry","created_at_utc_A":1487023478,"created_at_utc_B":1487020992,"score_A":30,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I believe you're question is unanswerable because it's a loaded question. In asking it, you have to assume that yes, antebellum south values are the aspect of prime America. But... it's not. By no stretch of the imagination is it as such. Arguably, there are eleven distinct forms of culture and values in America, the south is only one of these, with the even further south being another, and left south yet another.","human_ref_B":"It's not seen as more authentically in American if you live in New Hampshire. Definitely not. You're referring to a culture of personality thing thanks to Hollywood: John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, etc. It's a sensitivity training thing. Go ahead and imagine Danny DeVito singing \"Achy Breaky Heart\". Like all fads we get trained to accept things as they continue to be presented. Also, there seems to be a fair amount of \"south will rise again\" people and people who blame \"the northeastern liberals\" for many of their personal issues. SO of course they are the best Americans! They will say so. I really feel this is leftover backlash from that Civil War, the one where The North was wrong and if only the Southern Values (tm) had won we'd be in a much better position today. How you can be in a better position than \"most powerful country in the world\" I don't know but hey, what do I know, I'm just an Eagle Scout from New York. ALSO, Northeastern\/Coastal \"culture\" IS still a growing pile of multiple world peoples\/religions\/cultures whereas \"The South\" and middle were distinctly homogenous (generally) for a much longer time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2486.0,"score_ratio":2.3076923077} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpeykx","c_root_id_B":"ddpctry","created_at_utc_A":1487023437,"created_at_utc_B":1487020992,"score_A":21,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I would argue that its mainly internalized propaganda for the patriotism bit. the most patriotic are the ones that scream it the loudest and then it turns into identity politics, but in the end people bleed for their country regardless of their state or whether their from a city\/rural town. I could say more but politics has put a sour taste in my mouth about this topic. ~a Californian as for why country music adopted primarily southern accents, thats easy, it mainly has to do with demographics and regional origins. The heart of the country music industry is Nashville Tennessee, the primary consumers of country are in the south and midwest, and even though there are pockets of country all over the country, its still mainly entrenched in the American south.","human_ref_B":"It's not seen as more authentically in American if you live in New Hampshire. Definitely not. You're referring to a culture of personality thing thanks to Hollywood: John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, etc. It's a sensitivity training thing. Go ahead and imagine Danny DeVito singing \"Achy Breaky Heart\". Like all fads we get trained to accept things as they continue to be presented. Also, there seems to be a fair amount of \"south will rise again\" people and people who blame \"the northeastern liberals\" for many of their personal issues. SO of course they are the best Americans! They will say so. I really feel this is leftover backlash from that Civil War, the one where The North was wrong and if only the Southern Values (tm) had won we'd be in a much better position today. How you can be in a better position than \"most powerful country in the world\" I don't know but hey, what do I know, I'm just an Eagle Scout from New York. ALSO, Northeastern\/Coastal \"culture\" IS still a growing pile of multiple world peoples\/religions\/cultures whereas \"The South\" and middle were distinctly homogenous (generally) for a much longer time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2445.0,"score_ratio":1.6153846154} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpk3vt","c_root_id_B":"ddpi30b","created_at_utc_A":1487029960,"created_at_utc_B":1487027289,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Maybe immigration patterns had to do with it as well? The (then) largely rural\/undeveloped South didn't see major immigration as did the north and west (stereotypically, anyhow). When you see fictionalized accounts of immigrants, more often than not they're headed for the East or West coasts, not the South. Meanwhile, the South could continue to thrive on a rural, former slave-owning, population largely descendant from English and Scotch-Irish colonists.","human_ref_B":"Seems like the ~south\/middle america\/conservatives love to wrap themselves in the American flag to help forward their issues. I think it's pretty effective because no one wants to seem unpatriotic. I think moderates and lefties should do the same. Instead of pink cat ears people should wave and wear the American flag. The issues of the moderates and left are no less patriotic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2671.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpk3vt","c_root_id_B":"ddpj9kj","created_at_utc_A":1487029960,"created_at_utc_B":1487028843,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Maybe immigration patterns had to do with it as well? The (then) largely rural\/undeveloped South didn't see major immigration as did the north and west (stereotypically, anyhow). When you see fictionalized accounts of immigrants, more often than not they're headed for the East or West coasts, not the South. Meanwhile, the South could continue to thrive on a rural, former slave-owning, population largely descendant from English and Scotch-Irish colonists.","human_ref_B":"I don't think it has.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1117.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpvvpe","c_root_id_B":"ddpi30b","created_at_utc_A":1487045643,"created_at_utc_B":1487027289,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think you are begging the question in the traditional sense of the term. First you need to establish that the premise of your question is correct, then you can ask about it. I would respectfully submit to you that your premise is off, or if anything, maybe a reflection of where you grew up and\/or currently live. As for your idea about the South and country and western music, I would submit to you that you are again mistaken and that far from being specifically southern, country and western music is specifically Appalachian in origin and that this, rather than the south, is what accounts for the \"pronunciation\" you've rightly identified. That said, this is a complicated subject and there is a great deal more to be said about it, but I must off to bed.","human_ref_B":"Seems like the ~south\/middle america\/conservatives love to wrap themselves in the American flag to help forward their issues. I think it's pretty effective because no one wants to seem unpatriotic. I think moderates and lefties should do the same. Instead of pink cat ears people should wave and wear the American flag. The issues of the moderates and left are no less patriotic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18354.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5tuxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In the US, why and how Southern culture came to be seen as more authentically American, even though the South lost to the North in the Civil War? I am trying to port this question from \/r\/AskHistorians, as it falls within the 20 years rule in that sub, while the question is very interesting. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/5tsanz\/why_are_the_former_states_of_the_confederacy_now\/ Here's what the OP asked: > Anyone who's driven around the American South has seen the \"Confederate flag\" somewhere, often hanging or flying near an American flag. Much of Southern culture and identity seems to be focused around patriotism, even while people espouse \"Lost Cause\" ideology. How did this region go from insurrection to fervent patriotism, and how have those two ideas been reconciled so completely in many peoples' minds? And if I could ask a follow-up question from myself, how come Southern sound and Southern pronunciation became so dominant in popular country music? Did the politically right Northerners willingly accept Southern aesthetics as more authentic, or was there (is there) any reflection on the apparent historical incongruity of this self-identification? (Like Yankees in NY flying Confederate flags on pickup trucks) Do you think Country music might have contributed to this cultural shift, or is it just a side-effect?","c_root_id_A":"ddpvvpe","c_root_id_B":"ddpj9kj","created_at_utc_A":1487045643,"created_at_utc_B":1487028843,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think you are begging the question in the traditional sense of the term. First you need to establish that the premise of your question is correct, then you can ask about it. I would respectfully submit to you that your premise is off, or if anything, maybe a reflection of where you grew up and\/or currently live. As for your idea about the South and country and western music, I would submit to you that you are again mistaken and that far from being specifically southern, country and western music is specifically Appalachian in origin and that this, rather than the south, is what accounts for the \"pronunciation\" you've rightly identified. That said, this is a complicated subject and there is a great deal more to be said about it, but I must off to bed.","human_ref_B":"I don't think it has.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16800.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"wkf1y2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How did have humans dealt with the umbilical cord through time? Tying off the belly button must be one of the oldest medical procedures performed by humans, how did we do it? Was there a procedure? Did humans used to have funny stumps leftover from where the umbilical cord was cut, or was it more advanced? Did people die from infections? Were there any interesting uses or rituals for the umbilical cord?","c_root_id_A":"ijoj792","c_root_id_B":"ijonqv6","created_at_utc_A":1660107953,"created_at_utc_B":1660110834,"score_A":61,"score_B":105,"human_ref_A":"Here's a relevant r\/AskScience post and an r\/EIL5 one : - How do non-human primates remove the umbilical cord at birth? - How did early humans know to cut the umbilical cord? Also: - Lanman 1977 *Parturition in Nonhuman Primates* - Downey & Bewley *Historical perspectives on umbilical cord clamping and neonatal transition* Chimpanzees leave the placenta attached to the umbilical cord and the infant until it falls off on its own. There is an increasing idea in the medical profession that we cut\/clamp them too early and that there is benefit to leaving the attached longer (although not for extended periods of time). I work with a langur (a type of leaf eating monkey) species and it's common in langurs to bite through the umbilical cord to sever it. As in many animals the placenta is usually eaten. Studied of hunter gatherer societies indicate that leaving the cord attached for a few hours is not uncommon. This doesn't answer your question exactly, but it does give a sense of the sort of progression that is likely to have taken place. It was likely either bitten off or let to fall off on its own in early Australopithecine and *Homo* species, then, as time went on rather than biting tieing, clamping (with cord), or cutting would have become the norm. When these changes happened is pretty much impossible to determine though, and would likely have varied a bit depending on the cultures in question.","human_ref_B":"It might be helpful to look at societies that until recently still lived as relatively isolated hunter-gatherers. For one example, the Ye\u2019kwana people of the South American rainforest traditionally cut the umbilical cord with a sharp reed, and then leave the stump to dry and fall off on its own. Dealing with the afterbirth has significant ritual import: >Even though the baby is born in human form it is still in an extremely precarious and vulnerable state until the afterbirth is born, cut from the baby, and disposed of properly. The flesh and blood of the *ijomj\u00f6d\u00f6* (placenta and umbilical cord) contain concentrated amounts of *amoi*, a mysterious and lethal substance created by Odo\u2019sha the malicious twin brother of the culture hero\/creator of the world Wanadi]. The Ye\u2019kwana think the afterbirth is the mangled remains of Odo\u2019sha\u2019s child. As we will see later, the flesh of a human corpse is one of the most dangerous substances. The bloody mass of placenta is unquestionably non-human since its form is clearly not anthropomorphic or zoomorphic. According to the Ye\u2019kwana, this sort of body form can only be a product of Odo\u2019sha. >To separate the placenta from the newborn the umbilical cord is cut with *cudata* (a reed species, *Iriartella setigera*, used for the inner section of blowguns) that is split just before cutting the cord. Then the baby\u2019s face and mouth are lightly washed with an infusion of several *maada* plants [\u2026] >The residue of the amniotic fluid is left on the newborn as well as the layer of vernix (usually a white, waxy fluid covering the baby). These fluids are \u2018protective\u2019 and are not removed from the baby until a week after birth. Amniotic fluid is thought to represent the ancestral lagoon of *acujena*, which according to the *w\u00e4tunn\u00e4* [oral tradition] is the source of humanity. >The afterbirth, on the other hand, is the remains of Odo\u2019sha and the midwife waits with concerned anticipation for its delivery. It\u2019s thought that the longer that the afterbirth sits inside the mother the more likely she will suffer from postpartum bleeding. Normally, the midwife will massage the mother\u2019s uterus by gently clutching and rubbing her belly. If the afterbirth is not delivered within 10 or 15 minutes several *maada* potions are given to the mother that are thought to expedite the expulsion of the placenta. >Once delivered, the afterbirth is carefully wrapped in the *woi* leaf that was placed below the mother during childbirth. The package is then taken out into the forest to a nest of white termites called *c\u00f6m\u00f6t\u00f6di*. These nests are found up off the ground on the boles of trees. With a machete a hole is made in the hard nest and the afterbirth, wrapped in the *woi* leaf, is carefully placed inside the hole where the termites will devour it. [\u2026] >Cloistered in the house, the mother and her newborn are prohibited from leaving until it can be confirmed that the body of the baby is truly separated from Odo\u2019sha. This is not confirmed until the navel dries up and falls off. Once the stump of the navel is gone, the newborn is introduced to the community. >Not until the end of the navel has dropped off is a newborn considered a \u2018baby\u2019. When the umbilical cord dries and falls off the event is marked with a ritual referred to as *shichuc\u00e4 ijacad\u00f6* (\u2018first leaving of the baby\u2019), after which the newborn is then referred to as *shichuc\u00e4* (baby). The falling off of the umbilical cord from the navel is the first stage of \u2018growth\u2019. It confirms that the baby is truly a human child\u2019s body and it is not some disgusting trick of Odo\u2019sha to bring one of his own offspring into the world. (source: Lauer, Matthew Taylor (2005), *[Fertility in Amazonia: Indigenous Concepts of the Human Reproductive Process Among the Ye\u2019kwana of Southern Venezuela*) Disclaimer: I am not an anthropologist, I just read anthropology papers sometimes and found the above dissertation interesting. Someone in the field can probably contextualize this much better than I can.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2881.0,"score_ratio":1.7213114754} {"post_id":"qfiaq5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How can any humans have Neanderthal DNA if Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are different species? I can\u2019t wrap my head around it. Wouldn\u2019t the offspring of a Homo sapiens and a Neanderthal be a hybrid, and as such, sterile? How, then, is it said that some people today have Neanderthal DNA?","c_root_id_A":"hi0o3k2","c_root_id_B":"hhzs8ng","created_at_utc_A":1635187914,"created_at_utc_B":1635174828,"score_A":185,"score_B":179,"human_ref_A":"It was actually very difficult. All the Neanderthal DNA that we have today came from male Neanderthals. So only the offspring of Male Neanderthals and female humans were compatible. The offspring of a female Neanderthal and a male human does not exist at all. This is either because of genetic incompatibility, or possibly because the female Neanderthal mother stayed with her Neanderthal tribe, and any of her offspring got wiped out when the Neanderthals became extinct. There is no Neanderthal MRNA in the human genome at all, which means that there was never a Neanderthal mother who's offspring survived to the modern day. All of our Neanderthal DNA came from Neanderthal males, never females. This interbreeding happened more than once. But it also happened over a period of several tens of thousands of years. It's been estimated that the minimum number of times would be one successful interbreeding every 77 generations. Modern humans outside of sub-Sahara Africa have about 2% Neanderthal DNA (although it varies from 0% to over 6%). If you take all that DNA out and stitch it back together you get about 20% of the Neanderthal genome (one study says that it may be as much as 30%, but most say around 20%). Mostly it's to do with skin, hair color and the immune system. You're least likely to find Neanderthal DNA in the brain and the male genitalia. This suggests that these areas were the most divergent between Neanderthals and Humans, so Neanderthal genes in these areas were non-compatible with the human genome. As for human genes found in Neanderthal DNA, we haven't found any. But this doesn't mean much. There is very, very little Neanderthal DNA that we have found, and all of it is fragmentary. Maybe no hybrid individuals existed in Neanderthal society. Or maybe we just haven't found any yet (or have found it, but it is too damaged to identify). I mean, we have a sample size of over 7 billion humans, and all the Neanderthal DNA we have comes from less than 20 individuals (and most of it comes from just 3). Humans also interbreed with the Devonians. This occurred only after interbreeding with Neanderthals. There have also been found Devonians with Neanderthal DNA and vice-versa. The Devonians and Neanderthals were actually more closely related than either of these two were to humans. Finally, you've heard that sub-Saharan Africans have little to no Neanderthal DNA in them, simply because Neanderthals never overlapped with this part of Africa. But if humans and other hominids arose in Africa, and interbreeding is possible, shouldn't sub-Saharan Africans have MORE non-human DNA than Eurasians? Well...... There was a recent study that states that Africans may have DNA form as many as 8 different non-homo sapien lineages. The problem is that we don't know what hominid species, and we don't have their DNA. The study's author looked strictly at the existing human DNA and tried to trace back where some of it may have come from. Heck, we haven't even found that many non-human hominid lineages, so we are lacking a fossil record and any supporting DNA evidence of these hominids. DNA does not preserve well. Remember when I said that most of our Neanderthal NDA comes from just 3 individuals? Those remains were found in a mountain in Croatia, where the exceptional cold managed to partially preserve the DNA. Africa is not know for it's exceptional cold. So of course this study is hotly contested. Oh and there was at least one soviet scientist who tried to cross-breed humans and chimpanzees. It never worked.","human_ref_B":"Species is kind of an invented concept that we use because it can be useful. Life doesn't categorize that neatly and obviously Neanderthals and Sapiens had viable offspring. Incidentally so did Neanderthals and Denisovans and Sapiens. It's like Blue and Red are different colors but when is a shade of purple blue or when is it red? We invent those categories because they are clearly useful but they don't really mean anything concrete in real life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13086.0,"score_ratio":1.0335195531} {"post_id":"qfiaq5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How can any humans have Neanderthal DNA if Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are different species? I can\u2019t wrap my head around it. Wouldn\u2019t the offspring of a Homo sapiens and a Neanderthal be a hybrid, and as such, sterile? How, then, is it said that some people today have Neanderthal DNA?","c_root_id_A":"hi05o5a","c_root_id_B":"hi0o3k2","created_at_utc_A":1635180385,"created_at_utc_B":1635187914,"score_A":48,"score_B":185,"human_ref_A":"Their actual names are Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Homo Sapien Neanderthalensis. They are very very closely related but there is some no compatibility. From Wikipedia: A large part of the controversy stems from the vagueness of the term \"species\", as it is generally used to distinguish two genetically isolated populations, but admixture between modern humans and Neanderthals is known to have occurred.[8][121] However, the absence of Neanderthal-derived patrilineal Y-chromosome and matrilineal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in modern humans, along with the underrepresentation of Neanderthal X chromosome DNA, could imply reduced fertility or frequent sterility of some hybrid crosses,[78][122][123][124] representing a partial biological reproductive barrier between the groups, and therefore species distinction.","human_ref_B":"It was actually very difficult. All the Neanderthal DNA that we have today came from male Neanderthals. So only the offspring of Male Neanderthals and female humans were compatible. The offspring of a female Neanderthal and a male human does not exist at all. This is either because of genetic incompatibility, or possibly because the female Neanderthal mother stayed with her Neanderthal tribe, and any of her offspring got wiped out when the Neanderthals became extinct. There is no Neanderthal MRNA in the human genome at all, which means that there was never a Neanderthal mother who's offspring survived to the modern day. All of our Neanderthal DNA came from Neanderthal males, never females. This interbreeding happened more than once. But it also happened over a period of several tens of thousands of years. It's been estimated that the minimum number of times would be one successful interbreeding every 77 generations. Modern humans outside of sub-Sahara Africa have about 2% Neanderthal DNA (although it varies from 0% to over 6%). If you take all that DNA out and stitch it back together you get about 20% of the Neanderthal genome (one study says that it may be as much as 30%, but most say around 20%). Mostly it's to do with skin, hair color and the immune system. You're least likely to find Neanderthal DNA in the brain and the male genitalia. This suggests that these areas were the most divergent between Neanderthals and Humans, so Neanderthal genes in these areas were non-compatible with the human genome. As for human genes found in Neanderthal DNA, we haven't found any. But this doesn't mean much. There is very, very little Neanderthal DNA that we have found, and all of it is fragmentary. Maybe no hybrid individuals existed in Neanderthal society. Or maybe we just haven't found any yet (or have found it, but it is too damaged to identify). I mean, we have a sample size of over 7 billion humans, and all the Neanderthal DNA we have comes from less than 20 individuals (and most of it comes from just 3). Humans also interbreed with the Devonians. This occurred only after interbreeding with Neanderthals. There have also been found Devonians with Neanderthal DNA and vice-versa. The Devonians and Neanderthals were actually more closely related than either of these two were to humans. Finally, you've heard that sub-Saharan Africans have little to no Neanderthal DNA in them, simply because Neanderthals never overlapped with this part of Africa. But if humans and other hominids arose in Africa, and interbreeding is possible, shouldn't sub-Saharan Africans have MORE non-human DNA than Eurasians? Well...... There was a recent study that states that Africans may have DNA form as many as 8 different non-homo sapien lineages. The problem is that we don't know what hominid species, and we don't have their DNA. The study's author looked strictly at the existing human DNA and tried to trace back where some of it may have come from. Heck, we haven't even found that many non-human hominid lineages, so we are lacking a fossil record and any supporting DNA evidence of these hominids. DNA does not preserve well. Remember when I said that most of our Neanderthal NDA comes from just 3 individuals? Those remains were found in a mountain in Croatia, where the exceptional cold managed to partially preserve the DNA. Africa is not know for it's exceptional cold. So of course this study is hotly contested. Oh and there was at least one soviet scientist who tried to cross-breed humans and chimpanzees. It never worked.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7529.0,"score_ratio":3.8541666667} {"post_id":"qfiaq5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How can any humans have Neanderthal DNA if Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are different species? I can\u2019t wrap my head around it. Wouldn\u2019t the offspring of a Homo sapiens and a Neanderthal be a hybrid, and as such, sterile? How, then, is it said that some people today have Neanderthal DNA?","c_root_id_A":"hi1qm6t","c_root_id_B":"hi1tk1d","created_at_utc_A":1635204004,"created_at_utc_B":1635205356,"score_A":11,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Lots of long answers\u2026 a short and sweet one: the lines between \u2018species\u2019 are actually very blurry. Example: nearly all members of the genus canis can have viable offspring with one another (dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingos, etc\u2026). Super important concept for understanding how life works that somehow most adults - who presumably took years of life science\/biology courses in school - don\u2019t often understand.","human_ref_B":"You are going off a third grade definition of species where they say horse and donkey are same genus but different species so they make an infertile offspring the mule. That's just wrong. (Donkey and horse produce infertile offspring due to different numbers of chromosomes) Cattle and bison are diff genus. They can produce fertile offspring. Male bison female cow = generally no offspring. Male cattle female bison = generally get offspring. Male hybrids are almost always infertile, while females are fully fertile. Lots of bird species can hybridize in the lab and produce fertile offspring but won't mate naturally due to the wrong mating call or mating dance Finally, remember that the whole kingdom phylum class order family genus species is a totally unnatural human construction to organize things","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1352.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip8oeki","c_root_id_B":"ip8hxm4","created_at_utc_A":1663705309,"created_at_utc_B":1663702832,"score_A":109,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"One thing that really made it click for me was understanding that oration is more often communal than one on one. If it were just one person telling another who told another, it makes sense for facts to be misreported pretty quickly. However, let's take a 37,000 year old volcanic eruption. First, there would have been multiple witnesses. For them to all agree on a story, it's unlikely to have alterations authored by any one person. Then, when the story is retold later, there are many people around who can correct the speaker if they're changing or forgetting things. It isn't just one person sharing knowledge, it's the community passing down the agreed upon information. If veracity and preservation of the stories is important enough to the community, they're likely to have rules and rituals around it. At that point, even if you *wanted* to substantially change the story, you're going to have difficulty doing so. Other community members will know you're messing up and the group has ways of dealing with inaccurate information. It's pretty much a nonstarter.","human_ref_B":"\"The Singer of Tales\" by Lord and Parry (1960) is a classic in the field, dealing with Homeric epic and Yugoslavian bards. More recent work by Jack Goody, \"The Domestication of the Savage Mind\" (1977), \"The Interface Between the Written and the Oral\" (1987), \"The Power of the Written Word\" (2000), and \"Myth Ritual and the Oral\" (2010). Jan Vansina's work in Rwanda and Burundi on chain transmission, \"Oral Tradition as History\" (1985), and others. \"The World of Odysseus\" by Moses Finley is an interesting look at how the Homeric epics preserved Bronze Age details, but contextualized them in the social world of the 8th century BCE audience of the works.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2477.0,"score_ratio":1.5138888889} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip8op3z","c_root_id_B":"ip8hxm4","created_at_utc_A":1663705421,"created_at_utc_B":1663702832,"score_A":73,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"I've read Australian aboriginals have oral stories thought to go back 10,000 years! And they managed this by writing the stories similar to rap or poetry. Like the number of syllables was patterned and there was rhyming or something similar so that it would be difficult to just drop\/add words or use synonyms accidentally. And they also had a cultural habit of retelling these stories to each other and everyone is meant to point out any flaws so they can perfect it. It's been many years since I read about this though so you'll wanna do your own research for a more accurate summary but that should be enough to go on. Otherwise, images on pottery or cave walls or tapestry or wherever help people remember stories.","human_ref_B":"\"The Singer of Tales\" by Lord and Parry (1960) is a classic in the field, dealing with Homeric epic and Yugoslavian bards. More recent work by Jack Goody, \"The Domestication of the Savage Mind\" (1977), \"The Interface Between the Written and the Oral\" (1987), \"The Power of the Written Word\" (2000), and \"Myth Ritual and the Oral\" (2010). Jan Vansina's work in Rwanda and Burundi on chain transmission, \"Oral Tradition as History\" (1985), and others. \"The World of Odysseus\" by Moses Finley is an interesting look at how the Homeric epics preserved Bronze Age details, but contextualized them in the social world of the 8th century BCE audience of the works.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2589.0,"score_ratio":1.0138888889} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip90onu","c_root_id_B":"ip9gq34","created_at_utc_A":1663710157,"created_at_utc_B":1663717083,"score_A":14,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I know Bart Ehrman repeatedly cites a study showing that they don't. He's a Bible scholar who's often debated against the historical accuracy of the gospels; the study shows that when people tell stories, they invariably modify them to fit their audience. Conservative Bible scholars claim that because people told the exact same stories, they must be very good at repeating the exact same stories; but modern studies show this just isn't the case, and that's what Ehrman argues in these debates. There's probably a bit of correction going on if the same story is told by different people within a community, and you can't make a definitive ruling on something that we have no physical evidence for, but it seems highly unlikely that any oral tradition remains the same over any substantial amount of time. In fact, if you compare the 4 gospels in the Bible, you can see how poorly a community of 1st century CE Christians kept their oral traditions consistent -- the 4 gospels are all narrative accounts of the life of Jesus, but they agree on very few details, and they're separated by 10-40 years from each other, and 30 years from the death of Christ. It looks like everyone else is explaining how oral traditions are kept accurate over centuries\/millennia, but given there are studies showing that storytellers consistently adjust their stories and no verifiable evidence that these traditions are accurate, I wonder how that can be?","human_ref_B":"They don't. We don't evidence for consistent accuracy you're speaking of over thousands of years; the best we can claim is \"occasional accuracy\". Elements of stories may remain, the rough outlines of a story like \"The Smith and the Devil\" can have notable similarities over what seem to be well over a thousand years, and perhaps several thousand years more. That said - a story passed down through 50 generations or more necessarily loses details and changes. Some accuracies \\_may\\_ survive, but most don't. Just to state the obvious- the very words spoken by say an Aboriginal Australian in his native language in 1700; this language, even before European contact, would have been changed greatly over the previous thousand years. Since languages aren't static, oral traditions which are embodied in language will be re-expressed in changing language by successive speakers; a product of generational renovation. Just think how peculiar Shakespeare's English is to us now - still intelligible, but with lots of misreadings if you don't check the footnotes. Chaucer is harder, though you can still make out words a bit. And Beowulf and Sir Gawain are essentially impossible without expert study. There's nothing too special about English in that regard .. . languages change. I discussed the issue of oral tradition previously in answer to the question \"How accurate is oral tradition\" https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/x66sf8\/how\\_accurate\\_is\\_oral\\_tradition\/ We can look at information loss in oral traditions over time in folktales. We can see that in the absence of written language, oral tradition can retain, lose, combine and conflate other elements over time. As you go back in time, oral traditions lose their details . . . so an indigenous account of a 1700 earthquake offshore in Oregon, as recorded in the early 19th century, will be more accurate, wth more details than a story that may date back many years earlier. Go back in time a thousand years and elements of momentous changes -- like say the arrival or loss of an important animal, or a major geologic event, that can persist, but precision is lost. Unless someone explains it to you - the meaning of \"Ring around the Rosie\" is not obvious, indeed we're not really sure where the rhyme comes from; many ideas, but no certainty (there is, for example, a very uncertain suggestion that it dates to the time of the Plague . . . we can't substantiate that. Could be true, but not \"definitely true\"). As to \"how\" stories were maintained - however \\in\\]accurately -- think of how you learn a song. While nursery rhymes may be disappearing in the 21st century, many of the songs and rhymes that were taught to children stuck fairly deep. As humans we all do much better with songs than with blocks of prose -- give it some prosody and melody, and we do much better than with random text. Now take that bit of rhyme and song and associate it with a special occasion, and a special place -- you may not know what \"auld lang Syne\" means, but most will know when and. why you sing it. There are multiple cues and redundancies there . . . A much cited and important paper Da Silva, Sara Gra\u00e7a, and Jamshid J. Tehrani. \"Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales.\" Royal Society open science 3.1 (2016): 150645. Open source at: [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsos.150645 \\-- offers some of the most recent approaches we have to empirically examine how stories do - and don't - change over time","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6926.0,"score_ratio":1.7857142857} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip96syw","c_root_id_B":"ip9gq34","created_at_utc_A":1663712742,"created_at_utc_B":1663717083,"score_A":10,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I've read about two different methods used by australian aboriginal groups. I'm afraid I don't recall which ones. One method is that, when passing down stories\/histories, one person's job is to learn everything passed down, and another person's job is to essentially fact check that person, and make sure they remember everything correctly. There was also something about inter-generational fact-checking, as well. I don't recall the details because I read about it awhile ago. Another method is similar to Cicero's memory palace, but in real life. Various landmarks\/features are linked to various parts of a history, so that seeing those landmarks triggers recall of the part of history it's linked to. So a certain walking route could become an entire long story, and someone walking that route would be able to remember the whole story. Which is why aboriginal groups are fighting so hard to preserve aspects of their homelands, like certain trees or rocks. It's not just a \"sacred tree\", it's literally a historical archive for their people.","human_ref_B":"They don't. We don't evidence for consistent accuracy you're speaking of over thousands of years; the best we can claim is \"occasional accuracy\". Elements of stories may remain, the rough outlines of a story like \"The Smith and the Devil\" can have notable similarities over what seem to be well over a thousand years, and perhaps several thousand years more. That said - a story passed down through 50 generations or more necessarily loses details and changes. Some accuracies \\_may\\_ survive, but most don't. Just to state the obvious- the very words spoken by say an Aboriginal Australian in his native language in 1700; this language, even before European contact, would have been changed greatly over the previous thousand years. Since languages aren't static, oral traditions which are embodied in language will be re-expressed in changing language by successive speakers; a product of generational renovation. Just think how peculiar Shakespeare's English is to us now - still intelligible, but with lots of misreadings if you don't check the footnotes. Chaucer is harder, though you can still make out words a bit. And Beowulf and Sir Gawain are essentially impossible without expert study. There's nothing too special about English in that regard .. . languages change. I discussed the issue of oral tradition previously in answer to the question \"How accurate is oral tradition\" https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/x66sf8\/how\\_accurate\\_is\\_oral\\_tradition\/ We can look at information loss in oral traditions over time in folktales. We can see that in the absence of written language, oral tradition can retain, lose, combine and conflate other elements over time. As you go back in time, oral traditions lose their details . . . so an indigenous account of a 1700 earthquake offshore in Oregon, as recorded in the early 19th century, will be more accurate, wth more details than a story that may date back many years earlier. Go back in time a thousand years and elements of momentous changes -- like say the arrival or loss of an important animal, or a major geologic event, that can persist, but precision is lost. Unless someone explains it to you - the meaning of \"Ring around the Rosie\" is not obvious, indeed we're not really sure where the rhyme comes from; many ideas, but no certainty (there is, for example, a very uncertain suggestion that it dates to the time of the Plague . . . we can't substantiate that. Could be true, but not \"definitely true\"). As to \"how\" stories were maintained - however \\in\\]accurately -- think of how you learn a song. While nursery rhymes may be disappearing in the 21st century, many of the songs and rhymes that were taught to children stuck fairly deep. As humans we all do much better with songs than with blocks of prose -- give it some prosody and melody, and we do much better than with random text. Now take that bit of rhyme and song and associate it with a special occasion, and a special place -- you may not know what \"auld lang Syne\" means, but most will know when and. why you sing it. There are multiple cues and redundancies there . . . A much cited and important paper Da Silva, Sara Gra\u00e7a, and Jamshid J. Tehrani. \"Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales.\" Royal Society open science 3.1 (2016): 150645. Open source at: [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsos.150645 \\-- offers some of the most recent approaches we have to empirically examine how stories do - and don't - change over time","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4341.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip9gq34","c_root_id_B":"ip94cuc","created_at_utc_A":1663717083,"created_at_utc_B":1663711697,"score_A":25,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"They don't. We don't evidence for consistent accuracy you're speaking of over thousands of years; the best we can claim is \"occasional accuracy\". Elements of stories may remain, the rough outlines of a story like \"The Smith and the Devil\" can have notable similarities over what seem to be well over a thousand years, and perhaps several thousand years more. That said - a story passed down through 50 generations or more necessarily loses details and changes. Some accuracies \\_may\\_ survive, but most don't. Just to state the obvious- the very words spoken by say an Aboriginal Australian in his native language in 1700; this language, even before European contact, would have been changed greatly over the previous thousand years. Since languages aren't static, oral traditions which are embodied in language will be re-expressed in changing language by successive speakers; a product of generational renovation. Just think how peculiar Shakespeare's English is to us now - still intelligible, but with lots of misreadings if you don't check the footnotes. Chaucer is harder, though you can still make out words a bit. And Beowulf and Sir Gawain are essentially impossible without expert study. There's nothing too special about English in that regard .. . languages change. I discussed the issue of oral tradition previously in answer to the question \"How accurate is oral tradition\" https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/x66sf8\/how\\_accurate\\_is\\_oral\\_tradition\/ We can look at information loss in oral traditions over time in folktales. We can see that in the absence of written language, oral tradition can retain, lose, combine and conflate other elements over time. As you go back in time, oral traditions lose their details . . . so an indigenous account of a 1700 earthquake offshore in Oregon, as recorded in the early 19th century, will be more accurate, wth more details than a story that may date back many years earlier. Go back in time a thousand years and elements of momentous changes -- like say the arrival or loss of an important animal, or a major geologic event, that can persist, but precision is lost. Unless someone explains it to you - the meaning of \"Ring around the Rosie\" is not obvious, indeed we're not really sure where the rhyme comes from; many ideas, but no certainty (there is, for example, a very uncertain suggestion that it dates to the time of the Plague . . . we can't substantiate that. Could be true, but not \"definitely true\"). As to \"how\" stories were maintained - however \\in\\]accurately -- think of how you learn a song. While nursery rhymes may be disappearing in the 21st century, many of the songs and rhymes that were taught to children stuck fairly deep. As humans we all do much better with songs than with blocks of prose -- give it some prosody and melody, and we do much better than with random text. Now take that bit of rhyme and song and associate it with a special occasion, and a special place -- you may not know what \"auld lang Syne\" means, but most will know when and. why you sing it. There are multiple cues and redundancies there . . . A much cited and important paper Da Silva, Sara Gra\u00e7a, and Jamshid J. Tehrani. \"Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales.\" Royal Society open science 3.1 (2016): 150645. Open source at: [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsos.150645 \\-- offers some of the most recent approaches we have to empirically examine how stories do - and don't - change over time","human_ref_B":"I think we want to believe that the answer is that oral and written histories are either truths or myth, when the reality is they are both. Our stories are almost always meant to do more than recount events accurately. The trick is figuring out which bits are closest to truth by checking them against other sources.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5386.0,"score_ratio":3.125} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ip96syw","c_root_id_B":"ip94cuc","created_at_utc_A":1663712742,"created_at_utc_B":1663711697,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I've read about two different methods used by australian aboriginal groups. I'm afraid I don't recall which ones. One method is that, when passing down stories\/histories, one person's job is to learn everything passed down, and another person's job is to essentially fact check that person, and make sure they remember everything correctly. There was also something about inter-generational fact-checking, as well. I don't recall the details because I read about it awhile ago. Another method is similar to Cicero's memory palace, but in real life. Various landmarks\/features are linked to various parts of a history, so that seeing those landmarks triggers recall of the part of history it's linked to. So a certain walking route could become an entire long story, and someone walking that route would be able to remember the whole story. Which is why aboriginal groups are fighting so hard to preserve aspects of their homelands, like certain trees or rocks. It's not just a \"sacred tree\", it's literally a historical archive for their people.","human_ref_B":"I think we want to believe that the answer is that oral and written histories are either truths or myth, when the reality is they are both. Our stories are almost always meant to do more than recount events accurately. The trick is figuring out which bits are closest to truth by checking them against other sources.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1045.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ipaajou","c_root_id_B":"ipafadk","created_at_utc_A":1663730964,"created_at_utc_B":1663733477,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I doubted the veracity of oral traditions, too, until I was on an archaeological site visit with senior archaeologists employed by the State of Arizona, the Arizona State Museum, three Hopi elders and the cultural resource protection officer for the Hopi nation. We went to a newly recorded site several hours south and west of Tucson. The preliminary site report discussed what unusual features the site had for this region.After we arrived, and before we hiked to in view of the site, one of the elders quietly stood and surveyed the surrounding landscape and view of a mountain range to the south. Then, he quietly began to tell the oral history of the clan who built the masonry village, what we could expect to see and find at the site, what happened to the clan and why they left. He told us to look for a large rock pecked into the round shape of a shield. It would be quartered and bear petroglyphs of the clan\u2019s symbol, a turtle, a rising sun, and a river. To the west of the rock would be a small kiva with a painted mural of a setting sun on its west wall, and rising sun on the east wall. This was the watcher\u2019s kiva and he\/she had the responsibility of marking the passage of the seasons. Finally he said, to the south was a small river that had disappeared after a huge flash flood had destroyed the banks, washed out many rooms, and killed several villagers. After this calamity, the remaining people migrated west and north to eventually join the Pueblo\u2019s in New Mexico. It all seemed so far fetched to me, until we hiked over to the site. The room blocks were of stone construction, a real anomaly this far south. Masonry pueblos had not been found south of the Sinaguan culture\u2019s villages on the Mogollon Rim, above Phoenix. The round stone was visible as a rounded edge above the surface\u2026Pulling away the sage and grasses revealed a petroglyph of a turtle. Further excavation with a trowel revealed a shield just as the elder described. West of the stone was a circular depression characteristic of a kiva. Excavation the following season revealed the sun murals on opposite walls. On its southern end, the village disappeared on the edge of a large, deep arroyo. We could clearly see remnants of ancient rooms on two levels high up in the arroyo\u2019s banks. The elder told us more about the village than I want to type here, it\u2019s enough to know the clan was considered lost on the most recent migration, until a few survivors made it to New Mexico to tell their story. The pottery on the site dated it to a narrow band of occupation in the late 13th to early 14th centuries.","human_ref_B":"First Nations people of Australia have lots of different ways. Songlines are important ones. The term \u2018Songline\u2019 describes the features and directions of travel that were included in a song that had to be sung and memorised for the traveller to know the route to their destination. Certain Songlines were referred to as \u2018Dreaming Pathways\u2019 because of the tracks forged by Creator Spirits during the Dreaming. These special Songlines have specific ancestral stories attached to them. It\u2019s also about the cultural importance of oral stories. People know how important it is to learn stories and pass them on. I have a few friends who are Indigenous and they are drilled to get the stories right, word for word exactly.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2513.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"xjftfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did non literate societies keep oral traditions accurate over long periods of time? I've read articles about how scholars are reevaluating oral traditions as sources of historical evidence, but I'm not sure if I've seen a good explanation of be those cultures kept the stories the same over hundreds or thousands of years without major deviation. Is there any good reading on this topic?","c_root_id_A":"ipcvmzz","c_root_id_B":"ipaajou","created_at_utc_A":1663781454,"created_at_utc_B":1663730964,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Part of oral tradition is that it has built in re-enforcements of the message, also seen in early writing. The big two are constantly repeating certain elements and using sound repeats (like rhymes) Children story example that has both: When facing the little pigs, big bad wolf huffs and puffs each of the three encounters . As long as you can remember huff you'll be very likely to pair it with puff as they rhyme. Hearing (huff and puff) three times makes it less likely to be forgotten That being said, oral tradition does fragment and change. And different versions of the same story can show us relationships between groups","human_ref_B":"I doubted the veracity of oral traditions, too, until I was on an archaeological site visit with senior archaeologists employed by the State of Arizona, the Arizona State Museum, three Hopi elders and the cultural resource protection officer for the Hopi nation. We went to a newly recorded site several hours south and west of Tucson. The preliminary site report discussed what unusual features the site had for this region.After we arrived, and before we hiked to in view of the site, one of the elders quietly stood and surveyed the surrounding landscape and view of a mountain range to the south. Then, he quietly began to tell the oral history of the clan who built the masonry village, what we could expect to see and find at the site, what happened to the clan and why they left. He told us to look for a large rock pecked into the round shape of a shield. It would be quartered and bear petroglyphs of the clan\u2019s symbol, a turtle, a rising sun, and a river. To the west of the rock would be a small kiva with a painted mural of a setting sun on its west wall, and rising sun on the east wall. This was the watcher\u2019s kiva and he\/she had the responsibility of marking the passage of the seasons. Finally he said, to the south was a small river that had disappeared after a huge flash flood had destroyed the banks, washed out many rooms, and killed several villagers. After this calamity, the remaining people migrated west and north to eventually join the Pueblo\u2019s in New Mexico. It all seemed so far fetched to me, until we hiked over to the site. The room blocks were of stone construction, a real anomaly this far south. Masonry pueblos had not been found south of the Sinaguan culture\u2019s villages on the Mogollon Rim, above Phoenix. The round stone was visible as a rounded edge above the surface\u2026Pulling away the sage and grasses revealed a petroglyph of a turtle. Further excavation with a trowel revealed a shield just as the elder described. West of the stone was a circular depression characteristic of a kiva. Excavation the following season revealed the sun murals on opposite walls. On its southern end, the village disappeared on the edge of a large, deep arroyo. We could clearly see remnants of ancient rooms on two levels high up in the arroyo\u2019s banks. The elder told us more about the village than I want to type here, it\u2019s enough to know the clan was considered lost on the most recent migration, until a few survivors made it to New Mexico to tell their story. The pottery on the site dated it to a narrow band of occupation in the late 13th to early 14th centuries.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":50490.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vtnt14","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How is polygyny possible? I don't get how some societies that have many wives to one husband can sustain this practice. You would need to have a huge gender imbalance for this to last more than a few generations. How do some societies sustain this for such a long time?","c_root_id_A":"if8vgk7","c_root_id_B":"if9gw7k","created_at_utc_A":1657221963,"created_at_utc_B":1657230264,"score_A":60,"score_B":518,"human_ref_A":"In societies where polygyny is practiced, it's not practiced by everyone. Or even a majority. While I don't usually like citing Wikipedia, it's got a good breakdown by country that describes the legality of the practice, and where it's legal, some basic info about how common it is and the general trend in terms of who does it. The pattern that emerges if you read that is that in countries where it's legal, it's not a free-for-all, nor is it all that widespread. It's usually something limited to those with means, and there are various restrictions and proscriptions for how it's practiced.","human_ref_B":"There are two main ways polygyny is practiced. Usually it's that the occasional man will marry more than one woman. It might be that he's wealthy and can afford multiple wives, or it might be that he has some sort of obligation to marry some woman, like the physically disabled sister of his wife or something. She needs to be married to ensure she'll be taken care of and have a role in society, and no one else will marry her. Or a man might have one wife but maybe she's infertile or maybe some other reason, he'll take another wife. Usually these guys are only having maybe 2 wives, rarely more. And they're in the minority. There's always a gender imbalance in society anyway, and some men and some women will never get married. Like in the US, something like 20% traditionally didn't get married for one reason or another. So there's wiggle room to allow for a few polygynous marriages, without affecting the larger marriage market. You just might end up with slightly more married women than married men. So this is a pretty stable system over time, you're not seeing a huge skew in the sex ratio or lots of men with no wives and a small number of men with many wives. The other way polygyny is practiced is that you have a small number of very powerful men who will marry large numbers of women and have a \"harem\" of sorts. Emirs, kings, captains of industry, etc. Osama Bin Laden's father, a billionaire, had many, many wives. It was like his hobby. He'd fly out on his private plane, find an attractive girl (like Osama Bin Laden's mother, who was 14 when she gave birth to Osama) and give her father some money and marry her. Technically in Islam you're only supposed to have 4 wives at a time, so he did what a lot of men in similar circumstances do, and only stayed married to 4 at a time--mostly the ones who were pregnant, so that the babies would be legitimate, plus the ones he was initially marrying after meeting them and paying a dowry. Some would be marriages that would last a day or less--he'd marry, have sex, then divorce all in the same day. That wouldn't affect the sex ratio. In other cases, he'd get tired of that particular wife and marry her off to one of his company executives. This killed two birds with one stone--it ensured loyalty from his executive, a marriage for his ex-wife, and the step-father would be inclined to treat his step-children well because their father was his boss. If he liked the wife she was married to a high-level executive, and if he didn't like the wife she got someone low down in the pecking order. And there are few enough of these extremely wealthy and powerful men that the sex ratio is likely overall not impacted much in the wider society. But then you get things like Warren Jeffs and his fundamentalist Mormon cult. That's a small group and the powerful older men that lead the group have a monopoly on all of the girls and women. They will have dozens and dozens of wives, generally married off at the earliest possibility (as soon as they start menstruating). They basically own all of the women in the group and will assign new wives on the basis of who they want to reward or curry favor with. This severely skews the sex ratio, because it's a small group and a few men are monopolizing a very significant percentage of the girls and women. So in that case what they do is, starting when the kids are young teens, they'll start marrying off the girls and kicking out the boys onto the street, literally, for minor infractions, like talking back or not doing a chore properly. This gets rid of all of the lower ranking, supernumerary boys who otherwise might cause trouble because the girls who are their peers married to 60 year old men might be more attracted to 14 year old boys not 60 year olds. The boys end up on the streets of cities like Salt Lake City and other nearby towns, homeless and struggling. It's a sustainable practice only because it's a cult and the members idolize the leaders doing these things.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8301.0,"score_ratio":8.6333333333} {"post_id":"vtnt14","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How is polygyny possible? I don't get how some societies that have many wives to one husband can sustain this practice. You would need to have a huge gender imbalance for this to last more than a few generations. How do some societies sustain this for such a long time?","c_root_id_A":"if9gw7k","c_root_id_B":"if94dn1","created_at_utc_A":1657230264,"created_at_utc_B":1657225385,"score_A":518,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"There are two main ways polygyny is practiced. Usually it's that the occasional man will marry more than one woman. It might be that he's wealthy and can afford multiple wives, or it might be that he has some sort of obligation to marry some woman, like the physically disabled sister of his wife or something. She needs to be married to ensure she'll be taken care of and have a role in society, and no one else will marry her. Or a man might have one wife but maybe she's infertile or maybe some other reason, he'll take another wife. Usually these guys are only having maybe 2 wives, rarely more. And they're in the minority. There's always a gender imbalance in society anyway, and some men and some women will never get married. Like in the US, something like 20% traditionally didn't get married for one reason or another. So there's wiggle room to allow for a few polygynous marriages, without affecting the larger marriage market. You just might end up with slightly more married women than married men. So this is a pretty stable system over time, you're not seeing a huge skew in the sex ratio or lots of men with no wives and a small number of men with many wives. The other way polygyny is practiced is that you have a small number of very powerful men who will marry large numbers of women and have a \"harem\" of sorts. Emirs, kings, captains of industry, etc. Osama Bin Laden's father, a billionaire, had many, many wives. It was like his hobby. He'd fly out on his private plane, find an attractive girl (like Osama Bin Laden's mother, who was 14 when she gave birth to Osama) and give her father some money and marry her. Technically in Islam you're only supposed to have 4 wives at a time, so he did what a lot of men in similar circumstances do, and only stayed married to 4 at a time--mostly the ones who were pregnant, so that the babies would be legitimate, plus the ones he was initially marrying after meeting them and paying a dowry. Some would be marriages that would last a day or less--he'd marry, have sex, then divorce all in the same day. That wouldn't affect the sex ratio. In other cases, he'd get tired of that particular wife and marry her off to one of his company executives. This killed two birds with one stone--it ensured loyalty from his executive, a marriage for his ex-wife, and the step-father would be inclined to treat his step-children well because their father was his boss. If he liked the wife she was married to a high-level executive, and if he didn't like the wife she got someone low down in the pecking order. And there are few enough of these extremely wealthy and powerful men that the sex ratio is likely overall not impacted much in the wider society. But then you get things like Warren Jeffs and his fundamentalist Mormon cult. That's a small group and the powerful older men that lead the group have a monopoly on all of the girls and women. They will have dozens and dozens of wives, generally married off at the earliest possibility (as soon as they start menstruating). They basically own all of the women in the group and will assign new wives on the basis of who they want to reward or curry favor with. This severely skews the sex ratio, because it's a small group and a few men are monopolizing a very significant percentage of the girls and women. So in that case what they do is, starting when the kids are young teens, they'll start marrying off the girls and kicking out the boys onto the street, literally, for minor infractions, like talking back or not doing a chore properly. This gets rid of all of the lower ranking, supernumerary boys who otherwise might cause trouble because the girls who are their peers married to 60 year old men might be more attracted to 14 year old boys not 60 year olds. The boys end up on the streets of cities like Salt Lake City and other nearby towns, homeless and struggling. It's a sustainable practice only because it's a cult and the members idolize the leaders doing these things.","human_ref_B":"I don't have a lot of familiarity with polygyny writ large, but I think something to point out is that you don't have cultures where everyone engages in polygyn or no one does. The one example I do know about, Polyandry in Tibet, serves a very specific economic purpose of preventing family lands from becoming subdivided through generations. Apologies for the wikipedia link, but you could likely dive into some of the sources here: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Polyandry_in_Tibet","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4879.0,"score_ratio":15.696969697} {"post_id":"hse8x4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Would ancient Welsh celts have face tattoos? XPosted from askhistorians First I'll apologize because I really dont have a clue what I'm talking about hahahha. History is not my forte. My mom has tried to explain to me how the celtic people\/ welsh fit together at certain times, as she studies our family genealogy, but I just cannot follow it. I am an artist currently working on a portrait of a woman, I'd like to incorporate some Welsh Celtic imagery as that is where my mom is certain a portion of our family came from. Would they have had face tattoos? Are there any other images that would be relevant, such as things that were on armor, ships, homes, etc.? I know this question is a bit off the wall but I'm very grateful for your knowledge in any way.","c_root_id_A":"fy9xz4b","c_root_id_B":"fy9zw3o","created_at_utc_A":1594922612,"created_at_utc_B":1594923546,"score_A":37,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"The real answer: we don't know, but the biggest probability is not, they don't used. Tattoos are only conserved in mummies (natural or artificial mummies) and we had a very little sample of mummies from what is consider Celts in the British island (iron and bronze age ) that are in reality bog mummies. They don't have any tattoos. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bog_body We have a few examples of mummies with tattoos in Europe as the famous \u00d6tzi in Italy (bronze age) or the Russian iron age case of Pazyryk culture. But I think they don't have any facial tattoos think that the proces to make tattoos in the past was more dangerous and possibility to infections you don't want any complications in your face. The most accurate way to represent they will be without tattoos or at least not facial ones. But it is totally up to you, something in anthropology and archaeology we take creative liberty and since you are not trying to make a direct historic reconstruction for the public I think you should do it as accurate that you want.","human_ref_B":"We have no firm way of knowing whether or not any Celtic speaking peoples were tattooed. I believe that Romano-Greek authors sometimes described these peoples as being tattooed but they can also be not the most reliable sources so best to take them with quite a bit of salt. Plus I think they would've been commenting more on the continental Celts rather than the Insular Celts. It is believed and often depicted that Ancient Britons wore paint on their bodies when going into battle. An explanation I recall hearing was that it was spiritual in nature but the specifics escape me. Overall I don't think much is known about such practices and it would be difficult to prove for the most part.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":934.0,"score_ratio":1.2702702703} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedghzg","c_root_id_B":"fedgj8r","created_at_utc_A":1579010896,"created_at_utc_B":1579010922,"score_A":10,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"It isn't focused in the US like Liquidated, but William Mazzarella wrote Shoveling Smoke, it's an ethnography of advertising agencies in India. Very interesting book that looks at two agencies in Bombay as one markets the condom brand KamaSutra, saying the erotic images they produce are traditionally Indian ideas, the second case markets a local Indian aesthetic for a cell-phone company in an increasingly globalized world. I love this book, it gives an insight into the process of advertising and marketing.","human_ref_B":"One of my professors did his PhD ethnographic research on Chilean economic think tanks.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedgj8r","c_root_id_B":"fedcp4z","created_at_utc_A":1579010922,"created_at_utc_B":1579007745,"score_A":20,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"One of my professors did his PhD ethnographic research on Chilean economic think tanks.","human_ref_B":"I don't know about ethnographies of advertising agencies, but here are some sources on social studies of economy and finance: Caitlin Zaloom has an ethnography of financial traders and Karen Knorr-Cetina is a sociologist also working on financial markets. Donald Mackenzie's book \"Do Economists Make Markets?\" seems like what you're looking for, but he's a sociologist as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3177.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedghzg","c_root_id_B":"feds6ic","created_at_utc_A":1579010896,"created_at_utc_B":1579018748,"score_A":10,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"It isn't focused in the US like Liquidated, but William Mazzarella wrote Shoveling Smoke, it's an ethnography of advertising agencies in India. Very interesting book that looks at two agencies in Bombay as one markets the condom brand KamaSutra, saying the erotic images they produce are traditionally Indian ideas, the second case markets a local Indian aesthetic for a cell-phone company in an increasingly globalized world. I love this book, it gives an insight into the process of advertising and marketing.","human_ref_B":"Swimming with sharks is a book by an anthrpologist about the people who work in the City of London","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7852.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedcp4z","c_root_id_B":"feds6ic","created_at_utc_A":1579007745,"created_at_utc_B":1579018748,"score_A":6,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I don't know about ethnographies of advertising agencies, but here are some sources on social studies of economy and finance: Caitlin Zaloom has an ethnography of financial traders and Karen Knorr-Cetina is a sociologist also working on financial markets. Donald Mackenzie's book \"Do Economists Make Markets?\" seems like what you're looking for, but he's a sociologist as well.","human_ref_B":"Swimming with sharks is a book by an anthrpologist about the people who work in the City of London","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11003.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedme6u","c_root_id_B":"feds6ic","created_at_utc_A":1579015077,"created_at_utc_B":1579018748,"score_A":3,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I haven't read it but there's a new book out called Songs of Profit, Songs of Loss by Daniel Souleles which is an ethnography of people working in private equity finance. Not economists or advertising agencies per se, but close.","human_ref_B":"Swimming with sharks is a book by an anthrpologist about the people who work in the City of London","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3671.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fedghzg","c_root_id_B":"fedcp4z","created_at_utc_A":1579010896,"created_at_utc_B":1579007745,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"It isn't focused in the US like Liquidated, but William Mazzarella wrote Shoveling Smoke, it's an ethnography of advertising agencies in India. Very interesting book that looks at two agencies in Bombay as one markets the condom brand KamaSutra, saying the erotic images they produce are traditionally Indian ideas, the second case markets a local Indian aesthetic for a cell-phone company in an increasingly globalized world. I love this book, it gives an insight into the process of advertising and marketing.","human_ref_B":"I don't know about ethnographies of advertising agencies, but here are some sources on social studies of economy and finance: Caitlin Zaloom has an ethnography of financial traders and Karen Knorr-Cetina is a sociologist also working on financial markets. Donald Mackenzie's book \"Do Economists Make Markets?\" seems like what you're looking for, but he's a sociologist as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3151.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"eoktyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Karen Ho did an ethnography of Wall Street. Is there more of ethnography of economists and ethnography of advertising agency? The two are separate questions but I just lump it in one thread as both interest me. If anyone hasn't read it, Karen Ho's work is called \"Liquidated\".","c_root_id_A":"fee7wek","c_root_id_B":"feeetw5","created_at_utc_A":1579028227,"created_at_utc_B":1579032293,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm a fan of work on the advertising industry, especially in the world of fashion, by Brian Moeran. You can find some downloadable articles on his ResearchGate page here (https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Brian\\_Moeran).","human_ref_B":"Tangentially related - From Wallstreet to Halal Street discusses how various banks and firms design programs that observe Islamic law and attract customers, particularly in SE Asia....","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4066.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rwotlt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why were depictions of human faces so rare in ancient art? I am very puzzled by the lack of even simple faces in ancient art. This phenomenon seems to be fairly global. Of course there are exceptions, but it seems to be very rare. However, anyone who has been to a kindergarten will see that kids almost instinctively draw a circle with two eyes and a mouth, even before they start drawing bodies (like eggs with arms and legs), before progressing to stick figures. Do we have an example of the first \u2018stick man with a smiley face\u2019?","c_root_id_A":"hrd0p58","c_root_id_B":"hrdogr9","created_at_utc_A":1641395339,"created_at_utc_B":1641404278,"score_A":87,"score_B":116,"human_ref_A":"There are \"stick figures\" dating back to 30k years ago in the Chauvet caves. The question is what do you consider to be portrait? Because there are things like the Dolni Vestonice woman that was carved into a mammoth husk 26k years ago that depicts facial features.","human_ref_B":"​ >However, anyone who has been to a kindergarten will see that kids almost instinctively The words \"almost instinctively\" have to be examined more carefully. Plainly, it is \\_not\\_ \"instinctive\". Young children draw because of the extraordinary amounts of visual imagery that surround them. We then give them crayons . . . so that's not \"instinct\" at all; its suggestive, imitative and prompted. In a society without figurative art, there's no indication that people \"instinctively\" set about to drawing faces, either as children or as adults.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8939.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"mb53eo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I have been sent here by the economic history Reddit. I wanted to know how we came to the idea of scarcity in economics? The central tenet that states that humans have unlimited needs and wants but there are limited resources. Are human needs and wants really unlimited? I\u2019m taking my first econ class and apparently the central tenet of economics is the principle of scarcity where humans have unlimited needs but limited resources that must be distributed. This definition seems very reductive to me. It\u2019s hard for me to imagine living a life where nothing is enough. Mostly material wants. Humans will always need food and shelter and healthcare, but that\u2019s at the very bottom of the hierarchy of needs. There will always be a need for houses, but are humans really not satisfied with it? Are we all like Jeff bezos who owns 400 million dollars worth of houses that he barely ever sees? Capitalism definitely manufacture needs and manipulates us into wanting things we don\u2019t need, but that\u2019s not the true human condition. So are we just greedy beings, never satisfied with what we have? I know anecdotes aren\u2019t evidence but I feel like there\u2019s more to the simple phrase \u201chumans have unlimited wants and needs\u201d.","c_root_id_A":"grwqwoq","c_root_id_B":"grwyc0y","created_at_utc_A":1616489907,"created_at_utc_B":1616496872,"score_A":6,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"This is a very common definition but it doesn't really do justice to economics. My favorite econ professor used to say that economics is about finding consistent solutions to several interdependent, simultaneous optimization problems under constraints. We usually call those consistent solutions equilibria. I think this reflects how academic economists think about economics better than the definition that is given to you. In the end, whether your needs are unlimited or not is really inessential to this study. Indeed, in most economic models, either the demand is bounded somehow or the utilities are concave enough so that even though the demand is unbounded, after some point, having more of something doesn't really make you significantly happier so the demand becomes almost flat. Also, satisficing is a very old idea in economic theory and many models assume preferences that are consistent with it. It basically goes something like this: First I want to have enough to eat. Once I have that, I am happy to maximize the social welfare with the rest of my resources. (Simon was probably the first to formalize this.) Also, the \"unlimited needs, limited resources\" definition doesn't capture the interdependent and simultaneous nature of most economic problems. Economics is not just you maximizing your utility given all prices and your budget. Sellers are choosing the prices, your employer chooses your wage, government is choosing the tax rates, customs policies etc. so that even a mildly realistic model of the real economy is a super complex network with lots of connections that determine what is available to each agent and what anyone does has effects on many other parts of the economy. So far I mostly dodged your main question but I think it is really impossible to answer. The thing is, we don't really know some parts of our preferences, until relevant options are available to us. It is different thinking about what we would do under certain circumstances vs. actually being under those circumstances; lots of social psychology\/experimental economics papers show that what we think we would do from a cold state and what we actually do in the hot state are not really the same thing or even close to each other. For example, I feel like if I had a billion dollars, I wouldn't work one more day in my life. However, I will likely never have a billion dollars. So I can't really know what I would do if I had a billion dollars, with lots of opportunities to have two billions dollars. There is also another way to think about this problem. If I had a choice between having a billion dollars vs. two billions dollars, I would choose two billions dollars. It is not that I can think of ways to spend (more than) the first billion dollars so that I want the second. Two billions simply provide more choices and flexibility; once you have it, you can always burn half of it, if that will make you happy. So in this weak sense, I would of course prefer to have more money to less, since I can always discard\/donate\/burn etc. if I want it. However, in this form of the problem, I don't have to work for the second billion dollars. There is simply no opportunity cost for having it. In life, it usually gets harder and harder to get more and more money. (This is why in most economic models with production, we assume that the cost function is convex so that it gets more costly to produce higher quantities.) So, again, I think whether the needs are really unlimited or not is irrelevant since the choice is never between more or less but usually we choose between more for more work vs. less for less work etc. (One final note based on the physical universe we inhabit: Everything is limited so even if the needs are unlimited, it doesn't matter, as unlimited amount of something can never be achieved.)","human_ref_B":"One of the most classic cultural anthropology texts on scarcity is \u2018the original affluent society\u2019 by Marshall Sahlins. It\u2019s old so there\u2019s some problematic stuff in there but it\u2019s still taught on anthropology courses. As to where the sense of scarcity came from ... maybe it links to Polanyi\u2019s idea of fictitious commodities? The enclosure of the commons?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6965.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"kwg63w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Some questions about Neanderthals So, forgive me if this is the wrong subreddit but I think this is the closest place to somewhere I can ask these questions? I have a bit of an obsession with neanderthals, as I'm sure many people do, and I imagine these questions have been asked before but I checked through the FAQ and couldn't find anything. 1) I know, or at least I think I know, that the average neanderthal was physically superior to *homo sapiens*. Is this true even of modern humans with our increased size and strength from abundant nutrition? And what exactly is the magnitude here? To use maybe a slightly silly thought device, if I'm the owner of an NFL team and I resurrect a neanderthal to play for me, can I expect that average neanderthal to be physically superior to a bunch of professional football players (that is, the athletic peak of *homo sapiens*)? 2) In addition to just being stronger, do we know if they were they also faster\/more coordinated\/etc.? Continuing the idea from above, are there any kinds of sports that they would be *worse* at than modern humans? 3) I have heard that neanderthals had larger brains than *homo sapiens*, but that this doesn't necessarily mean they were more \"intelligent\". Is that true? If so, do we know what these larger brains were for if not for the types of thinking modern humans engage in? Could they have been for more efficient spatial\/physical algorithms, e.g. a kind of \"athletic intelligence\"? 4) I know the subject of neanderthal \"intelligence\" is pretty unclear and debated, but what are the reasonable minimalist and reasonable maximalist positions? E.g. in the \"worst case scenario\", would they still have been categorically superior, intellectually, to non-human animals and have the defining traits of human sapience? And in the \"best case scenario\", were they any less intelligent than modern humans or were they basically just as smart, just maladjusted for survival in a changing climate? Thanks!!","c_root_id_A":"gj4b1h2","c_root_id_B":"gj4593z","created_at_utc_A":1610551236,"created_at_utc_B":1610548296,"score_A":128,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Neanderthals were a bit shorter, barrel-chested, and had stockier limbs. Estimates of strength & athletic ability are going to be educated guesses. But based on the evidence from their bones, the average Neanderthal probably wouldn\u2019t have been able to run as fast or for as long as a modern human. But they likely would have had really strong limbs and an unusually strong grip. So if we\u2019re talking football, probably not good receivers, but maybe good offensive linemen. As far as the larger brains, this is true, they had slightly larger brains (5-7%). But they also had slightly larger bodies, and larger bodies need larger brains to run. There also seemed to be some interesting differences in the way their eyes worked. Neanderthals had larger eyes then modern humans, and the region of their brains that process vision was also significantly larger then modern humans. Not quite sure what this means; could mean they had sharper vision, maybe better vision in low light. But other parts of their brains, particularly the prefrontal cortex, seem to have been smaller. So overall they were slightly larger, but the real difference was the way their brains were laid out. As far as what the difference in brains mean as far as behavior, that\u2019s kind of tricky to work out. Couple of things may point to differences in the way they thought. There are some indications of abstract markings, decorative use of feathers and claws, unusual shells or stones carried for long distances, and some indications of pigments used to color things. But all of these are few & far between, and none really reach the levels of sophistication that modern humans were doing. It seems Neanderthals were doing some abstract or decorative crafts, but not to the same amount or sophistication. Similar things can be found with tools. Neanderthals made some really functional tools, even developed a form of glue form birch tar. But we don\u2019t find anything as sophisticated as, say a spear-thrower, or a laminar microlithic blade. This could just be an issue of preservation, but as more & more sites are really carefully excavated, it\u2019s becoming less likely. Another theory is Neanderthals operated in smaller, more isolated groups, so ideas didn\u2019t spread as much. They didn\u2019t have the opportunity to build on one another\u2019s ideas, so things stayed more basic. But piecing back together Neanderthal social life is a tricky thing. ​ If you want to really dig into all the of the differences & similarities, I highly recommend Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. It just came out a little while back, and it has the latest research & findings. The writing is also excellent and really brings Neanderthals to life.","human_ref_B":"The other stuff in your post I am not necessarily an expert in. However, about their intelligence it is insane to think they didn't have language. If you are interested about linguistics in archaic humans I highly suggest checking out Daniel Everett on this topic. Everett and others have shown that even Homo Erectus must have had language because of the linguistic requirement to be able to make boats.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2940.0,"score_ratio":6.0952380952} {"post_id":"j6jjss","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What\u2019s a book\/essay similar to \u201cBody Ritual among the Nacirema\u201d by Horace Miner? I want to read something that analyzes or makes me think about American culture from an outside perspective.","c_root_id_A":"g7zwlu1","c_root_id_B":"g80xndi","created_at_utc_A":1602074924,"created_at_utc_B":1602093999,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I know that essay was part of a larger book on American Culture. Not sure how current you are looking for in terms of the writings, the copyright is from 75. I\u2019m not sure how outside of a perspective the rest of the essays are The Nacerima: Readings on American Culture, by James P Spradley and Michael A Rynkiewich","human_ref_B":"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema is wonderful and necessary, but the kind of outsider perspective you get here is because it is a satire on ethnographic writing. That's what makes it brilliant, but you're unlikely to find that level of \"outsider\" alien treatment of one's own cultural practices too frequently outside of Nathan W. Pyle's comics. However, there are a *lot* of works that analyze elements of American culture. What's great about this is that you can choose an element that interests you and dig deep. A few that interest me personally are: Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community by Faye Ginsburg - discusses the history and politicization of reproductive rights in the US, using the debate and activism over a clinic in Fargo, ND as a case study. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics by Susan Friend Harding - looks at evangelical\/fundamentalist Christian culture in the US, especially as the community began to dominate in political arenas in the 1980's. Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession - A collection of essays about cross-national and cross-cultural conceptualizations of \"fat.\" Includes essays on how it's treated in parts of the US, but all of the examples give an amazing context and perspective to how we understand \"fat\" as Americans. It almost has a similar effect to Nacirema, where you really see how culture is bound up with behavior and thought. I often recommend these books, as I really like looking at American cultural views and practices through an anthropological lens too. If you have any other specific elements of American culture that captivate you, I might be able to recommend some that more specifically strike your interests.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19075.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"gm6tlh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Am I hanging a Balinese demon mask on my wall? I bought this mask a year ago while traveling in Bali without putting much thought into it beyond aesthetics. After suggesting to hang it on the wall, my girlfriend said it looked scary. To ease her concerns, I looked into the meaning behind the mask and found that the masks typically are either depictions of Barong, a positive spirit, or Rangda, a demon queen. Looking at images online, I have a hard time identifying which of those masks I now own. Neither my girlfriend or I are particularly spiritual, but at the same time if I'm going to display imagery in our home I'd prefer for it have a positive context rather than accidentally endorsing a demon queen. Are there any Balinese Redditors or religious anthropologists that can comment? All help is greatly appreciated! Balinese Mask","c_root_id_A":"fr22v4k","c_root_id_B":"fr21slm","created_at_utc_A":1589830206,"created_at_utc_B":1589829684,"score_A":101,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"As an antique dabbler I can tell you it's not an antique - it was made for tourist trade. So no worries about it being looted. And that could explain why it's hard to decipher which god it's depicting - tourist masks are often carved as ideas of traditional masks if that makes sense.","human_ref_B":"It is depicting Barong. Rangda is usually depicted with big fangs and an overly long tongue coming from the mouth. Barong, however, is almost always depicted to be smiling like the one you have. Both are usually redish colored so that's a little interesting. Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on Bali so some people might know more.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":522.0,"score_ratio":1.7413793103} {"post_id":"gm6tlh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Am I hanging a Balinese demon mask on my wall? I bought this mask a year ago while traveling in Bali without putting much thought into it beyond aesthetics. After suggesting to hang it on the wall, my girlfriend said it looked scary. To ease her concerns, I looked into the meaning behind the mask and found that the masks typically are either depictions of Barong, a positive spirit, or Rangda, a demon queen. Looking at images online, I have a hard time identifying which of those masks I now own. Neither my girlfriend or I are particularly spiritual, but at the same time if I'm going to display imagery in our home I'd prefer for it have a positive context rather than accidentally endorsing a demon queen. Are there any Balinese Redditors or religious anthropologists that can comment? All help is greatly appreciated! Balinese Mask","c_root_id_A":"fr2ix73","c_root_id_B":"fr3dpz3","created_at_utc_A":1589838090,"created_at_utc_B":1589855201,"score_A":6,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I collect Balinese wood carvings. I have three barong masks, a large bat and a bipedal frog dressed in red with a spear. So cool to come across a thread about them. Thanks.","human_ref_B":"I grew up with a Rangda mask (and a barong) in my childhood home. I don\u2019t think this is a rangda based on serval things the main being that many Rangda masks have several feet of hair with a red mirrored strip of fabric down the middle of that. However even if it is a Rangda mask seeing her as evil is an overly simplistic understanding. Rangda is chaos and destruction. The negative in the world but those are understood as needed things and her battle with Barong is never to be won simply balanced. Hindu gods are rarely all good or bad and Rangda is no exception.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17111.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"636q01","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What were the standards for female hygiene like in the ancient world?","c_root_id_A":"dfsrvg7","c_root_id_B":"dfsorkw","created_at_utc_A":1491272357,"created_at_utc_B":1491268650,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Side question...Can anyone direct me to information on grooming habits throughout history. Like why did men start cutting their hair while women didn't? Why is it socially acceptable for men to not shave while women are pressured to? You know anything along those lines.","human_ref_B":"In addition to any good answers you may get here, this question is frequently discussed in \/r\/askhistorians; it's in their FAQ. Here's the subsection: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/wiki\/health","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3707.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ynpp95","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What did ancient people think about farting? We now understand that the breakdown of food inside the stomache releases gases which have to be expelled, hence the invisible \"wind\" which pops or erupts from inside us. But what were early humans' explanations for why an input of solids should lead to an output of solids AND gas?","c_root_id_A":"ivbxzh1","c_root_id_B":"ivb82ub","created_at_utc_A":1667768373,"created_at_utc_B":1667758585,"score_A":45,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"The Romans certainly had opinions. The emperor Claudius issued an edict for farting at dinner banquets. There's also fart jokes that date to the Sumerians","human_ref_B":"It is only in the past century that people understood how methane was generated in the intestine. So you don't have to go very far back before this question was unsolved.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9788.0,"score_ratio":2.3684210526} {"post_id":"ynpp95","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What did ancient people think about farting? We now understand that the breakdown of food inside the stomache releases gases which have to be expelled, hence the invisible \"wind\" which pops or erupts from inside us. But what were early humans' explanations for why an input of solids should lead to an output of solids AND gas?","c_root_id_A":"ivcivm5","c_root_id_B":"ivb82ub","created_at_utc_A":1667776934,"created_at_utc_B":1667758585,"score_A":45,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Last I checked, the oldest known joke is a fart joke. Something like, \"A strange thing happened recently. A woman sat on her man's lap and did not fart.\"","human_ref_B":"It is only in the past century that people understood how methane was generated in the intestine. So you don't have to go very far back before this question was unsolved.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18349.0,"score_ratio":2.3684210526} {"post_id":"ynpp95","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What did ancient people think about farting? We now understand that the breakdown of food inside the stomache releases gases which have to be expelled, hence the invisible \"wind\" which pops or erupts from inside us. But what were early humans' explanations for why an input of solids should lead to an output of solids AND gas?","c_root_id_A":"ivb82ub","c_root_id_B":"ivcp5yo","created_at_utc_A":1667758585,"created_at_utc_B":1667779668,"score_A":19,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"It is only in the past century that people understood how methane was generated in the intestine. So you don't have to go very far back before this question was unsolved.","human_ref_B":"This is a bit more linguistic than anthropological, but I recently learned that the term \"feisty\" comes from a breed of dogs called \"feist\" which were named from the term \"fysting\" which means to \"break wind\" or \"farting\". :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21083.0,"score_ratio":1.1052631579} {"post_id":"ooabj4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why didn\u2019t Chimpanzees migrate out of Africa ? Chimpanzees are a highly adaptable species and live in a variety of habitats like savanna, rain forests, swamp forest... unlike the other great ape species like gorillas who were more specialized. Why didn\u2019t they migrate out of Africa too like humans did if they were so successful ?","c_root_id_A":"h5yr4fj","c_root_id_B":"h5yt4ph","created_at_utc_A":1626842157,"created_at_utc_B":1626843419,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The short answer is a.) they aren't well adapted to covering long distances, b.) because they are covered with hair, they aren't easily able to regulate their body temperature in the way that humans are, and c.) related to both a and b, the use of fire and its attendant advantages was never available to them because it never made sense for them to adopt it given the above.","human_ref_B":"Chimps are specialized forest dwellers. They are found in the savanna now, but only in certain small patches- patches that tended to have been forests 50 years ago. So it's not like chimps are moving into the savannah and thriving, they are instead holding on to territories when they don't have any forests to go to (other chimp troops or human activity making nearby forests no good). Chimps who are on the savannah also behave differently, walk more upright, etc. Even then the savannah chimps spend a lot of time in trees, in areas that have more trees\/shrubs but aren't true forests. So it's important that the parts of the savannah where the chimps live is very different than the grasslands like you'd find in the Serengeti. So here's some wild speculation: Chimps are very much forest specialists, and hence are unable to thrive well enough in the savannah to expand across it enough to have left the continent of Africa. If there was a savannah niche open, it's likely that the Chimps or proto-chimps would have moved in and through evolutionary process became a different kind of ape. However, due to competition from other species they weren't able to move into the grasslands and thrive. You might find this interesting https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GWk1TJwk1UU","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1262.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i234pc4","c_root_id_B":"i22qjeg","created_at_utc_A":1648227562,"created_at_utc_B":1648222092,"score_A":70,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"There's an ethnography I never read but learned about in undergrad called \"Waiting for Castro.\" The writer got a rare opportunity to interview Fidel and flew to Cuba. They end up waiting months, with a constant stream of delays, excuses, postponements, new hoops to jump through. Eventually they conclude they're never gonna actually see Castro. They don't treat this as a failure, but instead wrote about their experience not seeing Castro and what they learned from it, and what it says about how the Cuban state functions. You should do the same. In my opinion your subject potentially just got a lot more interesting. Write about the chilling effect this has had, what people are saying, how they're responding to events. I think it would be a mistake to try and find your way around these new developments to keep doing what you were doing before. The situation has changed and so should your research.","human_ref_B":"You document all that you just wrote carefully, and keep trying for interviews. Then, you join Russia\u2019s Facebook-equivalent (there will likely be no one discussing the war, the word \u201cwar\u201d seems to be banned), Telegram (lots of Russians still active there), and Youtube. Now, in the case of Youtube, the Russian YouTubers I follow are all still active and focused on the sanctions. 1420 does person-in-the-street interviews and just interviewed a variety of age groups about the sanctions (and some of them did seem to know why the sanctions were happening, others either didn\u2019t know or carefully avoided it). 1420 does an upload about once a week and has been interviewing people about such things as whether they like Americans (since the sanctions). You can thereby be holistic in your approach and show that Russians are now confined to certain state-monitored media. They speak carefully or not at all about the conflict. You can add in a bit of context (older men seem to be more willing to speak about the politics). Start writing up the context, including facial expressions, clothing, common concerns. In the 1420 YouTube video last uploaded, I found it fascinating that younger people believed sanctions would last 1-2 months or 6 months, and that older people said the banned businesses would \u201csneak back in.\u201d I think you have a fascinating opportunity for highly relevant research.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5470.0,"score_ratio":1.8918918919} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22tet4","c_root_id_B":"i234pc4","created_at_utc_A":1648223217,"created_at_utc_B":1648227562,"score_A":23,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"This seems like an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. First off there's a real window into longitudinal changes as the war progresses. Secondly, hard work can give you access to stuff that is surely happening online but is now much more difficult to find. Others who don't put in the effort will be locked out of the data but with effort you can get it and probably discover novel insights. Also, this situation isn't new. Look into how fax machines are credited with cracking open illicit communications (samizdat) inside the Soviet Union.","human_ref_B":"There's an ethnography I never read but learned about in undergrad called \"Waiting for Castro.\" The writer got a rare opportunity to interview Fidel and flew to Cuba. They end up waiting months, with a constant stream of delays, excuses, postponements, new hoops to jump through. Eventually they conclude they're never gonna actually see Castro. They don't treat this as a failure, but instead wrote about their experience not seeing Castro and what they learned from it, and what it says about how the Cuban state functions. You should do the same. In my opinion your subject potentially just got a lot more interesting. Write about the chilling effect this has had, what people are saying, how they're responding to events. I think it would be a mistake to try and find your way around these new developments to keep doing what you were doing before. The situation has changed and so should your research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4345.0,"score_ratio":3.0434782609} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22jqsc","c_root_id_B":"i234pc4","created_at_utc_A":1648219376,"created_at_utc_B":1648227562,"score_A":19,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"Find people where you live with family or friends in Russia and have them put you in direct contact with Russian citizens. Your research would be confined by individual case studies, but, it's something... Good luck!","human_ref_B":"There's an ethnography I never read but learned about in undergrad called \"Waiting for Castro.\" The writer got a rare opportunity to interview Fidel and flew to Cuba. They end up waiting months, with a constant stream of delays, excuses, postponements, new hoops to jump through. Eventually they conclude they're never gonna actually see Castro. They don't treat this as a failure, but instead wrote about their experience not seeing Castro and what they learned from it, and what it says about how the Cuban state functions. You should do the same. In my opinion your subject potentially just got a lot more interesting. Write about the chilling effect this has had, what people are saying, how they're responding to events. I think it would be a mistake to try and find your way around these new developments to keep doing what you were doing before. The situation has changed and so should your research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8186.0,"score_ratio":3.6842105263} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i234pc4","c_root_id_B":"i22llaz","created_at_utc_A":1648227562,"created_at_utc_B":1648220117,"score_A":70,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There's an ethnography I never read but learned about in undergrad called \"Waiting for Castro.\" The writer got a rare opportunity to interview Fidel and flew to Cuba. They end up waiting months, with a constant stream of delays, excuses, postponements, new hoops to jump through. Eventually they conclude they're never gonna actually see Castro. They don't treat this as a failure, but instead wrote about their experience not seeing Castro and what they learned from it, and what it says about how the Cuban state functions. You should do the same. In my opinion your subject potentially just got a lot more interesting. Write about the chilling effect this has had, what people are saying, how they're responding to events. I think it would be a mistake to try and find your way around these new developments to keep doing what you were doing before. The situation has changed and so should your research.","human_ref_B":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7445.0,"score_ratio":17.5} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22jqsc","c_root_id_B":"i22qjeg","created_at_utc_A":1648219376,"created_at_utc_B":1648222092,"score_A":19,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Find people where you live with family or friends in Russia and have them put you in direct contact with Russian citizens. Your research would be confined by individual case studies, but, it's something... Good luck!","human_ref_B":"You document all that you just wrote carefully, and keep trying for interviews. Then, you join Russia\u2019s Facebook-equivalent (there will likely be no one discussing the war, the word \u201cwar\u201d seems to be banned), Telegram (lots of Russians still active there), and Youtube. Now, in the case of Youtube, the Russian YouTubers I follow are all still active and focused on the sanctions. 1420 does person-in-the-street interviews and just interviewed a variety of age groups about the sanctions (and some of them did seem to know why the sanctions were happening, others either didn\u2019t know or carefully avoided it). 1420 does an upload about once a week and has been interviewing people about such things as whether they like Americans (since the sanctions). You can thereby be holistic in your approach and show that Russians are now confined to certain state-monitored media. They speak carefully or not at all about the conflict. You can add in a bit of context (older men seem to be more willing to speak about the politics). Start writing up the context, including facial expressions, clothing, common concerns. In the 1420 YouTube video last uploaded, I found it fascinating that younger people believed sanctions would last 1-2 months or 6 months, and that older people said the banned businesses would \u201csneak back in.\u201d I think you have a fascinating opportunity for highly relevant research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2716.0,"score_ratio":1.9473684211} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22llaz","c_root_id_B":"i22qjeg","created_at_utc_A":1648220117,"created_at_utc_B":1648222092,"score_A":4,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","human_ref_B":"You document all that you just wrote carefully, and keep trying for interviews. Then, you join Russia\u2019s Facebook-equivalent (there will likely be no one discussing the war, the word \u201cwar\u201d seems to be banned), Telegram (lots of Russians still active there), and Youtube. Now, in the case of Youtube, the Russian YouTubers I follow are all still active and focused on the sanctions. 1420 does person-in-the-street interviews and just interviewed a variety of age groups about the sanctions (and some of them did seem to know why the sanctions were happening, others either didn\u2019t know or carefully avoided it). 1420 does an upload about once a week and has been interviewing people about such things as whether they like Americans (since the sanctions). You can thereby be holistic in your approach and show that Russians are now confined to certain state-monitored media. They speak carefully or not at all about the conflict. You can add in a bit of context (older men seem to be more willing to speak about the politics). Start writing up the context, including facial expressions, clothing, common concerns. In the 1420 YouTube video last uploaded, I found it fascinating that younger people believed sanctions would last 1-2 months or 6 months, and that older people said the banned businesses would \u201csneak back in.\u201d I think you have a fascinating opportunity for highly relevant research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1975.0,"score_ratio":9.25} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22jqsc","c_root_id_B":"i22tet4","created_at_utc_A":1648219376,"created_at_utc_B":1648223217,"score_A":19,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Find people where you live with family or friends in Russia and have them put you in direct contact with Russian citizens. Your research would be confined by individual case studies, but, it's something... Good luck!","human_ref_B":"This seems like an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. First off there's a real window into longitudinal changes as the war progresses. Secondly, hard work can give you access to stuff that is surely happening online but is now much more difficult to find. Others who don't put in the effort will be locked out of the data but with effort you can get it and probably discover novel insights. Also, this situation isn't new. Look into how fax machines are credited with cracking open illicit communications (samizdat) inside the Soviet Union.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3841.0,"score_ratio":1.2105263158} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22tet4","c_root_id_B":"i22llaz","created_at_utc_A":1648223217,"created_at_utc_B":1648220117,"score_A":23,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This seems like an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. First off there's a real window into longitudinal changes as the war progresses. Secondly, hard work can give you access to stuff that is surely happening online but is now much more difficult to find. Others who don't put in the effort will be locked out of the data but with effort you can get it and probably discover novel insights. Also, this situation isn't new. Look into how fax machines are credited with cracking open illicit communications (samizdat) inside the Soviet Union.","human_ref_B":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3100.0,"score_ratio":5.75} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i23lry7","c_root_id_B":"i237tr2","created_at_utc_A":1648234267,"created_at_utc_B":1648228769,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Your attempts at contacting them *is* how they are using the internet these days. Document what isn\u2019t happening anymore, that\u2019s just as important. Look up what is happening with self censorship in china or happened in eastern Germany back in the day","human_ref_B":"Keep going, be persistent. Think inventively, strange times bring strange opportunes. This is a highly unique opportunity to study an incredibly unique and volatile time in society. And, you can easily report on the vacuum created by the current situation. Again, be persistent and inventive, persistence pays off. Know when have courage, to reach out and grab that brass ring, it only comes by so often. And there's always the chan boards.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5498.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22llaz","c_root_id_B":"i23lry7","created_at_utc_A":1648220117,"created_at_utc_B":1648234267,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","human_ref_B":"Your attempts at contacting them *is* how they are using the internet these days. Document what isn\u2019t happening anymore, that\u2019s just as important. Look up what is happening with self censorship in china or happened in eastern Germany back in the day","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14150.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i237tr2","c_root_id_B":"i24ebzw","created_at_utc_A":1648228769,"created_at_utc_B":1648246128,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Keep going, be persistent. Think inventively, strange times bring strange opportunes. This is a highly unique opportunity to study an incredibly unique and volatile time in society. And, you can easily report on the vacuum created by the current situation. Again, be persistent and inventive, persistence pays off. Know when have courage, to reach out and grab that brass ring, it only comes by so often. And there's always the chan boards.","human_ref_B":"You might want to read *Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria* by Lisa Wedeen. It's I think one of the most successful books at doing qualitative research in authoritarian states. It's been a long time since I read it, but one thing I remember her looking at was jokes, political cartoons, etc. One other thing I remember is that you couldn't make fun of the president directly, so people would do things like make fun of his wife, for example (I think I'm thinking of the right book). But Wedeen also paid a lot of attention to what symbols the state was sending out. If I remember correctly, the book starts with the official symbols and as the book develops you see how people secretly distort them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17359.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22llaz","c_root_id_B":"i24ebzw","created_at_utc_A":1648220117,"created_at_utc_B":1648246128,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","human_ref_B":"You might want to read *Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria* by Lisa Wedeen. It's I think one of the most successful books at doing qualitative research in authoritarian states. It's been a long time since I read it, but one thing I remember her looking at was jokes, political cartoons, etc. One other thing I remember is that you couldn't make fun of the president directly, so people would do things like make fun of his wife, for example (I think I'm thinking of the right book). But Wedeen also paid a lot of attention to what symbols the state was sending out. If I remember correctly, the book starts with the official symbols and as the book develops you see how people secretly distort them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26011.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"tnl98t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before the war in Ukraine, I was researching how Russian youth engages with political content online. What do I do now? Discussing politics has become a lot more dangerous, potential informants refuse to give interviews (often simply ignoring my requests), it is impossible to conduct questionnaires (for the same reason), Instagram has been banned and is only available with VPN (Twitter and Facebook are also banned, but Instagram was the main social network). YouTube is about to be banned, most political content is on Telegram but since you can be imprisoned for a post or a comment, people comment less and post less on social networks; they also restrict their profiles quite often. What do I do now? Are there any methods to study media under severe censorship? Do you know of any previous studies in such conditions?","c_root_id_A":"i22llaz","c_root_id_B":"i237tr2","created_at_utc_A":1648220117,"created_at_utc_B":1648228769,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Maybe r\/AskARussian can assist you with this? It's a very lively community so you may be able to find a few Russians who meet your criteria directly.","human_ref_B":"Keep going, be persistent. Think inventively, strange times bring strange opportunes. This is a highly unique opportunity to study an incredibly unique and volatile time in society. And, you can easily report on the vacuum created by the current situation. Again, be persistent and inventive, persistence pays off. Know when have courage, to reach out and grab that brass ring, it only comes by so often. And there's always the chan boards.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8652.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"o5431z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do hunter gatherer tribes such as the Hadza live long, healthy lives? I imagine they do considering they only live off the land, but in comparison to our standard of living in the \"west\" would they live a good life without the need for medical intervention?","c_root_id_A":"h2mj0jb","c_root_id_B":"h2mg6rs","created_at_utc_A":1624343476,"created_at_utc_B":1624341107,"score_A":28,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"This is what people used to say about Native Americans and other Indigenous tribes. Without access to modern health care, a lot of people with injuries or illness won't survive into old age. While the ones who do survive will have been healthy anyway. Can't have a lot of old, 300lb diabetics when they died in their 30's. Stepped on a stick and got tetanus? No shot for you. Then a research team comes along, only sees healthy people and goes wow these people must be doing something right to all be so healthy. Look at the demographics of developing countries and you will see a massive skew in population towards young people. Again as the older ones die earlier than they could have.","human_ref_B":"This question sounds hopelessly naive. Nature is not a source of cuddly animals and healthy \"farm to table\" vegetables. Just think of yourself in nature. Get caught out in the rain and can't warm yourself up again in time? You die of hypothermia. Can't find water? Die of thirst. Find water but its polluted? You die shitting your guts out. You managed to hunt and kill an animal but fail to butcher it fast enough and meat starts spoiling without you realizing it? You die of food poisoning. Have a run in with a wild boar that slashes your ankle with its tusks? You die of an infected wound or because you are too crippled to find more food. Nature and human society is absolutely brutal by default, the fact that we managed to stave off the worst of its absolute horrors is practically a miracle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2369.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} {"post_id":"xbcvzc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Where does the Welsh language and it\u2019s dialect come from\/originate and what language is it based on\/similar too?","c_root_id_A":"inzug3m","c_root_id_B":"io0czoc","created_at_utc_A":1662908571,"created_at_utc_B":1662916020,"score_A":2,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Being a branch of Celtic culture (with Anglesey being it's spiritual \/ educational \/ judicial centre prior to the Roman invasion), I suppose it can be traced to the geographic origin of all Celtic culture and customs which have been recently traced to the Southern German \/ Austrian border. By the time that culture reached the distant land of Wales, I doubt it bore any resemblance to its origin though. Being an oral culture there is scarce primary source evidence on which to base historical judgements upon.","human_ref_B":"Languages are grouped into families. What happens is that languages gradually change over time. They get more and more different until people stop being able to understand other people. Think about how you and your friends have inside jokes. People from a community with certain sports heroes and news events incorporate references into their spoken language, references outsiders might not understand. There can also be shifts in how words are pronounced. Think about the \"It's Corn\" going around TicTok. The kid mispronounces corn slightly, with more of W sound. Lots of people now emulate that thinking it's cute. Let's say that catches on. 100 years from now one area might continue to say corn while anther uses cown. ​ Or look at Latin. It was the language of the Roman empire, and they taught it to the people they conquered as the empire expanded. After Rome fell, the places kept on speaking Latin, but gradually differences started to crop in and we now have Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and a few others that are extremely similar because they come from the same starting point. (Note, Latin itself didn't spring fully formed, it is also part of a family where you had some shared language hundreds of years before but over time it split) Same basic thing with Welsh. There was a language or likely group of language called Celtic which was spoken all over Europe, everywhere from the Spanish Coast to the Alps to Ireland. A unique form of this language developed on the British Isles called Brittonic. Then the romans came and many areas people switched to Latin. Then Romans left. And the Saxons arrived and conquered, and a lot of people on the British Islands were speaking Saxon. And then the Normans arrived. Ec. But in some of the areas that weren't as directly conquered, people kept on speaking Brittonic, but the languages in different areas slowly evolved. The people speaking Brittonic in Wales eventually couldn't understand the people in Cornwall. And if you put them in a time machine they;d not be able to understand people in the same spot they were standing 500 years ago. So to still call the language Brittonic didn't make sense. So time for a new name. And because it was the language spoken in the lands called Wales, they called it Welsh. And the language in the lands of Cornwall was termed Cornish.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7449.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"s7x5mm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Can you recommend me any book that traces origins of myths and traditions and finds natural explanations of them? I've read \"When they severed earth from the sky\" and I'm very impressed.I liked that an author is playing a detective and looking for the grain of truth in myth. Do you know anything similar?","c_root_id_A":"hte2tf8","c_root_id_B":"htdjrhm","created_at_utc_A":1642637238,"created_at_utc_B":1642629459,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The structural study of myth by Levi Strauss would be your classical text on the subject imo but as I am not familiar with what you read I will stop there","human_ref_B":"Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches looks at some natural causes for religious doctrine and cultural norms. Not natural phenomena specifically but I think they\u2019re in the same vein","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7779.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qwwa8p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do we have any idea what paleolithic music might have sounded like? I recently read about Hohle Fels flute and I'm wondering if anybody has figured out exactly what it would have sounded like. I'm just starting to learn about early humans, so anything else I should check out in relation to prehistoric music would be appreciated as well.","c_root_id_A":"hl6yqou","c_root_id_B":"hl8ndv7","created_at_utc_A":1637282575,"created_at_utc_B":1637318458,"score_A":39,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"As has been already pointed out, there's no way to recreate the music our paleolithic ancestors would have played, however along with the paleolithic flute, there were also many percussion instruments made of stone called lithophones. Online you can find modern recordings of people playing them, or read this article for a scholarly analysis of them: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/229601864_Palaeolithic_lithophones_Descriptions_and_comparisons","human_ref_B":"Hey there! I'm an early musician and a woodwindist. The history of non-reed woodwinds is my jam. Somewhat literally. Though my focus is usually much later. We have no way of knowing anything about the properties of the music that was made on instruments so old, except, maybe, pitch. For instance, the Hohle Fels flute was apparently made of a vulture's wing bone, the radius. That actually tells us something. We know something about the size of vultures and their wings and the bones in them. Here's the thing. You may think of a vulture as a big critter with a really big wingspan. But from a woodwindist's point of view, wing bones are tiny. There are several different kinds of woodwinds that a bone can be made into, but they all share one physical property: the lowest note they can play is a function of the size of the instrument. Tiny bird-bone flutes are *very* high-pitched. How are we sure? Well, physics, yes, but also: we tried it. Here's flautist Norbert Rodenkirchen, of famed historical music ensemble Sequentia, playing a bone flute made from a swan's wing in the fashion of archeological bone flutes from medieval Europe (circa 1000CE): \"Cigna\". I believe he said, when I saw him play this live, that the music was an original composition by him, and not a historical work, so don't make too much of what he chooses to do with it, but the instrument he's playing is in many important ways very similar to the much, much older paleolithic flutes. But that is but one interpretation of what's going on with bird-bone flutes. When all you have is a broken tube with a few holes in it, you don't necessarily know which of several genres of woodwind it was. He's playing the instrument traverso-style. That's one possibility. But the oldest *intact* bird-bone flute we have is about 9000 years old, found at Jiahu in Henan, China. It has a quena-style open fipple (not, interestingly, shakuhachi-style) in the end. It was an end-blown flute. This is less shrill sounding, but still very high and piping. Here is Ding Xiaokui, flautist with the China National Traditional Orchestra, playing a replica of the Jiahu flute: \"If Treasures Could Talk: What would China's Jia Hu Bone Flute say?\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35883.0,"score_ratio":1.0256410256} {"post_id":"ve5ciu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"At what age did Upper Palaeolithic women have their first child? I read this article which claims that \u201cmenarche would have occurred between the ages of 7\u201313 years in Paleolithic times\u201d, and that girls \u201cprogressed to reproductive competence at 11\u201313 years of age\u201d. The second figure in the article shows these estimates are referring to 20,000 years ago. Is this correct? I can\u2019t imagine girls that age had already reached \u201cthe degree of psychosocial maturation necessary to function as an adult in Paleolithic society\u201d, as the authors put it. I\u2019ve read that many hunter-gatherers don't actually reach menarche, get married, or have their first child until their mid to late teens, although I understand that extrapolating from modern hunter-gatherers can be misleading. I\u2019m not an expert by any means, so I was hoping someone more knowledgeable than me could either confirm this or provide a better estimate. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"icoxe35","c_root_id_B":"icowa7t","created_at_utc_A":1655460430,"created_at_utc_B":1655459495,"score_A":114,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"To be honest, we don\u2019t know, but we can make educated guesses. There was a study of various subsistence-based traditional societies in regards to the onset of puberty and the first childbirth of women. The result was that the age for first childbirth ranged from 16-26, with the age of 17.5 being the average age for first childbirth. Another study on four Gambian villages from 1950 to present date, cites a source regarding an observance of the Hunter-gatherer Ache people (from Paraguay, South America) revealed later first birth allows for a longer period of pubertal weight gain, which is correlated with higher birth rates. This same study states that it has been observed that a younger maternal age (<16) increases the risk of pregnancy complications. The study measures height at first childbirth, and noted that allowing for maternal maturation, demonstrated that there were benefits regarding delayed first reproduction being experienced through the lower offspring mortality of taller women. The book \u2018Growing up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children\u2019 by April Nowell mentions that the remains of a 27,000 year old 16-year-old girl was found buried with a newborn baby in her arms, another skeleton being a 20-year-old pregnant lady. Dr Nowell states in her book that regarding fertility, women develop nearly all of their secondary sexual characteristics to their full extent before acquiring their fertility; Dr Nowell states that there is a suggestion that their is an evolutionary selection delaying female fertility until they\u2019re able to function as adults.","human_ref_B":"It's paywalled, do you have a link to the full text? Menarche is earlier today than it was in the 1800s, evidence pointing towards better nutrition as a big factor. And as the excerpt mentions, girls moving from developing countries to developed ones start earlier too. Too little food and\/or too much exercise mean a later menarche, and those who already did menstruate tend to stop it. Why would kids in a hunter-gatherer society, with food insecurity and hard living conditions be even earlier than kids today? That the kids were mentally more mature would be expected. \"Childhood\" is a pretty recent concept, as is free time. If you look at the textile traditions in Peru, what would be pre-school kids here, barely expected to hold crayons well, are pretty decent at spinning yarn on a spindle. At around 12 you'd be expected to weave, though being really good at both takes some time. It's not \"child labor\" as in slavery or exploitation of kids to do work they're not suited to, it's just a different level of \"normalcy\". Extremely early betrothals happen nowadays too. It's a ritual to strengthen bonds between families. It's not expected that the child bride has kids right away.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":935.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"ve5ciu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"At what age did Upper Palaeolithic women have their first child? I read this article which claims that \u201cmenarche would have occurred between the ages of 7\u201313 years in Paleolithic times\u201d, and that girls \u201cprogressed to reproductive competence at 11\u201313 years of age\u201d. The second figure in the article shows these estimates are referring to 20,000 years ago. Is this correct? I can\u2019t imagine girls that age had already reached \u201cthe degree of psychosocial maturation necessary to function as an adult in Paleolithic society\u201d, as the authors put it. I\u2019ve read that many hunter-gatherers don't actually reach menarche, get married, or have their first child until their mid to late teens, although I understand that extrapolating from modern hunter-gatherers can be misleading. I\u2019m not an expert by any means, so I was hoping someone more knowledgeable than me could either confirm this or provide a better estimate. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"icowa7t","c_root_id_B":"icp30a6","created_at_utc_A":1655459495,"created_at_utc_B":1655464703,"score_A":36,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"It's paywalled, do you have a link to the full text? Menarche is earlier today than it was in the 1800s, evidence pointing towards better nutrition as a big factor. And as the excerpt mentions, girls moving from developing countries to developed ones start earlier too. Too little food and\/or too much exercise mean a later menarche, and those who already did menstruate tend to stop it. Why would kids in a hunter-gatherer society, with food insecurity and hard living conditions be even earlier than kids today? That the kids were mentally more mature would be expected. \"Childhood\" is a pretty recent concept, as is free time. If you look at the textile traditions in Peru, what would be pre-school kids here, barely expected to hold crayons well, are pretty decent at spinning yarn on a spindle. At around 12 you'd be expected to weave, though being really good at both takes some time. It's not \"child labor\" as in slavery or exploitation of kids to do work they're not suited to, it's just a different level of \"normalcy\". Extremely early betrothals happen nowadays too. It's a ritual to strengthen bonds between families. It's not expected that the child bride has kids right away.","human_ref_B":">Is this correct? Is it *correct*? First, rarely can we generalize ancient human cultures and societies to such an extent that a single statement can be seen as \"correct\" in the sort of absolute way that many people want it to be. \"The Paleolithic\" covers over 2 million years. Anatomically modern humans have existed for around 300,000 years, and began to spread around the world beginning at least 100,000 years ago. Human societies living during that period were mostly hunter gatherer cultures (until about the last 10,000 - 5,000 years or so). We just can't generalize across time \/ space \/ culture enough to claim that one estimate could be conceived of as \"correct.\" That said, most studies of modern or recent historic hunter gatherers suggests that the age at which women usually had their first child tends to be late teens or early 20s, give or take. The age the OP mentions seems pretty young, based on the ethnographic sources that I recall reading as a graduate student. And I suspect that this is why.. The authors of the article the OP is asking about cite only *one* study-- *Paleodemography of the Americas: from ancient times to colonialism and beyond* (2002)-- for the basis of their estimate of age among *Neolithic* female humans. The title suggests that this is a pretty broad overview. This is the case fairly often. Researchers from another field try to incorporate anthropological research, and do a *horrible* job of it because they don't understand key differences or information. But critically, evidence suggests that sedentary agriculturalist practices insofar as procreation and child rearing tended to vary quite a bit from hunter gatherer practices. Sedentism and more predictable availability of food year round can allow some of the restrictions in birth rates to relax, while more predictable availability of food, and abundance, can result in higher body fat percentages that can contribute to differences in hormonal loads, including among young women. Overall, I would not rely on the word of researchers who are clearly not anthropologists or archaeologists, and who are citing only the one study-- which is inappropriate to making the generalizations that the authors made, or that the OP wants to make. OP should take a look at some more primary sources, the one cited in the OP's article is not reliable as it is being used here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5208.0,"score_ratio":1.0555555556} {"post_id":"ve5ciu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"At what age did Upper Palaeolithic women have their first child? I read this article which claims that \u201cmenarche would have occurred between the ages of 7\u201313 years in Paleolithic times\u201d, and that girls \u201cprogressed to reproductive competence at 11\u201313 years of age\u201d. The second figure in the article shows these estimates are referring to 20,000 years ago. Is this correct? I can\u2019t imagine girls that age had already reached \u201cthe degree of psychosocial maturation necessary to function as an adult in Paleolithic society\u201d, as the authors put it. I\u2019ve read that many hunter-gatherers don't actually reach menarche, get married, or have their first child until their mid to late teens, although I understand that extrapolating from modern hunter-gatherers can be misleading. I\u2019m not an expert by any means, so I was hoping someone more knowledgeable than me could either confirm this or provide a better estimate. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"icqxkhu","c_root_id_B":"icqy0bg","created_at_utc_A":1655492928,"created_at_utc_B":1655493123,"score_A":8,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Again, the body that took us (H. sapiens)out of Africa, is the same body we inhabit today. It\u2019s therefore safe to assume that childbirth, in a barely pubescent child, would be as dangerous and problematic in the Paleolithic, as it is today. The anatomical difficulties of pelvis size vs average size of Paleolithic neonates are still the same. Of note, chronic starvation will often delay maturation, and starvation undoubtedly happened very often during the Paleolithic. I just watched a documentary about Henry VIII grandmother (Margaret Beaufort) who was impregnated at age 12 and subsequently gave birth at barely 13. Even the chroniclers back then, some 600 years ago, mentioned her unusually young age, and that the trauma of the birth left her barren for the rest of her life.","human_ref_B":"I'm really not sure what the hell they mean by \"reproductive competence\". In our modern societies most girls will have had their first period by age 11-13. Which means they could become pregnant. That doesn't mean a pregnancy at that age is in any way safe however since the body hasn't fully matured yet and is still growing. I don't see how this would have been any different 20,000 years ago, since we are anatomically the same species as back then. From what I've read girls today actually have ther periods earlier than in the past due to better nutrition. The start of puberty is at least somewhat triggered by weight.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":195.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"inxf46","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to Ethically Engage with Vulnerable Populations? Hi everyone, I'm an anthropology grad student who is also working in a research capacity for a separate study. In my research job, I will be interviewing people who are in vulnerable situations; low income, from culturally oppressed groups, varying levels of homelessness, and in sensitive medical situations. I am from the majority culture background and am definitely privileged so I won't even pretend to know what their experiences are like. I'm looking forward to helping this group in this PAR-based project but I want to do so in the most ethical and sensitive way possible. I have no previous interview experience with people of these groups and would like to prepare myself as well as I can. Can anyone share your own experiences with interviewing vulnerable populations? What first-time mistakes did you make? What do you wish you'd known at the time? Anything you care to share is much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g4arfob","c_root_id_B":"g4adhou","created_at_utc_A":1599450153,"created_at_utc_B":1599441307,"score_A":89,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Try not to think about yourself as \"helping\" because that automatically creates a bit of an unbalanced dynamic. Simply listening carefully, affirming them and allowing space, and not pressing them for too many details they don't volunteer is enough to be helpful. Vulnerable populations often feel unheard and unappreciated, but you have to be careful not to represent yourself as \"better\" because in reality, you're just lucky not to be in their position (or not... they might feel lucky, you never know). And *they* might instinctively look to you for help as well, so you don't want to get caught in that trap. Sensitivity is about letting go of your intentions and listening to theirs. The ethics of studies like this are complex, but ultimately if you let them control the situation and be comfortable on their terms, you'll be in a position to hear a good story and they will be more likely to enjoy telling one.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/uk.sagepub.com\/en-gb\/eur\/research-ethics-for-human-geography\/book251312 Consider this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8846.0,"score_ratio":5.2352941176} {"post_id":"inxf46","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to Ethically Engage with Vulnerable Populations? Hi everyone, I'm an anthropology grad student who is also working in a research capacity for a separate study. In my research job, I will be interviewing people who are in vulnerable situations; low income, from culturally oppressed groups, varying levels of homelessness, and in sensitive medical situations. I am from the majority culture background and am definitely privileged so I won't even pretend to know what their experiences are like. I'm looking forward to helping this group in this PAR-based project but I want to do so in the most ethical and sensitive way possible. I have no previous interview experience with people of these groups and would like to prepare myself as well as I can. Can anyone share your own experiences with interviewing vulnerable populations? What first-time mistakes did you make? What do you wish you'd known at the time? Anything you care to share is much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g4arfob","c_root_id_B":"g4apd17","created_at_utc_A":1599450153,"created_at_utc_B":1599448709,"score_A":89,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Try not to think about yourself as \"helping\" because that automatically creates a bit of an unbalanced dynamic. Simply listening carefully, affirming them and allowing space, and not pressing them for too many details they don't volunteer is enough to be helpful. Vulnerable populations often feel unheard and unappreciated, but you have to be careful not to represent yourself as \"better\" because in reality, you're just lucky not to be in their position (or not... they might feel lucky, you never know). And *they* might instinctively look to you for help as well, so you don't want to get caught in that trap. Sensitivity is about letting go of your intentions and listening to theirs. The ethics of studies like this are complex, but ultimately if you let them control the situation and be comfortable on their terms, you'll be in a position to hear a good story and they will be more likely to enjoy telling one.","human_ref_B":"Have you had the required training human subjects research training? Where you learn about informed consent and IRB\u2019s. This training also goes into vulnerable populations. Start there if you haven\u2019t had that training. If you had that training talk frankly with the primary investigators about your concerns.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1444.0,"score_ratio":12.7142857143} {"post_id":"inxf46","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to Ethically Engage with Vulnerable Populations? Hi everyone, I'm an anthropology grad student who is also working in a research capacity for a separate study. In my research job, I will be interviewing people who are in vulnerable situations; low income, from culturally oppressed groups, varying levels of homelessness, and in sensitive medical situations. I am from the majority culture background and am definitely privileged so I won't even pretend to know what their experiences are like. I'm looking forward to helping this group in this PAR-based project but I want to do so in the most ethical and sensitive way possible. I have no previous interview experience with people of these groups and would like to prepare myself as well as I can. Can anyone share your own experiences with interviewing vulnerable populations? What first-time mistakes did you make? What do you wish you'd known at the time? Anything you care to share is much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g4b70a4","c_root_id_B":"g4apd17","created_at_utc_A":1599462777,"created_at_utc_B":1599448709,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Along with the many great suggestions here, I would try reading Linda Tuhiwai Smitth's Decolonizing Methodologies. A critically important thing to remember is that you are there *as a collaborator with the community* ***and in service to*** ***that community.*** Full stop. How does you work benefit them? Are you giving them full access to it? Do they have substantial input into it? Are you willing to piss off your PI or institution (not that they should get pissed off at this but you get the idea) if the community you are working with has objections or concerns with your work? You need to figure out how your work produces meaningful knowledge or resources for the community. You can't just write-up a bunch of stuff on the people you work with and give it back to them. Chances are, they know all that. Make it something *they can use...* for example, when working with an Indigenous people on a full language project or cultural history or archaeological\/survey project... that **should be given to them** at the end, or at least an encrypted master copy they keep. Not the state or some local office. They get that information. It's for them. How are you going to protect the homeless and precarious people? Well, start with completely anonymous surveys and field notes. Take the IRB testing, follow all the protocols, etc. And maybe figure out how your work can be used to leverage better funding and resources for said people. Partner with an NGO or community organization. Give them copies of all your research. Give **them** the resources to advocate for themselves.","human_ref_B":"Have you had the required training human subjects research training? Where you learn about informed consent and IRB\u2019s. This training also goes into vulnerable populations. Start there if you haven\u2019t had that training. If you had that training talk frankly with the primary investigators about your concerns.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14068.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"zzsvyh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is it true that all non-africans today descended from the same ancestors that left africa? All my life, I thought there were different waves of human ancestors leaving africa which explains the phenotypical differences of non-africans but turns out every non-african, from asians to europeans shared the same set of ancestors that left. Also if this is the case, does that mean every non-african are more related to each than they are to native africans?","c_root_id_A":"j2dk17j","c_root_id_B":"j2dgo0t","created_at_utc_A":1672493701,"created_at_utc_B":1672491627,"score_A":276,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"There is more genetic diversity in Africa than in the rest of the world combined. People from neighboring villages in Africa can be more genetically distinct from each other than, say, a British person of Celtic ancestry and a Japanese person. The amount of genetic diversity in Africa, due to \"time depth\" - we were there and only there for a long, long time, is quite breathtaking. Waves of ancestors leaving Africa means some of that diversity also left Africa but only a tiny amount. Here's one paper of many you might find interesting. https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/hmg\/article\/30\/R1\/R2\/6089116","human_ref_B":"Yes, it's been proven that all humans today come from humans found in East Africa. Scientists believe humans from Eurasia changed as quickly as they did in phenotype because of interbreeding with other archaic humans. Neanderthal had been around much longer and was already fair in skin tone with lighter hair including red hair. But we are all equally related even to Africans who have no ancestry outside of Africa. Archaic humans such as Neanderthal and modern human came from the same ancestors so we were simply cousins. We have no genetic differences that are significant enough to render us different species under the homo sapien umbrella. And we certainly are the exact same biologically and anatomically. Valid question though!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2074.0,"score_ratio":8.9032258065} {"post_id":"zzsvyh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is it true that all non-africans today descended from the same ancestors that left africa? All my life, I thought there were different waves of human ancestors leaving africa which explains the phenotypical differences of non-africans but turns out every non-african, from asians to europeans shared the same set of ancestors that left. Also if this is the case, does that mean every non-african are more related to each than they are to native africans?","c_root_id_A":"j2dyrqh","c_root_id_B":"j2dgo0t","created_at_utc_A":1672500941,"created_at_utc_B":1672491627,"score_A":61,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly. The original migration(s) of humans out of Africa weren't the first hominins to leave. Homo erectus, and possibly even an earlier hominin (some believe that something like Homo habilis may have gotten out even earlier than erectus), left as much as 2 million years ago, and of course, Neanderthals and Denisovans were outside of Africa-- descended from earlier emigrating populations-- well before modern Homo sapiens. So the earliest humans to leave Africa met other hominin species, and in some cases interbred with them. And there's also the issue of time \/ interaction among Homo sapiens. Humans left Africa at least 75,000 years ago. Likely closer to 100,000+ years ago. In that time, there have been multiple waves-- perhaps better conceptualized as a semi-steady trickle-- of humans leaving Africa and, critically, also returning (migration is rarely one way). The interaction of various populations with each other around the world over the last 50-100 millennia means that it is a vast oversimplification (bordering on just patently incorrect) that humans outside of Africa descend from populations that left Africa tens of thousands of years ago. Their ancestry probably *includes* contributions from some of those original emigrants, but it also packet includes contributions from many other populations who are more recent emigrants from Africa, not to mention other populations.","human_ref_B":"Yes, it's been proven that all humans today come from humans found in East Africa. Scientists believe humans from Eurasia changed as quickly as they did in phenotype because of interbreeding with other archaic humans. Neanderthal had been around much longer and was already fair in skin tone with lighter hair including red hair. But we are all equally related even to Africans who have no ancestry outside of Africa. Archaic humans such as Neanderthal and modern human came from the same ancestors so we were simply cousins. We have no genetic differences that are significant enough to render us different species under the homo sapien umbrella. And we certainly are the exact same biologically and anatomically. Valid question though!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9314.0,"score_ratio":1.9677419355} {"post_id":"e7sdux","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Use of metals by native north Americans prior to colonization Every once in a while I hear a bit about the use of copper along the Mississippi and lead around Galina. I havent learned much about it. Anybody here care to share what they know? Thanks! EDIT: I recently saw a video of some experimental archaeology in Alaska that was trying to reproduce some precolonial cold working found in the area. I believe it was copper as well.","c_root_id_A":"fa6v8f0","c_root_id_B":"fa6zuad","created_at_utc_A":1575828843,"created_at_utc_B":1575830111,"score_A":9,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"There was copper use in the Great lakes region. http:\/\/www.peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org\/index.php\/20-copper-artifacts\/316-old-copper-culture","human_ref_B":"The Old Copper Complex as mentioned above is probably the most famous of these. It was thought for a long time that copper use outside of the Great Lakes region originated in the complex. However, there are more local sources that were used in the northeast, see Levine's Native Copper in the Northeast.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1268.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"e7sdux","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Use of metals by native north Americans prior to colonization Every once in a while I hear a bit about the use of copper along the Mississippi and lead around Galina. I havent learned much about it. Anybody here care to share what they know? Thanks! EDIT: I recently saw a video of some experimental archaeology in Alaska that was trying to reproduce some precolonial cold working found in the area. I believe it was copper as well.","c_root_id_A":"fa6v8f0","c_root_id_B":"fa8vgpf","created_at_utc_A":1575828843,"created_at_utc_B":1575855695,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"There was copper use in the Great lakes region. http:\/\/www.peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org\/index.php\/20-copper-artifacts\/316-old-copper-culture","human_ref_B":"This book, The Coppers of the Northwest Coast Indians: Their Origin, Development, and Possible Antecedents has some interesting information about indigenous copper in the Pacific Northwest. Mostly the book is about a special kind of copper object called, perhaps confusingly, \"Coppers\" (capital C), which look something like this, ranging in size from a few inches to several feet long. They were (and perhaps still are) used by PNW indigenous people in various ways, often in ceremonial contexts, potlatches, etc. And are also present in various mythologies, legends, ancient stories, etc. Europeans first came to the PNW coast in the late 1700s, mostly seeking sea otter skins and other furs. They quickly learned that in addition to the usual kind of trade goods, sheets of copper made for excellent trading. The influx of lots of copper in this early contact era greatly altered the way Coppers were made and used by native people. This has made it more difficult to trace the use of copper in the PNW back to pre-contact times. In fact there is some doubt as to whether Coppers were made very much if at all before European contact. The book concludes that it was unlikely that Coppers were made with native copper. But native copper was definitely used to make many other things before European contact. This book spends some time on the questions of pre-contact Coppers and on the use of copper more generally. It has information about the relative abundance of native copper in the PNW. \"Native copper\" being copper found as the metal itself, rather than having to be refined via smelting or extraction process. Europeans who visited the PNW in the early contact-era frequently noted the use of copper by indigenous peoples, often of a quality much purer than the copper sheets brought for trade. It was also recognized that the natives obtained the copper themselves, or from other native peoples, at least before fur traders flooded the coast with cheap copper. Captain Cook and his crew noted the use of copper in a number of places and in a number of ways, and his visit pre-dates the fur trade influx of trade copper. Pre-fur trade Spanish visits made similar observations. It was also recognized that copper was more abundantly used northward, especially in what's now northern British Columbia to south Alaska. One of the best sources of native copper was, perhaps not surprisingly, in the Copper River basin, south Alaska. Other places where large amounts of native copper have been found include Prince of Wales Island, Haida Gwaii, and Hope Island off northern Vancouver Island. Also in the Skeena and Stikine River basins. Native copper was probably found throughout the PNW Coast, but in smaller amounts except in these areas. Sources of native copper were usually carefully guarded secrets, often linked to mythological tales. Indigenous mythologies and ancient stories seem to frequently point toward the Copper River and Skeena River as important sources. Chapter 3 is about PNW pre-contact indigenous metal-working technology and methods, but isn't part of Google Books' preview, at least for me. From time to time the book also mentions the use of iron, which early Europeans also noted as present among the indigenous people. I am not sure about, and don't think the book gets into (unless in Chapter 3), the question of how they acquired iron. In at least some cases iron was obtained from shipwrecks that drifted to the PNW coast. The winds and currents of the North Pacific cause flotsam to tend to wash up on the PNW coast, from as far away as Japan and China (the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused tons of stuff to wash up on beaches from Alaska to at least Oregon). There's at least one known pre-contact shipwreck that washed up on the Oregon coast (it was a Spanish Manila Galleon), from which native people acquired iron and many many other things (eg, you can see arrowheads made from fine 17th century Chinese porcelain in museums like the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum, I believe). Anyway, check it out. Even if much of the book focuses on post-contact Coppers, that is an interesting and not widely known topic in itself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26852.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"cjacpl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were there cultures that didn't use Violence or war to settle disputes? but instead used something like a Football match, or a non violent game, or just anything besides war... Ridiculous example, but you get the point.","c_root_id_A":"evc4tcx","c_root_id_B":"evc6wxn","created_at_utc_A":1564406319,"created_at_utc_B":1564407966,"score_A":60,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"Some Eastern Native American tribes used Ishtaboli (Choctaw), Little Brother of War, or stickball as a means to end a dispute. One match could go on for weeks at most. You might know it now as Lacrosse. This game is an appropriation of the more ancient, and often times ceremonial, Ishtaboli by white settlers. There are many videos on YouTube about the game as it's still widely played and even has championships in Oklahoma for men, women, and co-ed. https:\/\/www.aaanativearts.com\/choctaw-stickball","human_ref_B":"The Mesoamerican ball game played by the Aztecs was sometimes used to settle disputes instead of having a battle or minor clash but after the game they\u2019d kill the losers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1647.0,"score_ratio":1.0166666667} {"post_id":"cjacpl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were there cultures that didn't use Violence or war to settle disputes? but instead used something like a Football match, or a non violent game, or just anything besides war... Ridiculous example, but you get the point.","c_root_id_A":"evc6td4","c_root_id_B":"evc6wxn","created_at_utc_A":1564407890,"created_at_utc_B":1564407966,"score_A":15,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"You could check for the concept of Potlatch (among the North American Indians); a ceremonial distribution of property\/gifts among rival tribes. Also you could check out Pak\u00f2; a ritual battle between clans (Mentawai, Indonesia), shaming the other by showing one\u2019s greatness in various skills.","human_ref_B":"The Mesoamerican ball game played by the Aztecs was sometimes used to settle disputes instead of having a battle or minor clash but after the game they\u2019d kill the losers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":76.0,"score_ratio":4.0666666667} {"post_id":"cjacpl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were there cultures that didn't use Violence or war to settle disputes? but instead used something like a Football match, or a non violent game, or just anything besides war... Ridiculous example, but you get the point.","c_root_id_A":"evc6td4","c_root_id_B":"evca292","created_at_utc_A":1564407890,"created_at_utc_B":1564410298,"score_A":15,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"You could check for the concept of Potlatch (among the North American Indians); a ceremonial distribution of property\/gifts among rival tribes. Also you could check out Pak\u00f2; a ritual battle between clans (Mentawai, Indonesia), shaming the other by showing one\u2019s greatness in various skills.","human_ref_B":"Before Shaka Zulu introduced European inspired infantry tactics to South Africa, warfare there was very ritualistic, with little fighting. The warriors of the opposing tribes would dress in ceremonial garb, and face each other across a field, and most of the time just trade insults, do war dances, just kinda try and intimidate each other, sometimes they'd fight. But then Shaka wanted to conquer Africa and expel the Europeans and so he developed a new system of fighting inspired by the Romans where lots of people actually died. Tribal and band warfare was frequently like that, less about actually killing and more just about intimidating people. Fighting is way less attractive when there is only like a couple dozen of you and a shallow cut can be lethal. People are also less likely to fight without the powerful social structures of chiefdom and state form societies to encourage them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2408.0,"score_ratio":2.5333333333} {"post_id":"cjacpl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were there cultures that didn't use Violence or war to settle disputes? but instead used something like a Football match, or a non violent game, or just anything besides war... Ridiculous example, but you get the point.","c_root_id_A":"evcmryq","c_root_id_B":"evcsx48","created_at_utc_A":1564418676,"created_at_utc_B":1564422561,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Great podcast on the use of ritualized wrestling to settle disputes. Violence, but non-lethal to preserve live and community. http:\/\/thousandholds.net\/episode-2-wrestling-beyond-the-end-of-the-world\/","human_ref_B":"Your question immediately made me think of an article I read in grad school about Inuit song duels. Not my area of expertise and I don't remember the precise article, but I'm sure there are many sources that discuss it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3885.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cfckws","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why do kids from all over the world make the same basic \"Nah nah nah nah nah nah!\" (n\u025c\u02d0\u02c8n\u025c\u02d0n\u0259\u02c8n\u025c\u02d0\u02c8n\u025c:) taunt (To the tune of \"Ring Around the Rosie\") ​ I've heard kids in the USA, South America, China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere make this same basic chant. Where does it come from and why is it so universal?","c_root_id_A":"eu9y1ca","c_root_id_B":"eu9z512","created_at_utc_A":1563594291,"created_at_utc_B":1563595314,"score_A":12,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Picard: Broadcast the Universal Taunt on all frequencies.","human_ref_B":"In Hungary they say \"bibibBI!\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1023.0,"score_ratio":1.9166666667} {"post_id":"cfckws","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why do kids from all over the world make the same basic \"Nah nah nah nah nah nah!\" (n\u025c\u02d0\u02c8n\u025c\u02d0n\u0259\u02c8n\u025c\u02d0\u02c8n\u025c:) taunt (To the tune of \"Ring Around the Rosie\") ​ I've heard kids in the USA, South America, China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere make this same basic chant. Where does it come from and why is it so universal?","c_root_id_A":"eu9y1ca","c_root_id_B":"eua57br","created_at_utc_A":1563594291,"created_at_utc_B":1563601582,"score_A":12,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Picard: Broadcast the Universal Taunt on all frequencies.","human_ref_B":"Could be more a result of globalization than something common to humanity. It seems to me to be more likely that doing so was popularized in tv \/ movies at some point in the 20th century, and subsequently spread around much of the world. I'd be interested to know when it first became a regular thing children did.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7291.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"g6wpcn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What were the most populated regions in Africa before humans migrated out of it? I keep getting mixed messages every time I read something. Most are included in the Great Rift Valley like Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa. But then I\u2019ve read somewhere how west Africa or even somewhere in the Sahara when it was green enough could\u2019ve had a sizable population just as well. Another question that springs to mind is were there any parts of Africa during the ice age that were somewhat uninhabited or were humans widespread across the entire continent?","c_root_id_A":"foe9aht","c_root_id_B":"foe5ync","created_at_utc_A":1587698668,"created_at_utc_B":1587696699,"score_A":27,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Another thing that makes this an extremely difficult question to ask is that Africa is HUGE and has not been well surveyed for archaeological sites. Even in Western countries with relatively strong laws about mandatory archaeological surveys, only tiny amount of land have actually been surveyed adequately. Kenya, the country I am most acquainted with, has large parts of the country that have not been surveyed at all. The Rift Valley has been a hotbed for archaeological sites, but stuff to the east and west has been completely ignored by archaeologists. Outside of the Rift Valley, only a tiny strip along the coast has had any real interest from the archaeological community. Without having much more comprehensive archaeological surveys done it really is a stretch to claim that any part of the continent was more populated than any other.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure if we have a good answer to your question yet. One reason is that \"before humans migrated out\" of Africa is not a clearly defined time. Then if you could pin down this time you're left trying to do a survey of human population densities throughout the continent to compare and find The most densely populated areas ~100,000 years ago. I don't think the data exists.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1969.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"cqare8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"The idea of a dessert... Was it a collective human idea or did it originate in a particular region and spread out? Basically I'm wondering if the idea of eating something sweet after savory is a part of being human or a cultural thing. Are there any places where it's the inverse?","c_root_id_A":"eww60m6","c_root_id_B":"ewvyfgd","created_at_utc_A":1565821291,"created_at_utc_B":1565816597,"score_A":31,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I'm sure I've seen an explanation of the ordering of dishes in a meal having to do with Hippocratic humour theory, and am looking for it, but can tell you right away its entirely cultural. There's places with no native concept of dessert, and even in Western society the popularity of sweet foods is less than 500 years old and directly tied to the establishment of sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz has a classic book on that titled *Sweetness and Power*, which I would recommend.","human_ref_B":"I think this may have a chance in r\/askhistorians.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4694.0,"score_ratio":1.9375} {"post_id":"bj8s08","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts?","c_root_id_A":"em6o3sj","c_root_id_B":"em6e92t","created_at_utc_A":1556670096,"created_at_utc_B":1556663757,"score_A":15,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"If you're looking for any archaeology-specific ones, the Archaeology Podcast Network is where it's at: https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/","human_ref_B":"AnthroDish!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6339.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"bj8s08","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts?","c_root_id_A":"em6o3sj","c_root_id_B":"em6iefn","created_at_utc_A":1556670096,"created_at_utc_B":1556666371,"score_A":15,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"If you're looking for any archaeology-specific ones, the Archaeology Podcast Network is where it's at: https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/","human_ref_B":"Only one I have tried is The Familiar Strange and I enjoy it a lot! Lots of interesting subjects, guests and good times.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3725.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"bj8s08","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts?","c_root_id_A":"em6igbx","c_root_id_B":"em6o3sj","created_at_utc_A":1556666403,"created_at_utc_B":1556670096,"score_A":8,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Oxford Anthropology. There is loads of episodes and its basically just recordings from Oxford lectures in Anthropology.","human_ref_B":"If you're looking for any archaeology-specific ones, the Archaeology Podcast Network is where it's at: https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3693.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"bj8s08","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some good anthropology podcasts?","c_root_id_A":"em6iefn","c_root_id_B":"em6igbx","created_at_utc_A":1556666371,"created_at_utc_B":1556666403,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Only one I have tried is The Familiar Strange and I enjoy it a lot! Lots of interesting subjects, guests and good times.","human_ref_B":"Oxford Anthropology. There is loads of episodes and its basically just recordings from Oxford lectures in Anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els7erm","c_root_id_B":"elsa87p","created_at_utc_A":1556230679,"created_at_utc_B":1556232534,"score_A":34,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"Most Andamase have been contacted\/colonized and are now dead, admixtured, land appropriated, their women prostituted, addicted to alcohol and no longer lead their traditional way of life. Some of them walk out to the road to \u201cpreform\u201d dances for tourist who throw them food There was a good short documentary on a near-by tribe that was still living their traditional life-style under this pressure. They where fully aware of the situation","human_ref_B":"Keep in mind that while they are isolated now, that doesn't mean that they have been genetically or culturally isolated for 50,000 years. They most likely have had trading relationships with those of many different places over the centuries and millennia.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1855.0,"score_ratio":1.2647058824} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"elsa87p","c_root_id_B":"els82jt","created_at_utc_A":1556232534,"created_at_utc_B":1556231112,"score_A":43,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Keep in mind that while they are isolated now, that doesn't mean that they have been genetically or culturally isolated for 50,000 years. They most likely have had trading relationships with those of many different places over the centuries and millennia.","human_ref_B":"This article by a historian but for general audiences is probably the best introduction, beyond the unfortunate title: \u201cThe Last Island of the Savages\u201d by Adam Goodheart. Their seeming kin (surprisingly distant, according to linguists) the Jarawa also pop up in the news periodically. Here\u2019s one example and I have a long comment contextualizing it in that thread.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1422.0,"score_ratio":1.9545454545} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"elsa87p","c_root_id_B":"els2kf4","created_at_utc_A":1556232534,"created_at_utc_B":1556227507,"score_A":43,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Keep in mind that while they are isolated now, that doesn't mean that they have been genetically or culturally isolated for 50,000 years. They most likely have had trading relationships with those of many different places over the centuries and millennia.","human_ref_B":"There was an anthro who made contact with them years ago. He kept giving them coconuts until they met each other out in the water. They live peacefully on the island together. They allowed him to enter. It\u2019s a good story.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5027.0,"score_ratio":2.15} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els7q2i","c_root_id_B":"elsa87p","created_at_utc_A":1556230882,"created_at_utc_B":1556232534,"score_A":3,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"Here is a video on a neighboring group https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=yyIBtfM7piY","human_ref_B":"Keep in mind that while they are isolated now, that doesn't mean that they have been genetically or culturally isolated for 50,000 years. They most likely have had trading relationships with those of many different places over the centuries and millennia.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1652.0,"score_ratio":14.3333333333} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els7erm","c_root_id_B":"els2kf4","created_at_utc_A":1556230679,"created_at_utc_B":1556227507,"score_A":34,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Most Andamase have been contacted\/colonized and are now dead, admixtured, land appropriated, their women prostituted, addicted to alcohol and no longer lead their traditional way of life. Some of them walk out to the road to \u201cpreform\u201d dances for tourist who throw them food There was a good short documentary on a near-by tribe that was still living their traditional life-style under this pressure. They where fully aware of the situation","human_ref_B":"There was an anthro who made contact with them years ago. He kept giving them coconuts until they met each other out in the water. They live peacefully on the island together. They allowed him to enter. It\u2019s a good story.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3172.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els2kf4","c_root_id_B":"els82jt","created_at_utc_A":1556227507,"created_at_utc_B":1556231112,"score_A":20,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"There was an anthro who made contact with them years ago. He kept giving them coconuts until they met each other out in the water. They live peacefully on the island together. They allowed him to enter. It\u2019s a good story.","human_ref_B":"This article by a historian but for general audiences is probably the best introduction, beyond the unfortunate title: \u201cThe Last Island of the Savages\u201d by Adam Goodheart. Their seeming kin (surprisingly distant, according to linguists) the Jarawa also pop up in the news periodically. Here\u2019s one example and I have a long comment contextualizing it in that thread.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3605.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els82jt","c_root_id_B":"els7q2i","created_at_utc_A":1556231112,"created_at_utc_B":1556230882,"score_A":22,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This article by a historian but for general audiences is probably the best introduction, beyond the unfortunate title: \u201cThe Last Island of the Savages\u201d by Adam Goodheart. Their seeming kin (surprisingly distant, according to linguists) the Jarawa also pop up in the news periodically. Here\u2019s one example and I have a long comment contextualizing it in that thread.","human_ref_B":"Here is a video on a neighboring group https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=yyIBtfM7piY","labels":1,"seconds_difference":230.0,"score_ratio":7.3333333333} {"post_id":"bhbuwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is known about the people of North Sentinel Island? The people on this island are estimated to have arrived on the island 50,000 years ago. They have remained in genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. Studying them seems like it would be an anthropological gold mine of information. Despite being protected and essentially out of contact with the rest of the world, what have anthropologists been able to learn about them? What could they learn if they had access?","c_root_id_A":"els7q2i","c_root_id_B":"eltd4p3","created_at_utc_A":1556230882,"created_at_utc_B":1556263586,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Here is a video on a neighboring group https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=yyIBtfM7piY","human_ref_B":">genetic and cultural isolation since before the neanderthal went extinct. This is a gigantic sweeping statement, and I do not understand how you would verify or ascertain that. I would be much more careful about such statements if I were you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32704.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"v8l55m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why did the shift to agriculture result in a shift to private property, rather than the development of communal farms? I am reading a lot about how the development of agriculture 12,000 years ago resulted in a shift from societies which had little to no concept of \"private property\", but instead foraged and shared resources among the group, to societies where \"private property\" became the modus operandi (i.e. each man had their own plot of land, wife, house etc). What I'm wondering is, why didn't the focus on sharing resources and communality extend into the lives of early agriculturalists, i.e. why did everyone suddenly make a switch to owning private land instead of doing things like developing communal farms and sharing the resources equally among the group? It's not like agriculture mandates the ownership of land or animals by a single person, at least from my perspective. Can someone further illuminate this?","c_root_id_A":"ibt4kop","c_root_id_B":"ibseh6u","created_at_utc_A":1654827947,"created_at_utc_B":1654814829,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"That wasn't even true in England, which is probably your primary frame of reference. The idea that economic development depends on private property is very modern and suspiciously convenient for the people who claim so. England even today has a system of \"commons\" which survived the \"enclosure acts\". Up until the beginning of the enlightenment, when England started to industrialize, there were many different systems of land management in use in different regions. Beginning in the early 1600s parliament began to confiscate these commons, which had been used cooperatively by commoners, and reserve them for use by the nobility. These were known as the Enclosure Acts. (At the same time they were working on the Poor Laws which created the work house system. Related? Probably.) Did the enclosure of the commons lay the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution? Hard to say. But they did create a more unequal society where beneficiaries became very rich while some unlucky commoners became very, very poor.","human_ref_B":"Private property in this context is quite a modern concept and far removed from the beginnings of agriculture. To answer something of the spirit of the question as to why the shift, you need to look at England and other parts of Europe where there was a long gradual shift from feifs run 'communally' by a lord (or church) to land being privately owned by the common people over the collapse of the feudal system as a whole and other shifts like the Magna Carta (and the many statutes and policies that followed in it's wake). The shift even included colonial America as the original colonies were founded under 'license' or grant by the British crown, and private property rights were encoded in the Constitution to further separate the US from the monarchical systems of Europe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13118.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"v8l55m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why did the shift to agriculture result in a shift to private property, rather than the development of communal farms? I am reading a lot about how the development of agriculture 12,000 years ago resulted in a shift from societies which had little to no concept of \"private property\", but instead foraged and shared resources among the group, to societies where \"private property\" became the modus operandi (i.e. each man had their own plot of land, wife, house etc). What I'm wondering is, why didn't the focus on sharing resources and communality extend into the lives of early agriculturalists, i.e. why did everyone suddenly make a switch to owning private land instead of doing things like developing communal farms and sharing the resources equally among the group? It's not like agriculture mandates the ownership of land or animals by a single person, at least from my perspective. Can someone further illuminate this?","c_root_id_A":"ibtpb96","c_root_id_B":"ibthdv6","created_at_utc_A":1654840583,"created_at_utc_B":1654835165,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In Murray Bookchin\u2019s \u201cThe Limits of the City\u201d he suggests that the answer has to do with both 1) the purpose of settlements and 2) how monarchical or theocratic governments tended to prevent the establishment of capital within other groups of people in their societies using heavy taxes and tithes. He also goes on to discuss the role of the environment in how agriculture could be used to establish capital. Of which these societies are primarily concerned with the need and ability to be self sufficient vs seeking opportunities for tribute and conquest along. Both occur and are at the mercy of their specific seasonal agricultural practices and availably of crops. You can see traces of this comparison between the free cities of the Italian and Spanish peninsulas after the fall of Rome with Rome itself or even later Feudal models. Vastly different social-agricultural models across the board, each allows for surplus extraction it its own way for its own purpose. As one poster pointed out, with agriculture comes division of labor, specialization, and some form of economy. In favorable temperate environments where cities are semi-permanent they are created to function as a nexus of trade for the agricultural communities around them they tend to develop middle men that either specialize in trade or develop trades. Over time this creates a trade economy but not quite a capital economy as we know it today. That would require a bourgeoisie class within the city, this also necessitates a transition from a need based production economy towards a production for production\u2019s sake commodity economy like we live in today. In contrast to the above, just as many cities also are temporary and dissolve after they have served their purpose to facilitate trade for different localities. If these dissolve capital can\u2019t accrue. I don\u2019t remember which settlement Bookchin uses for this example and I don\u2019t have the book in front of me, but he suggests its more common in less favorable agricultural climates. Another redditor brought up the various enclosure acts which were pretty much the nail in the coffin for communalist cultures. Being forced into situations where your primary source of resources can be considered private property makes it difficult to manage natural resources across the board. This is especially true if the new managing party is not privy to the local phrenology of the environment or is otherwise disinterested in maintaining that resource, likely preferring to extract what wealth they can from it. I think the claim that \u201ceverybody suddenly made a switch to owning private land...\u201d is disingenuous and ignores significant societies in world history that outcompeted other models using aggressive communal strategies. Its a very contemporary and Eurocentric view of the world. One of Bookchin\u2019s favorite examples and a really interesting logistics example is that of the Incan Empire which supported itself without money, written language, and utilizing a brilliant variety of agricultural techniques. They primarily used labor as taxes, and supporting themselves with an amazing array of communal owned and operated storehouses within a centrally planned economy. That being said the invading Spanish used this infrastructure against them during a time of political instability which assisted in their fall. I could only describe the instability as resulting from what we would consider a mixture un-inheritable property managed by a board of trustees where dead people still participated in government. I am no expert in the specifics, but this is how I have come to understand the practice. Another poster also brings up that communalist practice was the norm in Pre-contact indigenous communities in Meso-America, North America, and South America. I would like to add that these societies tend to favor communal practices with little to no concepts of private property outside of kin-clan based territorial claims. Of the many sites in the American Southwest I have visited communal agricultural storage practices can be found within Ancestral Puebloan communities. Many of these behaviors continued well into the 1900s before WW1 in more isolated areas where they only fell out of practice when they were forced to assimilate into the United States\u2019s commodity economy. I think people tend to forget just how recent a development private property is. In fact there still are communal agricultural practices within the United States, but they have been forced to operate under difficult models; such as cooperative farming networks. Even they still have to compete with industrial farming.","human_ref_B":"According to Graeber (the Dawn of Everything), Scott (Against the grain) and others, communal farming may have been the standard for the first half of agriculture\u2019s history. Private property resulted from the arrival of the state, as part of the package which also included the stratification of society, taxes, slavery and war.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5418.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nvlqmu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Where their any cultures that percived their dreams as their true lives. Many cultures have dreams sleeves, and how they show their soul, but I am not aware of any culture that sees their dreams as the real-world. Are their any.","c_root_id_A":"h165pdj","c_root_id_B":"h15fouy","created_at_utc_A":1623256339,"created_at_utc_B":1623245506,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"there are some beliefs in taoism Loosely quote (but something I think of often), \"Am I a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a man?\"","human_ref_B":"Read the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament of the Bible. Daniel was a prized slave because he was able to interpret dreams. He interpreted dreams for king Nebekanezer. He even won his freedom and those of his friends for his skill.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10833.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"iszw3y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Where did humans get their vitamin C from when there were no oranges? \"The earliest mention of the sweet orange in Chinese literature dates from 314 B.C \" Makes me wonder if humans always needed that much vitamin C as now.","c_root_id_A":"g5bnxp1","c_root_id_B":"g5bjata","created_at_utc_A":1600142744,"created_at_utc_B":1600139817,"score_A":71,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Certain parts of animals, notably liver, also contain vitamin C if eaten uncooked. For example, the Inuit tribes traditionally consume much of their meat raw. Cooking destroys most of the vitamin C present in the meat. Nutrition actually declined among the Inuit when settlers came in and they began cooking their food. You can get some more info and some numbers here.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist, but I can say that some species of trees are high in vitamin C. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2647905\/ These where common in North America once upon a time. If you get a chance to grow some I highly reccomend it. https:\/\/kysu.edu\/academics\/cafsss\/pawpaw\/pawpaw-description-and-nutritional-information\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2927.0,"score_ratio":2.7307692308} {"post_id":"5kllr0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why do some cultures have childrens tales that primarily end happily (like in the US) whereas others have tales that end badly (Germany, Vietnam)? When I was in college in asian lit I read a book that I cannot remember the name of, but it was about a family where the children were fully American and the Grandmother was an immigrant from Vietnam. One chapter talked about the endings to childrens fables and tales, and how in American fables, everything ends up alright. I'm curious as to why there is a division, and if there has been any study in to some meaning or cause or general illumination on this topic.","c_root_id_A":"dbpq0lx","c_root_id_B":"dbpddnp","created_at_utc_A":1482929863,"created_at_utc_B":1482897595,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The issue here is confused: it is not a matter of geography but rather of genre. Many cultures make a distinction that separates fictional \"happily-ever-after\" stories from narratives that are believed to be real and usually communicate a dire warning - and because of this, they often end horribly. In both Europe and in some Native American cultures, there was a tradition that the fictional stories (what we call folktales) were best told at night, and because of this restriction, they were often confined to the winter months when night was longest. In addition, the accounts told to be believed (what we call legends) were not to be told at night, in part because they often mentioned dangerous supernatural beings, which would be summoned by the telling and thereby endanger the teller and the audience. We see a reflection of this in Puck's apology that ends the play \"Midsummer Night's Dream.\" All this said, the folk do not always behave themselves and the rules folklorists perceive are often blurred and confused in reality. Following is an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore that addresses these terms and the way they are used professionally and at least occasionally by the folk: >European folklorists, following the lead of the folk themselves, have long recognized two forms of oral tradition, Sagen and M\u00e4rchen, legends and folktales. While there are many other forms of oral tradition, legends and folktales stand in opposition to one another, yet share a great deal. In reality, lines can blur. >Legends \u2013 or Sagen as the profession often prefers \u2013 are generally short, single-episodic stories told chiefly in the daytime. More importantly, the teller intended the listener to believe the story. Legends often have horrible ending to underscore the story\u2019s important message. A large number of them are, after all, typically meant to be instructive, to serve as warnings in some way. These types of stories are not necessarily long-lived. Their point is to reinforce and prove the legitimacy of a particular belief. Nonetheless, some legends take on a traditional character, can become multi-episodic, and migrate over considerable spans of time and space. >Folktales \u2013 or M\u00e4rchen, again using the German, technical term \u2013 are longer stories with more than one episode. They are restricted, in theory at least, to evening presentation. A folktale is not to be believed, taking place in a fantastic setting. The European folktale also requires a happy ending, the clich\u00e9 of \u201chappily ever after.\u201d Any given folktale can be told with considerable variation, but they are traditional in basic form, and folklorists have spent decades tracing the history and distribution of these stories. >A word here about the term \u201cfairytale\u201d is appropriate. At the end of the eighteenth century, various writers, most prominently the Grimm brothers, began publishing children\u2019s stories based on folktales. These collections became extremely popular, particularly among the urban and increasingly literate emerging middle class as it found itself removed from the peasant soil that served as home to the stories. Fairytales often cause misunderstandings. In a culture that knows more about fairytales than M\u00e4rchen, people assume that the folktale was intended for children. This is certainly not the case since the stories were often violent or sexual in ways thought inappropriate for children. Indeed, the telling of a folktale was usually delayed until the children had gone to bed. While fairytales provide the modern reader with the easiest access to the many stories that were once told internationally, one should always realize that they are removed from the primary inspiration. The original stories and their content provided serious entertainment for adults and they were part of an oral tradition, not something that was fossilized in writing. >The evolution of published fairytales had a profound effect on the subject of fairies, elves, trolls, and similar entities. Because fairytales became the literary domain of children, many people \u2013 including later writers \u2013 assumed the same was true of the supernatural beings. In their original context, nothing could be further from the truth. These were not cute, diminutive creatures whose sole purpose was to delight children. They were powerful, dangerous, and capable of great harm. The European peasantry feared and respected them, and their stories underscore this, conveying in uncompromising terms the code of ethics and behavior that one must employ to survive an encounter with the dangerous world of magic and power. >The definition proposed here for \u201cfairytale\u201d does not necessarily coincide with how people \u2013 and even some folklorists \u2013 use the term. Some scholars regard \u201cfairytale\u201d as appropriate for the more fantastic expressions of folktales as they were told by the folk. The reason why the term is not used in that capacity here is because the folk did not refer to these stories as fairytales and because the term implies a degree of innocence that is inappropriate; again, \u201cfairytale\u201d is most suitably reserved for the published children stories that gave literary expression to the adult oral fictions of the folk.","human_ref_B":"Sometimes the moral of the story is that the world's a scary place, similar to what u\/Thecna2 said. This includes the natural and spiritual worlds, which could only be separated from us by being invisible but both are equally real. Obey your parents, perform the right ceremonies, be kind and honest, and you might just have a chance. The stories I'm researching from the Philippines tend to have these sorts of themes. For instance, the entire sugidanon epic happens only because the main character is a jerk who doesn't show any respect for the nature spirits or his family. The end result is that his daughters get taken as hostages and only a brave, handsome chief can save them. Other characters have similar experiences, where disrespecting either their parents or a supernatural being gets them into trouble. Most of these have happy endings, but the last episode of the whole epic definitely does not. The same main character who's been bailed out multiple times finally angers his most recent wife, so she turns everyone to stone and rains fire from the sky (this one also explains that the Ati people have black skin and curly hair because they survived the fire). Parts of these stories are sung to children at bedtime or to family groups after work in the field is over, but also at weddings and parties. Sources: Jocano *Sulod Society*, Muyco *S\u00edbod*, Caballero\/Magos *Tikum Kadlum*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":32268.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"w0u1eh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Have any anthropologists studied the existence of cheating\/adultery and its prevalence in different societies? I searched through the subreddit and I'm surprised this hasn't\/has rarely been asked. A lot of people tend to focus on whether humans are \"naturally\" monogamous or polygamous but I've rarely seen the topic of cheating whenever it comes up. Does the prevalence of cheating vary greatly across cultures? In polygamous cultures, does cheating still exist? Have there been instances where a husband cheated on his multiple wives? What happens if the wife cheats? As far as I know there is only one instance of polyandry and it's in Nepal\/Tibet, can a wife cheat on her husbands? A husband on his wife? Does cheating happen more or less in societies with arranged marriages? In any cases, WHY do people cheat? Do different cultures have their different reasons? Just odd how this subject seems to always be excluded when it comes to human courtship and romantic\/sexual relationships.","c_root_id_A":"ighro7a","c_root_id_B":"ighv72w","created_at_utc_A":1658042816,"created_at_utc_B":1658045666,"score_A":9,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher touches on these themes in her book Anatomy of Love. You might find the book Lust in Translation by Pamela Druckerman interesting as well. She focuses mainly on the phenomenon in modern day cultures across the world. Although she is not an anthropologist, she is a respected writer for the Times and has education in philosophy and a masters in international affairs.","human_ref_B":"As a biologist, even species long thought to be monogamous have been discovered to \u201ccheat\u201d. Pair-bond monogamy and sexual monogamy are different things, and from a zoomed-out view humans aren\u2019t really considered to be either. Presumably, promiscuity in both males and females exists because it is either neutral or adaptive. For both men and women, producing offspring with several different partners creates children who all have your genes, but still retain diversity. Maybe your two kids with Mary are vulnerable to the new plague, but your kid with Jane inherited resistance from her mother. Your genes live on because of that diversity. There are very few negatives to having offspring by several different partners, and most of them are socially imposed and thus highly variable and likely inconsistent and thus weak in terms of selective pressure. Plus, while maternity is usually clear (cuz, yanno, half the village women help with the birth and see the baby emerge), paternity often isn\u2019t. When assessing a lot of things in nature, there isn\u2019t a clear adaptive cause. Always remember, in the context of evolution, \u201cfittest\u201d doesn\u2019t mean best, it means most fertile. You can be the biggest chad in the world or a literal goddess whose never gotten sick a day in her life, but if you never have kids, your fitness is zero.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2850.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3jjht1","c_root_id_B":"i3k2k18","created_at_utc_A":1649193309,"created_at_utc_B":1649201394,"score_A":28,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"I have been listening to Patrick Wyman's podcast *Tides of History,* where he has recently started a dive into human pre-history (his podcast was originally marketed as the fall of Rome and the birth of the modern age). It's really good, accessible and well researched.","human_ref_B":"Just to be a killjoy -- documentaries and Youtube videos are often \\_poor\\_ sources. It's not that there's nothing right in them, its that they're not sourced and referenced, so you can't tell. They're also often not current as science. A solid academic paper that you'll read in half an hour, and that comes with footnotes and peer review is going to be much, much better than anything you'll watch. Also - new techniques are changing understandings of things like population migrations very quickly. Lots of documentaries are sourced from much older data, much less reliable. So I'd much rather see you read something like: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . than watch \"Kon tiki\" or any of its derivatives. Similarly, a current paper like Vaesen, Krist, Gerrit L. Dusseldorp, and Mark J. Brandt. \"An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.\" Scientific reports 11.1 (2021): 1-9. . . . is going to be more useful reading than any number of videos. Paleoanthropology is moving very fast -- substantially due to genetic technologies, opening up big windows. For a lot of this material, you really want to read \\_new\\_ papers first.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8085.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3k2k18","c_root_id_B":"i3jjwku","created_at_utc_A":1649201394,"created_at_utc_B":1649193472,"score_A":35,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Just to be a killjoy -- documentaries and Youtube videos are often \\_poor\\_ sources. It's not that there's nothing right in them, its that they're not sourced and referenced, so you can't tell. They're also often not current as science. A solid academic paper that you'll read in half an hour, and that comes with footnotes and peer review is going to be much, much better than anything you'll watch. Also - new techniques are changing understandings of things like population migrations very quickly. Lots of documentaries are sourced from much older data, much less reliable. So I'd much rather see you read something like: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . than watch \"Kon tiki\" or any of its derivatives. Similarly, a current paper like Vaesen, Krist, Gerrit L. Dusseldorp, and Mark J. Brandt. \"An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.\" Scientific reports 11.1 (2021): 1-9. . . . is going to be more useful reading than any number of videos. Paleoanthropology is moving very fast -- substantially due to genetic technologies, opening up big windows. For a lot of this material, you really want to read \\_new\\_ papers first.","human_ref_B":"British-made documentaries are often *a lot* more informative and direct about explaining historical events than American ones, which always seem to need some melodramatic trumped up \"mystery\" to solve and frequently give a pretty narrow or dumbed-down picture of the topic. They're a bit old now, but I always thought the BBC's *Jungle Atlantis* and *Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath* struck an excellent balance between explaining scientific evidence and methods, with broad and deep historical context, and some entertaining re-enactments and visuals. I haven't seen\/heard of many recently of such high production caliber, though I'm not British so its hard to keep up. ​ To your second question, a lot of the equipment or techniques you're talking about are very specialized and no, most archaeologists won't know how to use them or do them. Radiocarbon and most other forms of physical dating will be done by physicists working in specialized labs - they might have some archaeological training, but are not practicing field archaeologists. If you're excavating around structures that can potentially be damaged by your work or are in danger of killing your crew, you generally don't do that work until a specialist conservationist can be involved to protect the site and you. Site surveying equipment isn't all that hard to learn and it's usually done on site by seniors or peers that have learned it previously and teach it to juniors on the site. More specialized techniques like magnetic resistivity, ground penetrating radar, etc... are usually done by specialists because it usually takes a specialist to maintain the equipment and interpret the data, though the physical act of using the equipment by plebs under the supervision of the specialist is common. Likewise any imaging or visual data manipulation. Some of that, like GIS, might be taught as a class (I had a class on GIS in undergrad and grad school), but depending on how technical\/specialized your'e talking (I'm thinking of the Zamani project's 3D photogrammetry work) more advanced stuff is going to be done by a specialist in that technique. For a lot of these \"specialized\" techniques, you're probably getting your undergrad degree in a relevant field with some archaeology courses thrown in, and then getting your higher degrees in programs that have expert specialists in that type of tool or technique.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7922.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3k2k18","c_root_id_B":"i3jj2km","created_at_utc_A":1649201394,"created_at_utc_B":1649193143,"score_A":35,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Just to be a killjoy -- documentaries and Youtube videos are often \\_poor\\_ sources. It's not that there's nothing right in them, its that they're not sourced and referenced, so you can't tell. They're also often not current as science. A solid academic paper that you'll read in half an hour, and that comes with footnotes and peer review is going to be much, much better than anything you'll watch. Also - new techniques are changing understandings of things like population migrations very quickly. Lots of documentaries are sourced from much older data, much less reliable. So I'd much rather see you read something like: Ioannidis, Alexander G., et al. \"Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement.\" Nature 583.7817 (2020): 572-577. . . . than watch \"Kon tiki\" or any of its derivatives. Similarly, a current paper like Vaesen, Krist, Gerrit L. Dusseldorp, and Mark J. Brandt. \"An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.\" Scientific reports 11.1 (2021): 1-9. . . . is going to be more useful reading than any number of videos. Paleoanthropology is moving very fast -- substantially due to genetic technologies, opening up big windows. For a lot of this material, you really want to read \\_new\\_ papers first.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Time\\_Team As for the bonus, check out my comment thread here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAcademia\/comments\/sfc7sp\/am\\_i\\_too\\_old\\_to\\_be\\_pursuing\\_a\\_career\\_in\\_academia\/huscu27\/?context=3 The first few links have information about getting started in Archaeology. :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8251.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3jjht1","c_root_id_B":"i3jj2km","created_at_utc_A":1649193309,"created_at_utc_B":1649193143,"score_A":28,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have been listening to Patrick Wyman's podcast *Tides of History,* where he has recently started a dive into human pre-history (his podcast was originally marketed as the fall of Rome and the birth of the modern age). It's really good, accessible and well researched.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Time\\_Team As for the bonus, check out my comment thread here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAcademia\/comments\/sfc7sp\/am\\_i\\_too\\_old\\_to\\_be\\_pursuing\\_a\\_career\\_in\\_academia\/huscu27\/?context=3 The first few links have information about getting started in Archaeology. :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":166.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3jj2km","c_root_id_B":"i3jjwku","created_at_utc_A":1649193143,"created_at_utc_B":1649193472,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Time\\_Team As for the bonus, check out my comment thread here: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAcademia\/comments\/sfc7sp\/am\\_i\\_too\\_old\\_to\\_be\\_pursuing\\_a\\_career\\_in\\_academia\/huscu27\/?context=3 The first few links have information about getting started in Archaeology. :)","human_ref_B":"British-made documentaries are often *a lot* more informative and direct about explaining historical events than American ones, which always seem to need some melodramatic trumped up \"mystery\" to solve and frequently give a pretty narrow or dumbed-down picture of the topic. They're a bit old now, but I always thought the BBC's *Jungle Atlantis* and *Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath* struck an excellent balance between explaining scientific evidence and methods, with broad and deep historical context, and some entertaining re-enactments and visuals. I haven't seen\/heard of many recently of such high production caliber, though I'm not British so its hard to keep up. ​ To your second question, a lot of the equipment or techniques you're talking about are very specialized and no, most archaeologists won't know how to use them or do them. Radiocarbon and most other forms of physical dating will be done by physicists working in specialized labs - they might have some archaeological training, but are not practicing field archaeologists. If you're excavating around structures that can potentially be damaged by your work or are in danger of killing your crew, you generally don't do that work until a specialist conservationist can be involved to protect the site and you. Site surveying equipment isn't all that hard to learn and it's usually done on site by seniors or peers that have learned it previously and teach it to juniors on the site. More specialized techniques like magnetic resistivity, ground penetrating radar, etc... are usually done by specialists because it usually takes a specialist to maintain the equipment and interpret the data, though the physical act of using the equipment by plebs under the supervision of the specialist is common. Likewise any imaging or visual data manipulation. Some of that, like GIS, might be taught as a class (I had a class on GIS in undergrad and grad school), but depending on how technical\/specialized your'e talking (I'm thinking of the Zamani project's 3D photogrammetry work) more advanced stuff is going to be done by a specialist in that technique. For a lot of these \"specialized\" techniques, you're probably getting your undergrad degree in a relevant field with some archaeology courses thrown in, and then getting your higher degrees in programs that have expert specialists in that type of tool or technique.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":329.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"tx2771","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I have become extremely fascinated with the History and Pre History of civilization. What documentaries or series are a good watch for me? **Bonus question if you can answer**: archeologists \/ anthropologists \/ historians, do you have to learn how to operate a plethora of different equipment and techniques? For example, surveying equipment, some engineering (to reinforce old structures so they don't fall while you're excavating them), machine learning (reconstructing buildings out of pictures and recovered artifacts), carbon dating, etc? How can all of that possibly be covered in a PhD degree?","c_root_id_A":"i3lph26","c_root_id_B":"i3kfbrp","created_at_utc_A":1649234750,"created_at_utc_B":1649207092,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I want to add on to the comment about specializations. Archaeology is a really a diverse but fragmented field where everything about archaeology can change from site to site, that\u2019s theory, method, technology, everything. In some places it\u2019s like the commenter above describes, you have your specialists and they do the geophys, then the specialists who do the GIS, and a whole host of specialists. In some places you have all of that done by the same person, sometimes by students, sometimes by volunteers. It\u2019s interesting because a huge complaint in archaeology is that too many of us are jacks of all trades while at the same time there\u2019s an aggressive degree of over-specialization. For a lot of us, we learn something out of either necessity or passion so the skills that each archaeologist knows differs wildly which means that our data quality can vary drastically as well. In some parts of archaeology its starting to change but in a lot of archaeology it hasn\u2019t changed in decades.","human_ref_B":"I recently stumbled upon this youtube series by Laurence Salomon called History of Africa, which I recommend checking out. The first part looks at early hunter-gatherers and focuses on their history in South Africa. It's a fascinating and beautiful documentary. I was touched by the music, imagery, and stories. The narration and tempo may feel a bit strange at first but are hypnotic once you ease into it. It has a long list of references (which I haven't double-checked, but as others have commented here, merely citing its sources puts this above many youtube videos).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27658.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"s0n74f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Where can I find English versions of Australian Aboriginal oral histories? Australian Aboriginal oral histories go back thousands of years. For example, the Tjapwurung have a story about a bird hunt that occurred between 5000-10,000 years ago. I would really like to read or listen to some English versions of the stories, but I am struggling to find them anywhere. Where can I find them?","c_root_id_A":"hs30zpz","c_root_id_B":"hs3u76e","created_at_utc_A":1641833885,"created_at_utc_B":1641844473,"score_A":16,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"A lot of the academic printing houses have translation of these in their own language, in my case I've read those in Russian, by the Soviet \"Nauka\" press and a bunch of smaller Kiev and Moscow Foreign language university press, back from the 1970ies and 80ies. You could start by searching the printing houses of the Ivy League, Elsewier and Penguin as the three types of companies with the widest choice of subjects in the humanities.","human_ref_B":"There are tons of published books of Dreamtime stories, many are aimed at children but certainly not all. Search for 'books of Dreamtime stories'. This is a good shop with plenty to choose from that ships internationally. Tales of My Grandmother's Dreamtime and 'More Tales...' are especially nice, with lovely artwork from the artist Naiura.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10588.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"ni5740","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"I landed my dream gig. Now what? I've been studying an emerging music market remotely for sometime. I was frustrated and e-mailed an artist myself to ask about working with them. I had no expectations. They AGREED. And not just to one interview, they want to help me further my research. This had been my wildest dream. But now I am terrified. I do not have any idea where to start. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA and I always thought I'd have to wait until I reached a university with a well-known program to even have a chance at working with them. Can anyone recommend their favorite ethnography about music scenes where people are specifically with the musicians\/performers so I can look more into how this has been done? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gz0vcwy","c_root_id_B":"gz0rpxa","created_at_utc_A":1621657429,"created_at_utc_B":1621655201,"score_A":26,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I have a Masters in Ethnomusicology. If you can PM me a more specific genre I can probably suggest more specific ethnographies but here are a few that come to mind: Making the Scene: Contemporary New York City Big Band Jazz - by Alexander Stewart Club Date Musicians: Playing the New York Party Circuit - by Bruce A. Macleod Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu\u2019s Zaire - by Bob W. White Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music - by Christopher Alan Waterman Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania - by Kelly Askew Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression - by Steven Feld Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde - by Georgina Born For some overall info on fieldwork and ethnography you also might want to check out. Asking and Listening: Ethnography as Personal Adaptation I\u2019ve been out of the game for a bit so I\u2019m sure there is a lot of work being done on more current music that I\u2019m missing. I\u2019d check out the society for ethnomusicology website and poke around. There is a journal you can subscribe to as well.","human_ref_B":"I wouldn't limit yourself to material just on music or ethnomusicology. Take this opportunity to get familiar with some of the main methods texts in the field. It's start with Bernard's Research Methods in Anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2228.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"ni5740","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"I landed my dream gig. Now what? I've been studying an emerging music market remotely for sometime. I was frustrated and e-mailed an artist myself to ask about working with them. I had no expectations. They AGREED. And not just to one interview, they want to help me further my research. This had been my wildest dream. But now I am terrified. I do not have any idea where to start. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA and I always thought I'd have to wait until I reached a university with a well-known program to even have a chance at working with them. Can anyone recommend their favorite ethnography about music scenes where people are specifically with the musicians\/performers so I can look more into how this has been done? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gz0rvql","c_root_id_B":"gz0vcwy","created_at_utc_A":1621655300,"created_at_utc_B":1621657429,"score_A":3,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"American Hardcore (Hardcore Punk) Nothing Feels Good (Emo)","human_ref_B":"I have a Masters in Ethnomusicology. If you can PM me a more specific genre I can probably suggest more specific ethnographies but here are a few that come to mind: Making the Scene: Contemporary New York City Big Band Jazz - by Alexander Stewart Club Date Musicians: Playing the New York Party Circuit - by Bruce A. Macleod Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu\u2019s Zaire - by Bob W. White Juju: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music - by Christopher Alan Waterman Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania - by Kelly Askew Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression - by Steven Feld Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde - by Georgina Born For some overall info on fieldwork and ethnography you also might want to check out. Asking and Listening: Ethnography as Personal Adaptation I\u2019ve been out of the game for a bit so I\u2019m sure there is a lot of work being done on more current music that I\u2019m missing. I\u2019d check out the society for ethnomusicology website and poke around. There is a journal you can subscribe to as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2129.0,"score_ratio":8.6666666667} {"post_id":"ni5740","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"I landed my dream gig. Now what? I've been studying an emerging music market remotely for sometime. I was frustrated and e-mailed an artist myself to ask about working with them. I had no expectations. They AGREED. And not just to one interview, they want to help me further my research. This had been my wildest dream. But now I am terrified. I do not have any idea where to start. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA and I always thought I'd have to wait until I reached a university with a well-known program to even have a chance at working with them. Can anyone recommend their favorite ethnography about music scenes where people are specifically with the musicians\/performers so I can look more into how this has been done? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gz0rvql","c_root_id_B":"gz1oigu","created_at_utc_A":1621655300,"created_at_utc_B":1621683620,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"American Hardcore (Hardcore Punk) Nothing Feels Good (Emo)","human_ref_B":"Congratulations! I recommend Penelope Spheeris\u2019 Decline of Western Civilisation, covering Hardcore, Hair Metal and Gutter Punk scenes in LA. I only watched them last year, and they\u2019ve aged quite well. (She also directed Wayne\u2019s World, but this is the research)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28320.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ni5740","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"I landed my dream gig. Now what? I've been studying an emerging music market remotely for sometime. I was frustrated and e-mailed an artist myself to ask about working with them. I had no expectations. They AGREED. And not just to one interview, they want to help me further my research. This had been my wildest dream. But now I am terrified. I do not have any idea where to start. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA and I always thought I'd have to wait until I reached a university with a well-known program to even have a chance at working with them. Can anyone recommend their favorite ethnography about music scenes where people are specifically with the musicians\/performers so I can look more into how this has been done? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gz1e7qy","c_root_id_B":"gz1oigu","created_at_utc_A":1621673901,"created_at_utc_B":1621683620,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Coming from a very different field of interest myself my recommendation might be a bit from left field but I would recommend looking at \"Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism\" by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum. I have not had much contact with his works on the Swedish music scene so I can't tell you if there are some interesting papers too but I'm a sucker for his style in general so I would say it's at least worth a look even if you are going into a different direction. There might be some interesting pointers in his works.","human_ref_B":"Congratulations! I recommend Penelope Spheeris\u2019 Decline of Western Civilisation, covering Hardcore, Hair Metal and Gutter Punk scenes in LA. I only watched them last year, and they\u2019ve aged quite well. (She also directed Wayne\u2019s World, but this is the research)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9719.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ni5740","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"I landed my dream gig. Now what? I've been studying an emerging music market remotely for sometime. I was frustrated and e-mailed an artist myself to ask about working with them. I had no expectations. They AGREED. And not just to one interview, they want to help me further my research. This had been my wildest dream. But now I am terrified. I do not have any idea where to start. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA and I always thought I'd have to wait until I reached a university with a well-known program to even have a chance at working with them. Can anyone recommend their favorite ethnography about music scenes where people are specifically with the musicians\/performers so I can look more into how this has been done? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gz1e7qy","c_root_id_B":"gz1ugqa","created_at_utc_A":1621673901,"created_at_utc_B":1621688126,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Coming from a very different field of interest myself my recommendation might be a bit from left field but I would recommend looking at \"Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism\" by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum. I have not had much contact with his works on the Swedish music scene so I can't tell you if there are some interesting papers too but I'm a sucker for his style in general so I would say it's at least worth a look even if you are going into a different direction. There might be some interesting pointers in his works.","human_ref_B":"Fellow ethnomusicologist here. It's a huge field. My field centers on my country, Greece, so I don't know if it's gonna be helpful to you. My favorite ethnographies are Jane Cowan, Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece Michael Herzfeld, The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Indentity in a Cretan Mountain Village","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14225.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"em1ouz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Guns, Germs & Steel - why the wrath An earlier post about current Anthropology Superstars made me think of this book by Diamond which I have seen skewered as Racist and worse, but never delved deeply enough into to understand the complaint. Put another way: As far as my reading the author's thesis is Luck explains the disparity between peoples technical development: no?","c_root_id_A":"fdlvzxu","c_root_id_B":"fdlw0pc","created_at_utc_A":1578533835,"created_at_utc_B":1578533851,"score_A":53,"score_B":192,"human_ref_A":"Searching a bit yeilded this: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/badhistory\/wiki\/v2\/ggsg Guns Germs and Steel Breakdowns * \/u\/anthropology\\_nerd calls into question the Lethal Gift of Livestock * Glaring flaws in New World interactions are dissected * Myths of Conquest is an excellent series that frankly belongs somewhere better than here * Very good discussion here You may notice that this is really light. Now this is stated in the linked threads, but the reason why there has been no focused attack on the works of Jared Diamond is simply because its too big! Its the gish gallop of history. So the only way a person trained in a field can dispute it is if they dive in and dissect micro portions of it. But then people argue that they are getting 'hung up on the details' and hand wave away all the inaccuracies.","human_ref_B":"You can find several answers here from myself and others. In short, the book is ignorant of the archaeological record, takes historical sources at literal face value, and winds up with claims that are true only in such broad strokes that they are no longer useful. Most damningly, it does not follow its own internal logic. The Inca king is said to not have expected Spanish treachery because he was not part of a literate tradition and hadn't heard any stories of betrayal, yet the Spaniard who conquered the Inca was *literally backstabbed* by his agents of a close friend. The Spanish centralized bureaucracy enabled them to conquer the world, but the Inca bureaucracy only enabled the Spanish to more easily rule them. The *exact same factors* are either a boon or a bane depending on if that party won in the end. It's one giant post hoc fallacy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16.0,"score_ratio":3.6226415094} {"post_id":"cb4zba","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How common are societies that actually have more then two genders? Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders?","c_root_id_A":"ete5eq0","c_root_id_B":"etecwiz","created_at_utc_A":1562723363,"created_at_utc_B":1562729059,"score_A":22,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"In Thailand there is khatoey, for transgender women, which has a lot of history and is broadly accepted as normal. Although in Thailand a much broader range of genders and sexualities are more recently recognised, at least amongst the younger generations. This chart explains the well recognised ones (although the translation to English is a bit iffy, as you'll see). Toms are perhaps the next most visibly common, who sometimes identify as transgender men, but sometimes also identify as women. > Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders? In Thailand someone's gender and sexuality is typically not discussed as an issue, with acceptance and understanding being usually very high. Although there are conservative factions who occasionally push back, the general sentiment amongst the public is one of acceptance and understanding. Aside: However there are some professions where conservatism is prevalent, and discrimination occurs as policy. Generally uniformed professions such as the military or police or government positions. However the sentiment on that tends to sway back and forth depending on the level of conservatism in the current government or military junta. I say \"understanding\" with significance, because Thailand is known to be a very *tolerant* country, where being tolerant of people's differences of appearance and belief is culturally ingrained, but where actual genuine *understanding* is not necessarily present in most cases. However on issues of gender, Thai culture doesn't tend to have issues of misunderstanding or misinterpreting the meanings or sources of people's genders. It is commonly accepted that someone's gender is just how they are, and who they are, and isn't negatively seen as just some wilful choice the person has made, as in some other countries. So while Thailand is a very tolerant country, that tolerance doesn't always come with understanding. However in the case of gender, the tolerance also usually comes with understanding and acceptance (except amongst a minority of conservative factions). For the history, I think with a bit of research you would find that \"khatoey\" goes back a very long way, while other genders are only more recently recognised.","human_ref_B":"In the South Sulawesi region of Indonesia, the dominant ethnic group is known as the Bugis. The Bugis have five distinct genders that are well integrated with society and have been recognized for over 600 years. Non-binary gender associations are hardly new. Bugis Genders Bugis Gender Norms Edit: to clarify the region the Bugis reside and not suggestively overstate their population size.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5696.0,"score_ratio":2.2272727273} {"post_id":"cb4zba","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How common are societies that actually have more then two genders? Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders?","c_root_id_A":"etdkmaa","c_root_id_B":"etecwiz","created_at_utc_A":1562708748,"created_at_utc_B":1562729059,"score_A":15,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"A quick google gets me this result as my first hit... That said it seems to leave out Inuit or Cree (cant remember which but am sided with Inuit) that also has a non binary gender so this may not be a complete guide http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/content\/two-spirits_map-html\/","human_ref_B":"In the South Sulawesi region of Indonesia, the dominant ethnic group is known as the Bugis. The Bugis have five distinct genders that are well integrated with society and have been recognized for over 600 years. Non-binary gender associations are hardly new. Bugis Genders Bugis Gender Norms Edit: to clarify the region the Bugis reside and not suggestively overstate their population size.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20311.0,"score_ratio":3.2666666667} {"post_id":"cb4zba","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How common are societies that actually have more then two genders? Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders?","c_root_id_A":"etdkmaa","c_root_id_B":"ete5eq0","created_at_utc_A":1562708748,"created_at_utc_B":1562723363,"score_A":15,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"A quick google gets me this result as my first hit... That said it seems to leave out Inuit or Cree (cant remember which but am sided with Inuit) that also has a non binary gender so this may not be a complete guide http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/content\/two-spirits_map-html\/","human_ref_B":"In Thailand there is khatoey, for transgender women, which has a lot of history and is broadly accepted as normal. Although in Thailand a much broader range of genders and sexualities are more recently recognised, at least amongst the younger generations. This chart explains the well recognised ones (although the translation to English is a bit iffy, as you'll see). Toms are perhaps the next most visibly common, who sometimes identify as transgender men, but sometimes also identify as women. > Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders? In Thailand someone's gender and sexuality is typically not discussed as an issue, with acceptance and understanding being usually very high. Although there are conservative factions who occasionally push back, the general sentiment amongst the public is one of acceptance and understanding. Aside: However there are some professions where conservatism is prevalent, and discrimination occurs as policy. Generally uniformed professions such as the military or police or government positions. However the sentiment on that tends to sway back and forth depending on the level of conservatism in the current government or military junta. I say \"understanding\" with significance, because Thailand is known to be a very *tolerant* country, where being tolerant of people's differences of appearance and belief is culturally ingrained, but where actual genuine *understanding* is not necessarily present in most cases. However on issues of gender, Thai culture doesn't tend to have issues of misunderstanding or misinterpreting the meanings or sources of people's genders. It is commonly accepted that someone's gender is just how they are, and who they are, and isn't negatively seen as just some wilful choice the person has made, as in some other countries. So while Thailand is a very tolerant country, that tolerance doesn't always come with understanding. However in the case of gender, the tolerance also usually comes with understanding and acceptance (except amongst a minority of conservative factions). For the history, I think with a bit of research you would find that \"khatoey\" goes back a very long way, while other genders are only more recently recognised.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14615.0,"score_ratio":1.4666666667} {"post_id":"cb4zba","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How common are societies that actually have more then two genders? Are they more or less egalitarian then societies with binary genders?","c_root_id_A":"etei4ei","c_root_id_B":"etej0t2","created_at_utc_A":1562733523,"created_at_utc_B":1562734354,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"As a follow-up, if I may... there are several genders listed here that appear to be males taking on female roles... any that are female taking on more masculine roles, besides the *calalai* listed in the link for Bugis?","human_ref_B":"So I actually know a whole lot about this topic! I\u2019m getting my masters in gender studies! Here\u2019s a lil tidbit. I can give ya more if you want. The fact that people in different cultures experience and present gender in an assortment of ways breaks the binary that we are so used to here in the States (I don\u2019t know where you\u2019re from, but that\u2019s where I am from lol) Here in the States, we see gender, sexuality, and sex all presented in a way that only allows for two options: male and female. Increasingly though, we see that there is so much more than that. Really, every place in the world has their own interpretation and ideas regarding gender, and looking on a more global scale, we see that almost every continent has people that have been pushing against the binary system that has been put in place. And these ideas aren't new either, like so many opponents believe. There has been a whole plethora of genders as long as human beings have existed. One of the gender identities that I find really interesting are the South Asian Hijra. These people are one of the oldest recorded \u201cthird gender\u201d (just meaning outside of the binary of male\/female) communities in the world, and Hijra is officially recognized as a third gender in India, which is groundbreaking. This is something that I normally explain to the many people who claim that there are only two genders or that identifying outside of the binary is \"just a fad.\" The Hijra have been mentioned in ancient scriptures and even the Kama Sutra! However, they still have a very difficult time fitting into society, and are often found living in communities made up entirely of Hijra people. It's strange to me that these people have been literally mentioned in the ancient religious texts but are still so strongly rejected by people that claim it is against their religion. The man in the \"India's Third Gender Movement\" video says that \"transgender is not in our Hindu religion, so we are always opposing it.\" This is curious, since pretty much everything I read stated that the Hijra could be traced back centuries through religious text. They have a lot of religious sanction from way back, although not every Hindu sees it that way. I also find it quite interesting that Hijras aren't one specific group of people. They can be eunuchs, intersex, or transgender. It's a third gender, so not quite male and not quite female. Typically though, Hijras use she\/her pronouns! I\u2019m not quite sure why they tend to opt for those pronouns rather than something else, since they identify as a third gender, but I think maybe it is a choice because of their (generally) male anatomy -- is not their gender choice-- but I am not sure how that evolved. They are certainly connected in many ways with women, and when they marry, they marry men--also, they assist women in childbirth. Hijra video 1 Hijra video 2 The next group of people that I will discuss are the Albanian sworn virgins. These women live their lives as men, often for very different reasons. They take a vow of chastity and take on a traditionally male identity. The majority of sworn virgins take this vow of chastity to regain some sort of power over their own lives. If the patriarch of the family dies, they can take control and help out their family in their time of need by fulfilling the role of the man in charge. Women that refused to be in arranged marriages could opt for the vow to get out of being married off. Sworn virgins don\u2019t usually take the vow because they don\u2019t \u201cfeel right\u201d in the body they were born in, rather, it\u2019s more of a statement that could be made to ignore the gender norms that were set in place by their society at the time. In modern times, the older sworn virgins don\u2019t typically want to see younger girls taking the chastity vow because there are many more options for girls now, as it is becoming more realistic for women to do what they want and be powerful. The sworn virgin got all the rights of a man, and as times change and women become more equal, this practice doesn't seem as necessary. Again, I can discuss more if you want me to, these are just a few that really interest me out of the many that exist in the world!!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":831.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"p0768o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and why did humans lose the fur on their heads and start growing hair instead. By fur I mean hairs that grow to a fixed, short length and then stop or fall out. Whereas hair grows continuously. Hair requires much more maintenance to prevent it becoming a knotted mess. I understand the loss of fur on the body but why it's replacement by hair on the head?","c_root_id_A":"h85nocq","c_root_id_B":"h85oe5r","created_at_utc_A":1628419781,"created_at_utc_B":1628420395,"score_A":27,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Evolutionary scientist Mark Pagel at the University of Reading has also proposed that going fur-less reduced the impact of lice and other parasites. Humans kept some patches of hair, like the stuff on our heads which protects from the sun and the stuff on our pubic regions which retains secreted pheromones. But the more hairless we got, Pagel says, the more attractive it became, and a stretch of hairless hide turned into a potent advertisement of a healthy, parasite-free mate. https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/why-did-humans-evolve-lose-fur-180970980\/","human_ref_B":"Also, animals with fur spend a lot of time grooming their fur to keep in in good condition - both their own and other animals. It is not Maintenence free","labels":0,"seconds_difference":614.0,"score_ratio":1.1481481481} {"post_id":"p0768o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When and why did humans lose the fur on their heads and start growing hair instead. By fur I mean hairs that grow to a fixed, short length and then stop or fall out. Whereas hair grows continuously. Hair requires much more maintenance to prevent it becoming a knotted mess. I understand the loss of fur on the body but why it's replacement by hair on the head?","c_root_id_A":"h85x8jo","c_root_id_B":"h85w9yk","created_at_utc_A":1628426965,"created_at_utc_B":1628426346,"score_A":25,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Hairlessness is clearly an evolutionary advantage (natural selection) for cooling when combined with sweating. But it does seem intuitively likely that hair on the head is at least partly driven by sexual selection, given the outsized role it nearly universally plays in cultural conceptions of male\/female beauty. So it may not serve any direct evolutionary purpose (beyond some sun protection).","human_ref_B":"It's heat expenditure. So one of our major evolutionary traits is the ability to sweat, or to self regulate our heat, allowing us to be great distance\/ endurance runners. And as we moved into a more bipedal gait we began to to lose more and more fur (presumably). And the amount of sun our posture absorbs compared to other apes is about 60% less. Because our backs are alot straighter than quadrapedals. So in theory we only kept the hair\/fur where we couldn't protect from the suns rays. As to whats the difference between the 2.... uhm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":619.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el89q1e","c_root_id_B":"el890oh","created_at_utc_A":1555632759,"created_at_utc_B":1555632183,"score_A":38,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but I've spent the last six months reading a great deal about medieval English agriculture, along with the village and manor hall communities that supported the open field system. I hope that qualifies me to repeat some of the things I've come across in my research? Quite a number of English surnames do\/did have geographical markers at one point. Names like Atwater, Cross, and Green often pointed to where someone's home was in the community (near the water supply, near the crossroads or the church, near the village green). You also have an awful lot of people known for the place they were born in if they didn't live there as an adult. In a time where up to half a village's men might be named William, the new William who comes to town pretty understandably becomes 'William of such and such a place.' Almost always the de or of from Old English\/Middle English names falls away over the centuries, but surnames like Lincoln and Washington almost certainly trace back to a patriarch who left those places and came to live elsewhere where their hometown was the differentiator in a community that might have only had 10 or 15 common male given names. A final addition? You see more d' and de and of in the names of nobility and the upper classes right up to today because those families have made a point of rigidly maintaining how to pronounce and spell their names from one generation to the next. I can trace my father's family tree back to the 16th Century. The spelling has changed and the pronunciation has changed four or five times in that time as regional accents, illiteracy, and the fact that a surname remaining static really only matters to people building a family brand will always change how English-speaking people pronounce things. Our language is a mutt, and it enjoys imprecision. Sources: Just about any book on everyday life in the English Middle Ages has a chapter on names. To cite one example that is old but something of a tentpole on the subject: Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 1150-1400 by H.S. Bennett will be a great resource to learn more. Edit: I hit post, and then I immediately thought of an excellent book that has recently been reprinted: Life in a Medieval Village by Joseph and Francis Gies, a husband and wife team who wrote extensively about the period.","human_ref_B":"By the time aristocratic families were naming themselves in English, familial surnames were already common. During the era where \"of wherever\" type names were common, English was still a culturally \"low\" language. Scholarly works were still mostly written in Latin all the way up to the 16th or 17th century.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":576.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el89q1e","c_root_id_B":"el87w5z","created_at_utc_A":1555632759,"created_at_utc_B":1555631297,"score_A":38,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but I've spent the last six months reading a great deal about medieval English agriculture, along with the village and manor hall communities that supported the open field system. I hope that qualifies me to repeat some of the things I've come across in my research? Quite a number of English surnames do\/did have geographical markers at one point. Names like Atwater, Cross, and Green often pointed to where someone's home was in the community (near the water supply, near the crossroads or the church, near the village green). You also have an awful lot of people known for the place they were born in if they didn't live there as an adult. In a time where up to half a village's men might be named William, the new William who comes to town pretty understandably becomes 'William of such and such a place.' Almost always the de or of from Old English\/Middle English names falls away over the centuries, but surnames like Lincoln and Washington almost certainly trace back to a patriarch who left those places and came to live elsewhere where their hometown was the differentiator in a community that might have only had 10 or 15 common male given names. A final addition? You see more d' and de and of in the names of nobility and the upper classes right up to today because those families have made a point of rigidly maintaining how to pronounce and spell their names from one generation to the next. I can trace my father's family tree back to the 16th Century. The spelling has changed and the pronunciation has changed four or five times in that time as regional accents, illiteracy, and the fact that a surname remaining static really only matters to people building a family brand will always change how English-speaking people pronounce things. Our language is a mutt, and it enjoys imprecision. Sources: Just about any book on everyday life in the English Middle Ages has a chapter on names. To cite one example that is old but something of a tentpole on the subject: Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 1150-1400 by H.S. Bennett will be a great resource to learn more. Edit: I hit post, and then I immediately thought of an excellent book that has recently been reprinted: Life in a Medieval Village by Joseph and Francis Gies, a husband and wife team who wrote extensively about the period.","human_ref_B":"Might have something to do with the Norman invasion? Wouldn't make sense to rename Anglo-Norman aristocrats ' Of ___' when many of their names were already related to origins in France (e.g, de Mortimer, de Montgomery, Devereux\/d'\u00c9vreux, de Percy etc.).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1462.0,"score_ratio":4.2222222222} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el88jc8","c_root_id_B":"el89q1e","created_at_utc_A":1555631802,"created_at_utc_B":1555632759,"score_A":4,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Serfdom. Most nobles were part of houses or families, but there would be many so their actual surname was the place they owned. Most of population were peasant serfs possibly without surnames at all. As serfs got emancipated they sometimes take the names. In some countries Jewish surnames are similar versions of 'from place' Its not just Norman or Germanic in origin, they're like Arabs and big on patronymics because their socieities formed with small population. Europeans using geography is from population boom in landowners at the beginning of feudalism.","human_ref_B":"I'm not an anthropologist, but I've spent the last six months reading a great deal about medieval English agriculture, along with the village and manor hall communities that supported the open field system. I hope that qualifies me to repeat some of the things I've come across in my research? Quite a number of English surnames do\/did have geographical markers at one point. Names like Atwater, Cross, and Green often pointed to where someone's home was in the community (near the water supply, near the crossroads or the church, near the village green). You also have an awful lot of people known for the place they were born in if they didn't live there as an adult. In a time where up to half a village's men might be named William, the new William who comes to town pretty understandably becomes 'William of such and such a place.' Almost always the de or of from Old English\/Middle English names falls away over the centuries, but surnames like Lincoln and Washington almost certainly trace back to a patriarch who left those places and came to live elsewhere where their hometown was the differentiator in a community that might have only had 10 or 15 common male given names. A final addition? You see more d' and de and of in the names of nobility and the upper classes right up to today because those families have made a point of rigidly maintaining how to pronounce and spell their names from one generation to the next. I can trace my father's family tree back to the 16th Century. The spelling has changed and the pronunciation has changed four or five times in that time as regional accents, illiteracy, and the fact that a surname remaining static really only matters to people building a family brand will always change how English-speaking people pronounce things. Our language is a mutt, and it enjoys imprecision. Sources: Just about any book on everyday life in the English Middle Ages has a chapter on names. To cite one example that is old but something of a tentpole on the subject: Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 1150-1400 by H.S. Bennett will be a great resource to learn more. Edit: I hit post, and then I immediately thought of an excellent book that has recently been reprinted: Life in a Medieval Village by Joseph and Francis Gies, a husband and wife team who wrote extensively about the period.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":957.0,"score_ratio":9.5} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el87w5z","c_root_id_B":"el890oh","created_at_utc_A":1555631297,"created_at_utc_B":1555632183,"score_A":9,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Might have something to do with the Norman invasion? Wouldn't make sense to rename Anglo-Norman aristocrats ' Of ___' when many of their names were already related to origins in France (e.g, de Mortimer, de Montgomery, Devereux\/d'\u00c9vreux, de Percy etc.).","human_ref_B":"By the time aristocratic families were naming themselves in English, familial surnames were already common. During the era where \"of wherever\" type names were common, English was still a culturally \"low\" language. Scholarly works were still mostly written in Latin all the way up to the 16th or 17th century.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":886.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el890oh","c_root_id_B":"el88jc8","created_at_utc_A":1555632183,"created_at_utc_B":1555631802,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"By the time aristocratic families were naming themselves in English, familial surnames were already common. During the era where \"of wherever\" type names were common, English was still a culturally \"low\" language. Scholarly works were still mostly written in Latin all the way up to the 16th or 17th century.","human_ref_B":"Serfdom. Most nobles were part of houses or families, but there would be many so their actual surname was the place they owned. Most of population were peasant serfs possibly without surnames at all. As serfs got emancipated they sometimes take the names. In some countries Jewish surnames are similar versions of 'from place' Its not just Norman or Germanic in origin, they're like Arabs and big on patronymics because their socieities formed with small population. Europeans using geography is from population boom in landowners at the beginning of feudalism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":381.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el87w5z","c_root_id_B":"el92hx9","created_at_utc_A":1555631297,"created_at_utc_B":1555660077,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Might have something to do with the Norman invasion? Wouldn't make sense to rename Anglo-Norman aristocrats ' Of ___' when many of their names were already related to origins in France (e.g, de Mortimer, de Montgomery, Devereux\/d'\u00c9vreux, de Percy etc.).","human_ref_B":"They fell out of fashion at just the right time. Marked toponymic bynames were used everywhere in Middle English. Records from the period are littered with names like \"Robert of Lawedre\", \"Margaret of Slyngesby\", and \"William of Burcetur\". They were dead common among people in every stratum of society. Over the course of the Middle English period, it gradually became more popular to use unmarked toponymics, as in \"Nicholas Winchestre\", \"Johanne Gundervyle\", and \"Alianore Willughby\". The pendulum might've swung back the other way, but before it could the development of inherited surnames caused a sort of petrification of last names, keeping the majority in more-or-less their 16th or 17th century forms.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28780.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"beqs4i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"A lot of western European surnames begin with their word for \"of\" or \"from\" (van \/ von \/ de \/ del \/ da). Why isn't this the case in English?","c_root_id_A":"el92hx9","c_root_id_B":"el88jc8","created_at_utc_A":1555660077,"created_at_utc_B":1555631802,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"They fell out of fashion at just the right time. Marked toponymic bynames were used everywhere in Middle English. Records from the period are littered with names like \"Robert of Lawedre\", \"Margaret of Slyngesby\", and \"William of Burcetur\". They were dead common among people in every stratum of society. Over the course of the Middle English period, it gradually became more popular to use unmarked toponymics, as in \"Nicholas Winchestre\", \"Johanne Gundervyle\", and \"Alianore Willughby\". The pendulum might've swung back the other way, but before it could the development of inherited surnames caused a sort of petrification of last names, keeping the majority in more-or-less their 16th or 17th century forms.","human_ref_B":"Serfdom. Most nobles were part of houses or families, but there would be many so their actual surname was the place they owned. Most of population were peasant serfs possibly without surnames at all. As serfs got emancipated they sometimes take the names. In some countries Jewish surnames are similar versions of 'from place' Its not just Norman or Germanic in origin, they're like Arabs and big on patronymics because their socieities formed with small population. Europeans using geography is from population boom in landowners at the beginning of feudalism.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28275.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"a2veob","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Are there any cultures\/languages where people don't have names? Not mononyms like in Ancient Greece, I mean no names at all.","c_root_id_A":"eb5ttpc","c_root_id_B":"eb2as63","created_at_utc_A":1544039768,"created_at_utc_B":1543925532,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm a day late but no one else has mentioned the Ancient Roman naming system, where women did not have individual personal names! Most male Romans had a two-part name: *praenomen* (personal name) and *nomen* (family or clan name). Some distinguished individuals and their descendants also had a third, extra surname called the *cognomen*. So Gaius Julius Caesar = \"Gaius of the Caesar branch of the Julia clan.\" Roman women were not given a *praenomen*. All of Gaius Julius Caesar's daughters and sisters would be Julia Caesaris, which just translates as \"woman of the Caesar branch of the Julia clan\" because the endings are feminine. Within a family, women were differentiated by unofficial nicknames that often referenced their birth order (like First, Second, and Third or Elder and Younger). Roman women also didn't change their names upon marriage, so they remained named after their father's clan for life. PS: this is anecdotal so I can't verify, but my boyfriend (who grew up in rural northern China) claims that some of his relatives in small, isolated villages didn't use official names for daughters as recently as one or two generations ago. He has a family story about an aunt who registered for a government ID for the first time as an adult and had to make up a name for herself on the spot.","human_ref_B":"If you read *The Tale of Genji* in the original old Japanese, basically not a single character in the book is named, instead characters must be identified periphrastically with context clues, like the formality of the language register other people use when addressing them, their court ranks or noble titles (which change over time), or where they live, etcetera.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":114236.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"zbmxja","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some modern examples of hate groups pushing misogynistic, chauvinistic, racist, and anti-Semitic views through the lens of pseudoarchaeology? (This is in reference to the SAA's recent letter condemning the Netflix series \"Ancient Apocalypse.\") The full quote from the SAA letter is \"Hancock's narrative emboldens extreme voices that misrepresent archaeological knowledge in order to spread false historical narratives that are overtly misogynistic, chauvinistic, racist, and anti-Semitic.\" I am familiar with the older racist views that pushed these theories, but I'm curious about modern hate groups that echo these views. I've always assumed that modern hate groups don't even engage in attempts at intellectual arguments since these groups overlap heavily with groups that are strongly anti-intellectual and modern science, especially anthropology, would eviscerate any of their arguments.","c_root_id_A":"iyss339","c_root_id_B":"iyt38un","created_at_utc_A":1670104163,"created_at_utc_B":1670109173,"score_A":44,"score_B":75,"human_ref_A":"u\/the_gubna has provided a well sourced post, and I don't have a lot to add at this point. Except for this... Reddit is well populated by racists , white supremacists, and white nationalists who have developed a practiced hand at introducing racist topics into discussions on this website. Aside from the obvious subs that cater to that sort of thing, there are certain topics that are well worn among those types of people. I have learned from long experience on this sub and the archaeology sub, as well as the other social science and anthropology subs, that threads focused on the topic of Indo-Europeans, skin color, population movement, and anything relating to the repatriation of cultural patrimony will draw these people out of the woodwork in droves. They will also try to introduce topics as though they're just asking questions. It's so prevalent on the internet that it's gotten a label: JAQ-ing off. It's pretty obvious if you're familiar with it, especially because these kinds of posts and topics usually focus on things like IQ, crime rates, and other things. Frequently citing old, outdated, and\/or misleading statistics. Always subtly (or not so subtly) pushing towards the inevitable. The people who do this won't identify themselves as racist, obviously, and they certainly won't tell you what hate group they're a part of, if they even belong to one in any official capacity. But it's important to be on the lookout for those types of posts, and those types of posters. They're all pushing a version of the same narrative that white people of European descent are the only ones who should hold the reins of power. (And of course, power is what it's all about and you will see these types of posts, and this type of hate group activity, increasing as It becomes even more apparent that white people are no longer the only ones holding the range of power.)","human_ref_B":">What are some modern examples of hate groups pushing misogynistic, chauvinistic, racist, and anti-Semitic views I am wary of such questions. I don't know your motives and am not impugning them - but it is fair to say that many such questions are not in good faith, a frequent bit of soapboxing goes something like \"People on the internet are saying that Group Y are evil monsters, give me some arguments to dispel these misapprehensions\" . . . and the net effect of it is that it functions as an invitation to discuss racist and other noxious aspersions. A rhetorical trick. Very generally - and that's the only way I'd care to engage the topic -- there's a kind of a \"New Age\" thread of make believe archaeology and anthropology, which somehow ends up with an invidious implication for a particular group. The themes one sees in Hancock, or David Icke, fall into a broad bucket of Hyperborean Atlantis fantasy, and you'll find in it a noxious contemporary prejudice. The essence of the story is that sometime in prehistory there were \"root races\" and \"sub races\" with particular geographic locations; various virtues located in various places. One extrapolates from their ancient locations, imaginary notwithstanding, to assign contemporary peoples the characters - good and ill -- that are ascribed to these peoples. See Edelstein, Dan. \"Hyperborean Atlantis: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Madame Blavatsky, and the Nazi Myth.\" Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 35.1 (2006): 267-291. \\- for a good look at how this particular topos has played out . . .","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5010.0,"score_ratio":1.7045454545} {"post_id":"silmok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a particular reason why the indigenous religions of India\/southeast Asia have become so widely known in comparison to other indigenous religions around the world? Why have Buddhism and Hinduism fascinated western scholars so much, in comparison to other world religions? In school (in the US) we were taught the basic beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism, and these religions are a popular topic of study for westerners. It\u2019s common for young people to explore these religions, and there are numerous references to them in popular culture. However, I know almost nothing about the indigenous folk religions of China or Africa, despite the fact that these religions have a substantial number of followers. It\u2019s not even particularly easy to find English language resources on Chinese folk religion. Why have Buddhism and Hinduism fascinated westerners so much, in comparison to these other religions?","c_root_id_A":"hva1z07","c_root_id_B":"hv9ujfa","created_at_utc_A":1643812038,"created_at_utc_B":1643808720,"score_A":28,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Buddhism and hinduism are hardly folk religions, or at least they're less so than the abrahamic faiths. Hinduism and Buddhism are cosmopolitan, multi lingual, international, politically influential, literary and monastic based cultural-religious orders. they supplanted and integrated many, many local folk religions throughout most of Asia over the millenia of their development. The pantheon of Hindu gods can in part be seen as an integration of local cults into an orthodox worldview. And yes, it can be difficult to find information about those folk religions from outside the country of interest. They're tiny minority faiths, by nature non-literary. And are mostly practiced as family and in-group traditions, seen as of little interest to outsiders, or activity scorned. Chinese folk religion is not too hard to learn about in my experience, but then, i know a lot of Chinese people, and I'm thinking of sects of taoism and ancestor worship that are partly integrated with (prior) state religions such as Buddhism. Forget anthropology and outsiders opinions. They're not reaching out to convert you - You've got to go to the source to understand this stuff","human_ref_B":"I think this has a lot to do with the culture\/civilization distinction in the way that it informed early anthropology and history. In addition, Dharmic religions have a philosophical layer that gives them an interface with certain tendencies in Western philosophy that were very current from the 18th century onward. You will not find a debate around idealism, or empiricism, in, say, Aztec thought, but you will find such debates to an extreme degree of sophistication in the Dharmic religions. If such ever existed in the Americas, it was unsystematic and oral, or has been lost in the process of colonialization, whereas India and China preserved their native thought. This is why you find thinkers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche having more to say that is grounded in Dharmic thought than in some tribal religions of \"primitives\". Now, why the same ideas have enjoyed such a popularity in the West since, say, the 1960s (or even as early back as the Theosophical Society) as a feature of subcultures, is probably related to the philosophical appeal in some way, but might not be completely reducible to it. I do think that these are conceptually distinct phenomena at least. Perhaps also ask \/r\/askhistorians.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3318.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"silmok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a particular reason why the indigenous religions of India\/southeast Asia have become so widely known in comparison to other indigenous religions around the world? Why have Buddhism and Hinduism fascinated western scholars so much, in comparison to other world religions? In school (in the US) we were taught the basic beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism, and these religions are a popular topic of study for westerners. It\u2019s common for young people to explore these religions, and there are numerous references to them in popular culture. However, I know almost nothing about the indigenous folk religions of China or Africa, despite the fact that these religions have a substantial number of followers. It\u2019s not even particularly easy to find English language resources on Chinese folk religion. Why have Buddhism and Hinduism fascinated westerners so much, in comparison to these other religions?","c_root_id_A":"hvbsma4","c_root_id_B":"hva92h5","created_at_utc_A":1643835568,"created_at_utc_B":1643814932,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Start with the obvious: numbers. There are on the order of 1.5 billion people substantially influenced by Hindu religious traditions, a similar number influenced by Buddhist traditions. (I say \"influenced by\" to reflect that, for example, while there are \"only\" perhaps 200 million people in China actively practicing Buddhism, the long religious history means that Buddhist ideas are present even when people aren't going to temple). All told, roughly one person in two on the planet has a cultural outlook substantially influenced by Buddhism or Hinduism . . . that warrants a level of interest comparable only to Islam and Christianity. As to \"Western scholars\" -- scholars are \"fascinated\" by everything they don't know. They're fascinated by Islam, by animism, by folk religions around the world. Given the huge numbers of people whose worldview is substantially affected by Buddhism + Hinduism, the attention hardly seems disproportionate, indeed is likely underrepresented relative to Judaism and Christianity, if you were to compare scholarly production to the number of people practicing the religion. As a contemporary Western scholarly tradition, for example, the Bollingen Press got its start in 1940 with funding from Paul Mellon, inspired by his wife Mary Mellon, a particular interest in world religion generally, C. G. Jung and with a lot of material on Buddhism specifically. There was a particular connection to the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung, integrating world religion into a more general inquiry into the commonalities of human spirituality. Bollingen was acquired by Princeton University Press around 1970, and in their titles you can get a good sense of scholarly production over the years. https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/collections\/bollingen-series See: Kirsch, Thomas B. \"Bollingen; An Adventure in Collecting the Past.\" (1982): 46-48. Ellwood, Robert. The politics of myth: A study of CG Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell. SUNY Press, 1999. McGuire, William. \"IV Eranos, Jung, and the Mythic.\" Bollingen. Princeton University Press, 2021. 117-182. McGuire, William. Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past-Updated Edition. Princeton University Press, 2020.","human_ref_B":"Hinduism is really a collection of local beliefs that have somewhat of a structure around them, but are not the same as Abrahamic religions and their descendants today. There is really no Hindu Church that would be analogous to Roman Catholicism or Southern Baptist, etc. Buddhism is much the same way. There are many variations to both \"religions\" that are primarily based on location: Tibetan Buddhism vs. Japanese Zen Buddhism. There is a critique about the western study of Hinduism and to a lesser extent Buddhism, in that they have been assigned western structures by western researchers. Most \"Hindus\" only say they are Hindu to a westerner. So, in a nutshell, I think that we do know about the indigenous folkways throughout the world by looking at localized manifestations of the accepted symbols and cosmology of the World religions. The historical reason for the knowledge of East Asian religions more than South American, African religions is the expansion of the British Empire and the need for tea and Opium. I'm not making some big anti-colonial statement either. The earliest English translations of Hindu core texts (Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, etc.) coincide with the tea trade in these areas.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20636.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"o6kh20","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Has any paleoanthropologist had some fun critiquing\/engaging with \"2001: A Space Odyssey\"? The movie doesn't give that much detail to critique, but the book does a lot. I've seen historians \"critique\" fiction like Game of Thrones etc., really just using popular fiction to talk about the underlying history and have some fun with it.","c_root_id_A":"h2u50bx","c_root_id_B":"h2u6ow1","created_at_utc_A":1624498484,"created_at_utc_B":1624499391,"score_A":9,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":">The movie doesn't give that much detail to critique, but the book does a lot. I when I read it as a kid I remember being surprised that Arthur C Clarke's theory of mind for early hominids was much more anthropocentric -or maybe \"sapiocentric\" than mine. He certainly doesn't present Moon Watcher as anywhere near sapient. For example when Moon Watcher observes that his father has died, Clarke writes something like, (this won't be verbatim) \"He didn't know it was his father, for such a relation was utterly beyond his comprehension\". He just kind of glances at the corpse \"with the \\[dim melancholy?\\] that was the ancestor of sadness\". These are creatures that seem to me about as intelligent as baboons, rather than (say) australopithecines. Not an anthropologist, by the way. Not a cognitive ethologist either. ​ edit: This the passage in question, word for word. ​ \u201cHe did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.\u201d","human_ref_B":"Just last week I posted the first episode of my new podcast, *Screens of the Stone Age*, where we review movies about prehistory. 2001 is on my list, but this comment tells me that one of us should read the book before we get to that episode.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":907.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaapn5x","c_root_id_B":"gaankhk","created_at_utc_A":1603822614,"created_at_utc_B":1603821649,"score_A":19,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I like taking walks through university bookstores, libraries, departments etc when I can. Its something I do when travelling etc and once every six months in my own cities unis. Makes for a leisurely afternoon if nothing else and you never know what else you come across (signs for public lectures, film screenings, conferences)","human_ref_B":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","labels":1,"seconds_difference":965.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaaporh","c_root_id_B":"gaaq6vs","created_at_utc_A":1603822635,"created_at_utc_B":1603822873,"score_A":12,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"The blogs. The blogs are gold, and too many to keep up with. For example: https:\/\/anthropoliteia.net\/blog\/ https:\/\/anthrodendum.org\/ http:\/\/somatosphere.net\/","human_ref_B":"Twitter! I work in a tangential field, but many academics post their thoughts, ideas, materials on twitter. If you can't access it, most people will manage to get you unpaywalled material if you ask(or more likely just send you the pdf).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":238.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaankhk","c_root_id_B":"gaaq6vs","created_at_utc_A":1603821649,"created_at_utc_B":1603822873,"score_A":3,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","human_ref_B":"Twitter! I work in a tangential field, but many academics post their thoughts, ideas, materials on twitter. If you can't access it, most people will manage to get you unpaywalled material if you ask(or more likely just send you the pdf).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1224.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaaporh","c_root_id_B":"gaankhk","created_at_utc_A":1603822635,"created_at_utc_B":1603821649,"score_A":12,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The blogs. The blogs are gold, and too many to keep up with. For example: https:\/\/anthropoliteia.net\/blog\/ https:\/\/anthrodendum.org\/ http:\/\/somatosphere.net\/","human_ref_B":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","labels":1,"seconds_difference":986.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaathxw","c_root_id_B":"gaaqk89","created_at_utc_A":1603824449,"created_at_utc_B":1603823046,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Check out your university's Alumni association. I know University of Central Florida is free and lets you purchase a library card for I think $40 per year (maybe semester?). This should get you access to the library's resources.","human_ref_B":"I've been out of the game now for a couple years. I keep loose tabs on my area of interest through google scholar. Some stuff can be accessed for free as PDFs on there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1403.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaathxw","c_root_id_B":"gaarh3q","created_at_utc_A":1603824449,"created_at_utc_B":1603823478,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Check out your university's Alumni association. I know University of Central Florida is free and lets you purchase a library card for I think $40 per year (maybe semester?). This should get you access to the library's resources.","human_ref_B":"Follow the professional associations on twitter and\/or Facebook. For example, Society of Medical Anthropology has letters, white papers, conference schedules, etc. If you want to read *all* the articles in depth, you may be often out of luck, but you can also see trends and issues without any problems.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":971.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaathxw","c_root_id_B":"gaankhk","created_at_utc_A":1603824449,"created_at_utc_B":1603821649,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Check out your university's Alumni association. I know University of Central Florida is free and lets you purchase a library card for I think $40 per year (maybe semester?). This should get you access to the library's resources.","human_ref_B":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2800.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaaqk89","c_root_id_B":"gaankhk","created_at_utc_A":1603823046,"created_at_utc_B":1603821649,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I've been out of the game now for a couple years. I keep loose tabs on my area of interest through google scholar. Some stuff can be accessed for free as PDFs on there.","human_ref_B":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1397.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jj46ru","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How to keep up with latest work when outside of academia? Hey guys, A little different from most other questions here, but I graduated with an MA in Social-Cultural Anthropology about 6 years ago before moving into a different career path for work. I'm finding myself increasingly interested in my former studies again, but I'm not sure where to look to find the most up to date research. Is it all just paywalled unless you're currently in an institution or is there public facing sources I could read? Any recommendations? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gaankhk","c_root_id_B":"gaarh3q","created_at_utc_A":1603821649,"created_at_utc_B":1603823478,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"American Anthropology Association is a good place for call to papers l, events and job postings","human_ref_B":"Follow the professional associations on twitter and\/or Facebook. For example, Society of Medical Anthropology has letters, white papers, conference schedules, etc. If you want to read *all* the articles in depth, you may be often out of luck, but you can also see trends and issues without any problems.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1829.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"h8kpa2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Is shit talking universal across all cultures? I\u2019m from the United States and my friends and I talk trash to each other in good spirit. Do all cultures do this or is it only a Western thing?","c_root_id_A":"fut0w7c","c_root_id_B":"futlz5e","created_at_utc_A":1592147342,"created_at_utc_B":1592159025,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Could you give some clarification? It's important to know when and in what conversational context the trash talk is done, because \"trash talk\" could mean a lot of different things. For \"when\", is it done when you're just hanging out as friends or is it done when you're engaging in (friendly) competition with each other? As for \"conversational context\", is the trash talk most or all of the talking being done during that conversation, or is it an occasional insult in an otherwise non-competitive conversation?","human_ref_B":"I don't have any answer, but If I'm understanding you correctly, you may want to check literature concerning 'joking relations' or 'joking partners'. I heard about it in an article from David Graeber, where he describes it as \"a relationship marked by playful agression\" - I think that may come close to 'talk trash to each other in good spirit'. Maybe that's a place to start checking. He's referring to \"etnografic literature\" broadly and I've checked his bibliography to little avail. Graeber mentions an article from Mary Douglas on jokes and says it starts out as an analysis of joking relations though it \"is of little use in understanding the nature of joking relations in the traditional anthropological sense of the term\"; that is, not humorous, but 'playful agressiveness', which I think it's what you're interested in. I'll check it if I've got time because it sounds interesting, but meanwhile that's it :) \\- Graeber, D. (1997). Manners, Deference, and Private Property in Early Modern Europe. *Comparative Studies in Society and History,* *39*(4), 694-728. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from www.jstor.org\/stable\/179365 \\- Douglas, M. (1975). \"Jokes\". *Implicit Meanins: Essays in Anthropology.* London: Routledge. (https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/books\/9780203029909\/chapters\/10.4324\/9780203029909-17) Edit: typo.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11683.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"33h6dn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Do people in tribes who don't wear (many) clothes view western dress codes in the same way as westerners view islamic dress codes? I tried asking this on \/r\/askreddit but the mods removed it and then someone suggested this sub... Obviously this applies to tribes that have seen\/heard of western dress code. And know how we have rules about women covering boobs and genitals in most places. And how on an average day most women are covered from roughly the boobs to the knees at least. I know there are differences in reasons why Westerners and Muslims dress differently. But many remote tribes go round pretty much naked. Westerners probably cover 1\/2-3\/4s of skin depending on the weather and Muslim women probably cover 90%+ of skin, depending on whether they wear a hijab or burka etc. So the difference between what tribes people and westerners wear is similar to the difference between westerners and women in the middle east. Just a thought... NOTE: I'm not supporting the idea that female Muslims\/ women living in the middle east should be forced to completely cover up. Or that all us Westerners should go round naked all the time","c_root_id_A":"cql05iw","c_root_id_B":"cql0dej","created_at_utc_A":1429723313,"created_at_utc_B":1429723648,"score_A":31,"score_B":85,"human_ref_A":"Which tribes do you have in mind? Most of the images you've probably seen are probably people wearing traditional cultural dress for tourism\/entertainment purposes. The San bushpeople featured in The Gods Must be Crazy started dressing like this for as long as they've had contact with colonials. People dress appropriately for their climate and vocation everywhere in the world, except when we don culturally specific garb or uniforms. If you take a boat deep into the Amazon, the people you meet there will be wearing t-shirts and shorts. Aboriginal Australians love wearing name-brand sneakers just as much as the residents of Los Angeles. However, they do see television and movies and assume that is how foreigners normally dress, and yes this looks very odd to them. So, the U.S.A equivalent of grass skirts and loincloths would look something like this.","human_ref_B":"I recall documentary where a tribe in New Guinea that only wears penis sheaths was asked what they think about American clothing. The tribe man said we must all love the smell of our own shit. These guys run around in the hot wild all day, clothes would only slow them down and trap sweat and odor. So it was as alien to them as their customs are to us.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":335.0,"score_ratio":2.7419354839} {"post_id":"z1v13v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I've been looking at ancient art recently and noticed that while clothes vary in pre-modern societies, many societies seem to have more coverage for women than men, regardless of what is covered. Is there a reason for this? E.g., Egyptians, Greeks, a lot of native dress. Obviously even traditional dress in most places is subtly impacted by western norms which say that women must cover both their genitalia and their breasts, and enforces much more modesty generally, but it's something I'm noticing even in primary sources like artwork or traditional dress known to be in place before western influence.","c_root_id_A":"ixf6qln","c_root_id_B":"ixguama","created_at_utc_A":1669161171,"created_at_utc_B":1669197277,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I think that it\u2019s important to note that even in \u201cWestern\u201d societies, women are also expected to cover up. Especially historically. Think about how women were ticketed for not wearing enough to the beach pre-1960. But even in fundamentalist religious groups. Things have changed in the last 70 years, but even still. It may be legal in some places, but many women are still uncomfortable going topless in public because it isn\u2019t that socially acceptable. In media, women are often portrayed as scantily clad, but in real life women who dress like that are \u201csluts.\u201d Women are constantly worrying if we are showing too much, if we are dressed appropriately, yada yada. Ultimately, I would say that it is both sexually and power-driven. Men, historically that we know of, have very often (not always) had a lot of control over women. Women were not \u201ccitizens\u201d in Ancient Greece or Rome, save for Spartan women. They could not own property. Women have pretty much always, that we know of, been seen has the fertile body that needs protection on many many levels both practically and abstractly, hence the extra clothing. Clothing can and is used to signal aspects of our culture, this topic included. Women being covered is not universal, though. Nothing that I have said is universal. Look at societies that live near the equator or in the tropics. A lot of the time, they are almost naked. They (often) have animistic religion. I could go on and on about the differences here. Upon contact with \u201cwestern\u201d societies, clothes were introduced along with Christianity and they begin to cover up. However I think what you need to realize is that you are viewing this issue as an \u201cus vs them\u201d situation, which it is not. It is not western vs the world, nor is it only \u201cwestern\u201d culture encroaching upon others. Cultural exchange is normal and expected when two or more societies have contact. Western culture does tend to be hegemonic because of how colonialism has played out, yes. But, in relation to gender equality (which western society is by no means a leader of, still extremely flawed and unequal), when women in other societies who have very little power see \u201cwestern\u201d women who are generally independent and hold some degree of power, they want that. It sparks change. Because why wouldn\u2019t you want agency over yourself? I am not saying that one is better than the other, but this would be a factor in the shifts that you\u2019re observing. *edit* see the comment below about Roman and Greek women from someone who knows more about it than I for a more accurate picture.","human_ref_B":"women do have a higher resting comfort temperature than men, ie at the same temperature a woman would usually want to be dressed in warmer clothes than a man so that could play a factor even today, i see a lot more dudes comfortably wearing shorts in what i consider pretty cool weather. Women might wear skimpy clothes in cold weather too more these days, but they're probably feeling that cold more then men.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36106.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"z1v13v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I've been looking at ancient art recently and noticed that while clothes vary in pre-modern societies, many societies seem to have more coverage for women than men, regardless of what is covered. Is there a reason for this? E.g., Egyptians, Greeks, a lot of native dress. Obviously even traditional dress in most places is subtly impacted by western norms which say that women must cover both their genitalia and their breasts, and enforces much more modesty generally, but it's something I'm noticing even in primary sources like artwork or traditional dress known to be in place before western influence.","c_root_id_A":"ixguama","c_root_id_B":"ixgm0jg","created_at_utc_A":1669197277,"created_at_utc_B":1669190036,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"women do have a higher resting comfort temperature than men, ie at the same temperature a woman would usually want to be dressed in warmer clothes than a man so that could play a factor even today, i see a lot more dudes comfortably wearing shorts in what i consider pretty cool weather. Women might wear skimpy clothes in cold weather too more these days, but they're probably feeling that cold more then men.","human_ref_B":"In the later Roman Empire, after it was almost completely converted to Christianity, both men and women had nothing but their hands exposed in contemporary art Search for the famous mosaic images of the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora in the church of S. Vitale, Ravenna Italy. 6th century","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7241.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"9cgjht","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"In ancient societies, was hearing people have sex a common occurrence, or did couples somehow seek out privacy for intimate relations?","c_root_id_A":"e5aokan","c_root_id_B":"e5arhgr","created_at_utc_A":1535937426,"created_at_utc_B":1535940686,"score_A":68,"score_B":78,"human_ref_A":"Depends on who you are in the society. If you're a medieval English lord, you're going to have your own bedroom in which to fuck. If you're a medieval English peasant, however, your whole family is clustered into the same one (or at best two) room hovel, so everyone listens to you fuck. Privacy is absolutely non-existent. You don't have to go all the way back to 'ancient societies' for this to be true, either; Abraham Lincoln lived as a child in a one room cabin where he and his siblings would undoubtedly have heard their parents fuck, though the marriage bed was probably behind a curtain. So did many (most?) people of his low social class at the time. I've heard of people living like this well past the end of the Second World War in Appalachia, as well.","human_ref_B":"In the biography\/ethnography Nisa by Marjorie Shostak, Nisa describes hearing\/seeing her parents have sex in the home that they all share. She says that\u2019s how the children initially learn about sex. So probably not just common in ancient societies, but any society where privacy is at a minimum. As a contrast though, I\u2019ve heard from some of the people working with the Himba that people sneak out of camp to have consortships, so I\u2019m sure it also depends on the type of relationship the couple has.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3260.0,"score_ratio":1.1470588235} {"post_id":"3f2lyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"In my country (Bolivia) is generally believed that the Incas ruling class belonged to a different ethnicity than the rest of the Inca empire. Is there any historical evidence of this assumption being true? [X-Post from Askhistorians] Most textbooks when I was in school stated this based on the myth of the foundation of the empire. I'm curious to know if there is any truth to it.","c_root_id_A":"ctkswxh","c_root_id_B":"ctkto3l","created_at_utc_A":1438206285,"created_at_utc_B":1438207406,"score_A":7,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"And as a related question, how did life differ between the Quechua and Aymara peoples in the Inca Empire? Were there large divides based on ethnicity and\/or language?","human_ref_B":"I also posted in AH: In a way, this is correct. This is mostly due to the nature of it being an empire. The Inca were a cultural group from southern Peru who really start to distingush themselves from neighboring groups during what is called Peru\u00b4s Late Intermediate Period, a time of many independent local polities between the Wari (and Tiwanaku) and Inca empires from 1100-1450 AD. Contrary to a lot of laypeople\u00b4s ideas that you\u00b4ll see, the Inca were hardly the only ones in the Andes at this time. There were the powerful urbanized Chimu in the north coast of Peru, the Pukara folks north of Titicaca in their fortifed hilltop village-fortresses, Aymara kingdoms to the south of Titicaca, \u00a8Aquillpo\u00a8cultura llama-herders in highland Peru, etc.... Inca rulers, called the sapa Inca, during the 15th century started a campaign of conquest, annexation, alliances, and crafty politics that would craft an empire across the whole Andes. Andean peoples of all varieties were absorbed into the Inca empire, but that didn\u00b4t make them Inca. It\u00b4s the same as with any other empire. The locals of Judea and Gaul were \u00a8Roman\u00a8 in the sense that they were under the caesar\u00b4s imperium, but they were in no way ethnically Roman. Now, there is a key difference. The Roman Empire lasted long enough that folks made it all the way to the empire from families in North Africa or Hispania. There wasn\u00b4t as clearly defined of a ruling class ethnicity. For the Inca, hereditary right played a huge role, tied in with a deep tradition of ancestor veneration in the Andes. The ayllu is the archetypical Andean organizational unit that is heavily tied to a venerated ancestor(s) and is much political as it is familial. In addition to their default ruling status as conquerors, the hereditary element of politics maintained a distinct Inca class. TL;DR The Inca were just one of many Andean cultures, who conquered or absorbed other ones into their own empire. They maintained rule through strong hereditary traditions. Think Rome: most people in the Roman Empire weren\u00b4t actually even from Italy. (It so happens that I too am in Bolivia at the moment, so if you want more details on this cursory answer (on ancestor veneration or the like) or have more questions, I\u00b4ll be in La Paz with better internet on Saturday.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1121.0,"score_ratio":9.1428571429} {"post_id":"3f2lyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"In my country (Bolivia) is generally believed that the Incas ruling class belonged to a different ethnicity than the rest of the Inca empire. Is there any historical evidence of this assumption being true? [X-Post from Askhistorians] Most textbooks when I was in school stated this based on the myth of the foundation of the empire. I'm curious to know if there is any truth to it.","c_root_id_A":"ctkswxh","c_root_id_B":"ctkuhi0","created_at_utc_A":1438206285,"created_at_utc_B":1438208670,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"And as a related question, how did life differ between the Quechua and Aymara peoples in the Inca Empire? Were there large divides based on ethnicity and\/or language?","human_ref_B":"The above answer is pretty comprehensive, but I'll add a couple of things. Intermarriage between different ethnicities was allowed, but ethnicities were still heavily divided in the Inca empire. Unlike many empires that attempted cultural assimilation, the Inca sought to keep a strong separation between the Inca and conquered polities. For example, the people of conquered polities were required to wear their traditional clothing rather than adopting Inca fashions. Nobles of other ethnicities existed within the governmental system, but they were second class compared to Inca nobles. Non-Inca were also banned from certain locations such as the Qoricancha (the sun temple) in Cuzco. I read for a class R. Tom Zuidema's Inca Civilization in Cuzco which explains all this in detail, but be warned, the writing is very inaccessible.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2385.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"muabz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How faithfully do oral traditions retell events? Hi all, I was wondering if there has been work that discusses how faithfully stories in oral traditions are passed down through the generations. I ask this mainly because, I imagine that initially when an event happens and is told as a story, it might not be as \"fantastic\" as we often hear in the retellings that survive. So would the parts that seem fanciful to us now be exaggerations that were added throughout the many retellings? Or am I going about this the wrong way? Thanks a lot for your help.","c_root_id_A":"gv6svyy","c_root_id_B":"gv75zce","created_at_utc_A":1618916826,"created_at_utc_B":1618925043,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There are generally three ways that oral traditions get passed down. (I'm not near my books now, so forgive lack of sources) 1) There's oral transmission as we might understand it in the modern world. For example, something amusing happens to me on a bus. I tell the story to my friend. He remembers the story (roughly) and tells the story to his friend, perhaps embellishing, perhaps exaggerating, perhaps only getting the gist of it right. That guy passes the story on again, doing the same thing. After a few more transmissions the story gets back to me, but by now so changed that I don't even recognise it as my own. This method is of course Very Unreliable. 2) There's rote learning. You take a story and learn it word for word and syllable by syllable. Once you've done this you are no longer transmitting the gist. To take an example think of song-lyrics you know. If I asked you what the lyrics to Yesterday by the Beatles were, you would NOT say \"Oh.. um... the day before this I was happy, but now I'm surrounded by troubles\". You'd be quite likely to say \"Yesterday all my troubles were so far away\" and you'd be off by one syllable (were\/seem). Try this with any other thing you know by heart, e.g. the Lord's Prayer. It's surprisingly difficult to give the gist or express it in any other words. This method appears to be very reliable. One study that I remember (don't have my books) is that Maori's (I think) traditionally have to learn to recite their family tree. It's possible to take families that have been separated for hundreds of years and find the point that their two recitations coincide, showing that they're related. 3) There's improvisational poetry\/storytelling. This is where a professional bard is asked to tell the story of X. He's able to do this by bringing in set elements and phrases that he has learned and using them to pad the story out. There's a fascinating example of this from mid-C20th Crete. During WWII there was a British special forces operation to kidnap a Nazi general on Greece, Major General Kreipe. This is a very well documented military operation and indeed the leading soldier wrote a book about it. We basically know exactly what happened. At the time, though, Crete still had traditionally storytellers who would improvise as described above. In the 1950s an anthropologist asked one such storyteller to to tell the tale of the kidnapping, which was very well known on the island. The result, was almost nothing like what happened, but it did involve all the standard elements of a Cretan story. There was a beautiful white horse (no horse was involved), there was a beautiful Greek maiden who had been captured by the evil general and forced to dance for him (no), the kidnapping was led by her brave Cretan lover (it wasn't). Etc etc etc. This method, as you can see, is very unreliable. Of course, its' possible that a story could go through all these processes. Something real happens, it is repeated conversationally giving the gist. Then a bard improvises a poem about it. Then that poem is considered so good that people start learning it by heart. Also, what I've written here is a simplistic outline. Other things are of course possible, including making stuff up out of whole cloth, and many other methods. I don't have my books and I'm working largely from memory. Also not a professional anthropologist. But I hope that helps.","human_ref_B":"Just as an addendum to the other posts here: in the modern Western world we claim to place great emphasis on \"history\" and \"accuracy.\" But even in popular Western culture we have the phrase, \"History is written by the victors.\" That's basically a tacit acknowledgement that in fact we're not really interested in the facts. We often claim to value accuracy and reliability of historical accounts, but the reality-- and even our own sayings-- contradicts this myth. We value historical accounts that reinforce our own world view(s). And we massage and selectively edit history to fit our narratives. Hence, Thomas Jefferson is revered as a polymath statesman who wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped create the United States government, and not reviled as a hypocrite slaveowner who raped a 14 year old girl repeatedly and fathered several children with her (they and she remaining slaves despite being his children and the mother to his children). That's not to say that oral traditions do not contain information that can be overlaid on the real world \/ cross-checked. We can see this in, for example, the relatively recent study of Australian Aboriginal stories, and evidence that those stories preserve memories of sea level rise \/ inundation of the landscape more than 7,000 years ago. But just one look at Facebook and the struggle with fake news makes it pretty clear that **we** collectively don't value objective, factual accounts of historical or modern events as much as we like to pretend we do. Is it any surprise that oral traditions would be any different?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8217.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"muabz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How faithfully do oral traditions retell events? Hi all, I was wondering if there has been work that discusses how faithfully stories in oral traditions are passed down through the generations. I ask this mainly because, I imagine that initially when an event happens and is told as a story, it might not be as \"fantastic\" as we often hear in the retellings that survive. So would the parts that seem fanciful to us now be exaggerations that were added throughout the many retellings? Or am I going about this the wrong way? Thanks a lot for your help.","c_root_id_A":"gv75zce","c_root_id_B":"gv70uve","created_at_utc_A":1618925043,"created_at_utc_B":1618922238,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just as an addendum to the other posts here: in the modern Western world we claim to place great emphasis on \"history\" and \"accuracy.\" But even in popular Western culture we have the phrase, \"History is written by the victors.\" That's basically a tacit acknowledgement that in fact we're not really interested in the facts. We often claim to value accuracy and reliability of historical accounts, but the reality-- and even our own sayings-- contradicts this myth. We value historical accounts that reinforce our own world view(s). And we massage and selectively edit history to fit our narratives. Hence, Thomas Jefferson is revered as a polymath statesman who wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped create the United States government, and not reviled as a hypocrite slaveowner who raped a 14 year old girl repeatedly and fathered several children with her (they and she remaining slaves despite being his children and the mother to his children). That's not to say that oral traditions do not contain information that can be overlaid on the real world \/ cross-checked. We can see this in, for example, the relatively recent study of Australian Aboriginal stories, and evidence that those stories preserve memories of sea level rise \/ inundation of the landscape more than 7,000 years ago. But just one look at Facebook and the struggle with fake news makes it pretty clear that **we** collectively don't value objective, factual accounts of historical or modern events as much as we like to pretend we do. Is it any surprise that oral traditions would be any different?","human_ref_B":"Sanskrit, for Hinduism, was principally an oral tradition (many religious texts were songs). But, unlike writing, it was important for people to not modify the texts. So.... In Sanskrit, it kind of is the reverse of what we hear habitually. Oral tradition was more \"conservative\" than the written one, where the point was to modify the texts in its own way. In other words, you could say that the \"hate\" for oral tradition for many westerner researcher kind of is ethnocentric. Also, the point here is, even if oral tradition change the \"original one\", who cares ? That you read a text or hear one, the point is to contextualize to give it sens. That is true for both. So, even if an oral \"text\" is more or less false, if you know how to contextualize it, it will give you a part of the reality. As anthropologist, you want to know about people and their live. There is no such thing as \"truth\" and \"lies\". The \"truth\" is nothing more than a point of view the changes with time, be it in the same person through its live. Context is key. Without it, even a text would mean nothing. Many texts were falsely interpreted because there weren't contextualize well. This is an error that is more easily avoidable with oral tradition because the \"text\" (in a semiotic point of view) is always recontextualise (people could just forget the origins of the oral tradition, but this is also a problem with recent texts). Both have their own positive and negatives.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2805.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"muabz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How faithfully do oral traditions retell events? Hi all, I was wondering if there has been work that discusses how faithfully stories in oral traditions are passed down through the generations. I ask this mainly because, I imagine that initially when an event happens and is told as a story, it might not be as \"fantastic\" as we often hear in the retellings that survive. So would the parts that seem fanciful to us now be exaggerations that were added throughout the many retellings? Or am I going about this the wrong way? Thanks a lot for your help.","c_root_id_A":"gv75zce","c_root_id_B":"gv6v9n0","created_at_utc_A":1618925043,"created_at_utc_B":1618918620,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Just as an addendum to the other posts here: in the modern Western world we claim to place great emphasis on \"history\" and \"accuracy.\" But even in popular Western culture we have the phrase, \"History is written by the victors.\" That's basically a tacit acknowledgement that in fact we're not really interested in the facts. We often claim to value accuracy and reliability of historical accounts, but the reality-- and even our own sayings-- contradicts this myth. We value historical accounts that reinforce our own world view(s). And we massage and selectively edit history to fit our narratives. Hence, Thomas Jefferson is revered as a polymath statesman who wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped create the United States government, and not reviled as a hypocrite slaveowner who raped a 14 year old girl repeatedly and fathered several children with her (they and she remaining slaves despite being his children and the mother to his children). That's not to say that oral traditions do not contain information that can be overlaid on the real world \/ cross-checked. We can see this in, for example, the relatively recent study of Australian Aboriginal stories, and evidence that those stories preserve memories of sea level rise \/ inundation of the landscape more than 7,000 years ago. But just one look at Facebook and the struggle with fake news makes it pretty clear that **we** collectively don't value objective, factual accounts of historical or modern events as much as we like to pretend we do. Is it any surprise that oral traditions would be any different?","human_ref_B":"The classic work on the topic is \"The Singer Of Tales\" by Lord and Parry, where they investigated Balkan bards' techniques for passing on oral epics, which involved both patterned repetition and improvisation. More recently Jack Goody has written \"The Power Of The Written Tradition\", \"Myth, Ritual and The Oral\", and a host of other books related to the subject. In close studies of African griots he found oral tradition is quite flexible, and written tradition more stable, though as some others point out, written tradition can also be flexible, it just takes longer to change. In \"The World of Odysseus\", Moses Finley, points out that while many Bronze age details enrich the Homeric epics, the more mundane background details of the works reflect daily life the original audience at the time of their composition in the Iron Age.To answer your question more directly, when stories are retold, and retold, not only do they become more fanciful, they become more inaccurate (relative to the actual events and\/or the first version). Heroes become villains, and the reverse. The \"outs\" become the \"ins\", ordinary things become magnified (the fish keeps getting bigger!), and events and people become confused and conflated. In \"The Nibelugenlied\" or \"The Song of Roland\" you will find things from different eras all co-existing in the mythic \"story-time\". On a more down to earth level, in the PBS geneology program, \"Finding Your Roots\", host Dr. Henry Louis Gates finds that family lore is almost never accurate, and exhibits the same issues of conflation and exaggeration found in oral tradition.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6423.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"muabz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How faithfully do oral traditions retell events? Hi all, I was wondering if there has been work that discusses how faithfully stories in oral traditions are passed down through the generations. I ask this mainly because, I imagine that initially when an event happens and is told as a story, it might not be as \"fantastic\" as we often hear in the retellings that survive. So would the parts that seem fanciful to us now be exaggerations that were added throughout the many retellings? Or am I going about this the wrong way? Thanks a lot for your help.","c_root_id_A":"gv70uve","c_root_id_B":"gv6v9n0","created_at_utc_A":1618922238,"created_at_utc_B":1618918620,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Sanskrit, for Hinduism, was principally an oral tradition (many religious texts were songs). But, unlike writing, it was important for people to not modify the texts. So.... In Sanskrit, it kind of is the reverse of what we hear habitually. Oral tradition was more \"conservative\" than the written one, where the point was to modify the texts in its own way. In other words, you could say that the \"hate\" for oral tradition for many westerner researcher kind of is ethnocentric. Also, the point here is, even if oral tradition change the \"original one\", who cares ? That you read a text or hear one, the point is to contextualize to give it sens. That is true for both. So, even if an oral \"text\" is more or less false, if you know how to contextualize it, it will give you a part of the reality. As anthropologist, you want to know about people and their live. There is no such thing as \"truth\" and \"lies\". The \"truth\" is nothing more than a point of view the changes with time, be it in the same person through its live. Context is key. Without it, even a text would mean nothing. Many texts were falsely interpreted because there weren't contextualize well. This is an error that is more easily avoidable with oral tradition because the \"text\" (in a semiotic point of view) is always recontextualise (people could just forget the origins of the oral tradition, but this is also a problem with recent texts). Both have their own positive and negatives.","human_ref_B":"The classic work on the topic is \"The Singer Of Tales\" by Lord and Parry, where they investigated Balkan bards' techniques for passing on oral epics, which involved both patterned repetition and improvisation. More recently Jack Goody has written \"The Power Of The Written Tradition\", \"Myth, Ritual and The Oral\", and a host of other books related to the subject. In close studies of African griots he found oral tradition is quite flexible, and written tradition more stable, though as some others point out, written tradition can also be flexible, it just takes longer to change. In \"The World of Odysseus\", Moses Finley, points out that while many Bronze age details enrich the Homeric epics, the more mundane background details of the works reflect daily life the original audience at the time of their composition in the Iron Age.To answer your question more directly, when stories are retold, and retold, not only do they become more fanciful, they become more inaccurate (relative to the actual events and\/or the first version). Heroes become villains, and the reverse. The \"outs\" become the \"ins\", ordinary things become magnified (the fish keeps getting bigger!), and events and people become confused and conflated. In \"The Nibelugenlied\" or \"The Song of Roland\" you will find things from different eras all co-existing in the mythic \"story-time\". On a more down to earth level, in the PBS geneology program, \"Finding Your Roots\", host Dr. Henry Louis Gates finds that family lore is almost never accurate, and exhibits the same issues of conflation and exaggeration found in oral tradition.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3618.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"mdxx48","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Have most cultures valued precious metals and gems roughly the same? I\u2019ve read different histories and in many of them, gold is highly valued. Is that more or less the same across (known) cultures? What about other items? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"gsco1qz","c_root_id_B":"gsder2r","created_at_utc_A":1616799701,"created_at_utc_B":1616811505,"score_A":25,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"This podcast episode makes a good focused argument for why gold is a logical choice to base value upon, although it\u2019s not the most explicitly anthropological approach. Besides that, pretty (eg sparkly or colourful) things catch the eyes of both humans and non-humans (like birds) as being attention getting and special, but there could also be deeper things going on here, as I\u2019m not an expert on this at all.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s dependent mostly on the socio-cultural beliefs of a given society and how those beliefs shape their values. Some hold no value in metal and gemstones, others do. It\u2019s also dependent on what type of economic system a society uses to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Not all societies use money obviously! I believe Egypt is a good example, they valued lapis lazuli not for its rarity but for its deep blue color and spiritual significance. Take another example: gold. Half the world was ransomed for it once it became too rare. the fabled tale of the Ciudad de El Dorado (which likely doesn\u2019t or didn\u2019t ever exist) very well could have been based off of reality, there did once exist a society deep in the Amazon jungle, who were reported by Spanish conquistador accounts to literally throw their gold objects into the lake... As well as adorning their bodies and painting their bodies with gold pigments, a \u201croyal\u201d member would walk naked covered in gold into the lake as part of a ritual we dont know much about nor will we ever, as archaeological evidence of this society are scarce at best. (of course they took this to mean \u201cthese people have SO much gold theyre literally ThroWiNg it aWaY!\u201d This isnt the truth obviously, but tells us alot about the formation of the El Dorado. Modern anthropologists and archaeologists posit that for this society, gold was valuable only to some extent, and viewed as having more utilitarian purposes than the way the Old World worshipped gold. It was just another pigment, just another metal to be shaped into items of adornment... still holding value but very plentiful, is it wasnt a.) cherished as old world societys did and b.) not necessarily having an economic system backed by gold\/money\/coins etc, this amazonian society didnt conceptualize it as \u201cmoney\u201d and instead had other robust economic systems (likely trade but i dont know as much about that, im a mayanist not a specialist in amazonian cultures) This is all info im trying to remember off the top of my head from a lecture I heard on this very subject about a year ago, but the professors name is gone from my mind so i apologize about that! I wish i had my source As far as gems, that I can answer! Depends on availability of gemstones within a given region and subsequently depends on the rarity of those gemstones in said area. For example, in the case of the preclassic and Classic Maya civilizations, jade was a very highly prized stone. It was painstakingly carved with merely a slurry of water and sand and some specialized tools by artisans who dedicated their lives to learning their art, some even carving intricate Mayan Glyphs (the written form of the ancient language) into jade. Additionally, it was used to make earrings, piercing gauges and spools through the ear and lip, small beads of jade could be strung together to create necklaces bracelets and other forms of sewn jewelry. It could be made into a multitude of prestige body adornment and in some cases was even inlaid into teeth!! Of course, this was only worn by the most elite members of society, as jade was considered by the Maya to hold spiritual importance and could only be worn by those with royal blood. I could go on and on, but past this point has little to do with your question haha so i\u2019ll get back on track. While not considered a \u201cgemstone\u201d per say in the old world, Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asian civilizations did also prize jade for its range of colors and lusters as well and made beautiful prestige objects with it that not only denoted class but were also feats of craftsmanship only rivaled by the Maya imho The Mayan have not been shown to craft any prestigious \u201criches\u201d of their culture with much else besides jade. Sometimes other stones like obsidian,chert, and limestone of course. But im pretty sure there arent any ruby mines in mesoamerica. And if there are, theyre covered by dense jungle unable to be found by modern means let along ancient ones. I hope this helps answer your question! A deeper look into any culture will reveal these interesting facts about their societies and its all thanks to the material culture they leave behind...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11804.0,"score_ratio":2.12} {"post_id":"jbp7eq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Similarities in geometric patterns in folk art. I noticed that Eastern Europeans use geometric designs in their traditional embroidery that looks similar to Arabic bedouin Sadu. Iranic tribes also have similar patterns, while a difference is apparent with Uzbek embroidery. What is the history of these patterns and why is their geographical scope as wide as from Arabia to Scandinavia?","c_root_id_A":"g8wxvlf","c_root_id_B":"g8xb7ko","created_at_utc_A":1602780839,"created_at_utc_B":1602787457,"score_A":9,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"In his essay, German art historian Wilhelm Worringer speculated that art could be split into two categories, \"abstract\" and \"realistic\", with either one being preferred by a society at any given moment. Alain de Botton's \"Architecture of happiness\" touches on Worringer's essay ~~the determinant of \"abstract\" art~~ and what determines preference of \"abstract\" art in a society: \"Through the millennia, the abstract had enjoyed popularity in Byzantium, Persia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Congo, Mali and Zaire, and it was just then, at the opening of the twentieth century, returning to prominence in the West. This was an art governed by a spirit of symmetry, order, regularity and geometry. Whether in the form of sculpture or carpets, mosaics or pottery, whether in the work of a basket weaver from Wewak or that of a painter from New York, abstract art aspired to create a tranquil atmosphere marked by flat, repetitive visual planes, the whole being free of any allusion to the living world.\" \"The determinant lay, he[Worringer] believed, in those values which the society in question was lacking, for it would love in art whatever it did not possess in sufficient supply within itself. Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm \u2013 societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of physical danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion.\" So it can be that geometric designs universally appealed to the Eastern Europeans and the Arabs because of their ability to create a feeling of calmness through their repetitiveness. Edit Phrasing fixed, capital letters for names","human_ref_B":"You might also ask what it is about the medium of weaving and textile that lends itself to repetitive, geometric shapes. Then there's the function of the art object; wearing a shawl with a pattern looks much better than wearing something dependent upon foreshadowing, composition, shading, etc., which will just get distorted. There is some work on the reoccurring symbols of cave paintings: http:\/\/www.visual-arts-cork.com\/prehistoric\/abstract-signs.htm (and there's a YouTube out there on this, which of course I can't find). Then there's the \"triforce\" swords of Arslantepe, from about 5kya: https:\/\/turkisharchaeonews.net\/article\/march-2020-turkish-archaeology Humans love a good Triforce it seems. In contrast, here's a relatively \"realistic\" rhino from 3kya: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/ArtefactPorn\/comments\/jbo4up\/rhino_terracotta_3000_bce_mohenjodaro_indus\/ It's great, but you can imagine how the tools available might lend themselves better to repeating patterns, say, triangles the width of a chisel, rather than precise curved lines.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6618.0,"score_ratio":2.8888888889} {"post_id":"jbp7eq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Similarities in geometric patterns in folk art. I noticed that Eastern Europeans use geometric designs in their traditional embroidery that looks similar to Arabic bedouin Sadu. Iranic tribes also have similar patterns, while a difference is apparent with Uzbek embroidery. What is the history of these patterns and why is their geographical scope as wide as from Arabia to Scandinavia?","c_root_id_A":"g8wxvlf","c_root_id_B":"g8xoa45","created_at_utc_A":1602780839,"created_at_utc_B":1602794061,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"In his essay, German art historian Wilhelm Worringer speculated that art could be split into two categories, \"abstract\" and \"realistic\", with either one being preferred by a society at any given moment. Alain de Botton's \"Architecture of happiness\" touches on Worringer's essay ~~the determinant of \"abstract\" art~~ and what determines preference of \"abstract\" art in a society: \"Through the millennia, the abstract had enjoyed popularity in Byzantium, Persia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Congo, Mali and Zaire, and it was just then, at the opening of the twentieth century, returning to prominence in the West. This was an art governed by a spirit of symmetry, order, regularity and geometry. Whether in the form of sculpture or carpets, mosaics or pottery, whether in the work of a basket weaver from Wewak or that of a painter from New York, abstract art aspired to create a tranquil atmosphere marked by flat, repetitive visual planes, the whole being free of any allusion to the living world.\" \"The determinant lay, he[Worringer] believed, in those values which the society in question was lacking, for it would love in art whatever it did not possess in sufficient supply within itself. Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm \u2013 societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of physical danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion.\" So it can be that geometric designs universally appealed to the Eastern Europeans and the Arabs because of their ability to create a feeling of calmness through their repetitiveness. Edit Phrasing fixed, capital letters for names","human_ref_B":"A bit outside anthropology but Nikos Salingaros and Christopher Alexander hypothesize that patterning in general follows the universal distribution because of biophilia. That is to say we like patterned surfaces that are close in scale to our fingers and hands because this replicates the same fractal distribution that we see in nature (many small elements, a few intermediate branching elements and a large central element. Weaving patterns also replicate because they're algorithms. Weavers independently discover patterns because weaving patterns are step wise forms of computation (remember the first computers were created from weaving technology. That's why they used punch cards). Just as there's a finite number of 1 dimensional variations of cellular automata there's a finite number of variation of a 16x16 or 32x32 or 64x64 weavers grid. Moreover like music there are elements that humans find pleasing: strong centres, alternating repetition, echoes, levels of scale etc. This narrows the space for cultural selection to a smaller set of pattern producing algorithms which become more likely to appear the smaller the grid size is or in cultural forms that favour repeating elements.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13222.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"jbp7eq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Similarities in geometric patterns in folk art. I noticed that Eastern Europeans use geometric designs in their traditional embroidery that looks similar to Arabic bedouin Sadu. Iranic tribes also have similar patterns, while a difference is apparent with Uzbek embroidery. What is the history of these patterns and why is their geographical scope as wide as from Arabia to Scandinavia?","c_root_id_A":"g8xoa45","c_root_id_B":"g8xd3b2","created_at_utc_A":1602794061,"created_at_utc_B":1602788389,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"A bit outside anthropology but Nikos Salingaros and Christopher Alexander hypothesize that patterning in general follows the universal distribution because of biophilia. That is to say we like patterned surfaces that are close in scale to our fingers and hands because this replicates the same fractal distribution that we see in nature (many small elements, a few intermediate branching elements and a large central element. Weaving patterns also replicate because they're algorithms. Weavers independently discover patterns because weaving patterns are step wise forms of computation (remember the first computers were created from weaving technology. That's why they used punch cards). Just as there's a finite number of 1 dimensional variations of cellular automata there's a finite number of variation of a 16x16 or 32x32 or 64x64 weavers grid. Moreover like music there are elements that humans find pleasing: strong centres, alternating repetition, echoes, levels of scale etc. This narrows the space for cultural selection to a smaller set of pattern producing algorithms which become more likely to appear the smaller the grid size is or in cultural forms that favour repeating elements.","human_ref_B":"I don't have much to add on your exact question OP, but as somebody interested in Mesoamerican (Aztec, Maya, etc) history and culture, i've noticed that the Step Fret common in Mesoamerican art also shows up in some Andean (Inca, Moche, etc) art. I'm curious if there's any research or really anything at all on if the motif was develoiped independently, if it spread between the two regions, or if it pre-dates major human settlement in either area to when humans were still spreading across the Americas and represents some sort of Pan-American motif as a result (similar motifs do show up in Southwestern US\/Oasisamerican art, but that's gifnciantly geogfaphically closer to Mesoamerica then the Andes is and contact between those two areas is already known, wheras Mesoamericna-Andean contact isn't as well documented AFAIK)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5672.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"evciuf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Did native Americans have any access to alcohol pre-contact? Had they not invented it? That seems to be the suggestion, based on historical accounts of how adversely native Americans were affected by the white man's *firewater.*","c_root_id_A":"ffuwpv2","c_root_id_B":"ffuwna5","created_at_utc_A":1580250788,"created_at_utc_B":1580250744,"score_A":166,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"They did have fermented alcoholic beverages, yes, notably the Chicha (Maiz beer) in the Andes, the Cayum (Cassava wine) in the area of Brazil, not to mention the Tepache\/Alua common from Mexico to Brazil (Corn or pineapple wine). I'm not very knowledgeable about North America or the Plata region tbh. But there's a big difference between light beers and fresh wines and destilled alcoholic beverages (aka Firewater), which the natives in the Americas hadn't yet managed to do.","human_ref_B":"Link to an answer I wrote about this topic on r\/askhistorians some time ago: Here","labels":1,"seconds_difference":44.0,"score_ratio":2.8620689655} {"post_id":"evciuf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Did native Americans have any access to alcohol pre-contact? Had they not invented it? That seems to be the suggestion, based on historical accounts of how adversely native Americans were affected by the white man's *firewater.*","c_root_id_A":"ffw73ea","c_root_id_B":"ffv0q83","created_at_utc_A":1580287411,"created_at_utc_B":1580253030,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'll just post multiple things that, in my experience, many get wrong due to stereotypes\/ignorance: Alcohol =\/= distilled spirits like \"firewater\". They had access to alcohol, because a fruit that hangs off a tree is alcoholic. The concentration would have been MUCH weaker however. Alcoholism =\/= Alcohol intolerance. The former is what Americans stereotypically struggle with, and also what North Europeans struggle with relative to Southerners (though by a much smaller differential). The latter is what East Asians and arguably Middle Easterners struggle with. Alcohol is metabolized in two steps: Alcohol --> Acetaldehyde --> Vinegar. Vinegar is harmless, Alcohol is mildly toxic, Acetaldehyde is carcinogenic. There are two majorly studied gene variants. One limits the digestion of Alcohol. The other limits the digestion of Aldehyde. Alcohol intolerance map Alcohol intolerance map with different samples taken from this study Incidentally, agriculturists like Northeast\/Southeast Asians, as well as Middle Easterners (and their admixed zones in South Europe and East Africa) have a high incidence of this allele. Peoples who were introduced to agriculture later, like Indians, Africans, North Europeans and Americans, have zero incidence. This allele limits metabolism of alcohol, which in turn limits the damage aldehyde can do. It would also make you a lightweight drinker. Aldehyde intolerance map Note that this one is FAR more limited. Peak in southern China, sharp dropoff in Beijing and Vietnam, and drops to zero anywhere outside that. Groups like the Yakut, Malaysians, Taiwanese indigenes, Mongols, all of whom have huge swathes of Chinese-related ancestry, have a 0 incidence of this allele, suggesting that the aldehyde variant arose after \"Northeast Asians\" diverged from both Siberian groups and Southeast Asians. **Most importantly, both of these alleles have an exactly 0% incidence in Native Americans. N. Americans can process both alcohol and acetaldehyde fully, and do not display a blush reaction.** Rather, they *may* have the opposite problem--a sort of behavioral genetic adaptation to alcohol which has not taken place, and can only take place with extended agricultural life. Like I said before, a similar but smaller pattern is seen in Europe, where the more \"forager\" north has greater alcoholism rates than the more agricultural and Mideast-admixed south. It might also be the case that among the \"non-agricultural\", behavioral alcohol tolerance (aka addiction resistance) is higher in Southern peoples, who would have had much higher paleolithic access to sugar (and thus alcohol).","human_ref_B":"You may interested in these two answers I wrote on \/r\/AskHistorians, * What kinds of alcoholic beverages did the Native Americans\/First Nations consume? * Possible distillation in West Mexico","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34381.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"jla2vz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When did haircuts\/shaving start? I was wondering today while I got my haircut when it all started. Apes obviously don\u2019t cut their hair or shave it, so how far along the evolutionary line did cutting our hair and shaving begin? Did it start as a style thing to decorate our bodies, or was it a functional thing to keep our hair out of our faces or give enemies one less thing to grab?","c_root_id_A":"garqncf","c_root_id_B":"gaqp7ce","created_at_utc_A":1604213000,"created_at_utc_B":1604185042,"score_A":18,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Haircuts and shaving go back to at least the Upper Palaeolithic (25,000-30,000 years ago) and probably before. Contemporary portrays of shaggy and unkempt \"cavemen\" are wrong. The archaeological record shows Cro-Magnon and other ancestors valued grooming and decoration, including styling hair. Some Venus figurines seem to have beaded, netted or styled hair, for example. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venus\\_of\\_Willendorf https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venus\\_of\\_Brassempouy In terms of tools, obsidian or chert would do the trick. If you could make a stone spearpoint or knife you could make a razor too. This is paywalled but if you can access it, it gives a more complete answer: https:\/\/anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1525\/aa.1999.101.2.288","human_ref_B":"Possible it happened gradually and less than an organized conscious decision. My thoughts are that it happened around the time we developed thinner and thinner hair? Maybe when we started using pelts to warm us? Maybe when fire kept us warm enough we could evolve dependently? Very interesting question!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27958.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"jla2vz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When did haircuts\/shaving start? I was wondering today while I got my haircut when it all started. Apes obviously don\u2019t cut their hair or shave it, so how far along the evolutionary line did cutting our hair and shaving begin? Did it start as a style thing to decorate our bodies, or was it a functional thing to keep our hair out of our faces or give enemies one less thing to grab?","c_root_id_A":"garqncf","c_root_id_B":"gar82ai","created_at_utc_A":1604213000,"created_at_utc_B":1604197351,"score_A":18,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Haircuts and shaving go back to at least the Upper Palaeolithic (25,000-30,000 years ago) and probably before. Contemporary portrays of shaggy and unkempt \"cavemen\" are wrong. The archaeological record shows Cro-Magnon and other ancestors valued grooming and decoration, including styling hair. Some Venus figurines seem to have beaded, netted or styled hair, for example. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venus\\_of\\_Willendorf https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venus\\_of\\_Brassempouy In terms of tools, obsidian or chert would do the trick. If you could make a stone spearpoint or knife you could make a razor too. This is paywalled but if you can access it, it gives a more complete answer: https:\/\/anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1525\/aa.1999.101.2.288","human_ref_B":"the sculptures of the ancient greeks show that they definitely practiced shaving and hair cutting. Roman sculptures of their Gallic tribal enemies indicate that the gauls shaved as well. (there's a famous statue, The Dying Gaul, which shows the gaul rocking a very 80s mustache.) the ancient Egyptians likely also got shaves and haircuts. historical representations of Sargon of Akkad and Nebuchadnezzar show them with elaborately styled beards. I am not an anthropologist... but I am guessing that shaving probably was inspired by comfort, but also used as a form of conspicuous consumption. look at me with all the leisure time to spend shaving and styling my hair, and the power\/income to employ stylists\/barbers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15649.0,"score_ratio":9.0} {"post_id":"jfjips","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any historical evidence showing how the people in power in early civilizations were first able to elevate their status and authority to the point of being unquestioned? Looking back to early examples of Pharaohs being considered god-kings to more modern examples such as the divine right to rule in English monarchies, people in power have used many means to place themselves in a perceived untouchable position above the rest of society. Contrasting that to the more nomadic communities, from before the settling of cities, society seemed to be more egalitarian. In Thomas Hobbes\u2019 book on philosophy, Leviathan, Hobbes describes a state of nature where no one person is too strong, fast, or intelligent that they cannot be overwhelmed by a collective group. If we take this at its word, how did society come to having leaders that are infallible? Is there any knowledge of how early leaders were able to consolidate such power? Do we know if earlier tribes had examples of autocratic leadership that were then extended to cities? Anything would be very interesting to hear. Thank you very much for your responses.","c_root_id_A":"g9ma3t3","c_root_id_B":"g9ll4uo","created_at_utc_A":1603342091,"created_at_utc_B":1603326457,"score_A":21,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"What you're asking about is one of the fundamental questions in archaeology and anthropology - the origins of hierarchical societies and eventually the state. There's really no clear cut answer here. There are lots of ideas. For a long time, this was invariably tied up with agriculture. The thinking went that agriculture went people could A) grow more than they needed for any one year and B) not have to carry it. With material differences in wealth in society came differences in status. However, affluent forager communities (read, hunter gatherers in very productive environments) have shown that agriculture isn't a necessary prerequisite as long as there is some way of accumulating surplus wealth. As far as the actual mechanism that leads to the formation of hierarchy and the state, there are a plethora of theories. Each is probably true at least in part, in at least some part of the world. One of my personal favorites is the hydraulic hypothesis, in which hierarchy emerged alongside irrigation to manage collective and contested water resources as more intensive forms of agriculture changed landscapes (you can imagine how hard it would be to decide who gets how much water without a central authority). This seems to have been a contributing factor, at least, in the area where I work (coastal South America), where the arid desert makes agriculture without irrigation virtually impossible. Ask a scholar working in a different region, and they likely have a different mechanism even if it deals ultimately with the same general process.","human_ref_B":"I don't have time to write a longer response right now but if you are interested in this, Robert Wright's Evolution of God would give some insights from the religious perspective. (I hope this doesn't violate any rules.)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15634.0,"score_ratio":1.05} {"post_id":"jfjips","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there any historical evidence showing how the people in power in early civilizations were first able to elevate their status and authority to the point of being unquestioned? Looking back to early examples of Pharaohs being considered god-kings to more modern examples such as the divine right to rule in English monarchies, people in power have used many means to place themselves in a perceived untouchable position above the rest of society. Contrasting that to the more nomadic communities, from before the settling of cities, society seemed to be more egalitarian. In Thomas Hobbes\u2019 book on philosophy, Leviathan, Hobbes describes a state of nature where no one person is too strong, fast, or intelligent that they cannot be overwhelmed by a collective group. If we take this at its word, how did society come to having leaders that are infallible? Is there any knowledge of how early leaders were able to consolidate such power? Do we know if earlier tribes had examples of autocratic leadership that were then extended to cities? Anything would be very interesting to hear. Thank you very much for your responses.","c_root_id_A":"g9lpjsm","c_root_id_B":"g9ma3t3","created_at_utc_A":1603328996,"created_at_utc_B":1603342091,"score_A":17,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Max Weber had a theory called \"Charismatic Authority\" in which individuals of a group or organization followed a leader based on their \"charisma\" in the context of the Greek definition which states that these individuals were given a divine power to rule.","human_ref_B":"What you're asking about is one of the fundamental questions in archaeology and anthropology - the origins of hierarchical societies and eventually the state. There's really no clear cut answer here. There are lots of ideas. For a long time, this was invariably tied up with agriculture. The thinking went that agriculture went people could A) grow more than they needed for any one year and B) not have to carry it. With material differences in wealth in society came differences in status. However, affluent forager communities (read, hunter gatherers in very productive environments) have shown that agriculture isn't a necessary prerequisite as long as there is some way of accumulating surplus wealth. As far as the actual mechanism that leads to the formation of hierarchy and the state, there are a plethora of theories. Each is probably true at least in part, in at least some part of the world. One of my personal favorites is the hydraulic hypothesis, in which hierarchy emerged alongside irrigation to manage collective and contested water resources as more intensive forms of agriculture changed landscapes (you can imagine how hard it would be to decide who gets how much water without a central authority). This seems to have been a contributing factor, at least, in the area where I work (coastal South America), where the arid desert makes agriculture without irrigation virtually impossible. Ask a scholar working in a different region, and they likely have a different mechanism even if it deals ultimately with the same general process.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13095.0,"score_ratio":1.2352941176} {"post_id":"ea3cif","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why did throat singing become popular among Central Asian and Inuit cultures?","c_root_id_A":"fapnx84","c_root_id_B":"fap58ms","created_at_utc_A":1576290885,"created_at_utc_B":1576280182,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm reading this book, \"greening the paranormal\" by Jack hunter. It's a collection of academic essays, many of which talk about how the paranormal relates to the environment in ancient cultures. Quite an interesting read. Anyway, one paper discussed how many ancient cultures navigated the land based on sound\/acoustics, and throat singing was addressed. They talked specifically about Asian cultures that practice it, and how shamans will pinpoint acoustically unique locations in caves and against cliff walls that when they performed throat singing in a particular spot, the reverberation would echo it back in a specific way, making it sound like nature itself was communicating with the shamans. Perhaps throat singing itself is ideal for these resonation techniques? The paper didn't address this question specifically unfortunately, so this is just my guess based on the papers I read.","human_ref_B":"There has been research done that shows Statistical significance for > Vowel use will be more common in warm climate languages than cold climate languages (126). https:\/\/hraf.yale.edu\/ehc\/hypotheses\/1102 I don\u2019t have a source readily available but I read a paper a couple years ago on this also translating to bird song as well to some degree. Likely there is some latitudinal importance. And I wonder if this translate to this type of song in some way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10703.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"a4murk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How unique is the Santa legend being revealed as false in the western tradition? Santa Claus is presented to young people as if it was real and part of \"growing up\" is learning that Santa is a lie albeit not a malicious one. Is this tradition unique? Do other cultures have legends presented as real knowing they will be exposed later on?","c_root_id_A":"ebh4yaq","c_root_id_B":"ebgk1o3","created_at_utc_A":1544413430,"created_at_utc_B":1544395871,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A fictional one. In Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, there is a tribe that live like Inuit (or some other traditional indigenous society in a cold climate) and the children think they are on Earth. Around their 12th birthdays, they are taken outside the spaceship they actually live in and see the ship and the stars etc. Some choose to leave the culture to go to other parts of the ship, and some choose to remain and continue the traditional lifestyle.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist, just someone with an interest, so I'll only link to a few wikipedia sources to give you an idea of where to start, should you care to research further. It's not quite what you've asked for, but I thought you might also find variations on the Santa Claus myth to be fascinating. In central Europe, the Saint Nicholas legend also has a darker side to it. Krampus a goat demon companion to Saint Nicholas that delivers coal to bad children and wields ruten bundles (a bundle of sticks bound together, for whipping naughty children) though there are variations on the lore. I believe he's also been described as a predator that stalks and eats naughty children and sexually harasses women. In Slavic cultures, Ded Moroz is a bit unique, as he has a female counterpart, his granddaughter Snegurochka and were considered to be winter spirits\/demons, bringing presents to children for New Years. There are many regional names and differences for these figures, just like many other myths that spread. A more controversial figure is Zwarte Piet or \"Black Pete\". Understandably, he is much less popular now, because it involves people dressing up in black face. There is some argument over whether he is a companion or slave of Saint Nicholas and he apparently throws naughty children in his burlap sack and spirits them away to his homeland in Spain. He is also associated with bundles of sticks for whipping and there seems to be some controversy over whether or not he's more of an evil demon, or a mischievous jester spirit of sorts. In more modern interpretations, he's associated with distributing sweets and money. I vaguely remember reading about a legend in... Libya I want to say, but definitely don't quote me on that, as it's been a few years and I can't remember the name of the holiday or the figure. However, as I remember there was supposedly a tradition of an old man that would wander around town and ask for presents, rather than deliver them. If anyone here knows what I'm talking about, I would love to be reminded of this mythical man's name, which is the only reason I've really included it in this post.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17559.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"a4murk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How unique is the Santa legend being revealed as false in the western tradition? Santa Claus is presented to young people as if it was real and part of \"growing up\" is learning that Santa is a lie albeit not a malicious one. Is this tradition unique? Do other cultures have legends presented as real knowing they will be exposed later on?","c_root_id_A":"ebgk1o3","c_root_id_B":"ebhwnmh","created_at_utc_A":1544395871,"created_at_utc_B":1544452533,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, just someone with an interest, so I'll only link to a few wikipedia sources to give you an idea of where to start, should you care to research further. It's not quite what you've asked for, but I thought you might also find variations on the Santa Claus myth to be fascinating. In central Europe, the Saint Nicholas legend also has a darker side to it. Krampus a goat demon companion to Saint Nicholas that delivers coal to bad children and wields ruten bundles (a bundle of sticks bound together, for whipping naughty children) though there are variations on the lore. I believe he's also been described as a predator that stalks and eats naughty children and sexually harasses women. In Slavic cultures, Ded Moroz is a bit unique, as he has a female counterpart, his granddaughter Snegurochka and were considered to be winter spirits\/demons, bringing presents to children for New Years. There are many regional names and differences for these figures, just like many other myths that spread. A more controversial figure is Zwarte Piet or \"Black Pete\". Understandably, he is much less popular now, because it involves people dressing up in black face. There is some argument over whether he is a companion or slave of Saint Nicholas and he apparently throws naughty children in his burlap sack and spirits them away to his homeland in Spain. He is also associated with bundles of sticks for whipping and there seems to be some controversy over whether or not he's more of an evil demon, or a mischievous jester spirit of sorts. In more modern interpretations, he's associated with distributing sweets and money. I vaguely remember reading about a legend in... Libya I want to say, but definitely don't quote me on that, as it's been a few years and I can't remember the name of the holiday or the figure. However, as I remember there was supposedly a tradition of an old man that would wander around town and ask for presents, rather than deliver them. If anyone here knows what I'm talking about, I would love to be reminded of this mythical man's name, which is the only reason I've really included it in this post.","human_ref_B":"This is only tangential to any discussion of folklore, but the concept of \"skillful means\" (up\u0101ya) in Buddhism teaches that a heuristic or deceitful or contextually appropriate approach to pedagogy is useful to get novices to start on the path to enlightenment, and then, once they have attained a greater level of spiritual mastery, they will be able to see through these deceptive means, but by then they will already be well along the path to ultimate truth.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":56662.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"4e65dj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is the Out of Africa hypothesis still widely accepted? Are all humans really \"african?\" (x-post \/r\/askhistorians) Hi there anthropologists, I'm currently doing a history 101 course at uni and it seems to me that the Out of Africa hypothesis is still widely regarded as fact. I mean, I learnt it as fact in highschool, and it certainly seems convincing enough- but every few weeks I see articles popping up debating and debunking the theory. I saw a big one recently on \/r\/science (sadly I can't find the link) that claimed there were Asian ancestors without a trace of neanderthal DNA, thus contesting the theory. Any one of you guys got some definitive answers for me? Thanks","c_root_id_A":"d1y44tg","c_root_id_B":"d1xow4q","created_at_utc_A":1460349455,"created_at_utc_B":1460322816,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Those articles are either bullshit, or you are misinterpreting their meaning. The short answer to your question is that the \"out of Africa\" theory is pretty much ironclad at this point, but that what's not clearly understood is how many discrete migrations out of Africa occurred, and how said migrations later interbred with one another. That said, the big picture of non-Sub-Saharan African human ancestry is becoming increasingly granular with the result that year over year, we continue to have a better picture of exactly what went down and when.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the references already given in this thread, I recommend checking out the book \"How Humans Evolved\" by Boyd and Silk which is one of the books listed in the \"General\" section of the AskHistorians Books and Resources list (https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/wiki\/books\/general). It discusses the (quite strong) archaeological and genetic evidence for the out-of-Africa hypothesis in some detail.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26639.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"znkxez","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"When\/where was the concept of marriage first introduced? I am having a polite debate with someone who believes that the idea of marriage comes from the Bible. I personally feel like people were marrying before that, but would really like to hear some opinions from others.","c_root_id_A":"j0hlf1z","c_root_id_B":"j0hp39e","created_at_utc_A":1671214879,"created_at_utc_B":1671216334,"score_A":60,"score_B":145,"human_ref_A":"\"Marriage\" is just a term. Pair-bonding likely pre-dates humanity, and certainly was practiced by at least some of the earliest anatomically modern humans.","human_ref_B":"No matter how you define it (as pair bonding, as a religious ritual, or as a contract), people were absolutely getting married before biblical times. If your friend wants an easy answer, consider ancient Egypt.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1455.0,"score_ratio":2.4166666667} {"post_id":"znkxez","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"When\/where was the concept of marriage first introduced? I am having a polite debate with someone who believes that the idea of marriage comes from the Bible. I personally feel like people were marrying before that, but would really like to hear some opinions from others.","c_root_id_A":"j0hlf1z","c_root_id_B":"j0i24v5","created_at_utc_A":1671214879,"created_at_utc_B":1671221600,"score_A":60,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"\"Marriage\" is just a term. Pair-bonding likely pre-dates humanity, and certainly was practiced by at least some of the earliest anatomically modern humans.","human_ref_B":"The earliest recorded evidence for a ceremony between two people in marriage is from Mesopotamia in 2300BCE, a thousand years before the earliest writings for the Torah, the progenitor of the Christian Bible. Marriage in some form appears to be a cultural universal. Something found in every culture. Also consider we have plenty of records of marriage in ancient China from before Christianity and before regular and consistent contact with the Mediterranean where the progenitor of the bible was","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6721.0,"score_ratio":1.7833333333} {"post_id":"znkxez","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"When\/where was the concept of marriage first introduced? I am having a polite debate with someone who believes that the idea of marriage comes from the Bible. I personally feel like people were marrying before that, but would really like to hear some opinions from others.","c_root_id_A":"j0irbxe","c_root_id_B":"j0hlf1z","created_at_utc_A":1671232287,"created_at_utc_B":1671214879,"score_A":95,"score_B":60,"human_ref_A":"> Come along, Gilgamesh, be you my husband, to me grant your lusciousness.' > Be you my husband, and I will be your wife. >I will have harnessed for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold, > with wheels of gold and horns of electrum. > It will he harnessed with great storming mountain mules! > Come into our house, with the fragrance of cedar. > And when you come into our house the doorpost and throne dais will kiss your feet. This is from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, written about a century before the first books of the Bible were written.","human_ref_B":"\"Marriage\" is just a term. Pair-bonding likely pre-dates humanity, and certainly was practiced by at least some of the earliest anatomically modern humans.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17408.0,"score_ratio":1.5833333333} {"post_id":"va1q6l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If human history was condensed to a 24 hour day, what time did the agricultural revolution start?","c_root_id_A":"ibzrje7","c_root_id_B":"ibzvot2","created_at_utc_A":1654967591,"created_at_utc_B":1654969510,"score_A":49,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"If we use a rough and easy estimate of 240,000 years for the emergence of modern H.Sapiens that is 10,000 years per hour. So somewhere around 22:30-23:00. But it really depends on your definitions I suppose.","human_ref_B":"To be snarky, the first domestication of plants precedes the first writing, so human history starts with agriculture already in place. Otherwise, as others have said, it really depends on your definitions of what do you mean by \"human,\" \"history,\" \"agriculture,\" when, where, and so on. If we take Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens at 300k BP, and agriculture at 10k BP: 290\/300=0.9666666 0.9666666\\*24=23.2 23.2 hours is 11:12pm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1919.0,"score_ratio":1.6734693878} {"post_id":"va1q6l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If human history was condensed to a 24 hour day, what time did the agricultural revolution start?","c_root_id_A":"ibzs2gp","c_root_id_B":"ibzvot2","created_at_utc_A":1654967843,"created_at_utc_B":1654969510,"score_A":12,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"What are you considering human? Australopithecus? Homo habilis? Neandertals? Homo sapiens? Homo sapien sapiens? Also, for agriculture do you mean when grains were first eaten? Or when they were domesticated? Does place matter? This isn't quite what you want but might give some perspective https:\/\/waitbutwhy.com\/2013\/08\/putting-time-in-perspective.html","human_ref_B":"To be snarky, the first domestication of plants precedes the first writing, so human history starts with agriculture already in place. Otherwise, as others have said, it really depends on your definitions of what do you mean by \"human,\" \"history,\" \"agriculture,\" when, where, and so on. If we take Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens at 300k BP, and agriculture at 10k BP: 290\/300=0.9666666 0.9666666\\*24=23.2 23.2 hours is 11:12pm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1667.0,"score_ratio":6.8333333333} {"post_id":"va1q6l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If human history was condensed to a 24 hour day, what time did the agricultural revolution start?","c_root_id_A":"ibzs2gp","c_root_id_B":"ic0vyhy","created_at_utc_A":1654967843,"created_at_utc_B":1654987295,"score_A":12,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"What are you considering human? Australopithecus? Homo habilis? Neandertals? Homo sapiens? Homo sapien sapiens? Also, for agriculture do you mean when grains were first eaten? Or when they were domesticated? Does place matter? This isn't quite what you want but might give some perspective https:\/\/waitbutwhy.com\/2013\/08\/putting-time-in-perspective.html","human_ref_B":"As others have said, it depends on your definition of \u2018human\u2019. The term \u2018human\u2019 now generally refers to anything from *H. erectus* to us, so that\u2019s a roughly 2 million year span of time. If you limit it to just *H. sapiens* then it\u2019s a roughly 300,000 year span of time. A large part of why \u2018human\u2019 no longer refers to just our single species is because when people were initially listing the traits rush they considered to be uniquely \u2018human\u2019 they listed ones that they thought applied only to us, sort of defining \u2018human\u2019 in a tautological manner. They assumed that no other species had these traits, then we started discovering that our \u2018uniquely human\u2019 traits weren\u2019t so unique after all. Neanderthals and Denisovans made art and jewelry, *H. erectus* controlled fire and cooked foods, a variety of ancestors and relatives displayed all sorts of complex behaviors and technologies. As a result there were basically two options (simplifying a bit here), either redefine what \u2018human\u2019 meant, try to come up with a new set of criteria that wouldn\u2019t be shared with any other species (a process doomed to failure) and try to change thousands of years of discussion and broad agreement on what it means to be \u2018human\u2019 (also an idea doomed to failure), or to accept that other species having this suite of traits should be included as \u2018human\u2019. This latter approach is the one that makes the most sense and is easiest, so \u2018human\u2019 now refers to a handful of closely related species, not just us. This is oversimplifying a bit, but it captures the core of the issue.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19452.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"va1q6l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If human history was condensed to a 24 hour day, what time did the agricultural revolution start?","c_root_id_A":"ic00mb1","c_root_id_B":"ic0vyhy","created_at_utc_A":1654971809,"created_at_utc_B":1654987295,"score_A":10,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"History is defined as a time with written records, so agriculture started long before human history. Using your clock analogy, agriculture started the day before. I suspect you really mean the time since human origins. The biggest challenge there is defining when exactly modern humans began. Agriculture began about 10,000 years ago, so if humans arose 80,000 years ago then agriculture would be 9:00 p.m. That's when some people think that mentally modern humans arose, but anatomically modern humans were much earlier. And one could argue that \"humans\", as opposed to Homo sapiens, go back even much further than that. In summary, I think your question is not clearly enough defined to answer well.","human_ref_B":"As others have said, it depends on your definition of \u2018human\u2019. The term \u2018human\u2019 now generally refers to anything from *H. erectus* to us, so that\u2019s a roughly 2 million year span of time. If you limit it to just *H. sapiens* then it\u2019s a roughly 300,000 year span of time. A large part of why \u2018human\u2019 no longer refers to just our single species is because when people were initially listing the traits rush they considered to be uniquely \u2018human\u2019 they listed ones that they thought applied only to us, sort of defining \u2018human\u2019 in a tautological manner. They assumed that no other species had these traits, then we started discovering that our \u2018uniquely human\u2019 traits weren\u2019t so unique after all. Neanderthals and Denisovans made art and jewelry, *H. erectus* controlled fire and cooked foods, a variety of ancestors and relatives displayed all sorts of complex behaviors and technologies. As a result there were basically two options (simplifying a bit here), either redefine what \u2018human\u2019 meant, try to come up with a new set of criteria that wouldn\u2019t be shared with any other species (a process doomed to failure) and try to change thousands of years of discussion and broad agreement on what it means to be \u2018human\u2019 (also an idea doomed to failure), or to accept that other species having this suite of traits should be included as \u2018human\u2019. This latter approach is the one that makes the most sense and is easiest, so \u2018human\u2019 now refers to a handful of closely related species, not just us. This is oversimplifying a bit, but it captures the core of the issue.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15486.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"ndr36x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Resources on the Irish Travellers? I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of good resources about the Irish Travellers? I hadn\u2019t heard about them as a distinct ethnic group before and came across a short Twitter thread on them today \u2014 I\u2019m really interested in learning more. I don\u2019t have a background in anthropology but I consider myself relatively competent in academic reading, so I\u2019d be interested in either resources for general audiences or more academic sources. I\u2019m particularly interested in their religious views and how their specific practice of Roman Catholicism is shaped by their culture. Also, my quick reading of the Wikipedia page shows me that one theory is that this group originated during the Cromwellian conquest(s). I know that Oliver Cromwell was on the more Independent Protestant side of the English Reformation... is there any reason to believe that religion played a significant role in the origins of this group? Thanks so much!","c_root_id_A":"gyd8w4y","c_root_id_B":"gyd35gk","created_at_utc_A":1621199183,"created_at_utc_B":1621196604,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Are you wanting information on Travellers in the US, the UK, or Ireland? I believe there are cultural differences; I grew up near a US Irish Traveller village Edit: added Ireland","human_ref_B":"Not Irish, but is a memoir by a Scottish traveller - The Yellow on the Broom. There's a sequel as well, Red Rowans and Wild Honey. Betsy Whyte (the author), was born in 1919, so is interesting from both a cultural and historical perspective. For current information, check out The Traveller Times https:\/\/www.travellerstimes.org.uk\/.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2579.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"acn2wz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some interesting examples of marriage traditions that aren't very well known?","c_root_id_A":"ed9qfyx","c_root_id_B":"ed9v9mr","created_at_utc_A":1546653406,"created_at_utc_B":1546657581,"score_A":32,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"The Kyrgyz still practice various forms of bride-kidnapping. The Soviet government tried to suppress it, but it was still practiced and has unfortunately enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in the post-Soviet era. In plenty of cases, the bride and groom already knew each other and use the custom as a kind of elopement, which is cheaper than the traditional ceremony. In others, it is straight up kidnapping. The society has laws against it, but due to social pressures, many girls feel like they don't have any option but to acquiesce when kidnapped. There are a few different documentaries about the practice on YouTube.","human_ref_B":"In the Arkansas Ozarks, there is a tradition known as the \"shivaree\" or \"charivari\". It's often done by the bride and groom's close friends on their wedding night. The friends and well-wishers would cause a ruckus and make so much chaos and commotion that the couple had erm, difficulty, consummating the marriage. In some countries, it was a condemnation of a marriage the public didn't approve of, but in the Ozarks, it was a lighthearted hazing ritual.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4175.0,"score_ratio":1.03125} {"post_id":"soi205","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What would be an example of a modern myth?","c_root_id_A":"hw9yf43","c_root_id_B":"hw9zeqr","created_at_utc_A":1644440543,"created_at_utc_B":1644440900,"score_A":11,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"If we take myths to mean things that are obviously untrue or fanciful, this will get controversial very quickly. If we take myths to mean 'stories received from authorities or from our elders to explain the world around us,' then there may be many. Most people with a K12 education can repeat many facts of science and history, such as the Big Bang theory, Newton's laws of gravity, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, the existence of cells and atoms, the American Revolution, the signing of the Magna Carta, *without ever having tested or investigated these ideas personally*. Of course, we hope (and I believe) these ideas, theories, and facts were arrived at as a result of rigorous scientific processes and can reasonably be believed and relied upon, so they are not identical to mythology in the old sense, but nevertheless the information filters to the general public through the same basic process as old myths: somebody who seems to know more about the subject than you tells you the answer. If you want specifically stories, I guess you could say something like the story of Washington and the Cherry Tree or John Henry would both seem somewhat mythical.","human_ref_B":"I agree with the commenter who said it depends on how you define myth. If you are thinking of the cultural stories we tell that are meant to tell us how the world works, who \"good\" and \"bad\" people are, what is moral, and so on, then I think the story that \"If you work hard you will get ahead\" and \"rags to riches\" stories are important capitalist myths. The story that race exists and tells us something about people is another one (ie: one race is more athletic than another, or smarter than another, etc). That men are big and strong and rescue women from other bad men. A more limited version might be the story of poisoned Halloween candy or finding a fried rat in your bucket of chicken.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":357.0,"score_ratio":4.2727272727} {"post_id":"soi205","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What would be an example of a modern myth?","c_root_id_A":"hwa884a","c_root_id_B":"hw9yf43","created_at_utc_A":1644444130,"created_at_utc_B":1644440543,"score_A":43,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The problem with answering this question is that I don't know what you are considering the word \"myth\" to refer to in something other than a modern context. Do you mean the sorts of origin myths that were standard in the records of places like ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome? Folklorists would refer to these as etiological legends - stories generally told to be believed, specifically about how things began. Are there modern counterparts to that? Hard to say because modern stories about origins are tied up with physics, biology, and archaeology and what we know about the origin of the universe, life on earth, and humanity. Theories based on science about these things simply don't function in the same way as etiological legends, so we come close to concluding that no, we don't have a modern counterpart. Are you talking about the stories of ancient heroes and their modern counterparts? In that case, we can see something close, although the media changes. Of course, when it comes to myths from the ancient world, all we have is a written record, and almost certainly, the stories were originally expressed orally \u2013 and that likely continued even as people began writing them down. Many of these stories may have been taken to be true, but others may have been told for pure entertainment. In that case, we can certainly look to modern cinema to find a counterpart in heroic stories. The medium is different, but the story serves much the same purpose. Are you talking about stories told to be believed about the contemporary world? Those certainly existed in the ancient world, and some of these might be taken to be myths as you are imagining the word, but here, again, I\u2019m not sure of your definition of the word myth. In the case of these kinds of stories, the clear counterpart of what we call urban legends. Then there are also stories about UFOs, ghosts, bigfoot, etc., which don\u2019t necessarily fit the model of urban legend as described by the expert, Jan Harold Brunvand. Taken together, those stories are counterparts of the stories recorded in the ancient worlds, which are sometimes referred to as myths.","human_ref_B":"If we take myths to mean things that are obviously untrue or fanciful, this will get controversial very quickly. If we take myths to mean 'stories received from authorities or from our elders to explain the world around us,' then there may be many. Most people with a K12 education can repeat many facts of science and history, such as the Big Bang theory, Newton's laws of gravity, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, the existence of cells and atoms, the American Revolution, the signing of the Magna Carta, *without ever having tested or investigated these ideas personally*. Of course, we hope (and I believe) these ideas, theories, and facts were arrived at as a result of rigorous scientific processes and can reasonably be believed and relied upon, so they are not identical to mythology in the old sense, but nevertheless the information filters to the general public through the same basic process as old myths: somebody who seems to know more about the subject than you tells you the answer. If you want specifically stories, I guess you could say something like the story of Washington and the Cherry Tree or John Henry would both seem somewhat mythical.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3587.0,"score_ratio":3.9090909091} {"post_id":"soi205","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What would be an example of a modern myth?","c_root_id_A":"hwaildd","c_root_id_B":"hw9yf43","created_at_utc_A":1644448179,"created_at_utc_B":1644440543,"score_A":12,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I won't repeat what other commenters have said about the concept of myth, because it's all accurate. One example of a myth that has come out of the digital age would be Slenderman. It comes out of the tradition of creepypastas, essentially meaning horror stories that people write and share on the internet. There are other creepypastas that are widely shared and modulated, that could count as modern myths. Slenderman is a tall, blank-faced man in a black suit, and many people make up different stories and myths involving this character. Slenderman has become the most infamous because of two preteen girls who attempted to murder their best friend in service of Slenderman. The documentary \"Beware the Slenderman\" from HBO isn't academic, obviously, but many academics who study folklore are interviewed for it. It discusses this crime, but also the origin of Slenderman, and Slenderman in relation to the concept of mythology and folklore.","human_ref_B":"If we take myths to mean things that are obviously untrue or fanciful, this will get controversial very quickly. If we take myths to mean 'stories received from authorities or from our elders to explain the world around us,' then there may be many. Most people with a K12 education can repeat many facts of science and history, such as the Big Bang theory, Newton's laws of gravity, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, the existence of cells and atoms, the American Revolution, the signing of the Magna Carta, *without ever having tested or investigated these ideas personally*. Of course, we hope (and I believe) these ideas, theories, and facts were arrived at as a result of rigorous scientific processes and can reasonably be believed and relied upon, so they are not identical to mythology in the old sense, but nevertheless the information filters to the general public through the same basic process as old myths: somebody who seems to know more about the subject than you tells you the answer. If you want specifically stories, I guess you could say something like the story of Washington and the Cherry Tree or John Henry would both seem somewhat mythical.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7636.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"mm3i7f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"For those of you interested in cultural anthropology, are there any website with regular content published ?","c_root_id_A":"gtq1n36","c_root_id_B":"gtpz8un","created_at_utc_A":1617823428,"created_at_utc_B":1617822392,"score_A":37,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Depends very much on your specific area of interest and what level of detail you're looking for. For non-paywalled, varied anthropological writing for a general audience, https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/ is pretty good - it's from the Wenner Gren foundation, one of the big funders of anthropology research.","human_ref_B":"good question. This would probably be a main hub type of web-site, branching out into further hubs of interest. I could see a lot of great information being sourced from such a resource. Enough information to perpetuate independent web-sites and further refinements, of the records of Anthropology. \"Probably should be.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1036.0,"score_ratio":18.5} {"post_id":"m413na","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When do archaeologists rebury sites or keep them uncovered? What factors determine their decision? I would love if the entire ancient world could be uncovered and left for all to see but I know that isnt always an option, and for multiple reasons. How much of the worlds excavated ruins have been covered over again by the excavators? Is it most;y because of conservation reasons? Have their been any notable exceptions?","c_root_id_A":"gqsff3h","c_root_id_B":"gqsoieb","created_at_utc_A":1615633804,"created_at_utc_B":1615641794,"score_A":4,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I work in commercial archaeology. From my experience we sometimes leave remains in situ if they\u2019re found outside of the survey area. Human remains for instance, I\u2019ve had two different sites where we had to partially excavate articulated skeletons and leave the rest of the remains there because they were outside the limits of the survey, in this particular case the upper body was under the foundations of the building, so for safety measures we had to leave half of it. We of course write it on the report and mark its exact location.","human_ref_B":"There are a number of reasons for site reburial. Generally, though, it's about preservation. As archaeologists, we've become increasingly aware over the last 100 years that technology moves quickly, and even though we might not be able to do something with X or Y material or site, we might in another couple generations. Radiocarbon dating is the classic example. 80 years ago, during the Great Depression, archaeologists in the eastern US excavated some *amazing* archaeological sites. And they mostly discarded all sorts of archaeological materials (animal bone, plant remains) or preserved them in problematic ways (soaking charred timbers in gasoline and preserving them in paraffin). With the development of radiocarbon dating, suddenly all of those materials have all kinds of uses. They can be radiocarbon dated, obviously, but they can also be used to address questions about diet, paleoenvironment, etc. And because they were thrown away (because the Depression-era archaeologists didn't see into the future) a lot of that potential is lost. So we're more sensitive now to the idea that we need to preserve as much of archaeological sites *in situ* as possible, so that in the future, archaeologists with new ideas and new technology can revisit them. So to go back to the question: **why rebury sites or leave portions of them buried \/ unexcavated?** First, remember that when we dig up archaeological sites, we destroy them. It's part of the process. All of the information that's contained in an archaeological site comes from the relationships between the artifacts, features (hearths, walls, pits, etc.), the site location, the relative depths of different depositional episodes, etc. When we dig, we record all of that to the best of our ability. It's one reason why just any old goof can't really do good archaeology. We're trained in that process, and if you don't know how to do it, or don't do it right, you lose a lot of information. So digging up portion of a site destroys that portion of the site. And if you *fully* excavate it-- like, down to empty holes-- everything is gone. So if we can avoid destroying all of the site, we will. Leave some for the future and so on. --- So... A couple specific points. **Point #1:** Architectural remains that have been buried for centuries or millennia tend to be quite fragile. Burial introduces a number of elements that most structures were never designed for. Moisture is a huge factor, and can quickly degrade structural materials when they are surrounded by it constantly \/ unable to dry out. The sheer weight \/ pressure of sediments also is a problem, because it's not even \/ equal, and so variations in weight and pressure causes deformation and over time can lead to total structural failure, in the sense that the structural remains cannot support themselves. When sediments surrounding architectural remains are removed, so is the support that kept them intact. And although constant moisture degraded them, it still kept them mostly \"together\" in place. Remove the sediment, and you have all sorts of problems to worry about. Walls fall over. Brick and many other structural materials fall apart \/ break down. So, reburying actually can be better for sites in some cases, because it gives them back some of that preservational environment and support that they had before. Of course, this is not perfect. When sediments accumulate around architectural remains, they settle and become consolidated-- compact. When we dig sites up, and then rebury them, the sediments that are put back-- especially if it's not done very carefully and methodically-- are unconsolidated. They're more permeable to water, they're looser and less supportive. You can't really put the genie back in the bottle. But it's better than leaving them out to just fall apart. (see below for another point relating to this.) **Point #2:** When we dig out parts of an archaeological site, we *remove* material but leave other areas adjacent to the holes we dig unexcavated. That leaves a void. If an archaeological site is larger than the holes we dig out (and of course they are), then the unexcavated areas around the holes we dig contain unrecovered archaeological information. An the problem is, nature abhors a vacuum. If you have a hole in the ground, eventually the dirt around it will start to collapse into it, and to fill it back in. And now unexcavated \/ unrecorded parts of your site are being destroyed as they fall into the hole. Reburying \/ backfilling helps to prevent that kind of loss. It's not perfect, but it can limit the impact to a much smaller area than if the entire surrounding intact site was able to start sliding into the empty \/ excavated areas. **Point #3:** Safety. Empty holes are easy to fall into. Filling them in reduces the risk. **Point #4:** Suppose you *did* want to leave parts of a site exposed, like at Pompeii or Herculaneum, as a tourist attraction. What do you have to deal with now? Well, you've got large areas of ancient architectural remains whose structural integrity was mostly compromised by centuries or millennia of burial. Now you've removed their structural support (the sediment from around them) and you want them to again be free-standing. And more than that, you want them to be *safe* enough to allow all sorts of untrained tourists with no safety gear to be able to mill around and look at them. Holy crap, what a nightmare. You need to reinforce and shore up the structural integrity of archaeological materials in a way that keeps them standing *and* doesn't significantly impact their visual appeal. **This is incredibly expensive.** Not only are the initial measures of designing and implementing the stabilization of archaeological \/ architectural remains costly-- the engineering and planning alone can require a *lot* of very specific problem solving-- but then after installing and securing those measures, they require *constant* maintenance, essentially in perpetuity. I have no idea what it costs the Italian government to maintain the areas of Pompeii that are exposed for tourism, but I know that the expense is significant enough that it's been difficult to keep up in the last couple decades. --- The long and the short of it is that reburial \/ preservation *in situ* is usually a *far* better solution in most respects than leaving sites exposed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7990.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ews63cr","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565720945,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":32,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"Hill to die on. No th.","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10053.0,"score_ratio":2.1875} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrr6zv","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565711951,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":25,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"Its Neanderthal, the difference comes from a change in german spelling (neanderthals are named after the neander valley, which in german is called neandertal, however in the past\/ at the time when the neanderthals were discovered it wouldve been spelt neanderthal with th).","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19047.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsgxac","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565727350,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":21,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"An old professor of mine would be very adamant about pronouncing it neandertall. As a result that's what I use.","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3648.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewshjjn","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565727707,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":13,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"In university, I was taught that when talking about actual neanderthal, its T. If using it in common speak (e.g. OMG, that guy spit on the floor, what a neanderthal) then TH is acceptable.","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3291.0,"score_ratio":5.3846153846} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsdvrb","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565725517,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":10,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5481.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsn4t7","c_root_id_B":"ewsm7mr","created_at_utc_A":1565730998,"created_at_utc_B":1565730431,"score_A":70,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","human_ref_B":"Even deeper question, for those in the TH camp is it neander\u00f0all or neander\u00feall ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":567.0,"score_ratio":6.3636363636} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrq3l3","c_root_id_B":"ewsn4t7","created_at_utc_A":1565711256,"created_at_utc_B":1565730998,"score_A":5,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","human_ref_B":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19742.0,"score_ratio":14.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsn4t7","c_root_id_B":"ewse9cd","created_at_utc_A":1565730998,"created_at_utc_B":1565725745,"score_A":70,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"the opposite of whoever said it before i say it","human_ref_B":"NeanderTALL dont @me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5253.0,"score_ratio":11.6666666667} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ews63cr","c_root_id_B":"ewrr6zv","created_at_utc_A":1565720945,"created_at_utc_B":1565711951,"score_A":32,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Hill to die on. No th.","human_ref_B":"Its Neanderthal, the difference comes from a change in german spelling (neanderthals are named after the neander valley, which in german is called neandertal, however in the past\/ at the time when the neanderthals were discovered it wouldve been spelt neanderthal with th).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8994.0,"score_ratio":1.28} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ews63cr","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565720945,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":32,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Hill to die on. No th.","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9689.0,"score_ratio":6.4} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrr6zv","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565711951,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":25,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Its Neanderthal, the difference comes from a change in german spelling (neanderthals are named after the neander valley, which in german is called neandertal, however in the past\/ at the time when the neanderthals were discovered it wouldve been spelt neanderthal with th).","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":695.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsttsu","c_root_id_B":"ewshjjn","created_at_utc_A":1565735032,"created_at_utc_B":1565727707,"score_A":21,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","human_ref_B":"In university, I was taught that when talking about actual neanderthal, its T. If using it in common speak (e.g. OMG, that guy spit on the floor, what a neanderthal) then TH is acceptable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7325.0,"score_ratio":1.6153846154} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsttsu","c_root_id_B":"ewsdvrb","created_at_utc_A":1565735032,"created_at_utc_B":1565725517,"score_A":21,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","human_ref_B":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9515.0,"score_ratio":2.1} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsttsu","c_root_id_B":"ewsm7mr","created_at_utc_A":1565735032,"created_at_utc_B":1565730431,"score_A":21,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","human_ref_B":"Even deeper question, for those in the TH camp is it neander\u00f0all or neander\u00feall ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4601.0,"score_ratio":1.9090909091} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrq3l3","c_root_id_B":"ewsttsu","created_at_utc_A":1565711256,"created_at_utc_B":1565735032,"score_A":5,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","human_ref_B":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23776.0,"score_ratio":4.2} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewse9cd","c_root_id_B":"ewsttsu","created_at_utc_A":1565725745,"created_at_utc_B":1565735032,"score_A":6,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"NeanderTALL dont @me","human_ref_B":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9287.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewso8u5","c_root_id_B":"ewsttsu","created_at_utc_A":1565731679,"created_at_utc_B":1565735032,"score_A":3,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"They are both considered correct although TALL is used far more often.","human_ref_B":"I say \"-tal,\" but if you say \"-thal,\" I'm cool with that too. Just so long as you don't pronounce *gif* as \"jif.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3353.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsgxac","c_root_id_B":"ewsdvrb","created_at_utc_A":1565727350,"created_at_utc_B":1565725517,"score_A":21,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"An old professor of mine would be very adamant about pronouncing it neandertall. As a result that's what I use.","human_ref_B":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1833.0,"score_ratio":2.1} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsgxac","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565727350,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":21,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"An old professor of mine would be very adamant about pronouncing it neandertall. As a result that's what I use.","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16094.0,"score_ratio":4.2} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewse9cd","c_root_id_B":"ewsgxac","created_at_utc_A":1565725745,"created_at_utc_B":1565727350,"score_A":6,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"NeanderTALL dont @me","human_ref_B":"An old professor of mine would be very adamant about pronouncing it neandertall. As a result that's what I use.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1605.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewshjjn","c_root_id_B":"ewsdvrb","created_at_utc_A":1565727707,"created_at_utc_B":1565725517,"score_A":13,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In university, I was taught that when talking about actual neanderthal, its T. If using it in common speak (e.g. OMG, that guy spit on the floor, what a neanderthal) then TH is acceptable.","human_ref_B":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2190.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewshjjn","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565727707,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":13,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In university, I was taught that when talking about actual neanderthal, its T. If using it in common speak (e.g. OMG, that guy spit on the floor, what a neanderthal) then TH is acceptable.","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16451.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewse9cd","c_root_id_B":"ewshjjn","created_at_utc_A":1565725745,"created_at_utc_B":1565727707,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"NeanderTALL dont @me","human_ref_B":"In university, I was taught that when talking about actual neanderthal, its T. If using it in common speak (e.g. OMG, that guy spit on the floor, what a neanderthal) then TH is acceptable.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1962.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsm7mr","c_root_id_B":"ewsdvrb","created_at_utc_A":1565730431,"created_at_utc_B":1565725517,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Even deeper question, for those in the TH camp is it neander\u00f0all or neander\u00feall ?","human_ref_B":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4914.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsdvrb","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565725517,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In grew up hearing the \"th\" in the U.S. 40+ years ago, but now exclusively hear it pronounced with a \"t\" (living in Canada).","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14261.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrq3l3","c_root_id_B":"ewsm7mr","created_at_utc_A":1565711256,"created_at_utc_B":1565730431,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","human_ref_B":"Even deeper question, for those in the TH camp is it neander\u00f0all or neander\u00feall ?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19175.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewsm7mr","c_root_id_B":"ewse9cd","created_at_utc_A":1565730431,"created_at_utc_B":1565725745,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Even deeper question, for those in the TH camp is it neander\u00f0all or neander\u00feall ?","human_ref_B":"NeanderTALL dont @me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4686.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewt2qr6","c_root_id_B":"ewrq3l3","created_at_utc_A":1565739268,"created_at_utc_B":1565711256,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Language is use. If you use hard T and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use TH and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use the weird grammar of saying, \"done a language\" and people understand, you have correctly done a language. The idea of a \"correct\" pronunciation comes from the idea that there are prescriptive rules of language you must abide by. These are generally arbitrary, unique to certain regions and\/or social classes, and are almost always in line with the status quo. The reality is that language is inherently arbitrary. If it wasn't then other languages and dialects would not exist. We would all be born with a universal language with universal pronunciation. This is not how humans work, so we had to invent the rules and let them naturally evolve.","human_ref_B":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28012.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewse9cd","c_root_id_B":"ewt2qr6","created_at_utc_A":1565725745,"created_at_utc_B":1565739268,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"NeanderTALL dont @me","human_ref_B":"Language is use. If you use hard T and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use TH and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use the weird grammar of saying, \"done a language\" and people understand, you have correctly done a language. The idea of a \"correct\" pronunciation comes from the idea that there are prescriptive rules of language you must abide by. These are generally arbitrary, unique to certain regions and\/or social classes, and are almost always in line with the status quo. The reality is that language is inherently arbitrary. If it wasn't then other languages and dialects would not exist. We would all be born with a universal language with universal pronunciation. This is not how humans work, so we had to invent the rules and let them naturally evolve.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13523.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewt2qr6","c_root_id_B":"ewso8u5","created_at_utc_A":1565739268,"created_at_utc_B":1565731679,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Language is use. If you use hard T and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use TH and people understand, you have correctly done a language. If you use the weird grammar of saying, \"done a language\" and people understand, you have correctly done a language. The idea of a \"correct\" pronunciation comes from the idea that there are prescriptive rules of language you must abide by. These are generally arbitrary, unique to certain regions and\/or social classes, and are almost always in line with the status quo. The reality is that language is inherently arbitrary. If it wasn't then other languages and dialects would not exist. We would all be born with a universal language with universal pronunciation. This is not how humans work, so we had to invent the rules and let them naturally evolve.","human_ref_B":"They are both considered correct although TALL is used far more often.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7589.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"cpuwfp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do you pronounce it neanderTHALL or neanderTALL? Which is correct, and why is there a difference?","c_root_id_A":"ewrq3l3","c_root_id_B":"ewse9cd","created_at_utc_A":1565711256,"created_at_utc_B":1565725745,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I think the Germans just pronounce as a \"T\". You can even toss out a separate \"h\" as an afterthought, as in \"ta ha\", but never an English type \"th\".","human_ref_B":"NeanderTALL dont @me","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14489.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"z84jt0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is sexual attraction driven by society too? They say men prefer women with some hip to waist ratio, and women prefer men based on some shoulder to hip ratio. It sounds like biology determined that. It really feels like that. But I'm learning that a lot of things are socially driven. A lot of things we just don't know either way. It bothers me a lot. People make proclamations about the way society should be run, based on what our supposed nature's are. And I just want to know for myself the specifics of these different situations such as the one I'm talking about here. I'm only on a basic 101 textbook level here. I'm reading anthropology. But this question isn't answered directly if at all from what I'm reading. I'm thinking the answer is we don't know either way. I don't know.","c_root_id_A":"iyap7f5","c_root_id_B":"iyaecw5","created_at_utc_A":1669767268,"created_at_utc_B":1669762563,"score_A":44,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"i'm coming at it more from a sociology angle than anthropology, but i think the \"answer\" if there can even be a definitive answer is that there are components of sexuality that are biological aspects (see: e.g., sexologists measuring physical arousal to stimuli) and then a social layer on top of that. if we take Judith Butler for example, we could consider sexuality as constructed on top of underlying desires and how we categorise them to be the construct. another theory of the social aspect would be the sexual scripts theory developed by Gagnon and Simon, which essentially says that the way we \"do\" sexuality is learned from social cues - think: sex ed classes, romance movies, pornography etc.","human_ref_B":"\"they say\" Who says? Can they cite their sources? How were the experiments designed? How were cultural controls applied? Was every person surveyed a white American college student? Think critically about the \"common knowledge\" you have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4705.0,"score_ratio":8.8} {"post_id":"z84jt0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is sexual attraction driven by society too? They say men prefer women with some hip to waist ratio, and women prefer men based on some shoulder to hip ratio. It sounds like biology determined that. It really feels like that. But I'm learning that a lot of things are socially driven. A lot of things we just don't know either way. It bothers me a lot. People make proclamations about the way society should be run, based on what our supposed nature's are. And I just want to know for myself the specifics of these different situations such as the one I'm talking about here. I'm only on a basic 101 textbook level here. I'm reading anthropology. But this question isn't answered directly if at all from what I'm reading. I'm thinking the answer is we don't know either way. I don't know.","c_root_id_A":"iyaecw5","c_root_id_B":"iybz2wy","created_at_utc_A":1669762563,"created_at_utc_B":1669791052,"score_A":5,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"\"they say\" Who says? Can they cite their sources? How were the experiments designed? How were cultural controls applied? Was every person surveyed a white American college student? Think critically about the \"common knowledge\" you have.","human_ref_B":"There's an influential study in psychology that demonstrated our perception of attractive faces adapts quite rapidly to distorted images - with just a couple of minutes of exposure to different faces with relatively large manipulations in facial features, in a consistent direction (examples), we will then rate normal faces as less attractive than the distorted faces. Fitting the mind to the World: Face Adaptation and Attractiveness Aftereffects (Mueller et al, 2003) Building upon this is a lot of research suggesting the biological mechanism is a preference for averageness, related to the evolutionary theory of koinophilia. So, if the averageness hypothesis holds true then our perception of attractiveness would be shaped by culture as an adaptation to the average features in our local population, and also in maladaptive ways by exposure to filtered and manipulated images on social media.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28489.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"z84jt0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is sexual attraction driven by society too? They say men prefer women with some hip to waist ratio, and women prefer men based on some shoulder to hip ratio. It sounds like biology determined that. It really feels like that. But I'm learning that a lot of things are socially driven. A lot of things we just don't know either way. It bothers me a lot. People make proclamations about the way society should be run, based on what our supposed nature's are. And I just want to know for myself the specifics of these different situations such as the one I'm talking about here. I'm only on a basic 101 textbook level here. I'm reading anthropology. But this question isn't answered directly if at all from what I'm reading. I'm thinking the answer is we don't know either way. I don't know.","c_root_id_A":"iyau68j","c_root_id_B":"iybz2wy","created_at_utc_A":1669769475,"created_at_utc_B":1669791052,"score_A":4,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"You are not the only person interested in this by any stretch. A lot of scientists and sociologists and people who straddle the two have written about it, I think JS Haldane has some good pieces related to this. At one extreme you could have the viewpoint that what you find sexualy attractive has some sort of biological ideal, which is some sort of function of your brain morphology, and people who come close to this are people you find attractive. At the other, you have that we are blank slates and the pseudo-\/evolution has meant this favours societies that are majority heterosexual and this drives its members' sexual preferences. The former seems a bit silly to me. Brains are crazily plastic and isolating cause from effect in brain development is ludicrously difficult. I've rarely been convinced on things like sexual preferences which way round the causality is between brain morphology and behaviour, and evidence is often shoddier than it appears; it is usually the case that the conclusion appears so neat that we look for ways to make it work and cut it too much slack (confirmation bias). The latter takes away a bit of agency, and indeed is at odds with the idea that people are born into a sexuality, and comes dangerously close to suggesting they may be trained out if it. Sexual attraction is very complex. Gender itself is a social construct and so finding characteristics exclusively associated with a certain gender attractive leads to the conclusion that this attraction must be socially influenced and guided (whether mainstream or not). These characteristics change from culture to culture, and although some of them appear to correlate with biological differences between sexes, I think it's naiive and simplistic to conclude that one is causing the other.","human_ref_B":"There's an influential study in psychology that demonstrated our perception of attractive faces adapts quite rapidly to distorted images - with just a couple of minutes of exposure to different faces with relatively large manipulations in facial features, in a consistent direction (examples), we will then rate normal faces as less attractive than the distorted faces. Fitting the mind to the World: Face Adaptation and Attractiveness Aftereffects (Mueller et al, 2003) Building upon this is a lot of research suggesting the biological mechanism is a preference for averageness, related to the evolutionary theory of koinophilia. So, if the averageness hypothesis holds true then our perception of attractiveness would be shaped by culture as an adaptation to the average features in our local population, and also in maladaptive ways by exposure to filtered and manipulated images on social media.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21577.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"z84jt0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is sexual attraction driven by society too? They say men prefer women with some hip to waist ratio, and women prefer men based on some shoulder to hip ratio. It sounds like biology determined that. It really feels like that. But I'm learning that a lot of things are socially driven. A lot of things we just don't know either way. It bothers me a lot. People make proclamations about the way society should be run, based on what our supposed nature's are. And I just want to know for myself the specifics of these different situations such as the one I'm talking about here. I'm only on a basic 101 textbook level here. I'm reading anthropology. But this question isn't answered directly if at all from what I'm reading. I'm thinking the answer is we don't know either way. I don't know.","c_root_id_A":"iydey4s","c_root_id_B":"iycj4p2","created_at_utc_A":1669824250,"created_at_utc_B":1669808044,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I mean the Chinese managed to create a sexual attraction to mutilated feet for centuries. Closer to home, the whole Kate Moss era convinced us westerners that anorexic women who were in no state to bear children were sexy. So it\u2019s fair to say that at least some of how we view attractiveness is culturally conditioned.","human_ref_B":"All you have to do is look at the history of art to see that many different kinds of bodies have been considered \"most desirable\" at different times and different places. That's your answer: there is some commonality in humans about what most of us agree is beautiful, but there is much less overlap than you would expect, and furthermore individuals in every geographical location and every time period who have disagreed with the prevailing opinion of beauty at the time. The truth is that physical appearance counts for only a superficial amount of sexual and romantic attraction. It isn't meaningless but it's a lot less important than people think.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16206.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"m6aof5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to make a difference between social darwinism\/eugenics and evolutionism? I have Jewish origins, am froma low income family, I don't have a great income, not a great self esteem, and I ask myself a lot of questions. Not posting here to discuss those things, just to set a context. I also have some interest in Bourdieu. I'm trying to build strong arguments against social darwinism. Evolutionary psychology is also a little controversial. I often mix up survival of the fittest, self determination, free will, individualism. My main intuition is that civilization is an artificial construct, thus it's less susceptible to the same evolutionary processes you see in nature. For example, nature is known to be unfair in essence, while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness and ideals. I know I'm comparing very different things, like apples and oranges, but I'm still curious to ask. Are there philosophers or anthropologists who have tried to deconstruct eugenics, social darwinism or even evolutionism with interesting arguments? As long as they are not religious?","c_root_id_A":"gr4vjsk","c_root_id_B":"gr4tg8v","created_at_utc_A":1615910547,"created_at_utc_B":1615909615,"score_A":35,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Out of curiosity, at what point do you think social groups (which I assume you think evolved) stopped being the product of evolution on the way to civilization? Cooperative species value fairness greatly - Frans de Waal's work on morality and fairness in primates and other species is fascinating.","human_ref_B":"A lot of contemporary anthropology attempts to disentangle and discredit ideas of social darwinism. This is particularly to dispute claims made in 18th century imperial anthropology, which began with a lot of original racist sins believing that non-European societies were simply \"less developed\" windows into a linear evolution of humanity. Respected contemporary anthropology then often, at least implicitly, works against ideas of social darwinism by uncovering why different peoples may live different ways and how social structures, like society, intimately and strongly influence individuals. Could you narrow your question to a specific idea you are interested in, like how social reproduction may refute social darwinism? I suppose you could look no further than your interest in Bourdieu. His two really important concepts, habitus and cultural capital, can be interpreted as strong refusals of social darwinism because they forward that people tend to reproduce the social standing they are born into not because of natural meritocratic value to society, but because they are socialised to reproduce the current societal system. Here is a discussion of cultural capital and habitus: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC3990446\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":932.0,"score_ratio":1.5217391304} {"post_id":"m6aof5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to make a difference between social darwinism\/eugenics and evolutionism? I have Jewish origins, am froma low income family, I don't have a great income, not a great self esteem, and I ask myself a lot of questions. Not posting here to discuss those things, just to set a context. I also have some interest in Bourdieu. I'm trying to build strong arguments against social darwinism. Evolutionary psychology is also a little controversial. I often mix up survival of the fittest, self determination, free will, individualism. My main intuition is that civilization is an artificial construct, thus it's less susceptible to the same evolutionary processes you see in nature. For example, nature is known to be unfair in essence, while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness and ideals. I know I'm comparing very different things, like apples and oranges, but I'm still curious to ask. Are there philosophers or anthropologists who have tried to deconstruct eugenics, social darwinism or even evolutionism with interesting arguments? As long as they are not religious?","c_root_id_A":"gr4vjsk","c_root_id_B":"gr4vgcc","created_at_utc_A":1615910547,"created_at_utc_B":1615910505,"score_A":35,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Out of curiosity, at what point do you think social groups (which I assume you think evolved) stopped being the product of evolution on the way to civilization? Cooperative species value fairness greatly - Frans de Waal's work on morality and fairness in primates and other species is fascinating.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if this will be helpful, but I wonder what exactly you mean when you say that \"civilization is an artificial construct\" separate from \"nature?\" Human civilization is built on cooperation and mutual support, and I don't think it really means anything to describe civilization as artificial. Humans are a part of nature just as much as any animal, and human society emerged organically through evolutionary processes. A house is no more artificial than a beehive, a human dam is no more artificial than a Beaver's. Survival of the fittest doesn't just apply to the individual, it applies to societies too, and the ones that engage in cooperation win out. The social Darwinism that had lead to things like eugenics fails by its own criteria. If it was a successful basis for societal organisation then it would have become dominant.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42.0,"score_ratio":2.9166666667} {"post_id":"m6aof5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to make a difference between social darwinism\/eugenics and evolutionism? I have Jewish origins, am froma low income family, I don't have a great income, not a great self esteem, and I ask myself a lot of questions. Not posting here to discuss those things, just to set a context. I also have some interest in Bourdieu. I'm trying to build strong arguments against social darwinism. Evolutionary psychology is also a little controversial. I often mix up survival of the fittest, self determination, free will, individualism. My main intuition is that civilization is an artificial construct, thus it's less susceptible to the same evolutionary processes you see in nature. For example, nature is known to be unfair in essence, while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness and ideals. I know I'm comparing very different things, like apples and oranges, but I'm still curious to ask. Are there philosophers or anthropologists who have tried to deconstruct eugenics, social darwinism or even evolutionism with interesting arguments? As long as they are not religious?","c_root_id_A":"gr5gq9m","c_root_id_B":"gr4vgcc","created_at_utc_A":1615919897,"created_at_utc_B":1615910505,"score_A":17,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"> while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness, and ideals Without getting into the nebulous idea of \"civilization\" itself, I dont think this is a sentiment that most modern anthropologists and historians would cosign. The history of \"civilized society\" is one that is rife with injustice. For instance, many would classify Ancient Rome as a civilization, but fair it most certainly wasn't. The patricians regularly oppressed, abused, and manipulated the plebeians, slavery was rampant, and the Roman military regularly robbed neighboring societies of their sovereignty mostly for monetary gain and prestige. All in all I wouldn't classify the majority of human civilizations as being any more intrinsically \"fair\" than gorilla society.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if this will be helpful, but I wonder what exactly you mean when you say that \"civilization is an artificial construct\" separate from \"nature?\" Human civilization is built on cooperation and mutual support, and I don't think it really means anything to describe civilization as artificial. Humans are a part of nature just as much as any animal, and human society emerged organically through evolutionary processes. A house is no more artificial than a beehive, a human dam is no more artificial than a Beaver's. Survival of the fittest doesn't just apply to the individual, it applies to societies too, and the ones that engage in cooperation win out. The social Darwinism that had lead to things like eugenics fails by its own criteria. If it was a successful basis for societal organisation then it would have become dominant.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9392.0,"score_ratio":1.4166666667} {"post_id":"m6aof5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How to make a difference between social darwinism\/eugenics and evolutionism? I have Jewish origins, am froma low income family, I don't have a great income, not a great self esteem, and I ask myself a lot of questions. Not posting here to discuss those things, just to set a context. I also have some interest in Bourdieu. I'm trying to build strong arguments against social darwinism. Evolutionary psychology is also a little controversial. I often mix up survival of the fittest, self determination, free will, individualism. My main intuition is that civilization is an artificial construct, thus it's less susceptible to the same evolutionary processes you see in nature. For example, nature is known to be unfair in essence, while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness and ideals. I know I'm comparing very different things, like apples and oranges, but I'm still curious to ask. Are there philosophers or anthropologists who have tried to deconstruct eugenics, social darwinism or even evolutionism with interesting arguments? As long as they are not religious?","c_root_id_A":"gr5cx3p","c_root_id_B":"gr5gq9m","created_at_utc_A":1615918185,"created_at_utc_B":1615919897,"score_A":8,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"When I was in college in the 70's we were taught the reason Spencer (Social Darwinism) was wrong was because it is not the survival of the strongest or fittest it was survival of the best adapted to their niche .... and the reason Eugenics is wrong is that offspring tend to regress to the mean. High or low IQ people people are more likely to have children who are more average than they are and average people are more likely to have children who are less average ( higher or lower IQ ) than they are. No serious scientist that I know of doubts that Darwin's insight that all species of organisms arise and develop through natural selection is true though they may argue about the details. .","human_ref_B":"> while civilization greatly strives for justice, fairness, and ideals Without getting into the nebulous idea of \"civilization\" itself, I dont think this is a sentiment that most modern anthropologists and historians would cosign. The history of \"civilized society\" is one that is rife with injustice. For instance, many would classify Ancient Rome as a civilization, but fair it most certainly wasn't. The patricians regularly oppressed, abused, and manipulated the plebeians, slavery was rampant, and the Roman military regularly robbed neighboring societies of their sovereignty mostly for monetary gain and prestige. All in all I wouldn't classify the majority of human civilizations as being any more intrinsically \"fair\" than gorilla society.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1712.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"eo02v3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did Ancient Britons bow, curtsey, etc.? How did Britons pre-Roman times address their superiors - did they bow, curtsey, etc.? And during Roman occupation times would they have adopted Roman forms of greeting of their betters instead? I'm wondering about both male and female superiors here.","c_root_id_A":"febx476","c_root_id_B":"fe9vstm","created_at_utc_A":1578963734,"created_at_utc_B":1578941855,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"We have absolutely no idea. The Britons had no written language, so the only information we have is archaeological or pseudo\/proto-ethnographic accounts by Roman or Greek writers. Archaeology doesn't tell as jack about this sort of thing unless there's a weirdly specific artistic depiction. And the Romans don't go into any detail on this sort of thing whatsoever. If this is for a book, then it's probably an idea to read what the Romans had to say about the Britons other behaviour. And then take that account with a small Austrian salt mine, to temper the impression you'd get before setting your creative juices to making up a semi-informed guess. The majority of the Britons where a Farmish folk, and the Romans are far more interested in Sexing up their accounts by focusing on the warriors, priests, and weird rich people, so alos bear that in mind. Also bear in mind that rural Britons didn't really give much of a shit what the Romans where up to. Romano-Britons in towns and Cities would have adopted some customs that adhered to their existing interests, and slowly the elites became more romanised. But your average chap and his goat probably wouldn't have experienced a sudden drastic shift from generation to generation.","human_ref_B":"Judging by the silence I imagine nobody knows as it's never recorded. The only thing that comes to mind is the irish warrior ritual submission kiss the nipples of the chieftain https:\/\/amp.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/comments\/19ia5l\/is_there_actual_evidence_that_the_ancient_irish\/ it's from St Patrick's confession so may be nonsense","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21879.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cjkexy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"\"Insanity\" in other civilizations Do (or did) people of other civilizations like native-americans, hunter-gatherers, australian aboriginals etc suffered from mental illnesses? I would guess yes, but are (or were) the same illnesses people from the \"West\", like depression or schizophrenia? Even in the West, were mental problems the same through out history? I hope I'm phrasing this correctly. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"evepdyt","c_root_id_B":"evem7ze","created_at_utc_A":1564474286,"created_at_utc_B":1564471196,"score_A":101,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"There was a Stanford study that showed that voices heard by people with schizophrenia vary from culture to culture (https:\/\/news.stanford.edu\/2014\/07\/16\/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614\/), with those in some cultures hearing voices as positive or helpful. This raises the idea that perhaps in a culture where shamans are expected to talk to spirits, or where everyone is expected to communicate with God or with ancestors, people with schizophrenia could \"blend in\" and not be seen as disabled - or would perhaps even be seen as gifted with an important skill or talent. On a related note, Western cultures continue to have an interesting relationship with LGBT people, until recently viewing gay people as disordered, and still viewing trans people as disordered, whereas many cultures have accepted trans and queer people as a \"third gender\" and some have even ascribed shamanic powers to trans people, who can negotiate between the masculine and feminine. I don't mean to equate being LGBT with being mentally ill (I myself am trans and have also experienced depression and anxiety, and don't view my own gender identity as disordered, while my depression and anxiety were much more clearly an \"illness\"), but to point out that definitions of what is \"normal\" vs. \"disordered\" vary from culture to culture, and are handled differently as a result.","human_ref_B":"E. Fuller Torrey says in *Schizophrenia and Civilization*: >Between 1828 and 1960, almost all observers who looked for psychosis or schizophrenia in technologically undeveloped areas of the world agreed that it was uncommon. . . . The striking feature. . . is the remarkable consensus that insanity (in the early studies) and schizophrenia (in later studies) were comparatively uncommon prior to contact with European-American civilization. . . . But around 1950 an interesting thing happened. . . the idea became current in psychiatric literature that schizophrenia occurs in about the same prevalence in all cultures and is not a disease of civilization. it certainly seems that there\u2019s considerable bit of consensus nowadays among experts in this field that mental illness was certainly much more uncommon \u2014 it\u2019s almost incontestable. you can point to a lot of causes \u2014a lot of folks have attributed this to a general lack of coercion, while social theorists like Deleuze & Guattari and (to an extent) R.D. Laing.pdf) see it as more of a not quite planned but promoted consequence of civilization and capitalism. meanwhile, Torrey still holds a biological view. the predominant view seems to be it\u2019s a mix of both. in any case, this has all obviously heavily impacted theories of anti-civilizational critique, primitivism, and such. i should also note it\u2019s really easy to even call concepts of things like schizophrenia and modern psychiatry heavily impacted by colonialism and imperialism. a lot of modern psychiatry was outrightly motivated by racist (often eugenicist) concepts that its really hard to separate them from.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3090.0,"score_ratio":3.15625} {"post_id":"cjkexy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"\"Insanity\" in other civilizations Do (or did) people of other civilizations like native-americans, hunter-gatherers, australian aboriginals etc suffered from mental illnesses? I would guess yes, but are (or were) the same illnesses people from the \"West\", like depression or schizophrenia? Even in the West, were mental problems the same through out history? I hope I'm phrasing this correctly. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"evepdyt","c_root_id_B":"eveim38","created_at_utc_A":1564474286,"created_at_utc_B":1564467830,"score_A":101,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"There was a Stanford study that showed that voices heard by people with schizophrenia vary from culture to culture (https:\/\/news.stanford.edu\/2014\/07\/16\/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614\/), with those in some cultures hearing voices as positive or helpful. This raises the idea that perhaps in a culture where shamans are expected to talk to spirits, or where everyone is expected to communicate with God or with ancestors, people with schizophrenia could \"blend in\" and not be seen as disabled - or would perhaps even be seen as gifted with an important skill or talent. On a related note, Western cultures continue to have an interesting relationship with LGBT people, until recently viewing gay people as disordered, and still viewing trans people as disordered, whereas many cultures have accepted trans and queer people as a \"third gender\" and some have even ascribed shamanic powers to trans people, who can negotiate between the masculine and feminine. I don't mean to equate being LGBT with being mentally ill (I myself am trans and have also experienced depression and anxiety, and don't view my own gender identity as disordered, while my depression and anxiety were much more clearly an \"illness\"), but to point out that definitions of what is \"normal\" vs. \"disordered\" vary from culture to culture, and are handled differently as a result.","human_ref_B":"This is from memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember reading a paper that suggested mental illness in the past wasn\u2019t as noticeable because lives were simpler. Our more complex culture and civilization means that functionality has to be higher. As I said, from memory. I hope I remembered it right.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6456.0,"score_ratio":5.3157894737} {"post_id":"cjkexy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"\"Insanity\" in other civilizations Do (or did) people of other civilizations like native-americans, hunter-gatherers, australian aboriginals etc suffered from mental illnesses? I would guess yes, but are (or were) the same illnesses people from the \"West\", like depression or schizophrenia? Even in the West, were mental problems the same through out history? I hope I'm phrasing this correctly. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"eveim38","c_root_id_B":"evem7ze","created_at_utc_A":1564467830,"created_at_utc_B":1564471196,"score_A":19,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"This is from memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember reading a paper that suggested mental illness in the past wasn\u2019t as noticeable because lives were simpler. Our more complex culture and civilization means that functionality has to be higher. As I said, from memory. I hope I remembered it right.","human_ref_B":"E. Fuller Torrey says in *Schizophrenia and Civilization*: >Between 1828 and 1960, almost all observers who looked for psychosis or schizophrenia in technologically undeveloped areas of the world agreed that it was uncommon. . . . The striking feature. . . is the remarkable consensus that insanity (in the early studies) and schizophrenia (in later studies) were comparatively uncommon prior to contact with European-American civilization. . . . But around 1950 an interesting thing happened. . . the idea became current in psychiatric literature that schizophrenia occurs in about the same prevalence in all cultures and is not a disease of civilization. it certainly seems that there\u2019s considerable bit of consensus nowadays among experts in this field that mental illness was certainly much more uncommon \u2014 it\u2019s almost incontestable. you can point to a lot of causes \u2014a lot of folks have attributed this to a general lack of coercion, while social theorists like Deleuze & Guattari and (to an extent) R.D. Laing.pdf) see it as more of a not quite planned but promoted consequence of civilization and capitalism. meanwhile, Torrey still holds a biological view. the predominant view seems to be it\u2019s a mix of both. in any case, this has all obviously heavily impacted theories of anti-civilizational critique, primitivism, and such. i should also note it\u2019s really easy to even call concepts of things like schizophrenia and modern psychiatry heavily impacted by colonialism and imperialism. a lot of modern psychiatry was outrightly motivated by racist (often eugenicist) concepts that its really hard to separate them from.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3366.0,"score_ratio":1.6842105263} {"post_id":"c5b7qq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How influential was the russian frontier in the formation of russian culture as compared to the american frontier?","c_root_id_A":"es2abhr","c_root_id_B":"es2lccd","created_at_utc_A":1561518211,"created_at_utc_B":1561528594,"score_A":4,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Great question. I'd love to know too","human_ref_B":"Incredibly important, not just during the period where the eastern Turkic\/Mongol nomads extracted tribute and raided but to the continued development through the Soviet Union. You should look into the Cossack colonization of the east and the website \u201c17 moments in soviet history\u201d especially the sections on the non Russian(ethnically) east.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10383.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"c5b7qq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How influential was the russian frontier in the formation of russian culture as compared to the american frontier?","c_root_id_A":"es2abhr","c_root_id_B":"es2rvnt","created_at_utc_A":1561518211,"created_at_utc_B":1561537147,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Great question. I'd love to know too","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/2640127?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents This article by David Moon covers the topic quite nicely. One interesting claim he makes is that the entrenchment of serfdom in Russia proper was partly caused by the presence of an open frontier and the formation of Cossack hosts. Basically, discontent peasants in Russia had the option to just run away and set up farms in the steppe, or to join a Cossack party, which were known for their democratic structure. If such an option wasn't available it is more likely there would have been more revolts, and more attempts by the serfs to fight for their rights. But since there was this 'safety-valve', serfdom was strengthened by the nobles of the state, as unhappy peasants would just fly rather than fight.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18936.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"yxogxr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How was the Indian caste system invented? I heard that the Hindu Varna system had Indo European origins as a social hierarchy (Priests at the top, warriors in the middle, merchants at the bottom). But why was the fourth \"Shudra\" caste added? Also, did the caste system have racial origins like some people say? If so, why do modern Brahmins have less Steppe ancestry?","c_root_id_A":"iwswy0w","c_root_id_B":"iwq7jkx","created_at_utc_A":1668738920,"created_at_utc_B":1668698019,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Most of the answers here looks like were by people who have not kept on top of the latest research in this subject. > But marriages within these groups was later replaced by formulation of caste patterns in which whose members marry only within their groups but not outside. >\u201dIt was the time when strictures were written and implemented. Prior to that people were less rigid,\u201d Partha P Majumder, director of the institute and lead author of the study told Deccan Herald. >With DNA data analysis, the researchers estimated that the transition from free inter-marriage to endogamy took place about 70 generations ago. Leafing through the pages of history, they found this transition happened during Gupta empire with Patliputra as its capital. https:\/\/www.deccanherald.com\/amp\/content\/525390\/caste-originated-during-gupta-dynasty.html In South and Western India caste system solidified only 55 generations ago, not 70 like it was in the Gangetic plains. This is long after the so called Steppe migration of Indo-Aryans, 3500 years ago.","human_ref_B":"This question is additionally complicated by colonial history. Prior to British colonization there was some (not much, but some) flexibility in the caste system. During the colonial era one of the things that happened was that the situation as it was at the time was recorded and entered into official census records. This effectively locked the system into place and massively reduced the internal mobility and flexibility it previously had. This is obviously not a comment on the origin of it, but it is a reminder that the extant system, and what the British and those after them recorded, may not be a faithful representation of what it was in the past. How different it may have been is certainly up for debate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40901.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} {"post_id":"m7d91f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What makes the difference between Anthropology and the rest of social sciences? I know this answer might be a bit ambiguous, but in the course of my career I've been noticing how blurred are the lines which separate Anthropology to other social sciences, mostly talking about the actual development of the discipline. And I think that maybe your opinions could help me to make up my mind about this specifications.","c_root_id_A":"grarn3u","c_root_id_B":"grarr03","created_at_utc_A":1616026651,"created_at_utc_B":1616026709,"score_A":14,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"(English is not my first language so i apologize for any mistakes beforehand. Im not fluent.) Well im third year BC student so my answer might not be adequate but ill try to answer. The difference that i see is first the methods and second the possible fields and how deep you have to dig in. Anthropology can work with other methods as well but ethnoraphy is an important method of our work. I think one of the reason that we can not and should not only rely on other methods is how anthropology tries to get deep in the life and experience of a subjest (which can be the researcher itself in autoethnography). When i think of ethnography, i think a main aspect of doing it is actually living the life of the subject and understanding the emotions and possible functions the subject goes through. So main difference for me would be method. Second would be the fields. As i know for example sociology does not concern itself with ancient history or biology. Anthropology is concerned over \"human\" therefore can work on every possible field related to human and anthropologists LOVE hybrid diciplines. Most of people mistake anthropology as a dicipline that works on none-urban societies and comunities or only works on culture. This a wrong approach. Anthropology can work on related animal species or can work on linguistics or can work on dead comunities like old ones. For anthropogy, roots of our behaviour could go back to our evolution. Anything can be a subject here. But you have to keep in mind that in anthropology, you have to choose one detailed field and work on it. You can not work on several unrelated field simply bc you have to dig your subject very deep. I personally think anthropology has a more realistic and humantarian approach to humans and is less judjemental than sociology; though this does not mean it doesnt include critical thinking. Keep in mind that im studying in Iran so what i would have in mind about what social science is and what each of them do, could simply be result of living in developing country with low quality edu system. Here we only consider anthropology and sociology and their branches as social science. Sociology is considered an elite dicipline and more privilaged people get into it. As they have less experience with discrimination and look at society from above, can make me have a bias against them. Unlike them, anthropology is a less known dicipline that mostly discriminated students choose and has a strong politically opposition atmosphere against Islamic republich and power. So a reason why i think sociology has a less realistic and humantarian approach or use lazy methods without digging in the subject, could be this. (We have lots of amazing sociologists here and i do not see sociology as the footlicker of power. Just crowded with privilaged people who might not see the situation despite of having good theorical and historical knowledge.)","human_ref_B":"The four field approach sets, at least american foufield anthropology, aside from other social sciences by way of providing us with a more holistic approach to the study of the human race. In order to fully understand this, we must go back to the origins of British social anthropology, which was in many ways closer to sociology. Older concepts of ethnographic study were primarily concerned with looking at cultures from a, \"god's eye view\", if you will. In other words they wanted to look at a culture as if that culture was frozen in time, with no regard for the history that brought that culture to its current state. The american fourfield approach changed this. This was when we started seeing biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics, being employed in tandem with cultural anthropology. Another extremely important event in anthropology that truly sets us aside from other disciplines, would be the reflexive turn. Up until the reflexive turn anthropologists attempted to maintain a strictly scientific discipline. However people began to realize that it was not feasible to study something as intrinsically complex as culture using only quantitative methods. Thus anthropologists began implementing more qualitative data and methods into their research. This also gave rise to the insertion of individual researchers and their own positionallity into ethnography. Gone was the god's eye view looking down on a culture as an impartial agent. Instead we began seeing more anthropologists inserting themselves into their ethnography. Naturally this self insertion is not without it's critics, but it does allow for a much richer ethnographic experience, especially in regards to participant observation. We can contrast these examples of participant observation and qualitative data with fields such as economics and sociology, who tend to concern themselves primarily with quantitative data, although economics has in recent years begun realizing much of the same things that led anthropologists to the reflexive turn.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":58.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2cgr0t","c_root_id_B":"e2c9wp7","created_at_utc_A":1531520727,"created_at_utc_B":1531514505,"score_A":43,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"As a Native American, No. In the cases where researchers do not treat remains with respect, yes. Scientists aren\u2019t maltreating these bodies. They understand there is a lot of sentiment from local tribes about this sort of thing. I really don\u2019t care for those in the tribes advocating for the collections of these bodies for four reasons. 1. When a body is located anywhere in california, there is 3-6 tribes disputing who\u2019s it belongs to. This alone is a waste of time. It\u2019s almost entirely speculation of which tribe the body was associated with, usually it will go to the closest tribal region. (If its found in Coastal Miwok territory, it will be deemed Coastal Miwok unless proven otherwise). 2. The borders defined are based on modern delineations for the most part. In California specifically borders changed a lot. Tribes would be constantly changing their influential spheres often merging and separating from each other making it redundant to assign the remains of a body to a certain region just based on modern delineation. 3. There was so much information about native american history that has been destroyed or misinformed. I have a real pet-peeve when I go into information museums, put on by local tribe members, who don\u2019t have accurate information. For example when I go into the Maidu historic center, I should be seeing the unique culture and history of the Maidu, not the highly stereotyped horse riding plain indians, and accompanied by headdresses. While those features are interesting to place them in the context of California Natives is incorrect and disrespectful to other Tribes identity. In short, scientists really help shape what knowledge we know. Not all Indians made acorn pancakes, some had rich culture in diving for abalone shells. Some avoided the mountains due to greater predators. All very unique identities that many tribal members ignore. 4. When the research has been done, in almost every case, researchers have been willing to return remains in mostly enact and respected conditions. If there is a truly unique case, where the remains need to be preserved or presented in a museum, the tribe should be in full support of the academic community. These litigations of who has the right to the remains it really disrupting for a lot of people. If a body is found on a construction site that could be the remains of a tribe, there has to be an anthropologist, a tribal representative, lawyers, construction managers, police investigators, and all the work, excavation, and removal of the body, are all postponed and can cause a a lot of short tempers in the summer heat. It is only a few loud tribal members who are so against the academic collection of remains who make it difficult. A lot of people of the community don\u2019t have an opinion to chime in.","human_ref_B":"What if the bones predate the tribe's arrival and actually were from the previous inhabitants of the area, but the tribe that inhabited the area more recently claims them. Should the university give them to the tribe even though they are not the bones of their ancestors? I think that is sometimes the situation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6222.0,"score_ratio":4.3} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2cgr0t","c_root_id_B":"e2c9f3j","created_at_utc_A":1531520727,"created_at_utc_B":1531514086,"score_A":43,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As a Native American, No. In the cases where researchers do not treat remains with respect, yes. Scientists aren\u2019t maltreating these bodies. They understand there is a lot of sentiment from local tribes about this sort of thing. I really don\u2019t care for those in the tribes advocating for the collections of these bodies for four reasons. 1. When a body is located anywhere in california, there is 3-6 tribes disputing who\u2019s it belongs to. This alone is a waste of time. It\u2019s almost entirely speculation of which tribe the body was associated with, usually it will go to the closest tribal region. (If its found in Coastal Miwok territory, it will be deemed Coastal Miwok unless proven otherwise). 2. The borders defined are based on modern delineations for the most part. In California specifically borders changed a lot. Tribes would be constantly changing their influential spheres often merging and separating from each other making it redundant to assign the remains of a body to a certain region just based on modern delineation. 3. There was so much information about native american history that has been destroyed or misinformed. I have a real pet-peeve when I go into information museums, put on by local tribe members, who don\u2019t have accurate information. For example when I go into the Maidu historic center, I should be seeing the unique culture and history of the Maidu, not the highly stereotyped horse riding plain indians, and accompanied by headdresses. While those features are interesting to place them in the context of California Natives is incorrect and disrespectful to other Tribes identity. In short, scientists really help shape what knowledge we know. Not all Indians made acorn pancakes, some had rich culture in diving for abalone shells. Some avoided the mountains due to greater predators. All very unique identities that many tribal members ignore. 4. When the research has been done, in almost every case, researchers have been willing to return remains in mostly enact and respected conditions. If there is a truly unique case, where the remains need to be preserved or presented in a museum, the tribe should be in full support of the academic community. These litigations of who has the right to the remains it really disrupting for a lot of people. If a body is found on a construction site that could be the remains of a tribe, there has to be an anthropologist, a tribal representative, lawyers, construction managers, police investigators, and all the work, excavation, and removal of the body, are all postponed and can cause a a lot of short tempers in the summer heat. It is only a few loud tribal members who are so against the academic collection of remains who make it difficult. A lot of people of the community don\u2019t have an opinion to chime in.","human_ref_B":"This is a question about ethics, not really about anthropology itself. Social science isn't normative, and can't really tell you anything about \"rights\" from a moral perspective. Regardless, in this case being a dick for vague scientific reasons that aren't super important is probably not justified. If something improving scientific knowledge in any amount at all was good enough to justify it, you could justify all sorts of bad things. Studying a few bones is not a major important life saving task.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6641.0,"score_ratio":7.1666666667} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2cm7d4","c_root_id_B":"e2c9wp7","created_at_utc_A":1531526278,"created_at_utc_B":1531514505,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Well, since NAGPRA is a thing, they're required to return them by law. However, as \/u\/TutuForver points out very nicely in her post, it can be a very hard thing to do repatriation correctly. In my local area there are no living descendants of the tribe that lived in our valley, so another nearby tribe is asked to monitor\/rebury any remains that are excavated. \/u\/TutuForver also brings up a good point about there being no consensus among Native Americans on the issue - while many tribes do want remains repatriated, some tribes and individuals are fine with the remains being used for research. Personally, although I am not Native American, I am of the mindset that the tribe should get to choose. I remember watching a documentary about a tribe in Oklahoma that works very closely with researchers to ensure remains are both treated with respect and used for research that will help the tribe out. I believe in this case it was looking at nutrition status of the remains or diabetes or something? I think in this case, UC Berkeley is doing it the wrong way. Instead of working with the tribe (say, asking if a member of the tribe would want to observe or having them set limits on what research can be done) they are shutting the tribe out of the process. By building strong relationships with the tribes these universities have chances to gain more knowledge than they every will by having the remains just sit there as a reference collection. As the article touches on, repatriation can involve a lot of examination of the remains. As \/u\/THCarlisle touches on, these collections \"for research\" aren't often used at all. UC Berkeley doesn't have a lot of human osteologists any more, and the ones whose research I've looked into seem have their own collections\/areas of interest that are not Native American, so somehow I doubt those Native American remains are getting looked at with any regularity. I don't know why they would be dragging their feet on repatriation other than the difficulty of finding where to send things and\/or the prestige of having such a large collection of human skeletons.","human_ref_B":"What if the bones predate the tribe's arrival and actually were from the previous inhabitants of the area, but the tribe that inhabited the area more recently claims them. Should the university give them to the tribe even though they are not the bones of their ancestors? I think that is sometimes the situation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11773.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2c9f3j","c_root_id_B":"e2cm7d4","created_at_utc_A":1531514086,"created_at_utc_B":1531526278,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"This is a question about ethics, not really about anthropology itself. Social science isn't normative, and can't really tell you anything about \"rights\" from a moral perspective. Regardless, in this case being a dick for vague scientific reasons that aren't super important is probably not justified. If something improving scientific knowledge in any amount at all was good enough to justify it, you could justify all sorts of bad things. Studying a few bones is not a major important life saving task.","human_ref_B":"Well, since NAGPRA is a thing, they're required to return them by law. However, as \/u\/TutuForver points out very nicely in her post, it can be a very hard thing to do repatriation correctly. In my local area there are no living descendants of the tribe that lived in our valley, so another nearby tribe is asked to monitor\/rebury any remains that are excavated. \/u\/TutuForver also brings up a good point about there being no consensus among Native Americans on the issue - while many tribes do want remains repatriated, some tribes and individuals are fine with the remains being used for research. Personally, although I am not Native American, I am of the mindset that the tribe should get to choose. I remember watching a documentary about a tribe in Oklahoma that works very closely with researchers to ensure remains are both treated with respect and used for research that will help the tribe out. I believe in this case it was looking at nutrition status of the remains or diabetes or something? I think in this case, UC Berkeley is doing it the wrong way. Instead of working with the tribe (say, asking if a member of the tribe would want to observe or having them set limits on what research can be done) they are shutting the tribe out of the process. By building strong relationships with the tribes these universities have chances to gain more knowledge than they every will by having the remains just sit there as a reference collection. As the article touches on, repatriation can involve a lot of examination of the remains. As \/u\/THCarlisle touches on, these collections \"for research\" aren't often used at all. UC Berkeley doesn't have a lot of human osteologists any more, and the ones whose research I've looked into seem have their own collections\/areas of interest that are not Native American, so somehow I doubt those Native American remains are getting looked at with any regularity. I don't know why they would be dragging their feet on repatriation other than the difficulty of finding where to send things and\/or the prestige of having such a large collection of human skeletons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12192.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2c9wp7","c_root_id_B":"e2c9f3j","created_at_utc_A":1531514505,"created_at_utc_B":1531514086,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"What if the bones predate the tribe's arrival and actually were from the previous inhabitants of the area, but the tribe that inhabited the area more recently claims them. Should the university give them to the tribe even though they are not the bones of their ancestors? I think that is sometimes the situation.","human_ref_B":"This is a question about ethics, not really about anthropology itself. Social science isn't normative, and can't really tell you anything about \"rights\" from a moral perspective. Regardless, in this case being a dick for vague scientific reasons that aren't super important is probably not justified. If something improving scientific knowledge in any amount at all was good enough to justify it, you could justify all sorts of bad things. Studying a few bones is not a major important life saving task.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":419.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"8yn5r5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does UC Berkeley owe it to Native Americans to return their ancestors' remains? There is a struggle taking place right now with Native Americans and UC Berkeley. Going against the law, UC is keeping the majority of the bones they have acquired, instead of returning them to their (the bones') tribes. UC is holding onto the bones (and associated funerary items) for continued research, and they make their case in the above article. Does the collective knowledge to be gained from studying these bones outweigh the tribes' rights to their elders' remains? Which side is right? *a letter","c_root_id_A":"e2c9f3j","c_root_id_B":"e2d78i1","created_at_utc_A":1531514086,"created_at_utc_B":1531554165,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This is a question about ethics, not really about anthropology itself. Social science isn't normative, and can't really tell you anything about \"rights\" from a moral perspective. Regardless, in this case being a dick for vague scientific reasons that aren't super important is probably not justified. If something improving scientific knowledge in any amount at all was good enough to justify it, you could justify all sorts of bad things. Studying a few bones is not a major important life saving task.","human_ref_B":"I'm in paleo anthro, so this isn't directly related to my work, but there are parallels in how we treat Native remains and how we treat living people in evolutionarily important modern countries. Personally, my take on issues related to NAGPRA and repatriation is this: It does not matter if there is still more to learn from a set of remains if the people to whom those remains belong do not grant you consent to that knowledge. It doesn't matter if more information can be obtained if we never had a right to that information to begin with, and in these cases where we have imposed our own personal funerary beliefs (namely, that we can and should exhume remains for further study) it is our obligation as moral people to repatriate back in all cases where it is possible. Some answers to our most burning questions do not belong to us, no matter how desperately we want them to.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40079.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"wxl0s3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How did civilizations that had no contact with each other all come up with the idea of religion? Even though the religions\/beliefs\/gods may have differed, the entire idea of a higher being is there. How did this happen? I\u2019ve seen other questions posing has there even been an atheist society. But I am wondering how two potential societies across the ancient world were able to come up with religion. Even the burying of a bodies that were dug up from thousands years ago is puzzling to me. To me that signifies religion or some belief. When we find these remains around the globe it seems like there is a pattern of having a religion or belief system.","c_root_id_A":"ilt5nei","c_root_id_B":"ils12ds","created_at_utc_A":1661475029,"created_at_utc_B":1661457884,"score_A":28,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"For your latter point, keep in mind that there are only so many ways to dispose of a body. * If you have a deep body of water or ocean with dependable currents, you can dispose of it at sea (though you risk it washing ashore). * If you're nomadic, you can just leave it behind and not come back for a few months (but it might not be a suitable time to move on). * If you have abundant fuel, you can cremate it (but cutting wood is a *lot* of work, especially before iron tools). * In a very humid climate, you can leave it out for animals and decay to take over (but they might learn to appreciate the taste). * In a dry climate, you can put it out for the buzzards as a sky burial. Or you can bury them in the ground, under your house, in a cairn or a pyramid, etc. It's a lot of work, but it saves you from the smell, limits the spread of disease, and keeps your loved ones from being defiled by animals. It's not the only solution, but it's the best in many cases. It shouldn't be surprising that many different peoples came to the same conclusion. Plus, you need Ceremonial Burial to build Temples and to get Monarchy (just a joke!).","human_ref_B":"There's actually no consensus regarding the origin of religion. But imo before you can ask questions about the origin of religion you first have to decide on what religion even is. One definition of religion I like is the one by Clifford Geertz in his essay \"religion as a cultural system\": \"Religions is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.\" (I really recommend reading the essay, he goes into much more detail) And for example with that definition it doesn't seem so unlikely that different groups of humans could come up with religion independently. All humans have a limited capacity to understand the world around them, which causes distress. To alleviate that stress they come up with ways to explain the world, but those explanations then necessarily lie outside of what they are able to understand just from their perception, and are thus super-natural. And concerning burying, from the top of my head there are also multiple explanations for why humans bury their dead, like for example reasons as simple as limiting the spread of disease. But again if we use Clifford Geertz definition then death is also something very distressing. Especially if it's a loved one. And the reason for their death might not actually make any sense to someone. Maybe they were killed by someone else for a reason they perceive as unjust. Maybe they simply died at an early age by some disease that can't be explained (for example a sudden cardiac arrest). And if you can't make sense of a loved one's death, if you think they were too young to die, or that their death was unjust, then finding some other explanation like \"god had a plan for them and god knows what's best\" or \"all humans have some original sin, they didn't pray enough to make up for that\" or \"the life here on earth is a punishment by our god anyway, they are in a better place now\" then that makes that death actually bearable, instead of having no explanation at all. And especially if the explanation you come up with includes some sort of afterlife then you can come up with the idea that burying a person with their belongings, or with money or precious items, is something that will help them in the afterlife. Again it might be something to alleviate the stress of losing someone, by making some final efforts to care for them, even if they're already dead. And that train of thought isn't so complex that multiple people wouldn't be able to come up with it independently, especially because it's something all humans go through, and virtually all humans have a desire to alleviate the stress they experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17145.0,"score_ratio":1.0769230769} {"post_id":"wxl0s3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How did civilizations that had no contact with each other all come up with the idea of religion? Even though the religions\/beliefs\/gods may have differed, the entire idea of a higher being is there. How did this happen? I\u2019ve seen other questions posing has there even been an atheist society. But I am wondering how two potential societies across the ancient world were able to come up with religion. Even the burying of a bodies that were dug up from thousands years ago is puzzling to me. To me that signifies religion or some belief. When we find these remains around the globe it seems like there is a pattern of having a religion or belief system.","c_root_id_A":"ilt5nei","c_root_id_B":"ilryg2n","created_at_utc_A":1661475029,"created_at_utc_B":1661456874,"score_A":28,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"For your latter point, keep in mind that there are only so many ways to dispose of a body. * If you have a deep body of water or ocean with dependable currents, you can dispose of it at sea (though you risk it washing ashore). * If you're nomadic, you can just leave it behind and not come back for a few months (but it might not be a suitable time to move on). * If you have abundant fuel, you can cremate it (but cutting wood is a *lot* of work, especially before iron tools). * In a very humid climate, you can leave it out for animals and decay to take over (but they might learn to appreciate the taste). * In a dry climate, you can put it out for the buzzards as a sky burial. Or you can bury them in the ground, under your house, in a cairn or a pyramid, etc. It's a lot of work, but it saves you from the smell, limits the spread of disease, and keeps your loved ones from being defiled by animals. It's not the only solution, but it's the best in many cases. It shouldn't be surprising that many different peoples came to the same conclusion. Plus, you need Ceremonial Burial to build Temples and to get Monarchy (just a joke!).","human_ref_B":"You can very legitimately ask the question, what is the difference between religion and culture? A religion is a series of beliefs that help you understand the world, that comes with instructions for how to organize your society and perform rituals that reinforce social norms, values and organization. Every sporting event is a religious ritual. The belief that capitalism is good is a religious belief. Laws guiding the definition of family are religious laws. I know we like to think that in the modern world we can separate secular rules and institutions from religious rules and institutions. But they work the same way. A social group creates a belief or pattern of behavior that the entire group internalizes as \"real\" or \"true\" or \"natural\" or \"godly\" and then they act as if they did not make it up. The label seems to me less important than the process.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18155.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"wxl0s3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How did civilizations that had no contact with each other all come up with the idea of religion? Even though the religions\/beliefs\/gods may have differed, the entire idea of a higher being is there. How did this happen? I\u2019ve seen other questions posing has there even been an atheist society. But I am wondering how two potential societies across the ancient world were able to come up with religion. Even the burying of a bodies that were dug up from thousands years ago is puzzling to me. To me that signifies religion or some belief. When we find these remains around the globe it seems like there is a pattern of having a religion or belief system.","c_root_id_A":"ilt5nei","c_root_id_B":"ils2dee","created_at_utc_A":1661475029,"created_at_utc_B":1661458397,"score_A":28,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"For your latter point, keep in mind that there are only so many ways to dispose of a body. * If you have a deep body of water or ocean with dependable currents, you can dispose of it at sea (though you risk it washing ashore). * If you're nomadic, you can just leave it behind and not come back for a few months (but it might not be a suitable time to move on). * If you have abundant fuel, you can cremate it (but cutting wood is a *lot* of work, especially before iron tools). * In a very humid climate, you can leave it out for animals and decay to take over (but they might learn to appreciate the taste). * In a dry climate, you can put it out for the buzzards as a sky burial. Or you can bury them in the ground, under your house, in a cairn or a pyramid, etc. It's a lot of work, but it saves you from the smell, limits the spread of disease, and keeps your loved ones from being defiled by animals. It's not the only solution, but it's the best in many cases. It shouldn't be surprising that many different peoples came to the same conclusion. Plus, you need Ceremonial Burial to build Temples and to get Monarchy (just a joke!).","human_ref_B":"What is particularly important about certain practices being 'cultural universals' is that they are very strong candidates for being independent from culture and rooted in our biology, evolution. Hence the debate around those concepts is part of centuries - old debate of nature vs nurture. As far as we know, belief in souls, afterlife, gods, animism etc etc - spirituality in general (\"religion\" is more of a West - centric term) seem to be very stron candidate for such phenomenon rooted ino the way human cognition and social systems work on the fundamental level, way bey any cultural drift.ence in Homo Sapiens in general. What is particularly important about certain practices being 'cultural universals' is that they are very strong candidates for being independent from culture and rooted in our biology, evolution. Hence the debate around those concepts is part of centuries - old debate of nature vs nurture. As far as we know, belief in souls, afterlife, gods, animism etc etc - spirituality in general (\"religion\" is more of a West - centric term) seem to be very stron candidate for such phenomenon rooted ino the way human cognition and social systems work on the fundamental level, going way deeper beonyd any cultural drift or shallow \"explanations\" such as \"common sense\" atheists seeing in them nothing more than \"greed of priestly class\" or whatever oversimplified Christan - centric understanding of spirituality. As for 'atheist *societies*', it is completely bollocks, there is no such thing in cultural history before 20th century communist (horrible) attempts of enforcing it, and especially not among classical Greeks and Romans who were very religious and superstitious. It the same kind of nonsense as some ancient societeis supposedly being feminist, pro LGBT, rational, ecological etc etc, just an anachronistic attempt to find respectable progenitors of modern day progressive politics. Ancient Greeks in particular get his with this hard, while they had very religious, insanely slave - dependent, extremely misogynistic, sexually repressive, xenophobic culture. Same nonsense with pagan tribal societies (Norse, Celts etc) being supposed paragons of freedom, while irl they were just as patriarchal as Romans, and some of those societies had their own independent cruel punishments for homosexuality and so on. Of course, depending on given culture and period, its cultural norms and conservatism could vary greatly (even within the same culture), but as a rule of thumb trying to enforce modern day moral concepts on historical societies usually ends up in anachronistic disaster. An example: there was a relatively niche school of classical ancient Hindu philosophy known as Charvaka, which had many properties we'd call atheistic: it denied god, soul, afterlife and so on. In the same time, *it has always been considered to be a part of Hinduism* (which itself had extremely unclear borders and included everything including pantheism, monotheism, polytheism and more, in its extreme internal diversity)*.* For someone from Western civilization this sounds like an oxymoron; but that's part of the fun, other cultures have completely different notions of what is spirituality and even when you trace something we'd call atheism (please keep in mind this was sect of intellectuals, a very small part of Indian society), even then it doesn't align to our modern Enlightenment - era derived understanding of atheism. Same with Greek philosophers who expressed various degrees of unorthodox views on religion; as a philosophy graduate I'd be very reluctant to slap etiquette of \"atheist\" on almost any of them. Tl;dr religion does seem to be cultural universal omnipresent across all preindustrial cultures, and even when there were some \"irreligious\" movements in preindustrial history they don't align to our modern dichotomy of belief - unbelief. I'd be very suspicious of using the word 'atheist' when referring to pre - Enlightenment era beliefs, especially non European ones.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16632.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"wxl0s3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How did civilizations that had no contact with each other all come up with the idea of religion? Even though the religions\/beliefs\/gods may have differed, the entire idea of a higher being is there. How did this happen? I\u2019ve seen other questions posing has there even been an atheist society. But I am wondering how two potential societies across the ancient world were able to come up with religion. Even the burying of a bodies that were dug up from thousands years ago is puzzling to me. To me that signifies religion or some belief. When we find these remains around the globe it seems like there is a pattern of having a religion or belief system.","c_root_id_A":"ils12ds","c_root_id_B":"ilryg2n","created_at_utc_A":1661457884,"created_at_utc_B":1661456874,"score_A":26,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"There's actually no consensus regarding the origin of religion. But imo before you can ask questions about the origin of religion you first have to decide on what religion even is. One definition of religion I like is the one by Clifford Geertz in his essay \"religion as a cultural system\": \"Religions is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.\" (I really recommend reading the essay, he goes into much more detail) And for example with that definition it doesn't seem so unlikely that different groups of humans could come up with religion independently. All humans have a limited capacity to understand the world around them, which causes distress. To alleviate that stress they come up with ways to explain the world, but those explanations then necessarily lie outside of what they are able to understand just from their perception, and are thus super-natural. And concerning burying, from the top of my head there are also multiple explanations for why humans bury their dead, like for example reasons as simple as limiting the spread of disease. But again if we use Clifford Geertz definition then death is also something very distressing. Especially if it's a loved one. And the reason for their death might not actually make any sense to someone. Maybe they were killed by someone else for a reason they perceive as unjust. Maybe they simply died at an early age by some disease that can't be explained (for example a sudden cardiac arrest). And if you can't make sense of a loved one's death, if you think they were too young to die, or that their death was unjust, then finding some other explanation like \"god had a plan for them and god knows what's best\" or \"all humans have some original sin, they didn't pray enough to make up for that\" or \"the life here on earth is a punishment by our god anyway, they are in a better place now\" then that makes that death actually bearable, instead of having no explanation at all. And especially if the explanation you come up with includes some sort of afterlife then you can come up with the idea that burying a person with their belongings, or with money or precious items, is something that will help them in the afterlife. Again it might be something to alleviate the stress of losing someone, by making some final efforts to care for them, even if they're already dead. And that train of thought isn't so complex that multiple people wouldn't be able to come up with it independently, especially because it's something all humans go through, and virtually all humans have a desire to alleviate the stress they experience.","human_ref_B":"You can very legitimately ask the question, what is the difference between religion and culture? A religion is a series of beliefs that help you understand the world, that comes with instructions for how to organize your society and perform rituals that reinforce social norms, values and organization. Every sporting event is a religious ritual. The belief that capitalism is good is a religious belief. Laws guiding the definition of family are religious laws. I know we like to think that in the modern world we can separate secular rules and institutions from religious rules and institutions. But they work the same way. A social group creates a belief or pattern of behavior that the entire group internalizes as \"real\" or \"true\" or \"natural\" or \"godly\" and then they act as if they did not make it up. The label seems to me less important than the process.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1010.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"rp37w0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How common are grandmothers found as important figures in many cultures around the world, and why not grandfathers? My husband is from Russia and we were making jokes about \"Babushka\". Later, we were watching Encanto which is about a matriarchal leader. It made me think of our own families and how my grandmother was such a key part of family get-togethers and how difficult it is to stay together without her here. It makes me wonder about the role of a grandmother in the societies around the world. How common are grandmothers seen as these matriarchal leaders? Why are they often represented over grandfathers? Do they show up over and over again or am I just crazy??? I guess I'm wanting to know if it's common, and if it is, if there are any interesting or cool facts about man kind's relationship with their grandparents.","c_root_id_A":"hq2r81r","c_root_id_B":"hq2eras","created_at_utc_A":1640558421,"created_at_utc_B":1640552683,"score_A":44,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"In Orca society, grandmothers are the leaders. They are the only other mammal we know of that goes through menopause. Might be some theories waiting for you there\u2026","human_ref_B":"Grandmothers may mean different things to different cultures, but one thing to think about is that when we separate public life (work, politics, etc) and private life (family, the home), women generally maintain some level of responsibility over the home and have the job of keeping the family together. The association of child care and domestic labor with femininity means that in a patriarchal or sexist society, men are discouraged from engaging in child care and may make them uncomfortable even with their own grandchildren. Women also live longer than men, so that may be a factor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5738.0,"score_ratio":1.2571428571} {"post_id":"rp37w0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How common are grandmothers found as important figures in many cultures around the world, and why not grandfathers? My husband is from Russia and we were making jokes about \"Babushka\". Later, we were watching Encanto which is about a matriarchal leader. It made me think of our own families and how my grandmother was such a key part of family get-togethers and how difficult it is to stay together without her here. It makes me wonder about the role of a grandmother in the societies around the world. How common are grandmothers seen as these matriarchal leaders? Why are they often represented over grandfathers? Do they show up over and over again or am I just crazy??? I guess I'm wanting to know if it's common, and if it is, if there are any interesting or cool facts about man kind's relationship with their grandparents.","c_root_id_A":"hq2eras","c_root_id_B":"hq3pbj1","created_at_utc_A":1640552683,"created_at_utc_B":1640574605,"score_A":35,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"Grandmothers may mean different things to different cultures, but one thing to think about is that when we separate public life (work, politics, etc) and private life (family, the home), women generally maintain some level of responsibility over the home and have the job of keeping the family together. The association of child care and domestic labor with femininity means that in a patriarchal or sexist society, men are discouraged from engaging in child care and may make them uncomfortable even with their own grandchildren. Women also live longer than men, so that may be a factor.","human_ref_B":"You might enjoy this article https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/goatsandsoda\/2019\/02\/07\/692088371\/living-near-your-grandmother-has-evolutionary-benefits","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21922.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"qzunsd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Language as a marker of social class? Hey this is probably a dumb question but does anyone know what the term is for when a society's upper or ruling class speaks a language which the common or lower class generally cannot? Example: in a hypothetical society the predominant language is language-A. However, the nobility speaks language-B (a totally different language not a dialect of language-A) either exclusively or in addition to language-A. Some IRL examples I can think of (apologies if any of these are misconceptions): upper-class Romans in the late-republic era being able to speak Greek in addition to Latin; Russian nobles at certain times post-Peter the Great speaking French or English as opposed to Russian; government bureaucrats in the Byzantine\/Eastern Roman Empire being able to speak or write Latin in addition to Greek; and English nobility in the post-Norman Conquest era predominantly speaking French rather than English. Would also appreciate some recommendations on further reading on this subject!","c_root_id_A":"hlpf3y8","c_root_id_B":"hlow7km","created_at_utc_A":1637626107,"created_at_utc_B":1637617759,"score_A":44,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Language B would be called the \"prestige language.\" https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prestige_(sociolinguistics) Prestige applies to both languages and dialects. Over time, the prestige language seeps into or overtakes the other languages as people from lower economic classes emulate it.","human_ref_B":"I think what you're looking for is known as a social dialect where a group of people of a certain social class have their own language separate from the other social strata. Less precisely related, but perhaps of similar interest to you, is the term linguistic prejudice which is the concept that different social or ethnic groups are discriminated against on the basis of their dialect\/language. I can't recommend specific books or articles right now as I am not at my desk, but if you look up those terms they should help you at least start moving in the right direction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8348.0,"score_ratio":1.4666666667} {"post_id":"qzunsd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Language as a marker of social class? Hey this is probably a dumb question but does anyone know what the term is for when a society's upper or ruling class speaks a language which the common or lower class generally cannot? Example: in a hypothetical society the predominant language is language-A. However, the nobility speaks language-B (a totally different language not a dialect of language-A) either exclusively or in addition to language-A. Some IRL examples I can think of (apologies if any of these are misconceptions): upper-class Romans in the late-republic era being able to speak Greek in addition to Latin; Russian nobles at certain times post-Peter the Great speaking French or English as opposed to Russian; government bureaucrats in the Byzantine\/Eastern Roman Empire being able to speak or write Latin in addition to Greek; and English nobility in the post-Norman Conquest era predominantly speaking French rather than English. Would also appreciate some recommendations on further reading on this subject!","c_root_id_A":"hlow7km","c_root_id_B":"hlpn93o","created_at_utc_A":1637617759,"created_at_utc_B":1637629976,"score_A":30,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I think what you're looking for is known as a social dialect where a group of people of a certain social class have their own language separate from the other social strata. Less precisely related, but perhaps of similar interest to you, is the term linguistic prejudice which is the concept that different social or ethnic groups are discriminated against on the basis of their dialect\/language. I can't recommend specific books or articles right now as I am not at my desk, but if you look up those terms they should help you at least start moving in the right direction.","human_ref_B":"When a society operates using different languages or distinct dialects of the same language, they're referred to as *diglossic*. The situation is called *diglossia*. Especially when the languages are closely related and form a continuum, the terms *acrolect*, *mesolect*, and *basilect* are used for the high, middle, and lower prestige varieties or features. A good example would be Haiti. Metropolitan French is the acrolect and Haitian Creole is the basilect. Mesolects tend to be hard to define, but in this case, it would be Haitian French, which is mutually intelligible with Metropolitan French but has some pronunciation features typical of Creole and incorporates more Creole loanwords. In general, the term *prestige* is used to describe languages or features that are perceived as superior by speakers. However, there is also covert prestige, which describes the usage of features of a basilect to communicate that one is a member of an \"in-group\". Think about how many terms and even grammatical features are borrowed from Black American English into General American English, we could say that usage of these terms communicates covert prestige, as generally, features of Black American English are stigmatized.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12217.0,"score_ratio":1.3666666667} {"post_id":"qzunsd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Language as a marker of social class? Hey this is probably a dumb question but does anyone know what the term is for when a society's upper or ruling class speaks a language which the common or lower class generally cannot? Example: in a hypothetical society the predominant language is language-A. However, the nobility speaks language-B (a totally different language not a dialect of language-A) either exclusively or in addition to language-A. Some IRL examples I can think of (apologies if any of these are misconceptions): upper-class Romans in the late-republic era being able to speak Greek in addition to Latin; Russian nobles at certain times post-Peter the Great speaking French or English as opposed to Russian; government bureaucrats in the Byzantine\/Eastern Roman Empire being able to speak or write Latin in addition to Greek; and English nobility in the post-Norman Conquest era predominantly speaking French rather than English. Would also appreciate some recommendations on further reading on this subject!","c_root_id_A":"hlpk6tc","c_root_id_B":"hlpn93o","created_at_utc_A":1637628524,"created_at_utc_B":1637629976,"score_A":10,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I would recommend *Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality* (2003) by Richard Baumann and Charles Briggs. In it they explore hegemonic provincialization of language as a practice of legitimizing social inequalities.","human_ref_B":"When a society operates using different languages or distinct dialects of the same language, they're referred to as *diglossic*. The situation is called *diglossia*. Especially when the languages are closely related and form a continuum, the terms *acrolect*, *mesolect*, and *basilect* are used for the high, middle, and lower prestige varieties or features. A good example would be Haiti. Metropolitan French is the acrolect and Haitian Creole is the basilect. Mesolects tend to be hard to define, but in this case, it would be Haitian French, which is mutually intelligible with Metropolitan French but has some pronunciation features typical of Creole and incorporates more Creole loanwords. In general, the term *prestige* is used to describe languages or features that are perceived as superior by speakers. However, there is also covert prestige, which describes the usage of features of a basilect to communicate that one is a member of an \"in-group\". Think about how many terms and even grammatical features are borrowed from Black American English into General American English, we could say that usage of these terms communicates covert prestige, as generally, features of Black American English are stigmatized.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1452.0,"score_ratio":4.1} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqwknl","c_root_id_B":"hgqp86b","created_at_utc_A":1634310680,"created_at_utc_B":1634307565,"score_A":216,"score_B":98,"human_ref_A":"Well, there is one odd subsect (and I say sect because it IS a cult) of archaeology that generally draws from more right-wing ideology: Mormon archaeology. Anthropology and archaeology are taught quite extensively by Mormon archaeologists at places like BYU and then trained Mormon archaeologists will go to Latin America - specifically countries with Maya archaeology - to study the archaeology there. Sounds good up to this point, but they\u2019re using their profession to try and prove the existence of Jesus in America and white, Mormon\/Christian people having lived in the Americas before the Maya, Aztecs, Olmecs, and generally just anyone who isn\u2019t white. Now, I haven\u2019t read any of the research (because wow it must be flawed) but the mental gymnastics an archaeologist would have to take to help prove this \u201ctheory\u201d must be fascinating in its own way. But that\u2019s my contribution to this question, do with it what you will. *Edit: also there was this weird\/bigot committee\/movement at SAAs last year done by old right-wing archaeologists going against Native and Indigenous peoples.","human_ref_B":"If you look into the history of anthropology and bioarchaeology you see that a lot of early European \u2018anthropologist\u2019 used the noticeable differences in human skeletons and the some what similarities of them with certain primate skeletons. Mostly the intense brow line and signs of Prognathism (protrusion of one or both jaws). These differences and similarities allowed for past \u2018anthropologist\u2019 to argue that some human characteristics were so close to that of primates that those who had them are more primate then human and therefore should be treated as \u2018subhuman\u2019. Obviously after time we realized this gross missclassification, but I\u2019m sure they\u2019re are some far right people who still use these old cases and studies as a justification for white supremacy just as colonial Europeans did. Another smaller example that I can kinda think of is the differences in classifying lithic eras in Africa compared to Europe. This was a big thing that my African prehistory professor felt should be address and I feel terrible that I can\u2019t remember what eras\/ages he think should be renamed but his argument was essentially that Europe and Africa had enough similar lithic remains to be considered in the same age\/era (I don\u2019t remember the specifics so I don\u2019t want to miss speak) but currently it is regarded that Europe entered a new technology \u2018age\u2019 while Africa entered it later even tho he believes that there is enough evidence to re name the ages to show that Africa was at the same level as Europe or even slightly before. It\u2019s not exactly far right but it further reenforces the idea that Europeans are smarter\/more advanced then their \u2018savage\u2019 counterparts to the south.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3115.0,"score_ratio":2.2040816327} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqwknl","c_root_id_B":"hgqok9m","created_at_utc_A":1634310680,"created_at_utc_B":1634307268,"score_A":216,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Well, there is one odd subsect (and I say sect because it IS a cult) of archaeology that generally draws from more right-wing ideology: Mormon archaeology. Anthropology and archaeology are taught quite extensively by Mormon archaeologists at places like BYU and then trained Mormon archaeologists will go to Latin America - specifically countries with Maya archaeology - to study the archaeology there. Sounds good up to this point, but they\u2019re using their profession to try and prove the existence of Jesus in America and white, Mormon\/Christian people having lived in the Americas before the Maya, Aztecs, Olmecs, and generally just anyone who isn\u2019t white. Now, I haven\u2019t read any of the research (because wow it must be flawed) but the mental gymnastics an archaeologist would have to take to help prove this \u201ctheory\u201d must be fascinating in its own way. But that\u2019s my contribution to this question, do with it what you will. *Edit: also there was this weird\/bigot committee\/movement at SAAs last year done by old right-wing archaeologists going against Native and Indigenous peoples.","human_ref_B":"You mighr be able to find obscure works on space and place from a nativist perspective that draw on Heidegger and his concepts of dasein, etc. I doubt it would be openly fascist or anything, but progressive geographers heavily criticised the geography of space and place for some of its inherent conservatism. I can't recommend any in particular, but I'm sure that there are some more traditionalist types attracted to that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3412.0,"score_ratio":16.6153846154} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqok9m","c_root_id_B":"hgqp86b","created_at_utc_A":1634307268,"created_at_utc_B":1634307565,"score_A":13,"score_B":98,"human_ref_A":"You mighr be able to find obscure works on space and place from a nativist perspective that draw on Heidegger and his concepts of dasein, etc. I doubt it would be openly fascist or anything, but progressive geographers heavily criticised the geography of space and place for some of its inherent conservatism. I can't recommend any in particular, but I'm sure that there are some more traditionalist types attracted to that.","human_ref_B":"If you look into the history of anthropology and bioarchaeology you see that a lot of early European \u2018anthropologist\u2019 used the noticeable differences in human skeletons and the some what similarities of them with certain primate skeletons. Mostly the intense brow line and signs of Prognathism (protrusion of one or both jaws). These differences and similarities allowed for past \u2018anthropologist\u2019 to argue that some human characteristics were so close to that of primates that those who had them are more primate then human and therefore should be treated as \u2018subhuman\u2019. Obviously after time we realized this gross missclassification, but I\u2019m sure they\u2019re are some far right people who still use these old cases and studies as a justification for white supremacy just as colonial Europeans did. Another smaller example that I can kinda think of is the differences in classifying lithic eras in Africa compared to Europe. This was a big thing that my African prehistory professor felt should be address and I feel terrible that I can\u2019t remember what eras\/ages he think should be renamed but his argument was essentially that Europe and Africa had enough similar lithic remains to be considered in the same age\/era (I don\u2019t remember the specifics so I don\u2019t want to miss speak) but currently it is regarded that Europe entered a new technology \u2018age\u2019 while Africa entered it later even tho he believes that there is enough evidence to re name the ages to show that Africa was at the same level as Europe or even slightly before. It\u2019s not exactly far right but it further reenforces the idea that Europeans are smarter\/more advanced then their \u2018savage\u2019 counterparts to the south.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":297.0,"score_ratio":7.5384615385} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrdly1","c_root_id_B":"hgqok9m","created_at_utc_A":1634317667,"created_at_utc_B":1634307268,"score_A":25,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I am trying to figure out why this question feels so off to me, and I think it is because it implies that anthropology polices it's borders based on political orientations defined narrowly in terms of left and right \/ political and conservative. Don't get me wrong, I completely accept that academic research is shaped by pre-existing beliefs which include political orientations. But I think the biggest impact of bias is on the questions we ask and how we look for answers, not necessarily on the outcomes. So if you look at the early history of anthro (and sociology as well) the dominant model of human social\/cultural life was the evolutionary model which posited not only that western society was superior and \"most evolved,\" but that non-western societies were present day examples of what Europeans had been in the past. The biggest blow to that model was not political beliefs, but the recognition that the past does not exist in the present -- just like chimps are not a present day example of past human ancestors (chimps have been evolving as long as human have), present day hunter gatherers are not a present day example of the European past. There was a serious logical flaw in theories of social evolution that became apparent once we started gathering the empirical data and thinking more seriously about the model. The ethnocentric bias was in the assumption that \"the past existed in the present\" and that \"the present was best represented by European societies.\" The empirical data (ie: the fact that all humans have been evolving for the same amount of time) just would not support the evolutionary theory, regardless of the political leanings of anthropologists. Boaz's biggest contribution to the field was to demand empirical data, and while empirical data does not eliminate bias, it does constrain how variable our theories can be. It is not a coincidence that advances in decoding and understanding DNA ended the notion that race is a biologically meaningful category, The empirical data can be interpreted in many ways, but not an infinite number of ways.","human_ref_B":"You mighr be able to find obscure works on space and place from a nativist perspective that draw on Heidegger and his concepts of dasein, etc. I doubt it would be openly fascist or anything, but progressive geographers heavily criticised the geography of space and place for some of its inherent conservatism. I can't recommend any in particular, but I'm sure that there are some more traditionalist types attracted to that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10399.0,"score_ratio":1.9230769231} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrdly1","c_root_id_B":"hgrcqxp","created_at_utc_A":1634317667,"created_at_utc_B":1634317314,"score_A":25,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I am trying to figure out why this question feels so off to me, and I think it is because it implies that anthropology polices it's borders based on political orientations defined narrowly in terms of left and right \/ political and conservative. Don't get me wrong, I completely accept that academic research is shaped by pre-existing beliefs which include political orientations. But I think the biggest impact of bias is on the questions we ask and how we look for answers, not necessarily on the outcomes. So if you look at the early history of anthro (and sociology as well) the dominant model of human social\/cultural life was the evolutionary model which posited not only that western society was superior and \"most evolved,\" but that non-western societies were present day examples of what Europeans had been in the past. The biggest blow to that model was not political beliefs, but the recognition that the past does not exist in the present -- just like chimps are not a present day example of past human ancestors (chimps have been evolving as long as human have), present day hunter gatherers are not a present day example of the European past. There was a serious logical flaw in theories of social evolution that became apparent once we started gathering the empirical data and thinking more seriously about the model. The ethnocentric bias was in the assumption that \"the past existed in the present\" and that \"the present was best represented by European societies.\" The empirical data (ie: the fact that all humans have been evolving for the same amount of time) just would not support the evolutionary theory, regardless of the political leanings of anthropologists. Boaz's biggest contribution to the field was to demand empirical data, and while empirical data does not eliminate bias, it does constrain how variable our theories can be. It is not a coincidence that advances in decoding and understanding DNA ended the notion that race is a biologically meaningful category, The empirical data can be interpreted in many ways, but not an infinite number of ways.","human_ref_B":"i feel like attempting to answer this hits no true scotsman because anthropology is supposed to operate on cultural relativism and absence of ethnocentrism. right wing takes i've seen reject cultural relativism and work off of cultural superiority, so is it anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":353.0,"score_ratio":1.7857142857} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrdly1","c_root_id_B":"hgqx5v0","created_at_utc_A":1634317667,"created_at_utc_B":1634310929,"score_A":25,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I am trying to figure out why this question feels so off to me, and I think it is because it implies that anthropology polices it's borders based on political orientations defined narrowly in terms of left and right \/ political and conservative. Don't get me wrong, I completely accept that academic research is shaped by pre-existing beliefs which include political orientations. But I think the biggest impact of bias is on the questions we ask and how we look for answers, not necessarily on the outcomes. So if you look at the early history of anthro (and sociology as well) the dominant model of human social\/cultural life was the evolutionary model which posited not only that western society was superior and \"most evolved,\" but that non-western societies were present day examples of what Europeans had been in the past. The biggest blow to that model was not political beliefs, but the recognition that the past does not exist in the present -- just like chimps are not a present day example of past human ancestors (chimps have been evolving as long as human have), present day hunter gatherers are not a present day example of the European past. There was a serious logical flaw in theories of social evolution that became apparent once we started gathering the empirical data and thinking more seriously about the model. The ethnocentric bias was in the assumption that \"the past existed in the present\" and that \"the present was best represented by European societies.\" The empirical data (ie: the fact that all humans have been evolving for the same amount of time) just would not support the evolutionary theory, regardless of the political leanings of anthropologists. Boaz's biggest contribution to the field was to demand empirical data, and while empirical data does not eliminate bias, it does constrain how variable our theories can be. It is not a coincidence that advances in decoding and understanding DNA ended the notion that race is a biologically meaningful category, The empirical data can be interpreted in many ways, but not an infinite number of ways.","human_ref_B":"It would be more possible in a non-western setting. Anthropology disavowes ethnocentrism, but mostly eurocentrism to be specific. Its quite possible that anti-colonial, ethnocentric anthropology could come about in other areas. I have seen a right-wing anthropologist on Quillette use his studies to basically espouce the supremacy of western culture. Whats your take on polygamy, is it right wing or left wing? There are ways it could be done, but anthropology is a very low risk of having that kind of influence. Due to the nature of its subject matter, left-right politics often don't even apply. The politics of various people and various anthropologists don't even fall on the \"political spectrum\" used in poli sci 101. off topic, but I think psychology is at risk of becoming conservative in the future if western economies continue to lag behind. Jordan Peterson and Johnathan Haidt are 2 examples in the present.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6738.0,"score_ratio":4.1666666667} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqyjs5","c_root_id_B":"hgrdly1","created_at_utc_A":1634311508,"created_at_utc_B":1634317667,"score_A":6,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"One that comes to mind is the dreaded Elizabeth Wiess\u2026. She frequently spouts very right wing \/ conservative Anti-Indigenous rhetoric and actively advocates for not returning Indigenous American artifacts of cultural matrimony back to the people in which they originally belonged. Though i dont know her personal political ideologies, i have a pretty good theory about who she voted for lol","human_ref_B":"I am trying to figure out why this question feels so off to me, and I think it is because it implies that anthropology polices it's borders based on political orientations defined narrowly in terms of left and right \/ political and conservative. Don't get me wrong, I completely accept that academic research is shaped by pre-existing beliefs which include political orientations. But I think the biggest impact of bias is on the questions we ask and how we look for answers, not necessarily on the outcomes. So if you look at the early history of anthro (and sociology as well) the dominant model of human social\/cultural life was the evolutionary model which posited not only that western society was superior and \"most evolved,\" but that non-western societies were present day examples of what Europeans had been in the past. The biggest blow to that model was not political beliefs, but the recognition that the past does not exist in the present -- just like chimps are not a present day example of past human ancestors (chimps have been evolving as long as human have), present day hunter gatherers are not a present day example of the European past. There was a serious logical flaw in theories of social evolution that became apparent once we started gathering the empirical data and thinking more seriously about the model. The ethnocentric bias was in the assumption that \"the past existed in the present\" and that \"the present was best represented by European societies.\" The empirical data (ie: the fact that all humans have been evolving for the same amount of time) just would not support the evolutionary theory, regardless of the political leanings of anthropologists. Boaz's biggest contribution to the field was to demand empirical data, and while empirical data does not eliminate bias, it does constrain how variable our theories can be. It is not a coincidence that advances in decoding and understanding DNA ended the notion that race is a biologically meaningful category, The empirical data can be interpreted in many ways, but not an infinite number of ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6159.0,"score_ratio":4.1666666667} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrlefw","c_root_id_B":"hgqok9m","created_at_utc_A":1634320832,"created_at_utc_B":1634307268,"score_A":23,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"> I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia Eh, this isn't quite what's going on. While of course there were others, and arguably more substantial contributions from the other two, Marx's methods *revolutionized* modern social sciences, along with Max Weber and Emil Durkheim. It's nearly impossible to *do* social science except through a Marxist lens, among other lenses, to be sure. If you're doing a Sociology, you're going to be using the lens of material conditions for part of your analysis, and that's purest Marx. Talking about a mode of production? Marx. How a system gives rise to its own inherent problems that need to be overcome? Marx. Ecological sociology? Marx. Anthropology is even stronger: you often have zero direct insight into the social and spiritual lives of the people you're studying, requiring that you depend entirely on ... material conditions and what they can say about the culture and people. It's ~~turtles~~ Marx all the way down.","human_ref_B":"You mighr be able to find obscure works on space and place from a nativist perspective that draw on Heidegger and his concepts of dasein, etc. I doubt it would be openly fascist or anything, but progressive geographers heavily criticised the geography of space and place for some of its inherent conservatism. I can't recommend any in particular, but I'm sure that there are some more traditionalist types attracted to that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13564.0,"score_ratio":1.7692307692} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrlefw","c_root_id_B":"hgrcqxp","created_at_utc_A":1634320832,"created_at_utc_B":1634317314,"score_A":23,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"> I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia Eh, this isn't quite what's going on. While of course there were others, and arguably more substantial contributions from the other two, Marx's methods *revolutionized* modern social sciences, along with Max Weber and Emil Durkheim. It's nearly impossible to *do* social science except through a Marxist lens, among other lenses, to be sure. If you're doing a Sociology, you're going to be using the lens of material conditions for part of your analysis, and that's purest Marx. Talking about a mode of production? Marx. How a system gives rise to its own inherent problems that need to be overcome? Marx. Ecological sociology? Marx. Anthropology is even stronger: you often have zero direct insight into the social and spiritual lives of the people you're studying, requiring that you depend entirely on ... material conditions and what they can say about the culture and people. It's ~~turtles~~ Marx all the way down.","human_ref_B":"i feel like attempting to answer this hits no true scotsman because anthropology is supposed to operate on cultural relativism and absence of ethnocentrism. right wing takes i've seen reject cultural relativism and work off of cultural superiority, so is it anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3518.0,"score_ratio":1.6428571429} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqx5v0","c_root_id_B":"hgrlefw","created_at_utc_A":1634310929,"created_at_utc_B":1634320832,"score_A":6,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"It would be more possible in a non-western setting. Anthropology disavowes ethnocentrism, but mostly eurocentrism to be specific. Its quite possible that anti-colonial, ethnocentric anthropology could come about in other areas. I have seen a right-wing anthropologist on Quillette use his studies to basically espouce the supremacy of western culture. Whats your take on polygamy, is it right wing or left wing? There are ways it could be done, but anthropology is a very low risk of having that kind of influence. Due to the nature of its subject matter, left-right politics often don't even apply. The politics of various people and various anthropologists don't even fall on the \"political spectrum\" used in poli sci 101. off topic, but I think psychology is at risk of becoming conservative in the future if western economies continue to lag behind. Jordan Peterson and Johnathan Haidt are 2 examples in the present.","human_ref_B":"> I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia Eh, this isn't quite what's going on. While of course there were others, and arguably more substantial contributions from the other two, Marx's methods *revolutionized* modern social sciences, along with Max Weber and Emil Durkheim. It's nearly impossible to *do* social science except through a Marxist lens, among other lenses, to be sure. If you're doing a Sociology, you're going to be using the lens of material conditions for part of your analysis, and that's purest Marx. Talking about a mode of production? Marx. How a system gives rise to its own inherent problems that need to be overcome? Marx. Ecological sociology? Marx. Anthropology is even stronger: you often have zero direct insight into the social and spiritual lives of the people you're studying, requiring that you depend entirely on ... material conditions and what they can say about the culture and people. It's ~~turtles~~ Marx all the way down.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9903.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqyjs5","c_root_id_B":"hgrlefw","created_at_utc_A":1634311508,"created_at_utc_B":1634320832,"score_A":6,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"One that comes to mind is the dreaded Elizabeth Wiess\u2026. She frequently spouts very right wing \/ conservative Anti-Indigenous rhetoric and actively advocates for not returning Indigenous American artifacts of cultural matrimony back to the people in which they originally belonged. Though i dont know her personal political ideologies, i have a pretty good theory about who she voted for lol","human_ref_B":"> I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia Eh, this isn't quite what's going on. While of course there were others, and arguably more substantial contributions from the other two, Marx's methods *revolutionized* modern social sciences, along with Max Weber and Emil Durkheim. It's nearly impossible to *do* social science except through a Marxist lens, among other lenses, to be sure. If you're doing a Sociology, you're going to be using the lens of material conditions for part of your analysis, and that's purest Marx. Talking about a mode of production? Marx. How a system gives rise to its own inherent problems that need to be overcome? Marx. Ecological sociology? Marx. Anthropology is even stronger: you often have zero direct insight into the social and spiritual lives of the people you're studying, requiring that you depend entirely on ... material conditions and what they can say about the culture and people. It's ~~turtles~~ Marx all the way down.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9324.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrcqxp","c_root_id_B":"hgqok9m","created_at_utc_A":1634317314,"created_at_utc_B":1634307268,"score_A":14,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"i feel like attempting to answer this hits no true scotsman because anthropology is supposed to operate on cultural relativism and absence of ethnocentrism. right wing takes i've seen reject cultural relativism and work off of cultural superiority, so is it anthropology?","human_ref_B":"You mighr be able to find obscure works on space and place from a nativist perspective that draw on Heidegger and his concepts of dasein, etc. I doubt it would be openly fascist or anything, but progressive geographers heavily criticised the geography of space and place for some of its inherent conservatism. I can't recommend any in particular, but I'm sure that there are some more traditionalist types attracted to that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10046.0,"score_ratio":1.0769230769} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgrcqxp","c_root_id_B":"hgqx5v0","created_at_utc_A":1634317314,"created_at_utc_B":1634310929,"score_A":14,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"i feel like attempting to answer this hits no true scotsman because anthropology is supposed to operate on cultural relativism and absence of ethnocentrism. right wing takes i've seen reject cultural relativism and work off of cultural superiority, so is it anthropology?","human_ref_B":"It would be more possible in a non-western setting. Anthropology disavowes ethnocentrism, but mostly eurocentrism to be specific. Its quite possible that anti-colonial, ethnocentric anthropology could come about in other areas. I have seen a right-wing anthropologist on Quillette use his studies to basically espouce the supremacy of western culture. Whats your take on polygamy, is it right wing or left wing? There are ways it could be done, but anthropology is a very low risk of having that kind of influence. Due to the nature of its subject matter, left-right politics often don't even apply. The politics of various people and various anthropologists don't even fall on the \"political spectrum\" used in poli sci 101. off topic, but I think psychology is at risk of becoming conservative in the future if western economies continue to lag behind. Jordan Peterson and Johnathan Haidt are 2 examples in the present.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6385.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"q8osus","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there such a thing as a far right anthropology? I was wondering, as anthropology generally aligns itself with humanitarian - pro democratic thinking, if thinkers that defy these tendencies in there own writing exist? I know there are anarchist and marxist anthropologists and they seem to be tolerated in academia. As I would imagine it is quite difficult to sustain a far-right ideology throughout years of studying cultural differences, so If there are some they most likely would be in sub-academia (whatever you wanna call it). My interest in this sparked more as weird curiousity. Any recommendations ?","c_root_id_A":"hgqyjs5","c_root_id_B":"hgrcqxp","created_at_utc_A":1634311508,"created_at_utc_B":1634317314,"score_A":6,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"One that comes to mind is the dreaded Elizabeth Wiess\u2026. She frequently spouts very right wing \/ conservative Anti-Indigenous rhetoric and actively advocates for not returning Indigenous American artifacts of cultural matrimony back to the people in which they originally belonged. Though i dont know her personal political ideologies, i have a pretty good theory about who she voted for lol","human_ref_B":"i feel like attempting to answer this hits no true scotsman because anthropology is supposed to operate on cultural relativism and absence of ethnocentrism. right wing takes i've seen reject cultural relativism and work off of cultural superiority, so is it anthropology?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5806.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"abuzyf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of the most important debates and disagreements in anthropology at the moment?","c_root_id_A":"ed40p95","c_root_id_B":"ed38uh5","created_at_utc_A":1546470525,"created_at_utc_B":1546451220,"score_A":15,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"One of the current \"debates\" in sociocultural anthro right now is around the so-called \"ontological turn\". That link has a decent summary of it, though its summary of the critiques is rather weak and dismissive. In many ways, much of the content of these debates runs along similar lines to the decades-long debates over the meaning of \"culture,\" with this \"turn\" appearing as the newest iteration.","human_ref_B":"For a french wideview of the actual research, there's today a big consensus about what some have called *subaltern studies*. Since almost 30 years now, what an irony, we're in France inspired by the reception of the *French theory* by the american scolarship. But even with a preponderant and growing part in the social science research, those works are hardly attacked and criticized, mostly by 'civil' but also from inside the research field. ​ ​","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19305.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"abuzyf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of the most important debates and disagreements in anthropology at the moment?","c_root_id_A":"ed4gnso","c_root_id_B":"ed53174","created_at_utc_A":1546483512,"created_at_utc_B":1546510373,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I had an anthropology professor many years ago that said the biggest debate in the field is if a white sauce is permissible on a pizza. He insisted that you could tell a lot about their scholarship on how they answered that question.","human_ref_B":"This is more of a moral debate than a theoretical one or one on practice I guess, but in my department back in undergrad there were two camps on the \u201cweaponized\/militarized\u201d anthropology debate. That is the use of anthropology (and anthropologist) by occupying militaries to gain an ethnographical layout of occupied lands. The US military was doing this most notably in Afghanistan, and a former graduate of our program was actually doing it post-grad school. A few of the professors firmly believed that anthropologist could aid relations between the locals and US troops, and also record many aspects of culture\/artifacts that are destroyed by war. The other side detested the practice, citing anthropology\u2019s unflatteringly history as an instrument of imperialism, and argued that real ethnography couldn\u2019t be done with a military demanding quotas or giving or giving orders, and that an anthropologist would be viewed as part of the occupying forces by the local population. The topic was often brought up in my four years, and I\u2019d bet it\u2019s still being discussed today. There\u2019s an interesting book, Weaponizing Anthropology, that I just remembered I wanted to read on the topic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26861.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"abuzyf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of the most important debates and disagreements in anthropology at the moment?","c_root_id_A":"ed4yb9f","c_root_id_B":"ed53174","created_at_utc_A":1546502130,"created_at_utc_B":1546510373,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The analysis and classification of Extreme Processing events in the American Southwest typically between 900-1150CE. There is a lot of work done specifically looking for cannibalism, typically only using taphonomic analysis, by archaeologists such as Turner and Turner. In recent years more and more people have been calling their methods into question, not to say that cannibalism never happened but that there needs to be reanalysis of previously classified sites that that takes culture more into account. Another issue is that these classifications that have been made lump everything into either Cannibalism or Other Violence. >In their efforts to be rigorous in the analysis of traumatized and disarticulated human remains, Turner, White, and others have adopted models from faunal analysis and taphonomy. These models deny the important cultural differences that make humans unique among animals, and by that denial predispose the authors' interpretations toward conclusions of cannibalism. (Bullock 1992).","human_ref_B":"This is more of a moral debate than a theoretical one or one on practice I guess, but in my department back in undergrad there were two camps on the \u201cweaponized\/militarized\u201d anthropology debate. That is the use of anthropology (and anthropologist) by occupying militaries to gain an ethnographical layout of occupied lands. The US military was doing this most notably in Afghanistan, and a former graduate of our program was actually doing it post-grad school. A few of the professors firmly believed that anthropologist could aid relations between the locals and US troops, and also record many aspects of culture\/artifacts that are destroyed by war. The other side detested the practice, citing anthropology\u2019s unflatteringly history as an instrument of imperialism, and argued that real ethnography couldn\u2019t be done with a military demanding quotas or giving or giving orders, and that an anthropologist would be viewed as part of the occupying forces by the local population. The topic was often brought up in my four years, and I\u2019d bet it\u2019s still being discussed today. There\u2019s an interesting book, Weaponizing Anthropology, that I just remembered I wanted to read on the topic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8243.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"upk4mx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any books from which I can learn about hunters gatherers way of thinking and living in their own words? Containing maybe some kind of interviews. I would like to know what are their dreams and daily worries, what do they think about and things like that.","c_root_id_A":"i8llwvp","c_root_id_B":"i8n4td8","created_at_utc_A":1652550421,"created_at_utc_B":1652576257,"score_A":25,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"No to discourage anything but it's definitely worth noting no one vision or form of hunter-gatherer societies exist, think about it would you say all agricultural peoples think the same way ?","human_ref_B":"The Hadza: Hunter Gatherers of Tanzania by Frank Marlowe. It focuses specifically on the Hadza and is a fairly rigorous book. It also dispels a lot of myths and flawed theories that commonly pop up when discussing hunter gatherers and palaeolithic humans.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25836.0,"score_ratio":1.28} {"post_id":"re85p5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Do women in most cultures usually have longer hair than the men?","c_root_id_A":"ho65sfs","c_root_id_B":"ho6okjd","created_at_utc_A":1639259572,"created_at_utc_B":1639268104,"score_A":58,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"That's really a fashion question. As recently as the 16th thru 18th centuries western male fashion was (overall) for longer hair, especially with higher social status. Then in after the 1950's with the rise of counterculture men's hair length increased. And anecdotally only average length of male hair styles decreased in the 80's thru 90's and has increased again. But if if we look at another culture like chinese\/manchu they had mandated longer hairstyles https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Queue_(hairstyle) There's also political movements which are associated with shorter hairstyles, separate from gender such as the Irish \"croppy boy \" style from the late 18th century or the 20th century skin heads. Although these are examples of male presenting shorter hairstyles. But I would class them as separate from gender identification hairstyles.","human_ref_B":"As others noted, hair length is a fashion and cultural choice so it varies across time and culture. There can also be state rules about hair (ex: Manchu and braids). So while I'm not aware of a study that tries to quantify hairstyles in a snapshot in time and then estimates whether men vs women across the world tend to have longer hair, we can share examples of where it's the norm for women have shorter hair. For example, the Masai women in East Africa usually shave their heads while men warriors have long elaborate hairstyles. In many other societies, women change their hair upon marriage or other social moments. Some Jewish women shave their heads when they get married, for example. They cover their heads with cloth and\/or wigs but it's unclear from your question whether wigs or cloth coverings count? Here are a couple of citations to get you started: Hodgson, Dorothy L. \"Being maasai men: Modernity and the production of maasai masculinities.\" Men and masculinities in modern Africa (2003): 211-229. Zalcberg, Sima. \"\u201cGrace Is Deceitful and Beauty Is Vain\u201d: How Hassidic Women Cope with the Requirement of Shaving One\u2019s Head and Wearing a Black Kerchief.\" Gender Issues 24.3 (2007): 13-34. Hershman, Paul. \"Hair, sex and dirt.\" Man 9.2 (1974): 274-298. Sherrow, Victoria.\u00a0Encyclopedia of hair: a cultural history. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8532.0,"score_ratio":1.0172413793} {"post_id":"o7b5is","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How do cultures divide the year into seasons? The Western world has four seasons, from the Gregorian calendar. These are based on the ratio of daylight\/nighttime: Summer and Winter begin on the *solstice,* the longest and shortest days of the year respectively, while Spring and Fall begin on the *equinox,* when the day and night share equal amounts of time. However, although most calendars in the Indian subcontinent (\"Hindu calendars\") are *solar* calendars, meaning a year is based on the cycle of the earth about the sun and has 365 days, they typically use *six* seasons. Each season has two months, and two of them coincide with the *rainy and dry seasons.* This is related to the fact that India experiences *monsoons,* and farmers plan their crops around these. I find this interesting because the major difference with the Gregorian calendar is based on differences with India's unique climate. So here's my question: Is there a thorough classification of different calendar systems and how they choose to divide the seasons, based on their environmental differences? I'd also be interested in how astrological beliefs, and the distinction between lunar\/solar affects these seasons.","c_root_id_A":"h2z6h0g","c_root_id_B":"h2yic83","created_at_utc_A":1624612192,"created_at_utc_B":1624593194,"score_A":23,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"It's really based on the the region. As you get further away from the equator you of course have larger shifts in both daylength as well as in temperature, so people generally moved to looking at other changes to dictate important divisions of the year. I don't think anyone is ever going to come up with a totally exhaustive list, but I suggest the following categories will describe the system being used by 99.99% of the world's population. **2 season system Rainy Season\/Dry season** \\- based on the low-pressure belt called the intertropical convergence zone which brings long periods of rain and wind to certain areas. * Rainy season - dry season **2 season system - wind based aka Doldrums\/Calms** \\- also based on the intertropical convergence zone, in an area where the northeast and southeast trade winds converge. While rainfall is involved the key component is good steady pushing winds during one season and many days of calms or just light breezes in the other season * Doldrums- Calms **2 season - Polar**: as you go further north, the impact of the tilt on daylength is quite severe - and just like at the equator the 4 season system just doesn't fit well. One example is the Icelandic Calendar which * Short Days (winter) - Nightless Days (summer) **3 season system** \\- **flood based.** Waters expand out of the river generally very quickly then slowly go back. Muck is deposited across the land which is a rich fertilizer. However, it's too wet to plant. Next season is triggered when the land is dry enough to be plant-able, and yet the river is high enough that the irrigation canals can bring water, because the rain isn't going to provide enough. Finally, the river has dropped too low, no more irrigation is possible and so it's time to harvest followed by a few months of the fields doing nothing waiting for the floods. * Flood Season-Growth Season-Low Water Season **3 season system** **- rain\/temperature based.** Intertropical convergence zone brings rain but the non-rainy part of the year is divided into two halves generally based on average temperature. * Cold season -hot season- rainy season **4 season system** \\- **strict sun adherence.** Based on axial tilt: changes of seasons officially happen on longest day, shortest day, and equinoxes. * Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter **4 season system - seasonal lag** Based on axial tilt: autumn, winter, spring, summer. however, there's a recognition that the hottest day tends to come about a month after the longest day, and the coldest day tends to come about a month after the shortest day, so seasonal starts are designed to bracket the temperature band. Generally associated with Midsummer and Midwinter days, which generally fall close to the solstices. One extreme example of this would be in some Nordic countries the first day of summer happens on the first Thursday after April 16th. However as said before generally they are pretty close to the solstices, it's just that it isn't noting that's the start of the season, but that you are significantly into the season. (This makes sense to me. I live in Minnesota, and let me tell you, it feels like we are at least a month into winter by the time the first day of winter officially hits, and it feels like we've been at least a month into summer by the time the first official day of summer hits) * Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter **4 season system** \\- **hybrid rainy\/monsoon based** \\- this is the official system of the Indian government. It seems to be a hybrid of the British bringing their 4 season systems and trying to give names to the temperatures that are somewhat like their traditional weather with monsoon action thrown in. * Winter-Summer (aka pre-monsoon) Monsoon (Rainy season) Autumn (aka Post-Monsoon) **6 season system** \\-**rainy\/monsoon based** This season combines the 4 season system with the 2 season system. The basic 4 seasons get 1 additional season added as monsoon falling between summer and autumn. Then whatever season is important to that location is generally divided into two. Examples would be: * Spring-Summer-Monsoon-Early Autumn-Late Autumn (frost) - Winter * Early Spring - Spring - Summer - Monsoon - Autumn - Winter * Spring - summer - Monsoon - Autumn - early winter - late winter **6 season system - freeze\/thaw of bodies of water based.** This is common with North American indigenous people - around the artic but also in the middle northern region of the continent (i.e. most of Canada). It adds the important seasons when ice starts to form on important bodies of water, and when that ice starts to break up. * Winter-Break Up-Spring-Summer-Autumn-Freeze Up **6 season system - plant based.** Certain key important plants do something which is noteworthy and becomes part of the seasons. I suspect that in the past there might have been similar system based on the birthing of calves to key species such as buffalo, caribou, or antelope. Each season tends to be 2 months in length. Example, in Australia, the indigenous people often use * First Summer (youth season) Second Summer (adolescence season) Autumn (adult season) First Rains (fertility season) Second Rains (conception season) Flowering Season (birth season). **6 season system - higher degrees of graduation.** This was likely at one time based on certain important plants or animals doing something important. This system is basically noting that early in the season and later in the season there's significant differences in temperatures and hence what's going on in the flora and fauna. * Prevernal ( early spring, prespring, sometimes season of budding) Vernal (spring, rarely nesting season, leaving season) Estival (high summer) Serotinal (late summer, harvest season, color season) Autumnal (autumn, fall, literally leaf fall season) Hibernal (winter, more tied to migration and hibernation than snow) **6 season system - Polar** Polar Day and Polar Night, the times when the sun does not ever set, and the times when the sun does not ever rise. How far north you are impacts how long or short these seasons are. If you are far enough north the sun can be out for 4 months straight, and hide for 4 months straight. There tends to be an abandoning of the 4 seasons at these latitudes and you have instead Polar Night or day followed by a pair of special months. * Polar Night (4 months) - Month of Dawn, Month of Sun, Polar Day (4 months) Month of Sun, Month of Twilight. the names given to these vary, some cultures have twin months of sun others differentiate them, same with the dawn\/twilight months. Some cultures repeat the term, others differentiate. And as you go to lower latitudes, the Polar Night and Polar Day get much shorter, this can result in 'months' being 2 lunar cycles long, or more specialty months being put into rotation.","human_ref_B":"Indigenous Australians have different seasons based on the climate of where their clan\/language group lived. Here are a couple of examples: Noongar seasons D'harawal seasons","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18998.0,"score_ratio":1.0952380952} {"post_id":"q1yf8c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The Wikipedia entry for exorcism states that \"The practice (of exorcism) is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions.\" Anthropologists of reddit please enlighten me to the veracity of this statement. Hello r\/AskAnthropology I don't normally post or browse this subreddit but I am a fan of r\/askhistorians. Recently I posted a question there and it was suggested by u\/itsallfolklore that I should take the question to this subreddit because even though some folklorists might have good insights the anthropologists might be better suited to answer my question. So below is the question as I posted it in r\/askhistorians and I hope someone here has the right expertise to help me out: A discussion over at r\/skeptic recently hinged around someone trying to find evidence to refute \"spirits and demons\" although they seemed less interested in hearing skeptical viewpoints and more interested in arguing in favor of angels and the like. Throughout the discussion the poster determinedly clung to the claim that demons, an evil adversary, and exorcisms where pretty much identical across the known world and this suggested that there was some truth to these beliefs. While I urged the poster to come here to this wonderful subreddit in order to learn more about the subject they didn't seem interested. So instead I decided to ask the question a few days later for my own education, and for future conversations of course. So what are the actual origins of the christian exorcism, what rituals in other cultures have connections to those european rituals and what is a good way to categorize the broad class of rituals that deal with cleansing in such a way that does NOT lump them all under the category of exorcism. Finally when did Europeans start referring to rituals in other cultures as an exorcism, is this a very modern thing (20th century) or did this start much earlier.","c_root_id_A":"hfi9ikp","c_root_id_B":"hfi0ito","created_at_utc_A":1633457360,"created_at_utc_B":1633453549,"score_A":29,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Exorcism has origins in ancient Mesopotamia that finds its way into the Abrahamic traditions; first among Jews, later to Christians and Muslims. We find references to exorcism in the earliest Christian communities and in the New Testament itself >Christians have performed exorcisms for centuries following the examples of Jesus and the Apostles (e. g. Mark 16:17, Matthew 10:8, Luke 10:17), and the ability to drive out devils, demons and evil spirits has always been one of the main signs of divine grace and charismatic empowerment. Consequently, it was through the Latin ecclesiastic tradition that the Greek word ex-horkiz\u00f4 (to exorcise) became the technical term for any ritual aimed at the expulsion of devils or demons (exorcismus, exorcizare), which is still prevalent in most European languages today. \\[Leicht 2006\\] Exorcism was a fairly common subject, seemingly more common in antiquity than it was later. The world of Temple Judaism and early Christianity suggest familiarity with the practice, and in on of the more important popular accounts of the day, we even have Josephus in his Antiquities describing an exorcism witnessed by Vespasianus >Josephus tells us here that Solomon knew the \"art against the demons\" {*ten kata t\u00f4n daimon\u00f4n techn\u00ean*), which also comprised \"forms of exorcisms\" {*tropous exork\u00f4se\u00f4n*). We are further informed that a certain Eleazar used those \"exorcisms\" in order to expel a demon in the presence of Vespasianus. The description provided by Josephus is that of a typical \"exorcistic ritual\", in which Eleazar not only used a magical ring, a seal and roots, but also \"exorcised\" (h\u00f4rkou) the demon with Solomon's incantations (*epodas has synetheken ekeinos*) (incantation which he comped) So it's not surprising that there would be similarities in traditions that derive from one root tradition -- and when it comes to the Abrahamic traditions, exorcism has common historical roots, similar ideas would be unsurprising. So the statement you're asking about \"The practice (of exorcism) is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions\" is basically correct, with the caveat that one might not call it a single \"practice\" and rather a collection of associated practices.This kind of syncretism seems often to have been a part of notions of evil spirits in the Abrahamic traditions -- an awareness of other, proscribed divinities, remembered but abjured. So, for example Baal and Zoroastrian traditions often appear more and less explicitly, as angels and demons-- stories with which people might be familiar but recognize as irregular. In other unrelated cultures, traditions are different. I would wonder about whether we should speak of \"\\_the\\_ practice of exorcism\", singular. I'd prefer to say something that would reflect varied traditions \"practices of exorcism\" - that would help distinguish the Abrahamic from other quite distinct traditions with their own origins. See, for example Konstantopoulos, Gina. \"Demons and exorcism in ancient Mesopotamia.\" Religion Compass 14.10 (2020): 1-14. Walton, John H. \"Demons in Mesopotamia and Israel: Exploring the Category of Non-Divine but Supernatural Entities.\" Windows to the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible. Penn State University Press, 2021. 229-246. Fr\u00f6hlich, Ida. \"Demons and Illness in Second Temple Judaism: Theory and Practice.\" Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. Brill, 2017. 79-96. Leicht, Reimund. \"Mashbia\u02bf Ani \u02bfAlekha: Types and Patterns of Ancient Jewish and Christian Exorcism Formulae.\" Jewish Studies Quarterly 13.4 (2006): 319-343. Young, Francis. \"Exorcism in the Early Christian West, 300\u2013900.\" A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2016. 27-59. Giordan, Giuseppe, and Adam Possamai. \"The Sociology of Exorcism.\" Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 21-40.","human_ref_B":"Ponticus the Christian Monk wrote the Practikos in the 4th Century. It\u2019s a melding of Meditational Aescetic practices from the Greeks and Christian ideas. A lot of Non-Dual Meditation and Open Monitoring Meditation practices involve cessation of intrusive thoughts and focusing of the mind on a single act. Avoiding predictive processed thought opens the meditator up to a new type of \u2018unmeasured\u2019 experience frequently described as a religious experience. Ponticus talks at length about the intrusive thoughts we must master in order to have a Heaven on Earth experience. In his system, there are 8 deadly \u2018demons\u2019 of thought we must observe and master; a list that eventually became the 7 deadly sins. There\u2019s also the \u201cJesus Prayer\u201d, a short mantra repeated over and over again 24\/7; a practice similar to \u201cFocusing on the Breath\u201d also meant to drown out predictive thought. I imagine many Meditative processes used Religious imagery to describe a Cognitive process that wasn\u2019t quite understood. http:\/\/www.ldysinger.com\/Evagrius\/01_Prak\/00a_start.htm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3811.0,"score_ratio":4.8333333333} {"post_id":"q1yf8c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The Wikipedia entry for exorcism states that \"The practice (of exorcism) is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions.\" Anthropologists of reddit please enlighten me to the veracity of this statement. Hello r\/AskAnthropology I don't normally post or browse this subreddit but I am a fan of r\/askhistorians. Recently I posted a question there and it was suggested by u\/itsallfolklore that I should take the question to this subreddit because even though some folklorists might have good insights the anthropologists might be better suited to answer my question. So below is the question as I posted it in r\/askhistorians and I hope someone here has the right expertise to help me out: A discussion over at r\/skeptic recently hinged around someone trying to find evidence to refute \"spirits and demons\" although they seemed less interested in hearing skeptical viewpoints and more interested in arguing in favor of angels and the like. Throughout the discussion the poster determinedly clung to the claim that demons, an evil adversary, and exorcisms where pretty much identical across the known world and this suggested that there was some truth to these beliefs. While I urged the poster to come here to this wonderful subreddit in order to learn more about the subject they didn't seem interested. So instead I decided to ask the question a few days later for my own education, and for future conversations of course. So what are the actual origins of the christian exorcism, what rituals in other cultures have connections to those european rituals and what is a good way to categorize the broad class of rituals that deal with cleansing in such a way that does NOT lump them all under the category of exorcism. Finally when did Europeans start referring to rituals in other cultures as an exorcism, is this a very modern thing (20th century) or did this start much earlier.","c_root_id_A":"hfikrdm","c_root_id_B":"hfi0ito","created_at_utc_A":1633462038,"created_at_utc_B":1633453549,"score_A":20,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I have actually recently been reading up on spirit possession and exorcism rituals in Kel Ewey Tuareg culture so i might be able to bring something of value here. Exorcisms in Tuareg culture is not anything like the \"devil banishing\" from modern christianity. They believe that people can get possessed by spirits called Kel Essuf (People of Solitude). To rid a person of this spirit it needs to be appeased by a ritual of music and song. People of all social ranks can be possessed, but mostly females. ' This is an excellent article if you want some further reading on the subject: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1525\/ahu.1993.18.1.21 As well as videos of the rituals themselves: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qg-lq75G-C8","human_ref_B":"Ponticus the Christian Monk wrote the Practikos in the 4th Century. It\u2019s a melding of Meditational Aescetic practices from the Greeks and Christian ideas. A lot of Non-Dual Meditation and Open Monitoring Meditation practices involve cessation of intrusive thoughts and focusing of the mind on a single act. Avoiding predictive processed thought opens the meditator up to a new type of \u2018unmeasured\u2019 experience frequently described as a religious experience. Ponticus talks at length about the intrusive thoughts we must master in order to have a Heaven on Earth experience. In his system, there are 8 deadly \u2018demons\u2019 of thought we must observe and master; a list that eventually became the 7 deadly sins. There\u2019s also the \u201cJesus Prayer\u201d, a short mantra repeated over and over again 24\/7; a practice similar to \u201cFocusing on the Breath\u201d also meant to drown out predictive thought. I imagine many Meditative processes used Religious imagery to describe a Cognitive process that wasn\u2019t quite understood. http:\/\/www.ldysinger.com\/Evagrius\/01_Prak\/00a_start.htm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8489.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"1xdszm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Having just watched the Ham-Nye debate and stumbled across this subreddit, I have to ask: any cretionist anthropologists out there? Oops misspelled creationist. Oh well.","c_root_id_A":"cfaxd79","c_root_id_B":"cfao72k","created_at_utc_A":1391960532,"created_at_utc_B":1391917919,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Evangelical Christian, and an Old Earth Creationist here. There aren't all that many of us. My graduate and undergraduate professors all did double takes when I \"came out\" as a Christian who studied human evolution. I don't personally know any Young Earth Creationists in the discipline, but they may be out there. To be more specific, I'll quote an earlier discussion of the topic. I believe God created the world, and our species was an intentional outcome of creation. All evidence points to a long period of creation\/shaping of the universe, with a deep history of life on this planet. I don't hold an exact literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis (in the history of biblical study such a literal perspective is a somewhat strange\/recent phenomenon). Outside of that, I really don't know how it all works. I don't know at what point along our line we became \"human\", and I don't know what the Creator's interaction with his creation was like beforehand. I have lots of questions, but they don't produce anxiety in not knowing.","human_ref_B":"I've encountered them in my undergrad courses for sure, not in grad school though- you know, it's probably more common than you'd think, because I think some creationists go into anthropology trying to find evidence to support their beliefs... plus the interest in biblical history\/archaeology... anyways just for funsies here's the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Evolution and Creationism- interesting, I think.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42613.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1xdszm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Having just watched the Ham-Nye debate and stumbled across this subreddit, I have to ask: any cretionist anthropologists out there? Oops misspelled creationist. Oh well.","c_root_id_A":"cfairah","c_root_id_B":"cfaxd79","created_at_utc_A":1391903138,"created_at_utc_B":1391960532,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I knew one in grad school. She was one of those \"microevolution but not macroevolution\" types. To her credit (I guess), she was not a young-Earth creationist. She was the only doctoral student I know of who failed her prelim exams.","human_ref_B":"Evangelical Christian, and an Old Earth Creationist here. There aren't all that many of us. My graduate and undergraduate professors all did double takes when I \"came out\" as a Christian who studied human evolution. I don't personally know any Young Earth Creationists in the discipline, but they may be out there. To be more specific, I'll quote an earlier discussion of the topic. I believe God created the world, and our species was an intentional outcome of creation. All evidence points to a long period of creation\/shaping of the universe, with a deep history of life on this planet. I don't hold an exact literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis (in the history of biblical study such a literal perspective is a somewhat strange\/recent phenomenon). Outside of that, I really don't know how it all works. I don't know at what point along our line we became \"human\", and I don't know what the Creator's interaction with his creation was like beforehand. I have lots of questions, but they don't produce anxiety in not knowing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":57394.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"1xdszm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Having just watched the Ham-Nye debate and stumbled across this subreddit, I have to ask: any cretionist anthropologists out there? Oops misspelled creationist. Oh well.","c_root_id_A":"cfao72k","c_root_id_B":"cfairah","created_at_utc_A":1391917919,"created_at_utc_B":1391903138,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I've encountered them in my undergrad courses for sure, not in grad school though- you know, it's probably more common than you'd think, because I think some creationists go into anthropology trying to find evidence to support their beliefs... plus the interest in biblical history\/archaeology... anyways just for funsies here's the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Evolution and Creationism- interesting, I think.","human_ref_B":"I knew one in grad school. She was one of those \"microevolution but not macroevolution\" types. To her credit (I guess), she was not a young-Earth creationist. She was the only doctoral student I know of who failed her prelim exams.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14781.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"fwbdwj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What an Anthropologist do during a moment like this Covid-19 Research? Work together with ONGs? What have done anthropologist is past events like this? I'm very curious. Thanks and hope everyone is fine.","c_root_id_A":"fmnk1lm","c_root_id_B":"fmnlb7l","created_at_utc_A":1586227872,"created_at_utc_B":1586228728,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Many anthropologists are hard at work assisting in tackling the pandemic. For instance: https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/nationalpost.com\/pmn\/news-pmn\/canada-news-pmn\/hajdu-brings-anthropology-public-health-experience-to-covid-19-fight\/amp","human_ref_B":"Deborah Lupton has put together an excellent document specifically for this. There are guides on digital ethnography, revisiting old digital data, cultural studies of digital media (photograph, podcasts, etc.), and digital tools to learn during this time. I'm considering pinning this to the top of \/r\/Anthropology","labels":0,"seconds_difference":856.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"t2g50m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"if you have a ba in anthropology, what was the salary in your entry level job after graduation? (pls include a year and location bc that changes the salary's purchasing power) and were you able to live on it comfortably?","c_root_id_A":"hym4m6i","c_root_id_B":"hym2xnp","created_at_utc_A":1645942945,"created_at_utc_B":1645941882,"score_A":18,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Went from BA to PhD program, funded. Stipend was $10k per semester, with occasional opportunities to supplement with summer work, meaning that I made a total of $26k per year in Phoenix, AZ. ​ After leaving that position, I now make $56k per year in Washington, DC, working at a museum.","human_ref_B":"I have a B.S. in Biological anthropology, biochemistry and MSc in Biological anthropology. My first job out of college was at a medical examiners lab at $15\/hr. Then worked in archives at a local museum at $18.50\/hr. I thought about giving teaching a go but it wasn't for me. There were definitely a lot of opportunities for me to make significantly more but in this career field you have to be willing to work significant hours and be extremely passionate. For me I valued stability and work\/life balance, I definitely didn't see a way for me not to bring home work with me if I went further down this road. After awhile I decided to switch career fields to I.T. with my first job making $55k\/year and never working over 40 hrs per week.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1063.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"t2g50m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"if you have a ba in anthropology, what was the salary in your entry level job after graduation? (pls include a year and location bc that changes the salary's purchasing power) and were you able to live on it comfortably?","c_root_id_A":"hym498i","c_root_id_B":"hym4m6i","created_at_utc_A":1645942719,"created_at_utc_B":1645942945,"score_A":7,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Back in the early 90s, *before* I got by BA in anthropology, I worked with the CRM and made about $12\/hr. Then I went to undergrad, got my degree, and there were no jobs, everyone wanted me to volunteer my time instead of paying for it, including CRM (which had tried to get me to go do a different university that was closer to where I'd been working, but wasn't going to keep me employed during university). I volunteered as a university teacher overseas instead, and didn't come back to anthropology, although certain aspects of it do come in handy in my current ecology and conservation job. When I came back to an academic setting I went for my MS in ecology instead.","human_ref_B":"Went from BA to PhD program, funded. Stipend was $10k per semester, with occasional opportunities to supplement with summer work, meaning that I made a total of $26k per year in Phoenix, AZ. ​ After leaving that position, I now make $56k per year in Washington, DC, working at a museum.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":226.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"t2g50m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"if you have a ba in anthropology, what was the salary in your entry level job after graduation? (pls include a year and location bc that changes the salary's purchasing power) and were you able to live on it comfortably?","c_root_id_A":"hym9fmp","c_root_id_B":"hym498i","created_at_utc_A":1645946186,"created_at_utc_B":1645942719,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I got my b.s. in anthropology with a concentration on cultural & visual anthropology in Dec 2020. During my senior year I interned (free) for a multimedia company on a PBS show, then did weekend work for a media distribution company (for $1500\/month) while interning (free) as a podcast production assistant. Now as of \u201822 I work full time remotely for the same media distribution company as my first FT entry level position, 36 hrs\/week and I make about $40k\/year. Starting next month i am moving into a place with my BF and i know with my salary i will be able to cover bills\/live comfortably but i plan on taking on side gigs to have extra spending money.","human_ref_B":"Back in the early 90s, *before* I got by BA in anthropology, I worked with the CRM and made about $12\/hr. Then I went to undergrad, got my degree, and there were no jobs, everyone wanted me to volunteer my time instead of paying for it, including CRM (which had tried to get me to go do a different university that was closer to where I'd been working, but wasn't going to keep me employed during university). I volunteered as a university teacher overseas instead, and didn't come back to anthropology, although certain aspects of it do come in handy in my current ecology and conservation job. When I came back to an academic setting I went for my MS in ecology instead.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3467.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"t2g50m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"if you have a ba in anthropology, what was the salary in your entry level job after graduation? (pls include a year and location bc that changes the salary's purchasing power) and were you able to live on it comfortably?","c_root_id_A":"hym4mg2","c_root_id_B":"hym9fmp","created_at_utc_A":1645942950,"created_at_utc_B":1645946186,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Ha! My partner has a BS in criminal justice and a BA in anthropology, along with multiple certifications, including grant writing. They graduated with their most recent degree right in the middle of 2020, and the two companies that wanted to hire them had to withdraw their job offers due to the pandemic and everything going to hell. They still aren't technolically working in their field, but at least the grant writing certification paid off. There are some part of the world that just don't have anthropology jobs, so we're waiting to move.","human_ref_B":"I got my b.s. in anthropology with a concentration on cultural & visual anthropology in Dec 2020. During my senior year I interned (free) for a multimedia company on a PBS show, then did weekend work for a media distribution company (for $1500\/month) while interning (free) as a podcast production assistant. Now as of \u201822 I work full time remotely for the same media distribution company as my first FT entry level position, 36 hrs\/week and I make about $40k\/year. Starting next month i am moving into a place with my BF and i know with my salary i will be able to cover bills\/live comfortably but i plan on taking on side gigs to have extra spending money.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3236.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"2ey742","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are such 19th century writers as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Lewis H. Morgan, \u00c9lis\u00e9e Reclus, Maxim Kovalevski and Pierre Kropotkin still considered an authority on ancient and modern archaic society?","c_root_id_A":"ck4339w","c_root_id_B":"ck49qaz","created_at_utc_A":1409345456,"created_at_utc_B":1409360277,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I don't know about \"ancient and modern archaic society\", but check out \"Reading Durkheim in America\" by Karen Fields. I also attended a paper given by James Ferguson a couple years ago which borrowed heavily from Kropotkin's philosophy. I haven't been able to find a copy of it online, but you might have better luck, it was titled \"Give a Man a Fish: The New Politics of Distribution in Southern Africa (and Beyond)\".","human_ref_B":"Certainly not. They're considered important thinkers, and some of their ideas are still relevant (although usually in heavily modified and updated form), but there has been a century of improvement in anthropological and sociological thinking. Many 19th century anthropologists were \"armchair anthropologists\", often hardly leaving their home countries and relying on secondhand \"ethnographies\" written by missionaries, traders, or explorers. The problem of the anthropologist's own bias is bad enough even in the best of circumstances, but relying on secondhand information from a missionary about the religious practices of a group that you've never been within 10,000 miles of? That's going to introduce a hopeless amount of error and misunderstanding. Methodology, especially, has improved dramatically since the 19th century. Also, sociology started out as a highly positivist field, and that has been thoroughly discarded by most modern sociologists. This is not to say that Durkheim or Weber or so on didn't contribute immensely to the field. Any college or graduate program in sociology or anthropology or related fields is going to include them as required reading, because even if many of their ideas are considered flawed or outdated, subsequent work has nevertheless built upon their contributions, or else exists in opposition to them. So while they're still influential and worth reading, 19th century anthropologists are not at all considered authoritative.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14821.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"2ey742","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are such 19th century writers as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Lewis H. Morgan, \u00c9lis\u00e9e Reclus, Maxim Kovalevski and Pierre Kropotkin still considered an authority on ancient and modern archaic society?","c_root_id_A":"ck47ler","c_root_id_B":"ck49qaz","created_at_utc_A":1409355202,"created_at_utc_B":1409360277,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"What is \"modern archaic\"?","human_ref_B":"Certainly not. They're considered important thinkers, and some of their ideas are still relevant (although usually in heavily modified and updated form), but there has been a century of improvement in anthropological and sociological thinking. Many 19th century anthropologists were \"armchair anthropologists\", often hardly leaving their home countries and relying on secondhand \"ethnographies\" written by missionaries, traders, or explorers. The problem of the anthropologist's own bias is bad enough even in the best of circumstances, but relying on secondhand information from a missionary about the religious practices of a group that you've never been within 10,000 miles of? That's going to introduce a hopeless amount of error and misunderstanding. Methodology, especially, has improved dramatically since the 19th century. Also, sociology started out as a highly positivist field, and that has been thoroughly discarded by most modern sociologists. This is not to say that Durkheim or Weber or so on didn't contribute immensely to the field. Any college or graduate program in sociology or anthropology or related fields is going to include them as required reading, because even if many of their ideas are considered flawed or outdated, subsequent work has nevertheless built upon their contributions, or else exists in opposition to them. So while they're still influential and worth reading, 19th century anthropologists are not at all considered authoritative.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5075.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"2ey742","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are such 19th century writers as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Lewis H. Morgan, \u00c9lis\u00e9e Reclus, Maxim Kovalevski and Pierre Kropotkin still considered an authority on ancient and modern archaic society?","c_root_id_A":"ck49qaz","c_root_id_B":"ck47xy5","created_at_utc_A":1409360277,"created_at_utc_B":1409355993,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Certainly not. They're considered important thinkers, and some of their ideas are still relevant (although usually in heavily modified and updated form), but there has been a century of improvement in anthropological and sociological thinking. Many 19th century anthropologists were \"armchair anthropologists\", often hardly leaving their home countries and relying on secondhand \"ethnographies\" written by missionaries, traders, or explorers. The problem of the anthropologist's own bias is bad enough even in the best of circumstances, but relying on secondhand information from a missionary about the religious practices of a group that you've never been within 10,000 miles of? That's going to introduce a hopeless amount of error and misunderstanding. Methodology, especially, has improved dramatically since the 19th century. Also, sociology started out as a highly positivist field, and that has been thoroughly discarded by most modern sociologists. This is not to say that Durkheim or Weber or so on didn't contribute immensely to the field. Any college or graduate program in sociology or anthropology or related fields is going to include them as required reading, because even if many of their ideas are considered flawed or outdated, subsequent work has nevertheless built upon their contributions, or else exists in opposition to them. So while they're still influential and worth reading, 19th century anthropologists are not at all considered authoritative.","human_ref_B":"I learned about Durkheim, Weber, and Morgan in a theory class for the anth major. As far as I can tell they were authorities for their time, no doubt any ethnographies written will be insightful. But...they lived in the 19th century and the turn of the 20th...so their theories are quite outdated but are interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4284.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1ho7ml","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"A meta-question for you... prior to the 19th century (which is when I understand the field first started to take shape in a modern way), what did \"anthropology\" look like? I guess I'm asking if there were ancient counterparts to modern anthropologists, and, if so, what exactly it was they were doing and why. Who was interested in the \"science of humanity\"? And what did they do about it?","c_root_id_A":"cawcn78","c_root_id_B":"cawfeeb","created_at_utc_A":1373024037,"created_at_utc_B":1373037386,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"A good example of this would be Jesuit Relations, a series of reports on the Jesuit missions in New France. The Jesuits tried to understand Native American thoughts and ways of life (with the goal of eventually converting them). I believe they would have described what they were doing as a form of natural history - you can understand the people and their part in God's plan by studying their way of life before contact with Christians.","human_ref_B":"I think some have asked about the earliest anthropologists before, but it is always an interesting topic. Anthropology as we know it today really rose out of the Enlightenment and then was spurred by colonialism. Kant, for example, was a very important figure in anthropology in the 1700s. If you want to know more about this period let me know, but it sounds like you're interested in much older approaches. Enlightenment Europeans certainly weren't the first groups to try and figure out why humans do such strange things. Some scholars like Marvin Harris point to Herodotus as one of the earliest because he not only recorded history but tried to explain it and human nature. In the 11th century Ab\u016b Rayh\u0101n B\u012br\u016bn\u012b wrote *The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries* or more commonly *Vestiges of the Past* which looks at the customs, religions, sciences, and concepts of time among different societies. A couple hundreds years later Ibn Khaldun wrote *The Muqaddimah*. He tried to explain the difference and patterns of rural vs urban, the origins of charismatic authority, the concept of tribalism, the importance of being unbiased, social conflict theory, and the labor theory of value. Just to name a few - I've linked you to the book, which is well worth a read. Back in Europe, in the 12th century Giovanni da Pian del Carpine wrote about his travels within Mongolia in *Ystoria Mongalorum*. He recorded their customs, religion, foods, traditions, social arrangements, etc. Marco Polo also wrote about these topics among the people he encountered during his travels. He went to the Middle East, Central Asia, and many areas in East Asia. Like \/u\/bistromathtician points out the Jesuits were also students of human behavior and cultures. Their codexes recorded a lot of fascinating information about societies such as the Aztecs. Though they were missionaries with an obvious bias, they focused on understanding in order to convert. So their records are very interesting for us today. I'm not sure if this entirely gets at what you were interested in. But hopefully it is a starting point. Feel free to ask further questions from me or others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13349.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"verpi3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Apart from the Vikings, Polynesians, and Siberians, are there any pre-Columbian contact theories that are considered likely or even plausible? I'm not sure if this is the right sub since it's more history-related, but I imagine a lot of the potential evidence could be anthropological (such as genetic and loanword evidence, as in the case of Polynesian contact).","c_root_id_A":"icrwtxo","c_root_id_B":"icrqwew","created_at_utc_A":1655509357,"created_at_utc_B":1655506373,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure an answer like this is allowed, but this is a question in the FAQ for r\/AskHistorians, https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskHistorians\/wiki\/nativeamerican#wiki\\_pre-columbian\\_trade\\_and\\_contact","human_ref_B":"There is a theory about, people similar to Australian natives making it all the way to South America. > The 2015 DNA studies revealed Australasian ancestry in two Indigenous Amazonian groups, the Karitiana and Suru\u00ed, based on the DNA of more than 200 living and ancient people. Many bore a signature set of genetic mutations, named the \"Y signal\" after the Brazilian Tupi word for \"ancestor,\" ypiku\u00e9ra. https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/earliest-south-american-migrants-had-australian-melanesian-ancestry","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2984.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"ztc81e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Books and sources about ancient Magic and the role it played in ancient religions and cultures I'm a videogame writer, and I'll soon start working on a setting based on the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Since I'd like to make it as much historically accurate as possible, and I'm personally tired of seeing the whole concept of magic treated as a way to burn or destroy things, I'd like to include some appropriate magic in the setting. I'd like to add supernatural elements making them mysterious, hard to grasp, so eerie and subtle that everything magical could be rationally explained by us modern humans with scientific knowledge. While I have some knowledge when it comes to medieval stuff, mostly alchemy, I need some guidance when it comes to Bronze Age cultures. I tried doing a few google searches but found nothing useful or reliable.","c_root_id_A":"j1db7v3","c_root_id_B":"j1dexpy","created_at_utc_A":1671802558,"created_at_utc_B":1671804456,"score_A":12,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Try \u2018the first ghosts\u2019 by Irving Finkel - he gives a pretty extensive account of how magic was used to deal with ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia. It\u2019s also out as an audio book with Finkel reading - he\u2019s just as wonderful a character as his name suggests!","human_ref_B":"The history of magic by Chris Gosden A survey of the role of magic in human societies from ice age to present. Plenty of bronze age stuff there. Author is an archaeology professor at Oxford so the book is very well researched but accessible for general reader","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1898.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ztc81e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Books and sources about ancient Magic and the role it played in ancient religions and cultures I'm a videogame writer, and I'll soon start working on a setting based on the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Since I'd like to make it as much historically accurate as possible, and I'm personally tired of seeing the whole concept of magic treated as a way to burn or destroy things, I'd like to include some appropriate magic in the setting. I'd like to add supernatural elements making them mysterious, hard to grasp, so eerie and subtle that everything magical could be rationally explained by us modern humans with scientific knowledge. While I have some knowledge when it comes to medieval stuff, mostly alchemy, I need some guidance when it comes to Bronze Age cultures. I tried doing a few google searches but found nothing useful or reliable.","c_root_id_A":"j1e71vg","c_root_id_B":"j1edqvc","created_at_utc_A":1671816384,"created_at_utc_B":1671819064,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Not bronze age, but the most central anthropological work on witchcraft and magic is Evans-Pritchard's \"witchcraft oracles and magic among the azande\". It might give you some ideas on how to get to the everyday-ness of magic. The azande used oracles to determine whether witchcraft had been used to cause harm and basically rejected the idea of coincidences, instead turning to the oracles to determine the root cause of all events that caused injuries or death.","human_ref_B":"I myself specialize in much later periods, so take it with a grain of salt, but here's my two cents. First, your idea is both easier and harder than it looks. Easier - because oral magical tradition, while it does change across time and space, has some impressive and strange continuities and borrowings. This means you could probably look at a journal on contemporary folk magic, such as Charms, Charmers and Charming for inspiration, and, so long as you keep out of extremely period or context-specific things (e.g. the concept of mana, popularized to a great extent by video games as well), you could very easily use them. Ancient magic can even seem very anachronistic - for example, invisibility spells were common enough. So, generally-speaking, if you look at examples from folk magic, you shouldn't be too worried about getting something completely wrong. Additionally, yes, folk magic is much richer than destruction. Off the top of my head, there is healing, divination (finding missing animals, things, people, paths), transformation into beasts, protection from supernatural creatures, the destruction of obstacles and locks, and, of course, love spells. For inspiration, I would use the ATU index: https:\/\/sites.ualberta.ca\/~urban\/Projects\/English\/Motif_Index.htm However, the atmosphere you want requires a lot of worldbuilding, and this is the hard part. Because the whole point of early and folk magic is a humongous, breathing world, where you make tenuous connections and hope they work out, and where magic is a way of dealing with the unexpected and possibly deadly. I don't know what sort of game you're writing for, but you can see where I'm going with this: early magic is basically a roguelike. So If I were to give you a recommendation for the specific type of atmosphere you are going for, I would probably base the writing in Malinowski's idea of \"magic as a stopgap for conditions which are dangerous and uncertain by nature\" (see *Magic, Science, Religion and Other Essays* for the treatment, but also be aware that Malinowski's stuff has been discussed and digested to death, it's a rabbit hole). The basic idea here would be to have your characters and NPCs whip out charms when they are going for a hunt; when there is illness; when there is childbirth; when there is travel--in short, wherever there is a leap of faith to be made. Conversely, when the player character approaches spaces marked by the others as dangerous, they can also have magical markings on them. Think \"this is not a place of honor\". One game that did this sort of thing extremely well was *Subnautica*. Make your player cling to their magic like *Subnautica* players cling to their little submarine in the beginning of the game, and you're good. You can also put in a heavy emphasis on divination, and have many cases where there is no obvious path forward - and make it possible to use the divination as a guidance. If we're talking video games specifically, *Hellblade* with its \"looking for runes\" and \"faces in waterfalls\" did this one well. Mix \"no obvious path\" with a lot of observational lore that ranges from the very mundane - \"birds fly low before rain, because insects\" to supernatural \"red bark on these trees means that there are evil spirits afoot\". Make some of the supernatural ones recognizable by today's player as mundane, if you want to get the \"explainable by scientific knowledge\" thing. Also, look at *Kingdom Come: Deliverance* for an example of how they did medieval magic that has that same \"this is all explained later in humanity's history\" vibe. While you're not going to have alchemists, you are probably going to have healers, and their whole thing with the potion brewing mechanics was fantastic for the atmosphere. So, tl;dr: 1) You can probably borrow folk magic from different periods and cultures, and so long as you don't use anything extremely period or location specific, it won't look too out of place. 2) To get the atmosphere you want, you might need a specific type of game, because magical practice is always tied heavily to the environment a practitioner lives in and its challenges. 3) Basic formula is: find challenge that cannot be overcome for certain with skill - have magic to add to perceived chances of success.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2680.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"otfqfs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"In Ancient Greece, the Only Time Diety of Note, Kronos, Was Held In Contempt. Ancient Rome, However, Seems to Have Held Its Own In Much Higher Regard. Why Is This, And Are The Etruscans A Big Part of It? Kronos is often characterized as a cruel god, whose rein was a golden age only for the immortal rulers, while he himself was most inclined to the cruel parts of time, such as age and rot. But across the Adriatic, in Rome, a culture heavily syncretized with ancient Greece, despite being overthrown, Saturn was still respected to the point of saturnalia becoming influential on modern Christmas, and Wikipedia states his brother Janus (a roman exclusive) was often marked with \"Pater,\" much like Jupiter. ​ What i want to know is why was time viewed so differently by these cultures, and how the etruscans viewed time.","c_root_id_A":"h6vjmyf","c_root_id_B":"h6vf996","created_at_utc_A":1627505294,"created_at_utc_B":1627503465,"score_A":82,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I can answer a part of this, at least: Saturn was not Kronos. Saturn is one of the oldest of the traditional Roman pantheon - his is one of the oldest known Roman temples, and the Romans themselves recognized his cult as one of the most ancient. His role as god of time is different from that of Kronos - Saturn was more heavily associated with the seasons and thus agriculture. Saturn's identity was not overwritten by hellenizing influences, it was syncretized, and even this largely did not happen until the 200s BC and was not really completed until the conquest of Greece by Rome. This syncretism left Saturn's geneology in place in order to situate one of the primary Roman gods into the Greek pantheon in a patriarchal role and many customs came with that, but many of those customs were forced into the Roman mode and made to conform with Roman ideas about Saturn. For instance, the Greek Kronia festival was influential on the development of Saturnalia, but the feast day was changed to the traditional date of the founding of the temple of Saturn in Rome, the festival had much more of a fertility\/agricultural tone, and many Roman practices were kept. The Roman origin story of Saturn is completely different to that of Hesiod's, and is more complicated than the just straight \"son overthrows father, sticks him in prison forever\". In the Roman version, Saturn was overthrown by Jupiter in Greece, but not wholly defeated. He settles in Rome after Janus allows him to do so, and brings civilization to it. He was not a imprisoned, subordinated god at all, merely an exile. Beyond that, though, I also don't think that you have a very good understanding of the Greek Kronos. \"Held in contempt\" is a massive oversimplification that borders on outright wrong. Kronos was respected (although not quite worshipped). He had feast days. The \"Kronia\" festival I mentioned earlier was a major part of the Greek religious calendar and celebrated Kronos as the ruler of a golden age of humanity. But most importantly he wasn't really *personified* at all in the first place to the extent of most of the other major deities. He wasn't really loved or hated, he was practically just a signifier of ancientness and origins, more of a metaphor or descriptor than most of the pantheon. It's also worth noting that there was no unified Greek religious orthodoxy. There were many competing traditions with greatly varied genealogies and roles for the gods. We don't know a tremendous amount about how Kronos was viewed at all. The idea of him as the divine bad guy is more of a 19th century romantic interpretation. \"Greek\" was just one *family* of mythological traditions within the broader and closely related indo-european tradition, a tradition that also included the indigenous Roman religion. There were many different strands all influencing and exchanging ideas with the others. Even the earliest classical Greek and Roman authors were wrangling with these exact same questions.","human_ref_B":"Cronus has been mixed up with Chronos, but they are were two separate entities. Chronos as a primordial deity of time which existed when the world was a primordial egg constricted by Chronos and Ananke. Chronus and Ananke constricted the egg and cleaved it in two. The lighter elements rose and because Aether, Uranus and Chaos, and the heavier elements sank and became Gaia and Pontos and Oceanus. Then Uranus and Gaia begat Kronos\/Cronos the Titan. Due to the similarity of the names, they later became identified with each other in antiquity.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1829.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"otfqfs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"In Ancient Greece, the Only Time Diety of Note, Kronos, Was Held In Contempt. Ancient Rome, However, Seems to Have Held Its Own In Much Higher Regard. Why Is This, And Are The Etruscans A Big Part of It? Kronos is often characterized as a cruel god, whose rein was a golden age only for the immortal rulers, while he himself was most inclined to the cruel parts of time, such as age and rot. But across the Adriatic, in Rome, a culture heavily syncretized with ancient Greece, despite being overthrown, Saturn was still respected to the point of saturnalia becoming influential on modern Christmas, and Wikipedia states his brother Janus (a roman exclusive) was often marked with \"Pater,\" much like Jupiter. ​ What i want to know is why was time viewed so differently by these cultures, and how the etruscans viewed time.","c_root_id_A":"h6vjmyf","c_root_id_B":"h6vjgpu","created_at_utc_A":1627505294,"created_at_utc_B":1627505223,"score_A":82,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I can answer a part of this, at least: Saturn was not Kronos. Saturn is one of the oldest of the traditional Roman pantheon - his is one of the oldest known Roman temples, and the Romans themselves recognized his cult as one of the most ancient. His role as god of time is different from that of Kronos - Saturn was more heavily associated with the seasons and thus agriculture. Saturn's identity was not overwritten by hellenizing influences, it was syncretized, and even this largely did not happen until the 200s BC and was not really completed until the conquest of Greece by Rome. This syncretism left Saturn's geneology in place in order to situate one of the primary Roman gods into the Greek pantheon in a patriarchal role and many customs came with that, but many of those customs were forced into the Roman mode and made to conform with Roman ideas about Saturn. For instance, the Greek Kronia festival was influential on the development of Saturnalia, but the feast day was changed to the traditional date of the founding of the temple of Saturn in Rome, the festival had much more of a fertility\/agricultural tone, and many Roman practices were kept. The Roman origin story of Saturn is completely different to that of Hesiod's, and is more complicated than the just straight \"son overthrows father, sticks him in prison forever\". In the Roman version, Saturn was overthrown by Jupiter in Greece, but not wholly defeated. He settles in Rome after Janus allows him to do so, and brings civilization to it. He was not a imprisoned, subordinated god at all, merely an exile. Beyond that, though, I also don't think that you have a very good understanding of the Greek Kronos. \"Held in contempt\" is a massive oversimplification that borders on outright wrong. Kronos was respected (although not quite worshipped). He had feast days. The \"Kronia\" festival I mentioned earlier was a major part of the Greek religious calendar and celebrated Kronos as the ruler of a golden age of humanity. But most importantly he wasn't really *personified* at all in the first place to the extent of most of the other major deities. He wasn't really loved or hated, he was practically just a signifier of ancientness and origins, more of a metaphor or descriptor than most of the pantheon. It's also worth noting that there was no unified Greek religious orthodoxy. There were many competing traditions with greatly varied genealogies and roles for the gods. We don't know a tremendous amount about how Kronos was viewed at all. The idea of him as the divine bad guy is more of a 19th century romantic interpretation. \"Greek\" was just one *family* of mythological traditions within the broader and closely related indo-european tradition, a tradition that also included the indigenous Roman religion. There were many different strands all influencing and exchanging ideas with the others. Even the earliest classical Greek and Roman authors were wrangling with these exact same questions.","human_ref_B":"> saturnalia becoming influential on modern Christmas This is a modern Christmas myth, celebrated and retold in old and newfangled media by contemporary heathen celebrities every year around Yuletide, despite there being absolutely no historical evidence Saturnalia had any influence on Christmas.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":71.0,"score_ratio":8.2} {"post_id":"zkgpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Folk Korean game \"Stone battle\" - It was played for thousands of years and it was actually quite dangerous. What are similar customs observed in other cultures? https:\/\/kpopjacketlady.com\/2017\/02\/21\/and-stones-may-break-my-bones-the-korean-stone-throwing-game-called-seokjeon\/ https:\/\/newmoun.tistory.com\/752 a 16th century record of Stone Battle in an ancient capital of the Silla dynasty (in Korean)","c_root_id_A":"izzlj6u","c_root_id_B":"izzw7gw","created_at_utc_A":1670891191,"created_at_utc_B":1670895989,"score_A":7,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"In certain parts of Peru there is a ritual battle known as the ch'iaraje. Sounds very similar to this. https:\/\/books.google.co.jp\/books?id=dRNkEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=ch%27iaraje&source=bl&ots=NCoUmv7NDg&sig=ACfU3U371xzO3NX4_5JsYiFLeyJrMhYi6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjctcmwqvX7AhWDGIgKHYbVC0c4ChDoAXoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=ch'iaraje&f=false","human_ref_B":"Well, in rural Wisconsin we played a game that we called \"chucker rocker\" as in you chuck (throw) rocks at one another in our local stone quarry\/gravel pit. We would pair up into teams and go onto each other's shoulders and take turns throwing rocks at the other team, usually the lower team member's face or groin to get them to drop the team member they were carrying. As someone now in my thirties I cringe at how badly we could have hurt one another over a stupid game.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4798.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"4e2uj8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there any functional explanations for the taboos surrounding homosexuality (which seem common around the world historically) x-post r\/askhistorians Acts of homosexuality are so harmless, and it just seems weird that so many culures have enforced or enforces harsh punishments for it. Are there any functional explanations for this? Or is it completely tied to other cultural constructs, such as concept of manliness and purity and what not.","c_root_id_A":"d1xck6v","c_root_id_B":"d1zvwui","created_at_utc_A":1460303284,"created_at_utc_B":1460474717,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"years ago in a class i read an article that speculated that an aversion to male gay sex came from a germ perspective. that humans naturally find the anal area repulsive because of the chances of fecal contamination, thus the idea of anal sex between men grosses humans out. i didnt really buy that explanation at all and would never be able to find the article again im sure","human_ref_B":"You'll find that functionalism is rather pass\u00e9 in anthropology because it is rarely a satisfying or provable answer to complex questions. Things are just messier than that. Attitudes towards sex vary quite a lot cross-culturally so I don't think you can make too broad a statement about something like homosexual behaviors and attitudes. Like others have pointed out, there is quite a lot of variation in how societies even think about these kinds of encounters. For example, the Bugis have five genders which allows them to have heterogendered relationships even if they may be homosexual from a biological perspective. See: * Davies, Sharyn Graham. Challenging gender norms: five genders among Bugis in Indonesia. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2007. In other contexts, marriage may be about reproduction primarily but extramarital same sex relationships are accepted or at least normal. In rural Haiti where I do my fieldwork, Vodou priests who are attracted to men often have that arrangement (Maya Deren noticed this in the 1930s as well - I can give you a full citation for the archival data if you want.) Sherry Ortner argues that issues related to virginity and reproduction become a primary focus for patrilineal state societies due to inheritance issues. And that's about as functionalist as you get these days. But that is largely focused on women's sexual behaviors because as bearers of heirs the state is invested in ensuring the offspring is that of the husband. So how societies handle same sex interactions varies quite a lot. They don't interfere with producing heirs if societies still require (or highly encourage) marriage for reproduction. But whether same sex couplings are accepted and to what degree they are accepted is going to vary from group to group.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":171433.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"5ryfnk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How did ancient people learn to process potentially deadly foodstuffs to make them edible- like plants that you have to boil multiple times or ferment to get poison out of them? x-xpost askreddit and askhistorians Discovered an native plant in the yard that apparently was used for thousands of years as a starch source but requires a great deal of processing before it won't kill you. How did ancient peoples not give up after the first couple of goes that killed someone to come up with the solutions to make deadly foods edible through complex processing? Like polk salad which has to be boiled several times or this plant, the coontie, which has to be leeched and fermented to remove cyanide","c_root_id_A":"ddber8p","c_root_id_B":"ddbhvbz","created_at_utc_A":1486200117,"created_at_utc_B":1486211124,"score_A":5,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"Yes I'm with you on this question. It is rather simple to say well this can be harvested at this time and all other times its poisonous. It's the \"well we harvest it in July then rinse in running water for 6 months then crush it and mix with some other fermenting thing and **it tastes Great**\". I mean you have to be pretty determined to find a way to eat it to go through all that.","human_ref_B":">How did ancient peoples not give up after the first couple of goes that killed someone to come up with the solutions to make deadly foods edible through complex processing? It's important to remember that while you or I may lack a broad understanding of native plants and processing, ancient peoples did not. While seemingly complex, many of these processing techniques would have already existed and been used for other plants. While it's hard to give exact examples, because we don't have written records, things like boiling or leaching were hardly restricted to plants that were toxic. These would have seen widespread use as processing methods. The initial development of these methods is shrouded in deep prehistory, and there's basically no way to know how they first developed. There probably *was* a period of trial and error. But this would have been *very* early in human prehistory. Just because the cultural context, and the historical knowledge, that ancient peoples had of the environment around them is not available to us doesn't mean that it didn't exist. An analog (**edit:** Ha, I just realized the pun here, given the reference to CDs below) to your question (from far in the future) might be: * When CDs first appeared, how did people know what to do with them? The answer, of course, is that CDs didn't appear in isolation. They appeared within a technological system that had seen previous forms of technology for the storage \/ playback of audio recordings, including tapes. They also conformed to the general shape of another type of audio recording and playback medium: vinyl records. While many people had to convert their musical libraries over to CDs over the next couple decades, the fact is that no one was mystified when CDs first appeared on shelves. They could contextualize them within an existing system, *and* they had people who were more familiar with the technology to help them figure it out. Technology and cultural practices don't arise out of nothing, they develop out of previous forms. Or if the technology is new, it's (most likely) a replacement for an existing form of technology, and while it may represent an improvement, it's not so totally new that it doesn't make sense within the existing understanding. >Like polk salad which has to be boiled several times or this plant, the coontie, which has to be leeched and fermented to remove cyanide So let's take these two examples. Pokeweed is a \"traditional southern Appalachian food\" (acc. to Wikipedia). People who first recognized the possibility of using pokeweed as a food resource already had methods of cooking that paralleled what has to be done to make pokeweed edible. The traditional way of cooking collard greens is to simmer them pretty heavily for a long time. So there's already an idea in place. I have no idea if there's a southern dish that involves double or triple cooking vegetables, but the point is, people didn't just start chewing on raw pokeweed, get sick, and then say, \"Hey, what if we leach out the poisons?\" It's also worth noting that people still get sick (and occasionally die) from eating improperly prepared pokeweed. Coontie is better known as Florida arrowroot. It's a \"small cycad native to North America\" (Wikipedia). Indigenous Americans used it for its starch, pounding it to a pulp and then leaching it. Well, indigenous Americans were pounding and leaching a number of different starchy foods (including acorns) for literally millennia. They had been harvesting and processing various tubers and other plant material as food for as long if not longer using various versions of the pounding \/ leaching technique. So when wild sago \/ arrowroot was first recognized as a possible resource and used, there was already a processing technique that was most likely the go-to for plants with a bitter taste (acorns are bitter from the tannins they contain, which have to be leached out). So again, incorporation into an existing system of traditional knowledge and technology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11007.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"5ryfnk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How did ancient people learn to process potentially deadly foodstuffs to make them edible- like plants that you have to boil multiple times or ferment to get poison out of them? x-xpost askreddit and askhistorians Discovered an native plant in the yard that apparently was used for thousands of years as a starch source but requires a great deal of processing before it won't kill you. How did ancient peoples not give up after the first couple of goes that killed someone to come up with the solutions to make deadly foods edible through complex processing? Like polk salad which has to be boiled several times or this plant, the coontie, which has to be leeched and fermented to remove cyanide","c_root_id_A":"ddblpzh","c_root_id_B":"ddc1e7r","created_at_utc_A":1486219730,"created_at_utc_B":1486242013,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Traditional knowledge is one thing but as humans migrated into new areas with plants never seen by their ancestors it would be a huge risk to eat any. I'm also amazed at something like chocolate not deadly (to a certain extent) but as with OPs example a product that requires lots of steps to process. It has to be be picked, fermented, berry flesh removed, dried, ground up keeping oils and dry ingredients at a certain ratio.","human_ref_B":"Lots of good answers in here already, just wanted to add a few. Not directly relevant to your specific example, but still interesting - watching animals was a common source of knowledge for plants. Seeing which plants a sick goat seeks out gives a lot of info to the observant shepherd. There are many stories like this in the lore of ancient people. Another source of knowledge often cited by the people who discovered a plant food\/medicine is dreams\/intuition\/spiritualism. Although it's hard to grasp from our modern sensibilities, there's no good reason to ignore this oft cited source of knowledge. My area of study is ethnobotany, specifically with regards to medicine, so I know more about that then food. But a lot of times, the role of medicine man\/woman involved someone who meditated a lot, explored altered states of consciousness, and would find (often very complex) remedies by interfacing with what could be called the subconscious.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22283.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"5ryfnk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How did ancient people learn to process potentially deadly foodstuffs to make them edible- like plants that you have to boil multiple times or ferment to get poison out of them? x-xpost askreddit and askhistorians Discovered an native plant in the yard that apparently was used for thousands of years as a starch source but requires a great deal of processing before it won't kill you. How did ancient peoples not give up after the first couple of goes that killed someone to come up with the solutions to make deadly foods edible through complex processing? Like polk salad which has to be boiled several times or this plant, the coontie, which has to be leeched and fermented to remove cyanide","c_root_id_A":"ddc1e7r","c_root_id_B":"ddber8p","created_at_utc_A":1486242013,"created_at_utc_B":1486200117,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Lots of good answers in here already, just wanted to add a few. Not directly relevant to your specific example, but still interesting - watching animals was a common source of knowledge for plants. Seeing which plants a sick goat seeks out gives a lot of info to the observant shepherd. There are many stories like this in the lore of ancient people. Another source of knowledge often cited by the people who discovered a plant food\/medicine is dreams\/intuition\/spiritualism. Although it's hard to grasp from our modern sensibilities, there's no good reason to ignore this oft cited source of knowledge. My area of study is ethnobotany, specifically with regards to medicine, so I know more about that then food. But a lot of times, the role of medicine man\/woman involved someone who meditated a lot, explored altered states of consciousness, and would find (often very complex) remedies by interfacing with what could be called the subconscious.","human_ref_B":"Yes I'm with you on this question. It is rather simple to say well this can be harvested at this time and all other times its poisonous. It's the \"well we harvest it in July then rinse in running water for 6 months then crush it and mix with some other fermenting thing and **it tastes Great**\". I mean you have to be pretty determined to find a way to eat it to go through all that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41896.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"gqnfcx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"I am wondering if the concept of sex\/baby connection has ever been studied. Is there a general idea as to when humans realized that having sex was the act that eventually produced a baby?","c_root_id_A":"fru47oy","c_root_id_B":"fru98mf","created_at_utc_A":1590464337,"created_at_utc_B":1590467881,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In Wari culture, it was understood that through the constant exchange of fluids like food and semen during a woman\u2019s pregnancy, this would ensure the baby is formed. They\u2019re not wrong, but a scientific discourse would specify the conception of a zygote. Not an expert in Wari culture or this topic, but I learned this in my intro socio-cultural anthropology class.","human_ref_B":"There's been a lot of research into this but we're limited to written records and art (like cave paintings and sculptures) for understanding or knowing what others knew throughout human history. It's highly likely given our pattern-seeking predisposition that primitive humans knew that sex made babies happen and this is supported by the use of phallic imagery to denote power. But we can't say specifically how much they understood - like paternity for example. There are ancient texts that indicate that people recognised inherited traits (comparing kids to possible fathers as written about by Herodotus). It was in the 1700s that scientists believed sperm contained a tiny complete pre-formed human which was deposited inside a female. I think it was Aristotle who believed that the woman's body temperature determined if the offspring was male or female.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3544.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"xwrwmh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Are there are any indigenous cultures of cold climates that kept warm without the use of animal products? Are there are any indigenous cultures of cold, wet climates that kept warm without the use of animal products? I was inspired by this thread in \/r\/vegan https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/vegan\/comments\/xwlqmu\/what\\_cold\\_weather\\_hiking\\_socks\\_do\\_you\\_wear\/ ​ A vegan perspective on clothing would forbid the use of wool, leather, and silk to keep warm. Meanwhile, petroleum derived products directly cause global warming, which will kill billions of animals. Yet cotton is very dangerous to wear in cold, wet climates as it does not retain heat when wet. How can one keep warm in cold, wet climates without animal or petroleum derived products? ​ Thank you very much for your comments!","c_root_id_A":"ir9y2j0","c_root_id_B":"ir8zesv","created_at_utc_A":1665061378,"created_at_utc_B":1665035670,"score_A":83,"score_B":78,"human_ref_A":"In short, no. And the main reasons are that (1) the relevant animal products (skins, fur, oils for waterproofing) are already pretty much perfectly \"designed\" for this kind of application *and* (2) that no non-animal alternative resources \/ materials are available in those environments where such protection is needed. Skin is naturally waterproof. Fur is natural insulation. Both are evolved to provide warmth and insulation against the elements. Meanwhile, there are no plant products that adequately provide the same level of protection and are *also* available in the regions where that protection is necessary. Let's also consider the fact that vegetarianism \/ veganism is a choice that is able to be made in some regions due to the availability of other resources that can compensate, but in the absence of modern industrial production and food science, it's *extremely* hard to obtain adequate nutrition-- not to mention all the other products that require use of animals-- without resorting to accessing the proteins and \/ or fats that are most efficiently and effectively obtained from animals. There are in fact *no* historically vegan cultures. And those that have been vegetarian were able to do so because they had access to a wide array of domesticated plants that provided fats and proteins (e.g., chickpeas, lentils, flax, etc.). And those historical vegetarian cultures don't abstain from animal products, which provides additional nutrition (e.g., the extensive use of butter in Indian cuisine, for example). Regardless... when you move out of tropical and sub-tropical climates, you reduce by a significant amount what types of resources are available, and that is especially true of plant resources. Chickpeas don't grow in the Arctic. Nor does flax. But seals live there. Polar bears, rabbits, etc. And the adaptations that they have evolved make them not only very well suited to their environments, but also-- if those adaptations are \"extracted\"-- provide for good protection.","human_ref_B":"The Sami people used to stuff their shoes with a specific kind of grass (sennegress) for insulation, but the shoes themselves were made out of leather (specifically reindeer hide) . The same plant was used for basket weaving in North America, so it might technically be possible to construct footwear out to it - although you'd still need to waterproof it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25708.0,"score_ratio":1.0641025641} {"post_id":"xwrwmh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Are there are any indigenous cultures of cold climates that kept warm without the use of animal products? Are there are any indigenous cultures of cold, wet climates that kept warm without the use of animal products? I was inspired by this thread in \/r\/vegan https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/vegan\/comments\/xwlqmu\/what\\_cold\\_weather\\_hiking\\_socks\\_do\\_you\\_wear\/ ​ A vegan perspective on clothing would forbid the use of wool, leather, and silk to keep warm. Meanwhile, petroleum derived products directly cause global warming, which will kill billions of animals. Yet cotton is very dangerous to wear in cold, wet climates as it does not retain heat when wet. How can one keep warm in cold, wet climates without animal or petroleum derived products? ​ Thank you very much for your comments!","c_root_id_A":"ir9y2j0","c_root_id_B":"ir93atp","created_at_utc_A":1665061378,"created_at_utc_B":1665038715,"score_A":83,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"In short, no. And the main reasons are that (1) the relevant animal products (skins, fur, oils for waterproofing) are already pretty much perfectly \"designed\" for this kind of application *and* (2) that no non-animal alternative resources \/ materials are available in those environments where such protection is needed. Skin is naturally waterproof. Fur is natural insulation. Both are evolved to provide warmth and insulation against the elements. Meanwhile, there are no plant products that adequately provide the same level of protection and are *also* available in the regions where that protection is necessary. Let's also consider the fact that vegetarianism \/ veganism is a choice that is able to be made in some regions due to the availability of other resources that can compensate, but in the absence of modern industrial production and food science, it's *extremely* hard to obtain adequate nutrition-- not to mention all the other products that require use of animals-- without resorting to accessing the proteins and \/ or fats that are most efficiently and effectively obtained from animals. There are in fact *no* historically vegan cultures. And those that have been vegetarian were able to do so because they had access to a wide array of domesticated plants that provided fats and proteins (e.g., chickpeas, lentils, flax, etc.). And those historical vegetarian cultures don't abstain from animal products, which provides additional nutrition (e.g., the extensive use of butter in Indian cuisine, for example). Regardless... when you move out of tropical and sub-tropical climates, you reduce by a significant amount what types of resources are available, and that is especially true of plant resources. Chickpeas don't grow in the Arctic. Nor does flax. But seals live there. Polar bears, rabbits, etc. And the adaptations that they have evolved make them not only very well suited to their environments, but also-- if those adaptations are \"extracted\"-- provide for good protection.","human_ref_B":">How can one keep warm in cold, wet climates without animal or petroleum derived products? By growing fur and keeping symbiotic bacteria that produce vitamin B12 and for full heat production best also digest cellulose. Ruminants are walking compost piles, their stomachs are hot. No problems in cold weather as long as there's *some* plant to eat. From a very early age (30-36k years ago, Georgia, string, not cloth) common fibers were linen and nettle instead of cotton, which are a better choice in warm, wet conditions as they dry faster. They're not great at keeping you warm, though. You can weave loop pile blankets (Egypt) You can also stuff bags of cloth with anything fluffy, kapok, milkweed, poplar seeds, or for a mattress simply hay and straw... to create insulation. Wild sheep (and other animals) shed their winter coat which can be collected without even going near the animals. Some birds line their nests with down. From a sheer practicality stand-point: Why would anyone waste time and calories to collect enough milkweed fluff to spin miles of thread, weave it (which came a lot later than clothing in general, needles have been in use for \\~170k years), collect more to stuff it, when you can just as well drive some wisent off a cliff which are great food and provide warm furs? Being vegan out of choice is really only practical in a warm climate with a good selection of food plants all year round. Circumstances forced people in colder areas to forage for whatever they could find and live on plant matter alone at times of course, but that's famine, not a sustainable diet. Boiled grass fills the stomach to ward off some of the pain, and even tulip bulbs can be \"food\" if absolutely necessary. Not even plenty stored grain is enough (see kwashiorkor f.ex.) You can go a long time on grain + legume but that still leaves you with vitamin and iron problems. But in the coldest areas you don't even have that choice. There's not enough plant matter to live on. Even in summer when everything's *not* covered in snow. Grab some grass seeds when you can, but also grab the birds attracted to the seeds while you're at it, and plunder their nests for eggs and chicks. The shorter the growing season the more people had to rely on animals as food and clothing, or die.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22663.0,"score_ratio":1.693877551} {"post_id":"zv7ilu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Anthropology for Software Engineers I was reading a book called \"Kill it with fire\" by Marianne Bellotti. The writer was responsible for organizing and modernising obsolete legacy codes in different software firms all over the world. In her book, she said that her little but clear knowledge of the applied anthropology domain helped her on these projects. As is it understandable that Software is created by humans, tested by humans and also used by humans, so it makes sense that knowledge of anthropology is going to definitely help. But, I really want to know more about how applied anthropology and software engineering are connected. Are there any resources available about it?","c_root_id_A":"j1oagpr","c_root_id_B":"j1p3q9j","created_at_utc_A":1672018492,"created_at_utc_B":1672035953,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"These are primarily not academic sources, but: https:\/\/anthro.illinois.edu\/academics\/undergraduate-programs\/computer-science-and-anthropology https:\/\/medium.com\/@Mediauras\/why-every-software-team-needs-an-anthropologist-812e66e0ecb6 https:\/\/ethnographymatters.net\/blog\/2016\/06\/22\/an-engineering-anthropologist-why-tech-companies-need-to-hire-software-developers-with-ethnographic-skills\/ https:\/\/newrelic.com\/blog\/nerd-life\/anthropologist-user-experience-modern-software-podcast https:\/\/www.cs.cmu.edu\/\\~breaux\/anthropology.html","human_ref_B":"Not an answer but an anthropologist, David Graeber in Bullshit Jobs, explained me why the vast majority of the labor put into software is pointless. Since then I'm a much better software engineer, fighting back most proposals and avoiding developing pretty much anything.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17461.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"gjz2nc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Why were the Europeans so much more advanced than the Native Americans? So my question comes from me failing to understand why the Europeans, Middle-Easterners, and Asians (along with everyone else I forgot, sorry) so much more technologically advanced than the Native Americans, Aztecs, Mayans, etc. I could be wrong but those who were native to the Americas had been there for the same time that those in the Eastern Hemisphere were. I don't understand how the Greeks and Romans were creating amazing architectural feats, and later how the Europeans were living in castles and practicing science while the natives in the Western Hemisphere were not doing these things. I don't mean to be rude or ignorant, I know that there were huge cities and civilizations in the Americas, with massive stone structures like the pyramids. If someone could explain why there was such a difference in technology and the civilizations that would be greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"fqo80r0","c_root_id_B":"fqopvhz","created_at_utc_A":1589509467,"created_at_utc_B":1589521420,"score_A":39,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"Disclaimer: I know a lot more about Mesoamerica than any other part of the Americas, so that's what this is going to be structured around. There were a number of key differences in what was available in each region. The Americas lacked domesticatable animals aside from the turkey, the llama, and the dog (which was brought from Asia) which obviously meant they lacked every possible benefit of the domesticatable animals of Eurasiafrica. The llama is a capable pack animal, but not powerful enough to carry a person, and definitely not nearly as strong as a horse or donkey for carrying loads. The Americas also had access to only one major staple grass crop, corn. Now, corn is actually more productive than wheat, rice, barley, etc, but it seems to have taken significantly longer to domesticate because the wild version is almost unrecognizable when compared to the modern form. Google teosinte to see the difference; the wild, ancient corn of the Americas was tiny, rock hard, and not particularly productive. Meanwhile modern domesticated wheat is almost the same as its wild form, so it seems to have taken much less effort to turn it into a viable mass crop. Once corn was domesticated it flourished and combined perfectly with other native crops such as beans, squash, and chilis, which today all remain staples of the diets of many countries in north and south america. Corn and beans together are actually complete protein, which was very fortuitous for their domesticators, however, corn requires a complex process called nixtamalization to break down its starches to release its full nutrition. This must also have taken time to develop to unlock its potential. When Europeans first encountered corn and started employing it as a staple crop they neglected this step, and eating only corn as a grain without nixtamalizing it will result in pellagra, a disease caused by niacin deficiency. Evidence seems to suggest that the peoples of the Americas started the process of moving towards farming and \"civilization\" around the same time as other people in the world due to global climate changes, but the differences in exploitable resources ended up giving them a much slower start. Nevertheless, regions of the Americas rivaled Eurasiafrica in many ways including art, architecture, city planning, poetry, and more. Tenochtitlan is likely to have had a population of almost 300,000 at the time of the conquest, making it one of the top five cities on the planet. Its massive market in Tlatelolco may have been larger than Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, and it was regarded as exceptionally organized and productive. The entire city was planned to an intricate degree and was noted for its cleanliness and beauty in records from various observers. Before I close, one more thing. The lack of horses and pack animals in Mesoamerica (llamas were only in south america) created massive differences in warfare and control. Think of how hard it would have been to maintain a true empire without the increased efficiency of an ox cart, or the speed of horse mounted scouts. The Aztec empire, which is the one we know the most about, was structured incredibly differently from what you would imagine when thinking of something like Rome. Because it was such an incredible undertaking to carry the supplies for an army (everything was carried by human porters, who also had to carry their own food!), they tended not to leave garrisons in places unless they absolutely had to. Their empire was run more like a protection racket, where they would threaten potential victims to give them beneficial trade, or simply free goods, and threaten war if these were not granted. To facilitate this they had a special class of warrior-merchants known as the pochtecas. If anyone were to refuse, or harm the pochtecas, the Triple Alliance would wage war, generally win, and force the loser to give tribute. It was a loose system built out of necessity, and it seems to have made the 'empire' ripe for disintegration when a seemingly powerful enemy appeared out of nowhere and started building an anti-Aztec coalition.","human_ref_B":"The other answers have pretty much covered everything I want to say, but echoing u\/arataumaihi, it's interesting to include more abstract (less material) concepts and practices in understandings of 'technology'. To add another exaple: Last year, Australia suffered particularly devastating fires (climate change = increasingly bad fires). This raised a huge public, professional, and political debate on who to blame, and one of the things blamed was the lack of, or inefficiency of backburning (burning specific areas back *into* a current fire to remove fuel that's in its path; generally a last resort), and hazard reduction burning (burning various fuel sources throughout the year to remove\/limit fuel sources). Hazard reduction burning is extremely important, because it can stop fires from starting or spreading in the first place, but the weather conditions have to be *perfect* or you'll just start a fire you can't control (which does happen sometimes). Now, again, due to climate change and governmental budget-cuts, the number of days with proper weather conditions for hazard reduction burning has been steadily decreasing every year, meaning that less burning can be done, and the fires have more fuel. So this became a huge point of contention, and blame was tossed everywhere and anywhere, and, as usual, mostly erroneously. BUT somewhere in the middle of this argument, Indigenous groups and fire ecologists started to speak up about the fact that small-scale Indigenous land-management had actually been extremely effective in preventing and controlling fires. Furthermore, it will likely continue to be effective in the face of climate change because it's so small-scale that it can be carried out more days of the year. In this environment, Indigenous land management can therefore be seen as more 'advanced' than all the science and technology behind the Australian Fire Service because it's *more effective at doing the thing it's trying to do*. It predates colonisation, and is likely quite ancient, but no one beside the practitioners, their communities, and a few academics had even heard of it until last year, because it was assumed that We (White People) Are More Advanced. **tl;dr** technology isn't always material, and is always contextual. Assuming a sliding scale of 'advancement' is not only factually incorrect, but risks ignoring or even losing valuable technologies and knowledge.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11953.0,"score_ratio":1.1282051282} {"post_id":"gjz2nc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Why were the Europeans so much more advanced than the Native Americans? So my question comes from me failing to understand why the Europeans, Middle-Easterners, and Asians (along with everyone else I forgot, sorry) so much more technologically advanced than the Native Americans, Aztecs, Mayans, etc. I could be wrong but those who were native to the Americas had been there for the same time that those in the Eastern Hemisphere were. I don't understand how the Greeks and Romans were creating amazing architectural feats, and later how the Europeans were living in castles and practicing science while the natives in the Western Hemisphere were not doing these things. I don't mean to be rude or ignorant, I know that there were huge cities and civilizations in the Americas, with massive stone structures like the pyramids. If someone could explain why there was such a difference in technology and the civilizations that would be greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"fqopvhz","c_root_id_B":"fqod34u","created_at_utc_A":1589521420,"created_at_utc_B":1589512547,"score_A":44,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"The other answers have pretty much covered everything I want to say, but echoing u\/arataumaihi, it's interesting to include more abstract (less material) concepts and practices in understandings of 'technology'. To add another exaple: Last year, Australia suffered particularly devastating fires (climate change = increasingly bad fires). This raised a huge public, professional, and political debate on who to blame, and one of the things blamed was the lack of, or inefficiency of backburning (burning specific areas back *into* a current fire to remove fuel that's in its path; generally a last resort), and hazard reduction burning (burning various fuel sources throughout the year to remove\/limit fuel sources). Hazard reduction burning is extremely important, because it can stop fires from starting or spreading in the first place, but the weather conditions have to be *perfect* or you'll just start a fire you can't control (which does happen sometimes). Now, again, due to climate change and governmental budget-cuts, the number of days with proper weather conditions for hazard reduction burning has been steadily decreasing every year, meaning that less burning can be done, and the fires have more fuel. So this became a huge point of contention, and blame was tossed everywhere and anywhere, and, as usual, mostly erroneously. BUT somewhere in the middle of this argument, Indigenous groups and fire ecologists started to speak up about the fact that small-scale Indigenous land-management had actually been extremely effective in preventing and controlling fires. Furthermore, it will likely continue to be effective in the face of climate change because it's so small-scale that it can be carried out more days of the year. In this environment, Indigenous land management can therefore be seen as more 'advanced' than all the science and technology behind the Australian Fire Service because it's *more effective at doing the thing it's trying to do*. It predates colonisation, and is likely quite ancient, but no one beside the practitioners, their communities, and a few academics had even heard of it until last year, because it was assumed that We (White People) Are More Advanced. **tl;dr** technology isn't always material, and is always contextual. Assuming a sliding scale of 'advancement' is not only factually incorrect, but risks ignoring or even losing valuable technologies and knowledge.","human_ref_B":"Be very careful using the term 'advanced.' Unfortunately, a model of cultural evolution still exists within the larger public with the expectation that all cultures go from primitive > civilised. This is false.Example: many First Nations had a very complex and involved understanding of plant systems and interactions that are more synonymous with today's understandings of agricultural science than the best innovations of European farming science in the 1800s and early 1900s. ​ EDIT: Also, be careful in using a strong presence of material culture (architecture, tools, etc) to argue for 'advancement.' Some of the most engaging philosophy within anthropology and other disciplines emerges from communities that using your lens above would be considered barbaric, e.g. M\u0101ori conceptions of generative void; S\u0101moan understandings of the interactions with space\/time; Blackfoot Crow contributions to quantum physics.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8873.0,"score_ratio":2.0952380952} {"post_id":"5sakz2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"[xpost r\/Askhistorians] Are there any theories as to why patriarchy is (seemingly) so common a feature in cultures across history? or, a Question I Would Not Ask the Wider Reddit Community Even with the different ways that genders and gender roles are constructed in various cultures, it certainly seems like many\/most have some form of patriarchy. Is this a false impression? Is it, near as we can tell, just a coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"dde5j19","c_root_id_B":"dde2h9l","created_at_utc_A":1486367738,"created_at_utc_B":1486360765,"score_A":42,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"**Sexual Diamorphism** Males have a larger body size (15-20%). \"Women also exhibited about 40 percent less upper-body strength and 33 percent less lower-body strength, on average, the study found. And a 2006 study in the same journal revealed that men had much stronger grips than women \u2014 the difference was so big that 90 percent of the women scored lower thanks 95 percent of the men.\" Source **Agricultural** Generally you will only see a social elite form in societies with agricultural. Hunter Gather cultures are usually egalitarian. There maybe defined gender roles, but one is not dominant towards the other. **Greater Value Placed on Masculine Activities** This is a which came first chicken or egg situation. Did the vaule placed on the masculine activities lead to patriarchy or patriarchy give value to the activities? Probably synergistic. Even when women control household and buisnesses men still seem to dictate from political sphere. So the political sphere is given an elevated status because men do it. It's interesting to say that political dominion supercedes domestic affairs. **Nursing** Breadfeeding traditional means more time rearing young and less time to engage in \"politics\". Technological innovation in some societies have work arounds that allow for alternatives to nursing. *** It seems most cultures give spheres of control to different genders. For whatever cultural belief it seems we vaule masculinity over femininity. Other cultures seem to have a more balanced approach to spheres of influence by genders, but we label them a patriarchy because men predominately engage in activity x,y, or z. I know of some strong patriarchical societies where men dominate and even brutalize women. However perhaps there are some societies where we are to quick to grant the label of patriarchy and are dismissive of feminine values and control.","human_ref_B":"A possible explanation I was taught in a beginner anthro course was that it had to do with the invention of agriculture and, with it, the start of domestic life. Basically, before agriculture, when everyone was living in bands of foragers, most work was done out in the open, in full view of the rest of the tribe. This made it clear who was putting in their fair share of effort and who wasn't, and there wasn't any general discrepancy between the amount of work done by men and women. With the invention of agriculture came permanent settlements and structures. Women, being able to produce milk, would naturally tend to the role of caregiver and would do their work inside, out of the view of the rest of the group, while the men worked out in the fields. This lead to the wide-spread idea that women weren't pulling their weight, which in turn lead to the devaluing of women themselves. TL;DR: The invention of agriculture and permanent, indoor dwellings lead to \"women's work\" being less publicly visible and therefore less valued, leading to women being less valued as a whole.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6973.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"pl0xvo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"As far as we know are there any cultures that did not use drums? Did every culture develop a musical instrument that we would identify as a drum?","c_root_id_A":"hc7d9no","c_root_id_B":"hc7o059","created_at_utc_A":1631208300,"created_at_utc_B":1631212724,"score_A":14,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Drums are just things you hit on to make a noise, hence the name \"percursion instruments\". Most things can be drums, and from there it is quite logical to jump unto actual instruments that we would identify as drums (a hollow space covered with some sort of leather or pellicule on top of the opening). But i am not aware of any cultures that never developed drums. Seems unlikely.","human_ref_B":"Depends a bit on how you define a drum. If it's anything you hit to make noise, then I'd be surprised and skeptical that any culture has nothing like that. Because \"hitting a tree with a stick\" fits that description, potentially. If you mean hide or other fabric-like material stretched over a tube or frame of some kind, then I'm sure you could find cultures where we have no evidence of such an invention, when we would expect *some* to show up if they haven't. (IE even without artifacts we'd expect literature\/oral history to mention them if they existed, assuming a sufficient amount of text has been gathered.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4424.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"pl0xvo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"As far as we know are there any cultures that did not use drums? Did every culture develop a musical instrument that we would identify as a drum?","c_root_id_A":"hc7o059","c_root_id_B":"hc7ikk8","created_at_utc_A":1631212724,"created_at_utc_B":1631210501,"score_A":18,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Depends a bit on how you define a drum. If it's anything you hit to make noise, then I'd be surprised and skeptical that any culture has nothing like that. Because \"hitting a tree with a stick\" fits that description, potentially. If you mean hide or other fabric-like material stretched over a tube or frame of some kind, then I'm sure you could find cultures where we have no evidence of such an invention, when we would expect *some* to show up if they haven't. (IE even without artifacts we'd expect literature\/oral history to mention them if they existed, assuming a sufficient amount of text has been gathered.)","human_ref_B":"Every culture? That's incredibly broad. There's no way to prove a negative unless you were to find some anti-drum literature. 'Use' is incredibly broad too. Do you mean in ritual? or just screwing around? Statistically speaking I'm sure have been plenty of human cultures that did not use drums, it depends on the needs of the group. Drums are a luxury item and not required survival, and it's a hard life for paleolithic and neolithic humans. Even for more modern cultures, take Vikings for instance: they very likely used drums, but we just don't have evidence for them. Given the burials that we do have, maybe drums were prevalent but weren't considered that important. It's unlikely that they were specifically destroyed during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. It's important to note that we definitely have many historical examples of drums from their neighbors in Finland, the Sami.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2223.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"xsskgk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What's a good Youtube channel similar to Crash Course, that provide brief yet comprehensive discussions on the basics of Anthropology? I love the Crash Course Youtube Channel. They have great videos on a wide variety of disciplines that goes into the basics of the discipline. The only problem is they dont have anything on Anthropology. Can someone suggest a channel that would be an alternative to Crash Course? It should have videos explaining the basics of a particular discipline in a comprehensive manner and in short videos similar to the Crash course series.","c_root_id_A":"iqowyf5","c_root_id_B":"iqordsr","created_at_utc_A":1664671157,"created_at_utc_B":1664668465,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The problem with a question like this is that anthropology consists of multiple subfields depending on how you count, including **sociocultural anthropology**, **archaeology**, **biological anthropology** (which includes various sub-subfields, like **primatology** and **forensic anthropology**), **linguistic anthropology**, and sometimes **medical anthropology** is listed as separate from **sociocultural**. The point is, it's a super broad field which has pillars which share more in common with entirely different disciplines than they do with subfields under the same umbrella. Sociocultural anthropology is more like sociology than anything else, while primatology may be something akin to zoology or psychology, and the methods of archaeology and paleontology are very similar, and lines are blurred at paleo-anthropology. You get the idea. The easiest way to answer this question is to figure out what you are interested in. Do you like sociocultural anthropology? If you want to know more about seminal theories in that discipline, you might want to check out Crash Course Sociology. If you want to know about the historical development of certain cultures and different life ways and religious beliefs around the world, you can also check out Cogito, who balances sociocultural anthropology, archaeology, and history quite well. SLICE also has really cool, short documentaries on topics pertaining to sociocultural anthropology. If you are like me and medical anthropology is your jam, I recommend looking more into public health content, so I would recommend checking out Crash Course Public Health or Global Health with Greg Martin. If you like sociocultural anthropology, you can also check out some of the videos from Crash Course Geography. Like biological anthropology? PBS Eons has some good videos on evolution more broadly. For archaeology, you are in good luck because there are a number of good channels for you to check out, including Stephen Milo or Epimetheus. On top of all of that, if religious studies is more your thing, check out Let's Talk Religion or Religion for Breakfast, or even a variety of channels dealing with world mythology. To my knowledge, there is no YouTube channel that covers anthropology more broadly in a direct way, and my theory as to why this is the case is because the field is so indefinite. The point is, the vast majority of the content you are looking for is out there, it's just not under one umbrella. To supplement having an easily accessible YouTube channel for all things anthropological, you kind of have to ask yourself what it is that draws you to anthropology and then search out the content that you like. This may ultimately may entail that you make a playlist yourself that pools content from a variety of different channels.","human_ref_B":"Not *brief* in any sense of the term, but CARTA from UC San Diego has an amazing catalog of presentations on many anthro-related topics, especially physical anthro. History With Kayleigh offers a pretty good selection too. The presentations are much shorter, but therefore also less comprehensive.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2692.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8do80q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any YouTube channels about anthropology\/human evolution? Hello all! I'm been looking for YouTube channels that deal exclusively on the topics of anthropology (preferably physical anthropology) or human evolution. I've already subscribed to John Hawks's channel, would anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dxoys9u","c_root_id_B":"dxp3py7","created_at_utc_A":1524247310,"created_at_utc_B":1524251951,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Check out the BOAS Network http:\/\/boasnetwork.com","human_ref_B":"I just started watching these lectures from Stanford university. Really fun to watch and the professor is a cool and funny dude. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL087286BAF7B3D458","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4641.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"56eyv7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I want to start writing (publicly) about the different cultural aspects of countries (and the behavior of their people) that I visit and I don't want to screw it up - what book(s) on anthropology should I read? I'm starting a blog and probably, eventually, a youtube channel about the cultures I encounter in different countries I travel to and, when recounting what I see, I want to do it at least somewhat correctly. I'm basically asking for a recommendation for books on \"how to be an anthropologist\". Not \"how to be hired as an anthropologist\", I'm not looking to be *considered* one as such, I'd just like to do this and do it right. I'm going to be talking about people's behavior and culture, and I'd like to do as good a job of it as I can. What should I read? Textbooks are fine, I'm willing to dig in and wade through some fairly dense material if I have to.","c_root_id_A":"d8ja4jo","c_root_id_B":"d8je9lx","created_at_utc_A":1475941238,"created_at_utc_B":1475947420,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"*John T. Omohundro*- Thinking Like an Anthropologist: A Practical Introduction to Cultural Anthropology *Robert M. Emerson*- Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) *Perecman*- Handbook for Social Science Field Research *Bernard*- Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology","human_ref_B":"Pyramids & Prostitutes - IIRC - by LL Wynn Orientalism - Said Imagined Communities - Andersen","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6182.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1003d2u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)? Hello, I'm a doctor that just started to work in a free clinic inside a place that provides food and some services for people that live in the streets. And i find my cultural expertise to be... barely enough, but i'm sure it's costing me rapport with my patiens when they talk about aspects of their daily lives that i've never experienced. I've always liked to read somethings about basic anthropology. And i'm in the process of looking for ethnographies that talk about this subject, looking for people that got to know the communities, and how they interacted with the state and criminal organizations. I've found The weight of the world by Pierre Boudeliere, and flamable by Javier Auyero, are these any good? (Found auyero looking foor argentinian\/latinoamerican sources)","c_root_id_A":"j2f9g5n","c_root_id_B":"j2fgzcs","created_at_utc_A":1672520367,"created_at_utc_B":1672523680,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"you're lucky that you have regular access to the people you want to learn more about. are you able to sit down with them and talk? have a tea and connect with them?","human_ref_B":"I like Flammable and think it's good -- I suppose it depends what specific you're trying to understand. Flammable is mostly about how residents of a polluted area live with that pollution. If that sounds helpful, it's definitely a book worth reading. The first recommendation that came to mind hearing you're a doctor is medical anthropologist Philippe Bourgois, specifically his book Righteous Dopefiend, about homeless drug addicts in the Bay Area. A good ethnography with a specific interest in how this topic relates to the medical system. Another medical anthropologist who has some work you might look at is Seth Holmes, who worked with migrant farmworkers in Washington State -- his book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies has a couple chapters on how migrants interact with doctors and how those doctors fail to understand their issues.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3313.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"1003d2u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)? Hello, I'm a doctor that just started to work in a free clinic inside a place that provides food and some services for people that live in the streets. And i find my cultural expertise to be... barely enough, but i'm sure it's costing me rapport with my patiens when they talk about aspects of their daily lives that i've never experienced. I've always liked to read somethings about basic anthropology. And i'm in the process of looking for ethnographies that talk about this subject, looking for people that got to know the communities, and how they interacted with the state and criminal organizations. I've found The weight of the world by Pierre Boudeliere, and flamable by Javier Auyero, are these any good? (Found auyero looking foor argentinian\/latinoamerican sources)","c_root_id_A":"j2hpojb","c_root_id_B":"j2hxyjp","created_at_utc_A":1672571591,"created_at_utc_B":1672578673,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Gabor Mate's In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts includes a lot of insights\/ anecdotes from when Mate was a doctor in Skid Row. It's isn't an anthropological study, and touches a lot on his personal experience with addictive behaviour, but might be interesting for you regardless!","human_ref_B":"This isn\u2019t a book, but it might still be helpful. Soft White Underbelly on YouTube is doing exactly this sort of work. They work mostly with people on Skid Row and interview them about their lives, interests, etc. I\u2019ve found the channel to be non-judgemental and insightful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7082.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1003d2u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)? Hello, I'm a doctor that just started to work in a free clinic inside a place that provides food and some services for people that live in the streets. And i find my cultural expertise to be... barely enough, but i'm sure it's costing me rapport with my patiens when they talk about aspects of their daily lives that i've never experienced. I've always liked to read somethings about basic anthropology. And i'm in the process of looking for ethnographies that talk about this subject, looking for people that got to know the communities, and how they interacted with the state and criminal organizations. I've found The weight of the world by Pierre Boudeliere, and flamable by Javier Auyero, are these any good? (Found auyero looking foor argentinian\/latinoamerican sources)","c_root_id_A":"j2hxyjp","c_root_id_B":"j2hsbl4","created_at_utc_A":1672578673,"created_at_utc_B":1672574009,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This isn\u2019t a book, but it might still be helpful. Soft White Underbelly on YouTube is doing exactly this sort of work. They work mostly with people on Skid Row and interview them about their lives, interests, etc. I\u2019ve found the channel to be non-judgemental and insightful.","human_ref_B":"Matthew O'Brien Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas The author takes trips for a year into the tunnels under Vegas to interact with the people that live there. I found it fascinating.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4664.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1003d2u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)? Hello, I'm a doctor that just started to work in a free clinic inside a place that provides food and some services for people that live in the streets. And i find my cultural expertise to be... barely enough, but i'm sure it's costing me rapport with my patiens when they talk about aspects of their daily lives that i've never experienced. I've always liked to read somethings about basic anthropology. And i'm in the process of looking for ethnographies that talk about this subject, looking for people that got to know the communities, and how they interacted with the state and criminal organizations. I've found The weight of the world by Pierre Boudeliere, and flamable by Javier Auyero, are these any good? (Found auyero looking foor argentinian\/latinoamerican sources)","c_root_id_A":"j2ixua5","c_root_id_B":"j2hpojb","created_at_utc_A":1672596605,"created_at_utc_B":1672571591,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Any other recommendations? Yes, definitely check out Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community by Elijah Anderson. It's an insightful look into the lives of people living in inner-city Philadelphia and how their lives have been shaped by poverty and racism. Another great resource is When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor by William Julius Wilson, which examines the decline of jobs in inner-city areas and how it has affected the people who live there. Both of these books provide a great understanding of the daily lives of people living in extreme poverty.","human_ref_B":"Gabor Mate's In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts includes a lot of insights\/ anecdotes from when Mate was a doctor in Skid Row. It's isn't an anthropological study, and touches a lot on his personal experience with addictive behaviour, but might be interesting for you regardless!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25014.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1003d2u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)? Hello, I'm a doctor that just started to work in a free clinic inside a place that provides food and some services for people that live in the streets. And i find my cultural expertise to be... barely enough, but i'm sure it's costing me rapport with my patiens when they talk about aspects of their daily lives that i've never experienced. I've always liked to read somethings about basic anthropology. And i'm in the process of looking for ethnographies that talk about this subject, looking for people that got to know the communities, and how they interacted with the state and criminal organizations. I've found The weight of the world by Pierre Boudeliere, and flamable by Javier Auyero, are these any good? (Found auyero looking foor argentinian\/latinoamerican sources)","c_root_id_A":"j2hsbl4","c_root_id_B":"j2ixua5","created_at_utc_A":1672574009,"created_at_utc_B":1672596605,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Matthew O'Brien Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas The author takes trips for a year into the tunnels under Vegas to interact with the people that live there. I found it fascinating.","human_ref_B":"Any other recommendations? Yes, definitely check out Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community by Elijah Anderson. It's an insightful look into the lives of people living in inner-city Philadelphia and how their lives have been shaped by poverty and racism. Another great resource is When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor by William Julius Wilson, which examines the decline of jobs in inner-city areas and how it has affected the people who live there. Both of these books provide a great understanding of the daily lives of people living in extreme poverty.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22596.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bgxa34","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Did you study or were taught about a connection between the Clovis and the mass extinction of mega fauna in North America. What alternate causes for the mass extinction did you come across. Also are you familiar with any bottle necking of genetic diversity in humanity within the past 100k years? I came across an internet video that shared some compelling evidence that made me question some of the things that I went over when i got my Anth Degree. From what I remember it was explained that mild climate change that benefited the Clovis and the Clovis themselves were credited with the extinction of mega fauna like giant sloths in the Americas. Yet thinking back on it I cant think of a developing society that would willing hunt a species to extinction.","c_root_id_A":"elpekmp","c_root_id_B":"elqimxe","created_at_utc_A":1556153289,"created_at_utc_B":1556190696,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Overkill Hypothesis was always associated with Clovis First but if you've got people in the Americans hunting mammoths for thousands of years before that (Monte Verde has gomphotheres) it seems to be evidence against. Contributing factor, stressor -- sure but we can't really point to a definitive cause.","human_ref_B":"There are plenty of examples of animals that were hunted for extinction by developing societies. The most well documented examples were by agricultural societies rather than hunter-gatherers (mostly because agricultural societies have better documentation in general). These include cases like the Eurasian wolf, which was hunted to extermination in Europe to protect livestock. There's plenty of evidence that animals like the Irish elk were most likely hunted to extinction by hunter-gatherer societies - specimens dated to the period when the animal was nearing extinction appear perfectly health, which suggests that it was not being threatened by environment losses or climate change (which would cause malnutrition and starvation) or disease. Especially given that there is plenty of evidence that they were being hunted, the logical conclusion is that they were hunted to extinction. The fact that many other species went extinct shortly after humans migrated into the region and the lack of other explanations make it seem that hunting to extinction was fairly common among ancient hunting societies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37407.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zpwkvk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"how is it called when someone study human evolution and biomechanics for physiotherapy? Hello, I hope this type of post is allowed, I know i sound like an amateur but what im trying to ask is how is it called when someone study and research human evolution and biomechanics of the han body in order to understand how it work for treating the human body in physiotherapy , Meaning the more i tried to read and about these topics of human evolution\ud83e\uddec, archeology etc, they always seem to show that humans developed technology for an easier life but more in the sense of physical easy time meaning if there is a hunter today he can just use a rifle \ud83d\udd2bbut before maybe a bow\ud83c\udff9 and arrow and before maybe spears and before probably heavy rocks \ud83e\udea8so basically the more the technology evolved the less need of physical energy\/power\/strength so What im trying to learn is how is the technology effected the human body physically in the sense of movement,posture,issues etc.. since we need it and use it less the more the tech is developing.","c_root_id_A":"j0vk9qh","c_root_id_B":"j0vj4z1","created_at_utc_A":1671477123,"created_at_utc_B":1671476680,"score_A":28,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">I know i sound like an amateur but what im trying to ask is how is it called when someone study and research human evolution and biomechanics of the han body in order to understand how it work for treating the human body in physiotherapy , For the most part - people don't do that. While you'll \\_hear\\_ a lot of chatter about \"the paleolithic diet for good health\", and modern medicine can be \\_informed\\_ to some degree by an understanding of evolutionary history -- the paleoanthropology of the jaw doesn't get you to a treatment for temporal mandibular joint syndrome. Human evolution and contemporary human medical concerns may have significant overlaps -- but the problems of \"what to do about my bad back now\" vs \"how the sacral spine changed over hundreds of thousands of years\" -- they're really very different domains. A spinal surgeon doing a laminectomy or vertebral fusion -- might have an interest in human evolution, but it doesn't really matter much to what he does for his patients.","human_ref_B":"To clarify, are you asking for a kind of ancestral kinesiology? You want to know what movements we did historically and how that affects how we move today? Is there a particular line you\u2019re drawing between historical archers and, say, historical re-enactment archers or people who use ancestral weapons and tools recreationally in modern times? There is such a wide variety of behaviors across cultures and many of them aren\u2019t split easily between a vague \u201cthen\u201d and \u201cnow.\u201d So I guess I\u2019m asking if there\u2019s a particular culture or timeframe you\u2019re asking about (e.g. how did using stone tools affect muscle development in modern descendants of a specific stone-tool-wielding culture), or if you\u2019re asking if there is an entire field of study dedicated to the evolutionary impacts of *everything* humans have ever done across all cultures and how those motions manifest in the movements passed down in each different culture with their different tools and motions?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":443.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"zpwkvk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"how is it called when someone study human evolution and biomechanics for physiotherapy? Hello, I hope this type of post is allowed, I know i sound like an amateur but what im trying to ask is how is it called when someone study and research human evolution and biomechanics of the han body in order to understand how it work for treating the human body in physiotherapy , Meaning the more i tried to read and about these topics of human evolution\ud83e\uddec, archeology etc, they always seem to show that humans developed technology for an easier life but more in the sense of physical easy time meaning if there is a hunter today he can just use a rifle \ud83d\udd2bbut before maybe a bow\ud83c\udff9 and arrow and before maybe spears and before probably heavy rocks \ud83e\udea8so basically the more the technology evolved the less need of physical energy\/power\/strength so What im trying to learn is how is the technology effected the human body physically in the sense of movement,posture,issues etc.. since we need it and use it less the more the tech is developing.","c_root_id_A":"j0wj124","c_root_id_B":"j0w6a7i","created_at_utc_A":1671491110,"created_at_utc_B":1671485792,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It sounds like maybe you're interested in the mismatch hypothesis, which is the idea that humans evolved for a different physical environment than they currently inhabit. If that sounds like what you're looking for, check out: * The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman * Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel Lieberman * Burn by Herman Pontzer * First Steps by Jeremy DeSilva * On Fertile Ground by Peter Ellison As u\/amp1212 mentioned, these aren't guides for medical treatment, but it is interesting to understand the evolutionary context of the human body.","human_ref_B":"Career paths are not designed to produce effective results in the field (that's on you), they are designed to produce effective recruitment procedures when you are dealing with the school system (millions of unknown students) and industry\/the marketplace (many thousands of spots to fill).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5318.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zwahu0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the ethics of archaeological museum work? So I'm an anthropology undergrad and I really like the idea of archaeological collections management\/care or museum curation or something related. HOWEVER I'm really struggling to figure out how to get into this field while ensuring that I'm participating in ethical archaeology. I worry that going into museum studies would automatically link me with the whole \"it belongs in a museum\" ideology and I'd end up working against my morals. Can I be fighting for repatriation while simultaneously working in a museum or with archaeological collections? And that's a genuine question - I'm very new to this as a whole. I would love any advice from anyone familiar with collections management or museum work and how to ensure that I'm not signing myself up for a future that perpetuates the harm that archaeology and colonialism has done so much of in the past. Again I'm only a freshman and kind of lost right now so any wisdom or info helps!!","c_root_id_A":"j1u61v0","c_root_id_B":"j1trugu","created_at_utc_A":1672144348,"created_at_utc_B":1672132861,"score_A":28,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm not directly involved with museum work but I've done research into process flows, logistics, and models for museum and archive storage in the UK from an archaeological perspective. A lot of it goes directly against my morals and I think it is wildly unethical. There are definitely some good conversations going on about colonialism and repatriation but there are also a lot of very frustrating and illogical conversations happening. One of those that frustrates me the most is the issue of storage. In the UK, there has been a storage crisis for over *at least* 20 years. At no point in 20 years, with hundreds of thousands spent on surveying and assessing the problem, has anyone ever asked how much storage space there actually is for material. The Society for Museum Archaeology 'annual survey' (it's only been done 3 years) asks how much space is *left* not how much they have *in total*. The crazy thing is that 42% have 20m^(3) or less which means that almost half of the storage these groups have less is the size of a domestic garage (if you read the report they specify that many of the groups couldn't figure out how to calculate their available area). The problem I have with it is that we've essentially settled on the fact that we can't store all of this material. Instead of trying to better understand the problem and develop solutions, the UK has pushed more for working on disposal\/discard policies to get rid of collections and assemblages that aren't 'valuable' to them, a grossly colonial practice. I think this is entirely unethical and part of the reason is because we have literally 0 context as to whether or not we *could* have the space to store all of this material. The other part involves authorized heritage discourse and who has the authority to decide what is valuable and what isn't. I think it's wildly unethical for a group of 20-40 'authorities' as part of a workshop to decide what happens to a nation's cultural heritage (whether it is *actually* that nation's heritage or not). Just to contextualize the issue and get back to the problem of not asking how much storage *actually* exists. The British Museum is building a new storage and display warehouse that will be 15,628 sq. m. This is to store the large on- and off-site collection that is scattered around London at the moment, and in buildings like Blythe House. The thing is, the smallest Amazon Warehouse is around 56,000 sq. m, on average they are around 75,000 sq. m. That means that the *smallest* Amazon Warehouse is 3.5 times larger than the largest warehouse devoted to storing UK cultural heritage material (and stuff that should be repatriated). **There are over 24 of these warehouses across the UK and around 11.2 million sq. m.** **of storage and logistics space across the UK. That's 717 times more storage space than one of the largest storage projects for cultural heritage in the UK.** And those are only *Amazon* warehouses, there are thousands of massive warehouses in the UK for various things from shipping to storage to freeholds, so the storage could exist but it doesn't. Instead of understanding how much space we have and how to proactively address the problem, we've thrown our hands in the air and we say \"there's way too much material and it's not worth saving\" a debate I got into recently in r\/Archaeology. But there's literally no evidence or data to support that, we simply, unethically, throw stuff away. I know this has turned into a bit of a rant but this is the type of stuff that happens in archaeology and museums. I had thought it was primarily an older archaeologists' thing until recently when I mentioned it in r\/Archaeology. It's this weird ingrained ideology that has developed in archaeology that doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. So, to answer your question, there are likely going to be a lot of things that go against your core beliefs but you should stick to it and fight to change these unethical practices.","human_ref_B":"So I can only speak for my program in Germany, but in my Museology courses we talk A LOT about restitution, ethics of display, decolonization etc\u2026 I just did a project on the ethics of presenting human remains in museums. It really depends on the program probably. Maybe email some professors\/ look up their resumes\/ published works etc to try to get a better vibe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11487.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"zwahu0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the ethics of archaeological museum work? So I'm an anthropology undergrad and I really like the idea of archaeological collections management\/care or museum curation or something related. HOWEVER I'm really struggling to figure out how to get into this field while ensuring that I'm participating in ethical archaeology. I worry that going into museum studies would automatically link me with the whole \"it belongs in a museum\" ideology and I'd end up working against my morals. Can I be fighting for repatriation while simultaneously working in a museum or with archaeological collections? And that's a genuine question - I'm very new to this as a whole. I would love any advice from anyone familiar with collections management or museum work and how to ensure that I'm not signing myself up for a future that perpetuates the harm that archaeology and colonialism has done so much of in the past. Again I'm only a freshman and kind of lost right now so any wisdom or info helps!!","c_root_id_A":"j1uglme","c_root_id_B":"j1v3tq9","created_at_utc_A":1672150515,"created_at_utc_B":1672160629,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Just clocking in a short answer: YES. The tide is turning and the more people we have who are familiar with and supportive of the issues is key to changing the system. In my experience: involved in taking items off display, repatriating artifacts and writing recommendations for acquisitions, hardline on any problematic sales. Institutions are finally accepting they need to change and it is an exciting time to rewrite policies and put them into practice. You can do it, 100%","human_ref_B":"I recently started working for a private foundation in New York with a large archaeological collection, a majority of which is composed of burial goods of my Haudenosaunee ancestors. This collection is currently stored in a museum, however is not a part of the museum's collection, and thus is not subject to the Federal NAGPRA law for repatriation. Prior to working for this foundation, I worked on the other side of the table of repatriation on behalf of my Nation to return human remains and burial goods and sacred objects from museums and private collectors. So I fully understand the feeling of wanting to right the wrongs of colonialism from the inside, and is absolutely something you should facilitate in any way that you can. One thing that may help your concern is that the idea that \"These things belong in a museum\" is slowly changing, and there are more conscious efforts to facilitate repatriation of objects to rightful descendents. Assuming you're from the US, the NAGPRA regulations have\/are changing to where museums who previously were not legally obligated to repatriate certain objects\/remains because of no definitive attribution can now be returned based on areas of affilitation. Museums are now applying for grants to reassess their collections and reach out to Indian Nations, so plenty of opportunity there for years to come. Another thing you can do in case your museum is not able to repatriate things just yet, is to invite people of the cultures or Nations they represent to come view the collections. It's a small gesture, but having open doors for people to reclaim traditional knowledge and history by seeing and maybe handling objects is a powerful experience for those involved. Any effort to acknowledge and accomodate people who have been adversely affected by archaeology and museum collections and make things right is greatly appreciated by those people. Also remember that it is painful for them sometimes, they will experience confusion, anger, sadness. Validate those feelings for them. Every bit of change that you want to see happen has to begin with you, and even small gestures go a long way. I hope you continue on with your studies and find your way to work in collections, there needs to be more people with your mindset in this field. Wishing you the best!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10114.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"taedch","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What currently used symbol has been used the longest in human history? Are there symbols that have been used with the same or very similar meaning for all recorded history (or further)? And what is the oldest confirmed example of this? I would exclude depictions of things like paintings of animals or items. My question comes from the modern question of how to convey meanings like danger or location to future people.","c_root_id_A":"i00qxt2","c_root_id_B":"i00pwzy","created_at_utc_A":1646859415,"created_at_utc_B":1646859027,"score_A":117,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"The rainbow serpent ancestral being in Australian Aboriginal culture. It\u2019s known as the longest continual art tradition\u2014and religion\u2014in the world. \u201cBy painting this figure on bark today, Aboriginal people are carrying on the longest uninterrupted mythological tradition in the world, which has been the subject of art and ceremony for possibly thousands of years. It remains as one of the oldest and continuous religious beliefs for human kind, and its images continue to be painted by Aboriginal artists today.\u201d Source: https:\/\/japingkaaboriginalart.com\/articles\/rainbow-serpent\/ See also https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40387039","human_ref_B":"off the top of my head, palm impressions is the first I can think of (i though wonder whether you would consider that as a symbol or susbume that within the animals category that you prefer to be shunned in this case). Palm impressions have been evidenced in parietal art from as early as during the middle pleistocene (dated between \u223c169 and 226 ka BP) to as recent as today itself on the doorways or walls of Hindu households or temples. Another such symbol that was stolen and made notorious by a European empire in the previous century is the Swastika which dates back to around the Early Bronze age, has been found almost around the whole globe, and still is an auspicious symbol in Hindu households (source: Hindu myself)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":388.0,"score_ratio":3.7741935484} {"post_id":"taedch","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What currently used symbol has been used the longest in human history? Are there symbols that have been used with the same or very similar meaning for all recorded history (or further)? And what is the oldest confirmed example of this? I would exclude depictions of things like paintings of animals or items. My question comes from the modern question of how to convey meanings like danger or location to future people.","c_root_id_A":"i030mim","c_root_id_B":"i036s8a","created_at_utc_A":1646899630,"created_at_utc_B":1646904814,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Cave Paintings from 40,000 years ago had a number of common symbols that may be what you\u2019re asking about. You can google it to see all of them, but as far as symbols we still see there\u2019s a few examples. Circles, Triangles, Spirals, and Crosshatches (#); although as far as common meaning who can say.","human_ref_B":"An idea that could take you down a deep rabbit hole is to consider metaphors, gestures and sound signals. For instance the conceptual metaphor of up = higher status has been found in chimpanzees. For gestures, touch as a signal of affection is something we share at least with mammals. On a less serious note, the neanderthal hashtag engraving in Gibraltar might have marked something or was just made to look cool, probably similar reasons for its usage today. :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5184.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"taedch","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What currently used symbol has been used the longest in human history? Are there symbols that have been used with the same or very similar meaning for all recorded history (or further)? And what is the oldest confirmed example of this? I would exclude depictions of things like paintings of animals or items. My question comes from the modern question of how to convey meanings like danger or location to future people.","c_root_id_A":"i06g3yr","c_root_id_B":"i06gta0","created_at_utc_A":1646958673,"created_at_utc_B":1646958994,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"\u201c**How to convey meaning like danger or location...**\u201d that excludes \u201c**depictions of things like paintings...**\u201d? I think the best answer to your specific question would probably be **Gesticular Pointing** or **Finger Guns** for the technical term.","human_ref_B":"I'd say the stick-man figure to represent us. Looking at the Cave Paintings in france, generally the artist has to go into a lot of detail to depict what specific animal is being portrayed: specific body shape, ears. eyes, horns and dots on wild cattle, a different body shape, a different tail, different way of coloring the body (dun body and white underbelly) for horses. But the simple stick man - we don't need to put eyes and ears and fingers and toes on it, or even have it be the right color. We just know that it is 'us'","labels":0,"seconds_difference":321.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"snp1j6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Has something like a list of universal emotions all humans share ever been made? What about the following emotions are they universal and cross cultural?: grief, envy, jealousy, guilt, shame, regret","c_root_id_A":"hw46ft7","c_root_id_B":"hw4cmwp","created_at_utc_A":1644345604,"created_at_utc_B":1644347854,"score_A":4,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"how would you confirm that another person (say, me, for example) shares a given emotion with you? how would you confirm that another person who speaks a different language shares a given emotion with you? Maybe there's a standard historical translation of \"xyz\" to \"grief\" -- how do you interrogate whether they're actually \"the same\"? what does it mean to share emotions? anyway, your question is a standard in psychology, so you can get a lot of answers by asking in that field. For example they've got their six or seven \"universal facial expressions\".","human_ref_B":"Another one best suited for *r\/AskPsychology, but... Psychologists measure both neurological activity and various bio params such as pupil dilation, heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductivity, etc., to try and detect and categorize emotional states. The problem is that many emotions - e.g. lust and fear - can appear very similar using externally measurable criteria, and it may not be clear which a subject is experiencing based on these measurements alone. So while Psychologists would, I think, generally agree there is a gamut of common emotions displayed as part of the typically-functioning human condition, the interpretation and cognitive experience of those emotions will be situational and personal. *That's not to say that one person's experience of lust or fear is significantly different than another's*, but rather that, in arousal state XYZ whether you report lust or fear will be situational, based on your own interpretation of that situation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2250.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"snp1j6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Has something like a list of universal emotions all humans share ever been made? What about the following emotions are they universal and cross cultural?: grief, envy, jealousy, guilt, shame, regret","c_root_id_A":"hw46ft7","c_root_id_B":"hw4o8y0","created_at_utc_A":1644345604,"created_at_utc_B":1644352139,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"how would you confirm that another person (say, me, for example) shares a given emotion with you? how would you confirm that another person who speaks a different language shares a given emotion with you? Maybe there's a standard historical translation of \"xyz\" to \"grief\" -- how do you interrogate whether they're actually \"the same\"? what does it mean to share emotions? anyway, your question is a standard in psychology, so you can get a lot of answers by asking in that field. For example they've got their six or seven \"universal facial expressions\".","human_ref_B":"Yes! There may not be a \u2018definitive\u2019 list, but many have proposed lists based on Anthropological and Cognitive studies that possess the same core emotions of Happiness, Fear, Anger, Sadness, Surprise, and Disgust. Here\u2019s a quote that explains it better... \u201cBasic emotions are thought be innate and universal and have evolved through their adaptive value with fundamental life tasks (Ekman, 1992); similarly, most creative art forms can find their evolutionary origins (Wiggins et al., 2015). Ekman (1992) proposed that basic emotions have a number of characteristics, which distinguish one emotion from another, such as universal signals, distinctive physiology, and automatic appraisal influenced by both ontogenetic and phylogenetic past. A summary of the studies about basic emotions were shown in a paper by Clore and Ortony (2013), which shows that most studies recognize six classic basic elements of emotion: happy, surprise, afraid, disgust, angry, and sad.\u201d https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyg.2018.01924\/full Edit : Someone below mentioned a new competing theory of Constructed Emotions. Found a great article on it below. Simply put, our brain is wired to learn, recognize, and predict Concepts; and our Concept of a Chair, for example, is learned and then treated the same way as our Concept of an Emotion. This quote sums up the idea of \u2018Constructed Emotions\u2019 pretty well. **Instead of a limited set of emotions built in from birth, nature provided us with the raw materials to bootstrap a conceptual system, including emotion concepts. With input from the adults who spoke emotion words to us in an intentional and deliberate way, we gained the ability to perceive not just physical objects, but ideas that reside only in the minds of people: goals, intentions, preferences, and their own emotions.** https:\/\/fortelabs.co\/blog\/how-emotions-are-made\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6535.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ykjryz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are the theories behind why the cuisines of some culture feature spicy foods much more than others?","c_root_id_A":"iuv1jd8","c_root_id_B":"iuuvyo1","created_at_utc_A":1667454066,"created_at_utc_B":1667450185,"score_A":85,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"\"Chile Pepper in China\" by Brian R. Dott, covers this well. Portuguese pushed them hard in SE Asia. But particularly in China it wasn't until the late 1700's until they took hold. Essentially it was the high cost of salt, ginger and peppercorn that drove them to popularity amoung the lower classes in China. The same is likely true in SE asia. Ginger and peppercorn have heat but are expensive. Peppers were easy to grow and cheap. So poor folks adopted them to either complement native spices or supplant them if they were too expensive. Over time, \"peasant food\" often becomes national cuisine and adopted into elites dishes. In the case of China it only took a few generations and they became part of the identity of certain regions","human_ref_B":"Pepper plants (spicy) are native to the Americas and only made their way to Asia hundreds of years ago. Some places the Portuguese and Spanish traders were going that could grow these plants adopted them. But people from ancient India, Siam, China, Indonesia, etc\u2026 were not eating chili peppers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3881.0,"score_ratio":1.9318181818} {"post_id":"ykjryz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are the theories behind why the cuisines of some culture feature spicy foods much more than others?","c_root_id_A":"iuv0rer","c_root_id_B":"iuv1jd8","created_at_utc_A":1667453472,"created_at_utc_B":1667454066,"score_A":17,"score_B":85,"human_ref_A":"Here\u2019s a link to a piece that discusses some of the competing hypotheses used to explain the hot food-hot climate connection: https:\/\/news.cornell.edu\/stories\/1998\/03\/food-bacteria-spice-survey-shows-why-some-cultures-it-hot","human_ref_B":"\"Chile Pepper in China\" by Brian R. Dott, covers this well. Portuguese pushed them hard in SE Asia. But particularly in China it wasn't until the late 1700's until they took hold. Essentially it was the high cost of salt, ginger and peppercorn that drove them to popularity amoung the lower classes in China. The same is likely true in SE asia. Ginger and peppercorn have heat but are expensive. Peppers were easy to grow and cheap. So poor folks adopted them to either complement native spices or supplant them if they were too expensive. Over time, \"peasant food\" often becomes national cuisine and adopted into elites dishes. In the case of China it only took a few generations and they became part of the identity of certain regions","labels":0,"seconds_difference":594.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"qy9rzd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Origin Stories, the Leakey Foundation's podcast is looking for questions about human evolution Origin Stories, the Leakey Foundation's podcast is looking for questions about human evolution, biological anthropology, human behavior, primates, genetics, etc. for an upcoming episode. We'd love to hear from the AskAnthropology community! We have lots of scientists lined up to answer your questions related to human origins. You can reply to this post\u2013or if you want your voice on the show, just record a message at speakpipe.com\/originstories.","c_root_id_A":"hlg7cyj","c_root_id_B":"hlg3rd9","created_at_utc_A":1637454234,"created_at_utc_B":1637452548,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"At what point in our evolution did language evolve, and when did it become as complex as it is now? What effects did that have on human beings and how we live? Could other human species (Neanderthals, *homo erectus*, etc.) speak?","human_ref_B":"I would love to learn more about gibbon bipedalism and the possibility that human bipedalism comes from a brachiating ancestor. I remember this being one theory when I was in college a long time ago and would love to know if it's become more or less accepted based on current evidence.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1686.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"urmzsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.62,"history":"When did humans become familiar with the purpose of pooping and peeing? Similar to how humans probably didn't always know sex made babies, I imagine it took even longer to realize defecation was the removal of waste from the body. Have we always known or did cultures treat it as this weird burden of an experience or apply religious meaning to it?","c_root_id_A":"i8yhitn","c_root_id_B":"i8zs56g","created_at_utc_A":1652801998,"created_at_utc_B":1652821031,"score_A":16,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Your basically asking when did humans become conscious. When did our mind see itself as separate from our body. Unless you are conscious, any bodily function isn't something you're aware of. We can't actually point to any of the animals around us now and say for sure that they are conscious, that they experience a mind separate from their body , so it's really not possible to say when humans experienced consciousness for the first time.","human_ref_B":"When is the last time you have inspected, touched, smelled, tasted, ate, or constructed something useful out of poop? If it's been more than a few hours, you probably know less about poop than your ancestors. Modern humans personally interact with poop and pee far less than at any time in history. When you personally handle it on a daily basis, it's incredibly easy and useful to see what it is (undigested organic matter). Bird poop in particular is easy to understand as the time between a bird eating berries and pooping out the seeds is mere minutes. Herbivore poop also has very visible undigested matter in it-- enough that you can use it for burning. Human poop smells and looks different depending on a person's diet. Even today's parents can attest to the massive difference when a child switches to solid food from breast milk. So pre-modern humans would have known exactly what poop was, but they probably wouldn't have considered it waste. Instead, poop was information about the pooper, and a vitally important resource for commerce and war. It wasn't until 1903 and the invention of synthetic fertilizer that poop became \"waste\" in the way that we think of it today. Pee is slightly more complicated but in general they still knew that it was excreted waste and that it changed depending on what you ate and how sick you were.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19033.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"y1jkss","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"How did humans make anything out of meteoric iron? Wikipedia lists a variety of ancient items known to be made from meteoric iron. What I'm curious about is how anyone was able to effectively form items from iron, prior to the iron age. Forging would have been difficult and would have required coal or at least charcoal, and knowledge\/skill in forging. Did these skills and technologies exist prior to the iron age? I'm assuming casting wouldn't have been feasible either, and filing or grinding would have required materials that they didn't have. Do we have a sense of how people approached this?","c_root_id_A":"iryi4g5","c_root_id_B":"is0cq50","created_at_utc_A":1665532503,"created_at_utc_B":1665575132,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"The knowledge of hot forging would have been available before the Iron Age, yes, because copper was worked in a similar manner using heat\/hammering\/annealing. Copper gets softened and hardened in an opposite way compared to iron, so the exact metallurgy skills are not directly transferable, but the ability to shape hot metal would apply. A creative metal smith with a nice piece of meteorite might be able to figure out the differences with some experimentation. You said that filing and grinding would have required materials they wouldn\u2019t have had but that\u2019s not true. You can grind an iron-nickel meteorite almost the same as a groundstone tool. You couldn\u2019t peck away excess material before grinding but it would otherwise be the same. People were making fine tools of jade, quartz, chalcedony, and even corundum before the Iron Age, and all of those are harder than an iron-nickel meteorite.","human_ref_B":"Meteoric iron can be cold-hammered. It's a slow process, but given that the Inuit in Greenland were pounding pieces off the Cape York meteorite and making tools from them, I'd say there's your evidence that it can be done. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cape_York_meteorite","labels":0,"seconds_difference":42629.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"6fpql1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"How\/when did humans correlate sex with children? This seems like a logical stretch without any scientific evidence at hand. Just a thought that popped into my head the other day.","c_root_id_A":"dik2dlf","c_root_id_B":"dik2dwu","created_at_utc_A":1496794925,"created_at_utc_B":1496794936,"score_A":11,"score_B":73,"human_ref_A":"Read Malinowski's \"Baloma\" essay for an example where people have a different conceptualisation of how babies are made! It's fascinating.","human_ref_B":"The answer is impossible to know. Sexual reproduction is a way of life, and has been for over a billion years. So it's not as if people *had* to start thinking about this in order for it to happen. Efforts to explain reproduction would very much have been \"post hoc,\" whenever it is that people began to actively consider such things. We don't know if our ancient ancestors began to put this together well before anatomically modern *Homo sapiens*. Maybe they did, maybe not. There's no archaeological evidence for this. The fact that we exist at all means that prior to the ability of our ancestors to explain reproduction, we were nevertheless engaging in it. As does every other species that reproduces via sexual intercourse \/ the recombination of genetic material from two or more parents. But we really have no way to know when people started to try to explain how babby was formed. So we have to essentially guess. Certainly the realization of cause and effect far precedes the development of writing, although the specific mechanisms almost certainly did not (someone more familiar with recent history will have to fill in where and when people seem to have first begun to observe the in utero developmental process). Like many things, though, it's important to remember that people in the past were still people, not idiots. They had culture, and many generations of traditional knowledge to draw upon. They need not have understood *how* sexual reproduction works in order to recognize cause and effect, or to come up with explanations for how it happened. Pair bonding and \"rights\" of exclusive sexual access among members of social groups are behaviors that can be observed among non-human primates. Once our ancestors developed the ability to reason, tying the cause-and-effect of sexual intercourse with reproduction would likely have been a matter of recognizing that those who did not engage in sexual intercourse did not produce offspring, while those females who *did* engage in sexual intercourse produced offspring. Really, though, this is what's known as a \"just so\" story. We have no way of knowing when these kinds of realizations appeared, or how they developed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11.0,"score_ratio":6.6363636364} {"post_id":"8g48q4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"When did humans start having significant \u201cfree time\u201d to pursue activities that weren\u2019t directly related to survival?","c_root_id_A":"dy8q6uf","c_root_id_B":"dy8ts3z","created_at_utc_A":1525134486,"created_at_utc_B":1525138128,"score_A":7,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"A lot of experts propose that humans had more free time prior to the advent of agriculture.","human_ref_B":"Some argue that with agricultural innovation more humans had time to engage in other activities that were not only for getting resources\/food. And, to an extent, this is true. Farmers will work on getting food, whereas others will become specialized in other things like: carpentry, jewelcrafting, writing, etc However, Sahlins' Original Affluent Society discussed how, in a nutshell, hunter gatherer societies only need to spend 15-20 hours a week procuring their food. To compare, our society needs 40 hours for a living wage. And even then, it is not to get our food, it is to get money so that we can get our food (barring people who grow what they eat).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3642.0,"score_ratio":9.1428571429} {"post_id":"xrjsqg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why is Celiac Disease so high in Northern Europeans \u2014 who\u2019s diet consists of grains? What diet should N. Europeans eat? I have 100% Northern European descent and celiac disease\/gluten intolerance. My ancestors ate oats and wheat, yet I can\u2019t. With that, CD seems to be the highest amongst Northern Europeans. That doesn\u2019t make much sense to me considering bread and oats were a huge part of our diets since the Agricultural Revolution. How did we survive? Shouldn\u2019t have carriers of gluten intolerance died off? On the topic, is there a diet that has been proven to be the best for Northern Europeans? I\u2019m assuming high animal protein and root vegetables?","c_root_id_A":"iqfo79w","c_root_id_B":"iqfngtd","created_at_utc_A":1664495915,"created_at_utc_B":1664495569,"score_A":130,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"This is likely a better question for \/r\/askscience. Unlike lactose tolerance, celiac disease is not related to historic diet trends. In the case of lactose, Europeans ate enough dairy that a single gene causing the ability to digest lactose became more prevalent in the population. Autoimmune diseases and their causes are not well understood, but some like Celiac Disease do have a gene associated with them. As for why any genetic disease is more common in any particular population, it's generally not well understood unless you have something like extensive inbreeding or a sickle cell situation where the disease is protective of something even more deadly. A lot of genetics is random chance or related to bottlenecks. In Europe there's been several population bottlenecks, but in particular the Black Death (and I've seen arguments for things like smallpox and TB) led to some interesting genetic changes due to the mass amounts of death - there is some speculation that this may explain certain susceptibilities in Europe. Migration and cultural bottlenecks play a role, as we see with certain more insular groups in Europe having higher rates of certain genetic disease. A bigger factor may be epigenetics. It's been noted that autoimmune disorders are much higher in developed countries (like Northern Europe). This is attributed to various environmental factors that influence gene expression - for instance certain infectious diseases, stress states, exposure to pathogens, diet, etc. In fact, this article points out that the Celiac gene is actually much more prevalent in Middle Eastern populations than Europe, but due to environmental factors is not more common in the Middle East. ETA: The healthy diet for a Northern European person is the same as a healthy diet for anyone else: we\u2019re not quite sure but probably a diet with lots of fruits and veggies and everything else in moderation.","human_ref_B":"Natural selection doesn't perfect humans. It only makes them good enough to survive. Perhaps just enough people with this disease were able to sustain themselves off of other foods. As technology advanced, so did the survivability of the disease. Thus it's likely way more common today than it was in the past. Medical advances in a sense make some disabilities and differences more prevalent than it otherwise would be because instead of killing them it makes people with them more survivable and likelier to pass on their genes. It seems that the prevalence of celiac disease among Northern Europeans is possibly a byproduct of overconsuming oats and wheat. Just as someone who consumes too much sugar increases their resistance to insulin and may contribute to them developing diabetes. Not all individuals from the same area are created equally. We all have unique genes within our broader ancestral patterns.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":346.0,"score_ratio":5.9090909091} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f58a77s","c_root_id_B":"f585gju","created_at_utc_A":1572051991,"created_at_utc_B":1572049070,"score_A":139,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"New Zealander here, I have never heard of Maori having any fear of reptiles. They'd have no reason to whatsoever - New Zealand has very few, and the skinks and geckos that are here are completely innocuous. >I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. I'm going to guess this is the problem right here.","human_ref_B":"The Maori People are still alive and thriving in New Zealand! I\u2019m sure you could use the internet to connect with one of their representative groups and ask them for yourself. \ud83d\ude42","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2921.0,"score_ratio":3.9714285714} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f58a77s","c_root_id_B":"f57rohv","created_at_utc_A":1572051991,"created_at_utc_B":1572042285,"score_A":139,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"New Zealander here, I have never heard of Maori having any fear of reptiles. They'd have no reason to whatsoever - New Zealand has very few, and the skinks and geckos that are here are completely innocuous. >I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. I'm going to guess this is the problem right here.","human_ref_B":"New Zealand has very few reptiles, with only skinks, geckos and the tuatara. I found this link which may be of interest https:\/\/teara.govt.nz\/en\/ngarara-reptiles","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9706.0,"score_ratio":6.95} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f57rrcx","c_root_id_B":"f58a77s","created_at_utc_A":1572042323,"created_at_utc_B":1572051991,"score_A":14,"score_B":139,"human_ref_A":"you could try \/r\/newzealand, someone might have heard of this idea","human_ref_B":"New Zealander here, I have never heard of Maori having any fear of reptiles. They'd have no reason to whatsoever - New Zealand has very few, and the skinks and geckos that are here are completely innocuous. >I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. I'm going to guess this is the problem right here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9668.0,"score_ratio":9.9285714286} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f59av2u","c_root_id_B":"f585gju","created_at_utc_A":1572080214,"created_at_utc_B":1572049070,"score_A":40,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Not reptiles in general but certain interactions with them. I.e; a skink running in front of you is a sign of death. Same with a fantail coming in to your house. Comes down to culture, tradition, beliefs, all of the above etc. Souce: Maori.","human_ref_B":"The Maori People are still alive and thriving in New Zealand! I\u2019m sure you could use the internet to connect with one of their representative groups and ask them for yourself. \ud83d\ude42","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31144.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f57rohv","c_root_id_B":"f59av2u","created_at_utc_A":1572042285,"created_at_utc_B":1572080214,"score_A":20,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"New Zealand has very few reptiles, with only skinks, geckos and the tuatara. I found this link which may be of interest https:\/\/teara.govt.nz\/en\/ngarara-reptiles","human_ref_B":"Not reptiles in general but certain interactions with them. I.e; a skink running in front of you is a sign of death. Same with a fantail coming in to your house. Comes down to culture, tradition, beliefs, all of the above etc. Souce: Maori.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37929.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f59av2u","c_root_id_B":"f57rrcx","created_at_utc_A":1572080214,"created_at_utc_B":1572042323,"score_A":40,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Not reptiles in general but certain interactions with them. I.e; a skink running in front of you is a sign of death. Same with a fantail coming in to your house. Comes down to culture, tradition, beliefs, all of the above etc. Souce: Maori.","human_ref_B":"you could try \/r\/newzealand, someone might have heard of this idea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":37891.0,"score_ratio":2.8571428571} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f5995rb","c_root_id_B":"f59av2u","created_at_utc_A":1572077423,"created_at_utc_B":1572080214,"score_A":7,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"There is a very old reference to a cult of women Maori who were essentially removing lizards from people like an exorcism when the Europeans first colonized. They blamed the Europeans for bringing them with them. I am assuming they meant some sort of illness that made there skin lizard like in appearance. I am not an expert in this, but it is the only reference I am aware of that would denote hatred to the lizard in some fashion. The Aryan connection I am unaware of, but given that that Aryan means Proto,Indian,Iranian language speaking, and Max Muller was never really definitively positive in his research, it is possible the Maori people could be in that list. If you could trace there usage of Sanskrit then you could theoretically make that connection.","human_ref_B":"Not reptiles in general but certain interactions with them. I.e; a skink running in front of you is a sign of death. Same with a fantail coming in to your house. Comes down to culture, tradition, beliefs, all of the above etc. Souce: Maori.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2791.0,"score_ratio":5.7142857143} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f59av2u","c_root_id_B":"f58ojh5","created_at_utc_A":1572080214,"created_at_utc_B":1572060500,"score_A":40,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Not reptiles in general but certain interactions with them. I.e; a skink running in front of you is a sign of death. Same with a fantail coming in to your house. Comes down to culture, tradition, beliefs, all of the above etc. Souce: Maori.","human_ref_B":"Guy may be referring to Australia (he sounds like an idiot). There are myths there that some speculate may pertain to megafauna reptiles there that may have been hazardous to people, and went extinct not long after humans reach the continent. Also, it makes more sense because Australia is a death trap.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19714.0,"score_ratio":13.3333333333} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f57rohv","c_root_id_B":"f585gju","created_at_utc_A":1572042285,"created_at_utc_B":1572049070,"score_A":20,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"New Zealand has very few reptiles, with only skinks, geckos and the tuatara. I found this link which may be of interest https:\/\/teara.govt.nz\/en\/ngarara-reptiles","human_ref_B":"The Maori People are still alive and thriving in New Zealand! I\u2019m sure you could use the internet to connect with one of their representative groups and ask them for yourself. \ud83d\ude42","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6785.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f585gju","c_root_id_B":"f57rrcx","created_at_utc_A":1572049070,"created_at_utc_B":1572042323,"score_A":35,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"The Maori People are still alive and thriving in New Zealand! I\u2019m sure you could use the internet to connect with one of their representative groups and ask them for yourself. \ud83d\ude42","human_ref_B":"you could try \/r\/newzealand, someone might have heard of this idea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6747.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f58ojh5","c_root_id_B":"f5995rb","created_at_utc_A":1572060500,"created_at_utc_B":1572077423,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Guy may be referring to Australia (he sounds like an idiot). There are myths there that some speculate may pertain to megafauna reptiles there that may have been hazardous to people, and went extinct not long after humans reach the continent. Also, it makes more sense because Australia is a death trap.","human_ref_B":"There is a very old reference to a cult of women Maori who were essentially removing lizards from people like an exorcism when the Europeans first colonized. They blamed the Europeans for bringing them with them. I am assuming they meant some sort of illness that made there skin lizard like in appearance. I am not an expert in this, but it is the only reference I am aware of that would denote hatred to the lizard in some fashion. The Aryan connection I am unaware of, but given that that Aryan means Proto,Indian,Iranian language speaking, and Max Muller was never really definitively positive in his research, it is possible the Maori people could be in that list. If you could trace there usage of Sanskrit then you could theoretically make that connection.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16923.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f58ojh5","c_root_id_B":"f5bdflh","created_at_utc_A":1572060500,"created_at_utc_B":1572120202,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Guy may be referring to Australia (he sounds like an idiot). There are myths there that some speculate may pertain to megafauna reptiles there that may have been hazardous to people, and went extinct not long after humans reach the continent. Also, it makes more sense because Australia is a death trap.","human_ref_B":">I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. \"The Maori were Aryans, the Native Americans were Aryans, the Ainu were Aryans...\" --any 18-19th century identitarian \"scientist\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":59702.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dn3k6n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I heard that Traditional Maori culture Loathed Reptiles. Why could that be? I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. Why did Maori culture fear reptiles.","c_root_id_A":"f5bdflh","c_root_id_B":"f5a6w1c","created_at_utc_A":1572120202,"created_at_utc_B":1572101555,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">I got it from a 1800 century writer that thought the Maori where Aryans. \"The Maori were Aryans, the Native Americans were Aryans, the Ainu were Aryans...\" --any 18-19th century identitarian \"scientist\"","human_ref_B":"Sounds like you're using a particularly bad source for your information.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18647.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8qlsyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I heard from someone that native Americans didn\u2019t have a concept of illegitimate children And even if the child was of Europeion decsent they would be treated equally. Is that correct?","c_root_id_A":"e0kaolg","c_root_id_B":"e0kofz2","created_at_utc_A":1528835778,"created_at_utc_B":1528848966,"score_A":31,"score_B":57,"human_ref_A":"Let's be a little more diligent, and note the heterogeneity of indigenous people... And maybe specific peoples that are relevant. We're not doing any favors by exoticizing nameless \"others\", after all.","human_ref_B":"Generally anyone who makes blanket statements about \"Native Americans\" should be questioned, since the term encompasses literally thousands of different cultures (and does not even include Canadian, Mexican, South American, and Alaskan natives). I don't know if this was true of some tribes, but which tribe(s) is the first question you should ask.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13188.0,"score_ratio":1.8387096774} {"post_id":"8qlsyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I heard from someone that native Americans didn\u2019t have a concept of illegitimate children And even if the child was of Europeion decsent they would be treated equally. Is that correct?","c_root_id_A":"e0kofz2","c_root_id_B":"e0k8l2v","created_at_utc_A":1528848966,"created_at_utc_B":1528834007,"score_A":57,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Generally anyone who makes blanket statements about \"Native Americans\" should be questioned, since the term encompasses literally thousands of different cultures (and does not even include Canadian, Mexican, South American, and Alaskan natives). I don't know if this was true of some tribes, but which tribe(s) is the first question you should ask.","human_ref_B":"The news media Vox is currently doing a series with Netflix (where you can also watch it) called Explained. One episode is on monogamism and they touch a bit on what I think you are asking. In some indigenous tribes a child can easily have multiple fathers. If more than one man slept with the woman during her pregnancy they will all be considered to be a father of that child. Hence, it is not possible to talk about illegitimate children either.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14959.0,"score_ratio":2.85} {"post_id":"8qlsyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I heard from someone that native Americans didn\u2019t have a concept of illegitimate children And even if the child was of Europeion decsent they would be treated equally. Is that correct?","c_root_id_A":"e0kofz2","c_root_id_B":"e0kf7vj","created_at_utc_A":1528848966,"created_at_utc_B":1528839755,"score_A":57,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Generally anyone who makes blanket statements about \"Native Americans\" should be questioned, since the term encompasses literally thousands of different cultures (and does not even include Canadian, Mexican, South American, and Alaskan natives). I don't know if this was true of some tribes, but which tribe(s) is the first question you should ask.","human_ref_B":"Depends entirely on the culture, like most things. Here in New Mexico, where many native people have continued life with unusually little disturbance, the Catholic religion has been dominant in the region for so long (since 1500s) that monogamous marriage and paternity is taken seriously. During colonization\/before widespread extermination, many tribes were noted to have more flexibility in sexual relations and marriage and in who was considered a relative. Many settler children were kidnapped and subsequently adopted by native people during early colonization, and usually considered full members of the tribe. Quanah Parker was a famous Comanche leader whose mother was European and adopted as a child, obviously there were no issues with his legitimacy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9211.0,"score_ratio":5.7} {"post_id":"8qlsyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I heard from someone that native Americans didn\u2019t have a concept of illegitimate children And even if the child was of Europeion decsent they would be treated equally. Is that correct?","c_root_id_A":"e0kaolg","c_root_id_B":"e0k8l2v","created_at_utc_A":1528835778,"created_at_utc_B":1528834007,"score_A":31,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Let's be a little more diligent, and note the heterogeneity of indigenous people... And maybe specific peoples that are relevant. We're not doing any favors by exoticizing nameless \"others\", after all.","human_ref_B":"The news media Vox is currently doing a series with Netflix (where you can also watch it) called Explained. One episode is on monogamism and they touch a bit on what I think you are asking. In some indigenous tribes a child can easily have multiple fathers. If more than one man slept with the woman during her pregnancy they will all be considered to be a father of that child. Hence, it is not possible to talk about illegitimate children either.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1771.0,"score_ratio":1.55} {"post_id":"fil8ln","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When did we start washing our hands and how did we figure out what it does? Given that the whole world is doing it - how did we come to this practice?","c_root_id_A":"fkirq38","c_root_id_B":"fkiyz6s","created_at_utc_A":1584227056,"created_at_utc_B":1584231996,"score_A":32,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"I'd reccomend searching \/r\/Askhistorians for \"hand washing,\" I haven't found anything super specific yet, but there are a lot of answers that mention hand (and ass) washing in the medieval middle east, some Roman poop stick talk...","human_ref_B":"Semmelweis discovered that pier petit fever could be prevented by basic hand washing in the mid 1800s. Proposed in 1847 to a Vienna hospital. Reduced associated mortality rates in the hospital from almost 20% to lower than 1%.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4940.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"rfmvz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When and why did humans start burying their dead? It seems it has gone on all over the world since ancient times. Was there a specific reason for it to develop all around the world? And how early can this practice be traced back to?","c_root_id_A":"hogdvjx","c_root_id_B":"hofmdjg","created_at_utc_A":1639445640,"created_at_utc_B":1639433097,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Funerary traditions are incredibly variable throughout time and space; they are certainly not consistent either. A culture can go from predominately practicing inhumation to mostly cremation, and then back again. People never discovered a \"best way\" and stuck with it. Simple inhumation is certainly known across the planet, to varying degrees of elaboration, at different points in time. The functionalist answer is sanitation, but this falls apart under the tiniest amount of scrutiny. Firstly, practices change from the \"more sanitary\" inhumations, to the \"unhygeinic\" excarnation or charnel house practices. Secondly, simply abandonning the corpse and moving the group in mobile societies, or dumping the corpses away from the settlement would function just as well. The oldest currently known cases of inhumation do not mark an adoption of the method for subsequent peoples, they merely indicate the presence of a trend at the time. Many are hotly debated, but one example to look into would be the Neanderthal \"burials\" at Atapuerca. The Why is very much a mystery at this time, and perhaps will remain so. Funerary practices are likely influenced by many factors, including religious beliefs, practical concerns, the wishes of the deceased, the wishes of those they left behind, rites associated with the enactment of status. Practically, you aren't burying people somewhere you cannot dig, or it is too dificult to dig for your group. Larger groups and labour saving technology would make digging more practical in tough geologies. In hot and humid climates, the corpse will go off a lot quicker than in a very cold and dry one, which will influence how quickly the remains ought to be dealt with, and in what manner. Ritualised Cannibalism was a popular option, and remains so for some cultures. The construction of monuments for housing the remains fo the dead after a period of exposure to excarnation, at the same time people became more sedentary and tied to the land is typically interpretted as an attempt by people to solidify a group as being part of the land by monumentalising their ancestors as a landmark (Parker-Pearson 1993; Darvill, 2004). In North-western coastal Europe in the period prior to the arrival of agricultural practices, there is a tradition of burying people in shell middens, which are basically just dumps of rubbish from the exploitation of tasty molluscs for food. Shell middens are found all over the world, including the Americas & Japan, the interpretation of the deeper meaning is an exercise in educated guessing, and likely varied between times and places.","human_ref_B":"Lots of theories. Georges Bataille, studying taboo and transgression, says that rather than burying bodies to respect\/protect the corpse, we bury them to protect society from the corpse. The logic being that death is a reminder of the limited nature of human life and that, without shutting away symbols of death, social order and maintenance would be threatened by this taboo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12543.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"5ykjp2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"I've heard that the idea of \"race\" doesn't exist, I'm open to this, but have a question. Why, if race doesn't exist do some people have darker skin, and others lighter? Would genetics not be the cause of some people having darker, and some lighter skin? I mean to make no assumptions, and I might've worded this wrong, but I'm just curious.","c_root_id_A":"deqt9pz","c_root_id_B":"deqx2iu","created_at_utc_A":1489127874,"created_at_utc_B":1489137980,"score_A":45,"score_B":54,"human_ref_A":"This question is asked very often on this sub, here are some other posts on the topic: definition of \"race is a social construct\" What people mean when they say race is a \"social construct?\" Does Anthropology still have the racial classification system for humans based on physical characteristics? If yes, what are the racial groups? This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences?","human_ref_B":"Of course genetics cause some people to have lighter or darker skin. Genetics also cause some people to have lighter or darker hair and lighter or darker eyes. Would you consider someone with blue eyes to be a different race than someone with brown eyes?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10106.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"5ykjp2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"I've heard that the idea of \"race\" doesn't exist, I'm open to this, but have a question. Why, if race doesn't exist do some people have darker skin, and others lighter? Would genetics not be the cause of some people having darker, and some lighter skin? I mean to make no assumptions, and I might've worded this wrong, but I'm just curious.","c_root_id_A":"deqx2iu","c_root_id_B":"deqvaqx","created_at_utc_A":1489137980,"created_at_utc_B":1489132847,"score_A":54,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Of course genetics cause some people to have lighter or darker skin. Genetics also cause some people to have lighter or darker hair and lighter or darker eyes. Would you consider someone with blue eyes to be a different race than someone with brown eyes?","human_ref_B":"I suggest you take a look at some of the other threads discussing this (as linked here by another user), and then if you still have a specific question not answered, you can post again. It's a common question, and a completely decent one. We don't say to read the other threads because we don't think it's important, it's just asked a lot. Hope they answer your question! :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5133.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"5ykjp2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"I've heard that the idea of \"race\" doesn't exist, I'm open to this, but have a question. Why, if race doesn't exist do some people have darker skin, and others lighter? Would genetics not be the cause of some people having darker, and some lighter skin? I mean to make no assumptions, and I might've worded this wrong, but I'm just curious.","c_root_id_A":"deqvaqx","c_root_id_B":"deqxzpd","created_at_utc_A":1489132847,"created_at_utc_B":1489140851,"score_A":15,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I suggest you take a look at some of the other threads discussing this (as linked here by another user), and then if you still have a specific question not answered, you can post again. It's a common question, and a completely decent one. We don't say to read the other threads because we don't think it's important, it's just asked a lot. Hope they answer your question! :)","human_ref_B":"Nina Joblonski has done a lot with this. Here is a TED talk from her - https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/nina_jablonski_breaks_the_illusion_of_skin_color Short answer - genetic variation certainly results in much of the skin color variation you observe. Race implies that there are discrete categories based on skin color or some other physical characteristic. Observed patterns are not discrete patterns but steady variation. In other words - where do you draw the line? When does black stop and white start? How do the thousand shades of brown fit in? Second implication of race idea is that there is a link between genetic variation resulting in skin color and cultural variation. In observation, there is no link between genetics and culture\/behavior.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8004.0,"score_ratio":1.1333333333} {"post_id":"29y3rn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"I've heard that humans didn't have a lot of tooth decay problems before we started eating sugars (esp. grains). How does fruit, which is full of sugar, play into this? Didn't we eat a lot of fruit back then? [x-post from AskHistorians] I asked this in \/r\/AskHistorians and someone suggested I ask it here, which seemed pretty sensible.","c_root_id_A":"ciq7qfz","c_root_id_B":"ciq4so3","created_at_utc_A":1404691078,"created_at_utc_B":1404683826,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just to add to what others have mentioned, we have found evidence of tooth decay from 15,000 years ago which is prior to the invention of agriculture. \" The scientists also analyzed teeth from 52 partial or complete jaws. They found that more than half the teeth showed signs of lesions. And only three of the adults were cavity-free.\u00a0\" http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/podcast\/episode\/preagricultural-people-had-cavities-too\/","human_ref_B":"The primary organism responsible for tooth decay, *Streptococcus mutans*, can digest most simple sugars and produce lactic acid, which eats away at tooth enamel. However, in order to form plaques and adhere to teeth in a persistent way, it uses the enzyme dextransucrase to produce the polymer dextran from sucrose. Dextran enables it to form a plaque. Only sucrose is able to processed in that way, not glucose, fructose, or lactose. If you make a dessert or other processed food using table sugar (sucrose), 100% of the sugar content is sucrose, and will be available to both form dextran and lactic acid. If you eat, for example, an apple, only 19% of the sugar is sucrose, with the remainder from free glucose and fructose (expand the carbohydrates tab). Watermelon is about the same. When it comes to starches (you mentioned grains, but also including potatoes, yams, cassava, etc.), the amount of sucrose present is small compared to the total carbohydrate present (~12% in sweet potato, <2% in a yam, 1.7% in a potato). If the starch component is broken down by amylase, it will only yield glucose, which *S. mucans* can ferment to lactic acid, but not use to produce dextran. Ironically, this may mean that HFCS-sweetened goods are healthier with respect to dental health than sucrose-sweetened goods.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7252.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2c22mb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I've heard that \"historically, people only lived to 30\" is partially incorrect as that took into account that half the population died before 5 - and many people lived into their 50s and 60s. Which is true? I can't seem to find any academic sources on this topic. Is it true that virtually everyone died around 30? Or was 30 the average age taking into account all the people who died in infancy? Academic sources appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"cjbopwl","c_root_id_B":"cjbnu3m","created_at_utc_A":1406691165,"created_at_utc_B":1406689233,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"30 was the average age taking into account all the people who died in infancy and childhood. If you survived beyond those years, which obviously many people didn't you had a reasonable chance of living into your 50s. Life expectancy for women between 20 and 40 was much lower than for men in the same age bracket due to the dangers of childbirth and the resulting infection. Women who survived their childbearing years, or who had no children had the same life expectancy as men beyond 40 years of age. Life expectancy was lower in cities than in the country due to the easy spread of disease and lack of sewerage. For academic sources see: http:\/\/books.google.com.au\/books?id=nVBpEKX4ppYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Old+Age+in+Medieval+England&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rmPYU-2TAta78gXzqoDgCw&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=childhood&f=false (page 127 onwards) http:\/\/books.google.com.au\/books?id=T3EwHTrRZEsC&pg=PA46&dq=Life+expectancy+Medieval+London&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M2bYU_GhDsym8AWhooGYCw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Life%20expectancy%20Medieval%20London&f=false (page 46 onwards)","human_ref_B":"Remember, top-level comments on AskAnthropology need to be clear, informative, and must be based on valid sources that are either provided in the post, or can be provided when requested.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1932.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"uxpd50","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why are the petroglyphs of civilizations and peoples that are oceans apart so similar? I was referred here by r\/askhistorians because they felt that you fine people would be of better help. Recently, some petroglyphs were found near Aswan, Egypt, and the petroglyphs, logically, are from before the rise of hieratic and hieroglyphs. I noticed that they are strikingly similar to the ones that are perhaps more well-known petroglyphs left behind by the Fremont peoples and the Anasazi\/Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners states, specifically the antelope as seen in the link above. I don\u2019t subscribe to the Ancient Aliens idea, so why are these glyphs so similar despite being from areas with cultures that later had drastically different art forms? Thanks in advance","c_root_id_A":"ia00o1l","c_root_id_B":"ia03ld4","created_at_utc_A":1653521436,"created_at_utc_B":1653522832,"score_A":13,"score_B":149,"human_ref_A":"Can you post the antelope picture from the desert Southwest so I can compare it to the onyx? My theory is someone familiar with animals will be able to point out critical differences and say one is clearly a prong horn or bighorn. But I'm also thinking there are only so many ways of drawing a leopard\/jaguar for example, or especially birds in flight So if people have these animals around then depictions of them are going to be similar. Buy you won't find depictions of crocodiles or elephants or giraffe in the desert Southwest","human_ref_B":"I would say that the similarities you are seeing largely stem from the use of similar materials with similar creative limitations, and choosing to exaggerate similar features whilst depicting similar subjects. I don't think any of that is indicative of a shared creative tradition. If you examine carefully the artistic conventions are quite different between cultures and continents; notice how in the Egyptian petroglyphs a single curved line is used to represent the negative space beneath the animals' legs with another line above representing the shape of body, whereas in the examples you mention from the Americas animal bodies are represented by a blob\/oval with limbs attached. They have actually taken fascinatingly *different* approaches to representing similar things. (Edit for grammar)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1396.0,"score_ratio":11.4615384615} {"post_id":"1w611o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Do sexual preferences & fetishes exist in tribal, hunter-gatherer societies, or are they byproducts of advanced culture?","c_root_id_A":"cez2p21","c_root_id_B":"cez0m7o","created_at_utc_A":1390714104,"created_at_utc_B":1390708306,"score_A":25,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"To be clear. I believe OP is asking about paraphilias and not fetishes. I need to look for citations, but there was a presenter in dan savages savage love cast discussing that while there are some paraphelias that are just about crossed wires or developmental incidents (foot fetish etc) many paraphelias are products of their time and environment. Example: an indigenous person, may have a paraphelia for feet, but literally may lack the ability to communicate that fetish. As there is no description or accessible dialogue to discuss it. But that same person, were they born in the USA today, may be into feet and high heels and understand that. Tldr: if you have no idea you can be \"into\" something or that something doesn't exist it will often go undisclosed or unsaid. Sorry I can't share links, on mobile.","human_ref_B":"I'm following this from your first post on \/r\/AskSocialScience, which was directed here. I have always curios about this as well, so here's to hoping we get an answer.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5798.0,"score_ratio":3.5714285714} {"post_id":"1w611o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Do sexual preferences & fetishes exist in tribal, hunter-gatherer societies, or are they byproducts of advanced culture?","c_root_id_A":"cez0m7o","c_root_id_B":"cez2vd7","created_at_utc_A":1390708306,"created_at_utc_B":1390714636,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I'm following this from your first post on \/r\/AskSocialScience, which was directed here. I have always curios about this as well, so here's to hoping we get an answer.","human_ref_B":"I'm currently reading Napoleon Chagnon's \"Noble Savages\" about his study of the Yanamamo. He gets fairly detailed sexual histories from his informants. He documents numerous violations of their own taboos of adultery, fewer of incest, one incident of a sex with a prepubescent girl, but no incidents of homosexual relationships. With as much as 130\/100 male female ratio & polygynous headmen having many wifes causing a dearth of women sex partners for many young men, some expected they would turn to homosexuality as an outlet. Chagnon thinks it was quite rare. Rape & gang rape of captives from neighboring villages was quite common & not taboo. Reproductive success was paramount for security in this dangerous society. It meant more male kin to support one politically & militarily, and more sisters & daughters to give as wives to win allies. One would be an easy target for politically ambitious men. Killing you to demonstrate their fierceness would increase their stature with no risk. A woman's sexual access was closely guarded by father & brothers & then by her husband. Yanamamo are fiercly jealous. Women were often stolen in raids & brought to new villages as wifes. They were basically pregnant nursing their entire fertile years & beaten often. The ever present risk of violence & the central role sexual access played in fights & wars makes me think there was little room for \"deviant\" sexual behavior.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6330.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"1w611o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Do sexual preferences & fetishes exist in tribal, hunter-gatherer societies, or are they byproducts of advanced culture?","c_root_id_A":"cez0m7o","c_root_id_B":"cez8ahw","created_at_utc_A":1390708306,"created_at_utc_B":1390742694,"score_A":7,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I'm following this from your first post on \/r\/AskSocialScience, which was directed here. I have always curios about this as well, so here's to hoping we get an answer.","human_ref_B":"Woh woh woh. First 'advanced' is a VERY value loaded term. There are some pretty decent arguments that agriculture and population increase did nothing to improve quality of life. Just don't use the term... change does not equal advancement. Secondly, 'fetishes' are usually defined in opposition to what is seen as normal, which can vary quite a bit from culture to culture. So this is quite difficult to operationalise. I'm sure you find people with sexual preferences that deviate from the norm everywhere. I have no evidence to back this up, but... if there is a prescribed norm, it seems statistically likely that you'll find some people who deviate from it! Sadly I can't provide you with much solid data as topics like this can land researchers in hot water. Sex is something it's usually best not to directly ask about! I think the internet probably has something to do with the spread of some of the more crazy stuff you hear about in the West. Porn producers have an economic incentive to make their videos stand out, which I think goes a long way towards explaining the prevalence of really 'odd' stuff. A larger population size would also allow people who do have unusual tastes to find groups of like-minded individuals more easily. Furthermore, with more people, you get more outliers in every respect, be it height, skill at tennis or statistical abnormality of sexual preferences. On the other hand, there's plenty of historical evidence for some quite kinky things happening throughout history, throughout the world. There seems no decent reason that this should be exclusive to post-agricultural societies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34388.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"b0vfqj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How did prehistoric hunter-gatherer bands avoid constantly bumping into the foraging grounds of other bands (or grounds depleted by other bands) as they migrated in search of new food?","c_root_id_A":"eiiw73g","c_root_id_B":"eii1eob","created_at_utc_A":1552584663,"created_at_utc_B":1552562039,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The short answer is that they didn\u2019t, always. As population density increases, there are struggles, raids, wars among hunter-gatherers. The area with which I am most familiar is the pre-Columbian Northeastern Woodlands of North America. There were various kinds of struggles, between hunter-gatherers and between h-g societies and an emerging farming culture. What is clear is that land use varied a great deal among bands or tribes, and people did come into conflict. Another example is from the Pacific Northwest (people like the Kwa\u2019kwa). Warfare was persistent and followed a pattern that we see elsewhere in the world, particularly medieval Europe (wherein general rules of war were largely agreed upon and elaborate discussions and notifications regarding land use were undertaken). Even if land itself was not at the center of a dispute, the local cultures kept various mechanisms in place for attempting to mitigate major conflicts. For example, they used a form of hostage-taking to create negotiating stances\/powers among warring groups. Fishing grounds were often a big part of these negotiations. As Europeans came to the New World, a fairly large demographic shift took place in North America. Bands who were displaced by incoming Europeans were not randomly displace. Some bands and tribes were more powerful and had experience in both war and negotiation (like the eventual Powhatan League). So bands that were weaker were pushed eastward. Part of their weakness was related to their strategies for land use and their long term use of migration as a tool in avoiding conflict. This rippled across North America. Larger, more war-oriented groups (like the Iroquois confederation) stood their ground, while bands who did not have political clout continued to use migration, until they were at the edge of a large zone (the Plains) that had never been very successfully settled by hunter-gatherers. One has only to read about the prehistory and history of the Shoshone to see a picture of a lifestyle in a place where there was little to no local competition (because of the ecology of the area) and very few bands ended up adapting to this less populated world. The Hopi have similar stories and theories about their own choice of land, having left southern territories where they were farmers, to find a place that was war-free. So, both hunter-gatherers and simple farmers in prehistory had a large variety of techniques and practices (too many to mention) that allowed them to deal with increasing population density and strains on local resources.","human_ref_B":"A band is usually seen as a small group of gatherers, probably an extended family. These bands generally were part of a larger societal group called a tribe. Different bands would regularly come together and exchange stories, partners, etc. So they would presumably have some knowledge about where everyone was, and kept each other up to date on changes in the environment. Migrations are not a necessary element of nomadic peoples. They could occupy the same territories for generations, within which they travelled depending on the season, their needs, etc. Furthermore, population density was indeed very low, as someone else brought up. I imagine the territories of bands could have somewhat vague borders and were not clearly defined. But that wouldn't necessarily be a problem since the 'territory next door' was probably one frequented by (distant) relatives and on top of that was unlikely to be stripped barren by their or your foraging. I have to say that this is a very general answer. Firstly, there is some vagueness and disagreement of the terms band and tribe, so this could change depending on what you're reading. Secondly, there is of course no catch-all model of hunter-gatherer societies. There are a lot of differences, so maybe it would be easier to research this if you had a specific people in mind.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22624.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"toroaw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Are there any concerns that the scientific basis of anthropology is not as firm as it should be if it is based on participant observation and an interpretive approach, and how do anthropologists guard against straying away from science? *Note: I had previously asked this on* r\/askscience *as part of Ask Anything Wednesday but didn't get an answer. I even got downvoted because it may seem like I'm questioning science, but I've taken multiple anthropology courses (even an \"anthropology of science\" course that turned out to kind of challenge science itself), so this question comes from me wondering how \"soft\" a soft science can be.* For example, it seems that the main approach anthropologists use is \"**participant observation**,\" but although this is a way of collecting data, how can it also not be considered just \"mere anecdotes\" to support whatever anthropologists think they notice or \"interpret\"? In general, what makes something just an anecdote versus (a credible-sounding) \"case study\"? Are they also less \"legitimate\" than doing something involving statistics? In addition, are \"**cross-cultural comparisons**\" subject to too much interpretation? When does it become too much of a stretch to compare, say, the function of human sacrifices in Aztec culture to the function of the death penalty in American society? An example of what I think could go wrong is in **Donna Haraway**'s writings: it's seemingly full of grand theorizing with obfuscating gobbledygook presented as academic papers. How do anthropologists keep themselves from straying away from rigorous science like this?","c_root_id_A":"i27ygl8","c_root_id_B":"i27h7o3","created_at_utc_A":1648319084,"created_at_utc_B":1648311748,"score_A":42,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"When a lot of people say \"science\" in modern discourse, they are specifically referring to empirical, quantitative methods for gathering information. This includes things like statistics, double blind experiments, control groups, study randomization, etc. Some fields, such as chemistry and biology, really lend themselves to this kind of research. Human society and culture, on the other hand, don't really lend themselves to this kind of research. There is no control group at the civilization level; there is no way to take a human out of their cultural context or make objective observations about people, because all researchers are people with existing biases. So we have to begin with the assumption that all anthropological research will be necessarily interpretive and subjective. The same researcher can look at the same data and arrive at different conclusions. With that as a starting point, we can take certain steps to avoid being overly subjective or \"anecdotal.\" One thing we can do is acknowledge our biases openly. We can avoid taking ethnocentric stances, such as using European culture as a \"universal standard\" against which other cultures are compared. We also have to recognize that every case study is just one piece of an infinite puzzle of human relationships. If one case study arrives at conclusion x while ten other case studies from various parts of the world arrive at conclusion y, we should find conclusion y to be somewhat more compelling as a generalized picture of how humans behave \"normally.\" That being said, there are few true universals when it comes to human culture. Just like in \"hard\" sciences, we should be extremely cautious about the idea of certainty--almost every discovery or conclusion gets overturned or at least refined\/modified eventually. Ultimately, the measure of any scientific idea or theory is (in my opinion) its ability to make predictions about the future or novel situations. If an observation from history or from a given culture helps us understand a new situation or a different culture, then it is useful science. This is true whether the methods are qualitative or quantitative, empirical or rational.","human_ref_B":"Donna Harraway writes from a very particular, but also informed and very reflexive, perspective. She is quite honest about that, and uses that perspective to produce some very compelling theories about technology, patriarchy, kinship, and so on. It might not look like empirical science, but it's not trying to be. The kinds of knowledge and understanding she is trying to produce aren't amenable to that kind of approach. Rather, I'd be interested to know why you think that a model of science produced by and for other disciplines should be taken as the only legitimate approach for producing knowledge about or theories of human culture and society?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7336.0,"score_ratio":1.4482758621} {"post_id":"toroaw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Are there any concerns that the scientific basis of anthropology is not as firm as it should be if it is based on participant observation and an interpretive approach, and how do anthropologists guard against straying away from science? *Note: I had previously asked this on* r\/askscience *as part of Ask Anything Wednesday but didn't get an answer. I even got downvoted because it may seem like I'm questioning science, but I've taken multiple anthropology courses (even an \"anthropology of science\" course that turned out to kind of challenge science itself), so this question comes from me wondering how \"soft\" a soft science can be.* For example, it seems that the main approach anthropologists use is \"**participant observation**,\" but although this is a way of collecting data, how can it also not be considered just \"mere anecdotes\" to support whatever anthropologists think they notice or \"interpret\"? In general, what makes something just an anecdote versus (a credible-sounding) \"case study\"? Are they also less \"legitimate\" than doing something involving statistics? In addition, are \"**cross-cultural comparisons**\" subject to too much interpretation? When does it become too much of a stretch to compare, say, the function of human sacrifices in Aztec culture to the function of the death penalty in American society? An example of what I think could go wrong is in **Donna Haraway**'s writings: it's seemingly full of grand theorizing with obfuscating gobbledygook presented as academic papers. How do anthropologists keep themselves from straying away from rigorous science like this?","c_root_id_A":"i29y5t2","c_root_id_B":"i28lbum","created_at_utc_A":1648353743,"created_at_utc_B":1648329350,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The first question, of course, is what you mean by \"scientific basis.\" You say elsewhere that one can fall victim to conspiracy theories without science. But what does this mean? I, for one, have never done any of the easy tests one can do to observe that the earth is flat. I have certainly done none of the science that proves that the asteroid belt exists between Mars and Jupiter, or that black holes exist. Despite working at one of the major natural history museums in the world, I have not personally seen any actual remains from early hominins, or even Neanderthals. I've worked with some 2 million year old Oldowan tools, but hell if I have the expertise to identify them as tools. The only reason I believe humans evolved from apes or that crazy cool things exist out in space is because I trust the institutions or individuals that *have* done that work. It's important to distinguish *faith in science* from *science* itself. Do you mean reproducibility? Experiments? You'll find that a lot of these concerns are lessened when we are dealing with \"field sciences,\" i.e. those that observe phenomena in the world, as opposed to \"lab sciences.\" We might instinctively view a geologist studying an active volcano as \"more scientific\" than an ethnographer studying the culture of college frats becuase they produce numbers and diagrams, but at the end of the day, these are still subject to some level of interpretive error, and the data cannot be replicated. You can't rewind the eruption; you are limited to the data that the geologist acquired. It's no big leap to say that most people conducting participant observation, i.e. cultural anthropologists, would not consider themselves scientists. I can't find any survey data about anthropologists that doesn't include primatologists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and other fields that would unequivocally consider themselves anthropologists *and* scientists, so most data on \"how do you feel about science\" will be terribly bimodal. Anecdotally, I've not met any ethnographer that really understood what they were doing to be \"science.\" And this is good! Anthropology departments exist alongside history, sociology, American\/Latin American\/Gender\/etc. studies, psychology, economics, political science, Classics, biology, philosophy, and language departments. Each of these brings along something special, a particular set of methodologies informed by a particular theoreitcal tradition. We would not expect a historian to demand a biologist treats all of the texts they handle with the same level of critical, contextual analysis, nor should an economist demand to see the numbers behind the Classicist's analysis of poetic meter. The human experience is wildly complex, and each of these fields contributes something different. What's more, the nature of the knowledge they produce isn't necessarily equivalent. There's not some Grand Book of Facts that artists, engingeers, and scientists are all contributing too. What counts as knowledge isn't the same for a composer as it is for a chemist, nor as it is for a computer programmer. Sonnetts exist, and they have rules, and gravity exists, and they have rules. But are these rules in any way the same? Consider, for instance, the greatest movie of all time. Did you think *Shrek 2*? That's fine, if you didn't. It's okay to be wrong. Maybe you prefer *Leave No Trace*, the most reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes with a perfect Tomatometer score. Or maybe it's the Wallace and Gromit short *A Grand Day Out, or their other short *The Wrong Trousers*, or any of the other 100% films on RT. Or is it *The Godfather* (top on Metacritic) or *The Shawshank Redemption* (top on IMDB)?Maybe it's *It Happened One Night*, which sits atop RT's \"Top 100 Movie of All Time.\" Is it *Ben-Hur,* *Titanic*, or *LotR: Return of the King*, who are all tied for most Oscar wins? Should we toss in *La La Land* and *All About Eve* for their 14 Oscar noms? Is it *Silence of the Lambs,* the most recent to sweep all of the \"Big Five\" Oscars? Or is it *Avatar* or *Avengers: Endgame* because of their massive box office pulls? Is that fair, or should we adjust for inflation, which brings in *Gone With the Wind*, *Titanic,* and *Star Wars*? There's no one answer of course, and any discussion of \"the greatest movie\" should reference multiple metrics: artistic merit, technlogical innovation, cultural impact, ticket sales, critical and popular reviews, etc. We get this, because movies are complex and diverse. You can't reduce the landscape of great American films to a single representative, or even a handful. It's not radical to suggest that \"great\" has different meanings. How many hundreds of YouTube channels exist to monologue about what makes great cinema? It's easy to get scared away when anthropologists borrow the works of philosophers like Donna Haraway or Bruno Latour to critically reflect on the role of \"science\" in modern society. After all, science illiteracy and skepticism have been major forces for harm in the past few years. But just as the Tomatometer or box office receipts aren't the only way to evaluate the greatest films, science- with numbers and statistics and hypotheses and reproducible experiments- isn't the only way to evaluate truth claims. Historical and political illiteracy have been similarly rampant and dangerous; no amount of scientific literacy will tell you that your children are not being indoctrinated with Critical Race Theory in 3rd grade. > less legitimate than something involving statistics Firstly, as has been noted elsewhere, ethnographies distill *years* of fieldwork into a single volume. Shorter term projects might produce a single journal article. The data compose a case study, in that they are collected from one population and not meant to be generalized, but they are not a \"case study,\" in that they are built on limited data. Let's flip this question around, then. Why would something involving statistics be more legitimate? Running any kind of statistical analysis requires clearly defined, quantifiable variables. This requires a tremendous loss of information! If I, as an archaeologist, want to run a multivariable correlation across a set of archaeological sites, I might include site size, occupation date, occupying cultures, number of structures, number of houses, distance from capital city, distance from a major road, distance from next closest site, etc. Any one of these seemingly simple variables elides an enormous amount of details. What does it mean to assign a site to a culture? An Inca imperial waystation is obviously Inca, but was it occupied by them, or local populations? A town with a Inca temple in the middle may have been fully Inca, it may have been a subject, it may have been abandoned before the Inca showed up. Maybe a town was inhabitted by the Inca, but there's been no definitely Inca artifacts found, so it's labeled as whoever was there before. Maybe a town was a foreign trade hub politically unaffiliated with the Inca, but filled with Inca ceramics- so it's been labeled as Inca by default. It would be pointless to try and reduce this complexity into variables so simple they could be addressed with statistical analysis. Statistics are a good tool for answering specific, targetted questions, but are just one tool in the kit.","human_ref_B":"Cross cultural comparisons can be made but to get valid meaning from that comparison one must be sure to compare apples to apples. In your example you mention the functions of the death penalty versus human sacrifice. The death penalty is a form of punishment. True, some sacrifice was a form of punishment (e.g. war captives). However, much human sacrifice was not intended to punish. Rather, it was often used as an appeal to the rain god(s) for community prosperity with good rains, good crops, and healthy babies. Not even the same ballpark. Our own Western mindset colors our interpretations. It is difficult to avoid modern biases in the results we gather because we are carrying decades of cultural learning into our analyses. This is a serious drawback to cultural discussions as we often see things through colored lenses, especially when there is no data. Testing should be done and the smaller data sets can point in certain directions based on Bayesian logic. The more data available, the higher our confidences grow in our interpretations. I avoid anthropological discussions without any true numbers to back me up because otherwise it is all conjecture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24393.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"urqv1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Chances of becoming an Anthropologist? Alternative opportunities? Is it possible or a pipe dream? Anthropology has fascinated me since I was 8 years old. I\u2019m in college and I just don\u2019t know what to do with my life. I feel like I was cursed with a passion for this field because the chances of going into it are so incredibly low, it seems. At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m always hearing. There is quite literally nothing else in the world that I want to do. I\u2019m not good at anything besides things related to anthropology. I tried out computer science classes thinking I\u2019d do that because the job security is high, but I hate it AND I\u2019m not good at it. I want to go into anthropology. If I were to pursue all the way up to a PhD, how good would my chances be at getting a job in the field? Are there other ways to get into field jobs other than research opportunities at universities? If the reality is that it just wouldn\u2019t be possible for me to do what I love, I\u2019ve also considered a BA in Anthropology with a MA in Art History to become a museum curator, but those job prospects are also low. In addition to that, I wouldn\u2019t want to curate unethically sourced (stolen) pieces. And people speak about both options as if they\u2019re impossible anyway. At this point it seems easier to become anything other than an Anthropologist. I\u2019m just feeling like there\u2019s no way in, and down about the real possibility I may never be happy in life because I can\u2019t pursue what I love.","c_root_id_A":"i8za3jg","c_root_id_B":"i8zlsn5","created_at_utc_A":1652813587,"created_at_utc_B":1652818391,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There are jobs in Anthropology. They pay poorly, are competitive, and often require you to have a flexible lifestyle or schedule.\r CRM jobs are the most common, but a lot of people hate them and they do not involve a lot of interesting archaeology work - think walking a few miles in a straight line in the desert where they are planning on putting an oil pipeline. Dig archaeology jobs are hard work, pay terribly, require crazy hours, and force you to live like a nomad. There are some government archaeology jobs, and those are not terrible, but the pay is low considering that you usually need field school plus experience to qualify for them. People will constantly claim that corporations like seeing anthropology degrees and are hiring anthropology consultants in marketing, but that is a joke and there are only a few people that actually do that, usually well-connected people benefitting from nepotism. Being a professor requires 9-12 years of school to make less than you could delivering pizza while you work like a slave for a decade chasing a permanent position somewhere. The likelihood of becoming a tenured professor is about the same as your chance of becoming a rock star.\r The people with the best chance of success are those who have financial support, like wealthy parents or a spouse, so that they can spend their 20's and 30's making less than a living wage. Don't listen to your professors about the job market - they are often people who literally have been in the same position effectively immune to being fired for decades or are adjuncts that have convinced themselves that they are on the path to being a famous anthropologist while in an endless series of low-paying dead-end positions.\r Most people with an Anthropology degree do not work in a job that requires an Anthropology degree. Most people that do an \"Anthropology\" job likely do not do anything that resembles what someone imagines when they think about becoming an Anthropologist. The famous Anthropologists of old that you learn about basically all did things that you would not be allowed to do now for a myriad of ethical reasons. Instead, most jobs as an Anthropologist require the skills and knowledge of an Anthropologist applied to something more practical.","human_ref_B":"I am an anthropologist working in the video games industry. There is jobs, but you need to make a plan and decide on what you want to do and work on that path. A PhD is not always needed! I think it is possible to follow your dream, but it is not easy. Try to find student job in museum, internship, or any other things that could help you to get some experience. Good luck :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4804.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"urqv1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Chances of becoming an Anthropologist? Alternative opportunities? Is it possible or a pipe dream? Anthropology has fascinated me since I was 8 years old. I\u2019m in college and I just don\u2019t know what to do with my life. I feel like I was cursed with a passion for this field because the chances of going into it are so incredibly low, it seems. At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m always hearing. There is quite literally nothing else in the world that I want to do. I\u2019m not good at anything besides things related to anthropology. I tried out computer science classes thinking I\u2019d do that because the job security is high, but I hate it AND I\u2019m not good at it. I want to go into anthropology. If I were to pursue all the way up to a PhD, how good would my chances be at getting a job in the field? Are there other ways to get into field jobs other than research opportunities at universities? If the reality is that it just wouldn\u2019t be possible for me to do what I love, I\u2019ve also considered a BA in Anthropology with a MA in Art History to become a museum curator, but those job prospects are also low. In addition to that, I wouldn\u2019t want to curate unethically sourced (stolen) pieces. And people speak about both options as if they\u2019re impossible anyway. At this point it seems easier to become anything other than an Anthropologist. I\u2019m just feeling like there\u2019s no way in, and down about the real possibility I may never be happy in life because I can\u2019t pursue what I love.","c_root_id_A":"i8yvz3n","c_root_id_B":"i8zlsn5","created_at_utc_A":1652807877,"created_at_utc_B":1652818391,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This is based only on my experience as an anthro undergrad who completed an MA and then abandoned the dream. This was also many years ago (90s\/early 00\u2019s). It\u2019s going to be difficult, but not impossible. True dream academic jobs where you are researching and teaching what you love are out there of course, but they are difficult to get, usually take time to get even after PhD work (I.e. you will be poor for awhile), involve a lot of politics, and require some kind of novel research or copious amounts of publishing. People think that anthropology is a \u201cthrow-away\u201d science or something people do just because it sounds cool. But most at the top of academic anthro are highly intelligent and motivated. They have probably enjoyed a bit of luck as well. If you want to achieve that then have a solid idea of *exactly* what discipline of anthro you want to pursue and develop a passion for it. Start networking now and reading any and every journal article you can find. Be prepared to take graduate classes as an undergrad and find someone willing to mentor you. Outside of academia there are other jobs. Museum work as you mentioned, contract archaeology if you like that side of the discipline, government jobs that take cultural and linguistic anthropologists, etc. I ended up in a pretty decent project management position. It\u2019s nothing I ever imagined I would be doing but it has served me well financially for many years. Granted it sucks my soul away, but my grad degree got me in the door and it was all about performance and learning on the job after that.","human_ref_B":"I am an anthropologist working in the video games industry. There is jobs, but you need to make a plan and decide on what you want to do and work on that path. A PhD is not always needed! I think it is possible to follow your dream, but it is not easy. Try to find student job in museum, internship, or any other things that could help you to get some experience. Good luck :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10514.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"urqv1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Chances of becoming an Anthropologist? Alternative opportunities? Is it possible or a pipe dream? Anthropology has fascinated me since I was 8 years old. I\u2019m in college and I just don\u2019t know what to do with my life. I feel like I was cursed with a passion for this field because the chances of going into it are so incredibly low, it seems. At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m always hearing. There is quite literally nothing else in the world that I want to do. I\u2019m not good at anything besides things related to anthropology. I tried out computer science classes thinking I\u2019d do that because the job security is high, but I hate it AND I\u2019m not good at it. I want to go into anthropology. If I were to pursue all the way up to a PhD, how good would my chances be at getting a job in the field? Are there other ways to get into field jobs other than research opportunities at universities? If the reality is that it just wouldn\u2019t be possible for me to do what I love, I\u2019ve also considered a BA in Anthropology with a MA in Art History to become a museum curator, but those job prospects are also low. In addition to that, I wouldn\u2019t want to curate unethically sourced (stolen) pieces. And people speak about both options as if they\u2019re impossible anyway. At this point it seems easier to become anything other than an Anthropologist. I\u2019m just feeling like there\u2019s no way in, and down about the real possibility I may never be happy in life because I can\u2019t pursue what I love.","c_root_id_A":"i8za3jg","c_root_id_B":"i8yvz3n","created_at_utc_A":1652813587,"created_at_utc_B":1652807877,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There are jobs in Anthropology. They pay poorly, are competitive, and often require you to have a flexible lifestyle or schedule.\r CRM jobs are the most common, but a lot of people hate them and they do not involve a lot of interesting archaeology work - think walking a few miles in a straight line in the desert where they are planning on putting an oil pipeline. Dig archaeology jobs are hard work, pay terribly, require crazy hours, and force you to live like a nomad. There are some government archaeology jobs, and those are not terrible, but the pay is low considering that you usually need field school plus experience to qualify for them. People will constantly claim that corporations like seeing anthropology degrees and are hiring anthropology consultants in marketing, but that is a joke and there are only a few people that actually do that, usually well-connected people benefitting from nepotism. Being a professor requires 9-12 years of school to make less than you could delivering pizza while you work like a slave for a decade chasing a permanent position somewhere. The likelihood of becoming a tenured professor is about the same as your chance of becoming a rock star.\r The people with the best chance of success are those who have financial support, like wealthy parents or a spouse, so that they can spend their 20's and 30's making less than a living wage. Don't listen to your professors about the job market - they are often people who literally have been in the same position effectively immune to being fired for decades or are adjuncts that have convinced themselves that they are on the path to being a famous anthropologist while in an endless series of low-paying dead-end positions.\r Most people with an Anthropology degree do not work in a job that requires an Anthropology degree. Most people that do an \"Anthropology\" job likely do not do anything that resembles what someone imagines when they think about becoming an Anthropologist. The famous Anthropologists of old that you learn about basically all did things that you would not be allowed to do now for a myriad of ethical reasons. Instead, most jobs as an Anthropologist require the skills and knowledge of an Anthropologist applied to something more practical.","human_ref_B":"This is based only on my experience as an anthro undergrad who completed an MA and then abandoned the dream. This was also many years ago (90s\/early 00\u2019s). It\u2019s going to be difficult, but not impossible. True dream academic jobs where you are researching and teaching what you love are out there of course, but they are difficult to get, usually take time to get even after PhD work (I.e. you will be poor for awhile), involve a lot of politics, and require some kind of novel research or copious amounts of publishing. People think that anthropology is a \u201cthrow-away\u201d science or something people do just because it sounds cool. But most at the top of academic anthro are highly intelligent and motivated. They have probably enjoyed a bit of luck as well. If you want to achieve that then have a solid idea of *exactly* what discipline of anthro you want to pursue and develop a passion for it. Start networking now and reading any and every journal article you can find. Be prepared to take graduate classes as an undergrad and find someone willing to mentor you. Outside of academia there are other jobs. Museum work as you mentioned, contract archaeology if you like that side of the discipline, government jobs that take cultural and linguistic anthropologists, etc. I ended up in a pretty decent project management position. It\u2019s nothing I ever imagined I would be doing but it has served me well financially for many years. Granted it sucks my soul away, but my grad degree got me in the door and it was all about performance and learning on the job after that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5710.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"urqv1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Chances of becoming an Anthropologist? Alternative opportunities? Is it possible or a pipe dream? Anthropology has fascinated me since I was 8 years old. I\u2019m in college and I just don\u2019t know what to do with my life. I feel like I was cursed with a passion for this field because the chances of going into it are so incredibly low, it seems. At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m always hearing. There is quite literally nothing else in the world that I want to do. I\u2019m not good at anything besides things related to anthropology. I tried out computer science classes thinking I\u2019d do that because the job security is high, but I hate it AND I\u2019m not good at it. I want to go into anthropology. If I were to pursue all the way up to a PhD, how good would my chances be at getting a job in the field? Are there other ways to get into field jobs other than research opportunities at universities? If the reality is that it just wouldn\u2019t be possible for me to do what I love, I\u2019ve also considered a BA in Anthropology with a MA in Art History to become a museum curator, but those job prospects are also low. In addition to that, I wouldn\u2019t want to curate unethically sourced (stolen) pieces. And people speak about both options as if they\u2019re impossible anyway. At this point it seems easier to become anything other than an Anthropologist. I\u2019m just feeling like there\u2019s no way in, and down about the real possibility I may never be happy in life because I can\u2019t pursue what I love.","c_root_id_A":"i90l6wi","c_root_id_B":"i8yvz3n","created_at_utc_A":1652834356,"created_at_utc_B":1652807877,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This does keep coming up. Find someone who is doing the job you would love to do. If there is a job that you see an opportunity for, make it happen. It may require a PhD though. If you don't need to work for money, go for it. I said this the other day. A lot of people are intrigued by anthro because they're looking for something they think they lost. Anthro study is not a prerequisite for finding this answer out for yourself. I recommend reading \"Answering Daima's Question\" by Prof Peter Gow. If you're looking for something, this article will help you figure out how to find it.","human_ref_B":"This is based only on my experience as an anthro undergrad who completed an MA and then abandoned the dream. This was also many years ago (90s\/early 00\u2019s). It\u2019s going to be difficult, but not impossible. True dream academic jobs where you are researching and teaching what you love are out there of course, but they are difficult to get, usually take time to get even after PhD work (I.e. you will be poor for awhile), involve a lot of politics, and require some kind of novel research or copious amounts of publishing. People think that anthropology is a \u201cthrow-away\u201d science or something people do just because it sounds cool. But most at the top of academic anthro are highly intelligent and motivated. They have probably enjoyed a bit of luck as well. If you want to achieve that then have a solid idea of *exactly* what discipline of anthro you want to pursue and develop a passion for it. Start networking now and reading any and every journal article you can find. Be prepared to take graduate classes as an undergrad and find someone willing to mentor you. Outside of academia there are other jobs. Museum work as you mentioned, contract archaeology if you like that side of the discipline, government jobs that take cultural and linguistic anthropologists, etc. I ended up in a pretty decent project management position. It\u2019s nothing I ever imagined I would be doing but it has served me well financially for many years. Granted it sucks my soul away, but my grad degree got me in the door and it was all about performance and learning on the job after that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26479.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"uf2yp9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is your day-to-day like as an Anthropologist? Please specify what exact field, linguistic\/biological etc. and what your role is? If inclined, I would like to know the kinds of meetings you have or paperwork you fill out, be as specific as you want!","c_root_id_A":"i6s1c86","c_root_id_B":"i6sevys","created_at_utc_A":1651317724,"created_at_utc_B":1651326144,"score_A":20,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"Bio-anthropologist in non-tenure track job. Very few meetings besides lab meetings twice a month and the occasional meeting for research purposes. Paperwork is usually related to laboratory results, IRB, research safety, or class administration stuff. Day to day: running laboratory analysis everyday, purchasing lab related things, and teaching twice a week (or teaching prep on non teaching days). I spend a lot of time dealing with emails from various people, much of which is deleting stuff that doesn't pertain to me (the most annoying thing). On some days I'll spend mornings writing or working on peer review stuff for a journal. For the most part couldn't be happier with it. I control my own schedule and spend most of my time doing things I enjoy. Occasionally I'll go to academic meetings (twice a year) or every couple years engage in field work (which I love)","human_ref_B":"Archaeologist: I hike everyday in a new place and dig holes every 30 meters. I consult government agencies and Native tribes. I also find the best bbq in every town.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8420.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"uf2yp9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is your day-to-day like as an Anthropologist? Please specify what exact field, linguistic\/biological etc. and what your role is? If inclined, I would like to know the kinds of meetings you have or paperwork you fill out, be as specific as you want!","c_root_id_A":"i6s2xc9","c_root_id_B":"i6sevys","created_at_utc_A":1651318900,"created_at_utc_B":1651326144,"score_A":10,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"Postdoc in a linguistics department and research fellow in another. Monthly lab meetings, monthly group meetings, occasional other meetings. Lots of informal \"meetings\" with collaborators. Teaching load is minimal, usually 1 class per semester plus other advising or independent studies. Currently advising one grad student, last semester 2 undergrads. I'm not sure I have anything I'd consider paperwork other than end-of-term grades.","human_ref_B":"Archaeologist: I hike everyday in a new place and dig holes every 30 meters. I consult government agencies and Native tribes. I also find the best bbq in every town.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7244.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"uf2yp9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is your day-to-day like as an Anthropologist? Please specify what exact field, linguistic\/biological etc. and what your role is? If inclined, I would like to know the kinds of meetings you have or paperwork you fill out, be as specific as you want!","c_root_id_A":"i6s2xc9","c_root_id_B":"i6slyhk","created_at_utc_A":1651318900,"created_at_utc_B":1651329680,"score_A":10,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Postdoc in a linguistics department and research fellow in another. Monthly lab meetings, monthly group meetings, occasional other meetings. Lots of informal \"meetings\" with collaborators. Teaching load is minimal, usually 1 class per semester plus other advising or independent studies. Currently advising one grad student, last semester 2 undergrads. I'm not sure I have anything I'd consider paperwork other than end-of-term grades.","human_ref_B":"EDIT: Okay, I'm in front of my computer now so I thought I'd try and expand a little bit on my post. Here goes. So, I'm a Danish (marine) archaeologist. I have a BA in prehistoric archaeology and a MA in prehistoric archaeology and palaeoproteomics from the University of Copenhagen. My BA thesis was on Early Maglemosian settlement dynamics while my MA thesis was on ovicaprine husbandry and species identification by peptide mass fingerprinting\/ZooMS. So, that's my academic background. So, I started at uni in 2010 but already by 2011 I started working part-time (and full-time during the holidays) as a field archaeologist at various Danish museums. The work can best be described as CRM work. So, at the moment, also my first job since graduating in 2020, I work as a field leader on a large project doing maritime field surveys. Our main focus is finding Late Palaeolithic\/Mesolithic submarine settlements. So my BA wasn't entirely wasted. Lol. So, my day starts at 07:00. As we do archaeology at sea, or workplace is a small barge that is moved using tugboats. So, when the day starts, the barge is moved from the pier to the relevant coordinates and by using a large 250 ton excavator we simply dig up large chunks, more or less, of submarine soil from the seabed down to ca. 20 m. below sea level. So we're basically digging these 6-8 m long \"shafts\" into the soil and down to the bedrock. So, what we basically get are 50 cm. worth of stratigraphy each time the excavator removes one chunk of soil. And every strata is photographed and recorded according to all the customs. Any layers we suspect may contain anthropogenic materials are water sieved and everything man-made is bagged and tagged. This kind of work comes with a lot of paperwork. Not so much report writing. More digitising lists with photoID's, descriptions of strata, lists of finds, lists of soil samples and so on. I also write a short daily report with the most relevant observations and finds. Nothing much. I guess on a 12 hr. workday I spend 2-3 hours in the office. Sometimes more sometimes less. Then at 19:00 the day is over, we've arrived back at the pier and we go home to repeat the same thing the next day until December (at least), It should be noted, that since we work 12-hr shifts we only work 4 days and then have 4 days (excluding the weekends) off. It's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Basically I work 4 days then have a 6 day vacation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10780.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnutliy","c_root_id_B":"hnv8md5","created_at_utc_A":1639060765,"created_at_utc_B":1639067008,"score_A":14,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"I would say either when you're publishing original research or when you're being paid to be one.","human_ref_B":"I think if you are conducting anthropological research or working in a practical application of anthropology\/archaeology. For example I know a number of people with master's degrees who have worked as forensic anthropologists and aren't necessarily publishing, but they're absolutely working as anthropologists. Or maybe you're not publishing yet but you're doing research... Are you supposed to talk to your potential interlocutors and say \"Hi I'm a researcher who will be an anthropologist once I've published the results of this study\" ? You'd probably just introduce yourself as an anthropologist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6243.0,"score_ratio":3.0714285714} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnutliy","c_root_id_B":"hnvjlsw","created_at_utc_A":1639060765,"created_at_utc_B":1639071228,"score_A":14,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I would say either when you're publishing original research or when you're being paid to be one.","human_ref_B":"I think it's highly contextual. I haven't worked as an anthropologist in years, so I'd never introduce myself as one, but it does color my interests and analysis so I'll say \"as an anthropologist\" or something to preamble an opinion I have that is very informed by anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10463.0,"score_ratio":1.6428571429} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnvjts2","c_root_id_B":"hnutliy","created_at_utc_A":1639071314,"created_at_utc_B":1639060765,"score_A":21,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"1. If your paycheck or grant or publishing advance or whatever mark you as Anthropologist then you are one. 2. But IMHO anyone either with BA or BS, or simply minor, or no college at all, but whose interest in Anthropology is constantly filled, then say I study Anthropology, and by that very definition they are an **Anthropologist**. add amateur or professional in front to be able to stick your nose at them. I myself don't distinguish , I've met plenty of folks who are trained and untrained, whose keen eye for human behavior and culture so in tune , that distinguishing amateur or professional is moot. ​ They 're Anthropologist, period.","human_ref_B":"I would say either when you're publishing original research or when you're being paid to be one.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10549.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnwkya5","c_root_id_B":"hnw0ppa","created_at_utc_A":1639086121,"created_at_utc_B":1639077993,"score_A":13,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a ba in anthropology, I've never earned a bean from it so would never call myself a anthropologist . I'm a person who uses anthropological practice in my career working with people. Sometimes I inflict some of what I learned on them. My favourites are Clifford geertz thick description, the panopticon by Foucault and killing an elephant by Eric Blair . Colonialism and prisons ? What's not to like.","human_ref_B":"You are an archaeologist when you work a project to completion. I am talking dirty fingernails, collecting data, no one remembering to bring a roll of TP, the whole nine yards until the final report is submitted.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8128.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnwkya5","c_root_id_B":"hnw7fcs","created_at_utc_A":1639086121,"created_at_utc_B":1639080654,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a ba in anthropology, I've never earned a bean from it so would never call myself a anthropologist . I'm a person who uses anthropological practice in my career working with people. Sometimes I inflict some of what I learned on them. My favourites are Clifford geertz thick description, the panopticon by Foucault and killing an elephant by Eric Blair . Colonialism and prisons ? What's not to like.","human_ref_B":"So, im not an anthropologist, but I think that my field is a good homolog. as a wildlife biologist, I consider one a biologist if they are working in the field. Paid or not. Any requirement of publishing or having a link to academia is B.S. to me. Academia is a small fraction of many fields that gets too much attention and cache.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5467.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnwkya5","c_root_id_B":"hnwik2j","created_at_utc_A":1639086121,"created_at_utc_B":1639085145,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a ba in anthropology, I've never earned a bean from it so would never call myself a anthropologist . I'm a person who uses anthropological practice in my career working with people. Sometimes I inflict some of what I learned on them. My favourites are Clifford geertz thick description, the panopticon by Foucault and killing an elephant by Eric Blair . Colonialism and prisons ? What's not to like.","human_ref_B":"For the archaeology part, outside of the US, archaeology isn't seen as a sub-field of anthropology so if you wouldn't be an anthropologist if you do archaeology. There was an interesting study done in 2014 called the *Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe* survey which found that there really is no definition for what an archaeologist is or what archaeologists do. Another commenter said that you're an archaeologist if you get your nails dirty and complete a project which is a really outdated notion of archaeology. There are a lot of lab and other specializations that don't perform your traditional excavation which is the only real part of archaeology that isn't too clear. There are a lot of efforts to establish a more formal definition though, in the US there is the Register of Professional Archaeologists which is essentially a useless organization with useless qualifications, they use the Secretary of the Interior Standards which are even more useless and require a masters degree. The UK is a little more progressive about it and have varying pathways to becoming a credentialed archaeologist but is generally centered around having a degree. You can apply for credentialing to become a certified archaeologist even if you don't have a degree but you have to have a lot of experience. There are academic and specialist routes you can take and it's generally accepted across the UK, although still growing. Canada and most other countries also require permitting and licensing for excavation so there is almost always a clear cut point when you become an archaeologist. That study I mentioned earlier shows that 98% of archaeologists have at least a bachelors degree. That's problematic in other parts of the world though, like the Near East or other parts of the Mediterranean like Greece or even in Japan where there are a lot of non-degreed workers who are often more skilled and knowledgeable than the archaeologists working on site. Anyway, it's not always clear cut but generally there are obvious points where you know you're an archaeologist.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":976.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnxc0s2","c_root_id_B":"hnx84lb","created_at_utc_A":1639097752,"created_at_utc_B":1639095984,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Imposter syndrome is common in academia, call yourself whatever. Though it seems to me that other people only consider you an \u201cist\u201d when you\u2019re getting paid for it","human_ref_B":"I think you can't be called a practitioner of any field (ie: scientist, writer, philosopher, anthropologist etc.), without having done some kind of official \"stint\" in the field that contributes to it. It'd be laughable to call oneself a scientist after receiving a bachelor. Someone with a bachelor, some real world experience in a lab (practical setting), and involvement with research in the field (studying\/researching under someone with a lot of experience) would constitute it perhaps. I don't believe being \"paid\" to be one constitutes it either, by that measure any celebrity that writes an autobiography for a book deal is a \"writer\", there needs to be some kind of dedication to and impact made in that field.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1768.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnw7fcs","c_root_id_B":"hnxc0s2","created_at_utc_A":1639080654,"created_at_utc_B":1639097752,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"So, im not an anthropologist, but I think that my field is a good homolog. as a wildlife biologist, I consider one a biologist if they are working in the field. Paid or not. Any requirement of publishing or having a link to academia is B.S. to me. Academia is a small fraction of many fields that gets too much attention and cache.","human_ref_B":"Imposter syndrome is common in academia, call yourself whatever. Though it seems to me that other people only consider you an \u201cist\u201d when you\u2019re getting paid for it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17098.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rchwf6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When do you become an Anthropologist? When do you get to actually call yourself an anthropologist (or any specific kind of academic, for that matter)? Once you have a Bachelor's Degree? A Graduate Degree? When you get a long-term full-time job in the field? When you publish your first research in the field? What if you publish research as an undergrad? The same question goes for subfields of anthropology. Am I an archaeologist if I graduated with an emphasis in archaeology? Am I a zooarchaeologist if I publish undergrad research in zooarchaeology? I just don't want to feel like an imposter. Thanks for your input.","c_root_id_A":"hnwik2j","c_root_id_B":"hnxc0s2","created_at_utc_A":1639085145,"created_at_utc_B":1639097752,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For the archaeology part, outside of the US, archaeology isn't seen as a sub-field of anthropology so if you wouldn't be an anthropologist if you do archaeology. There was an interesting study done in 2014 called the *Discovering the Archaeologists of Europe* survey which found that there really is no definition for what an archaeologist is or what archaeologists do. Another commenter said that you're an archaeologist if you get your nails dirty and complete a project which is a really outdated notion of archaeology. There are a lot of lab and other specializations that don't perform your traditional excavation which is the only real part of archaeology that isn't too clear. There are a lot of efforts to establish a more formal definition though, in the US there is the Register of Professional Archaeologists which is essentially a useless organization with useless qualifications, they use the Secretary of the Interior Standards which are even more useless and require a masters degree. The UK is a little more progressive about it and have varying pathways to becoming a credentialed archaeologist but is generally centered around having a degree. You can apply for credentialing to become a certified archaeologist even if you don't have a degree but you have to have a lot of experience. There are academic and specialist routes you can take and it's generally accepted across the UK, although still growing. Canada and most other countries also require permitting and licensing for excavation so there is almost always a clear cut point when you become an archaeologist. That study I mentioned earlier shows that 98% of archaeologists have at least a bachelors degree. That's problematic in other parts of the world though, like the Near East or other parts of the Mediterranean like Greece or even in Japan where there are a lot of non-degreed workers who are often more skilled and knowledgeable than the archaeologists working on site. Anyway, it's not always clear cut but generally there are obvious points where you know you're an archaeologist.","human_ref_B":"Imposter syndrome is common in academia, call yourself whatever. Though it seems to me that other people only consider you an \u201cist\u201d when you\u2019re getting paid for it","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12607.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"uyyz0g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do you define the distinction between (Social) Anthropology and Sociology? What makes someone an anthropologist and another a sociologist? I understand, historically, methods were a key distinction but it seems the lines are increasingly blurred, especially as now ethnography is a central feature of sociology. I also appreciate that qualitative vs quantitive research is important distinction between the two disciplines, but as anthropologists increasing traverse digital field-sites, intersecting with data and metrics, is this distinction loosing credibility too? I'm interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who self-identifies as an anthropologist, or sociologist, and anyone, like me, who is betwixt and between.","c_root_id_A":"ia73yu2","c_root_id_B":"ia8rt1h","created_at_utc_A":1653661848,"created_at_utc_B":1653687790,"score_A":15,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Someone from a more representative university can chime in with a better response. But at my US R1 Anth PhD department (where social\/cultural anthro was actually very quant- and modeling-heavy human ecology and demography) the running joke was that sociology is anthropology of* white people. My postdoctoral institution (top-ranking international graduate university) has such few non-psych social scientists that no one really differentiates between us. I realize thats not true at most institutions though. --- Edit* Of. Not for.","human_ref_B":"The difference is largely institutional and, in some ways, still reflects the \"two\" fields' historical developments. Most universities in North America have separate sociology and anthropology departments, while European schools (at least, UK schools) will have mishmash of social science faculty and degrees. Anthropology developed in a primordial soup of social sciences in the UK, but in the US and Canada it developed specifically to address issues related to indigenous Americans; the Bureau of American Ethnography's first major project was codifying that, yes, the Hopewell and Cahokia mounds were built by Native Americans, and not some \"lost civilized race.\" American archaeology was coevolved to answer the same questions with a historical perspective. Since, their methodologies and topics have converged. There are a couple general things that still separate their approaches: * Anthropology asks broad questions about small things, sociology asks narrow questions about big things. This is most evident in journals that publish articles from both fields, like the Annals of Tourism Research. An anthropologist's article might summarize months of living with a single community (small thing) in which many mothers sell souvenirs on the streets of Cusco, Peru and discuss how they engage with concepts of class and race at home and at work (broad questions). A sociologist's article might discuss how souvenir vendors across the entire city (big thing) price and market their goods to sell to specifically target tourists and encourage them to make purchases (narrow question). * Anthropology questions social categories and asks how they are constructed and performed; sociology begins with them as social facts then asks how people navigate a world within them. The anthropologist might ask \"These people identify as indigenous- what does that actually mean and how do they do it?\" The sociologist might ask \"Given that these people are recognized as indigenous, what does that mean for their lives and how do other people experience the same things?\" * Anthropology studies culture: a collection of shared practices and beliefs. Often, it struggles with the issue of subjectivity: how do individuals relate to their culture? Sociology studies society: a collection of individual actors. Often, it struggles with collective action: how do groups behave as groups? Again, as has been mentioned, the methods and subjects of both fields overlap significantly, and you're likely to find little difference after the research process has finished.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25942.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"bp0182","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How do anthropologists draw the line when an ethnicity is formed and it disappears? Is there any checklist or criteria that says when an ethnic group\/ethnicity is created and when it has transformed into a new ethnicity? For instance the Normans were an ethnicity that formed and disappeared. Where do you draw the line between forming and disappearance or transformation into another ethnicity?","c_root_id_A":"enmydiw","c_root_id_B":"enoilbj","created_at_utc_A":1557938473,"created_at_utc_B":1557959770,"score_A":8,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Ethnic groups can be subjectively defined, That is, people see themselves as belonging to\u00a0particular group. Ethnic groups can be objectively defined. That is, outsiders see them as a particular group. In an ideal situation the objective and subjective overlap perfectly. But ethnicity is a fuzzy concept and we rarely get to deal with the ideal. If one was forced to draw a line, it would probably be when both subjective and objective perspectives agree that a group exists and then when there is no longer either subjective or objective perspectives to support the continued existence of a group. Situational ethnicity and ethnic revival being wild cards here.","human_ref_B":"The simple answer is no, there is no criteria. Anthropology is always a matter of reporting and developing the stories that emerge from communities, and it is not the \"job\" of the Anthropologist to disprove or reduce those stories to a scientific maxim. The Normans were a community that can be studied anthropologically because there was an actual nominal community that has been written about as if it were ethnically contiguous at the time (and in some senses, it still does), and it doesn't matter what the actual ethnicity of those people were. Actually, what *does* matter is that they were of ethnically diverse genotypes, and this can be easily proven. The only thing relevant to the common notion of \"ethnicity\" is the fact that geographically isolated populations will produce higher frequencies of certain alleles over time, but there is never a point at which \"higher frequency\" becomes a \"new group\" because human societies are always intermixing, always trading, always growing in complexity over time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21297.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"bp0182","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How do anthropologists draw the line when an ethnicity is formed and it disappears? Is there any checklist or criteria that says when an ethnic group\/ethnicity is created and when it has transformed into a new ethnicity? For instance the Normans were an ethnicity that formed and disappeared. Where do you draw the line between forming and disappearance or transformation into another ethnicity?","c_root_id_A":"ennrank","c_root_id_B":"enoilbj","created_at_utc_A":1557950115,"created_at_utc_B":1557959770,"score_A":4,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"I don't know of a checklist, but I do know of some examples where the process of ethnogenesis is better documented than in a lot of other cases. Look into the history of the native peoples of the Everglades. The Calusa tribe, Miccosukee tribe and the Seminole. In these cases, the members of the tribe got together and a shared tribal tradition and identity emerged organically within relatively recent history.","human_ref_B":"The simple answer is no, there is no criteria. Anthropology is always a matter of reporting and developing the stories that emerge from communities, and it is not the \"job\" of the Anthropologist to disprove or reduce those stories to a scientific maxim. The Normans were a community that can be studied anthropologically because there was an actual nominal community that has been written about as if it were ethnically contiguous at the time (and in some senses, it still does), and it doesn't matter what the actual ethnicity of those people were. Actually, what *does* matter is that they were of ethnically diverse genotypes, and this can be easily proven. The only thing relevant to the common notion of \"ethnicity\" is the fact that geographically isolated populations will produce higher frequencies of certain alleles over time, but there is never a point at which \"higher frequency\" becomes a \"new group\" because human societies are always intermixing, always trading, always growing in complexity over time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9655.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"2gjdil","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Anthropologists who have lived for an extended amount of time embedded in a community abroad: what is the funniest story you have? Not sure how many actual anthropologists there are in this sub, let alone how many do field work like this, but it doesn't hurt to ask","c_root_id_A":"ckk82w5","c_root_id_B":"ckk0re1","created_at_utc_A":1410901341,"created_at_utc_B":1410888496,"score_A":29,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I'm a linguist not an anthropologist, but my favourite fieldwork story is from when I was living on an island in the Marshall Islands and I went to church for Palm Sunday. Apparently, Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus' entrance to Jerusalem on a donkey. It's common to re-enact this by having the priest enter the church on a \"donkey\" before he starts the service. When he enters the church he rides down the aisle underneath palm leaves the parishioners are holding up on each side of the aisle to form a kind of arch. For some reason, despite there certainly being no shortage of palm leaves on the island, many of the parishioners are holding up old brooms instead. Obviously, the islanders didn't have a donkey so it turns out they substitute the donkey with a bicycle and have the priest ride in on that. Most of the bicycles on the island are old and falling apart, so of course they choose to use the newest, nicest looking one, which on this year happened to be a bright pink little girl's bike. So I'm sitting there trying not to laugh as the priest, quite a tall (by Marshallese standards) old man dressed in a full suit rides in on a comically small bright pink bicycle underneath an arch of old broom stick and mops. It was one of the most surreal moments I've ever experienced, but sadly, despite taking 100s of photos in the field, I forgot my camera that day so I have no photographic evidence of it :(","human_ref_B":"Once, while living on a farm in Nicaragua with a family of campesinos, I wound up uh... \"having carnal knowledge\" of one of my coworkers in a hammock (another anthropologist) to drown out the sound of a pig being slaughtered improperly in the middle of the night (probably sometime between 2 - 4 AM). The local custom was to slaughter them with one big machete hit to the neck. The guy who whacked this particular pig didn't hit him right, so he wound up running all over the damn place and screaming and bleeding everywhere while he was chased. It sounded like a human screaming. The sounds were just awful, horrific, and they *kept going and going*. It wasn't like we had our smartphones so we could just play Doodle Jump or something to distract ourselves (this was the 90s). It was either lay in the hammock looking at the sky listening to bloody, protracted pig-death or entertain ourselves in the oldest fashion known to man. We got up the next morning, ate pork stew and never spoke of it again.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12845.0,"score_ratio":1.0740740741} {"post_id":"4m5x9a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How come there are so many mentions of giants in ancient texts? So many cultures around the world seem to share the idea of giants, and several even share the same supposed origin of said giants: Heavenly organisms who come to earth and mate with humans to produce these humungous, chaotic Nephilim-like beings. Even cultures that had been seperated by miles of ocean seem to share this similar idea of human-god hybrids. Why is this such a common theme in several sacred texts found across the globe? Is it just human nature to come up with ideas like that, or do they all pull from a common historical event? There has to be an explanation for this stuff with firm grounding in scientific fact, right?","c_root_id_A":"d3sv0oo","c_root_id_B":"d3suq6w","created_at_utc_A":1464855953,"created_at_utc_B":1464854949,"score_A":46,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Dinosaur fossil bones could be interpreted as giants and monsters. Thesis of this book on the classical world: http:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/titles\/9435.html","human_ref_B":"> There has to be an explanation for this stuff with firm grounding in scientific fact, right? Not necessarily. I'm no expert in this topic, but coincidence mixed with theoretical evolutionary psychology could explain many separate ancient cultures' similarities. But this is in no way scientific fact.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1004.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"4m5x9a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How come there are so many mentions of giants in ancient texts? So many cultures around the world seem to share the idea of giants, and several even share the same supposed origin of said giants: Heavenly organisms who come to earth and mate with humans to produce these humungous, chaotic Nephilim-like beings. Even cultures that had been seperated by miles of ocean seem to share this similar idea of human-god hybrids. Why is this such a common theme in several sacred texts found across the globe? Is it just human nature to come up with ideas like that, or do they all pull from a common historical event? There has to be an explanation for this stuff with firm grounding in scientific fact, right?","c_root_id_A":"d3wtfwf","c_root_id_B":"d3tm4o9","created_at_utc_A":1465135414,"created_at_utc_B":1464901468,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Mammoth skulls are thought to have been the basis for myths about the Cyclops. The large front-facing nasal aperture looks very much like an eye socket. Dinosaur bones, especially skulls, are thought to have been the inspiration for dragon myths. It's generally believed that the large, post-cranial remains of megafauna, including dinosaurs-- which can be found around the world on every inhabited continent-- were the principal inspiration behind stories of giants.","human_ref_B":"Dinosaur bones","labels":1,"seconds_difference":233946.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"cujdyq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Through history, many nomadic and semi-nomadic groups adopted a sedentary lifestyle. Were there sedentary\/\"civilized\" groups reverting to a nomadic way of life? If so, how and why?","c_root_id_A":"exx367s","c_root_id_B":"exy4u81","created_at_utc_A":1566629373,"created_at_utc_B":1566647240,"score_A":2,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Yes, intersecting with Roman history many times. First there were the Teutons and Cimbri, Germanic or Celtic groups that left their homes amd migrated, eventually arriving in Italy and fighting with Rome. Later, Julius Caesar fought the Helvetii, a group of Gallic Celts who were pushed into migration and wandering by population changes and invasions in their homeland in modern Switzerland. Much later, you run into the Migration Period when a cascading effect pushed Germanic tribes to migrate westward away from the Huns. In all three cases a whole population abandoned their homes to migrate. The former two were relatively shortlived as far as the historical record shows, but the Migration Period saw many of those tribes become semi-nomadic as they wandered around Europe.","human_ref_B":"A decent number of Manchus\/Jurchen, after the collapse of the Jin dynasty and the mongols came in, adopted the nomadic lifestyle. Also, most formerly Soviet Central Asians were forcibly settled during Russian empire\/Soviet times, but some...and very few...today (especially during the summer) actually live nomadically then come back to their villages for school\/hide from the cold.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17867.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"x1ptzj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Sex and monotheism I was discussing with a group of friends what could explain how strict religions, in particular monotheistic ones, are about sex life. It seems as though most belief systems exercise some control or at least judgement over sexual life (incest for example is quite oftenly condoned I believe). However in some cases the list of things which are forbidden get extreme to the point of \"everything is forbidden except sex for procreation\". And I have a hard time believing that it \"just happens\", there must be some internal logic and external factors which lead cultures to come to this conclusion. Hopefully this post is appropriate for this sub","c_root_id_A":"imf9nmv","c_root_id_B":"imf3115","created_at_utc_A":1661886519,"created_at_utc_B":1661883959,"score_A":69,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"People all too often isolate \"religion\" away from the culture in which it is inextricably intertwined, then make inaccurate conclusions about what religion does. For instance, secular western progressive culture has a TON of rules about sex, particularly in how consent is defined, how consent functions within power disparities, protocol that governs how consent is granted and revoked, and strict penalties for violating any rules. And that's a good thing. Sex plays a huge role in any community, so any culture is going to have some amount of protocol built around sex. I don't know any reason why monotheism vs polytheism would play a role, though there is research on moralizing vs amoral gods, which I've only seen applied to questions of altruism.","human_ref_B":"This is a really complicated set of issues, and you really have to take into account the specific histories of different religions, and whether religion works differently based on the kinds of political (power) systems a society has in place. But one thing to keep in mind is that one powerful way to control people is to control their sexuality. If you can get people to be willing to follow your rules in the most intimate and private moments, it will be very difficult for them to reject the group or the rules in other areas of their lives. As an added bonus, by getting people to follow your rules during sexual intimacy, you are putting the group (or religion) in between the people in the relationship. Instead of being about 2 or more people loving and caring for each other, sexual intimacy becomes another way for two or more people to worship the religion. Instead of having strong social ties between individuals, you get strong social ties to the group.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2560.0,"score_ratio":4.0588235294} {"post_id":"x1ptzj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Sex and monotheism I was discussing with a group of friends what could explain how strict religions, in particular monotheistic ones, are about sex life. It seems as though most belief systems exercise some control or at least judgement over sexual life (incest for example is quite oftenly condoned I believe). However in some cases the list of things which are forbidden get extreme to the point of \"everything is forbidden except sex for procreation\". And I have a hard time believing that it \"just happens\", there must be some internal logic and external factors which lead cultures to come to this conclusion. Hopefully this post is appropriate for this sub","c_root_id_A":"imf3115","c_root_id_B":"imfupsd","created_at_utc_A":1661883959,"created_at_utc_B":1661894567,"score_A":17,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"This is a really complicated set of issues, and you really have to take into account the specific histories of different religions, and whether religion works differently based on the kinds of political (power) systems a society has in place. But one thing to keep in mind is that one powerful way to control people is to control their sexuality. If you can get people to be willing to follow your rules in the most intimate and private moments, it will be very difficult for them to reject the group or the rules in other areas of their lives. As an added bonus, by getting people to follow your rules during sexual intimacy, you are putting the group (or religion) in between the people in the relationship. Instead of being about 2 or more people loving and caring for each other, sexual intimacy becomes another way for two or more people to worship the religion. Instead of having strong social ties between individuals, you get strong social ties to the group.","human_ref_B":"This is a very very broad topic - but first l want to pick at your question - are you asking why \u201cmonotheistic\u201d religions appear to be *more* obsessed with sex than polytheistic ones? Or are simply you asking why the big 3 Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) seem to be hyper fixated on who you can and can\u2019t sleep with? I ask this because I don\u2019t think the answer is connected to monotheism per se, but rather in the shared cultural roots between those 3 belief systems. As for why the abrahamic religions care about sex - it\u2019s the same broad reasons why all cultures and religions impose restrictions and guidelines on sexual procreation - because it often works to create a stable and successful society. Successful societies outlast unsuccessful ones and hence they endure. A society that, for lack of a better word, shames promiscuous parents into sticking with their offspring, and as an added bonus prevents the spread of sexual disease may end up outlasting a neighbouring civilization. (In a world without rubbers, Religion may be your best bet a contraception lol) And this is just scratching the surface.. mix in different cultural traditions regarding shame, self worth, individualism, collectivism, purity, cleanliness and honour and you can see that there is a lot more to the picture than just monotheism vs polytheism","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10608.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"b637cs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Do the head gestures nodding your head for yes, and shaking your head for no come from anywhere specific? If so, from where? And why\/how did they become so popular? My best guess is convienence?","c_root_id_A":"eji27yc","c_root_id_B":"ejk74gn","created_at_utc_A":1553701842,"created_at_utc_B":1553763967,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"[Inuits raise their eyebrows for yes and wrinkle their nose for no.] (https:\/\/cas.uab.edu\/peacefulsocieties\/2007\/01\/18\/gestures-display-meanings-in-an-inuit-village\/)","human_ref_B":"Not all cultures use their head in such a way. In Bulgaria and parts of Northern Greece (but not all of Greece) people shake their head to the side to mean yes. It can be very confusing!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":62125.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"t65ud4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I've seen a lot of (kind of sensational) articles claiming that neanderthals were incredibly strong compared to homo sapiens. But these comparisons are almost always done with modern humans, who live sedentary lives. What would that comparison look like if it was done with hunter gathers instead?","c_root_id_A":"hzazhlg","c_root_id_B":"hzaxfh1","created_at_utc_A":1646393537,"created_at_utc_B":1646391964,"score_A":21,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Many of the comparisons are done with *H. sapiens* remains that were contemporaneous. Don't confuse 'anatomically modern' with simply 'modern'. The muscle attachment points for Neanderthals are, generally speaking, larger, as are the bone cross sections. It's currently thought that the increased muscle mass Neanderthals carried meant that they had an increased minimum calorie intake requirement. The greater calorie requirement of Neanderthals compared to us is thought to have been one of the key things that led to the extinction of Neanderthals. - Churchill & Rhodes 2006 *How strong were the Neandertals? Leverage and muscularity at the shoulder and elbow in Mousterian foragers* - Hockett 2012 *The consequences of Middle Paleolithic diets on pregnant Neanderthal women* - Venner 2018 *A New Estimate for Neanderthal Energy Expenditure*","human_ref_B":"There was a recent NPR interview with a European museum curator on a book publishing tour. He described neanderthal as a wrestler and sapiens as a runner. He argued the difference in build was a factor in sapiens dominance in open plains which bacame prevailent with a warming climate. Also, big bodies are adapted to cool climates. I'm hunting for the interview. I think it's Clive Finlayson here: https:\/\/www.npr.org\/podcasts\/452538775\/on-the-media","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1573.0,"score_ratio":2.625} {"post_id":"a57tsw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there any theories as to the purpose of deliberate-lie traditions (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy) or why they are, as far as I can tell, unique to Western Christendom? I'm Jewish, so the whole practice of deliberately misleading children for extended periods (as in beyond a quick joke at their expense) and essentially gaslighting them is incredibly alien despite its commonality, and seems like it must be somehow connected to Christian ideas of virtue and sin.","c_root_id_A":"ebkocmf","c_root_id_B":"ebkof4u","created_at_utc_A":1544549279,"created_at_utc_B":1544549330,"score_A":48,"score_B":101,"human_ref_A":"Or, you're not versed in Judaism to know it exists also in it, e.g., leaving another sit at the table for Eliyahu Hanavi https:\/\/jewishaction.com\/religion\/shabbat-holidays\/passover\/whats-the-truth-about-eliyahu-hanavi-at-the-seder\/","human_ref_B":"Ok, so I'm Jewish too, and I just want to say for posterity's sake that I was lied to about quite a few things growing up, most of which were not supernatural [E: Another poster brought up Eliyahu haNavi, which is a great example of this happening around the Seder table]. Most systemic lies told to children are done for the sake of keeping them behaving well without needing to explain thousands of years of ethical theory. You could probably argue that secularism is what necessitates the treatment of the story as a \"myth\" (among adults) in the first place. In Michael Jackson's ethnography, *Life Within Limits: Well-Being in a World of Want*, he spends quite a bit of time discussing the importance of storytelling in constructing moral worldviews amongst the Kuranko of Sierra Leone. Most of these stories are reminiscent of the Grimm Fairy Tales type - gruesome, winding narratives which reflect values seemingly alien to contemporary, Western readers. Most of these tales involve abstract or mythical entities - personified \"gods\" like \"rice\" or \"rain\". There are also allegorical tales similar in structure to many biblical stories - for instance the tale of a son who leaves home and sees many strange things, then comes home and his father explains how these strange happenings symbolize the things the son has done. So these are stories told to children, to teach them morality through allegory, right? Well... The Kuranko believe in witchcraft, a crime for which they will bury the offender alive. They believe in the legitimacy of their founder myth, even while also touting it as moral allegory. Indeed, Jackson talks about the political utility of these stories, the importance and weight they are given - so much so that it is considered blasphemy to tell stories during the day, as it will literally kill your parents (and gives a humorous anecdote of a man telling a tale during the day with the excuse that his parents are already dead). The point I'm trying to make here is that, to the Kuranko, *it doesn't matter if the stories are true or not*. The distinction between fiction and fact is a modern invention, stemming from the need to distinguish between some scientific, objective reality and the mythologized, religious past. Perhaps the heart of this dichotomy does lie within Judeo-Christian tradition, with the need to prove the \"One, True God\". Even so, historically we are treated with all manner of Christian myth and fairytale highly reminiscent of the stories of the Kuranko. So, to answer your question, you'll find parents lying to their children about fairytales the world over. But the whole concept of \"fiction\" as being distinct from some objective reality is not a universal phenomenon. All that being said, there is a uniqueness to Santa\/Easter Bunny, in that the parents will alter reality in order to keep the myth believable to their children. In most cultures, these kinds of moral-comeuppance myths are usually self-fulfilling in a variety of mysterious\/symbolic ways. I wish I could think of an example from another culture, but I am honestly drawing a blank. Still, I hope this comment was at least somewhat helpful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":51.0,"score_ratio":2.1041666667} {"post_id":"a57tsw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there any theories as to the purpose of deliberate-lie traditions (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy) or why they are, as far as I can tell, unique to Western Christendom? I'm Jewish, so the whole practice of deliberately misleading children for extended periods (as in beyond a quick joke at their expense) and essentially gaslighting them is incredibly alien despite its commonality, and seems like it must be somehow connected to Christian ideas of virtue and sin.","c_root_id_A":"ebkzjcb","c_root_id_B":"ebkp6zb","created_at_utc_A":1544557490,"created_at_utc_B":1544549906,"score_A":26,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Did you come here to seek academic inquiry or to satisfy your preconceived notions about religion? From your argumentative responses, it seems like the latter.","human_ref_B":"So I think what you're asking is, are surviving European folk traditions the result of Christianization, or were pre-existing pagan \/ heathen folk traditions altered when those populations became Christian? The short answer is sometimes and frequently yes. But you asked about specific folklore, so I'll speak those examples specifically. Some of your examples are simply pre-Christian symbolism repackaged (the Easter Bunny is a fertility symbol, Christian Easter is really Ostara, rebranded to include Jesus & co.: http:\/\/www.religionfacts.com\/ostara), some have argued that contemporary Santa Claus is actually Odin \/ Wotan, but most disagree (there is probably the most evidence for Santa being St. Nicholas, who was a real person: https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2013\/12\/131219-santa-claus-origin-history-christmas-facts-st-nicholas\/), but Santa as we understand him in America and most of the West was a marketing invention, Coca-Cola probably being the most recognizable. According to this article from Smithsonian Magazine, every culture has a folk belief around children losing their teeth, but the Tooth Fairy as we know it is most likely a 20th Century American invention, having no direct link to religion at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7584.0,"score_ratio":1.2380952381} {"post_id":"a57tsw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there any theories as to the purpose of deliberate-lie traditions (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy) or why they are, as far as I can tell, unique to Western Christendom? I'm Jewish, so the whole practice of deliberately misleading children for extended periods (as in beyond a quick joke at their expense) and essentially gaslighting them is incredibly alien despite its commonality, and seems like it must be somehow connected to Christian ideas of virtue and sin.","c_root_id_A":"ebkog4j","c_root_id_B":"ebkzjcb","created_at_utc_A":1544549350,"created_at_utc_B":1544557490,"score_A":5,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"All of the examples you give link back to much older pagan traditions. Also, the afikomen?","human_ref_B":"Did you come here to seek academic inquiry or to satisfy your preconceived notions about religion? From your argumentative responses, it seems like the latter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8140.0,"score_ratio":5.2} {"post_id":"a57tsw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there any theories as to the purpose of deliberate-lie traditions (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy) or why they are, as far as I can tell, unique to Western Christendom? I'm Jewish, so the whole practice of deliberately misleading children for extended periods (as in beyond a quick joke at their expense) and essentially gaslighting them is incredibly alien despite its commonality, and seems like it must be somehow connected to Christian ideas of virtue and sin.","c_root_id_A":"ebkog4j","c_root_id_B":"ebkp6zb","created_at_utc_A":1544549350,"created_at_utc_B":1544549906,"score_A":5,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"All of the examples you give link back to much older pagan traditions. Also, the afikomen?","human_ref_B":"So I think what you're asking is, are surviving European folk traditions the result of Christianization, or were pre-existing pagan \/ heathen folk traditions altered when those populations became Christian? The short answer is sometimes and frequently yes. But you asked about specific folklore, so I'll speak those examples specifically. Some of your examples are simply pre-Christian symbolism repackaged (the Easter Bunny is a fertility symbol, Christian Easter is really Ostara, rebranded to include Jesus & co.: http:\/\/www.religionfacts.com\/ostara), some have argued that contemporary Santa Claus is actually Odin \/ Wotan, but most disagree (there is probably the most evidence for Santa being St. Nicholas, who was a real person: https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2013\/12\/131219-santa-claus-origin-history-christmas-facts-st-nicholas\/), but Santa as we understand him in America and most of the West was a marketing invention, Coca-Cola probably being the most recognizable. According to this article from Smithsonian Magazine, every culture has a folk belief around children losing their teeth, but the Tooth Fairy as we know it is most likely a 20th Century American invention, having no direct link to religion at all.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":556.0,"score_ratio":4.2} {"post_id":"o1kw0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Did the concept of private property begin with slavery, or stationary land ownership, or at least hereditary ownership of the surplus product (rent) generated from the land with the advent of large scale mass sedentary agriculture following the Neolithic revolution?","c_root_id_A":"h21nw44","c_root_id_B":"h223sdu","created_at_utc_A":1623898621,"created_at_utc_B":1623908478,"score_A":20,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"There is a difference between private property and personal property. Personal property usually applies to things that you use a lot that are yours because you use them. Your toothbrush, your clothes. You can share them easily. You \"own\" them. But everyone around the world has personal property, even if they don't share western neolib understandings of ownership that makes up private property. Private property tends to be land or houses or businesses, more so things like brands, digital spaces, urls, or digital cryptocurrencies. These are things you own and use to make money even if you're not doing the work. (I'm less strong on ideas about what private property has historically been than say, a marxist). Private property falls under the western neolib understanding of \"ownership\" that we have now. The first thing you need to understand when private property came about is that not a lot of people throughout history have had the understanding of it that western neolib people do now. I think the answer to your question depends on a lot more questions. Importantly, it depends on which group in history you are talking about. Ideas about property have developed at different rates in different places. Some things to consider: 1: People. Who are the people throughout history that have had the capacity to \"own\" \"private\" property? Men\/women, educated\/uneducated, white\/non-white, or high caste\/low caste etc. 2: Ownership: Does \"private\" property mean one person owns something? Or is it a group of people (a family - bc of inheritance). Or is it the person who \"worked\" for something? Is \"ownership\" used appropriately or do people think more about reciprocity? 3: Property: What can be owned? What can't be owned? What legal or moral basis do people have for ownership? Personally, I think that the concept of private property needs to be accepted generally amongst a society for it to have any legal or moral force behind it. That means there needs to be 1. the people who want to own things and have the power to own things 2. the institutions (like goverment and law) behind it and 3. a way of justifying this to other people. Some people say this happened in the 16th and 17th centuries in England when the idea of the possessive individual came about. I'm sure there will also be other people who think differently. I've written a bit about the possessive individual as C.B MacPherson defines it. He used the ideas of Hobbes, Locke, and Harrington: \"C.B MacPherson writes about the agency of people within a society from a historical, Western perspective...which helped create modern liberal-democratic political theories (1962:3). Possessive individualism is the idea that a \u201cpossessive quality is found in \\[the\\] conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owning nothing to society for them\u201d (MacPherson 1962:3). The idea of individuals is that they are solely responsible not only for their property, but also their minds, actions, and achievements. The interaction of the possessive individual with the market, the politic, and human nature was very particular. Amongst other things, people must own their labour, own their land, be willing to work more than others and desire more power over others (MacPherson 1962:54; 61). Those who work the most and own their land have power through the competitive market... MacPherson (1962:255-256) explained that Locke is neither an individualist nor a collectivist, but because Locke viewed the individual as a possessive individual, owing nothing to society for their own person and capabilities, he also must prioritise a political collective to govern over individuals. If he did not, people would not adhere to people\u2019s rights to property. MacPherson argued that there must be a collective agreement about the ideology of the possessive individual, and a government which is elected by those with the most power \u2013 the people with land, who work, and are at an advantage through the competitive market society.\"","human_ref_B":"In terms of your list of things required for private property to be morally or legally recognized by a given society, do you think \u2018security\u2019 of that property should be included? I\u2019m imaging feudal European society where there are seemingly constant wars and alliances, and \u2018owners\u2019 being stripped of titles and lands... I recognize that\u2019s maybe getting more into history as opposed to anthropology, but I\u2019m thinking if a chief or a tribe at large claims ownership over an area of land that is repeatedly changing hands, the concept of ownership might be a bit more fluid?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9857.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"uo4b7g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"how would cultural relativism view sexism in a patriarchal society as opposed to universalism? My understanding of cultural relativism is that it would see the sexism as a part of the society's culture and therefore justify it occurring because it is an aspect of culture. Universalism would be about a singular ideal applying to all humans, and would not justify the sexism because it is unique to a certain culture, and is rather wrong because it is not idealistic.","c_root_id_A":"i8c6bot","c_root_id_B":"i8c2xub","created_at_utc_A":1652373726,"created_at_utc_B":1652372407,"score_A":20,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"My usual response to this has already been linked, so let me briefly address your text. Cultural relativism is the methodological, analytical approach that says that in order to understand something, you must observe and describe it in terms of its cultural context. What does this look like? Sexism exists in many places. I have observed sexism in elite private high schools in the USA, and I have observed sexism in professional organizations for young business owners in Latin America. The universalizing approach says \"Because both are instances of sexism, they must have some similarities, and things I learn about how sexism in the first case can be applied in the second.\" Cultural relativism says \"These individual behaviors may be similar, but they occur in very different political, cultural, linguistic, historic, and geographic contexts. I can't assume that they are the same thing. I should study each case on its own before I think about comparisons.\" One word, for instance, might have sexist connotations in one part of the world and have been reclaimed as empowering self-identifier in another part. The universalist position would call one of these the word's \"correct\" meaning and interpret all other uses as somehow derivative of that. Cultural relativism recgonizes that words aren't fixed things, and tries to understand the many particular uses. Does that seem a little obvious? Well, it should. Cultural relativism is such an ingrained part of how anthropology, and even most social sciences, work that it can be a hard concept to conceptualize because it's just how we do things. At no point does this involve \"justifying\" it or saying it's \"wrong.\" It's only after the fact that anthropological research informs how we approach sexism, and it usually does so by saying \"Hey, let's look at the particular context of this issue, because the solution you found for that group over there might not work here too, even if the problem is, on the surface, the same.\"","human_ref_B":"This comment by u\/CommodoreCoCo covers how cultural relativism is not the same thing as moral relativism. It isn\u2019t used to provide a moral justification for anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1319.0,"score_ratio":1.8181818182} {"post_id":"zj0chf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What do you see as the main difference between anthropology and sociology?","c_root_id_A":"iztouii","c_root_id_B":"iztba9p","created_at_utc_A":1670788208,"created_at_utc_B":1670782957,"score_A":19,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Today I think the difference is more one of emphasis -- culture vs social structure, and a different set of disciplinary references. (I talking about social or cultural anthro here) Historically both are rooted in the non-disciplinary specific history of social thought that arose in Europe in the 18th century. None of the founding parents of either discipline were technically sociologists or anthropologists -- they studied philosophy, history, classics, or law. The core questions these social thinkers were asking revolved around what made Europe different from the rest of the world. New and exciting data was coming in from all over the world, and the developing industrial world was changing faster and faster. This led to a binary model of \"civilized\" vs \"primitive\" or \"europe\" vs \"the rest of the world.\" The dominant model of human life all social scientists were working with at the time posited an evolutionary model of human history. So both disciplines started off with a general model or set of laws about human groups, and the idea that \"modern\" societies were qualitatively different than \"traditional\" societies. Eventually sociology became the study of \"modern\" societies (ie: Europe and the US, maybe Canada and Australia) and anthropology the study of the \"traditional.\" Both disciplines were using a mish mash of qualitative and quantitative methods, they were really just trying to figure out how to do good empirical research and they made a lot of mistakes. Once evolutionary thinking fell out of favor, the difference became more about study your own society vs studying other societies. But all the research centers were in industrialized countries, so it was not much different. After rejecting evolutionary models, sociology held onto the idea that we could come up with general laws to describe human societies, but they were more about how systems work than with how societies change. Anthropology threw away the pursuit of general laws with evolutionary theory, and began to focus much more on specific local cultures and how people's ways of looking at and understanding the world shaped how they experienced it and described it. These different focuses pushed sociology more towards the quantitative, and anthropology more towards the qualitative. But both disciplines always contained both approaches. Sociology became more useful to governments who wanted to know how to control and contain their own populations, while anthropology was more useful to colonial governments' attempts to control colonial populations. The rise of postcolonial thought, postmodernism, and scholarship from outside Europe and the US impacted anthropology first. They really had to rethink their role in colonial history and in creating discourses of European superiority. This has pushed the field even more into qualitative research and away from the idea of general laws or models of human social life or social change. Increasingly anthropologists study their own societies, and the history of interactions between societies. But the focus tends to be on culture -- how people think and the connections between how people think and how they act. Sociology is much more resistant to exploring their rootedness in modern efforts at social control. A lot of that critique had to come from feminist and race\/ethnicity scholars. But the rise (or perhaps revision) of globalization in the 80's did turn attention more towards global systems, historical developments and qualitative research. Countries with histories of colonization have taken up sociology to study their own societies more than they have taken up anthropology. Sociology has grown, but also become more fractured. Some parts of sociology are almost indistinguishable from anthro. Others continue to be very quantitative and focused on systems, models, and networks. But again the focus is often on systems -- how the way people organize themselves in relation to each other shapes the way they think and act. There is a whole other conversation about the history of scholarship that explored social and cultural life in pre-modern societies (especially from Islamic and Arabic sources and Chinese and other Asian sources), and it is an important discussion if we were talking about the longer history of how humans study themselves. But I have left it aside to focus on the specific question of how anthro and soc came to be different disciplines.","human_ref_B":"Traditionally, cultural anthropologists have studied pre-industrial societies whereas sociologists are studying industrial or post-industrial societies. However, those lines are being blurred more and more and I personally know \"Cultural Anthropologists\" who study \"post-industrial populations\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5251.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"zj0chf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What do you see as the main difference between anthropology and sociology?","c_root_id_A":"izu1xqq","c_root_id_B":"iztba9p","created_at_utc_A":1670793183,"created_at_utc_B":1670782957,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You might find my answer here helpful. In short, as far as topics that I've read both anthro and socio publications from, anthropologists are more likely to ask big questions about small things and sociologists are more likely to ask small quesitons about big things. An ethnographer might ask how gender, class, and nationality are constructed among a single group of souvenir vendors whereas the sociologist will ask about the impacts of a single municipal statute on souvenir vendors across the whole city. Again, though, as others have said, it's often got a heck of a lot more to do with what department you're in and what's written on your degree than what research you actually do.","human_ref_B":"Traditionally, cultural anthropologists have studied pre-industrial societies whereas sociologists are studying industrial or post-industrial societies. However, those lines are being blurred more and more and I personally know \"Cultural Anthropologists\" who study \"post-industrial populations\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10226.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"zhaffp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did paleolithic homo sapien deal with big cats in their foray across the world? Is there any anthropological evidence with regards to how h.sapiens dealt with big cats in both defensive and offensive contexts in the past? Any answers about modern-day hunter-gatherer conflicts with big cats would also be appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"izm9ep3","c_root_id_B":"izlym4x","created_at_utc_A":1670643057,"created_at_utc_B":1670637621,"score_A":48,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I recall a study suggesting that human-looking masks unearthed in the archaeology of modern-day NW India were carved specifically to fit the *back* of the head and not the front. I need to go digging (haha), but memory says ~9k-7k BCE on the artefacts. The authors' suggestion was that the masks could have been effective in helping deter ambush predators like cats. This was based on a reconstruction of the masks, worn on the back of the head, and the response of modern predatory cats to those masks in a controlled environment. The masks were catalogued in both adult and child sizes, though obviously extrapolated from fragmentary evidence, so take everything with lots of salt. The authors' suggestion was that mesolithic\/neolithic peoples facing predation by cats may have worn these on the back of their heads as a deterrent to ambush attacks, esp. against children. Edit: I'm sure this study was the focus of some \"History Channel\" docu-drama or similar. In fact, the program team tested the hypothesis using simple printed paper masks strapped to the back of researchers' heads - which worked v. well. I'll see if I can dig that up, b\/c it was quite entertaining to watch.","human_ref_B":"I'm not aware of any hard evidence of tactics used millennia ago, but there are people who still deal with lions on a regular basis. Research Maasai tribe?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5436.0,"score_ratio":2.5263157895} {"post_id":"zhaffp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did paleolithic homo sapien deal with big cats in their foray across the world? Is there any anthropological evidence with regards to how h.sapiens dealt with big cats in both defensive and offensive contexts in the past? Any answers about modern-day hunter-gatherer conflicts with big cats would also be appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"izlym4x","c_root_id_B":"izn7z0g","created_at_utc_A":1670637621,"created_at_utc_B":1670668065,"score_A":19,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I'm not aware of any hard evidence of tactics used millennia ago, but there are people who still deal with lions on a regular basis. Research Maasai tribe?","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist. Years ago was I on a seminar with a professor in etology specialized in dogs. He had spend a nice portion of his life studying the relationship between dogs\/canines and humans especially in less developed part of the world, where they still keep dogs like they have in historic times. Once he was somewhere in Africa, where he saw some small-ish dogs in a village. He asked the residents, what they used the dogs for, and they said, they keept them for protections against lions. A bit baffled, he asked, how these small dogs could fight of a big lion? Easy. They can't. The villagers just counted on the dog to make enough fuss before the lion killed it, that they would be warned and have time to gather together, get the kids behind them and scare of the lion with weapons. It is probably not unreasonable, what earliere men used similar warningsystems. Many ambush predators give up, if the prey discover them and start acting accordingly.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30444.0,"score_ratio":1.2631578947} {"post_id":"zhaffp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did paleolithic homo sapien deal with big cats in their foray across the world? Is there any anthropological evidence with regards to how h.sapiens dealt with big cats in both defensive and offensive contexts in the past? Any answers about modern-day hunter-gatherer conflicts with big cats would also be appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"izn0ihp","c_root_id_B":"izn7z0g","created_at_utc_A":1670661595,"created_at_utc_B":1670668065,"score_A":8,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Looking at two social animals that deal with the same predation. Gelada, will make alarm calls and run to a safe area when leopards are spotted. Chimps group together and try to find where the leopard is. https:\/\/www.eva.mpg.de\/fileadmin\/content_files\/staff\/boesch\/pdf\/behav_leopard_predation.pdf","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist. Years ago was I on a seminar with a professor in etology specialized in dogs. He had spend a nice portion of his life studying the relationship between dogs\/canines and humans especially in less developed part of the world, where they still keep dogs like they have in historic times. Once he was somewhere in Africa, where he saw some small-ish dogs in a village. He asked the residents, what they used the dogs for, and they said, they keept them for protections against lions. A bit baffled, he asked, how these small dogs could fight of a big lion? Easy. They can't. The villagers just counted on the dog to make enough fuss before the lion killed it, that they would be warned and have time to gather together, get the kids behind them and scare of the lion with weapons. It is probably not unreasonable, what earliere men used similar warningsystems. Many ambush predators give up, if the prey discover them and start acting accordingly.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6470.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"zx3l2c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Were dogs domesticated separately in the Old and New World, or did the original populations that crossed the Bering Straight bring their dogs with them from Siberia?","c_root_id_A":"j1zn0u4","c_root_id_B":"j1zfq1e","created_at_utc_A":1672244462,"created_at_utc_B":1672241391,"score_A":75,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"See most recent work on the subject Perri, Angela R., et al. \"Dog domestication and the dual dispersal of people and dogs into the Americas.\" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118.6 (2021): e2010083118. ​ >\"Advances in the isolation and sequencing of ancient DNA have begun to reveal the population histories of both people and dogs. Over the last 10,000 y, the genetic signatures of ancient dog remains have been linked with known human dispersals in regions such as the Arctic and the remote Pacific. It is suspected, however, that this relationship has a much deeper antiquity, and that the tandem movement of people and dogs may have begun soon after the domestication of the dog from a gray wolf ancestor in the late Pleistocene. Here, by comparing population genetic results of humans and dogs from Siberia, Beringia, and North America, we show that there is a close correlation in the movement and divergences of their respective lineages. This evidence places constraints on when and where dog domestication took place. Most significantly, it suggests that dogs were domesticated in Siberia by \u223c23,000 y ago, possibly while both people and wolves were isolated during the harsh climate of the Last Glacial Maximum. Dogs then accompanied the first people into the Americas and traveled with them as humans rapidly dispersed into the continent beginning \u223c15,000 y ago.\"","human_ref_B":"We don't really know how they got there, but there are remains in Danger Cave, Utah, from around 9,000 years ago. It was briefly mentioned in an interview here, but that burial site might be a good place to start. They're referenced more here, though the article isn't focused on dogs. I'm afraid I can't point you at more scholarly sources.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3071.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"xvk10r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How did hunter gatherers deal with old and disabled people who could not carry themselves? In sedimentary societies, if someone is sick and disabled you can keep them in bed in a shelter. But hunter gatherers need to be constantly on the move. They need every hand available in order for the tribe to survive. Now in such a situation, what happened to people who were old and sick? Hunter gatherers did not have the tools or the infrastructure to carry people around on a long term basis, right? So how did they deal with them?","c_root_id_A":"ir1ilb9","c_root_id_B":"ir1sla5","created_at_utc_A":1664904664,"created_at_utc_B":1664908440,"score_A":40,"score_B":157,"human_ref_A":"In the case of at least some Homo erectus groups, aged and infirm individuals were cared for. A 1.77 million year old specimen from Georgia for example had lost all but one tooth due to age or gum disease, the earliest example of severe chewing impairment, yet still survived for several years afterwards. Similarly a 1.5 million year old specimen from Lake Turkana had juvenile spinal disc herniation - which caused some scoliosis (abnormal spine curvature) and likely left the individual with lower back pain and sciatic (limiting his ability to walk, run and bend)(Haeusler et al. 2013). Nevertheless, the specimen appears to have survived into adolescence, suggesting some kind of group support. Well-healed fractures on many Neanderthal bones similarly indicate the setting of splints, while individuals with severe head and rib traumas (which would have caused massive blood loss) indicate they had some manner of dressing major wounds, such as bandages made from animal skin (Spikins et al. 2019). References Haeusler M, Schiess R, Boeni T (2013). \"Evidence for juvenile disc herniation in a homo erectus boy skeleton\" (PDF). Spine. 38 (3): E123\u2013E128. Lordkipanidze D, Vekua A, Ferring R, Rightmire GP, Agusti J, Kiladze G, et al. (2005). \"Anthropology: the earliest toothless hominin skull\". Nature. 434 (7034): 717\u2013718. Spikins, P.; Needham, A.; Wright, B. (2019). \"Living to fight another day: The ecological and evolutionary significance of Neanderthal healthcare\". Quaternary Science Reviews. 217: 98\u2013118.","human_ref_B":"Strictly utilitarian views on human societies are generally not very useful from the perspective of understanding human behavior, because they ignore the fact that people in human societies are **people**. Not robots. >**But hunter gatherers need to be constantly on the move.** First... Hunter-gatherers aren't \"constantly on the move.\" While mobility strategies vary *significantly* across time and space-- geographic region, environment, population \/ group size, etc.-- most ethnographic data suggests duration of occupation of locations ranges from a few weeks to a season to-- in the case of sedentary hunter gatherers in extremely rich environments-- indefinite periods of time. In my opinion, the biggest disservice that 1950s through 1970s hunter-gatherer ethnographic studies did to our concept of hunter-gatherers was to frame hunter-gatherers *in general* in terms of groups like the Hadza, who live in relatively marginal environments. Evidence from around the world suggests that in a significant number of cases-- perhaps the majority-- hunter-gatherers occupied fairly abundant environments. Second... >**They need every hand available in order for the tribe to survive.** Viewing people in a society purely from their utilitarian value is not justified or appropriate. People are more than the number of calories they can produce. Members of hunter-gatherer groups provide other value to their groups besides simply how many palm fruits they could carry today. But even from a strictly utilitarian perspective, older and less mobile members of a group have significant value. Children may or may not be able to leave the camp. These less mobile members of the group can provide child care. They can also assist with tasks in-camp. From a less utilitarian perspective, older members of a group represent a source of knowledge and experience. They are the institutional memory. >**Now in such a situation, what happened to people who were old and sick? Hunter gatherers did not have the tools or the infrastructure to carry people around on a long term basis, right? So how did they deal with them?** **They cared \/ care for them.** Hunter-gatherer groups absolutely have the capability to transport members of their group(s) who are unable to transport themselves, fully or partially. But here's the thing. We have abundant evidence from the archaeological and paleontological record that members of ancient hunter-gatherer groups *did* in fact provide long-term care for disabled members of their societies. The instances of healed injuries that-- when they were unhealed-- would have been incredibly debilitating are too innumerable to mention. Broken bones, severely in some cases, that would not have healed rapidly. One case I recall examining when in grad school involved a series of rib fractures across one entire side of the rib cage. Probably a result of a blunt force impact. They were healed, but having had *one* broken rib in my life, I can attest to the debilitation that this person would have experienced. Here's another one that I tend to view as especially significant. **https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/2686462\/** In northeast Florida sometime between 6000 and 8000 years ago, one group of people who would have been nothing but hunter-gatherers, cared for and supported a disabled child from birth to the age of 15 or so. Then when he died, likely from a massive systemic infection, they buried him carefully where they buried other members of their group. The child was born with spina bifida, a condition that was not curable at the time, nor was it really treatable. The child-- a boy-- would have had likely neurological defects that would have left him pretty disabled, and certainly not able to contribute to the daily caloric requirement of the group. His bones were atrophied from a lack of use, so he was essentially \"useless\" from the strictly utilitarian side of things. Near his death in his mid-teens, he also suffered a severe infection of his right lower leg, to the degree that his foot would likely have been gone by the time he died. The infection probably killed him. Despite these problems, he lasted 15 years. And there is no explanation for that except that he was cared for that entire time by his group.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3776.0,"score_ratio":3.925} {"post_id":"zo4ms5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Is the desire to qualify and organise epistemic concepts an inherent human trait or a cultural trait? Big time shower thought so I\u2019m not really sure how exactly to express this but I\u2019ll give it a shot. We seem to be obsessed with qualifying and distinguishing between concepts, even one\u2019s that aren\u2019t necessarily \u2018real\u2019. We organise ourselves into named groups and countries, we organise our disciplines into distinct fields of knowledge, we organise the world around us into categorised concepts like species, languages, dialects, planets, moons etc. When you think about it, the conceptual lines that we draw between things aren\u2019t as clear-cut and distinct in the real world as we make them out to be. Countries are social fictions that we made up, Pluto may or may not be a planet depending on how you look at it, species and languages are constantly changing and evolving. None of these categories really make much sense in the real world, but we impulsively categorise them regardless. My question is, is this impulse to categorise and conceptualise an innate human trait, or is it a cultural phenomenon that\u2019s associated more with particular cultures than with others?","c_root_id_A":"j0lp7r7","c_root_id_B":"j0lwmyo","created_at_utc_A":1671295744,"created_at_utc_B":1671298849,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"> None of these categories really make much sense in the real world What makes you think that? Many of our categories are quite useful in human life and many seem to exist objectively in the world - how does that \"make no sense\"? > the conceptual lines that we draw between things aren\u2019t as clear-cut and distinct in the real world as we make them out to be. Just because the boundaries are vague doesn't make a category useless or nonsensical","human_ref_B":"I would check out Foucault's \"The Order of Things\" for an interesting discussion of exactly this question. Here's a quote from the introduction, talking about a book by Borges: > This passage quotes a \u201ccertain Chinese encyclopedia\u201d in which it is written that \u201canimals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classi\ufb01cation, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very \ufb01ne camelhair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off\u201d look like \ufb02ies\u201d. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3105.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"tpabku","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Why is the concept of anomie not more widespread\/acknowledged in the U.S? **tl;dr** *what do anthropologists see in American culture that explains or relates to this issue?* To me, it seems obvious that so many of the social problems faced today in western culture are wrapped up with anomie. The strained social cohesion\/connections, the breakdown of intergenerational cultural transmission, the rise in anxiety, suicides, and other mental health issues, the actual breakdown and\/or rapid change of norms combined with the mere perception of change\u2026so many things\u2026yet the common refrain: \u201cwhat could be causing all of these problems? Social media? It\u2019s all such a mystery!\u201d Like, no, this is clearly anomie, a systemic issue with multifaceted inputs and outputs but ultimately rooted in the disorientation of the individual caused by the actual or perceived disruption of social and economic institutions. I get that anomie\/Durkheim and Merton are sociology, but all that aside, from a cultural perspective, why is the idea being ignored? Why are community activists not pointing it out? It\u2019s not like it\u2019s new or too difficult to understand (if systemic racism is comprehensible to a general population then this should be, too). Why do I find informative blurbs about it online for students but not write-ups about how we as a society are facing it and need to address these issues as connected systems rather than compartmentalized bucket list items?","c_root_id_A":"i2j51z6","c_root_id_B":"i2ay7uw","created_at_utc_A":1648532140,"created_at_utc_B":1648382070,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Since 2021, 7,400 academic articles were published that discussed anomie, and that's just what's on Google Scholar. That's over 16 articles per day. We can speculate several reasons why it hasn't entered popular discourse. For one, anomie isn't the only framework within which to view these sorts of feelings. Even drawing from just the other grandfathers of social science, you have Marx's \"alienation\" and Weber's \"disenchantment.\" These aren't synonymous at all, but get at similar notions of societal detachment. So when some looks at, say, generalized anxiety in basically everyone, anomie isn't the only option. On that note, let's compare Marx and Durkheim contextually. Basically any social scientist can trace their heritage back to one, or both of them, and they occupy somewhat opposing schools of thought. Marx was concerned with history, evolution, conflict, and change, while Durkheim focused on present functions, structures, and cohesion. Neither is correct, of course; as a rule, societies change and, as a rule, societies stick together. What's important here is how they understand individual feelings of isolation. For Marx, alienation was an intentional feature of industrial society. For Durkheim, anomie was a social pathology- yes, literally, a pathology, Durkheim often went pretty far with his \"society=a living body\" schtick. And so we might talk about how anomie's depiction as a sort of external affliction doesn't match what many folks see in 21st-century society, where, in the US at least, disruptions are intentional and systemic issues are historical. Social media, for instance, doesn't just *happen to* have disrupted traditional sociality. People make money off it, and they make even more money the more people depend on it. Toxic parasociality with content creators is terrifying, and certainly has a positive feedback loop with anomie. But is it really the best to understand what's going on here in Durkheimian terms? **But that's overthinking it** A better reason is that anomie has never been a well-defined concept. To quote this article. > It might even be said that there is no term more confidently and uncritically employed as anomic, which is at the same time one of the most obscure and unsatisfactory in the sociological vocabulary. Thus what ends up happening is that definitions and use of anomie can vary from study to study. Is anomie the societal state in which individuals feel disconnected? Is it the feeling of social disconnection? Is it the self-isolation and anxiety that results from this? It's all of those, it seems. And that's without considering Merton's definition, which is much more about functionalist explanations for \"deviance\" than any sort of general social evaluation. Consider this study. > The present study was conducted to examine traits of anomie emanating from refugee women\u2019s integration narratives. The integration experiences offer insight to the problems the refugee women face in seeking to integrate into the local community. Factors such as limited English language proficiency, high costs of living, lack of extensive network for support, family roles, coupled with past traumatic experiences beset transitions. The refugee women struggle to establish a place to flourish within constrained opportunities and consequently become withdrawn and isolated. Anomie in form of retreatism is birthed as the refugee women perceive a foreclosure from social structures in their efforts to integrate. What does this tell us? In my opinion as an anthropologist, not much. Certainly African immigrants to the US Midwest would experience anomie, and I could have listed those reasons without reading the accounts in the article. Taken together, these pieces make anomie feel like the equivalent of the doctor telling you \"you've got a cough, and the infection's viral!\" It doesn't tell us much more than we already. Anomie is a good word for describing the feelings and experience of individuals, but it's not useful for describing a general societal condition. Pinning all these thing on anomie isn't...*wrong*... it's just not very helpful. It might be helpful if you can provide some clear examples of this: > the actual breakdown and\/or rapid change of norms","human_ref_B":"I think it is ignored by different people for differen reasons: Science: It is a very nebulous and complex problem with unbelievably many facets and points of view. A term can be so unspecific and general that it looses relevance and attractiveness. General public: Most people lack the equipment to deal with concepts like this as well as the will to engange with them. Introducting somebody who hasn't even a functional definition of culture to anomie would be a challenge. Economy and politics: Having a number of different societal subgroups creates market niches. I think you might know enough about it and I don't feel like ranting atm, so I won't elaborate any further. (Edit: Also engineer societal cohesion is not only difficult in our current economic environment, but could become quiet problematic pretty fast.)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":150070.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qs9bxo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How is the concept of reverse anthropology thought of in the academic world? I have been seeing the term reverse anthropology show up across social media with seemingly varying definitions. The basic idea does seems to stipulate that it is anthropology conducted by the lower class or marginalised groups looking upwards and dissecting\/exposing more priviliged or upper class groups. I can't say that I understand why this doesn't just fall under anthropology so i'm wondering if this has any academic backing? If so what are some good resources so I can educate myself about this?","c_root_id_A":"hkcpcnx","c_root_id_B":"hkf1xm0","created_at_utc_A":1636736524,"created_at_utc_B":1636774806,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I haven't heard the term 'reverse anthropology' before, but it seems to typify the approach taken in recent decades within Science and Technology Studies... in which the scientists represent the privileged\/high status group, and those in the humanities studying them are the relatively more marginalised group. The best known example of this is the book *Laboratory Life* by the French philosopher Bruno Latour. He spent several years as an observer at a major scientific laboratory and then set out to describe the activities of the scientists as if he were an anthropologist describing the activities of a distant tribe. As it says in the book's intro, he set out to produce an \"objective observation by an outsider of scientists at work, as if they were a colony of ants or of rats in a maze\".","human_ref_B":"A good example would be LATAM. In LATAM we have what we call 'southern anthropologies' or antropolog\u00edas del sur (note the plural). As you know anthropology is no longer just a discipline of the Nor Atlantic academics, and it's definitely no longer a situation where we have people come to our countries \u00e0 la Margaret Mead to study our socio- cultural 'phenomenons' and write their conclusions. Nowadays if someone comes from the outside they'll find themselves collaborating with the local experts (that in many cases are people from the same community). The native informant- external \"expert\" relationship has been substituted by an internal \"expert\"- external \"expert\" relationship. We have several institutions (Universities, institutes, museums, magazines, publications, societies, conferences, etc) dedicated to anthropology and also many people working in this field. Considering the roots classical anthropology has in colonialism you might understand why it would be ridiculous for us no to remake a way to study ourselves and our communities with different and more inclusive perspectives that are not necessarily based on \"unilineal developmental ideas\" from other places. It's just anthropology, they are calling it \"reverse anthropology\" as a conscious admission of the shift in the power dynamics from before. Note: I don't know how the word \"marginalized\" ends up in the mix, at least here we don't see it as \"marginalized' communities or minorities taking over the field. Then again, it's weird to try to think yourself as a marginalized minority inside our own freaking community... It probably just depends on who is the speaker, but that on itself says a lot. They're still making the that distinction, \ud83d\udc80.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38282.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qs9bxo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How is the concept of reverse anthropology thought of in the academic world? I have been seeing the term reverse anthropology show up across social media with seemingly varying definitions. The basic idea does seems to stipulate that it is anthropology conducted by the lower class or marginalised groups looking upwards and dissecting\/exposing more priviliged or upper class groups. I can't say that I understand why this doesn't just fall under anthropology so i'm wondering if this has any academic backing? If so what are some good resources so I can educate myself about this?","c_root_id_A":"hkf1xm0","c_root_id_B":"hkd7oxb","created_at_utc_A":1636774806,"created_at_utc_B":1636744054,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A good example would be LATAM. In LATAM we have what we call 'southern anthropologies' or antropolog\u00edas del sur (note the plural). As you know anthropology is no longer just a discipline of the Nor Atlantic academics, and it's definitely no longer a situation where we have people come to our countries \u00e0 la Margaret Mead to study our socio- cultural 'phenomenons' and write their conclusions. Nowadays if someone comes from the outside they'll find themselves collaborating with the local experts (that in many cases are people from the same community). The native informant- external \"expert\" relationship has been substituted by an internal \"expert\"- external \"expert\" relationship. We have several institutions (Universities, institutes, museums, magazines, publications, societies, conferences, etc) dedicated to anthropology and also many people working in this field. Considering the roots classical anthropology has in colonialism you might understand why it would be ridiculous for us no to remake a way to study ourselves and our communities with different and more inclusive perspectives that are not necessarily based on \"unilineal developmental ideas\" from other places. It's just anthropology, they are calling it \"reverse anthropology\" as a conscious admission of the shift in the power dynamics from before. Note: I don't know how the word \"marginalized\" ends up in the mix, at least here we don't see it as \"marginalized' communities or minorities taking over the field. Then again, it's weird to try to think yourself as a marginalized minority inside our own freaking community... It probably just depends on who is the speaker, but that on itself says a lot. They're still making the that distinction, \ud83d\udc80.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t really know the term but here in Colombia, and i believe Latinoamerica, we use the term \u201cantropolog\u00edas del sur\u201d when we talk about local anthropologists making anthropology in our countries. Because there\u2019s this debate that we are not really recognized by the anthropologists from the \u201cnorth\u201d. North is not really a geographical place but rather another word for west. I don\u2019t know if this is what you are searching as anthropologist of the south sometimes are privileged as well in our countries.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30752.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"88q8jk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why and when did homosapiens develop such a fascination or even an obsession with material objects that hold no practical benefit to survival, or have no use other than to be possessed? Things such as \"precious\" metals and stones... or even art.","c_root_id_A":"dwmlkei","c_root_id_B":"dwmuep5","created_at_utc_A":1522592286,"created_at_utc_B":1522602388,"score_A":23,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"It's hard to give definitive \"why\"s for evolution, but one plausible theory is that many animals are attracted to shiny\/sparkly things because by far the most common shiny\/sparkly thing in nature is water, which obviously *does* have a practical benefit to survival.","human_ref_B":"I think its a mistake to think about objects as divided between functional for survival or not. A sad reflection on the state of thinking in evolutionary sciences esp when popularised. The ethnographic record should teach us that humans don't have a neat divide between functional and aesthetic. The worldviews of many peoples blends concepts of cosmology, personhood, materials and decoration into one coherent ontology, not a simple binary. How to explain Mesolithic graves where someone stood and knapped an entire blade core into the grave, blades are functional no? Why would they need them in the grave? Take Skateholm in Sweden, why would a buried dog need an antler hammer? Look at the Langdale greenstone axes, axes are functional or are they attractive, or is there some quality we don't understand that straddles both? We are missing the context in which material culture arises in almost all of prehistory, why would someone go to the trouble of carving out an ornate beetle from lignite and carry it around alongside an actual necklace trilobite fossil? Unless perhaps there were taboos that had been violated and needed restoring thus allowing animals to be fished and hunted. We just don't know. But we shouldn't fall into this trap of dividing objects into functional and not functional.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10102.0,"score_ratio":1.6956521739} {"post_id":"88q8jk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why and when did homosapiens develop such a fascination or even an obsession with material objects that hold no practical benefit to survival, or have no use other than to be possessed? Things such as \"precious\" metals and stones... or even art.","c_root_id_A":"dwmuep5","c_root_id_B":"dwmnuiy","created_at_utc_A":1522602388,"created_at_utc_B":1522595094,"score_A":39,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I think its a mistake to think about objects as divided between functional for survival or not. A sad reflection on the state of thinking in evolutionary sciences esp when popularised. The ethnographic record should teach us that humans don't have a neat divide between functional and aesthetic. The worldviews of many peoples blends concepts of cosmology, personhood, materials and decoration into one coherent ontology, not a simple binary. How to explain Mesolithic graves where someone stood and knapped an entire blade core into the grave, blades are functional no? Why would they need them in the grave? Take Skateholm in Sweden, why would a buried dog need an antler hammer? Look at the Langdale greenstone axes, axes are functional or are they attractive, or is there some quality we don't understand that straddles both? We are missing the context in which material culture arises in almost all of prehistory, why would someone go to the trouble of carving out an ornate beetle from lignite and carry it around alongside an actual necklace trilobite fossil? Unless perhaps there were taboos that had been violated and needed restoring thus allowing animals to be fished and hunted. We just don't know. But we shouldn't fall into this trap of dividing objects into functional and not functional.","human_ref_B":"That predilection probably predates the actual evolution of *Homo sapiens*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7294.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"88q8jk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why and when did homosapiens develop such a fascination or even an obsession with material objects that hold no practical benefit to survival, or have no use other than to be possessed? Things such as \"precious\" metals and stones... or even art.","c_root_id_A":"dwmuep5","c_root_id_B":"dwmo7tx","created_at_utc_A":1522602388,"created_at_utc_B":1522595538,"score_A":39,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I think its a mistake to think about objects as divided between functional for survival or not. A sad reflection on the state of thinking in evolutionary sciences esp when popularised. The ethnographic record should teach us that humans don't have a neat divide between functional and aesthetic. The worldviews of many peoples blends concepts of cosmology, personhood, materials and decoration into one coherent ontology, not a simple binary. How to explain Mesolithic graves where someone stood and knapped an entire blade core into the grave, blades are functional no? Why would they need them in the grave? Take Skateholm in Sweden, why would a buried dog need an antler hammer? Look at the Langdale greenstone axes, axes are functional or are they attractive, or is there some quality we don't understand that straddles both? We are missing the context in which material culture arises in almost all of prehistory, why would someone go to the trouble of carving out an ornate beetle from lignite and carry it around alongside an actual necklace trilobite fossil? Unless perhaps there were taboos that had been violated and needed restoring thus allowing animals to be fished and hunted. We just don't know. But we shouldn't fall into this trap of dividing objects into functional and not functional.","human_ref_B":"In terms of when AFAIK Blombos Cave has the oldest recorded use of Ochre. But there is also the 500k year-old red quartzite hand-ax found at Sima that though it had practical utility was akin to a modern \"golden gun\" in comparison to other hand-axes of the time. Blombos cave not only has the earliest known use of pigment it also serves as one of the earliest recorded sites with evidence of jewelry making. In Croatia also about 100-130kya 6 eagle talons were found together and appeared to have been at one point strung on a cord by Neanderthals. Summing it up about 100kya we can find evidence that premodern Homosaps and Neanderthals were creating material objects that had no \"practical\" benefit in the form of jewelry suggesting that the antecedent behavior, e.g preference for novel\/shiny\/colorful objects, existed at least as far back as that time period. However, as others have noted we are not alone in our proclivities towards collecting various and sundry aesthetically pleasing objects. This suggests, to me anyways, that problem solving species, or species that use objects to woo mates, are more likely to find objects aesthetically pleasing for unrelated reasons as a kind of neurological spill over effect. Natural parameters limiting the spill over are at the mins and maxes of the object acquisition spectrum. E.g no object curation limits mate opportunities or novel problem solving abilities. At the other end, hoarding also limits mate selection and maybe increases predation potential or diminishing returns. But this last section is all totally speculation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6850.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"88q8jk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why and when did homosapiens develop such a fascination or even an obsession with material objects that hold no practical benefit to survival, or have no use other than to be possessed? Things such as \"precious\" metals and stones... or even art.","c_root_id_A":"dwmuep5","c_root_id_B":"dwmsbdx","created_at_utc_A":1522602388,"created_at_utc_B":1522600153,"score_A":39,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I think its a mistake to think about objects as divided between functional for survival or not. A sad reflection on the state of thinking in evolutionary sciences esp when popularised. The ethnographic record should teach us that humans don't have a neat divide between functional and aesthetic. The worldviews of many peoples blends concepts of cosmology, personhood, materials and decoration into one coherent ontology, not a simple binary. How to explain Mesolithic graves where someone stood and knapped an entire blade core into the grave, blades are functional no? Why would they need them in the grave? Take Skateholm in Sweden, why would a buried dog need an antler hammer? Look at the Langdale greenstone axes, axes are functional or are they attractive, or is there some quality we don't understand that straddles both? We are missing the context in which material culture arises in almost all of prehistory, why would someone go to the trouble of carving out an ornate beetle from lignite and carry it around alongside an actual necklace trilobite fossil? Unless perhaps there were taboos that had been violated and needed restoring thus allowing animals to be fished and hunted. We just don't know. But we shouldn't fall into this trap of dividing objects into functional and not functional.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s kind of hard to draw a clear border between what\u2019s functional and what\u2019s also esthetic. Humans have been making tools for millions of years, and for a long time many of these tools have had flourishes beyond the purely functional. Especially since the appearance of *Homo erectus* and the development of the Acheulian hand axe, you can see lots of examples of \"finesse\", as in maintaining symmetry and clean lines which weren\u2019t always functional, but did increase the visual appeal in ways we can recognize even today. Other more obvious examples include extreme sizes (making the tool too large or too small to be very useful), which we might interpret as a display of the toolmaker\u2019s art rather than serving a practical purpose. Another aspect might be \"decorations\" made to functional objects, or even to non-functional or art objects. There are stones with hatched patterns and geometrical shapes scratched into them found at Blombos Cave in South Africa at 75,000 years. There are \"beads\" made of pierced shells, which may have been strung into a necklace at some point also at Blombos and at even earlier Aterian sites in North Africa at 110,000 years. There is plenty of ocher work with similar geometric patterns at the same dates, often on flat pieces of stone or rock walls, that don\u2019t have any functional use. It depends on interpretation. You might not call these \"art\" and we don\u2019t have any means to get into the minds or motivations of their makers, but it does fit into your question about effort expended into something without a utilitarian purpose, perhaps because the makers found it \"pretty\" or worth having or holding for its own sake. Such \"artwork\" may extend beyond our own species. There are examples of similar geometric designs etched by Neanderthals, including hand prints outlined in ocher. And beyond that, we have examples of 500,000 year old shells etched with zig zag patterns (probably with the point of a shark\u2019s tooth) in Indonesia, that could only have been the work of *Homo erectus*. Again, we don\u2019t know why they were made, was it idle doodling, did the maker find the pattern appealing, did he carry the etched shell around or discard it. The earliest representational art is probably the Venus figurines associated with the Aurignacian. The Hohle Fels Venus is 40,000+ years old, and a few others have been dated to the same period. There are bird bones with holes drilled in them that could have been used as a flute to make music, from the same period. And a bit later, we have cave paintings. I think it\u2019s just a feature of the human brain. We can argue about when and why people began making stuff because it looked pretty rather than for any functional use, and we\u2019d probably get hung up on what\u2019s art or not and exactly where the borderline is between the utilitarian and the esthetic. It\u2019s difficult to recognize what may have appealed as \"pretty\" to someone who lived such a long time ago. But I think that the capacity to create and appreciate objects that have a visual or tactile appeal is just part of being human, and has been around for as long as our species has existed, and perhaps longer.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2235.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"5315gf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do remote tribes live like how all humans historically lived? Often on reddit someone will ask \"what did people do before nail clippers, written records, agriculture.\" etc. I tend to assume that remote or tribes or peoples with little contact with the outside world live as humans have always lived for most of the species existence. In that sense that cilvilization is the anomaly in the wider perspective. Most humans have lived without civilization. For the time period between humans evolving and civilization arising they lived something similar to the small tribes we see today. Is that fair? Or am I off? I suppose it depends on how you describe civilization. Non civilization takes many forms. Cultures take many forms. Is there enough similarity to justify that? Should I be asking this in askhistorians?","c_root_id_A":"d7q2cjk","c_root_id_B":"d7pnsyk","created_at_utc_A":1474076307,"created_at_utc_B":1474054399,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">I tend to assume that remote or tribes or peoples with little contact with the outside world live as humans have always lived for most of the species existence. Not really, at least in my experience and that of the people I've talked to. I'm a linguist working on language documentation for otherwise undocumented language, which means my work takes me to precisely the kinds of communities you're talking about. In those communities, even if contact is limited for the majority of the population, the effects of contact are still widespread. For example many people in the groups I work with use razor blades to cut their toenails. That might not be how you do it, but it's obviously a more modern thing than what ancient societies were using. These are readily available when they go to a town\/market. They're also typically using mobile phones, even if the network is abysmal. These are groups of people living in the mountains of NW Myanmar, on the China\/India border, for whom going to \"civilisation\" is a many-days trip. They are by every definition remote, but not so much that they would be confused by what a laptop computer is. Many have satellite tv if they have electricity (many don't but still have generators or solar panels and batteries) and while they might not have a very nuanced view of the outside world, they're certainly aware that it exists. This has been the case for a number of other documentary linguists which whom I regularly speak. Remote just mean remote, not primitive.","human_ref_B":"Somewhat, but observations and interview\/ethnography data from living people who are outside of industrial societies are good starting points for forming hypotheses about how folks lived in the past. The stories people have about their own ancestors are also good starting points for questions to ask about the past. Archaeologists often use middle range theory) to observe how folks use spaces and materials in the present day, in different contexts, and then see if those same patterns (i.e. where artifacts are in\/on the ground, what they are close to) are present in the archaeological record. It's like the ending of the movie Clue in that the observed cultures are \"one way it could have happened.\" The ways people live in non-industrial societies now are (fairly likely) some of the ways people lived in the past. It's not a direct connection though and any culture we observe today has had just as much time to change as any other. Where it gets really interesting (to me) is that environmental context is big component of how folks live. What's been useful in a desert environment for past societies can often give get information about how current societies can be better adapted in desert environments or when water supplies are stretched thin. One of the current hot questions being tossed around in the archaeology literature is \"what lessons from the past can modern societies use when dealing with environmental stress\/change (e.g. global warming) and increased interactions between societies (e.g. globalization)?\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21908.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"v2a21a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do people in indigenous tribes believe they are \u201cliving in nature\u201d or is that a projection? When we look at the big difference in lifestyle between city life and people who live in rudimentary structures in a jungle, I think it\u2019s a fair assumption to believe that they live amongst or within nature. That is to say they prefer to not distance themselves from it and intergrade it into their lives. I wonder what kind of threshold a given group considers as living in or out of nature. Although I think building basic structures to protect you from the elements puts some distance between one and nature, I wonder how indigenous groups and tribal people determine this.","c_root_id_A":"iat0z3j","c_root_id_B":"iatd8wa","created_at_utc_A":1654102567,"created_at_utc_B":1654107679,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"This may not answer your question, but I think it provides some understanding to the topic. Indigenous cultures are inseparable from their territories. The market economy, or capitalism, is of the understanding that humans can manipulate nature for their own personal gain. In contrast, Indigenous cultures are representative of the territory and aim to live harmoniously with nature. If we look to the coastal peoples of B.C., for example, then you can see the importance of seafood, such as halibut, salmon, shellfish, seaweed, etc, as well as resources such as oolichan grease, cedar bark for weaving, and traditional medicines found on the territory, such as devil's club. All of which are common symbols found in their culture. The clan animals also represent important local wildlife, with animals such as the orca, eagle, raven, and wolf being commonplace. If the coastal people's were moved inland, then much of their culture would not apply in a practical sense. Indigenous cultures are living cultures and are represented heavily by their place of origin. \"Living\" or harvesting in nature is quintessential to understanding and practising Indigenous cultures. Check out the novel 'Monkey Beach' by Eden Robinson, it is a great book that blends contemporary and traditional concepts of the Haisla. https:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/Monkey-Beach-Eden-Robinson\/dp\/0676973221","human_ref_B":"Most indigenous cultures, don\u2019t even view nature as nature like Western culture does. M\u0101ori for example, view nature as a combination of atua (gods); mainly the earth mother papat\u016b\u0101nuku and T\u0101ne mahuta (the god of the forest). As humans, we come from the earth, a living, breathing thing that has been here long long before us, names, and stories. Therefore we have a collective responsibility to protect what we originate from and our ancestors before us. The concept of nature doesn\u2019t quite apply, especially in the M\u0101ori worldview, that\u2019s more of a western sense of looking at it, it\u2019s that separatism where you struggle to see the difference.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5112.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"v2a21a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do people in indigenous tribes believe they are \u201cliving in nature\u201d or is that a projection? When we look at the big difference in lifestyle between city life and people who live in rudimentary structures in a jungle, I think it\u2019s a fair assumption to believe that they live amongst or within nature. That is to say they prefer to not distance themselves from it and intergrade it into their lives. I wonder what kind of threshold a given group considers as living in or out of nature. Although I think building basic structures to protect you from the elements puts some distance between one and nature, I wonder how indigenous groups and tribal people determine this.","c_root_id_A":"iav0u80","c_root_id_B":"iaux0i1","created_at_utc_A":1654134157,"created_at_utc_B":1654132319,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The noble savage is an invention of the western imagination and is typically traced back to the romantic philosophy Jean Jacques Rousseau, the \"father of modern romanticism\" (Russell, 1998: 329). He didn't use the phrase \"noble savage\" he used terms like \"nature's children\". But yes, the idea of both pure nature and noble savagery is a western invention with roots in romantic philosophy. In Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama (1998) makes the point that the idea is actually much older, and dates back to at least the late Roman empire (Romans romanticised the tribal German people in a similar way that European colonists romanticised some indigenous peoples, like the NZ Maori). The explorer James Cook was a big Rousseauian and described most of the indigenous Pacific people he encountered within this discourse of noble savagery, which is recorded in his journals and has been the subject of much academic discussion.","human_ref_B":"There are definitely other versions of nature-culture dichotomies. One of my professors (Aletta Biersack, now retired) did field work in highland New Guinea described a group there has having a distinct conceptual boundary between culture and nature that was important for their cosmology and world view. However, in detail, their dichotomy will have differed from the Western version of this. The details mostly escape me, except i do recall nature is a source of danger to humans, among other things. I am curious as to how widespread this is. This conceptualization probably shifted since the 70's and 80's, with logging and coffee production having come into much of the highlands, since, then. I also wonder how much Western views of indigenous people being part of nature (e.g., non-literate, pre-historic peoples being featured in natural history museums) might influence post-contact people's view of themselves. But also, coming into direct conflict with logging and other industrial interests will have an impact on self-view as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1838.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"v2a21a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do people in indigenous tribes believe they are \u201cliving in nature\u201d or is that a projection? When we look at the big difference in lifestyle between city life and people who live in rudimentary structures in a jungle, I think it\u2019s a fair assumption to believe that they live amongst or within nature. That is to say they prefer to not distance themselves from it and intergrade it into their lives. I wonder what kind of threshold a given group considers as living in or out of nature. Although I think building basic structures to protect you from the elements puts some distance between one and nature, I wonder how indigenous groups and tribal people determine this.","c_root_id_A":"iav0u80","c_root_id_B":"iat0z3j","created_at_utc_A":1654134157,"created_at_utc_B":1654102567,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The noble savage is an invention of the western imagination and is typically traced back to the romantic philosophy Jean Jacques Rousseau, the \"father of modern romanticism\" (Russell, 1998: 329). He didn't use the phrase \"noble savage\" he used terms like \"nature's children\". But yes, the idea of both pure nature and noble savagery is a western invention with roots in romantic philosophy. In Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama (1998) makes the point that the idea is actually much older, and dates back to at least the late Roman empire (Romans romanticised the tribal German people in a similar way that European colonists romanticised some indigenous peoples, like the NZ Maori). The explorer James Cook was a big Rousseauian and described most of the indigenous Pacific people he encountered within this discourse of noble savagery, which is recorded in his journals and has been the subject of much academic discussion.","human_ref_B":"This may not answer your question, but I think it provides some understanding to the topic. Indigenous cultures are inseparable from their territories. The market economy, or capitalism, is of the understanding that humans can manipulate nature for their own personal gain. In contrast, Indigenous cultures are representative of the territory and aim to live harmoniously with nature. If we look to the coastal peoples of B.C., for example, then you can see the importance of seafood, such as halibut, salmon, shellfish, seaweed, etc, as well as resources such as oolichan grease, cedar bark for weaving, and traditional medicines found on the territory, such as devil's club. All of which are common symbols found in their culture. The clan animals also represent important local wildlife, with animals such as the orca, eagle, raven, and wolf being commonplace. If the coastal people's were moved inland, then much of their culture would not apply in a practical sense. Indigenous cultures are living cultures and are represented heavily by their place of origin. \"Living\" or harvesting in nature is quintessential to understanding and practising Indigenous cultures. Check out the novel 'Monkey Beach' by Eden Robinson, it is a great book that blends contemporary and traditional concepts of the Haisla. https:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/Monkey-Beach-Eden-Robinson\/dp\/0676973221","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31590.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"v2a21a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do people in indigenous tribes believe they are \u201cliving in nature\u201d or is that a projection? When we look at the big difference in lifestyle between city life and people who live in rudimentary structures in a jungle, I think it\u2019s a fair assumption to believe that they live amongst or within nature. That is to say they prefer to not distance themselves from it and intergrade it into their lives. I wonder what kind of threshold a given group considers as living in or out of nature. Although I think building basic structures to protect you from the elements puts some distance between one and nature, I wonder how indigenous groups and tribal people determine this.","c_root_id_A":"iaux0i1","c_root_id_B":"iat0z3j","created_at_utc_A":1654132319,"created_at_utc_B":1654102567,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are definitely other versions of nature-culture dichotomies. One of my professors (Aletta Biersack, now retired) did field work in highland New Guinea described a group there has having a distinct conceptual boundary between culture and nature that was important for their cosmology and world view. However, in detail, their dichotomy will have differed from the Western version of this. The details mostly escape me, except i do recall nature is a source of danger to humans, among other things. I am curious as to how widespread this is. This conceptualization probably shifted since the 70's and 80's, with logging and coffee production having come into much of the highlands, since, then. I also wonder how much Western views of indigenous people being part of nature (e.g., non-literate, pre-historic peoples being featured in natural history museums) might influence post-contact people's view of themselves. But also, coming into direct conflict with logging and other industrial interests will have an impact on self-view as well.","human_ref_B":"This may not answer your question, but I think it provides some understanding to the topic. Indigenous cultures are inseparable from their territories. The market economy, or capitalism, is of the understanding that humans can manipulate nature for their own personal gain. In contrast, Indigenous cultures are representative of the territory and aim to live harmoniously with nature. If we look to the coastal peoples of B.C., for example, then you can see the importance of seafood, such as halibut, salmon, shellfish, seaweed, etc, as well as resources such as oolichan grease, cedar bark for weaving, and traditional medicines found on the territory, such as devil's club. All of which are common symbols found in their culture. The clan animals also represent important local wildlife, with animals such as the orca, eagle, raven, and wolf being commonplace. If the coastal people's were moved inland, then much of their culture would not apply in a practical sense. Indigenous cultures are living cultures and are represented heavily by their place of origin. \"Living\" or harvesting in nature is quintessential to understanding and practising Indigenous cultures. Check out the novel 'Monkey Beach' by Eden Robinson, it is a great book that blends contemporary and traditional concepts of the Haisla. https:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/Monkey-Beach-Eden-Robinson\/dp\/0676973221","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29752.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1ymen0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"The \"End of the World\" theme seems to recur in many cultures and religions around the world. Were these ideas \"borrowed\" between cultures or did they generally develop independently? Is it more a case of conscious beings' awareness of their own mortality, communally adapted to a global perspective, or were there a number of central thought schools which influenced farther flung cultures and religions? Or am I just way off?","c_root_id_A":"cflydqs","c_root_id_B":"cflta1o","created_at_utc_A":1393094931,"created_at_utc_B":1393080884,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am not even close enough to being qualified to give a good, detailed answer, as I'm just a hobbyist, but maybe I can point you in a direction until one appears. I believe the \"End of the World\" motif would fall under the general mythology that cultures around the world independently share. I was introduced to this idea from reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Cambell. The Monomyth concept introduced by Cambell was that all important mythological stories are part of one great single story, and that various cultures, completely independently of each other, retell these same stories over and over again. This applies to groups from the the Middle East to the Amazon to East Asia to the west Pacific Islands. Of course, each culture will influence how the story is told, but the fundamental motifs are all the same. One might expand on that and say, at the core of all human beings, the things that we hold most important and the mechanisms for how we interpret the world, nature, and ourselves are all shared and the same. The End of the World myth would then just be extension of this. As human beings, we all share the same uncertainty and fear of the unknown. So, various cultures created similar stories on how to explain this commonality. An emotional aside: I think comparative mythology is one of the most beautiful subjects to study. If you break down the core idea, all people, regardless of place of birth, race, religion, are the same. We have the same wants, desires, fears, and ideals. Evolution explains how all organisms are connected biologically, if you go back far enough. Comparative mythology explains how all human beings are connected socially, psychologically, and spiritually.","human_ref_B":"I'm interested in this as well. Is there as much commonality in creation\/origin stories as there is in \"the end\" stories?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14047.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"9hh7lh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"If Satan is a personification of \"evil\" in the Christian religion, what would be the others personifications of evil in other religions\/cultures?","c_root_id_A":"e6cwfue","c_root_id_B":"e6cnf0i","created_at_utc_A":1537498551,"created_at_utc_B":1537490075,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In buddhism, there is the Buddha (the enlightened one) and while there is no personification of evil like satan, the source of evil is ignorance. The purpose of the buddhist is to guard against ignorance and desire to achieve buddhahood. also fun fact, Satan was called mastema, meaning the adversary or the enemy.","human_ref_B":"The devil is not synonymous with \"satan\" since the word itself means the accused or accuser right? Which has already been mentioned in this thread. But in Roman Catholicism, this sense of duality is pervasive because its philosophies were greatly influenced by early gnostic literature. Especially the idea of the demiurge or the introduction of the trinity by Valentius. With that said dualism scarcely appears in polytheistic cults. Many deities mirror different facets of the human condition and the human condition is neither entirely good or evil.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8476.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"2iopjv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How were toddlers handled in traditional societies? Stay at home dad with 18 month old boy. I've been home with him since day one. I have hobbies which are not baby-friendly activities. I like to make traditional bows and arrows, build furniture, general bushcraftery etc. I try to include my son in everything I do, he likes sanding wood while I work, or hitting wood with a mallet. But what he really wants to do is play with my knives, power tools, bows and arrows, you know the cool dangerous stuff. In societies where survival depended on actively finding and preparing food, making everything you use from nature, and other somewhat dangerous activities, what the hell did people do with their toddlers? They're too active to just hold or wrap up in a papoose, they want to do what ever the parents are doing. But they're still too clumsy and blissfully unaware of danger to use sharp tools or do fine detail work.","c_root_id_A":"cl46fy1","c_root_id_B":"cl45vms","created_at_utc_A":1412805665,"created_at_utc_B":1412804569,"score_A":36,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist, but your question immediately made me remember this article that starts out with a description of Carolina Izquierdo's (an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles) stay among the Matsigenkas, a tribe in the Peruvian Amazon in 2004. Her description of the children in that tribe and how they compared to American children--she was involved in two different studies, one in LA with another anthropologist, Elinor Ochs--led to the article I linked and another one. I think you'd be pretty interested in what she had to say, particularly about a side trip she took: > At one point, Izquierdo decided to accompany a local family on a leaf-gathering expedition down the Urubamba River. A member of another family, Yanira, asked if she could come along. > Izquierdo and the others spent five days on the river. Although Yanira had no clear role in the group, she quickly found ways to make herself useful. Twice a day, she swept the sand off the sleeping mats, and she helped stack the kapashi leaves for transport back to the village. In the evening, she fished for crustaceans, which she cleaned, boiled, and served to the others. > Calm and self-possessed, Yanira \u201casked for nothing,\u201d Izquierdo later recalled. The girl\u2019s behavior made a strong impression on the anthropologist because at the time of the trip Yanira was just six years old. Later in the article, the author describes how the two anthropologists used their studies to write another one, which directly bears on your question about toddlers: > Ochs and Izquierdo noted, in their paper on the differences between the family lives of the Matsigenka and the Angelenos, how early the Matsigenka begin encouraging their children to be useful. > Toddlers routinely heat their own food over an open fire, they observed, while \u201cthree-year-olds frequently practice cutting wood and grass with machetes and knives.\u201d Boys, when they are six or seven, start to accompany their fathers on fishing and hunting trips, and girls learn to help their mothers with the cooking. > As a consequence, by the time they reach puberty Matsigenka kids have mastered most of the skills necessary for survival. Their competence encourages autonomy, which fosters further competence\u2014a virtuous cycle that continues to adulthood. (Mods, if this is not an appropriate comment, please remove.) (Edit: clarity)","human_ref_B":"I think the reason no replies have appeared yet is that you might have accidentally or not asked about one of the biggest mysteries in Anthropology. Does anyone want to comment on if grandmothers see the Grandmother Hypothesis could be a good explanation (their main evolutionary reason for living so long post menopause is taking care of the toddlers while parents gather food), or is this completely culture dependent? In this scientific american piece, the genetic balance is put like this: > The problem is that these grandmother benefits aren't big enough to ever favor stopping breeding between the ages of 40 and 50 It seems it would more sense for women to continue bearing children at an older age, as opposed to stopping the fertility period (in other primates this happens close to the end of life) and helping their childs raise their kids. Other species do that, elephants bear children in their 60s. So why did humans evolve into the menopause? My guess (disclaimer I am not an anthropologist): the human brain takes so long to develop that the child remains helpless (and relatively careless as you mentioned with the tools example) to a much later age than other species, hence the need for grandmothers extended lifespan, and a potential answer to the question: mostly the grandmother takes care of the toddlers. This is AFIK controversial, would love to hear comments from professionals on the field.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1096.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"803u84","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Outlets for angry young men in traditional societies? It seems like we have a problem of (mostly) young men becoming dissatisfied with their social position and acting out in a violent way. Did pre industrial societies also had this issue and if so, did they find a way to channel it in a less harmful direction? I suppose the obvious answers would be hunting or raiding. But I'm curious what the experts have to say.","c_root_id_A":"dusyq73","c_root_id_B":"dut5jx3","created_at_utc_A":1519570819,"created_at_utc_B":1519578883,"score_A":19,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"This is a really broad question. The way I would approach it is by looking at rites of passage for puberty in males, many of which involve extreme violence. For example \"crocodile\" scarification in Papua New Guinea among the Kaningara, or both sexes in the Hamar tribe of Ethiopia. A quick search for \"violence & rites de passage\" bought up this abstract about bullying in japanese schools. Which furthers the argument that the violence you are discussing ARE rites of passage, but taken out of traditional formalised contexts. Which in western society included joining the military and violent games and sports.","human_ref_B":"Is it viable to presuppose that \"angry young men\" is an innate disposition in males? I'm not even sure it makes sense to talk about angry young men today, but what we might identify as such could be explicable in terms of the historical development of capitalism towards fewer, less secure jobs or the pressures of (post)modern society and its cultural expectations of fluid gender roles and new responsibilities. I dont have an answer but i just dont think you can presuppose that young men are innately angry.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8064.0,"score_ratio":1.0526315789} {"post_id":"803u84","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Outlets for angry young men in traditional societies? It seems like we have a problem of (mostly) young men becoming dissatisfied with their social position and acting out in a violent way. Did pre industrial societies also had this issue and if so, did they find a way to channel it in a less harmful direction? I suppose the obvious answers would be hunting or raiding. But I'm curious what the experts have to say.","c_root_id_A":"dut5jx3","c_root_id_B":"dut2y8b","created_at_utc_A":1519578883,"created_at_utc_B":1519575969,"score_A":20,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Is it viable to presuppose that \"angry young men\" is an innate disposition in males? I'm not even sure it makes sense to talk about angry young men today, but what we might identify as such could be explicable in terms of the historical development of capitalism towards fewer, less secure jobs or the pressures of (post)modern society and its cultural expectations of fluid gender roles and new responsibilities. I dont have an answer but i just dont think you can presuppose that young men are innately angry.","human_ref_B":"In many West African societies, a man, independent of his age, is considered a child by society until he is married. This to me is informative of the phenomenon of Jihadi Brides and provides a valuable parallel to the profile of mass shooters in the United States.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2914.0,"score_ratio":2.2222222222} {"post_id":"dktp5p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any cultures that don't associate particular foods with certain times of day? I've read that many cultures prescribe\/associate eating certain foods at particular times of day, such as eating eggs for breakfast, and that they vary from culture to culture, but are there cultures that don't have \\*any\\* such prescriptions or associations?","c_root_id_A":"f4k2lxy","c_root_id_B":"f4k38h9","created_at_utc_A":1571633129,"created_at_utc_B":1571633758,"score_A":26,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"Potatoes? Americans eat hash browns, French fries, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, etc at all times of day. Some cultures eat rice and beans with every meal.","human_ref_B":"Ive worked in Madagascar and Ecuador (with an indigenous group) and there aren\u2019t foods set to times of day.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":629.0,"score_ratio":1.2692307692} {"post_id":"dktp5p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any cultures that don't associate particular foods with certain times of day? I've read that many cultures prescribe\/associate eating certain foods at particular times of day, such as eating eggs for breakfast, and that they vary from culture to culture, but are there cultures that don't have \\*any\\* such prescriptions or associations?","c_root_id_A":"f4k2lxy","c_root_id_B":"f4k6erv","created_at_utc_A":1571633129,"created_at_utc_B":1571637306,"score_A":26,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Potatoes? Americans eat hash browns, French fries, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, etc at all times of day. Some cultures eat rice and beans with every meal.","human_ref_B":"In South Korea they don't really have set breakfast foods. A lot of people will eat leftovers from dinner. It's different if you go out to a restaurant obviously but usually home cooked breakfasts aren't anything special.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4177.0,"score_ratio":1.2307692308} {"post_id":"ykm3t5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any concepts that are generally accepted to be easier to understand in a specific language with maybe a more fine-tuned vocabulary?","c_root_id_A":"iuw2zbv","c_root_id_B":"iuxvpdr","created_at_utc_A":1667481686,"created_at_utc_B":1667507118,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"On some level, this is true for all concepts and it is part of why academics are always creating new jargon. Sexual harassment is a good example. For a long time it had no name, it was just part of being a woman in a workplace (and maybe being a woman in public in general). But the creation of the term sexual harassment gave activists a way to argue that it was a problem that deserved legal and policy attention. Once women in general had the term, they could better understand their own experiences and make better choices about what they were willing to put up with.","human_ref_B":"Yes, there are many concepts that work in such a fashion, because some ideas are better understood when you have a grasp of the culture associated with that language (or variant). If the concept is native to that culture-language, it's likely to be part of a network of other concepts and vocabulary that refer to each other much more organically, in contrast to being a foreign concept. That's why it's frowned upon, both in Humanities and Social Sciences, to write a critique of a work while reading a translation of it - even a very good one. One such example from Philosophy are the works of Hegel, that get less hard (you read that right :P) to understand if you speak good German. In fact, I'd say that the core of the academic work in ethnology deals with the cultural translation required to comprehend local knowledge. Socio-cultural anthropologists spend a lot of time doing fieldwork and direct (participant) observation in order to learn the language and understand any given culture enough to be able to explain specific concepts to Western audiences. If you want concrete examples, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entries on the concepts of *Tapu* (from Polynesian cultures) and *Potlatch* (from the Northwestern Pacific First Nations of North America). You'll see that it's almost impossible to properly convey the fine nuances of them without using other supporting concepts from their languages-cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25432.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"52qbec","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is it likely that early humans living in the Mesolithic era fought each other over differing religious beliefs? Follow-up question: Was it even common for tribes to fight each other back then? If ao, what would be some reasons for them to fight each other?","c_root_id_A":"d7mjj6m","c_root_id_B":"d7mo29h","created_at_utc_A":1473869443,"created_at_utc_B":1473875061,"score_A":21,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Friendly heads-up: this question is basically impossible to answer, as is (at least half of) the follow-up question.","human_ref_B":"Without written records this isn't really an answerable question. There are some people like Michael Richards and Julian Thomas who argued that the dietary transitions from Mesolithic to Neolithic were accompanied by the spread of a Neolithic religion (or at least a set of ideas about taboos.) Here is an article about it that is free to read. But as you can see from the article and responses, this is a lot of speculation. And we don't really see an argument for war motivations - even if true much of it could have been peaceful. Parsing out the reasons any group goes to war can be difficult. If religion is part of the reasoning it is rarely ever the entire motivation. Resources and political power are usually strong motivators at least for the leaders choosing to go to war. Even religious fundamentalists who are engaged in acts of terrorism are not doing so purely for religious reasons - they are reacting to larger socio-political issues and have goals that are about power and resources.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5618.0,"score_ratio":1.0476190476} {"post_id":"71i8iw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Historically, why were men in most societies so horrible to women? Or were they? It seems like at least in the Old World (I've heard Native Americans saw women as equal or even better than men, but I'm not sure how true that is, or if it only applies to certain tribes) men pretty much universally treated women badly. It seems like up to the early 20th century men were expected to beat their wives, rape was only seen as a serious crime because it offended the dignity of the woman's husband or relatives, women were not allowed to go out in public and it was universally accepted (at least by men) that women were the inferior sex. Why do you think such attitudes and behavior were so universally common? Are a very large proportion of men just naturally selfish and violent without enough law and order and social conditioning? Does it have to do with religious beliefs? Were women looked down upon in part because they were seen as \"unclean\" due to menstruation? Were there significant numbers of men throughout history that saw women as true equals and treated them kindly and without patronization, or were they considered radicals? Was it common for a man to love their daughter as much as their son, or their mother as much as their father? Or is the idea that women were universally treated horribly by men throughout human history a myth, or only partially true? I've heard in Egypt women had high status, though it may only be relative to other places like Rome and Greece. Was being a woman during history almost invariably a worse deal than being a man? Did most women throughout history live lives of constant physical and sexual abuse at the hands of males, confinement, unpaid and unappreciated labor, and oppression? Or did it depend on the time, place, and social class? Were there any societies that were truly egalitarian, or even favored women over men? Was there anything uniquely sucky about being a man in the old days, aside from being expected to fight for your king? I imagine life during most of history sucked for 99% of the population, but it seems like it sucked for women a lot more because most men treated them as inferiors, and many men treated them downright terribly. Why are men (at least in some countries) much better to women today? There's still a lot of mistreatment and discrimination towards women, but at least in Western societies they are ostensibly equal under the law, crimes against them are taken seriously, and a very large proportion of the populace (including plenty of males) subscribes to the theories of feminism. Why didn't women treat men in a reciprocal fashion? Is it because women are more empathetic and compassionate by nature than men? Even today, it seems like very few women are truly misandrist - they only hate men who they view as immoral or abusive, but will almost always defend the good men in their life.","c_root_id_A":"dnbfzdz","c_root_id_B":"dnbbm7x","created_at_utc_A":1506015558,"created_at_utc_B":1506011015,"score_A":29,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Well, it's more complicated than that. Really, one common trend amongst sedentary\/farming\/\"hierarchical\" cultures is that men and women tend to have different \"roles\" in society. It's not always \"worse\", and gender is just one dimension that made up these \"roles\", class\/caste mattered immensely, too. Almost always, a woman of a higher class\/caste was considered the social superior of men who were of lower class. Even within a class, *sometimes* women had it \"better\" (in specific cases that is), and sometimes within their class they were equal to men of that class (even if women of different classes weren't equal to men of their class). For example, it was usually more common for women to have greater ability to move up classes (although usually through marriage, but still). Men often had more \"freedoms\", but that wasn't *always* the case depending on specific circumstances either. Really, what I'm trying to get across isn't that you're necessarily wrong in your idea that women were more often not treated equal compared to men (within non-egalitarian societies), but that this also *always* had exceptions to it to and that it should only be thought of as a very loose trend, and that it is plain wrong to think of it as a mostly definitive rule. It's only a tool by which we can try to understand human history and culture, rather than something that can or should always be applied as a maxim. This goes far beyond just the two dimensions of gender and class. There are so many ways to examine these relationships within a culture and society. There's the idea of who holds more control over policy (moral, criminal, civil, etc. etc.), who holds control over property (and that is a topic that can fill a library by breaking it down to types of property, which ought to be done as the very idea of property can vary immensely), who has more options and freedoms in their lives, who is bound by social expectations more (which is also a very complicated matter), who held *religious authority* (e.g. traditionally, the oracle of Delphi was supreme in classical Greek society in matters of religion, and other such instances of \"high priestesses\" occupying the highest levels of ritual have happened all over the world). But to try to answer your question rather than just delivering only a giant caveat, there's a few reasons for why women had less \"power\", more often than not. It isn't a given that societies inherently treat gender as a definitive way to break people into in terms of roles or position, but as soon as they do, the fact that women tend to be physically weaker does make that sex be more easily the one that gets relatively more \"oppressed\" just from that physical aspect alone. Another matter is that reproduction can often also be viewed as a resource, and women would always more likely be the \"resource\" that is more limited in that sense (due to the fact that 9 months of pregnancy, the inherent mortal risk of reproduction for women, and menopause are all limiting factors to the availability of that reproductive \"resource\" that the male side does not have). When something is viewed as a resource, it often means that that something is treated less through a human lens, and more through a lens of economics *and* power. Lastly, speaking of viewing reproduction as a resource, *mater semper certa est*. Don't make the mistake of only looking at this question through the lens of western (or east asian and also middle eastern) society, as there are countless ways that \"reproduction as a resource\" has been handled by different cultures and some of the time it puts women \"on top\", but at least in western (and eats asian and middle eastern) societies, the already existing notions of the role of women was often reenforced by the fact that, not only is the female side of \"reproduction as a resource\" already the more limited side, but also the idea of \"the mother is always known, the father is always uncertain\" made women be even more so the aspect of reproduction that a non-egalitarian society would especially consider the locus of control of that resource. Only consider my comment to be an extreme rough and dirty of this topic, there's a lot more going into it than I even got close to touching upon, but I hope it's one of many starts for you trying to understand these things. Feminism isn't \"wrong\", it's just a lot more nuanced than people presume or think it is. There's a lot of division within the general idea of \"feminism\" regarding all possible different interpretations of all these factors.","human_ref_B":"The reason we were given in anthro classes at university had alotmod do with paternity certainty. Essentially, men are so controllingnof women because it is the only way a man can be certain that the child that women is having is his own. Women on the other hand always know the child is theirs since they birthed it. So women, unlike men, must be controlled, dominated, protect, etc. To make sure they do not roam or have others children. You could argue that the other shitty ways people treated women could be related to men trying to justify their reason to be dominante\/ trying to minimize risk of the mother. Here is a paper on paternity certainty hypotheses: http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/147470490900700109","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4543.0,"score_ratio":2.2307692308} {"post_id":"b2cgcn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"Are there any cultures with systems of homosexual courtship? I\u2019ve read a lot of conservative philosophy about courtship and dating. The author of *Why Liberalism Failed* talks about the Antioch rape codes. He draws a parallel between sexual liberation and Hobbes. So in western culture, however vague that, there used to be these elaborate systems of courtship that prevented people from experiencing deep intimacy until after a prolonged period of association. People thought in say the 60s that once we did away with all this, people would be free and a lot happier. But that hasn\u2019t happened, and this can be exemplified in the Antioch rape codes. He sees them as being the equivalent of some sexual leviathan coming along and governing people to prevent chaos. Leon Kass\u2019 also wrote a book on marriage and I\u2019ve read Scruton\u2019s writing. They all express a need for courtship as a healthy set of social customs. But if course, these apply to heterosexual couples and their courtship. But I see any similar set of rituals for gay people. Are there any such cultures with a system of courtship for gay men and women?","c_root_id_A":"eisiye6","c_root_id_B":"eirvfcx","created_at_utc_A":1552903084,"created_at_utc_B":1552873653,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In Queer City by Peter Ackroyd he describes how men in medieval England could become \u2018married brethren\u2019 in a ceremony in Church to signal a very close bond. It didn\u2019t mean that they were \u2018gay\u2019 in our sense because people didn\u2019t have that concept but they may or may not have been. In one example there are a pair of English knights buried together in Istanbul in the way a married man and women would have been. One was killed in a crusade and the other starved himself to death shortly after. In general there was a lot of MSM going on and it was generally tolerated or ignored as just something people did.","human_ref_B":"I think you seem to mean courtship between equals. But if you're willing to consider the unequal system of pederasty, then yes, the older *erastes* would court the younger *eromenos*. There's tons written on it, but does it fit what you're looking for?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29431.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"4blq9t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"My 2 grade class would like to know why humans make hypocritical social rules. They want to know what the need is behind it. What advantage do humans get it making these kinds of rules? examples: Why are bikinis ok on the beach but underware is not? Why is it harder to get a job with a shaved head if you are a woman than if you are a man? Why are pajamas not worn outside? I was going to glibly say its probably because standing out in a group could get primitive humans killed but then realized I have no idea if that is true. So I turn to the real experts. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"d1ajhy2","c_root_id_B":"d1acdpc","created_at_utc_A":1458746271,"created_at_utc_B":1458733300,"score_A":69,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Okay, I'll Explain like I'm five years old anthropology, could be fun :) What I would say is, humans don't make rules. There isn't a meeting where we decide these things. But, these ways of doing things still became accepted. How is that? One of the first anthropologists (which means basically, \"people who study people\") was a French man called Emile Durkheim, and he thought a lot about the question, what is society? His opinion was that society is made up of people, yes, but once those people are all together, something else entirely gets made. Another way to put this is, he thought that \"the whole is greater than the sum of its parts\". It's like doing math - what is the sum of 2 + 2? Well, in math it's 4, but when you're talking about people instead of numbers, it becomes more complicated. Let's think about it a different way. If you add flour + water + heat, what do you get? If you think about it like it's math, the sum of those parts would be hot wet flour. But that's *not* what you get - you get bread, which is something else entirely. So Durkheim thought that when people come together, they somehow create something different, and *that new thing* is what has the ability to create some of these \"rules\" that you're talking about. That thing is society, and he called it \"transcendental\", which means that it seems like it operates separately from us, and that makes it seem a little bit mysterious. Something else that contributes to these \"rules\" is that life is actually pretty complicated, and people get into tough situations. Have you ever been in a situation where you weren't really sure what to do, because there were benefits and downsides to all the different options you had? Sometimes different people have different expectations from you, and there's no way to meet them all. A lot of anthropologists do research on this - how do people figure out complicated situations? For example, I research people who live in Tanzania, and they often have visitors from other countries. They want their guests to have a good time there, but sometimes there are difficulties, because their guests might not know about how Tanzanian people prefer to do things, and the Tanzanian people might not know about how their guests like to do things. So sometimes they have misunderstandings. My job is to research, how do people keep being friends and work around their misunderstandings? So in the examples you gave, people might come up against a situation where it's not clear what they should do. On one hand, our society (remember what I said about society being \"transcendental\"?) has taught us that we should wear clothes when we're in public, and that underwear are for when we're in private. But, our society also considers that it's pretty fun to go swimming, but it's just not practical to swim in clothes. So how are we going to get around this problem? Well, we think of a compromise, and that is a specific kind of clothing for swimming that actually pretty much like underwear, but it's okay for swimming situations. And it's the \"transcendental\" part of society that makes it seem a bit of a mystery - because society is somehow apart from us, even though it's *made of us*. That's tough to understand, and so that's why some of these \"social rules\" can seem a little bit weird. _____________________________________ Hope that helped and didn't come off as too patronising. I went with Durkheim even though in the 100+ years since he was writing there has been loads of criticism about his concept of \"society\" because it's actually a fairly simple way of understanding things, and it does speak to the dilemma that your kids have been asking about. And anthropology, at least in the tradition I was educated in, was basically built on Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. I could try to Explain like I'm five years old Marx but eehhhhh, and Weber? fuck that, so Durkheim it is.","human_ref_B":"It sounds to me like you're conflating two (related) issues. Maybe it's just because I'm a linguist and not an anthropologist, but do you want to know (as your potential answer and posting in this subreddit suggests) what is the *anthropological reason* for these rules, or (as your examples suggest) what is the *cultural reason* for these rules? The first one sounds like evolutionary psychology, that is, attempting to reason about current psychological phenomena as evolutionary adaptations, which in my understanding is widely criticized as being nothing but unverifiable guesses (maybe an actual anthropologist can weigh in on that). But I can say something about the cultural reason, I hope that's useful to you. Nothing is only *the thing in itself*, but also carries cultural meaning separate from its pure external form or appearance. In easier to understand terms, even though underwear and bikinis look about the same, you have to consider what it reminds you of. Underwear is meant for wearing under your clothes. In other words, it's something which is normally not seen by other people, something private. That is why it would be out of place to wear it on the beach. Bikinis have been designed for the very reason that they'd be worn on a beach, and that's why it's okay. (Also, bikinis are made from a material that handles being in water better than underwear, but that's beside the cultural point.) Pajamas are normally worn when you're sleeping, or about to go to bed or when you've just woken up. That is why it would be out of place to wear pajamas outside. Similarly, women typically don't shave their head, and so if someone does it can seem strange to other people. (But why don't women shave their head? you may ask. I think a more relevant question would be *why do men shave their head*? After all, your hair growing long is the natural state. This is really outside of my expertise, but I think it may have to do with the different things men and women used to do, working in the fields and fighting vs. taking care of the home. But I don't know.) Anyway, I realize this may not be exactly what you're asking, and I'd be interested in hearing other views on the issue.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12971.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"4blq9t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"My 2 grade class would like to know why humans make hypocritical social rules. They want to know what the need is behind it. What advantage do humans get it making these kinds of rules? examples: Why are bikinis ok on the beach but underware is not? Why is it harder to get a job with a shaved head if you are a woman than if you are a man? Why are pajamas not worn outside? I was going to glibly say its probably because standing out in a group could get primitive humans killed but then realized I have no idea if that is true. So I turn to the real experts. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"d1ahxww","c_root_id_B":"d1ajhy2","created_at_utc_A":1458744079,"created_at_utc_B":1458746271,"score_A":2,"score_B":69,"human_ref_A":"Example 1 and 3 are due to the purpose of the articles of clothing. Underwear as swimwear is perceived as unhygienic, and sleepwear as outerwear would be subjected to society's standards for decency. Example 2 is related to social taboos and intolerances. The only people that would slight a woman over her haircut are those that place value and meaning on appearance and social perception, rather than the merits of one's worth.","human_ref_B":"Okay, I'll Explain like I'm five years old anthropology, could be fun :) What I would say is, humans don't make rules. There isn't a meeting where we decide these things. But, these ways of doing things still became accepted. How is that? One of the first anthropologists (which means basically, \"people who study people\") was a French man called Emile Durkheim, and he thought a lot about the question, what is society? His opinion was that society is made up of people, yes, but once those people are all together, something else entirely gets made. Another way to put this is, he thought that \"the whole is greater than the sum of its parts\". It's like doing math - what is the sum of 2 + 2? Well, in math it's 4, but when you're talking about people instead of numbers, it becomes more complicated. Let's think about it a different way. If you add flour + water + heat, what do you get? If you think about it like it's math, the sum of those parts would be hot wet flour. But that's *not* what you get - you get bread, which is something else entirely. So Durkheim thought that when people come together, they somehow create something different, and *that new thing* is what has the ability to create some of these \"rules\" that you're talking about. That thing is society, and he called it \"transcendental\", which means that it seems like it operates separately from us, and that makes it seem a little bit mysterious. Something else that contributes to these \"rules\" is that life is actually pretty complicated, and people get into tough situations. Have you ever been in a situation where you weren't really sure what to do, because there were benefits and downsides to all the different options you had? Sometimes different people have different expectations from you, and there's no way to meet them all. A lot of anthropologists do research on this - how do people figure out complicated situations? For example, I research people who live in Tanzania, and they often have visitors from other countries. They want their guests to have a good time there, but sometimes there are difficulties, because their guests might not know about how Tanzanian people prefer to do things, and the Tanzanian people might not know about how their guests like to do things. So sometimes they have misunderstandings. My job is to research, how do people keep being friends and work around their misunderstandings? So in the examples you gave, people might come up against a situation where it's not clear what they should do. On one hand, our society (remember what I said about society being \"transcendental\"?) has taught us that we should wear clothes when we're in public, and that underwear are for when we're in private. But, our society also considers that it's pretty fun to go swimming, but it's just not practical to swim in clothes. So how are we going to get around this problem? Well, we think of a compromise, and that is a specific kind of clothing for swimming that actually pretty much like underwear, but it's okay for swimming situations. And it's the \"transcendental\" part of society that makes it seem a bit of a mystery - because society is somehow apart from us, even though it's *made of us*. That's tough to understand, and so that's why some of these \"social rules\" can seem a little bit weird. _____________________________________ Hope that helped and didn't come off as too patronising. I went with Durkheim even though in the 100+ years since he was writing there has been loads of criticism about his concept of \"society\" because it's actually a fairly simple way of understanding things, and it does speak to the dilemma that your kids have been asking about. And anthropology, at least in the tradition I was educated in, was basically built on Durkheim, Weber, and Marx. I could try to Explain like I'm five years old Marx but eehhhhh, and Weber? fuck that, so Durkheim it is.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2192.0,"score_ratio":34.5} {"post_id":"zg2e0r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is Judaism the only patriarchal culture that is also matrilineal?","c_root_id_A":"izeqhj5","c_root_id_B":"izesou6","created_at_utc_A":1670515103,"created_at_utc_B":1670515990,"score_A":78,"score_B":133,"human_ref_A":"The Cherokee are as well, property and clan lineage historically went through the female line. Less so now though after all the issues with colonialism and having to compromise around discriminatory laws and all that","human_ref_B":"Judaism isn\u2019t exactly matrilineal - the transmission of Jewish identity is, but that\u2019s a legal standard that didn\u2019t have much social impact until the 20th century when mixed marriages and women\u2019s rights became accepted. Religious Judaism uses patronymic names, and insofar as there are still hereditary Jewish institutions they\u2019re patrilineal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":887.0,"score_ratio":1.7051282051} {"post_id":"ytlnoc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did all cultures have an Old and a New Stone Age before transitioning to other materials? Or did some cultures just have one Stone Age? Did all cultures have an Old and a New Stone Age before transitioning to other materials? Or did some cultures just have one Stone Age? * Also, why don\u2019t we have an anthropogenic era called the concrete age, since that seemed to have allowed amazing civilizations to flourish like the Romans and others? * Are there still Stone Age civilizations? If so, have the people there still optimizes for that type of diet and environment? * why don\u2019t we have an era commemorating when humans started consuming eggs and dairy products, which was about 50,000 years ago? That was a big jump forward.","c_root_id_A":"iw57ojx","c_root_id_B":"iw57wcw","created_at_utc_A":1668302875,"created_at_utc_B":1668302978,"score_A":4,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Concrete was created by the Romans but after the collapse of the western Roman Empire, its use died down dramatically. Its only been since the 19th century that its use accelerated again and there are so many other aspects of human culture that advanced simultaneously that naming an era after concrete seems like we're focusing on something too specific The term civilization carries baggage. There are societies that exist today with limited-to-no use of metals, instead using natural materials. The vast majority of people groups with regular contact with the rest of the world have adopted modern textiles and tools. Lactase persistence (the ability to consume dairy) developed within the last 10,000 years. I don't know where you pulled the 50,000 year number from.","human_ref_B":"These terms don't really mean anything. They're just a way for archaeologists to categorize the past. At the time when a lot of these terms started to become used, we didn't have the same resolution of data meaning a lot of things looked more similar than they are. If we had started using these categories today, there'd be hundreds. And I mean, there are I suppose, but they're not commonly used. There are a plethora of terms used to describe groups based on stone tools, but you'll never hear them used outside of academia. Archaeologists have come to realize over the last 70 or so years, that these terms are extremely restricting. They simply don't work very well. So nowadays, when a person talks about stone tools they talk about Aurignacian and Levallois (for example), but then they divide those terms into further categories, resulting in a vast number of ways to describe the tool technology of different groups. And what would be the point of a 'concrete' era when we have terms like Roman, and then within that term there are a whole host of specific terms referring to the time periods of different emperors and whatnot. Pretty sure we've also been eating eggs since before the *Homo* genus even existed. Dairy, unless there's something I've not been paying attention to, is generally associated with the Neolithic, and not the early part either, but let's say 10k years ago for the sake of it. And what does Stone Age civilizations mean? Just such a simple statement doesn't work for an archaeologist. The Stone Age encompasses about 2.5 million years, during which time there were a vast number of groups, cultures, tool technology complexes, subsistence strategies, etc. And civilization has a specific meaning in Archaeology, and wouldn't arise until later in the Neolithic. And I can say with some certainty, that there are no Neolithic civilizations puttering around out there. If you mean Stone Age civilization in a less academic way, as in groups that live using stone tools and foraging, then no not really. Are there foraging groups? Yes. Kind of. Are there groups that use stone tools? Yes. Kind of. Do all of these groups also have metal? Yes. Do they have Adidas t-shirts? Yes. Do they have plastic jugs? Yes. No group is untouched by the world, and never has been. Plus, most of the very few foraging groups that still exist have been pushed to peripheral locations, meaning it is harder to survive utilizing such strategies. As such, many groups have had little choice but to adapt, so there really aren't any groups that fit the image of a Stone Age hunter-gatherer band the way people might imagine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":103.0,"score_ratio":11.75} {"post_id":"ytlnoc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did all cultures have an Old and a New Stone Age before transitioning to other materials? Or did some cultures just have one Stone Age? Did all cultures have an Old and a New Stone Age before transitioning to other materials? Or did some cultures just have one Stone Age? * Also, why don\u2019t we have an anthropogenic era called the concrete age, since that seemed to have allowed amazing civilizations to flourish like the Romans and others? * Are there still Stone Age civilizations? If so, have the people there still optimizes for that type of diet and environment? * why don\u2019t we have an era commemorating when humans started consuming eggs and dairy products, which was about 50,000 years ago? That was a big jump forward.","c_root_id_A":"iw59ta1","c_root_id_B":"iw57ojx","created_at_utc_A":1668303897,"created_at_utc_B":1668302875,"score_A":38,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"No, the terms Paleolithic and Neolithic don't make sense in, for instance, the Americas. Even in regions with metalworking, like the Great Lakes or Mesoamerica, they never took it as far as Eurasia and Africa did. Your questions also imply a monolinear evolution of cultures - you start with stone tools, move to bronze, and so on. It's a popular view of cultures in mainstream society, but it hasn't been accepted in anthropology in a hundred years. Mesoamerican cultures may not have had iron tools, but that doesn't mean they were less advanced than Europeans. In other areas, they were more advanced - Tenochtitlan was one of the largest and cleanest cities of its era in the world. Cultures are complex, and what technologies they chose to focus on depended on a lot of factors. There's no particular reason to assume that Europe's history of technological change is the natural progression. As for whether there are still Stone Age civilizations, that's a complex question. There are certainly hunter-gatherers still around. They often trade with those around them, so they're not necessarily reliant on stone tools anymore. Even so-called \"uncontacted tribes\" absolutely have contact with tribes around them and can probably get modern, factory-made goods through trade. I have no idea if they do or not, but that's absolutely what happened in the contact period in the Americas. European trade goods appeared in, for instance, the American west well before actual Europeans did. What do you mean by \"optimized for that diet and environment\"? If you're talking evolution-wise, all anatomically modern humans are pretty similar. There are some regional adaptations - lactase persistence, peoples from places like Tibet and Peru have some high altitude adaptations - but, for the most part, there's no reason to expect that any random baby adopted into any random society won't be able to grow up to a fully functional, healthy member of that society. You might not like the traditional diet of whatever hunter-gatherer group, but you could live just fine on it. Humans have probably consumed eggs since before we were human, because humans consume everything. Dairy consumption is only 6000 or so years old. Being able to digest dairy into adulthood came later, and, while it's useful for those areas that have done it, it's not that big of a deal. Regions that have never developed lactase persistance have done just fine without it. And, finally, the concrete age. I imagine part of it has to do with the old timey archaeologists and historians who made up the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and so on naming conventions. Concrete Age just doesn't sound as fun, plus it's a technology that was abandoned for quite a while before we picked it up again. In that sense, it doesn't fit the monolinear evolution theory of civilization, which was in vogue at the time those names started. I have seen people suggest calling the modern era the Plastics Age.","human_ref_B":"Concrete was created by the Romans but after the collapse of the western Roman Empire, its use died down dramatically. Its only been since the 19th century that its use accelerated again and there are so many other aspects of human culture that advanced simultaneously that naming an era after concrete seems like we're focusing on something too specific The term civilization carries baggage. There are societies that exist today with limited-to-no use of metals, instead using natural materials. The vast majority of people groups with regular contact with the rest of the world have adopted modern textiles and tools. Lactase persistence (the ability to consume dairy) developed within the last 10,000 years. I don't know where you pulled the 50,000 year number from.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1022.0,"score_ratio":9.5} {"post_id":"97syat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why were the Orkney Islands so heavily populated and developed in Neolithic times? Who were the people that were there and given their relative isolation what made that location so strategic? The Orkneys have a spectacular collection of neolithic remains and more are being found. It indicates that this was a special place circa 6000BC. Why was that and who was there then?","c_root_id_A":"e4c8n2u","c_root_id_B":"e4cchap","created_at_utc_A":1534486641,"created_at_utc_B":1534493972,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Is it possibly a matter of good preservation, especially if sites were not destroyed by later development in places that are now urban, such as London?","human_ref_B":"As far as who they were, this recent archaeogenetic study analyzed 67 Neolithic Britons, including 18 Orcadians. It found that about 75% of their ancestry traced back to the Anatolian Neolithic farmers who had expanded across much of Europe between about 8000-6000 years ago. In particular, Neolithic Britons seem to have mostly descended from Anatolian farmers who had first migrated to Iberia, intermixed somewhat with indigenous hunter-gathers, then migrated on to the British Isles. While about 25% of Neolithic Britons' ancestors had been Western European hunter-gatherers, less than 10% of their ancestry appears to have come from the hunter-gatherers who had been living in the British Isles. So it's worth checking out Neolithic Iberia and Anatolia, since those are likely to have been sources for much of Neolithic Orcadians' language, religion and other cultural traditions. You mentioned Neolithic Scandinavians in a comment, and this and previous studies have found that the Funnelbeaker people who were responsible for the most of the Nordic megalithic architecture derived a similar fraction of their ancestry from Neolithic Anatolia. As far as why the Orkneys seem to have been so influential, that's not very clear, hence the surprise at that apparent discovery. Maybe it related to settlement patterns, like incoming Anatolian-Iberian farmers establishing themselves first in the Orkneys, then radiating out into northern Scotland or even further afield, leading to an unusually strong cultural and economic network centered on the Orkneys which eventually came to strongly influence the rest of Britain. It's also possible that some of the current 'Orkney first' evidence could be biased by more frequent destruction of British Neolithic sites elsewhere, and the relatively thorough exploration of the Orkneys.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7331.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"97syat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why were the Orkney Islands so heavily populated and developed in Neolithic times? Who were the people that were there and given their relative isolation what made that location so strategic? The Orkneys have a spectacular collection of neolithic remains and more are being found. It indicates that this was a special place circa 6000BC. Why was that and who was there then?","c_root_id_A":"e4cchap","c_root_id_B":"e4bosg4","created_at_utc_A":1534493972,"created_at_utc_B":1534464054,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"As far as who they were, this recent archaeogenetic study analyzed 67 Neolithic Britons, including 18 Orcadians. It found that about 75% of their ancestry traced back to the Anatolian Neolithic farmers who had expanded across much of Europe between about 8000-6000 years ago. In particular, Neolithic Britons seem to have mostly descended from Anatolian farmers who had first migrated to Iberia, intermixed somewhat with indigenous hunter-gathers, then migrated on to the British Isles. While about 25% of Neolithic Britons' ancestors had been Western European hunter-gatherers, less than 10% of their ancestry appears to have come from the hunter-gatherers who had been living in the British Isles. So it's worth checking out Neolithic Iberia and Anatolia, since those are likely to have been sources for much of Neolithic Orcadians' language, religion and other cultural traditions. You mentioned Neolithic Scandinavians in a comment, and this and previous studies have found that the Funnelbeaker people who were responsible for the most of the Nordic megalithic architecture derived a similar fraction of their ancestry from Neolithic Anatolia. As far as why the Orkneys seem to have been so influential, that's not very clear, hence the surprise at that apparent discovery. Maybe it related to settlement patterns, like incoming Anatolian-Iberian farmers establishing themselves first in the Orkneys, then radiating out into northern Scotland or even further afield, leading to an unusually strong cultural and economic network centered on the Orkneys which eventually came to strongly influence the rest of Britain. It's also possible that some of the current 'Orkney first' evidence could be biased by more frequent destruction of British Neolithic sites elsewhere, and the relatively thorough exploration of the Orkneys.","human_ref_B":"You're making some assumptions in your question. Orkney wasn't particularly heavily populated, it was merely populated enough for the local region to sustain it. Nor was the location 'strategic' in any particular way. Strategic for what? At best it may have been 'safe', in that boat building technology was so limited that invasions were impossible against a robust island defence, and the island may have been small enough not to factionalise and thus work as a whole. (and thats a conjecture). This may have led to a continuity of cultural effort that encouraged the various structures to be built. We don't know why there are extensive neolithic remains there of some size and complexity. We dont know how long they took to build and what they are for, so its hard to gauge the effort required. There is no written record from the region and no cultural information has been sent down the years from the inhabitants The Ness of Brodgar is a huge and fascinating site, many people, like Neil Oliver in the linked video, suggest it had significant religious purpose. It possible did, but we just don't know. It was special no doubt, to the inhabitants. It may even have impressed trading visitors to go back and copy it. But we dont know and probably never will their precise purpose and meaning, beyond the religious\/cultural assumptions we already have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29918.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"97syat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Why were the Orkney Islands so heavily populated and developed in Neolithic times? Who were the people that were there and given their relative isolation what made that location so strategic? The Orkneys have a spectacular collection of neolithic remains and more are being found. It indicates that this was a special place circa 6000BC. Why was that and who was there then?","c_root_id_A":"e4bosg4","c_root_id_B":"e4c8n2u","created_at_utc_A":1534464054,"created_at_utc_B":1534486641,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"You're making some assumptions in your question. Orkney wasn't particularly heavily populated, it was merely populated enough for the local region to sustain it. Nor was the location 'strategic' in any particular way. Strategic for what? At best it may have been 'safe', in that boat building technology was so limited that invasions were impossible against a robust island defence, and the island may have been small enough not to factionalise and thus work as a whole. (and thats a conjecture). This may have led to a continuity of cultural effort that encouraged the various structures to be built. We don't know why there are extensive neolithic remains there of some size and complexity. We dont know how long they took to build and what they are for, so its hard to gauge the effort required. There is no written record from the region and no cultural information has been sent down the years from the inhabitants The Ness of Brodgar is a huge and fascinating site, many people, like Neil Oliver in the linked video, suggest it had significant religious purpose. It possible did, but we just don't know. It was special no doubt, to the inhabitants. It may even have impressed trading visitors to go back and copy it. But we dont know and probably never will their precise purpose and meaning, beyond the religious\/cultural assumptions we already have.","human_ref_B":"Is it possibly a matter of good preservation, especially if sites were not destroyed by later development in places that are now urban, such as London?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22587.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"zntc0z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why do humans have the tendency to walk in a big circle in the absence of distinctive landmarks?","c_root_id_A":"j0jefit","c_root_id_B":"j0j21en","created_at_utc_A":1671243418,"created_at_utc_B":1671237278,"score_A":96,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Scientists used to believe that uneven strides (one leg taking slightly longer steps than the other) led to walking in circles. Some German scientists tested this theory and found that it didn't quite correlate, even when they gave people shoes that had uneven sole thickness. So the current theory is that the issue of veering in circles is actually happening in the brain rather than in the body. The brain autocorrects a little too far with each step and ends up getting wildly off course if there aren't constant reference points to move toward.","human_ref_B":"Could you clarify what you are talking about with some specific examples?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6140.0,"score_ratio":24.0} {"post_id":"zntc0z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why do humans have the tendency to walk in a big circle in the absence of distinctive landmarks?","c_root_id_A":"j0l1tir","c_root_id_B":"j0j21en","created_at_utc_A":1671284581,"created_at_utc_B":1671237278,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I once came across the idea that its evolutionary - to prevent you getting too far away from your community if you get separated\/lost. You're much more likely to be found if you stick to the same general vicinity, so the unconscious ensures you do.","human_ref_B":"Could you clarify what you are talking about with some specific examples?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":47303.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"s4q5qi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why do humans have a longer lifespan than other primates (and all other land mammals, for that matter)? Is it a byproduct of our lifestyle, or did we actually evolve towards longevity? If it's the latter, then what was the purpose of such an adaptation in humans?","c_root_id_A":"hsske5o","c_root_id_B":"hstsqg7","created_at_utc_A":1642270157,"created_at_utc_B":1642287889,"score_A":41,"score_B":121,"human_ref_A":"We have a low extrinsic mortality rate that allows us to have a slower more protracted life history (with higher investment in offspring): https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6223763\/","human_ref_B":"It's been hypothesized that because of how social humans are, it was advantageous to have older members of the community alive to contribute knowledge and help for things like child rearing, food sources, etc. leading to increased fecundity and survival of children and grandchildren. You might find it interesting to read up on the Grandmother Hypothesis and other offshoots of this hypothesis.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17732.0,"score_ratio":2.9512195122} {"post_id":"zuoank","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"I read somewhere that humans originated in East Africa, probably Ethiopia. But many of the oldest man-made settlements and structures like Gob\u00ebkli Tepe, Uruk, etc. aren\u2019t anywhere near Ethiopia. Do we know anything about the first humans\u2019 journeys out of Ethiopia to these other lands? Like, has it been written about?","c_root_id_A":"j1kxz3y","c_root_id_B":"j1llgbr","created_at_utc_A":1671945202,"created_at_utc_B":1671965567,"score_A":25,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"The earliest human migration out of Africa is hypothesize to have taken place c. 180,000 years ago. We were largely hunter\/gatherers who did not establish long term settlements nor build structures until the origins of agriculture (c. 12,000 years ago).","human_ref_B":"Yes, we do, primarily because of DNA. Anthropology, and almost every other science, has a bias in knowledge because of what is preserved because of what preservation requires. Preservation of any specific element of *anything* is exceedingly, vanishingly unlikely. It's astonishing when anything is found. Warm and wet climate means almost nothing gets preserved, so it doesn't even make sense to spend energy and the huge cost of exploration in those locations. So, expeditions go to locations where ancient elements *might possibly* be found. But DNA is a treasure trove, because current living beings preserve many elements of their deep history in their DNA.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20365.0,"score_ratio":1.08} {"post_id":"zuoank","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"I read somewhere that humans originated in East Africa, probably Ethiopia. But many of the oldest man-made settlements and structures like Gob\u00ebkli Tepe, Uruk, etc. aren\u2019t anywhere near Ethiopia. Do we know anything about the first humans\u2019 journeys out of Ethiopia to these other lands? Like, has it been written about?","c_root_id_A":"j1ld6im","c_root_id_B":"j1llgbr","created_at_utc_A":1671957550,"created_at_utc_B":1671965567,"score_A":5,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Probable pathways for those migrations and things like the climatic conditions during that period have been written about. Encounters with Neanderthals and such and such. What exactly are you looking for when you say \"written about\"?","human_ref_B":"Yes, we do, primarily because of DNA. Anthropology, and almost every other science, has a bias in knowledge because of what is preserved because of what preservation requires. Preservation of any specific element of *anything* is exceedingly, vanishingly unlikely. It's astonishing when anything is found. Warm and wet climate means almost nothing gets preserved, so it doesn't even make sense to spend energy and the huge cost of exploration in those locations. So, expeditions go to locations where ancient elements *might possibly* be found. But DNA is a treasure trove, because current living beings preserve many elements of their deep history in their DNA.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8017.0,"score_ratio":5.4} {"post_id":"zuoank","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"I read somewhere that humans originated in East Africa, probably Ethiopia. But many of the oldest man-made settlements and structures like Gob\u00ebkli Tepe, Uruk, etc. aren\u2019t anywhere near Ethiopia. Do we know anything about the first humans\u2019 journeys out of Ethiopia to these other lands? Like, has it been written about?","c_root_id_A":"j1m3h4x","c_root_id_B":"j1ld6im","created_at_utc_A":1671979440,"created_at_utc_B":1671957550,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You have come to the right place! There are two subfields of anthropology that explore the history of humans going back to the beginning -- biological anthropology and archaeology. The Wikipedia articles on early and later human migrations are pretty accurate. The Smithsonian has a nice webpage on human evolution. If you want to explore in more depth, any recent textbook in biological anthropology (sometimes called physical anthropology) would work for you. Basically anatomically modern homo sapiens evolved around 200,000-300,000 years ago in Africa. There have been a few waves of migration around and out of the continent, the most recent migration out of Africa was about 50 thousand years ago and led to the large populations that exist around the world today. Gobleki Tepe is only 8 or 9 thousand years old. Uruk is about 4000 or so years old. So we were definitely building settlements for a long time before those examples. But Gobleki Tepe and Uruk were among the first settlements to feature large scale monuments made out of stone. So the give the first strong evidence of large group cooperation that we can find in the archaeological record. That doesn't mean there wasn't large scale cooperation before that, we just don't have evidence.","human_ref_B":"Probable pathways for those migrations and things like the climatic conditions during that period have been written about. Encounters with Neanderthals and such and such. What exactly are you looking for when you say \"written about\"?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21890.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"2n64lj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Has the widespread practice of inventive naming--using names purely from phonemes but not accepted morphemes--been directly observed outside African American culture? Most of the time names appear to either have a meaning in their language, or they come from antiquity. I am wondering if there are other cultures where this frequently occurs, of it is mostly unique to Black American culture.","c_root_id_A":"cmao8dh","c_root_id_B":"cmaojwo","created_at_utc_A":1416757486,"created_at_utc_B":1416758324,"score_A":3,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"What do you mean by many names being created only out of phonemes? I'm assuming you mean single letter nicknames like J etc? I disagree that those are not morphemes: they most assuredly have meaning to the people using them. Nicknames like J most likely stand for the persons full name of Jayden or Jason or something along those lines. And that phenomenon is not only observed by African Americans, people of all ethnicity in the USA have the same practices. By this question do you mean names like Quanisha or Raylen? I agree that those names are made only of phonemes, but that is not unique. Though there are many names that non-African Americans have that are made of morphemes like Smith or Earl, that does not mean that there are not also phonetical names too. Think of Alex or Emma. Those names have only phonemes, but are just more standard. I think the only reason you perceive a difference in naming conventions between races may be because highly phonetical names just aren't as common.","human_ref_B":"I'm a Portuguese-speaker with a background in linguistics and I think I might be able to comment - Inventive names are widespread in Brazilian Portuguese naming culture, enough so that it is something of a cultural \"joke\". This often has somewhat scornful class-based overtones, similar to how African American names are treated in the USA, as these names are stereotypically thought of as being characteristic of the poor. Names beginning in *W*-, which isn't used in Portuguese at all except in borrowings, are particularly popular, as are names ending in -*son*, both of which appear to be in vogue since they make names appear English (alternately, both *Nelson* and *Wellington* have been popular Portuguese names since the Napoleonic wars, so this may play into it as well). Compare how some African American names run the gamut of actual African names (e.g. *Jamal*) to invented but \"African sounding\" names: Brazilian first names include actual English first names (*Wilmer*), repurposed English surnames (*Davidson*, *Washington*), respelled English surnames (*Deividson*), invented English-sounding names, some of which are quite popular (*Edilson*) and entirely unique names (*D'Jane*). This phenomenon isn't restricted to purely English-sounding names, although that's the stereotype. I've met many Brazilians with unusual first names of no obvious origin, but Brazil is diverse enough that it's not always clear whether a name is invented, native, or passed down through immigration.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":838.0,"score_ratio":9.6666666667} {"post_id":"f5lw7g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Considering how recently writing came about, has it been evolutionarily selected for? Is being able to read and write just a lucky coincidence that it works with how we've already evolved?","c_root_id_A":"fi0roh8","c_root_id_B":"fi0o75c","created_at_utc_A":1582043396,"created_at_utc_B":1582041341,"score_A":33,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The literacy rate was nowhere in the world above 20 % as recently as the 1550s. 200 years ago, the world literacy rate was probably around 12 %. Until 1800, the marked increase in literacy was mostly limited to Northwestern Europe. In the Ancient world, literacy was always limited to a small elite. According to Harris 1989, in classical Athens the literacy rate was probably 5-10 %, and the Roman empire at its zenith did not have a higher rate than around 10 %. It's hard to estimate literacy in the first writing cultures, but de Mieroop 2016 notes that in the Ur III (~2K BC) period, it was remarkable that even small villages had people who could read and write. It may have been on a comparable level as elite cities in the later classical era. In some states literacy was a closely guarded secret. The Maya elite, for example, deliberately kept literacy to itself. Everywhere else it would have been lower, and in many regions it would have been zero since there was no writing. Literacy had a very short time to be chosen for by evolution. It is conceivable that in elite families that were expected to be literate, dyslexia could have been selected against, but for the vast majority of the population, that would have been an invisible and unknown disorder. Evolution is unlikely to be very important to whether you were literate or not in the pre-modern era. It was almost exclusively a question of what family you were born into. Sources: Harris, William V. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989. Van de Mieroop, Marc. A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC. Third edition. Blackwell History of the Ancient World. Chichester, West Sussex, UK\u202f; Malden, MA: Wiley\/Blackwell, 2016.","human_ref_B":"I've thought a lot about this. I wouldn't say it's a biological trait (there are plenty of cultures that never bothered with writing), but it's interesting to consider writing in view of the rise of anatomically modern humans (~200k ya), culture (~50k ya), and the very recent development of writing (~5k ya). Look at those gaps! One thing of interest is the theory of the collapse of the bicameral mind, that basically says writing codified a shared reality, for better and worse, helping to solidify religion and culture as institutions of consolidated power. Aside from the bicameral mind theory (which some people rightfully criticize), the history of writing has been covered in a very readable way in 'Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain'. Likewise, I do think that writing came about from an already highly-developed hand-brain connection. We really are homo-tool-user, and we relate to the world with our hands (and have notably different hand anatomy from other primates, and some say we always have had; note our more raccoon-like hand shape). In my unexpert opinion, I think that tight circuit of hand-brain-eye of interacting with the world is part of it as well. Of course, it's worth noting that reading and writing used to be the activity of a very select few, not the population as a whole by any means...and writing used to be incredibly difficult and take years to become proficient in because the symbol systems were ridiculous. Dyslexia is a highly controversial aspect of reading research. It is uncanny to meet students for whom letters make natural sense (a five year old sounding out my sweatshirt that said 'Lakewood') vs. students who can stare at the same three-letter word every day and not recall it. Oddly enough, rapid automatic naming seems to be a skill associated with it (or at least it used to be; don't get me started on the DSM-V), which is basically the skill of seeing something and identifying it quickly. There's a lot we don't know about reading.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2055.0,"score_ratio":3.3} {"post_id":"vgic7m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is there any option where I can read anthropological research papers for free?","c_root_id_A":"id1ryzq","c_root_id_B":"id22qz2","created_at_utc_A":1655725574,"created_at_utc_B":1655731979,"score_A":4,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"You can always find abstracts and author names for papers. If it strikes your interest, email the corresponding author. They usually are happy to share.","human_ref_B":"Hahaha, no one is going to say it? Sure, you can try the *\"email the author\"* route--but I don't think this works as often or as quickly as anyone here is suggesting. And then there is this other method you could use. It rhymes with \"Pie Rub\". Sure, it\u2019s \u201cillegal\u201d\u2026you\u2019re \u201cstealing\u201d from people who did none of the intellectual work. I did something \u201cillegal\u201d today when I drove 46 mph in a 45 mph zone.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6405.0,"score_ratio":8.25} {"post_id":"vgic7m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is there any option where I can read anthropological research papers for free?","c_root_id_A":"id22qz2","c_root_id_B":"id1wadx","created_at_utc_A":1655731979,"created_at_utc_B":1655728341,"score_A":33,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hahaha, no one is going to say it? Sure, you can try the *\"email the author\"* route--but I don't think this works as often or as quickly as anyone here is suggesting. And then there is this other method you could use. It rhymes with \"Pie Rub\". Sure, it\u2019s \u201cillegal\u201d\u2026you\u2019re \u201cstealing\u201d from people who did none of the intellectual work. I did something \u201cillegal\u201d today when I drove 46 mph in a 45 mph zone.","human_ref_B":"JSTOR also makes some stuff available for free. Google Scholar always worked best for me. Another thing you could try is emailing the authors or any articles you want to read and requesting a copy of their articles.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3638.0,"score_ratio":8.25} {"post_id":"a64hhw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any Anthropological or cultural studies done on Nepali cuisine or nepal in general? I want to do a research paper on the culinary practices of the Nepalese people, so i was wondering if you know any anthropological writings on Nepal.","c_root_id_A":"ebrrf6x","c_root_id_B":"ebrnsga","created_at_utc_A":1544796948,"created_at_utc_B":1544795218,"score_A":23,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There's a lot of anthropological work on Nepal. It's not my area (I'm a Tibetologist) but I cross the anthropological section adjacent to the sources I need all of the time. One of the problems you'll run into is that Nepal is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries on earth, so finding anything that can be called comprehensive \"Nepali\" will be difficult.","human_ref_B":"I enjoyed suitably modern , but I don\u2019t remember how much they talked about food. Your best bet honestly is to go to the library. There should be plenty of material.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1730.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"a64hhw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any Anthropological or cultural studies done on Nepali cuisine or nepal in general? I want to do a research paper on the culinary practices of the Nepalese people, so i was wondering if you know any anthropological writings on Nepal.","c_root_id_A":"ebrnsga","c_root_id_B":"ebsg679","created_at_utc_A":1544795218,"created_at_utc_B":1544809740,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I enjoyed suitably modern , but I don\u2019t remember how much they talked about food. Your best bet honestly is to go to the library. There should be plenty of material.","human_ref_B":"My thesis supervisor does a lot of work in Nepal. I would search her up on Google (Dr Sara Shneiderman at the University of British Columbia), as well as Dr. Mark Turin, also at UBC. Feel free to also send her an email (you can find her contact on the UBC website)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14522.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyz59nt","c_root_id_B":"eyz1al1","created_at_utc_A":1567609880,"created_at_utc_B":1567607196,"score_A":54,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"Here is one from Norway: Giant trolls exist, but when they get exposed to sunlight, they turn into stone. That is how we got our mountains.","human_ref_B":"From Trinidad. My grandmother had some bruises on her body and was convinced it was from a soucouyant, or Caribbean mythical creature that\u2019s a shapeshifting hag. It shifts into a fireball and comes through tiny crevices and cracks in your house at night to suck your blood. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soucouyant","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2684.0,"score_ratio":1.35} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyz3mij","c_root_id_B":"eyz59nt","created_at_utc_A":1567608775,"created_at_utc_B":1567609880,"score_A":36,"score_B":54,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m from Te-Hiku-O-Te-Ika-O-Maui - the tail of the fish of Maui. Maui went fishing one day and, using his grand mothers magic jaw bone as a hook, he caught a gigantic fish and hauled it to the surface. He then beat the back of the fish to subdue it. So big was this fish that it became the North Island of New Zealand, with it\u2019s mouth (Wellington) facing the canoe (South Island).","human_ref_B":"Here is one from Norway: Giant trolls exist, but when they get exposed to sunlight, they turn into stone. That is how we got our mountains.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1105.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzz0wr","c_root_id_B":"eyz7yuq","created_at_utc_A":1567627158,"created_at_utc_B":1567611650,"score_A":18,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","human_ref_B":"Ask \/r\/globaltalk (A subreddit of people from around the globe that ask \u201cwhat\u2019s it like in your country?\u201d Stuff)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15508.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzr5wr","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567623375,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":16,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3783.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzd8xg","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567615094,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":15,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The folk tale of \"Sybille von der Teck\" tells of a wise, benevolent woman who lived in a castle on a mountain (Teckberg) Various circumstances cause her to leave this world behind, so she leaves her castle in a chariot drawn by winged cats, drives a ways straight down the mountain, takes off into the sky, and is never seen again. The broad ruts made by the wheels of her chariot are her last gift to humanity: the grain grows taller and better there, the hay is greener, etc. This part is fact, and is readily observable even today. 20th century research has shown that \"Sybille's tracks\" are actually the remains of a Roman limes that runs straight through the area. The altered soil carries water straight down from the mountain, which promotes the growth of vegetation. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lautertal\\_Limes ​ From the wiki: ​ An excavation by the *Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wurttemberg* in 1982 uncovered the following: the *Sibyllenspur* comprises three parallel ditches, the outer one (1) in the northeast being a 3.20-metre-wide and 1.60-metre-deep V-shaped ditch. To the southwest, at a distance of 6 metres, is a 2.60-metre-wide and 1.4-metre-deep V-shaped ditch (2) and, behind it, 1.5 metres away, is a 70-cm-wide and 1.10-metre-deep U-shaped ditch (3), into which the wooden posts of a palisade were driven. This presented a wooden obstacle on the enemy side; against which on the inside was probably an earthen bank (*vallum*). The excavation confirmed the presence of the Roman fortlet, seen on the aerial photograph taken by Dieter Planck, behind the ditches. During these excavations, two fragments of *terra sigillata* vessels were found in the ditch. The *sigillata* were able to be dated to around 120 to 130\u00a0AD, based on the manufacturer's seal by the potter, *Satto*, who worked at the *terra sigillata* pottery in Ch\u00e9mery-l\u00e8s-Faulquemont(historically German: *Schemmerich*) near Faulquemont (German: *Falkenberg*) in *Gallia Belgica*. These artefacts classify the *Sibyllenspur* with its V-shaped ditches and the wood and earth rampart as the long-sought connection between the Domitian Neckar Limes and the Alb Limes","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12064.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzz0wr","c_root_id_B":"eyztxqj","created_at_utc_A":1567627158,"created_at_utc_B":1567624801,"score_A":18,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","human_ref_B":"In Jewish culture there's the story of \"The golem of Prag\". In the 16th the jewish community suffered from pogroms (the persecution of jewish people in European countries) and were in need of a savior. So the rabbi of the community performed a ritual- create a man from clay. the way he did so varys- from using a holy name of god, to writing the word \"truth\" on his forehead. The man made man was called \"golem\", and would protect them from violence. but there came a day and the golem attacked the rabbi, and to defeat him, he erased the letter alef. The word \"truth\" is \u05d0\u05de\u05ea and by erasing the first letter it becomes \u05de\u05ea or dead. But legend says, in the attic of the \"Altnoishol\" synagogue, the body of the golem resides, waiting for the next time the jewish people will need him.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2357.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbdc","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567619009,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":10,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Australia has Min Min lights (willow wisps that follow alongside cars) and Bunyips (a swamp\/water hole monster). When you're driving alone at night on a lightless backroad, a Min Min is terrifying to see racing along in the field beside you. At least it is until you realise it's the reflection of one of your dash lights on the window :)","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8149.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzkhgv","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567619753,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":12,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"In Norfolk ( the original one in eastern England) and east anglia generally, there are lots of tales of mythical big black dogs roaming the countryside. Some might foretell death and doom. The most famous beast is known as \u2018Black Shuck\u2019 Fans of 00s Brit glam\/rock band The Darkness may remember their song \u2018black shuck\u2019 from the album Permission to Land: The Darkness are from the east of England. About black shuck from our tourist information website: \u201cThere have been many accounts of Black Shuck over the years \u2013 including a story told by 20th century author Christopher Marlowe in his book People and Places in Marshland. On hearing the legends he had rented a cottage just off the A149 and attempted to track Black Shuck down \u2013 only to be chased through the night by an indefinable creature with a \u2018great black body\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ferocious eyes\u2019. Marlowe isn\u2019t the only author to have immortalised Black Shuck \u2013 it\u2019s known that Arthur Conan Doyle visited Cromer Hall in 1901, the year before he published his Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u201d Black shuck is an ancient myth but there are rumours in modern times that there are panthers on the loose in Norfolk and there are lots of big cat sightings, so now you won\u2019t know if you are being chased by the hounds of hell or a panther","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7405.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzqmw6","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567623128,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":10,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"From South Texas: The Payaya Tribe were the indigenous people of the city I live in (San Antonio, TX) and who the Spanish encountered when they first settled the Alamo Mission. There's a park (San Pedro) in our city that contains natural springs that feed into the San Antonio River; the Payaya considered this land extremely important and called it Yanaguana. They believed that a giant blue leopard lived beneath the ground and that the waters of the spring burst forth from its body and rose to the surface, creating the oasis that attracted the settlers. Recently, our downtown park was renovated with mosaic murals and statues that tell more of what was the Payaya world origin story (like of a giant bird who would bathe in the springs then fly around, letting the blessed water fall upon the land & creating the many tributaries the San Antonio River has), complete with a large blue leopard statue. It's called Yanaguana Park if anyone wants to look it up!","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4030.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"eyzz0wr","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567627158,"score_A":6,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8146.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzz0wr","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567627158,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":18,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There are a lot of \u201cbubbe meisas\u201d (old grandmother stories) out there, but one of my favorites has to be why Ashkenazi Jews don\u2019t name children after living people. Apparently the malach ha\u2019movet (angel of death) may get confused when it\u2019s time for the elder person to die and take the little kid instead. Our grim reaper\/evil eye can apparently also be confused or kept out if you cover mirrors in a house of mourning or say phrases to yourself like \u201ckeyn ayn hara\u201d if someone praises you (to keep from seeming too boastful and tempting fate).","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13612.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzr5wr","c_root_id_B":"eyzd8xg","created_at_utc_A":1567623375,"created_at_utc_B":1567615094,"score_A":16,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","human_ref_B":"The folk tale of \"Sybille von der Teck\" tells of a wise, benevolent woman who lived in a castle on a mountain (Teckberg) Various circumstances cause her to leave this world behind, so she leaves her castle in a chariot drawn by winged cats, drives a ways straight down the mountain, takes off into the sky, and is never seen again. The broad ruts made by the wheels of her chariot are her last gift to humanity: the grain grows taller and better there, the hay is greener, etc. This part is fact, and is readily observable even today. 20th century research has shown that \"Sybille's tracks\" are actually the remains of a Roman limes that runs straight through the area. The altered soil carries water straight down from the mountain, which promotes the growth of vegetation. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lautertal\\_Limes ​ From the wiki: ​ An excavation by the *Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wurttemberg* in 1982 uncovered the following: the *Sibyllenspur* comprises three parallel ditches, the outer one (1) in the northeast being a 3.20-metre-wide and 1.60-metre-deep V-shaped ditch. To the southwest, at a distance of 6 metres, is a 2.60-metre-wide and 1.4-metre-deep V-shaped ditch (2) and, behind it, 1.5 metres away, is a 70-cm-wide and 1.10-metre-deep U-shaped ditch (3), into which the wooden posts of a palisade were driven. This presented a wooden obstacle on the enemy side; against which on the inside was probably an earthen bank (*vallum*). The excavation confirmed the presence of the Roman fortlet, seen on the aerial photograph taken by Dieter Planck, behind the ditches. During these excavations, two fragments of *terra sigillata* vessels were found in the ditch. The *sigillata* were able to be dated to around 120 to 130\u00a0AD, based on the manufacturer's seal by the potter, *Satto*, who worked at the *terra sigillata* pottery in Ch\u00e9mery-l\u00e8s-Faulquemont(historically German: *Schemmerich*) near Faulquemont (German: *Falkenberg*) in *Gallia Belgica*. These artefacts classify the *Sibyllenspur* with its V-shaped ditches and the wood and earth rampart as the long-sought connection between the Domitian Neckar Limes and the Alb Limes","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8281.0,"score_ratio":1.0666666667} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbdc","c_root_id_B":"eyzr5wr","created_at_utc_A":1567619009,"created_at_utc_B":1567623375,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Australia has Min Min lights (willow wisps that follow alongside cars) and Bunyips (a swamp\/water hole monster). When you're driving alone at night on a lightless backroad, a Min Min is terrifying to see racing along in the field beside you. At least it is until you realise it's the reflection of one of your dash lights on the window :)","human_ref_B":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4366.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzkhgv","c_root_id_B":"eyzr5wr","created_at_utc_A":1567619753,"created_at_utc_B":1567623375,"score_A":12,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"In Norfolk ( the original one in eastern England) and east anglia generally, there are lots of tales of mythical big black dogs roaming the countryside. Some might foretell death and doom. The most famous beast is known as \u2018Black Shuck\u2019 Fans of 00s Brit glam\/rock band The Darkness may remember their song \u2018black shuck\u2019 from the album Permission to Land: The Darkness are from the east of England. About black shuck from our tourist information website: \u201cThere have been many accounts of Black Shuck over the years \u2013 including a story told by 20th century author Christopher Marlowe in his book People and Places in Marshland. On hearing the legends he had rented a cottage just off the A149 and attempted to track Black Shuck down \u2013 only to be chased through the night by an indefinable creature with a \u2018great black body\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ferocious eyes\u2019. Marlowe isn\u2019t the only author to have immortalised Black Shuck \u2013 it\u2019s known that Arthur Conan Doyle visited Cromer Hall in 1901, the year before he published his Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u201d Black shuck is an ancient myth but there are rumours in modern times that there are panthers on the loose in Norfolk and there are lots of big cat sightings, so now you won\u2019t know if you are being chased by the hounds of hell or a panther","human_ref_B":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3622.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzqmw6","c_root_id_B":"eyzr5wr","created_at_utc_A":1567623128,"created_at_utc_B":1567623375,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"From South Texas: The Payaya Tribe were the indigenous people of the city I live in (San Antonio, TX) and who the Spanish encountered when they first settled the Alamo Mission. There's a park (San Pedro) in our city that contains natural springs that feed into the San Antonio River; the Payaya considered this land extremely important and called it Yanaguana. They believed that a giant blue leopard lived beneath the ground and that the waters of the spring burst forth from its body and rose to the surface, creating the oasis that attracted the settlers. Recently, our downtown park was renovated with mosaic murals and statues that tell more of what was the Payaya world origin story (like of a giant bird who would bathe in the springs then fly around, letting the blessed water fall upon the land & creating the many tributaries the San Antonio River has), complete with a large blue leopard statue. It's called Yanaguana Park if anyone wants to look it up!","human_ref_B":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":247.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzr5wr","c_root_id_B":"eyzjbk4","created_at_utc_A":1567623375,"created_at_utc_B":1567619012,"score_A":16,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","human_ref_B":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4363.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzr5wr","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567623375,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":16,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"We just celebrated Folklore Day here in Brazil! Here are some of the most famous legends down here: * **Headless Mule** (*Mula sem cabe\u00e7a*): In most tales, it is the ghost of a woman that has been cursed by God for her sins (often said to be as concubinate or fornication with a priest within a church) and condemned to turn into a fire-spewing headless mule, galloping through the countryside from Thursday's sundown to Friday's sunrise. * **Saci-Perer\u00ea**: He is a one-legged black or mulatto youngster, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dust devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. However, his cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away. The legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil. * **Pink boto** (*Boto cor-de-rosa*): A boto is a kind of dolphin that lives in the Amazon river. It is said that during the June festivities (which celebrates the winter harvest), the pink dolphin appears transformed into a boy elegantly dressed in white,always with a hat to cover the large nostril that does not disappear from the top of his head with the transformation. This boy seduces the unaccompanied girls , taking them to the bottom of the river and in some cases getting them pregnant. For this reason, when an unknown boy shows up at a party wearing a hat, he is asked to take it off to make sure it is not a button. Hence the custom of saying, when a woman has a child of an unknown father, that he is a \"son of the dolphin.\" * **Iara**: Iara is a beautiful young woman, sometimes described as having green hair, light brown or copper-colored skin (as that of an Indigenous Amerindian from Brazil, or of a caboclo) and brown eyes, connected to a freshwater dolphin, manatee or fish body, who would sit on a rock by the river combing her hair or dozing under the sun. When she felt a man around she would start to sing gently to lure him. Once under the spell of the Iara a man would leave anything to live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. * **Curupira**: this creature has bright red\/orange hair, and resembles a man or a dwarf, but its feet are turned backwards. Curupira lives in the forests of Brazil and uses its backward feet to create footprints that lead to its starting point, thus making hunters and travelers confused. Besides that, it can also create illusions and produce a sound that's like a high pitched whistle, in order to scare and drive its victim to madness. * **Little black sheperd** (*Negrinho do Pastoreio*): This is actually an anti-slavery myth that originated in the times of the freeing of the slaves. There was an evil rancher with many slaves. One winter day it was very cold and the farmer ordered a fourteen-year-old black boy to herd the horses he had just bought. In the late afternoon, when the boy returned, the rancher said a bay horse was missing. He took the whip and beat the boy so hard that he bled. Distressed, the boy went looking for the animal. Before long, he found the horse grazing. He tied it, but the rope broke and the horse fled again. Back at the ranch, the even more irritated rancher hit the boy again and tied him naked over an anthill. The next day, when he went to see the state of his victim, he was startled. The boy was there, but standing, smooth-skinned, with no lash marks. Beside him, was the Blessed Virgin, the bay and the other horses. The rancher threw himself to the ground for forgiveness, but the black boy answered nothing. He just kissed the Saint's hand, mounted the bay and set off leading the pack.","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9829.0,"score_ratio":3.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzav46","c_root_id_B":"eyzd8xg","created_at_utc_A":1567613546,"created_at_utc_B":1567615094,"score_A":5,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","human_ref_B":"The folk tale of \"Sybille von der Teck\" tells of a wise, benevolent woman who lived in a castle on a mountain (Teckberg) Various circumstances cause her to leave this world behind, so she leaves her castle in a chariot drawn by winged cats, drives a ways straight down the mountain, takes off into the sky, and is never seen again. The broad ruts made by the wheels of her chariot are her last gift to humanity: the grain grows taller and better there, the hay is greener, etc. This part is fact, and is readily observable even today. 20th century research has shown that \"Sybille's tracks\" are actually the remains of a Roman limes that runs straight through the area. The altered soil carries water straight down from the mountain, which promotes the growth of vegetation. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lautertal\\_Limes ​ From the wiki: ​ An excavation by the *Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wurttemberg* in 1982 uncovered the following: the *Sibyllenspur* comprises three parallel ditches, the outer one (1) in the northeast being a 3.20-metre-wide and 1.60-metre-deep V-shaped ditch. To the southwest, at a distance of 6 metres, is a 2.60-metre-wide and 1.4-metre-deep V-shaped ditch (2) and, behind it, 1.5 metres away, is a 70-cm-wide and 1.10-metre-deep U-shaped ditch (3), into which the wooden posts of a palisade were driven. This presented a wooden obstacle on the enemy side; against which on the inside was probably an earthen bank (*vallum*). The excavation confirmed the presence of the Roman fortlet, seen on the aerial photograph taken by Dieter Planck, behind the ditches. During these excavations, two fragments of *terra sigillata* vessels were found in the ditch. The *sigillata* were able to be dated to around 120 to 130\u00a0AD, based on the manufacturer's seal by the potter, *Satto*, who worked at the *terra sigillata* pottery in Ch\u00e9mery-l\u00e8s-Faulquemont(historically German: *Schemmerich*) near Faulquemont (German: *Falkenberg*) in *Gallia Belgica*. These artefacts classify the *Sibyllenspur* with its V-shaped ditches and the wood and earth rampart as the long-sought connection between the Domitian Neckar Limes and the Alb Limes","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1548.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbdc","c_root_id_B":"eyztxqj","created_at_utc_A":1567619009,"created_at_utc_B":1567624801,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Australia has Min Min lights (willow wisps that follow alongside cars) and Bunyips (a swamp\/water hole monster). When you're driving alone at night on a lightless backroad, a Min Min is terrifying to see racing along in the field beside you. At least it is until you realise it's the reflection of one of your dash lights on the window :)","human_ref_B":"In Jewish culture there's the story of \"The golem of Prag\". In the 16th the jewish community suffered from pogroms (the persecution of jewish people in European countries) and were in need of a savior. So the rabbi of the community performed a ritual- create a man from clay. the way he did so varys- from using a holy name of god, to writing the word \"truth\" on his forehead. The man made man was called \"golem\", and would protect them from violence. but there came a day and the golem attacked the rabbi, and to defeat him, he erased the letter alef. The word \"truth\" is \u05d0\u05de\u05ea and by erasing the first letter it becomes \u05de\u05ea or dead. But legend says, in the attic of the \"Altnoishol\" synagogue, the body of the golem resides, waiting for the next time the jewish people will need him.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5792.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzqmw6","c_root_id_B":"eyztxqj","created_at_utc_A":1567623128,"created_at_utc_B":1567624801,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"From South Texas: The Payaya Tribe were the indigenous people of the city I live in (San Antonio, TX) and who the Spanish encountered when they first settled the Alamo Mission. There's a park (San Pedro) in our city that contains natural springs that feed into the San Antonio River; the Payaya considered this land extremely important and called it Yanaguana. They believed that a giant blue leopard lived beneath the ground and that the waters of the spring burst forth from its body and rose to the surface, creating the oasis that attracted the settlers. Recently, our downtown park was renovated with mosaic murals and statues that tell more of what was the Payaya world origin story (like of a giant bird who would bathe in the springs then fly around, letting the blessed water fall upon the land & creating the many tributaries the San Antonio River has), complete with a large blue leopard statue. It's called Yanaguana Park if anyone wants to look it up!","human_ref_B":"In Jewish culture there's the story of \"The golem of Prag\". In the 16th the jewish community suffered from pogroms (the persecution of jewish people in European countries) and were in need of a savior. So the rabbi of the community performed a ritual- create a man from clay. the way he did so varys- from using a holy name of god, to writing the word \"truth\" on his forehead. The man made man was called \"golem\", and would protect them from violence. but there came a day and the golem attacked the rabbi, and to defeat him, he erased the letter alef. The word \"truth\" is \u05d0\u05de\u05ea and by erasing the first letter it becomes \u05de\u05ea or dead. But legend says, in the attic of the \"Altnoishol\" synagogue, the body of the golem resides, waiting for the next time the jewish people will need him.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1673.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"eyztxqj","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567624801,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"In Jewish culture there's the story of \"The golem of Prag\". In the 16th the jewish community suffered from pogroms (the persecution of jewish people in European countries) and were in need of a savior. So the rabbi of the community performed a ritual- create a man from clay. the way he did so varys- from using a holy name of god, to writing the word \"truth\" on his forehead. The man made man was called \"golem\", and would protect them from violence. but there came a day and the golem attacked the rabbi, and to defeat him, he erased the letter alef. The word \"truth\" is \u05d0\u05de\u05ea and by erasing the first letter it becomes \u05de\u05ea or dead. But legend says, in the attic of the \"Altnoishol\" synagogue, the body of the golem resides, waiting for the next time the jewish people will need him.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5789.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyztxqj","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567624801,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In Jewish culture there's the story of \"The golem of Prag\". In the 16th the jewish community suffered from pogroms (the persecution of jewish people in European countries) and were in need of a savior. So the rabbi of the community performed a ritual- create a man from clay. the way he did so varys- from using a holy name of god, to writing the word \"truth\" on his forehead. The man made man was called \"golem\", and would protect them from violence. but there came a day and the golem attacked the rabbi, and to defeat him, he erased the letter alef. The word \"truth\" is \u05d0\u05de\u05ea and by erasing the first letter it becomes \u05de\u05ea or dead. But legend says, in the attic of the \"Altnoishol\" synagogue, the body of the golem resides, waiting for the next time the jewish people will need him.","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11255.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzkhgv","c_root_id_B":"eyzjbdc","created_at_utc_A":1567619753,"created_at_utc_B":1567619009,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In Norfolk ( the original one in eastern England) and east anglia generally, there are lots of tales of mythical big black dogs roaming the countryside. Some might foretell death and doom. The most famous beast is known as \u2018Black Shuck\u2019 Fans of 00s Brit glam\/rock band The Darkness may remember their song \u2018black shuck\u2019 from the album Permission to Land: The Darkness are from the east of England. About black shuck from our tourist information website: \u201cThere have been many accounts of Black Shuck over the years \u2013 including a story told by 20th century author Christopher Marlowe in his book People and Places in Marshland. On hearing the legends he had rented a cottage just off the A149 and attempted to track Black Shuck down \u2013 only to be chased through the night by an indefinable creature with a \u2018great black body\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ferocious eyes\u2019. Marlowe isn\u2019t the only author to have immortalised Black Shuck \u2013 it\u2019s known that Arthur Conan Doyle visited Cromer Hall in 1901, the year before he published his Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u201d Black shuck is an ancient myth but there are rumours in modern times that there are panthers on the loose in Norfolk and there are lots of big cat sightings, so now you won\u2019t know if you are being chased by the hounds of hell or a panther","human_ref_B":"Australia has Min Min lights (willow wisps that follow alongside cars) and Bunyips (a swamp\/water hole monster). When you're driving alone at night on a lightless backroad, a Min Min is terrifying to see racing along in the field beside you. At least it is until you realise it's the reflection of one of your dash lights on the window :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":744.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbdc","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567619009,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Australia has Min Min lights (willow wisps that follow alongside cars) and Bunyips (a swamp\/water hole monster). When you're driving alone at night on a lightless backroad, a Min Min is terrifying to see racing along in the field beside you. At least it is until you realise it's the reflection of one of your dash lights on the window :)","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5463.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"eyzkhgv","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567619753,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"In Norfolk ( the original one in eastern England) and east anglia generally, there are lots of tales of mythical big black dogs roaming the countryside. Some might foretell death and doom. The most famous beast is known as \u2018Black Shuck\u2019 Fans of 00s Brit glam\/rock band The Darkness may remember their song \u2018black shuck\u2019 from the album Permission to Land: The Darkness are from the east of England. About black shuck from our tourist information website: \u201cThere have been many accounts of Black Shuck over the years \u2013 including a story told by 20th century author Christopher Marlowe in his book People and Places in Marshland. On hearing the legends he had rented a cottage just off the A149 and attempted to track Black Shuck down \u2013 only to be chased through the night by an indefinable creature with a \u2018great black body\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ferocious eyes\u2019. Marlowe isn\u2019t the only author to have immortalised Black Shuck \u2013 it\u2019s known that Arthur Conan Doyle visited Cromer Hall in 1901, the year before he published his Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u201d Black shuck is an ancient myth but there are rumours in modern times that there are panthers on the loose in Norfolk and there are lots of big cat sightings, so now you won\u2019t know if you are being chased by the hounds of hell or a panther","labels":0,"seconds_difference":741.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzav46","c_root_id_B":"eyzkhgv","created_at_utc_A":1567613546,"created_at_utc_B":1567619753,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","human_ref_B":"In Norfolk ( the original one in eastern England) and east anglia generally, there are lots of tales of mythical big black dogs roaming the countryside. Some might foretell death and doom. The most famous beast is known as \u2018Black Shuck\u2019 Fans of 00s Brit glam\/rock band The Darkness may remember their song \u2018black shuck\u2019 from the album Permission to Land: The Darkness are from the east of England. About black shuck from our tourist information website: \u201cThere have been many accounts of Black Shuck over the years \u2013 including a story told by 20th century author Christopher Marlowe in his book People and Places in Marshland. On hearing the legends he had rented a cottage just off the A149 and attempted to track Black Shuck down \u2013 only to be chased through the night by an indefinable creature with a \u2018great black body\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ferocious eyes\u2019. Marlowe isn\u2019t the only author to have immortalised Black Shuck \u2013 it\u2019s known that Arthur Conan Doyle visited Cromer Hall in 1901, the year before he published his Sherlock Holmes classic, The Hound of the Baskervilles.\u201d Black shuck is an ancient myth but there are rumours in modern times that there are panthers on the loose in Norfolk and there are lots of big cat sightings, so now you won\u2019t know if you are being chased by the hounds of hell or a panther","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6207.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"eyzqmw6","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567623128,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"From South Texas: The Payaya Tribe were the indigenous people of the city I live in (San Antonio, TX) and who the Spanish encountered when they first settled the Alamo Mission. There's a park (San Pedro) in our city that contains natural springs that feed into the San Antonio River; the Payaya considered this land extremely important and called it Yanaguana. They believed that a giant blue leopard lived beneath the ground and that the waters of the spring burst forth from its body and rose to the surface, creating the oasis that attracted the settlers. Recently, our downtown park was renovated with mosaic murals and statues that tell more of what was the Payaya world origin story (like of a giant bird who would bathe in the springs then fly around, letting the blessed water fall upon the land & creating the many tributaries the San Antonio River has), complete with a large blue leopard statue. It's called Yanaguana Park if anyone wants to look it up!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4116.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzav46","c_root_id_B":"eyzqmw6","created_at_utc_A":1567613546,"created_at_utc_B":1567623128,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","human_ref_B":"From South Texas: The Payaya Tribe were the indigenous people of the city I live in (San Antonio, TX) and who the Spanish encountered when they first settled the Alamo Mission. There's a park (San Pedro) in our city that contains natural springs that feed into the San Antonio River; the Payaya considered this land extremely important and called it Yanaguana. They believed that a giant blue leopard lived beneath the ground and that the waters of the spring burst forth from its body and rose to the surface, creating the oasis that attracted the settlers. Recently, our downtown park was renovated with mosaic murals and statues that tell more of what was the Payaya world origin story (like of a giant bird who would bathe in the springs then fly around, letting the blessed water fall upon the land & creating the many tributaries the San Antonio River has), complete with a large blue leopard statue. It's called Yanaguana Park if anyone wants to look it up!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9582.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"ez0jnkw","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567637700,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"I'm M\u00e9tis from Saskatchewan, Canada. Many of our legends and stories are a mix of French and Cree folklore. Some common characters are Wishahkaaychaahk (Cree), Pchi-Jaan (French), Roogaroo (French), Witiko (Anishinaabe\/Cree), and Maymaykwaayshashahk (Cree). Pchi-Jaan and Wishahkaaychaahk are sometimes interchangeable, as they are both tricksters and heroes to humankind. Roogaroo and Witiko are sometimes interchangeable, as well. Roogaroo is portrayed as a werewolf and Witiko as a monster, but both function the same way. Catching the eye of one at night can turn you into one, as well as being greedy. Maymaykwaayshashahk are small spirits that live under rocks and in rivers. They often steal things and cause general mischief, but seeing one is a good omen, and they may help those in need. We also have lots of stories explaining how things came to be. Here is the Cree\/M\u00e9tis story of how weather happens, and how the moon came to be: ​ A long time ago, there was no moon, just the sun. Creator's helper was Keeper of the Sun, who had two children, a son and a daughter. All three lived in the Sky World and were very happy. The daughter kept the camp tidy. When she shook the featherbedding, snow fell to the Earth. The son hunted and fished. When he hung his nets to dry, they dripped and rain fell to the Earth. The Sun Keeper kept a great fire roaring all day, even though he was very old. He told his children: \"When I die, you two must keep the fire burning, otherwise all the people and animals on Earth will die.\" One day, as the fire was burning down, he said: \"Children, I must go. I may never return\". The Children cried and mourned, for they knew he would die. The next day, when it was time to start the fire, they began fighting over who would tend to it. They fought for hours. People on Earth were worried. \"The sun should be up by now\", they thought. Wishahkaaychaahk, Creator's other helper, went up to see what the problem was. He learned of Sun Keeper's death, and when he arrived at the sun, he saw the children arguing. He was furious. He told them: \"The people and animals are dying! It is up to you to keep the fire burning!\". He turned to the boy \"Your name will now be P\u00eesim, the sun, and you will keep this fire burning.\" He said to the girl, \"And you, will work just as hard as your brother, but will keep a fire at night, on the other side of the sky. You are now called Tipisk\u00e2wip\u00eesim, the moon\". And they saw each other only during an eclipse, or from the other side of the sky.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18688.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"ez0iep6","c_root_id_B":"ez0jnkw","created_at_utc_A":1567637162,"created_at_utc_B":1567637700,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Jin is a real thing in the Arab world. Many people still believe in it. Its what the Gene in Aladin is based on, although the traditional ones are more likely to be ominous. They live in a different dimensions and cannot interact with us, and they are subjects of God just like us. Many people also believe they can contact them or that these jins live in some caves and areas around town or that they can come and hurt you if you arent devout enough or whatever. Also Lions and bears stories even though they have been extinct in the area for over 100 years. My grandma still remembers lion and bear stories. My favorite myth: hyenas. So hyenas are the apex predator in some areas of the eastern Mediterranean. They sometimes interact with humans (rarely) and are usually hunted if encountered. They are portrayed as these very strong creatures that are hard to kill. Also they will *piss* on their tale and flick it on you and that will *hypnotize* you to follow them to their hideout where they will eat you. Its insane.","human_ref_B":"I'm M\u00e9tis from Saskatchewan, Canada. Many of our legends and stories are a mix of French and Cree folklore. Some common characters are Wishahkaaychaahk (Cree), Pchi-Jaan (French), Roogaroo (French), Witiko (Anishinaabe\/Cree), and Maymaykwaayshashahk (Cree). Pchi-Jaan and Wishahkaaychaahk are sometimes interchangeable, as they are both tricksters and heroes to humankind. Roogaroo and Witiko are sometimes interchangeable, as well. Roogaroo is portrayed as a werewolf and Witiko as a monster, but both function the same way. Catching the eye of one at night can turn you into one, as well as being greedy. Maymaykwaayshashahk are small spirits that live under rocks and in rivers. They often steal things and cause general mischief, but seeing one is a good omen, and they may help those in need. We also have lots of stories explaining how things came to be. Here is the Cree\/M\u00e9tis story of how weather happens, and how the moon came to be: ​ A long time ago, there was no moon, just the sun. Creator's helper was Keeper of the Sun, who had two children, a son and a daughter. All three lived in the Sky World and were very happy. The daughter kept the camp tidy. When she shook the featherbedding, snow fell to the Earth. The son hunted and fished. When he hung his nets to dry, they dripped and rain fell to the Earth. The Sun Keeper kept a great fire roaring all day, even though he was very old. He told his children: \"When I die, you two must keep the fire burning, otherwise all the people and animals on Earth will die.\" One day, as the fire was burning down, he said: \"Children, I must go. I may never return\". The Children cried and mourned, for they knew he would die. The next day, when it was time to start the fire, they began fighting over who would tend to it. They fought for hours. People on Earth were worried. \"The sun should be up by now\", they thought. Wishahkaaychaahk, Creator's other helper, went up to see what the problem was. He learned of Sun Keeper's death, and when he arrived at the sun, he saw the children arguing. He was furious. He told them: \"The people and animals are dying! It is up to you to keep the fire burning!\". He turned to the boy \"Your name will now be P\u00eesim, the sun, and you will keep this fire burning.\" He said to the girl, \"And you, will work just as hard as your brother, but will keep a fire at night, on the other side of the sky. You are now called Tipisk\u00e2wip\u00eesim, the moon\". And they saw each other only during an eclipse, or from the other side of the sky.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":538.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzav46","c_root_id_B":"ez0jnkw","created_at_utc_A":1567613546,"created_at_utc_B":1567637700,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","human_ref_B":"I'm M\u00e9tis from Saskatchewan, Canada. Many of our legends and stories are a mix of French and Cree folklore. Some common characters are Wishahkaaychaahk (Cree), Pchi-Jaan (French), Roogaroo (French), Witiko (Anishinaabe\/Cree), and Maymaykwaayshashahk (Cree). Pchi-Jaan and Wishahkaaychaahk are sometimes interchangeable, as they are both tricksters and heroes to humankind. Roogaroo and Witiko are sometimes interchangeable, as well. Roogaroo is portrayed as a werewolf and Witiko as a monster, but both function the same way. Catching the eye of one at night can turn you into one, as well as being greedy. Maymaykwaayshashahk are small spirits that live under rocks and in rivers. They often steal things and cause general mischief, but seeing one is a good omen, and they may help those in need. We also have lots of stories explaining how things came to be. Here is the Cree\/M\u00e9tis story of how weather happens, and how the moon came to be: ​ A long time ago, there was no moon, just the sun. Creator's helper was Keeper of the Sun, who had two children, a son and a daughter. All three lived in the Sky World and were very happy. The daughter kept the camp tidy. When she shook the featherbedding, snow fell to the Earth. The son hunted and fished. When he hung his nets to dry, they dripped and rain fell to the Earth. The Sun Keeper kept a great fire roaring all day, even though he was very old. He told his children: \"When I die, you two must keep the fire burning, otherwise all the people and animals on Earth will die.\" One day, as the fire was burning down, he said: \"Children, I must go. I may never return\". The Children cried and mourned, for they knew he would die. The next day, when it was time to start the fire, they began fighting over who would tend to it. They fought for hours. People on Earth were worried. \"The sun should be up by now\", they thought. Wishahkaaychaahk, Creator's other helper, went up to see what the problem was. He learned of Sun Keeper's death, and when he arrived at the sun, he saw the children arguing. He was furious. He told them: \"The people and animals are dying! It is up to you to keep the fire burning!\". He turned to the boy \"Your name will now be P\u00eesim, the sun, and you will keep this fire burning.\" He said to the girl, \"And you, will work just as hard as your brother, but will keep a fire at night, on the other side of the sky. You are now called Tipisk\u00e2wip\u00eesim, the moon\". And they saw each other only during an eclipse, or from the other side of the sky.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24154.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzjbk4","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567619012,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I have a paper I wrote in college for an anthropology course that details a folktale ghost story told in Kentucky. As part of the paper I wrote out every version I could get my hands on. If your interested I could send you the material. Just message me.","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5466.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"eyzav46","c_root_id_B":"ez0iep6","created_at_utc_A":1567613546,"created_at_utc_B":1567637162,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","human_ref_B":"Jin is a real thing in the Arab world. Many people still believe in it. Its what the Gene in Aladin is based on, although the traditional ones are more likely to be ominous. They live in a different dimensions and cannot interact with us, and they are subjects of God just like us. Many people also believe they can contact them or that these jins live in some caves and areas around town or that they can come and hurt you if you arent devout enough or whatever. Also Lions and bears stories even though they have been extinct in the area for over 100 years. My grandma still remembers lion and bear stories. My favorite myth: hyenas. So hyenas are the apex predator in some areas of the eastern Mediterranean. They sometimes interact with humans (rarely) and are usually hunted if encountered. They are portrayed as these very strong creatures that are hard to kill. Also they will *piss* on their tale and flick it on you and that will *hypnotize* you to follow them to their hideout where they will eat you. Its insane.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23616.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"ez0ke3x","c_root_id_B":"ez0nqoq","created_at_utc_A":1567638013,"created_at_utc_B":1567639426,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"From Somerset, in the UK. We have a tradition of the \u2018apple tree man\u2019, the spirit of the oldest apple tree in the orchard who controls the fertility of the trees. Legend has it that when a man offered the last of his mulled cider to the apple tree man, he was shown the location of buried gold (something big in Somerset folklore). Now, on every twelfth night, people make a bowl of wassail (traditional mulled cider), drink it, and pour the remains as well as bread dipped in cider around the orchards in order to please the apple tree man","human_ref_B":"From Newfoundland If you have to walk in the woods, put a piece of hard tack (viking bread) in your pocket so fairies won't get you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1413.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"czkpsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some examples of myths\/legends\/oral histories from your culture? I am collecting stories for an undergrad Anthropology project, so I might use your story! Anything is acceptable, and I\u2019m eager to hear your stories.","c_root_id_A":"ez0nqoq","c_root_id_B":"eyzav46","created_at_utc_A":1567639426,"created_at_utc_B":1567613546,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"From Newfoundland If you have to walk in the woods, put a piece of hard tack (viking bread) in your pocket so fairies won't get you.","human_ref_B":"the hoopsnake has always been my favorite, not entirely sure how that story ended up being an oral folk tale at my school in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Also, the Seven Gates of Hell in Hellam Township.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25880.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"8yzb8o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is the Mother Earth and father sky myth so common across creation stories? I\u2019ve been looking into Maori myths recently and it struck me that they have the story of the earth and the sky being the mother and father to all life. These two beings were then pushed apart by their children to let in life and light, iirc this is a similar story as the ones told in Greek, Egyptian and certain Asian religious\/spiritual beliefs as well. So my question is, what other groups have similar stories and why is this particular myth so common and wide spread across the globe?","c_root_id_A":"e2eyjj5","c_root_id_B":"e2ez2d6","created_at_utc_A":1531634325,"created_at_utc_B":1531635225,"score_A":7,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"Because the sky seeds the earth and then the earth grows things.","human_ref_B":"It's been theorised that the natural cycle of the seasons reinforced the idea of a Mother earth goddess & Father sky god. The earth nurtures life, plants emerge from it in spring. Not too far of a metaphorical stretch to say the earth gives birth to plants. As for the sky father. If the earth is mother, pregnant with life; How does a woman get pregnant? She must be fertilized. How do the crops grow, there must be rain. The Sky father must fertilize the earth for plants to grow. Earth as mother and sky as father are reflected in many mythological systems. And when you get agricultural communities in on the deal it gets reinforced; what with the need for plowing & seeding of the earth for the crops to grow. Go & read some mesopotamian poetry about Inanna & Dumuzi; it's damn near poragraphic in its innuendos. There\u2019s even an interesting outlier that almost reinforces the connection. In Egypt, the crops didn\u2019t depend on rain; they depended on the orderly cyclical flooding of the Nile. And in the Egyptian pantheon there is no meeting of male sky & female earth to create life. It\u2019s self-creating order arising from the primordial waters of chaos then, a male earth & the female sky are separated and the space between fills with life.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":900.0,"score_ratio":9.1428571429} {"post_id":"3ty8gl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"A cross-cultural myth: thunder god battling a serpent\/dragon? A kindly moderator from AskSocialScience referred me here. Still not sure this is the right place, but here's hoping. It seems like an awful lot of cultures had some form of legend about a thunder god battling a serpent or dragon: off the top of my head, there is Marduk and Tiamat (Mesopotamia), Susanoo and Orochi (Japan), He-no and a horned serpent whose name eludes me (Iroquois), Thor and Jormungandr (Sandinavia), and Perun and Veles (Slavic). I suspect this is not an exhaustive list, either. Am I inappropriately lumping these together? Or are there theories as to why this legend is so far-flung and what significance it has?","c_root_id_A":"cxa7ady","c_root_id_B":"cxaa3vz","created_at_utc_A":1448293387,"created_at_utc_B":1448297879,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak to the other ones but I do think you're falsely characterizing Marduk as a thunder god. I think a lot of people do that because he was at one point considered the head of the Babylonian pantheon so he gets compared to Zeus a lot, and he was even associated with the same planet. I don't know much about Tiamat or any myths about Marduk battling her, but I do know Marduk was associated with a serpent god\/goddess who's name I can't remember. I've heard a lot of people suggest that a lot of creation myths were influenced by the Sumerian narratives, even far reaching ones like the norse myth, but that obviously wouldn't account for any similarities in the Iroquois that you mentioned.","human_ref_B":"Zeus slew Typhon, Apollo slew Python, and Indra also defeats a serpent I can't remember the name of. I've heard it said in many places that mammals have an instinctive fear of snakes. I think serpents represent primal fear, chaos, or terror. Think of the terror of fight or flight. These deities are overcoming this primal nature of man as a part of being civilizing forces in their cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4492.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"3ty8gl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"A cross-cultural myth: thunder god battling a serpent\/dragon? A kindly moderator from AskSocialScience referred me here. Still not sure this is the right place, but here's hoping. It seems like an awful lot of cultures had some form of legend about a thunder god battling a serpent or dragon: off the top of my head, there is Marduk and Tiamat (Mesopotamia), Susanoo and Orochi (Japan), He-no and a horned serpent whose name eludes me (Iroquois), Thor and Jormungandr (Sandinavia), and Perun and Veles (Slavic). I suspect this is not an exhaustive list, either. Am I inappropriately lumping these together? Or are there theories as to why this legend is so far-flung and what significance it has?","c_root_id_A":"cxa7jcr","c_root_id_B":"cxaa3vz","created_at_utc_A":1448293809,"created_at_utc_B":1448297879,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Add on question: Thunder & Lightning gods living on mountains seem pretty common in Indo-European myth. Hebrew is semitic, not Indo-European, yet Moses meets the Israelite god on a mountain top shrouded in thunder & lighting. Is there an older mythic strand that predates both traditions. Did one group borrow from the other? Are they similar, but just unrelated?","human_ref_B":"Zeus slew Typhon, Apollo slew Python, and Indra also defeats a serpent I can't remember the name of. I've heard it said in many places that mammals have an instinctive fear of snakes. I think serpents represent primal fear, chaos, or terror. Think of the terror of fight or flight. These deities are overcoming this primal nature of man as a part of being civilizing forces in their cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4070.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"3ty8gl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"A cross-cultural myth: thunder god battling a serpent\/dragon? A kindly moderator from AskSocialScience referred me here. Still not sure this is the right place, but here's hoping. It seems like an awful lot of cultures had some form of legend about a thunder god battling a serpent or dragon: off the top of my head, there is Marduk and Tiamat (Mesopotamia), Susanoo and Orochi (Japan), He-no and a horned serpent whose name eludes me (Iroquois), Thor and Jormungandr (Sandinavia), and Perun and Veles (Slavic). I suspect this is not an exhaustive list, either. Am I inappropriately lumping these together? Or are there theories as to why this legend is so far-flung and what significance it has?","c_root_id_A":"cxa7ady","c_root_id_B":"cxb88o4","created_at_utc_A":1448293387,"created_at_utc_B":1448357111,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak to the other ones but I do think you're falsely characterizing Marduk as a thunder god. I think a lot of people do that because he was at one point considered the head of the Babylonian pantheon so he gets compared to Zeus a lot, and he was even associated with the same planet. I don't know much about Tiamat or any myths about Marduk battling her, but I do know Marduk was associated with a serpent god\/goddess who's name I can't remember. I've heard a lot of people suggest that a lot of creation myths were influenced by the Sumerian narratives, even far reaching ones like the norse myth, but that obviously wouldn't account for any similarities in the Iroquois that you mentioned.","human_ref_B":"You should research Proto-Indo-European culture. I wrote about the Sky Father v. the Dragon phenomenon in my essay To Rust Metallic Gods: an Anarcho-Primitivist Critique of Paganism, the politics of which are less relevant to your question than the factual overview. Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests that a singular Neolithic-era proto-culture split in the Ancient Near East, which influenced the rise of Persian and Hindu cultures (Proto-Indo-Iranian), and passed through either the Pontic-Caspian steppe or Anatolia, giving rise to Greek culture, followed by Italic and Latin, Celtic, Nordic and Germanic, Slavic and Baltic cultures in continental Europe. I focus here on Indo-European culture, with origins likely in the Yamna or Sredny Stog cultures. Proto-Indo-European society had patrilineal kinship, basic textiles, hand-ceramics, animal husbandry (especially horse domestication), the plow, and the wheel, advancing through some mix of conquest and cultural diffusion. Historians debate whether the Proto-Indo-European cultural spread began during the 4th-5th millennium BCE, or the middle or early Neolithic. Either way, the Proto-Indo-European ur-pantheon and its social organization profoundly shaped both Greco-Roman and European paganism up through the Iron Age, and through Christendom as well. Indo-European mythology chiefly worships a \u201cSky Father\u201d, such as the Vedic \u201cDyau\u1e63 Pitr\u0101\u201d, the Greek \u201cZeus Pater\u201d, the Latin \u201cJu Piter\u201d, and the Thunder-Warrior. Symbols of the latter include the thundercross, suncross, sunwheel, and swastika, representing the thunderbolt, spoked chariot wheel, and solar chariot myth. Symbols of conquest. All of these pagan cultures, as products of the same Proto-Indo-European mythology tracing back to some of the original urban empires (i.e. Mesopotamia, Egypt), shared variations of a central conquest myth. The good, heavenly man-god (sometimes a knight), usually representing affinities with thunder or lightning, sun or sky, war, royalty, law, masculinity, truth, and dominance, a bringer of civilization, subdues an evil, earthen serpent woman (sometimes a giant), usually representing affinities with water or fire or underworld, nature, chaos, femininity, trickery, and rebellion. The latter a destroyer of civilization, who hides captured treasures in underground or undersea caves, who harms crops or livestock. The story echoes throughout Proto-Indo-European mythology and folklore, and that of its relatives. As far as I can tell, I've compiled the most exhaustive list of possible Sky Father v. Dragon archetype narratives amongst Indo-European-related cultures. List includes: **Anatolian**: Tarhunt\/Teshub v. Illuyanka. **Balkan**: Sabazios v. the chthonic serpent; Rostam v. the dragon; the Knight v. Zmeu. **Baltic**: Perk\u016bnas v. velns\/vels\/velnias; the twelve brothers v. \u017dilvinas; possibly Jumal\/Ukko & Ajatar. **Celtic**: Taranis v. Cernunnos; King Arthur v. the dragon; Sigurd v. Fafni; Lugh v. Balor. **Christian**: Michael v. Satan; Christ v. the sea dragon; Virgin Mary v. the serpent; Saint George v. the Dragon; Saint Patrick v. the snakes. **Egyptian**: Ra v. Apep, Nut v. Geb. **Greek**: Zeus v. Typhon; Zeus\/Argus v. Echidna; Zeus v. Campe; Kronos v. Ophion; Apollo v. Python\/Delphyne; Heracles v. the Hydra & Ladon; Cadmus v. the Ismerian Dragon; Perseus v. Cetus & Medusa; Bellerophon v. the Chimera; Jason\/Medea\/Orpheus v. the Colchian Dragon; Coroebus & Eurybatus v. the Lamiae. **Islamic**: Allah v. the Serpent \/ Ibl\u012bs \/ Shay\u1e6d\u0101n. **Judaic**: Yahweh or Gabriel v. Leviathan or Rahab or Tannin. **Levantine**: Baal or El v. Lotan or Yam-Nahar. **Mesopotamian**: Anu or Marduk v. Tiamat. **Nordic, Germanic, & Anglo-Saxon**: Thor & Odin v. J\u00f6rmungandr & Nidhogg; Sigurd v. F\u00e1fnir; Beowulf v. the dragon; Woden v. the wyrm; Ragnarr Lodbrok v. the serpent pair; Thidrek & Fasold v. the flying dragon; the prince v. the seven-headed serpent. **Persian**: Garsh\u0101sp\/Fereyd\u016bn v. A\u017ei Dah\u0101ka \/ Zahh\u0101k, A\u017ei Sruvara, Gandar\u0259\u03b2a; Keyumars\/Gay\u014dmart v. Ahriman; K\u0101veh the Blacksmith v. Zahhak\u2019s serpents. Roman: Hercules v. Cacus. **Slavic**: Perun v. Veles; Svarog v. the snake; Ivan \/ Dobrynya Nikitich v. Zmey Gorynych; Krakus v. the Wawel Dragon; Alyosha Popovich v. Tugarin Zmeyevich; the imperial eagle \/ lightning-dragon v. Ala; Ivan v. Baba Yaga. **Vedic**: Indra\/Parjanya v. Vrtra & Vala; Krishna v. K\u0101liy\u0101.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":63724.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"3ty8gl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"A cross-cultural myth: thunder god battling a serpent\/dragon? A kindly moderator from AskSocialScience referred me here. Still not sure this is the right place, but here's hoping. It seems like an awful lot of cultures had some form of legend about a thunder god battling a serpent or dragon: off the top of my head, there is Marduk and Tiamat (Mesopotamia), Susanoo and Orochi (Japan), He-no and a horned serpent whose name eludes me (Iroquois), Thor and Jormungandr (Sandinavia), and Perun and Veles (Slavic). I suspect this is not an exhaustive list, either. Am I inappropriately lumping these together? Or are there theories as to why this legend is so far-flung and what significance it has?","c_root_id_A":"cxb88o4","c_root_id_B":"cxa7jcr","created_at_utc_A":1448357111,"created_at_utc_B":1448293809,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You should research Proto-Indo-European culture. I wrote about the Sky Father v. the Dragon phenomenon in my essay To Rust Metallic Gods: an Anarcho-Primitivist Critique of Paganism, the politics of which are less relevant to your question than the factual overview. Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggests that a singular Neolithic-era proto-culture split in the Ancient Near East, which influenced the rise of Persian and Hindu cultures (Proto-Indo-Iranian), and passed through either the Pontic-Caspian steppe or Anatolia, giving rise to Greek culture, followed by Italic and Latin, Celtic, Nordic and Germanic, Slavic and Baltic cultures in continental Europe. I focus here on Indo-European culture, with origins likely in the Yamna or Sredny Stog cultures. Proto-Indo-European society had patrilineal kinship, basic textiles, hand-ceramics, animal husbandry (especially horse domestication), the plow, and the wheel, advancing through some mix of conquest and cultural diffusion. Historians debate whether the Proto-Indo-European cultural spread began during the 4th-5th millennium BCE, or the middle or early Neolithic. Either way, the Proto-Indo-European ur-pantheon and its social organization profoundly shaped both Greco-Roman and European paganism up through the Iron Age, and through Christendom as well. Indo-European mythology chiefly worships a \u201cSky Father\u201d, such as the Vedic \u201cDyau\u1e63 Pitr\u0101\u201d, the Greek \u201cZeus Pater\u201d, the Latin \u201cJu Piter\u201d, and the Thunder-Warrior. Symbols of the latter include the thundercross, suncross, sunwheel, and swastika, representing the thunderbolt, spoked chariot wheel, and solar chariot myth. Symbols of conquest. All of these pagan cultures, as products of the same Proto-Indo-European mythology tracing back to some of the original urban empires (i.e. Mesopotamia, Egypt), shared variations of a central conquest myth. The good, heavenly man-god (sometimes a knight), usually representing affinities with thunder or lightning, sun or sky, war, royalty, law, masculinity, truth, and dominance, a bringer of civilization, subdues an evil, earthen serpent woman (sometimes a giant), usually representing affinities with water or fire or underworld, nature, chaos, femininity, trickery, and rebellion. The latter a destroyer of civilization, who hides captured treasures in underground or undersea caves, who harms crops or livestock. The story echoes throughout Proto-Indo-European mythology and folklore, and that of its relatives. As far as I can tell, I've compiled the most exhaustive list of possible Sky Father v. Dragon archetype narratives amongst Indo-European-related cultures. List includes: **Anatolian**: Tarhunt\/Teshub v. Illuyanka. **Balkan**: Sabazios v. the chthonic serpent; Rostam v. the dragon; the Knight v. Zmeu. **Baltic**: Perk\u016bnas v. velns\/vels\/velnias; the twelve brothers v. \u017dilvinas; possibly Jumal\/Ukko & Ajatar. **Celtic**: Taranis v. Cernunnos; King Arthur v. the dragon; Sigurd v. Fafni; Lugh v. Balor. **Christian**: Michael v. Satan; Christ v. the sea dragon; Virgin Mary v. the serpent; Saint George v. the Dragon; Saint Patrick v. the snakes. **Egyptian**: Ra v. Apep, Nut v. Geb. **Greek**: Zeus v. Typhon; Zeus\/Argus v. Echidna; Zeus v. Campe; Kronos v. Ophion; Apollo v. Python\/Delphyne; Heracles v. the Hydra & Ladon; Cadmus v. the Ismerian Dragon; Perseus v. Cetus & Medusa; Bellerophon v. the Chimera; Jason\/Medea\/Orpheus v. the Colchian Dragon; Coroebus & Eurybatus v. the Lamiae. **Islamic**: Allah v. the Serpent \/ Ibl\u012bs \/ Shay\u1e6d\u0101n. **Judaic**: Yahweh or Gabriel v. Leviathan or Rahab or Tannin. **Levantine**: Baal or El v. Lotan or Yam-Nahar. **Mesopotamian**: Anu or Marduk v. Tiamat. **Nordic, Germanic, & Anglo-Saxon**: Thor & Odin v. J\u00f6rmungandr & Nidhogg; Sigurd v. F\u00e1fnir; Beowulf v. the dragon; Woden v. the wyrm; Ragnarr Lodbrok v. the serpent pair; Thidrek & Fasold v. the flying dragon; the prince v. the seven-headed serpent. **Persian**: Garsh\u0101sp\/Fereyd\u016bn v. A\u017ei Dah\u0101ka \/ Zahh\u0101k, A\u017ei Sruvara, Gandar\u0259\u03b2a; Keyumars\/Gay\u014dmart v. Ahriman; K\u0101veh the Blacksmith v. Zahhak\u2019s serpents. Roman: Hercules v. Cacus. **Slavic**: Perun v. Veles; Svarog v. the snake; Ivan \/ Dobrynya Nikitich v. Zmey Gorynych; Krakus v. the Wawel Dragon; Alyosha Popovich v. Tugarin Zmeyevich; the imperial eagle \/ lightning-dragon v. Ala; Ivan v. Baba Yaga. **Vedic**: Indra\/Parjanya v. Vrtra & Vala; Krishna v. K\u0101liy\u0101.","human_ref_B":"Add on question: Thunder & Lightning gods living on mountains seem pretty common in Indo-European myth. Hebrew is semitic, not Indo-European, yet Moses meets the Israelite god on a mountain top shrouded in thunder & lighting. Is there an older mythic strand that predates both traditions. Did one group borrow from the other? Are they similar, but just unrelated?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":63302.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"zzpkkx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"Why is \"dominance\" so important for men? So much of modern male society seems to be focused around \"dominance.\" For instance, football is a game of physical dominance, and fans are generally vicariously dominating fans of the opposing team (i.e. Michigan really dominated OSU this last year). Think of fraternity hazing where a senior class member will show dominance over a pledge through hazing. Different businesses or law firms will proclaim that they are \"dominant\" within their industry or practice area. Wars are an exercise of dominance over another country for limited resources. Men try to dominate others by being the richest, the most powerful politician. Similarly, male mammals such as bears and wolves will \"rank\" themselves by dominance to determine who will eat first, who will mate first. Does the subconscious need to dominate arise from an anthropological root? Is there a rational explanation for why men continue to need to \"dominate\" others? Is the rationale here that men are intended to compete so that only the most dominant phenotypical traits survive in the genetic pool through reproduction?","c_root_id_A":"j2e6dle","c_root_id_B":"j2d1xq4","created_at_utc_A":1672504194,"created_at_utc_B":1672480099,"score_A":13,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"**Not an anthropologist, biologist, social scientist, etc. Please discount heavily.** > Similarly, male mammals such as bears and wolves will \"rank\" themselves by dominance to determine who will eat first, who will mate first. In primates, you will also see female hierarchies too though. For female vervet monkeys, high rank gives better access to feeding sites and if a female adult hears the cries of an infant whose mother outranks her, she will make submissive gestures (Strier 224-7). In fact, in that group rank is maternally inherited and as the daughter of a high-ranking mother matures, she will start using more aggressive gestures when interacting with females whose rank should be lower than hers and will in fact receive support in this. Strier has a pretty good chart that breaks down when you're likely to see female hierarchies develop. Roughly, it results from the interplay of within-group and between-group conflict; high within-group conflict gives conditions for hierarchy (218). Males face a similar tradeoff, but there the issue is access to fertile females and the ability of female choice to counter male strategies (Strier 250, 254, 255). The degree of dominance relations might vary depending on ecological factors. Even if a species evolved under one type of competition regime, if the ratio changes, their behaviour might change as well (Strier 221). > Is the rationale here that men are intended to compete so that only the most dominant phenotypical traits survive in the genetic pool through reproduction? So I think this gets into sexual selection. Males aren't intended to compete. Females and males have different reproductive cost and benefit profiles (e.g. male reproductive potential is higher, females have greater energetic costs), which may lead to different incentives and behaviours (Strier 142). Basically, there should be greater selection pressures for competing for access to mates in males and for discriminating about mates in females. But the specifics will vary. E.g. Females might develop promiscuous strategies to ensure fertility or defend against infanticide. Males might directly compete, or indirectly compete through sperm competition or making themselves more attractive. > So much of modern male society seems to be focused around \"dominance.\" For instance, football is a game of physical dominance, and fans are generally vicariously dominating fans of the opposing team (i.e. Michigan really dominated OSU this last year). Think of fraternity hazing where a senior class member will show dominance over a pledge through hazing. Different businesses or law firms will proclaim that they are \"dominant\" within their industry or practice area. Wars are an exercise of dominance over another country for limited resources. Men try to dominate others by being the richest, the most powerful politician. Following is anecdotal, but I'm sceptical of this framing. Men definitely compete and maybe seek to dominate (depending on definitions), but in my experience women can be very socially aggressive towards women. There are entire movies about it (think *Heathers*, *Mean Girls*, any film or tv show that has a queen bee character). And ime women can be pretty aggressive if the benefits are high and the costs are low. I wonder how much this has to do with how modern society (whose) classify aggression and domination. Or perhaps an effect of patriarchy. Since women have less power, costs of aggression tend to be higher for them, benefits marginal, and noticeability lower. (e.g. Elizabeth making fun of some chick might increase her rank, but probably won't be picked up by the media in the same way a war would be.) And of course there's an ideological component there. Women are expected to be agreeable if not submissive (particularly ime in multi-sex social interactions), while men are generally not. Karen Strier. *Primate Behavioral Ecology*. 2021.","human_ref_B":"Older thread that is probably relevant, about \"alpha males\" Dominance in the animal world is much more complex than \"biggest asshole takes it all\". This lecture isn't directly on \"dominance\" but the cultural development of \"work\" and a portrait of a hunter-gatherer culture that is very different from modern US dog-eat-dog economics. Humans are mostly a cooperative social species. If you want fierce competition between males, look at birds with strong sexual dimorphism. Males evolved to where their own survival is in danger to impress females (when most of the offspring care is done by the female, it can be the other way around too, and in birds that share the work load the sexes tend to look pretty similar)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24095.0,"score_ratio":1.1818181818} {"post_id":"yb6pa6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Is it bad to go to the same university for undergrad & grad? I\u2019m graduating with my BA in anthropology in fall 2023 and interested in doing an MA in museum studies. (I might also do another BA in media studies first but that\u2019s another story\u2026). My question is, would it be looked down upon, in the professional world, if I go to the same school to complete my masters degree? I like where I live, and I\u2019ve had a rough few years and would like to stay close to my family and friends. I go to one of the top public universities in my state, but it\u2019s anthropology program is small, and good but not absolutely amazing.","c_root_id_A":"itf71yb","c_root_id_B":"itfyfrx","created_at_utc_A":1666500379,"created_at_utc_B":1666522062,"score_A":19,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"It's probably fine for an MA. The big downsides are that you're not expanding your academic social network or being exposed to other points of view (particularly an issue with small departments). How important those things are really depends on what your long term goals are.","human_ref_B":"It will not be looked down upon in the professional world of museum employment and collections management. Nor would it be poorly regarded in the world of public archaeological contracting, etc. (where collections are first managed in the field and then in the lab). The old school of academic, professor-track education lived by its own rules and still does to a certain extent, but as tenure-track professorships in the humanities disappear, employment in that environment is increasingly unrealistic or undesirable. According to those old rules, you would want to move from your undergrad to your graduate degree unless you were already at a top-flight university. I hired dozens of anthropologists over my career, and I sat on museum hiring committees where others were hired, 1983-2012. Having degrees from the same institution will not be a problem. If you want to make connections locally and intern with local museums (with an eye to future employment), having those local roots can be a tremendous asset.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21683.0,"score_ratio":1.5789473684} {"post_id":"yb6pa6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Is it bad to go to the same university for undergrad & grad? I\u2019m graduating with my BA in anthropology in fall 2023 and interested in doing an MA in museum studies. (I might also do another BA in media studies first but that\u2019s another story\u2026). My question is, would it be looked down upon, in the professional world, if I go to the same school to complete my masters degree? I like where I live, and I\u2019ve had a rough few years and would like to stay close to my family and friends. I go to one of the top public universities in my state, but it\u2019s anthropology program is small, and good but not absolutely amazing.","c_root_id_A":"itfyfrx","c_root_id_B":"itfm2ps","created_at_utc_A":1666522062,"created_at_utc_B":1666511945,"score_A":30,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"It will not be looked down upon in the professional world of museum employment and collections management. Nor would it be poorly regarded in the world of public archaeological contracting, etc. (where collections are first managed in the field and then in the lab). The old school of academic, professor-track education lived by its own rules and still does to a certain extent, but as tenure-track professorships in the humanities disappear, employment in that environment is increasingly unrealistic or undesirable. According to those old rules, you would want to move from your undergrad to your graduate degree unless you were already at a top-flight university. I hired dozens of anthropologists over my career, and I sat on museum hiring committees where others were hired, 1983-2012. Having degrees from the same institution will not be a problem. If you want to make connections locally and intern with local museums (with an eye to future employment), having those local roots can be a tremendous asset.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d say if you\u2019ve had a rough few years and like where you live and you wont be heavily limited in terms of goals academic or otherwise by staying, stay. Make sure you\u2019ll have opportunities to use your museum studies degree, pester people, find out what connections your program and academics in it have for you, etc. Make sure your choice wont hurt you in the longrun. But being someone who left abroad for my last year of BA and for my MA, left support systems and all that and could never find consistency or gain footholds socially or in terms of opportunities (largely because of the pandemic), my MA journey wasn\u2019t that fruitful. That being said, I learned a ton abroad, felt fulfilled and ready to come back to some degree, and am building my life again. But for an Anthropology MA I think that\u2019s important whether its comfortable or not, as long as you can survive it and learn and be social it\u2019s meaningful. Museum studies surely the placements and institutional opportunities matter a bit more. Longterm relationships and consistency probably matter more. Think about the upsides to your choice for sure, I don\u2019t think anyone will be upset you didn\u2019t pack up your whole life and move. I think they\u2019d be upset if your life was adrift, you had few longterm connections or relationships with different academics and institutions, and that it seemed like you were a wandering tourist as opposed to someone serious about a career.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10117.0,"score_ratio":3.75} {"post_id":"ab84op","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How did ancient civilizations decide what the constellations look like? For instance I can accept that Ursa Major (the big dipper) look looks like a \"spoon\" but how did anyone ever see a \"great bear\" in those random dots? I mean for some myths, even if they sound silly today, I could see how people would have thought they were true. Thunder means god is angry? Fair Enough. See those dots in the sky, would you believe that is an archer drawing his bow? Not a chance. ​ Where did those ideas come from and did anyone really believe that those entities really lived in the sky? Or has it just been a \"memorization\" technique the whole time?","c_root_id_A":"ecyzvg7","c_root_id_B":"ecyi8bt","created_at_utc_A":1546292169,"created_at_utc_B":1546279597,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Check out the book \"The Stars\" by H. A. Rey (yep, the guy who wrote Curious George). It \"connects the dots\" in a way to where you actually see the image in the constellation.","human_ref_B":"This would be a good question in r\/astronomy or r\/AskAstronomy!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12572.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"phe57y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some good documentaries about the history of human civilization? I have been looking for a few weeks. Most of what I find is centered around war and destruction of civilizations. I know that is a massive part of human history, but I\u2019m more interested in learning about the building of civilizations rather than their destruction. I don\u2019t mind discussing wars and changes in civilizations that came about because of that destruction. But I\u2019m tired of watching documentaries that mention the buildup of societies in passing and then spend 80% of the time diving into gruesome reenactments of wars with commentary from military specialists. I\u2019d love to learn about the origins of humans, their migration paths, how things like agriculture, tools, groups, ancient cities, math, engineering, astronomy, etc came about. I\u2019m also just as interested in the \u201chow do we know\u201d aspect as I am the \u201cwhat do we know\u201d aspect. The investigations and methodologies used to determine how we discovered what we know about the aforementioned events is just as fascinating as the facts and theories themselves. Can anyone recommend some good documentaries (movies or series) about this? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hbin6wn","c_root_id_B":"hbi5yy7","created_at_utc_A":1630718402,"created_at_utc_B":1630709694,"score_A":33,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"You need to look at lectures, because documentaries are generally dramatized. The Teaching Company has so much good content. Of course youtube has great stuff. Just search for topics + lecture. Say you're interested in the transition between the paleolithic and neolithic.There are a FEW easily digestible youtube channels that are also good such as this one edit: There are a bunch of PBS Eons videos about anthropology as well.","human_ref_B":"Honestly I wish I could recommend something - and perhaps it's out there - but almost everything I have seen that tries to do something like this has made me (as an archaeologist) extremely angry haha Even stuff with solid production value and large audiences (e.g. The Histocrat) has, from what I've seen anyway, relied on ideas most of the field binned decades ago The best I've come across is actually a podcast called Fall of Civilisations. It's focused on societal \"collapses\" (which were often not \"collapses\" at all but more like transformations), but the first half or so is usually a lyrical description of the society itself with a minimal focus on armchair general bullshit. The writer isn't an archaeologist so it's not perfect but he has a much more up-to-date understanding of the knowledge we have than most others. He also touches on the how-do-we-know stuff once in a while. One tip: the term \"civilisation\" has come under a lot of flak in archaeology recently for 1. being kinda mostly racist (\"civilisation\" implies \"civilised\", which implies \"uncivilised\", a term with a rreeeaallly bad history) and 2. glorifying states and empires over other types of societies Ancient people did loads of cool stuff, but many of them wouldn't be considered part of a \"civilisation\", which would often have been considered a source of invasion, privatisation, and tyranny, rather than any kind of glorious \"civilised\" enlightenment. I'm not saying you fall into any of this stuff, just warning you that when people talk about \"building civilisation\" they're usually talking about a few rich dudes paying a bunch of poor dudes to kill a load of people, take their stuff, and use it to make the rich dudes even richer, before ruling over the survivors as unelected narcisisstic dictators. If you're interested in the flipside of this (democracy, autonomy, and freedom across the ancient world), a book called The Dawn of Everything is coming out in a month or so which you might find interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8708.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"phe57y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some good documentaries about the history of human civilization? I have been looking for a few weeks. Most of what I find is centered around war and destruction of civilizations. I know that is a massive part of human history, but I\u2019m more interested in learning about the building of civilizations rather than their destruction. I don\u2019t mind discussing wars and changes in civilizations that came about because of that destruction. But I\u2019m tired of watching documentaries that mention the buildup of societies in passing and then spend 80% of the time diving into gruesome reenactments of wars with commentary from military specialists. I\u2019d love to learn about the origins of humans, their migration paths, how things like agriculture, tools, groups, ancient cities, math, engineering, astronomy, etc came about. I\u2019m also just as interested in the \u201chow do we know\u201d aspect as I am the \u201cwhat do we know\u201d aspect. The investigations and methodologies used to determine how we discovered what we know about the aforementioned events is just as fascinating as the facts and theories themselves. Can anyone recommend some good documentaries (movies or series) about this? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hbin6wn","c_root_id_B":"hbi3bh2","created_at_utc_A":1630718402,"created_at_utc_B":1630708411,"score_A":33,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"You need to look at lectures, because documentaries are generally dramatized. The Teaching Company has so much good content. Of course youtube has great stuff. Just search for topics + lecture. Say you're interested in the transition between the paleolithic and neolithic.There are a FEW easily digestible youtube channels that are also good such as this one edit: There are a bunch of PBS Eons videos about anthropology as well.","human_ref_B":"You're asking about a dozen questions there, but here are a few starters to chew on: * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g-bQx0ZtHUw * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8MiumMPqmMQ * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aowNRbEdqPQ * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1BrhZBMOS8U YT is *full* of great content, you just have to find some reliable channels and not get sucked into the \"ice-age sphinx\" and \"lost civilizations!\" nonsense. For a broad survey of accessible content with good breadth, check out this channel as well: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/StefanMilo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9991.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"phe57y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some good documentaries about the history of human civilization? I have been looking for a few weeks. Most of what I find is centered around war and destruction of civilizations. I know that is a massive part of human history, but I\u2019m more interested in learning about the building of civilizations rather than their destruction. I don\u2019t mind discussing wars and changes in civilizations that came about because of that destruction. But I\u2019m tired of watching documentaries that mention the buildup of societies in passing and then spend 80% of the time diving into gruesome reenactments of wars with commentary from military specialists. I\u2019d love to learn about the origins of humans, their migration paths, how things like agriculture, tools, groups, ancient cities, math, engineering, astronomy, etc came about. I\u2019m also just as interested in the \u201chow do we know\u201d aspect as I am the \u201cwhat do we know\u201d aspect. The investigations and methodologies used to determine how we discovered what we know about the aforementioned events is just as fascinating as the facts and theories themselves. Can anyone recommend some good documentaries (movies or series) about this? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hbi3bh2","c_root_id_B":"hbi5yy7","created_at_utc_A":1630708411,"created_at_utc_B":1630709694,"score_A":12,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"You're asking about a dozen questions there, but here are a few starters to chew on: * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g-bQx0ZtHUw * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8MiumMPqmMQ * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aowNRbEdqPQ * https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1BrhZBMOS8U YT is *full* of great content, you just have to find some reliable channels and not get sucked into the \"ice-age sphinx\" and \"lost civilizations!\" nonsense. For a broad survey of accessible content with good breadth, check out this channel as well: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/StefanMilo","human_ref_B":"Honestly I wish I could recommend something - and perhaps it's out there - but almost everything I have seen that tries to do something like this has made me (as an archaeologist) extremely angry haha Even stuff with solid production value and large audiences (e.g. The Histocrat) has, from what I've seen anyway, relied on ideas most of the field binned decades ago The best I've come across is actually a podcast called Fall of Civilisations. It's focused on societal \"collapses\" (which were often not \"collapses\" at all but more like transformations), but the first half or so is usually a lyrical description of the society itself with a minimal focus on armchair general bullshit. The writer isn't an archaeologist so it's not perfect but he has a much more up-to-date understanding of the knowledge we have than most others. He also touches on the how-do-we-know stuff once in a while. One tip: the term \"civilisation\" has come under a lot of flak in archaeology recently for 1. being kinda mostly racist (\"civilisation\" implies \"civilised\", which implies \"uncivilised\", a term with a rreeeaallly bad history) and 2. glorifying states and empires over other types of societies Ancient people did loads of cool stuff, but many of them wouldn't be considered part of a \"civilisation\", which would often have been considered a source of invasion, privatisation, and tyranny, rather than any kind of glorious \"civilised\" enlightenment. I'm not saying you fall into any of this stuff, just warning you that when people talk about \"building civilisation\" they're usually talking about a few rich dudes paying a bunch of poor dudes to kill a load of people, take their stuff, and use it to make the rich dudes even richer, before ruling over the survivors as unelected narcisisstic dictators. If you're interested in the flipside of this (democracy, autonomy, and freedom across the ancient world), a book called The Dawn of Everything is coming out in a month or so which you might find interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1283.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosh6yf","c_root_id_B":"hos6ksh","created_at_utc_A":1639668942,"created_at_utc_B":1639664402,"score_A":322,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist but a historian, and this is a question I see come up a lot in undergrad seminar classes and the like, so if I may I will post here what I usually tell my students. Technology is problem solving. Problems can be complex, and can be immediate and physical, or can be projections of cultural value. One culture might see reliable river transportation as a problem to be solved, and another may not. One culture might derive value from the commodification of resources and another might derive value in largesse and sharing: both of those cultures will solve the knock-on problems of those value judgements very differently. So if one culture develops industrial capitalism as a result and another develops potlatching, they can't be judged in the same way, because ultimately they're expressions of a totally different set of problems to be solved. Like another poster mentioned, a lot of seemingly simple solutions to common problems are technology. Birchbark or dugout canoes are technology. Trap building is technology. Enthnogeography is technology. Social hierarchies built around trade and hunting are technology. If we look at technology only as the stuff that created ocean sailing vessels or spaceships, then we're falling into the trap created by enlightenment and imperialist thinkers that were asking the question \"why did white people win history\" instead of \"how did cultures perceive their needs and solve their problems related to those needs.\"","human_ref_B":"I think most of it comes down to necessity. Inuit groups have been\/are tremendously inventive. Not sure if smelting of metals should be the litmus test for technologically advanced. To illustrate my earlier point, there has been very little technological advancement with eating utensils in hundreds of years-except the spork. I agree with the shovel comment. Most things reach a terminal point of advancement. This can also be seen in things like smart phone technology-the rate of change was furious 2008-2012. Now it is slowing down. On this note, might I add that an anthropology degree is very useful in software development. Microsoft is a huge employer of anthropologists. Intel, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4540.0,"score_ratio":7.8536585366} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosh6yf","c_root_id_B":"hos1dua","created_at_utc_A":1639668942,"created_at_utc_B":1639661908,"score_A":322,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist but a historian, and this is a question I see come up a lot in undergrad seminar classes and the like, so if I may I will post here what I usually tell my students. Technology is problem solving. Problems can be complex, and can be immediate and physical, or can be projections of cultural value. One culture might see reliable river transportation as a problem to be solved, and another may not. One culture might derive value from the commodification of resources and another might derive value in largesse and sharing: both of those cultures will solve the knock-on problems of those value judgements very differently. So if one culture develops industrial capitalism as a result and another develops potlatching, they can't be judged in the same way, because ultimately they're expressions of a totally different set of problems to be solved. Like another poster mentioned, a lot of seemingly simple solutions to common problems are technology. Birchbark or dugout canoes are technology. Trap building is technology. Enthnogeography is technology. Social hierarchies built around trade and hunting are technology. If we look at technology only as the stuff that created ocean sailing vessels or spaceships, then we're falling into the trap created by enlightenment and imperialist thinkers that were asking the question \"why did white people win history\" instead of \"how did cultures perceive their needs and solve their problems related to those needs.\"","human_ref_B":"There's probably a lot of different answers or suggestions but I'll try to point one out. So, *cultural ecology* tells us, that cultures develop in reaction to changes in their physical and social environment. And then say, that you are a bunch of hunter-gatherers. You're in Northern Europe and you're right in the middle of the last Ice Age. At this point the ice age has lasted 2000 years and you still have 1000 years to go before the ice melts and stuff. That means, that you've been living in the same environment for two millennia and the environment hasn't really changed. It's still just as cold as it was 1000 years ago, it's the same flora and you've been hunting the same fauna. Hell, you've even been living with the same exact people. The tools and hunting implements you use are perfectly suited for your situation. What then, should drive further technological developments? The need for a plough or a boat doesn't just come from nothing. It comes from the need and the possiblity of ploughing the earth or traversing open water. Then fast forward 1000 years. The ice has melted. New plants have migrated into Northern Europe. Some have disappeared. Same with the wild game. Reindeer are long gone and suddenly all you see is wild boar, a bunch of weird deer and an aurochs here and there. All of a sudden there's a lot of birds like ducks and pelicans and what not. All of a sudden you need to re-adress your hunting gear to better suit the new game. Then you have to develop new kinds of arrows to hunt birds. Same with hunting aurochs. Now you find out that it could be cool to hollow out that old oak tree overthere to make a dugout to travel along the newly formed rivers. All of a sudden, the new and more hospitable climate attracts people from different places who made tools similar but perhaps different than yours. All of a sudden you start to procreate and assimilate with the new cultures and from that new technologies develop. Again, I am not saying that this is *the* explaination for why some cultures stagnate and some develop faster. It's just one side of the coin.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7034.0,"score_ratio":9.7575757576} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hos831v","c_root_id_B":"hosh6yf","created_at_utc_A":1639665086,"created_at_utc_B":1639668942,"score_A":23,"score_B":322,"human_ref_A":"Your premise is already flawed; different groups of people have entirely different needs based on their surroundings. Every single 'culture' or population developed technologies to deal with that. It doesn't fit a western definition, but smearing clay\/mud on your skin for protection is a technology. Fermentation is a technology. These aren't as intuitive to us, because in the west we are primed to think of technology as fundamentally linear and teleological: Those 'Africans are lagging behind'. But it really isn't, because there is no Universal objective standard for development (even though colonialism will try to tell you otherwise).","human_ref_B":"I'm not an anthropologist but a historian, and this is a question I see come up a lot in undergrad seminar classes and the like, so if I may I will post here what I usually tell my students. Technology is problem solving. Problems can be complex, and can be immediate and physical, or can be projections of cultural value. One culture might see reliable river transportation as a problem to be solved, and another may not. One culture might derive value from the commodification of resources and another might derive value in largesse and sharing: both of those cultures will solve the knock-on problems of those value judgements very differently. So if one culture develops industrial capitalism as a result and another develops potlatching, they can't be judged in the same way, because ultimately they're expressions of a totally different set of problems to be solved. Like another poster mentioned, a lot of seemingly simple solutions to common problems are technology. Birchbark or dugout canoes are technology. Trap building is technology. Enthnogeography is technology. Social hierarchies built around trade and hunting are technology. If we look at technology only as the stuff that created ocean sailing vessels or spaceships, then we're falling into the trap created by enlightenment and imperialist thinkers that were asking the question \"why did white people win history\" instead of \"how did cultures perceive their needs and solve their problems related to those needs.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3856.0,"score_ratio":14.0} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosvi9a","c_root_id_B":"hos6ksh","created_at_utc_A":1639674556,"created_at_utc_B":1639664402,"score_A":102,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"A few comments have pointed out the problems of ranking cultures and technology on a ladder, but the bigger problem is that people often pointed to as examples of \u201ctimeless\u201d or \u201ctribal\u201d have not lived anything like the same way for thousands of years. Amazonian peoples have lived as city-dwellers, farmers, hunter-gatherers and often all three. There is emerging evidence of monumental urban earthworks in the Amazon. Diseases and later invasion by Europeans (the rubber boom was pretty much an alien-invasion horror movie) caused societies to live in smaller-scale, less permanent communities which were less vulnerable. African hunter-gatherers have had complex relationships with pastoral and settled cultures around them (including adopting those ways of living and vice versa) who in turn were tapped into global trade networks.","human_ref_B":"I think most of it comes down to necessity. Inuit groups have been\/are tremendously inventive. Not sure if smelting of metals should be the litmus test for technologically advanced. To illustrate my earlier point, there has been very little technological advancement with eating utensils in hundreds of years-except the spork. I agree with the shovel comment. Most things reach a terminal point of advancement. This can also be seen in things like smart phone technology-the rate of change was furious 2008-2012. Now it is slowing down. On this note, might I add that an anthropology degree is very useful in software development. Microsoft is a huge employer of anthropologists. Intel, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10154.0,"score_ratio":2.487804878} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosvi9a","c_root_id_B":"hos1dua","created_at_utc_A":1639674556,"created_at_utc_B":1639661908,"score_A":102,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"A few comments have pointed out the problems of ranking cultures and technology on a ladder, but the bigger problem is that people often pointed to as examples of \u201ctimeless\u201d or \u201ctribal\u201d have not lived anything like the same way for thousands of years. Amazonian peoples have lived as city-dwellers, farmers, hunter-gatherers and often all three. There is emerging evidence of monumental urban earthworks in the Amazon. Diseases and later invasion by Europeans (the rubber boom was pretty much an alien-invasion horror movie) caused societies to live in smaller-scale, less permanent communities which were less vulnerable. African hunter-gatherers have had complex relationships with pastoral and settled cultures around them (including adopting those ways of living and vice versa) who in turn were tapped into global trade networks.","human_ref_B":"There's probably a lot of different answers or suggestions but I'll try to point one out. So, *cultural ecology* tells us, that cultures develop in reaction to changes in their physical and social environment. And then say, that you are a bunch of hunter-gatherers. You're in Northern Europe and you're right in the middle of the last Ice Age. At this point the ice age has lasted 2000 years and you still have 1000 years to go before the ice melts and stuff. That means, that you've been living in the same environment for two millennia and the environment hasn't really changed. It's still just as cold as it was 1000 years ago, it's the same flora and you've been hunting the same fauna. Hell, you've even been living with the same exact people. The tools and hunting implements you use are perfectly suited for your situation. What then, should drive further technological developments? The need for a plough or a boat doesn't just come from nothing. It comes from the need and the possiblity of ploughing the earth or traversing open water. Then fast forward 1000 years. The ice has melted. New plants have migrated into Northern Europe. Some have disappeared. Same with the wild game. Reindeer are long gone and suddenly all you see is wild boar, a bunch of weird deer and an aurochs here and there. All of a sudden there's a lot of birds like ducks and pelicans and what not. All of a sudden you need to re-adress your hunting gear to better suit the new game. Then you have to develop new kinds of arrows to hunt birds. Same with hunting aurochs. Now you find out that it could be cool to hollow out that old oak tree overthere to make a dugout to travel along the newly formed rivers. All of a sudden, the new and more hospitable climate attracts people from different places who made tools similar but perhaps different than yours. All of a sudden you start to procreate and assimilate with the new cultures and from that new technologies develop. Again, I am not saying that this is *the* explaination for why some cultures stagnate and some develop faster. It's just one side of the coin.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12648.0,"score_ratio":3.0909090909} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosvi9a","c_root_id_B":"hos831v","created_at_utc_A":1639674556,"created_at_utc_B":1639665086,"score_A":102,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"A few comments have pointed out the problems of ranking cultures and technology on a ladder, but the bigger problem is that people often pointed to as examples of \u201ctimeless\u201d or \u201ctribal\u201d have not lived anything like the same way for thousands of years. Amazonian peoples have lived as city-dwellers, farmers, hunter-gatherers and often all three. There is emerging evidence of monumental urban earthworks in the Amazon. Diseases and later invasion by Europeans (the rubber boom was pretty much an alien-invasion horror movie) caused societies to live in smaller-scale, less permanent communities which were less vulnerable. African hunter-gatherers have had complex relationships with pastoral and settled cultures around them (including adopting those ways of living and vice versa) who in turn were tapped into global trade networks.","human_ref_B":"Your premise is already flawed; different groups of people have entirely different needs based on their surroundings. Every single 'culture' or population developed technologies to deal with that. It doesn't fit a western definition, but smearing clay\/mud on your skin for protection is a technology. Fermentation is a technology. These aren't as intuitive to us, because in the west we are primed to think of technology as fundamentally linear and teleological: Those 'Africans are lagging behind'. But it really isn't, because there is no Universal objective standard for development (even though colonialism will try to tell you otherwise).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9470.0,"score_ratio":4.4347826087} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hosvi9a","c_root_id_B":"hostfu9","created_at_utc_A":1639674556,"created_at_utc_B":1639673752,"score_A":102,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"A few comments have pointed out the problems of ranking cultures and technology on a ladder, but the bigger problem is that people often pointed to as examples of \u201ctimeless\u201d or \u201ctribal\u201d have not lived anything like the same way for thousands of years. Amazonian peoples have lived as city-dwellers, farmers, hunter-gatherers and often all three. There is emerging evidence of monumental urban earthworks in the Amazon. Diseases and later invasion by Europeans (the rubber boom was pretty much an alien-invasion horror movie) caused societies to live in smaller-scale, less permanent communities which were less vulnerable. African hunter-gatherers have had complex relationships with pastoral and settled cultures around them (including adopting those ways of living and vice versa) who in turn were tapped into global trade networks.","human_ref_B":"So this post is assuming something like an evolutionary or phase view of culture which has been out-of-date among anthropologists for 100 years now. Hunter-gatherers have changed tremendously over time. After the megafauna die on a continent you need to switch to hunting small game instead. Early agricultural states regularly failed as the people would rebel or (facing famine) migrate and regain their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There's evidence that much of the Amazon was a cultivated food forest, though with the devastation of disease and colonization much of these practices were abandoned. So there are cases where hunter-gatherers willfully abandon civilization and other times where their civilization gets destroyed and they are forced to take up hunting and gathering to survive. Various groups have willfully chosen to abandon sendentary life, but also various technologies. The Amish are a famous example, and many people abandon social media too. James C. Scott noted that tribes in Southeast Asia limited literacy intentionally so as to avoid being governed by the state. Much of history is due to chance and context though. Take for example that China had gun powder for hundreds of years before Europeans made rifles. Africa is much closer to Europe but was colonized much later than the Americas. North Africa has an intact history with known technological innovations, but the rest of Africa largely had their atchievements destroyed and people run into the bush. All in all, cultures are not \"stagnant\" though. Likewise, chimpanzees are not stagnant versions of us. Thats not how evolution works.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":804.0,"score_ratio":12.75} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hos6ksh","c_root_id_B":"hos1dua","created_at_utc_A":1639664402,"created_at_utc_B":1639661908,"score_A":41,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"I think most of it comes down to necessity. Inuit groups have been\/are tremendously inventive. Not sure if smelting of metals should be the litmus test for technologically advanced. To illustrate my earlier point, there has been very little technological advancement with eating utensils in hundreds of years-except the spork. I agree with the shovel comment. Most things reach a terminal point of advancement. This can also be seen in things like smart phone technology-the rate of change was furious 2008-2012. Now it is slowing down. On this note, might I add that an anthropology degree is very useful in software development. Microsoft is a huge employer of anthropologists. Intel, too.","human_ref_B":"There's probably a lot of different answers or suggestions but I'll try to point one out. So, *cultural ecology* tells us, that cultures develop in reaction to changes in their physical and social environment. And then say, that you are a bunch of hunter-gatherers. You're in Northern Europe and you're right in the middle of the last Ice Age. At this point the ice age has lasted 2000 years and you still have 1000 years to go before the ice melts and stuff. That means, that you've been living in the same environment for two millennia and the environment hasn't really changed. It's still just as cold as it was 1000 years ago, it's the same flora and you've been hunting the same fauna. Hell, you've even been living with the same exact people. The tools and hunting implements you use are perfectly suited for your situation. What then, should drive further technological developments? The need for a plough or a boat doesn't just come from nothing. It comes from the need and the possiblity of ploughing the earth or traversing open water. Then fast forward 1000 years. The ice has melted. New plants have migrated into Northern Europe. Some have disappeared. Same with the wild game. Reindeer are long gone and suddenly all you see is wild boar, a bunch of weird deer and an aurochs here and there. All of a sudden there's a lot of birds like ducks and pelicans and what not. All of a sudden you need to re-adress your hunting gear to better suit the new game. Then you have to develop new kinds of arrows to hunt birds. Same with hunting aurochs. Now you find out that it could be cool to hollow out that old oak tree overthere to make a dugout to travel along the newly formed rivers. All of a sudden, the new and more hospitable climate attracts people from different places who made tools similar but perhaps different than yours. All of a sudden you start to procreate and assimilate with the new cultures and from that new technologies develop. Again, I am not saying that this is *the* explaination for why some cultures stagnate and some develop faster. It's just one side of the coin.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2494.0,"score_ratio":1.2424242424} {"post_id":"rhq6xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Do we have a theory of what propelled certain cultures to develop technologically while others are stagnant? What I mean is that, let's say, Amazonian tribes, Australian aboriginals or some African hunter gatherers have lived roughly the same for thousands of years and I'd imagine they'd continue to do so if left alone. But that makes me wonder, why didn't these cultures make the jump that the Mesopotamian civilisations or the Chinese in the Yellow river (among others) made? Is it random chance? Abundance of some resource? Weather? Going back to the cultures I alluded to before, is it reasonable to expect them to remain mostly unchanged or would we expect them to eventually start their own bronze ages (again, if left alone, so in some hypothetical scenario where the other technologically advanced cultures didn't exist or didn't intervene in any way)?","c_root_id_A":"hostfu9","c_root_id_B":"hotvua5","created_at_utc_A":1639673752,"created_at_utc_B":1639688708,"score_A":8,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"So this post is assuming something like an evolutionary or phase view of culture which has been out-of-date among anthropologists for 100 years now. Hunter-gatherers have changed tremendously over time. After the megafauna die on a continent you need to switch to hunting small game instead. Early agricultural states regularly failed as the people would rebel or (facing famine) migrate and regain their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. There's evidence that much of the Amazon was a cultivated food forest, though with the devastation of disease and colonization much of these practices were abandoned. So there are cases where hunter-gatherers willfully abandon civilization and other times where their civilization gets destroyed and they are forced to take up hunting and gathering to survive. Various groups have willfully chosen to abandon sendentary life, but also various technologies. The Amish are a famous example, and many people abandon social media too. James C. Scott noted that tribes in Southeast Asia limited literacy intentionally so as to avoid being governed by the state. Much of history is due to chance and context though. Take for example that China had gun powder for hundreds of years before Europeans made rifles. Africa is much closer to Europe but was colonized much later than the Americas. North Africa has an intact history with known technological innovations, but the rest of Africa largely had their atchievements destroyed and people run into the bush. All in all, cultures are not \"stagnant\" though. Likewise, chimpanzees are not stagnant versions of us. Thats not how evolution works.","human_ref_B":"The new book by David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, offers a general strategy for reappraising this question, which is to not assume that \"certain cultures\" are fixed and static and continuous, such that various hunter-gathering\/foraging societies have been living where they've been living and living in the same way in an unbroken and continuous fashion for centuries of millennia. Graeber and Wengrow's overall argument in the book is that we should understand human societies as making dynamic, agentive choices in relation to one another. If you zoom in tight on a particular region of the world at a particular historical moment and see a group of pastoralist nomads moving in a repeating pattern through the whole area, a small very ecologically particular region inhabited primarily by small-scale groups of foragers, a series of towns along a river tributary that live primarily off of fishing and craftwork that they trade downriver to a major urban settlement that is supported by intensive agriculture, they would argue that these choices are not fixed, final or continuous--and that they're all dynamically related to one another. E.g., some people drift towards the more isolated region and forage because as a group they've decided they really dislike the lifestyle and philosophy of cosmopolitan urbanites and the exhausting work routines of the agriculture that they semi-coerce from the villages around the city. The fishers don't mind trading with the city but they keep their distance not because they're too backward to scale up to intensive agriculture and denser communities but because they prefer their own way of life. The pastoralists mind their own business, trading milk and meat for grains and fruit, but every once in a while they decide they really dislike the decadence and hierarchical arrogance of the city people and start raiding their settlements. It's a constantly changing situation--individuals and families drift away from communities they dislike, drift in stages towards other living situations. People get captured in conflicts or run away from intolerable servitude. The book also argues strongly (with considerable evidence) against the idea that once you go farmer, you never go back, and that farming is an \"advanced technology\" that inevitably opens up an orientation towards further technological development. Just to give an example I know a bit about in my own expertise, Khoisan-speaking peoples (often referred to by Europeans in an earlier era as \"Bushmen\") in the western half of southern Africa are there partly because they moved to get out of the way of Bantu-speaking agriculturalists who moved into the region many centuries ago. It wasn't necessarily because the Bantu-speakers had advanced technology and overwhelmed earlier inhabitants. Some of them didn't move and intermarried or lived alongside Bantu-speaking groups. Some of them took to herding cattle. Some wanted nothing to do with all of it and moved into remote areas that were harder to live in and went to be foragers. And people kept moving around and changing the way they lived and thought. Another example are the Maasai, who are often seen as a prototypical group of warrior-pastoralists. But that's as much ideology as it is material reality--it's sort of like trusting that when an American conservative says he hates big government that he really means it, when that's often not actually true if you look under the hood and see what it is that people are actually doing and demanding. We know that historically many Maa speakers who were basically part of Maasai communities \"snuck away\" to engage in farming despite that being something that supposedly Maasai don't do; sometimes groups went back to pure herding. Sometimes that was about adapting to material conditions, sometimes it was about attitudes and ideas. So instead of seeing technological change as a one-way linear process, it might be better to think of \"technological repertoires\" that regions, peoples and communities have shifted in and out of for much of human history. It's only quite recently that we seem to be on a one-way voyage to continuous major technological change.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14956.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"tucs0z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How strong was a neanderthal woman compared to a neanderthal man? Was the difference between the two equal to, larger, or smaller than the difference between men and women in anatomically modern humans?","c_root_id_A":"i33dsvn","c_root_id_B":"i33v4c6","created_at_utc_A":1648895503,"created_at_utc_B":1648906973,"score_A":20,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"I doubt you could compare even the modern people. There are parameters for grip strength, walking speed, bone density and some other continuous bicycle charge, but they're more relevant to chronic disease, geriatry and prognosis, which is how I know about it. I've never heard of medical doctors measuring such in normal people and then you have athletes which are also outliers. You could probably find and compare the number yourself if you searched for Neanderthal man grip strength vs Neanderthal woman grip strength.","human_ref_B":"You might pick up a copy of Rebecca Sykes' recent book about Neanderthals, *Kindred*. She consolidates a lot of research on most aspects of Neanderthals. The reference bibliography is a separate document from the book and a link to it is on her website: https:\/\/www.rebeccawraggsykes.com\/biblio","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11470.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"a6ytwn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"If Neanderthals were more robust than modern Sapiens, why is it that seemingly those with more Neanderthal admixture are less robust than say, people on the African continent? Neanderthals are known as big-boned, strong brutes. However, Caucasians - and East\/Southeast Asians have a lot of Neanderthal admixture but seem to be more slender than people from Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Did the genes crossing invalidate the code for the bigger stronger bone structure?","c_root_id_A":"ebz1m8v","c_root_id_B":"ebyzwvd","created_at_utc_A":1545048708,"created_at_utc_B":1545045816,"score_A":145,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I think the premise of this question is flawed. First of all, it isn't necessarily accurate to say that people from Africa are more \"robust\" than people from outside Africa - this is something that varies regionally. East Africans also tend to be quite slender, for instance. The fact that this varies both within Africans and within non-Africans suggests that Neanderthal genes are not the driving factor in determining robustness - which makes sense, given that they are only ~2% of the gene pool. It is likely that bone structure is far more influenced by later selection, as well as nurture effects like diet and life cycle, than it is by a small sample of genes that was introduced into the population long ago.","human_ref_B":"The differences in modern human populations has more to do with location, diet, and lifestyle then genetics. Populations of a species will often develop different features based on their habitat even though their DNA is the same. The body type of h. neanderthalensis isn\u2019t needed by h. sapiens. You\u2019re comparing an ice age hunter-gatherer population to an interglacial agricultural population.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2892.0,"score_ratio":4.6774193548} {"post_id":"a6ytwn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"If Neanderthals were more robust than modern Sapiens, why is it that seemingly those with more Neanderthal admixture are less robust than say, people on the African continent? Neanderthals are known as big-boned, strong brutes. However, Caucasians - and East\/Southeast Asians have a lot of Neanderthal admixture but seem to be more slender than people from Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Did the genes crossing invalidate the code for the bigger stronger bone structure?","c_root_id_A":"ebzwhqh","c_root_id_B":"ec09awr","created_at_utc_A":1545075934,"created_at_utc_B":1545085529,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Actually, the people who have the most Neandertal admixture (Native Americans) are the best approximation in muscle size and body shape. Particularily, the Inuit in North America and Tierra del Fuego in South America people are very close in muscle robusticity metrics (https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/279579516\\_How\\_strong\\_were\\_the\\_Neandertals\\_Leverage\\_and\\_muscularity\\_at\\_the\\_shoulder\\_and\\_elbow\\_in\\_Mousterian\\_foragers). Use scihub to view the article. Anyway, 2% admixture is very little. Most of this has to do with immunity and keratin toughness (not even skin color) but also may contribute to some diseases. Very high robusticityis expensive because modern humans had more advanced weaponry such as spear throwers and thus did not need it. While Neanderthals had close range weapons, they would spend hours or sometimes even days tracking and running after the wounded animal. With a spear thrower, tracking was reduced and body fat was increased. Furthermore, robusticity as a function of climate is reduced since modern humans had parkas and such, while Neandertals presumably had worse clothing.","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry but your question is flawed from the start. \"Robust\" is not what you're looking at when you are looking at modern day athletes with West African roots (I will assume that this is one of the areas that have influenced your ideas). Africa is genetically the most diverse area in the world. If you look at for example the Khoisan, Fulani or Maasai people (groups with very little or non Neanderthal DNA) you will see that they have a slender build, and doesn't at al resemble African American football players. Robust when talking about Neanderthal ancestry has more to do with a sturdy, compact bone structure, big lungs, broad shoulders and a broad pelvis, strong ligaments and an overall contexture optimized for core strength and in many cases adapted to cold weather: not loosing important body heat because of long limbs. These characteristics today you will find among many North Asian and Native American populations, especially closer to the geographical poles. Among these groups you will find men built like tanks, not like Usain Bolt. Muscle mass is not the same as a broad chest and pelvis. Of course countless factors have had an impact on how our modern populations look today. For example many populations that have traditionally lived on a high protein diet have in modern times switched to a diet high in carbohydrates. I apologize for my English, and I didn't want to sound rude, I'm just tired.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9595.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"a6ytwn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"If Neanderthals were more robust than modern Sapiens, why is it that seemingly those with more Neanderthal admixture are less robust than say, people on the African continent? Neanderthals are known as big-boned, strong brutes. However, Caucasians - and East\/Southeast Asians have a lot of Neanderthal admixture but seem to be more slender than people from Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Did the genes crossing invalidate the code for the bigger stronger bone structure?","c_root_id_A":"ec00gzu","c_root_id_B":"ec09awr","created_at_utc_A":1545078936,"created_at_utc_B":1545085529,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Neanderthals were shorter than Homo Sapiens on average, but with wider ribcages, and wider noses. While this is hardly a scientific description, when I see reconstructed neanderthals they remind me of Tolkien\u2019s Dwarves (a little bit shorter but still large in weight, wide, with large noses). That said, the Neanderthal DNA that is expressed in modern population is mostly in the immune system and in the skin (these were the parts of the DNA that showed positive selection; higher frequency of Neanderthal DNA). Natural selection is still at work, and the shorter height and wider frame were not selected with any particular frequency as far as I know.","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry but your question is flawed from the start. \"Robust\" is not what you're looking at when you are looking at modern day athletes with West African roots (I will assume that this is one of the areas that have influenced your ideas). Africa is genetically the most diverse area in the world. If you look at for example the Khoisan, Fulani or Maasai people (groups with very little or non Neanderthal DNA) you will see that they have a slender build, and doesn't at al resemble African American football players. Robust when talking about Neanderthal ancestry has more to do with a sturdy, compact bone structure, big lungs, broad shoulders and a broad pelvis, strong ligaments and an overall contexture optimized for core strength and in many cases adapted to cold weather: not loosing important body heat because of long limbs. These characteristics today you will find among many North Asian and Native American populations, especially closer to the geographical poles. Among these groups you will find men built like tanks, not like Usain Bolt. Muscle mass is not the same as a broad chest and pelvis. Of course countless factors have had an impact on how our modern populations look today. For example many populations that have traditionally lived on a high protein diet have in modern times switched to a diet high in carbohydrates. I apologize for my English, and I didn't want to sound rude, I'm just tired.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6593.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"pxgi4u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Is guns germs and steel worth reading? I know it's an all-time bestseller. What I mean is that Is it still relevant in 2021? Or are there better books that have replaced it?","c_root_id_A":"heo1ggj","c_root_id_B":"heo9gps","created_at_utc_A":1632877738,"created_at_utc_B":1632881483,"score_A":56,"score_B":93,"human_ref_A":"No.","human_ref_B":"I would highly recommend Walter Scheidel's *Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity* (2019). It seeks to answer a similar question of why western Europe, and not some other place, entered the rapid phase of development that allowed it to gain global dominance. His central thesis is that what he terms \"the Great Escape\" was caused by enduring polycentrism and competition in Europe, both between states and within them, after the fall of Rome. He compares and contrasts Europe with the Middle East, South Asia, and especially China (as the region most consistently controlled by a single polity throughout history). He analyzes geography, economics, culture, etc to both determine the causes of regions' differing rates of imperial hegemony, and the way that this paradigm played out over the centuries in actual history. His arguments regarding steppe effects I found particularly fascinating. It's all done in a far more professional, measured, and scientific way than anything Diamond has ever done. It's a real masterpiece of dialectical history.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3745.0,"score_ratio":1.6607142857} {"post_id":"8fbewk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"A book like Guns, Germs, and Steel but for the development of cultures Whats up, So I've been reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel while backpacking. The combination of his take on evolution and the different cultures I have encountered traveling really piqued my interest into how cultures form and develop their distinct characteristics. Are there any books that get into the formation and development of cultures from a historical and evolutionary standpoint? Thanks","c_root_id_A":"dy2p3e2","c_root_id_B":"dy27tro","created_at_utc_A":1524854141,"created_at_utc_B":1524839368,"score_A":16,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"So, Guns, Germs, and Steel and other similar books are actually really bad Anthropology. Many of these books pick out evidence to give the impression that evolution is telelological, or has one specific end in mind, and when this is applied to culture is basically a reinvigoration of the rather heinous concept of Social Darwinism. It can definitely make an engaging read, but it also is actively damaging to what most anthropologists and social scientists are trying to do with their work today. Anthropologists have not seriously talked about the \"evolution\" of societies for decades if not a century now, because such ideas are heavily embedded in racism and imperialism. Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to get a decent book out that does a good job of showing what a lot of anthropologists think about humanity\/society in general (probably because we all think about different aspects of society). One of the big books in anthropology is Eric Wolf's *Europe and the People Without History*, which might cover your itch from a very different kind of angle (but still a historical one). Sapiens has been recommended, but keep in mind that the interpretations of the evidence in that text are just that: interpretations. We can't know that, for example, Homo Sapiens violently wiped out Neanderthals based on the evidence we have.","human_ref_B":"Sapiens is very accessible, not sure if that fits your bill.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14773.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"vbu0ik","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Books By Anthropologists I'm wondering if any of you have anthropology-related book recommendations? I felt it was sort of a right of passage to read Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific, and I've also read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I've heard good things about Tuhami by Vincent Crapanzano -- thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"icd9b0b","c_root_id_B":"icc24l7","created_at_utc_A":1655235807,"created_at_utc_B":1655218050,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just as an fyi, Guns Germs and Steel is not highly thought of in academic circles: see AskHistorians post","human_ref_B":"I loved Malinowski's Argonauts. You have plenty of ethnographies to read, but they can be classified in various types of categories like: Geography: Africa, South America, Asia, Southeast Asia... Focus: political systems, religious systems, economic systems, general... Even schools and perspectives (although more or less it depends on what decade it was written): evolutionists, neoevolutionists, structural-funtionalists, structuralists, cultural materialists, simbolists, postmodernists... There are a handful. Personally one that I would like to read is Paul Rabinow's work in Morocco. I had to read part of his Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco, when studying postmodernism and the importance of the etnographer's own experience when writing an ethnography, and I liked the way he writes. I hope it helps.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17757.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"vbu0ik","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Books By Anthropologists I'm wondering if any of you have anthropology-related book recommendations? I felt it was sort of a right of passage to read Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific, and I've also read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I've heard good things about Tuhami by Vincent Crapanzano -- thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"icchxnu","c_root_id_B":"icd9b0b","created_at_utc_A":1655224604,"created_at_utc_B":1655235807,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Just a few of my favorites: Eaters of the Dry Season: Circular Labor Migration In The West African Sahel Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in a Disequilibrium System The Reindeer People: Living With Animals and Spirits in Siberia Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali","human_ref_B":"Just as an fyi, Guns Germs and Steel is not highly thought of in academic circles: see AskHistorians post","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11203.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"30cftu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the oldest confirmed event recorded by oral folk tradition?","c_root_id_A":"cprauf5","c_root_id_B":"cpr6s83","created_at_utc_A":1427374279,"created_at_utc_B":1427358280,"score_A":34,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"This can be really hard to mark as \"confirmed\" when we're talking about ancient events. It is easy for specifics to become vague and symbolic and for symbolic vague narratives to then be retroactively applied to specifics in the archaeological record. Relatively recent events are much easier. For example, the Inuit oral history of the Franklin expedition, which contradicted the official narrative, turned out to be correct. But that was only 168 years.","human_ref_B":"Some Australian Aboriginal stories may talk about climate change and impact events dating back 10,000 years. https:\/\/newsroom.unsw.edu.au\/news\/science-tech\/finding-meteorite-impacts-aboriginal-oral-tradition","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15999.0,"score_ratio":1.0303030303} {"post_id":"30cftu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is the oldest confirmed event recorded by oral folk tradition?","c_root_id_A":"cprauf5","c_root_id_B":"cprannj","created_at_utc_A":1427374279,"created_at_utc_B":1427373801,"score_A":34,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"This can be really hard to mark as \"confirmed\" when we're talking about ancient events. It is easy for specifics to become vague and symbolic and for symbolic vague narratives to then be retroactively applied to specifics in the archaeological record. Relatively recent events are much easier. For example, the Inuit oral history of the Franklin expedition, which contradicted the official narrative, turned out to be correct. But that was only 168 years.","human_ref_B":"The Klamath legend of the creation of Crater Lake in Oregon 7,700 years ago accords with geologists' reconstruction of the event. The Barbers' *When They Severed Earth From Sky* makes the case for several PNW eruption myths, among other cataclysms.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":478.0,"score_ratio":1.619047619} {"post_id":"www971","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is there a way to reliably date oral traditions? When we come across stories or other records from non literate societies that had a tradition of oral transmission, is there any way to come up with a date range for when the original story or record might have been originally recorded? Thank you all for your answers!","c_root_id_A":"iloblw7","c_root_id_B":"ilnzgt9","created_at_utc_A":1661390461,"created_at_utc_B":1661385257,"score_A":94,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Typically no, but sometimes yes. On the \"yes\" side of the ledger what we often rely on are things like biological or geological events that can be scientifically dated using a variety of strategies. There are many biological agents that leave a distinct footprint when present, just as there are many geological events that can be dated with high accuracy. One of my favorites --probably because it's local to me-- is that when The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through the Columbia Gorge, they were told by the natives that there had once been a giant natural bridge spanning the river at a point near today's town of Cascade Locks, but that it had been thrown down in a giant fight between the two gods associated with Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood (They both have different names in the various local languages, so I'm keeping it simple and using their contemporary Anglo names). Mssrs Lewis and Clark didn't necessarily know what to make of such tales, but come to find out, some 200 years later, geologists and hydrologists have definitively affirmed that such a thing did in fact occur; that there was once a giant sort of natural bridge across the Columbia Gorge, that there was a massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake roughly 150 years prior to the L and C Expedition, and that said massive earthquake definitely caused the collapse of said giant natural bridge, which is kind of a shame, since it must have been one of the great natural wonders of the world when it existed.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s pretty difficult to do so. Sometimes there are specific events or details in the story that can be independently verified via other methods, especially if they leave mark in the geological record. Sometimes stories from different peoples can be clumped together based on shared characteristics, and these can become correlated with the spread and diversification of an archaic population, language, or other social aspects. Linguistic analysis can be attempted if old words, names, etc are retained in the stories. It\u2019s pretty difficult to come up with a reliable date range though. Being able to link the story to a specific geologic event is often the one that gives the most trustworthy dates.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5204.0,"score_ratio":8.5454545455} {"post_id":"x0kcik","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What is the anthropology on human propensity to be distracted? Why is it so difficult for humans to stay still doing nothing? Why does it seem we are designed to be distracted? why does it seem extremely difficult for humans to do nothing. Just sitting with ones thoughts for even 5 minutes in a room seems like a mountain of a task. We immediately seek out our phones or a book or some form of distraction. Have we always been like this? I am sure it's getting worse with technology but what was the case a few thousand years ago? Was the stimulation provided by nature our distraction or did we seek out other stuff? Please provide any details on this topic that you've come across. Thanks! :)","c_root_id_A":"im94cpi","c_root_id_B":"im8ur8p","created_at_utc_A":1661779289,"created_at_utc_B":1661774298,"score_A":36,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"You're unlikely to get any \"actual\" answer, but a few things come to mind. First off, the premise of the question contains a lot of assumptions in it, one of them being that this attention span\/ease of being distracted issue is universal in people and cultures, which is questionable without detailed studies, and demonstrably false in many cases (eg. people who meditate, cultures where quietness is prized, jobs & hobbies that require focus, people who are just chill, etc). It does seem to the the case that globally attention spans are shortening, and this is tied to increasing information access, and that this operates in a sort of feedback loop: - Lorenz-Spreen, et al 2019 *Accelerating dynamics of collective attention* >Our modeling suggests that shorter attention cycles are mainly driven by increasing information flows, represented as content production and consumption rates. As influx increases, individual topics are adopted more rapidly, leading to steeper rises in collective attention with the self-inhibitory effects of saturation resulting in an equally steepening downfall. Thus, in our modeling framework, producing and consuming more content results in shortening of attention spans for individual topics and higher turnover rates between popular cultural items. In other words, the ever-present competition for recency and the abundance of information leads to the squeezing of more topics in the same time intervals as the result of limitations of the available collective attention. This does, of course, raise the question of what the difference between \"attention span\" and \"distractions\" are, which I won't try to answer here, but is worth thinking about. I might suggest that a big part of the issue is one of prioritization rather than attention\/distraction. When it comes to the past, it's worth considering the amount of time necessary to accomplish necessary tasks, and looking at the present day at how certain tasks need extended focus or the ability to ignore distractions as well. Staking game, forging a tool, chipping a hand axe, constructing something along the lines of the Antikythera Mechanism, etc all necessitate the ability to put aside distractions. This doesn't mean that we don't notice them, nor that ancient people did not notice them, just that the ability to *prioritize* is something that we may be struggling with, and that was less of a challenge in the past. As to why it's easy to be distracted, well, no matter what we are doing we still need to pay attention to our surroundings. If you're gathering food or stalking game you need to remain aware of changes in your environment that may indicate danger or opportunity, categorize them, and determine which ones need a response and which don't. Anyway, that's not really an answer, but it may provide some avenues of thought.","human_ref_B":"While you might find an answer here, a better place might be \/r\/AskPsychology","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4991.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"vkh5bq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"SEEK HELP: Is the PhD in anthropology an appropriate target for me? What should I do to become a qualified applicant? Hey everybody. I got a master's degree in journalism from CUHK, and now I\u2019m working for the government in a little Chinese city, responsible for covering the development of the rural areas. My job involves interviewing rural people, including officers and farmers, and writing news reports. The working experience triggered my interest in researching Chinese countries and their culture, especially under the influence of the internet. For instance, I would like to know more deeply how the young and older adults there view the changes brought by the internet and how the local urbanisation project influences their lives. So I\u2019m planning to apply for a PhD in anthropology, and I hope it can help me understand China\u2019s rural people more profoundly. Is the PhD in anthropology a proper aim for me? Or in other words, could it meet my expectations? What should I do now to become a qualified applicant? Maybe I should write one or two relevant articles and get them published. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"idr5adg","c_root_id_B":"idqi626","created_at_utc_A":1656205837,"created_at_utc_B":1656194214,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In all truthfulness, a PhD is overkill for what you're interested in doing. This is very much in the area of \"applied\" anthropology, and in such fields, a master's degree is usually more than sufficient. It takes less time and it costs less money (although your funding \/ cost situation may be very different there in China from what it is here in the US). My recommendation would be for a master's degree, not a PhD.","human_ref_B":"I would argue that this would be a good fit. But it depends on what area of Anthropology work you plan to go into afterwards. I almost think sociology or communications would be better because you're focusing on a broad culture, not a specific community. Since Anthropology is focused on ethnography primarily it would be difficult to study the entirety of China and how communication is influenced.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11623.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"9tm2cq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How can culture influence our sexual attraction to other human beings? Hello all, First of all, sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, but I am curious to hear about how our culture can influence who we might be sexually attracted too. I have heard arguments from others that who we find attractive in a society is formed by things like media, advertising and Hollywood. I interpret this as \"Hollywood hires Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, we see him as Wolverine, so we become more attracted to muscular, hairy men due to Hollywood. If Hollywood highlighted softer, slim men with no facial hair or body hair, we would suddenly think of that as the ideal and become attracted to men with those physical qualities instead.\" Am I understanding this right? I guess my question in general is how can our culture influence our sexual attraction, does it shape our sexual attraction entirely, and so forth. Any insight is appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"e8yk6m9","c_root_id_B":"e8y9qn7","created_at_utc_A":1541219884,"created_at_utc_B":1541208412,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I recommend looking more into Evolutionary Psychology. There's a great book about our inherited genetic predispositions for different aspects of life: The Consuming Instinct by Dr Had Saad.","human_ref_B":"You should absolutely read Bourdieu's Distinction, it covers this somewhat implicitly but goes over culture, taste-making, preference, and more in such thorough theoretical terms. Love it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11472.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"tek9qi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Why do so many cultures say \"Good morning\" and \"good evening\"? Why not just a generic hello\/hi? Why call the time of day \"good\"? That combination of words doesn't even make sense as a greeting. If I was an alien, I'd reply with \"What do you mean?\"","c_root_id_A":"i0q7n41","c_root_id_B":"i0q7a2l","created_at_utc_A":1647334430,"created_at_utc_B":1647334123,"score_A":206,"score_B":82,"human_ref_A":"You don't *call* the morning\/afternoon\/evening\/etc good. It's something you wish onto others. \"Have a good evening\". Over time the phrase has become more commonplace so we started leaving out some words and the meaning gets a bit more lost in daily life so that now we can say the same thing with just one word like \"morning\"","human_ref_B":"In my understanding, the sentiment of the greeting is originally something like \"I wish that you will have a good morning\" which then over time as language evolves has gradually been shortened into \"I wish you a good morning\" and ultimately \"Good morning\". It's a way for you to express positive emotions and friendly compassion to the people you encounter in your life. Because who would be malicious and want someone to have a bad morning? Everyone wants to have a good morning, right? So it's a nice greeting, to wish everyone you meet that they would have a good morning, just as they probably would wish that you would have, too. EDIT: It's the same logic as with other similarly working utterances and phrases of speech as well. For example \"happy birthday\" is when detached from its context on its own a rather meaningless statement, just like \"mediocre Wednesday\" or \"miserable solstice\" would be. An adjective and a specific day. But when you understand that the two words are short for \"I wish that you will have a happy birthday\", the two words make much more sense as something meaningful to say to someone.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":307.0,"score_ratio":2.512195122} {"post_id":"tek9qi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Why do so many cultures say \"Good morning\" and \"good evening\"? Why not just a generic hello\/hi? Why call the time of day \"good\"? That combination of words doesn't even make sense as a greeting. If I was an alien, I'd reply with \"What do you mean?\"","c_root_id_A":"i0r04l9","c_root_id_B":"i0qde1h","created_at_utc_A":1647352763,"created_at_utc_B":1647339328,"score_A":27,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure this is true. Many other cultures say things like \"peace\", \"welcome\", \"have you eaten yet?\", \"I bow to you\", and so on as typical greetings. It's just that when languages are taught to Europeans, the language learners often want translations for terms like \"good evening\", and literal translations that aren't particularly typical in those cultures end up being provided by teachers and authors of study materials who should know better.","human_ref_B":"It's worth noting that some cultures say things more along the lines of, \"Are you good\/well?\", and in the past, \"Have you eaten?\" \"Good morning,\" can be something you wish for others, or it can be an inquiry into the status of the other person. Those and \"good morning\" serve as a check to see how others are doing, if there are any issues or problems.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13435.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3ea0he","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did hunter gatherers get enough water to drink? For me it seems like it is very easy for me to get dehydrated even though I have unlimited access to water. When I'm hiking I need to take even more water, and full water bottles can be heavy. Did hunter gatherers only travel along rivers or other water sources? Did they have mechanisms for carrying water around? Also, drinking water straight from a stream can be very cold, so did they have any ways around that or were they just used to it? What do modern hunter gatherers do?","c_root_id_A":"ctd2c6z","c_root_id_B":"ctd15iz","created_at_utc_A":1437629755,"created_at_utc_B":1437626931,"score_A":26,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Probably gives some insight into why pottery was so popular in the ancient world. All of a sudden you can carry it around..... But honestly early humans were probably much like other animals, active at dawn and dusk and resting in the hottest part of the day","human_ref_B":"Canteens can easily be made from hides or cured animal bladders.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2824.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"u6zp2r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropologists, how do you professionally feel about the loss of cultural and individual survival knowledge and bushcraft as most of the world modernizes and moves away from hunter gatherer mode of living? Inevitable? Tragic?","c_root_id_A":"i5dah0d","c_root_id_B":"i5dtela","created_at_utc_A":1650389512,"created_at_utc_B":1650396561,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"For clarification, what are you hoping to hear from anthropologists that you wouldn't hear from, say, a survivalist or nature enthusiast? Anthropologists by and large are not masters of survival or bushcraft.","human_ref_B":"we talk about loss of cultural diversity etc but my opinion is that its a red herring in many ways. The general consensus is \"culture is living\" or put another way always changing. I personally dont love to see old ways disappear, however, we also see old ways reinvent themselves too. For example as the world globalizes and wealth (for example) becomes more stratified we see the Inuit (for example) using and embracing their culture to adapt hunting techniques. Or lobster fisherman getting mad about their colonist forefathers laws used in ways against them. There is evidence of other types of resistance as well amongst slaves in the US embracing the construct of the slow, lazy and stupid black person. or witch doctors in Africa convincing Gwenyth Paltrow they have a rejuvenating skin medication (ok I made that one up I think), but there are ways polygamous cultures are using their ancestral cultures to legitimize ways to accumulate wealth. Anyways, I have focused on wealth but my point is that culture is not inherently dead with the proper analyses but like Edward Curtis we can still use some salvage ethnography","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7049.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"xa1udi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What is fieldwork like? Is it possible to be 100% objective? I'm new to studying anthropology and wondering what fieldwork is like. The goal is to be objective and not focus on your own opinions and feelings. However, with all the things you experience and the people you get to know, you are bound to feel something. When you did fieldwork did you become attached to the group you studied? What do you do about liking or disliking certain people or practices? Does it affect your work? Did you feel sad when the fieldwork was over? Or relieved? I'm very emotional so I'm concerned about this, and it's my goal when the time comes to be as professional and objective as I possibly can. I'm scared of getting too attached to the group I will study and being super sad when I leave, and I also fear that this will ruin the quality of my work as well. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"insb6p4","c_root_id_B":"ins6ian","created_at_utc_A":1662763019,"created_at_utc_B":1662760956,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"A huge hallmark of modern cultural anthropology is the concept of reflexivity. Basically the idea of knowing and acknowledging your biases and positionality, which you will even discuss within your research. This distinguishes the field from many others. Heck, even the 'hard sciences' have biases. The difference is that they don't tend to integrate those discussions into their analyses.","human_ref_B":"i feel like ive never encountered contemporary cultural anthropologists that primarily aim for (or even believe in) \"objectivity\" tbh. usually people are pretty critical of the notion of objective knowledge production (especially in anthropology) and consider it to be a colonialist myth lol. you may find it useful to look into the concepts of *situated knowledge* and *reflexivity* which have to do with continually recognizing and acknowledging one's positioning (i.e. social, economic, political, etc) in regard to their ethnographic subject matter. when i did fieldwork for a research project in college, it was extremely emotional for me bc of my relationship to the community\/organization i was working with, and i would imagine that most people experience similarly complicated feelings about their work. it's not inherently problematic to be 'emotional' tho - in any case, as a researcher you would need to be aware of how your feelings might impact your data collection\/analysis and be upfront about those things in your work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2063.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"n1g87w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What advice do you have for someone going into their first phase of fieldwork?","c_root_id_A":"gwd2v3k","c_root_id_B":"gwdm6w8","created_at_utc_A":1619740547,"created_at_utc_B":1619749596,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"It would help if you provided more details. What kind of field work? What setting? How long?","human_ref_B":"I have a few pieces of advice, assuming this is about ethnographic fieldwork. If it's about digging around in the dirt, I don't know much about that, wear sunscreen I guess? For the most part my advice is likely stuff you've heard multiple times, and is pretty obvious, but it's super important in my opinion. First, let people talk. Some of the best content for my undergrad thesis came from just sitting there and listening to my informants. Never be too eager to ask specific questions, just let the conversation flow. Try to relate to your informant when you can, just like you would in any other conversation. Second, be meticulous with your note taking. I wish I had taken this more seriously when I was doing my undergrad. It doesn't matter how well you think you'll remember when you get home, the amount of stuff you forget in an hour is huge. Not to mention, you never know what will become relevant later down the road. This plays into the first point of letting people talk. Something you brushed off as trivial initially may be a much bigger thing later down the line, or god forbid, after you've concluded your fieldwork. Without access to the informant, you may end up losing valuable data. Lastly, just spend time in your field sites, make yourself a known entity. Not necessarily as just the anthropologist, but as a regular at community spots. Again this is all super simple stuff, but it's more important than you think.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9049.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"s3efh2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Hi r\/AskAnthropology I'm hoping to major in African culture and arts. I want to go into this more prepared so... book reccomendations on anything anthropology related to do with Africa please? Thank you :)","c_root_id_A":"hsks5gl","c_root_id_B":"hsl3ccs","created_at_utc_A":1642128369,"created_at_utc_B":1642133505,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Are you looking for accessible, interesting studies of African culture and society? Or are you more interested in things specifically on art and expressive culture even if they're more dry and academic?","human_ref_B":"A different vein from the other responses, but I\u2019m a big fan of James Ferguson\u2019s Anti-Politics machine. It\u2019s an ethnographic study of international NGO development regimes in Lesotho, and their intersection with the state-building regimes of elite power brokers in the countries they target. Very interesting book, draws heavily on Foucault and his work on Biopolitics.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5136.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"heoezv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did humans start cooking meat and why did we do it? What makes it so we can\u2019t eat most raw meat safely right now?","c_root_id_A":"fvslxif","c_root_id_B":"fvspxj1","created_at_utc_A":1592953376,"created_at_utc_B":1592955578,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"There is always something to add to this subject, but you may enjoy this discussion we had on this very subject a month or so ago.","human_ref_B":"I think you *can* eat most raw meat as safely as it ever was, sorta. There is knowledge involved to stay safe by avoiding certain things that are more likely to contain deadly or particularly bad parasites that can live in a human. There are still many cultures that enjoy eating raw meat, and blood. I\u2019ve eaten a fair amount of raw deer, beef and fish, but I avoid eating raw pork (and bear and other meat eaters) like the plague because I really don\u2019t want trichinosis. Besides knowing about parasites it\u2019s also important to understand about bacterial cleanliness issues that are created by the meat industry, which is why steaks are typically at least seared to pasteurize exposed surfaces, although basically everyone accepts that it\u2019s \u201cok\u201d to eat steaks rare. There are further issues involved with storing meat and refrigerating it, which is why I never eat it raw unless I killed it or a friend did, so I know it\u2019s safe. (Except fish- sashimi and sushi from industrial sources are treated carefully to ensure they\u2019re safe to consume raw) Ultimately, it\u2019s important to understand that getting sick is part of being alive, and people do things that end up getting them sick. In my limited experience in traditional communities in Central America and New Guinea, I believe it\u2019s fairly common for people without access to healthcare to have parasites and other digestive issues that are caused by contaminated food and water and it\u2019s likely that it\u2019s been that way for as long as there have been people. As far as starting to cook meat, it\u2019s kind of hard to know because it\u2019s so long ago that evidence is scarce, so you can\u2019t assume that the evidence we have is the actual first time it happened, or even close to it, but it seems like between 500,000 and 1 million years ago according to a quick google search. Sounds like they found cooked bone fragments in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa that are around a million years old.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2202.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"yg9uqb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What is the genetic history Bangladeshis? Who are Bangladeshis decended from? Hi, I am a Bangladeshi and I searched on Wikipedia but couldnt find a comprehensive and well written article on the genetic history of Bangladeshis and what group of people Bangladeshis are descended from. There seems to be good articles on Aboriginal Australians, Polynesians and even Amerindians where the articles go in depth and describe the approximate time when people first reached a particular country, the amount of genetic admixture among populations and species (Neanderthal, Florensis) etc. But when it comes to Bangladeshis, there isn't much information out there. Can someone explain the genetic history of Bangladeshis? Who are the Bangladeshi people descended from?","c_root_id_A":"iu9c8lj","c_root_id_B":"iu89x4p","created_at_utc_A":1667058832,"created_at_utc_B":1667036579,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You are likely having trouble finding the information you are looking for because south and central Asia are regions long populated by humans -- people have been moving in and out and across the region for something like 70,000 years. The genetics of these regions are all about mixture and are not reducible to founder populations. The only place more genetically diverse is Africa. In contrast, the other regions you discuss (Australia, Polynesia and the Americas) either have fewer waves of migration, or were populated much more recently.","human_ref_B":"Try asking \/r\/askhistorians. I'm sure many many users there can point you toward the prehistory of Bangladesh and the broader history of ancient Lower Ganges cultures.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22253.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cociy3l","c_root_id_B":"coccjdh","created_at_utc_A":1423179002,"created_at_utc_B":1423167537,"score_A":48,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"As has been mentioned above, the important factor is that people started settling into larger villages, towns and eventually cities. That's a more complex arrangement compared to living in a band of say 50-100 people where everyone knows each other, so we see a lot of not just writing, but tally-sticks, geometry (land surveying) and mathematics develop. These technologies let us keep track of more information than we could recall reliably without some kind of visual aid or mnemonic. The upper limit to our memory probably hasn't changed all that much, even if average IQs are probably a bit higher now thanks to better nutrition and general health, so the change you're looking for isn't evolutionary, but social. Specifically, it's social change in the form of increasingly complex living and economic arrangements. If you start organizing large-scale trade (and taxation), you need to be able to count inventory, assign prices, etc. Numbers are easy - just notches in a stick, knots on a string, beads, whatever. However, you also need to have signs for the things you're counting: oxen, grain, hides, jugs of oil. That's some of the first writing we have (Google: proto-cuneiform accounting). Imagine a simple tax collection: People need to pay some tribute to the king, and the king needs to know how much loot he's gotten. When a village pays its taxes, the tally man notes: \"Village A, 5 oxen\" What happens if they don't have the oxen now, but are willing to pay up in a month? Or, instead, if they are lending the king five oxen and will be paid interest, or there are some conditions or eventualities that need to be described? Pretty soon you realize the limitations of the system. You keep hitting the limit of what your simple lists of items can handle. Soon you add logical operators, dates and times. The basic system keeps getting more complicated -- becoming a closer approximation of spoken language. Once you have accounts, you get things like receipts, and from there it isn't a huge leap to documents that describe even more complicated situations: contracts, pre-nups, credit documents. So there's a large continuum between notches in a stick that can only really be understood by the maker and maybe some witnesses, and a fully developed written language. It depends on how much information you need to encode, and whether it needs to be readable by just a few people or by any literate person. The tax collectors probably use the same accounting system and know it in and out, so they're in a good position to develop into a professional body of scribes. Since they've developed a good system for keeping track of exact information, long-term and publicly, it will seem obvious to try to record other important things: religious texts, magical spells, recipes (yup!). Inventing new technologies is hard, but finding new applications for existing, exciting ones isn't. And users constantly pester designers for new features... TL;DNR: Excel is older than Word. People settled down, realized that they need to keep lists of stuff and to be able label them, so other people can tell what they're lists *of*. That works great, and from there feature creep gets us to writing. Source: I've got a shitload of articles if you're interested, but basically they point to the fact that the earliest Sumerian clay tablets, Linear A and B texts, are mostly just lists of products, and that the precursors to writing are little pictures of stuff. No form of writing starts with sounds, no written language encodes or needs to encode all the information in spoken language -- they just record enough for somebody else to be able to recognize the words and reconstruct them. They're just memory tools. I'm a grad student at Aarhus University in Denmark, doing my thesis on monetary history (and where Bitcoin fits in), and I'm fairly obsessed with ancient languages. [Heavy edits: Grammar\/clarity. Can't recommend writing posts this long from your phone.]","human_ref_B":"I've usually seen this attributed to the end of the most recent ice age. http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/f8\/Ice_Age_Temperature.png The ice age lasted from 110,000 to roughly 12,000 years ago, and when it ended, agriculture may have become a sustainable way of life. But that makes me wonder what happened during the last interglacial period, the \"Eemian\" period. If people were anatomically and mentally human for the approximately 40,000 years of the Eemian, and civilization is a result of warm climates, I wonder why it did not develop then.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11465.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cocaeon","c_root_id_B":"cociy3l","created_at_utc_A":1423164079,"created_at_utc_B":1423179002,"score_A":17,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"I think the answer will be strongly linked to the advent of agriculture, thus I'd like to further ask wether agriculture could have been discovered earlier or were we mentally unable to invent it prior to 6000 years ago ?","human_ref_B":"As has been mentioned above, the important factor is that people started settling into larger villages, towns and eventually cities. That's a more complex arrangement compared to living in a band of say 50-100 people where everyone knows each other, so we see a lot of not just writing, but tally-sticks, geometry (land surveying) and mathematics develop. These technologies let us keep track of more information than we could recall reliably without some kind of visual aid or mnemonic. The upper limit to our memory probably hasn't changed all that much, even if average IQs are probably a bit higher now thanks to better nutrition and general health, so the change you're looking for isn't evolutionary, but social. Specifically, it's social change in the form of increasingly complex living and economic arrangements. If you start organizing large-scale trade (and taxation), you need to be able to count inventory, assign prices, etc. Numbers are easy - just notches in a stick, knots on a string, beads, whatever. However, you also need to have signs for the things you're counting: oxen, grain, hides, jugs of oil. That's some of the first writing we have (Google: proto-cuneiform accounting). Imagine a simple tax collection: People need to pay some tribute to the king, and the king needs to know how much loot he's gotten. When a village pays its taxes, the tally man notes: \"Village A, 5 oxen\" What happens if they don't have the oxen now, but are willing to pay up in a month? Or, instead, if they are lending the king five oxen and will be paid interest, or there are some conditions or eventualities that need to be described? Pretty soon you realize the limitations of the system. You keep hitting the limit of what your simple lists of items can handle. Soon you add logical operators, dates and times. The basic system keeps getting more complicated -- becoming a closer approximation of spoken language. Once you have accounts, you get things like receipts, and from there it isn't a huge leap to documents that describe even more complicated situations: contracts, pre-nups, credit documents. So there's a large continuum between notches in a stick that can only really be understood by the maker and maybe some witnesses, and a fully developed written language. It depends on how much information you need to encode, and whether it needs to be readable by just a few people or by any literate person. The tax collectors probably use the same accounting system and know it in and out, so they're in a good position to develop into a professional body of scribes. Since they've developed a good system for keeping track of exact information, long-term and publicly, it will seem obvious to try to record other important things: religious texts, magical spells, recipes (yup!). Inventing new technologies is hard, but finding new applications for existing, exciting ones isn't. And users constantly pester designers for new features... TL;DNR: Excel is older than Word. People settled down, realized that they need to keep lists of stuff and to be able label them, so other people can tell what they're lists *of*. That works great, and from there feature creep gets us to writing. Source: I've got a shitload of articles if you're interested, but basically they point to the fact that the earliest Sumerian clay tablets, Linear A and B texts, are mostly just lists of products, and that the precursors to writing are little pictures of stuff. No form of writing starts with sounds, no written language encodes or needs to encode all the information in spoken language -- they just record enough for somebody else to be able to recognize the words and reconstruct them. They're just memory tools. I'm a grad student at Aarhus University in Denmark, doing my thesis on monetary history (and where Bitcoin fits in), and I'm fairly obsessed with ancient languages. [Heavy edits: Grammar\/clarity. Can't recommend writing posts this long from your phone.]","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14923.0,"score_ratio":2.8235294118} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cociy3l","c_root_id_B":"cocbgpa","created_at_utc_A":1423179002,"created_at_utc_B":1423165783,"score_A":48,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"As has been mentioned above, the important factor is that people started settling into larger villages, towns and eventually cities. That's a more complex arrangement compared to living in a band of say 50-100 people where everyone knows each other, so we see a lot of not just writing, but tally-sticks, geometry (land surveying) and mathematics develop. These technologies let us keep track of more information than we could recall reliably without some kind of visual aid or mnemonic. The upper limit to our memory probably hasn't changed all that much, even if average IQs are probably a bit higher now thanks to better nutrition and general health, so the change you're looking for isn't evolutionary, but social. Specifically, it's social change in the form of increasingly complex living and economic arrangements. If you start organizing large-scale trade (and taxation), you need to be able to count inventory, assign prices, etc. Numbers are easy - just notches in a stick, knots on a string, beads, whatever. However, you also need to have signs for the things you're counting: oxen, grain, hides, jugs of oil. That's some of the first writing we have (Google: proto-cuneiform accounting). Imagine a simple tax collection: People need to pay some tribute to the king, and the king needs to know how much loot he's gotten. When a village pays its taxes, the tally man notes: \"Village A, 5 oxen\" What happens if they don't have the oxen now, but are willing to pay up in a month? Or, instead, if they are lending the king five oxen and will be paid interest, or there are some conditions or eventualities that need to be described? Pretty soon you realize the limitations of the system. You keep hitting the limit of what your simple lists of items can handle. Soon you add logical operators, dates and times. The basic system keeps getting more complicated -- becoming a closer approximation of spoken language. Once you have accounts, you get things like receipts, and from there it isn't a huge leap to documents that describe even more complicated situations: contracts, pre-nups, credit documents. So there's a large continuum between notches in a stick that can only really be understood by the maker and maybe some witnesses, and a fully developed written language. It depends on how much information you need to encode, and whether it needs to be readable by just a few people or by any literate person. The tax collectors probably use the same accounting system and know it in and out, so they're in a good position to develop into a professional body of scribes. Since they've developed a good system for keeping track of exact information, long-term and publicly, it will seem obvious to try to record other important things: religious texts, magical spells, recipes (yup!). Inventing new technologies is hard, but finding new applications for existing, exciting ones isn't. And users constantly pester designers for new features... TL;DNR: Excel is older than Word. People settled down, realized that they need to keep lists of stuff and to be able label them, so other people can tell what they're lists *of*. That works great, and from there feature creep gets us to writing. Source: I've got a shitload of articles if you're interested, but basically they point to the fact that the earliest Sumerian clay tablets, Linear A and B texts, are mostly just lists of products, and that the precursors to writing are little pictures of stuff. No form of writing starts with sounds, no written language encodes or needs to encode all the information in spoken language -- they just record enough for somebody else to be able to recognize the words and reconstruct them. They're just memory tools. I'm a grad student at Aarhus University in Denmark, doing my thesis on monetary history (and where Bitcoin fits in), and I'm fairly obsessed with ancient languages. [Heavy edits: Grammar\/clarity. Can't recommend writing posts this long from your phone.]","human_ref_B":"I don't think it was evolution in a strict sense. Sure, evolution indirectly led up to congregation in settlements but for the communities that invented writing (Mesoamerican, Chinese, Middle-Eastern), writing first arose out of necessity for numeric representation. I.e. \"the mark I made on this stone chip stands for one sheep.\" Edit: so to clarify, as I understand, 200k years ago, homo sapiens brains were already as large as they are now. The invention of writing was not directly related some kind of novel mutation or anything, it was more a product of cultural adaptation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13219.0,"score_ratio":16.0} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cociy3l","c_root_id_B":"cocc978","created_at_utc_A":1423179002,"created_at_utc_B":1423167079,"score_A":48,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"As has been mentioned above, the important factor is that people started settling into larger villages, towns and eventually cities. That's a more complex arrangement compared to living in a band of say 50-100 people where everyone knows each other, so we see a lot of not just writing, but tally-sticks, geometry (land surveying) and mathematics develop. These technologies let us keep track of more information than we could recall reliably without some kind of visual aid or mnemonic. The upper limit to our memory probably hasn't changed all that much, even if average IQs are probably a bit higher now thanks to better nutrition and general health, so the change you're looking for isn't evolutionary, but social. Specifically, it's social change in the form of increasingly complex living and economic arrangements. If you start organizing large-scale trade (and taxation), you need to be able to count inventory, assign prices, etc. Numbers are easy - just notches in a stick, knots on a string, beads, whatever. However, you also need to have signs for the things you're counting: oxen, grain, hides, jugs of oil. That's some of the first writing we have (Google: proto-cuneiform accounting). Imagine a simple tax collection: People need to pay some tribute to the king, and the king needs to know how much loot he's gotten. When a village pays its taxes, the tally man notes: \"Village A, 5 oxen\" What happens if they don't have the oxen now, but are willing to pay up in a month? Or, instead, if they are lending the king five oxen and will be paid interest, or there are some conditions or eventualities that need to be described? Pretty soon you realize the limitations of the system. You keep hitting the limit of what your simple lists of items can handle. Soon you add logical operators, dates and times. The basic system keeps getting more complicated -- becoming a closer approximation of spoken language. Once you have accounts, you get things like receipts, and from there it isn't a huge leap to documents that describe even more complicated situations: contracts, pre-nups, credit documents. So there's a large continuum between notches in a stick that can only really be understood by the maker and maybe some witnesses, and a fully developed written language. It depends on how much information you need to encode, and whether it needs to be readable by just a few people or by any literate person. The tax collectors probably use the same accounting system and know it in and out, so they're in a good position to develop into a professional body of scribes. Since they've developed a good system for keeping track of exact information, long-term and publicly, it will seem obvious to try to record other important things: religious texts, magical spells, recipes (yup!). Inventing new technologies is hard, but finding new applications for existing, exciting ones isn't. And users constantly pester designers for new features... TL;DNR: Excel is older than Word. People settled down, realized that they need to keep lists of stuff and to be able label them, so other people can tell what they're lists *of*. That works great, and from there feature creep gets us to writing. Source: I've got a shitload of articles if you're interested, but basically they point to the fact that the earliest Sumerian clay tablets, Linear A and B texts, are mostly just lists of products, and that the precursors to writing are little pictures of stuff. No form of writing starts with sounds, no written language encodes or needs to encode all the information in spoken language -- they just record enough for somebody else to be able to recognize the words and reconstruct them. They're just memory tools. I'm a grad student at Aarhus University in Denmark, doing my thesis on monetary history (and where Bitcoin fits in), and I'm fairly obsessed with ancient languages. [Heavy edits: Grammar\/clarity. Can't recommend writing posts this long from your phone.]","human_ref_B":"There was a guy around here or on one of the history subs who was working with the theory that about 15.000-10.000 years ago the first famines because of overpopulation occurred (not just because of draughts, disasters etc). Because of that we had to get organized, were forced to do it. Organization brings about a need to do various things that means counting stuff, getting things down in writing, share knowledge etc. Tried to find a link but could not find it - sorry.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11923.0,"score_ratio":16.0} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cocaeon","c_root_id_B":"coccjdh","created_at_utc_A":1423164079,"created_at_utc_B":1423167537,"score_A":17,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"I think the answer will be strongly linked to the advent of agriculture, thus I'd like to further ask wether agriculture could have been discovered earlier or were we mentally unable to invent it prior to 6000 years ago ?","human_ref_B":"I've usually seen this attributed to the end of the most recent ice age. http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/f8\/Ice_Age_Temperature.png The ice age lasted from 110,000 to roughly 12,000 years ago, and when it ended, agriculture may have become a sustainable way of life. But that makes me wonder what happened during the last interglacial period, the \"Eemian\" period. If people were anatomically and mentally human for the approximately 40,000 years of the Eemian, and civilization is a result of warm climates, I wonder why it did not develop then.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3458.0,"score_ratio":1.7647058824} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"coccjdh","c_root_id_B":"cocbgpa","created_at_utc_A":1423167537,"created_at_utc_B":1423165783,"score_A":30,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I've usually seen this attributed to the end of the most recent ice age. http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/f8\/Ice_Age_Temperature.png The ice age lasted from 110,000 to roughly 12,000 years ago, and when it ended, agriculture may have become a sustainable way of life. But that makes me wonder what happened during the last interglacial period, the \"Eemian\" period. If people were anatomically and mentally human for the approximately 40,000 years of the Eemian, and civilization is a result of warm climates, I wonder why it did not develop then.","human_ref_B":"I don't think it was evolution in a strict sense. Sure, evolution indirectly led up to congregation in settlements but for the communities that invented writing (Mesoamerican, Chinese, Middle-Eastern), writing first arose out of necessity for numeric representation. I.e. \"the mark I made on this stone chip stands for one sheep.\" Edit: so to clarify, as I understand, 200k years ago, homo sapiens brains were already as large as they are now. The invention of writing was not directly related some kind of novel mutation or anything, it was more a product of cultural adaptation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1754.0,"score_ratio":10.0} {"post_id":"2uwamw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Homo Sapien showed up ~500,000 years ago. We only started writing things down ~6,000 years ago. Was there some major change (Evolutionary or otherwise) that happened then? So this has always fascinated me. We started writing things down around 6,000 years ago, which means that this is a really, really new development to us as a species, representing the last, what, 1-2% of our timeline. Within that time we've gone from ancient mesopotamian society to what we have today. Our progress as a species has exploded exponentially since we started writing things down. What was the genesis of this? At first I thought, \"Hey, Maybe it was one really smart guy in mesopotamia who decided to make a bunch of symbols and assign them sounds \/ meanings.\" But wasnt writing also developed independantly in the Americas about 2,000 years later? Which is, again, within 1% of our timeline as a whole. Does this point to some kind of evolution as a species that suddenly allowed us to comprehend new things and ideas, and to think in different ways? If you could go back in time 200,000 years, would we recognize the Homo Sapiens of that era as the same humans we are today, with the same capacities, intellectual and otherwise, that we currently have? Or would they be vastly different than we are now except for general shape and form?","c_root_id_A":"cocc978","c_root_id_B":"coccjdh","created_at_utc_A":1423167079,"created_at_utc_B":1423167537,"score_A":3,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"There was a guy around here or on one of the history subs who was working with the theory that about 15.000-10.000 years ago the first famines because of overpopulation occurred (not just because of draughts, disasters etc). Because of that we had to get organized, were forced to do it. Organization brings about a need to do various things that means counting stuff, getting things down in writing, share knowledge etc. Tried to find a link but could not find it - sorry.","human_ref_B":"I've usually seen this attributed to the end of the most recent ice age. http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/f8\/Ice_Age_Temperature.png The ice age lasted from 110,000 to roughly 12,000 years ago, and when it ended, agriculture may have become a sustainable way of life. But that makes me wonder what happened during the last interglacial period, the \"Eemian\" period. If people were anatomically and mentally human for the approximately 40,000 years of the Eemian, and civilization is a result of warm climates, I wonder why it did not develop then.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":458.0,"score_ratio":10.0} {"post_id":"2bquc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is there historical consensus on the Land Bridge theory, or are there alternative academically-respected theories that posits a different route for the descendants of today's indigenous Americans? I am very curious about this!","c_root_id_A":"cj8shz9","c_root_id_B":"cj81drh","created_at_utc_A":1406424980,"created_at_utc_B":1406342157,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Thanks for asking this! I'm starting my master's in August and I plan to do my thesis (and later my doctoral dissertation) exactly on this topic. There are a few theories as to how and when people came to America for the first time. The current consensus is that people came here before 13000 years ago. That's pretty much the only thing archaeologists agree on, and some people don't even agree with that idea. The main theories about how people got here have been mentioned in this thread already. There's the \"Solutrean Solution,\" put forth by Dennis Stanford (the one pretty much everyone else thinks is wrong). This theory states that people came over from Europe and is based entirely on the idea that Clovis points look sort of like Solutrean points (points=spear or arrowheads). However, Solutrean points predate Clovis by a few thousand years and there are zero genetic ties between European populations and Native American populations. The Bering Land Bridge theory is by far the most well accepted theory. I would say that most archaeologists agree that people came over Beringia. The problem is when did they come? And, is that the only way they came? A newer theory is the Coastal Migration Hypothesis (Erlandson) which is sometimes tied to an idea called the kelp highway. This theory states that people followed marine resources (seals, fish, and shellfish) across the coast of Siberia and Beringia and down the coast of North America. I think it's hard to know for sure which way people came, especially since Beringia is now underwater. The question that fascinates me is when did people come? How early were people in the Americas? The timeframe keeps getting pushed back. The people who study Paleoindians (what we call the earliest people in the Americas) are starting to think that people have been here for at least 20000 years. Some people are even saying 30000 years, and one group of archaeologists in Brazil is saying 50000 years. For further reading I recommend a book by Tom Dillehay called Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory and a book by James Adovasio called The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery. These are two archaeologists who excavated very early Paleoindian sites: Monte Verde and Meadowcroft Rockshelter.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist, but I do think you mean ancestors rather than descendants.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":82823.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2bquc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is there historical consensus on the Land Bridge theory, or are there alternative academically-respected theories that posits a different route for the descendants of today's indigenous Americans? I am very curious about this!","c_root_id_A":"cj8shz9","c_root_id_B":"cj83orj","created_at_utc_A":1406424980,"created_at_utc_B":1406348096,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Thanks for asking this! I'm starting my master's in August and I plan to do my thesis (and later my doctoral dissertation) exactly on this topic. There are a few theories as to how and when people came to America for the first time. The current consensus is that people came here before 13000 years ago. That's pretty much the only thing archaeologists agree on, and some people don't even agree with that idea. The main theories about how people got here have been mentioned in this thread already. There's the \"Solutrean Solution,\" put forth by Dennis Stanford (the one pretty much everyone else thinks is wrong). This theory states that people came over from Europe and is based entirely on the idea that Clovis points look sort of like Solutrean points (points=spear or arrowheads). However, Solutrean points predate Clovis by a few thousand years and there are zero genetic ties between European populations and Native American populations. The Bering Land Bridge theory is by far the most well accepted theory. I would say that most archaeologists agree that people came over Beringia. The problem is when did they come? And, is that the only way they came? A newer theory is the Coastal Migration Hypothesis (Erlandson) which is sometimes tied to an idea called the kelp highway. This theory states that people followed marine resources (seals, fish, and shellfish) across the coast of Siberia and Beringia and down the coast of North America. I think it's hard to know for sure which way people came, especially since Beringia is now underwater. The question that fascinates me is when did people come? How early were people in the Americas? The timeframe keeps getting pushed back. The people who study Paleoindians (what we call the earliest people in the Americas) are starting to think that people have been here for at least 20000 years. Some people are even saying 30000 years, and one group of archaeologists in Brazil is saying 50000 years. For further reading I recommend a book by Tom Dillehay called Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory and a book by James Adovasio called The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery. These are two archaeologists who excavated very early Paleoindian sites: Monte Verde and Meadowcroft Rockshelter.","human_ref_B":"Historical consensus would probably imply a written record, but the colonization of the Americas would have predated writing. So I think here you mean to ask about academic consensus? The crossing of Beringia (the land bridge that is now submerged) seems like the most likely event. There's an archaeological and genealogical connection between Asia and America's indigenous populations that strengthens support for the land bridge theory. What's being debated is whether these populations came through an ice-free corridor in the interior of North America or along the west coast. One competing theory suggests the European population known as the Solutreans were the ancestors of modern indigenous peoples, but I don't think that's well-supported. I'm on mobile right now but if you'd like some sources I can look up the syllabus from the class where we talked about this and give you some papers to look up.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":76884.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"pbaip8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Are there still anthropologists in the field studying\/living among indigenous people in the Amazon? I think I'd read that government agencies\/NGOs are trying to limit contact to these tribes because of disease and other reasons but wondering if they still allow some anthropologists to study their culture\/live among them and if so if there are currently any anthropologists studying indigenous people in the Amazon. Also if there are good books on studying\/living among these cultures that are less academic and more about what it's like to be an anthropologist in the field. I read Daniel Everett's book recently and was really fascinated by it and want to learn more not just about the cultures but also the process, difficulties, logistics, etc about actually doing field research in such a remote place. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"haavoue","c_root_id_B":"haavg2t","created_at_utc_A":1629904709,"created_at_utc_B":1629904608,"score_A":15,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Also How Forests Think by Eduardo Kohn https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book\/9780520276116\/how-forests-think","human_ref_B":"In Amazonia by Hugh Raffles https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/paperback\/9780691048857\/in-amazonia It's academic but he always writes his own experience into his books in an accessible way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":101.0,"score_ratio":1.1538461538} {"post_id":"pbaip8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Are there still anthropologists in the field studying\/living among indigenous people in the Amazon? I think I'd read that government agencies\/NGOs are trying to limit contact to these tribes because of disease and other reasons but wondering if they still allow some anthropologists to study their culture\/live among them and if so if there are currently any anthropologists studying indigenous people in the Amazon. Also if there are good books on studying\/living among these cultures that are less academic and more about what it's like to be an anthropologist in the field. I read Daniel Everett's book recently and was really fascinated by it and want to learn more not just about the cultures but also the process, difficulties, logistics, etc about actually doing field research in such a remote place. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"hac5zd8","c_root_id_B":"hac09hu","created_at_utc_A":1629923221,"created_at_utc_B":1629920970,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Lots and lots of Brazilian anthropologists for sure. Check the University of Bras\u00edlia and Museu Nacional of Rio de Janeiro for some examples.","human_ref_B":"Dr Camilla Morelli @ Bristol university https:\/\/www.bristol.ac.uk\/people\/person\/Camilla-Morelli-687c519d-37bd-4ba3-a39a-01fc40d434bb\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2251.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"4fh2of","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are the similarities (if any) between East Asian 'indigenous' people's lore and North American indigenous people's lore? In trying to search the web for an answer I found how difficult even defining \"indigenous\" is for East Asia. I have to assume someone has collected the ancient lore of the tribes of the region. The post in \/r\/archaeology here introduced me to the Nape (Blackfoot) legend, then I found myself reading quite a few stories from here and here. With tales as ancient as these are, in what manner is there overlap in the stories between the continents?","c_root_id_A":"d28x6xj","c_root_id_B":"d299gwz","created_at_utc_A":1461077874,"created_at_utc_B":1461093758,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Not an expert here. Scientists studying Kennewick man, found in the Pacific northwest, revealed that his DNA was related to Ainu and Polynesians. You might want to do some research on the Ainu peoples from northern Japan. There seems to be some cultural similarities between them and Pacific Northwest tribes although I am not sure to what extent. Edit: grammar and detail","human_ref_B":"You may want to look at the literature associated with the idea of a circumpolar bear cult. This was put forward early-on by Irving Hallowell in 1926.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15884.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"4fh2of","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are the similarities (if any) between East Asian 'indigenous' people's lore and North American indigenous people's lore? In trying to search the web for an answer I found how difficult even defining \"indigenous\" is for East Asia. I have to assume someone has collected the ancient lore of the tribes of the region. The post in \/r\/archaeology here introduced me to the Nape (Blackfoot) legend, then I found myself reading quite a few stories from here and here. With tales as ancient as these are, in what manner is there overlap in the stories between the continents?","c_root_id_A":"d2939ky","c_root_id_B":"d299gwz","created_at_utc_A":1461085815,"created_at_utc_B":1461093758,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"While not specific for your inquiry, check out claude levi Strauss studies of myths. It will provide some of your answers.","human_ref_B":"You may want to look at the literature associated with the idea of a circumpolar bear cult. This was put forward early-on by Irving Hallowell in 1926.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7943.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"cu00w2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Arrival of the European diseases in the Native American mythologies and folklore Significant events in the histories of various ethnicities are often thought to be reflected in their mythology or forming basis for some of their folklore. It is known that the arrival of the European diseases to the Americas was an event that had a huge impact on the native population and those diseases often contacted Native nations before Europeans reached them. Are there any elements in any Native American myths that might describe the arrival of those diseases?","c_root_id_A":"exrfidz","c_root_id_B":"exr16ou","created_at_utc_A":1566515850,"created_at_utc_B":1566509877,"score_A":26,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Historical records in the form of winter counts allow us to understand the spread of pathogens on the Great Plains. Allow me to quote from an earlier answer... Northern Plains tribes (like the Lakota, Kiowa, Mandan, and Dakota) kept historical records in the form of Winter Counts. Winter Counts were a historical record, a list of year names representing the most significant events in the life of the band. Pictorial representations of that event served as a reminder, a kind of mnemonic device, for the keeper of the count to retell the history of the band. We know of 53 Winter Counts that together provide a historical record of the Northern Plains from 1682 to 1920. By compiling the Winter Counts together into a master narrative we can establish a chronology, cross-check errors, and be fairly certain the events depicted are accurate to roughly two years. From this narrative we can determine the frequency and impact of infectious disease on the Northern Plains populations before the arrival of permanent European-descent settlers. All but two of the 53 Winter Counts record some instance of infectious disease between 1682 and 1920. If we ignore the earliest Winter Counts (due to lack of cross-reference capacity) and focus on the time period from 1714 to 1919, Native American populations on the northern plains endured 36 major epidemics in two centuries. An epidemic occurred roughly every 5.7 years for the entire population, but varied by band. The Mandan saw the recurrence of epidemics every 9.7 years, while the Yanktonai averaged an epidemic every 15.8 years. The longest epidemic free interval for any band was 45 years for the Southern Lakota, and the shortest was 14 years for the Mandan. Northern Plains pandemics, when an epidemic effects all, or nearly all, of the Northern Plains populations, occurred in 1781 (smallpox), 1801 (smallpox), 1818 (smallpox), 1837-38 (smallpox), 1844 (measles or smallox), and 1888 (measles). Taken together, we see a picture develop, one where epidemics were raging in at least one portion of the northern plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Epidemics seemed to hit pregnant women particularly hard, with increased mortality noted in expectant mothers. Overall mortality for each epidemic is difficult to determine. The Blue Thunder (Yanktonai) Winter Count states many died in the 1801-2 smallpox epidemic, but few died in the 1837-38 or 1844-45 epidemics. Oglala Winter Counts describe the 1844-45 epidemic as severe and widespread. The severity of the mortality from an epidemic likely varied between groups due to previous exposure to the pathogen (leaving the survivors with immunity) as well as nutritional stress since periods of famine often preceded an epidemic event. What does this tell us about disease events beyond the frontier? Epidemics of infectious disease occurred before significant, sustained face-to-face contact with Europeans (3-5 epidemics before the establishment of permanent trading posts). Epidemics of infectious disease arrived in waves, one roughly every 5 to 10 years, burned through the pool of susceptible hosts, and left long periods of stasis in their wake. An entire generation could be born, live and die between waves of disease for some bands, while others were hit with multiple events in quick succession. Even in the same epidemic of the same pathogen, mortality could differ based on immunity from previous exposure and the stressors (famine, poor nutrition, displacement, etc.) influencing the health of the band. Winter Counts tell a story of dynamic populations persisting and adapting in the face of recurrent high mortality events, and provide an unique perspective into the influence of disease on populations beyond the frontier. Sundstrom (1997) Smallpox used them up: references to epidemic disease in Northern Plains Winter Counts, 1714-1920. Ethnohistory. Calloway (2003) One Vast Winter Count: the Native American West before Lewis and Clark.","human_ref_B":"You could ask this in r\/IndianCountry","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5973.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"cu00w2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Arrival of the European diseases in the Native American mythologies and folklore Significant events in the histories of various ethnicities are often thought to be reflected in their mythology or forming basis for some of their folklore. It is known that the arrival of the European diseases to the Americas was an event that had a huge impact on the native population and those diseases often contacted Native nations before Europeans reached them. Are there any elements in any Native American myths that might describe the arrival of those diseases?","c_root_id_A":"exr16ou","c_root_id_B":"exrfygf","created_at_utc_A":1566509877,"created_at_utc_B":1566516050,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"You could ask this in r\/IndianCountry","human_ref_B":"Usually the diseases were back then and still are today interpreted by the amerindians as sorcery or evil spirits brought by the whites There is an interesting myth among the waiwai people of north brazil-south venezuela, not directly about diseases tho. They believe that pople like them, the amerindians, lived on the surface of the world, on the ground. The whites, on the other hand, lived under water. And in their cosmology, the deep waters are where evil dwells. According to the myth, one day an indian went fishing and accidentally fished a white person. After that day, the whites started to spread through the surface world killing the indians and spreading evil - including diseases or dark sorcery. The myth is more detailed tho, I only wrote what I remember. I can give you the name of the text that tells the complete version if you want","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6173.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmf98z","c_root_id_B":"dsmnf8u","created_at_utc_A":1515859138,"created_at_utc_B":1515868842,"score_A":2,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Not a specialist, but I think it comes from how much vocal differs from grammar. And how, as the language gets older and older (and has need-based and outer influences) the vocal gets further away from written. And then we start to change the written in accordance with the vocal. Some languages, where the spoken language is very similar to written one (not like English for instance, where the pronunciation differs a lot from the written word), and still is today, the meaning of a name is more upfront. Edit: Also, in case of English, it helps that most of the language is foreign and most of the names are foreign.","human_ref_B":"English has been influenced by a number of other languages over time. Many common names today had Old English origins that would have made their meanings much clearer to their original speakers. One reason for this is that the names didn't change with the rest of the language: Stanley comes from Old English meaning Stone Meadow (or lea). The Old English word for stone was \"stan\", but when the language changed, the name stayed the same. We have names like Alfred which comes from Old English \u00c6lfr\u00e6d which in turn comes from \u00c6lf and r\u00e6d. The first is the Old English word for \"elf\" and the second is related to our modern word \"read\" as in \"to read a book\", but in this context means \"advice\" or \"council\" (probably indicating that people thought of reading as getting advice from a book). When names come from other languages, the origins or meanings of those names are even harder to understand. My name is \"Nicholas\", which I've learned is related to \"Nike\" meaning victory from probably Ancient Greek and \"Laos\" meaning people, so as a name, it means something like \"victory of the people\" (revolution? haha). Very common in western Europe was to take Biblical names though, so you have different forms of John across Europe (Jean, Johann, Ian, etc.) and because most English speakers don't have an understanding of Ancient Hebrew, the meanings of these names are lost to us.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9704.0,"score_ratio":18.5} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmr5ol","c_root_id_B":"dsn6gu8","created_at_utc_A":1515873059,"created_at_utc_B":1515890398,"score_A":11,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"A lot of it specifically has to do with the modern popularity of Abrahamic faiths and their long lineage, where we name our children with honored names in the ancient languages. John for example is hebrew (Yehohanan) for \"Graced by God.\" In most other societies not influenced by Abrahamic faiths, the names tend to reflect desired qualities.","human_ref_B":"I think that OP asked a very interesting question, but, perhaps, in an inexact way. My apologies to OP if this isn't right, but another way of asking: 1) All names have an etymology 2) Sometimes that etymology is obvious: e.g. the first name \"Faith\" or the second name \"Baker\". 3) But if I met a woman called Faith Baker, I wouldn't immediately think to myself \"Wow! This is a woman who takes an abstract noun and *bakes* it! How does she do that? How does she *bake* *faith*? Does she put it in an oven of religion? Wow!!!! 4) I'd just think her name was Faith Baker, somebody would have to point out that previous paragraph to me. 5) This is the same in at least a few other cultures: e.g. \"Dolores\" in Spanish. 6) However, some cultures typically have their names translated into English. Specifically Native American ones. So you have Chief Sitting Bull, which to us sounds very exotic. 7) But was \"Sitting Bull\" as commonplace to them as \"Faith Baker\" would be to us? Are there any cultures that maintain the \"wow\" factor for for their names? Are there many cultures? My apologies, OP, if this isn't the right interpretation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17339.0,"score_ratio":1.9090909091} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmp0lb","c_root_id_B":"dsn6gu8","created_at_utc_A":1515870643,"created_at_utc_B":1515890398,"score_A":7,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":">But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. It seems to me you just answered your own question, at least in part. The names you're talking about-- including Elizabeth and Phillip-- have been imported into English and modified from the language (Greek) from which they derived. To non-Greek speakers, the words that make up the names aren't recognizable as individual words. Other names (like \"Henry\") came into English from other sources. Because of its history, the English language is a mishmash of words from a variety of different languages. Loan words-- that is, words borrowed from other languages for a variety of different reasons-- are common in most languages, but especially in languages with a wide geographic range that have a long history of encounters with many other different languages. We're quite familiar with the meaning of names that originated in English-- like Rose or Smith or Tailor. But names that have a much longer history, and were imported from other languages-- perhaps as family names, perhaps just because parents liked the sound of the name-- are not so familiar in meaning.","human_ref_B":"I think that OP asked a very interesting question, but, perhaps, in an inexact way. My apologies to OP if this isn't right, but another way of asking: 1) All names have an etymology 2) Sometimes that etymology is obvious: e.g. the first name \"Faith\" or the second name \"Baker\". 3) But if I met a woman called Faith Baker, I wouldn't immediately think to myself \"Wow! This is a woman who takes an abstract noun and *bakes* it! How does she do that? How does she *bake* *faith*? Does she put it in an oven of religion? Wow!!!! 4) I'd just think her name was Faith Baker, somebody would have to point out that previous paragraph to me. 5) This is the same in at least a few other cultures: e.g. \"Dolores\" in Spanish. 6) However, some cultures typically have their names translated into English. Specifically Native American ones. So you have Chief Sitting Bull, which to us sounds very exotic. 7) But was \"Sitting Bull\" as commonplace to them as \"Faith Baker\" would be to us? Are there any cultures that maintain the \"wow\" factor for for their names? Are there many cultures? My apologies, OP, if this isn't the right interpretation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19755.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsn6gu8","c_root_id_B":"dsmf98z","created_at_utc_A":1515890398,"created_at_utc_B":1515859138,"score_A":21,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think that OP asked a very interesting question, but, perhaps, in an inexact way. My apologies to OP if this isn't right, but another way of asking: 1) All names have an etymology 2) Sometimes that etymology is obvious: e.g. the first name \"Faith\" or the second name \"Baker\". 3) But if I met a woman called Faith Baker, I wouldn't immediately think to myself \"Wow! This is a woman who takes an abstract noun and *bakes* it! How does she do that? How does she *bake* *faith*? Does she put it in an oven of religion? Wow!!!! 4) I'd just think her name was Faith Baker, somebody would have to point out that previous paragraph to me. 5) This is the same in at least a few other cultures: e.g. \"Dolores\" in Spanish. 6) However, some cultures typically have their names translated into English. Specifically Native American ones. So you have Chief Sitting Bull, which to us sounds very exotic. 7) But was \"Sitting Bull\" as commonplace to them as \"Faith Baker\" would be to us? Are there any cultures that maintain the \"wow\" factor for for their names? Are there many cultures? My apologies, OP, if this isn't the right interpretation.","human_ref_B":"Not a specialist, but I think it comes from how much vocal differs from grammar. And how, as the language gets older and older (and has need-based and outer influences) the vocal gets further away from written. And then we start to change the written in accordance with the vocal. Some languages, where the spoken language is very similar to written one (not like English for instance, where the pronunciation differs a lot from the written word), and still is today, the meaning of a name is more upfront. Edit: Also, in case of English, it helps that most of the language is foreign and most of the names are foreign.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31260.0,"score_ratio":10.5} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmr5ol","c_root_id_B":"dsmp0lb","created_at_utc_A":1515873059,"created_at_utc_B":1515870643,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"A lot of it specifically has to do with the modern popularity of Abrahamic faiths and their long lineage, where we name our children with honored names in the ancient languages. John for example is hebrew (Yehohanan) for \"Graced by God.\" In most other societies not influenced by Abrahamic faiths, the names tend to reflect desired qualities.","human_ref_B":">But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. It seems to me you just answered your own question, at least in part. The names you're talking about-- including Elizabeth and Phillip-- have been imported into English and modified from the language (Greek) from which they derived. To non-Greek speakers, the words that make up the names aren't recognizable as individual words. Other names (like \"Henry\") came into English from other sources. Because of its history, the English language is a mishmash of words from a variety of different languages. Loan words-- that is, words borrowed from other languages for a variety of different reasons-- are common in most languages, but especially in languages with a wide geographic range that have a long history of encounters with many other different languages. We're quite familiar with the meaning of names that originated in English-- like Rose or Smith or Tailor. But names that have a much longer history, and were imported from other languages-- perhaps as family names, perhaps just because parents liked the sound of the name-- are not so familiar in meaning.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2416.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmr5ol","c_root_id_B":"dsmf98z","created_at_utc_A":1515873059,"created_at_utc_B":1515859138,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A lot of it specifically has to do with the modern popularity of Abrahamic faiths and their long lineage, where we name our children with honored names in the ancient languages. John for example is hebrew (Yehohanan) for \"Graced by God.\" In most other societies not influenced by Abrahamic faiths, the names tend to reflect desired qualities.","human_ref_B":"Not a specialist, but I think it comes from how much vocal differs from grammar. And how, as the language gets older and older (and has need-based and outer influences) the vocal gets further away from written. And then we start to change the written in accordance with the vocal. Some languages, where the spoken language is very similar to written one (not like English for instance, where the pronunciation differs a lot from the written word), and still is today, the meaning of a name is more upfront. Edit: Also, in case of English, it helps that most of the language is foreign and most of the names are foreign.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13921.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"7q55ex","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In the English-speaking world, most people don't know the meaning of their names without looking it up. Yet in some societies it seems like most people had names with clear meaning to speakers of their language. What is more common worldwide and why does one or the other pattern predominate? In the English-speaking world today, names where the meanings are not immediately clear to English speakers (like Emma or Liam) predominate over names where the meaning is clear (like Rose or Carter). And it seems like it's been this way for many centuries in the English-speaking world: an English-speaker wouldn't know the meaning of \"Henry\" or \"Elizabeth\" without looking it up. But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. Which pattern predominates worldwide and historically? Are there any patterns about which pattern comes to predominate?","c_root_id_A":"dsmp0lb","c_root_id_B":"dsmf98z","created_at_utc_A":1515870643,"created_at_utc_B":1515859138,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":">But from what I can tell about ancient Greece, for example, it seems like the predominant names had clear meanings to Greek speakers: \"Philip\" just means \"fond of horses\"; \"Xenophon\" just means \"Strange voice\", etc. You wouldn't have to look up those names- the meanings would just be clear if you heard them. It seems to me you just answered your own question, at least in part. The names you're talking about-- including Elizabeth and Phillip-- have been imported into English and modified from the language (Greek) from which they derived. To non-Greek speakers, the words that make up the names aren't recognizable as individual words. Other names (like \"Henry\") came into English from other sources. Because of its history, the English language is a mishmash of words from a variety of different languages. Loan words-- that is, words borrowed from other languages for a variety of different reasons-- are common in most languages, but especially in languages with a wide geographic range that have a long history of encounters with many other different languages. We're quite familiar with the meaning of names that originated in English-- like Rose or Smith or Tailor. But names that have a much longer history, and were imported from other languages-- perhaps as family names, perhaps just because parents liked the sound of the name-- are not so familiar in meaning.","human_ref_B":"Not a specialist, but I think it comes from how much vocal differs from grammar. And how, as the language gets older and older (and has need-based and outer influences) the vocal gets further away from written. And then we start to change the written in accordance with the vocal. Some languages, where the spoken language is very similar to written one (not like English for instance, where the pronunciation differs a lot from the written word), and still is today, the meaning of a name is more upfront. Edit: Also, in case of English, it helps that most of the language is foreign and most of the names are foreign.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11505.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"df3qj6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Are there any known cultures that have cities\/villages\/settlements but do not give names to these places? Throughout the world, both today in history, the maps are filled with named dots for places where people live. Are there any examples where we know of people who didn't bother to name the town, or just describe it as \"the place where our houses are\"? Presumably very small and isolated villages, places with just a house or two are most likely to go unnamed. But do we know of any people who might live in a town of 100 and not give the location a name?","c_root_id_A":"f31nlep","c_root_id_B":"f31bxmc","created_at_utc_A":1570579989,"created_at_utc_B":1570571900,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":">or just describe it as \"the place where our houses are\"? Isn't this type of thing the source of quite a bit of placename origins? Carthage > Qart Hadasht > New City. Hebei, Henan > River North, River South. Torpenhow > Hill hill hill. Hastings > Hast's people, named after a big cheese called Hast apparently.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if this helps or relates very much to your question, but the Indigenous people of coastal British Columbia didn't give names to islands that housed burials. People just knew which islands were used as burials, but they were unnamed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8089.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"31nzkz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why is Haggling encouraged in some cultures, but discouraged in others?","c_root_id_A":"cq3od88","c_root_id_B":"cq3ja6y","created_at_utc_A":1428372758,"created_at_utc_B":1428363832,"score_A":26,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm no professional in the slightest, but I think it'd be helpful to possibly look towards the overall ideological leanings for time of a culture. What I mean by this is basically monocronism vs polycronism. In a culture that is largely monocronic (for example, in a very generalized sense, the United States), passing time is seen to be organised into specific, measured units and events\/occurrences\/meetings and so on are set at (usually) strict points along that sort of linear measurement system. E.g. \"I have class from 9am to 11am, then I'm meeting my friend for lunch at 11:25am; then I've got to walk downtown so I can be to work for my shift beginning at one o'clock sharp.\" Whereas in a culture that is largely polycronic (look to places like parts of Latin America), passing time is based more in relationships and scheduled events run along those lines. The importance is laid instead on the richness of experiences with others, so a strict schedule is less important comparatively and that's commonly accepted, so it's not a big deal. (I'm from Florida and a joke I hear a lot is that if you show up to a Miami wedding fifteen minutes late, you're a half-hour too early.) I think that if you look towards that, you can see through to a larger idea of how set boundaries are treated within a culture. In a culture that is more monocronic, I think that you'd tend to notice that specifically labelled prices\/times\/etc. are expected to be met without resistance. Whereas in a culture that is more polycronic, I think you'd tend to get that idea of a vagueness around those things; the price\/time has be set, per say, but this is flexible and open to change via interaction.","human_ref_B":"I think it's based on industrialization. For much of the global South, the production of finished goods is a relatively recent innovation. For the longest time, they were compelled to only export raw goods and resources rather than build up their own products because of colonialism (still many remnants of this colonial framework today where western corporations merely replaced western nations in that power dynamic). So I think haggling and bartering comes from that a bit - where there were no set prices and you basically had to \"get back\" what your own people created because the finished products weren't widely available and in stores the way they were in the West. You'd see those goods in bazaars and open air markets.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8926.0,"score_ratio":13.0} {"post_id":"83v0z9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are the natives of Baja California (e.g. Peric\u00faes) and Fuegians\/Patagonians considered remnants of the first human peopling of the Americas?","c_root_id_A":"dvksw05","c_root_id_B":"dvkxkdn","created_at_utc_A":1520867268,"created_at_utc_B":1520871831,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know if I fully understand your question, but ill do my best. The Haush Indians and the Patagonians can be considered remnants of the first people who migrated into the Americas, because their respective societies stayed fairly localized and idle in these areas. At least according to these articles, which I believe have some merit. As in these groups migrated from the north or along the coast of the Americas and settled once they arrived in the Bajas, while other groups roamed, moved, and eventually settled or diffused into a variety of areas. While this assumption is mainly speculative since it is hard to define \u2018which groups created and stayed in localized areas\u2019. Using the [Source] (https:\/\/waikowhai2.wordpress.com\/the-haush-indians-of-tierra-del-fuego\/) you provided. Let me know if this sounds alright.","human_ref_B":"Genetically speaking, the vast majority of Native Americans are remnants of the first peopling of the Americas, based on the study of the Anzick remains. Behaviorally speaking, as far back as well can tell archaeologically the earliest Americans were adapted to a wide variety of environments. So while it is possible that behaviors of the groups in Baja California and Tierra del Fuego did not change much for thousands of years, it would not necessarily be representative of all the initial migrants.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4563.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"22t0pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What are some myths, stories and archetypes that are common among diverse groups of indoeuropean peoples","c_root_id_A":"cgqbz86","c_root_id_B":"cgqk06c","created_at_utc_A":1397271823,"created_at_utc_B":1397310015,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Cinderella type stories are very common with a motherstep and various numbers of daughters. To read more \"Cinderella: A case study\".","human_ref_B":"Indo-European is a language group that may or may not have represented the spread of people or of other elements of culture. Scholarship fails to reach agreement on these points. People probably did move in some cases but not necessarily in all. By contrast, stories do move by their nature. I realize what you're probably looking for - what Jacob Grimm referred to as the shattered bits of the gem, shattered amidst the grass, waiting to be gathered up and reassembled so we can peer at the religion of those ancient people of millennia ago before they left the Central Eurasian steppes. For the most part, Grimm's dream is illusive. Shared stories including Tale Type 313, which appears in Jason and the Argonauts, is probably not Indo-European, and yet it is present throughout the cultures that speak an Indo-European language. The folklorists Aarne and Thompson (revised by Uther assembled a tale type index that provides over one thousand tale types that can be found from India to Ireland. Not all of them are found throughout the region, but they share enough that they can be treated as a common group of material. But what does it mean? The fact is, most of these stories are relatively recent introductions and they do not represent any \"common Indo-European inheritance.\" The search for this sort of inheritance received a bad name with the Nazis because they attached to it the romanticism of their concept of an Aryan master race. As a result, one has to be careful when asking these sorts of questions. But you are also asking about common stories in what is preserved of pre-conversion religion, and there does seem to be some shared material. Here, one must keep in mind that religions - especially when not tethered by a written text - drift considerably over time. But as some other commentators note, the sky god and various other powerful supernatural beings appear throughout most of the culture zone. One of these is the idea that a powerful, dangerous supernatural being was associated with lakes and\/or streams, often appearing as a horse or as an old man. This is probably what is behind Poseidon and his chariot drawn by water horses, but also Odin and his eight-legged magical horse. Pre-Industrial folk legends seem to be referring to this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38192.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"5jrfa8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why did Europeans become such a powerful group of people compared to other areas of human civilisation? And What where the major advancement that allowed European empires to control such a large portion of the planet?","c_root_id_A":"dbijx8z","c_root_id_B":"dbijyuk","created_at_utc_A":1482433123,"created_at_utc_B":1482433175,"score_A":9,"score_B":62,"human_ref_A":"Its really the Mediterranean cultures which should be given most of the credit. Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, to name the big ones. To take it one step further, the cultural mixing provided by the silk road may be the biggest primer for their success. If you are keen on giving credit to Europe it would be more accurate to say they had cultures which prioritized aggressive growth while fostering intellectualism, which when combined with technological changes and some lucky timing took advantage of a planets worth of weak competition. Its easy to track how cultures who devalue exploration and devalue learning are able to seize fewer opportunities which becomes fewer successes. Its easy to track how exposure to other cultures becomes exposure to other ways of thinking and more accurate perspectives which lend themselves to better decision making. Things like don't eat the horses ride the horses are easy to conclude now but at the time were outside the box thinking, maybe even considered insanity. Multiply that by a thousand and you get the industrial revolution. Multiply that by a thousand and you get global standardization and commoditization. How do you compete with that system? You can't, so some cultures reject it and get run over. Some cultures adopt it and play catch up. Some cultures adopt pieces and hold on to their old ways and struggle to stay in both worlds. All of these variants have variants of their own, things like ability to participate, ability to adopt, corruption, etc... To answer your question in short, a lot of hard work and some good timing.","human_ref_B":"The connection between Europe and globalism only reaches back a few hundred years. In the much longer annals of human history there have been many other groupings that have seemed to hold power and there have been many times in which a narrative of power, dominance, and subjugation hasn't been the most sensible way to view events (arguably including this present moment). Furthermore, what is suggested by the question is a relatively static and homogeneous Europe being posed against relatively static and homogeneous other groups. The closest model to that description is trying to discuss how different species of animal might vie for the same resources over a short period of time within an ecosystem. That doesn't apply here because human cultures are constantly changing, moving, exchanging, and intermingling in a way that defies staticity and homogeneity. So, perhaps a better question might be \"what specific cultural, historical, and environmental events led to the European move to globalism of the past 600 or 700 years?\" That could be bettered and refined in bounds, but I think it tries to get at your original curiosity.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":52.0,"score_ratio":6.8888888889} {"post_id":"5jrfa8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why did Europeans become such a powerful group of people compared to other areas of human civilisation? And What where the major advancement that allowed European empires to control such a large portion of the planet?","c_root_id_A":"dbjemoi","c_root_id_B":"dbjbbhg","created_at_utc_A":1482479795,"created_at_utc_B":1482472144,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm assuming you mean the colonial empires of the last 500 years. The luck of the European discovery of North and South America was the biggest advancement. The European kingdoms were looking for ways to the east because Islamic kingdoms controlled the silk road. The existing population of the western hemisphere were vulnerable to diseases from the eastern hemisphere due to isolation, lack of animal husbandry and a possible DNA bottleneck in the population. These diseases are responsible for killing possibly 90% of the native populations. The Europeans were then able to exploit the resources such as silver from South America using slaves bought\/captured in Africa because of their resistance to malaria. Increasing the wealth of the European kingdoms. The introduction of the potato into the European diet. The discovery of Nitrogen for fertilizer and the discovery of nitrogen rich guano on islands off the coast Peru all helped stave off famine and increased population in Europe. Using this wealth to develop better technology and militaries. Creating powerful navies to control trade routes. I'm using Charles C. Mann's 1491 and 1493 for this. My first post here so I hope it is up to snuff.","human_ref_B":"The Renaissance and the corresponding \"scientific revolution\" in Europe provided the cultural organization and specific developments in navigation and warfare technology needed to colonize a great portion of the world. This came at a time when potential competing societies were, relatively speaking, in stages of isolationism and stagnating scientific progress (a state which Europe had been in up until the 14th-15th century). I think that, if you look at history, this kind of shifting balance of cultural and scientific progress happens across many societies, even those that aren't in contact with each other -- there has generally been a few societies that are \"most successful\" at a given time in history. Europe happened to enter the lime-light right as the world was poised to enter the industrial revolution, and thus the effect was more impressive in some ways than empires had been in the past. That's my unqualified, handwaving answer anyway.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7651.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"5jrfa8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why did Europeans become such a powerful group of people compared to other areas of human civilisation? And What where the major advancement that allowed European empires to control such a large portion of the planet?","c_root_id_A":"dbjbbhg","c_root_id_B":"dc11z91","created_at_utc_A":1482472144,"created_at_utc_B":1483619567,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Renaissance and the corresponding \"scientific revolution\" in Europe provided the cultural organization and specific developments in navigation and warfare technology needed to colonize a great portion of the world. This came at a time when potential competing societies were, relatively speaking, in stages of isolationism and stagnating scientific progress (a state which Europe had been in up until the 14th-15th century). I think that, if you look at history, this kind of shifting balance of cultural and scientific progress happens across many societies, even those that aren't in contact with each other -- there has generally been a few societies that are \"most successful\" at a given time in history. Europe happened to enter the lime-light right as the world was poised to enter the industrial revolution, and thus the effect was more impressive in some ways than empires had been in the past. That's my unqualified, handwaving answer anyway.","human_ref_B":"Over my lifetime I have read a number of History Books and unfortunately I cannot find them on my bookshelf any more. This means I cannot give any citations of sources of where I got this idea. The first was a history of the world entire in a rather thick volume, I cannot remember the author but it did have the look of a text book from a University Press edition. The second was a book which described itself as a history of Europe. However, as Europe interfered so much in the business of the rest of the world as the book went on it was more a book of how Europe moulded the rest of the world to suit itself. I find that these generalized books were useful in giving me an overview of what was happening around the world at the same time. I found that I knew about a lot of things but did not have them in a context. eg. the Dutch-Spanish Wars were going on about the same time as the Ottoman Turks were harrying Eastern Europe and the Spanish King Phillip II defeated the Turks at the battle of Lepanto. I offer this as I was interested in one and not the other. So, context, \"In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue\". Vasco da Gama didn't sail around the Cape of Good Hope until 1497. No one asks, why were they trying to get to China? Or if they do they don't fully comprehend why a sea journey was needed. It was all about trade in luxury goods and spices. For thousands of years goods were traded along a corridor famously known as the Silk Route. There were fabulously wealthy cities and societies along that route and they traded with India to the south and east to China and west to Byzantium and thus to Europe. Before Byzantium it was via the Parthian Empire to Rome and earlier via the Sasanian Empire to Europe etc etc. You get the idea. What had happened? Two things, initially the Mongols happened in the thirteenth century. They were intensely destructive to settled societies in their path. They destroyed the economy of China, and China being China picked up the pieces and started to rebuild. Then the Mongols went west and destroyed the Silk Road. The Golden Horde became the Kipchak Khanate and straddled the area over which the Silk Road had flowed. The Silk road was never rebuilt. The cities never really recovered under Nomadic leadership. Trade then fell to India and it passed by small Dhows through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf across the Levant. Then the Christians and the Muslims no longer saw eye to eye and the Muslim Ottomans no longer allowed trade with the west. This meant the previous overland routes were closed. Europe was never a united Continent. The best ever effort was made by the Romans, and then Charlemagne conquered a lot by the thirteenth Century. However it fell to pieces again and was a patchwork of competing states all of whom were very backward compared to the eastern economies of India and China. As Islam spread westward from the Caliphate in Baghdad a great deal of advancement in science and philosophy spread west with them sparking a Renaissance in Europe. Jumping to the other side of the world. The Mongols who remained in China became absorbed into the Chinese way as all invaders are and became the Yuan dynasty. China was an easy country to control. It was easy to traverse. Easy to march armies around, and had a political and administrative structure that worked very well.The economy recovered and trade in Asia resumed. The China-India trade economy was massive. Nothing in Europe had been or was comparable. Fabrics, Steel, Pottery, Spices, and precious metals and stones. All of this was in quantities beyond the imaginations of traders in Europe. Then a little boatload of Portuguese sailed into Calicut in India. The problem was the trade goods they were carrying were inferior to anything India produced. Payment had to be in precious metals. Thus it was to be. For Europe to gain access to the eastern market they needed gold or silver. This is where our friend Christopher Columbus became important. Because there were no real sources of these metals in Europe, but there was in the Americas and it was a pretty soft target for the unscrupulous. So the exploitation of the Americas enabled Europe to break into the largest economy in the world at that time. Spanish treasure fleets would not only sail to Europe, for a long time they sailed directly across the Pacific from Chile to Manila. There were other ways to participate in this economy. It seems a large part of Dutch income was generated by just carrying goods around Asian coastlines. Slowly as the wealth grew Europeans needed security forces to protect their trading factories. Their new found wealth paid for Security Forces. Then they started to take over countries. After a few rebellions the Home governments began to take over the running of interests in foreign lands and colonialism was born. Then Britain found that as it geared up into an industrial revolution that they could not produce cotton of the quality of India. As time went on, the company in India reduced the manufacturing capabilities of regions under its control. Effectively ruining India's economy to promote British made goods. China was also a problem. Once India was under control the only place that insisted on hard metal payments was China. There was a demand in China for opium which was grown quite cheaply in India. The Chinese government would not allow trade in opium however and thus the European powers marched to Peking and forced their will. China was weak it was in the middle of the Taiping Rebellion and the country dissolved largely into chaos. This actually marks the beginning of the end of the Qing Dynasty. That is the how. The why is open to a lot of conjecture. It is said that because China was one country for so long that it was influenced by whoever was leading it. In Europe, everyone was in a mad scramble to get the advantage over each other. If the Portuguese didn't do it the Spanish would or the Dutch or the French or the English and so on. Early in the 1400's the Emperor in China decided to become isolationist. That was that. No competitors because he controlled everything. India had its own sphere of influence and it had its world under control. Europe was a hungry, ravenous beast that would probably have fallen on its face if it hadn't discovered the wealth of the Americas. It was only through a fortuitous injection of wealth and subsequent explosion in technological capability that enabled it to become superior. Without the wealth I doubt that the technology would have followed. Finally, I also suspect that the philosophy of Europe's predominant religion was also a very important factor in the way they viewed and exploited the world because it was their divine right. Well, that is my theory. It's very broad brush and probably wrong, however it is the sense I got when I read the History of Europe. If ever I find those books I will come back and cite them and the relevant passages that lead me to this opinion.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1147423.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zcdfq0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What do you think about postmodernist anthropology? Hello everyone! I'm about to become a second year anthropology student. I'm asking this question because during my first semester I had a teacher (who is a very experienced anthropologist, I actually respect her a lot) that said that postmodernists \"just looked at their belly button\". In case you're not familiar with this phrase (it is popular in my Spanish speaking country), it basically means that they don't do anything. So, I want to know your thoughts about this, if you defend them or not and why. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"iyvy8lr","c_root_id_B":"iywngjq","created_at_utc_A":1670171355,"created_at_utc_B":1670181333,"score_A":50,"score_B":62,"human_ref_A":"Given that anthropology today has come around to the idea that there's not a single grand unifying equation that can explain humanity (history, behavior, etc.), anthropology is actually pretty well suited to post modernism. Anthropologists during much of the 20th century took a very positivist approach to humanity and culture. Basically, there was an idea (not necessarily explicit, but pretty well formed) that the patterns of human culture and human history could be teased out and systematized if only we could collect enough information. Anthropologists generally had a strong interest in this kind of approach, and you see ethnography, linguistics, and archaeology all pushing towards the idea of cross comparison of cultures and cultural concepts to seek out the threads that ran between all cultures, with the idea that eventually you could get at the underlying objective roots of human behavior and culture. Maybe even enough to use those fancy new computers to predict cultural patterns... like a complex multi regression equation. But what we have seen is that as we have collected and analyzed more and more data, and dug more deeply into the past, and even have used those even more fancy but not-so-new-anymore computers to analyze all that data, is that grand equations to predict human culture and behavior briefly just may not be possible at all. The diversity and variation in human cultural patterns may follow some very general patterns, but they're just not enough to make the sort of big predictions that anthropologists used to think could be possible. We've also come a lot farther as a discipline at recognizing that anthropology as a whole is immensely grounded in Western culture, history, and experience. The notion of developing grand schema of classification isn't something that's shared by every culture. And *as anthropologists* it's incumbent upon us to take that knowledge and really understand it. Anthropology-- and even just *scientific inquiry*-- is just one way to look at the world. And it's recent, at that. Anthropologically, post modernism is pretty well justified. And frankly, the people who I hear in anthropology who rail against post modernism generally are older and are having a lot of terrible adapting to a world where other, different voices carry weight.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology and Postmodernism have been buddy-buddy for quite some time. It's helped in a lot of ways, but I would really ask your prof more about what she means and what her issue is exactly. Deconstruction can be helpful, but eventually you run out of things to deconstruct and then need to rebuild. Postmodernism has been great for creating critiques, but kinda does have difficulty really building something. Postmodernism has definitely had its charlatans and is often full of word games, but if you can get past that then there is certainly a valuable tool underneath. If your prof thinks postmodernism is entirely useless nonsense, or worse, a dangerous ideology rotting away European Culture...then run. But maybe ask them to explain a bit more about what they meant.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9978.0,"score_ratio":1.24} {"post_id":"zcdfq0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What do you think about postmodernist anthropology? Hello everyone! I'm about to become a second year anthropology student. I'm asking this question because during my first semester I had a teacher (who is a very experienced anthropologist, I actually respect her a lot) that said that postmodernists \"just looked at their belly button\". In case you're not familiar with this phrase (it is popular in my Spanish speaking country), it basically means that they don't do anything. So, I want to know your thoughts about this, if you defend them or not and why. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"iyx6757","c_root_id_B":"iyzmvl2","created_at_utc_A":1670188393,"created_at_utc_B":1670238733,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"When I hear scholars saying things like this, I note that scholars beget scholars beget scholars. If you're trained by someone suspicious of PM and averse to it ontologically, then there is some likelihood you will carry that suspicion forward. We have a diverse academy these days where these 'culture wars' are mostly fought out in some disciplines but resistance to contemporary social thought still exists. I'm in favour of thinking that the PM approach recognizes the multiplicity of lenses and the uselessness of claiming generic social truths (leaning more towards sociology here). In other words, we operate like the eye of the fly rather than the eye of the human.. and the kaleidoscope that comes into view when we view a social problem from as many lenses and perspectives as possible, also considering the moment in time, gives us the most complete understanding of the situation at hand. But anyone dismissive of the influence of PM and critical thought is someone not truly skilled at using either.","human_ref_B":"Hello there, thanks for the interesting topic! I am currently researching the linguistic turn in anthropology, which culminated in the Writing Culture Debate. There is a Collection of the Essays which where written during a conference called \"Writing Culture\" -> which was a culmination (or presented itself as one anyway) of the deconstructionist turn in anthropology: a focus on ethnography as the written object, and a critique of authority and authorship. (actually there were several ongoing developments: also the crisis of representation, as the people which fieldwork was based upon until then, made themselves in academic discourse as well and started to challenge the paradigma of ethnographies.) Basically what was mentioned by u\/trouser-chowder as positvist anthropogy, although I think If we carefully reread these Ethnographies we will notice they are a lot more careful about their approach and definitley not the caricatures we like to make of them. Anyway what I want to argue for here, is that your teacher has a point with her polemics. There certainly has been a change in anthropology in the 1980s, whcih coincides with the general rise of postmoderinsm, as a theory, but also with a historic time, which is also called postmodernism. A basic theoretical trend in \"postmodernism\" (an elusive descriptive term, as it points to manifold thinkers and developments alike) is a fragmented ontology, so the world is being perceived as inherently chaotic, fragmented and shattered. Which is why metanarratives like marxism, liberalism etc. are seen as dominand discourses of order that repress the manifold und multitudious elements that exist together. In this embracing of a fragmented or rhizomativ world, it becomes very hard to from a normative or political standpoint. What u\/Cooperativism62 described as building and rebuilding is maybe at the heart of the navel gazing complex. Does Deconstruction still help us to navigate with concepts and ideas today. At a another level there is the question of what anthropology has to do with politics, and normative projects and if it should change the world or just describe them. u\/rhodyrooted already made the point that there is no real postmodernist or hardcore marxist etc. But there definitely is a historic legacy that we have to engage with that postmodernism shaped in a hugely infulential way and the backlash against that, ist not just old people worried about their status u\/trouser-chowder but a sense of reorienting the postmodernist critiques towards more normative and political goals, at least I like to think of it that way :) Anyway thanks for this thread, I am always astounded by the community of people here willing to engage in this topics.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":50340.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"zcdfq0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"What do you think about postmodernist anthropology? Hello everyone! I'm about to become a second year anthropology student. I'm asking this question because during my first semester I had a teacher (who is a very experienced anthropologist, I actually respect her a lot) that said that postmodernists \"just looked at their belly button\". In case you're not familiar with this phrase (it is popular in my Spanish speaking country), it basically means that they don't do anything. So, I want to know your thoughts about this, if you defend them or not and why. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"iyzmvl2","c_root_id_B":"iyzdb0f","created_at_utc_A":1670238733,"created_at_utc_B":1670230024,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello there, thanks for the interesting topic! I am currently researching the linguistic turn in anthropology, which culminated in the Writing Culture Debate. There is a Collection of the Essays which where written during a conference called \"Writing Culture\" -> which was a culmination (or presented itself as one anyway) of the deconstructionist turn in anthropology: a focus on ethnography as the written object, and a critique of authority and authorship. (actually there were several ongoing developments: also the crisis of representation, as the people which fieldwork was based upon until then, made themselves in academic discourse as well and started to challenge the paradigma of ethnographies.) Basically what was mentioned by u\/trouser-chowder as positvist anthropogy, although I think If we carefully reread these Ethnographies we will notice they are a lot more careful about their approach and definitley not the caricatures we like to make of them. Anyway what I want to argue for here, is that your teacher has a point with her polemics. There certainly has been a change in anthropology in the 1980s, whcih coincides with the general rise of postmoderinsm, as a theory, but also with a historic time, which is also called postmodernism. A basic theoretical trend in \"postmodernism\" (an elusive descriptive term, as it points to manifold thinkers and developments alike) is a fragmented ontology, so the world is being perceived as inherently chaotic, fragmented and shattered. Which is why metanarratives like marxism, liberalism etc. are seen as dominand discourses of order that repress the manifold und multitudious elements that exist together. In this embracing of a fragmented or rhizomativ world, it becomes very hard to from a normative or political standpoint. What u\/Cooperativism62 described as building and rebuilding is maybe at the heart of the navel gazing complex. Does Deconstruction still help us to navigate with concepts and ideas today. At a another level there is the question of what anthropology has to do with politics, and normative projects and if it should change the world or just describe them. u\/rhodyrooted already made the point that there is no real postmodernist or hardcore marxist etc. But there definitely is a historic legacy that we have to engage with that postmodernism shaped in a hugely infulential way and the backlash against that, ist not just old people worried about their status u\/trouser-chowder but a sense of reorienting the postmodernist critiques towards more normative and political goals, at least I like to think of it that way :) Anyway thanks for this thread, I am always astounded by the community of people here willing to engage in this topics.","human_ref_B":"Others have given good answers, so this is just about the expression: >\tjust looked at their belly button In English the expression is, \u201cNavel gazing.\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8709.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"w7qrun","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Thinking about getting my masters in anthropology So, currently I am a journalist. Specifically a producer, I focus on various communities and neighborhoods that are in my city. I love what I do, because of the human connection. I want to go back to school to get my masters in Data journalism, but lately I have an itch to double major in cultural anthropology. I love learning about different culture especially ancient cultures. I would love to dive into anicent West African culture because historical that area has been ignored due to prejudice and the fact this area mostly focused on oral documentation versus written. I feel like I could combine my current line of work with anthropology but when I look it up I mostly see anthropologist going into journalism not the other way around. I want to know if I needed my bachelors in a field of anthropology in order to get my masters in anthropology. Is it a waste of money to do this?","c_root_id_A":"ihlvan3","c_root_id_B":"ihlk8eq","created_at_utc_A":1658772169,"created_at_utc_B":1658767991,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"That actually sounds like a great way to spend your time and money, not a waste at all! Just be aware that there may not be an immediate financial return on investment. Still, it might give you some great new perspectives on your current work projects and could open some professional doors down the road.","human_ref_B":"Definitely check out Leslie Steeves at the UOregon Media Studies Dept.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4178.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"w7qrun","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Thinking about getting my masters in anthropology So, currently I am a journalist. Specifically a producer, I focus on various communities and neighborhoods that are in my city. I love what I do, because of the human connection. I want to go back to school to get my masters in Data journalism, but lately I have an itch to double major in cultural anthropology. I love learning about different culture especially ancient cultures. I would love to dive into anicent West African culture because historical that area has been ignored due to prejudice and the fact this area mostly focused on oral documentation versus written. I feel like I could combine my current line of work with anthropology but when I look it up I mostly see anthropologist going into journalism not the other way around. I want to know if I needed my bachelors in a field of anthropology in order to get my masters in anthropology. Is it a waste of money to do this?","c_root_id_A":"ihlxbpj","c_root_id_B":"ihlk8eq","created_at_utc_A":1658772949,"created_at_utc_B":1658767991,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Huge potential for overlap there. I am confident that you would learn a lot from an MA in anthropology that would benefit your journalism. However, I've never heard of a \"double major\" for an MA. You may want to look at interdisciplinary programs, or you may have the option to have cosupervisors from journalism and anthropology departments. You may also just find that you'd rather do the journalism masters and take some anthropology courses. In my experience, a lot of anthropologists actively work to distinguish what they do from journalism, so there may be some resistance there when approaching people. An interesting avenue of study could be really looking at methodology, and how ethnographic practice can integrate with journalism.","human_ref_B":"Definitely check out Leslie Steeves at the UOregon Media Studies Dept.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4958.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"w7qrun","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Thinking about getting my masters in anthropology So, currently I am a journalist. Specifically a producer, I focus on various communities and neighborhoods that are in my city. I love what I do, because of the human connection. I want to go back to school to get my masters in Data journalism, but lately I have an itch to double major in cultural anthropology. I love learning about different culture especially ancient cultures. I would love to dive into anicent West African culture because historical that area has been ignored due to prejudice and the fact this area mostly focused on oral documentation versus written. I feel like I could combine my current line of work with anthropology but when I look it up I mostly see anthropologist going into journalism not the other way around. I want to know if I needed my bachelors in a field of anthropology in order to get my masters in anthropology. Is it a waste of money to do this?","c_root_id_A":"ihn3w2p","c_root_id_B":"ihnhtql","created_at_utc_A":1658789500,"created_at_utc_B":1658795613,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you a producer as in making news videos or something like that? If so, definitely try to look for visual ethnography\/anthropology. I used to be a producer at a media company making news documentary and stuffs. Just graduated and it was an amazing experience. I learned a lot and gain many insight that is also useful for journalism. You will learn utilizing different types of modalities, although mainly most schools are still focusing on audio visual (which is also perfect if you love making documentaries or something like that).","human_ref_B":"I would definitely go for the bachelor's. The more degrees you have, the better equipped you are to finding a new job. If I were you I'd definitely try some archeology courses too\/check them out. It's always a bonus for anthropology. Physical, forensic, and cultural are big ones.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6113.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"w7qrun","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Thinking about getting my masters in anthropology So, currently I am a journalist. Specifically a producer, I focus on various communities and neighborhoods that are in my city. I love what I do, because of the human connection. I want to go back to school to get my masters in Data journalism, but lately I have an itch to double major in cultural anthropology. I love learning about different culture especially ancient cultures. I would love to dive into anicent West African culture because historical that area has been ignored due to prejudice and the fact this area mostly focused on oral documentation versus written. I feel like I could combine my current line of work with anthropology but when I look it up I mostly see anthropologist going into journalism not the other way around. I want to know if I needed my bachelors in a field of anthropology in order to get my masters in anthropology. Is it a waste of money to do this?","c_root_id_A":"iibouwj","c_root_id_B":"ihn3w2p","created_at_utc_A":1659228321,"created_at_utc_B":1658789500,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"i feel like it could help facilitate a deeper engagement with your areas of study and research. there's also an interesting book by anthropologist Amahl Bishara called \"Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics\" which is definitely worth checking out if youre interested in an anthro study of journalism (which isn't a super common approach imo)","human_ref_B":"Are you a producer as in making news videos or something like that? If so, definitely try to look for visual ethnography\/anthropology. I used to be a producer at a media company making news documentary and stuffs. Just graduated and it was an amazing experience. I learned a lot and gain many insight that is also useful for journalism. You will learn utilizing different types of modalities, although mainly most schools are still focusing on audio visual (which is also perfect if you love making documentaries or something like that).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":438821.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zdn1k4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"I want to learn more about ecological anthropology and foodways of the US - Mid-Atlantic region. Where do I get started? Title. I'm moving to MD soon and I would like to begin learning about this topic, but I don't even know where to start. Pre- and post-colonial information is fine. Sorry if this is too general but I know nothing, so I guess I'm just looking for some information to get started.","c_root_id_A":"iz2rwx6","c_root_id_B":"iz2xrst","created_at_utc_A":1670289031,"created_at_utc_B":1670291730,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"slave counterpoint by phillip morgan is a length comparison of mid-atlantic and low-country society. the parts on MD will be well worth reading.","human_ref_B":"More contemporary than you want perhaps, but the Delmarva peninsula was the birthplace of the modern poultry industry -- Steve Striffler's *Chicken* is a good, short, readable account of both the history and current state of chicken, covering both production and consumption, and with an emphasis on labor.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2699.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iygqfn3","c_root_id_B":"iyf3j0s","created_at_utc_A":1669877946,"created_at_utc_B":1669847858,"score_A":70,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"The thing is -- you very likely don't know what they are. Aboriginal Australians don't display them. They display things that look vaguely like them, but without the meaningful content. They do this to support themselves financially, but the actual paintings that they make for themselves -- you've never seen them. There are some authentic ones which have been photographed or otherwise preserved, but they're generally not displayed. There may also be some older books that reproduce the real thing. . . . but generally, you're in a complicated domain of something that Australians themselves would tell you isn't real. So what is it that you're going to say about it? That these are some stylistic elements from Aboriginal artists? That's a true thing to say. That they are \"Dreamtime paintings\"? That wouldn't be true . . . they're not.","human_ref_B":"If this is simply taking inspiration from another art style popular in a specific culture other than your own, no it\u2019s fine. If they\u2019re all going to produce them to create an \u2018aboriginal\u2019 settlement as the back drop for a similarly themed play full of historical inaccuracies and stereotypes, then might be an issue","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30088.0,"score_ratio":1.1475409836} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iygqfn3","c_root_id_B":"iyfrhs1","created_at_utc_A":1669877946,"created_at_utc_B":1669858838,"score_A":70,"score_B":46,"human_ref_A":"The thing is -- you very likely don't know what they are. Aboriginal Australians don't display them. They display things that look vaguely like them, but without the meaningful content. They do this to support themselves financially, but the actual paintings that they make for themselves -- you've never seen them. There are some authentic ones which have been photographed or otherwise preserved, but they're generally not displayed. There may also be some older books that reproduce the real thing. . . . but generally, you're in a complicated domain of something that Australians themselves would tell you isn't real. So what is it that you're going to say about it? That these are some stylistic elements from Aboriginal artists? That's a true thing to say. That they are \"Dreamtime paintings\"? That wouldn't be true . . . they're not.","human_ref_B":"What do you mean by Dreamtime paintings? Aboriginal artistic expression is subject to traditional law. the right to paint certain stories is passed down family lineages. so no, it wouldn\u2019t be appropriate. if you\u2019re teaching an anthropology class on the topic surely you know this? https:\/\/japingkaaboriginalart.com\/articles\/understanding-aboriginal-art\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19108.0,"score_ratio":1.5217391304} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyftbdm","c_root_id_B":"iygqfn3","created_at_utc_A":1669859688,"created_at_utc_B":1669877946,"score_A":24,"score_B":70,"human_ref_A":"Are you in Australia? If so, I'd suggest reaching out to a nearby Indigenous cultural centre or even museum, and ask for the opinion of an Indigenous person on what is ok to paint and what is not.","human_ref_B":"The thing is -- you very likely don't know what they are. Aboriginal Australians don't display them. They display things that look vaguely like them, but without the meaningful content. They do this to support themselves financially, but the actual paintings that they make for themselves -- you've never seen them. There are some authentic ones which have been photographed or otherwise preserved, but they're generally not displayed. There may also be some older books that reproduce the real thing. . . . but generally, you're in a complicated domain of something that Australians themselves would tell you isn't real. So what is it that you're going to say about it? That these are some stylistic elements from Aboriginal artists? That's a true thing to say. That they are \"Dreamtime paintings\"? That wouldn't be true . . . they're not.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18258.0,"score_ratio":2.9166666667} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyfrhs1","c_root_id_B":"iyh91i0","created_at_utc_A":1669858838,"created_at_utc_B":1669894147,"score_A":46,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"What do you mean by Dreamtime paintings? Aboriginal artistic expression is subject to traditional law. the right to paint certain stories is passed down family lineages. so no, it wouldn\u2019t be appropriate. if you\u2019re teaching an anthropology class on the topic surely you know this? https:\/\/japingkaaboriginalart.com\/articles\/understanding-aboriginal-art\/","human_ref_B":"I think first off, go ahead and drop the phrase \u201caboriginal Dreamtime\u201d. Introduce the concept, explain the backstory, encourage the students to take inspiration from Australian Aboriginal art (if that area is the focus of the unit) and then let them have at it. Compare\/contrast with other forms of indigenous art and expression and then talk about what cultural appropriation is, and how to prevent it. Being up front and honest with a)defining appropriation and b) setting out to show that inspiration from different cultures can be used to create one\u2019s own artistic expression is going to be key here. Just remember. The kids aren\u2019t doing \u201cDreamtime\u201d. They aren\u2019t. They are taking inspiration from the various art pieces they see and then interpreting them in their own ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35309.0,"score_ratio":1.1304347826} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyftbdm","c_root_id_B":"iyh91i0","created_at_utc_A":1669859688,"created_at_utc_B":1669894147,"score_A":24,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"Are you in Australia? If so, I'd suggest reaching out to a nearby Indigenous cultural centre or even museum, and ask for the opinion of an Indigenous person on what is ok to paint and what is not.","human_ref_B":"I think first off, go ahead and drop the phrase \u201caboriginal Dreamtime\u201d. Introduce the concept, explain the backstory, encourage the students to take inspiration from Australian Aboriginal art (if that area is the focus of the unit) and then let them have at it. Compare\/contrast with other forms of indigenous art and expression and then talk about what cultural appropriation is, and how to prevent it. Being up front and honest with a)defining appropriation and b) setting out to show that inspiration from different cultures can be used to create one\u2019s own artistic expression is going to be key here. Just remember. The kids aren\u2019t doing \u201cDreamtime\u201d. They aren\u2019t. They are taking inspiration from the various art pieces they see and then interpreting them in their own ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34459.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iygqqc8","c_root_id_B":"iyh91i0","created_at_utc_A":1669878174,"created_at_utc_B":1669894147,"score_A":15,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"If you're not Indigenous, it's not appropriate. Period. An option could be to ask AND PAY an Indigenous artist to teach about their art and the history, culture and meaning that goes along with it.","human_ref_B":"I think first off, go ahead and drop the phrase \u201caboriginal Dreamtime\u201d. Introduce the concept, explain the backstory, encourage the students to take inspiration from Australian Aboriginal art (if that area is the focus of the unit) and then let them have at it. Compare\/contrast with other forms of indigenous art and expression and then talk about what cultural appropriation is, and how to prevent it. Being up front and honest with a)defining appropriation and b) setting out to show that inspiration from different cultures can be used to create one\u2019s own artistic expression is going to be key here. Just remember. The kids aren\u2019t doing \u201cDreamtime\u201d. They aren\u2019t. They are taking inspiration from the various art pieces they see and then interpreting them in their own ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15973.0,"score_ratio":3.4666666667} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iygshqa","c_root_id_B":"iyh91i0","created_at_utc_A":1669879568,"created_at_utc_B":1669894147,"score_A":14,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"Yeah, because you're not trying to disparage\/make fun of Aboriginal people, I assume? Interacting with a culture and learning about it is a way to learn about respect.","human_ref_B":"I think first off, go ahead and drop the phrase \u201caboriginal Dreamtime\u201d. Introduce the concept, explain the backstory, encourage the students to take inspiration from Australian Aboriginal art (if that area is the focus of the unit) and then let them have at it. Compare\/contrast with other forms of indigenous art and expression and then talk about what cultural appropriation is, and how to prevent it. Being up front and honest with a)defining appropriation and b) setting out to show that inspiration from different cultures can be used to create one\u2019s own artistic expression is going to be key here. Just remember. The kids aren\u2019t doing \u201cDreamtime\u201d. They aren\u2019t. They are taking inspiration from the various art pieces they see and then interpreting them in their own ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14579.0,"score_ratio":3.7142857143} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyhnus5","c_root_id_B":"iygqqc8","created_at_utc_A":1669903282,"created_at_utc_B":1669878174,"score_A":24,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I agree with u\/FarmersHand that you should take the opportunity to talk about cultural appropriation and respecting people's religious\/sacred practices. I think a lot of people misunderstand what we mean by cultural appropriation -- its not about borrowing from another culture, it is about power and oppression. It's about thinking about a group of people as extinct when they are still alive, and treating their cultural products as exotic and fun to play with. It's about holding a bunch of stereotypes about a group, controlling their access to basic resources, and supporting their oppression while extracting their creative output. So I think it is fine to say, \"We are going to do a project inspired by some of the art produced by indigenous Australians. They use art to record and remember stories, and both are sacred and secret to them. They produce art for people to buy which is different from their sacred art, and we are going to make art inspired by that. But we should keep in mind that contemporary indigenous Australians have a history of genocide and oppression. They are still struggling over land rights, poverty, access to education and other resources, and are the targets of racism and oppression in Australia just like Native Americans and other people of color are in the US (give whatever example makes most sense in your national context). A major part of respecting a people's contemporary and historical culture is to work for their political and social rights today.\" And then talk about historical trauma, over-incarceration, poverty, land rights, etc.","human_ref_B":"If you're not Indigenous, it's not appropriate. Period. An option could be to ask AND PAY an Indigenous artist to teach about their art and the history, culture and meaning that goes along with it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25108.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iygshqa","c_root_id_B":"iyhnus5","created_at_utc_A":1669879568,"created_at_utc_B":1669903282,"score_A":14,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Yeah, because you're not trying to disparage\/make fun of Aboriginal people, I assume? Interacting with a culture and learning about it is a way to learn about respect.","human_ref_B":"I agree with u\/FarmersHand that you should take the opportunity to talk about cultural appropriation and respecting people's religious\/sacred practices. I think a lot of people misunderstand what we mean by cultural appropriation -- its not about borrowing from another culture, it is about power and oppression. It's about thinking about a group of people as extinct when they are still alive, and treating their cultural products as exotic and fun to play with. It's about holding a bunch of stereotypes about a group, controlling their access to basic resources, and supporting their oppression while extracting their creative output. So I think it is fine to say, \"We are going to do a project inspired by some of the art produced by indigenous Australians. They use art to record and remember stories, and both are sacred and secret to them. They produce art for people to buy which is different from their sacred art, and we are going to make art inspired by that. But we should keep in mind that contemporary indigenous Australians have a history of genocide and oppression. They are still struggling over land rights, poverty, access to education and other resources, and are the targets of racism and oppression in Australia just like Native Americans and other people of color are in the US (give whatever example makes most sense in your national context). A major part of respecting a people's contemporary and historical culture is to work for their political and social rights today.\" And then talk about historical trauma, over-incarceration, poverty, land rights, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23714.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyhk2nj","c_root_id_B":"iyhnus5","created_at_utc_A":1669901324,"created_at_utc_B":1669903282,"score_A":2,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"We have an \/r\/Australia right? Got to be some indigenous people on there who you can ask about aboriginal-inspired art. If you get like five guys and they all say it's whatever, it's whatever. If all or most of them say no or it starts a huge argument, maybe don't.","human_ref_B":"I agree with u\/FarmersHand that you should take the opportunity to talk about cultural appropriation and respecting people's religious\/sacred practices. I think a lot of people misunderstand what we mean by cultural appropriation -- its not about borrowing from another culture, it is about power and oppression. It's about thinking about a group of people as extinct when they are still alive, and treating their cultural products as exotic and fun to play with. It's about holding a bunch of stereotypes about a group, controlling their access to basic resources, and supporting their oppression while extracting their creative output. So I think it is fine to say, \"We are going to do a project inspired by some of the art produced by indigenous Australians. They use art to record and remember stories, and both are sacred and secret to them. They produce art for people to buy which is different from their sacred art, and we are going to make art inspired by that. But we should keep in mind that contemporary indigenous Australians have a history of genocide and oppression. They are still struggling over land rights, poverty, access to education and other resources, and are the targets of racism and oppression in Australia just like Native Americans and other people of color are in the US (give whatever example makes most sense in your national context). A major part of respecting a people's contemporary and historical culture is to work for their political and social rights today.\" And then talk about historical trauma, over-incarceration, poverty, land rights, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1958.0,"score_ratio":12.0} {"post_id":"z95jvh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Do you think it would be inappropriate to have students make aboriginal Dreamtime paintings? This is a high school anthro class. Like is this appropriation? Last year they made mandalas which didn\u2019t have to be traditional. Thanks","c_root_id_A":"iyhk2nj","c_root_id_B":"iyiajlu","created_at_utc_A":1669901324,"created_at_utc_B":1669913019,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"We have an \/r\/Australia right? Got to be some indigenous people on there who you can ask about aboriginal-inspired art. If you get like five guys and they all say it's whatever, it's whatever. If all or most of them say no or it starts a huge argument, maybe don't.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m genuinely wondering how many people answering this question are actual anthropologists. It sounds like a lot of these people are regular people who don\u2019t have a full understanding of ethics in anthropology. Someone else said to pay an aboriginal person to come in and talk about the concept. You could even give them a gift rather than pay. Yes. Do this. But if they refuse, you need a new topic. You have to respect oppressed peoples wishes. Tell the kids about that process, and the ethics behind it. Ethics and learning about other cultures from the hegemonic culture pov go hand in hand. I would be incredibly wary about getting a bunch of non-aboriginal kids to replicate sacred art. I would equate this to people who aren\u2019t indigenous and make dream catchers. It makes me gag. It\u2019s so inappropriate. One of the most important parts of practicing anthropology is ethics. Start there. Many of these lines are hazy and difficult to navigate. Contacting an aboriginal organization to talk about it can help, but don\u2019t rely on them to tell you the right way to do this. It\u2019s not their responsibility.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11695.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyedzn2","c_root_id_B":"gyefiet","created_at_utc_A":1621219544,"created_at_utc_B":1621220319,"score_A":11,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"i\u2019m about to graduate my bachelors. looks like a masters degree or unemployment is up next. please kill me. i love it, but not like before. i don\u2019t want to kill your dreams but i had mine killed in my honours seminar. the assignment was \u201cfind a job you qualify for\u201d. felt bad man","human_ref_B":"I have a master's degree in anthropology with a focus in forensic anthropology. I've worked a couple forensic cases and have some familiarity with job prospects. I'll cut right to the point -- there are very few jobs in forensic anthropology. You're unlikely to find steady employment of any sort as a forensic anthropologist working with law enforcement. Every single forensic anthropologist I know is professor who is occasionally contacted by law enforcement when they are needed. I completely abandoned forensic anthropology and I am getting a PhD\/MPH in medical anthropology because I felt like the field was at a dead end of sorts. In my opinion, the most viable path for someone interested in this field is to get a PhD in bioachaeology and do research as your primary job while keeping some forensics skills in your tool belt. It's worth pointing out the the academic job market is also hellish at the moment and even the most outstanding PhDs are struggling to find tenure track academic positions. That said, it is possible that you might be able to leverage a degree in forensic anthropology to get other law enforcement-related jobs. One of the people in my master's cohort works for a coroner's office, but I'm not sure of their exact job title. I don't mean to be a killjoy, but these are some of the things that I wish I had been told as an eager undergrad that fell in love with osteology and taphonomy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":775.0,"score_ratio":2.7272727273} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyedgy4","c_root_id_B":"gyefiet","created_at_utc_A":1621219277,"created_at_utc_B":1621220319,"score_A":4,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"If you want to be a forensic anthropologist, you should definitely get a PhD. If you get into a program with funding you shouldn't need to take out loans (and I wouldn't recommend getting a PhD in Anthropology without funding).","human_ref_B":"I have a master's degree in anthropology with a focus in forensic anthropology. I've worked a couple forensic cases and have some familiarity with job prospects. I'll cut right to the point -- there are very few jobs in forensic anthropology. You're unlikely to find steady employment of any sort as a forensic anthropologist working with law enforcement. Every single forensic anthropologist I know is professor who is occasionally contacted by law enforcement when they are needed. I completely abandoned forensic anthropology and I am getting a PhD\/MPH in medical anthropology because I felt like the field was at a dead end of sorts. In my opinion, the most viable path for someone interested in this field is to get a PhD in bioachaeology and do research as your primary job while keeping some forensics skills in your tool belt. It's worth pointing out the the academic job market is also hellish at the moment and even the most outstanding PhDs are struggling to find tenure track academic positions. That said, it is possible that you might be able to leverage a degree in forensic anthropology to get other law enforcement-related jobs. One of the people in my master's cohort works for a coroner's office, but I'm not sure of their exact job title. I don't mean to be a killjoy, but these are some of the things that I wish I had been told as an eager undergrad that fell in love with osteology and taphonomy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1042.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyefiet","c_root_id_B":"gyedy47","created_at_utc_A":1621220319,"created_at_utc_B":1621219522,"score_A":30,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a master's degree in anthropology with a focus in forensic anthropology. I've worked a couple forensic cases and have some familiarity with job prospects. I'll cut right to the point -- there are very few jobs in forensic anthropology. You're unlikely to find steady employment of any sort as a forensic anthropologist working with law enforcement. Every single forensic anthropologist I know is professor who is occasionally contacted by law enforcement when they are needed. I completely abandoned forensic anthropology and I am getting a PhD\/MPH in medical anthropology because I felt like the field was at a dead end of sorts. In my opinion, the most viable path for someone interested in this field is to get a PhD in bioachaeology and do research as your primary job while keeping some forensics skills in your tool belt. It's worth pointing out the the academic job market is also hellish at the moment and even the most outstanding PhDs are struggling to find tenure track academic positions. That said, it is possible that you might be able to leverage a degree in forensic anthropology to get other law enforcement-related jobs. One of the people in my master's cohort works for a coroner's office, but I'm not sure of their exact job title. I don't mean to be a killjoy, but these are some of the things that I wish I had been told as an eager undergrad that fell in love with osteology and taphonomy.","human_ref_B":"Ask someone how the job market is. If you just want the PhD for your own reasons, that's fine, but if your goal is to find work ask someone who graduated in the last 5 years.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":797.0,"score_ratio":15.0} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyedzn2","c_root_id_B":"gyedgy4","created_at_utc_A":1621219544,"created_at_utc_B":1621219277,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"i\u2019m about to graduate my bachelors. looks like a masters degree or unemployment is up next. please kill me. i love it, but not like before. i don\u2019t want to kill your dreams but i had mine killed in my honours seminar. the assignment was \u201cfind a job you qualify for\u201d. felt bad man","human_ref_B":"If you want to be a forensic anthropologist, you should definitely get a PhD. If you get into a program with funding you shouldn't need to take out loans (and I wouldn't recommend getting a PhD in Anthropology without funding).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":267.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyedy47","c_root_id_B":"gyedzn2","created_at_utc_A":1621219522,"created_at_utc_B":1621219544,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Ask someone how the job market is. If you just want the PhD for your own reasons, that's fine, but if your goal is to find work ask someone who graduated in the last 5 years.","human_ref_B":"i\u2019m about to graduate my bachelors. looks like a masters degree or unemployment is up next. please kill me. i love it, but not like before. i don\u2019t want to kill your dreams but i had mine killed in my honours seminar. the assignment was \u201cfind a job you qualify for\u201d. felt bad man","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyessg5","c_root_id_B":"gyedgy4","created_at_utc_A":1621227532,"created_at_utc_B":1621219277,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"No jobs. A PhD in Anthro will get you a crummy adjunct prof. job. When I say crummy, I mean Burger King crummy. I\u2019m an adjunct and I wouldn\u2019t wish this job on my worst enemy. Some people get lucky, but you are better going forward in Psych or just getting an entry level job in a stable sector. Clinical research assistant, grant writer, etc. Healthcare jobs are plentiful, stable, and pay good wages with benefits. Great variety of positions, too.","human_ref_B":"If you want to be a forensic anthropologist, you should definitely get a PhD. If you get into a program with funding you shouldn't need to take out loans (and I wouldn't recommend getting a PhD in Anthropology without funding).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8255.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"ne2jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thinking of going back to University to obtain a degree in biological anthropology, emphasis in forensic anthropology. For those of you who work in the field what have been the pros and cons? Do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have a BA in Psychology specializing in addiction. After spending a year in research I knew I would not go towards a masters degree. I had a great deal of fun in my studies at University but found the opposite when entering the work force. Very little money, mostly due to not obtaining a masters or PhD, and I found it hard to compartmentalize my work non-work life. Outside the field of addiction the jobs I qualify for are mainly reception or general office work. I find no satisfaction in this. I have for a long time been interested in the field of forensics and rolling the idea of forensics anthropology around as a future career. However, before I were to take on any more student loans I would love the opinions from some of the anthropologists out there. From the research I have done it is recommended to go in to the field knowing you will probably need a masters or PhD to gain access to the more prestigious careers. Have you always found this to be true? Are there more jobs than just museum work or becoming a professor? For those of you working in the field what have been the pros and cons? Also, do you feel satisfied in your work to non-work life balance? I have many questions, but I will leave them at the few I asked to not overwhelm. Any opinions or insight on the day to day work in biological anthropology would be greatly appreciated. Recommendations are also welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gyedy47","c_root_id_B":"gyessg5","created_at_utc_A":1621219522,"created_at_utc_B":1621227532,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Ask someone how the job market is. If you just want the PhD for your own reasons, that's fine, but if your goal is to find work ask someone who graduated in the last 5 years.","human_ref_B":"No jobs. A PhD in Anthro will get you a crummy adjunct prof. job. When I say crummy, I mean Burger King crummy. I\u2019m an adjunct and I wouldn\u2019t wish this job on my worst enemy. Some people get lucky, but you are better going forward in Psych or just getting an entry level job in a stable sector. Clinical research assistant, grant writer, etc. Healthcare jobs are plentiful, stable, and pay good wages with benefits. Great variety of positions, too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8010.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"y5gvva","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do chimps all share the same political system? I've been reading The Dawn of Everything, and one of its main arguments is that there was not a commonly shared political system by hunter-gatherers before the adoption of agriculture. Even talking about the first hominids living in Africa, the authors speculate they would have organized themselves in a variety of different ways. I find this argument hard to accept - specifically, I don't see how it doesn't simply push the question backwards in time. Chimps are not our ancestors of course, but if we assume that they're not enormously different from our nearest common ancestor it seems like we could take them as a possible model for early hominids, even though I understand this is controversial as well (even though again I'm not sure why, surely if you go back in time far enough you'll eventually find something that's closer to an animal than a modern human?) And so we come to the question, how do modern chimps organize themselves politically? Do primates all share the same system between species, or does it vary from different groups? Is it incorrect to imagine early hominids in a similar way? I apologize if this is more a question for biology than anthropology, hopefully you can help me understand the issue better","c_root_id_A":"islqoq3","c_root_id_B":"isngba3","created_at_utc_A":1665960137,"created_at_utc_B":1665995023,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"We are equally genetically related to Bonobos, which are extremely closely related to chimps, and yet, bonobos and chimps have completely different political systems. There is also a case of a team of primatologists studying some baboons, and when a tyrannical male dominant hierarchy was devastated by poisoned meat that they ate, the remaining population established a completely new political and social structure almost overnight.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m working my way through The Dawn of Everything at the moment, and I\u2019ve followed quite a lot of Wengrow\u2019s work for years. I can definitively say that they are *not* advocating that hunter gatherers lack shared political systems- quite the opposite! They are examining the underlying basis for vastly different social, economic, and political systems in prehistoric societies all around the globe- and they pay particular attention to foraging cultures (hunter-gatherers) to show that these societies too have formal structure, including formal political structure. Graeber and Wengrow acknowledge ecological constraints, but caution against ecological *determinism*- which is what we often see when evolutionary biologists fancy writing about prehistoric human societies. The authors most definitely recognize social factors- but they are adding in ideology, and deliberate cultural constructs that underlie those ideologies. They absolutely discuss the different ideological underpinnings of forager, complex forager, and settled agricultural communities all over the globe. They also introduce the idea that humans make conscious decisions about their organization and functioning in response to what they interpret others are doing. One of the best examples from the text is their discussion of Indigenous Californian foraging cultures, who operate and organize themselves in a manner that is fundamentally different from Indigenous complex foragers in the Pacific Northwest at the same time- who captured members of other social groups and enslaved them (but to understand why, you have to delve into Pacific NW Household societies, which they do). By contrast, Indigenous Californians, especially in the northwest coast of California (closest to the Pacific Northwest), had social structures that prioritized a flattening of social hierarchies. They deliberately lived in a way that did not overaggrandize and emphasize wealth differences. The whole concept seems to have been repulsive to them, and their social systems- with rules, politics, leveling mechanisms, and more- developed in accordance with those underlying beliefs, and thus repeat and reinforce them. Part of what Graeber and Wengrow are doing is dispelling the myth that forager societies are necessarily collectivist and always form cooperative social groups. For prehistorians, it\u2019s already well established that they don\u2019t, but the whole world seems to have missed it. Hunter-gatherers are not without social ranking, and some individuals may indeed accumulate more resources than others. Political factions may form, and social systems may change as a result (\u2018factional competition\u2019, which Wengrow\u2019s work helped pave the way towards understanding). There are also poor members of hunter gatherer groups for whom redistribution of resources is beneficial- but it\u2019s not accurate to say that this is always done. Popular misconceptions about foraging cultures vs. farming cultures runs deep! Surely this due to our own deep-seeded constructs about \u2018primitive\u2019 societies in general, as well as centuries of scholarship that positioned European political systems as vastly more complex and necessarily different from Indigenous non-European groups all over the globe (and which is complete and utter racist hogwash, used to justify and uphold the supremacy of European societies and belief systems). All human groups share beliefs about how the world works- and they interpret what they see accordingly (cultural constructs)- and foragers are no exception. Humans teach these ideas to members of their societies through social learning and also through the establishment of social institutions, which persist these beliefs across generations. Foraging cultures certainly had social institutions: ritual, economic, social, etc. Symbolic thought is a key component to such processes, and it\u2019s a major hallmark of our species- but we don\u2019t see the same level of symbolic thought, and meaning attached to symbolism, in nonhuman primates and our hominin ancestors. I mean, you *could* argue this for Neanderthals, from language, some art, etc (but it would be an *argument* to defend, with criticism)- and maaaybe you could argue this for Homo erectus, with their highly plastic faces and caring for sick and vulnerable members (like Neanderthals). But I would not put symbolic thought any earlier than that - and definitely not into Australopithecine and pre-Australopithecine species. What Graeber and Wengrow might be getting at is the degree to which early hominin groups are assumed to be promiscuous and polygamous- from their morphology, in comparison with nonhuman primate societies (and what we see from their morphology). They\u2019re likely adding the caveat that there were hundreds if not thousands of early hominin societies, and it\u2019s not possible to paint all of them with the same broad brush. As for nonhuman primates: earlier posters note that male or female philopatry is key, and this is what you look at in primate groups before examining what kind of competitive aggression they might exhibit. Philopatry, and how females distribute themselves in the landscape, as well as their mating habits, are factors that influence to what degree males compete with one another for access to mates. Competition is related to sexual dimorphism *in general*: whether males are very different from females in terms of body size, canine size, cresting, coat color, calls, and more. But there\u2019s different kinds of dimorphism (body size, canine size, all those I just listed), and you can exhibit a lot of one and only a little of the other. Then there\u2019s sperm competition: promiscuous polygamous groups (like chimps and bonobos) where body size dimorphism is rather slight, but testes can be quite large relative to the rest of the body. I\u2019m super careful discussing *any* of this in my classes without spending a LOT of time on the underlying concepts- I always get at least some who want to twist this to support their own beliefs about human males and females (I\u2019ve had INCELs, and even somebody\u2019s boyfriend- not my student, not at all- confront me at office hours to argue about this stuff). So I highly recommend that you look at primate ethology research here, and use a core text or course to guide you through it. Edit: last sentence was duplicated? Nth edit: a few misspellings; should say, \u2018ethology\u2019 and \u2018promiscuous polygamous\u2019, not polyandrous. Sorry, it\u2019s midterm season and I\u2019m grading a lot","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34886.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vvofo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What does cultural anthropology have to say about cults, aka, new religious movements (NRMs)? I'm in the research process for a book I'm writing about an evangelical cult in which I was raised, and I'd like to take an interdisciplinary approach, including perspectives from sociology, psychology, theology, and anthropology. I've begun with sociological perspectives, and it seems many scholars prefer to talk about such groups as \"new religious movements,\" because the word \"cult\" is seen as pejorative, controversial and too entrenched in bias for academia. But I've also read perspectives from other scholars and theologians who use the word and one who has even defined the term within a theoretical framework: Dr. Janja Lalich, a popular sociologist and cult critic. She argues that those who advocate for the term, NRM, tend to conflate harmful cults with more benign offshoots of mainstream religion, which ultimately protects and aids these groups and their leaders in continuing abusive and exploitative practices under First Amendment rights. What, if anything, do anthropologists have to say on the topic? Is there a preferred term or any fleshed-out theories on such groups in the US and abroad?","c_root_id_A":"ifm0wzq","c_root_id_B":"iflsyl2","created_at_utc_A":1657470183,"created_at_utc_B":1657466752,"score_A":15,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What to call them is frankly still a bit of a debate but NRMs is a good term to get your started. New Religions Studies is the interdisciplinary field that connects a lot of this research. This book is about ten years old but might be a good grounding: Hammer, Olav, and Mikael Rothstein, eds. The Cambridge companion to new religious movements. Cambridge University Press, 2012. This one, too, which also discuss terminology and the debate about what even is a cult Dawson, Lorne. Cults in context: readings in the study of new religious movements. Routledge, 2018. Most anthropological examinations of NRMs focus on a few aspects like gender, politics, class, ethnicity, ritual etc. Many of these intersect but it's damn hard to do a book about everything related to a religious community. So once you know what you're focus areas are for your book you might want to do a little research on ethnographies on those topics. Scholar.google.com is your friend for that.","human_ref_B":"A good place to start is by searching \u201ccults\u201d in the search bar of this sub. Similar questions have been asked before and there\u2019s useful info in this threads. You can also find lots of good information in \u201cintroductory\u201d format by googling the search terms you\u2019re looking for. You\u2019ll be able to find the contemporary debates on accepted terminology, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3431.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"vvofo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What does cultural anthropology have to say about cults, aka, new religious movements (NRMs)? I'm in the research process for a book I'm writing about an evangelical cult in which I was raised, and I'd like to take an interdisciplinary approach, including perspectives from sociology, psychology, theology, and anthropology. I've begun with sociological perspectives, and it seems many scholars prefer to talk about such groups as \"new religious movements,\" because the word \"cult\" is seen as pejorative, controversial and too entrenched in bias for academia. But I've also read perspectives from other scholars and theologians who use the word and one who has even defined the term within a theoretical framework: Dr. Janja Lalich, a popular sociologist and cult critic. She argues that those who advocate for the term, NRM, tend to conflate harmful cults with more benign offshoots of mainstream religion, which ultimately protects and aids these groups and their leaders in continuing abusive and exploitative practices under First Amendment rights. What, if anything, do anthropologists have to say on the topic? Is there a preferred term or any fleshed-out theories on such groups in the US and abroad?","c_root_id_A":"ifm3iqt","c_root_id_B":"iflsyl2","created_at_utc_A":1657471298,"created_at_utc_B":1657466752,"score_A":13,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would love to talk more about this. I am a sociologist but trained in both Soc and Anthro. I have recently begun dipping into this literature but I have not gotten too far. I share exactly the same concern you do about the category of NRM's, and I am learning a lot from Lalich (who I am still reading). I don't have the data to make a strong argument, but my sense right now is that both pop culure depictions and sociological arguments about NRM's are based on the same misunderstanding -- that cults are about what people believe not how they build community\/group ties. In other words, cults are not problematic because they make people believe untruths or non-normative ideas. They are problematic because they are based on coercive control. I like Lalich's use of the word \"totalist\" groups instead of cults because it helps us do three things: 1) distinguish between NRM's and cults; 2) disrupt popular but oversimplified ideas about what \"brainwashing\" is and who is vulnerable to totalist groups; and 3) see that totalism is not just found in religious groups, but can be used to structure self-help, multi-level marketing, political groups, families, and so on. From an anthropological perspective I am not sure this solves all the problems. We still have to grapple with judgements about \"individualist\" vs \"collectivist\" cultures. Something that seems too coercive in an individualistic society may not seem so to a collectivist society. And something that is acceptable to an individualistic society may seem cold-hearted and rejecting in a collectivist society. For example, a totalist group may allow members to die by coercing people not to get health care -- that is clearly a problem (especially for children). But a highly individualistic group like the US may allow members to die because they can not afford health care -- that is clearly also a problem (especially for children). But even the terms individualistic and collectivist are oversimplifications and set up a model of opposite or binary choices where the reality is never so cut and dry. It is the big grey areas that are hard to deal with. If you want to send me a DM as I develop my bibliography I can share it with you. On a more personal note -- congratulations! I am so happy to hear that you have left your abusive group and are taking control by writing your own book. We need more personal stories (especially from kids raised in totalist groups) that use academic concepts to explain and explore the experience, but most important is that you are doing this for yourself. Whatever the outcome, it is so impressive.","human_ref_B":"A good place to start is by searching \u201ccults\u201d in the search bar of this sub. Similar questions have been asked before and there\u2019s useful info in this threads. You can also find lots of good information in \u201cintroductory\u201d format by googling the search terms you\u2019re looking for. You\u2019ll be able to find the contemporary debates on accepted terminology, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4546.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"wysvri","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How do humans develop comfortability with nakedness around others while others are too self aware? I assume of course a lot has to do with body shaming and body dysmorphophobia, but I'm thinking it can't be that simple. Why in some cultures (I know I am thinking stereotypically), like Europe, even though it's still religious and body expectations are still very much common western features, they are more comfortable with seeing naked people around them.","c_root_id_A":"ilz4l9o","c_root_id_B":"ilyz2qg","created_at_utc_A":1661585181,"created_at_utc_B":1661581103,"score_A":129,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Normalisation within a culture is key for societies to be comfortable. In European saunas or on nude beaches you will find a lot of old, fat, fit, young, ugly and pretty people. Even on regular beaches grannies will happily go topless. It doesn't matter that their boobs are saggy because their boobs aren't _just_ sexual, they have fed children and are a part of the body like their elbows. Small children often run around butt naked on the beach or at the pool and families can see eachothers naked bodies without placing it in a sexual context. When you grow up seeing all types of bodies in all shapes and sizes in non-sexual contexts, this becomes your benchmark for normal. If you only ever see _one_ type of naked body in sexual contexts there will be a lot more insecurity if your body deviates from that norm. When naked bodies are only seen in a sexual context it gets heavily connected to seks and the taboos and hangups around it. Because seks is seen as shameful\/dirty and inappropriate for kids, the direct link between the two creates a lot more complex feelings. When you grow up and as a toddler your parents freak out everytime you pull your pants down, that sends a very clear and memorable message about nudity that will stay with you for the rest if your life. If this happens on a grand scale like in a entire culture, this becomes your normal. Edit: I think a good example in the US is the difference with which people respond and feel about men's and women's nipples. A woman's nipples are sexualised and can't ever be seen in public but a man's nipples can be out and proud at almost every occasion. No man is insecure about his nipples (unless they deviate _significantly_ from the average)","human_ref_B":"That self consciousness is at least partially culturally derived. Growing up in a area with less body shyness makes you far less likely to be so self conscious about it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4078.0,"score_ratio":6.7894736842} {"post_id":"1wxkk8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"How was Neanderthal different form Homo Sapiens? Did Neanderthals have different races like Homo Sapiens Sapiens has Caucasion, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoid? Follow up question, when in time do Anthropologist know of Homo Sapiens become a different race? Other words were all Homo Sapiens Negroid and slowly changed as they left Africa? And why did they change? And one more. Do all Homo Sapiens Sapiens share equal amounts of DNA with Neanderthal and that other species found in Russia or maybe it was Eastern Europe (sorry forgot their name)?","c_root_id_A":"cf6hp51","c_root_id_B":"cf6gkfp","created_at_utc_A":1391484614,"created_at_utc_B":1391482180,"score_A":16,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"There is some genetic evidence for two distinct Neanderthal groups, an Eastern and Western. There is also physical evidence for a third Southern group. Imgur http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005151","human_ref_B":"Just to add, my professor in college does her research on Neanderthals. During my Human Evolution class, one of her hypotheses is that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is the closest we have to what a different \"race\" would be like.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2434.0,"score_ratio":1.4545454545} {"post_id":"auumfu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What book would best prepare me before I hopped into a time machine to go back and live as a Neolithic farmer?","c_root_id_A":"ehbc6fn","c_root_id_B":"ehb2p5j","created_at_utc_A":1551182505,"created_at_utc_B":1551166894,"score_A":15,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"*How to Invent Everything*. The premise is that - due to a faulty time travel machine - you are stuck in the distant past with anatomically modern humans. The book will give you everything you need to jump start all aspects of civilization, including cycle farming, metallurgy, medicines, spoken language, written language, knowledge about what foods to consume (and why), among other building blocks.","human_ref_B":"*The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity* amazon link A fantastic book from an industrial furnace professor who had a long-time collaboration with an archaeologist. From first principles of how fire works, he explains the parameters of how different levels of pyrotechnology must have been used to produce pottery, quicklime, charcoal, and ultimately smelting metal. Not quite neolithic farming, but it would give you the basics to take whatever fire technology level currently in use, and likely be able to produce better or new products. If you've seen the Primitive Technology youtube channel, the guy builds his own furnaces for producing a number of incredibly useful pottery items: roofing tiles and pots mainly. This book was apparently one of his major inspirations. I've been looking for books on the details of neolithic farming, so I hope this question is fruitful for us both.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15611.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"uwnr7r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Hi, I am an honours student starting my research for my proposal. I would like to do my research on LARP, and was hoping for any recommendations on theorists\/articles\/papers which relates to this topic. Thank you in advance.","c_root_id_A":"i9xwzco","c_root_id_B":"i9spzu5","created_at_utc_A":1653490389,"created_at_utc_B":1653393928,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I had a terrific master\u2019s student in anthropology at UWM complete a thesis on LARP. Here is the title: \u201cRules of the House: Strategy, Tactic, and Violence in One World By Night, World of Darkness, Live-Action Role-Play Games.\u201d Also, David Simkins wrote his dissertation on LARP at UW-Madison some years ago. Theses and dissertations are good things to search for when it comes to new(er) areas of interest.","human_ref_B":"Did a mini-ethnography project in my UG on LARP in the UK, happy to share materials or have a chat if you want to DM me. I would second RonPopeil2024 though that you are better off trying to find the resources youreself through things like Google Scholer or Anthrosource as you know what you are looking for.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":96461.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"tttgqc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know that our history is correct? We weren't there when ancient Egyptians built their pyramids; nor were we there when Columbus set foot in America. We have texts, artifacts, and other materials from the time period and that's it. How can we understand ancient people's customs, culture and behaviour with that limited \"evidence\"? Can you please explain how anthropologists and historians know the things they do about past societies?","c_root_id_A":"i302hht","c_root_id_B":"i2zxa2x","created_at_utc_A":1648830815,"created_at_utc_B":1648828761,"score_A":112,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Your question is a good one, but it also happens to be one that spans the entire history of the entire field of anthropology. To many motivated anthropologists and historians, the problem of gathering information, clues, about unclear historical contexts, and the influence of our own biases, on top of the biases of the past... is central to everything that an anthropologist does. And it is central perhaps exactly because it is an impossible task. But the scientist does their best anyway. This is why you should be skeptical of scientists who do not admit the flaws of their work. If it were possible to confirm with absolute validity any truth about the world, there would be no need for science at all.","human_ref_B":"You basically hit on it. We have what people wrote down, and we have some physical evidence like tools and trash piles, and we just have to infer what we can from it, and that includes the credibility of the written texts which often isn't great. This is basically why many questions here and on similar subs don't have great answers: they are too specific and there isn't enough evidence to be sure one way or another about a great many things.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2054.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"tttgqc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know that our history is correct? We weren't there when ancient Egyptians built their pyramids; nor were we there when Columbus set foot in America. We have texts, artifacts, and other materials from the time period and that's it. How can we understand ancient people's customs, culture and behaviour with that limited \"evidence\"? Can you please explain how anthropologists and historians know the things they do about past societies?","c_root_id_A":"i2zxa2x","c_root_id_B":"i304azy","created_at_utc_A":1648828761,"created_at_utc_B":1648831523,"score_A":16,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"You basically hit on it. We have what people wrote down, and we have some physical evidence like tools and trash piles, and we just have to infer what we can from it, and that includes the credibility of the written texts which often isn't great. This is basically why many questions here and on similar subs don't have great answers: they are too specific and there isn't enough evidence to be sure one way or another about a great many things.","human_ref_B":"At least in archaeology the answer is most easily explained as an educated guess based on evidence. Even with history there's a large amount of extrapolation. That's not to say it's speculative. It's more that we make claims using what we have (the old axiom, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). There's an archaeological philosopher (maybe theorist would be a better term) named Alison Wylie. She has written about feminist perspectives in the field, but another article she had really gets to the heart of your question. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the paper\/chapter but she uses the term 'tacking' to refer to how we need to bundle data. Think of it like a single line of string vs. twine vs. rope. 1 piece of evidence is flimsy as only one point needs to be refuted. Add a couple more and you have a stronger argument, but adding many and even pre-emptively refuting potential counter arguments makes your argument very strong. Now what this means in more concrete terms. Is that if I find a single piece of expensive pottery with lots of common sherds you need to follow Occam's razor and be wary of making claims of them being wealthy. However if you find lets say a large amount of pig bones or some other farm animal that was raised for slaughter. The soil profile matches the soil profile for the region. There is a deed history to the property with a man we know to be a farmer with agricultural schedules (basically a census) that indicates that the person who owned the land called themselves a pig farmer and the diagnostic artifacts recovered all date to inside their lifetime. You can be reasonably sure that you've found a pig farm that likely belonged to the land owner. Then you use that information to base your 'assumptions' about how to interpret the various artifacts and speak to how the people who were there lived. Sometimes everything can change with 1 piece of information. My internship project for my masters we figured we were on a farm homestead. Once we did all our behind the scenes work to make sure excavation was recommended we started to interpret the ~~articles~~ artifacts in a certain way. We then found through deed records that one of the owners was a school teacher and not a farmer. This meant that we had to rethink everything we were saying about the site. All the sudden cheap ceramics changed from poor farmers to, schools wouldn't have expensive ceramics there. Buttons found went from being evidence of domestic labor like a seamstress to potentially belonging to school children. So I guess a more TL\/DR version of this is you make evidence based claims using the strongest evidence you have and keep making points. Things can change as its an interpretation but the best evidence should be dictating your claims.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2762.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"tttgqc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know that our history is correct? We weren't there when ancient Egyptians built their pyramids; nor were we there when Columbus set foot in America. We have texts, artifacts, and other materials from the time period and that's it. How can we understand ancient people's customs, culture and behaviour with that limited \"evidence\"? Can you please explain how anthropologists and historians know the things they do about past societies?","c_root_id_A":"i32tm5m","c_root_id_B":"i318aqk","created_at_utc_A":1648878232,"created_at_utc_B":1648847888,"score_A":10,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"In tenth grade I took a world history class. I remember my favorite part was in the chapter about the crusades, and specifically a paragraph about the Children's Crusade, when a charismatic child named Stephan de Cloyes led an ever growing mob of children to the Mediterranean, promising it would part for them to travel to the holy land. It didn't, so they were tricked by William the Pig and Hugh the Iron to get on boats and eventually get sold into slavery. Even today I can remember those names and dates, because I thought it was fascinating. I wrote historical fiction about it for English class. It never happened. A few years after graduation I looked it up, because it was fascinating, and found out it was an urban legend that made its way into the history books for a long time.","human_ref_B":"You might enjoy reading some of these posts from r\/askhistorians. They discuss various aspects of \"historiography\" which is the study of how to study history.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30344.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"tttgqc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know that our history is correct? We weren't there when ancient Egyptians built their pyramids; nor were we there when Columbus set foot in America. We have texts, artifacts, and other materials from the time period and that's it. How can we understand ancient people's customs, culture and behaviour with that limited \"evidence\"? Can you please explain how anthropologists and historians know the things they do about past societies?","c_root_id_A":"i32tm5m","c_root_id_B":"i31nhfa","created_at_utc_A":1648878232,"created_at_utc_B":1648854925,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In tenth grade I took a world history class. I remember my favorite part was in the chapter about the crusades, and specifically a paragraph about the Children's Crusade, when a charismatic child named Stephan de Cloyes led an ever growing mob of children to the Mediterranean, promising it would part for them to travel to the holy land. It didn't, so they were tricked by William the Pig and Hugh the Iron to get on boats and eventually get sold into slavery. Even today I can remember those names and dates, because I thought it was fascinating. I wrote historical fiction about it for English class. It never happened. A few years after graduation I looked it up, because it was fascinating, and found out it was an urban legend that made its way into the history books for a long time.","human_ref_B":"With this my follow-up: How well can we trust writings from the ruling classes on cultural beliefs and behaviour? Collectivism permits leaders to still be individuals. It however punishes anyone weak rather severely if they act in a way not approved by family, church or state. I frequently see people claim everyone within a culture is collectivist, despite it bringing misery to those who are lgbt, neurodiverse or otherwise born different.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23307.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"xr8oze","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Have humans actually behaved in roughly the same way all throughout history? This is a question about a sort of pop-history statement that I see a lot. It goes something like \u201cthe way people behave has stayed largely the same throughout time\u201d. At its best I think this phrase is saying something about how people in the past weren\u2019t insane and had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. Mostly though I see it being used to say that us today and an ancient soldier skinning a captive have basically the same things making us tick, and only a thin veneer separates us. But I had a thought the other day\u2026you know how people who really want to say another pop-history phrase, \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d, will generally shop around for historical examples that conform to their their ideas about repetition and ignore events that contradict their ideas about repetition? Isn\u2019t saying \u201chumans generally behave the same throughout history\u201d also that sort of statement? To say it, don\u2019t you have to look for ways in which we are similar to humans in the past and hold those up as evidence, whilst ignoring the ways in which we\u2019re different from people in the past?","c_root_id_A":"iqefu0p","c_root_id_B":"iqdzebf","created_at_utc_A":1664477147,"created_at_utc_B":1664470710,"score_A":34,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I think the truth within that statement is that history affects behavior about as much as distance or contemporary cultural context. People in the past were different in many ways, but in some basic ways they were the same. We can find the same behaviors in the past and present (for instance, organized religion) but also significant differences: the Aztec practice of mass human sacrifice is often put forth as a rare example of that kind of ritual in history, even while the theological root of sun worship was not at all unique. And we can find all kinds of differences between contemporary religious practices as well. You also might be getting at the principle that there are basic underlying tendencies in all humans that are expressed in different ways by different cultures or groups, and that these have changed little in recorded history. As far as I'm aware, this is the basic assumption of structuralism a la Claude Levi-Strauss, and while it is intriguing and perhaps plausible, it is not something that can be readily proved or disproved with current anthropological methods and so the field seems to have moved on from structuralism.","human_ref_B":"People don't behave the same way across existing cultures today! There are common biological elements -- aversion to pain, need for social interaction, drive for food\/sex -- but so much of behavior is influenced by culture, and culture is radically diverse and constantly evolving.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6437.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"xr8oze","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Have humans actually behaved in roughly the same way all throughout history? This is a question about a sort of pop-history statement that I see a lot. It goes something like \u201cthe way people behave has stayed largely the same throughout time\u201d. At its best I think this phrase is saying something about how people in the past weren\u2019t insane and had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. Mostly though I see it being used to say that us today and an ancient soldier skinning a captive have basically the same things making us tick, and only a thin veneer separates us. But I had a thought the other day\u2026you know how people who really want to say another pop-history phrase, \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d, will generally shop around for historical examples that conform to their their ideas about repetition and ignore events that contradict their ideas about repetition? Isn\u2019t saying \u201chumans generally behave the same throughout history\u201d also that sort of statement? To say it, don\u2019t you have to look for ways in which we are similar to humans in the past and hold those up as evidence, whilst ignoring the ways in which we\u2019re different from people in the past?","c_root_id_A":"iqfhcvt","c_root_id_B":"iqg3nk8","created_at_utc_A":1664492729,"created_at_utc_B":1664502924,"score_A":10,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"This is an incredibly powerful and simple question. In previous years, I would have said that culture and technology is highly influencing. However, as I've learnt more about the human condition by means of learning about education, parenthood and the body, including diet; The more I start to notice some constants which apply throughout history. That is, you get some of the same kind of comments about school from the Greek Philosopher's and Egyptians. Likewise, the Egyptians had issues with cardiovascular disease from bread. The list goes on. Likewise, isolated tribes and travel to different countries also turns up a lot of commonalities too. I noticed that in terms of learning and memory, people everywhere have always been primed to remember things at both ends of life and memory just works off of that. So the epics have lot of death and sex, just the same as modern games and movies do. Think of the myths and legends being reinterpreted in Percy Jackson. Also think about Christian reworking of various pre stories: might they have an awareness of these constants that pass through ages, technology and culture? To test these things, how does the same story travel memetically through an English speaking culture and then a Chinese speaking culture, for example? I'm reminded of that crusade for universal grammar. All of my comments are just armchair amateur observations though. I'd like to see anthropology tackle this question in much better detail. One reason why I suspect it might be lagging is because Darwinism is still the dominent culture in WASP society that dominates science, and dual evolution theory isn't ubiquitously in anthropological study methods (yet?) I'd like to know if this assumption has much basis.","human_ref_B":"Coming in from the mental health field, hope that's okay, I often say something similar. I specifically mean our brains are largely wired the same and our motivations are largely the same. We may not have the same fears, but we still have fear and how we experience that hasn't changed, even if they why has. There is a reason ancient quotes and stories can still resonate with us today. I think those patterns, which bind us together as humans, bind us to those who came before us too. Despite the easily found differences, hand someone a baby and chances are they will start talking differently. What could be more fundamental than that?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10195.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"xr8oze","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Have humans actually behaved in roughly the same way all throughout history? This is a question about a sort of pop-history statement that I see a lot. It goes something like \u201cthe way people behave has stayed largely the same throughout time\u201d. At its best I think this phrase is saying something about how people in the past weren\u2019t insane and had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. Mostly though I see it being used to say that us today and an ancient soldier skinning a captive have basically the same things making us tick, and only a thin veneer separates us. But I had a thought the other day\u2026you know how people who really want to say another pop-history phrase, \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d, will generally shop around for historical examples that conform to their their ideas about repetition and ignore events that contradict their ideas about repetition? Isn\u2019t saying \u201chumans generally behave the same throughout history\u201d also that sort of statement? To say it, don\u2019t you have to look for ways in which we are similar to humans in the past and hold those up as evidence, whilst ignoring the ways in which we\u2019re different from people in the past?","c_root_id_A":"iqeuiya","c_root_id_B":"iqg3nk8","created_at_utc_A":1664482964,"created_at_utc_B":1664502924,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"No. Technology alone fundamentally changes how humans behave. Human behavior is emergent. This means that it changes in response to all sorts of stimuli (e.g., ecological, cultural, technological).","human_ref_B":"Coming in from the mental health field, hope that's okay, I often say something similar. I specifically mean our brains are largely wired the same and our motivations are largely the same. We may not have the same fears, but we still have fear and how we experience that hasn't changed, even if they why has. There is a reason ancient quotes and stories can still resonate with us today. I think those patterns, which bind us together as humans, bind us to those who came before us too. Despite the easily found differences, hand someone a baby and chances are they will start talking differently. What could be more fundamental than that?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19960.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"xr8oze","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Have humans actually behaved in roughly the same way all throughout history? This is a question about a sort of pop-history statement that I see a lot. It goes something like \u201cthe way people behave has stayed largely the same throughout time\u201d. At its best I think this phrase is saying something about how people in the past weren\u2019t insane and had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. Mostly though I see it being used to say that us today and an ancient soldier skinning a captive have basically the same things making us tick, and only a thin veneer separates us. But I had a thought the other day\u2026you know how people who really want to say another pop-history phrase, \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d, will generally shop around for historical examples that conform to their their ideas about repetition and ignore events that contradict their ideas about repetition? Isn\u2019t saying \u201chumans generally behave the same throughout history\u201d also that sort of statement? To say it, don\u2019t you have to look for ways in which we are similar to humans in the past and hold those up as evidence, whilst ignoring the ways in which we\u2019re different from people in the past?","c_root_id_A":"iqfhcvt","c_root_id_B":"iqeuiya","created_at_utc_A":1664492729,"created_at_utc_B":1664482964,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This is an incredibly powerful and simple question. In previous years, I would have said that culture and technology is highly influencing. However, as I've learnt more about the human condition by means of learning about education, parenthood and the body, including diet; The more I start to notice some constants which apply throughout history. That is, you get some of the same kind of comments about school from the Greek Philosopher's and Egyptians. Likewise, the Egyptians had issues with cardiovascular disease from bread. The list goes on. Likewise, isolated tribes and travel to different countries also turns up a lot of commonalities too. I noticed that in terms of learning and memory, people everywhere have always been primed to remember things at both ends of life and memory just works off of that. So the epics have lot of death and sex, just the same as modern games and movies do. Think of the myths and legends being reinterpreted in Percy Jackson. Also think about Christian reworking of various pre stories: might they have an awareness of these constants that pass through ages, technology and culture? To test these things, how does the same story travel memetically through an English speaking culture and then a Chinese speaking culture, for example? I'm reminded of that crusade for universal grammar. All of my comments are just armchair amateur observations though. I'd like to see anthropology tackle this question in much better detail. One reason why I suspect it might be lagging is because Darwinism is still the dominent culture in WASP society that dominates science, and dual evolution theory isn't ubiquitously in anthropological study methods (yet?) I'd like to know if this assumption has much basis.","human_ref_B":"No. Technology alone fundamentally changes how humans behave. Human behavior is emergent. This means that it changes in response to all sorts of stimuli (e.g., ecological, cultural, technological).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9765.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0b6mk","c_root_id_B":"ca06o4t","created_at_utc_A":1368754219,"created_at_utc_B":1368740675,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Obviously at some point men and women must come together to make babies or else no one is around for the next generation. But there are societies where men and women live mostly separate lives. The Sambia are a classic example of this. Though I should point out that the Sambia is actually a fake name given by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt because they engaged in such unusual ritual acts of homosexual behavior that he wanted to offer some protection. But they lived in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and sure enough as soon as his book was published the missionaries flooded the area and for the most part these practices have died out. But basically the community was embedded in a lot of warfare so that manhood and the warrior attitude was incredibly important not just for social status but the survival of the tribe given how war was conceived of and acted out. Women were viewed as contaminating and so was sex with them. Being around women could threaten to suck out their manhood and ability to fight. So what was the solution? Two things. First, men lived apart from women. They did marry but even then they did not live with their families. When they had sex they immediately went through a series of purges that were sometimes quite painful in order to counteract women's contamination. Second, as soon as young boys reached a certain age they were removed from their mothers and began going through a set of ritualized same sex interactions that from the outside seem really, really bizarre. (I don't know if this fit into your unusual arrangements or what you were looking for.) Anyway, the idea is that men have to be made. They are not born with the manliness that they will need for warfare. This manliness is visible in the form of a sticky white substance i.e. sperm. Men, in their worldview, do not produce this naturally. Just as mothers must breastfeed in order to give babies strength to survive so must boys suckle on adult men in order to gain their source of manly sperm. They purged their contamination from being with their mothers by piercing their noses and bleeding. Then they had to ingest sperm from older youth. Once they graduated the first stage they went to the next where they were the ones pleasured. The final stage was full male adulthood where they were reborn into society as men. At this point they were forbidden to engage in sexual activities with other men. *Edit to add that they did not view these initial acts as sexual. They were practical* As you might imagine, psychologists and anthropologists had all kinds of things to say about such an arrangement. Often the young boys ran away even though they knew it was the norm. Regardless of sexuality men forced to engage in sexual acts with both genders but at separate times of their lives. Men were terrified of women's ability to destroy their manhood. Women were bottom of the social barrel. Warfare perpetuated it all. Isolation did too. But it was an extreme situation. For a more normal situation, here is an article about men and women in Egypt. As for polygyny (one man multiple women) that is really fairly normal around the world in a variety of ways. In some places like Haiti it is informal - in the rural areas some high status men still have multiple wives (or a wife and a mistress or two that are treated like wives) that live on their homestead. This is a pretty typical format seen in many areas of Africa today, which makes sense. In the Middle East and some parts of Asia you also see polygyny as a normal situation. Sometimes that means living together in the same household and sometimes, like in many Muslim societies, the man is required to put the woman up in her own household with equal treatment. Here is a map of polgyny worldwide. If there is a specific community's form of polygyny you're interested in I'm sure someone here can give you references. Polyandry is more rare but not as rare as we used to think. See: When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense You might also be interested in third genders since the gender binary (male\/female as the only options in society) is not a cross-cultural thing. Check out this map of third genders around the world. For example, Toms and Dees in Thailand are quite interesting. See: Sinnott, Megan. Toms and dees: Transgender identity and female same-sex relationships in Thailand. University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Anyway I could babble about this for a long time. If you have specific questions let us know.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but this might be an interesting article about the Musuo tribe for you to read on the subject of male and female roles regarding marriage (or lack of it). More information about this society on wikipedia.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13544.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0b6mk","c_root_id_B":"ca0ayc8","created_at_utc_A":1368754219,"created_at_utc_B":1368753539,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Obviously at some point men and women must come together to make babies or else no one is around for the next generation. But there are societies where men and women live mostly separate lives. The Sambia are a classic example of this. Though I should point out that the Sambia is actually a fake name given by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt because they engaged in such unusual ritual acts of homosexual behavior that he wanted to offer some protection. But they lived in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and sure enough as soon as his book was published the missionaries flooded the area and for the most part these practices have died out. But basically the community was embedded in a lot of warfare so that manhood and the warrior attitude was incredibly important not just for social status but the survival of the tribe given how war was conceived of and acted out. Women were viewed as contaminating and so was sex with them. Being around women could threaten to suck out their manhood and ability to fight. So what was the solution? Two things. First, men lived apart from women. They did marry but even then they did not live with their families. When they had sex they immediately went through a series of purges that were sometimes quite painful in order to counteract women's contamination. Second, as soon as young boys reached a certain age they were removed from their mothers and began going through a set of ritualized same sex interactions that from the outside seem really, really bizarre. (I don't know if this fit into your unusual arrangements or what you were looking for.) Anyway, the idea is that men have to be made. They are not born with the manliness that they will need for warfare. This manliness is visible in the form of a sticky white substance i.e. sperm. Men, in their worldview, do not produce this naturally. Just as mothers must breastfeed in order to give babies strength to survive so must boys suckle on adult men in order to gain their source of manly sperm. They purged their contamination from being with their mothers by piercing their noses and bleeding. Then they had to ingest sperm from older youth. Once they graduated the first stage they went to the next where they were the ones pleasured. The final stage was full male adulthood where they were reborn into society as men. At this point they were forbidden to engage in sexual activities with other men. *Edit to add that they did not view these initial acts as sexual. They were practical* As you might imagine, psychologists and anthropologists had all kinds of things to say about such an arrangement. Often the young boys ran away even though they knew it was the norm. Regardless of sexuality men forced to engage in sexual acts with both genders but at separate times of their lives. Men were terrified of women's ability to destroy their manhood. Women were bottom of the social barrel. Warfare perpetuated it all. Isolation did too. But it was an extreme situation. For a more normal situation, here is an article about men and women in Egypt. As for polygyny (one man multiple women) that is really fairly normal around the world in a variety of ways. In some places like Haiti it is informal - in the rural areas some high status men still have multiple wives (or a wife and a mistress or two that are treated like wives) that live on their homestead. This is a pretty typical format seen in many areas of Africa today, which makes sense. In the Middle East and some parts of Asia you also see polygyny as a normal situation. Sometimes that means living together in the same household and sometimes, like in many Muslim societies, the man is required to put the woman up in her own household with equal treatment. Here is a map of polgyny worldwide. If there is a specific community's form of polygyny you're interested in I'm sure someone here can give you references. Polyandry is more rare but not as rare as we used to think. See: When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense You might also be interested in third genders since the gender binary (male\/female as the only options in society) is not a cross-cultural thing. Check out this map of third genders around the world. For example, Toms and Dees in Thailand are quite interesting. See: Sinnott, Megan. Toms and dees: Transgender identity and female same-sex relationships in Thailand. University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Anyway I could babble about this for a long time. If you have specific questions let us know.","human_ref_B":"In Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States he cites the scenario that Columbus made for the natives of Haiti. Bartolome de las Casas is a priest that joined Columbus for his journey and recorded that Columbus had enslaved the natives and separated them by sex. The men would mine a large chunk of the year and the women would harvest tobacco (IIRC) for the same chunk. At only one time during the year the two sexes would meet. This was for the purpose of breeding only. These terrible conditions created a genocide of the local Haitians under his control. As they would refuse to reproduce or be too worn down to even copulate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":680.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0b45v","c_root_id_B":"ca0b6mk","created_at_utc_A":1368754028,"created_at_utc_B":1368754219,"score_A":2,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The only group I can think of that fits this criteria are the Mosuo, which are an ethnic group that lives in China, near Tibet. They have a tradition called \"walking marriages\", where the male partner visits the woman during the night, and other than that, they have little interaction with each other. Women live in their mother's house, and if a woman has a child in a walking marriage, the child stays with her in his\/her's mother's and grandmothers house. The partners in a walking marriage never live together. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. I'm interested to see what other people have to say on this topic. Edit: didn't see the other response that mentioned the Mosuo, sorry about that!","human_ref_B":"Obviously at some point men and women must come together to make babies or else no one is around for the next generation. But there are societies where men and women live mostly separate lives. The Sambia are a classic example of this. Though I should point out that the Sambia is actually a fake name given by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt because they engaged in such unusual ritual acts of homosexual behavior that he wanted to offer some protection. But they lived in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and sure enough as soon as his book was published the missionaries flooded the area and for the most part these practices have died out. But basically the community was embedded in a lot of warfare so that manhood and the warrior attitude was incredibly important not just for social status but the survival of the tribe given how war was conceived of and acted out. Women were viewed as contaminating and so was sex with them. Being around women could threaten to suck out their manhood and ability to fight. So what was the solution? Two things. First, men lived apart from women. They did marry but even then they did not live with their families. When they had sex they immediately went through a series of purges that were sometimes quite painful in order to counteract women's contamination. Second, as soon as young boys reached a certain age they were removed from their mothers and began going through a set of ritualized same sex interactions that from the outside seem really, really bizarre. (I don't know if this fit into your unusual arrangements or what you were looking for.) Anyway, the idea is that men have to be made. They are not born with the manliness that they will need for warfare. This manliness is visible in the form of a sticky white substance i.e. sperm. Men, in their worldview, do not produce this naturally. Just as mothers must breastfeed in order to give babies strength to survive so must boys suckle on adult men in order to gain their source of manly sperm. They purged their contamination from being with their mothers by piercing their noses and bleeding. Then they had to ingest sperm from older youth. Once they graduated the first stage they went to the next where they were the ones pleasured. The final stage was full male adulthood where they were reborn into society as men. At this point they were forbidden to engage in sexual activities with other men. *Edit to add that they did not view these initial acts as sexual. They were practical* As you might imagine, psychologists and anthropologists had all kinds of things to say about such an arrangement. Often the young boys ran away even though they knew it was the norm. Regardless of sexuality men forced to engage in sexual acts with both genders but at separate times of their lives. Men were terrified of women's ability to destroy their manhood. Women were bottom of the social barrel. Warfare perpetuated it all. Isolation did too. But it was an extreme situation. For a more normal situation, here is an article about men and women in Egypt. As for polygyny (one man multiple women) that is really fairly normal around the world in a variety of ways. In some places like Haiti it is informal - in the rural areas some high status men still have multiple wives (or a wife and a mistress or two that are treated like wives) that live on their homestead. This is a pretty typical format seen in many areas of Africa today, which makes sense. In the Middle East and some parts of Asia you also see polygyny as a normal situation. Sometimes that means living together in the same household and sometimes, like in many Muslim societies, the man is required to put the woman up in her own household with equal treatment. Here is a map of polgyny worldwide. If there is a specific community's form of polygyny you're interested in I'm sure someone here can give you references. Polyandry is more rare but not as rare as we used to think. See: When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense You might also be interested in third genders since the gender binary (male\/female as the only options in society) is not a cross-cultural thing. Check out this map of third genders around the world. For example, Toms and Dees in Thailand are quite interesting. See: Sinnott, Megan. Toms and dees: Transgender identity and female same-sex relationships in Thailand. University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Anyway I could babble about this for a long time. If you have specific questions let us know.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":191.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca06o4t","c_root_id_B":"ca0bayv","created_at_utc_A":1368740675,"created_at_utc_B":1368754584,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but this might be an interesting article about the Musuo tribe for you to read on the subject of male and female roles regarding marriage (or lack of it). More information about this society on wikipedia.","human_ref_B":"The Shakers, a primarily American religious movement that reached its hey-day in the 19th century, lived gender-segregated lives (men and women lived completely apparent in dorms organized as \"families\", and for the most part worked apart; worship was conducted together but men and women were still divided). They believed in complete gender equality (well, nominally; they had proscribed male and female work tasks, as well as a few shared work tasks, but they also had a split male and female hierarchy so every community had four leaders: two male, two female). This extreme separate can did not believe in sexuality to the point of complete and total celibacy. As they had a natural growth rate of zero, once they started to have a hard time attracting new converts in the late 19th century,they dwindled to points where, though there were 6,000 Shakers and about 20 Shaker communities at the movement's height, there are only three today: Sister June Carpenter, Brother Arnold Hadd, and Sister Frances Carr, all at the Sabbathday Lake community in Maine--they're still open to converts, as well as visitors, if anyone's interested (there are also a number of former Shaker communities that have been turned in to museums; the one my parents took me to as a child made quite an impression on me). It's sad because the last time I looked up this statistic, there were four of them. Americans might know them best because of the Shaker's famous high quality woodworking (Shaker furniture), geographical names (like \"Shakerheights, Ohio\"), and the hymn \"Simple Gifts\" (\"It's a gift to be simple\/it's a gift to be free...\"), as well as that brief part in American history textbooks about \"the Second Great Awakening\" (they are also sometimes mentioned in the contexts of the First Great Awakening as well) where they are probably mentioned along with the Quakers, the Baptists, the Mormons, as well as other utopian groups like the Oneida Community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13909.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0bayv","c_root_id_B":"ca0ayc8","created_at_utc_A":1368754584,"created_at_utc_B":1368753539,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The Shakers, a primarily American religious movement that reached its hey-day in the 19th century, lived gender-segregated lives (men and women lived completely apparent in dorms organized as \"families\", and for the most part worked apart; worship was conducted together but men and women were still divided). They believed in complete gender equality (well, nominally; they had proscribed male and female work tasks, as well as a few shared work tasks, but they also had a split male and female hierarchy so every community had four leaders: two male, two female). This extreme separate can did not believe in sexuality to the point of complete and total celibacy. As they had a natural growth rate of zero, once they started to have a hard time attracting new converts in the late 19th century,they dwindled to points where, though there were 6,000 Shakers and about 20 Shaker communities at the movement's height, there are only three today: Sister June Carpenter, Brother Arnold Hadd, and Sister Frances Carr, all at the Sabbathday Lake community in Maine--they're still open to converts, as well as visitors, if anyone's interested (there are also a number of former Shaker communities that have been turned in to museums; the one my parents took me to as a child made quite an impression on me). It's sad because the last time I looked up this statistic, there were four of them. Americans might know them best because of the Shaker's famous high quality woodworking (Shaker furniture), geographical names (like \"Shakerheights, Ohio\"), and the hymn \"Simple Gifts\" (\"It's a gift to be simple\/it's a gift to be free...\"), as well as that brief part in American history textbooks about \"the Second Great Awakening\" (they are also sometimes mentioned in the contexts of the First Great Awakening as well) where they are probably mentioned along with the Quakers, the Baptists, the Mormons, as well as other utopian groups like the Oneida Community.","human_ref_B":"In Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States he cites the scenario that Columbus made for the natives of Haiti. Bartolome de las Casas is a priest that joined Columbus for his journey and recorded that Columbus had enslaved the natives and separated them by sex. The men would mine a large chunk of the year and the women would harvest tobacco (IIRC) for the same chunk. At only one time during the year the two sexes would meet. This was for the purpose of breeding only. These terrible conditions created a genocide of the local Haitians under his control. As they would refuse to reproduce or be too worn down to even copulate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1045.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0b45v","c_root_id_B":"ca0bayv","created_at_utc_A":1368754028,"created_at_utc_B":1368754584,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The only group I can think of that fits this criteria are the Mosuo, which are an ethnic group that lives in China, near Tibet. They have a tradition called \"walking marriages\", where the male partner visits the woman during the night, and other than that, they have little interaction with each other. Women live in their mother's house, and if a woman has a child in a walking marriage, the child stays with her in his\/her's mother's and grandmothers house. The partners in a walking marriage never live together. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. I'm interested to see what other people have to say on this topic. Edit: didn't see the other response that mentioned the Mosuo, sorry about that!","human_ref_B":"The Shakers, a primarily American religious movement that reached its hey-day in the 19th century, lived gender-segregated lives (men and women lived completely apparent in dorms organized as \"families\", and for the most part worked apart; worship was conducted together but men and women were still divided). They believed in complete gender equality (well, nominally; they had proscribed male and female work tasks, as well as a few shared work tasks, but they also had a split male and female hierarchy so every community had four leaders: two male, two female). This extreme separate can did not believe in sexuality to the point of complete and total celibacy. As they had a natural growth rate of zero, once they started to have a hard time attracting new converts in the late 19th century,they dwindled to points where, though there were 6,000 Shakers and about 20 Shaker communities at the movement's height, there are only three today: Sister June Carpenter, Brother Arnold Hadd, and Sister Frances Carr, all at the Sabbathday Lake community in Maine--they're still open to converts, as well as visitors, if anyone's interested (there are also a number of former Shaker communities that have been turned in to museums; the one my parents took me to as a child made quite an impression on me). It's sad because the last time I looked up this statistic, there were four of them. Americans might know them best because of the Shaker's famous high quality woodworking (Shaker furniture), geographical names (like \"Shakerheights, Ohio\"), and the hymn \"Simple Gifts\" (\"It's a gift to be simple\/it's a gift to be free...\"), as well as that brief part in American history textbooks about \"the Second Great Awakening\" (they are also sometimes mentioned in the contexts of the First Great Awakening as well) where they are probably mentioned along with the Quakers, the Baptists, the Mormons, as well as other utopian groups like the Oneida Community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":556.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0qjp0","c_root_id_B":"ca0ayc8","created_at_utc_A":1368815380,"created_at_utc_B":1368753539,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/firedrops provided a masterful answer here, but I wanted to add on about a different conception of \"men and women living together\" -- there are many cultures where men and women only live together at certain times. This often has to do with a taboo on menstruation and\/or childbirth\/the period after childbirth when women bleed. For example, in the Abrahamic tradition, menstruating women are often seen as unclean, unable to partake of religious rituals. In some forms of Judaism, there is a ritual exclusion called the *niddah*, where women are 'unclean' until they take a ritual bath following menstruation. Sexual intercourse is often forbidden during this period or, if it occurs, then all parties involved must undergo ritual cleansing. An example from outside of the Abrahamic tradition comes from Nepal, where some Hindus were in the news a few years ago because their practice of forcing menstruating women out of the home has been outlawed. Another comes from the Ho-Chunk people of the Pacific Northwest whose menstruating women lived in huts away from their families and the men of the society. There are also cultures within cultures where men and women did not live together -- think of Christian monasticism in the medieval period, when groups of men and women were segregated for long portions of their lives in religious communities.","human_ref_B":"In Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States he cites the scenario that Columbus made for the natives of Haiti. Bartolome de las Casas is a priest that joined Columbus for his journey and recorded that Columbus had enslaved the natives and separated them by sex. The men would mine a large chunk of the year and the women would harvest tobacco (IIRC) for the same chunk. At only one time during the year the two sexes would meet. This was for the purpose of breeding only. These terrible conditions created a genocide of the local Haitians under his control. As they would refuse to reproduce or be too worn down to even copulate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":61841.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1eh43x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there \/ have there been cultures in which men and women live separated? In most societies I know of, men and women get married and live together ... but what are examples of cultures where they have much less contact, and live nearly in \"separate worlds\"? I know that the Maasai, for example, seem to be a bit more separated that we are used to (young men go and live away from the women, and then later on as elders come back to live with them). (I'm also interested in other example of weird arrangements beyond the \"usual\" monogamous nuclear family \/ all-the-family-lives together \/ polygamy ... I know of the Tibetan\/Nepalese sorta-polyandry, but can't think of too many other unusual arrangements) There may be more examples in the past, maybe I should be asking AskHistorians?","c_root_id_A":"ca0qjp0","c_root_id_B":"ca0b45v","created_at_utc_A":1368815380,"created_at_utc_B":1368754028,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/firedrops provided a masterful answer here, but I wanted to add on about a different conception of \"men and women living together\" -- there are many cultures where men and women only live together at certain times. This often has to do with a taboo on menstruation and\/or childbirth\/the period after childbirth when women bleed. For example, in the Abrahamic tradition, menstruating women are often seen as unclean, unable to partake of religious rituals. In some forms of Judaism, there is a ritual exclusion called the *niddah*, where women are 'unclean' until they take a ritual bath following menstruation. Sexual intercourse is often forbidden during this period or, if it occurs, then all parties involved must undergo ritual cleansing. An example from outside of the Abrahamic tradition comes from Nepal, where some Hindus were in the news a few years ago because their practice of forcing menstruating women out of the home has been outlawed. Another comes from the Ho-Chunk people of the Pacific Northwest whose menstruating women lived in huts away from their families and the men of the society. There are also cultures within cultures where men and women did not live together -- think of Christian monasticism in the medieval period, when groups of men and women were segregated for long portions of their lives in religious communities.","human_ref_B":"The only group I can think of that fits this criteria are the Mosuo, which are an ethnic group that lives in China, near Tibet. They have a tradition called \"walking marriages\", where the male partner visits the woman during the night, and other than that, they have little interaction with each other. Women live in their mother's house, and if a woman has a child in a walking marriage, the child stays with her in his\/her's mother's and grandmothers house. The partners in a walking marriage never live together. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. I'm interested to see what other people have to say on this topic. Edit: didn't see the other response that mentioned the Mosuo, sorry about that!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":61352.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8h6zdf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are \u201cspirit animals\u201d exclusively a Native American concept? Or do other cultures have animal totems as well? For example; in the book \u201cclan of the cave bear\u201d the Neanderthals have what I would consider totems \/ spirit animals. Is there any actual evidence of spirit animals in prehistoric people or other cultures? Or are native Americans the only known source of spirit animals?","c_root_id_A":"dyhk2sy","c_root_id_B":"dyhn97v","created_at_utc_A":1525524228,"created_at_utc_B":1525529045,"score_A":9,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"There are \"fylgjur\" in norse mythology","human_ref_B":"Totemism is pretty widespread. Durkheim and Mauss, over a hundred years ago, proposed that it is the most \"simple\" of religious organizations and thus is linked to the clan, which would be the most simple of social organizations. While the whole \"spectrum of complexity\" thing for societies description has died out in Anthropology, totemism is indeed present in many clan-based societies, where totems can be seen as adquiring a national-flag-like quality for the clans they belong to. Look up the australian native groups and their beliefs, for example. It is quite interesting. Durkheim and Mauss' Primitive Classification is also a very thought provoking work that I would recommend (you can read it free on the internet). I read it in my first year of university and it really got me thinking of how social systems of classification, religion and social structure can all show a certain degree of isomorphism and interdependence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4817.0,"score_ratio":2.8888888889} {"post_id":"4ovqhb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Are there any records of ancient civilizations discovering dinosaur bones or other fossils? I've been looking for information on this for a while. Would discovered fossils be used to support the mythology or religion of a certain group? Would they be used for decoration, or tools? Any insight would be valuable!","c_root_id_A":"d4g4w2t","c_root_id_B":"d4g92zs","created_at_utc_A":1466390399,"created_at_utc_B":1466396514,"score_A":7,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"You may be interested in these threads on \/r\/AskHistorians","human_ref_B":"I can't say anything about fossils, but you might find this interesting. People in the Middle Ages often came across stone tools that were thousands of years old. These were most commonly surface finds or finds from farmers plowing their fields. In many cases, these were just tossed aside as funny-looking rocks, natural formations and not made by humans. Some people took them to be of mythological significance though, which varied by region. For example, in Scandinavia they were often called \"thunderstones\" and considered to be made by or a sign of a local or household deity. In England, they were often called \"fairystones\" or \"elfstones,\" literally made by elfs and fairies. Wikipedia has an entry: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thunderstone_(folklore) Bruce Trigger also has a chapter on this in his History of Archaeological Thought, which covers finds of artifacts prior to the advent of archaeology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6115.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"macon9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is the Out of Africa Theory not valid anymore? Especially since the discovery of an older fossil in Greece.","c_root_id_A":"grsyf4e","c_root_id_B":"grt0cm6","created_at_utc_A":1616416297,"created_at_utc_B":1616417491,"score_A":14,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Though you've since said you were referring to a fossil that probably isn't an ancestor, it should also be noted that we've left Africa multiple times. Both multiple hominin species, and multiple homo sapiens groups have left Africa at various times. That said current thinking is still that all humans alive today are descended from one group, that left Africa around i think 70-100KYA. I think we have evidence for at least 2 other sapiens groups migrating out, but they did not survive long term.","human_ref_B":"Evidence that there may have existed anatomically modern humans outside Africa well before the most recent Out of Africa event does not change the fact that these earlier humans did not leave their trace in the genes of any modern populations (they went extinct, or they back-migrated to Africa, or both). Y-chromosomal DNA evidence tells us that all currently existing non-African populations are descendants of people that left Africa about 50,300-59,400 years ago. More details can be found in Skoglund and Mathieson 2018.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1194.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iyrz01h","c_root_id_B":"iyrgbrk","created_at_utc_A":1670092000,"created_at_utc_B":1670084382,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I had a professor who co-wrote Righteous Dopefiend (Philippe Bourgois, Jeff Schonberg) which is an ethnography on heroin addiction amongst homeless and vulnerable populations in the bay area. Really compassionate and raw look into the experiences of the people they followed.","human_ref_B":"I loved My Cocaine Museum by Michael Taussig, Progressive Dystopia by Savannah Shange, Buddha in Hiding by Aihwa Ong, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet edited by Anna Tsing, all of these were assigned by my professors!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7618.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iyrt2fh","c_root_id_B":"iyrz01h","created_at_utc_A":1670089526,"created_at_utc_B":1670092000,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"to hunt in the morning by Janet Siskind was always my favorite. Quite short and straightforward, but very impactful. she lives with amazonian people in the 1970s. her style is so clear, that even though i haven't read the book in years i can still feel the imagery.","human_ref_B":"I had a professor who co-wrote Righteous Dopefiend (Philippe Bourgois, Jeff Schonberg) which is an ethnography on heroin addiction amongst homeless and vulnerable populations in the bay area. Really compassionate and raw look into the experiences of the people they followed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2474.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iysuud4","c_root_id_B":"iyrgbrk","created_at_utc_A":1670105367,"created_at_utc_B":1670084382,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"My personal favorite is the Land of Open Graves by Jason DeLeon. I was going to mention Righteous Dopefiend, but I see others have already lol. In grad school I had the honor of interviewing Jason about this book and I think it's an excellent ethnography about the immigration from Mexico to the US. It was so detailed that Jason told us he was visited by The Department of Immigration because they thought he knew something they didn't lmao.","human_ref_B":"I loved My Cocaine Museum by Michael Taussig, Progressive Dystopia by Savannah Shange, Buddha in Hiding by Aihwa Ong, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet edited by Anna Tsing, all of these were assigned by my professors!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20985.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iysuud4","c_root_id_B":"iyrt2fh","created_at_utc_A":1670105367,"created_at_utc_B":1670089526,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My personal favorite is the Land of Open Graves by Jason DeLeon. I was going to mention Righteous Dopefiend, but I see others have already lol. In grad school I had the honor of interviewing Jason about this book and I think it's an excellent ethnography about the immigration from Mexico to the US. It was so detailed that Jason told us he was visited by The Department of Immigration because they thought he knew something they didn't lmao.","human_ref_B":"to hunt in the morning by Janet Siskind was always my favorite. Quite short and straightforward, but very impactful. she lives with amazonian people in the 1970s. her style is so clear, that even though i haven't read the book in years i can still feel the imagery.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15841.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iysuud4","c_root_id_B":"iysqeok","created_at_utc_A":1670105367,"created_at_utc_B":1670103427,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My personal favorite is the Land of Open Graves by Jason DeLeon. I was going to mention Righteous Dopefiend, but I see others have already lol. In grad school I had the honor of interviewing Jason about this book and I think it's an excellent ethnography about the immigration from Mexico to the US. It was so detailed that Jason told us he was visited by The Department of Immigration because they thought he knew something they didn't lmao.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m a big fan of Bourgeois\u2019 works (both RD and El Barrio), Joao Biehl\u2019s Vita and Nancy Scheper-Hughes\u2019 collection (particularly Death Without Weeping and Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1940.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iyu5du4","c_root_id_B":"iyrgbrk","created_at_utc_A":1670128064,"created_at_utc_B":1670084382,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? The \"according to you\" part is an essential part of the question, because my preferences are . . . my preferences. And they are for as much plain English as possible, less mystification and jargon, more clarity. And by that measure, Clifford Geertz' celebrated \"Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight\" has to rank very highly, at least by me. It is a very different way of using language in ethnography, compared to French, where -- at least to this anglophone -- the language often seems dense to the point of mystification. And so, when Geertz begins >EARLY IN April of 1958, my wife and I arrived, malarial and diffident, in a\r Balinese village we intended, as anthropologists, to study. A small place,\r about five hundred people, and relatively remote, it was its own world.\rWe were intruders, professional ones, and the villagers dealt with us as\r Balinese seem always to deal with people not part of their life who yet\rpress themselves upon them: as though we were not there. For them, and \rto a degree for ourselves, we were nonpersons, specters, invisible men. . . . well, that's the kind of writing I like. There's enough humor and self awareness, but step by step, Geertz is telling you that the observer is not neutral in ethnography, they participate and understanding their participation is part of the full story. This was published in *Daedalus -* not an anthropology journal, but one targeting the academic community generally. And Geertz not only places himself in the scene, he gives us an analysis which makes the exotic sensible to the reader >\"Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The cockfight is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of Balinese experience, it brings together themes-animal savagery, male narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, blood sacrifice-whose main connection is their involvement with rage and the fear of rage, and, binding them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them play, builds a symbolic structure in which, over and over again, the reality of their inner affiliation can be intelligibly felt. If, to quote Northrop Frye again, we go to see Macbeth to learn what a man feels like after he has gained a kingdom and lost his soul, Balinese go to cockfights to find out what a man, usually composed, aloof, almost obsessively self-absorbed, a kind of moral autocosm, feels like when, attacked, tormented, challenged, insulted, and driven in result to the extremes of fury, he has totally tri\u00adumphed or been brought totally low.\"","human_ref_B":"I loved My Cocaine Museum by Michael Taussig, Progressive Dystopia by Savannah Shange, Buddha in Hiding by Aihwa Ong, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet edited by Anna Tsing, all of these were assigned by my professors!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":43682.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iyrt2fh","c_root_id_B":"iyu5du4","created_at_utc_A":1670089526,"created_at_utc_B":1670128064,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"to hunt in the morning by Janet Siskind was always my favorite. Quite short and straightforward, but very impactful. she lives with amazonian people in the 1970s. her style is so clear, that even though i haven't read the book in years i can still feel the imagery.","human_ref_B":">What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? The \"according to you\" part is an essential part of the question, because my preferences are . . . my preferences. And they are for as much plain English as possible, less mystification and jargon, more clarity. And by that measure, Clifford Geertz' celebrated \"Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight\" has to rank very highly, at least by me. It is a very different way of using language in ethnography, compared to French, where -- at least to this anglophone -- the language often seems dense to the point of mystification. And so, when Geertz begins >EARLY IN April of 1958, my wife and I arrived, malarial and diffident, in a\r Balinese village we intended, as anthropologists, to study. A small place,\r about five hundred people, and relatively remote, it was its own world.\rWe were intruders, professional ones, and the villagers dealt with us as\r Balinese seem always to deal with people not part of their life who yet\rpress themselves upon them: as though we were not there. For them, and \rto a degree for ourselves, we were nonpersons, specters, invisible men. . . . well, that's the kind of writing I like. There's enough humor and self awareness, but step by step, Geertz is telling you that the observer is not neutral in ethnography, they participate and understanding their participation is part of the full story. This was published in *Daedalus -* not an anthropology journal, but one targeting the academic community generally. And Geertz not only places himself in the scene, he gives us an analysis which makes the exotic sensible to the reader >\"Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The cockfight is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of Balinese experience, it brings together themes-animal savagery, male narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, blood sacrifice-whose main connection is their involvement with rage and the fear of rage, and, binding them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them play, builds a symbolic structure in which, over and over again, the reality of their inner affiliation can be intelligibly felt. If, to quote Northrop Frye again, we go to see Macbeth to learn what a man feels like after he has gained a kingdom and lost his soul, Balinese go to cockfights to find out what a man, usually composed, aloof, almost obsessively self-absorbed, a kind of moral autocosm, feels like when, attacked, tormented, challenged, insulted, and driven in result to the extremes of fury, he has totally tri\u00adumphed or been brought totally low.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38538.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zbg59x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? I'll give a course in ethnographic writing in a few months, as a french anthropologist in a french university, so I am curious to know what are the most well written ethnographic books in English according to you ? Looking forward to reading your answers \ud83d\ude0a","c_root_id_A":"iysqeok","c_root_id_B":"iyu5du4","created_at_utc_A":1670103427,"created_at_utc_B":1670128064,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m a big fan of Bourgeois\u2019 works (both RD and El Barrio), Joao Biehl\u2019s Vita and Nancy Scheper-Hughes\u2019 collection (particularly Death Without Weeping and Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics).","human_ref_B":">What are the most well-written books in ethnography ? The \"according to you\" part is an essential part of the question, because my preferences are . . . my preferences. And they are for as much plain English as possible, less mystification and jargon, more clarity. And by that measure, Clifford Geertz' celebrated \"Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight\" has to rank very highly, at least by me. It is a very different way of using language in ethnography, compared to French, where -- at least to this anglophone -- the language often seems dense to the point of mystification. And so, when Geertz begins >EARLY IN April of 1958, my wife and I arrived, malarial and diffident, in a\r Balinese village we intended, as anthropologists, to study. A small place,\r about five hundred people, and relatively remote, it was its own world.\rWe were intruders, professional ones, and the villagers dealt with us as\r Balinese seem always to deal with people not part of their life who yet\rpress themselves upon them: as though we were not there. For them, and \rto a degree for ourselves, we were nonpersons, specters, invisible men. . . . well, that's the kind of writing I like. There's enough humor and self awareness, but step by step, Geertz is telling you that the observer is not neutral in ethnography, they participate and understanding their participation is part of the full story. This was published in *Daedalus -* not an anthropology journal, but one targeting the academic community generally. And Geertz not only places himself in the scene, he gives us an analysis which makes the exotic sensible to the reader >\"Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The cockfight is the Balinese reflection on theirs: on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of Balinese experience, it brings together themes-animal savagery, male narcissism, opponent gambling, status rivalry, mass excitement, blood sacrifice-whose main connection is their involvement with rage and the fear of rage, and, binding them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them play, builds a symbolic structure in which, over and over again, the reality of their inner affiliation can be intelligibly felt. If, to quote Northrop Frye again, we go to see Macbeth to learn what a man feels like after he has gained a kingdom and lost his soul, Balinese go to cockfights to find out what a man, usually composed, aloof, almost obsessively self-absorbed, a kind of moral autocosm, feels like when, attacked, tormented, challenged, insulted, and driven in result to the extremes of fury, he has totally tri\u00adumphed or been brought totally low.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24637.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"z23j7i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Where can I learn about the debate on biological essentialism in sex and gender?","c_root_id_A":"ixef2ko","c_root_id_B":"ixet766","created_at_utc_A":1669149357,"created_at_utc_B":1669155094,"score_A":10,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"Any basic textbook on anthropology or sociology of gender would work to get an overview of the key issues, and a list of authors who write in the area. If you can be a bit more specific about what you want to know, I may be able to come up with something helpful.","human_ref_B":"These are resources that I used in a lecture about why our previous ideas about gender roles in the stona age were biased because of the sexism of older researchers. It is very clear by now that women and men had very similar functions in gathering and hunting societies. 1- La arqueolog\u00eda del g\u00e9nero en la prehistoria. Olga Liranzo 2- Gender and Arqueology. Roberta Gilchrist. 3- Genderlithics: Women\u2019s roles in stone tool production. Joan Gero. 4- Ethno archaeology. Where do Models come from? Richard Gould. 5- Woman the hunter: The agta. Estrioko & Griffin. 6- Genero y arqueologia. Margarita Diaz Andreu. 7- Exploring gender through archaeology. Kathleen Bolen. 8-Woman the toolmaker. Evidence of women\u2019s use and manufacture of flaked stone tools in Australia and New Guinea. Caroline Bird. 9- Prostitutes or providers? Hunting, tool use and sex roles in earliest Homo. McBrearty & Moniz. 10- Archaeology and the study of gender. Conkey & Spector. 11- Gender in Archeology. Sarah Nelson. 12- Timing and Management of Birth among the \u01c3Kung: Biocultural Interaction in Reproductive Adaptation. Konner & Shostak. 13- Women and Men: Cultural Constructs of Gender. Bonvillain, Nancy 14- !Kung Women: Contrasts in Sexual Egalitarianism in Foraging and Sedentary Contexts. Patricia Draper. 15- Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care. Barry Hewlett 16- Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Frans de Waal 17- Equality for the sexes in human evolution? Early hominid sexual dimorphism and implications for mating systems and social behaviour. Clark Spencer Larsen 18- Women Warriors among Central California Hunter-Gatherers: Egalitarians to the Last Arrow. Schwitalla; Pilloud & Jones 19- Upper palaeolithic hunting tactics and weapons in western Europe. Lawrence Straus\t. 20- Sex differences in human fatigability: Mechanisms and insight into physiological responses. Hunter SK 21- Female hunters on the early Americas. Haas, Watson et al. 22- The woman in the shaman\u2019s body. Barbara Tedlock 23- The woman from the Doln\u00ed V\u011bstonice 3 burial: a new view of the face using modern technologies. Nerudova et al. 24- The compatibility of hunting and mothering amongst agta hunter-gatherers of the Philippines. Goodman et al. 25- Prehistoric women\u2019s manual labor exceeded that of athletes through the first 5500 years of farming in Central Europe. Macintosh, Pinhasi & Stock 26- What\u2019s a mother do? The division of labor among neanderthals and modern humans in Eurasia. Kuhn & Stiner. 27- Egalitarian societies. James Woodburn. 28- Evolutionary history of partible paternity in lowland South America. Walker, Finn & Hill. 29- Woman of the House: Gender, Architecture, and Ideology in Dorset Prehistory. Genevieve LeMoine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5737.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"ianmsan","c_root_id_B":"ianoll3","created_at_utc_A":1654000758,"created_at_utc_B":1654001754,"score_A":10,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Andrew Canessa: Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life. It's a pretty good read, Canessa's writing is espectacular and gives you a good dive on Andean life.","human_ref_B":"This seems like a fantastic book that I'm about to read very soon: *An African in Greenland* by T\u00e9t\u00e9-Michel Kpomassie. It's about the author's visit to Greenland and includes what is effectively a comparative ethnography between Greenland's Kalaallit people and his own Watyi tribe in Togo. Supposed to be \"nonfiction\", but in my opinion it's as good as any scholarly ethnography.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":996.0,"score_ratio":2.3} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iaolflp","c_root_id_B":"ianmsan","created_at_utc_A":1654016563,"created_at_utc_B":1654000758,"score_A":18,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I can't recommend Illegal Traveller enough, by Shahram Khosravi. It's about his escape as a minority from Iran to Sweden and the later racism he faced as an immigrant in Sweden including being one of the victims of the famous racist serial-killer \"Lasermannen\" (The Laser Man). Khosravi is a professor of social anthropology at Stockholm University and the book is written as an autoethnographic piece about being - among other things - \"illegal\" and being an outsider both where you arrive, and from the place you left.","human_ref_B":"Andrew Canessa: Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life. It's a pretty good read, Canessa's writing is espectacular and gives you a good dive on Andean life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15805.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iao0gpv","c_root_id_B":"iaolflp","created_at_utc_A":1654007569,"created_at_utc_B":1654016563,"score_A":5,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Jean Malaurie - *The Last Kings of Thule: With the Polar Eskimos, as They Face Their Destiny* https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/2188847.The_Last_Kings_of_Thule","human_ref_B":"I can't recommend Illegal Traveller enough, by Shahram Khosravi. It's about his escape as a minority from Iran to Sweden and the later racism he faced as an immigrant in Sweden including being one of the victims of the famous racist serial-killer \"Lasermannen\" (The Laser Man). Khosravi is a professor of social anthropology at Stockholm University and the book is written as an autoethnographic piece about being - among other things - \"illegal\" and being an outsider both where you arrive, and from the place you left.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8994.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iaopfej","c_root_id_B":"iao0gpv","created_at_utc_A":1654018235,"created_at_utc_B":1654007569,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Women of the Praia:\u00a0Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community Sally Cooper Cole I had Sally as a professor at Concordia University in Montreal and her writings are amazingly accessible and fun to read. She is an amazing teacher and an all round lovely person, so if you have any questions after reading I encourage you to reach out to her.","human_ref_B":"Jean Malaurie - *The Last Kings of Thule: With the Polar Eskimos, as They Face Their Destiny* https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/2188847.The_Last_Kings_of_Thule","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10666.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iao0gpv","c_root_id_B":"iapgoyj","created_at_utc_A":1654007569,"created_at_utc_B":1654030486,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Jean Malaurie - *The Last Kings of Thule: With the Polar Eskimos, as They Face Their Destiny* https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/2188847.The_Last_Kings_of_Thule","human_ref_B":"To all actual anthropologists here: does Tristes Tropiques by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss still have value as an ethnography? Because it's certainly well written.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22917.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iap6wsd","c_root_id_B":"iapgoyj","created_at_utc_A":1654026286,"created_at_utc_B":1654030486,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Life and Death on Mt. Everest is about Sherpa culture in Nepal. It was required reading for one of my college courses, but I really loved it.","human_ref_B":"To all actual anthropologists here: does Tristes Tropiques by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss still have value as an ethnography? Because it's certainly well written.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4200.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iap62ed","c_root_id_B":"iapgoyj","created_at_utc_A":1654025915,"created_at_utc_B":1654030486,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"\"As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States\" by Masao Miyoshi. Does it \"read like a novel\"? Not exactly, but it is literary -- Professor Miyoshi was a scholar of both Japanese and English literature, and this is a unique look into the writing of both Japanese and American participants in this unique 19th century encounter. So while not intended as ethnography or a novel, it achieves many of the goals of each . . . and is almost sui generis in the expertise of its author in drilling into this unique \"alien encounter\" of two mutually curious but largely un or mis- comprehending cultures.","human_ref_B":"To all actual anthropologists here: does Tristes Tropiques by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss still have value as an ethnography? Because it's certainly well written.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4571.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iapgoyj","c_root_id_B":"iapb9d0","created_at_utc_A":1654030486,"created_at_utc_B":1654028146,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"To all actual anthropologists here: does Tristes Tropiques by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss still have value as an ethnography? Because it's certainly well written.","human_ref_B":"Nigel Barley's The Innocent Anthropologist, aka Adventures in a Mud Hut, is more of a travel book with ethnography in it, but it's a great read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2340.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iapea8h","c_root_id_B":"iapgoyj","created_at_utc_A":1654029441,"created_at_utc_B":1654030486,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Kind of a mini-ethnography with personal reflections on practice. But it reads like a mystery. God's and Vampires: Return to Chipaya by Nathan Wachtel","human_ref_B":"To all actual anthropologists here: does Tristes Tropiques by Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss still have value as an ethnography? Because it's certainly well written.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1045.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"v1odiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Good\/readable ethnographies that are not set in the us, and read like a novel?","c_root_id_A":"iap6wsd","c_root_id_B":"iap62ed","created_at_utc_A":1654026286,"created_at_utc_B":1654025915,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Life and Death on Mt. Everest is about Sherpa culture in Nepal. It was required reading for one of my college courses, but I really loved it.","human_ref_B":"\"As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States\" by Masao Miyoshi. Does it \"read like a novel\"? Not exactly, but it is literary -- Professor Miyoshi was a scholar of both Japanese and English literature, and this is a unique look into the writing of both Japanese and American participants in this unique 19th century encounter. So while not intended as ethnography or a novel, it achieves many of the goals of each . . . and is almost sui generis in the expertise of its author in drilling into this unique \"alien encounter\" of two mutually curious but largely un or mis- comprehending cultures.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":371.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"20ygom","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"I once read a novel (and not like a super old novel, this thing came out in 2000) where a character has trouble getting information from a San bushmen because the bushmen doesn't understand the concept of abstract numbers. Does that have any basis in reality? The book is about a group of present day (well it was when the book came out) US Americans being sent back to the Bronze Age and have to survive there. There's a bit where they visit South Africa (or where South Africa would have been) in 1242BCE. They get attacked and the leader of the Americans can't get one of the San bushmen to tell her how many are attacking them because he doesn't understand that numbers can exist is the abstract. >Extonga shrugged and stood pointing all around to the camp then opening and closing his fingers in imitation of her gesture. >\"About as many as you, maybe more.\" she translated mentally. >The problem was that the San just didn't count the way 20th century westerns did. Extonga could probably describe every antelope in a heard of dozens after a single glance but as far as she could tell the concept of a number as an arbitrary symbol applicable to anything ...a hundred men or zebras or trees, was utterly foreign to him.","c_root_id_A":"cg880o6","c_root_id_B":"cg81d5s","created_at_utc_A":1395407539,"created_at_utc_B":1395376038,"score_A":63,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I don't have any sources off-hand, but should be relatively easy to find, perhaps in Donald Brown's Human Universals. Many pre-agricultural societies do not have words for numbers above two or three. There are a number of documented cultures that have a numbering system something like \"one, two, many\". This may seem odd to us, because the number system seems so natural, but it is actually an invention that is thought to have arisen when people finally had to keep track of otherwise identical goods (e.g., bushels of wheat, bricks, etc.). Many pre-agricultural societies don't have this problem because objects in their world are individually identifiable (e.g., they don't have \"8\" arrows, rather they have the arrow that curves to the left, the arrow with the funny tip, etc.). In fact, this also maps onto human psychology quite well, as there is a lot of evidence that we have two innate cognitive enumeration systems: the subitizing system, and an approximate estimation system. The subitizing system can precisely enumerate up to four objects, while the approximate estimation system does what it sounds like, approximately estimates larger quantities, and is based on ratios, rather than precise enumeration. Elizabeth Spelke has done a lot of work in this area, and you can check out any of a number of papers she's written on her website if your interested (just search for \"arithmetic\"). Numbers were \"invented\" by basically expanding the subitizing system beyond four objects, and we use a little trick to enumerate more than four objects. We all memorize a list of numbers (one, two, three, four, five, ...), and then when we need to enumerate more than four objects we give each object in the set a label from the list until all objects are labeled, and the last label that gets applied is the number of objects in the set. This has also been demonstrated in experiments by Elizabeth Spelke and colleagues.","human_ref_B":"I don't know the answer, but you might consider cross-posting in \/r\/linguistics. Someone there might have the appropriate background, in the event that no one here does.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31501.0,"score_ratio":9.0} {"post_id":"20ygom","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"I once read a novel (and not like a super old novel, this thing came out in 2000) where a character has trouble getting information from a San bushmen because the bushmen doesn't understand the concept of abstract numbers. Does that have any basis in reality? The book is about a group of present day (well it was when the book came out) US Americans being sent back to the Bronze Age and have to survive there. There's a bit where they visit South Africa (or where South Africa would have been) in 1242BCE. They get attacked and the leader of the Americans can't get one of the San bushmen to tell her how many are attacking them because he doesn't understand that numbers can exist is the abstract. >Extonga shrugged and stood pointing all around to the camp then opening and closing his fingers in imitation of her gesture. >\"About as many as you, maybe more.\" she translated mentally. >The problem was that the San just didn't count the way 20th century westerns did. Extonga could probably describe every antelope in a heard of dozens after a single glance but as far as she could tell the concept of a number as an arbitrary symbol applicable to anything ...a hundred men or zebras or trees, was utterly foreign to him.","c_root_id_A":"cg880o6","c_root_id_B":"cg81sih","created_at_utc_A":1395407539,"created_at_utc_B":1395377223,"score_A":63,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't have any sources off-hand, but should be relatively easy to find, perhaps in Donald Brown's Human Universals. Many pre-agricultural societies do not have words for numbers above two or three. There are a number of documented cultures that have a numbering system something like \"one, two, many\". This may seem odd to us, because the number system seems so natural, but it is actually an invention that is thought to have arisen when people finally had to keep track of otherwise identical goods (e.g., bushels of wheat, bricks, etc.). Many pre-agricultural societies don't have this problem because objects in their world are individually identifiable (e.g., they don't have \"8\" arrows, rather they have the arrow that curves to the left, the arrow with the funny tip, etc.). In fact, this also maps onto human psychology quite well, as there is a lot of evidence that we have two innate cognitive enumeration systems: the subitizing system, and an approximate estimation system. The subitizing system can precisely enumerate up to four objects, while the approximate estimation system does what it sounds like, approximately estimates larger quantities, and is based on ratios, rather than precise enumeration. Elizabeth Spelke has done a lot of work in this area, and you can check out any of a number of papers she's written on her website if your interested (just search for \"arithmetic\"). Numbers were \"invented\" by basically expanding the subitizing system beyond four objects, and we use a little trick to enumerate more than four objects. We all memorize a list of numbers (one, two, three, four, five, ...), and then when we need to enumerate more than four objects we give each object in the set a label from the list until all objects are labeled, and the last label that gets applied is the number of objects in the set. This has also been demonstrated in experiments by Elizabeth Spelke and colleagues.","human_ref_B":"Could it be the Nantucket Series by S.M. Stirling?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30316.0,"score_ratio":12.6} {"post_id":"20ygom","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"I once read a novel (and not like a super old novel, this thing came out in 2000) where a character has trouble getting information from a San bushmen because the bushmen doesn't understand the concept of abstract numbers. Does that have any basis in reality? The book is about a group of present day (well it was when the book came out) US Americans being sent back to the Bronze Age and have to survive there. There's a bit where they visit South Africa (or where South Africa would have been) in 1242BCE. They get attacked and the leader of the Americans can't get one of the San bushmen to tell her how many are attacking them because he doesn't understand that numbers can exist is the abstract. >Extonga shrugged and stood pointing all around to the camp then opening and closing his fingers in imitation of her gesture. >\"About as many as you, maybe more.\" she translated mentally. >The problem was that the San just didn't count the way 20th century westerns did. Extonga could probably describe every antelope in a heard of dozens after a single glance but as far as she could tell the concept of a number as an arbitrary symbol applicable to anything ...a hundred men or zebras or trees, was utterly foreign to him.","c_root_id_A":"cg880o6","c_root_id_B":"cg82ydk","created_at_utc_A":1395407539,"created_at_utc_B":1395380798,"score_A":63,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't have any sources off-hand, but should be relatively easy to find, perhaps in Donald Brown's Human Universals. Many pre-agricultural societies do not have words for numbers above two or three. There are a number of documented cultures that have a numbering system something like \"one, two, many\". This may seem odd to us, because the number system seems so natural, but it is actually an invention that is thought to have arisen when people finally had to keep track of otherwise identical goods (e.g., bushels of wheat, bricks, etc.). Many pre-agricultural societies don't have this problem because objects in their world are individually identifiable (e.g., they don't have \"8\" arrows, rather they have the arrow that curves to the left, the arrow with the funny tip, etc.). In fact, this also maps onto human psychology quite well, as there is a lot of evidence that we have two innate cognitive enumeration systems: the subitizing system, and an approximate estimation system. The subitizing system can precisely enumerate up to four objects, while the approximate estimation system does what it sounds like, approximately estimates larger quantities, and is based on ratios, rather than precise enumeration. Elizabeth Spelke has done a lot of work in this area, and you can check out any of a number of papers she's written on her website if your interested (just search for \"arithmetic\"). Numbers were \"invented\" by basically expanding the subitizing system beyond four objects, and we use a little trick to enumerate more than four objects. We all memorize a list of numbers (one, two, three, four, five, ...), and then when we need to enumerate more than four objects we give each object in the set a label from the list until all objects are labeled, and the last label that gets applied is the number of objects in the set. This has also been demonstrated in experiments by Elizabeth Spelke and colleagues.","human_ref_B":"Read about Dan Everett and the piraha tribe. They have a lot of stuff unique to their culture like no number system. Sorry cant link anything atm am on my phone. Dan's book about his life with this tribe \"Don't sleep, there are snakes\" is a great read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26741.0,"score_ratio":12.6} {"post_id":"7knig8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"According to the pbr, there have been 108 billion humans in total. Is there an estimate for have many of these lived as hunter-gatherers and how many lived in agricultural societies? pbr article","c_root_id_A":"drg3yn8","c_root_id_B":"drftw1u","created_at_utc_A":1513641580,"created_at_utc_B":1513630652,"score_A":13,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly the same thing, but: 6% of all people are alive today.","human_ref_B":"My highly uneducated guess would be more lived as semi nomadic farmers then hunter gatherers. Farming allows for a much larger population and we see a huge boom in world population with the invention of farming. But humans have been around a long time and I think farming is only like 10-20 thousand years old so I could easily be wrong.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10928.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpc8ytd","c_root_id_B":"cpc8vla","created_at_utc_A":1426134123,"created_at_utc_B":1426133919,"score_A":13,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I dunno how \"du jour\" they are, but biocultural approaches\/models are pretty hot where I am (in the bioanth\/medical anthro areas).","human_ref_B":"well duh now its post-post-post-modernism ;)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":204.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpclgbg","c_root_id_B":"cpc8vla","created_at_utc_A":1426173624,"created_at_utc_B":1426133919,"score_A":13,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In cultural anthro, lots of people are into various \"new materialisms,\" seeking to account for the interrelations between the \"socially-constructed\" human world and the agencies of the larger natural world. The quest is to move past the residual Cartesian dualism in various \"social constructionist\" paradigms. To get a sense of this kind of theory and its potential usefulness for ethnography, I'd suggest Kohn's *How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human*. It's a remarkable account of the way we interact with the signifying capacities of the non-human world around us.","human_ref_B":"well duh now its post-post-post-modernism ;)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":39705.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpclgbg","c_root_id_B":"cpcbvoi","created_at_utc_A":1426173624,"created_at_utc_B":1426142298,"score_A":13,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In cultural anthro, lots of people are into various \"new materialisms,\" seeking to account for the interrelations between the \"socially-constructed\" human world and the agencies of the larger natural world. The quest is to move past the residual Cartesian dualism in various \"social constructionist\" paradigms. To get a sense of this kind of theory and its potential usefulness for ethnography, I'd suggest Kohn's *How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human*. It's a remarkable account of the way we interact with the signifying capacities of the non-human world around us.","human_ref_B":"Reflexivity. It works in many areas. Sure your study work was funded, but so long as you mention it that is fine. Sadly it makes me think that the creation of hypothesis has to be tossed when creating ethnography.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31326.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpcihkt","c_root_id_B":"cpclgbg","created_at_utc_A":1426167947,"created_at_utc_B":1426173624,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I dabbled in a tiny bit of anthropology during my masters degree which i finished about a year and a half ago. Most of my 'dabbling' consisted in pointing at anthropologists from the 1950's or before that and talking about how unscientific and subtly racist their approach is. I.M Lewis was my favourite victim but deep down inside i greatly respect his work, and kind of, maybe, sort of, love him too.","human_ref_B":"In cultural anthro, lots of people are into various \"new materialisms,\" seeking to account for the interrelations between the \"socially-constructed\" human world and the agencies of the larger natural world. The quest is to move past the residual Cartesian dualism in various \"social constructionist\" paradigms. To get a sense of this kind of theory and its potential usefulness for ethnography, I'd suggest Kohn's *How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human*. It's a remarkable account of the way we interact with the signifying capacities of the non-human world around us.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5677.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpdaqhz","c_root_id_B":"cpcbvoi","created_at_utc_A":1426215577,"created_at_utc_B":1426142298,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"When I was in my Ph.D. program, I wrote an article on an aspect of immigration and the self-perception of ethnicity. I asked a highly-regarded anthropologist who had devoted his career to immigration whether what I was doing could be regarded as cutting edge, and if not, I asked him how I might change my approach to make it more current for the trend of the time. His response was that I should not care because trends come and go, but good work remains. He told me to ignore the theories-du-jour and simply to do good work, to let my work stand for itself. If I had tried to make my study of immigration and self-identity relevant for its day - which was in 1990, one can only imagine how dated it would be now, a quarter of a century later. Perhaps it is dated anyway - or perhaps not. But whatever it is and whatever it was destined to be, whether or not it was once cutting edge can now only be regarded as irrelevant.","human_ref_B":"Reflexivity. It works in many areas. Sure your study work was funded, but so long as you mention it that is fine. Sadly it makes me think that the creation of hypothesis has to be tossed when creating ethnography.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":73279.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"2yqktk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Speaking of what is \"hot\" in anthropology right now. What's the current theory-du-jour? When I left grad school in the early 2000s it was post-post modernism. So, any up and coming young anthro-theory turks wanna pontificate?","c_root_id_A":"cpdaqhz","c_root_id_B":"cpcihkt","created_at_utc_A":1426215577,"created_at_utc_B":1426167947,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"When I was in my Ph.D. program, I wrote an article on an aspect of immigration and the self-perception of ethnicity. I asked a highly-regarded anthropologist who had devoted his career to immigration whether what I was doing could be regarded as cutting edge, and if not, I asked him how I might change my approach to make it more current for the trend of the time. His response was that I should not care because trends come and go, but good work remains. He told me to ignore the theories-du-jour and simply to do good work, to let my work stand for itself. If I had tried to make my study of immigration and self-identity relevant for its day - which was in 1990, one can only imagine how dated it would be now, a quarter of a century later. Perhaps it is dated anyway - or perhaps not. But whatever it is and whatever it was destined to be, whether or not it was once cutting edge can now only be regarded as irrelevant.","human_ref_B":"I dabbled in a tiny bit of anthropology during my masters degree which i finished about a year and a half ago. Most of my 'dabbling' consisted in pointing at anthropologists from the 1950's or before that and talking about how unscientific and subtly racist their approach is. I.M Lewis was my favourite victim but deep down inside i greatly respect his work, and kind of, maybe, sort of, love him too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":47630.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"udgxqq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What were the most important factors in the extinction of neanderthals?","c_root_id_A":"i6hczqv","c_root_id_B":"i6ijtob","created_at_utc_A":1651111415,"created_at_utc_B":1651139866,"score_A":33,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Still an unresolved issue. Expert opinion leans towards demographic factors, but there are still many competing views. >Over a dozen serious hypotheses are currently endorsed to explain this enigmatic event. Given the relatively large number of contending explanations and the relatively large number of participants in the debate, it is unclear how strongly each contender is supported by the research community. What does the community actually believe about the demise of Neanderthals? To address this question, we conducted a survey among practicing palaeo-anthropologists (total number of respondents\u2009=\u2009216). It appears that received wisdom is that demography was the principal cause of the demise of Neanderthals. In contrast, there is no received wisdom about the role that environmental factors and competition with modern humans played in the extinction process; the research community is deeply divided about these issues. > >\\[Vaesen et al 2021\\] ​ See: Vaesen, Krist, Gerrit L. Dusseldorp, and Mark J. Brandt. \"An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.\" Scientific reports 11.1 (2021): 1-9. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-021-84410-7","human_ref_B":"At present one of the more compelling arguments has to do with their caloric needs and out competition from *Homo sapiens* which has a much lower caloric need. Neanderthals are thought to have needed about twice the calories per day that *H. sapiens* needs. This leads to all sorts of implications for infant survival, resource competition with us (and other Neanderthal or Denisovan groups), reduced survival in lean times, and more. This idea has been around for a while, but it's been gaining more traction in recent years as we gain a better understanding of Neanderthal life and physiology. One of the advantages of this hypothesis is its simplicity and how neatly it fits into the combination of factors that took place around their extinction (eg. climate changes, competition from a novel species, etc) and helps to explain otherwise puzzling things, like the low and very dispersed population density of Neanderthals. As with all answers in evolution, ecology, and anthropology there is likely no single factor, but a combination of factors that all play a part, and when those factors come together in just the wrong way the effects are far more dramatic on a species than the would be separately. If you want as complete an answer as you're likely to get to this and other Neanderthal questions, pick up a copy of Rebecca Sykes' book *Kindred*. She's an anthropologist who compiled what's currently the most comprehensive look at their lives and extinction based on scientific evidence. - Steegmann, et al 2002 *Neandertal cold adaptation: Physiological and energetic factors* - Froehle & Churchill 2009 *Energetic Competition Between Neandertals and Anatomically Modern Humans* - PDF link - Cole 2017 *Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic* - if you ever needed to know how many calories you'd get by eating someone, this your reference - Venner 2018 *A New Estimate for Neanderthal Energy Expenditure* - Master's Thesis - PDF link - Sykes 2020 *Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art* - book review","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28451.0,"score_ratio":1.1818181818} {"post_id":"udgxqq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What were the most important factors in the extinction of neanderthals?","c_root_id_A":"i6ha8s1","c_root_id_B":"i6ijtob","created_at_utc_A":1651110151,"created_at_utc_B":1651139866,"score_A":6,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Unrelated: mods why can't I see the comment responses? Very interested in this q to see if it's the reasons I have studied (primarily genocide) or something else?","human_ref_B":"At present one of the more compelling arguments has to do with their caloric needs and out competition from *Homo sapiens* which has a much lower caloric need. Neanderthals are thought to have needed about twice the calories per day that *H. sapiens* needs. This leads to all sorts of implications for infant survival, resource competition with us (and other Neanderthal or Denisovan groups), reduced survival in lean times, and more. This idea has been around for a while, but it's been gaining more traction in recent years as we gain a better understanding of Neanderthal life and physiology. One of the advantages of this hypothesis is its simplicity and how neatly it fits into the combination of factors that took place around their extinction (eg. climate changes, competition from a novel species, etc) and helps to explain otherwise puzzling things, like the low and very dispersed population density of Neanderthals. As with all answers in evolution, ecology, and anthropology there is likely no single factor, but a combination of factors that all play a part, and when those factors come together in just the wrong way the effects are far more dramatic on a species than the would be separately. If you want as complete an answer as you're likely to get to this and other Neanderthal questions, pick up a copy of Rebecca Sykes' book *Kindred*. She's an anthropologist who compiled what's currently the most comprehensive look at their lives and extinction based on scientific evidence. - Steegmann, et al 2002 *Neandertal cold adaptation: Physiological and energetic factors* - Froehle & Churchill 2009 *Energetic Competition Between Neandertals and Anatomically Modern Humans* - PDF link - Cole 2017 *Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic* - if you ever needed to know how many calories you'd get by eating someone, this your reference - Venner 2018 *A New Estimate for Neanderthal Energy Expenditure* - Master's Thesis - PDF link - Sykes 2020 *Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art* - book review","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29715.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"udgxqq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What were the most important factors in the extinction of neanderthals?","c_root_id_A":"i6ha8s1","c_root_id_B":"i6hczqv","created_at_utc_A":1651110151,"created_at_utc_B":1651111415,"score_A":6,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"Unrelated: mods why can't I see the comment responses? Very interested in this q to see if it's the reasons I have studied (primarily genocide) or something else?","human_ref_B":"Still an unresolved issue. Expert opinion leans towards demographic factors, but there are still many competing views. >Over a dozen serious hypotheses are currently endorsed to explain this enigmatic event. Given the relatively large number of contending explanations and the relatively large number of participants in the debate, it is unclear how strongly each contender is supported by the research community. What does the community actually believe about the demise of Neanderthals? To address this question, we conducted a survey among practicing palaeo-anthropologists (total number of respondents\u2009=\u2009216). It appears that received wisdom is that demography was the principal cause of the demise of Neanderthals. In contrast, there is no received wisdom about the role that environmental factors and competition with modern humans played in the extinction process; the research community is deeply divided about these issues. > >\\[Vaesen et al 2021\\] ​ See: Vaesen, Krist, Gerrit L. Dusseldorp, and Mark J. Brandt. \"An emerging consensus in palaeoanthropology: demography was the main factor responsible for the disappearance of Neanderthals.\" Scientific reports 11.1 (2021): 1-9. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-021-84410-7","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1264.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"gnl2gt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"In the beginning there were Homosapiens and Neanderthals. What other types of humans existed at that time? Every video I watch tells about Homosapiens and Neanderthals, but I know more than that existed. I\u2019d like to learn more.","c_root_id_A":"fraptmp","c_root_id_B":"frawv4n","created_at_utc_A":1590023892,"created_at_utc_B":1590027905,"score_A":5,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"There were the denisovans and homo florensis. But very little is known of each. Not sure how much you can find. I hope the wiki is a good start to your research. If not let me know I may be able to find other, \"more\" legitimate sources.","human_ref_B":"ohh this is one of my favourite topics so I apologize in advance if my reply becomes lengthy. I'm going to be using **hominin** here to refer to the group that includes both modern and past human species as well as all our immediate ancestors. *Homo sapiens* and *Homo neanderthalensis* are actually pretty recent on the line of human evolution, which can be traced as far back as 7 million years ago (mya) . If you're interested in the earliest species, you can look up *Sahelanthropus, Orrorin,* and *Ardipithecus.* From *Ardipithecus*, the *Australopithecines* species emerged around 4(?) mya. *A. afarensis* is thought to be the most closely related direct ancestor of humans, with the most famous fossil discovery of this species being Lucy, in Ethiopia in 1974. I would also look into Selam, a fossilized 3 year old belonging to *A . afarensis .* Other *Australopithecines* include *A. boisei* (the likely origin of genital herpes in the human line) and *A. garhi* (the only *Australopithecines* who showed some evidence of tool use). The species *Homo* evolved from *A. afarensis* and are generally grouped into Early, Middle, and Late *Homo.* For simplicity's sake I'm just going to list a few species belonging to each group. These different species coexisted at different time ranges. Early *Homo:* * *H. habilis* * *H. rudolphensis* Middle *Homo:* * *H. erectus* (associated with new adaptive strategies; tool use, first to use\/control fire, also had humanlike body proportions) * *H. heidelbergensis* Late *Homo:* * *H. neanderthalensis* (largest cranial capacity) * *H. sapiens* (us! modern humans) Some other hominins you might be interested in researching may include the Denisovans, H . naledi (most recently discovered hominin species)*,* and *H. floresiensus* (hobbit-like hominins discovered in Indonesia) I hope this helps pique your interest in hominins, both present and past! Happy exploring!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4013.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"tvqqir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"interested in learning more about the Homo genus; Neanderthals, Archaic Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus and more? In my anthropology class, we recently started learning about these species, and I've been in awe. I was especially surprised to find the evidence of caretaking behavior in Neanderthals. I want to learn more, anything regarding these species. Can anyone refer to any insightful sources that they know?","c_root_id_A":"i3bmmwj","c_root_id_B":"i3cizgj","created_at_utc_A":1649054169,"created_at_utc_B":1649077579,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Google Scholar or your institutional library database should have some cool things for you to check out. In general, knowing how to properly sift through academic literature is a good skill for any anthropologist or university student to have and develop! It also tends to be more fruitful than just receiving recommendations. Although I do have an article you might enjoy: https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10764-012-9617-0 It's early hominin work so it's more based on the subfield of primatology and has a rather dense writing style that tends to air on the more biological and scientific side rather than custom anthropological lexicon.","human_ref_B":"For such a broad and introductory overview, I would actually recommend doing a jaunt down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. I'm not recommending this as a way of saying \"f*** off.\" Wikipedia is usually not all that bad for topics like this. The text is generally reasonably well-written and understandable, there are links to potentially less-familiar concepts that are discussed in the articles, and most of the information is usually sourced to either popular science articles or scientific journals that you can use to do a deeper dive into particular topics. Added to that is the fact that there are plenty of people who rapidly edit new information into the Wikipedia articles on a given subject, and so the scientific articles are usually pretty up to date. So yeah... for something to read and get yourself going, start with Wikipedia on this subject. If you want to go more scientific, you can certainly use Google Scholar and similar search engines to find academic research papers. But for a general \"this is interesting and I want to learn more\" I don't usually recommend scientific papers. They're not written for lay audiences, and are typically pretty dry.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23410.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"tvqqir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"interested in learning more about the Homo genus; Neanderthals, Archaic Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus and more? In my anthropology class, we recently started learning about these species, and I've been in awe. I was especially surprised to find the evidence of caretaking behavior in Neanderthals. I want to learn more, anything regarding these species. Can anyone refer to any insightful sources that they know?","c_root_id_A":"i3csov4","c_root_id_B":"i3bmmwj","created_at_utc_A":1649082017,"created_at_utc_B":1649054169,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For Neanderthals specifically one of the best comprehensive overviews out right now is Rebecca Sykes' recent book *Kindred*. She's an anthropologist who recently compiled an enormous amount of the most recent and relevant peer-reviewed papers to write her book. Unfortunately, there isn't a similar work for our other relatives. Daniel Everett has some good Youtube lectures regarding *H. erectus* and the evolution of language (not everyone agrees with his takes, but personally I find them far more in accordance with my thinking on the subject than anyone else's take). At good lecture is *Daniel Everett, \"Homo Erectus and the Invention of Human Language\"*. Henry Gilbert also has a good lecture on *Homo erectus* titled *Whatever Happened to Homo erectus?*. There should be other lectures by him and similar folks in the sidebar there too, such as the *Dr. Henry Gilbert - One Million Years Ago - The Forum at Poly* lecture. The *CARTA: The Origin of Us - Fossils of Modern Humans Interbreeding within and outside of Africa* and *CARTA: Early Hominids: Origins of Hominids; Paleoenvironments of Early Hominids* talks are definitely worth a listen too. Evolution Soup covers a wide range of topics via interviews with experts in their respective fields, and some of them deal with our relatives and ancestors. And, of course, Google Scholar (as u\/DueZookeepergame9493 mentions), Research Gate (free legal downloads of research papers), other 'hubs' of science papers, etc. You should also have access to many journals via your university, and the search functions in your university library access should automatically search the journals you have access too. Learn to use that resource as it's one that you will only have while you're in an academic setting and you're going to miss it sorely once you're done with your schooling. EDIT: Stefan Milo's channel is also worth spending some time with for low-key easily digestible short bits about various anthropological prehistory topics.","human_ref_B":"Google Scholar or your institutional library database should have some cool things for you to check out. In general, knowing how to properly sift through academic literature is a good skill for any anthropologist or university student to have and develop! It also tends to be more fruitful than just receiving recommendations. Although I do have an article you might enjoy: https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10764-012-9617-0 It's early hominin work so it's more based on the subfield of primatology and has a rather dense writing style that tends to air on the more biological and scientific side rather than custom anthropological lexicon.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27848.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"rvescw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"At what point in human history women started to cover their breasts and why? Why, despite differences in climate, religion and societal norms, bare woman breasts are almost universally considered \"indecent\", sans some indigenous Amazonian or African tribes? Obviously it's not just Old World thing, because we know that, for example, Maya, Inca or Mexica women covered their breasts too. Do we have any idea why early societies were OK with both man and women being bare-chested, but at some point we all decided \"ok, you really need to hide them\"?","c_root_id_A":"hr7wrho","c_root_id_B":"hr6gjfp","created_at_utc_A":1641308337,"created_at_utc_B":1641274799,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Yeah my dude\/gal. You can\u2019t project your contemporary values into epochs millennia in the past. If we did that, and those assumptions held true we would not need archaeology. Could be that covering was a fashion at the time. Or as mentioned above, raw nips. Or hot or a bit too chilly. Or maybe, said covering was a means to imitate an animal as a symbol of power or association of a specific group. If asking about boobs you also have to ask about other body parts on both males and females. Why or not cover the penis? Who did and did not cover the vagina etc.","human_ref_B":"Without meaning to be rude, I think that the premise of this question is incorrect. Aside from some Amazonian and African peoples, there are plenty of groups throughout the world that were at various historical periods fine with women going bare-breasted. This image is from an artist, but they cite several sources from which they received information about postclassic Maya dress, which included garments that did not cover women's breasts. Going topless was common throughout the South Pacific prior to European influences. Historically, doing so was common amongst many groups of the pre-Islamic Middle East. In fact, Wikipedia's list highlights many societies and times when women going topless was the norm, and it's not complete. As to why several indigenous Amazonian and African groups are the clearest examples of societies being fine with toplessness today - I would bet that in many cases this has to do with those areas of Africa and South America being relatively free from direct European-descended interventions and transformations that reduced toplessness in places like the Pacific, Mesoamerica, and Southeast Asia.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33538.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"83obh6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why was the origin of the homo species so localized in Africa? Is there any evidence that it could have simultaneously originated in other parts of the Earth?","c_root_id_A":"dvjilv5","c_root_id_B":"dvjfx6e","created_at_utc_A":1520799830,"created_at_utc_B":1520796819,"score_A":82,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Homo is the genus, not the species- regardless, that's not how evolution works. Evolution acts on populations, i.e. groups of individuals that mate with each other. This is the only way for genetic change to be passed on. Changes in a population in Ethiopia will not have effects on a population in India. You can't have the same thing happening to different populations simultaneously. Evolution does *not* happen to species, even though sloppy language suggests as much. When we say *Australopithecus* evolved into *Homo*, what we really mean is that *one Au. population* evolved into *Homo*. The rest were off doing their own thing. Why Africa? There's no greater reason than that's where *Australopithecus* and its ancestors were. The same goes for specific *Homo* species. All *H. Erectus* groups didn't evolve together, and even if they developed similar traits, they took different paths to get there (Humans in Nepal, Peru, and Tanzania all have high altitude adaptations, but each is entirely different). Some populations in Africa did one thing, some in China did another thing, some in Europe did another, and some in Indonesia did a really weird thing. Only one of those groups is around today, and it just happens to be one of the African ones.","human_ref_B":"A basic answer would be because the predecessor species were in Africa. I haven\u2019t read up on the latest theories for maybe a year now, but I don\u2019t think anyone is suggesting that the same genus arose in another part of the world, and if it did it would\u2019ve had to have been because those same predecessors happened to be there as well. (Side note: homo is the genus) Edit: you may have meant \u201call the species within homo\u201d in which case it was worded correctly!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3011.0,"score_ratio":4.5555555556} {"post_id":"2m72rw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"I've often seen it argued (by Black nationalists and white supremacists) that white people will soon be \"bred out\" to extinction. Is this true? With immigration to Europe and the US, how likely is it that \"white traits\" like pale skin and colorful eyes will die out in the next couple centuries?","c_root_id_A":"cm1pwpl","c_root_id_B":"cm1tcd7","created_at_utc_A":1415913461,"created_at_utc_B":1415919934,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"It would be nigh-impossible to breed out a recessive trait like blue eyes since it could be dormant for several generations and then pop up later. I know the genetics of this are far more complex, but it's interesting.","human_ref_B":"Everyone here is nitpicking your definitions and avoiding the spirit entirely. Take the population *generally considered* white (as in, police reports describing the suspect to the general population would call him \"white\", because they know we all know what that means.) If you look at birth rates of people in that category and people not in that category, the rates are higher for the latter and that ratio will drop. Combining relatively small numbers of the former category with increased mixing of those two categories as it becomes more socially acceptable, I think one can pretty clearly say that the number will drop and recessive traits will be less and less likely to be seen. \"Dying out\" is a very strong term, \"diluted\" has a nasty connotation, but might be genetically more accurate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6473.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"danfaf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How far back does mythology take us? To the extent that mythology captures historical facts passed down orally as embellished stories, how long is that memory? I assume stories of a great flood, the \"days before\" things like hunting and clothing (as before the forbidden fruit in Genesis) are somewhat rooted in a collective memory of these early days. Perhaps the giants of the Old Testament are references (at least in part) to the now extinct megafauna. Some Chinese mythologies talk about a tree dwelling period. But of course there's a limit since before language existed we weren't able to pass on knowledge to the next generation. So at what stage in our evolution were we able to start passing knowledge and can we assume that the events captured in mythology begin from then on?","c_root_id_A":"f1v15zm","c_root_id_B":"f1v98h6","created_at_utc_A":1569765879,"created_at_utc_B":1569768275,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Claude Levi-Strauss argued that mythology isn\u2019t really a \u201cmemory\u201d in the first place, it\u2019s an assemblage of different parts. He calls the process \u201cbricolage,\u201d which is a French handyman that does odd jobs using supplies he gleaned from previous jobs. Basically myth changes when it needs to for a variety of reasons, so myth\u2019s \u201cmemory\u201d really only goes about as far back as the last creative story teller\u2019s new addition to a story.","human_ref_B":"I recently finished reading a book called \"Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths?\" by Paul Veyne (read it in French, but an English translation was published by University of Chicago Press) that covers very significant chunks of what you're asking here. It goes into far more than what the title suggests, and tackles quite a few ideas regarding what myths and history are, how they are formed and what constitutes the truths we elect to believe in. It also contains many pieces on the evolution of the work of what we now call \"historians\" and their relationships with myths and beliefs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2396.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"xul41g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I am looking for information on the daily life of people in the Paleolithic Era. I am building a workout based on the lives of people who lived in the Paleolithic Era. I know this sounds dumb and you probably rolled your eyes and to be honest I don't blame you. I am doing this purely for fun and to learn more. I am not trying to make this the next fad workout. I am trying to find good reliable resources that talk about the day-to day life of Paleo people. What they did when not gathering food, tools they used, how far they might have walked while traveling and how much they might have carried. Diet is also a big part of the information I need. I know it's not 100% replicable due to certain plants and animals being extinct, but I'm going to try my best to replicate it. Please keep in mind I am doing this for fun and to learn. Any and all information is greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"iqwtucw","c_root_id_B":"iqvzu5c","created_at_utc_A":1664819877,"created_at_utc_B":1664808107,"score_A":37,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"First, \"Paleolithic\" is a \\*very\\* broad time frame that includes the first tool-using hominins, some of which may have been robust Australopithicines, up to the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) and transition into the Mesolithic\/Neolithic. The Lower Paleolithic is going to be Olduwan and Acheulian tool using scavenger\/gatherer groups that probably aren't too comparable to what you're imagining. The Middle Paleolithic is when things start to get fun with all sorts of new tools, technolog, arts and sophisticated hunter\/gatherer lifeways beginning to emerge. You're probably thinking this period or the Upper Paleolithic when you talk about exercise routines. The Upper Paleolithic then is when we get all sorts of fancy stone tools and the widespread presence of technologies like basketry, tailored clothing, twisted and woven fiber stuff, and humans are pretty savvy mobile hunter\/gatherers. ​ Because this is a period so old and so few materials used then are permanent in the archaeological record, it is basically impossible to say what any individual's daily life was like. And don't forget, there is no one-size-fits-all \"daily life.\" A day in the life of a pregnant mother or a geriatric grandfather is going to be very different from a late adolescent in their physical prime. The day in the life of a skilled flint knapper or hunter may also have been different form anyone else as we don't know the full extent of divisions of labor and extent of specialization. Seasonality and location are also relevant. Coastal people ate a lot of shallow-water seafoods and so probably swam a lot, while inland hunter\/gatherers probably spent a lot of time walking or jogging. ​ On the last point, but depending on what you hope to gain from this exercise might also be relevant. Our non-Homo sapien ancestors spent a lot of time evolving bipedal walking and subsequently, we are pretty darn efficient at it. We may not be as fast as cheetahs or gazelles, but we can run literal marathons unlike virtually all other mammals. That's an extreme, but even a 5k for a healthy adult isn't terribly taxing on the body. Now compare that to even a mile of swimming, which we are not designed for, and it's a much tougher challenge to our anatomy and physiology. ​ My suggestion is start looking into particular times and places, especially the Upper Paleolithic which is going to have the most data, and particular regions of the Old World.","human_ref_B":"Take a look at Mithen's After the Ice. Lots of good details of the sort you are after, drawn from archaeological cases and ethnographic analogy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11770.0,"score_ratio":1.5416666667} {"post_id":"5cy9jx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What do anthropologists use to refer a phenomenon akin to ethnocentrism but has nothing to do with ethnicity? E.g., \"ethnocentrism\" towards people of other religion, towards people of other nationalities, towards poor people by middle class, etc the list goes on, anything that has nothing to do with ethnicity. Apparently religiocentrism is a term but it sounds like a made-up neologism. Never heard that one anywhere. Is ethnocentrism a catch all term or do anthropologists have something else to use for this phenomenon?","c_root_id_A":"da0e3r6","c_root_id_B":"da0kjxw","created_at_utc_A":1479160529,"created_at_utc_B":1479169064,"score_A":14,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Well, ethnocentrism was a neologism at one point as well, albeit over a century ago. Religiocentrism as a term was coined in 1999. The catch-all term would probably be *elitism*. For instance, biological elitism refers to the belief that humans are superior to all other species.","human_ref_B":"Ethnicity and ethnocentrism share the same etymological root, but the latter doesn't refer to ethnicity alone. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior or even simply more 'normal' than others. It encompasses attitudes about religious belief, worldview, political ideology, food, body types, and what counts as 'common sense.' By the way, in general 'ethno-' = culture, but 'ethnicity' has acquired a more specific contemporary meaning. Source: am cultural anthropologist","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8535.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"a3eq9t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"After the Toba supereruption, and the reduction of the population to around 10,000 people, in what areas did humanity survive in? I don't know much about anthropology or pre-history humans, but so far as I know the population bottlenecked to around 10,000, probably due to the Toba supereruption and so far as I can tell we left Africa long before this. Do we know where the surviving population was centered?","c_root_id_A":"eb5xhbk","c_root_id_B":"eb601d2","created_at_utc_A":1544042356,"created_at_utc_B":1544044100,"score_A":2,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"I, unfortunately, don't have the time to get any links for you right now but I vaguely remember reading an article a few months ago that claimed the bottleneck was nowhere near as dramatic as previously thought so there might not have been any \"refuges\" to begin with.","human_ref_B":"The Toba bottleneck is no longer thought to have occurred. See this nice summary by John Hawks, for one. The notion has been thoroughly falsified: http:\/\/johnhawks.net\/weblog\/reviews\/climate\/toba-bottleneck-didnt-happen-2018.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1744.0,"score_ratio":22.5} {"post_id":"a3eq9t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"After the Toba supereruption, and the reduction of the population to around 10,000 people, in what areas did humanity survive in? I don't know much about anthropology or pre-history humans, but so far as I know the population bottlenecked to around 10,000, probably due to the Toba supereruption and so far as I can tell we left Africa long before this. Do we know where the surviving population was centered?","c_root_id_A":"eb5xhbk","c_root_id_B":"eb81b6s","created_at_utc_A":1544042356,"created_at_utc_B":1544114853,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I, unfortunately, don't have the time to get any links for you right now but I vaguely remember reading an article a few months ago that claimed the bottleneck was nowhere near as dramatic as previously thought so there might not have been any \"refuges\" to begin with.","human_ref_B":"In this thread: lots of people overinterpreting research, either in favor of or against the bottleneck theory. All the arguments for both sides are based on much speculation and very few facts. The only correct answer: no one knows.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":72497.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"a3eq9t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"After the Toba supereruption, and the reduction of the population to around 10,000 people, in what areas did humanity survive in? I don't know much about anthropology or pre-history humans, but so far as I know the population bottlenecked to around 10,000, probably due to the Toba supereruption and so far as I can tell we left Africa long before this. Do we know where the surviving population was centered?","c_root_id_A":"eb81b6s","c_root_id_B":"eb72t34","created_at_utc_A":1544114853,"created_at_utc_B":1544075101,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In this thread: lots of people overinterpreting research, either in favor of or against the bottleneck theory. All the arguments for both sides are based on much speculation and very few facts. The only correct answer: no one knows.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to copy\/paste the answer I give when this question is asked. > In order to better answer this question, I'll have to cast a bigger net than just Indonesia and look toward India which was downwind from the eruption. I hope you don't mind. Also cross posting from \/r\/AskHistorians > According to Petraglia et al (2007) at the site of Jwalapuram in southern India, the 2.55m ash layer uncovered by mining activites is associated with the Youngest Toba Tuff of 74,000 years ago. They compared the glass shards from the tephra found to signatures of the Older, Middle, and Younger Toba Tuff and it came back as a match to the YTT. In several trenches placed in the area Petraglia et al found 215 stone tool artifacts found beneath the YTT layer. These tools are a typical style for the Indian Middle Paleolithic. Within the YTT ash layer they found 108 artifacts and above the ash layer 168 artifacts. While the ratios of material types are different in the post-Toba eruption, the types and style of artifacts still resemble other Middle Paleolithic tools indicating a continuity before, during, and after the Toba eruption in southern India. A more detailed explanation of the findings can be found in Haslam et al 2010. > As an aside, the tool types found at Jwalapuram resemble the African Middle Stone Age more than the contemporaneous Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. This would make sense considering the models of a southern dispersal of modern humans from the Horn of Africa. > Now Ambrose (1998) and Rampino and Ambrose (2000) try to attribute the genetic structure of ancient human populations to a sudden decline due to a cataclysmic event such as the Toba eruption. What Ambrose and Rampino don't consider is the founder effect on what happens when populations split off and move. While Henn et al (2012) don't discuss the effect from the Toba eruption directly, they do discuss the time period between 40kya and 65kyn in which one sees a \"genetic bottleneck\" brought on by fissioning groups which lowers the diversity of available genetic material. One could hypothesize then that paleoindians being the last wave of humans to settle previously unpopulated lands would have the lowest genetic diversity since they are the furthest away from the point of origin. And in fact, Native Americans do show some of the lowest amounts of diversity excluding possible subsequent migration waves into the Americas.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":39752.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"d05e1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are archaeologists planning to do rapid surveys of low-lying coastal areas that might be submerged by rising sea levels in future decades? I'm reminded of the archaeologists that did as much surveying as they could along the Yangtze river before the construction of the Three Gorges dam.","c_root_id_A":"ezas167","c_root_id_B":"ez7peu0","created_at_utc_A":1567806601,"created_at_utc_B":1567726632,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Salvage archaeology ahead of major construction projects has been done in many parts of the world. I don't know where you live, but in much of the US during the last 75 years, the federal government (sometimes in cooperation with state governments) built a number of large dams and inundated huge swaths of formerly-inhabited river valleys underneath man-made lakes. The Tennessee Valley Authority in Tennessee, Grand River Dam Authority in Oklahoma, the Army Corps of Engineers... Because of various federal laws and regulations (which have changed over the decades), the federal government was required to do archaeological surveys, and in some cases extensive excavations, before closing the dams and creating the lakes. There have been other similar compliance-based archaeological salvage operations initiated ahead of major construction projects in the US and other nations with similar types of heritage management laws. **However** these projects share several things in common: 1) They were specifically initiated by governments (or agencies thereof) within their territorial boundaries. 2) The government had established cultural resource \/ heritage management laws and was required to follow them in initiating and carrying them out. 3) The government agencies involved therefore had to make funding available to pay for the heritage management \/ cultural resource management work to be done within the scope of the project in question. 4) Most importantly, there was a definable, clear, and *bounded* area within which the project would have an effect on historical or cultural resources (the area of potential effect, or APE). That is, the government agency or agencies responsible for the project could establish with reasonable certainty (and subject to the laws that governed their actions) the boundaries \/ limits of the project in question, and could therefore determine the area within which action would need to be taken to protect or otherwise preserve or manage cultural resources. The short version of the above is that in addition to there being a *reason* for salvage archaeology (sites may be destroyed!) there has to be money to pay for salvage archaeology, and from a practical perspective, there needs to be some way to draw boundaries around the area(s) that will be examined. If there's no money, and there are no hard boundaries, then the task is effectively impossible. So, why is this so hard with sea level rise and its impact on archaeological sites. As it turns out, this is not as simple a question as you might think. **How do you determine the APE for this?** You could say, \"the shoreline.\" You could say, \"everything up to 1 m above current sea levels.\" You could say, \"everything up to 5 m above current sea levels.\" Etc., etc. In practical application, it's *very* hard to determine the APE for the effects of sea level rise on coastal cultural resources, because... 1) We don't know how much sea level rise we can expect within the next **X** number of years. It could be centimeters, it could be meters, depending on the length of time in question. 2) Sea level doesn't rise at the same rate everywhere. Local changes in sea level can be significantly different over large areas. 3) Sea level rise is only part of the equation. You also have to consider increases in the frequency of damaging storms, storm surges. 4) Archaeological site locations are recorded by states, not the federal government, and so can be difficult to assemble for large areas, since you have to talk to multiple states (who are legally allowed to refuse to provide data on site locations because people can and do use that information to loot them). So it's hard to assemble a large-scale map to use to make these projections. 5) Archaeological sites are not all of the same type or composition, and can (and are) affected differently by sea level rise, storm surge, and other factors. Even if a site's elevation is > than current sea level by a meter or more, current weather conditions and other factors could be impacting it *right now* if (for example) high tides are causing beach erosion and eating away underneath it. **A seemingly simple solution** would be: * take the current contour for 0 m above mean sea level (m AMSL) and use high-resolution elevation data of the coastline to project risk areas: 1 mAMSL, 2 mAMSL, etc. * Overlay archaeological site locations on those risk areas. Any site within the highest-risk areas is at greatest risk, sites in the next highest, next greatest, and so on. Three big problems with this: 1) It ignores the multiplicative effects of storm surges, tides, soil composition (among other things) that can affect site erosion or the erosion of near-shore environments. Even if a site is outside the highest risk area, it could still be under imminent threat. 2) It says nothing about the number of unrecorded sites in those areas. 3) The amount of land that would be within each of these risk areas would be **huge**! It includes not just land along the coastlines, but land abutting coastal marshes, adjacent to the mouths of rivers that would also experience flooding from sea level rise, and so on. One other **serious** issue with trying to do this is that there are related threats that will affect non-coastal resources. * As sea levels rise, and as storms become more severe, coastal communities will seek technological solutions to avoid being destroyed. Massive construction projects to build sea walls, dikes, and other similar types of infrastructure might stem the flood for enough time to be deemed worth the expense. Such monumental construction would cause damage to thousands of known (and likely many thousands more) archaeological sites along coasts. Typically, historic preservation laws would be triggered, and the result would be projects something like the salvage projects I described above. But my guess is that most governments would pass emergency legislation to avoid environmental and related regulations, claiming that the need for protective construction **NOW** would outweigh historic preservation or environmental considerations. And there would likely be a huge groundswell of support for such legislation. Archaeology takes time, even at its fastest. * Also, as coastal communities *are* eventually moved inland to escape sea level rise, those people have to go somewhere. They will move inland, and there will be more development needed to accommodate them. That will impact archaeological sites outside of the so-called \"high risk\" zones. So will salvage archaeology also be done there? --- The threat to coastal cultural resources is real, it's significant, and it's not going to diminish over time. We are currently losing large numbers of archaeological sites to climate change-associated damage to coastlines. This will accelerate. But in a practical sense, there is simply no way to mitigate this loss, in large part because there's no *undertaking* that can be implicated and can have funding attached to cover what would be needed. At present, what we're left with is occasional university-sponsored surveys of small areas, or local, state, or federal agencies that include funding for research and cultural \/ heritage management doing small-scale mitigations and surveys. --- If you're interested in reading more about this, you can start with this article, which discusses a few of these problems and contextualizes the scope of the issue for the southeastern US. It is by no means comprehensive, but it shows that the problem is known and people are thinking about it, but also that the problem is so big as to be practically impossible to address.","human_ref_B":"Kind of, though not specifically for that purpose. Because there would need to be federal spending on a specific plan for issue to trigger the environmental review and thus archaeology. I have worked on several projects along gulf coast areas that were visibly affected by erosion\/sea level rise (shovel tests in the gulf, anyone?). The army corps was responsible for most of the really at risk areas I surveyed, which wasn\u2019t many. Many of the low lying sites are likely already recorded with each state and can be checked by qualified professionals through online systems. This is where citizen scientists can be of great service to the field by recording the location, setting and artifact types at each site and registering that information with the state historic preservation office (SHPO). No artifact collection necessary.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":79969.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2i6nui","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Do people's social views change with the times as they age? Do populations who are young during a certain era retain the beliefs of that era when they get old? I hope my question is clear enough.","c_root_id_A":"ckzpix6","c_root_id_B":"ckzr12n","created_at_utc_A":1412370600,"created_at_utc_B":1412373947,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This sounds like the premise for a very interesting longitudinal study. :) Good luck with that.","human_ref_B":"This might be a good question for \/r\/askpsychology since that is the field most likely to have conducted a longitudinal study such as this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3347.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"ohznc2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Were there any ancient religions that didn't require any type of living sacrifices? If this isn't the correct subreddit for this question, please direct me to the appropriate one. Do we possess information about any ancient religions that didn't have a sacrificial system that included living creatures, be these animals or humans? If yes, would you mind giving me some literary recommendations that would help me learn more about these religions?","c_root_id_A":"h4sqcb7","c_root_id_B":"h4t227l","created_at_utc_A":1626001765,"created_at_utc_B":1626010549,"score_A":4,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":">\tas per two anecdotal reports that I know of What does an anecdotal report mean in this context? If it\u2019s not an academic relating an informal assessment of evidence then it doesn\u2019t really seem like an appropriate designation (and even then why would that view not be published).","human_ref_B":"There are a couple of things that make this a really hard question to answer. One is that the definition of \"religion\" as an area of life separate from non-religious aspects of life is probably not universal across cultures. It is a strong component of western ways of understanding religion. Jack Miles lays out this argument in his book Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story. So if you have a society where members do not separate religious life from cultural life -- where everyday practices are always imbued with spiritual meanings, then it impossible to say any everyday cultural practice is religious or not religious. This may even be true in societies that supposedly separate out the religious and secular spheres of life. For example, if you have an non-religious athlete who repeats a common prayer or makes a religious gesture before a game \"for good luck,\" is that a religious practice? Is it more or less religious than an athlete who thinks it is disrespectful to bring God into sports, but wears a lucky t-shirt? The reason I think this understanding of religion is important for your question is because it may change the way we think about an idea like \"sacrifice.\" Consider rules for Kosher or Halal butchers that govern how an animal is killed. Should we consider these (religious) rules guiding animal sacrifice, or (secular) rules guiding food and animal consumption? And if it is both, then what does that mean for what we think of secular animal slaughter in the contemporary period? We have elaborate sets of rules about slaughter and butchery in contemporary American culture including the rule to keep it out of site from everyday awareness. From within our own cultural lens, the rules around animal slaughter are \"rational\" or \"food safety\" rules, but in actuality they are not all about the science of public health. There is nothing \"rational\" about hiding animal slaughter from the public -- this particular rule is clearly cultural. It is such a deeply held belief that we get offended when shown pictures and videos of slaughter houses. You could make a pretty persuasive argument that the US has a devotion to hiding animal slaughter from the public that is as deeply held as any religious belief. The only reason we don't call it a religious belief is that we imagine ourselves as a secular society. So the same thing may be true for when we look at the religious practices of another society -- what we identify as \"religious\" may be cultural. So, there may not be an empirical difference between a religious and secular beliefs because they may both be more accurately described as cultural beliefs. And this throws into question our definition of \"sacrifice\" as giving over to god\/the gods. In western minds, sacrifice implies waste or a giving away of the thing being sacrificed. But it may just be dinner with a set of cultural rules around how \"people like us\" prepare food. The other (and related) thing that makes this a hard question to answer is that so much of our knowledge of societies and cultures around the world and historically is based on descriptions by people outside of those societies, often for a purpose -- to construct another groups as weird and different (or similar and good) and thus worth conquering or not worth conquering, good trade partners or bad trade partners, worth with, learning from or not worth learning from. So any time you read someone from culture A writing about culture B, you have to ask yourself, \"Is the writer using their own cultural rules and taboos to describe culture B?\" It is not a coincidence that the ancient Greeks described central Asia as full of Amazons -- the idea of warrior women was somewhere between hilarious and horrifying to them. So describing their enemies as women warriors did more to support the gender order and cultural boundaries of Greek society than it did to give an accurate description of central Asian societies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8784.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"ohznc2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Were there any ancient religions that didn't require any type of living sacrifices? If this isn't the correct subreddit for this question, please direct me to the appropriate one. Do we possess information about any ancient religions that didn't have a sacrificial system that included living creatures, be these animals or humans? If yes, would you mind giving me some literary recommendations that would help me learn more about these religions?","c_root_id_A":"h4ty4ws","c_root_id_B":"h4sqcb7","created_at_utc_A":1626027211,"created_at_utc_B":1626001765,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Sure; Buddhism. Assuming you\u2019re also considering ancient religions that are still extant today. A good introduction to Buddhism from a historial academic perspective is _The Foundations of Buddhism_ by Rupert Gethin. A great introduction to the Buddha\u2019s teachings from within the tradition itself is _In the Buddha\u2019s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon_ by Bhikkhu Bodhi.","human_ref_B":">\tas per two anecdotal reports that I know of What does an anecdotal report mean in this context? If it\u2019s not an academic relating an informal assessment of evidence then it doesn\u2019t really seem like an appropriate designation (and even then why would that view not be published).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25446.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"ohznc2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Were there any ancient religions that didn't require any type of living sacrifices? If this isn't the correct subreddit for this question, please direct me to the appropriate one. Do we possess information about any ancient religions that didn't have a sacrificial system that included living creatures, be these animals or humans? If yes, would you mind giving me some literary recommendations that would help me learn more about these religions?","c_root_id_A":"h4twmx2","c_root_id_B":"h4ty4ws","created_at_utc_A":1626026467,"created_at_utc_B":1626027211,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"It's Herodotus on the Magians so take it with a grain of salt and it does involve a sacrifice it sounds like they ended up eating themselves afterwards. >As for ceremonial, when the Persians offer sacrifice to the deities [...], they erect no altar and kindle no fire. The libation, the flute music, the garlands, the sprinkled meal - all these things, familiar to us, they have no use for. But before a ceremony, a man sticks a spray of leaves, usually myrtle leaves, into his headdress, takes his victim to some open place and invokes the deity to whom he wishes to sacrifice. The actual worshipper is not permitted to pray for any personal or private blessing, but only for the king and for the general good of the community. (The actual worshipper is not permitted to pray for any personal or private blessing, but only for the king and for the general good of the community, of which he is himself a part.) When he has cut up the animal and cooked it, he makes a little heap of the softest green-stuff he can find, preferably clover, and lays all the meat upon it. This done, a Magian -a member of this caste is always present at sacrifices- utters an incantation over it in a form of words which is supposed to recount the birth of the gods. Then after a short interval the worshipper removes the flesh and does what he pleases with it. Also a very interesting note about the way that they did kill things. >The Magians not only kill anything, except dogs and men, with their own hands but make a special point in doing so; ants, snakes, animals, birds - no matter what, they kill them indiscriminately. Well, it is an ancient custom, so let them keep it. They were part of Zoroastrians though under Darius these sacrifices were made to the god Ahuramazda.","human_ref_B":"Sure; Buddhism. Assuming you\u2019re also considering ancient religions that are still extant today. A good introduction to Buddhism from a historial academic perspective is _The Foundations of Buddhism_ by Rupert Gethin. A great introduction to the Buddha\u2019s teachings from within the tradition itself is _In the Buddha\u2019s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon_ by Bhikkhu Bodhi.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":744.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"dcrmfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any cultures, religions, or movements past or present that encouraged taking one's life or \"walking away\" to avoid burdening the group? There was an AMA on askscience about death and dying that, ironically, died so I bring my question here: The cost of end of life care, at least in America, is exorbitant, and I personally hope that I'm able to take my own life at the right time with some dignity and so as not to be a burden, but I don't know exactly where that sentiment comes from. Could you provide any anthropological context for 'walking away' when it's time? Are there any current cultures or movements that continue to practice or encourage this that I could read about? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"f2b5ehq","c_root_id_B":"f2ays3d","created_at_utc_A":1570122013,"created_at_utc_B":1570119532,"score_A":48,"score_B":46,"human_ref_A":"Rane Willerslev has done good work on exactly what you\u2019re talking about with the Chukchi and their tradition of voluntary death. The Optimal Sacrifice: A study of voluntary death among the Siberian Chukchi There\u2019s also a host of new ethnographic literature coming out on euthanasia advocacy. If you\u2019re interested in that I can suggest some readings as well.","human_ref_B":"I know the book Sapiens mentioned an indigenous group in South America leaving a man behind as he was sick and slowing the group down making him a danger for the group against encroaching farmers. He managed to recover and catch up. I can\u2019t remember if the book mentioned a specific tribe. Maybe seppuko in Japanese culture counts to avoid burdening the clan of shame?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2481.0,"score_ratio":1.0434782609} {"post_id":"dcrmfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any cultures, religions, or movements past or present that encouraged taking one's life or \"walking away\" to avoid burdening the group? There was an AMA on askscience about death and dying that, ironically, died so I bring my question here: The cost of end of life care, at least in America, is exorbitant, and I personally hope that I'm able to take my own life at the right time with some dignity and so as not to be a burden, but I don't know exactly where that sentiment comes from. Could you provide any anthropological context for 'walking away' when it's time? Are there any current cultures or movements that continue to practice or encourage this that I could read about? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"f2b5ehq","c_root_id_B":"f2b34uk","created_at_utc_A":1570122013,"created_at_utc_B":1570121167,"score_A":48,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Rane Willerslev has done good work on exactly what you\u2019re talking about with the Chukchi and their tradition of voluntary death. The Optimal Sacrifice: A study of voluntary death among the Siberian Chukchi There\u2019s also a host of new ethnographic literature coming out on euthanasia advocacy. If you\u2019re interested in that I can suggest some readings as well.","human_ref_B":"I think the Japanese used to do this? The elderly would tell their kids to carry them into the mountains and leave them there when they consider themselves a burden in tougher situations. Not sure how often it happened though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":846.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"dcrmfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any cultures, religions, or movements past or present that encouraged taking one's life or \"walking away\" to avoid burdening the group? There was an AMA on askscience about death and dying that, ironically, died so I bring my question here: The cost of end of life care, at least in America, is exorbitant, and I personally hope that I'm able to take my own life at the right time with some dignity and so as not to be a burden, but I don't know exactly where that sentiment comes from. Could you provide any anthropological context for 'walking away' when it's time? Are there any current cultures or movements that continue to practice or encourage this that I could read about? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"f2bzaox","c_root_id_B":"f2b34uk","created_at_utc_A":1570132717,"created_at_utc_B":1570121167,"score_A":22,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest reading Emile Durkheim's research on Altruistic Suicide... There is lots on this topic!","human_ref_B":"I think the Japanese used to do this? The elderly would tell their kids to carry them into the mountains and leave them there when they consider themselves a burden in tougher situations. Not sure how often it happened though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11550.0,"score_ratio":2.4444444444} {"post_id":"dcrmfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any cultures, religions, or movements past or present that encouraged taking one's life or \"walking away\" to avoid burdening the group? There was an AMA on askscience about death and dying that, ironically, died so I bring my question here: The cost of end of life care, at least in America, is exorbitant, and I personally hope that I'm able to take my own life at the right time with some dignity and so as not to be a burden, but I don't know exactly where that sentiment comes from. Could you provide any anthropological context for 'walking away' when it's time? Are there any current cultures or movements that continue to practice or encourage this that I could read about? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"f2bm3cw","c_root_id_B":"f2bzaox","created_at_utc_A":1570128219,"created_at_utc_B":1570132717,"score_A":8,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I think theres a legend of a norse viking tribe where the elderly jumped off a cliff when they became a burden. Last I heard its unsubstantiated though","human_ref_B":"I would suggest reading Emile Durkheim's research on Altruistic Suicide... There is lots on this topic!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4498.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"dcrmfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any cultures, religions, or movements past or present that encouraged taking one's life or \"walking away\" to avoid burdening the group? There was an AMA on askscience about death and dying that, ironically, died so I bring my question here: The cost of end of life care, at least in America, is exorbitant, and I personally hope that I'm able to take my own life at the right time with some dignity and so as not to be a burden, but I don't know exactly where that sentiment comes from. Could you provide any anthropological context for 'walking away' when it's time? Are there any current cultures or movements that continue to practice or encourage this that I could read about? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"f2bm3cw","c_root_id_B":"f2bzfzm","created_at_utc_A":1570128219,"created_at_utc_B":1570132744,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I think theres a legend of a norse viking tribe where the elderly jumped off a cliff when they became a burden. Last I heard its unsubstantiated though","human_ref_B":"In ethics\/philosophy, assisted suicide is a hotly debated topic. Some countries allow this, looks like the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia, Luxembourg, and parts of Australia and some states in the US. You could look for stories from there. Many of the arguments against allowing assisted suicide is that people don\u2019t want people to kill themselves just because they feel like a burden, though. There are plenty of people who are \u201cburdens\u201d who add a lot to our experience, wisdom, society in other ways, including people with disabilities, new children, unemployed, elderly. People also view people feeling as burdens as a societal flaw that society should fix sometimes rather than an individual problem. I did not make healthcare expensive, people who get laid off didn\u2019t do anything wrong, etc. I, personally, have thought about having suicide as a retirement plan given that I can only work part time and have expensive medications. Pretty sure that\u2019s not what they wanted me to think about when they told me to start thinking about retirement. Maybe the us will adopt a universal healthcare system so we can bring down outrageous drug prices and I can live, maybe not.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4525.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"atg0rg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there examples of primates or other seemingly highly cognitive animals domesticating other species to any extent? Perhaps there is a better place to ask but so far as I know, domestication is an anthropological system. Please enlighten me otherwise. Simply curious. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"eh1jrce","c_root_id_B":"eh1hni2","created_at_utc_A":1550856686,"created_at_utc_B":1550855268,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but Koko the gorilla famously asked for a cat, received one, and kept it as a pet. She grieved when it died in an accident, and went on to keep other cats later. But that's an individual not a species.","human_ref_B":"There is a species of ant that has inadvertently domesticated aphids. They herd and keep them around by biting off their wings so they can have a food source.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1418.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"5199eu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Has there been any research on mental health in modern stone age people?","c_root_id_A":"d7a8iqk","c_root_id_B":"d7aido6","created_at_utc_A":1473083336,"created_at_utc_B":1473099641,"score_A":5,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"modern stone age? o.o","human_ref_B":"Not sure about specifically modern *hunters gatherer* people, but I know in many less developed nations mental illness is often either: A) attributed to demons\/spirits\/curse\/\"karma\" especially with relation to disorders like schizophrenia, tourettes, mania that affect behavior\/subjective reality in an extreme way. In some cultures those behaviors may be viewed as a spiritual gift, although that's rarer than the alternative; B) carries a shameful stigma and is therefore often hidden by the sufferer or the family; C) simply not recognized as a mental illness, whether the culture has a concept of mental illness or not. For example someone we might classify as clinically depressed may simply be considered very sad or even lazy by their culture, or someone with anxiety might just be considered a nervous or meek person in general. I remember when I was living in rural Cambodia (we're talking no running water, thatched houses, collecting rain water to bath out of type rural) I was living with a local family. They had a friend visit who brought their about 12 y\/o daughter (I'm not sure exactly TBH, could have been older or younger) who clearly had some disorder like severe tourettes or possibly some variety of schizophrenia, but very obviously in need of serious professional intervention. Anyways, the mother I was staying with pulled me aside and explained that the girl was possessed by demons and had been for several years now, and that they would be praying together later to drive out the evil spirits. It wasn't my place to tell them the girl needed a doctor, since there was absolutely no way they could afford that, the only real hospitals were kilometers away in Phnom Pehn, and even if I they had the money and took her there it's unlikely any doctor there would even have an idea about how to diagnose or treat such a thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16305.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"7h27rf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why is it ancient artwork is assumed to have deep significance, whereas no such expectations are put on contemporary work?","c_root_id_A":"dqnmtx4","c_root_id_B":"dqnjckl","created_at_utc_A":1512223337,"created_at_utc_B":1512215463,"score_A":122,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"It depends on the era you're talking about. For cave paintings for example, cave paintings believed to have significance are not just doodles near the entrance of a cave, but rather paintings that were deep in very dark caves. People didn't go back on a whim, these were in extremely dark and sometimes dangerous parts of a cave, and getting light back there would have been difficult. In a time where people had to spend the majority of their time focused on survival, the effort required for cave paintings was significant - the significance we ascribe to them is a reflection of that. Also, not all art is assumed to have significance, but you hear more about art with significance because, well, it's significant. There are plenty of examples of ancient graffiti, pieces or art that seemed likely to be children's toys etc.","human_ref_B":"I think you'll have to elaborate. What do you mean by 'deep significance'? For example, do you mean significance as in its historical or archaeological value or in its artistic relevance or quality? What classical and contemporary artwork were you thinking about when writing down the question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7874.0,"score_ratio":6.4210526316} {"post_id":"7h27rf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why is it ancient artwork is assumed to have deep significance, whereas no such expectations are put on contemporary work?","c_root_id_A":"dqolojg","c_root_id_B":"dqqthzq","created_at_utc_A":1512266652,"created_at_utc_B":1512386899,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Ann Sievking in *The Cave Artists* puts forth the argument that the extreme similarity in form and style of western European cave painting across 10s of thousands of years means they must have held high significance (whether it was religious, aesthetic, functional-ritual, etc.) We don't tend to preserve something without change unless it's very important to us (prestigious languages, important religious rituals, laws, etc.). As others have said, you also have to consider the high degree of difficulty of deep cave painting. Every single pigment has to be made from scratch from naturally available materials, so you need to know what things make good pigments, and how to make those pigments. The actual painting was done deep inside completely lightless caves, so you can only paint by weak torch or lamp light, and only for as long as your light lasts. Caves would not have been any safer for ancient people than they are for us today: falling and slipping would have been a very real risk for a new cave. Finally, the actual cave walls are not flat like a canvas. To paint on a cave wall you need the ability to adapt your vision to the three dimensional shape of the wall as you find it, and still get the final image you want. Even after the cave is painted, going to view them is a hassle since you still need torches\/lamps. In summation, you need a lot of very specific knowledge of pigment sources, cave traversal, and painting on irregular 3d surfaces. All these techniques would have to have been taught and passed on to each new generation, since there was no writing to learn from, which suggests they were considered valuable skills. This, combined with the fact that the forms and styles of cave paintings are shockingly similar over the course of thousands of years suggests they were quite significant to those who made them, even if we can't say what that significance was. When you compare this to say, the doodlings and murals of modern (or even medieval\/antiquity) people, there's some orders of magnitude difference in the trouble you need to go to to paint. I recommend Sievking's book. It was written in 1979, so it's not up to date with the latest discoveries, but it provides a good geographic overview of cave painting styles, and I learned many surprising things from it.","human_ref_B":"A lot of these posts have focused on cave art, and there's no question that when you have painting \/ sculptures in caves (e.g., the clay bison sculpted more than 600 m back inside Tuc d'Audoubert), we have to think about the effort it takes to get there without electric lights. The way that cave divers stage oxygen bottles at various locations through repeated trips into a cave system is how you have to imagine ancient cave artists getting into and out of these caves, but with bundles of torches instead of air tanks. It's enormously time and energy intensive, and it's dangerous. But consider also the enormous effort that goes into carving out of bone and ivory the objects that are associated with (for example) Magdalenian cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Or you could push even earlier to the Aurignacian cultures of the same region, and look at something like the Lion Man carving, which was made on mammoth ivory using stone tools. An experimental replication of the Lion Man, using elephant ivory and only stone tools, took over 370 hours to complete (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hgbvT9_pjzo). And when you look at the detail of intricate carvings like some of the Magdalenian atlatls, you have to remember that these are being done with stone tools. The amount of time and effort spent not only to make these tools, but also the effort to keep them safe-- remember, if we find them intact it means that these Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers either were exceptionally careful in using them and protected them, or they carried them around and protected them *without* using them-- suggests exceptional care. We assume that these things had significance (not necessarily *great* significance) because they exist! In a culture in which permanent structures and \"places to keep your stuff\" aren't necessarily commonplace, and personal material culture is minimal at best, the existence of these pieces-- which are at least exceptionally detailed and adorned *utilitarian* tools, and at most, carefully curated pieces that had some alternative purpose *other* than utilitarian-- implies significance.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":120247.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"7h27rf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why is it ancient artwork is assumed to have deep significance, whereas no such expectations are put on contemporary work?","c_root_id_A":"dqomm2a","c_root_id_B":"dqqthzq","created_at_utc_A":1512267793,"created_at_utc_B":1512386899,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It really depends on what specifically you mean, but I think a lot of what you are describing would feel some what obvious to a well educated person from the time period the piece of art was created. What feels like over analyzation often is just an explanation of the context and culture behind a painting. Think about a piece of street art by Banksy, explained to people two hundred years in the future. It would take a while to fully explain the context and significance.","human_ref_B":"A lot of these posts have focused on cave art, and there's no question that when you have painting \/ sculptures in caves (e.g., the clay bison sculpted more than 600 m back inside Tuc d'Audoubert), we have to think about the effort it takes to get there without electric lights. The way that cave divers stage oxygen bottles at various locations through repeated trips into a cave system is how you have to imagine ancient cave artists getting into and out of these caves, but with bundles of torches instead of air tanks. It's enormously time and energy intensive, and it's dangerous. But consider also the enormous effort that goes into carving out of bone and ivory the objects that are associated with (for example) Magdalenian cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Or you could push even earlier to the Aurignacian cultures of the same region, and look at something like the Lion Man carving, which was made on mammoth ivory using stone tools. An experimental replication of the Lion Man, using elephant ivory and only stone tools, took over 370 hours to complete (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hgbvT9_pjzo). And when you look at the detail of intricate carvings like some of the Magdalenian atlatls, you have to remember that these are being done with stone tools. The amount of time and effort spent not only to make these tools, but also the effort to keep them safe-- remember, if we find them intact it means that these Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers either were exceptionally careful in using them and protected them, or they carried them around and protected them *without* using them-- suggests exceptional care. We assume that these things had significance (not necessarily *great* significance) because they exist! In a culture in which permanent structures and \"places to keep your stuff\" aren't necessarily commonplace, and personal material culture is minimal at best, the existence of these pieces-- which are at least exceptionally detailed and adorned *utilitarian* tools, and at most, carefully curated pieces that had some alternative purpose *other* than utilitarian-- implies significance.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":119106.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"7h27rf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why is it ancient artwork is assumed to have deep significance, whereas no such expectations are put on contemporary work?","c_root_id_A":"dqqthzq","c_root_id_B":"dqoy124","created_at_utc_A":1512386899,"created_at_utc_B":1512282823,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A lot of these posts have focused on cave art, and there's no question that when you have painting \/ sculptures in caves (e.g., the clay bison sculpted more than 600 m back inside Tuc d'Audoubert), we have to think about the effort it takes to get there without electric lights. The way that cave divers stage oxygen bottles at various locations through repeated trips into a cave system is how you have to imagine ancient cave artists getting into and out of these caves, but with bundles of torches instead of air tanks. It's enormously time and energy intensive, and it's dangerous. But consider also the enormous effort that goes into carving out of bone and ivory the objects that are associated with (for example) Magdalenian cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Or you could push even earlier to the Aurignacian cultures of the same region, and look at something like the Lion Man carving, which was made on mammoth ivory using stone tools. An experimental replication of the Lion Man, using elephant ivory and only stone tools, took over 370 hours to complete (https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hgbvT9_pjzo). And when you look at the detail of intricate carvings like some of the Magdalenian atlatls, you have to remember that these are being done with stone tools. The amount of time and effort spent not only to make these tools, but also the effort to keep them safe-- remember, if we find them intact it means that these Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers either were exceptionally careful in using them and protected them, or they carried them around and protected them *without* using them-- suggests exceptional care. We assume that these things had significance (not necessarily *great* significance) because they exist! In a culture in which permanent structures and \"places to keep your stuff\" aren't necessarily commonplace, and personal material culture is minimal at best, the existence of these pieces-- which are at least exceptionally detailed and adorned *utilitarian* tools, and at most, carefully curated pieces that had some alternative purpose *other* than utilitarian-- implies significance.","human_ref_B":"If you're referring to cave art, it depends on what it is. Most of what gets shown in popular media is the most detailed and skilled art, but there's a bunch of them that are crude etchings or drawings. For instance, there are penises that look like the kind of scrawls you'd see in a men's restroom today. There are also many outlines of hands. (Clottes has photos of these in figs. 9 and 10.) Another example, at Rouffignac, appears to be children etching finger flutings into the rock. Some of the cave art, which is more frequently seen in popular media, is very difficult to make. Besides the gathering and processing pigments, they are sometimes located in areas of cave systems that are very difficult or dangerous to get to. J. David Lewis-Williams has argued that this difficulty could have been part of some shamanic rites. One reason for this was the use of isolated areas of the cave as sorts of large-scale sensory deprivation chambers. You can check out The Mind in the Cave for more, and the Bradshaw Foundation which has tons of photos and interpretations of rock and cave art. Also, obligatory SMBC.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":104076.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1izl2p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why do peoples of similar latitudes have such different skin tones? I understand why the S\u00e1mi and the Wodaabe have such different skin coloration. But why do the Irish look so different from the Haida? Both peoples live in overcast climates at about 50 degrees N. And while Vancouver has more sunshine hours in the summer, Dublin has more in the winter, so you'd think it evens out. What's going on here?","c_root_id_A":"cb9ng1b","c_root_id_B":"cb9onkj","created_at_utc_A":1374712004,"created_at_utc_B":1374715483,"score_A":4,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/locatraviesa25 I know you did some work with Jablonski in undergrad - care to weigh on on the issue of skin?","human_ref_B":"There is a definite correlation between skin colour and latitude, but it is by no means 1:1 correlation (actually, I think it's a .8 correlation?). There are a number of reasons that skin colour and altitude are correlated, but there are two mains ones. #1 Melanin protects the skin from heavy sun exposure and prevents the destruction of some vital light sensitive nutrients (e.g. Folate). #2 Melanin blocks sunlight which is necessary for vitamin D synthesis - in areas with low sunlight having darker skin increases the risk of vitamin D deficiency and rickets. I can't comment on your the specific populations you used as examples. However, in general, skin colour does not exactly correlate to latitude for a number of reasons. 1) Similar latitudes do not necessarily have similar UV exposure. There might, for example, be differences in cloud cover. Or less protection from the ozone layer. I'm no expert on this, but UV lines are a little wobbly! **2)** Population migration - quite simply, those populations who have migrated more recently are less likely to match up to the expected level of skin reflectance and skin colouration. After 10-20,000 people seem to conform to expected skin reflectivity values - but humans are a lot more antsy than that! Migration seems to account for most outliers. 3) Skin colour is plastic and changes with sun exposure - one population where most people have jobs indoors will likely have a lighter average skin colour than a similar population who often work outside... or take long holidays in the bahamas. Tanning!! 4) There is more to skin colour than just melenin. All sorts of things can affect skin colour - to pick just one example, the number of capillaries on the skins surface can have a marked effect. I know less about this, but two skins of somewhat different hues may have similar melenin levels and, thus, be equality efficient at protecting against UV. For more on this #1 & 2 Jablonski's 2000 article \"The Evolution of Skin Colouration\" has you covered. Or is that \"coloration\"? Help me out here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3479.0,"score_ratio":4.75} {"post_id":"bvedm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Archaeologically speaking, why didn\u2019t the Aboriginal Australians use the bow and arrow to hunt\/conduct warfare? This question has bothered me for a long time. I\u2019ve been interested in the evolution of weapons across cultures and it always struck me as odd that Aboriginal Australians used the boomerang rather than the bow and arrow.","c_root_id_A":"epoqdq9","c_root_id_B":"epovb8j","created_at_utc_A":1559350307,"created_at_utc_B":1559354694,"score_A":5,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"Could maybe have to do with rope technology and suitable wood types, or just somebody thinking of it. On the mainland, it might take a while for word to travel, but once one culture invents the bow and arrow, it's just a matter of time until everyone has it. The natives in the Americas may have brought that technology from the mainland also, idk.","human_ref_B":"> used the boomerang They had the Spear + Woomera (spear-thrower) as their main projectile weapon. Kangaroo hide isn't like cow hide, the cells cross over. Rather tough and the extra force of a full weight spear does the job where a rainforest persons little poison arrows probably wouldn't have much impact. The impact forces of a spear thrown with Woomera are pretty devastating. Boomerang are somewhat regional and often used in inventive ways other than direct impact, such as throwing them over flocks of ducks to have the birds dive into pre-placed nets. I have heard other musing about the reasons why archery was a thing elsewhere, there is more to this picture that I'm not able to recall.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4387.0,"score_ratio":6.6} {"post_id":"bvedm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Archaeologically speaking, why didn\u2019t the Aboriginal Australians use the bow and arrow to hunt\/conduct warfare? This question has bothered me for a long time. I\u2019ve been interested in the evolution of weapons across cultures and it always struck me as odd that Aboriginal Australians used the boomerang rather than the bow and arrow.","c_root_id_A":"epowul8","c_root_id_B":"epoqdq9","created_at_utc_A":1559356106,"created_at_utc_B":1559350307,"score_A":13,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Some Aboriginal Australian clans also waited until prey were asleep then smoked their holes with a firestick, then bludgeoned the animal to death with a nulla nulla (club). Very efficient. Someone else also pointed out that V shaped boomerangs were for sending flocks of birds in to a panic flight before using hunting boomerangs to bring down individuals. These are local techniques which worked for them and their particular environments.","human_ref_B":"Could maybe have to do with rope technology and suitable wood types, or just somebody thinking of it. On the mainland, it might take a while for word to travel, but once one culture invents the bow and arrow, it's just a matter of time until everyone has it. The natives in the Americas may have brought that technology from the mainland also, idk.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5799.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"v5ve8h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"How did wearable technology (like eye-glasses) become socially acceptable? Wondering about how wearable technologies permeate culture until they are widely socially accepted. Did eyeglasses go through a period of social unacceptability? Would people use them only in the home, or in private? If yes, when and how did the stigma around them change into their ubiquitous use today?","c_root_id_A":"ibczzel","c_root_id_B":"ibch7wv","created_at_utc_A":1654519555,"created_at_utc_B":1654505166,"score_A":29,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":">Wondering about how wearable technologies permeate culture until they are widely socially accepted. This question proceeds from the notion that \"wearable technology\" does not start out as \"socially acceptable.\" I would question this premise. As a more general note, technological innovations don't necessarily go through a period of social unacceptability. The manner and rate of adoption of a given type of technology depends on a number of factors, and there is no single trajectory that can be generalized for X or Y technology. >Did eyeglasses go through a period of social unacceptability? Would people use them only in the home, or in private? Various technological solutions for magnification and clarification have been around since the early 1st millennium. They were sometimes made from naturally clear materials like quartz crystal, and were ground into lenticular or half-lenticular forms that allowed for magnification. Adaptation of this technology also allowed for the development of devices with multiple lenses for magnification at greater distances. Early binocular (wearable) optical aids didn't emerge until the early 2nd millennium in Italy. Depictions in art of the period suggest that they were not viewed as socially unacceptable at the time. And historical accounts indicate that they were in demand and popular. Venice became a center for their production because of access to high-quality glass from which lenses could be made. **Historical accounts and artistic depictions of the use of early glasses do not indicate that they were ever viewed as socially unacceptable.**","human_ref_B":"Glasses have been around in one form or another for at least a thousand years, possibly as long as two thousand. There\u2019s evidence that the Roman emperor Nero used a convex lens for sight correction, although the form of glasses we see today is probably from around a thousand years ago. Lenses have been around for a very long time (most commonly used for telescopes) and seeing the corrective properties of lenses it\u2019s a simple step to make a frame to fit on your face. The hard part is making the right prescription of course. The complex grinding and polishing of lenses took a lot of time and money, it was quite an expensive item to have. Lenses would have been something only the wealthiest could afford, it\u2019s just as likely that someone who needed to wear glasses would have been showing off their wealth by wearing an expensive pair of glasses. Those around the wealthy person could have started a trend by wearing imitation glasses, with flat glass inside instead of lenses. A lot of poorer people would have just suffered without being able to see properly for their whole lives. It\u2019s more interesting to me that a \u201cstigma\u201d appeared in the early twentieth century that implied people with glasses were \u201cinferior\u201d. Where did that come from? Is it perhaps a hold over from people who could not join up to fight in the First or Second World War? Were they seen as inferior because they could not sign up to protect the country? Perhaps those \u201cdraft dodgers\u201d were mocked and kids picked up on this discrimination and persecuted other children who were starting to wear glasses (hence the \u201cnerd culture\u201d that still exists today?). This was also at just the time when lenses were cheap enough through mass production and health care was becoming more affordable and more common. I can\u2019t think of any other \u201cwearable technology\u201d that was seen as socially unacceptable? Wigs\/jewellery were always a fashion statement. Hearing aids were for the elderly, and who bullies their gran for getting old? Maybe kids bullied the hard of hearing kid who needed them? But kids will bully anyone who\u2019s different, although perhaps that is a cultural idiom in itself. The closest I can think of is mobile phones, and I must admit to mocking those professionals who wore a mobile phone on their belts in the late 90\u2019s (the businessmen \u201cyuppie\u201d types). But that\u2019s again due to them being a fashion statement, showing off the wearers wealth at being able to afford a mobile phone in the 90\u2019s, and my mocking them comes from being a teenager and jealous about not being able to afford a mobile phone myself. Perhaps you should look at your own biases, you seem to be implying that glasses are socially unacceptable, what makes you think that? Is there a reason behind this question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14389.0,"score_ratio":1.5263157895} {"post_id":"ic9bfa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Question: How did smiles and frowns become what they are today? It seems so ingrained in humanity - the idea of upturned lips signaling happiness, and downturned lips signaling negativity in some way. Is there any anthropological science that can explain how these two seemingly arbitrary contractions of facial muscles came to symbolize these things?","c_root_id_A":"g216h7k","c_root_id_B":"g2155y4","created_at_utc_A":1597785077,"created_at_utc_B":1597784426,"score_A":39,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s been quite a bit of research on the universality of facial expressions of emotions by researchers like Ekman, so you might start by reading some of that work. Smiling seems to be recognized as a sign of happiness in lots of other cultures, and other emotion faces are consistent too (like anger and disgust). But there\u2019s probably not going to be a very clear\/satisfying explanation of why smiling indicates happiness (although maybe there are hypotheses out there).","human_ref_B":"My favorite anthropologically minded work on the topic is a chapter in Anna Wierzbicka\u2019s book \u201cEmotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals\u201d. I believe the chapter was called \u201cThe Semantics of Facial Expressions\u201d and it looks like she may have published some material on that separately as stand alone articles. But basically, she picks up where Paul Eckman left off. He\u2019s famous for mapping out what each muscle of the face does and all the expressions it makes and more the neurological\/psychological reflex aspects of it. It\u2019s good work, but Anna Wierzbicka in proud anthropological fashion brings up some culturally relative nuances, and shows that regardless of what automatic reflexes we may have as a species, understanding facial expressions fully also requires understanding their communicative\/semantic aspects as well. Which are not always exactly the same population to population, but show some clear trends. Edit: typo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":651.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} {"post_id":"7auyhw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How did handshakes become a universal greeting across cultures?","c_root_id_A":"dpda2t8","c_root_id_B":"dpd3qgg","created_at_utc_A":1509862317,"created_at_utc_B":1509852122,"score_A":35,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I would probably say its a european thing, that came along with globalism, which due to a lot of things, european mannerisms became dominiant.","human_ref_B":"A visual demonstration that one is not an immediate threat due to being unarmed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10195.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"7auyhw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How did handshakes become a universal greeting across cultures?","c_root_id_A":"dpddqxi","c_root_id_B":"dpd3qgg","created_at_utc_A":1509872657,"created_at_utc_B":1509852122,"score_A":17,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"1) I\u2019m sure they aren\u2019t. There are bound to be outliers that don\u2019t. 2) It\u2019s a European greeting. Europeans colonised the world.","human_ref_B":"A visual demonstration that one is not an immediate threat due to being unarmed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20535.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"6xcwkb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did parents before modern medicine deal with the death of a child better than parents today? Considering in the past the chances of losing a child were significantly higher than today, did parents cope better with the loss of a child since it was common or was it as traumatic as it is today?","c_root_id_A":"dmf0ctf","c_root_id_B":"dmf4wjg","created_at_utc_A":1504254537,"created_at_utc_B":1504266190,"score_A":37,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"Death Without Weeping should give you insight to one culture's handling of common infant death. I cannot really compare emotional states of individuals or groups to each other in a quantifiable way, especially historical populations. Even within our own culture (assuming we share a culture) people grieve differently. What I will say is the coping method of a culture tends to \"fit\" contextually. Body \"disposal\" for example of works with ecology and technology like sky burial (vultures consume corpse) where the soil is hard and wood is scarce. I can speak to my opinions of my own culture. Americans like control and death is an affront to that control, more so a child's death. The child didn't have control nor guardian of that child. Most Americans when asked will describe a *good death* as **old, home, sleeping, or with loved ones**. So young is clearly not a *good death* in American values. Americans typically avoid the subject of death when possible (except in media where it might be trivialized another topic). Experts are used to remove certain burdens like preparing the deceased body and perform rituals. It used to fall onto the family to prepare their loved ones. Some cultures have the family perform death rituals rather than a clergy member. I can tell you there are very few hospice centers specifically for children and when diagnosed with terminal illness die in hospitals. TED Talk on the subject So I would expect the following: Different cultures to have grieving rituals that express their values. Their values to reflect aspects of their *perceived* reality. That last part is the key to understanding anyones life and death experinces. It explains how someone could martyr themselves, or why the death of an infant which never gets to perform the milestones of a *good life* is especially tragic.","human_ref_B":"This Nahua (Aztec\/Mexican Indian) poem probably dates to the 1500-1600s in Spanish Colonial Mexico. The mother is heartbroken by her infant's death, but nevertheless soldiers on and hides her grief by putting on a \"stiff upper lip\". >There was an old song about a dying infant speaking to its mother. It ran something like this: \u201cLittle mother, when I die, bury me by your hearthside. When you go to make tortillas, weep there for me. And whenever someone asks you, \u2018Little mother, why do you weep?\u2019 you\u2019ll tell them, \u2018Because the firewood is green, and makes me weep with so much smoke.\u2019\u201d (from Camilla Townsend's *Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico*) The archaeological record is full of accounts of infants and young children being carefully buried with valuable grave goods. The effort and care taken in burying the children suggests great affection on the part of their families. It's impossible to know exactly how mourning was expressed but the burials make it clear these families lost someone of value. One example is mummified infants from South Texas, where children's bodies were carefully wrapped in rabbitskin or other fur, cushioned in soft nests of grass, and often affixed to a small cradleboard. The bodies might be further covered with woven mats decorated in red designs and accompanied with shell, stone or bone jewelry--all valuable items, many acquired from faraway traders. The final burial bundle was secured under heavy stones, to ensure it would stay safely interred.(1) *(1) Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Oct., 2004), pp. 741-750 Radiocarbon Dating: Naturally Mummified Infant Bundle from SW Texas Author(s): Karen L. Steelman, Marvin W. Rowe, Solveig A. Turpin, Tom Guilderson, Laura Nightengale* NOTE: This is a modified version of a comment I also posted to a similar question on r\/AskHistorians","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11653.0,"score_ratio":1.3513513514} {"post_id":"6xcwkb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did parents before modern medicine deal with the death of a child better than parents today? Considering in the past the chances of losing a child were significantly higher than today, did parents cope better with the loss of a child since it was common or was it as traumatic as it is today?","c_root_id_A":"dmezvgh","c_root_id_B":"dmf4wjg","created_at_utc_A":1504253225,"created_at_utc_B":1504266190,"score_A":21,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"I've heard figures such as 3\/4 child mortality for medieval and early modern urban Europe (ie to replace themselves, a couple would need to have 8 children, with 2 surviving long enough to have their own children). Can anyone support this idea (or refute it)?","human_ref_B":"This Nahua (Aztec\/Mexican Indian) poem probably dates to the 1500-1600s in Spanish Colonial Mexico. The mother is heartbroken by her infant's death, but nevertheless soldiers on and hides her grief by putting on a \"stiff upper lip\". >There was an old song about a dying infant speaking to its mother. It ran something like this: \u201cLittle mother, when I die, bury me by your hearthside. When you go to make tortillas, weep there for me. And whenever someone asks you, \u2018Little mother, why do you weep?\u2019 you\u2019ll tell them, \u2018Because the firewood is green, and makes me weep with so much smoke.\u2019\u201d (from Camilla Townsend's *Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico*) The archaeological record is full of accounts of infants and young children being carefully buried with valuable grave goods. The effort and care taken in burying the children suggests great affection on the part of their families. It's impossible to know exactly how mourning was expressed but the burials make it clear these families lost someone of value. One example is mummified infants from South Texas, where children's bodies were carefully wrapped in rabbitskin or other fur, cushioned in soft nests of grass, and often affixed to a small cradleboard. The bodies might be further covered with woven mats decorated in red designs and accompanied with shell, stone or bone jewelry--all valuable items, many acquired from faraway traders. The final burial bundle was secured under heavy stones, to ensure it would stay safely interred.(1) *(1) Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Oct., 2004), pp. 741-750 Radiocarbon Dating: Naturally Mummified Infant Bundle from SW Texas Author(s): Karen L. Steelman, Marvin W. Rowe, Solveig A. Turpin, Tom Guilderson, Laura Nightengale* NOTE: This is a modified version of a comment I also posted to a similar question on r\/AskHistorians","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12965.0,"score_ratio":2.380952381} {"post_id":"6xcwkb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did parents before modern medicine deal with the death of a child better than parents today? Considering in the past the chances of losing a child were significantly higher than today, did parents cope better with the loss of a child since it was common or was it as traumatic as it is today?","c_root_id_A":"dmezvgh","c_root_id_B":"dmf0ctf","created_at_utc_A":1504253225,"created_at_utc_B":1504254537,"score_A":21,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I've heard figures such as 3\/4 child mortality for medieval and early modern urban Europe (ie to replace themselves, a couple would need to have 8 children, with 2 surviving long enough to have their own children). Can anyone support this idea (or refute it)?","human_ref_B":"Death Without Weeping should give you insight to one culture's handling of common infant death. I cannot really compare emotional states of individuals or groups to each other in a quantifiable way, especially historical populations. Even within our own culture (assuming we share a culture) people grieve differently. What I will say is the coping method of a culture tends to \"fit\" contextually. Body \"disposal\" for example of works with ecology and technology like sky burial (vultures consume corpse) where the soil is hard and wood is scarce. I can speak to my opinions of my own culture. Americans like control and death is an affront to that control, more so a child's death. The child didn't have control nor guardian of that child. Most Americans when asked will describe a *good death* as **old, home, sleeping, or with loved ones**. So young is clearly not a *good death* in American values. Americans typically avoid the subject of death when possible (except in media where it might be trivialized another topic). Experts are used to remove certain burdens like preparing the deceased body and perform rituals. It used to fall onto the family to prepare their loved ones. Some cultures have the family perform death rituals rather than a clergy member. I can tell you there are very few hospice centers specifically for children and when diagnosed with terminal illness die in hospitals. TED Talk on the subject So I would expect the following: Different cultures to have grieving rituals that express their values. Their values to reflect aspects of their *perceived* reality. That last part is the key to understanding anyones life and death experinces. It explains how someone could martyr themselves, or why the death of an infant which never gets to perform the milestones of a *good life* is especially tragic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1312.0,"score_ratio":1.7619047619} {"post_id":"6xcwkb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did parents before modern medicine deal with the death of a child better than parents today? Considering in the past the chances of losing a child were significantly higher than today, did parents cope better with the loss of a child since it was common or was it as traumatic as it is today?","c_root_id_A":"dmfueel","c_root_id_B":"dmfbxq4","created_at_utc_A":1504296554,"created_at_utc_B":1504276236,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"http:\/\/imgur.com\/Xzc5MX4 This plaque is in my local cathedral, I remember how heartwrenching I found it when I first read it. They lost 6 children, 3 in the same month (an epidemic or plague perhaps?). I think we have a tendency to minimise the pain of the past because we think they must have seen so much death. I remember at school being taught about African babies being ripped from their mothers and tossed overboard on the African coast before slave ships set sail as they were worthless to the slavers. I didn't connect that with the same pain that a modern mother would feel in that situation. But of course they felt the same way. But as has been said above, there wasn't the time to spend experiencing it and grieving as a break from normal life. They had to get on with things or starve.","human_ref_B":"People back in history did something we rarely do now. They wrote. Diaries, letters. They left a very good record of their lives. In reading these letters, and journal entries it is clear to me that their pain was every bit as deep as ours would be if\/when we lose a child. Greif is grief, and the idea that we sit here from our modern perspective trying to judge whether a parent who has just watched their child die from some disease like diphtheria was not in emotional agony irks me. This question can be easily answered by a bit of research into actual documents. We are so very fortunate to have the medicines and knowledge we do. There is not a family that was not touched by a death of a loved one that nowadays would be preventable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20318.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"myo7up","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did\/does the mortality associated with childbirth affect the decision to have children in previous societies\/cultures without access to modern medicine? Childbirth results in high mortality for both mothers and infants for anyone living in societies without access to modern medicine and facilities, those who aren\u2019t white, and anyone living before pretty much the latter half of the previous century. And yet we seem to think of people historically having more children than we do today. Did\/do people take that mortality into consideration when deciding whether to have children? It seems like something you\u2019d want to take into account.","c_root_id_A":"gwcg5x9","c_root_id_B":"gvxut9i","created_at_utc_A":1619730146,"created_at_utc_B":1619451414,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I know that in Europe (and later America) from at least the 15th century to the 19th century, birthing children was seen as one the main and most important duties of a wife. Although most women probably knew that the mortality rate for giving birth was somewhat high, the pressure from family and society to bear children was stronger than any fear a woman might have had. Infertile women were seen as being terribly unfortunate. (Fun fact: during this time period most doctors did not believe that men could be infertile, so failure to get pregnant was always blamed on the woman being infertile.)","human_ref_B":"Can you expand a bit on how you think they would have chosen to not have children, in the past? Like what methods of contraception are you feeling would apply here?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":278732.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"753wwo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What would modern day North and South America's look like, had they not been subject to such massive indigenous population decline following the introduction of Europeans? What sort of cultural and language differences would there be if the Aztecs, Incas, native Americans etc had remained the dominant populations on these continents?","c_root_id_A":"do3xkkp","c_root_id_B":"do4232q","created_at_utc_A":1507524279,"created_at_utc_B":1507534057,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Thats pretty hard to answer. There would be what 500 or 600 years of change. Who knows which technologies and cultural changes could have happened. If you are saying what would have happened had they all not died during first contact. It would have been much harder for Europeans to conquer the new world. Some estimates put the mortality rate of natives from European disease in the upper 90%. So imagine a population that could be 9 times or even 10 times bigger. With the long and dangerous travel time to even get there it seems unlikely the europeans would have been able to conquer as quickly or as early as they did. there are honestly too many variables to say though.","human_ref_B":"\/r\/AlternateHistory and \/r\/HistoryWhatIf would be better suited for this kind of question, I think.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9778.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izav7bm","c_root_id_B":"izavwgy","created_at_utc_A":1670441356,"created_at_utc_B":1670441639,"score_A":24,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"One thing I would add is those ranges are huge. We should be able to come up with something close to a single number if we are trying to establish a ratio. What does it mean to say that males have a 12-25% greater body mass? Is that 12 in some populations and 25 in others? Does that vary by age? Is that the range of answers across a number of different studies? If the latter, do we know how their methods varied? To me that range seems meaningless unless we have more context. I would like to see cites for the other numbers and contexts in terms of how gender impacts physical exercise and everyday patterns of movement. If men are encouraged to spend their lives in physical labor and sport but women are encouraged to stay home and stay small then I don\u2019t know how you pull apart culture and biology. I would also like some numbers for other parts if the body \u2014 to cherry pick the upper body as the measure of sexual dimorphism is great if you want a biased answer \u2014 not only is it one of the ratios we know will be the largest, but it\u2019s also an area where men gain muscle more easily than women. It is the opposite for the lower body where women seem to gain muscle more easily. And if we are going to talk ranges, I\u2019d like to see the ranges for large and small men compared to the ranges for men and women. If the variation among men is as large or larger than the variation between men and women that changes the story too.","human_ref_B":"It might be useful to lay out exactly what claim you are responding to. Who is saying h sapiens is not sexually dimorphic, or rather what is the specific argument?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":283.0,"score_ratio":2.625} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izans2o","c_root_id_B":"izavwgy","created_at_utc_A":1670438435,"created_at_utc_B":1670441639,"score_A":14,"score_B":63,"human_ref_A":"I guess it depends on what is being measured. The lack of dimorphism in canine size is an interesting variable precisely because how it helps differentiate cultures of apes. I don't think anyone is saying that lack of dimorphism in canines relates to the patterns exhibited by other traits though.","human_ref_B":"It might be useful to lay out exactly what claim you are responding to. Who is saying h sapiens is not sexually dimorphic, or rather what is the specific argument?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3204.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izav7bm","c_root_id_B":"izbxg9w","created_at_utc_A":1670441356,"created_at_utc_B":1670456907,"score_A":24,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"One thing I would add is those ranges are huge. We should be able to come up with something close to a single number if we are trying to establish a ratio. What does it mean to say that males have a 12-25% greater body mass? Is that 12 in some populations and 25 in others? Does that vary by age? Is that the range of answers across a number of different studies? If the latter, do we know how their methods varied? To me that range seems meaningless unless we have more context. I would like to see cites for the other numbers and contexts in terms of how gender impacts physical exercise and everyday patterns of movement. If men are encouraged to spend their lives in physical labor and sport but women are encouraged to stay home and stay small then I don\u2019t know how you pull apart culture and biology. I would also like some numbers for other parts if the body \u2014 to cherry pick the upper body as the measure of sexual dimorphism is great if you want a biased answer \u2014 not only is it one of the ratios we know will be the largest, but it\u2019s also an area where men gain muscle more easily than women. It is the opposite for the lower body where women seem to gain muscle more easily. And if we are going to talk ranges, I\u2019d like to see the ranges for large and small men compared to the ranges for men and women. If the variation among men is as large or larger than the variation between men and women that changes the story too.","human_ref_B":"We *are* dimorphic. I don't even know what you're straw-manning here. Maybe the conclusions that people reach about what being dimorphic should *mean* in practice, I suppose. But that's not a debate about whether we are, it's about what it means.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15551.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izans2o","c_root_id_B":"izbxg9w","created_at_utc_A":1670438435,"created_at_utc_B":1670456907,"score_A":14,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"I guess it depends on what is being measured. The lack of dimorphism in canine size is an interesting variable precisely because how it helps differentiate cultures of apes. I don't think anyone is saying that lack of dimorphism in canines relates to the patterns exhibited by other traits though.","human_ref_B":"We *are* dimorphic. I don't even know what you're straw-manning here. Maybe the conclusions that people reach about what being dimorphic should *mean* in practice, I suppose. But that's not a debate about whether we are, it's about what it means.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18472.0,"score_ratio":2.8571428571} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izans2o","c_root_id_B":"izav7bm","created_at_utc_A":1670438435,"created_at_utc_B":1670441356,"score_A":14,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I guess it depends on what is being measured. The lack of dimorphism in canine size is an interesting variable precisely because how it helps differentiate cultures of apes. I don't think anyone is saying that lack of dimorphism in canines relates to the patterns exhibited by other traits though.","human_ref_B":"One thing I would add is those ranges are huge. We should be able to come up with something close to a single number if we are trying to establish a ratio. What does it mean to say that males have a 12-25% greater body mass? Is that 12 in some populations and 25 in others? Does that vary by age? Is that the range of answers across a number of different studies? If the latter, do we know how their methods varied? To me that range seems meaningless unless we have more context. I would like to see cites for the other numbers and contexts in terms of how gender impacts physical exercise and everyday patterns of movement. If men are encouraged to spend their lives in physical labor and sport but women are encouraged to stay home and stay small then I don\u2019t know how you pull apart culture and biology. I would also like some numbers for other parts if the body \u2014 to cherry pick the upper body as the measure of sexual dimorphism is great if you want a biased answer \u2014 not only is it one of the ratios we know will be the largest, but it\u2019s also an area where men gain muscle more easily than women. It is the opposite for the lower body where women seem to gain muscle more easily. And if we are going to talk ranges, I\u2019d like to see the ranges for large and small men compared to the ranges for men and women. If the variation among men is as large or larger than the variation between men and women that changes the story too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2921.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"zf7ii5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"How are humans not sexually dimorphic? Body mass dimorphism is a characteristics of non-monogamous primates. Its gives an advantage in male to male competition. Monogamous species have a 0 to 3.5% body dimorphism. Polygamous primates range from 10% to 44%. In modern populations human males have on average 12 to 25% greater body mass. In a sample of 473 Hadza hunter-gatherers, the average was a 15% difference. But thats not it When it comes to lean body mass, the differences are far greater. Ranging from 30 to 42% in samples from industrialized, non-WEIRD, and hunter- gatherer groups. Chimpanzees have an 11-32% difference and they are polygamous and males are violent\/competitive. Males have about 2x the upper body strength of females. How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? Do we only measure it in humans through facial features and height? It would make sense to say we are not dimorphic in that regard because height differences are not that great, and human faces can easily look like another gender with a haircut\/makeup. But how do facial features allow males to outcompete other males? Sorry if this comes across as ignorant or crass. Just genuinely curious.","c_root_id_A":"izceov9","c_root_id_B":"izans2o","created_at_utc_A":1670464611,"created_at_utc_B":1670438435,"score_A":17,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":">How are these drastic differences in physical ability not considered dimorphic? They are. I've never ever heard anything or anyone who has suggested otherwise.","human_ref_B":"I guess it depends on what is being measured. The lack of dimorphism in canine size is an interesting variable precisely because how it helps differentiate cultures of apes. I don't think anyone is saying that lack of dimorphism in canines relates to the patterns exhibited by other traits though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26176.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"krm8vb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Hi! I\u2019m a second year cultural anthropology bachelor student and I have question regarding my fieldwork exercise during a global pandemic! During the month of January 2021, 2 peers and I have to conduct a fieldwork exercise. We are researching \u2018non-western\u2019 art and artists at western museums (more specifically Dutch ones) and the curation of said art, collaboration between museum and artists, presentation, politics of representation, etc. I will gladly give more info if needed. I am quite lost, since our mentors have told us to do our research mostly online, since there is a hard lockdown right now. It is hard for our group to exactly proceed since we can\u2019t do participant observation, exercises like photo elicitation or videoing as easily when doing research online. Do any of you have any input as to how we can do research online? Any digital fieldwork experiences you could share? Or sites we could use? Or how to access a research population? I would really appreciate any feedback!","c_root_id_A":"giao7o9","c_root_id_B":"giaqt35","created_at_utc_A":1609935257,"created_at_utc_B":1609937303,"score_A":3,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Hi! We had to do a similar thing last year for a project in third year cultural anthro. South Africa was in a hard lockdown from March all the way through until now. Give me a little bit, and I'll send you some helpful resources I found!","human_ref_B":"I'm a technoantropology-student in Denmark, and we have been introduced to a bunch of online research methods. I won't pretend to know much about your topic, but Actor-Network Theory is something I've heard used with online methods, and something like interviews over Zoom (or other software), as well as participatory video (which I've read a little about in \"Using participatory video to evaluate community development\" by Nemes et al.) seem to be quite useful during a time like this. Episode 66 of the podcast \"The Familiar Strange\" might also be of use, if nothing more than to hear what someone else might do in this situation!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2046.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"krm8vb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Hi! I\u2019m a second year cultural anthropology bachelor student and I have question regarding my fieldwork exercise during a global pandemic! During the month of January 2021, 2 peers and I have to conduct a fieldwork exercise. We are researching \u2018non-western\u2019 art and artists at western museums (more specifically Dutch ones) and the curation of said art, collaboration between museum and artists, presentation, politics of representation, etc. I will gladly give more info if needed. I am quite lost, since our mentors have told us to do our research mostly online, since there is a hard lockdown right now. It is hard for our group to exactly proceed since we can\u2019t do participant observation, exercises like photo elicitation or videoing as easily when doing research online. Do any of you have any input as to how we can do research online? Any digital fieldwork experiences you could share? Or sites we could use? Or how to access a research population? I would really appreciate any feedback!","c_root_id_A":"gic5s6i","c_root_id_B":"gibhiyo","created_at_utc_A":1609962414,"created_at_utc_B":1609951690,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have two main questions\/thoughts that might help guide you: 1. What is the west? Dichotomy between west and east, us vs other, as it is an imaginary line that \u201cwe\u201d draw to distinct ourselves from other groups. Consider reading about issues of orientalism and linear evolution. Non-western representation in art museum and still \u201ccan\u201d be extremely problematic, therefore there\u2019s loads to talk about. 2. Your research subject is very broad. I don\u2019t know the scope or necessities for your course, but I would consider conducting your fieldwork on specific pieces or a specific exhibit from one museum. By having this focus, you\u2019ll be able to go into detail, thick descriptions make for more interesting studies and better grades (haha). If you have questions or want some resources, let me know! Good luck :) Sounds like a fun course","human_ref_B":"a) Not from anthropology but a fan of hokusai. If you narrow your field, you have only a few contacts. (see below) b) If you need an online museum visitor, I gladly \"go\" to whatever place you need and look at whatever object you like and I will be available for an interview. How many people do you need? https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2016\/10\/23\/national\/history\/researcher-links-dutch-museum-pieces-famed-japanese-artist-hokusai\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10724.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"krm8vb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Hi! I\u2019m a second year cultural anthropology bachelor student and I have question regarding my fieldwork exercise during a global pandemic! During the month of January 2021, 2 peers and I have to conduct a fieldwork exercise. We are researching \u2018non-western\u2019 art and artists at western museums (more specifically Dutch ones) and the curation of said art, collaboration between museum and artists, presentation, politics of representation, etc. I will gladly give more info if needed. I am quite lost, since our mentors have told us to do our research mostly online, since there is a hard lockdown right now. It is hard for our group to exactly proceed since we can\u2019t do participant observation, exercises like photo elicitation or videoing as easily when doing research online. Do any of you have any input as to how we can do research online? Any digital fieldwork experiences you could share? Or sites we could use? Or how to access a research population? I would really appreciate any feedback!","c_root_id_A":"gic5s6i","c_root_id_B":"gic4iak","created_at_utc_A":1609962414,"created_at_utc_B":1609961845,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have two main questions\/thoughts that might help guide you: 1. What is the west? Dichotomy between west and east, us vs other, as it is an imaginary line that \u201cwe\u201d draw to distinct ourselves from other groups. Consider reading about issues of orientalism and linear evolution. Non-western representation in art museum and still \u201ccan\u201d be extremely problematic, therefore there\u2019s loads to talk about. 2. Your research subject is very broad. I don\u2019t know the scope or necessities for your course, but I would consider conducting your fieldwork on specific pieces or a specific exhibit from one museum. By having this focus, you\u2019ll be able to go into detail, thick descriptions make for more interesting studies and better grades (haha). If you have questions or want some resources, let me know! Good luck :) Sounds like a fun course","human_ref_B":"I would reach out to your professors and see if they have any contacts in the museum that you're working with to look at these cultural artifacts. And try to set up meetings with the curators to get more information and to see if they can give you any insights on ways to do research","labels":1,"seconds_difference":569.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"y27umt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"I am teaching a high school anthro class next month and am looking for resources. Specifically, some short ethnographic readings and films you think are appropriate for a ninth-grade class. We read Nacirema on the first day! These can also be general anthro readings and don't have to be specifically ethnographic. Thank you","c_root_id_A":"is2td8s","c_root_id_B":"is3c1zw","created_at_utc_A":1665611853,"created_at_utc_B":1665620087,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly short but this is a book written by an old professor of mine. Its a fascinating look at Kenyan economics and entrepreneurship. You'll never look at soapstone the same way again! lol https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Art-Connection-Mobility-Crafting-Transparency\/dp\/0520292871\/ref=sr\\_1\\_1?qid=1665611559&refinements=p\\_27%3ADillon+Mahoney&s=books&sr=1-1&ufe=app\\_do%3Aamzn1.fos.08f69ac3-fd3d-4b88-bca2-8997e41410bb Not necessarily an ethnography and it's very political so maybe not the best choice for a HS class but Michelle Alexander's book titled \"the new jim crow\" is a book that will totally re-contextualize how you look at systemic oppression in America https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness\/dp\/1595586431","human_ref_B":"Eating Christmas in the Kalahari by Richard Lee. One of the best ways to teach cultural relativism. Very short and powerful. It would make a great discussion day about norms and values in different cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8234.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"1ujmtp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did Eurasians develop swords but the Native Americans and some African tribes didn't?","c_root_id_A":"ceirwlj","c_root_id_B":"ceisfhz","created_at_utc_A":1389028086,"created_at_utc_B":1389029303,"score_A":14,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"On the wiki for sword, they have a chart at the bottom showing swords by region. Some of them, like the Macuahuitl, seem more like studded clubs, but Kaskaras, Shotels and Billaos sure seem like swords to me. I wonder if it's a perception issue. Whenever I hear \"African tribe\" or \"Native American tribe\", I picture guys armed with spears or bows, never swords. So many famous warrior cultures of Eurasia are known for their swords that it would be ridiculous to make the equivalent assumption.","human_ref_B":"Native Americans never developed the ability to work the harder metals. So any blade they made tended to be small worked stone. Stone, besides being very heavy if you try to make a large edged tool, is very brittle and breaks quickly so you'd rather have several small weapons than one large one. Edged weapons tended to be distance weapons as a result (spears, javelins, arrows, atlatles) with close combat weapons made out of lighter tougher materials like wood. The only long edged blade I can think of was the macuahuitl, which, when the blades were damaged, could still be somewhat effective as a club.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1217.0,"score_ratio":2.7857142857} {"post_id":"q7rsj3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"The west (US specifically) seems to consider the \"decision\" to have children a private matter, but a public decision. In what cultures may this be seen differently? When did this shift occur? What I mean is... From conception and pregnancies (ahem...miscarriages) to child-rearing and education, parents in the west (the US, specifically) tend to be left isolated in their experiences and discussions in these matters. Yet, they are paralyzed by limited flexibility and freedoms to make decisions for themselves... conception and pregnancies (ahem... contraception and abortion) to education and social influences. This can't be how all cultures act, and surely weren't the norms of our ancestors. Having a village to raise children, the decision is less of a personal one because the burden and responsibility wouldn't be limited to the nuclear family.","c_root_id_A":"hgl5axi","c_root_id_B":"hgla2jn","created_at_utc_A":1634197801,"created_at_utc_B":1634202228,"score_A":8,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Not to mention how cost (class) prohibitive it's become to 1) obtain contraception for many people and 2) simply follow through with a pregnancy. If a government is going to create laws that control women's bodies (for fuck's sake, get your fingers out of our pies!) they should be expected to remove all taxes\/make free feminine products, contraception, child birth, and should put in place much improved laws regarding paternal leave. Which should already be in place as it is. We're asking for the bare minimum. If a government expects you to take care of your children independently, they should leave all decisions related to the individual. I apologize for not being able to answer, but I appreciate the post.","human_ref_B":"I don't have a direct answer to your question, partially because I find your wording a tad confusing, but I do have something that may be of interest. One big change that has happened in the last 100 years or so is the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society. In agricultural economies, children are seen as an asset and a form of wealth. They are your workers, your retirement plan, your insurance, all in one on the family farm. Today, many westerners in my generation view children as a cost and a liability and in spite of being part of the richest nations on the planet, frequently state they can't afford to have kids. Its a bit of a paradox to think that poorer regions of the world can afford to have children whereas wealthy countries can't. On top of this, the strong emphasis on personal choice and hedonism or careerism often means that child-rearing is considered a hobby or a chore, and not an obligation. Westerners weigh having children with having fun hobbies or pursuing career goals, and its its not work or leisure then they lump the activity into \"chores\". The overall decline in birthrates are unsuprising. So one of the answers to your question is the shift in production from agriculture to industry and services. Instead of learning on the family farm, children spend most of their days in school for 12 years and then leave the family household. After that its off to the factory or a law firm possibly in another state or country. So production and proximity both play important roles. edit: As a sidenote, I wouldn't lump the entire US together like you. In the rural, religious South, having children is far less a personal decision than in New York or California or most of Europe, abortion laws aside. Even European countries were abortion is illegal may view child rearing as a personal responsibility than collective due to having a high urban population share.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4427.0,"score_ratio":6.125} {"post_id":"71mayz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Thoughts on the book \"Sapiens\" by Yuval Noah Harari","c_root_id_A":"dncvf3p","c_root_id_B":"dncjj5d","created_at_utc_A":1506092751,"created_at_utc_B":1506073478,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I've only read the first few sections on the Paleolithic, so I'm only going to comment on that. It's not excellent, but still decent. It does better than many popular science books in noting where consensus is lacking and avoids just cherry-picking one theory to base all its arguments off of. Of course, this sort of universal history has to pack massive amounts of information in a short amount of space, so there are other places to look if you want something specifically on human evolution or humans in the Paleolithic in particular. There are some major errors, but nothing outrageously wrong to the extent that it renders the whole to be bullshit. One of the things that confused me is inconsistent dating. IIRC, there is some part where he says 5 or 6 hominin species were in existence ~100,000 years ago when there were at most 4: H. sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and H. floresiensis (\"hobbits\"). If you're a staunch lumper, you might even put Neanderthals as a subspecies of human and Denisovans as a Neanderthal variant. The inconsistent dates also make it difficult to gauge some of the argumentation. The \"cognitive revolution,\" by which I assume he means behavioral modernity, is something he puts at a date prior to humans leaving Africa, which is correct, but also implies that it was a rapid event (hence \"revolution\"). However, we see some instances of \"modern\" (this designation is fairly arbitrary) behavior extending back to >150,000 years ago. We also have evidence for non-human symbolism of some sort, specifically the Neanderthal engravings at Gibraltar and H. erectus etchings on shells. At some points, the description of competing theories unexpectedly introduced some false uncertainty. This is particularly in reference to the theory that Neanderthal extinction was due to human genocide. Really, the only good evidence we have for humans killing Neanderthals is at the Shanidar 3 burial and even that's still ambiguous.","human_ref_B":"John Sexton wrote a great dissection of the book here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19273.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"vnd5jl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Advice on books I'm starting my MA Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast in September. I graduated from SOAS in 1991 so I'm a bit out of touch by 31 years. Can you recommend a basic book or books that will catch me up to 2022? Many thanks Alia","c_root_id_A":"ie69u2b","c_root_id_B":"ie6xwc5","created_at_utc_A":1656502831,"created_at_utc_B":1656514619,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Good on you for making the return to academia! I guess a good starting point is to ask the university\/ department the same question you're asking us, and they'll be able to provide you with a reading list. If you feel you're out of touch with the literature, why not try a collection of readings? Wiley-Blackwell (and Blackwell themselves) do anthologies and readers in specific sub-topics of anthropology, e.g. The Anthropology of Art: A Reader (Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) by Morphy & Perkins. Personally I'd also recommend a collection of classic papers, if only because so few university students seem to read these in the original text. Good luck! EDIT: I've just had a look at the course content at QUB for the course you mention. Of the elective courses - Elective Modules (choose at least one):ANT7013 The Anthropology of MusicANT7023 Anthropology of Conflict: Ireland and BeyondANT7003 Anthropology of Business \\- I reckon it'll be easy enough to find recent texts of all of these. One I've come across, from 2011, is 'Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology' (Prentice Hall), by Spradley, & McCurdy.","human_ref_B":"Not a book recommendation, but for a quick overview of different theory progressions, Sherry Ortner's 'Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties' in HAU, 6(1) p47-73 is very comprehensive! Although it is already moving out of date, and is not exhaustive, it is still an easy and informative read!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11788.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jcmwur","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Replacement Theory or Interbreeding Theory I was reading 'Homo Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari again and this came up. Wanted to know what people think and what is the current science on it. To provide more context: According to the 'Interbreeding Theory' , when Sapiens spread into Neanderthal lands, Sapiens bred with Neanderthals until the two populations merged. According to the 'Replacement Theory' , Sapiens replaced all the previous human populations in a mass genocide without merging with them.","c_root_id_A":"g94qhrw","c_root_id_B":"g947ulu","created_at_utc_A":1602962485,"created_at_utc_B":1602952648,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I can\u2019t remember the show, but there was a documentary where a geneticist tried to show how sapiens having a slight advantage (for example, higher fertility\/birth rates, or better resistance to diseases or health issues) could lead to the Neanderthal\u2019s \u201cextinction\u201d* without a war or campaign of genocide. Basically, I think the argument was if you start with 20 blue cards and 20 red cards, but at the end of every few rounds, the blue deck gets to add a card (or the red one has to lose one), then over time the deck starts looking like it\u2019s only blue (I know I\u2019m explaining this like a moron, so apologies for screwing it up). My personal belief is in \u201cAll of the Above.\u201d I think that there was probably something that gave sapiens a slight evolutionary advantage, whether that was having more complex language skills, better hunting skills\/tools, lower maternal fatality rates, etc.. I also think that when we did interbreed, there may have been issues that reduced fertility rates of some early sapiens-Neanderthals or caused them to die at younger ages, that led to fewer descendants contributing to the modern sapiens population. Finally, I believe that (to quote Roddy McDowell in the Twilight Zone) because \u201cpeople are alike all over\u201d that in some areas, there were wars of attrition by selected sapiens clans where local Neanderthal populations were decimated or driven to flee to parts of the continent that offered worse options for food and shelter.","human_ref_B":"I've always thought the theory that Homo Sapiens were better at cooperative work between larger groups and would have outcompeted the closer knit but smaller isolated groups of Neandertals made sense to me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9837.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"97mxhm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Did we really lived better before agriculture? I recently read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and in one of the firsts chapters he categorizes the discovery of agriculture as one of the worst steps in human evolution. Did we really lived better as hunters-collectors? And by that I mean longer (obviously considering it was thousands of years ago), with a richer and healthier diet, with less violence and with less viruses. And also agriculture developed private property that has been the cause of most wars and conflicts in the modern era. What do you think? PD: Sorry if i misspelled any word, I'm not from an English talking country.","c_root_id_A":"e49hv1g","c_root_id_B":"e49ml94","created_at_utc_A":1534377254,"created_at_utc_B":1534381890,"score_A":49,"score_B":62,"human_ref_A":"We worked less, our diet was more diverse, and we got lots of healthy exercise, at least according to Marshall Sahlins. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marshall_Sahlins And many other archaeologists and anthropologists agree.: if you survived to age five, you would likely live into your 70s. Once we opted for agriculture, the hard labor, the monotonous diet, the close proximity to disease bearing people and animals, and the eventual depredations of a hierarchically organized society all led to shorter and less pleasant lives for most people. Some people (the powerful and wealthy) did better but it was definitely at the expense of the people who worked.","human_ref_B":"He makes the same point that Jared Diamond made in The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race But the point isn't that life is worse \"now\" than it was then. Now we have Apple Computers, Reddit, food literally anytime we want it, humans walked on the moon, and we have a friggin rover on Mars. It's sort of a tongue-in-cheek response to agriculture, because for a long time it was regarded as the \"best\" thing that ever happened to humans. The point he makes in Sapiens is that for the first 5000 - 10,000 years or so (or more) as an individual, you might have been better off as a Hunter\/Gatherer despite the fact that humans as a whole were doing better as a species. (Even though in the last 25 years, we have managed to reduce worldwide poverty greatly and ahead of schedule). Agriculture was the greatest leap that any animal on the planet has ever taken, but it wasn't without it's drawbacks and consequences.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4636.0,"score_ratio":1.2653061224} {"post_id":"97mxhm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Did we really lived better before agriculture? I recently read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and in one of the firsts chapters he categorizes the discovery of agriculture as one of the worst steps in human evolution. Did we really lived better as hunters-collectors? And by that I mean longer (obviously considering it was thousands of years ago), with a richer and healthier diet, with less violence and with less viruses. And also agriculture developed private property that has been the cause of most wars and conflicts in the modern era. What do you think? PD: Sorry if i misspelled any word, I'm not from an English talking country.","c_root_id_A":"e49hprm","c_root_id_B":"e49ml94","created_at_utc_A":1534377113,"created_at_utc_B":1534381890,"score_A":9,"score_B":62,"human_ref_A":"Depends what you mean by \"better\". Their individual health was better, but their children died very often. Their populations were small and very vulnerable to whims of fate. A flash flood, forest fire, outbreak of disease, slightly larger enemy tribe, any number of causes destroys your entire clan and culture. Under agriculture you live a little harder life, but your children live slightly more and your community is larger so more resilient to outside pressures. Yeah so you lose your teeth by 30 to the grit in the bread you eat and sleep next to your animals but generations from now you'll be worshiped as an honored ancestor buried under your family floor. Hunter gatherers could never build up anything in the sense of a legacy. They lived in a nature state of ideal balance... but I think its 'better' to have participated in a legacy of civilization.","human_ref_B":"He makes the same point that Jared Diamond made in The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race But the point isn't that life is worse \"now\" than it was then. Now we have Apple Computers, Reddit, food literally anytime we want it, humans walked on the moon, and we have a friggin rover on Mars. It's sort of a tongue-in-cheek response to agriculture, because for a long time it was regarded as the \"best\" thing that ever happened to humans. The point he makes in Sapiens is that for the first 5000 - 10,000 years or so (or more) as an individual, you might have been better off as a Hunter\/Gatherer despite the fact that humans as a whole were doing better as a species. (Even though in the last 25 years, we have managed to reduce worldwide poverty greatly and ahead of schedule). Agriculture was the greatest leap that any animal on the planet has ever taken, but it wasn't without it's drawbacks and consequences.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4777.0,"score_ratio":6.8888888889} {"post_id":"97mxhm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Did we really lived better before agriculture? I recently read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and in one of the firsts chapters he categorizes the discovery of agriculture as one of the worst steps in human evolution. Did we really lived better as hunters-collectors? And by that I mean longer (obviously considering it was thousands of years ago), with a richer and healthier diet, with less violence and with less viruses. And also agriculture developed private property that has been the cause of most wars and conflicts in the modern era. What do you think? PD: Sorry if i misspelled any word, I'm not from an English talking country.","c_root_id_A":"e49hv1g","c_root_id_B":"e49hprm","created_at_utc_A":1534377254,"created_at_utc_B":1534377113,"score_A":49,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"We worked less, our diet was more diverse, and we got lots of healthy exercise, at least according to Marshall Sahlins. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marshall_Sahlins And many other archaeologists and anthropologists agree.: if you survived to age five, you would likely live into your 70s. Once we opted for agriculture, the hard labor, the monotonous diet, the close proximity to disease bearing people and animals, and the eventual depredations of a hierarchically organized society all led to shorter and less pleasant lives for most people. Some people (the powerful and wealthy) did better but it was definitely at the expense of the people who worked.","human_ref_B":"Depends what you mean by \"better\". Their individual health was better, but their children died very often. Their populations were small and very vulnerable to whims of fate. A flash flood, forest fire, outbreak of disease, slightly larger enemy tribe, any number of causes destroys your entire clan and culture. Under agriculture you live a little harder life, but your children live slightly more and your community is larger so more resilient to outside pressures. Yeah so you lose your teeth by 30 to the grit in the bread you eat and sleep next to your animals but generations from now you'll be worshiped as an honored ancestor buried under your family floor. Hunter gatherers could never build up anything in the sense of a legacy. They lived in a nature state of ideal balance... but I think its 'better' to have participated in a legacy of civilization.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":141.0,"score_ratio":5.4444444444} {"post_id":"97mxhm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Did we really lived better before agriculture? I recently read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and in one of the firsts chapters he categorizes the discovery of agriculture as one of the worst steps in human evolution. Did we really lived better as hunters-collectors? And by that I mean longer (obviously considering it was thousands of years ago), with a richer and healthier diet, with less violence and with less viruses. And also agriculture developed private property that has been the cause of most wars and conflicts in the modern era. What do you think? PD: Sorry if i misspelled any word, I'm not from an English talking country.","c_root_id_A":"e49hprm","c_root_id_B":"e49usbc","created_at_utc_A":1534377113,"created_at_utc_B":1534390117,"score_A":9,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Depends what you mean by \"better\". Their individual health was better, but their children died very often. Their populations were small and very vulnerable to whims of fate. A flash flood, forest fire, outbreak of disease, slightly larger enemy tribe, any number of causes destroys your entire clan and culture. Under agriculture you live a little harder life, but your children live slightly more and your community is larger so more resilient to outside pressures. Yeah so you lose your teeth by 30 to the grit in the bread you eat and sleep next to your animals but generations from now you'll be worshiped as an honored ancestor buried under your family floor. Hunter gatherers could never build up anything in the sense of a legacy. They lived in a nature state of ideal balance... but I think its 'better' to have participated in a legacy of civilization.","human_ref_B":"I would highly recommend you check out the piece by Marshall Sahlins called \"The Original Affluent Society\". In the past, anthropologists and others assumed that hunter-gatherers' lives were \"nasty, brutish, and short\". Now it is known that because of being in close contact with domesticated animals in more crowded conditions, life expectancy went down after the Agricultural Revolution. Contemporary studies of hunter gatherer societies prove that they have more leisure time on average even than people in the industrial world. Speaking of *Sapiens* by Harari, it may contain good information, but it is not written by an anthropologist but rather a historian with a relative lack of familiarity with the field. If you want a good understanding of hunter gatherer life and the Agricultural Revolution, I would recommend the current scholarship being done by Justin Jennings and the work of Kent Flannery on current theories of cultural evolution, particularly Kent Flannery's new book *The Creation of Inequality* (surprise, the origin of inequality also dates back to the agricultural revolution). This is not speculation, but rather empirically-backed archaeological argument. The Jennings source: # Jennings, Justin and Timothy K. Earle. Urbanization, State Formation, and Cooperation: A Reappraisal, Current Anthropology 2016 57:4, 474-493","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13004.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"nxk5ix","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Why has textile work (sewing,weaving,disstaffing, erct) been seen as women\u2019s labor in most cultures? I heard in the book \u201cThe Zuni Man-Women that the Zuni people associated Knitting with men\u2019s work (along with the normally considered feminine in Native American cultures farming.) why is it that many unconnected cultures decided that textiles was women\u2019s work? Amd why did the Zuni have a different gendered divisional labor.","c_root_id_A":"h1fowlf","c_root_id_B":"h1gtgje","created_at_utc_A":1623438195,"created_at_utc_B":1623458496,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure we can answer the \"why\" for ancient cultures who didn't leave any records behind. But skeletal remains can show that such division of labor did exist, in some places and at some times. An example is the pattern of tooth wear seen among Inuit women, where the anterior teeth show an unusual amount of wear. This was due to women's role in softening and preparing seal hides to make clothing. Typically, the hide is chewed with the anterior teeth, then forcefully pulled forward and downwards while clamping the teeth. It produces a characteristic pattern of tooth wear. This practice was continued to historical times, so there are plenty of first hand reports dating from the 19th and early 20th century. We know how it was done. But we also see it in skeletal remains that are hundreds or thousands of years old, so such sex-based division of labor probably existed in ancient times as well. This kind of division of labor is seen in many cultures across the world. In fact, possibly it dates back to the Neanderthals. See, for example, Anna Clement's PhD thesis \"Tooth Wear Patterns in Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans\" which you can read here. She found the same pattern of anterior tooth wear in female Neanderthal remains, though the *n* there is necessarily small. In the historical period, there's plenty of material that assigns these tasks to women. The Bible has many references (she layeth her hands to the spindle, her hands hold the distaff. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant, etc.). Medieval literature is full of descriptions of women spinning yarn, using hand looms, making clothing for their families, being employed as seamstress. The pattern has held through the industrial revolution as well. From the very beginnings, a very large proportion of the workforce in the textile and clothing industry was female. If you look at British census data from the early 19th century (~1840's), over half the employees in the textile and clothing industry were female. This compares to around 13% for hospitality (food, drink, lodging), or 20% for paper and printing, which are also industries that don't require much physical strength. The only area where female employment exceeds textiles is domestic service. Even today, if you look at major textile and finished clothing exporters (like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, China), a huge proportion of the workforce is female. The reasons usually offered by factory owners are that women are willing to work for less money, cause fewer disciplinary problems, are less prone to unionize and make demands, and generally handle tasks requiring dexterity but not a great deal of strength quite well. Possibly, there were similar reasons for the preponderance of women in these roles in the distant past. It's work that doesn't require a lot of strength, but does require skill and dexterity. Perhaps male labor was more useful elsewhere, when a lot of tasks required brute strength in the absence of labor saving machines. It's amenable to multitasking, there's very little continuity lost if you simply put down the needle and go check on the baby or take the pot off the stove, and then return. Before industrialization, a huge amount of time was spent on such \"filler\" tasks, things you could do while chatting, resting, or other stuff.","human_ref_B":"As a small addition to the other comments, to comment on men and knitting - it was common for male Scots who were shepherds to knit while watching the flocks, since there\u2019s little else to do. That\u2019s not to say that women didn\u2019t also knit. Perhaps this was common among shepherds in other places for similar reasons?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20301.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"57br2a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"An AskReddit thread about the creepiest folklore creatures brought forward the possibility of mental illness\/disorders personified in the form of these creatures. Are there more examples of it? Is this common? This comment in particular > We have a creature called a Kuri. It is known to wait near graves of people who have died on the moor. If you walk passed one of these graves, it will latch on to you. > It slowly convinces you of its existence over the course of weeks, if not months. First you may hear a faint whisper in your ear. You may dream of it or feel a cool touch on the back of your neck. Over time its presence will start become more known. It will grab your leg in the night, start attacking you in your dreams, transpose its face onto your family members as you're talking to them. > It will never make itself known to anyone else, making you question your own sanity. It will start talking to you, asking you to go back to the moorland, promising you your freedom back if you do. Eventually, once the mental torment gets too much, you give in and wonder back out to the moors. It will keep telling you you're almost there, allowing you to wonder aimlessly around. Eventually, exhaustion will strike you and you will be forced to watch your body succumb to the elements. As you lie there, unable to lift a finger, the Kuri tells you how much it will enjoy dragging your soul to hell. And like that, another grave is created. As another comment pointed out, it looks like the description of schizophrenia. Maybe something else, I'm not a psychologists, but something that can happen to the human mind.","c_root_id_A":"d8qn2xp","c_root_id_B":"d8qqoln","created_at_utc_A":1476385304,"created_at_utc_B":1476389729,"score_A":12,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"I think another subreddit with a psychology focus could definitely give you some better answers about the non-cultural aspects of your question. I find that very very interesting. I'm definitely gonna look into that.","human_ref_B":"You might find this paper on clinical lycanthropy in the Byzantine empire interesting: http:\/\/hpy.sagepub.com\/content\/20\/4\/468.abstract Essentially the Byzantine medical authors were unusual among the medical traditions of the time in that they discussed this condition (the belief that one could transform into a wolf) as a psychiatric disease rather than one caused by demons, witches or evil spirits (as would be the case in much of medieval Europe). The authors of the article posit that the clinical syndrome described by the Byzantines may actually be a manifestation of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. An interesting description of the disease by a 7th century Byzantine author: >On Lycaon or Lycantrhropia. Those labouring under lycanthropy go out during the night imitating wolves in all things, and lingering about sepulchres until morning. You may recognize these persons by these marks; they are pale, their vision feeble, their eyes dry, tongue very dry and the fl ow of the saliva stopped; but they are thirsty, and their legs have incurable ulcerations from frequent falls. Such are the marks of the disease. You must know that lycanthropy is a species of melancholy which you may cure at the time of the attack, by opening a vein and abstract blood to fainting, and dieting the patient with wholesome food. Let him use baths of sweet water and then milk-whey for three days, and purging with the hiera4 from colocynthe twice or thrice. After the purgings, use the theriaca of vipers, and administer those things mentioned for the cure of melancholy when the disease is already formed. Use soporifi c embrocations and rub the nostrils with opium when they are going to rest.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4425.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"57br2a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"An AskReddit thread about the creepiest folklore creatures brought forward the possibility of mental illness\/disorders personified in the form of these creatures. Are there more examples of it? Is this common? This comment in particular > We have a creature called a Kuri. It is known to wait near graves of people who have died on the moor. If you walk passed one of these graves, it will latch on to you. > It slowly convinces you of its existence over the course of weeks, if not months. First you may hear a faint whisper in your ear. You may dream of it or feel a cool touch on the back of your neck. Over time its presence will start become more known. It will grab your leg in the night, start attacking you in your dreams, transpose its face onto your family members as you're talking to them. > It will never make itself known to anyone else, making you question your own sanity. It will start talking to you, asking you to go back to the moorland, promising you your freedom back if you do. Eventually, once the mental torment gets too much, you give in and wonder back out to the moors. It will keep telling you you're almost there, allowing you to wonder aimlessly around. Eventually, exhaustion will strike you and you will be forced to watch your body succumb to the elements. As you lie there, unable to lift a finger, the Kuri tells you how much it will enjoy dragging your soul to hell. And like that, another grave is created. As another comment pointed out, it looks like the description of schizophrenia. Maybe something else, I'm not a psychologists, but something that can happen to the human mind.","c_root_id_A":"d8qqoln","c_root_id_B":"d8qq5op","created_at_utc_A":1476389729,"created_at_utc_B":1476389064,"score_A":33,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You might find this paper on clinical lycanthropy in the Byzantine empire interesting: http:\/\/hpy.sagepub.com\/content\/20\/4\/468.abstract Essentially the Byzantine medical authors were unusual among the medical traditions of the time in that they discussed this condition (the belief that one could transform into a wolf) as a psychiatric disease rather than one caused by demons, witches or evil spirits (as would be the case in much of medieval Europe). The authors of the article posit that the clinical syndrome described by the Byzantines may actually be a manifestation of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. An interesting description of the disease by a 7th century Byzantine author: >On Lycaon or Lycantrhropia. Those labouring under lycanthropy go out during the night imitating wolves in all things, and lingering about sepulchres until morning. You may recognize these persons by these marks; they are pale, their vision feeble, their eyes dry, tongue very dry and the fl ow of the saliva stopped; but they are thirsty, and their legs have incurable ulcerations from frequent falls. Such are the marks of the disease. You must know that lycanthropy is a species of melancholy which you may cure at the time of the attack, by opening a vein and abstract blood to fainting, and dieting the patient with wholesome food. Let him use baths of sweet water and then milk-whey for three days, and purging with the hiera4 from colocynthe twice or thrice. After the purgings, use the theriaca of vipers, and administer those things mentioned for the cure of melancholy when the disease is already formed. Use soporifi c embrocations and rub the nostrils with opium when they are going to rest.","human_ref_B":"One thing I've wondered about this which professionals might have more information on is DMT rituals in tribal societies. Seems to me that \"coming of age\" DMT use is a great way to trigger a psychosis and separate the \"wheat from the chaff\" when it comes to hunters vs shaman. To my thinking; Those predisposed to schizophrenia or the like would be a liability during hunting, but would make great witch doctors.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":665.0,"score_ratio":6.6} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikf4ojs","c_root_id_B":"ikfsudx","created_at_utc_A":1660590710,"created_at_utc_B":1660599984,"score_A":17,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"I was going to recommend Boellstorff's work too. We read a few chapters of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012) with a class I TA'ed for a couple years ago. His general area of study is called \"Digital Anthropology\". Put it into google scholar and see if you find anything that looks interesting to you. It's still a fairly new field, but it's been on the up and up, especially after the pandemic.","human_ref_B":"Hi! Welcome to the world of digital ethnography :D There aren't a lot of schools, but i can give you some scholars working in the area to read up on. Definitely upvoting the recommendation of Boellstorff, especially his earlier work on Second Life which is what sort of got things going for him around digital fieldsites. Also i'd recommend Bonnie Nardi, who did work on World of Warcraft and partnered with Boellstorff on the Ethnography and Virtual Worlds handbook u\/HersheyNisse mentioned. E Gabriella Coleman does work around coders, hackers, and Anonymous. Chris Kelty has done work with Free Software communities Alice Marwick does digital media and has a forthcoming book on digital privacy danah boyd (all lower case) focuses on teens and social media (Mizuko Ito is another in this field, she, boyd, and Henry Jenkins co-authored a book on the topic) Gretchen McCulloch is a linguist who wrote a book about how the internet is shifting language that i recommend. Joseph Reagle has done some work with Wikipedia and other communities. Tarleton Guillespie has also done some work around digital environments, mostly around moderation practices, which is often helpful to understand as you dive into this work. As for what you can do with it... well i'm a Community Manager and have been for the last couple of decades, even before I got my degree, and being able to understand how these communities form and function is super key to what I do. That isn't true for *everyone* with this job title though, as it has shifted a lot, especially with the rise of social media. Good luck!!!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9274.0,"score_ratio":3.7647058824} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikfsudx","c_root_id_B":"ikf3atq","created_at_utc_A":1660599984,"created_at_utc_B":1660590174,"score_A":64,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Hi! Welcome to the world of digital ethnography :D There aren't a lot of schools, but i can give you some scholars working in the area to read up on. Definitely upvoting the recommendation of Boellstorff, especially his earlier work on Second Life which is what sort of got things going for him around digital fieldsites. Also i'd recommend Bonnie Nardi, who did work on World of Warcraft and partnered with Boellstorff on the Ethnography and Virtual Worlds handbook u\/HersheyNisse mentioned. E Gabriella Coleman does work around coders, hackers, and Anonymous. Chris Kelty has done work with Free Software communities Alice Marwick does digital media and has a forthcoming book on digital privacy danah boyd (all lower case) focuses on teens and social media (Mizuko Ito is another in this field, she, boyd, and Henry Jenkins co-authored a book on the topic) Gretchen McCulloch is a linguist who wrote a book about how the internet is shifting language that i recommend. Joseph Reagle has done some work with Wikipedia and other communities. Tarleton Guillespie has also done some work around digital environments, mostly around moderation practices, which is often helpful to understand as you dive into this work. As for what you can do with it... well i'm a Community Manager and have been for the last couple of decades, even before I got my degree, and being able to understand how these communities form and function is super key to what I do. That isn't true for *everyone* with this job title though, as it has shifted a lot, especially with the rise of social media. Good luck!!!","human_ref_B":"I'm an undergrad not looking to go further in my anthropological education, so I'm sure others here can point you in a better direction than I, but Tom Boellstorff's work might be of interest to you. He's at UC Irvine. The UCs are well known for their anthropology programs, so perhaps a good starting place.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9810.0,"score_ratio":5.8181818182} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikfsudx","c_root_id_B":"ikfmj7h","created_at_utc_A":1660599984,"created_at_utc_B":1660597479,"score_A":64,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Hi! Welcome to the world of digital ethnography :D There aren't a lot of schools, but i can give you some scholars working in the area to read up on. Definitely upvoting the recommendation of Boellstorff, especially his earlier work on Second Life which is what sort of got things going for him around digital fieldsites. Also i'd recommend Bonnie Nardi, who did work on World of Warcraft and partnered with Boellstorff on the Ethnography and Virtual Worlds handbook u\/HersheyNisse mentioned. E Gabriella Coleman does work around coders, hackers, and Anonymous. Chris Kelty has done work with Free Software communities Alice Marwick does digital media and has a forthcoming book on digital privacy danah boyd (all lower case) focuses on teens and social media (Mizuko Ito is another in this field, she, boyd, and Henry Jenkins co-authored a book on the topic) Gretchen McCulloch is a linguist who wrote a book about how the internet is shifting language that i recommend. Joseph Reagle has done some work with Wikipedia and other communities. Tarleton Guillespie has also done some work around digital environments, mostly around moderation practices, which is often helpful to understand as you dive into this work. As for what you can do with it... well i'm a Community Manager and have been for the last couple of decades, even before I got my degree, and being able to understand how these communities form and function is super key to what I do. That isn't true for *everyone* with this job title though, as it has shifted a lot, especially with the rise of social media. Good luck!!!","human_ref_B":"Digital Anthropology @ UCL is the only program that really deals with this kind of thing. As for reading material, Coding Freedom, Blogistan, and The Undersea Network are generally considered to be the classic\/starter books of the discipline. Checking out David Graeber's work is also a good idea. I second the recommendation for Boellstorff, his work on My Second Life Is fascinating. I personally really like the \"Social Media in _____\" series put out by UCL, particularly Social Media in an English Village & Social Media in Rural China. There's also a Digital Anthropology textbook by Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox which is well written and interesting. They're both UCL associated too. Digital Anthropology is still a bit \"irl\" oriented in my experience, with the online cultures being somewhat secondary and a reflection of in person interaction. Boellstorff definitely gets the closest to what you're looking for. As for career paths, Digital Anthropology is applicable to a lot of the web world. It's a decent field to pursue if you're considering working in the business of the internet and social media. Lots of folks parlay the degree at UCL into even more schooling too. It's great to see another person interested in the culture of the internet. This subdiscipline of anthropology is incredibly interesting, good luck with pursuing your interests.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2505.0,"score_ratio":7.1111111111} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikfk7s8","c_root_id_B":"ikfsudx","created_at_utc_A":1660596599,"created_at_utc_B":1660599984,"score_A":2,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"I bet all of the Social Sciences and Humanities have subareas of research into the internet and subcultures, but sociology and anthropology would be probably have the most. You would have to go to graduate school, most likely for a PhD. Then your career options will be either becoming a college professor, or getting a job doing user experience or design research for a tech company. Unless you one of the lucky few (usually from wealthy and well connected families) who can make a living doing cultural analysis for newspapers\/magazines\/websites.","human_ref_B":"Hi! Welcome to the world of digital ethnography :D There aren't a lot of schools, but i can give you some scholars working in the area to read up on. Definitely upvoting the recommendation of Boellstorff, especially his earlier work on Second Life which is what sort of got things going for him around digital fieldsites. Also i'd recommend Bonnie Nardi, who did work on World of Warcraft and partnered with Boellstorff on the Ethnography and Virtual Worlds handbook u\/HersheyNisse mentioned. E Gabriella Coleman does work around coders, hackers, and Anonymous. Chris Kelty has done work with Free Software communities Alice Marwick does digital media and has a forthcoming book on digital privacy danah boyd (all lower case) focuses on teens and social media (Mizuko Ito is another in this field, she, boyd, and Henry Jenkins co-authored a book on the topic) Gretchen McCulloch is a linguist who wrote a book about how the internet is shifting language that i recommend. Joseph Reagle has done some work with Wikipedia and other communities. Tarleton Guillespie has also done some work around digital environments, mostly around moderation practices, which is often helpful to understand as you dive into this work. As for what you can do with it... well i'm a Community Manager and have been for the last couple of decades, even before I got my degree, and being able to understand how these communities form and function is super key to what I do. That isn't true for *everyone* with this job title though, as it has shifted a lot, especially with the rise of social media. Good luck!!!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3385.0,"score_ratio":32.0} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikf3atq","c_root_id_B":"ikf4ojs","created_at_utc_A":1660590174,"created_at_utc_B":1660590710,"score_A":11,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'm an undergrad not looking to go further in my anthropological education, so I'm sure others here can point you in a better direction than I, but Tom Boellstorff's work might be of interest to you. He's at UC Irvine. The UCs are well known for their anthropology programs, so perhaps a good starting place.","human_ref_B":"I was going to recommend Boellstorff's work too. We read a few chapters of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012) with a class I TA'ed for a couple years ago. His general area of study is called \"Digital Anthropology\". Put it into google scholar and see if you find anything that looks interesting to you. It's still a fairly new field, but it's been on the up and up, especially after the pandemic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":536.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikfmj7h","c_root_id_B":"ikfk7s8","created_at_utc_A":1660597479,"created_at_utc_B":1660596599,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Digital Anthropology @ UCL is the only program that really deals with this kind of thing. As for reading material, Coding Freedom, Blogistan, and The Undersea Network are generally considered to be the classic\/starter books of the discipline. Checking out David Graeber's work is also a good idea. I second the recommendation for Boellstorff, his work on My Second Life Is fascinating. I personally really like the \"Social Media in _____\" series put out by UCL, particularly Social Media in an English Village & Social Media in Rural China. There's also a Digital Anthropology textbook by Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox which is well written and interesting. They're both UCL associated too. Digital Anthropology is still a bit \"irl\" oriented in my experience, with the online cultures being somewhat secondary and a reflection of in person interaction. Boellstorff definitely gets the closest to what you're looking for. As for career paths, Digital Anthropology is applicable to a lot of the web world. It's a decent field to pursue if you're considering working in the business of the internet and social media. Lots of folks parlay the degree at UCL into even more schooling too. It's great to see another person interested in the culture of the internet. This subdiscipline of anthropology is incredibly interesting, good luck with pursuing your interests.","human_ref_B":"I bet all of the Social Sciences and Humanities have subareas of research into the internet and subcultures, but sociology and anthropology would be probably have the most. You would have to go to graduate school, most likely for a PhD. Then your career options will be either becoming a college professor, or getting a job doing user experience or design research for a tech company. Unless you one of the lucky few (usually from wealthy and well connected families) who can make a living doing cultural analysis for newspapers\/magazines\/websites.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":880.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikfk7s8","c_root_id_B":"ikhkyku","created_at_utc_A":1660596599,"created_at_utc_B":1660631295,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I bet all of the Social Sciences and Humanities have subareas of research into the internet and subcultures, but sociology and anthropology would be probably have the most. You would have to go to graduate school, most likely for a PhD. Then your career options will be either becoming a college professor, or getting a job doing user experience or design research for a tech company. Unless you one of the lucky few (usually from wealthy and well connected families) who can make a living doing cultural analysis for newspapers\/magazines\/websites.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve gotten tons of responses already but I wanna add that I did my undergrad in evolutionary anthropology, moved toward library & info sci for archives\/museums but I\u2019m endlessly fascinated by fandom studies which I discovered while writing a paper on the vampire diaries haha. So random studies can be interdisciplinary, spanning sociology, anthro, info sci, and media studies! I think a lot of the \u201cdigital\u201d age can be studied through these lenses. I have a prof whose misinformation course I took who is very interested in a variety of different online cultures but he tends to focus more on HCI (human computer interaction)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34696.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"wp76zf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Where to start studying internet cultures Idk where else I would even go about posting this, I read the rules but still unsure if this question is allowed so if not mods please dm me and I\u2019ll remove the post I recently found a video explaining something that I was already semi looking into on the internet and turns out I was semi correct. That\u2019s not the point though that\u2019s just what sparked this question. Is there a school or anything really that gives courses on the study of internet culture and it\u2019s plethoras of sub cultures? Working on this project solo and going off of mainly a gut feeling only to have it proven right (by people way more qualified than me) made me come to a realization. I have been on the internet for 17 years of my 21 years of life. There\u2019s nothing that I love more and to be able to study it as a career would be a dream come true. Is there a career path for this along with schooling?","c_root_id_A":"ikhm6gm","c_root_id_B":"ikfk7s8","created_at_utc_A":1660632214,"created_at_utc_B":1660596599,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm interested in dislike, hatred and toxicity online so I'd definitely recommend Whitney Phillips' This Is Why We Can't Have a Nice Things and Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner's The Ambivalent Internet.","human_ref_B":"I bet all of the Social Sciences and Humanities have subareas of research into the internet and subcultures, but sociology and anthropology would be probably have the most. You would have to go to graduate school, most likely for a PhD. Then your career options will be either becoming a college professor, or getting a job doing user experience or design research for a tech company. Unless you one of the lucky few (usually from wealthy and well connected families) who can make a living doing cultural analysis for newspapers\/magazines\/websites.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35615.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"xlfsyk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is Friedrich Engels\u2019 Origin of the family, private property, and the state worth reading in 2022? Currently reading the aforementioned book and I\u2019m honestly kind of stupefied at how racist Engels is. I understand putting people and theories in historical context but it\u2019s honestly distracting and detracts from his points. On page 18 he claims that \u201c\u2026Pueblo Indians of New Mexico who live on a purely vegetarian diet, have a smaller brain than the Indians in the higher stage of barbarism who eat more meat and fish.\u201d And offers no evidence. Alternate question: Is there better and more modern material on this subject that is readable for a layman and not biased towards neoliberalism?","c_root_id_A":"ipje001","c_root_id_B":"ipjfuwo","created_at_utc_A":1663891308,"created_at_utc_B":1663892233,"score_A":16,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"I mean, what is \"this subject\"? If you're asking whether Engels is worth reading for, like, facts...the answer is no. He, like most other social theorists of his time, wrote in an almost complete factual vacuum. Frazer's The Golden Bough is the most \"empirical\" of the sweeping works of that era, but even it makes for kind of a bonkers read these days, and nobody back then actually cited sources except sometimes informally in the main text. If you're interested in the prehistory of inequality and private property, those things subjects have basically occupied the entire discipline of archaeology for two centuries. For reasonably current (and very different!) surveys, look at Flannery and Marcus's Creation of Inequality, and Graeber and Wengrow's Dawn of Everything.","human_ref_B":">I\u2019m honestly kind of stupefied at how racist Engels is The book was written in 1884. Is it really that surprising? >Alternate question: Is there better and more modern material on this subject that is readable for a layman and not biased towards neoliberalism? Could you be more specific about your interests? In terms of books that cover the origins of states and hierarchy but are \"readable for the layman\", every popular book is going to have some issues. That said, Graeber and Wenfrow's *The Dawn of Everything* and Scott's *Against The Grain* are pretty good. Both are influenced by anarchist thought, if you're worried about neoliberal bias (to be honest, whatever specific flavor it takes, anthropology and archaeology as disciplines are overwhelmingly critical of capitalism).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":925.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"xlfsyk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is Friedrich Engels\u2019 Origin of the family, private property, and the state worth reading in 2022? Currently reading the aforementioned book and I\u2019m honestly kind of stupefied at how racist Engels is. I understand putting people and theories in historical context but it\u2019s honestly distracting and detracts from his points. On page 18 he claims that \u201c\u2026Pueblo Indians of New Mexico who live on a purely vegetarian diet, have a smaller brain than the Indians in the higher stage of barbarism who eat more meat and fish.\u201d And offers no evidence. Alternate question: Is there better and more modern material on this subject that is readable for a layman and not biased towards neoliberalism?","c_root_id_A":"ipjktie","c_root_id_B":"ipje001","created_at_utc_A":1663894647,"created_at_utc_B":1663891308,"score_A":44,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I'll go against the apparent grain of this thread and say that it is indeed worth reading -- *particularly for its historical significance*. Yes, Engels was working from sources that existed in the context of a scientific community that took scientific racism as legitimate knowledge-gathering. Yes, Engels does not notate any pages with indication of which of the texts he mentioned at the beginning he got any particular information from. Yes, Engels wrote the book without ever actually meeting the Iroquois who are so central to its textual content. With all that said, none of these things change the fact that it is one of the single most foundational texts of Feminist Philosophy and Family Economics. That historical position is held by the book no matter what else can be said about it. So, even if you aren't reading it for any factual content about human prehistory, you can still be reading it to know how Engels thought about Economic Liberalism's effects on family-building, or to know what Rosa Luxemburg was working off from when she further developed Marxist Feminism, or to know how Historical Materialists have generally thought about gender. Those sorts of questions are why Origins of the Family **does indeed** remain worth reading.","human_ref_B":"I mean, what is \"this subject\"? If you're asking whether Engels is worth reading for, like, facts...the answer is no. He, like most other social theorists of his time, wrote in an almost complete factual vacuum. Frazer's The Golden Bough is the most \"empirical\" of the sweeping works of that era, but even it makes for kind of a bonkers read these days, and nobody back then actually cited sources except sometimes informally in the main text. If you're interested in the prehistory of inequality and private property, those things subjects have basically occupied the entire discipline of archaeology for two centuries. For reasonably current (and very different!) surveys, look at Flannery and Marcus's Creation of Inequality, and Graeber and Wengrow's Dawn of Everything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3339.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"xlfsyk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is Friedrich Engels\u2019 Origin of the family, private property, and the state worth reading in 2022? Currently reading the aforementioned book and I\u2019m honestly kind of stupefied at how racist Engels is. I understand putting people and theories in historical context but it\u2019s honestly distracting and detracts from his points. On page 18 he claims that \u201c\u2026Pueblo Indians of New Mexico who live on a purely vegetarian diet, have a smaller brain than the Indians in the higher stage of barbarism who eat more meat and fish.\u201d And offers no evidence. Alternate question: Is there better and more modern material on this subject that is readable for a layman and not biased towards neoliberalism?","c_root_id_A":"ipje001","c_root_id_B":"ipjnnfn","created_at_utc_A":1663891308,"created_at_utc_B":1663896012,"score_A":16,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I mean, what is \"this subject\"? If you're asking whether Engels is worth reading for, like, facts...the answer is no. He, like most other social theorists of his time, wrote in an almost complete factual vacuum. Frazer's The Golden Bough is the most \"empirical\" of the sweeping works of that era, but even it makes for kind of a bonkers read these days, and nobody back then actually cited sources except sometimes informally in the main text. If you're interested in the prehistory of inequality and private property, those things subjects have basically occupied the entire discipline of archaeology for two centuries. For reasonably current (and very different!) surveys, look at Flannery and Marcus's Creation of Inequality, and Graeber and Wengrow's Dawn of Everything.","human_ref_B":"The book is based on Lewis Henry Morgan's *Ancient Society,* an influential early piece of \"anthropology\" now infamous for it's evolutionary approach organizing populations into levels of \"savagery, barbarism, and civilization\" based on technological developments. *That* book is based on Morgan's own personal experience with a handful of Native American tribes and the uncritical repition of reports from missionaries, military expeditions, and other observers with significant conflicts of interest. \"Based on\" is generous though; it's really a response to\/commentary on it compiled from Marx and Engels' notes while reading it. It inhereits (and occasionally amplifies) all of the problems of Morgan's text. The most egregious is the reliance on modern societies as \"fossils\" of earlier ones. For a book about the origins of private property and the state, it has remarkably little evidence (if any) from societies at the time those things emerged. Instead, it looks at a bunch of modern social formations, organzies them in a way that suggests a sequence of development, and pretends that that is a legitimate method of argumentation. That said, it *was* influential, and understanding basic concepts like cultural relativism, which seem so obvious nowadays, is difficult without the prior context. It's also an incredibly important book for understanding where a lot of the popular imagination of anthropology comes from. We don't have the privilege that other fields seem to enjoy of \"we've gotten better at doing things since 1850\" so a lot of Morgan and Engels's ideas that 'just make sense\" have stuck around, even if they're not, you know, derived from actual observations.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4704.0,"score_ratio":1.1875} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e8k339i","c_root_id_B":"e3hczv7","created_at_utc_A":1540662089,"created_at_utc_B":1533227578,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","human_ref_B":"In #4, I'd suggest swapping \"should\" for \"must.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7434511.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e3h8f0l","c_root_id_B":"e8k339i","created_at_utc_A":1533223915,"created_at_utc_B":1540662089,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I like the weekly best of idea","human_ref_B":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7438174.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e8k339i","c_root_id_B":"e3hcyzf","created_at_utc_A":1540662089,"created_at_utc_B":1533227559,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","human_ref_B":"Is it possible to maybe arrange a regular post from flaired users? I'd love to hear more about different areas in anthropology, and being introduced to different specialties, the techniques used in research, and some of the background theory could help some users be able to frame better questions over time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7434530.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e3hrxmo","c_root_id_B":"e8k339i","created_at_utc_A":1533239563,"created_at_utc_B":1540662089,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist. That said, I am decades long friends with a couple of anthropologists and generally enjoy reading about anthropology. These new guidelines push this sub more toward the ethos of \/r\/askhistorians which I would consider a positive development. The only worry I have is that stricter moderation might inhibit questions in such a way that the sub doesn't develop a \"standard\" answer to said questions, which might then discourage participation. There would be a change over period, I think, until you've developed a library as it were of answers to basic questions.","human_ref_B":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7422526.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e8k339i","c_root_id_B":"e3jjt9y","created_at_utc_A":1540662089,"created_at_utc_B":1533312211,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","human_ref_B":"Just had a thought... what about requiring a place in the title... seldom can an answer in this sub be offered without it and it could cut down on universal style questions... also could enable the \u201cFAQ\u201d\/\u201cBest Of\u201d section to be done by continent over time","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7349878.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e4p6gid","c_root_id_B":"e8k339i","created_at_utc_A":1535039595,"created_at_utc_B":1540662089,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hi there! I just have a question about reporting comments. I often report comments of the \"short, explicitly speculative variety\" - or comments that I know are vastly oversimplified or wrong. (I'm not an anthropologist, but you know, sometimes it's obvious.) Is this useful to you? Do you pay attention to reports on comments? There are, frankly, a lot of rule violating comments here and I don't know what is most helpful for you in battling them.","human_ref_B":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5622494.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e3rug8y","c_root_id_B":"e8k339i","created_at_utc_A":1533662282,"created_at_utc_B":1540662089,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have a question about CMV and pseudoscience questions: are questions like the one about how the swastika supposedly has a universal meaning allowed? That OP was clearly looking for proof for a nonsense belief.","human_ref_B":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6999807.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e6av2by","c_root_id_B":"e8k339i","created_at_utc_A":1537419850,"created_at_utc_B":1540662089,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Where is the weekly career thread?","human_ref_B":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3242239.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e8k339i","c_root_id_B":"e80evus","created_at_utc_A":1540662089,"created_at_utc_B":1539884460,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Can we start deleting comments that don't add value to the discussion, like the other \/r\/asktopic subreddits?","human_ref_B":"When is the weekly career question thread posted?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":777629.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e3h8f0l","c_root_id_B":"e3hczv7","created_at_utc_A":1533223915,"created_at_utc_B":1533227578,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I like the weekly best of idea","human_ref_B":"In #4, I'd suggest swapping \"should\" for \"must.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3663.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e3hcyzf","c_root_id_B":"e3h8f0l","created_at_utc_A":1533227559,"created_at_utc_B":1533223915,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Is it possible to maybe arrange a regular post from flaired users? I'd love to hear more about different areas in anthropology, and being introduced to different specialties, the techniques used in research, and some of the background theory could help some users be able to frame better questions over time.","human_ref_B":"I like the weekly best of idea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3644.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"93xbxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Let's talk about the rules Hi everyone, your ~~un~~friendly neighbourhood moderator here. First of all, I'd like to welcome our newest addition to the mod team, \/u\/CommodoreCoCo! They have been working hard behind the scenes for a bit over a month now, and any improvement of our moderation is due to them. On this note, we are still accepting more moderators to join us! The requirements are, as before: * Being somewhat active in reddit * Being able to use \/r\/toolbox and join our Slack workspace * Being a flaired user is a big plus -------------- However, this is not what this post is for. This post is for us to discuss a change in the subreddit's rules. We all know this has been long overdue (a bit over three months, in fact), but with our mod team spreading ever thinner, and considering this is not the best time of the year regarding \"free time\" (June~September is conference season for many of us, as well as \"holidays\" that we are supposed to spend with our families and\/or manuscripts, and ~~in my case it's when I get hired to do some odd jobs~~ so on), so reddit modding was left a bit behind, and I apologise for that. That being said, we also realise that improving the subreddit's rules would make our job as moderators much easier -- as was the case in \/r\/Anthropology. Thus, we have written some (tentative) new rules, and would like for you, our userbase, to let us know what you think of them. Like with \/r\/Anthropology, this is *not* an unilateral imposition of rules, and we would rather for these to be discussed and improved than being applied as-is. So, without further ado, this is the mod team's suggestions for \/r\/AskAnthropology's new rules: > 1. **Questions should be about anthropology**. Badly written questions will be deleted, but can be asked again if rewritten. No dinosaurs. > > 2. **Don't ask**: > > 1)\"What if\"\/\"In the future\" questions > 2) \"Poll-type\" questions > 3) Homework questions (go to \/r\/HomeworkHelp) > 4) \"Change my view\" questions (go to \/r\/changemyview) > 5) \"Help me debunk\" questions (go to \/r\/Badanthropology) > 6) Career questions (ask them in our weekly career thread) > 7) Recommendation questions (ask them in our weekly recommendation thread) > > 3. **Answers should be informed and in-depth**. Short, explicitly speculative answers will be removed. > > 4. Answers do not have to include citations but they are encouraged. **If asked for sources, commenters should provide them**. > > 5. **\"Race realism\", \"human biodiversity\", conspiracy theories, and similar pseudoscience will be removed; as will any other content that is incorrect or not supported by reputable scholarship**. Asking questions *about* those is fine. If JAQing is obvious, thread will be deleted. > > 6. **Be nice and civil**. If you are asking a question, don't be confrontational -- you are here to learn. If you are answering a question, don't be condescending -- no one was born knowing everything. As you can see with rules 2.6 and 2.7, we also want to start hosting weekly career and recommendation threads. I was also considering -- based on \/u\/otherwisepain's recent thread -- hosting a weekly \"highlights\" thread, where we would post good answers that could later on be added to the FAQ (we do have one, it's just a work in slow progress) (if anyone wants to carry the FAQ work forward, send us a PM). So yeah, that is the gist of it. Let us know what are your thoughts on all of this. This thread will be pinned and the rules will be left unchanged for the moment. In some weeks' time, after we have discussed and moved forward with the text, there's going to be a new announcement thread, so keep your eyes open.","c_root_id_A":"e4p6gid","c_root_id_B":"e3rug8y","created_at_utc_A":1535039595,"created_at_utc_B":1533662282,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hi there! I just have a question about reporting comments. I often report comments of the \"short, explicitly speculative variety\" - or comments that I know are vastly oversimplified or wrong. (I'm not an anthropologist, but you know, sometimes it's obvious.) Is this useful to you? Do you pay attention to reports on comments? There are, frankly, a lot of rule violating comments here and I don't know what is most helpful for you in battling them.","human_ref_B":"I have a question about CMV and pseudoscience questions: are questions like the one about how the swastika supposedly has a universal meaning allowed? That OP was clearly looking for proof for a nonsense belief.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1377313.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"s8p67a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Did\/does any collection of humans not influenced by the agricultural revolution use fats for cooking? I'm talking about pre-neolithic times as well as groups such as the indigenous people of the Potomac River, or today's Virginia, who from what I understand had their methods of farming that is more similar to Permaculture than what we think of as conventional agriculture. Fat for cooking - whether its butter, lard, tallow, palm oil, etc. takes a bit of processing, and I'm curious about whether other societies have used fat and if so, where and what have they used?","c_root_id_A":"htieef8","c_root_id_B":"hti740u","created_at_utc_A":1642713297,"created_at_utc_B":1642710637,"score_A":17,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"See, for example Manne, Tiina H., Mary C. Stiner, and Nuno F. Bicho. \"Evidence for bone grease rendering during the Upper Paleolithic at Vale Boi (Algarve, Portugal).\" Promontoria Monografica 3 (2006): 145-158. >Abstract > >Recently excavated faunas from the Upper Paleolithic site of Vale Boi in Algarve (southern Portugal) provide early evidence of resource intensification in the form of bone grease rendering, a labor-intensive technique for maximizing the fat yield from ungulate carcasses, alongside exploitation of rabbits. The geography and chronology of the occurrences of these subsistence phenomena may indicate expanding dietary breadth in Upper Paleolithic foragers. Evidence of bone grease rendering begins with the early Gravettian period at Vale Boi, based on the co-occurrence of abundant fire-cracked rock, stone anvils, and the systematic fragmentation spongy bone. Tests for density-mediated attrition in rabbits and ungulates indicate that the patterns of body part representation in the ungulate remains were not biased substantially by postdepositional processes. The onset of resource intensification and dietary expansion in the Algarve is in general agreement with patterns observed for the northern Mediterranean Rim. However, the coupling of heavy rabbit exploitation and bone grease-rendering in the early Gravettian at Vale Boi is distinctive and, as such, occurs relatively early for the Upper Paleolithic overall. This doesn't conclusively demonstrate that they cooked with it . . . but that they had these technologies and were actively engaged in this, that's clearly present. We've got plenty of references to the use of bone grease to fry foods, including by indigenous Americans, an old reference stating >The men break bones, which are boiled in water to extract the marrow to be used for frying and for other culinary purposes. The oil is then poured into the bladder of the animal, which contains when filled about twelve pounds, being the yield of the marrow bones of two buffaloes.\u201d . . . many similar references, you'll hear mention of it as \"prairie butter\". I am not clear whether this is something that was always done before contact, or whether this is an introduction following European contact.","human_ref_B":"Groups like the Powhatan peoples weren't \"pre-agriculture\" and there's not really a meaningful way to describe such groups in the recent past thousand years. Nevertheless, where information about cooking exists, all of the societies we know about have included animal fats in their diets. That's not particularly surprising given that we need it to survive. We have archaeological evidence for the harvesting of marrow and the use of animal fats for things like pigment mixtures and hearth fires, but residue analysis of cooking vessels generally isn't possible for the Paleolithic. But as soon as materials we can perform residue analysis on start showing up in the archaeological record, we start detecting animal fats all over them, usually from a food source they were otherwise heavily exploiting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2660.0,"score_ratio":1.0625} {"post_id":"dif0gj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Since when (male) humans started getting bald? Why? Does it serve any evolutionary purpose or is it a downside of a crucial evolutionary trait?","c_root_id_A":"f3vn1l3","c_root_id_B":"f3vp1eo","created_at_utc_A":1571179889,"created_at_utc_B":1571181285,"score_A":67,"score_B":116,"human_ref_A":"since forever. Male pattern baldness is not limited to humans or even primates. If you look at older lions, you will also see that they have a vertex pattern of hair loss. It's just far less noticeable because in humans that same area of skin covers the entire scalp instead of just a small part of the forehead.","human_ref_B":"There is no specific reason that we know of. It's a byproduct of male secondary sex maturation driven by the male sex hormone. In fact, baldness isn't necessarily an inherent trait. It comes about because some men have the misfortune of having a genetic line that encodes for the overproduction of dihydro-testosterone and hair follicles that are overly sensitive to the it. Traits aren't expressed uniformly across a population. Sometimes a mutation that has one benefit (in this case making you more masculine) can result in other neutral or \"negative\" effects. A mutation can come around that is generally beneficial, but because of the chaos of this reality, may result in other side affects because it's expressed too much or too little in a section of the population. And as far as human evolution is concerned, male pattern baldness doesn't have a strong enough affect on a man's ability to reproduce. There's a general misconception that evolution is a process towards the optimal solution. This couldn't be any more wrong. The process is about getting you to maturity and getting \"laid.\" Past that it's whatever. Any mutation that doesn't impede that, has a possibility of persisting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1396.0,"score_ratio":1.7313432836} {"post_id":"aognpz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What\u2019s a good way to explain the differences between Native American tribes\/nations ? Usually someone will lump all native Americans into one big group and attribute aspects like dreamcatchers , tipis , war bonnets Etc of one culture for the entire race . Im ojibwe and when people would do that I used to say we\u2019re as different as Italians and the English , is that a accurate way to show that we\u2019re not all the same culturally even though we\u2019re part of the same race ? If not can someone help me figure out a way to explain it without me sounding like a jackass?","c_root_id_A":"eg0z8vj","c_root_id_B":"eg0ses5","created_at_utc_A":1549643522,"created_at_utc_B":1549638526,"score_A":43,"score_B":33,"human_ref_A":"You can go further than Italian and English and say Chinese and English if you want. I live in Bella Coola. At the top of the hill is Anahim lake. They Ulgatcho and speak an Athapascan language. We're Nuxalk and speak a Salishan language. Just out on the water is Bella Bella and they're Heiltsuk and speak a Wakashan language. Just up from them is Kitasoo, and they speak a Tsimshianic language. So four communities here have more linguistic diversity than all of Europe. Europe has Indo-European, Basque, and Finno-Ugaritic languages. British Columbia has *nine* language families, each as different from each other as Chinese is from English. Italian and English are very close and might be a better eample if you're comparing Fox and Ojibwe. Cree and Ojibwe might be like Spanish and French, Ojibwe and Blackfoot might be more like English and Punjabi, while Dene versus Cree is full on Chinese or Finnish versus English.","human_ref_B":"I'm Navajo. We don't have war bonnets. We switched to farming, herding sheep, and living in hogans. Our general style has also been influenced by the people we've met in history. Pueblos, Spanish, etc. So yeah. We were all nations moving around, trading, and fighting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4996.0,"score_ratio":1.303030303} {"post_id":"9mo4o5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How did Native American tribes feel about homosexuality?","c_root_id_A":"e7giexb","c_root_id_B":"e7gfj3j","created_at_utc_A":1539101366,"created_at_utc_B":1539098985,"score_A":79,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"What I learned from a gay-studies prof back in college is that anthropologically, there are four ways that cultures have organized same-sex sexual relationships (at least among men\u2014my prof was better-versed in gay studies than lesbian studies): **Homosexuality** in the way most of us understand it\u2014where, for example, a man who has always identified as male and fulfills all the expectations of the male gender role has sex only with other people who identify as male, in the same way that most men have sex with women\u2014is a modern thing. The word \u201chomosexual\u201d was only coined in the late 19th century. **Role-specific** sexual relations is what the ancient Greeks did. Adult male citizens screwed women, adolescent males, and slaves of both sexes. A man might *prefer* to have relations with a man rather than a woman, but he wouldn\u2019t think of himself and his male lover to share a \u201csexuality\u201d. Sex was a thing that people higher up the social hierarchy *did to* people lower down. **Age-graded** sex is what a certain tribe in New Guinea did. IIRC, boys above a certain age were expected to fellate older boys (their culture had, shall we say, an idea that there was some kind of law of conservation of sperm); above a certain age, the young men did it to one another; after a man married and had his first child, he was expected to have sex exclusively with his wife. A **two-spirit** (called \u201cberdache\u201d in older literature, but contemporary Native Americans consider this an offensive term) is someone who is physically male but takes on a female or androgynous gender role. Trans people are the nearest contemporary equivalent, but various cultures recognized and accepted this role before hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery were invented. This is what some Native American tribes had; there\u2019s a 1992 book called Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture that discusses it.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure which tribes practiced this but there was a type of person called two spirits which meant a person who didn't match up with a specific gender. Basically if a man wanted to watch kids and collect food they would let him join the women. Not only that, these people were revered because of their ability to use both masculine and feminine attributes to solve issues. Instead of me talking here's a wiki on it. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Two-spirit","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2381.0,"score_ratio":11.2857142857} {"post_id":"9mo4o5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How did Native American tribes feel about homosexuality?","c_root_id_A":"e7ha46i","c_root_id_B":"e7gfj3j","created_at_utc_A":1539124845,"created_at_utc_B":1539098985,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The answer is going to vary widely based on tribes. Often though, the only answer we have is, we don't know. And even when we have clear terminology that refers to homosexuality or the like, we have to take it with a grain of salt. A good example of this is with the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. If we look up term that meant homosexual, which was winkte, in their dictionary, it is translated as hermaphrodite; a plant or animal with both male and female reproductive parts. This translation comes from the Catholic priests who set out to record the language, and their biases shined through. That is often the case, as we see many examples in which homosexuality is demonized among Native Americans. We can't be sure if this was authentic views among different tribes, or if this was the view that occurred post European contact, as various tribes were trying to assimilate, and were adopting western views. We also have to be careful to not retroject current views into the past. For instance, the term \"two-spirit.\" It is a modern term, and often it is applied to all tribes; however, to do so ignores the vast differences between tribes, and often, we don't have historical support for such individuals in many tribes. We also have to be careful to not impose our own views of sexuality on other cultures. Among the Plains Indians for example, it wasn't so clear cut. With those tribes, you had individuals called berdache (which is a historical term, that many now don't use simply because it is culturally insensitive. I use that term this once just to make it known that it is the term that was applied to Plains Indians historically). The standard view of these individuals was that they were homosexual males who dressed as women and took on the role of women. However, it turns out that it is much more complex than that. Often, they weren't homosexual. Sometimes they didn't dress as women, and sometimes they took on roles that were neither designated for males or females. So the answer really is that it is incredibly complex and there are many pitfalls when trying to show a historical overview on the topic.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure which tribes practiced this but there was a type of person called two spirits which meant a person who didn't match up with a specific gender. Basically if a man wanted to watch kids and collect food they would let him join the women. Not only that, these people were revered because of their ability to use both masculine and feminine attributes to solve issues. Instead of me talking here's a wiki on it. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Two-spirit","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25860.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"9mo4o5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How did Native American tribes feel about homosexuality?","c_root_id_A":"e7goybc","c_root_id_B":"e7ha46i","created_at_utc_A":1539107103,"created_at_utc_B":1539124845,"score_A":5,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Anyone have any sources on the some of the more urbanized Native cultures and their takes on homosexuality? Say for example, the Mexica, the Maya, or the Inca?","human_ref_B":"The answer is going to vary widely based on tribes. Often though, the only answer we have is, we don't know. And even when we have clear terminology that refers to homosexuality or the like, we have to take it with a grain of salt. A good example of this is with the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. If we look up term that meant homosexual, which was winkte, in their dictionary, it is translated as hermaphrodite; a plant or animal with both male and female reproductive parts. This translation comes from the Catholic priests who set out to record the language, and their biases shined through. That is often the case, as we see many examples in which homosexuality is demonized among Native Americans. We can't be sure if this was authentic views among different tribes, or if this was the view that occurred post European contact, as various tribes were trying to assimilate, and were adopting western views. We also have to be careful to not retroject current views into the past. For instance, the term \"two-spirit.\" It is a modern term, and often it is applied to all tribes; however, to do so ignores the vast differences between tribes, and often, we don't have historical support for such individuals in many tribes. We also have to be careful to not impose our own views of sexuality on other cultures. Among the Plains Indians for example, it wasn't so clear cut. With those tribes, you had individuals called berdache (which is a historical term, that many now don't use simply because it is culturally insensitive. I use that term this once just to make it known that it is the term that was applied to Plains Indians historically). The standard view of these individuals was that they were homosexual males who dressed as women and took on the role of women. However, it turns out that it is much more complex than that. Often, they weren't homosexual. Sometimes they didn't dress as women, and sometimes they took on roles that were neither designated for males or females. So the answer really is that it is incredibly complex and there are many pitfalls when trying to show a historical overview on the topic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17742.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"y61wko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Should I pursue this major? I love it and am planning on getting my undergrad degree in it, but it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I have to do something as an undergrad to make enough for a masters right? I just want to know if this degree is able to secure me any sort of job in the field or if I\u2019m better going down the road of say biology which is my second choice.","c_root_id_A":"isnrgrv","c_root_id_B":"isn51ne","created_at_utc_A":1666004426,"created_at_utc_B":1665985663,"score_A":14,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":">biology which is my second choice You'll find that biology-- and most of the other science-type fields-- has the same issue that anthropology does. With an undergrad degree only, your job prospects are limited. That's whether you do math, physics, bio, chemistry, etc. Outside of a relatively small proportion of degrees in fields like engineering and business \/ finance, or pre-professional degrees, that's going to be the case pretty much always. You need that grad degree. But *with* such a degree, there are plenty of decent-paying jobs in biology, and there are plenty of decent-paying jobs in anthropology (especially archaeology).","human_ref_B":"Full disclosure, I wish I had worried more about getting a job out of undergrad. And I have been immensely lucky. I studied linguistics (with a focus on linguistic anthropology) in undergrad - apologies if this answer isn\u2019t perfect for this sub. I ended up getting a masters in language Education to try add a marketable skill. I was never a classroom teacher but I was able to parlay my skillset into a decade working for a well known language learning company. Roughly half that time was spent as part of their endangered language program. That was hands down some of the most meaningful work I\u2019ve ever done and while it was stressful and hard and full of difficulties, I will always treasure that time. It\u2019s easy to say \u201cfollow your dreams!\u201d Or to pretend that you\u2019ll always be happy if you love the field you\u2019re working in. And I had struggles along the way. I was incredibly lucky and there were still a few years working as a translator, wondering if I\u2019d ever use my degree. But I just don\u2019t think I\u2019d have lasted in a major I didn\u2019t care about. I\u2019m sure that says more about me than I\u2019d care to reflect on, but I\u2019m glad I studied linguistics rather than business. If anthropology is important to you, study it. You\u2019ll be a better person for it and you won\u2019t spend the next three decades wondering \u201cwhat if\u201d. But have a plan. Try and intern places in summers if you can at all. Figure out how other anthropology majors are using their degrees outside of academia. Or double major and have the best of both worlds?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18763.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"y61wko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Should I pursue this major? I love it and am planning on getting my undergrad degree in it, but it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I have to do something as an undergrad to make enough for a masters right? I just want to know if this degree is able to secure me any sort of job in the field or if I\u2019m better going down the road of say biology which is my second choice.","c_root_id_A":"isnd5c8","c_root_id_B":"isnrgrv","created_at_utc_A":1665992199,"created_at_utc_B":1666004426,"score_A":2,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist, but I paid for my own education, and I have worked for two major R1 universities, including on degree design (i.e. researching which programs attract students). You're doing the right thing by asking this question before committing several years to any field of study. However, you should also realize that by asking in a forum devoted to anthropology, you may be introducing significant sample bias. > it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I think you've answered your own question. I know a lot of people who never need to work a day in their lives, thanks to inheritance. If you're not in that group, then getting any non-STEM non-professional degree is a huge risk. (Assuming you're in the US.) Gives me no pleasure to tell you all this, but it's the reality for 2022 and the foreseeable future.","human_ref_B":">biology which is my second choice You'll find that biology-- and most of the other science-type fields-- has the same issue that anthropology does. With an undergrad degree only, your job prospects are limited. That's whether you do math, physics, bio, chemistry, etc. Outside of a relatively small proportion of degrees in fields like engineering and business \/ finance, or pre-professional degrees, that's going to be the case pretty much always. You need that grad degree. But *with* such a degree, there are plenty of decent-paying jobs in biology, and there are plenty of decent-paying jobs in anthropology (especially archaeology).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12227.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"y61wko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Should I pursue this major? I love it and am planning on getting my undergrad degree in it, but it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I have to do something as an undergrad to make enough for a masters right? I just want to know if this degree is able to secure me any sort of job in the field or if I\u2019m better going down the road of say biology which is my second choice.","c_root_id_A":"iso2w5u","c_root_id_B":"isnd5c8","created_at_utc_A":1666011329,"created_at_utc_B":1665992199,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There are plenty of professions out there for anthropologists. Check out Nolan Riall's book Anthropology in Practice. I've worked in marketing research and cinema publicity, which my anthro studies were important to. But it's true that you can't just get a job from an anthropology degree, you will need to make conscious choices about your coursework and internships and you will need to narrow down your focus to some specific topic within an anthropological framework.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist, but I paid for my own education, and I have worked for two major R1 universities, including on degree design (i.e. researching which programs attract students). You're doing the right thing by asking this question before committing several years to any field of study. However, you should also realize that by asking in a forum devoted to anthropology, you may be introducing significant sample bias. > it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I think you've answered your own question. I know a lot of people who never need to work a day in their lives, thanks to inheritance. If you're not in that group, then getting any non-STEM non-professional degree is a huge risk. (Assuming you're in the US.) Gives me no pleasure to tell you all this, but it's the reality for 2022 and the foreseeable future.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19130.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"y61wko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Should I pursue this major? I love it and am planning on getting my undergrad degree in it, but it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I have to do something as an undergrad to make enough for a masters right? I just want to know if this degree is able to secure me any sort of job in the field or if I\u2019m better going down the road of say biology which is my second choice.","c_root_id_A":"iso86om","c_root_id_B":"isnd5c8","created_at_utc_A":1666013925,"created_at_utc_B":1665992199,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It really depends on what you want to do, what you're willing to do in the meantime, and how well you can market your skills. In 2019 I got my BA in Cultural Anthropology with a minor in English. Right out of college I got a job working in community corrections in a locked down women's facility. I eventually was promoted to a more treatment oriented position running groups with the clients, and obtained my CDCA. Then I decided that treatment counseling wasn't for me, and I didn't want to pursue higher licensure (which afforded much higher pay). I briefly went to work in a library, and now I'm waiting to start a research position back in community corrections making a small chunk of change. During college, I said I wanted experience working in a non-profit with underserved women before pursuing an MLIS. I didn't see myself working in community corrections, it just sort of happened because they listed anthropology alongside sociology, psychology, criminal justice, or corrections as applicant degree paths. I decided an MLIS wasn't justifiable at this point in my life while working in libraries, but I still did work with the local juvenile detention center + dedicated a chunk of time to answering prison reference letters. The goal is now to build a base in research and then reassess a graduate program at a later date. Regardless, I feel like I'm working in my field and I truly find value in my degree. I just had to be more intentional with my classes, as well as with work and volunteer opportunities.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist, but I paid for my own education, and I have worked for two major R1 universities, including on degree design (i.e. researching which programs attract students). You're doing the right thing by asking this question before committing several years to any field of study. However, you should also realize that by asking in a forum devoted to anthropology, you may be introducing significant sample bias. > it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I think you've answered your own question. I know a lot of people who never need to work a day in their lives, thanks to inheritance. If you're not in that group, then getting any non-STEM non-professional degree is a huge risk. (Assuming you're in the US.) Gives me no pleasure to tell you all this, but it's the reality for 2022 and the foreseeable future.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21726.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"y61wko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Should I pursue this major? I love it and am planning on getting my undergrad degree in it, but it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I have to do something as an undergrad to make enough for a masters right? I just want to know if this degree is able to secure me any sort of job in the field or if I\u2019m better going down the road of say biology which is my second choice.","c_root_id_A":"isnd5c8","c_root_id_B":"isph07r","created_at_utc_A":1665992199,"created_at_utc_B":1666032910,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist, but I paid for my own education, and I have worked for two major R1 universities, including on degree design (i.e. researching which programs attract students). You're doing the right thing by asking this question before committing several years to any field of study. However, you should also realize that by asking in a forum devoted to anthropology, you may be introducing significant sample bias. > it seems as if there are no available jobs for it. I think you've answered your own question. I know a lot of people who never need to work a day in their lives, thanks to inheritance. If you're not in that group, then getting any non-STEM non-professional degree is a huge risk. (Assuming you're in the US.) Gives me no pleasure to tell you all this, but it's the reality for 2022 and the foreseeable future.","human_ref_B":"I saw you were looking at archaeology too. Archaeologists usually go into Cultural Resource Management work (CRM) which is private archaeology firms checking to see if potential sites for building projects have archaeological remains. It requires a LOT of travel, especially at the entry level positions. You will have the most luck out of it if you get a MA degree. There is research as a professor or postdoc, both of which are exceptionally hard to get into, from what I hear. Archaeology is a subdiscipline best utilized if doubled with something else - geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, digital archaeology, etc. It makes you more marketable and gives you more opportunities. I'm doing digital archaeology, specializing in GIS & photogrammetry, which opens me up to jobs in areas involving surveying, mapping, things of that nature. If you are passionate about it, archaeology has decent career prospects - both in the field and out of the field. But it is not an easy career, nor is it lucrative. Anthropology as a whole prepares you for any career, really. It just might not be a career where you are studying cultures, human remains, languages, or the remains of cultures. Instead it might be utilizing your skills you learned in your undergrad in a new context like market analytics or human resources.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40711.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3pewyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Both Ainu and Chinese seem to give young children named like 'little poop', 'pig manure', 'dog' to shield them from demons. Is it likely these are connected? Are there other examples of such custom, both in the area and elsewhere?","c_root_id_A":"cw66nlo","c_root_id_B":"cw66kfx","created_at_utc_A":1445329471,"created_at_utc_B":1445329085,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Korea (or, rather, the Korean common people) also had such names, famously \"Gaettong\" which means \"dog manure.\" There's an infamous 17th-century royal servant called Kim Gaeshi, for example: her name is an obvious Sinicization of Kim Gaettong (the Chinese character \u5c4e is pronounced \"shi\" in Sino-Korean and means \"feces\"). There are also names based on the month or the sexagenary year of birth, again for the purpose of avoiding demons.","human_ref_B":"From personal experience, this is also practiced in South Korea.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":386.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"3pewyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Both Ainu and Chinese seem to give young children named like 'little poop', 'pig manure', 'dog' to shield them from demons. Is it likely these are connected? Are there other examples of such custom, both in the area and elsewhere?","c_root_id_A":"cw69i9h","c_root_id_B":"cw66kfx","created_at_utc_A":1445341482,"created_at_utc_B":1445329085,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"West Africa has a tradition of such names, whether Worm or Shit-pile, for exactly this reason.","human_ref_B":"From personal experience, this is also practiced in South Korea.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12397.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3pewyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Both Ainu and Chinese seem to give young children named like 'little poop', 'pig manure', 'dog' to shield them from demons. Is it likely these are connected? Are there other examples of such custom, both in the area and elsewhere?","c_root_id_A":"cw66kfx","c_root_id_B":"cw6lqh4","created_at_utc_A":1445329085,"created_at_utc_B":1445363054,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"From personal experience, this is also practiced in South Korea.","human_ref_B":"My wife calls our son Stinky Dogshit. Yeah, she's Chinese and she keeps doing it from time to time, despite my protests.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33969.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3pewyb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Both Ainu and Chinese seem to give young children named like 'little poop', 'pig manure', 'dog' to shield them from demons. Is it likely these are connected? Are there other examples of such custom, both in the area and elsewhere?","c_root_id_A":"cw6d0pn","c_root_id_B":"cw66kfx","created_at_utc_A":1445349682,"created_at_utc_B":1445329085,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In the poorer areas of iraq this also happens.","human_ref_B":"From personal experience, this is also practiced in South Korea.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20597.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"51l62w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the controversies? I recently reread Sherry Ortner's *Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties* as part of reading about her kind of back-and-forth with Eric Wolf. While I lean toward siding with Wolf (without rejecting her criticisms), she expresses the idea that there are no longer major disagreements in the field of anthropology, lines along which the field is divided, and I find that interesting. Now, to an extent, that is good, though I think often the best ideas come out of conflict, and criticism can lead to the development of nuance or even to discarding bad ideas. But my biggest concern is that this was written in 1984, over thirty years ago. So my seeing similarities between what she says and what I'm aware of may be less because the situation is similar and more because I'm less than aware of the major discussions going on in present-day anthropology. If it's the latter, this is something I want to rectify since I'll be starting on my thesis soon. The only thing I'm aware of, really, is controversy over to what degree anthropologists should be involved in political advocacy or other such things. For example, I'm told there was serious conflict over whether the AAA should take a stance on the Israel\/Palestine situation. Anyway, in general, what are the biggest controversial topics and disagreements in the field of anthropology (particularly cultural anthropology) today, in 2016?","c_root_id_A":"d7cuy22","c_root_id_B":"d7cwnvf","created_at_utc_A":1473260785,"created_at_utc_B":1473263102,"score_A":5,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak entirely for the cultural side but there is some overlap between the issues in archaeology and cultural anthropology. I'm aware of three main issues which stem from: 1)political activism (I consider myself part of the group that believes political activity should 100% be a part of anthropological work) 2) anthropology as a hard science (I believe it was in '07 the AAA removed science from their ethical code) 3) theoretical debates (this is usually the stuff you see in book reviews or talks with advisors or other academics, things like oh so and sos a Marxist so everything is about class or those arguments) I can dig up some articles for you if you want to try and find them.","human_ref_B":"First of all, Ortner just published a follow-up to that article, this time about 'theory since the eighties'. I haven't read that yet, but you can find it on HAU. And I don't know if there are *big* controversial topics or disagreements in current anthropology. The biggest one I can think of is the backslash against the 'ontological turn', of which the most recent development I know of was the critique of Viveiros de Castro by Graeber.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2317.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"51l62w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the controversies? I recently reread Sherry Ortner's *Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties* as part of reading about her kind of back-and-forth with Eric Wolf. While I lean toward siding with Wolf (without rejecting her criticisms), she expresses the idea that there are no longer major disagreements in the field of anthropology, lines along which the field is divided, and I find that interesting. Now, to an extent, that is good, though I think often the best ideas come out of conflict, and criticism can lead to the development of nuance or even to discarding bad ideas. But my biggest concern is that this was written in 1984, over thirty years ago. So my seeing similarities between what she says and what I'm aware of may be less because the situation is similar and more because I'm less than aware of the major discussions going on in present-day anthropology. If it's the latter, this is something I want to rectify since I'll be starting on my thesis soon. The only thing I'm aware of, really, is controversy over to what degree anthropologists should be involved in political advocacy or other such things. For example, I'm told there was serious conflict over whether the AAA should take a stance on the Israel\/Palestine situation. Anyway, in general, what are the biggest controversial topics and disagreements in the field of anthropology (particularly cultural anthropology) today, in 2016?","c_root_id_A":"d7di2jv","c_root_id_B":"d7cuy22","created_at_utc_A":1473291469,"created_at_utc_B":1473260785,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"That's a strange argument to make during the 80s with critical anthropology questioning the very concept of culture. (I've read this paper but it's been a while, so I guess I don't remember that part.) Bruce Knauft has a more recent paper ('06) that makes the same argument. Trigger makes a similar argument in his newer edition of his history of archaeology -- what he called the pragmatic synthesis. There are still debates of course, as with the ontological turn stuff mentioned above. But that never dominated the field as much as something like structuralism. The academic vs. applied anthro is a big issue too. In archaeology, there's a big problem with CRM gray literature that academics are ignoring and aren't really integrated into the academic lit.","human_ref_B":"I can't speak entirely for the cultural side but there is some overlap between the issues in archaeology and cultural anthropology. I'm aware of three main issues which stem from: 1)political activism (I consider myself part of the group that believes political activity should 100% be a part of anthropological work) 2) anthropology as a hard science (I believe it was in '07 the AAA removed science from their ethical code) 3) theoretical debates (this is usually the stuff you see in book reviews or talks with advisors or other academics, things like oh so and sos a Marxist so everything is about class or those arguments) I can dig up some articles for you if you want to try and find them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30684.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"51l62w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the controversies? I recently reread Sherry Ortner's *Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties* as part of reading about her kind of back-and-forth with Eric Wolf. While I lean toward siding with Wolf (without rejecting her criticisms), she expresses the idea that there are no longer major disagreements in the field of anthropology, lines along which the field is divided, and I find that interesting. Now, to an extent, that is good, though I think often the best ideas come out of conflict, and criticism can lead to the development of nuance or even to discarding bad ideas. But my biggest concern is that this was written in 1984, over thirty years ago. So my seeing similarities between what she says and what I'm aware of may be less because the situation is similar and more because I'm less than aware of the major discussions going on in present-day anthropology. If it's the latter, this is something I want to rectify since I'll be starting on my thesis soon. The only thing I'm aware of, really, is controversy over to what degree anthropologists should be involved in political advocacy or other such things. For example, I'm told there was serious conflict over whether the AAA should take a stance on the Israel\/Palestine situation. Anyway, in general, what are the biggest controversial topics and disagreements in the field of anthropology (particularly cultural anthropology) today, in 2016?","c_root_id_A":"d7di2jv","c_root_id_B":"d7cxwm5","created_at_utc_A":1473291469,"created_at_utc_B":1473264747,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"That's a strange argument to make during the 80s with critical anthropology questioning the very concept of culture. (I've read this paper but it's been a while, so I guess I don't remember that part.) Bruce Knauft has a more recent paper ('06) that makes the same argument. Trigger makes a similar argument in his newer edition of his history of archaeology -- what he called the pragmatic synthesis. There are still debates of course, as with the ontological turn stuff mentioned above. But that never dominated the field as much as something like structuralism. The academic vs. applied anthro is a big issue too. In archaeology, there's a big problem with CRM gray literature that academics are ignoring and aren't really integrated into the academic lit.","human_ref_B":"Theres still some controversy surrounding NAGPRA. Most anthropologists would say it's a good law but there are certainly more than a few who are against repatriation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26722.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"51l62w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the controversies? I recently reread Sherry Ortner's *Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties* as part of reading about her kind of back-and-forth with Eric Wolf. While I lean toward siding with Wolf (without rejecting her criticisms), she expresses the idea that there are no longer major disagreements in the field of anthropology, lines along which the field is divided, and I find that interesting. Now, to an extent, that is good, though I think often the best ideas come out of conflict, and criticism can lead to the development of nuance or even to discarding bad ideas. But my biggest concern is that this was written in 1984, over thirty years ago. So my seeing similarities between what she says and what I'm aware of may be less because the situation is similar and more because I'm less than aware of the major discussions going on in present-day anthropology. If it's the latter, this is something I want to rectify since I'll be starting on my thesis soon. The only thing I'm aware of, really, is controversy over to what degree anthropologists should be involved in political advocacy or other such things. For example, I'm told there was serious conflict over whether the AAA should take a stance on the Israel\/Palestine situation. Anyway, in general, what are the biggest controversial topics and disagreements in the field of anthropology (particularly cultural anthropology) today, in 2016?","c_root_id_A":"d7cxwm5","c_root_id_B":"d7dpjnr","created_at_utc_A":1473264747,"created_at_utc_B":1473302702,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Theres still some controversy surrounding NAGPRA. Most anthropologists would say it's a good law but there are certainly more than a few who are against repatriation.","human_ref_B":"How the postmodern turn deflated the political-economic push in anthropology. This political-economic trend was popularised by Wolf, and equipped with the theoretical tools necessary to unmask the ideology of the capitalist elite. These ideas were gaining steam until the so-called postmodern turn, which eschewed grand narratives altogether. Interesting to note that the postmodern turn parallels the advance of neoliberalism. Of course, there is still an important political-economic force in anthropology, and ever since the 2007-08 financial crisis, these ideas are more important than ever. Other big concerns amongst anthropologists include the academic Israeli boycott, which was narrowly defeated by the AAA, and the role of \u2018engaged\u2019 anthropologists who decide to work on behalf of the military\/state in ways that contradict the AAA code of ethics.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37955.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"vf8rd0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Whats the best free documentary that accurately portrays what life was like in the Stone Age? Non-native English speaker here. I am looking for a documentary, that explains in comprehensive detail what life in the stone age was like. I know its a very big ask, given that the stone age was a really long time, with thousands of different cultures and so on. But I am just trying to get a simple idea. Something similar to what they teach in Anthropology first year textbooks. Can someone suggest a documentary that shows the above? I am looking for a documentary without a paywall.","c_root_id_A":"icuhp46","c_root_id_B":"icut0he","created_at_utc_A":1655569644,"created_at_utc_B":1655575007,"score_A":28,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"We have very limited knowledge of what life during the Stone Age was like. It\u2019s absolutely reliant on archaeological evidence which only ever shows a sliver. And it relies on our contemporary understanding of archaeological evidence and how to decipher its relevance. Edit: For example, Experts have historically misinterpreted graves with limited skeletal remnants as belonging to males because of the presence of weaponry or other artifacts. Better DNA and other analysis has revealed that many of these graves actually did belong to women Stone Age life and portraying it is very much a product of inference and speculation.","human_ref_B":"I would highly recommend Stephan Milo and North02 on YouTube. They both have sources and cited videos on ancient humans and what life was like for our early ancestors from Homo Erectus to modern Humans as recently as 10-15,000 years ago. Both are great presenters and very informative for up-to-date academic research in Anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5363.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"wmol34","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is the Three Age (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) classification system still useful? Is the Three Age system of classifying civilizations as Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age still commonly used in present day anthropological and archeological research? It still seems to be common in popular writings but I\u2019ve also seen arguments that it has limited usefulness in studying civilizations in Africa, the Americas, and much of Asia. What is the consensus in the field on this, and are there any papers that give an overview of the debate?","c_root_id_A":"ik1u0uh","c_root_id_B":"ik26nh1","created_at_utc_A":1660340523,"created_at_utc_B":1660345940,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm not familiar with any papers that directly address it as a debate. I still see it used from time to time, but much more often when people are talking about boundary between Bronze and Iron in a given area, usually Near East and China. The purpose of periodization is less that the terms give you some sort of profound insight into a given question than that they help orient people, and the trick about Three Age system is that its VERY coarse, and the more fine your question is and the more familiar your audience is, the more fine your periodization tends to be. Like you *could* refer to Jane Austen as an \"Iron Age author,\" but almost anybody interested in a question about Austen would be more ready for a term like \"Regency era author\" or \"19th century author.\" In general, when you use a descriptor you're using it to draw attention to a contrast or distinction, and so much of the focus of especially history has been in iron age societies that usually its not worth drawing attention to. When people talk about e.g. Babylon or pre-unification China, sure it can be worthwhile to make sure the reader is clear that you're not gonna see X type of weapon or Y type of organization, but more often you have finer grained tools that are more helpful.","human_ref_B":"Still has some utility regionally since it can be a useful shorthand for broadly talking about different periods of history in, say, China, or the Mediterranean, but it's not really useful globally since it doesn't consistently map on to levels of technological and social complexity outside of Eurasia. The most obvious examples are the great New World civilizations which achieved equivalent levels of complexity as those of the Old World while not adhering to anything like the same timeline with regard to metallurgy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5417.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"wmol34","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is the Three Age (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) classification system still useful? Is the Three Age system of classifying civilizations as Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age still commonly used in present day anthropological and archeological research? It still seems to be common in popular writings but I\u2019ve also seen arguments that it has limited usefulness in studying civilizations in Africa, the Americas, and much of Asia. What is the consensus in the field on this, and are there any papers that give an overview of the debate?","c_root_id_A":"ik2enes","c_root_id_B":"ik1u0uh","created_at_utc_A":1660349524,"created_at_utc_B":1660340523,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I study Romanian archaeology, but work with many European archaeologists (Dutch, Swedish, German, Spanish, Swiss...) and we all use the three-age system, or some variation of it. It is also used in the Near East and Africa, although not as consistently as in Europe. **No it's not useful.** But we're kind of stuck with it at this point. Here's some of the major issues with it, beyond its limited geographic uses. 1. It refers to the technology or materials used, not a specific period of time. So the Bronze Age occurred in Romania at an earlier time than in Sweden (for example). Except it also doesn't mean that those materials were used exclusively. Stone tools were still used frequently in some places during the Iron Age. 2. Humans are complex. Just because they were using the same general materials (stone, bronze, or iron), doesn't mean the similarities go any further. People had different diets, clothing, languages, customs, religions, architecture, art, etc. AND just because they were using the same materials doesn't mean they were making the same things in the same way. 3. It's a taxonomic mess in Europe. The major classifications are Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Eneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and then usually a few regional classifications get thrown in after, like Roman or Medieval. Except some regions use Epipaleolithic instead of Mesolithic. And other regions have both and Epipaleolithic and a Mesolithic. Some regions use Chalcolithic instead of Eneolithic. Some use both at the same time to refer to the same thing (authors choice). Some have neither and use Late Neolithic. But this is not the same Late Neolithic that place that use Eneolithic\/Chalcolithic use. All this changes over time too... So at the European scale, the system refers to a type of material that was used with some kind of indeterminant frequency and not exclusively, at an indeterminate time, with labels that are different from the labels other people are using. Good Luck! I've only ever been able to find sources that talk about the taxonomic issues in archaeology and not any of the other points. I can try to dig those up if you're interested and\/or I can point you in the direction of other classification systems and their associated papers.","human_ref_B":"I'm not familiar with any papers that directly address it as a debate. I still see it used from time to time, but much more often when people are talking about boundary between Bronze and Iron in a given area, usually Near East and China. The purpose of periodization is less that the terms give you some sort of profound insight into a given question than that they help orient people, and the trick about Three Age system is that its VERY coarse, and the more fine your question is and the more familiar your audience is, the more fine your periodization tends to be. Like you *could* refer to Jane Austen as an \"Iron Age author,\" but almost anybody interested in a question about Austen would be more ready for a term like \"Regency era author\" or \"19th century author.\" In general, when you use a descriptor you're using it to draw attention to a contrast or distinction, and so much of the focus of especially history has been in iron age societies that usually its not worth drawing attention to. When people talk about e.g. Babylon or pre-unification China, sure it can be worthwhile to make sure the reader is clear that you're not gonna see X type of weapon or Y type of organization, but more often you have finer grained tools that are more helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9001.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"zd7hld","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did the cattle domestication and farming begin in Africa instead of the Middle East? This new research shows that cattle domestication started in Sudan. Does it overturns the traditional views that it began in the Middle East. What is the chance that they will say that \u201cFarming also started in Sudan.\u201d Since the 15,000-year-old Qadan culture was a grain-grinding, proto-agricultural culture that lived next door to a pastoral culture in Sudan, what does that mean?","c_root_id_A":"iz0sx3l","c_root_id_B":"iz0fw2e","created_at_utc_A":1670260251,"created_at_utc_B":1670255015,"score_A":39,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"There are multiple centers of domestication for many species. The independent development of pastoral technologies in sub-Saharan Africa doesn't inherently contradict its development in other parts of the world.","human_ref_B":"The \"traditional view,\" as you call it, that humans didn't discover or use agriculture and animal husbandry until after they left Africa has no archeological evidence to support that conclusion. Considering animal husbandry and agriculture appears independently all over the world at different times in the archeological record, it can be assumed that ALL humans had the capacity and ability to practice agriculture and animal husbandry. Yet, only the people that lived in the most fertile lands were able to flourish to the level of what we would call the first human civilizations some 10kya. One new thought in the anthropological world is that humans were practicing horticulture far before they began to settle permanently and build large farms. This could explain why some of the oldest known human settlements in the world were not continually inhabited, as humans only practiced agriculture partly and in small-scale until about 10kya.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5236.0,"score_ratio":1.0263157895} {"post_id":"zd7hld","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did the cattle domestication and farming begin in Africa instead of the Middle East? This new research shows that cattle domestication started in Sudan. Does it overturns the traditional views that it began in the Middle East. What is the chance that they will say that \u201cFarming also started in Sudan.\u201d Since the 15,000-year-old Qadan culture was a grain-grinding, proto-agricultural culture that lived next door to a pastoral culture in Sudan, what does that mean?","c_root_id_A":"iz2442s","c_root_id_B":"iz19of6","created_at_utc_A":1670278576,"created_at_utc_B":1670266681,"score_A":30,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":">This new research shows that cattle domestication started in Sudan. No, it doesn't. It *suggests*, and maybe radiocarbon results will confirm, that local cattle domestication *also* occurred early, possibly contemporaneously with cattle domestication in Turkey. *As opposed to* domesticated cattle being introduced via interaction with populations in Turkey. >Does it overturns the traditional views that it began in the Middle East. Nope, it has no bearing on findings from the Middle East. >What is the chance that they will say that \u201cFarming also started in Sudan.\u201d We might find evidence that early plant domestication *also* occurred in Sudan. >Since the 15,000-year-old Qadan culture was a grain-grinding, proto-agricultural culture that lived next door to a pastoral culture in Sudan, what does that mean? That plant and animal domestication occurred in a number of places pretty early. --- Nothing in the above research, if determined to be accurate, nullifies research elsewhere. It simply adds to our understanding of the complex history of our species around the world.","human_ref_B":"Anyone has a link to the actual research, if it is even published? > The researchers are waiting for precise sample dating results, which will confirm their age and allow to talk about the local domestication. The linked article is from May. I feel we should have the results by now.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11895.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zd7hld","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did the cattle domestication and farming begin in Africa instead of the Middle East? This new research shows that cattle domestication started in Sudan. Does it overturns the traditional views that it began in the Middle East. What is the chance that they will say that \u201cFarming also started in Sudan.\u201d Since the 15,000-year-old Qadan culture was a grain-grinding, proto-agricultural culture that lived next door to a pastoral culture in Sudan, what does that mean?","c_root_id_A":"iz2442s","c_root_id_B":"iz1tlfh","created_at_utc_A":1670278576,"created_at_utc_B":1670274332,"score_A":30,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":">This new research shows that cattle domestication started in Sudan. No, it doesn't. It *suggests*, and maybe radiocarbon results will confirm, that local cattle domestication *also* occurred early, possibly contemporaneously with cattle domestication in Turkey. *As opposed to* domesticated cattle being introduced via interaction with populations in Turkey. >Does it overturns the traditional views that it began in the Middle East. Nope, it has no bearing on findings from the Middle East. >What is the chance that they will say that \u201cFarming also started in Sudan.\u201d We might find evidence that early plant domestication *also* occurred in Sudan. >Since the 15,000-year-old Qadan culture was a grain-grinding, proto-agricultural culture that lived next door to a pastoral culture in Sudan, what does that mean? That plant and animal domestication occurred in a number of places pretty early. --- Nothing in the above research, if determined to be accurate, nullifies research elsewhere. It simply adds to our understanding of the complex history of our species around the world.","human_ref_B":"A single study is hardly enough to overturn the current consensus, but it is fascinating and does bear looking into. Also as others have stated agriculture has no singular point of discovery so its entirely possible that this is another region with its own independent development of it. Which, needless to say, would be really cool.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4244.0,"score_ratio":4.2857142857} {"post_id":"zmwpqf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Can you recommend me a book on the history of anthropology as a discipline? Hey! Can you recommend me a book that shows me the evolution of the discipline from it's roots to today? I've read some works of anthropology (Mauss, Strauss, Clastres, Aug\u00e9) mostly for my interest in philosophy, but I would really like to see the 'big-picture' with the different schools and important authors.","c_root_id_A":"j0g43w6","c_root_id_B":"j0f9tcs","created_at_utc_A":1671191097,"created_at_utc_B":1671167798,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm a big fan of A History of Anthropology by Hylland Eriksen and Nielsen. I think the English version might be slightly shorter than the Norwegian one, but I see that there's a new edition since I last opened it. I bought it as a student without it being on the curriculum, and loved it.","human_ref_B":"You can get an excellent start with Marvin Harris's Rise of Anthropological Theory, which was last updated in 2001. Yes, Harris is very controversial in contemporary anthropology, but this seminal work remains the best recap of anthropological theory up to about 1990.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23299.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"5hmt8k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Has there been documented instances of people identifying as neither male or female before the 20th century? If so, was it common and how was it 'treated'? stole this from an askhistorians post by \/u\/MrStrongHand69","c_root_id_A":"db1j85g","c_root_id_B":"db1l3tm","created_at_utc_A":1481421321,"created_at_utc_B":1481424248,"score_A":23,"score_B":54,"human_ref_A":"The closest I can think of offhand is D'Eon in France, who was gender fluid. While I'm no historian, I recall other people in the assembly there would make bets on whether they were male or female when they died since every day D'Eon would be dressed as either gender. Pretty entertaining story if you look it up :)","human_ref_B":"Actually just talked about this on an anthropology class on Friday. The Hijra are a good example. When the British colonized India they marginalized them and changed the discourse surrounding a once accepted and celebrated identity. It has taken a long time for laws discriminating against them to be reversed and there is still a lasting stigma thanks to the British.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2927.0,"score_ratio":2.347826087} {"post_id":"5hmt8k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Has there been documented instances of people identifying as neither male or female before the 20th century? If so, was it common and how was it 'treated'? stole this from an askhistorians post by \/u\/MrStrongHand69","c_root_id_A":"db1l3tm","c_root_id_B":"db1jat3","created_at_utc_A":1481424248,"created_at_utc_B":1481421437,"score_A":54,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Actually just talked about this on an anthropology class on Friday. The Hijra are a good example. When the British colonized India they marginalized them and changed the discourse surrounding a once accepted and celebrated identity. It has taken a long time for laws discriminating against them to be reversed and there is still a lasting stigma thanks to the British.","human_ref_B":"In many Native American cultures there is the berdache tradition, in which an anatomical male dresses as and assumes the duties of a female. Actually, that's probably an oversimplification. I am far from expert on the subject and don't want to get it wrong, so accordingly I would simply recommend that you google the term \"berdache,\" and read the many academic sources that are available online. \"Two-spirited\" is another term that you'll see, but I think it's much more recent and not necessarily what your are after. I could be wrong; again, I am not an expert.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2811.0,"score_ratio":2.347826087} {"post_id":"5hmt8k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Has there been documented instances of people identifying as neither male or female before the 20th century? If so, was it common and how was it 'treated'? stole this from an askhistorians post by \/u\/MrStrongHand69","c_root_id_A":"db1l3tm","c_root_id_B":"db1jdt9","created_at_utc_A":1481424248,"created_at_utc_B":1481421564,"score_A":54,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Actually just talked about this on an anthropology class on Friday. The Hijra are a good example. When the British colonized India they marginalized them and changed the discourse surrounding a once accepted and celebrated identity. It has taken a long time for laws discriminating against them to be reversed and there is still a lasting stigma thanks to the British.","human_ref_B":"Native American Indians overtly recognize more than two genders--with some tribes at the point of European contact recognizing five or so genders. Historical accounts suggest that these \"other\" genders (known collectively today as \"two- spirit\") were very much a welcome part of the social fabric.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2684.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"c85ibv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Has there ever been a case of a nomadic hunter-gatherer society adopting agriculture and\/or pastoralism along with a sedentary lifestyle, only to later return BACK to being hunter-gatherers?","c_root_id_A":"eskh1ea","c_root_id_B":"eskcbf5","created_at_utc_A":1562064281,"created_at_utc_B":1562059484,"score_A":28,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"James S Scott speculates that this is actually very common. His main case study is Southeast Asia, where there is a lot of evidence of people fleeing heavily agricultural civilizations for a horticultural life in the highlands both as a result of conflict and simply because the life of the latter is freer and (at least in many ways) richer as compared to the heavily-taxed life of an agricultural serf in a stratified society. Of course, horticulture might not be rice paddy cultivation but it's still agriculture. Nonetheless, he finds signs that this is a worldwide dynamic that shows up where ever you have a geographic or temporal transition between densely settled agriculture and a lower-density space that makes \"less civilized\" lifeways possible. One space he keeps coming back to is the Eastern\/Midwestern US of the 1500s and 1600s, when the post Columbian contact plagues and their associated population collapses gave the survivors plenty of elbow room to make this transition.","human_ref_B":"Bird-David makes reference to people who are habitually agrarian and habitually HG in her work in India. https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/19548370\/Bird-David_N._1990_._The_giving_environment_Another_perspective_on_the_economic_system_of_gatherer-hunters._Current_Anthropology_31_2_189-196","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4797.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"1ekskl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why do some cultures have more spicy food? Is it just because of the available ingredients, or are there more factors involved?","c_root_id_A":"ca1at4n","c_root_id_B":"ca1f1p4","created_at_utc_A":1368903262,"created_at_utc_B":1368918643,"score_A":19,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Because spice was used to preserve the food. The hotter the temperature, the easier it was for food to spoil. Thus, the hotter the temperature, generally, the spicier the food. edit: i keep getting downvoted, so here's an article: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/discover\/10.2307\/3036683?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102023134383","human_ref_B":"I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, but the capsicum peppers are a new-world plant, and consequently their presence in Indian and East African cuisine is a post-Columbus phenomenon, due mainly to the Portuguese.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15381.0,"score_ratio":1.5789473684} {"post_id":"4j0s6a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why is it that some cultures, (India, Japan, China) have more respect for the elderly than others, like the U.S.?","c_root_id_A":"d33148y","c_root_id_B":"d332p1h","created_at_utc_A":1463079130,"created_at_utc_B":1463081216,"score_A":5,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"The first questions would be: What does respect mean? And do they have it more for the elderly?","human_ref_B":"Complicated question for certain. Buddhism and its long history in many Asian cultures and societies play a part but it's not enough of an explanation. 8984whatever dismisses collectivism but there is definitely something to it, especially when you look at Sino cultures where the people and state are always ranked higher than the individual. In Western countries, our history over the past 200+ years has included a gradual change that eroded former hierarchic structures in society as well as family, \"culminating\" for now in the social rebellions in the 60s and early 70s, emphasizing questioning power structures, personal freedom and the state's\/government's role in a modern world. Asian countries never had that and you still see it very much in, say, Korea, Japan and China where you are supposed to study hard, work hard, marry early, continue the family line and then your job is basically done in life. There is no room for finding or realizing yourself, putting yourself above the wishes of your parents and elders *in large numbers*. That said, having lived in Asia for almost a decade myself, there is a LOT of pretending and games of shadows going on. Most people try to appear extremely filial and almost submissive to their elders, but think and act very differently on their own. For instance, having a boyfriend or girlfriend before you finish university (and especially high school) is frowned upon by teachers and parents, so much that suspecting teachers will call home to inform about such perceived relationship. Many teenagers and uni students of course *do* have such relationships, but they'd never tell their parents, instead constructing elaborate lies about spending the night at a friend's house, staying at KTV's and so on. A lot of this respect for the elderly is a masquerade necessitated by the unwritten laws of 'face' cultures, which most Asian societies are.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2086.0,"score_ratio":4.8} {"post_id":"4itbwk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I had a professor in college who said, \"In societies where people don't bathe regularly, people can identify each other by their odor, like dogs.\" Was he full of it? We were discussing Oedipus Rex, and he was talking about the absurdity of Jocasta not realizing that Oedipus is her son. First he says that Jocasta should have noticed the ocular resemblance. Then he throws out the quote above and says that Jocasta should have noticed the familial odor. He was the kind of professor who both teaches you interesting (true) things and also makes stuff up. So which is it in this case?","c_root_id_A":"d314eqd","c_root_id_B":"d3143w3","created_at_utc_A":1462961789,"created_at_utc_B":1462960635,"score_A":49,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Trying to read realism in Greek drama is really a total misapprehension of the literary genres of the past and how our present genres may influence our reading of the past. It strikes me as funny to complain about her lack of ability to recognize him (someone she *knew* to be dead), but, the sphinx, that's alright. This isn't really the question you're asking, but, I would be wary to trust said professor's blanket statements about the scents of past societies when he seems not to understand their literatures.","human_ref_B":"I call BS. \"Societies that don't bathe\" and referring to a Greek text does not add up. It also implies a universality to societies that don't bathe so his assumption sucks.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1154.0,"score_ratio":1.8846153846} {"post_id":"4itbwk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I had a professor in college who said, \"In societies where people don't bathe regularly, people can identify each other by their odor, like dogs.\" Was he full of it? We were discussing Oedipus Rex, and he was talking about the absurdity of Jocasta not realizing that Oedipus is her son. First he says that Jocasta should have noticed the ocular resemblance. Then he throws out the quote above and says that Jocasta should have noticed the familial odor. He was the kind of professor who both teaches you interesting (true) things and also makes stuff up. So which is it in this case?","c_root_id_A":"d3132ot","c_root_id_B":"d314eqd","created_at_utc_A":1462956666,"created_at_utc_B":1462961789,"score_A":19,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Even If this is true (I've never heard of it) an individual would smell different before and after puberty due to the changes caused by hormones.","human_ref_B":"Trying to read realism in Greek drama is really a total misapprehension of the literary genres of the past and how our present genres may influence our reading of the past. It strikes me as funny to complain about her lack of ability to recognize him (someone she *knew* to be dead), but, the sphinx, that's alright. This isn't really the question you're asking, but, I would be wary to trust said professor's blanket statements about the scents of past societies when he seems not to understand their literatures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5123.0,"score_ratio":2.5789473684} {"post_id":"4itbwk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"I had a professor in college who said, \"In societies where people don't bathe regularly, people can identify each other by their odor, like dogs.\" Was he full of it? We were discussing Oedipus Rex, and he was talking about the absurdity of Jocasta not realizing that Oedipus is her son. First he says that Jocasta should have noticed the ocular resemblance. Then he throws out the quote above and says that Jocasta should have noticed the familial odor. He was the kind of professor who both teaches you interesting (true) things and also makes stuff up. So which is it in this case?","c_root_id_A":"d3143w3","c_root_id_B":"d3132ot","created_at_utc_A":1462960635,"created_at_utc_B":1462956666,"score_A":26,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I call BS. \"Societies that don't bathe\" and referring to a Greek text does not add up. It also implies a universality to societies that don't bathe so his assumption sucks.","human_ref_B":"Even If this is true (I've never heard of it) an individual would smell different before and after puberty due to the changes caused by hormones.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3969.0,"score_ratio":1.3684210526} {"post_id":"2v65hv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of your favourite game-changing journal articles and books within Cultural Anthropology that I should read while I still have access to my uni's databases? Some of my favourite Anthropologists and writers are Laura Nader, Paul Farmer, Tim Ingold, Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Sally Engle-Merry, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Robert Desjarlais\u2026 but I want to expand my reading.","c_root_id_A":"cof50eo","c_root_id_B":"coeyw6a","created_at_utc_A":1423419595,"created_at_utc_B":1423405513,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Books (I'm using a very inclusive definition of cultural anthropology here): * *The Parable of the Tribes* by Andrew Bard Schmookler * *Technics and Human Development* by Lewis Mumford * *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* **&** *Direct Action: An Ethnography* **&** *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology* by David Graeber * *Our Kind* **&** *Cultural Materialism* by Marvin Harris * *Stone Age Economics* by Marshall Sahlins * *In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization* by Stanley Diamond * *Europe and the People Without History* by Eric Wolf * *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time* (economic anthropology) by Karl Polanyi * *The Righteous Mind* (cultural psychology) by Jonathan Haight Articles: * Fiske, Alan P. \"The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations.\" *Psychological review* 99, no. 4 (1992): 689. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/0033-295X.99.4.689 * Bird-David, Nurit. \"Beyond\" The Original Affluent Society\": A Culturalist Reformulation.\" *Current Anthropology* (1992): 25-47. Edit: added some things","human_ref_B":"You might want to check if your school's library extends book borrowing privileges to alumni. They generally revoke journal access, but sometimes you can go get a special card for books.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14082.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"2v65hv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of your favourite game-changing journal articles and books within Cultural Anthropology that I should read while I still have access to my uni's databases? Some of my favourite Anthropologists and writers are Laura Nader, Paul Farmer, Tim Ingold, Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Sally Engle-Merry, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Robert Desjarlais\u2026 but I want to expand my reading.","c_root_id_A":"coeu3c8","c_root_id_B":"coeyw6a","created_at_utc_A":1423382624,"created_at_utc_B":1423405513,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I like Mary-Beth Mills' \"Thai women in the global labor force\" and Andrew Gardner's \"City of Strangers.\"","human_ref_B":"You might want to check if your school's library extends book borrowing privileges to alumni. They generally revoke journal access, but sometimes you can go get a special card for books.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22889.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2v65hv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of your favourite game-changing journal articles and books within Cultural Anthropology that I should read while I still have access to my uni's databases? Some of my favourite Anthropologists and writers are Laura Nader, Paul Farmer, Tim Ingold, Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Sally Engle-Merry, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Robert Desjarlais\u2026 but I want to expand my reading.","c_root_id_A":"cof50eo","c_root_id_B":"coeu3c8","created_at_utc_A":1423419595,"created_at_utc_B":1423382624,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Books (I'm using a very inclusive definition of cultural anthropology here): * *The Parable of the Tribes* by Andrew Bard Schmookler * *Technics and Human Development* by Lewis Mumford * *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* **&** *Direct Action: An Ethnography* **&** *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology* by David Graeber * *Our Kind* **&** *Cultural Materialism* by Marvin Harris * *Stone Age Economics* by Marshall Sahlins * *In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization* by Stanley Diamond * *Europe and the People Without History* by Eric Wolf * *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time* (economic anthropology) by Karl Polanyi * *The Righteous Mind* (cultural psychology) by Jonathan Haight Articles: * Fiske, Alan P. \"The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations.\" *Psychological review* 99, no. 4 (1992): 689. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/0033-295X.99.4.689 * Bird-David, Nurit. \"Beyond\" The Original Affluent Society\": A Culturalist Reformulation.\" *Current Anthropology* (1992): 25-47. Edit: added some things","human_ref_B":"I like Mary-Beth Mills' \"Thai women in the global labor force\" and Andrew Gardner's \"City of Strangers.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":36971.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2v65hv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of your favourite game-changing journal articles and books within Cultural Anthropology that I should read while I still have access to my uni's databases? Some of my favourite Anthropologists and writers are Laura Nader, Paul Farmer, Tim Ingold, Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Sally Engle-Merry, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Robert Desjarlais\u2026 but I want to expand my reading.","c_root_id_A":"coezpdp","c_root_id_B":"cof50eo","created_at_utc_A":1423408055,"created_at_utc_B":1423419595,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"http:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books\/about\/Never_in_Anger.html?id=A9QuJjQbh7MC&redir_esc=y I'm not studying anthropology but back in high school I read this as part of a project on Inuits, incredibly captivating.","human_ref_B":"Books (I'm using a very inclusive definition of cultural anthropology here): * *The Parable of the Tribes* by Andrew Bard Schmookler * *Technics and Human Development* by Lewis Mumford * *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* **&** *Direct Action: An Ethnography* **&** *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology* by David Graeber * *Our Kind* **&** *Cultural Materialism* by Marvin Harris * *Stone Age Economics* by Marshall Sahlins * *In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization* by Stanley Diamond * *Europe and the People Without History* by Eric Wolf * *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time* (economic anthropology) by Karl Polanyi * *The Righteous Mind* (cultural psychology) by Jonathan Haight Articles: * Fiske, Alan P. \"The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations.\" *Psychological review* 99, no. 4 (1992): 689. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/0033-295X.99.4.689 * Bird-David, Nurit. \"Beyond\" The Original Affluent Society\": A Culturalist Reformulation.\" *Current Anthropology* (1992): 25-47. Edit: added some things","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11540.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2v65hv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some of your favourite game-changing journal articles and books within Cultural Anthropology that I should read while I still have access to my uni's databases? Some of my favourite Anthropologists and writers are Laura Nader, Paul Farmer, Tim Ingold, Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Sally Engle-Merry, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, Robert Desjarlais\u2026 but I want to expand my reading.","c_root_id_A":"cof46lr","c_root_id_B":"cof50eo","created_at_utc_A":1423418097,"created_at_utc_B":1423419595,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Peter Metcalf: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/discover\/10.2307\/27868017?sid=21105290421721&uid=3737720&uid=2460338415&uid=4&uid=83&uid=63&uid=2","human_ref_B":"Books (I'm using a very inclusive definition of cultural anthropology here): * *The Parable of the Tribes* by Andrew Bard Schmookler * *Technics and Human Development* by Lewis Mumford * *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* **&** *Direct Action: An Ethnography* **&** *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology* by David Graeber * *Our Kind* **&** *Cultural Materialism* by Marvin Harris * *Stone Age Economics* by Marshall Sahlins * *In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization* by Stanley Diamond * *Europe and the People Without History* by Eric Wolf * *The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time* (economic anthropology) by Karl Polanyi * *The Righteous Mind* (cultural psychology) by Jonathan Haight Articles: * Fiske, Alan P. \"The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations.\" *Psychological review* 99, no. 4 (1992): 689. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1037\/0033-295X.99.4.689 * Bird-David, Nurit. \"Beyond\" The Original Affluent Society\": A Culturalist Reformulation.\" *Current Anthropology* (1992): 25-47. Edit: added some things","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1498.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"42ggda","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is your favourite piece of anthropological theory? To clarify, I'm referring to social anthropology in particular. Mine is related to the Panopticon and state regulation in the Western \"democratic\" societies. The idea is that our societies mostly regulate themselves because people always behave as if they are being watched. So, the majority of the population would not commit a crime for fear of the punishment even though they are not being watched.","c_root_id_A":"cza85sx","c_root_id_B":"czaaggm","created_at_utc_A":1453660881,"created_at_utc_B":1453664651,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Armchair pundit here, I very much disagree with the panopticon theory. I believe people do good things, and conversely don't do bad things because they don't want to live in a world where those behaviors exist. And that's not to say they see it from an ego perspective, that they don't want to be the ones that make the world worse by their action or inaction, but that people don't want to acknowledge the reality that someone could do bad things. If they did them, they would be forced to say it's not only possible but that they are the kind of person that could do that. When we're all our own protagonist, that's the admition that a good person could do bad things. And that would severely poison the comfortable faith in humanity. This, in my mind, goes a long way in plausibly explaining the behavior of mentally ill and perpetually cynical people.","human_ref_B":"I like Johan Galtung's concept of structural violence, especially as Paul Farmer applies it. I think that it is a valuable tool in contextualizing various processes, forces, etc. into a holistic explanation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3770.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"42ggda","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is your favourite piece of anthropological theory? To clarify, I'm referring to social anthropology in particular. Mine is related to the Panopticon and state regulation in the Western \"democratic\" societies. The idea is that our societies mostly regulate themselves because people always behave as if they are being watched. So, the majority of the population would not commit a crime for fear of the punishment even though they are not being watched.","c_root_id_A":"cza85sx","c_root_id_B":"czaeeje","created_at_utc_A":1453660881,"created_at_utc_B":1453670147,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Armchair pundit here, I very much disagree with the panopticon theory. I believe people do good things, and conversely don't do bad things because they don't want to live in a world where those behaviors exist. And that's not to say they see it from an ego perspective, that they don't want to be the ones that make the world worse by their action or inaction, but that people don't want to acknowledge the reality that someone could do bad things. If they did them, they would be forced to say it's not only possible but that they are the kind of person that could do that. When we're all our own protagonist, that's the admition that a good person could do bad things. And that would severely poison the comfortable faith in humanity. This, in my mind, goes a long way in plausibly explaining the behavior of mentally ill and perpetually cynical people.","human_ref_B":"Difficult to name just one to be honest. Someone already mentioned Mary Douglas, nowadays I think I've moved away from that more structuralist dichotomy-style of thinking so I am not sure I am as inclined to agree with the black and white-ness of her presentation of dirt, but yes, Purity and Danger is a great piece of work. I also really enjoy Clifford Geertz. Been reading some by Renato Rosaldo and his critique of how our emotional experiences are downplayed in favor of focusing on the structure of myth\/ritual, and I think I lie closer to postmodernist thinking nowadays, as I think he has a very important point when it comes to that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9266.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"42ggda","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is your favourite piece of anthropological theory? To clarify, I'm referring to social anthropology in particular. Mine is related to the Panopticon and state regulation in the Western \"democratic\" societies. The idea is that our societies mostly regulate themselves because people always behave as if they are being watched. So, the majority of the population would not commit a crime for fear of the punishment even though they are not being watched.","c_root_id_A":"czakd24","c_root_id_B":"cza85sx","created_at_utc_A":1453678717,"created_at_utc_B":1453660881,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This is pretty specific to political anthropology but I like Alan and Josephine Smart's 'time-space punctuation' metaphor of border regimes... it's an extension of David Harvey's time-space compression. They basically argue that mobility is punctuated in different ways for different people... it's a very poetic and accessible (if not slightly cheesy) way of examining how borders function, and it nicely demonstrates the complexity of globalization. Like, look at this paragraph. > The world is punctuated by barriers, the most important of which are national borders. For some people and things, borders act as periods, full stops denying legal entry. For others, they are like semi-colons, requiring visas and work permits. For the global elite, by reason of their citizenship status or their assets, borders are like commas, slightly slowing movement at various checkpoints, particularly if they have access to VIP lanes or private jet facilities at ports of entry. The metaphor can be extended. In these post-9\/11 days, certain people move around the world with the equivalent of asterisks attached to them, having been placed on \u201cno-fly\u201d or other watch lists. Others, such as guest workers, move with parentheses, allowing their presence only under certain conditions, such as continual employment with an approved employer. (*From Time-space Punctuation: Hong Kong\u2019s Border Regime and Limits on Mobility*)","human_ref_B":"Armchair pundit here, I very much disagree with the panopticon theory. I believe people do good things, and conversely don't do bad things because they don't want to live in a world where those behaviors exist. And that's not to say they see it from an ego perspective, that they don't want to be the ones that make the world worse by their action or inaction, but that people don't want to acknowledge the reality that someone could do bad things. If they did them, they would be forced to say it's not only possible but that they are the kind of person that could do that. When we're all our own protagonist, that's the admition that a good person could do bad things. And that would severely poison the comfortable faith in humanity. This, in my mind, goes a long way in plausibly explaining the behavior of mentally ill and perpetually cynical people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17836.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"2xa6rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Are there groups in Africa who have lived where they are now since the advent of the human species?","c_root_id_A":"coyoe4i","c_root_id_B":"coyl5nq","created_at_utc_A":1425015272,"created_at_utc_B":1425008434,"score_A":23,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'd say that your question needs to be refined a bit. What do you mean by in the same place? Like in the same general ecological zone or something? And if you are saying at the evolution of anatomically modern humans, then you are asking if a single group of people has been on the same plot of land for 150-250,000 years? Then no, certainly not. Cultural groups fuse and fission with the wind, especially at the size of bands (50-100 ppl), and assume different identities and interbreed with neighboring groups and move all around the landscape looking for good eats and security. The !kung San of the Kalahari stand out as the most genetically ancestral human population, but even they have moved around quite a bit, possibly toyed with Iron Age tech, and certainly have admixed with neighboring Bantu populations for centuries\/millennia. I don't know what Dr. Vitamin D was talking about, but the Hadza and !kung are both hunter-gatherer societies from Africa (and Maasai are cattle herders, so I don't get the connection) so people tend to assume that they have been living in some sort of time bubble while everyone else is playing friendly neighbor and conquering the globe. There's not a single h&g society on earth that hasn't seen some form of displacement, and it is somewhat agreed by anthropologists that the lands indigenous peoples inhabit today are often marginalized refuges that were not attractive to farmers or herders, like the Kalahari. Archaeologically it would be, I think, nearly impossible to prove societal continuity going back even a thousand years of h&g activity, let alone hundreds of thousands. Who is to say it wasn't a neighboring h&g band with similar technologies that we find? However, to give the emic, as any good anthropologist should, many indigenous people claim to reside in the lands of their creation, as the Lakota do near Wind Cave, even though there's some pretty strong held beliefs in the scientific community that people migrated from the old world, but that's a different thread, eh?","human_ref_B":"The closest fit group I'm aware of is the **Hadza people**, known as the \"last of the first\", by anthropologists. They're the last known remnants of pre-agricultural revolution populations. See 32:00 - 33:00 in this presentation. It's on vitamin D research, but cuts into anthropology in that segment. Their biology and how they react to sunlight relative to other population groups further supports this, and that too is covered in the presentation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6838.0,"score_ratio":2.875} {"post_id":"x3xflb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"[META] Could this subreddit have a similar reminder bot to AskHistorians? I feel the one click reminder bot is a great addition to these types of subreddits","c_root_id_A":"imsxrli","c_root_id_B":"imsy1ri","created_at_utc_A":1662130343,"created_at_utc_B":1662130454,"score_A":6,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"The RemindMe bot isn't exclusive to r\/askhistorians. They've just stickied a comment that calls it. You can always call it yourself through a comment or pm. RemindMeBot Info v2.0","human_ref_B":"Honestly, I'd prefer to have the rigorous moderation and a content reminder bot similar to that or r\/AskHistorians. And the same for r\/Evolution.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":111.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"bqy3kv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Did cavemen really live in caves and for how long at a time? More specifically, when and how did the transition from caves to built habitats happen? Hi everyone, thanks for taking the time to read this. We all know the caveman stereotype : Club, animal clothes, cave fire, painting on walls and so on. I am looking for more information on our cave dwelling ancestors. Is this stereotype accurate or just an idea that became popular. I was wondering if they were truly \"cavemen\" or if they just stopped by once in a while, given the whole nomadic lifestyle. More specifically, I would like to know more about the transition from cave living to I guess you could say \"buildings\". What changes in environnement, dna, culture or other caused this. I'm also wondering if there's a book detailing human habitats overtime. The engineering part of it intrigues me First time posting don't know if I followed all the rules and guidelines please let me know if I did anything wrong. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"eoacc51","c_root_id_B":"eoaf2wo","created_at_utc_A":1558412756,"created_at_utc_B":1558415418,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There have been caves found that have an archaeological record extending tens of thousands of years. The blombos cave in South Africa was inhabited for ~15K years around 80K years ago. Around 80K years ago, Human artifacts became more suddenly complex than they had been, which is also argued to be when complex language evolved.","human_ref_B":"It's important to also understand that our understanding of \"cave\" is heavily grounded in movie caves. Wide mouthed caves that were dry and able to house a tribe were probably rare. However, overhangs were abundant. You should look up the meadowcroft rock shelter. Overhangs which kept rain away were used as hunting stages a lot.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2662.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1kq4do","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Can someone explain to me why, in the 200000 years that we have existed as a species, we have known something as basic as agriculture only for about 10000 years ? This just puzzles me for some reason, i hope i am not asking too dumb of a question here .","c_root_id_A":"cbrhwdq","c_root_id_B":"cbrhx6r","created_at_utc_A":1376999713,"created_at_utc_B":1376999844,"score_A":16,"score_B":125,"human_ref_A":"There was no incentive. Food was abundant for nomadic hunter \/ gatherers. Their lifestyle revolved around always being on the move, so there was no reason to ever pick up agriculture - no sense planting a seed somewhere if you'll never visit the place again. Agriculture started in the fertile crescent, a small area next to the mediterranean sea. The soil there was great, there was lots of rain, so people were able to stay in the same place and eat grains from wild cereals that would return each year, without anyone planting anything. This group of people got used to staying in one place, and their lifestyle changed because of it - most importantly, by having more children, a luxury not affordable by people who were always on the move (try running around with multiple toddlers on your back). Then, climatic changes made the fertile crescent not so fertile. The only way to continue their lifestyle of staying in one place was agriculture. So, they started growing things. They probably had already dropped seeds on their way back from harvesting wild grains, saw that cereals grew where they dropped the seeds, and figured it out. Now that they had a reason to grow the cereals themselves, they did. Then, because agriculture allows people to stay in one place and have lots of children, they realised they needed more land to support their growing population. So, they spread out, easily conquering nomadic hunter gatherers who always were grouped in much smaller numbers. Slowly but surely, those who practiced agriculture spread out (even though their lack of a diverse diet made them less healthy and shortened their lifespan!), and those who were nomadic hunter gatherers either started growing food or were conquered. Source: Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' TL;DR - There was no incentive because people were always on the move. This changed when good soil and a good climate made wild cereals grow in enough abundance for a group to stay in one place. This group got used to staying in one place, so, when the climate changed and they couldn't rely on wild cereals anymore, they started planting their own.","human_ref_B":"There are two key issues here; 1) To really answer your question, nobody is actually sure *why* farming was actually developed and\/or adopted in the first place - as of 1992 there were 38 different models to explain the development and adoption of farming (Gebauer & Price 1992). These theories include population stresses, environmental bottlenecks, extinction of key hunted species, climate change, the development of non-food producing specialists (something of a *chicken and egg* one there) etc. etc. - for a wider discussion of such models I'd recommend this article by Weisdorf (2005) 2) Agriculture is actually far more labour intensive than foraging for food (Harlan 1992); \"However, more recent studies have indicated that early farming was indeed back breaking, time consuming, and labour-intensive. (Weisdorf 2005: 562). When and where farming was adopted it often (at least initially) lead to poorer nutrition (Cohen & Armelagos 1984), more evidence of repetitive strain injuries (from kneeling, bending down, pulling\/pushing\/wielding tools etc.) and of course resulted in far less free time (as a result of being more labour intensive). Edit: **References:** Cohen, M. N. & Armelagos, G., 1984. 'Paleopathology at the origins of agriculture'. In M. Cohen & G. Armelagos (eds.) *Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture*: 585-602. Orlando, FL; Academic Press. Gebauer, A. B. & Price, T. D., 1992. 'Foragers to farmers: an introduction.' In A. B. Gebauer & T. D. Price (eds.) *The Transition to Agriculture in Prehistory*: 01-10. Madison, WI; Prehistory Press. Harlan, J. R., 1992. *Crops and Man.* Madison, WI; American Society of Agronomy. Weisdorf, J.L., 2005. 'From Foraging to Farming: Explaining the Neolithic Revolution'. *Journal of Economic Surveys* **19**(4): 561-586.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":131.0,"score_ratio":7.8125} {"post_id":"81qu8v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Would it be accurate to say that humans were in the the stone age for approximately 3.4 million years? I need the info for a children's fact sheet, is 'human' the right word to use?","c_root_id_A":"dv4kxqp","c_root_id_B":"dv4hb9d","created_at_utc_A":1520097688,"created_at_utc_B":1520093390,"score_A":22,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The Smithsonian has a nifty interactive timeline. http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-family-tree","human_ref_B":"If you count only hominids from the Homo genus, then Homo erectus would be the oldest stone tool using humans at 1.9 million years old. But if you mean only anatomically modern humans, i.e. Homo sapiens, then it would be 300,000 to 200,000 years old.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4298.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"b1degy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What is the simplest, most accurate way to explain how exactly, and through which paths did the first human migration happen (from Africa)? A sub-question: is there any reasoning or explanation behind why humanity, in essence, evolved in Africa? I have been reading \\- that the earliest migration happened even before Homo Sapiens evolved \\- recent findings in China are showing that migration happened even earlier than we thought \\- the migration happened in several phases These are three things I think are for certain, in my humble opinion. Other than that, the information is quite jumbled. Is there one single explanation of the earliest human migrations, or is this still a topic that is actively developing?","c_root_id_A":"eilvh9y","c_root_id_B":"eilwktc","created_at_utc_A":1552675128,"created_at_utc_B":1552675839,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Look up \"African pump\". Humans evolved in Africa probably because it was an energy-rich environment. This gave them the \"privilege\" needed to form a stepping stone to hunting and tool-making. After that, the African pump happened. Humans in Africa were highly competitive, and needed to colonize new spaces. The Sahara\/Sahel goes through greening cycles which temporarily allow habitation. The Sahara greens--marginal humans migrate there to escape resource crowding in Africa. The Sahara wanes--now those humans have to go somewhere else, and the only way was north because the south is even *more* crowded than when they left. This also means huge numbers of people dropping dead from starvation btw. It's a \"pump\" because it only pushes humans one way--from Africa to the north--but never the other way in. Those northern humans then had a huge expanse of land to play with, so they had very little resource stress, and were technologically pretty static. All the while, Africa was growing even more crowded, innovating out of competition and necessity, and the African pump kept happening, pushing more technologically advanced humans into the north. This culminated in Homo Sapiens dominating the Neanderthals, much akin to how modern Europeans conquered land from the Americans.","human_ref_B":"Humans evolved from early hominins, all of them evolved in Africa. There are many reasons, but climate change (as it affected E. Africa) is one of them. Look into the massive earthquake that closed the Straits of Gilbraltar, turned the Mediterranean into a salt flat and started\/accelerated the formation of the Sahara and the Sahel. While primates are found throughout the world before hominins (but not Australia and obviously not Antarctica), there are more species in Africa and larger populations. E. Africa is Grand Central Station for early hominins (and was rich with primate populations to provide the genes\/mutations for this transition). As individual bands of hominins were successful, they divided into more than one group and widened their range\/territory. And that's how they left Africa (very gradually, following trails of resources where ever they led). H. habilis, for example, really liked living near fresh water lakes. While it also lived elsewhere (rivers, streams, etc), it was keen on sources of fresh water. Such as the Nile would have provided. In the days when H. habilis was slowly establishing itself in E and N Africa, there were more freshwater streams running down to the Medit. Sea than today. The coastline has shifted tremendously since those days (and is mostly underwater now, so hard to check for those ancient fossil beds) but it is no surprise that H. habilis finds its way to the then-freshwater Black Lake (now the Black Sea). Interestingly, H. habilis is the first hominin to clear seek out and collect particular kinds of stone for tool-making, transporting stone blacks several miles to work on them. So it was accustomed, as a species, to looking for stone resources that, to a modern urban human, would be nearly invisible. In its reach for those resources, it displayed considerable ability to form cognitive maps and remember how to get to\/from such places, noting environment conditions along the way. I have no proof, but I would guess that if we really could find H. habilis fossils in every region where they were migrating, we'd see a slow migration, with environmental optimals becoming prime territory for band migration and expansion. Sloowly, they forged ahead (north and south from Central E. Africa). Meantime, population pressure in the central homeland of Africa led to the fairly rapid development of the smarter, more capable species, H. ergaster, which then moved into H. habilis territory and exploited it in ways that made it harder for Habilis to continue onward.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":711.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"wlztha","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Do we know where culture comes from? Can it even be defined clearly among academics? Does geography play a role in determining and creating culture (or certain cultural characteristics)? The reason why I ask is because I'm having a hard time separating my own bias that heavily favors determinism (and thus ecological determinism). I get that it can sound problematic, and has been used in the past for racist theories, but how can environment and culture be treated as two separate factors, when (in my head), they are indeed one? In my opinion, culture is something that humans create, and things that we create are a result of our upbringing and environment (nature) but also the people and societies we interact with (nurture), **which also is affected by geography**, since rivers, mountains and other features can block people from knowing other types of peoples, for instance. So if culture were a sort of mathematical equation, it would at least partially be a *function* of one's environment, and thus be redundant to say that culture and environment are similar (environment is kind of like the parent while culture is a child). I get that my thinking appears to come close to archaic (60s era anthropology) ways of thinking, which is why I'm asking: \"What am I missing?\", if anything. Has anyone done work on this? Do you have books or scientific articles to suggest? Sort of related question: is determinism vs. free will still a debate in anthropology, or is it settled?","c_root_id_A":"ijzylem","c_root_id_B":"ijykdx7","created_at_utc_A":1660314377,"created_at_utc_B":1660282633,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Let's null hypothesis this: > Environment has no effect on culture This is, of course, is readily disproven. I am currently staying next to a giant lake and my last three dinners were fish. There is a material element to this (fish are cheap\/easy to acquire), a social element to this (many traditional dishes are fish), and a personal element (I know the fish will be better here than somewhere further away from water). Each of these three can be traced back in a very meaningful way to geography. Now let's look at my breakfast. The coffee I'm drinking is not good. If you get breakfast here, you will be served a small carafe of very concentrated Nescafe (the powdered stuff) and some hot water to mix. This is an efficient way to do things, and it lets you choose how strong you want your \"coffee\" to be. Perhaps more importantly, it makes it easy to serve alongside the herbal teas which are much more popular. This is despite me being in Bolivia, one of the countries that produce any coffee at all and neighbor to the #1 and #11 largest coffee producers. Though coffee has been produced in the country for a long time, most of that has been exclusively for export. It's only been in the past 20 years or so that anybody has made real efforts to keep some of these beans to sell locally because of the enormous economic barriers to doing so. My friends who started the first third wave coffeeshop in the city will tell you that they had to market coffeeshop *practice* as much as they did the coffee itself. The role of the coffee shop in urban social life was largely taken up by other spaces. Here we have another food item that had the geographic factors necessary to become popular, but didn't because of decidedly economic and political reasons. Now let's think about the TikTok of a cat eating cucumbers that popped up on my feed while I was typing this. It has a funky little synth song playing in the background, one that seems to be going through its second round of popularity. The first time it happened (maybe six months ago), people set still images of things to the beat to make it look like they were dancing. This time, people are putting lyrics on the screen that match the melody. Why did this sound get millions of uses while innumerable similar ones have not? Ask any marketing director what it takes to go viral and they will shrug, toss their papers they were walking down the hall with in the air, and run the other direction. This song is as much a part of \"my American culture\" as anything else, and it is enormously difficult to pick out why. ___ Culture, i.e. a set of shared\/learned practice and beliefs, is tremendously complex and influenced by most anything you can imagine. There are often things that are decidedly geographic, whether that's physical geography making Maine Lobster Rolls a thing and Oklahoma Lobster Rolls not or human geography making Peoria, IL infinitely more boring than Chicago, IL. But because culture is a social thing- some even avoid the word in favor of referencing The Social- the main factor for most things is also going to be social. One thing you might be interested in is the affect of technology on the relation between geography and culture as discussed by David Harvey in *The Condition of Postmodernity*. Chapters 16 and 17 will be particularly relevant. Harvey observes that communication and transport technologies have effectively compressed time and space, disrupting historic limits of geography and enabling forms of culture that are almost entirely *divorced* from geography. You might also be interested in these series of article from my own work which debate the impact of climate changes on the collapse of a society: Erickson, C. (1999). Neo-environmental determinism and agrarian \u201ccollapse\u201d in Andean prehistory. Antiquity, 73(281), 634\u2013642. Kolata, A. L., Binford, M. W., Brenner, M., Janusek, J. W., & Ortloff, C. (2000). Environmental thresholds and the empirical reality of state collapse: A response to Erickson (1999). Antiquity, 74(284), 424\u2013426. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0003598X00059512 Arnold, T. E., Hillman, A. L., Abbott, M. B., Werne, J. P., McGrath, S. J., & Arkush, E. N. (2021). Drought and the collapse of the Tiwanaku Civilization: New evidence from Lake Orurillo, Peru. Quaternary Science Reviews, 251, 106693. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.quascirev.2020.106693 Marsh, E. J., Contreras, D., Bruno, M. C., Vranich, A., & Roddick, A. P. (2021). Comment on Arnold et\u00a0al. \u201cDrought and the collapse of the Tiwanaku Civilization: New evidence from Lake Orurillo, Peru\u201d [Quat. Sci. Rev. 251 (2021): 106693]. Quaternary Science Reviews, 269, 107004. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.quascirev.2021.107004","human_ref_B":"Everyone has their own variations on the definition of \"culture\", but Tylor's definition from 1871 is a good starting point. He defined culture as \"that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man \\sic\\] as a member of society\". Basically, anything beyond the base needs and reflexes that all humans are born with. >upbringing and environment (nature) but also the people and societies we interact with (nurture), which also is affected by geography, since rivers, mountains and other features can block people from knowing other types of peoples. Sure, but humans can also alter their physical environment. It inevitably ends up as a feedback loop, or a chicken-egg problem. How do you get out of that loop? With theory. Theory, to some extent, can be thought of as \"the order we choose to put facts in'. Where you might see geography as a leading driver of change, a Marxist might see class conflict as the most important factor. There isn't necessarily a \"right\" answer here, it's a matter of perspective. >Has anyone done work on this? Do you have books or scientific articles to suggest? Can you be a bit more specific here? Work on the [relationship between environment and culture? Or something else? >Sort of related question: is determinism vs. free will still a debate in anthropology, or is it settled? It's very much a debate, and will probably always be so. Rather than \"free will\", you might find further information on that debate by looking into the term \"agency\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31744.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"yjarsb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What is experimental etnography? I'm trying to understand what is experimental etnography, mentioned in *Small Places, Large Issues* (Eriksen, 2001) and what are these \"novel ways\" of solving the problem. I'm new to anthropology, so I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. I tried to googling it, but can't find anything useful. This is the text: Some understanding of literary techniques and the importance of personal and historical contexts in the production of knowledge can in the long run only lead to more accurate comprehension than a na\u00efve reading would. Such insights into the social conditions of the production of knowledge **led, in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the United States, to a proliferation of \u2018experimental ethnographies\u2019 that tried to solve the problem of representing others in novel ways** (see Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and Fischer 1986).","c_root_id_A":"iunad8b","c_root_id_B":"iunmmft","created_at_utc_A":1667322018,"created_at_utc_B":1667326633,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I've read a few ethnographies that are considered experimental. One, as an example, by Alan Klima called Ethnography #9, is part traditional, but partly written as a story where the author is possessed by a ghost of a young girl. My take on what experimental is is that it's a very broad spectrum of authors who experiment with both content and form that diverge from traditional ethnography. But as the other comment mentioned, the author you are citing seems to have something specific in mind since he's referencing it.","human_ref_B":"Both texts you cite are considered seminal works in post-modern ethnography. I have personally used Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986) a lot when I used to work with ethnography, and from what I can infer from my reading of it, \"experimental ethnographies\" in it are works that specifically try to break with some traditional modernist views of ethnography, such as the \"ethnographic authority\", advocating instead for a collective authorship of ethnographies, acknowledging the \"informants\" as co-authors along with the ethnographer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4615.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"uu0i8y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In movies, European cities are portrayed as historical, while South Korea & Japan are portrayed as futuristic. Does this reflect an actual difference in the (historical?) attitudes towards landmark preservation - or merely a media phenomenon?","c_root_id_A":"i9db0tm","c_root_id_B":"i9djeyc","created_at_utc_A":1653076597,"created_at_utc_B":1653080393,"score_A":34,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I think it has more to do with neo-orientalist attitudes towards east asia in media. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and China have all very rapidly developed hi-tech capitalist economies which rival or surpass the traditional capitalist economies in Europe and the USA. This becomes mixed in with pre-existing attitudes of orientalism where these countries fetishized and exoticised for a western audience and turns into neo-orientalism where rather than being mystical and stuck in the past, the concept of the \u201cdystopian asian future\u201d gets exaggerated and fetishized as the new hallmark of these countries. It\u2019s all about how media creates a perception of difference in time, and said difference is used for \u201cothering\u201d","human_ref_B":"This question is a fallacy. It completely depends on the movie. I've seen plenty of European city based movies set in the future, and Asian films set in more rustic settings.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3796.0,"score_ratio":1.0882352941} {"post_id":"uu0i8y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In movies, European cities are portrayed as historical, while South Korea & Japan are portrayed as futuristic. Does this reflect an actual difference in the (historical?) attitudes towards landmark preservation - or merely a media phenomenon?","c_root_id_A":"i9cu111","c_root_id_B":"i9djeyc","created_at_utc_A":1653068801,"created_at_utc_B":1653080393,"score_A":19,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Historically, at least in modern times, I believe that one of the many reasons we see that is because of war - many modern large cities in Europe are no older than a few centuries because of constant destruction by warfare. This is especially true in places that were historically spared or levelled (Berlin in many areas seems ultra modern while Paris is relatively new yet \"old fashioned\" after the massive overhaul it got under Napoleon the 3rd in the late 19th century) The same can be said for east asian cities - any cities in Japan\/ Korea\/ China have seen very modern conflicts that demolished huge portions of their urban areas in a relatively recent time period. It's much easier to build up from nothing than try and build over existing infrastructure.","human_ref_B":"This question is a fallacy. It completely depends on the movie. I've seen plenty of European city based movies set in the future, and Asian films set in more rustic settings.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11592.0,"score_ratio":1.9473684211} {"post_id":"uu0i8y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In movies, European cities are portrayed as historical, while South Korea & Japan are portrayed as futuristic. Does this reflect an actual difference in the (historical?) attitudes towards landmark preservation - or merely a media phenomenon?","c_root_id_A":"i9cu111","c_root_id_B":"i9db0tm","created_at_utc_A":1653068801,"created_at_utc_B":1653076597,"score_A":19,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Historically, at least in modern times, I believe that one of the many reasons we see that is because of war - many modern large cities in Europe are no older than a few centuries because of constant destruction by warfare. This is especially true in places that were historically spared or levelled (Berlin in many areas seems ultra modern while Paris is relatively new yet \"old fashioned\" after the massive overhaul it got under Napoleon the 3rd in the late 19th century) The same can be said for east asian cities - any cities in Japan\/ Korea\/ China have seen very modern conflicts that demolished huge portions of their urban areas in a relatively recent time period. It's much easier to build up from nothing than try and build over existing infrastructure.","human_ref_B":"I think it has more to do with neo-orientalist attitudes towards east asia in media. Countries like Japan, South Korea, and China have all very rapidly developed hi-tech capitalist economies which rival or surpass the traditional capitalist economies in Europe and the USA. This becomes mixed in with pre-existing attitudes of orientalism where these countries fetishized and exoticised for a western audience and turns into neo-orientalism where rather than being mystical and stuck in the past, the concept of the \u201cdystopian asian future\u201d gets exaggerated and fetishized as the new hallmark of these countries. It\u2019s all about how media creates a perception of difference in time, and said difference is used for \u201cothering\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7796.0,"score_ratio":1.7894736842} {"post_id":"22h1ml","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"When and why did physical affection between male friends become taboo in the US\/UK? It appears that during the early 19th century it was not taboo for close male friends to hold hands, hug, use very affectionate language with each other, and otherwise be quite intimate in a way that would be seen by many today as effeminate and homoerotic. What changed this, and when? On a similar note, such behavior appears to still be very common and accepted among women and girls. Why wasn't physical affection between female friends in the US and UK shunned as well?","c_root_id_A":"cgn2e7x","c_root_id_B":"cgn2ztp","created_at_utc_A":1396955733,"created_at_utc_B":1396958633,"score_A":2,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I'm a male in the UK and i greet my male friends with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.","human_ref_B":"A related question has been asked over at \/r\/askhistorians and this set of responses suggests that WWI changed how we viewed masculinity in the West. Though not discussed in the comments, because women weren't fighting in WWI social expectations of how women should behave didn't shift the way it did for men. If that thread doesn't answer all of your questions you might consider directly asking some of the experts over at \/r\/askhistorians who weighed in on a AMA thread on the history of sexuality. Frankly most anthropologists know less about Western history than non-Western so they might be able to give a more detailed and helpful answer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2900.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"22h1ml","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"When and why did physical affection between male friends become taboo in the US\/UK? It appears that during the early 19th century it was not taboo for close male friends to hold hands, hug, use very affectionate language with each other, and otherwise be quite intimate in a way that would be seen by many today as effeminate and homoerotic. What changed this, and when? On a similar note, such behavior appears to still be very common and accepted among women and girls. Why wasn't physical affection between female friends in the US and UK shunned as well?","c_root_id_A":"cgna343","c_root_id_B":"cgn2e7x","created_at_utc_A":1396976198,"created_at_utc_B":1396955733,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This interests me. A friend of mine is a bit touchy and I always show an aversion to it to the point where I verbally have to establish a boundary.... But, I don't like it. It conflicts with my beliefs about openness, love and humanity in general. I'm willing to accept my \"conditioning\" if it is as that, but I'm not interested in homosexuality either and seem turned off by effimenate men.","human_ref_B":"I'm a male in the UK and i greet my male friends with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20465.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2uu5cp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"In ancient egypt, both genders wore make-up (right?) -- when and why did make-up become a solely 'feminine' accessory? Also Were there any other cultures in the ancient world were men wore make-up?","c_root_id_A":"cobzgg5","c_root_id_B":"cobx2o7","created_at_utc_A":1423144389,"created_at_utc_B":1423135948,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This is also a common question at \/r\/askhistorians, as I remember. You can probably get good, sourced answers there. But basically - culture and fashion differs between countries. The very masculine roman culture, as an example, thought the effeminate egypts were outrageous.","human_ref_B":"I remember reading something to the effect that ancient Egyptians wore that heavy eyeliner to keep mosquitoes and other annoying insects away from their eyes. So it was for both aesthetic and practical purposes which would explain why both genders wore it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8441.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2uu5cp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"In ancient egypt, both genders wore make-up (right?) -- when and why did make-up become a solely 'feminine' accessory? Also Were there any other cultures in the ancient world were men wore make-up?","c_root_id_A":"cobx2o7","c_root_id_B":"cobzwxz","created_at_utc_A":1423135948,"created_at_utc_B":1423145548,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I remember reading something to the effect that ancient Egyptians wore that heavy eyeliner to keep mosquitoes and other annoying insects away from their eyes. So it was for both aesthetic and practical purposes which would explain why both genders wore it.","human_ref_B":"Persian men wore makeup, too, and Alexander the Great is said to have picked up this habit after marrying Roxane.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9600.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2lhzeu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"When and why did clothing first become gendered? So my girlfriend and I ended up discussing this while drunk after a rocky horror themed Halloween night out. We were wondering where the gender difference between skirts and trousers came from. She suggested that skirts suggested modesty yet at the same time 'easy access' which helped female subjugation in an early patriarchal society. I suggested that trousers must have been invented later than skirts and due to the extra craftsmanship involved would have been reserved only for those working outside in the cold (men) and became gendered after that. I'd be interested to see what the truth is if anyone knows, I'm sure we're probably both wrong!","c_root_id_A":"clv27ex","c_root_id_B":"clv2ari","created_at_utc_A":1415307748,"created_at_utc_B":1415307903,"score_A":14,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"I can't give a full answer, but a clue may lie in the etymology of the words themselves to see when they were first used and in what context. Shirt and skirt derive from the same word which originates from a kirtle (kind of like a full length tunic which was worn by men and women in the Middle Ages). The establishment of the current meanings took place around the 14th century. Dress seems to have acquired it's female connotation in the 17th century after being around since the 14th century after being unisex. It still is somewhat as you still have dress shirts. Trousers also appeared roughly at the start of the 17th century and specifically meant garments for men so that indicates that gendered clothing was by then firmly set in place (but we knew that already from drawings). Sort of related, the whole 'blue for boys and 'pink for girls' didn't start until the 1940s. In fact, the roles were reversed less than 100 years ago: *... a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, \u201cThe generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.\u201d* **Bonus Fact** (if anyone cares!)**:** * Girl used to mean both 'boy' and 'girl', a synonym for 'child'. **EDIT:** I forgot to mention, as \/u\/wollphilie pointed out earlier, that my points only really relate to Western society. I come from an Arab country and (younger) women here tend to only wear trousers and there are plenty of dudes in full length man skirts.","human_ref_B":"It's difficult to imagine that clothing wasn't 'gendered', in the trivial sense that it accounted for differences in male and female body shape, from the moment of its invention. Beyond that, as far as I'm aware, clothing is gendered in the earliest civilizations of which we have any written record, Sumer and ancient Egypt. So you'd have to look into prehistoric art and\/or artifacts. This source claims that rock carvings, mummies and artifacts in the Netherlands demonstrate gendered clothing at least going back to the Bronze Age and probably to the Neolithic. So clothing first became gendered a *long*, long time ago, long enough that any speculation about how and why it happened would be pretty tenuous.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":155.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"6pq6ee","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"When and why did marriage originally become an institution?","c_root_id_A":"dkrud8h","c_root_id_B":"dkrizvw","created_at_utc_A":1501117373,"created_at_utc_B":1501103584,"score_A":20,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"during hunter-gatherer times (10,000+ years ago), tribes would exchange spouses with other tribes to establish formal ties that would then increase their overall chance of survival\/reduced tribal warfare. Over time the function of marriage changes- when private property became a thing (after agriculture\/domestication of animals) it was a way to consolidate resources and arrange formal inheritance rights. Later it became a business partnership to run a family farm or small business (many wives acted as apprentices to their husbands). After that it shifted to the current companionship based model. Source: Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz.","human_ref_B":"Can you clarify what you mean by \"institution\"?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13789.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"62xkhq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"When and why did humans start to fear bugs or at least become disgusted by them? I was eating in my room when I saw a huge bug that resembles a cockroach posted outside of my window. I immediately freaked out and closed the door to prevent it from coming inside. I'm usually chill about bugs, I don't love them, but the one that makes me freak out is a cockroach. So it got me thinking, why is that? I know some people don't hate them and even like them, and even I find some bugs incredibly beautiful, but generally people dislike them or always prefer to just not be near them. When did this start to happen? How has been humans relationship with bugs throughout time in general? Thanks in advance for any reply!","c_root_id_A":"dfpxm0v","c_root_id_B":"dfq698y","created_at_utc_A":1491112698,"created_at_utc_B":1491139177,"score_A":15,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Follow up what\/when did cultures split between eating bugs abd not eating bugs? I know many Asian nations still eat bugs as do some African tribes. So did the European never eat bugs or was there a cultural split that happened and what may have caused it?","human_ref_B":"Depends on the culture. In some cultures bugs really don't invoke the same reactions. I know in particular in the US bugs like cockroaches tend to be really associated with decay and in particular food decay. But further south you go the more normalized they get. It really just kinda depends. And that's just within American culture. In Africa eating bugs and grubs are fairly common (and pretty tasty). Asia does similar. I think it really just depends on the culture in question. The research into disgust in general though is really interesting. Johnathan Haidt of NYU has done some really good work looking into how it effects things. His disgust scale work is really showing a lot of potential for describing how the emotion fits into social interactions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26479.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"2fpjcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did we start wearing clothes and nudity became a social taboo?","c_root_id_A":"ckek8b4","c_root_id_B":"ckbn74n","created_at_utc_A":1410371728,"created_at_utc_B":1410106706,"score_A":27,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Scientists have studied the genetic evolution of lice to identify when the divergence between the two species of lice that inhabit human bodies occurred. Head lice and body\/clothing lice are two different species in the modern world. Their DNA seem to indicate that they were the same species ~170,000 years ago. Some researchers think this indicates the introduction of clothing. Other indirect evidence of clothing is evidenced by the presence of needles in the archaeological record ~40,000 years ago. Barber (cited by \/u\/rinabean) is a great source for perishable artifacts. A recent book about perishables is *The Invisible Sex* by Adovasio, Soffer and Page. They discuss the clothing worn by the so-called Venus figurines of the European Paleolithic, among other subjects. It's interesting to note that anthropologists have identified the \"naked years\" of the human past. These years (1.2 million years ago to maybe 170,000 years ago) represent the period of time between humans losing all of their body hair and the time when we started wearing clothes.","human_ref_B":"I am reading *Women's Work - The First 20,000 Years* by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. She says there is evidence of string skirts in Europe from 20,000 BCE from carvings, and actual ones from 1300 BCE. But these were decorative and certainly didn't hide nudity, in her opinion they were intended to be eye-catching. From linguistic evidence she believes that these string skirts and a generic type of clothing are equally ancient. This clothing would have been made of hides (and string) and purely for warmth. This book is quite focused on Europe and it's also about 20 years old so I don't know if any of this is out of date but it shows that nudity was not a concern in Europe in 20,000 BCE, but clothing definitely existed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":265022.0,"score_ratio":1.6875} {"post_id":"2fpjcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did we start wearing clothes and nudity became a social taboo?","c_root_id_A":"ckc2paf","c_root_id_B":"ckek8b4","created_at_utc_A":1410138266,"created_at_utc_B":1410371728,"score_A":6,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"follow-up question; is the nudity taboo currently in place in countries like the US solely traceable to religions?","human_ref_B":"Scientists have studied the genetic evolution of lice to identify when the divergence between the two species of lice that inhabit human bodies occurred. Head lice and body\/clothing lice are two different species in the modern world. Their DNA seem to indicate that they were the same species ~170,000 years ago. Some researchers think this indicates the introduction of clothing. Other indirect evidence of clothing is evidenced by the presence of needles in the archaeological record ~40,000 years ago. Barber (cited by \/u\/rinabean) is a great source for perishable artifacts. A recent book about perishables is *The Invisible Sex* by Adovasio, Soffer and Page. They discuss the clothing worn by the so-called Venus figurines of the European Paleolithic, among other subjects. It's interesting to note that anthropologists have identified the \"naked years\" of the human past. These years (1.2 million years ago to maybe 170,000 years ago) represent the period of time between humans losing all of their body hair and the time when we started wearing clothes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":233462.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"2fpjcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did we start wearing clothes and nudity became a social taboo?","c_root_id_A":"ckbs5lr","c_root_id_B":"ckek8b4","created_at_utc_A":1410116528,"created_at_utc_B":1410371728,"score_A":4,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"This Vsauce video talks about it having to do with humans' intelligence; also the fact that we spend less time mating and more time raising children.","human_ref_B":"Scientists have studied the genetic evolution of lice to identify when the divergence between the two species of lice that inhabit human bodies occurred. Head lice and body\/clothing lice are two different species in the modern world. Their DNA seem to indicate that they were the same species ~170,000 years ago. Some researchers think this indicates the introduction of clothing. Other indirect evidence of clothing is evidenced by the presence of needles in the archaeological record ~40,000 years ago. Barber (cited by \/u\/rinabean) is a great source for perishable artifacts. A recent book about perishables is *The Invisible Sex* by Adovasio, Soffer and Page. They discuss the clothing worn by the so-called Venus figurines of the European Paleolithic, among other subjects. It's interesting to note that anthropologists have identified the \"naked years\" of the human past. These years (1.2 million years ago to maybe 170,000 years ago) represent the period of time between humans losing all of their body hair and the time when we started wearing clothes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":255200.0,"score_ratio":6.75} {"post_id":"2fpjcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did we start wearing clothes and nudity became a social taboo?","c_root_id_A":"ckbs5lr","c_root_id_B":"ckc2paf","created_at_utc_A":1410116528,"created_at_utc_B":1410138266,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This Vsauce video talks about it having to do with humans' intelligence; also the fact that we spend less time mating and more time raising children.","human_ref_B":"follow-up question; is the nudity taboo currently in place in countries like the US solely traceable to religions?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21738.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"9bel9z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"When did humans discover salt and how did they learn to use it for cooking\/food preservation purposes?","c_root_id_A":"e52xs8n","c_root_id_B":"e52gxap","created_at_utc_A":1535606708,"created_at_utc_B":1535588003,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky\/dp\/0142001619 This book covers everything you want to know. It is extremely interesting while presenting history.","human_ref_B":"As far as harvesting it is concerned, I think it's probably likely they figured it out either by finding salt flats, or having salt water in a container for some reason which evaporated and left a salt film. So, probably salt flats, since those would pre-date containers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18705.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"9bel9z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"When did humans discover salt and how did they learn to use it for cooking\/food preservation purposes?","c_root_id_A":"e530ih0","c_root_id_B":"e537re1","created_at_utc_A":1535611399,"created_at_utc_B":1535626421,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There will be no solid answers to this. Only more or less informed speculation.","human_ref_B":"Do non human primates supplement sodium? Or do they get suffienct from their regular diet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15022.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"m87ahk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What implications might the recently found 10,500 year old basket have on our current knowledge and understanding of prehistoric culture and technology? The basket was found in a cave near the dead sea scrolls' cave. It was made by pre-pottery neolithic peoples of the region. That is all that seems to be known for now. Does the discovery of this item push back the date of weaved or woven textiles at all? Did basketry or sewing exist outside of the Levant region?","c_root_id_A":"grgidva","c_root_id_B":"grgxavy","created_at_utc_A":1616139824,"created_at_utc_B":1616154139,"score_A":22,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Not really and big implications. If Neanderthals had textiles I'm sure sapiens sapiens could have figured out weaving plant matter 20k years later. Correct me if I'm wrong. https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-020-61839-w","human_ref_B":"We know about Upper Paleolithic baskets, nets, cords and weaving from imprints that are over 28,000 years old, and we've known about it for decades. > \"The\trecently\tcompleted\tcollaborative\tresearch\ton\ttextile\timpressions\tfound\ton\tsmallsized\tfragments\tof\tfired\tclay\tfrom\tthe\tsites\tof\tDoln\u00ed\tV\u00e9stonice\tI\tand\tII\tand\tPavlov\tI\tin\tMoravia,\tCzech\tRepublic,\tdocuments\tthe\texistence\tof\tdiverse\tand\tsophisticated\ttextile\tand cordage\ttechnologies\tin\tEurope\tby\tca.\t28,000\tB.P.\t(Adovasio\tet\tal.\t1996,\t1998,\t1999;\t2000;\t9 Soffer\tet\tal.\t1998)\t(Figure\t1).\tThese\ttechnologies\tinclude\tthe\tproduction\tof\tcordage\tand\tnets,\tthe\tmaking\tof\tbaskets\t(Figure\t2),\tand\tthe\ttwining\tand\tloom\tweaving\tof\tcloth\t(Figure 3).\tDuring\tthe\tanalysis,\t79\timpressed\tfragments\twere\tidentified\tand\texamined\tfrom\ta Gravettian\tceramics\tinventory\tnumbering\t>10,000\tpieces.\tThis\tceramic\tassemblage\twas\trecovered\tfrom\tthe\tabove\tmentioned\tsites\tand\tis\tassigned\tto\tthe\tPavlov\tculture\u2014a\tlocal variant\tof\tthe\tGravettian\ttechnocomplex\t(Svoboda\tet\tal.\t1994,\t1996).\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14315.0,"score_ratio":1.1363636364} {"post_id":"xweqsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good resources on essentialism in the methodology of social sciences? I have a background in History studies but I know that the *wrong* way to work with human groups is to define them by set of values or characters that are invariable and typical of said group of people. However, I feel like in a diachronic approach it's almost inevitable to fall into the trap of essentialism, and broad characterizations are necessary if you want to talk about religions, cultures, tribes, political movements etc in a historical way. Not sure this makes any sense.","c_root_id_A":"ir7ggb6","c_root_id_B":"ir78osc","created_at_utc_A":1665006824,"created_at_utc_B":1665003641,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think the concepts of social construction through social interaction go a long way to deal with this problem. Have you read Berger and Luckmann? The basic idea is that we create \"culture\" (or shared meaning) through our interactions with each other. But once we have socially constructed something or some idea, it comes back to us as if it is objective and separate from us. It isn't, it is still a construction. But we treat it as real and it seems permanent. Even as we continue to interact and reconstruct the meanings of things in new ways, we think we are reproducing the past. So someone today could tell me they are \"a Catholic\" and think they are worshiping the same religion that was worshiped 100 years ago or a thousand years ago. But they aren't. That doesn't mean I can't try to figure out what it means to them to be a Catholic, or how being a Catholic impacts their politics or whatever. It might also be useful to think about Weber's notion of ideal types. He basically argues that we need categories to think with, but all categories are subjective. So we should define our categories in the broadest possible sense, compare and contrast things, describe things, analyze things as empirically as possible according to our \"ideal typical\" notion of those things. But we should never forget that our ideal types are subjective and open to reinterpretation and redefinition. I hope some of that is useful, but let me know if I am misunderstanding you.","human_ref_B":"You could look into the process metaphysic rather than the substantive (essential). Which is Aristotle (iirc), then go into concepts of time - Fabian, Ascher, and Bailey are seminal on the structures of time but they're archaeology-leaning - and see how that might flesh out a methodological approach for whatever work you're doing. Everything is in entropy, so essentialism can definitely be problematic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3183.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"9v6gbg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What did prehistoric peoples use as a light source when exploring caves or creating cave art? I posted this in \/AskHistorians and they nicely directed me here since my question is about prehistory, not recorded history. I believe many cave paintings are deep inside the caves where no natural light can penetrate. How did the artists manage to keep a bright enough light source that they could easily carry and then have it be stable enough to work on their art? Maybe some kind of animal fat lamp?","c_root_id_A":"e9a0idm","c_root_id_B":"e9a11w1","created_at_utc_A":1541657698,"created_at_utc_B":1541658484,"score_A":37,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"They would indeed use very simple lamps, made from anything they could find or make that was bowl shaped, fuelled by rendered animal fats. One of the most famous examples of cave rock art, the Lascaux painting in fact had stone oil lamps found in the cave, strongly suggesting people used lamps to work on and view the artworks there.","human_ref_B":"I'm speaking from memories of my anthro classes, but iirc most humans that lived in caves didn't live far into them. They only really occupied the space that was exposed to daylight. Anything deeper is too much of a hassle (and danger) to bother trying to live in. With that being said, they did spend time in the darker portions, and a common source of light was a simple torch. In the Chauvet Cave in France (I don't know how to hyperlink: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chauvet_Cave) there's footprints of a child exploring with a wolf\/dog, and there was evidence of him\/her using a torch because they found charcoal trails and smudges on the wall.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":786.0,"score_ratio":1.2972972973} {"post_id":"bth3ug","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there evidence for the gender of Neanderthals\/Early humans who drew cave paintings, made artwork etc? Most anthropological depictions involve males anyway, but how much of it is true? Were males more inclined than females to produce cave art, wooden sculptures etc, or did they have a form of exclusive hierarchy reserved for males, or is the evidence actually pointing to the contrary if any at all?","c_root_id_A":"eozz0y6","c_root_id_B":"ep02xi4","created_at_utc_A":1558968468,"created_at_utc_B":1558969940,"score_A":3,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"In more recent hunter-gatherer communities on which there's more solid data, the division of labor generally tends to be the males doing the hunting and the females doing the gathering. Hunting scenes and animals are frequent subjects of cave paintings, and things like plants, berries and nuts are less common. This isn't even in the same *universe* as definitive proof, but it is weakly suggestive that the males were doing more painting than females were.","human_ref_B":"Bioarchaeologist here, I study specifically archaeological human remains to learn about past populations. Naturally, I am very interested in the more human side of phenomena like the famous European UP cave paintings. Recently a very interesting study came from Penn State that suggests that most ancient people painting handprints on walls were female. They essentially used a naturally occurring ratio of metacarpal sexual dimorphism between human sexes, and applied it to the ancient handprints. Turns out the vast majority were female. Obviously this raises the question of whether or not modern sexually dimorphic traits apply to such deep time. Long story short, the researchers found out that the modern ratios were actually less extreme than in the past, making measurement even easier. Another question this raises is if females were making the handprints, were they painting the other images? That cannot be proven, but it\u2019s highly suggested that females held this \u201cshaman\u201d role which allowed them to be the important figures in European UP cave paintings. That\u2019s the shortest I can make my answer, I don\u2019t want to bog anyone down. Check out the links below for more in depth info. The academic link is the name of the paper, may have to look it up on Google Scholar. Here\u2019s the pop culture link to the research: http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2013\/10\/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art\/ Academic link: \u201cSexual Dimorphism in European Upper Paleolithic Cave Art\u201d by Snow","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1472.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"74qvae","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is the Human diversity somehow linked to Sapiens mating with other hominin ? No Kink Have we got a precise comparative articles on the genetics of the remains and some living traits in a population ? I am craving to know","c_root_id_A":"do0ytis","c_root_id_B":"do0luzi","created_at_utc_A":1507356937,"created_at_utc_B":1507335728,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"No, the diversity in humans largely comes from regional variations due to various selective pressures including diet, altitude, sexual preference, sunlight expose, and other things. There is none sapian DNA of different amounts in different populations. However it is not as clear cut as some would like to believe. Neanderthals seems to have cross breed with people in the middle East and Europe, there DNA is found in north Africa, Europe, and the middle East in about 2%. The implications of this amount is hotly debated but it probably has very little effect on those people. It is however the new favorite topic of pseudo science about why different \"races\" are different. However race is not a biological term. It is a social concept. Now by this I mean there is no way to biologically define race we generally define it by cultural ideas.","human_ref_B":"Humans have experienced admixture with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Eurasians have the most shared DNA with Neanderthals (~2%) and Southeast Asians and Oceanians share the most with Denisovans. http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/genetics\/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21209.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"sij6hf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"23 and me says I have a lot of \u201cScotts Irish\u201d in me? Why are they genetically distinct? My family all did 23 and me and were all overwhelmingly Scott\u2019s Irish. I did some research and it looks like a lot of Scottish people fled to Ireland for religious reasons and formed communities there. But, why am I not Scottish and Irish? I am 0% irish and Scottish isn\u2019t on my list either. Just \u201cScotts Irish\u201d. I don\u2019t understand why I am at least not Scottish. What is the Scott\u2019s Irish people\u2019s story and why is scotts Irish genetically distinct?","c_root_id_A":"hv9iprd","c_root_id_B":"hv9lnkz","created_at_utc_A":1643801963,"created_at_utc_B":1643803870,"score_A":22,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Remember that a lot of the people who you are descended from are NOT represented in your DNA necessarily, due to the randomness introduced by meiosis and sexual reproduction. A couple of things could explain these \"results\" among other things: * Your DNA appears to be very closely aligned with whatever 23 and me have decided constitutes \"Scotts Irish\" * Your ancestors of Irish and Scottish ancestry were eliminated from the ways that we currently know how to test for ancestry using DNA through randomness * Your ancestors or Irish or Scottish ancestry were Scottish or Irish, but did not fit into categories that 23 and Me currently recognises as \"Scottish\" or \"Irish\" * Something else Be very cautious with 23andMe etc. These tests have their uses but also their (significant) limitations.","human_ref_B":"Scots Irish, refers to a population originally from the more english area of Scotland, who were planted in Nothern Ireland as part of a colonial project. They have their own language: Ulster Scots, a dialect of english. See https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ulster\\_Scots\\_people","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1907.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"s5lm69","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any ethnographic studies of western people done by Japanese anthropologists? There are a lot of studies of japanese culture done by westerners and they're often seen as inaccurate. I can say anecdotally when I tell Japanese people about stuff I read in guides to Japan written by sociologists, they often laugh and see it as inaccurate. But have Japanese people ever done cultural studies of the west? What do they say?","c_root_id_A":"hsz59rg","c_root_id_B":"hsygr79","created_at_utc_A":1642380807,"created_at_utc_B":1642370927,"score_A":55,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Yes, sort of. One remarkable study of Americans by Japanese -- they're not trained anthropologists, they were a diplomatic mission in 1860, leaving us lots of detailed accounts by both Americans and Japanese. Masao Miyoshi, formally a literary critic, who had the cultural and linguistic savvy to understand what Americans and Japanese were saying to each other, and how they were \\[mis\\]interpreting it, was able to work out what these reciprocal accounts meant. Miyoshi had the rare skills to decipher what two very differently situated civilizations were seeing in each other, on the eve of both of their civil wars. There's quite a lot interesting in Japanese interpretations of American ideas about race and sexuality, for example . . . See: Miyoshi, Masao, As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States, University of California Press, 1979","human_ref_B":"I can't answer your question because I'm not familiar with any. But, to be fair to the discipline in general, when you describe ethnography done among \\*any\\* people to the people it purports to study, you're going to get a lot of people who think it misses the mark. Sometimes it's a legit critique, or commentary on something that was missed, but sometimes it's just the fact that people don't often think about their own societies in a whole, systemic way that anthropologists aim for. It's the whole issue with \"etic\" and \"emic\" perspectives in ethnography.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9880.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"s5lm69","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any ethnographic studies of western people done by Japanese anthropologists? There are a lot of studies of japanese culture done by westerners and they're often seen as inaccurate. I can say anecdotally when I tell Japanese people about stuff I read in guides to Japan written by sociologists, they often laugh and see it as inaccurate. But have Japanese people ever done cultural studies of the west? What do they say?","c_root_id_A":"hsyz4ee","c_root_id_B":"hsz59rg","created_at_utc_A":1642378286,"created_at_utc_B":1642380807,"score_A":9,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"I'm afraid I don't have a direct answer to your question, but you might be interested Native Anthropology: The Japanese Challenge to Western Academic Hegemony by Takami Kuwayama. Even though it doesn't match up exactly with what you're looking for, it could be a useful read to get some perspective on how the kind of investigation you're proposing might play out in a modern academic context.","human_ref_B":"Yes, sort of. One remarkable study of Americans by Japanese -- they're not trained anthropologists, they were a diplomatic mission in 1860, leaving us lots of detailed accounts by both Americans and Japanese. Masao Miyoshi, formally a literary critic, who had the cultural and linguistic savvy to understand what Americans and Japanese were saying to each other, and how they were \\[mis\\]interpreting it, was able to work out what these reciprocal accounts meant. Miyoshi had the rare skills to decipher what two very differently situated civilizations were seeing in each other, on the eve of both of their civil wars. There's quite a lot interesting in Japanese interpretations of American ideas about race and sexuality, for example . . . See: Miyoshi, Masao, As We Saw Them: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States, University of California Press, 1979","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2521.0,"score_ratio":6.1111111111} {"post_id":"693fqx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Have there been\/are there currently studies being done on the roles of women in gang cultures besides 'victim'? Obviously violence against women is the overriding concern when discussing gang culture(s), from the impetus of morality and of public policy, given that fact that gang culture(s) in the West are typically heavily misogynistic and exploitative of women in various ways. But I can't imagine that women who live in societies deeply affected by gang activity serve only as the objects of male actors. Have there been studies of women as mediators, *instigators*, and transactional\/economic collaborators in gang culture(s)? The source of my question is a half-remembered BBC article from over a decade ago, about young women in Brazilian favelas encouraging young men into gang culture by praising those who hussled and criticizing those who were not \"gangster\" enough. Also, while Jenny Jochens characterizes the ancient\/medieval Norse female instigator as a misogynistic stereotype, William Ian Miller introduces the idea that it would be logical for \"non-combatants\" (women, old men, and the lower social classes in the Norse literature) to encourage violence as a form of social competition since their fortunes are contingent upon the successes of the socially\/publicly active male upon whom they are dependent. Given that leadership in Western gangs is almost exclusively male, and that competition between gangs is effected primarily or solely by its socially\/publicly active (violent) men, I feel that this might reflect a similar social dynamic as identified by Miller in the medieval Icelandic context.","c_root_id_A":"dh42boi","c_root_id_B":"dh43x5c","created_at_utc_A":1493882986,"created_at_utc_B":1493887847,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"See Chapter 3 of Alice Goffman's *On the Run*, \"When the Police Knock Your Door In.\" The women aren't a part of the \"gang\", but they do have important ancilary roles, particularly acting as \"rider\" (\"rida\"), i.e. a \"ride or die bitch\". This is exactly women as non-combatants who support the illegal activities and at times violence of the gang. Jeff Duncan-Andrade's \"Gangstas, Wankstas, and Ridas: Defining, Developing, and Supporting Effecfive Teachers in Urban Schools\" (2007) *International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Educafion* 20:6 was one of the most important pieces that Goffman draws on. Goffman's chapter cites several other studies of urban poor women, including Matthew Desmond's. She also cites the book *Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison*. In these, generally these women are not engaged in violence or street level drug dealing, but are nonetheless a crucial support network for men who are engaged in those activities. Sudhir Venkatesh's *Off the Books* has several chapters on women's work in the underground economy, often as \"economic collaborators\".","human_ref_B":"Phillippe Bourgois wrote a book called In Search of Respect that analyzes gang culture in New York. It's mostly about men but there are women in it too that slang drugs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4861.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"zmq0kn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Anyone know of any papers\/books that look at consciousness from an anthropological view I\u2019m currently in my first year of school(I know I have a very very long way to go) but I\u2019m planning on becoming a biological anthropologist because I\u2019d like to study consciousness and how psychoactive drugs have influenced evolution and the evolution of consciousness. However it doesn\u2019t appear to be easy to find any information on this topic.","c_root_id_A":"j0cuh3r","c_root_id_B":"j0cv1ue","created_at_utc_A":1671130014,"created_at_utc_B":1671130233,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak to the current beliefs and what's considered accurate. However a professor from my undergrad (who is a cognitive anthropologist) has a book called Culture, Self, and Meaning (deMunck published in 2000). From the Amazon blurb: > In this highly informative and interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between culture and psyche, de Munck provides a substantive introduction to pertinent issues, theory, and empirical studies that lie at the junction of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. This engagingly written text reviews various approaches to such questions as: Where is culture located--inside or outside the head? What is the self--is there a single, unified self or do many selves inhabit the body? Do institutional structures form to meet our needs--or are our everyday lives a result of institutional structures? What is meaning and how do we study it? de Munck's examination of these different approaches illuminates the importance of the topic, expands readers' understanding of human life, and points to psychological anthropology's relevance in affecting public policies. This might be helpful in finding further studies. I also think Michael Pollan is the most popular source of the stoned ape\/psychedelics influenced human evolution... but I might be 100% wrong on that.","human_ref_B":"Hey! I would recommend you to search for books on cognitive anthropology, this includes subjects like logical symbolism and religious mysticism, to name a few. As an anthropology student myself, theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Claude Levi-Strauss touch the topic you're looking for in a quite detailed but direct fashion, having been very useful to think about consciousness. Best of luck and good reading","labels":0,"seconds_difference":219.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"zmq0kn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Anyone know of any papers\/books that look at consciousness from an anthropological view I\u2019m currently in my first year of school(I know I have a very very long way to go) but I\u2019m planning on becoming a biological anthropologist because I\u2019d like to study consciousness and how psychoactive drugs have influenced evolution and the evolution of consciousness. However it doesn\u2019t appear to be easy to find any information on this topic.","c_root_id_A":"j0d8bya","c_root_id_B":"j0cuh3r","created_at_utc_A":1671135361,"created_at_utc_B":1671130014,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There's a smaller journal published by the American Anthropological Association called \"Anthropology of Consciousness\" that's all about substances and the mind. Here's a link-- if you can't access the articles themselves from here, you probably can through your university library: https:\/\/anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/journal\/15563537","human_ref_B":"I can't speak to the current beliefs and what's considered accurate. However a professor from my undergrad (who is a cognitive anthropologist) has a book called Culture, Self, and Meaning (deMunck published in 2000). From the Amazon blurb: > In this highly informative and interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between culture and psyche, de Munck provides a substantive introduction to pertinent issues, theory, and empirical studies that lie at the junction of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. This engagingly written text reviews various approaches to such questions as: Where is culture located--inside or outside the head? What is the self--is there a single, unified self or do many selves inhabit the body? Do institutional structures form to meet our needs--or are our everyday lives a result of institutional structures? What is meaning and how do we study it? de Munck's examination of these different approaches illuminates the importance of the topic, expands readers' understanding of human life, and points to psychological anthropology's relevance in affecting public policies. This might be helpful in finding further studies. I also think Michael Pollan is the most popular source of the stoned ape\/psychedelics influenced human evolution... but I might be 100% wrong on that.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5347.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"bymve3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Any good books on the dangers of life in the 21st century with relation to evolutionary psychology\/anthropology? Similar to Tribe by Sebastian Junger, or anything that comments on how with the rise of technology we are lonelier, no longer have a sense of community, etc. (sorry if this is vague!)","c_root_id_A":"eqlw6sg","c_root_id_B":"eqkbwla","created_at_utc_A":1560151576,"created_at_utc_B":1560119890,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The more popular an EvoPsych book is, the more likely it is to be, well, bad. Full of \"just so\" stories instead of good science, and stuff like that. At least in my experience.","human_ref_B":"The 3 books by Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. This is exactly what you\u2019re looking for, I promise.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31686.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"xkbtor","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"anthropology book recs??? anything religious, mental illness, or death practice related hey all!! I was just curious to see if anyone had any book recommendations relating to the subjects listed above? I've really only been able to find text books, and as interested as I am, I don't exactly have the money to spend on super expensive textbooks when all I want to do is some casual reading. not picky about the anthropological approach, archaeological, medical, forensic, cultural, anything goes!!! I left the topics super broad on purpose because I'm willing to read pretty much anything on the subjects. apart from specific book recommendations, I'd really appreciate any help guiding me in the general direction of finding books on the topics!! maybe authors? or keywords to search for?? thanks in advance :)))","c_root_id_A":"ipe5ruj","c_root_id_B":"ipdou7n","created_at_utc_A":1663799260,"created_at_utc_B":1663792381,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: *A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures*\r by Anne Fadiman. I think it has a bit of everything you're looking for. Here is the goodreads link if you'd like to read the synopsis.","human_ref_B":"Assuming you're looking for books that are informative and not painful to read: Crazy Like Us, Possessing Spirits and Healing Selves, Anatomy of Loneliness I'll edit this if I can think of any others. This was just what I remembered off the top of my head.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6879.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"xkbtor","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"anthropology book recs??? anything religious, mental illness, or death practice related hey all!! I was just curious to see if anyone had any book recommendations relating to the subjects listed above? I've really only been able to find text books, and as interested as I am, I don't exactly have the money to spend on super expensive textbooks when all I want to do is some casual reading. not picky about the anthropological approach, archaeological, medical, forensic, cultural, anything goes!!! I left the topics super broad on purpose because I'm willing to read pretty much anything on the subjects. apart from specific book recommendations, I'd really appreciate any help guiding me in the general direction of finding books on the topics!! maybe authors? or keywords to search for?? thanks in advance :)))","c_root_id_A":"ipdb842","c_root_id_B":"ipe5ruj","created_at_utc_A":1663787240,"created_at_utc_B":1663799260,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"This is a great resource for tracking down the kind of reading you would like to find.","human_ref_B":"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: *A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures*\r by Anne Fadiman. I think it has a bit of everything you're looking for. Here is the goodreads link if you'd like to read the synopsis.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12020.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"xkbtor","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"anthropology book recs??? anything religious, mental illness, or death practice related hey all!! I was just curious to see if anyone had any book recommendations relating to the subjects listed above? I've really only been able to find text books, and as interested as I am, I don't exactly have the money to spend on super expensive textbooks when all I want to do is some casual reading. not picky about the anthropological approach, archaeological, medical, forensic, cultural, anything goes!!! I left the topics super broad on purpose because I'm willing to read pretty much anything on the subjects. apart from specific book recommendations, I'd really appreciate any help guiding me in the general direction of finding books on the topics!! maybe authors? or keywords to search for?? thanks in advance :)))","c_root_id_A":"ipdb842","c_root_id_B":"ipdou7n","created_at_utc_A":1663787240,"created_at_utc_B":1663792381,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This is a great resource for tracking down the kind of reading you would like to find.","human_ref_B":"Assuming you're looking for books that are informative and not painful to read: Crazy Like Us, Possessing Spirits and Healing Selves, Anatomy of Loneliness I'll edit this if I can think of any others. This was just what I remembered off the top of my head.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5141.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"xkbtor","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"anthropology book recs??? anything religious, mental illness, or death practice related hey all!! I was just curious to see if anyone had any book recommendations relating to the subjects listed above? I've really only been able to find text books, and as interested as I am, I don't exactly have the money to spend on super expensive textbooks when all I want to do is some casual reading. not picky about the anthropological approach, archaeological, medical, forensic, cultural, anything goes!!! I left the topics super broad on purpose because I'm willing to read pretty much anything on the subjects. apart from specific book recommendations, I'd really appreciate any help guiding me in the general direction of finding books on the topics!! maybe authors? or keywords to search for?? thanks in advance :)))","c_root_id_A":"ipebx15","c_root_id_B":"ipdb842","created_at_utc_A":1663801918,"created_at_utc_B":1663787240,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I absolutely loved Pascal Boyer's *Religion Explained*. The author's an anthropologist, but it does incorporate a lot of cross-disciplinary work. It's pretty dense, but it changed my life.","human_ref_B":"This is a great resource for tracking down the kind of reading you would like to find.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14678.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"aoc99l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there any \u201cbig picture\u201d books on anthropology that aren\u2019t problematic? One of my friends is reading Harari\u2019s *Sapiens* right now, and after discussing some of its many issues with them I started looking around for a layperson-accessible overview of the current body of anthropological knowledge (especially regarding paleoanthropology) that I could recommend, but it\u2019s starting to look like such a thing might not exist. The next-best thing I could find is C. R. Hallpike\u2019s work, and while I appreciate that he\u2019s made serious contributions to his field I have some major reservations about recommending his books as a corrective to Harari\u2019s glib reductionism because, frankly, Hallpike seems like a bit of a reactionary jerk. In particular, \u201cPolitical correctness and the death of cultural anthropology,\u201d also published as the introduction to his book *On Primitive Society*, comes off like an enormously insensitive right-wing diatribe. No matter how nuanced his take on cultural evolution might be, it\u2019s simply wrong to deny that anthropology has played a role in the proliferation of colonial violence, both physically and structurally, or to attempt to mitigate responsibility for that damage by invoking the cause of \u201cobjective science\u201d, as if treating humans as objects of scientific curiosity didn\u2019t directly lead to some horrific abuses in living memory. So I\u2019d like to find a decent summary of contemporary anthropology written by someone who doesn\u2019t think that \u201cpost-colonialism\u201d is a dirty word, or who can at least acknowledge that calling people \u201cprimitive\u201d has some really unfortunate implications in the context of the contemporary global power-structure. Is it really the case that such a book hasn\u2019t been written? Should I just hand my friend a fat stack of journal articles and hope they can meaningfully digest any of it? Perhaps the problem is that any decently self-aware anthropologist might be too smart to bite off a project as big as the production of a narrative for all of human history, which makes me wonder if I shouldn\u2019t just tell them to abandon delusions of the grand-scale synthesis of human knowledge and to just read Ingold\u2019s *Perception of the Environment* instead.","c_root_id_A":"eg01tbi","c_root_id_B":"efzvrny","created_at_utc_A":1549603827,"created_at_utc_B":1549597906,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Perhaps you might like James Scott's *Against the Grain*?","human_ref_B":"Any grand scheme of all human history is going to massively oversimplify and misrepresent people. Usually with that broad of a scope, for a book to make an original argument, they require a dramatic shift in ideology. Jared Diamond's *Guns, Germs, and Steel* is pretty bad in a lot of ways (specifically in his representations of indigenous people), but he made some insightful and fairly convincing arguments about how material conditions shaped the trajectory of European conquest. For something which doesn't address history, but attempts at an in-depth examination of the contemporary world, *Modernity at Large* by Arjun Appadurai completely changed the conversation on globalization and many other issues.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5921.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"3ayabu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"In the world of music, it is taught that minor keys convey an expression of sadness. Are there any cultures that have not been exposed to the connected world's music, that's been surveyed to see if they independently come up with the same idea?","c_root_id_A":"cshgf83","c_root_id_B":"cshlcpt","created_at_utc_A":1435177071,"created_at_utc_B":1435184867,"score_A":6,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I think your premise is an oversimplification. Blues such as this one, are in a minor key but in no way sad. Happy, celebratory, klezmer music is played in a minor key. (I think. To my ear.)","human_ref_B":"Yes, they have.. The Mbenzele Pygmies of the DRC have taken part in studies about this, since they are very isolated from Western musical culture. In short, they appear not to have developed the same ideas of how music conveys sadness and other emotions. In fact, they have approached music an entirely different way - they don't, for instance, have sad songs, not seeing the point. From the article: > *The emotional cues in songs, which Westerners pick up on, didn't mean the same to the Pygmies: They didn't hear the shrieking strings of the Psycho theme as stressful or the minor chords in Wagner's Tristan as sad.* > *\"The emotional response to this music was all over the map,\" says neuroscientist Stephen McAdams of McGill University, who co-authored the study with Fernando. \"The idea of music being a universal language, I don't really buy it. Some aspects of the emotional response are very specific to that culture.\"* Here's a link to the full study, if you want to find out more.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7796.0,"score_ratio":4.8333333333} {"post_id":"3ayabu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"In the world of music, it is taught that minor keys convey an expression of sadness. Are there any cultures that have not been exposed to the connected world's music, that's been surveyed to see if they independently come up with the same idea?","c_root_id_A":"cshk9i8","c_root_id_B":"cshlcpt","created_at_utc_A":1435183014,"created_at_utc_B":1435184867,"score_A":4,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Maybe try \/r\/ethnomusicology ? The sub seems dead but you might get an answer or two there in addition to here.","human_ref_B":"Yes, they have.. The Mbenzele Pygmies of the DRC have taken part in studies about this, since they are very isolated from Western musical culture. In short, they appear not to have developed the same ideas of how music conveys sadness and other emotions. In fact, they have approached music an entirely different way - they don't, for instance, have sad songs, not seeing the point. From the article: > *The emotional cues in songs, which Westerners pick up on, didn't mean the same to the Pygmies: They didn't hear the shrieking strings of the Psycho theme as stressful or the minor chords in Wagner's Tristan as sad.* > *\"The emotional response to this music was all over the map,\" says neuroscientist Stephen McAdams of McGill University, who co-authored the study with Fernando. \"The idea of music being a universal language, I don't really buy it. Some aspects of the emotional response are very specific to that culture.\"* Here's a link to the full study, if you want to find out more.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1853.0,"score_ratio":7.25} {"post_id":"agcr3e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"Which study has originally claimed that there's a difference in IQ whites, blacks, Asians, Ashkenazi etc? Basically, I'm looking for a peer-reviewed reference for the claims made in \"Bell Curve\". Was there a paper ever submitted to a journal, or is it just the book?","c_root_id_A":"ee65uzn","c_root_id_B":"ee6h8t4","created_at_utc_A":1547609320,"created_at_utc_B":1547621010,"score_A":10,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Unlikely that you're going to find anything that fits what you're looking for. There just aren't any modern peer reviewed studies that support such a conclusion (that I'm familiar with).","human_ref_B":"The bell curve is the tail wagging the dog, as well as confirmation bias. If you\u2019re racist, then you\u2019ll explain the normal curve in psychosocial data in racist terms, instead of, well... factual terms (like not ignoring the bazillion social, historical, and political factors confounded with race\/ethnicity, including how we\u2019ve studied differences in race\/ethnicity across the ages).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11690.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indwiki","c_root_id_B":"indvfy8","created_at_utc_A":1662509915,"created_at_utc_B":1662509415,"score_A":42,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Seriously... for art history \/ anthropology, assuming you're thinking about museum positions, etc. Data science, information science, databases. Curators are data management wizards, among other things. No offense, but philosophy won't get you anywhere at all. If you want a job in this field, you need to be multidimensional. That's not me being an asshole conservative. I've been doing this for 20 years. Please pair your humanities and \/ or social sciences degree with something that complements, not parallels, it. And you *need* graduate school if you want to do this as a career. Expect it. It's not optional. Sincerely, a former tenure-track university professor, academic advisor, and current professional anthropologist. **Edit:** Just to clarify, although my undergraduate and graduate experiences didn't include formal courses in data science, databases, GIS, etc., I had the opportunity to teach myself how to do those things reasonably capably. Years later, these things are a major part of why my company values me as highly as they do (seem to). I wear a lot of hats.","human_ref_B":"I know people who doubled in Art Hist and Anthro and found the combo useful. Depending on your interests, history, religious studies, area studies (e.g. Latin American Studies, Asian Studies), film, geography, or a language\/literature major all make sense and are relatively common pairings.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":500.0,"score_ratio":8.4} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indrsl1","c_root_id_B":"indwiki","created_at_utc_A":1662507736,"created_at_utc_B":1662509915,"score_A":3,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","human_ref_B":"Seriously... for art history \/ anthropology, assuming you're thinking about museum positions, etc. Data science, information science, databases. Curators are data management wizards, among other things. No offense, but philosophy won't get you anywhere at all. If you want a job in this field, you need to be multidimensional. That's not me being an asshole conservative. I've been doing this for 20 years. Please pair your humanities and \/ or social sciences degree with something that complements, not parallels, it. And you *need* graduate school if you want to do this as a career. Expect it. It's not optional. Sincerely, a former tenure-track university professor, academic advisor, and current professional anthropologist. **Edit:** Just to clarify, although my undergraduate and graduate experiences didn't include formal courses in data science, databases, GIS, etc., I had the opportunity to teach myself how to do those things reasonably capably. Years later, these things are a major part of why my company values me as highly as they do (seem to). I wear a lot of hats.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2179.0,"score_ratio":14.0} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"ine0dip","c_root_id_B":"ine1qdo","created_at_utc_A":1662511671,"created_at_utc_B":1662512285,"score_A":20,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I am an anthropology major with a minor in sociology. The two go perfectly together as they examine the micro and macro perspectives of humankind. Economics and political science were other options I considered.","human_ref_B":"I'm gonna swing the other way, and give my blanket humanities recommendation: Business Why? It's a great fallback, and a great asset. Entry level humanities sucks pay wise. It's no secret. A business degree can help with landing a backup job that pays alright - and also gives you an edge when applying for more administratovely burdensome jobs. But in addition, you'll often spend your career making the case for \"why\" someone should provide *you* with funding over the other guy. Grant proposals, research proposals, etc. all boil down to being a business endeavor - and being able to articulate why hiring you makes sound business sense gives you an edge others may lack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":614.0,"score_ratio":1.45} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indvfy8","c_root_id_B":"ine1qdo","created_at_utc_A":1662509415,"created_at_utc_B":1662512285,"score_A":5,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I know people who doubled in Art Hist and Anthro and found the combo useful. Depending on your interests, history, religious studies, area studies (e.g. Latin American Studies, Asian Studies), film, geography, or a language\/literature major all make sense and are relatively common pairings.","human_ref_B":"I'm gonna swing the other way, and give my blanket humanities recommendation: Business Why? It's a great fallback, and a great asset. Entry level humanities sucks pay wise. It's no secret. A business degree can help with landing a backup job that pays alright - and also gives you an edge when applying for more administratovely burdensome jobs. But in addition, you'll often spend your career making the case for \"why\" someone should provide *you* with funding over the other guy. Grant proposals, research proposals, etc. all boil down to being a business endeavor - and being able to articulate why hiring you makes sound business sense gives you an edge others may lack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2870.0,"score_ratio":5.8} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indrsl1","c_root_id_B":"ine1qdo","created_at_utc_A":1662507736,"created_at_utc_B":1662512285,"score_A":3,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","human_ref_B":"I'm gonna swing the other way, and give my blanket humanities recommendation: Business Why? It's a great fallback, and a great asset. Entry level humanities sucks pay wise. It's no secret. A business degree can help with landing a backup job that pays alright - and also gives you an edge when applying for more administratovely burdensome jobs. But in addition, you'll often spend your career making the case for \"why\" someone should provide *you* with funding over the other guy. Grant proposals, research proposals, etc. all boil down to being a business endeavor - and being able to articulate why hiring you makes sound business sense gives you an edge others may lack.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4549.0,"score_ratio":9.6666666667} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"ine0dip","c_root_id_B":"indvfy8","created_at_utc_A":1662511671,"created_at_utc_B":1662509415,"score_A":20,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am an anthropology major with a minor in sociology. The two go perfectly together as they examine the micro and macro perspectives of humankind. Economics and political science were other options I considered.","human_ref_B":"I know people who doubled in Art Hist and Anthro and found the combo useful. Depending on your interests, history, religious studies, area studies (e.g. Latin American Studies, Asian Studies), film, geography, or a language\/literature major all make sense and are relatively common pairings.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2256.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"ine0dip","c_root_id_B":"indrsl1","created_at_utc_A":1662511671,"created_at_utc_B":1662507736,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am an anthropology major with a minor in sociology. The two go perfectly together as they examine the micro and macro perspectives of humankind. Economics and political science were other options I considered.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3935.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indvfy8","c_root_id_B":"ine7umh","created_at_utc_A":1662509415,"created_at_utc_B":1662514991,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I know people who doubled in Art Hist and Anthro and found the combo useful. Depending on your interests, history, religious studies, area studies (e.g. Latin American Studies, Asian Studies), film, geography, or a language\/literature major all make sense and are relatively common pairings.","human_ref_B":"> how was your experience doing a double major Double majoring is a different question at every school. I did it because I needed 120 credits to graduate, one major was only 33-ish credits, and I could knock out several Gen Eds with the second major. > Is it worth it? Your major is overrated. Employers don't care too much about what that one line on your resume says, and 95% of jobs will be mostly skills you have to learn *for that job*. The skills that I do currently need that I picked up in undergrad are about writing and researching- things you can get from any humanities or social science degree. The sad fact of life is that an undergrad degree is not gonna be the thing getting you a job anymore.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5576.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"ine7umh","c_root_id_B":"indrsl1","created_at_utc_A":1662514991,"created_at_utc_B":1662507736,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"> how was your experience doing a double major Double majoring is a different question at every school. I did it because I needed 120 credits to graduate, one major was only 33-ish credits, and I could knock out several Gen Eds with the second major. > Is it worth it? Your major is overrated. Employers don't care too much about what that one line on your resume says, and 95% of jobs will be mostly skills you have to learn *for that job*. The skills that I do currently need that I picked up in undergrad are about writing and researching- things you can get from any humanities or social science degree. The sad fact of life is that an undergrad degree is not gonna be the thing getting you a job anymore.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7255.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"indvfy8","c_root_id_B":"indrsl1","created_at_utc_A":1662509415,"created_at_utc_B":1662507736,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I know people who doubled in Art Hist and Anthro and found the combo useful. Depending on your interests, history, religious studies, area studies (e.g. Latin American Studies, Asian Studies), film, geography, or a language\/literature major all make sense and are relatively common pairings.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1679.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"infqv5b","c_root_id_B":"indrsl1","created_at_utc_A":1662550115,"created_at_utc_B":1662507736,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Geography and sustainability are also good options with up and coming careers. With your interest in art history, museum studies would be a perfect fit. However, I know you said you weren't really interested in the more science-y side of things, but I would seriously look into GIS, even if it's some elective classes and not a full blown major. It's becoming an absolutely invaluable skill in A LOT of different fields, including anthropology. For various reasons I was never able to add it to my curriculum during my several degrees and I regret that pretty much daily.","human_ref_B":"Philosophy. Worked great for me! Seriously though. Philosophy is great, and gives you a thorough grounding in the origins of scientific thought, logic and theory. What it doesn't seem to do is act as a value-added multiplier when getting a job. I might suggest statistics, data science or something similar.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42379.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"x7peka","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Majors That Pair Well With Anthropology? I am transferring to a 4-year university as an Anthropology major, but was considering doing a double major. I am really interested in Art History and would love to study that as well. Has anyone done a double major in these two subjects? What other subjects would be good to pair with Anthro? Also, how was your experience doing a double major? Is it worth it? Thanks! Also: I am not planning on doing the more scientific side of anthropology, so I would probably not do a science-related major.","c_root_id_A":"ing0bgu","c_root_id_B":"ingcmso","created_at_utc_A":1662555101,"created_at_utc_B":1662560530,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I double majored in anthropology [primarily cultural] and gender studies in college - there were many overlapping courses between the two since the latter was an interdisciplinary program at my school. I also considered history and environmental studies, both of which are pretty in line with anthro, but with little to no course or requirement overlap for those programs so would have been way harder. With my majors I knew what I was getting into in terms of job\/wage prospects or whatever (I currently work in a social work plus am in an anthro MA and am a community organizer). You could go for another complementary social science or humanities program, but it's definitely worth considering doing something different and developing more supplementary technical skills that work in other contexts. It partly depends on what you envision yourself doing with the degrees bc it's a different story if you want to keep two career pathways open for yourself vs if you hope to synthesize the two fields in your future work. A visual anthro approach for ex. could be a good fit for you if you're interested in art -- in retrospect I personally wish I had learned more about photography and videography in college to familiarize myself w\/ documentary filmmaking or other possibilities for ethnographic media, but I also know that anything I do in terms of future research will be related to gender so it's always useful. Edit - also if you're planning to go on for grad school in anthro, do yourself a favor and develop your skills in a second language if you don't already have one.","human_ref_B":"I double majored in anthropology and art history and they complement each other very well, but I will say that if I could go back I would have paired it with data science. It\u2019s such a valuable skill for contemporary work and may open a lot of doors that are anthropology adjacent that you might not have considered.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5429.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3x7x9","c_root_id_B":"cr3ydci","created_at_utc_A":1431207448,"created_at_utc_B":1431209839,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I graduated social and cultural anthropology in december, didn't want to keep studying the branch because I had trouble figuring out what I was going to do after school, and I figured out that I prefer a more stable job than doing fieldworks. So I took the semester off and finally decided to sign up for a masters in museology (I am not sure if its the same name in english), basically making up expositions, taking care of museums, moving of artefacts, working in the archives, etc. I think it stays in the same kind of path, its linked with material anthropology, history, etc.. I haven't started yet, I will in august, I hope I will like it.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad degree in anthropology, archaeology field school. Currently in law school, focusing on indigenous rights\/Native law and policy. I've got some classes next year (if I pass my common law classes this year!) on Native culture and the law (think NAGPRA, etc) that I am super excited for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2391.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3ydci","c_root_id_B":"cr3u16i","created_at_utc_A":1431209839,"created_at_utc_B":1431200627,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad degree in anthropology, archaeology field school. Currently in law school, focusing on indigenous rights\/Native law and policy. I've got some classes next year (if I pass my common law classes this year!) on Native culture and the law (think NAGPRA, etc) that I am super excited for.","human_ref_B":"Only got my undergrad in anthropology, now a stay at home mom. Actually wanted to be a librarian, but I moved before I could finish grad school. Just held retail jobs until I stayed home.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9212.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3w59r","c_root_id_B":"cr3ydci","created_at_utc_A":1431205172,"created_at_utc_B":1431209839,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"BA in Sociology\/Anthropology, now a data analyst. I am using my degree to explain the inter-departmental dysfunction that we're dealing with, but mostly I just make complicated spreadsheets.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad degree in anthropology, archaeology field school. Currently in law school, focusing on indigenous rights\/Native law and policy. I've got some classes next year (if I pass my common law classes this year!) on Native culture and the law (think NAGPRA, etc) that I am super excited for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4667.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr44mv2","c_root_id_B":"cr3x7x9","created_at_utc_A":1431223102,"created_at_utc_B":1431207448,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","human_ref_B":"I graduated social and cultural anthropology in december, didn't want to keep studying the branch because I had trouble figuring out what I was going to do after school, and I figured out that I prefer a more stable job than doing fieldworks. So I took the semester off and finally decided to sign up for a masters in museology (I am not sure if its the same name in english), basically making up expositions, taking care of museums, moving of artefacts, working in the archives, etc. I think it stays in the same kind of path, its linked with material anthropology, history, etc.. I haven't started yet, I will in august, I hope I will like it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15654.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3u16i","c_root_id_B":"cr44mv2","created_at_utc_A":1431200627,"created_at_utc_B":1431223102,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Only got my undergrad in anthropology, now a stay at home mom. Actually wanted to be a librarian, but I moved before I could finish grad school. Just held retail jobs until I stayed home.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22475.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr44mv2","c_root_id_B":"cr3w59r","created_at_utc_A":1431223102,"created_at_utc_B":1431205172,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","human_ref_B":"BA in Sociology\/Anthropology, now a data analyst. I am using my degree to explain the inter-departmental dysfunction that we're dealing with, but mostly I just make complicated spreadsheets.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17930.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr439f0","c_root_id_B":"cr44mv2","created_at_utc_A":1431220284,"created_at_utc_B":1431223102,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Going back to school for computer science because after 1500 resumes I have no options left.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2818.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr41oza","c_root_id_B":"cr44mv2","created_at_utc_A":1431216898,"created_at_utc_B":1431223102,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"BA and MA in cultural anthropology. After graduating I managed cultural programs for an Indian Education grant for three years before accepting my current position managing electronic communications (web design, social media) for an educational organization. Getting multiple degrees in anthropology and then immediately entering the workforce in a cultural field caused something of a career crisis for me. I was highly uncomfortable in my position because I wasn't a part of the ethnic group for which I was working, and people constantly questioned my right to educate their children about their own culture (which they totally should have). After thinking back to my classes, which were 90% white both at the undergraduate and graduate level, taught by professors who were also mostly white, and the fact that the anthropologists evaluating our programs were entirely white, I decided that the whole thing was kind of a sham. How much can you say about the lives of other people.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6204.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr43jzl","c_root_id_B":"cr44mv2","created_at_utc_A":1431220849,"created_at_utc_B":1431223102,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Studied it in undergrad, now an attorney and adviser. Definitely made me a more open minded kind of person, I rarely base things on people's \"culture\" now. Terrorism, for example. A strategy by relatively powerless and disparate groups that only use religion as a veneer for very geopolitical agendas. When all of my law school classmates thought law was the be-all-end-all of everything, I continued to analyze it in a greater, more holistic context and that kept me grounded. Anyway, I'll likely go back for my PhD in it though.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2253.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr44evh","c_root_id_B":"cr44mv2","created_at_utc_A":1431222614,"created_at_utc_B":1431223102,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"BS in History (hope that's alright) and now working in special education providing Applied Behavior Analysis services to elementary age students. Fell into it through substitute teaching, but absolutely love it and am making it my career. Education is not really applicable (aside from pointing out numerous flaws in the histoty curriculum) but the skills i developed in school certainly have contributed to my success. Should be getting my RBT certification in the fall.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad Anthro major working as an Executive Assistant. I also worked in Executive Recruiting for the financial industry (private equity, investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) My Anthro degree was considered desirable in that field. However, I got out of it after the economy crashed in 2008 (and my firm went out of business along with several of our major clients). I knew several other Anthro majors working in recruiting. Editing to add: My current job definitely benefits from my studies. I constantly work with people in other departments and at other companies, and being able to quickly understand their department\/company \"culture\", rules, expectations, etc. makes me highly effective at getting what I need out of people quickly and successfully, making my boss and team function well and look good. I also do a lot of project management, deal with HR matters, budgets and fiscal analysis, event planning, etc. and all of those things I've found have tapped into skills I learned during my Anthro studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":488.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3x7x9","c_root_id_B":"cr3u16i","created_at_utc_A":1431207448,"created_at_utc_B":1431200627,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I graduated social and cultural anthropology in december, didn't want to keep studying the branch because I had trouble figuring out what I was going to do after school, and I figured out that I prefer a more stable job than doing fieldworks. So I took the semester off and finally decided to sign up for a masters in museology (I am not sure if its the same name in english), basically making up expositions, taking care of museums, moving of artefacts, working in the archives, etc. I think it stays in the same kind of path, its linked with material anthropology, history, etc.. I haven't started yet, I will in august, I hope I will like it.","human_ref_B":"Only got my undergrad in anthropology, now a stay at home mom. Actually wanted to be a librarian, but I moved before I could finish grad school. Just held retail jobs until I stayed home.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6821.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr3w59r","c_root_id_B":"cr3x7x9","created_at_utc_A":1431205172,"created_at_utc_B":1431207448,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in Sociology\/Anthropology, now a data analyst. I am using my degree to explain the inter-departmental dysfunction that we're dealing with, but mostly I just make complicated spreadsheets.","human_ref_B":"I graduated social and cultural anthropology in december, didn't want to keep studying the branch because I had trouble figuring out what I was going to do after school, and I figured out that I prefer a more stable job than doing fieldworks. So I took the semester off and finally decided to sign up for a masters in museology (I am not sure if its the same name in english), basically making up expositions, taking care of museums, moving of artefacts, working in the archives, etc. I think it stays in the same kind of path, its linked with material anthropology, history, etc.. I haven't started yet, I will in august, I hope I will like it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2276.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"35etnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"If you've studied anthropology but opted not to work in that field, what is your current occupation and has your social science education influenced what you do now? I have been wrestling with the idea of a non-academic career would like to learn about the alternative career paths other anthropology students have taken.","c_root_id_A":"cr439f0","c_root_id_B":"cr41oza","created_at_utc_A":1431220284,"created_at_utc_B":1431216898,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Going back to school for computer science because after 1500 resumes I have no options left.","human_ref_B":"BA and MA in cultural anthropology. After graduating I managed cultural programs for an Indian Education grant for three years before accepting my current position managing electronic communications (web design, social media) for an educational organization. Getting multiple degrees in anthropology and then immediately entering the workforce in a cultural field caused something of a career crisis for me. I was highly uncomfortable in my position because I wasn't a part of the ethnic group for which I was working, and people constantly questioned my right to educate their children about their own culture (which they totally should have). After thinking back to my classes, which were 90% white both at the undergraduate and graduate level, taught by professors who were also mostly white, and the fact that the anthropologists evaluating our programs were entirely white, I decided that the whole thing was kind of a sham. How much can you say about the lives of other people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3386.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"yqsubg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Using the Term \"Advanced\" in an Anthropological and Archeological Context Hello, I had a question regarding using the term \"advanced\" when referring to a civilization or culture and if this is an ok practice to do as an Anthropologist. I am studying Anthropology, but I am still learning, and this question came about due to this Reddit post comments on the r\/worldbuilding Reddit. I was curious to see what others' opinions were on using the term \"advanced\" to describe a civilization and what other vocabulary people would suggest. Also, if anyone has any research or papers about language\/communication in the field of Anthropology, I would love to hear about them! Best, Leo x","c_root_id_A":"ivq2yy5","c_root_id_B":"ivq21gu","created_at_utc_A":1668023938,"created_at_utc_B":1668023579,"score_A":32,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"You'll find the discussion in this thread relevant, and more specifically this comment of mine regarding the word \"advanced.\" To reiterate my main point there, people often *say* advanced but *mean* something more specific. As OP in the worldbuilding thread mentioned: > \u201cadvanced civilization\u201d here, I basically just mean \u201csome society at the point of having agriculture and city-building.\u201d The word is so ingrained into popular speech that it's often just assumed people know what it's referring to without anyone actually knowing. Here, \"urban, agricultural society\" would have done just as well as \"advanced society,\" and likely have painted a more consistent image in readers' minds of what they meant. Usually, if you pick at it long enough you can get to what you really want to say. By \"advanced\" do you mean they use digital technology? Do you mean they have a large, expansive, complex political system? Do you mean they have a specialized economy with roles outside subsistence practices? These are all things people often try to get at with the word \"advanced,\" but neither anthropology nor a worldbuilding community is the place for summing up cultures in single words. The deeper message here is that we like really like to think of societal traits in \"packages.\" Note the phrasing \"society at the point of having...\" which suggests these are things acquired by any given society after a certain amount of time\/accumulation of Science Points passes, and that other characteristics can be implied based on that. I don't mean to call out OP there; they are simply representative of a common misconception.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s a hierarchical way to classify societies and their technology, which is not how anthropologists today look at things. 100 years ago, yes, and that was to justify things like white supremacy, slave labour, anything racist really. Technology suits the needs of the society that it is in. Changes are made because it\u2019s necessary. They aren\u2019t made when it isn\u2019t necessary, not because the people are incapable of it. If you are supportive of decolonization and unsettlement if anthropology, which has DEEP roots in racism, then you should not talk like this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":359.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"yqsubg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Using the Term \"Advanced\" in an Anthropological and Archeological Context Hello, I had a question regarding using the term \"advanced\" when referring to a civilization or culture and if this is an ok practice to do as an Anthropologist. I am studying Anthropology, but I am still learning, and this question came about due to this Reddit post comments on the r\/worldbuilding Reddit. I was curious to see what others' opinions were on using the term \"advanced\" to describe a civilization and what other vocabulary people would suggest. Also, if anyone has any research or papers about language\/communication in the field of Anthropology, I would love to hear about them! Best, Leo x","c_root_id_A":"ivq21gu","c_root_id_B":"ivq3t48","created_at_utc_A":1668023579,"created_at_utc_B":1668024260,"score_A":20,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a hierarchical way to classify societies and their technology, which is not how anthropologists today look at things. 100 years ago, yes, and that was to justify things like white supremacy, slave labour, anything racist really. Technology suits the needs of the society that it is in. Changes are made because it\u2019s necessary. They aren\u2019t made when it isn\u2019t necessary, not because the people are incapable of it. If you are supportive of decolonization and unsettlement if anthropology, which has DEEP roots in racism, then you should not talk like this.","human_ref_B":"The problem here isn\u2019t the word itself, it\u2019s what you\u2019re implying about the societies you\u2019re describing - and those you\u2019re not. If you look at how \u201dadvanced\u201c is used, it\u2019s pretty obvious that it doesn\u2019t actually describe cultural vibrancy, technological efficiency, political freedom or whatever people say it means when interrogated. Rather, it\u2019s always used to describe, in context, how similar you are to the grandiose evolutionary chain of Eastern Mediterranean farmers, Greek philosophers, Roman imperialists, Medieval European religious fanatics, Early Modern European imperialists, and finally whoever\u2019s white and on the right side of the Iron Curtain. Sometimes you also get wild gesticulations vaguely reminiscent of retrofuturism and then something sci-fi. Nobody in content creation ever says \u201cthe first advanced civilization appears\u201d and means Harappan sewer engineers, or writes that \u201cthe society advanced rapidly\u201c and mean that it obtained Mexican arsenic bronze or Amazonian soil management. So ultimately the assertion you\u2019re making is twofold: 1. There is such a thing as \u201cadvancement\u201d which societies can progress upwards within. 2. The default cultural changes signifying you\u2019re moving up in the world are almost exactly identical to the way the greater Western European world traces its own history and potential future. Now I\u2019m not going to say that this is sharply close-minded and against the spirit of anthropology, but\u2026 there\u2019s certainly a case to be made why so many of our research subjects were angry at us back when terms like this were in the academic vogue.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":681.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"4qp85x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"In places where families live in small or one-room homes with little privacy, how does sex work? This question in \/r\/AskHistorians discusses possible origins of the concept of privacy in Europe, but the ideas there don't seem to apply to Asia. In many parts of Southeast Asia today (and likely elsewhere, but that's what I'm most familiar with), families share small homes with little privacy, often with multiple generations sharing a home, and public displays of affection are not okay. How do couples, married and unmarried, have sex in such situations?","c_root_id_A":"d4uupf6","c_root_id_B":"d4uwcza","created_at_utc_A":1467340461,"created_at_utc_B":1467343364,"score_A":15,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"From my own personal experience talking with friends in north Jiangsu province China at least, they usually use hotels. Deals for a few hours are relatively common. I know this isn't a professional opinion, but no one else has commented. Perhaps this can be a springboard for more discussion.","human_ref_B":"Just anecdotally, most farmsteads or domiciles in recent history, and prehistory for that matter, were one room structures. Sex was a part of life, privacy wasn't necessarily. I'm guessing it was fairly quick and to the point, done at night, by very hard working men and women. Sex as a taboo as it is in Western culture is most definitely not a cultural universal amongst humans.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2903.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"nsm9k3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What medical substances did the various civilizations of old use that were actually effective and not deadly. I know this is a broad question but I want to know some interesting things about this.","c_root_id_A":"h0ongsu","c_root_id_B":"h0o2mpb","created_at_utc_A":1622900013,"created_at_utc_B":1622884564,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"If you are really interested, you can look up books medicinal plants, ,there are very interesting books on the matter Jewelweed has efficacy for poison ivy and other rashes and is not dangerous. Witch hazel is still in use today and many hemorrhoid creams contain it. It Extracts of ephedra, the main agent of which is ephedrine , and from whence comes Pseudephed (and other decongestants) ,were used for asthma hay fever etc. Ginger is also probably a true anti-emetic (anti nausea) that possibly works via the same mechanisms that the modern ondasetron does https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nrgastro.2013.54 There are also numerous plants that have anti fungal and antibacterial properties, including some barks , mosses etc that were used to treat wounds. Foxglove was also used in folk medicine long before it was used in hospitals. Quinine from the cinchona treat was used to treat malaria, and was for a long time until modern medicines with fewer side effects (arguably) were invented.","human_ref_B":"Honey has antibacterial properties and has been used by different population over different times, such as ancient egyptians (see https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC3495363\/ ) and in medieval europe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15449.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"5l99l5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"In cultures where names come directly from that culture's own language, do members of those culture actively recognize the meaning when they encounter the name? In contrast to cultures that use Christian names, wherein I doubt many people regularly consider the ancient etymologies as more than a curiosity.","c_root_id_A":"dbu28iz","c_root_id_B":"dbu6rk6","created_at_utc_A":1483197978,"created_at_utc_B":1483204963,"score_A":16,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Well, English names aren't even that different in this sense either, it's just that in North America most people don't speak the language of their own paternal ancestry. I would say even recognizing \"Christian names\" would count as people being able to often instantly recognize the \"etymology.\" It's not as if other cultures don't have names that aren't equally \"ancient\" or gained from cultural diffusion either, and there's no reason why people would automatically consider any more or less the etymologies as curiousities. In regards to understanding any information those names could also be carrying, it depends on a lot of things, and being a culture with \"Christian\" names is not really a top reason. Take a hypothetical person named Arthur Christopher Worcester. Most people know that Arthur was a mythical king, religiously minded people would be able to tell you more about who saint Christopher was and how he gained that name and what it means, but not everyone cares about that sort of traditional religion and history, and Worcester is a town, maybe this persons ancestors had some connection to it? Not all that different than a name from Asia that may have connections to some ancient or mythical king that people have varying degrees of knowledge and interest in, or has an element to do without minor point with religion, which again, not everyone necessarily knows or cares about, but there would absolutely also be people who could tell you about it, and a surname that seems to connect a person to a physical location or occupation. The connection between a person and a location based on their surname really depends on a case-by-case basis and on the history of surnames in that nation. Most countries that have surnames haven't always had them be a thing, especially for the entirety of the population. Commoners didn't start gaining surnames in Europe in most places until well after the Middle Ages. Some places in the world gained surnames for the entire population much earlier, like Korea (and this can be reflected on the fact that diversity in surnames is much lower there, as time has allowed more surnames to die out), and some places gained them much later. So the likelhood of a person's surname reflecting something remotely relevant to their life goes way down the longer that surnames, for everyone, has been a thing in that culture. Even then, it's absolutely not a guarantee and at best a guess most of the time. Even if a persons last name is smith or tailor, does not at all necessarily mean that person has had any ancestors who were smiths or tailors, or if they did that that has anything to do with their last name either. This is something true in probably every culture that uses surnames. Although I would also like to add a small note, names and class are often closely linked in many cultures. In India, many people have a \"caste\" name, and in Hungary, you can tell if someone has aristocratic ancestry by how they spell their last name. It still doesn't necessarily mean the literal meaning of the word has any relevance, but that all the other connotations of it does (or at least historically had relevance). This is true of British names, but, as I said, as most people in North America don't speak the language of their paternal ancestors, and the fact that all these different customs come together in ways that inevitably make some feel especially socially irrelevant.","human_ref_B":"When you meet a girl named Angel, do you immediately think of an angel? Or when you meet a Victor, do you think about conquest? (Even though I'm aware both Angel and Victor are Latin derived words, the words also have common English meanings.) Your brains are very adept at segmenting words into their contextual usage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6985.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5l99l5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"In cultures where names come directly from that culture's own language, do members of those culture actively recognize the meaning when they encounter the name? In contrast to cultures that use Christian names, wherein I doubt many people regularly consider the ancient etymologies as more than a curiosity.","c_root_id_A":"dbu2ee4","c_root_id_B":"dbu6rk6","created_at_utc_A":1483198268,"created_at_utc_B":1483204963,"score_A":6,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Doesn't english have a lot of names that come from their own language? I'm thinking about last names here, such as Smith or Fisher or something, that come from a profession, but the meaning gets absolutely ignored. Nobody thinks of a blacksmith when you hear somebody's last name is Smith. In spanish the same happens, both in last names and first names. For example, a common girl name is Consuelo [yes, with an \"o\"], which means \"consolation\", or Rocio, which means \"dew\", but nobody ever thinks of those things when hearing those names.","human_ref_B":"When you meet a girl named Angel, do you immediately think of an angel? Or when you meet a Victor, do you think about conquest? (Even though I'm aware both Angel and Victor are Latin derived words, the words also have common English meanings.) Your brains are very adept at segmenting words into their contextual usage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6695.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"5l99l5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"In cultures where names come directly from that culture's own language, do members of those culture actively recognize the meaning when they encounter the name? In contrast to cultures that use Christian names, wherein I doubt many people regularly consider the ancient etymologies as more than a curiosity.","c_root_id_A":"dbu5tda","c_root_id_B":"dbu6rk6","created_at_utc_A":1483203589,"created_at_utc_B":1483204963,"score_A":4,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Well in Swedish we have Bj\u00f6rn(bear), Sten(stone) and Karl(man) to name a few.","human_ref_B":"When you meet a girl named Angel, do you immediately think of an angel? Or when you meet a Victor, do you think about conquest? (Even though I'm aware both Angel and Victor are Latin derived words, the words also have common English meanings.) Your brains are very adept at segmenting words into their contextual usage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1374.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enwfmq5","c_root_id_B":"envut5e","created_at_utc_A":1558096105,"created_at_utc_B":1558084504,"score_A":66,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The French colonial empire facilitated an unusual transmission of culture from Vietnam to Senegal. During the French-Indochina Wars, France sent around 50,000 West African soldiers to fight in the swamps and jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They became known as *tirailleurs s\u00e9n\u00e9galais*, because many of them were from Senegal. When these Senegalese soldiers returned to their homeland, some of them returned with Vietnamese wives, or with some knowledge of Vietnamese cuisine. These people left an enduring mark on Senegal, because they brought with them the knowledge of making fried Vietnamese spring rolls. The *nem* has become extremely popular in Senegalese cuisine and is an ubiquitous street fare, common not only in the capital of Dakar but even making its way to outwards to smaller cities and towns. A lot of Senegalese people aren't actually aware of the Vietnamese origins of the *nem*, and for them it is firmly a Senegalese cultural product.","human_ref_B":"Contemporary African societies use the metric system inherited from the colonial predecessors. Uniform, widely-accepted, and predictable weights and measures, is helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11601.0,"score_ratio":22.0} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enws13n","c_root_id_B":"enwvma0","created_at_utc_A":1558102580,"created_at_utc_B":1558104680,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"There is a mishmash of driving on the left and right throughout Africa, often based on former colonial powers. The border crossings are interesting!","human_ref_B":"> Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Yes, in the sense that the cultures of the respective countries is significantly different and recognizably French- or Anglo-influenced. Same goes for the Muslim countries in Africa. There are also mixtures - e.g. South Africa can be characterized as Anglo-Dutch, with several other influences thrown in, such as Malaysian and Indian. See e.g. the Cape Malays. This influences food, loan words in languages like Afrikaans (a Dutch descendant language) and the South African dialects of English, and many other aspects of culture.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2100.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enwvma0","c_root_id_B":"envut5e","created_at_utc_A":1558104680,"created_at_utc_B":1558084504,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"> Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Yes, in the sense that the cultures of the respective countries is significantly different and recognizably French- or Anglo-influenced. Same goes for the Muslim countries in Africa. There are also mixtures - e.g. South Africa can be characterized as Anglo-Dutch, with several other influences thrown in, such as Malaysian and Indian. See e.g. the Cape Malays. This influences food, loan words in languages like Afrikaans (a Dutch descendant language) and the South African dialects of English, and many other aspects of culture.","human_ref_B":"Contemporary African societies use the metric system inherited from the colonial predecessors. Uniform, widely-accepted, and predictable weights and measures, is helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20176.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enws13n","c_root_id_B":"enwx2kj","created_at_utc_A":1558102580,"created_at_utc_B":1558105524,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There is a mishmash of driving on the left and right throughout Africa, often based on former colonial powers. The border crossings are interesting!","human_ref_B":"There are absolutely connections along these lines, although language is only one factor. Most former colonies in Africa have laws based on their former colonizer's legal code, for example. They also share things in terms of type of government, type of educational system etc., as well as having some shared historical experiences of colonialism. While intellectuals in Africa certainly work across linguistic lines, there is a greater circulation of ideas and debates within the same language. These conversations among intellectuals impacted the shape of post-colonial government and nationalism. Of course, having legal and educational systems in common was also a factor, as was education in the metropole -- many leading Francophone intellectuals and elites from various French colonies studied together in Paris, for example. Popular media also circulates more easily within linguistic lines, so for example TV and movies from Nigeria and South Africa are dominant in other English speaking countries, while media from Francophone Africa is less common.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2944.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enwx2kj","c_root_id_B":"envut5e","created_at_utc_A":1558105524,"created_at_utc_B":1558084504,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are absolutely connections along these lines, although language is only one factor. Most former colonies in Africa have laws based on their former colonizer's legal code, for example. They also share things in terms of type of government, type of educational system etc., as well as having some shared historical experiences of colonialism. While intellectuals in Africa certainly work across linguistic lines, there is a greater circulation of ideas and debates within the same language. These conversations among intellectuals impacted the shape of post-colonial government and nationalism. Of course, having legal and educational systems in common was also a factor, as was education in the metropole -- many leading Francophone intellectuals and elites from various French colonies studied together in Paris, for example. Popular media also circulates more easily within linguistic lines, so for example TV and movies from Nigeria and South Africa are dominant in other English speaking countries, while media from Francophone Africa is less common.","human_ref_B":"Contemporary African societies use the metric system inherited from the colonial predecessors. Uniform, widely-accepted, and predictable weights and measures, is helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21020.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enxj88n","c_root_id_B":"enws13n","created_at_utc_A":1558116255,"created_at_utc_B":1558102580,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you'd like a look into how Western Christian missionaries affected how one African society named fear and began intensely believing in evil spirits, take a look at Wendy James' \"The Names of Fear.\" It's a pretty interesting study since James had been working with this group for 30 years by this point and was able to document the changing emotional responses and the language used for negative emotions.","human_ref_B":"There is a mishmash of driving on the left and right throughout Africa, often based on former colonial powers. The border crossings are interesting!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13675.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"bpo3g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"To what extent do the language and culture of former colonial powers affect contemporary African societies? Is there a Franco-Africa and an Anglo-Africa? Is there any shared cultural inheritance between Kenya and Nigeria that might not be shared with Senegal or the Congo? To what extent can former colonial borders be observed through analysis of modern African cultures?","c_root_id_A":"enxj88n","c_root_id_B":"envut5e","created_at_utc_A":1558116255,"created_at_utc_B":1558084504,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you'd like a look into how Western Christian missionaries affected how one African society named fear and began intensely believing in evil spirits, take a look at Wendy James' \"The Names of Fear.\" It's a pretty interesting study since James had been working with this group for 30 years by this point and was able to document the changing emotional responses and the language used for negative emotions.","human_ref_B":"Contemporary African societies use the metric system inherited from the colonial predecessors. Uniform, widely-accepted, and predictable weights and measures, is helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31751.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ydltkm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"is monogamy a natural human behaviour or social norm? For example: if we were to put people with wiped out memory in an isolated island would they start having monogamous relationships just like modern humans or polygynous relationships like other mammals","c_root_id_A":"itt94j3","c_root_id_B":"ittl16n","created_at_utc_A":1666754507,"created_at_utc_B":1666761725,"score_A":92,"score_B":216,"human_ref_A":"In 'How the mind changed' by Joseph Jebelli, the evolutionary anthropological evidence indicates solo partner relationships having a developmental edge, pre social constructs. Although this is not universal, evidence does suggest that on a biological basis there is a predisposition toward single partners. However, as many (many) researchers have suggested, as societies have developed, concepts of sexuality, social contracts and population control networks have impacted this biological impulse, where the confluence between 'natural' behaviour and social norm is heavily intertwined. So, to answer your question - it depends.","human_ref_B":"You can't separate out \"nature\" and \"social\" like that. Humans have been highly social before we were humans. We don't exist outside some social context.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7218.0,"score_ratio":2.347826087} {"post_id":"ydltkm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"is monogamy a natural human behaviour or social norm? For example: if we were to put people with wiped out memory in an isolated island would they start having monogamous relationships just like modern humans or polygynous relationships like other mammals","c_root_id_A":"itvelqh","c_root_id_B":"itvox9t","created_at_utc_A":1666801231,"created_at_utc_B":1666805234,"score_A":12,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":">For example: if we were to put people with wiped out memory in an isolated island would they start having monogamous relationships just like modern humans or polygynous relationships like other mammals They could go either way. Humans are capable of both monogamous and polyamorous relationships. I don't think either system could be considered as part of \"human nature\" but rather the product of material conditions.","human_ref_B":"The best arguments for humans being \"naturally non-monogamous\", in the sense that the typical human in our \"ancestral environment\" was polygamous, came from the book \"Sex at Dawn\" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jeth\u00e1. This book is widely seen to have been misleading and to have failed. With \"Sex at Dusk\" written as a longer response. From what I've understood from \"Sex at Dusk\", data points towards humans being mostly serial monogamous -- with some cheating amongst a substantial amount of couples but not all. So on a spectrum from mating-for-life to everything-goes, we are closer to mating-for-life but not at the far end of the spectrum.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4003.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ydltkm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"is monogamy a natural human behaviour or social norm? For example: if we were to put people with wiped out memory in an isolated island would they start having monogamous relationships just like modern humans or polygynous relationships like other mammals","c_root_id_A":"itw05gr","c_root_id_B":"itvelqh","created_at_utc_A":1666809552,"created_at_utc_B":1666801231,"score_A":22,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Dude just wants a scientific explanation to convince his girlfriend of an open relationship and we are giving him all the answers he doesn\u2019t want","human_ref_B":">For example: if we were to put people with wiped out memory in an isolated island would they start having monogamous relationships just like modern humans or polygynous relationships like other mammals They could go either way. Humans are capable of both monogamous and polyamorous relationships. I don't think either system could be considered as part of \"human nature\" but rather the product of material conditions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8321.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"v9q0s0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Is homosexuality a cultural universal?","c_root_id_A":"ibzfpc1","c_root_id_B":"ibzf219","created_at_utc_A":1654962093,"created_at_utc_B":1654961797,"score_A":61,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Depends on your definition, but the behaviors you likely think of as homosexual can show up in in any and every human culture, and in the animal kingdom. BUT there are tons of cultures that deny this, due to their own definitions or biases, about how those behaviors relate to culturally sanctioned norms. I remember the Iranian president saying his country had no homosexuals. In, like, 2007. Zambian and Malaysian leaders have said the same. Chechen leader said it in 2017. Not sure why you are asking about it now, or what your cultural situation is, but if someone tells you \"there was no homosexuality in this culture\" it could be like my mom telling me when I was a child that girls don't fart. It's not exactly research-based commentary.","human_ref_B":"My question is how is homophobia even exists? There were homosexual acts between the emperors of almost all countries in the world in the past. Now, almost majority of the countries are somehow homophobic\u2026","labels":1,"seconds_difference":296.0,"score_ratio":15.25} {"post_id":"uaj840","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"People of Odessa, Ukraine, are ethnically ukranian, yet their mother language is Russian and not Ukranian. How can someone be part of an ethnolinguistic group but speak the language of another?","c_root_id_A":"i5yj5qr","c_root_id_B":"i5z2uum","created_at_utc_A":1650771106,"created_at_utc_B":1650783938,"score_A":30,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Think about someone from California, for example, a child of mexican imigrants, who speaks spanish at home, with the other kids from his block, and looks ar tv in english, and also learns english at school. He is bilingual, but mainily spanish speaking. Similar situation with Odessa in Ukraine. Language is one thing, the apartenence to a country is another. But, ever since the war started, people in Odessa no longer comunicate in russian, but in ukrainian - i know this information from a refugee who fled Odessa.","human_ref_B":"A good example is the Welsh. The population of the UK has been mingled for centuries. Since the 16th century speaking Welsh was very discouraged, and all official busines and law was explicitly English. There are many people who are Welsh, who don't speak Welsh. Following the various Welsh language acts 1942, 1967, 1993 ) giving the language equal status and teaching it in schools the number of speakers has significantly increased. I know quite a few people from former Soviet and Soviet satellite states. And the parallels of their Russification are extremely interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12832.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"uaj840","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"People of Odessa, Ukraine, are ethnically ukranian, yet their mother language is Russian and not Ukranian. How can someone be part of an ethnolinguistic group but speak the language of another?","c_root_id_A":"i5yujvt","c_root_id_B":"i5z2uum","created_at_utc_A":1650777860,"created_at_utc_B":1650783938,"score_A":20,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"Quite simply, language isn't the determinant of ethnicity. I mean ... that's extremely obvious from lots of examples. People with African ethnicity in America, but are Americans who speak English, aren't of English ethnicity. In fact Russia uses the language that people speak to try to argue that Ukraine is Russian, and this is wrong on its face.","human_ref_B":"A good example is the Welsh. The population of the UK has been mingled for centuries. Since the 16th century speaking Welsh was very discouraged, and all official busines and law was explicitly English. There are many people who are Welsh, who don't speak Welsh. Following the various Welsh language acts 1942, 1967, 1993 ) giving the language equal status and teaching it in schools the number of speakers has significantly increased. I know quite a few people from former Soviet and Soviet satellite states. And the parallels of their Russification are extremely interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6078.0,"score_ratio":2.1} {"post_id":"uaj840","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"People of Odessa, Ukraine, are ethnically ukranian, yet their mother language is Russian and not Ukranian. How can someone be part of an ethnolinguistic group but speak the language of another?","c_root_id_A":"i5zl0zy","c_root_id_B":"i605ml0","created_at_utc_A":1650798926,"created_at_utc_B":1650810566,"score_A":10,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"This is common across the world, there are ethic Punjabis in Pakistan who speak Urdu the National language not Punjabi their native mother tongue. There are ethic Tamils in Sri Lanka who speak Sinhalese the National language not Tamil. There are ethnic Chinese in Malaysia who speak Malay not any Chinese dialects. What is happening in Ukraine is the outcome of 200 years of Russification. Even 150 years ago Catherine the great a German origin leader of Russian empire banned Ukrainian language books. Then Stalin a Georgian acting like a super Russian villain killed off 5 Million native Ukrainian speakers and replaced them with Russian peasants in Donbas all part of Russification.","human_ref_B":"One nation = one language is a concept that some people have been pushing since the 1700s. It is a genocidal idea and has been used to eradicate languages and peoples. Especially for countries in the former Soviet Union, language, ethnicity, identity and nation is much more complex than that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11640.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"uaj840","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"People of Odessa, Ukraine, are ethnically ukranian, yet their mother language is Russian and not Ukranian. How can someone be part of an ethnolinguistic group but speak the language of another?","c_root_id_A":"i609n57","c_root_id_B":"i60zm0a","created_at_utc_A":1650812277,"created_at_utc_B":1650822968,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Because ethnicity is a social construct. People create their identities based on their surroundings. Ethnic identity is finely grained, and very different from plsce to place, region to region Speaking a particular language doesn't automatically mean you are that ethnic group. Nor does wearing particular clothes or eating certain foods. This question makes me think of anthropological\/archeological \"cultures\" used in the study of prehistory. These cultures aren't really a culture in the sense we think of them- they are artificial concepts used by scholars. They are tied to certain material artifacts- types of tools, styles of pottery, burial practices, etc. In the early 20th century, scholars thought spreading of these cultures meant the spreading of entire peoples along with them (hence the misnomer \"culture\"). However, the advent of DNA studies has shown that the spread pottery styles, or the like, does not automatically mean one group or people replaced another. DNA studies have shown that material cultures can spread without a change in the genetic makeup of the people. To give a simple modern analogy: watching anime does not mean you are Japanese or identify as Japanese.","human_ref_B":"You don't even need an anthropologist to answer this... There are \\~493 million native speakers of Spanish in the world. Around 47 million define their ethnicity as Spanish. Similar situation with English, French and many non-Western languages. How is this possible? Obviously ethnicity and native language can be independent of each other. It's just a form of Russian imperialism to pretend that native speakers of Russian in other countries must be ethnic Russians.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10691.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"a4huhj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Could the ancient Greeks have deciphered modern English? Let's say you were able to time travel, and you send Athens in 500bc books filled with English stories and poems with pictures. How much, if any, English do you think could be deciphered by them?","c_root_id_A":"ebevl5j","c_root_id_B":"ebf1ut2","created_at_utc_A":1544340035,"created_at_utc_B":1544347251,"score_A":8,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Although I don't have a very extensive knowledge of linguistics, it's important to know that language also depends upon particular cultural understandings beyond the grammatical structure. Eduardo Kohn does a decent explanation of this in his *How Forests Think* when he explains that really understanding what exactly a greeting literally translated as \"Are you still alive?\" means. Without knowing any native modern English speakers, would an Athenian understand what we are talking about when we say things like \"How is it going?\", \"Dude\", \"Woke\", or the other numerous idiomatic expressions we use everyday. While classicists have some pretty decent knowledge about Latin and Greek language, we also have the benefit of knowing a good amount of their historical lives. Folks in 500 BC would lack that kind of extra knowledge about us.","human_ref_B":"Without some way to decipher the alphabet no, i.e. if they just had a copy of Harry potter or something there would be no way to interpret it beyond maybe figuring out if something is a noun, verb, infinitive etc... They'd need some version of the Rosetta stone which is the only reason we can make any sense of hieroglyphics afaik.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7216.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"405o0e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What would Africa look like if one were to draw new borders that take the different ethnic groups and geography into consideration? I've often heard that colonists drew borders without any real thought about the different populations, without taking into account the different cultures, languages, who may or may not get along, etc. I'm curious as to what Africa would look like if all this information was factored in when drawing its borders.","c_root_id_A":"cys013l","c_root_id_B":"czcxdq7","created_at_utc_A":1452365020,"created_at_utc_B":1453838655,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest reading a book about the history of Africa. There are a lot to choose from, and it would take you through the pre-colonial era, when boundaries were organic and guided by cultural differences, resource availability, and geography up through the post-colonial period, where colonies gained their independence and have attempted to reverse some of the arbitrariness of the colonial period.","human_ref_B":"Here's an attempt at it before","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1473635.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"405o0e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What would Africa look like if one were to draw new borders that take the different ethnic groups and geography into consideration? I've often heard that colonists drew borders without any real thought about the different populations, without taking into account the different cultures, languages, who may or may not get along, etc. I'm curious as to what Africa would look like if all this information was factored in when drawing its borders.","c_root_id_A":"czcxdq7","c_root_id_B":"cys7oa5","created_at_utc_A":1453838655,"created_at_utc_B":1452377979,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Here's an attempt at it before","human_ref_B":"Several others here already addressed the utter complexity and diversity of both linguistic and ethnic groups in Africa, but looking to the other half of your question, the \"natural\" borders that exist on the African continent, such as lakes, rivers and mountains, might make such a theoretical map simpler. Here's a map of Africa's major bodies of water: http:\/\/www.enchantedlearning.com\/africa\/rivers\/outlinemaplabeled\/ And here's one that gives and idea of land barriers that could act as borders: http:\/\/www.zonu.com\/fullsize-en\/2009-11-06-10896\/Topographic-map-of-Africa-2008.html Hope that helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1460676.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"3uvmif","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Would two different species of Homo meeting for the first time have wondered \"Who are you?' or \"What are you?\". I have been watching the PBS series \"First Peoples\" which speculates that different early homo types (sapiens, neanderthal,erectus,denisovans etc) probably mated interspecies. I'm curious if they would likely have realized that some stranger was another species, or would they have just thought of them as a slightly odd version of themselves? Or if a Neanderthal walked in a room today, would all the Sapiens think \"I wonder who that is?\", or would they think \"I wonder what that is?\"","c_root_id_A":"cxistmj","c_root_id_B":"cxikph1","created_at_utc_A":1448945096,"created_at_utc_B":1448931817,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"While we know the brain size and lifestyles of early homo types, there is no knowledge about the way that they thought, other than through artifactual evidence from which we can make assumptions. However, there is a LOT of speculation and controversy among the naming of different types of \"homos.\" Many explorers and archeologists simply named new finds as a different species so that their name and dig would be remembered. Yes, there has been a documented difference in skull size, jaw shape, brain capacity, etc. between the skeletal remains found, but the sample size with many species of homo is so small that it's unclear if there really was a difference so significant that it constituted the naming of a different species, or if it was just an issue of human variability.","human_ref_B":"Neantherdal looked really similar to humans. If one walked into a room I don't think they would stand out that much(maybe strike people as a slightly odd Looking masculine person). I'd say it's even possible that some homo sapiens that bred with neantherdal probably didn't think they were much different to themselves.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13279.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"3uvmif","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Would two different species of Homo meeting for the first time have wondered \"Who are you?' or \"What are you?\". I have been watching the PBS series \"First Peoples\" which speculates that different early homo types (sapiens, neanderthal,erectus,denisovans etc) probably mated interspecies. I'm curious if they would likely have realized that some stranger was another species, or would they have just thought of them as a slightly odd version of themselves? Or if a Neanderthal walked in a room today, would all the Sapiens think \"I wonder who that is?\", or would they think \"I wonder what that is?\"","c_root_id_A":"cxistmj","c_root_id_B":"cxijcz9","created_at_utc_A":1448945096,"created_at_utc_B":1448929529,"score_A":12,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"While we know the brain size and lifestyles of early homo types, there is no knowledge about the way that they thought, other than through artifactual evidence from which we can make assumptions. However, there is a LOT of speculation and controversy among the naming of different types of \"homos.\" Many explorers and archeologists simply named new finds as a different species so that their name and dig would be remembered. Yes, there has been a documented difference in skull size, jaw shape, brain capacity, etc. between the skeletal remains found, but the sample size with many species of homo is so small that it's unclear if there really was a difference so significant that it constituted the naming of a different species, or if it was just an issue of human variability.","human_ref_B":"I've read and would like someone more knowledgable to confirm or not that early European explorers in Papua and Australia did not think the natives were fully human","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15567.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"3uvmif","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Would two different species of Homo meeting for the first time have wondered \"Who are you?' or \"What are you?\". I have been watching the PBS series \"First Peoples\" which speculates that different early homo types (sapiens, neanderthal,erectus,denisovans etc) probably mated interspecies. I'm curious if they would likely have realized that some stranger was another species, or would they have just thought of them as a slightly odd version of themselves? Or if a Neanderthal walked in a room today, would all the Sapiens think \"I wonder who that is?\", or would they think \"I wonder what that is?\"","c_root_id_A":"cxijcz9","c_root_id_B":"cxikph1","created_at_utc_A":1448929529,"created_at_utc_B":1448931817,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I've read and would like someone more knowledgable to confirm or not that early European explorers in Papua and Australia did not think the natives were fully human","human_ref_B":"Neantherdal looked really similar to humans. If one walked into a room I don't think they would stand out that much(maybe strike people as a slightly odd Looking masculine person). I'd say it's even possible that some homo sapiens that bred with neantherdal probably didn't think they were much different to themselves.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2288.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"1z1fao","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Which anthropologists (and related fields) do you wish you could write like? Grad school is so often an introduction to wonderful theory written horribly. It is easy to get trapped in the jargon and opacity of academia but there are a few writers that stand out as clear, engaging, and interesting in their writing styles. So who do you wish you could write like? Who can convey complex ideas beautifully and accurately?","c_root_id_A":"cfq1tzv","c_root_id_B":"cfq2exx","created_at_utc_A":1393510774,"created_at_utc_B":1393512496,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Loren Eiseley","human_ref_B":"Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome from having read so much of his stuff during my PhD, but I quite enjoy Andy Dugmore's works. My favourite paper of all time (yes I have a favourite) is this one he wrote with one of his students: http:\/\/www.research.ed.ac.uk\/portal\/en\/publications\/perception-history-and-science-coherence-or-disparity-in-the-timing-of-the-little-ice-age-maximum-in-southeast-iceland(a3f4fec9-c74f-441a-a1e6-99ee219fb151).html He combines the scientific side of archaeology (chronology studies) with the anthropological side better than anyone else I can think of -- in that paper they use tephrochronology and ethnography to talk about the movements of a glacier.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1722.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hpmq6m6","c_root_id_B":"hplnvnz","created_at_utc_A":1640222845,"created_at_utc_B":1640205893,"score_A":108,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"Not an answer to your question but it sounds like your concern isn\u2019t really about the historic meaning of the symbol\u2014it\u2019s about your nephew being radicalized. I also think that even if you could find some solid proof of the symbol being positive and predating Nazis, wearing it in public might make people assume he\u2019s a neo-Nazi. It sounds like really you need to have a talk with him about what the symbol means to him, how it relates to his other interests, how he learned about it, and why he wants a necklace of that symbol specifically. Try to listen and not make assumptions, as a lot of this stuff can be pretty insidious and you reacting with anger or fear may just drive him deeper into whatever online spaces are pushing these ideas.","human_ref_B":"Here's a good write up on the history of the symbol, including academic sources, archeological finds and a rough timeline for when it was used. Short version: the Kolovrat, as a modification of the swastika does have some evidence of use going back into ancient & medieval times. But there's little reason to believe it is a universal Slavic symbol, or that it was particular to Slavic Pagans.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16952.0,"score_ratio":2.4545454545} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hplwhww","c_root_id_B":"hpmq6m6","created_at_utc_A":1640209427,"created_at_utc_B":1640222845,"score_A":27,"score_B":108,"human_ref_A":"Yes, it's a Slavic symbol. There's arguments over how ancient and how specifically Slavic it is, but long story short, it *is* a Slavic symbol. It's also apparently been co-opted by some neo-Nazis in Estonia over the last few decades, which is par for the course for them since they steal symbols and logos from mythologies all time. This has in turn led to some controversy, as Slavic neo-pagans and related new age groups who genuinely appreciate Slavic culture protested against this logo becoming a hate symbol since it existed for centuries before the Nazis stole it. Here's an example of an online group protesting against neo-Nazis co-opting this sign: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/freethekolovrat\/","human_ref_B":"Not an answer to your question but it sounds like your concern isn\u2019t really about the historic meaning of the symbol\u2014it\u2019s about your nephew being radicalized. I also think that even if you could find some solid proof of the symbol being positive and predating Nazis, wearing it in public might make people assume he\u2019s a neo-Nazi. It sounds like really you need to have a talk with him about what the symbol means to him, how it relates to his other interests, how he learned about it, and why he wants a necklace of that symbol specifically. Try to listen and not make assumptions, as a lot of this stuff can be pretty insidious and you reacting with anger or fear may just drive him deeper into whatever online spaces are pushing these ideas.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13418.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hpmq6m6","c_root_id_B":"hplhwyx","created_at_utc_A":1640222845,"created_at_utc_B":1640203478,"score_A":108,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Not an answer to your question but it sounds like your concern isn\u2019t really about the historic meaning of the symbol\u2014it\u2019s about your nephew being radicalized. I also think that even if you could find some solid proof of the symbol being positive and predating Nazis, wearing it in public might make people assume he\u2019s a neo-Nazi. It sounds like really you need to have a talk with him about what the symbol means to him, how it relates to his other interests, how he learned about it, and why he wants a necklace of that symbol specifically. Try to listen and not make assumptions, as a lot of this stuff can be pretty insidious and you reacting with anger or fear may just drive him deeper into whatever online spaces are pushing these ideas.","human_ref_B":"If you're referring to the swastika, it does have a long history of use in Slavic countries that has nothing to do with Nazism. Here's a banknote from the Russian Provisional Government that lasted for eight months in 1917 (before the Bolshevik takeover) upon which one can clearly see a swastika (under the eagle). The symbol was also shown on promissory notes issued by the nascent Soviet government for a few years. This is before the Nazis adopted it in 1920. So yes, there's a history of it being used as a symbol of Slavic culture, or at least a symbol that is meant to resonate with people. It's widely known that the symbol goes back thousands of years, and is still widely used in many places that don't associate it with Nazism (in Asia the swastika can be seen on temples belonging to many religions). However, that doesn't mean your nephew isn't being radicalized. He could want to wear it as a signal to other neo-nazis but have an excuse to cover himself, or he could just be deluding himself into thinking wearing a swastika openly really has no meaning to people. Either way, I would try to talk him out of it by explaining that even if he wants to reclaim the symbol, everyone else will think he's wearing it because he wants to murder people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19367.0,"score_ratio":15.4285714286} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hplhwyx","c_root_id_B":"hplnvnz","created_at_utc_A":1640203478,"created_at_utc_B":1640205893,"score_A":7,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"If you're referring to the swastika, it does have a long history of use in Slavic countries that has nothing to do with Nazism. Here's a banknote from the Russian Provisional Government that lasted for eight months in 1917 (before the Bolshevik takeover) upon which one can clearly see a swastika (under the eagle). The symbol was also shown on promissory notes issued by the nascent Soviet government for a few years. This is before the Nazis adopted it in 1920. So yes, there's a history of it being used as a symbol of Slavic culture, or at least a symbol that is meant to resonate with people. It's widely known that the symbol goes back thousands of years, and is still widely used in many places that don't associate it with Nazism (in Asia the swastika can be seen on temples belonging to many religions). However, that doesn't mean your nephew isn't being radicalized. He could want to wear it as a signal to other neo-nazis but have an excuse to cover himself, or he could just be deluding himself into thinking wearing a swastika openly really has no meaning to people. Either way, I would try to talk him out of it by explaining that even if he wants to reclaim the symbol, everyone else will think he's wearing it because he wants to murder people.","human_ref_B":"Here's a good write up on the history of the symbol, including academic sources, archeological finds and a rough timeline for when it was used. Short version: the Kolovrat, as a modification of the swastika does have some evidence of use going back into ancient & medieval times. But there's little reason to believe it is a universal Slavic symbol, or that it was particular to Slavic Pagans.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2415.0,"score_ratio":6.2857142857} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hplwhww","c_root_id_B":"hplhwyx","created_at_utc_A":1640209427,"created_at_utc_B":1640203478,"score_A":27,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Yes, it's a Slavic symbol. There's arguments over how ancient and how specifically Slavic it is, but long story short, it *is* a Slavic symbol. It's also apparently been co-opted by some neo-Nazis in Estonia over the last few decades, which is par for the course for them since they steal symbols and logos from mythologies all time. This has in turn led to some controversy, as Slavic neo-pagans and related new age groups who genuinely appreciate Slavic culture protested against this logo becoming a hate symbol since it existed for centuries before the Nazis stole it. Here's an example of an online group protesting against neo-Nazis co-opting this sign: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/freethekolovrat\/","human_ref_B":"If you're referring to the swastika, it does have a long history of use in Slavic countries that has nothing to do with Nazism. Here's a banknote from the Russian Provisional Government that lasted for eight months in 1917 (before the Bolshevik takeover) upon which one can clearly see a swastika (under the eagle). The symbol was also shown on promissory notes issued by the nascent Soviet government for a few years. This is before the Nazis adopted it in 1920. So yes, there's a history of it being used as a symbol of Slavic culture, or at least a symbol that is meant to resonate with people. It's widely known that the symbol goes back thousands of years, and is still widely used in many places that don't associate it with Nazism (in Asia the swastika can be seen on temples belonging to many religions). However, that doesn't mean your nephew isn't being radicalized. He could want to wear it as a signal to other neo-nazis but have an excuse to cover himself, or he could just be deluding himself into thinking wearing a swastika openly really has no meaning to people. Either way, I would try to talk him out of it by explaining that even if he wants to reclaim the symbol, everyone else will think he's wearing it because he wants to murder people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5949.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"rmcobh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is the Kolovrat really an ancient pagan Slavic symbol? My nephew is into pagan and Nordic history\/mythology. He asked his grandma for a Kolovrat necklace for Christmas and insists it\u2019s a historical thing, not a neo-nazi thing. However, the only associations I know of are racist. This extremism website says there\u2019s no evidence the Kolovrat is ancient: https:\/\/reportingradicalism.org\/en\/hate-symbols\/movements\/modern-racist-symbols\/kolovrat Thanks for your help. I\u2019m just scared my nephew is getting radicalized into white nationalism right under my nose.","c_root_id_A":"hpnph21","c_root_id_B":"hplhwyx","created_at_utc_A":1640244633,"created_at_utc_B":1640203478,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Are your family slavic? Is your nephew a practicing slavic pagan? Does his group have a website or public presence so you can check for their politics, and the dog whistles and couched language the right wing use. The Kolovrat may be a cool ancient symbol, but like the black sun, swastika, and half the runic alphabet it's been tainted by its use by Nazis. Like with the Swastika, the only people I'd accept wearing one would be Hindus and Buddhists whose traditions its part of. And even then I would hope the understood that wearing one could be offensive.","human_ref_B":"If you're referring to the swastika, it does have a long history of use in Slavic countries that has nothing to do with Nazism. Here's a banknote from the Russian Provisional Government that lasted for eight months in 1917 (before the Bolshevik takeover) upon which one can clearly see a swastika (under the eagle). The symbol was also shown on promissory notes issued by the nascent Soviet government for a few years. This is before the Nazis adopted it in 1920. So yes, there's a history of it being used as a symbol of Slavic culture, or at least a symbol that is meant to resonate with people. It's widely known that the symbol goes back thousands of years, and is still widely used in many places that don't associate it with Nazism (in Asia the swastika can be seen on temples belonging to many religions). However, that doesn't mean your nephew isn't being radicalized. He could want to wear it as a signal to other neo-nazis but have an excuse to cover himself, or he could just be deluding himself into thinking wearing a swastika openly really has no meaning to people. Either way, I would try to talk him out of it by explaining that even if he wants to reclaim the symbol, everyone else will think he's wearing it because he wants to murder people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41155.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fixi2s1","c_root_id_B":"fixh0k3","created_at_utc_A":1582820771,"created_at_utc_B":1582820244,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I really like *Cultural Anthropology; Global Forces, Local Lives* by Jack David Eller. It is very well presented with helpful illustrations, maps and graphs when relevant.","human_ref_B":"I second Moberg^^ I believe it was my main book the anthropological theories and it was rather informative","labels":1,"seconds_difference":527.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fiyc6zr","c_root_id_B":"fiyqk9k","created_at_utc_A":1582836608,"created_at_utc_B":1582844728,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In Search of Respect by Philippe Bourgois. Read this in my first Anthropology class and it blew my mind. Engages with really big topics such as race, gender, crime, and societal structures whilst using totally accessible language and being an extremely gripping read.","human_ref_B":"'Small Places, Large Issues' from Thomas Hylland Eriksen has a really nice approach to anthropological theory. Enjoy!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8120.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fiytvb2","c_root_id_B":"fiyc6zr","created_at_utc_A":1582846831,"created_at_utc_B":1582836608,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"History and theory in anthropology by Alan Barnard Anthropology In Theory: Issues in Epistemology by Henrietta L Moore and Todd Sanders The one by Barnard is a lot easier to read in my opinion, as it\u2019s primarily Barnard summarizing anthropological theories. Where the Moore and Sanders book is filled with excerpts pulled directly from the text, which is hard to understand without context and a very solid understanding of social theory in general.","human_ref_B":"In Search of Respect by Philippe Bourgois. Read this in my first Anthropology class and it blew my mind. Engages with really big topics such as race, gender, crime, and societal structures whilst using totally accessible language and being an extremely gripping read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10223.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fiyc6zr","c_root_id_B":"fj0hokk","created_at_utc_A":1582836608,"created_at_utc_B":1582900209,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In Search of Respect by Philippe Bourgois. Read this in my first Anthropology class and it blew my mind. Engages with really big topics such as race, gender, crime, and societal structures whilst using totally accessible language and being an extremely gripping read.","human_ref_B":"McGee and Warms' Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History -- it is a reader and each reading has a lot of contextual info in the form of prefaces, footnotes, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":63601.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fiyqk9k","c_root_id_B":"fixuitt","created_at_utc_A":1582844728,"created_at_utc_B":1582826922,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"'Small Places, Large Issues' from Thomas Hylland Eriksen has a really nice approach to anthropological theory. Enjoy!","human_ref_B":"One that I\u2019m currently using in my theory course is \u201cSchools and Styles of Anthropological Theory\u201d edited by Matei Candea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17806.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fiytvb2","c_root_id_B":"fixuitt","created_at_utc_A":1582846831,"created_at_utc_B":1582826922,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"History and theory in anthropology by Alan Barnard Anthropology In Theory: Issues in Epistemology by Henrietta L Moore and Todd Sanders The one by Barnard is a lot easier to read in my opinion, as it\u2019s primarily Barnard summarizing anthropological theories. Where the Moore and Sanders book is filled with excerpts pulled directly from the text, which is hard to understand without context and a very solid understanding of social theory in general.","human_ref_B":"One that I\u2019m currently using in my theory course is \u201cSchools and Styles of Anthropological Theory\u201d edited by Matei Candea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19909.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fixuitt","c_root_id_B":"fj0hokk","created_at_utc_A":1582826922,"created_at_utc_B":1582900209,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"One that I\u2019m currently using in my theory course is \u201cSchools and Styles of Anthropological Theory\u201d edited by Matei Candea","human_ref_B":"McGee and Warms' Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History -- it is a reader and each reading has a lot of contextual info in the form of prefaces, footnotes, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":73287.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"facs4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What good book do you recommend to get a sense of most of the main theories about anthropology ?","c_root_id_A":"fj0hokk","c_root_id_B":"fiz3h1i","created_at_utc_A":1582900209,"created_at_utc_B":1582853256,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"McGee and Warms' Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History -- it is a reader and each reading has a lot of contextual info in the form of prefaces, footnotes, etc.","human_ref_B":"Alan Barnard has a couple books one focusing on European theory and another on North American. Nothing too in depth but enough to historically make sense of the field","labels":1,"seconds_difference":46953.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ast8ic","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How do contemporary anthropologists think about Frazer and Malinowski (if they think about them at all)? So, just to be clear, I am talking about J. G. Frazer (1854-1941) of The Golden Bough fame and B. K. Malinowski (1884 - 1942) of Argonauts of the Western Pacific fame. I understand there will have been many influences since they were writing, especially things like Marxism and Postmodernism, I guess, but are they still thought about at all?","c_root_id_A":"egwsh1n","c_root_id_B":"egx37u4","created_at_utc_A":1550701125,"created_at_utc_B":1550708993,"score_A":7,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Malinowski was definitely considered important in a contemporary theory class that I took not long ago. We discussed Fraser also, but Malinowski was focused on a bit more. In particular, he was considered a functionalist. I'd love to say more about the topic, but since earning my degree I have read little and worked much in the service industry. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to know about beer instead.","human_ref_B":"Both anthropologists need to be seen in what they did at the time. The Golden Bough created a systematic compilation on mythology and religion; while that's not the work of a modern anthropology (anthropology MUST have field work) it greatly influenced and brought attention to anthropology. Besides Argonauts being a seminal work in anthropology, i think this thread forgotten something perhaps also as valuable to this field: \"A diary in the strict sense of the term\". Until that point anthropology was a objective science and was not really judged how knowledge was build. But then appeared the intimate diary of the big kahuna of antropology, being a depressed mess, hating his work, drinking and having sex, and many times being a bit of an asshole. After that point anthropology realized anthropologist were inescapably human. Our subjectivity is always there when we do fieldwork. Our perceptions and feelings permeates all we do. I think the controversial impact of this diary was huge on how the discipline is conceived today, and how we see the others. We are no longer this distant people with inmaculate cloths on a foreign land, we are as subjective as the people we work with.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7868.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"djxge4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"There is a name for a condition\/syndrome\/disease that some authors have assigned to the modern way of life and thinking. I can't recall it and am trying to remember it. I do remember that the concept is thought of as being originally described by Native Americans when Westerners came to their lands. That it involves greed, consumerism and individualistic ways of thinking. Reading this article recently reminded me of the concept. It's on an interview with the author of \"Sand Talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world.\" (by Tyson Yunkaporta) https:\/\/www.afr.com\/life-and-luxury\/arts-and-culture\/how-indigenous-thinking-can-save-the-world-20190804-p52dq5?&utm\\_source=facebook&utm\\_medium=social&utm\\_campaign=nc&eid=socialn:fac-14omn0053-optim-nnn:nonpaid-25\/06\/2014-social\\_traffic-all-organicpost-nnn-afr-o&campaign\\_code=nocode&promote\\_channel=social\\_facebook&fbclid=IwAR30AcO3ObYdprDFEZ3Z4cFSbZRUrzo2SjgWdf4FK9ATet96e7eI8bOruvE ​ Anyone have any idea what the name of it is? Or have I dreamed it all up somehow?","c_root_id_A":"f494co9","c_root_id_B":"f49neos","created_at_utc_A":1571456577,"created_at_utc_B":1571475355,"score_A":12,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Sounds like Wendingo from The Manitous.","human_ref_B":"Are you thinking of the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi? The prefix koyaanis\u2013 means \"corrupted\" or \"chaotic\", and the word qatsi means \"life\" or \"existence\". The word was popularised by the 1982 film of the same name and gets translated as \"life of moral corruption and turmoil\" or \"life out of balance\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18778.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"djxge4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"There is a name for a condition\/syndrome\/disease that some authors have assigned to the modern way of life and thinking. I can't recall it and am trying to remember it. I do remember that the concept is thought of as being originally described by Native Americans when Westerners came to their lands. That it involves greed, consumerism and individualistic ways of thinking. Reading this article recently reminded me of the concept. It's on an interview with the author of \"Sand Talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world.\" (by Tyson Yunkaporta) https:\/\/www.afr.com\/life-and-luxury\/arts-and-culture\/how-indigenous-thinking-can-save-the-world-20190804-p52dq5?&utm\\_source=facebook&utm\\_medium=social&utm\\_campaign=nc&eid=socialn:fac-14omn0053-optim-nnn:nonpaid-25\/06\/2014-social\\_traffic-all-organicpost-nnn-afr-o&campaign\\_code=nocode&promote\\_channel=social\\_facebook&fbclid=IwAR30AcO3ObYdprDFEZ3Z4cFSbZRUrzo2SjgWdf4FK9ATet96e7eI8bOruvE ​ Anyone have any idea what the name of it is? Or have I dreamed it all up somehow?","c_root_id_A":"f493xax","c_root_id_B":"f49neos","created_at_utc_A":1571456298,"created_at_utc_B":1571475355,"score_A":10,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Looks like an interesting article. Unfortunately it's paywalled.","human_ref_B":"Are you thinking of the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi? The prefix koyaanis\u2013 means \"corrupted\" or \"chaotic\", and the word qatsi means \"life\" or \"existence\". The word was popularised by the 1982 film of the same name and gets translated as \"life of moral corruption and turmoil\" or \"life out of balance\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19057.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"djxge4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"There is a name for a condition\/syndrome\/disease that some authors have assigned to the modern way of life and thinking. I can't recall it and am trying to remember it. I do remember that the concept is thought of as being originally described by Native Americans when Westerners came to their lands. That it involves greed, consumerism and individualistic ways of thinking. Reading this article recently reminded me of the concept. It's on an interview with the author of \"Sand Talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world.\" (by Tyson Yunkaporta) https:\/\/www.afr.com\/life-and-luxury\/arts-and-culture\/how-indigenous-thinking-can-save-the-world-20190804-p52dq5?&utm\\_source=facebook&utm\\_medium=social&utm\\_campaign=nc&eid=socialn:fac-14omn0053-optim-nnn:nonpaid-25\/06\/2014-social\\_traffic-all-organicpost-nnn-afr-o&campaign\\_code=nocode&promote\\_channel=social\\_facebook&fbclid=IwAR30AcO3ObYdprDFEZ3Z4cFSbZRUrzo2SjgWdf4FK9ATet96e7eI8bOruvE ​ Anyone have any idea what the name of it is? Or have I dreamed it all up somehow?","c_root_id_A":"f494co9","c_root_id_B":"f493xax","created_at_utc_A":1571456577,"created_at_utc_B":1571456298,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Sounds like Wendingo from The Manitous.","human_ref_B":"Looks like an interesting article. Unfortunately it's paywalled.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":279.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"kfy42k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Can anybody recommend any books or articles relating to the domestication of wolves and the practice of artificial selection that led to their becoming dogs? I\u2019ve been fascinated by this subject lately and would like to do some more in-depth reading.","c_root_id_A":"ggd6wj3","c_root_id_B":"ggca1qt","created_at_utc_A":1608391637,"created_at_utc_B":1608362993,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Invaders by Pat Shipman is interesting -it\u2019s a theory on how humans and their wolf-dogs drove Neanderthals into extinction. Might not be exactly what you\u2019re looking for, but interesting nonetheless. The Invaders","human_ref_B":"@paco on twitter is a Spanish anthropologist with loads of info. I suggest looking him up","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28644.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"4zsn4u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Have humans domesticated animal species and then gave up on it\/somehow 'lost' them later? For that matter plant species?","c_root_id_A":"d6ynjjy","c_root_id_B":"d6z5qr9","created_at_utc_A":1472291962,"created_at_utc_B":1472328832,"score_A":12,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"This is in regard to tools \/ technology not animals \/ plants but is still pretty interesting. Kevin Kelly made this claim on NPR \"I say there is no species of technology that have ever gone globally extinct on this planet.\" NPRs Robert Kulrich called upon his readers to prove Kelly wrong. Readers tried their best but ultimately it seems Kelly was proven right.","human_ref_B":"It's not a species, but there used to be a breed of dog used to turn spits by running in a wheel in medieval kitchens. No known specimens exist today.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36870.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"9hvuco","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What do paleoethnobotanists mean when they say that wild plants were being modified long before domestication or 'proper agriculture'? Whats the difference between the two and why does this matter?","c_root_id_A":"e6eyl7s","c_root_id_B":"e6ezeiu","created_at_utc_A":1537581369,"created_at_utc_B":1537582271,"score_A":2,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a good question but can you be more specific? Which paleoethnobotanist(s)? Where did they say this?","human_ref_B":"People were gathering and consuming wild plants long before agriculture. These wild plants typically looked very different than their domestic relatives we know today. Over time, people selected (both consciously and unconsciously) plants with bigger seeds\/fruits, fewer thorns, etc. In the case of the development of agriculture in the Middle East, this selection process happened in tandem (in most cases) with increasing sedentism, which is when a group stays in one place instead of traveling with the seasons. This led to what we think of as \"proper agriculture.\" ​ Source: am a paleoethnobotanist. See also: Bruce Smith 2001 \"Low Level Food Production\" in the Journal of Archaeological Research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":902.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"p7xou2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is there any evidence for the concept of \"shaman sickness\" in indigenous societies? There's a popular idea on the internet that in pre-industrial societies, novice shamans who resisted their calling would be tormented by mental or physical illness until they surrendered to destiny. This illness is known as \"shaman sickness\" or \"shaman illness\". I've heard of this concept many times, but never heard the name of the specific culture it originated from, or the researcher who documented it, which makes me suspicious. Is there any evidence for this idea outside of the internet?","c_root_id_A":"h9nj3lt","c_root_id_B":"h9nolnl","created_at_utc_A":1629462079,"created_at_utc_B":1629464913,"score_A":19,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"This resonated with me a lot, thank you. Maybe the phenomenon is a struggle for identity. I became a mental health counselor after my Mom died. The experience broke me open emotionally and spiritually, and I'm way more at peace with myself. Call it shaman sickness or the anxiety and depression one feels from ignoring their intuitive core values, I dunno. Seems like I went through the Western version of this process.","human_ref_B":"The concept of sinbyeong is common in Korean shamanism. It is very real. Shamans are either hereditary or selected following a psychological affliction known as sinbyeong, which can be loosely translated as divine sickness. I've met shamans who were selected this way. It sounds like a form of epilepsy that induces visions and auras. Edit: You might enjoy this article written by mental health professional about the traditional function of shamanism on a Korean island. http:\/\/m.jejuweekly.com\/news\/articleView.html?idxno=2196","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2834.0,"score_ratio":3.1052631579} {"post_id":"qrqgei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How accurate are the claims in The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere? I was intrigued by this book when it came out, and was thinking of reading it. It claims that humans have been living in the Americas for 100,000 years. I found it odd, however, that it was published July 2021 and that as of November there don't seem to be any reviews of it. The publisher's webpage for it doesn't link any. Google and JSTOR turn up nothing. The book vendor Ingram is usually very thorough about citing academic reviews of the stuff they sell - and there's nothing there, either. So, answerers of AskAnthropology: how accurate is this book? If you could point me in the direction of a review, I'd be most grateful; if you would share your expertise here, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hkf9tm0","c_root_id_B":"hkac5yr","created_at_utc_A":1636779204,"created_at_utc_B":1636686432,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have a lot of issues with the way Steeves constructs the relationship between archaeological and indigenous knowledge, at least in her published articles. What I've been able to read of the book demonstrates the same problems. As a white archaeologist, I can only speak with authority on the archaeological knowledge side of things. So, I suggest you read this post first. This quote from the writer summarizes it well: > contradictions that result from differing details related through stories are often reconciled simply by letting them be. For Indigenous peoples, trying to choose a narrative as being \"true\" or \"correct\" over another isn't necessarily an issue - nor is it considered the \"right\" thing to do. They are seen as mutually existing and overlapping where they do, but parting where they may. The origins of humans in the Americas are one such story. You'll find that indigenous groups and archaeologists agree on one thing: humans have been here a very, very long time. So long, in fact, that conceptualizing indigenous Americans as having \"arrived\" to the continents is not helpful unless the question is specifically about those early migrations. For all the intents and purposes of 99.99% of social scientists, indigenous Americans have always been here. Issues arise when people attempt to classify \"very, very long time.\" Archaeological knowledge relies on material evidence, which is used to give the all-important Number of Years Ago when humans first settled in a region. That number can be at odds with indigenous understandings of the past, which derive from a different epistemology and make very different types of claims Steeves presents a simple solution: latent bias and anti-Indigenous sentiment have prevented archaeologists from recognizing archaeological sites of great antiquity in the Americas. Does that sound like a contradiction of the above point? To me, at least, it does. Steeves excels as a historian of American archaeology and as an advocate for indigenous perspectives in academia. Thus, the first half of the book (what I've been able to read of it) is quite good, even if it doesn't break new ground. And then she gets into the archaeology of it all... and things fall apart. For one, it presents very little new material. If you have kept up at all with American archaeology, you will have seen the sites she discusses before. And if you have not yet been convinced that the Cerrutti Mastodon site is anthropogenic, Steeves won't be the one to do it. Numbers beyond 80kya aren't usually rejected because of anything particular to American archaeology, but because they precede the emigration of modern human lineages from Africa. Steeves presents sites like Pedra Furada, excavated by Niede \"occupation-of-the-Americas-could-go-back-100,000-years-and-the-first-settlers-'might-have-come-not-overland-from-Asia-but-by-boat-from-Africa\" Guidon, are presented as certain fact. It's indiscriminate and uncritical. At the same time, the parts I've read do not engage well with current discussions of human presence in the Americas. Clovis-first is quite decidedly dead for all but the most stubborn defenders, and has been for at least two decades. Discussing refusal to acknowledge pre-Clovis sites as a contemporary issue, rather than in a historical overview, feels inappropriate in 2021. The introductory preview for the book attacks the word \"Caucausoid\" as if any American archaeologist has said that word in the current century. It's difficult to look at Steeves's critiques and then look at the response (in my circles at least) to the footprints found recently in New Mexico and feel like it's the same group of people. It's not clear at many points if she's critiquing archaeologists, how archaeology gets taught, or popular archaeology. Much of what I can about this book I have said in more detail regarding *Lies My Teacher Told Me* by James Loewen. Both books feel preoccupied with the way some Truth or Real History has been erased by American nationalism\/imperialism. Both books are also outrageously indiscriminate with the evidence they use to support alternate narratives. Having (correctly) established that bias can pervade academic inquiry, they proceed to treat every single dismissal of \"inconvenient\" findings as purely ideological. Steeves offers an important and necessary critique. American anthropologists have historically overlooked, discredited, ignored, and actively attacked indigenous perspectives. They continue to do so. Yet Steeves seems to believe that there is a single Truth about human origins in the Americas and that archaeological and indigenous knowledges must be reconciled to discover it. This is rather inconsistent with the approaches outlined by those quoted\/cited in the first link I provided. Different forms of knowledge *will* contradict each other, and it's more productive to let them be and learn from the overlap. It's almost as if she is looking to the archaeological record to find material evidence to \"prove\" oral histories, even though those histories are not meant to be \"proven.\" **TL;DR** The archaeology in the book is bad. Steeves's portrayal of indigenous knowledge, in that it must temper archaeology so that it may more close resemble some Absolute Truth, is not in line with the way other indigenous scholars have addressed the (non-)issue of competing knowledge claims.","human_ref_B":"So, I went and found her database. It basically contains all *claimed* sites of pre-Clovis occupation, regardless of how controversial the claim is. Her citations are disappointing too, as many of these (especially the controversial ones) have had a lot written about them but most entries have only a single citation, and only the authors and year at that. Having not read the book, all I can say is that the oldest widely-accepted concrete evidence of human occupation comes from this 23 kya site in New Mexico that was published this year.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":92772.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"qrqgei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How accurate are the claims in The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere? I was intrigued by this book when it came out, and was thinking of reading it. It claims that humans have been living in the Americas for 100,000 years. I found it odd, however, that it was published July 2021 and that as of November there don't seem to be any reviews of it. The publisher's webpage for it doesn't link any. Google and JSTOR turn up nothing. The book vendor Ingram is usually very thorough about citing academic reviews of the stuff they sell - and there's nothing there, either. So, answerers of AskAnthropology: how accurate is this book? If you could point me in the direction of a review, I'd be most grateful; if you would share your expertise here, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hk8y19w","c_root_id_B":"hkf9tm0","created_at_utc_A":1636663686,"created_at_utc_B":1636779204,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I read the occasional history book and I know that 100,000 years is far beyond the consensus opinion. I'm curious what evidence is presented in the book. Do you know of any summaries of her ideas? I couldn't find any with a simple Google search. I know I could just read the book but I'd like some sense of whether that is worth the time and money.","human_ref_B":"I have a lot of issues with the way Steeves constructs the relationship between archaeological and indigenous knowledge, at least in her published articles. What I've been able to read of the book demonstrates the same problems. As a white archaeologist, I can only speak with authority on the archaeological knowledge side of things. So, I suggest you read this post first. This quote from the writer summarizes it well: > contradictions that result from differing details related through stories are often reconciled simply by letting them be. For Indigenous peoples, trying to choose a narrative as being \"true\" or \"correct\" over another isn't necessarily an issue - nor is it considered the \"right\" thing to do. They are seen as mutually existing and overlapping where they do, but parting where they may. The origins of humans in the Americas are one such story. You'll find that indigenous groups and archaeologists agree on one thing: humans have been here a very, very long time. So long, in fact, that conceptualizing indigenous Americans as having \"arrived\" to the continents is not helpful unless the question is specifically about those early migrations. For all the intents and purposes of 99.99% of social scientists, indigenous Americans have always been here. Issues arise when people attempt to classify \"very, very long time.\" Archaeological knowledge relies on material evidence, which is used to give the all-important Number of Years Ago when humans first settled in a region. That number can be at odds with indigenous understandings of the past, which derive from a different epistemology and make very different types of claims Steeves presents a simple solution: latent bias and anti-Indigenous sentiment have prevented archaeologists from recognizing archaeological sites of great antiquity in the Americas. Does that sound like a contradiction of the above point? To me, at least, it does. Steeves excels as a historian of American archaeology and as an advocate for indigenous perspectives in academia. Thus, the first half of the book (what I've been able to read of it) is quite good, even if it doesn't break new ground. And then she gets into the archaeology of it all... and things fall apart. For one, it presents very little new material. If you have kept up at all with American archaeology, you will have seen the sites she discusses before. And if you have not yet been convinced that the Cerrutti Mastodon site is anthropogenic, Steeves won't be the one to do it. Numbers beyond 80kya aren't usually rejected because of anything particular to American archaeology, but because they precede the emigration of modern human lineages from Africa. Steeves presents sites like Pedra Furada, excavated by Niede \"occupation-of-the-Americas-could-go-back-100,000-years-and-the-first-settlers-'might-have-come-not-overland-from-Asia-but-by-boat-from-Africa\" Guidon, are presented as certain fact. It's indiscriminate and uncritical. At the same time, the parts I've read do not engage well with current discussions of human presence in the Americas. Clovis-first is quite decidedly dead for all but the most stubborn defenders, and has been for at least two decades. Discussing refusal to acknowledge pre-Clovis sites as a contemporary issue, rather than in a historical overview, feels inappropriate in 2021. The introductory preview for the book attacks the word \"Caucausoid\" as if any American archaeologist has said that word in the current century. It's difficult to look at Steeves's critiques and then look at the response (in my circles at least) to the footprints found recently in New Mexico and feel like it's the same group of people. It's not clear at many points if she's critiquing archaeologists, how archaeology gets taught, or popular archaeology. Much of what I can about this book I have said in more detail regarding *Lies My Teacher Told Me* by James Loewen. Both books feel preoccupied with the way some Truth or Real History has been erased by American nationalism\/imperialism. Both books are also outrageously indiscriminate with the evidence they use to support alternate narratives. Having (correctly) established that bias can pervade academic inquiry, they proceed to treat every single dismissal of \"inconvenient\" findings as purely ideological. Steeves offers an important and necessary critique. American anthropologists have historically overlooked, discredited, ignored, and actively attacked indigenous perspectives. They continue to do so. Yet Steeves seems to believe that there is a single Truth about human origins in the Americas and that archaeological and indigenous knowledges must be reconciled to discover it. This is rather inconsistent with the approaches outlined by those quoted\/cited in the first link I provided. Different forms of knowledge *will* contradict each other, and it's more productive to let them be and learn from the overlap. It's almost as if she is looking to the archaeological record to find material evidence to \"prove\" oral histories, even though those histories are not meant to be \"proven.\" **TL;DR** The archaeology in the book is bad. Steeves's portrayal of indigenous knowledge, in that it must temper archaeology so that it may more close resemble some Absolute Truth, is not in line with the way other indigenous scholars have addressed the (non-)issue of competing knowledge claims.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":115518.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"qrqgei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How accurate are the claims in The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere? I was intrigued by this book when it came out, and was thinking of reading it. It claims that humans have been living in the Americas for 100,000 years. I found it odd, however, that it was published July 2021 and that as of November there don't seem to be any reviews of it. The publisher's webpage for it doesn't link any. Google and JSTOR turn up nothing. The book vendor Ingram is usually very thorough about citing academic reviews of the stuff they sell - and there's nothing there, either. So, answerers of AskAnthropology: how accurate is this book? If you could point me in the direction of a review, I'd be most grateful; if you would share your expertise here, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hkf9tm0","c_root_id_B":"hkabcia","created_at_utc_A":1636779204,"created_at_utc_B":1636686042,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a lot of issues with the way Steeves constructs the relationship between archaeological and indigenous knowledge, at least in her published articles. What I've been able to read of the book demonstrates the same problems. As a white archaeologist, I can only speak with authority on the archaeological knowledge side of things. So, I suggest you read this post first. This quote from the writer summarizes it well: > contradictions that result from differing details related through stories are often reconciled simply by letting them be. For Indigenous peoples, trying to choose a narrative as being \"true\" or \"correct\" over another isn't necessarily an issue - nor is it considered the \"right\" thing to do. They are seen as mutually existing and overlapping where they do, but parting where they may. The origins of humans in the Americas are one such story. You'll find that indigenous groups and archaeologists agree on one thing: humans have been here a very, very long time. So long, in fact, that conceptualizing indigenous Americans as having \"arrived\" to the continents is not helpful unless the question is specifically about those early migrations. For all the intents and purposes of 99.99% of social scientists, indigenous Americans have always been here. Issues arise when people attempt to classify \"very, very long time.\" Archaeological knowledge relies on material evidence, which is used to give the all-important Number of Years Ago when humans first settled in a region. That number can be at odds with indigenous understandings of the past, which derive from a different epistemology and make very different types of claims Steeves presents a simple solution: latent bias and anti-Indigenous sentiment have prevented archaeologists from recognizing archaeological sites of great antiquity in the Americas. Does that sound like a contradiction of the above point? To me, at least, it does. Steeves excels as a historian of American archaeology and as an advocate for indigenous perspectives in academia. Thus, the first half of the book (what I've been able to read of it) is quite good, even if it doesn't break new ground. And then she gets into the archaeology of it all... and things fall apart. For one, it presents very little new material. If you have kept up at all with American archaeology, you will have seen the sites she discusses before. And if you have not yet been convinced that the Cerrutti Mastodon site is anthropogenic, Steeves won't be the one to do it. Numbers beyond 80kya aren't usually rejected because of anything particular to American archaeology, but because they precede the emigration of modern human lineages from Africa. Steeves presents sites like Pedra Furada, excavated by Niede \"occupation-of-the-Americas-could-go-back-100,000-years-and-the-first-settlers-'might-have-come-not-overland-from-Asia-but-by-boat-from-Africa\" Guidon, are presented as certain fact. It's indiscriminate and uncritical. At the same time, the parts I've read do not engage well with current discussions of human presence in the Americas. Clovis-first is quite decidedly dead for all but the most stubborn defenders, and has been for at least two decades. Discussing refusal to acknowledge pre-Clovis sites as a contemporary issue, rather than in a historical overview, feels inappropriate in 2021. The introductory preview for the book attacks the word \"Caucausoid\" as if any American archaeologist has said that word in the current century. It's difficult to look at Steeves's critiques and then look at the response (in my circles at least) to the footprints found recently in New Mexico and feel like it's the same group of people. It's not clear at many points if she's critiquing archaeologists, how archaeology gets taught, or popular archaeology. Much of what I can about this book I have said in more detail regarding *Lies My Teacher Told Me* by James Loewen. Both books feel preoccupied with the way some Truth or Real History has been erased by American nationalism\/imperialism. Both books are also outrageously indiscriminate with the evidence they use to support alternate narratives. Having (correctly) established that bias can pervade academic inquiry, they proceed to treat every single dismissal of \"inconvenient\" findings as purely ideological. Steeves offers an important and necessary critique. American anthropologists have historically overlooked, discredited, ignored, and actively attacked indigenous perspectives. They continue to do so. Yet Steeves seems to believe that there is a single Truth about human origins in the Americas and that archaeological and indigenous knowledges must be reconciled to discover it. This is rather inconsistent with the approaches outlined by those quoted\/cited in the first link I provided. Different forms of knowledge *will* contradict each other, and it's more productive to let them be and learn from the overlap. It's almost as if she is looking to the archaeological record to find material evidence to \"prove\" oral histories, even though those histories are not meant to be \"proven.\" **TL;DR** The archaeology in the book is bad. Steeves's portrayal of indigenous knowledge, in that it must temper archaeology so that it may more close resemble some Absolute Truth, is not in line with the way other indigenous scholars have addressed the (non-)issue of competing knowledge claims.","human_ref_B":"65,000 kyr is the cut off for the peopling of Sahul (Australia). Dated findings from the Madjedbebe rock shelter paintings in Northern Territory are pretty clear on this. I do not think there is definitively dated archaeological evidence extending beyond 100,000 years outside of Africa, although I'm pretty sure there are some reserved, professional opinions out there that would agree 100,000 is not outside the realm of possibility.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":93162.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"qrqgei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How accurate are the claims in The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere? I was intrigued by this book when it came out, and was thinking of reading it. It claims that humans have been living in the Americas for 100,000 years. I found it odd, however, that it was published July 2021 and that as of November there don't seem to be any reviews of it. The publisher's webpage for it doesn't link any. Google and JSTOR turn up nothing. The book vendor Ingram is usually very thorough about citing academic reviews of the stuff they sell - and there's nothing there, either. So, answerers of AskAnthropology: how accurate is this book? If you could point me in the direction of a review, I'd be most grateful; if you would share your expertise here, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hkac5yr","c_root_id_B":"hk8y19w","created_at_utc_A":1636686432,"created_at_utc_B":1636663686,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"So, I went and found her database. It basically contains all *claimed* sites of pre-Clovis occupation, regardless of how controversial the claim is. Her citations are disappointing too, as many of these (especially the controversial ones) have had a lot written about them but most entries have only a single citation, and only the authors and year at that. Having not read the book, all I can say is that the oldest widely-accepted concrete evidence of human occupation comes from this 23 kya site in New Mexico that was published this year.","human_ref_B":"I read the occasional history book and I know that 100,000 years is far beyond the consensus opinion. I'm curious what evidence is presented in the book. Do you know of any summaries of her ideas? I couldn't find any with a simple Google search. I know I could just read the book but I'd like some sense of whether that is worth the time and money.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22746.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"qrqgei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How accurate are the claims in The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere? I was intrigued by this book when it came out, and was thinking of reading it. It claims that humans have been living in the Americas for 100,000 years. I found it odd, however, that it was published July 2021 and that as of November there don't seem to be any reviews of it. The publisher's webpage for it doesn't link any. Google and JSTOR turn up nothing. The book vendor Ingram is usually very thorough about citing academic reviews of the stuff they sell - and there's nothing there, either. So, answerers of AskAnthropology: how accurate is this book? If you could point me in the direction of a review, I'd be most grateful; if you would share your expertise here, I'd be most appreciative. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"hkac5yr","c_root_id_B":"hkabcia","created_at_utc_A":1636686432,"created_at_utc_B":1636686042,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"So, I went and found her database. It basically contains all *claimed* sites of pre-Clovis occupation, regardless of how controversial the claim is. Her citations are disappointing too, as many of these (especially the controversial ones) have had a lot written about them but most entries have only a single citation, and only the authors and year at that. Having not read the book, all I can say is that the oldest widely-accepted concrete evidence of human occupation comes from this 23 kya site in New Mexico that was published this year.","human_ref_B":"65,000 kyr is the cut off for the peopling of Sahul (Australia). Dated findings from the Madjedbebe rock shelter paintings in Northern Territory are pretty clear on this. I do not think there is definitively dated archaeological evidence extending beyond 100,000 years outside of Africa, although I'm pretty sure there are some reserved, professional opinions out there that would agree 100,000 is not outside the realm of possibility.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":390.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"21zuk9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"When did humans decide to start mixing food from multiple sources into a single meal? Every time I go to a good restaurant, it amazes me how creative and diverse humans can be when it comes to culinary arts, taking multiple ingredients and mixing them up into exciting arrays of flavour and texture. But I can't imagine that it was always obvious that people would want to do this, instead of simply just eat whatever edibles they had handy, choice parts first. So, I wonder, when and where did the practice start? What were some of the earliest mixtures (recipes)? Were the earliest mixes simply for flavour or did they have more practical benefits (such as preserves)?","c_root_id_A":"cgi4ri8","c_root_id_B":"cgi34sf","created_at_utc_A":1396447765,"created_at_utc_B":1396442517,"score_A":28,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The earliest evidence we have for controlled use of fire dates to about a million years ago. We don't have direct evidence for cooking on that particular fire, but it does lend support to Richard Wrangham's cooking made us human hypothesis (of course if he's right we still need to find older evidence.) Now the question becomes at what point were people (or human ancestors as would be the case in the South African cave discovery above) combining things like seasonings & other foods? That is impossible to know because most food decomposes and we just simply don't have evidence for it. Trash piles, which are great sources for finding animal bones & shells, won't necessarily tell us this because we can't know if their combination happened prior to being thrown on the trash heap. Without writing or preserved food we have no way of knowing when it first happened. However, we do have some interesting finds that hint at these issues. There is a 6,100 year old pot that had ground garlic mustard seeds in it suggesting the cook used them to season a dish. This is the first direct evidence that we have of using spices in cooking. It is highly unlikely that by pure chance the first instance of this was the one pot that was preserved so we do make an educated guess that there were older uses of spices in food preparation. We just don't have the hard archaeological evidence for it. We also have evidence of pots that were used in fires from about 20,000 years ago in China. We don't know what was in them but if people were using them to make stews, which makes sense given their shape, it is possible they were combining more than just one food type and water. Other scientists have recently published about food residue evidence from ancient pottery. They found that Japanese pottery from about 11,000-15,000 years ago probably contained seafood. But there isn't much more they can tell and since the pots were likely used again and again even if multiple foods were indicated we don't know if they were cooked together in one dish.","human_ref_B":"According to wikipedia, the earliest known record of salt uses is from 2700 BCE in China. Also, the other article dates the oldest recipe to be in the range of 1330-1600 BC. http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_salt#Antiquity_and_Middle_Ages http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Recipe#History","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5248.0,"score_ratio":5.6} {"post_id":"2321a8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"Why does it seem pedophilia is most common in males? I'm using Reddit and the sex offender's registry in America as reference.","c_root_id_A":"cgsqk86","c_root_id_B":"cgsrqaw","created_at_utc_A":1397534002,"created_at_utc_B":1397537049,"score_A":22,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Truthfully, I don't think I'd be suprised either way, but can you show me some kind of statistic showing the premise of this question is valid in the first place? Do we actually know that female paedophilia is less common? I tried some quick searches to see if I could even find any legitimate journalism or scholarly writing on the subject and truth be told, I found myself drowning in a sea of opinion muck. Even when I went to Google Scholar, it was all either diagnostic info or case studies, not statistics.","human_ref_B":"I not sure about anthropology sources, but what I remember for psychology is pedophilia is sexual interest in 4-12ish range. Younger is neophilia attraction to infants which is more common in women apparently, but very rare. There are three kinds of pedophilias 1) opportunist, those who prefer sex with adults but will sub with prepubescent, 2) true pedophilias, only attracted to prepubescent features, 3) sadist, children are very vulnerable and make easy targets. Sexual abused male children are more likely to become abusers themselves, and it is rarer for female children to become abusers at least sexually from abuse. Men have a natural attraction to young features, but also good signs of fertility like wide hips and breasts which prepubescent females lack. So some neurology is at work here, but I'm not well in formed. IF you apply western ideals to non western cultures many sexual rituals might be considered cycles of abuse. This is a complex issue for example the Sambia have a flute ceremony between older males and younger boy in which the boy's imbibe semen to become more manly. It's practice is based off there world view that masculinity is achieved and cultivated not the natural state of being. Same-sex alliances with sexual favors between younger boys and adult males is pretty common throughout history Hoplites, Knights, Samurai, and various South Pacific indigenous populations. I am also aware of a group of asians in which mothers suck there infants penis to sooth them. We current westerners see it as taboo to have sexual behavior with minors which may not be considered sexual behavior by another group. Western society does not believe prepubescent or minors are capable of making informed decisions about sex. It appears ones ideas about sex and potential shame are not necessarily natural but encultured see http:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trobriand_Islands. So perhaps more men are sex offereds because of how we think about and teach about sex, sexual identity, and what it means to masculine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3047.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"ef28i5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Are all non-africans related to each other and are descended from same \"tribe\" of early humans that migrated out of Africa? And another question, are there any modern African populations that was the closest to the out-of-africa migrant tribe today in terms of genetics?","c_root_id_A":"fbxukbq","c_root_id_B":"fbxsrvs","created_at_utc_A":1577200899,"created_at_utc_B":1577199526,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"About 1000+ people > Therefore strong support exists for a single successful migration out of Africa that occurred across the Red Sea and along the east coast of Arabia ca 80000 years ago. The size of the ancestral population(s) that left Africa is estimated to be around 1000 effective founding males and females based on autosomal microsatellite loci31 or around 1500 effective founding males and females based on combined mtDNA, Y-chromosome, and X- chromosome re-sequencing data. https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/npre.2010.4303.1.pdf?origin=ppub","human_ref_B":"Very distantly, yes. All humans on Earth are theorized to be descended from the first Homo Sapiens that emerged in Africa around 200,000 years ago.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1373.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"96tzyz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What do we know about the people that built Gobekli Tepe? What were their lifestyles? What were their communities like? What were there shelters like? Were they nomadic? What did they look like? Etc.","c_root_id_A":"e43k9nr","c_root_id_B":"e43krtc","created_at_utc_A":1534137535,"created_at_utc_B":1534138312,"score_A":20,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I don't think they know much thus far, less than 10% has been excavated. I think the mainstream assumption is they were hunter\/gatherers. Although the main archeologist Klaus Schmidt towards the end of his life didn't seem to be so sure.","human_ref_B":"Here is what the discovering archeologist (Klaus Schmidt) had to say at a lecture before he passed away: https:\/\/youtu.be\/J1PDX0NjwsA But to speak to the anthropology, it's confusing. We think we know it was Hunter gatherers who lived in the region at the time. Then in the middle of that, they built something pretty sophisticated in detail. It appears that either they weren't Hunter gatherers, or were and had maintained very complicated construction techniques. I haven't heard anyone claim to know who they were as no writing has been found yet, just pictographs and deteriorated statues.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":777.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"w1c2oz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How many people does it take to form a culture? I'm a layperson. I suspect this question is poorly formed, because the concept of culture is a little nebulous. Really I'm looking for pointers on how to be curious about numbers of peoples in cultures and what anthropologists have to say about it, if anything. Google's having a hard time realizing I don't want tips on changing my office culture, so I'm a beggar here. What's the smallest number of people which can been described as having a culture? Maybe it's just one or two? How big do groups get before they tend to form subcultures? Surely a global internet complicates the answer, because now cultural elements ping across distant minds in seconds. Is the whole planet one culture now, in some senses? Where should I go to read more? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"igksrla","c_root_id_B":"igkla5j","created_at_utc_A":1658100263,"created_at_utc_B":1658096815,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"1-2 at minimum and there's no upper limit. Culture is just a word and not a real entity. It's an abstract idea that is defined rhetorically each time it is invoked. As such, you can bend it and stretch it to be as big or small as you like. You can be a single person and make your own culture, you can be 1 member of a 2-member culture and form your own sub-culture. There as many different ways to talk about culture as there are people talking and writing about it. Ultimately you have to figure out what it means for you and how that articulates with others around you, and that's about it for me. Some reading lists: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/wiki\/readinglist https:\/\/culturalstudies.ucdavis.edu\/sites\/g\/files\/dgvnsk1096\/files\/inline-files\/CST%20READING%20LIST.W.pdf https:\/\/www.stonybrook.edu\/commcms\/cscl\/pdfs\/Cultural%20Studies%20Ph.D%20Reading%20List%20-%20Cultural%20Theory.pdf","human_ref_B":"One way to look at it, is that the answer spans a spectrum from one to infinity. You may have heard it said that new cultures emerge from the status quo because there is a need. That is, the emotions, the motivations, the ideas, and the means for the culture to form have to, in some way, be in place *before* the culture appears. Cultures don't come out of nowhere. At some point, an individual finds themself in a personally compromising situation, and, either consciously or simply by nature of their character, steps out of line and does something different. They might not recognize this themself, because all cultures, in some way, reflect aspects of humanity that are in us all. Whether it's rebellion, vanity, the need to connect, or the need for safety. Cultures reflect who we are on an individual and collective level. But at some point that individual becomes part of a group of people who share in some attitudes and ideas. And the culture evolves and shifts, possibly in ways that change it fundamentally from what it originated as. But when is the culture complete? Or, in other words, when does a \"movement\" become a culture? Often times, with these things, we don't even recognize that they are there until they come under some sort of threat. Until they face some sort of death to their cause. Then we know they are a culture if only because we care about it. If you would like to study the origins and evolutions of culture, be specific and focus in on one particular culture that interests you. Some things are just starting out, and may never really become a fully realized culture. Some cultures are already dead. But you can look at really almost any human endeavor from the lens of culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3448.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"pjssxx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What reading would you recommend to somebody who wanted to learn more about ancient state formation? This might be a stupid question given how it probably relies a lot on prehistory, but I'm interested in learning more about how prehistorical societies evolved into early civilizations, specifically the evolution of predynastic Egypt, though I'm also interested in civilizations such as the Sumer. A Marxist study of such things (excluding the works of Marx and Engels) would be of even more interest, though I won't hold my breath. I understand if research into this area may be sparse, so all answers are appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"hc12gxt","c_root_id_B":"hc15ag8","created_at_utc_A":1631081825,"created_at_utc_B":1631084040,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"While it is not \\_ancient\\_ state formation, Charles Tilly is essential to the subject of state formation generally; seen from the disciplines of sociology, history and political science. We can see state formation processes more clearly in medieval to modern Europe -- Tilly's specialty-- and there's reason to think that these processes may have been general. Because his work is theoretical as well specific, there's application beyond the specific places and times he was talking about. Tilly offers the kind of detail that we don't have and won't ever have in places like predynastic Egypt; his inquiries into better documented times and places give us, at a minimum, useful working hypotheses. Tilly's \"bellicist\" theory of state making (the shorthand is \"war makes states\") seems an appropriate theme to explore in Egypt, where Pharaohs themselves offer clear statements of the importance of military victory to their regime (viz Merneptah Stele). Spruyt, Hendrik. \"Chapter 3 War and State Formation.\" in Does War Make States?: Investigations of Charles Tilly's Historical Sociology (2017): 73. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/9781316493694","human_ref_B":"Worshipping Power by Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist study of state formation, obviously others have mentioned James C. Scott but the unsung hero here is really Fredy Perlman\u2019s Against His-Story, Against Leviathan. It\u2019s not rigorous (in the academic) sense but it\u2019s an incredible read! Also focuses heavily on Sumer as you mentioned thats of interest to you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2215.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"pjssxx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What reading would you recommend to somebody who wanted to learn more about ancient state formation? This might be a stupid question given how it probably relies a lot on prehistory, but I'm interested in learning more about how prehistorical societies evolved into early civilizations, specifically the evolution of predynastic Egypt, though I'm also interested in civilizations such as the Sumer. A Marxist study of such things (excluding the works of Marx and Engels) would be of even more interest, though I won't hold my breath. I understand if research into this area may be sparse, so all answers are appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"hc15ag8","c_root_id_B":"hc0kqum","created_at_utc_A":1631084040,"created_at_utc_B":1631070762,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Worshipping Power by Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist study of state formation, obviously others have mentioned James C. Scott but the unsung hero here is really Fredy Perlman\u2019s Against His-Story, Against Leviathan. It\u2019s not rigorous (in the academic) sense but it\u2019s an incredible read! Also focuses heavily on Sumer as you mentioned thats of interest to you.","human_ref_B":"When I was writing up my cultural anthropology diss a few years ago, I understood state formation as a pretty recent concept that gained traction among some political scientists and historians beginning in the late seventies (btw - hope you\u2019ve enjoyed Philip Abrams re: the Marxist angle). I am not a historian, so I can\u2019t speak to when \u201cstates\u201d became a widely used term, but state formation scholars seem to favor post-treaty of Westphalia examples. Also can\u2019t speak to archeology, you may have better luck there. That said you might look at {{Negara : the theatre state in nineteenth-century Bali}} by Clifford Geertz and see if it slakes your interest. Don\u2019t let the title fool you, Geertz goes into some earlier time periods than the 19th century. John Murra comes to mind as well regarding the Incan empire, though not for state formation explicitly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13278.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"pjssxx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What reading would you recommend to somebody who wanted to learn more about ancient state formation? This might be a stupid question given how it probably relies a lot on prehistory, but I'm interested in learning more about how prehistorical societies evolved into early civilizations, specifically the evolution of predynastic Egypt, though I'm also interested in civilizations such as the Sumer. A Marxist study of such things (excluding the works of Marx and Engels) would be of even more interest, though I won't hold my breath. I understand if research into this area may be sparse, so all answers are appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"hc0kqum","c_root_id_B":"hc12gxt","created_at_utc_A":1631070762,"created_at_utc_B":1631081825,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"When I was writing up my cultural anthropology diss a few years ago, I understood state formation as a pretty recent concept that gained traction among some political scientists and historians beginning in the late seventies (btw - hope you\u2019ve enjoyed Philip Abrams re: the Marxist angle). I am not a historian, so I can\u2019t speak to when \u201cstates\u201d became a widely used term, but state formation scholars seem to favor post-treaty of Westphalia examples. Also can\u2019t speak to archeology, you may have better luck there. That said you might look at {{Negara : the theatre state in nineteenth-century Bali}} by Clifford Geertz and see if it slakes your interest. Don\u2019t let the title fool you, Geertz goes into some earlier time periods than the 19th century. John Murra comes to mind as well regarding the Incan empire, though not for state formation explicitly.","human_ref_B":"While it is not \\_ancient\\_ state formation, Charles Tilly is essential to the subject of state formation generally; seen from the disciplines of sociology, history and political science. We can see state formation processes more clearly in medieval to modern Europe -- Tilly's specialty-- and there's reason to think that these processes may have been general. Because his work is theoretical as well specific, there's application beyond the specific places and times he was talking about. Tilly offers the kind of detail that we don't have and won't ever have in places like predynastic Egypt; his inquiries into better documented times and places give us, at a minimum, useful working hypotheses. Tilly's \"bellicist\" theory of state making (the shorthand is \"war makes states\") seems an appropriate theme to explore in Egypt, where Pharaohs themselves offer clear statements of the importance of military victory to their regime (viz Merneptah Stele). Spruyt, Hendrik. \"Chapter 3 War and State Formation.\" in Does War Make States?: Investigations of Charles Tilly's Historical Sociology (2017): 73. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/9781316493694","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11063.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8zc6sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"What book should I read to learn about the origins of the Irish culture? I've always liked the Irish. They seem so careless but at the same time assertive. I especially would like to understand why drinking and fighting is a thing in the irish culture given the fact that they seem to be highly religious at the same time. Is the \"alcoholism gene\" more widespread in Ireland than it is in let's say England or Germany?","c_root_id_A":"e2i9lak","c_root_id_B":"e2ia7tb","created_at_utc_A":1531778567,"created_at_utc_B":1531779130,"score_A":2,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Oh dear, you need to read a few history books. The Irish History Podcast series on the famine might help you understand where the stereotypes you've fallen for have come from.","human_ref_B":"The drinking-fighting-praying Irish is a stereotype, that's not Irish culture. In the same way people stereotype other ethnicities\/cultures as lazy or humourless or whatever, that's perhaps true of some members but not the vast majority! Certain countries had a vested interest in portraying us as the ignorant Paddies in the past and it's very disheartening to see those prejudices are still alive and kicking. Actual Irish culture is fascinating, ancient and muti faceted, it's light years away from drinking, fighting and praying.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":563.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"8zc6sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"What book should I read to learn about the origins of the Irish culture? I've always liked the Irish. They seem so careless but at the same time assertive. I especially would like to understand why drinking and fighting is a thing in the irish culture given the fact that they seem to be highly religious at the same time. Is the \"alcoholism gene\" more widespread in Ireland than it is in let's say England or Germany?","c_root_id_A":"e2i9lak","c_root_id_B":"e2ihlwb","created_at_utc_A":1531778567,"created_at_utc_B":1531786285,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Oh dear, you need to read a few history books. The Irish History Podcast series on the famine might help you understand where the stereotypes you've fallen for have come from.","human_ref_B":"So while we\u2019re talking about stereotypes and cultural assumptions, I\u2019d say you should check out Gerald of Wales\u2019s Topography of Ireland. It\u2019s a very very early \u2018anthropological\u2019 work by an apologist of the Norman Conquest of Ireland in 1171. It justifies their conquest and thralldom using a variety of colonial and racist tactics and is a fascinating early source in how the English marginalized and diminished the Irish people since the very beginning.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7718.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"t8alp3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Why and how are nouns gendered in many languages? What is the reason and process for gender assigning for a specific language? Nouns in German, Polish and Spanish for example have different genders (both German and Polish have also a neutral gender) for the same words. Is there a reason and an understood mechanism for this to happen?","c_root_id_A":"hzowo10","c_root_id_B":"hzom3gl","created_at_utc_A":1646652022,"created_at_utc_B":1646643219,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"This is a very difficult question. It can be broken down into several sub-questions. **How does gender arise in a non-gendered language?** I don't know. But we know that gender runs in families. Most Indo-European languages have gender (or vestiges of it), while all Uralic and Turkic languages have no gender. This map shows gendered languages: WALS Feature 30A: Number of Genders There's something interesting. There are some isolated languages (e.g. Ket and Burushaski) which have 3 or more genders, and languages around them have no genders (or at least some of them), while e.g. Basque has no genders but it's surrounded by Romance gendered languages. Therefore, gender is a quite stable and old feature. Genders don't have to be connected to sex. Some languages distinguish only living and non-living genders. Many languages have more than 3 genders, where neuter stuff is divided into several genders. Many languages have non-living things assigned to masculine and feminine gender. Slavic languages usually have masculine gender split to sub-genders (such as animate, inanimate, or personal). **How are nouns assigned to gender?** In most languages, gender is somehow visible on nouns. In many languages, it's suffix (e.g. nouns in -a are feminine in many Indo-European languages) or prefix (e.g. nouns starting with ki- belong to a certain gender in Swahili, although a different term is used for genders in that language). But, due to phonetic changes or some other factors, gender can become invisible on nouns, and that happened in German. Endings were lost so you simply have to remember which noun is which gender. If a new noun enters language (e.g. a loan from a foreign language) it often gets its gender assigned due to its phonetic shape. For example, Swahili loaned the Arabic word for book, and since it starts with *ki-*, it was assigned to the same gender as other nouns starting with *ki-*. For example, any noun which end in -a will be understood as feminine in languages where -a is the general feminine marker on nouns. In my language (Croatian), US states California, Indiana, Nevada, Florida can be only understood as feminine, simply because they end in *-a*. **How nouns change gender?** This is mostly due to phonetic changes and analogy. For example, the Proto-Slavic word for apple was \\*abl\u044ako. It was neuter and it ended in -o. It's still so in most Slavic languages. However, in all South Slavic languages (except for Slovene) it changed to feminine gender, likely because most other fruits are feminine, so you have today Croatian & Serbian *jabuka*. But it wasn't random, it happened in a compact area from Croatia to Bulgaria. How? It's not really clear. **How additional genders arise?** This is due to analogy of adjective and noun endings. A noun pattern is applied to adjectives, and so a new gender arises. This happened in some Romance dialects in Italy, where there are 4 genders today. This is likely a way how genders arose at the first place.","human_ref_B":"For one, pronouns become more convenient. If everything has the same pronoun referring back to multiple things requires you to use the full noun instead, but if different things have different pronouns you can refer back to all of them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8803.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"1yqch5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"The gay rights movement seems to be a global phenomenon; were there other such worldwide civil rights movements in the past, and how were they disseminated before the Internet? For example, I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the anti-slavery movement was a near-simultaneous effort across the world to do away with slavery. By what mechanism was this sentiment spread across the world, and why did it gain traction nearly everywhere all at once?","c_root_id_A":"cfnp2uv","c_root_id_B":"cfo3qmv","created_at_utc_A":1393276789,"created_at_utc_B":1393308734,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"How are you defining near-simultaneous? The anti-slavery movements in the West did not necessarily happen all at the same time. The Spanish banned colonial slavery in 1542 (but didn't enforce it terribly well), France abolished it in 1794 but Napoleon retained it for the colonies (which would be one reason for Haiti's revolution shortly afterwards), and the US ended slavery in 1865. The last country in the world to abolish slavery legally was Mauritania in 1981, though some argue there are still aspects of slavery there. Four-hundred years isn't a lot in the larger sense of time, but it wasn't overnight. And of course slavery still exists even though it is technically illegal - international human rights activists estimate there are about 27 million slaves today. Defining slavery is also complex - do you include indentured servants, servile castes, adopted children turned into servants? Not all slavery is chattal slavery. What made these debates spread in the West was the deep link they had through trade, cultural exchanges, religion, and politics. But clearly there were still internal debates within each society and not every society responded the same way at the same time. Internationally, institutions like the UN and the World Bank were influential political and economic powers that impacted societies not culturally linked to the Western debates. Today, the LGBTQ movements are going global but don't ignore the powerful pushbacks and counter narratives that are happening. Americans bring both sides of the debate to the table when they go abroad - most link the so called \"death to gays\" law in Uganda to American missionaries. The Southern Poverty Law Center also links American missionaries to the recent anti-gay laws in Russia. And some societies that already did not accept homosexuality have resisted international human rights calls to change their laws. The debates may now be going increasingly global, but the message of those debates and how local communities consume & respond to them varies. Anyway, if you want to just learn more about how the abolitionist movement began and spread there is an article about that, though it is behind the pay wall. But if you have access: Klotz, Audie. \"Transnational activism and global transformations: The anti-apartheid and abolitionist experiences.\" European Journal of International Relations 8, no. 1 (2002): 49-76. \/r\/askhistorians might also be able to give you a nuanced explanation of how the anti-slavery movement in the West took hold and spread ideas across political borders & geographical barriers.","human_ref_B":"Some pre-modern ones would include the Crusades, rebellions and maybe the growth of Christianity and other religions not ordained by the state. All these movements were pre-modern and would typically be linked with religion and\/or localized. Im not sure if \"civil rights\" as we know it today really existed until the ideas of the enlightenment and the development of the parliamentary system, in which case the Catholic Emancipation in great Britain stands out, prior to this civil welfare was handled in the west by religious\/community institutions, and self arising mass movements were usually either rebellions against rulers and\/or religous\/messanic movements.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31945.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh32o6b","c_root_id_B":"hh2vs8e","created_at_utc_A":1634543827,"created_at_utc_B":1634537987,"score_A":57,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Just to take a really simple, but yet hands-on example, it is a very well-attested tradition in medieval times (and later I guess) to bury \"thunder stones\" under the doorstep of the house. These \"thunder stones\" were in many cases Neolithic flint axes.","human_ref_B":"A few centuries after the fall of Rome and Rome's withdrawal from Britain, Britons had lost all memory of who had built the large stone monuments they found, and had lost the technological knowledge to do so; the eighth Anglo-Saxon poem \"The Ruin\" marvels at the fragments of Roman era buildings, and attributes them to giants.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5840.0,"score_ratio":3.5625} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh38ccp","c_root_id_B":"hh3cr21","created_at_utc_A":1634549102,"created_at_utc_B":1634552962,"score_A":23,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Look up the London Stone, which is probably the remains of a Roman Villa and which had a millennium of speculation and myth surrounding it, and is still in place, in a viewing chamber facing the road built into a new building in the centre of London.","human_ref_B":"The Aztec renovated some of the ruined shrines at Teotihuacan, a major metropolis in the area from around 1000 years prior incorporated it into their creation myths, and even did excavations there, bringing back artefacts to other cities which were then re-interned in ritualistic offerings and burials. There's even at least 1 example of a Olmec mask found at an Aztec temple, which would have been from almost *3000* years prior.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3860.0,"score_ratio":1.9565217391} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh2vs8e","c_root_id_B":"hh3cr21","created_at_utc_A":1634537987,"created_at_utc_B":1634552962,"score_A":16,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"A few centuries after the fall of Rome and Rome's withdrawal from Britain, Britons had lost all memory of who had built the large stone monuments they found, and had lost the technological knowledge to do so; the eighth Anglo-Saxon poem \"The Ruin\" marvels at the fragments of Roman era buildings, and attributes them to giants.","human_ref_B":"The Aztec renovated some of the ruined shrines at Teotihuacan, a major metropolis in the area from around 1000 years prior incorporated it into their creation myths, and even did excavations there, bringing back artefacts to other cities which were then re-interned in ritualistic offerings and burials. There's even at least 1 example of a Olmec mask found at an Aztec temple, which would have been from almost *3000* years prior.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14975.0,"score_ratio":2.8125} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh38ccp","c_root_id_B":"hh2vs8e","created_at_utc_A":1634549102,"created_at_utc_B":1634537987,"score_A":23,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Look up the London Stone, which is probably the remains of a Roman Villa and which had a millennium of speculation and myth surrounding it, and is still in place, in a viewing chamber facing the road built into a new building in the centre of London.","human_ref_B":"A few centuries after the fall of Rome and Rome's withdrawal from Britain, Britons had lost all memory of who had built the large stone monuments they found, and had lost the technological knowledge to do so; the eighth Anglo-Saxon poem \"The Ruin\" marvels at the fragments of Roman era buildings, and attributes them to giants.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11115.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh2vs8e","c_root_id_B":"hh4vswr","created_at_utc_A":1634537987,"created_at_utc_B":1634580081,"score_A":16,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"A few centuries after the fall of Rome and Rome's withdrawal from Britain, Britons had lost all memory of who had built the large stone monuments they found, and had lost the technological knowledge to do so; the eighth Anglo-Saxon poem \"The Ruin\" marvels at the fragments of Roman era buildings, and attributes them to giants.","human_ref_B":"Adrienne Meyer has done quite a bit of research in this area. See her book \"The First Fossil Hunters\" https:\/\/www.degruyter.com\/document\/doi\/10.1515\/9781400838448\/html One interesting story is that ancient people would find the bones of prehistoric animals like mammoths and think they were the bones of titans, cyclops and giants who died in the wars they heard about in their mythology. They would take these bones, create a giant casket for them, sew new clothing for them, dress them up, even forge big swords for them, and give them a proper burial. I don't know about you, but I would not want to anger the spirit of a cyclops whose remains I disturbed while tilling my field. Decades, even centuries would pass, people would forget about the burial. Another farmer, generations later, would dig up the casket, only this time, he sees these bones laid out like a human, dressed in fine clothes, with a gigantic sword and it would only reinforce the veracity of these old stories. Some of these bones were displayed at places like the acropolis. The archaeologists who documented it couldn't figure out why they were there and actually discarded them. See Meyer's book for more cool stories and details.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":42094.0,"score_ratio":1.1875} {"post_id":"qabdcz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What did past people do with archaeology they uncovered? In Eurasia, many locations have been lived in unceasingly for thousands of years. Surly, archaeology was uncovered often. Im sure ancient people were uncovering artifacts of people even more ancient. What would a peasant farmer think of a stone axe he found in his field? What would an iron age farmer make of a paleolithic skeleton in a cave? Do we have any stories or evidence of examples of this? I know there is no single answer to this. People and civilizations can have very different values and understandings of the world and the past. Identity and mythology often come into play. Laws and religions too. Examples that come to mind are the stories Gaelic Irish had about Newgrange; a mythological folk tale about incestuous gods which may have actually been a memory based down by the first Belll Beakers who entered Ireland at the end of the Neolithic. It wasnt just archaeology that was discovered of course. I have heard stories that the Ancient Chinese uncovered dinosaur bones and imagined it could be a dragon. Also, its possible ancient Greeks were uncovering the skulls of Pleistocene elephants and believed they were the skull of cyclops. Anyways, Im most curious about archaeology. Do we have any anecdotes or accounts of past people uncovering archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"hh4fcmc","c_root_id_B":"hh4vswr","created_at_utc_A":1634573321,"created_at_utc_B":1634580081,"score_A":9,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"In England, there were specific laws about this going back to before the Norman Conquest - at least for finds involving substantial amounts of gold or silver. \"Concealment of treasure trove\" was one of the original common law crimes; on discovering valuables unexpectedly, you were supposed to announce the fact so that anyone who could prove ownership would have a chance to do so. If nobody could, though, it was yours. Case law developed that the owner also had to have put the treasure there with the intent of recovering it later (as opposed to, say, finding old grave goods); this has been superseded my modern statue law to the same effect, which is relevant to modern British archeology even today.","human_ref_B":"Adrienne Meyer has done quite a bit of research in this area. See her book \"The First Fossil Hunters\" https:\/\/www.degruyter.com\/document\/doi\/10.1515\/9781400838448\/html One interesting story is that ancient people would find the bones of prehistoric animals like mammoths and think they were the bones of titans, cyclops and giants who died in the wars they heard about in their mythology. They would take these bones, create a giant casket for them, sew new clothing for them, dress them up, even forge big swords for them, and give them a proper burial. I don't know about you, but I would not want to anger the spirit of a cyclops whose remains I disturbed while tilling my field. Decades, even centuries would pass, people would forget about the burial. Another farmer, generations later, would dig up the casket, only this time, he sees these bones laid out like a human, dressed in fine clothes, with a gigantic sword and it would only reinforce the veracity of these old stories. Some of these bones were displayed at places like the acropolis. The archaeologists who documented it couldn't figure out why they were there and actually discarded them. See Meyer's book for more cool stories and details.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6760.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"bhqq1u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What body language is universal (nodding\/shrugging\/smiling) across all or most cultures?","c_root_id_A":"elv3yfp","c_root_id_B":"elv7yrx","created_at_utc_A":1556311869,"created_at_utc_B":1556314347,"score_A":31,"score_B":143,"human_ref_A":"There is a word for it I'm blanking on it. But what you are referring to is language and conunication steaming from limbic and midbrain arousal systems. For humans these manifest as nods shrugs smiles laughs crying and other forms of communication. Lots of these like smiling crying and laughing, emotional arousal, is not vaulitional. Most cases are like this. These \"universal body language\" is comparable if not the same as the communication of other animals. These forms are indexical or iconic. You will never find symbolic communication in \"universal body language\"","human_ref_B":"To my knowledge, we\u2019ve never been able to find a cultural group that doesn\u2019t smile. Facial expressions seem to be a near universal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2478.0,"score_ratio":4.6129032258} {"post_id":"uqwdpo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have there been any cultures where open hostility towards and even hatred of the elders was accepted and normalized? If it's true that there's nothing new under the sun, then it would follow that there have been cultures or times when the younger generations openly and enthusiastically expressed their dislike\/disgust\/disdain for the generation that came before them, as we're seeing today in the US. I have no doubt that even in cultures that venerate their elders that younger individuals have harbored resentments towards the older generation, but what I'm asking is whether there has been a culture where openly expressing those feelings has been normal?","c_root_id_A":"i8upqjf","c_root_id_B":"i8uupd0","created_at_utc_A":1652726854,"created_at_utc_B":1652728893,"score_A":9,"score_B":110,"human_ref_A":"I don't know of any, but how would that work? I mean, most of the time, elders are those who share a culture and have succeeded long enough and successfully enough to actually become elders. If someone saw this before they started getting old, what is the incentive to stay within this culture? Why would you keep going knowing you're going to get shunned and disrespected once you get to a certain age? How would you get people to keep that culture? Wouldn't the younger people simply try to change the culture into one where practitioners are respected? At which point you would have a bit of chaos and a new\/different culture.","human_ref_B":"We have knowledge about cultures with mechanisms to avoid the existence of elders. For example, the nomads Ache-Gatu in Paraguay were known for assuming that anyone left behind during their trips was eaten by a jaguar. And it was taboo to go back for them. Still, that didn't mean they hated them. Grandchilds (even adults) mourned the deaths of their elders. In our own history the sentiment of dislike for elders (and an exaltation of youth) has been associated with new authocratic regimes. Studies have proposed such hypothesis for the cases of Chile's dictatorship, as well as fascist regimes in Europe. Politically, it makes sense: in order to drastically change the political landscape, you present the newer generation as unpolluted of former ideologies. And the relationship between ideology and culture is certainly close. This implies (indirectly) a diminished importance of elders, which can easily transit to disdain. The current situation in South Korea is also an example which deserves attention. Apparently, individualism has developed in a way that elders feel ashamed to be a burden. Therefore, they try to live without any help. Poverty is dramatically segmented by age in that country, even with their very high GDP. I haven't seen studies analyzing this from the perspective of their young descendants, though. In my opinion, one could hypothesize that older generations tend to be percieved as a burden when they don't fullfil any societal role. The professionalization of their traditional roles in modern societies (teachers and judges, for example), although necesary, has the collateral effect of excluding them from such tasks. So, in many countries, the \"challenge\" seems to be to provide a non-functional\/hedonist lifestyle to the elders, in which they have enough money to not be a burden for the newer generations. I'm not hopeful of this paternalistic approach, considering our individualistic\/capitalist way of understanding our relationships.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2039.0,"score_ratio":12.2222222222} {"post_id":"uqwdpo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have there been any cultures where open hostility towards and even hatred of the elders was accepted and normalized? If it's true that there's nothing new under the sun, then it would follow that there have been cultures or times when the younger generations openly and enthusiastically expressed their dislike\/disgust\/disdain for the generation that came before them, as we're seeing today in the US. I have no doubt that even in cultures that venerate their elders that younger individuals have harbored resentments towards the older generation, but what I'm asking is whether there has been a culture where openly expressing those feelings has been normal?","c_root_id_A":"i8uwbfs","c_root_id_B":"i8upqjf","created_at_utc_A":1652729560,"created_at_utc_B":1652726854,"score_A":25,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"To clarify, do you mean just vocalised hatred of old age and the elderly or organised social practices where the elderly are in some way ejected from society? My first thought is that there are plenty of poems from Ancient Rome where the elderly, especially women, are despised. Age was seen by some as crippling or frightening. For example: \u00b7 Horace writes a poem in which he compares an old woman to a grizzled cow in grotesque detail, re. her sexuality. \u00b7 Ovid writes a poem in which he grieves impotence as he ages. He complains to his own penis that age is betraying him. \u00b7 Seneca writes in many of his letters that if he should begin to \"lose his senses\" with age, he will kill himself voluntarily. These are some examples I can think of, off the top of my head. I am sorry if they're not quite what you are after! Interesting question!","human_ref_B":"I don't know of any, but how would that work? I mean, most of the time, elders are those who share a culture and have succeeded long enough and successfully enough to actually become elders. If someone saw this before they started getting old, what is the incentive to stay within this culture? Why would you keep going knowing you're going to get shunned and disrespected once you get to a certain age? How would you get people to keep that culture? Wouldn't the younger people simply try to change the culture into one where practitioners are respected? At which point you would have a bit of chaos and a new\/different culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2706.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"spvz2v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How 19c. workers strategies and practices of resistance were tied or impacted by a long tradition of peasants revolts and other forms of disobedience? Were there any personal, organizational ties or other that would allow to say that workers' movement drew directly from the traditions of peasants resistance such a strikes but also \"weapons of the weak\" such an avoidence of work, \"laziness\"? I can see these similarities of tactics but did anyone researched this?","c_root_id_A":"hwhngc1","c_root_id_B":"hwhx3f4","created_at_utc_A":1644576569,"created_at_utc_B":1644583233,"score_A":3,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"This is a question that's probably better suited for r\/AskHistorians","human_ref_B":"This is more of a history question than anthropology, but speaking of 19th century Britain, several works come immediately to mind: one is George Rude and Eric Hobsbawm's *Captain Swing*, another is John Bohstedt's *The Politics of Provisions*; a lot of Edward Thompson's work is relevant to this, obviously *The Making of the English Working Class* which is at least partly *about this very topic*, but also his shorter work \"The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.\" I think the short answer in all these cases is that pre-industrial forms of direct action did persist into the 19th century but it varied from place to place, and certainly the institution of liberal, industrial capitalism was a profound change for working people and the forms of resistance available to them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6664.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"4h863z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is there any evidence that human evolution has been shaped by particular animals? e.g. humans predisposed to like dogs because early humans who allied with dogs survived. When I see the variety in dogs I always think of how we affected their evolution, but did any animals affect our evolution? I wonder if we are predisposed to like cats and dogs because our ancestors were more likely to survive with a dog on their side, or with cats nearby who killed the rats that spread disease. I have also heard we are predisposed to dislike snakes because of experiences when we were smaller mammals. Other than predispositions, is there any evidence that our experiences with another animal affected us physically? Was there a particular animal that made it more likely for us to evolve hands that are more adept at using tools, perhaps an animal that was commonly hunted in early human history? I haven't heard this topic discussed much before, so I thought it would be interesting to ask here. I would appreciate any insight to this question you could give!","c_root_id_A":"d2o85g5","c_root_id_B":"d2oc0la","created_at_utc_A":1462088970,"created_at_utc_B":1462104386,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Domesticated Cats and dogs are fairly recent additions to the human experience, Dogs for several 10s of thousands of years and cats a lot less than that. Evidence suggests that dogs have obviously adapted to humans far more than the other way around, in that they are distinctly different in nature than their wild cousins, but no similar changes have been observed to occur in us (although we have no wild cousins to compare with). As such the adapation is largely one sided. Any social predispositions are going to be very difficult to categorise and even moreso to identify any genetic elements to it. Humans appear to be very socially adapatable, so possibly they could accommodate the introduction of pets without needing to change their nature, whereas the more rigid structure of wolves and wildcats needed a more rapid alteration of perspective. As for any further back in time, I think it would entirely speculative.","human_ref_B":"What you're talking about is the *animal connection hypothesis* which states that human evolution has always been linked with animal relationships and that major human adaptations are causally related to these interspecies relationships. This is a pretty recent theory, so you'll see a lot of argument over it's validity, but if you want to look into it then I would suggest reading \"The Animal Connection and Human Evolution\" , an article by Pat Shipman, that was published in the August 2010 issue of *Current Anthropology* as a starting point. (PDF) Shipman also has a book on the subject, *The Animal Connection: A New Perspective On What Makes Us Human*, that was published in 2011. As I said, the theory is fairly recent, so you'll see a lot of people blowing it off and others deeply invested in the idea. As with most theories, you're best served ignoring both extremes and forming your own opinion while listening to those in the middle capable of seeing both sides of the issue.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15416.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"r478ju","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is there not more evidence for pre-Clovis human presence in the Americas? Every so often a news story comes along about how shocking new evidence proves, this time for real, that humans were in the Americas earlier than thought and that we can finally put Clovis First to rest. The White Sands footprints is the latest of these and seems nicely definitive, I have not been able to find any real challenges to the dating or identification, but it does raise a bit of a problem in that the Clovis culture, aside from matching up neatly with some bits of paleoclimate research, is pretty widespread and Clovis points are plentiful. Meanwhile the pre-Clovis sites are a handful of what appear to be temporary campsites, not exactly Altamira. What I have read (which is almost exclusively popular rather than academic) seems to gleefully point out that \"Clovis First\" is finally dead without noticing that this seems to open up a massive gap in the material record. Is this a problem of misidentification, in that sites that were \"pre-Clovis\" were incorrectly dated and now might be reassessed? Is it possible that the Clovis culture itself is wrongly dated and so it isn't so much \"pre-Clovis\" as Clovis point makers being in the Americas much earlier than was thought? Or is the general evidence for \"Paleo-Indians\" just much thinner than I had thought?","c_root_id_A":"hmfbgp3","c_root_id_B":"hmftvku","created_at_utc_A":1638122348,"created_at_utc_B":1638129654,"score_A":23,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, but I worked at a university anthropology department and overheard people like Dr. David Meltzer (great guy) hashing this out. I had the impression that the Clovis first-and-only crowd had muttered 'okay, you win but we don't have to like it' by 2002, when I left that job.","human_ref_B":"It's generally agreed that \"Clovis\" is solidly dated and that people were here before its origin. However, the idea of a \"Clovis culture\" has been thoroughly problematized. It is, after all, based entirely on a lithic technology tradition, and technology is not culture. That Americans drive Toyotas and use Makita power drills does not mean that they have the same culture as Japan. \"Clovis\" likely represents many distinct cultural groups who adopted a lithic technology that they found appealing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7306.0,"score_ratio":1.3913043478} {"post_id":"r478ju","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is there not more evidence for pre-Clovis human presence in the Americas? Every so often a news story comes along about how shocking new evidence proves, this time for real, that humans were in the Americas earlier than thought and that we can finally put Clovis First to rest. The White Sands footprints is the latest of these and seems nicely definitive, I have not been able to find any real challenges to the dating or identification, but it does raise a bit of a problem in that the Clovis culture, aside from matching up neatly with some bits of paleoclimate research, is pretty widespread and Clovis points are plentiful. Meanwhile the pre-Clovis sites are a handful of what appear to be temporary campsites, not exactly Altamira. What I have read (which is almost exclusively popular rather than academic) seems to gleefully point out that \"Clovis First\" is finally dead without noticing that this seems to open up a massive gap in the material record. Is this a problem of misidentification, in that sites that were \"pre-Clovis\" were incorrectly dated and now might be reassessed? Is it possible that the Clovis culture itself is wrongly dated and so it isn't so much \"pre-Clovis\" as Clovis point makers being in the Americas much earlier than was thought? Or is the general evidence for \"Paleo-Indians\" just much thinner than I had thought?","c_root_id_A":"hmftvku","c_root_id_B":"hmfqgub","created_at_utc_A":1638129654,"created_at_utc_B":1638128275,"score_A":32,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It's generally agreed that \"Clovis\" is solidly dated and that people were here before its origin. However, the idea of a \"Clovis culture\" has been thoroughly problematized. It is, after all, based entirely on a lithic technology tradition, and technology is not culture. That Americans drive Toyotas and use Makita power drills does not mean that they have the same culture as Japan. \"Clovis\" likely represents many distinct cultural groups who adopted a lithic technology that they found appealing.","human_ref_B":"I would suggest you research some ancient DNA analysis findings to add to your investigations. From what I've read, while although the Clovis culture may not have been first, what came before Clovis seems not to have had a genetic impact on the current population,... or even in the ancient populations that we have remains for and have sampled. However, there are some anomalies (particularly in some Amazon tribes in Brazil. See \"Population Y\" in David Reich's book.).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1379.0,"score_ratio":10.6666666667} {"post_id":"r478ju","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is there not more evidence for pre-Clovis human presence in the Americas? Every so often a news story comes along about how shocking new evidence proves, this time for real, that humans were in the Americas earlier than thought and that we can finally put Clovis First to rest. The White Sands footprints is the latest of these and seems nicely definitive, I have not been able to find any real challenges to the dating or identification, but it does raise a bit of a problem in that the Clovis culture, aside from matching up neatly with some bits of paleoclimate research, is pretty widespread and Clovis points are plentiful. Meanwhile the pre-Clovis sites are a handful of what appear to be temporary campsites, not exactly Altamira. What I have read (which is almost exclusively popular rather than academic) seems to gleefully point out that \"Clovis First\" is finally dead without noticing that this seems to open up a massive gap in the material record. Is this a problem of misidentification, in that sites that were \"pre-Clovis\" were incorrectly dated and now might be reassessed? Is it possible that the Clovis culture itself is wrongly dated and so it isn't so much \"pre-Clovis\" as Clovis point makers being in the Americas much earlier than was thought? Or is the general evidence for \"Paleo-Indians\" just much thinner than I had thought?","c_root_id_A":"hmi73m1","c_root_id_B":"hmfqgub","created_at_utc_A":1638169276,"created_at_utc_B":1638128275,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My research isn't in Paleoindian studies but my GF's research is and Dr. Pitblado offers a class at our university on Paleoindian studies that had guest lectures from the vast majority the leading archaeologists in the period. So, this is just based on a few articles I have read, attending lectures, and discussing it with my partner. I don't believe that in academia there is much argument for Clovis First. Though, I have heard the arguments for it by a minority of researchers. I believe the main issue is the dating of Pre-Clovis sites. There are sites reported to have dating at 21,000 BP and others that propose 32,000 BP. As the primary point of the argument is when did people arrive in the Americas, it creates issues because there is often not a consensus on the date. If you've got a team of researchers working on a site and they date it to 27,000 BP and propose its the earliest site and then another group comes along and suggests their site dates to 36,000 BP both are arguing that people were in the Americas prior to Clovis but they can't agree on when that is. This is made even worse because there are great dates (for archaeological research) for the Clovis points. So I don't believe its an argument of IF there were people in the Americas prior to the Clovis culture, but WHEN. Until that WHEN can be answered it will remain a big topic of debate.","human_ref_B":"I would suggest you research some ancient DNA analysis findings to add to your investigations. From what I've read, while although the Clovis culture may not have been first, what came before Clovis seems not to have had a genetic impact on the current population,... or even in the ancient populations that we have remains for and have sampled. However, there are some anomalies (particularly in some Amazon tribes in Brazil. See \"Population Y\" in David Reich's book.).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41001.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"4212fc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"A recently reported discovery of a mass grave at Lake Turkana, Kenya, is being reported in the press as evidence for earlier \"warfare\" among humans than we had been aware of. Is this really true? And in that case, how do anthropologists define \"war?\" Here is an article for any who haven't seen this in the news: http:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/research\/news\/evidence-of-a-prehistoric-massacre-extends-the-history-of-warfare Apparently this mass grave of people who seem to have died violently proves that there was \"warfare\" among different groups of hunter gatherers in human prehistory. But I'm not sure I fully understand what they mean. Could this have theoretically been some other type of human violence outside of war? Theft of supplies? Revenge for some offense? Any other thing? Do all of those possibilities constitute \"war?\" Just how do anthropologists define war anyway? Thank you for any answers you can provide!","c_root_id_A":"cz6yn3b","c_root_id_B":"cz724wf","created_at_utc_A":1453410246,"created_at_utc_B":1453415210,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As far as I've seen (Minored in evolutionary anthro) \"war\" is one of those terms that has kind of a sliding scale to its definition. Just like how some transitionary fossils kinda fit multiple \"species\" at once, most behaviors kind of slowly changed. In general \"war\" just means \"more than one group killing each other\". So one group attacking another for all of their supplies could be a war. Revenge actually leans more towards war than simple theft since it'd indicate some kind of historically standing rivalry between groups. One of the big things here is that a lot of people *want to believe* that warfare comes from after the agricultural revolution, that we're not innately predisposed to killing \"people who aren't our people\", but more and more early hominid discoveries are showing that we were warring even when we were all nomadic. Contemporary primate studies show similar behaviors.","human_ref_B":"In this context (I.e., evolutionary anthropology) \"war\" usually refers to intergroup conflict with violence. So there needs to be 2 groups minimum, requiring some kind of organisation\/cooperation within the groups to fight eachother. As an example, organised raids where one group attacks another group to \"kill enemies\" and steal resources would be classed as warfare. It's normally defined this way as evolutionary anthropologists typically work with traditional populations like pastoralists, hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists and so on. Most theories\/ideas have been developed with these kinds of population structures as a primary focus.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4964.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"8gr2gr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is there any evidence (direct or through inferrence) that hominids other than human's used boats. Also what was the earliest human boat usage?","c_root_id_A":"dydyhek","c_root_id_B":"dye286v","created_at_utc_A":1525362896,"created_at_utc_B":1525366231,"score_A":6,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"There've been early humans found in islands that would have been cut off from the mainland even at the time. That could be cited as inferred evidence. That said, there are other possible explanations that are just as likely, so there's really nothing solid that I know of","human_ref_B":"Regarding hominins other than modern humans: **2012:** Evidence suggests Neanderthals took to boats before modern humans **2018:** Neandertals, Stone Age people may have voyaged the Mediterranean **Further reading: Google Search, keywords Neanderthals boats** Evidence is seen mainly in the ages of deposits and the types of tools found, which are not characteristic of anatomically modern human populations. However, it's worth noting that early anatomically modern humans may have made tools mostly indistinguishable from Neanderthals and other earlier groups, so tool design is not a slam dunk. Especially not if the deposits date to 130Kyr BP in the Mediterranean, which is a time during which we know anatomically modern humans were round in Africa. Given that the earliest anatomically modern human remains are now dated to ca. 300Kyr BP in Morocco, a date less than half that on an island in the Mediterranean could be Neanderthals or modern humans. The earliest evidence of modern human boat usage (for sure) is the arrival of humans in Australia some 65,000 years ago. Australia could not have been reached without some type of watercraft. The possibility has also been raised that *Homo erectus* or the ancestors of *Homo floresiensis* might have used logs or other *very* simple means of traveling on the water has been raised by their presence on islands in Indonesia that would have required traversing some amount of open water to reach.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3335.0,"score_ratio":3.8333333333} {"post_id":"7i56dg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"In cultures with \"sky burial\" (dead left to the vultures), is there any difference in the practice if the dead is a man, woman, child, rich or poor?","c_root_id_A":"dqwckh9","c_root_id_B":"dqwc501","created_at_utc_A":1512651257,"created_at_utc_B":1512650498,"score_A":31,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Sometimes, yes. And at least in my experience with Tibetans - usually the group most exoticized\/Orientalized for their 'sky burial' practices - not everyone in the community\/society is given this type of funerary right. The higher status one is, the less likely they are to be 'destroyed by birds' and more likely they are to be cremated or even buried. Religious leaders and royalty (in that order) and down the chain were entombed or buried. While these practices have been forcibly changed since the 50s, I do not know where exactly it stands now vis-a-vis social class, but I do know that it still exists. Martin, D. (1996). On the cultural ecology of sky burial on the Himalayan Plateau. East and West, 46(3\/4), 353-370.","human_ref_B":"Have you tried r\/Zoroastrianism? I understand this may not be the in depth comment this thread is looking for, but if I had questions about this religious belief I'd bring it to them. I will say that I doubt that it would have much of a distinction. The reason for sky burial in (at least the Parsis) is because both the fire and ground are sacred and as such they do not want either polluted by the dead. I didn't realize that Tibetan Buddhists practice it as well, but the traditional is remarkably similar to the Zoroastrian one. In Martin's comparison of the two, that lists both ceremonies, I don't see anything to suggest that either varies for woman or children, but you might want to try the respective subs. Subramanian, M. (2008). Towering silence: for millennia Zoroastrians have used vultures to dispose of their dead. What will happen when the birds disappear?. Science & Spirit, 19(3), 34-39. Martin, D. (1996). On the cultural ecology of sky burial on the Himalayan Plateau. East and West, 46(3\/4), 353-370.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":759.0,"score_ratio":2.5833333333} {"post_id":"382743","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"In English the word slut is used pejoratively to describe a woman who has a lot of casual sex. Are there any cultures where the word to describe that woman is not pejorative? English is the only language I know so this thread could be embarrassing for me but my hunch is that English is not unique in not having a positive description for a woman who engages in a lot of casual sex.","c_root_id_A":"crszwwk","c_root_id_B":"crtuo0a","created_at_utc_A":1433255643,"created_at_utc_B":1433307485,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"> English is not unique in not having a positive description for a woman who engages in a lot of casual sex. \"Vixen\" could potentially be used as such.","human_ref_B":"I'm fairly certain there is no such native word among the Moso\/Na ethnic group and language in southwestern China. That is, while people in those communities are aware that other societies (namely Han Chinese) have those kinds of values that have corresponding negative words, and attitudes may change over time, there are no native words for things likes 'promiscuity,' 'infidelity,' 'jealousy,' 'bastard.' It is important to note that this is embedded in larger systems of matrilineal kinship and what is called \"walking marriage,\" which are pretty interesting and unique, ethnographically speaking.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":51842.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cyaq0u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have we, as a race, ever had any significant biological evolution since the classical age? It has been 5000 or 6000 years since our history has been recorded. Are there any differences in our body since then?","c_root_id_A":"eyqvh9z","c_root_id_B":"eyr4gel","created_at_utc_A":1567354588,"created_at_utc_B":1567360639,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Evolution is an on going process, so it's hard to measure what would be \"significant.\" If you're talking noticeable phenotypic changes, ehhh not really. Especially only going back to the \"classical age.\" Theres almost certainly been changes since the dawn of agriculture and the beginning of the Holocene, and the trend in our species overall has been becoming more gracile in our skeleton. But adaptations arise in human populations all the time, for instance sickle cell anemia and malaria resistance, or high altitude populations developing a higher tolerance to lower oxygen environments. It's hard to measure right now, but no doubt modern diets have helped select for new adaptations internally.","human_ref_B":"If the question is \u201csince the ice age\u201d, I have read that our brains have grown smaller. Here\u2019s a short article: https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/why-have-our-brains-started-to-shrink\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6051.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"3ws8ai","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why do most folklores across the world tend to be full of dark and evil beings? Almost every folklore I have heard of seem to be dominated by dark and evil mythical beings, why is this the case?","c_root_id_A":"cxz5ocy","c_root_id_B":"cxyos1b","created_at_utc_A":1450132319,"created_at_utc_B":1450105098,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Agreeing with \/u\/edwardavern in saying that your premise doesn't quite hold up. For instance Finnish folklore has a lot of supernatural and fey creatures in it - all manner of gnomes, trolls, witches and nymphs etc. - but none of these are in fact \"dark\" or \"evil\", despite often directly leading to the demise of people. Gnomes, for instance the house-gnome (*pihatonttu*, lit. \"yard-gnome\" or \"homestead-gnome\") would often help out the owner of the premises which he guarded. If the homeowner was diligent, hard-working, and morally sound, the gnome would bring good tidings and help e.g. the cattle or the crops. But if the homeowner for instance gambled, drank excessively, or neglected his duties around the house, the gnome would cause misfortune to fall upon him, going as far as even burning his stead down (and if you think about it, a peasant coming home drunk would \"offend the gnome, causing him to burn down the place\" - i.e. for instance tip over a candle or neglect to tend to the fireplace). Forest nymphs (*mets\u00e4haltija*, or *skogsr\u00e5* in Swedish, lit. feminine term for \"keeper of the forest\") would often entice young men by appearing as beautiful women, and seduce these youths to follow them into the depths of the forest, where they'd get lost and wander until they died - but the moral of this is essentially \"don't follow unknown women into the forest\", or something along those lines. Basically, \"don't stray into the unknown\" with a side-order of \"don't fall to immoral thoughts and desires\". Nixies (*n\u00e4kki*, often also translated as \"neck\" or \"nokken\") and brook horses (*b\u00e4ckah\u00e4st* in Swedish) would similarly lure both youths and even children out into its brook or river to drown them, but only if you ignored the warnings and went out to play with the strange horsie (or chased after the unnaturally beautiful maiden, or fell under the spell of the ethereally talented violinist, etc.). Even witches were not inherently evil, since they merely held power - sometimes they were capricious and wilful, but most of the time if you appeased them or paid the proper tribute, you would be spared whatever manner of ill they had in store for you. People even consulted with supposed witches to bless their stead or curse their nemeses' steads, or protect them from some evil they feared etc. Bottom line is, folklore is almost always supernatural or somehow non-mundane, but it is almost never inherently dark, and never properly \"evil\". Everything \"evil\" about it is a kind of natural property, in the same way that a steep cliff will kill you if you fall down it, or an undertow may cause you to drown. Every folklore-being has a purpose or moral to it, whether it is to act in an acceptable and civil way, or to beware the areas where you're not supposed to tread (such as far away from home, in the deep forests, and so on). Also, even the most supposedly dark folklore holds a natural point or reason behind it. Take for instance \"mountain-taking\" (*bergtagning* in Swedish), wherein trolls would kidnap infants and steal them away to their holds under the mountains, and they'd replace the infant with their own troll-spawn. This is basically an olden way of explaining or rationalising birth-defects, developmental problems, or other deviations in child development or physiology. As such, it's a supernaturally-veiled way of explaining the world around you - which essentially is the crux of a lot of folklore.","human_ref_B":"Not an anthropologist but I did study folklore for a children's lit class this year and we read Walter Ong's \"Psychodynamics of Orality\" which detailed certain characteristics of orature and folklore. One of these characteristics was agonistic tone. This means that most stories had some sort of darkness, conflict or violence (think Cinderella's step sisters cutting off their toes or the witch wanting to murder and eat Hansel and Grettle). Two of the main reasons for this is because it holds the attention of the audience and it is easier to remember for the orator. If these stories were passed down generation to generation through oral story telling then those telling the story would want to captivate and entertain the audience and nothing holds the human attention like violence, monsters and death. Also the stories are kind of long and in order to remember them and be able to pass them down they would have to be... well, memorable. Step sisters cutting off their own toes or a canablistic witch are two details that would be very hard to forget. Hope this is helpful and maybe someone with a deeper background in anthropology can clarify this answer for you!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27221.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"1u6g3o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Why do two specimens of other species of animals tend to look very similar to each other, while every human looks so different from one another? To elaborate: When I go to the zoo and look at two Rothschild's Giraffes, or two Indian Elephants, without regard to sex, age, patterning or striation, they are roughly the same color, size, shape, etc. Their faces tend to look the same. Why does every human have a different face, a different color, a different height, different size breasts, buttocks, etc? Aren't we all the same species? Are there different sub-species of Homo Sapien?","c_root_id_A":"cef1466","c_root_id_B":"cef4qw2","created_at_utc_A":1388616833,"created_at_utc_B":1388626439,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Sheep can do it, too. It comes down to having specific brain pathways for types of recognition.","human_ref_B":"They only look the same because you are constantly looking at and teasing apart human faces. I'm a primatologist and I've learned to recognize monkeys by facial features. The capuchins I studied had much the same variation as humans, if not more so. After a few years in the field, we could tell our monkeys apart just by catching glimpses of them or, in a few cases, only seeing a small part of their bodies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9606.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"1u6g3o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Why do two specimens of other species of animals tend to look very similar to each other, while every human looks so different from one another? To elaborate: When I go to the zoo and look at two Rothschild's Giraffes, or two Indian Elephants, without regard to sex, age, patterning or striation, they are roughly the same color, size, shape, etc. Their faces tend to look the same. Why does every human have a different face, a different color, a different height, different size breasts, buttocks, etc? Aren't we all the same species? Are there different sub-species of Homo Sapien?","c_root_id_A":"cef2bd6","c_root_id_B":"cef4qw2","created_at_utc_A":1388619979,"created_at_utc_B":1388626439,"score_A":7,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"There are some species of animals that seem way more differentiated than humans - look at dogs for example","human_ref_B":"They only look the same because you are constantly looking at and teasing apart human faces. I'm a primatologist and I've learned to recognize monkeys by facial features. The capuchins I studied had much the same variation as humans, if not more so. After a few years in the field, we could tell our monkeys apart just by catching glimpses of them or, in a few cases, only seeing a small part of their bodies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6460.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"1u6g3o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Why do two specimens of other species of animals tend to look very similar to each other, while every human looks so different from one another? To elaborate: When I go to the zoo and look at two Rothschild's Giraffes, or two Indian Elephants, without regard to sex, age, patterning or striation, they are roughly the same color, size, shape, etc. Their faces tend to look the same. Why does every human have a different face, a different color, a different height, different size breasts, buttocks, etc? Aren't we all the same species? Are there different sub-species of Homo Sapien?","c_root_id_A":"cef1466","c_root_id_B":"cef78dr","created_at_utc_A":1388616833,"created_at_utc_B":1388632749,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Sheep can do it, too. It comes down to having specific brain pathways for types of recognition.","human_ref_B":"Humans brains are quite good at identifying individuals based on facial features. If you look at the standard range of differences in humans, we're actually remarkably similar in size and shape. While it's 'obvious' that Barack Obama doesn't look like Angela Merkel, to use some well-known people as examples, to an alien race coming to Earth, we'd all look about the same. Another reason for human size variation is of course diet and fitness. A lot of us are bigger around in various places because of our weight. Addressing the opposite point, that animals look the same, I'd point on the domestic dog - all once species, yet they can range from teacup-poodles to giant mastiffs, short hair, long hair, flat faces, pointy faces, etc. It's fair to say, of course, that humans through selective breeding have brought about these differences, however other species not under domestication can exhibit a great deal of individual variation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15916.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"1u6g3o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Why do two specimens of other species of animals tend to look very similar to each other, while every human looks so different from one another? To elaborate: When I go to the zoo and look at two Rothschild's Giraffes, or two Indian Elephants, without regard to sex, age, patterning or striation, they are roughly the same color, size, shape, etc. Their faces tend to look the same. Why does every human have a different face, a different color, a different height, different size breasts, buttocks, etc? Aren't we all the same species? Are there different sub-species of Homo Sapien?","c_root_id_A":"cef2bd6","c_root_id_B":"cef1466","created_at_utc_A":1388619979,"created_at_utc_B":1388616833,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There are some species of animals that seem way more differentiated than humans - look at dogs for example","human_ref_B":"Sheep can do it, too. It comes down to having specific brain pathways for types of recognition.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3146.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"6gdzn1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What are some good books I can read about Homo Sapiens' lives before agriculture (Hunting and gathering)? I've read Sapiens and thought it was interesting, but apparently the author is biased. I'm wondering if there are any reputable books on the lives of humans pre-civilization, because for some reason I'm fascinated by the topic.","c_root_id_A":"dipm62q","c_root_id_B":"diptto7","created_at_utc_A":1497083764,"created_at_utc_B":1497103581,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I asked 3 months ago and I got After the Ice","human_ref_B":"As someone already mentioned, After the Ice is a good introduction that is easy to ready, but mostly covers the period immediately prior to the advent of agriculture. Paleoarchs tend to put out a lot more papers than books these days, but one I frequently still see referenced is Richard G. Klein's The Human Career. Klein, however, is a hold-out on the Upper Paleolithic Revolution model of human evolution which has been soundly refuted. So even the new editions are probably not updated to reflect that. Clive Gamble's The Paleolithic Societies of Europe is good from a social archaeology perspective, but limited to one continent obviously. Something by Ian Tattersall would be good on the topic of general human evolution. I read The Fossil Trail some time ago, but it is probably dated by now (esp. w\/ more recent discoveries of hobbits, Denisovans, and H. naledi) unless there's a new edition published. His most recent book is Masters of the Planet, which I haven't read but Tattersall is one of the most prominent paleoanthropologists alive and was the curator of the American Museum of Natural History, so it's probably a solid book.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19817.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"6gdzn1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What are some good books I can read about Homo Sapiens' lives before agriculture (Hunting and gathering)? I've read Sapiens and thought it was interesting, but apparently the author is biased. I'm wondering if there are any reputable books on the lives of humans pre-civilization, because for some reason I'm fascinated by the topic.","c_root_id_A":"dipooiy","c_root_id_B":"diptto7","created_at_utc_A":1497091801,"created_at_utc_B":1497103581,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm really enjoying maps of time right now. Explains pretty much everything about people from the beginning.","human_ref_B":"As someone already mentioned, After the Ice is a good introduction that is easy to ready, but mostly covers the period immediately prior to the advent of agriculture. Paleoarchs tend to put out a lot more papers than books these days, but one I frequently still see referenced is Richard G. Klein's The Human Career. Klein, however, is a hold-out on the Upper Paleolithic Revolution model of human evolution which has been soundly refuted. So even the new editions are probably not updated to reflect that. Clive Gamble's The Paleolithic Societies of Europe is good from a social archaeology perspective, but limited to one continent obviously. Something by Ian Tattersall would be good on the topic of general human evolution. I read The Fossil Trail some time ago, but it is probably dated by now (esp. w\/ more recent discoveries of hobbits, Denisovans, and H. naledi) unless there's a new edition published. His most recent book is Masters of the Planet, which I haven't read but Tattersall is one of the most prominent paleoanthropologists alive and was the curator of the American Museum of Natural History, so it's probably a solid book.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11780.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"6gdzn1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What are some good books I can read about Homo Sapiens' lives before agriculture (Hunting and gathering)? I've read Sapiens and thought it was interesting, but apparently the author is biased. I'm wondering if there are any reputable books on the lives of humans pre-civilization, because for some reason I'm fascinated by the topic.","c_root_id_A":"diptto7","c_root_id_B":"diprhea","created_at_utc_A":1497103581,"created_at_utc_B":1497099077,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As someone already mentioned, After the Ice is a good introduction that is easy to ready, but mostly covers the period immediately prior to the advent of agriculture. Paleoarchs tend to put out a lot more papers than books these days, but one I frequently still see referenced is Richard G. Klein's The Human Career. Klein, however, is a hold-out on the Upper Paleolithic Revolution model of human evolution which has been soundly refuted. So even the new editions are probably not updated to reflect that. Clive Gamble's The Paleolithic Societies of Europe is good from a social archaeology perspective, but limited to one continent obviously. Something by Ian Tattersall would be good on the topic of general human evolution. I read The Fossil Trail some time ago, but it is probably dated by now (esp. w\/ more recent discoveries of hobbits, Denisovans, and H. naledi) unless there's a new edition published. His most recent book is Masters of the Planet, which I haven't read but Tattersall is one of the most prominent paleoanthropologists alive and was the curator of the American Museum of Natural History, so it's probably a solid book.","human_ref_B":"I really enjoyed The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4504.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm4zi6h","c_root_id_B":"fm50zvj","created_at_utc_A":1585763559,"created_at_utc_B":1585764319,"score_A":8,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I come at medical anthropology from an STS background (historian), but one that I keep encountering is Annemarie Mol's \\*The Body Multple\\*. Specifically about reproductive\/class issues, Elizabeth Roberts does some really interesting work in Mexico City.","human_ref_B":"The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is a great one. It\u2019s not specifically written by an anthropologists but it was assigned to me in a medical anthropology class.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":760.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm4x5ot","c_root_id_B":"fm50zvj","created_at_utc_A":1585762397,"created_at_utc_B":1585764319,"score_A":4,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Hi Jerrica4, Not a class read, but I feel like I have to tell you about the books, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon and maybe Greg Bears books on accelerated evolution, Blood Music,\u00a0Darwin's Radio, and\u00a0Darwin's Children. Cheers!","human_ref_B":"The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is a great one. It\u2019s not specifically written by an anthropologists but it was assigned to me in a medical anthropology class.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1922.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm4x5ot","c_root_id_B":"fm4zi6h","created_at_utc_A":1585762397,"created_at_utc_B":1585763559,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Hi Jerrica4, Not a class read, but I feel like I have to tell you about the books, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon and maybe Greg Bears books on accelerated evolution, Blood Music,\u00a0Darwin's Radio, and\u00a0Darwin's Children. Cheers!","human_ref_B":"I come at medical anthropology from an STS background (historian), but one that I keep encountering is Annemarie Mol's \\*The Body Multple\\*. Specifically about reproductive\/class issues, Elizabeth Roberts does some really interesting work in Mexico City.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1162.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm546cd","c_root_id_B":"fm4x5ot","created_at_utc_A":1585766012,"created_at_utc_B":1585762397,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"my intro medical anthropology course was centred around a book called \"Unsafe Motherhood\" by Nicole Berry, which was about various issues experienced by NGOs trying to reduce maternal mortality in the Mayan areas of Guatemala, the problems with their methods and assumptions about the local people, etc. I also remember a paper titled \"sticky brains\" by Mara Buchbinder, which spoke to a lot of personal experiences I have as an autistic person - it was very interesting. I am entering grad school in med. anthro now and this paper really inspired me to do that. there was also that \"Egg and the Sperm\" essay by Emily Martin which specifically picks apart the language and narrative medical textbooks\/media have used to create a highly gendered \"drama\" out of how reproduction works on a cellular level ... in a later linguistic anthropology course I think that we looked at more chapters from whatever book that was in and it was focused on a lot of the same stuff I can send you the whole syllabus if you want, I got a lot out of almost everything we read.","human_ref_B":"Hi Jerrica4, Not a class read, but I feel like I have to tell you about the books, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon and maybe Greg Bears books on accelerated evolution, Blood Music,\u00a0Darwin's Radio, and\u00a0Darwin's Children. Cheers!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3615.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm5tu5l","c_root_id_B":"fm57dgb","created_at_utc_A":1585779836,"created_at_utc_B":1585767679,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hey, OP! I\u2019m a medical anthropology major hoping to be a physician\u2019s assistant. Haven\u2019t ever seen a post by another person with that background. Was your undergrad degree in Anthropology? If so, what was your experience with that?","human_ref_B":"As you noted an interest in reproductive health. Items by Emily Martin and Robbie Davis-Floyd would be a good start. Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12157.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm5b3xr","c_root_id_B":"fm5tu5l","created_at_utc_A":1585769650,"created_at_utc_B":1585779836,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is a fabulous read. And my aunt, who used to be the editor of the MMWR for CDC co-wrote this one with Mary Guinan: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Adventures-Female-Medical-Detective-Smallpox\/dp\/1421419998\/ref=nodl_","human_ref_B":"Hey, OP! I\u2019m a medical anthropology major hoping to be a physician\u2019s assistant. Haven\u2019t ever seen a post by another person with that background. Was your undergrad degree in Anthropology? If so, what was your experience with that?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10186.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ft1wqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some good books or reading lists medical anthropologists are reading or having their class read? I am a physician assistant student with a background in anthropology. I am really interested in reproductive issues as well as class disparities. I have read a lot of Paul Farmer and Alison Heller. Currently reading Improvising Medicine by Julie Livingston. Thanks for your recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"fm5slkq","c_root_id_B":"fm5tu5l","created_at_utc_A":1585779129,"created_at_utc_B":1585779836,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Seen some other recommendations for Emily Martin, but just wanted to add *Bipolar Expeditions* as well (about bipolar disorder, as the title suggests). Some others that spring to mind: Didier Fassin *When Bodies Remember* Diana Fullwiley *The Enculturated Gene* Stacey Langwick *Bodies, Politics and African Healing* Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs *Stories in the Time of Cholera* Sherine Hamdy *Our Bodies Belong to God*","human_ref_B":"Hey, OP! I\u2019m a medical anthropology major hoping to be a physician\u2019s assistant. Haven\u2019t ever seen a post by another person with that background. Was your undergrad degree in Anthropology? If so, what was your experience with that?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":707.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6u9g83","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are some good and perhaps easy to read books for people new or inexperienced in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"dlqy3er","c_root_id_B":"dlqxw2q","created_at_utc_A":1502973293,"created_at_utc_B":1502972959,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"For Cultural Anthropology I'd check out Understanding Culture. Pretty solid introduction to all of the major schools of thought.","human_ref_B":"It might be helpful if you explained what you believe anthropology to be. There are four subdisciplines of anthropology which, while related, don't necessarily interest everyone, even every anthropologist. For instance, if you're interested in how biological anthropology looks at human evolution or how archaeologists reconstruct past cultures, you're less likely to be interested in my own social anthropological research regarding video games. Being new or inexperienced, you probably don't have a strongly defined understanding of what anthropology is, which is fine. But a loose explanation of what you think it might be would help people suggest books that are more likely to be of interest to you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":334.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"6u9g83","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are some good and perhaps easy to read books for people new or inexperienced in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"dlqypht","c_root_id_B":"dlqxw2q","created_at_utc_A":1502974244,"created_at_utc_B":1502972959,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"If you are interested in Sociocultural anthropology, I recommend the great Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology, a recently released open-access peer-reviewed anthropology textbook. It presents a very broad and easy to understand survey of the discipline, focusing on some most pressing subjects - language, religion, kinship, sexuality, etc. From there, as people have said, you can focus a bit more on which parts do you want to know more about - to make an analogy, there is a difference between asking for a recommendation of \"history books\" and \"history of Germany books\" or \"history of science books\".","human_ref_B":"It might be helpful if you explained what you believe anthropology to be. There are four subdisciplines of anthropology which, while related, don't necessarily interest everyone, even every anthropologist. For instance, if you're interested in how biological anthropology looks at human evolution or how archaeologists reconstruct past cultures, you're less likely to be interested in my own social anthropological research regarding video games. Being new or inexperienced, you probably don't have a strongly defined understanding of what anthropology is, which is fine. But a loose explanation of what you think it might be would help people suggest books that are more likely to be of interest to you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1285.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"ul543i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are some anthro methodologies that I, an epidemiologist working in Congo, can employ to be more effective in my work?","c_root_id_A":"i7utc4b","c_root_id_B":"i7u6w8a","created_at_utc_A":1652051982,"created_at_utc_B":1652041772,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Read Paul Farmer's book Pathologies of Power. He's a medical anthropologist, co founder of Partners In Health, and probably was the foremost expert in the world on this exact question before his death.","human_ref_B":"Two sorts of investigation possibilities come to mind first when it comes to contact between humans and wild animals, markets and traditional healers See these references for some recent approaches Lupo, Karen D., and Dave N. Schmitt. \"How do meat scarcity and bushmeat commodification influence sharing and giving among forest foragers? A view from the Central African Republic.\" Human Ecology 45.5 (2017): 627-641. Jalloh, Abubakarr. \"Cultural practices and the transmission of Ebola in Sierra Leone: Lessons learned from a medical anthropology perspective.\" (2019).\\[dissertation\\] https:\/\/scholarworks.uni.edu\/etd\/944\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10210.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"96ypom","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"If I wanted to start studying anthropology on my own, what are some good books or other sources to research through as an introduction?","c_root_id_A":"e4482z8","c_root_id_B":"e44k4v6","created_at_utc_A":1534173749,"created_at_utc_B":1534183966,"score_A":12,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham is one of my favorite books period and talks about the evolutionary process between cooking and our guts\u2014and brains. It\u2019s pretty easy to understand and doesn\u2019t use too much anthro jargon.","human_ref_B":"The sub wiki has a reading list. I also enjoy watching lectures on YouTube - try Archeology Soup, The Leakey Foundation, NCAS Video, John Hawks, and UCTV. If you follow anthropologists on Twitter you'll hear about a lot of interesting new research.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10217.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"96ypom","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"If I wanted to start studying anthropology on my own, what are some good books or other sources to research through as an introduction?","c_root_id_A":"e44x5z6","c_root_id_B":"e44urz0","created_at_utc_A":1534194967,"created_at_utc_B":1534192902,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For cultural Malinowksi - Argonauts of the Western Pacific Writing Culture - James Clifford Writing Against Culture - Lila Abu-lughod On the primacy of the ethical - Nancy Scheper-Hughes","human_ref_B":"iTunes University is literally free university lectures that you can stream to any iDevice or PC. Most of the Anthropology stuff there is from Liberty University (strong evangelical Christian bias and in my opinion total garbage), but there is an Oxford University anthropology course there that I've heard is excellent. It probably will help to google the actual class and download course slides as the professors on iTunes University courses often refer to class material.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2065.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"a10s0n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"So it\u2019s pretty obvious that at one point in the past humans reproduced with blood relatives at a much more frequent rate. Since early humans inbred, does that mean that compared to them we would be much more prone to deformities and disease? Do we look to them as a Habsburg prince looks to us?","c_root_id_A":"eam2v82","c_root_id_B":"eam31b8","created_at_utc_A":1543370368,"created_at_utc_B":1543370519,"score_A":47,"score_B":72,"human_ref_A":"For this to be the case, you would need some pristine, non interbred version of humanity to start with. We probably had closer breeding groups earlier in our evolution, long before and even as we became humanity","human_ref_B":"Your definition of \"close relative\" is probably based on your own feelings - i.e. - cultural rather than empirical. Ask a geneticist if mating with first cousins is problematic biologically and they'll say... \"eh.\" Ask your average American and they'll throw out some lame joke about Alabama.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":151.0,"score_ratio":1.5319148936} {"post_id":"zjfpqu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"African lake, continuous human prehistoric habitation I listened to a series of lectures from The Teaching Company, \"Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations,\" and I remember the speaker saying that there is a lake in Africa where evidence has been found of continuous (seasonal?) human prehistoric habitation over thousands--I recall it as being tens of thousands--of years. Does this sound correct, and if so do you know the location?","c_root_id_A":"izvmrcf","c_root_id_B":"izvxjye","created_at_utc_A":1670818868,"created_at_utc_B":1670825294,"score_A":11,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I don't know the veracity of those claims, but my guess would be Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Some of the fossils of our earliest ancestors have been found there.","human_ref_B":"Lake chad maybe, or one of the now dry lakes in the Sahel. The Sahara was a center of civilization for thousands of years before it dried up, dairy farming was developed there etc Here\u2019s one site like that with human habitation going back 10,000 years, and there are many others like it: https:\/\/news.uchicago.edu\/story\/stone-age-graveyard-reveals-lifestyles-green-sahara-two-successive-cultures-thrived-lakeside > Stone Age Graveyard reveals Lifestyles of a 'Green Sahara': Two Successive Cultures Thrived Lakeside The remarkable archaeological site, dating back 10,000 years and called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the area, was brimming with skeletons of humans and animals - including large fish and crocodiles. Gobero is hidden away within Niger's forbidding T'en'er'e Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a \"desert within a desert.\" The T'en'er'e is the setting of some of Sereno's key paleontological discoveries, including the 500-toothed, plant-eating dinosaur Nigersaurus that lived 110 million years ago and the enormous extinct crocodilian Sarcosuchus, also known as SuperCroc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6426.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"pk2qz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What is the opinion of the Civilization video game series? And it\u2019s possible thematic interpretations for human organizational complexity, development and so on","c_root_id_A":"hc1hex2","c_root_id_B":"hc1fr14","created_at_utc_A":1631094983,"created_at_utc_B":1631093482,"score_A":79,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Hi, Archaeologist here. I've played several of the more recent ones and I had a good time, and I agree with the comment below re. trivia - people know about Mansa Musa, or the Kingdom of Congo, etc. who wouldn't otherwise, which is genuinely great. However, the game itself is based on some pretty big and often harmful misconceptions about (ancient) history, with the ones coming to mind including: * Unilinear technological evolution * i.e. the Tech Ladder, see the comment chain below about e.g. the North American Old Copper Culture * State-worship * Glorification of large powerful states and empires (\"Civilisations\"), which is gonna be unavoidable to some extent ofc but the games could still have touched on how the general trend is for people to be brought into \"Civilisation\" against their will more often than not, for good reason * Culture-History (term for the dominant school of archaeological theory from the birth of the modern discipline until the early sixties) * Unified \"peoples\" with well-defined borders remaining unified over millennia * Very amenable to fascist views actually, what they pass off as archaeology is obsessed with deciding when \"The Ayrans\" did xyz * Again, possibly unavoidable in a game like Civ (though you could probably at least try to get creative with it) * But that doesn't make it any less inaccurate * Bogstandard American ideologically-motivated shit history * Endemic, but I particularly remember how \"Theocracy\" was compatible with \"Freedom\" and \"Democracy\" but \"Socialism\" wasn't (???) * Wasn't the image for \"Freedom\" some kind of 1776 Founding-Father worship as well? As if the concept of \"Freedom\" was perfectly embodied by a gang of rich slaveowners who openly found democracy disgusting unless the vote was restricted to white male landowners * I think \"Trade Unionism\" and \"Socialism\" were incompatible as well? Do I remember that correctly? * ????? * Basically loads of stuff that makes sense if you believe what you're told in US public school and doesn't at all if you look any deeper * Honestly I could probably go more if I sat down and thought about it but the basic issue is that it is underpinned by a covert but very specific political ideology * No matter how many times we re-ran history, we would end up with basically the same sort of world, perhaps with some different flags for the dominant states and some different people in charge * Humanity's glory is dependent on building ever-larger and ever-more powerful centralised states and empires * The only alternatives to American-style capitalism are totalitarian nightmares * Just noticed from writing it all down: the logical consequence of the three above presents an imperative to support and defend the US government * Unified, powerful states are the only way we can achieve anything as a species, history always leads us towards a map dominated by competing mega-states, and the only alternative to the status quo are authoritarian hellscapes like Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR * \"**Therefore, if you value human wellbeing, serve the US government: there is literally no alternative.\" -** Sid Meier's Civilization * Writing this helped me learn something, thank you very much! I haven't played the games in while (and, to reiterate, really enjoyed them at the time) so may have misremembered parts Christopher Tin (Civ soundtrack man) is a god by the way, listen to everything he has ever written.","human_ref_B":"I've enjoyed playing them over the years, also Humankind which was released last month and very similar. One of my main objections is how they deal with nomadic civilisations, they've never really made any attempt to make nomads different from city based civilisations, nomads are just city dwellers with cavalary bonus. Personally I don't think they should include Mongols, Scythians, Huns, etc. unless they're willing to make an effort to have these people play differently from the other civs (at least until the middle ages, when they start to take over cities).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1501.0,"score_ratio":2.2571428571} {"post_id":"cz1iyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What subjects should I choose to study in High school, if I want to pursue a degree in anthropology? I live in New Zealand, and I'm heading into my senior years. Subject choices have come out and I'm stuck between what to choose. Out of my current subjects I have to choose one of the following, classical studies, general history, or macro economics. I'm also taking Biology, chemistry, statistics, calculus, and English. In your opinion, which choice will be best suited for a career in anthropology, with my current selection. I've achieved top grades in all my options, however I need some opinions for what to chose. Any help is appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"eywcnfg","c_root_id_B":"eyvpjpa","created_at_utc_A":1567526355,"created_at_utc_B":1567506366,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Any foreign language!","human_ref_B":"Basic economics home economics how to balance the checkbook on a meger salary...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19989.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"xe4fhl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why did you personally want to study anthropology? I'm thinking of studying it at university level and I wanted to know - what motivated you to pursue this subject\/career? Has your opinion changed, or has it stayed the same?","c_root_id_A":"iof9q9u","c_root_id_B":"iofae14","created_at_utc_A":1663177261,"created_at_utc_B":1663177514,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology and human evolution \/ paleontology, and other cultures, fascinated me since I was a kid reading about them in my extensive collection of National Geographics (still on the shelves in my old room at my parents' house). Fact that I do it for a living now is kinda neat.","human_ref_B":"Iv worked in hospitality all my life and I really hated people because of it so I decided to study my enemy and figure them out. That's the rough version. I guess I just want to understand people and the world around me and hopefully in doing so be a better person and if that rubs off on people around me then even better.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":253.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"xe4fhl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why did you personally want to study anthropology? I'm thinking of studying it at university level and I wanted to know - what motivated you to pursue this subject\/career? Has your opinion changed, or has it stayed the same?","c_root_id_A":"ioft5zh","c_root_id_B":"iof9q9u","created_at_utc_A":1663185030,"created_at_utc_B":1663177261,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I started off as a geology major but did not want to take chemistry. A bad reason I know. Anyway I decided physical anthro would be a good alternative. But the major required cultural anthro as well, so I took some of those courses and fell in love. It was amazing to me to find out that there were other people asking the kinds of questions I had always asked, and that there were legitimate ways to find decent (if imperfect) answers. After a lifetime of being told there was only way to think and I was doing it wrong, the complexity and messiness of anthropology was freedom.","human_ref_B":"Archaeology and human evolution \/ paleontology, and other cultures, fascinated me since I was a kid reading about them in my extensive collection of National Geographics (still on the shelves in my old room at my parents' house). Fact that I do it for a living now is kinda neat.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7769.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"xe4fhl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why did you personally want to study anthropology? I'm thinking of studying it at university level and I wanted to know - what motivated you to pursue this subject\/career? Has your opinion changed, or has it stayed the same?","c_root_id_A":"iofyquz","c_root_id_B":"iofyx74","created_at_utc_A":1663187306,"created_at_utc_B":1663187378,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I started off studying philosophy. I love epistemology but philosophy is often so removed and impractical. Anthropology really challenges my core assumptions about what I know and how I know it. I see the world in different ways and through different peoples experiences. I think anthropology also addresses meaningful questions in a way that other disciplines don\u2019t embrace in the same way - community, belonging, meaning. When I started, I was worried it was going to be a lot of looking at \u201ctribal\u201d people and dehumanising\/ objectifying other cultures. Anthropology has done work to change this, as it was a problem and continues to be to some extent. But I know now that anthropology doesn\u2019t have to be that.","human_ref_B":"I didn't major in anthropology, but I took some graduate-level courses while I was pursuing a different degree. I found the scientific paradigm(s) of anthropology a refreshing change from my own field's, and made me a better scientist. Academic fields can be remarkably insular, ignoring a great deal of good research and discussion of a topic merely because it's published in different journals. > career Are you asking about a career as an academic anthropologist?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":72.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsmr0d","c_root_id_B":"evspy9v","created_at_utc_A":1564751079,"created_at_utc_B":1564753459,"score_A":32,"score_B":98,"human_ref_A":"hmmm. arguably humans evolved to hunt humans in some regards. Lots of evidence for cannibalism in our hominid past until the mesolithic. We are very good at killing each other (but also better at cooperation than other animals too on the other hand).","human_ref_B":"It's common for parasites to specialise in just one species host, so there are parasites that are unique to humans, like head lice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2380.0,"score_ratio":3.0625} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsk49e","c_root_id_B":"evspy9v","created_at_utc_A":1564748897,"created_at_utc_B":1564753459,"score_A":23,"score_B":98,"human_ref_A":"While there are examples of predation on humans, there is not a specific example of an animal that specifically adapted to hunt humans, afaik. This is probably because humans are really good at killing stuff. With tools and traps we can easily capture and or kill any large predator. We actively make hunting us a bad idea as there is too much risk.","human_ref_B":"It's common for parasites to specialise in just one species host, so there are parasites that are unique to humans, like head lice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4562.0,"score_ratio":4.2608695652} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsmr0d","c_root_id_B":"evsk49e","created_at_utc_A":1564751079,"created_at_utc_B":1564748897,"score_A":32,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"hmmm. arguably humans evolved to hunt humans in some regards. Lots of evidence for cannibalism in our hominid past until the mesolithic. We are very good at killing each other (but also better at cooperation than other animals too on the other hand).","human_ref_B":"While there are examples of predation on humans, there is not a specific example of an animal that specifically adapted to hunt humans, afaik. This is probably because humans are really good at killing stuff. With tools and traps we can easily capture and or kill any large predator. We actively make hunting us a bad idea as there is too much risk.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2182.0,"score_ratio":1.3913043478} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsqbac","c_root_id_B":"evsyoj3","created_at_utc_A":1564753713,"created_at_utc_B":1564759080,"score_A":8,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Do germs and viruses count as predators?","human_ref_B":"Also consider that normal patterns of trophic ecology make a human-specialized predator very unlikely. The normal pattern found in nature is that predators are larger than their prey. So a hypothetical human-specialized predator would have to be quite large, and require a great deal of energy to keep that body running. Assuming there was such a human-specialized predator, which weighed something like 150-200 pounds minimum, for that predator to stay alive it'd have to be consuming lots and lots of people. The problem is, human hunter-gatherers have very low population densities -- around .1 - 1 person \/ km or thereabouts. This would require the predator to range over immense distances, to encounter enough humans to prey upon. If one were to model these parameters formally, my guess is that the ranging costs would be higher than found in any living predator, and not result in a viable feeding strategy. Add to this the fact that humans are themselves apex predators (hunter-gatherers kill everything from lions to hyenas to crocodiles to elephants) and it makes a human-specialized predator pretty unlikely. If you happen to be a predator that can kill humans (i.e. leopards, lions, etc.) it makes a whole lot more sense not to specialize on people but to also eat the baboons, vervet monkeys, wildebeest, impala, warthogs or other prey that would also be found in the habitat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5367.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsrfl4","c_root_id_B":"evsyoj3","created_at_utc_A":1564754476,"created_at_utc_B":1564759080,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"We are an apex predator, as such nothing beyond parasites and viruses was specifically designed to hunt hs","human_ref_B":"Also consider that normal patterns of trophic ecology make a human-specialized predator very unlikely. The normal pattern found in nature is that predators are larger than their prey. So a hypothetical human-specialized predator would have to be quite large, and require a great deal of energy to keep that body running. Assuming there was such a human-specialized predator, which weighed something like 150-200 pounds minimum, for that predator to stay alive it'd have to be consuming lots and lots of people. The problem is, human hunter-gatherers have very low population densities -- around .1 - 1 person \/ km or thereabouts. This would require the predator to range over immense distances, to encounter enough humans to prey upon. If one were to model these parameters formally, my guess is that the ranging costs would be higher than found in any living predator, and not result in a viable feeding strategy. Add to this the fact that humans are themselves apex predators (hunter-gatherers kill everything from lions to hyenas to crocodiles to elephants) and it makes a human-specialized predator pretty unlikely. If you happen to be a predator that can kill humans (i.e. leopards, lions, etc.) it makes a whole lot more sense not to specialize on people but to also eat the baboons, vervet monkeys, wildebeest, impala, warthogs or other prey that would also be found in the habitat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4604.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evt1gnv","c_root_id_B":"evt6vw9","created_at_utc_A":1564760793,"created_at_utc_B":1564764094,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Leopards were pretty good as predators for various apes and at one stage, us. They know to go for the head. They have probably been predators on humans for quite a while (well, until we armed ourselves with sticks, stone axes, etc).","human_ref_B":"Mosquitoes. And they\u2019re enormously successful at it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3301.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsrfl4","c_root_id_B":"evt6vw9","created_at_utc_A":1564754476,"created_at_utc_B":1564764094,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"We are an apex predator, as such nothing beyond parasites and viruses was specifically designed to hunt hs","human_ref_B":"Mosquitoes. And they\u2019re enormously successful at it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9618.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evt0kqi","c_root_id_B":"evt6vw9","created_at_utc_A":1564760251,"created_at_utc_B":1564764094,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"bedbugs. malaria?","human_ref_B":"Mosquitoes. And they\u2019re enormously successful at it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3843.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evt1gnv","c_root_id_B":"evtosfs","created_at_utc_A":1564760793,"created_at_utc_B":1564775020,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Leopards were pretty good as predators for various apes and at one stage, us. They know to go for the head. They have probably been predators on humans for quite a while (well, until we armed ourselves with sticks, stone axes, etc).","human_ref_B":"How is it that nobody mentions saber tooth tigers e.g. Dinofelis?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14227.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evt1gnv","c_root_id_B":"evt0kqi","created_at_utc_A":1564760793,"created_at_utc_B":1564760251,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Leopards were pretty good as predators for various apes and at one stage, us. They know to go for the head. They have probably been predators on humans for quite a while (well, until we armed ourselves with sticks, stone axes, etc).","human_ref_B":"bedbugs. malaria?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":542.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evsrfl4","c_root_id_B":"evtosfs","created_at_utc_A":1564754476,"created_at_utc_B":1564775020,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"We are an apex predator, as such nothing beyond parasites and viruses was specifically designed to hunt hs","human_ref_B":"How is it that nobody mentions saber tooth tigers e.g. Dinofelis?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20544.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cl1ceb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there ever an animal that was specifically a natural predator to humans, if not why didn't want one evolve?","c_root_id_A":"evtosfs","c_root_id_B":"evt0kqi","created_at_utc_A":1564775020,"created_at_utc_B":1564760251,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"How is it that nobody mentions saber tooth tigers e.g. Dinofelis?","human_ref_B":"bedbugs. malaria?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14769.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"94a5pj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How did humans figure out how to make leavened bread? What made someone put flour, bacteria, and water together and set it next to a fire then eat it?","c_root_id_A":"e3jtj9n","c_root_id_B":"e3jtdvj","created_at_utc_A":1533320158,"created_at_utc_B":1533320033,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"As others have said, people didn't deliberately put flour, bacteria and water together to make bread, it probably happened by accident. Humans have been making bread since long before agriculture. Grains are a rich source of protein and packed with calories. Wild grain was harvested and crushed with grinding stones to produce a coarse flour. This was then mixed with water to make a paste, which you can spread on a flat rock and put by the fire to make flatbreads. We have physical evidence of grinding stones used to crush grains going back 30,000 years. We have evidence of the collection of wild grains going back at least that far. And we have evidence of deliberate planting of grains and legumes (though not proper domestication) going back at least 20,000 years. The air around us is full of yeast and fermenting bacteria like lactobacillus. Pretty much any food with sufficient water and sugar content will ferment if you leave it out for 24 hours. Even today when anyone can go to the grocery and buy a package of yeast, lots of recipes around the world still rely on natural fermentation, which means no yeast or bacterial cultures are added. The batter is simply left overnight to ferment on its own. There's no way to know how it began, but the likely scenario is that people have been eating leavened bread occasionally for as long as there has been bread, because sooner or later, someone would leave the batter for a few hours between mixing it and baking the bread. In time, people may have noticed that leavening makes the bread fluffier and lighter, and found it more tasty. The first evidence of *deliberate* leavening is from Egypt, about 5,000 years ago. This was when people began to build starter cultures, so as not to leave the process to chance. The atmosphere has lots of different strains of yeast and fermenting bacteria, and not all are equally good. So people began saving dough from especially good batches of bread and using it as a starter in the next round of bread making. This knowledge spread to Mesopotamia and other parts of the world, and leavening became common. Another item that is also very old and is fermented is beer. Again, we don't know how the process started, but it was almost certainly by accident. Crush some grain and mix water (to make gruel), and in 24 hours it will start to develop bubbles. Leave it longer and the yeast will turn more and more sugars to alcohol. We don't know if beer came before leavened bread, though there is some controversial evidence that people had beer as long ago as Gobekli Tepe, which is 10,000+ years old. We know that by the time the Egyptians were making leavened bread, they were already differentiating between brewer's yeast and baker's yeast, so although they didn't know microbiology, they did know that specific cultures were good for bread and others were good for beer.","human_ref_B":"My view is that people began mixing ground up seeds with water as early as 18,000BP (maybe earlier). There are apparent flat bread type baking stones in Central Europe earlier than that (they weren't grinding seeds though, it was mashed roots, similar to turnips or beets). So baking something on a stone is old. Some vegetables\/seeds used in this process would have had bacteria in them. Incorporating air into the dough by kneading is a type of leavening agent (gas bubbles in the dough are what people probably sought after). If anthropologists could say why people like the tastes and textures that they do, we'd be really happy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":125.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"ji5xgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"People with an Anthropology degree, what was your experience like in college, and then outside of it in your Career? I am thinking about changing my major to it, since it is one of the most appealing majors to me on the surface and I enjoyed the intro course I took last year. I think I want to be an academic advisor, but everyone has told me that my major doesn't necessarily matter for that as long as you get a masters in education. So I would be taking this more for the knowledge\/experience than the career opportunities, but I would still like to hear about those as well. Thanks n peace","c_root_id_A":"ga4rxgl","c_root_id_B":"ga4zhif","created_at_utc_A":1603681648,"created_at_utc_B":1603686506,"score_A":14,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Hi! I have my M.A. in Sociocultural Anth. Like many others I stumbled into the field while trying to fill requirements and once in it, I was completely taken. I switched and didn't look back. Undergrad was a blast but I think my love for the field really came out through my graduate experience. I got to dig into theories old and new and really engage in conversation with people who were just as enthusiastic about anthro as I was. I finished in 2018 and I'll be honest and say that finding work full time has been hard as hell. I think that largely stems from some people not really knowing what anthro is or what we do. I've been adjuncting since I graduated and I love teaching. I would love to stay in academia, but I'm not sure I can sustain this adjuncting for much longer. In any case, good luck!","human_ref_B":"\"Education is the best preparation for old age\" \\-Aristotle Anthropology is great preparation for leading an interesting life. For making money, not so much. On the other hand, I ended up doing daily business with Greek billionaires for a Japanese corporation. The possibilities turned out to be greater than I'd imagined.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4858.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"ji5xgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"People with an Anthropology degree, what was your experience like in college, and then outside of it in your Career? I am thinking about changing my major to it, since it is one of the most appealing majors to me on the surface and I enjoyed the intro course I took last year. I think I want to be an academic advisor, but everyone has told me that my major doesn't necessarily matter for that as long as you get a masters in education. So I would be taking this more for the knowledge\/experience than the career opportunities, but I would still like to hear about those as well. Thanks n peace","c_root_id_A":"ga5b9r6","c_root_id_B":"ga5nydn","created_at_utc_A":1603697593,"created_at_utc_B":1603711685,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Non of my cohort use their anthro degree in the subject. I work with asc children, my friend runs a shop, another teaches English in China. One went into journalism. I think if you wanted to follow the trade so to speak you have to be :super motivated, be a very, very good writer and have money to live on while you work for free. On the plus side, if you do manage to write something original in the exact, precise manner that's acceptable to the journals you might be able to skip the masters year. Then you can come and teach anthropology in a he setting long enough to finance an ethnographic study. Of course all of this will have to be passed through the filter of established anthropology with its ridgid dislike of anything that would discredits their work. Or follow the dark path you could, sell your skills to a MNC who need to find new and exciting ways of screwing over Indigenous people's in order to sell more shit nobody needs. Be their ethical band aid while they cut throats.","human_ref_B":"I have a masters in cultural anthropology. After graduating i spent a year looking for work and went back to college (Canada) and took an technical diploma. So now I work in environmental engineering.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14092.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ji5xgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"People with an Anthropology degree, what was your experience like in college, and then outside of it in your Career? I am thinking about changing my major to it, since it is one of the most appealing majors to me on the surface and I enjoyed the intro course I took last year. I think I want to be an academic advisor, but everyone has told me that my major doesn't necessarily matter for that as long as you get a masters in education. So I would be taking this more for the knowledge\/experience than the career opportunities, but I would still like to hear about those as well. Thanks n peace","c_root_id_A":"ga5b9r6","c_root_id_B":"ga5vpvf","created_at_utc_A":1603697593,"created_at_utc_B":1603717687,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Non of my cohort use their anthro degree in the subject. I work with asc children, my friend runs a shop, another teaches English in China. One went into journalism. I think if you wanted to follow the trade so to speak you have to be :super motivated, be a very, very good writer and have money to live on while you work for free. On the plus side, if you do manage to write something original in the exact, precise manner that's acceptable to the journals you might be able to skip the masters year. Then you can come and teach anthropology in a he setting long enough to finance an ethnographic study. Of course all of this will have to be passed through the filter of established anthropology with its ridgid dislike of anything that would discredits their work. Or follow the dark path you could, sell your skills to a MNC who need to find new and exciting ways of screwing over Indigenous people's in order to sell more shit nobody needs. Be their ethical band aid while they cut throats.","human_ref_B":"I got an undergraduate degree in Anthro and have not regretted it. I work in marketing, which was my original major. I figured I may end up back in the business world but I wanted to focus on my interests while I had the chance. The biggest thing it gave me was an understanding of how to research and think critically. I met my husband on an excavation during a summer field school. He is still in the archaeology world- worked in CRM for 5 years, has worked seasonally for the USFS and now has a contract position at TVA while he is pursuing his masters in biological archaeology. Some differences between the two of us- I hate digging. I am also not as meticulous as he is. He is a very patient person who prefers to work hard, quietly. I am very social. Of the sub-disciplines cultural anthropology majors have the least luck finding a relevant job I think. That\u2019s just anecdotal though. Good luck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20094.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fnbmuen","c_root_id_B":"fnb2uqy","created_at_utc_A":1586818358,"created_at_utc_B":1586808243,"score_A":17,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I have a B.A. in anthropology. I\u2019m a medical student now, and find that anthropology helps me to see past several institutionalized barriers to patient care. Specifically, anthropology was the best way for me to become more culturally competent. I feel I am more able to independently think about what barriers might exist for under represented patients compared to patient from a majority, and provide better care.","human_ref_B":"I have an AS and a BA in Anthropology, and an MA in Public Archaeology. I've been doing various kinds of CRM for the past 20ish years (I started young and put myself through college working at SHPO and the State Arch Lab). I'm currently working in disaster management, helping communities recover from disasters by making sure their Federally funded projects are compliant with environmental and historic preservation laws! It's a weird job, and it's not as fun as shovel bumming can be, but I've got steady work year round, health insurance, and I can positively impact people by doing my job properly.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10115.0,"score_ratio":1.1333333333} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fnbktyr","c_root_id_B":"fnbmuen","created_at_utc_A":1586817314,"created_at_utc_B":1586818358,"score_A":9,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'm an academic, teaching archaeology in university and doing research in my area. It's great, but I've been incredibly lucky to get this far","human_ref_B":"I have a B.A. in anthropology. I\u2019m a medical student now, and find that anthropology helps me to see past several institutionalized barriers to patient care. Specifically, anthropology was the best way for me to become more culturally competent. I feel I am more able to independently think about what barriers might exist for under represented patients compared to patient from a majority, and provide better care.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1044.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fnb7ywh","c_root_id_B":"fnbmuen","created_at_utc_A":1586810805,"created_at_utc_B":1586818358,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Only have my Bachelor's degree. Tried working with my tribe's THPO office, mostly stick to shovel bumming now. I'm kind of floating along until I get enough field experience to go back to school. Only non-archaeology experience post college was the nonprofit sector and I didn't get much opportunity to utilize there.","human_ref_B":"I have a B.A. in anthropology. I\u2019m a medical student now, and find that anthropology helps me to see past several institutionalized barriers to patient care. Specifically, anthropology was the best way for me to become more culturally competent. I feel I am more able to independently think about what barriers might exist for under represented patients compared to patient from a majority, and provide better care.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7553.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fnbktyr","c_root_id_B":"fnb7ywh","created_at_utc_A":1586817314,"created_at_utc_B":1586810805,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm an academic, teaching archaeology in university and doing research in my area. It's great, but I've been incredibly lucky to get this far","human_ref_B":"Only have my Bachelor's degree. Tried working with my tribe's THPO office, mostly stick to shovel bumming now. I'm kind of floating along until I get enough field experience to go back to school. Only non-archaeology experience post college was the nonprofit sector and I didn't get much opportunity to utilize there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6509.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fncayin","c_root_id_B":"fnckuin","created_at_utc_A":1586832470,"created_at_utc_B":1586839344,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"AA and BA in telecommunications and MA in forensic anthropology. Professionally I am doing the CRM thing throughout Southern California. CRM gives you the opportunity to discover lost artifacts but rarely does it also allow you to make the analyses. The recovery and analyses are broken up into departments so once an artifact is found it usually gets turned over to one of the other departments and you will rarely see or hear of the items again. Instead I am exploring, researching, publishing, presenting, attending meetings, and developing new students all on my own dime. That is where most of the fun comes into play.","human_ref_B":"I teach at a uni and use my degree for that (obviously) but I do various other work like science communication, work with an Indigenous federation on land-rights issues, and right now helping with getting resources to an Indigenous community that is isolated due to the pandemic. I also do some work in conservation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6874.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fncdwxy","c_root_id_B":"fnckuin","created_at_utc_A":1586834415,"created_at_utc_B":1586839344,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology. Despite going to a 4 year school for 4 years, I had a bit of a non-traditional path to get my degree that involved a 3 year hiatus in which I worked grunt-level jobs. Getting my degree allowed me to advance within my company into a customer service and sales position. My background in Anthropology and qualitative interviews helped me in building bonds with customers, getting repeat business and sales. Like another poster said, you are able to see the big picture and how all the parts fit together, which is great for a logistics based job with a lot of moving parts. I eventually moved up to an administrative position where I work with vendors to service and maintain a vehicle fleet of up to 30,000 cars before COVID. I dont use Anthropology or theory much in my everyday life, hell I barely remember what structural-functionalism is and have lost many of my academic memories. But Anthropology is about gaining a worldview and understanding perspective of your world, those around you, and how those around you interact with the world. Anthropology doesnt necessarily translate directly to a lot of jobs or careers, but it does translate to life skills that you can apply in any field you choose. Businesses dont need ethographies as much as they need people who can work with a diverse team of people and skillsets and negotiate roadblocks that might prevent effective communication in working towards your goal.","human_ref_B":"I teach at a uni and use my degree for that (obviously) but I do various other work like science communication, work with an Indigenous federation on land-rights issues, and right now helping with getting resources to an Indigenous community that is isolated due to the pandemic. I also do some work in conservation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4929.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g0owz7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Those who have an Anthropology degree, what is your career? Do you use your degree at work? In what ways do you feel you utilize your anthropology degree if you work in a field not typically associated with Anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"fnckuin","c_root_id_B":"fncjpax","created_at_utc_A":1586839344,"created_at_utc_B":1586838491,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I teach at a uni and use my degree for that (obviously) but I do various other work like science communication, work with an Indigenous federation on land-rights issues, and right now helping with getting resources to an Indigenous community that is isolated due to the pandemic. I also do some work in conservation.","human_ref_B":"I have a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology, had the unfortunate timing of graduating in the winter of 2009 and my job was a receptionist at a Construction firm, so for several years I was focused on surviving as opposed to pursuing my degree in the job sphere. That being said I've ended up in Human Resources in an incredibly diverse city, and just having so much cultural context has been very useful when it comes to my work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":853.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqjyudy","c_root_id_B":"hqj8nbp","created_at_utc_A":1640877633,"created_at_utc_B":1640862785,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Got my master\u2019s in public archaeology, but honestly, if you have the ability\/interest, a BA in anthropology can open the door for a lot of different master\u2019s routes you want to take in or out of anthropology","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know about generally, but I personally am going to pursue archaeology in Leiden University starting with a pre-Master\u2019s after my Bachelor\u2018s, apparently both History and Anthropology are sufficient to apply for a pre-Master\u2019s there","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14848.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqka075","c_root_id_B":"hqk1kqd","created_at_utc_A":1640882200,"created_at_utc_B":1640878797,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Just got my master's in marketing analytics after graduating with bachelor's in anthropology and minor in marketing. Was actually super helpful to be able to showcase my experience with research methodology. Definitely way more experience ties over to business than you may think! Definitely speak reach out to admission offices of MBA program universities because they rarely get to speak with someone from an anthro background so they will definitely want to learn more about how it can be applied to even a general MBA.","human_ref_B":"My BA was in Anthro and I received my MS in Biology without needing to complete any additional courses. I ended up doing an accelerated BSN after though lol (which did require prereqs) and am now in NP school \ud83d\ude05","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3403.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqkixtk","c_root_id_B":"hqk1kqd","created_at_utc_A":1640885593,"created_at_utc_B":1640878797,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I have a BA in anthropology and got my MA in Public History. I currently work as an architectural historian and my anthropology background is extremely useful!","human_ref_B":"My BA was in Anthro and I received my MS in Biology without needing to complete any additional courses. I ended up doing an accelerated BSN after though lol (which did require prereqs) and am now in NP school \ud83d\ude05","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6796.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqj8nbp","c_root_id_B":"hqk1kqd","created_at_utc_A":1640862785,"created_at_utc_B":1640878797,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know about generally, but I personally am going to pursue archaeology in Leiden University starting with a pre-Master\u2019s after my Bachelor\u2018s, apparently both History and Anthropology are sufficient to apply for a pre-Master\u2019s there","human_ref_B":"My BA was in Anthro and I received my MS in Biology without needing to complete any additional courses. I ended up doing an accelerated BSN after though lol (which did require prereqs) and am now in NP school \ud83d\ude05","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16012.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqka075","c_root_id_B":"hqj8nbp","created_at_utc_A":1640882200,"created_at_utc_B":1640862785,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Just got my master's in marketing analytics after graduating with bachelor's in anthropology and minor in marketing. Was actually super helpful to be able to showcase my experience with research methodology. Definitely way more experience ties over to business than you may think! Definitely speak reach out to admission offices of MBA program universities because they rarely get to speak with someone from an anthro background so they will definitely want to learn more about how it can be applied to even a general MBA.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know about generally, but I personally am going to pursue archaeology in Leiden University starting with a pre-Master\u2019s after my Bachelor\u2018s, apparently both History and Anthropology are sufficient to apply for a pre-Master\u2019s there","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19415.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqj8nbp","c_root_id_B":"hqkixtk","created_at_utc_A":1640862785,"created_at_utc_B":1640885593,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know about generally, but I personally am going to pursue archaeology in Leiden University starting with a pre-Master\u2019s after my Bachelor\u2018s, apparently both History and Anthropology are sufficient to apply for a pre-Master\u2019s there","human_ref_B":"I have a BA in anthropology and got my MA in Public History. I currently work as an architectural historian and my anthropology background is extremely useful!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22808.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqj8nbp","c_root_id_B":"hqlcekr","created_at_utc_A":1640862785,"created_at_utc_B":1640896931,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know about generally, but I personally am going to pursue archaeology in Leiden University starting with a pre-Master\u2019s after my Bachelor\u2018s, apparently both History and Anthropology are sufficient to apply for a pre-Master\u2019s there","human_ref_B":"Sociology, History, Human Geography, Public Health, Urban Planning, Human Resources, some tech and data science MA\/MS programs might interest you too esp those related to ethics and policy. You have options, just pick something that lights you up. Goodluck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34146.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"rrxdvu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What Master's degree can I have with a BA in anthropology? Hello all, my question is exactly what the title says. If someone doesn't want to pursue anthropology after completing Bachelor's anymore, what are the Master's degrees that they generally go for (be it MBA, STEM-related, or other social science degrees?)","c_root_id_A":"hqkuza2","c_root_id_B":"hqlcekr","created_at_utc_A":1640890151,"created_at_utc_B":1640896931,"score_A":2,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"That's going to be pretty heavily dependant on what you focus on during undergrad. Anthro is a broad and diverse enough field that you can build up a background for pursuing a number of different graduate programs. For instance, one of my classmates followed her archaeology work into an even greater focus on dirt. She now works in carbon capture. Because of the area I was in, getting an MPH was a popular option, particularly for those who were already working in undergrad on health disparities both domestic and abroad. Anthropology is a very broad discipline, so it rewards focusing a particular aspect of humanity, which can then open up opportunities to parlay your undergrad experiences into a more delineated field of study.","human_ref_B":"Sociology, History, Human Geography, Public Health, Urban Planning, Human Resources, some tech and data science MA\/MS programs might interest you too esp those related to ethics and policy. You have options, just pick something that lights you up. Goodluck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6780.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"ujm5wh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is \u00a362,480 dent worth it for a MPhil Social Anthropology degree from Oxford? Pretty much what the title says. All my funding opportunities have been exhausted. I'm unsure if I'll be able to repay the debt with an Anthropology degree. fellow Anthropology graduates at Oxford please tell me if it's realistic to expect a well paying job post masters. thanks.","c_root_id_A":"i7jptb2","c_root_id_B":"i7jryza","created_at_utc_A":1651840798,"created_at_utc_B":1651841887,"score_A":8,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Holy fork, that's a lot of money for MPhil! How much do they ask for a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Absolutely not. That is several times what many people pay for a BA in the US. This might- *might*- make sense for PhD, but a Masters? Absolutely not. As a rule, I discourage people from paying for anthro grad school at US state schools, where a two year program might run them \u00a318000-\u00a325000. This another tier beyond that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1089.0,"score_ratio":4.625} {"post_id":"ujm5wh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is \u00a362,480 dent worth it for a MPhil Social Anthropology degree from Oxford? Pretty much what the title says. All my funding opportunities have been exhausted. I'm unsure if I'll be able to repay the debt with an Anthropology degree. fellow Anthropology graduates at Oxford please tell me if it's realistic to expect a well paying job post masters. thanks.","c_root_id_A":"i7jvubn","c_root_id_B":"i7ksmnk","created_at_utc_A":1651843729,"created_at_utc_B":1651857231,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't pay that much for my PhD. I paid ~$150 for my MA and paying around $6,000 so far (2 years in) for my PhD. This is just because my funding and assistantships don't cover partocular fees. I was told to not go to any program that didn't offer me funding when I started applying to grad programs. My current advisor even told me to wait a year when they didn't know if they couldn't cover 1 year or not because of COVID because \"it wasn't worth putting myself into that much debt over.\" EDIT: Corrected amounts.","human_ref_B":"Absolutely not worth it. There's no question that pedigree can matter to some extent for tenure track university jobs. Certain universities are vastly overrepresented among US anthropology faculty, for example. But for a master's degree? For practically any job and anthropology that requires a master's degree, almost no one cares where your degree came from, just that you have one from an accredited university. A master's degree from Oxford is, for the purposes of employment, the equivalent of a platinum toilet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13502.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"ujm5wh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is \u00a362,480 dent worth it for a MPhil Social Anthropology degree from Oxford? Pretty much what the title says. All my funding opportunities have been exhausted. I'm unsure if I'll be able to repay the debt with an Anthropology degree. fellow Anthropology graduates at Oxford please tell me if it's realistic to expect a well paying job post masters. thanks.","c_root_id_A":"i7jptb2","c_root_id_B":"i7ksmnk","created_at_utc_A":1651840798,"created_at_utc_B":1651857231,"score_A":8,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Holy fork, that's a lot of money for MPhil! How much do they ask for a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Absolutely not worth it. There's no question that pedigree can matter to some extent for tenure track university jobs. Certain universities are vastly overrepresented among US anthropology faculty, for example. But for a master's degree? For practically any job and anthropology that requires a master's degree, almost no one cares where your degree came from, just that you have one from an accredited university. A master's degree from Oxford is, for the purposes of employment, the equivalent of a platinum toilet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16433.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"ujm5wh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is \u00a362,480 dent worth it for a MPhil Social Anthropology degree from Oxford? Pretty much what the title says. All my funding opportunities have been exhausted. I'm unsure if I'll be able to repay the debt with an Anthropology degree. fellow Anthropology graduates at Oxford please tell me if it's realistic to expect a well paying job post masters. thanks.","c_root_id_A":"i7koofn","c_root_id_B":"i7ksmnk","created_at_utc_A":1651855603,"created_at_utc_B":1651857231,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Oxford makes sense if you're rich, or looking at using it as a networking opportunity, (continued from your being enrolled in a public school at an early age)","human_ref_B":"Absolutely not worth it. There's no question that pedigree can matter to some extent for tenure track university jobs. Certain universities are vastly overrepresented among US anthropology faculty, for example. But for a master's degree? For practically any job and anthropology that requires a master's degree, almost no one cares where your degree came from, just that you have one from an accredited university. A master's degree from Oxford is, for the purposes of employment, the equivalent of a platinum toilet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1628.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"ujm5wh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is \u00a362,480 dent worth it for a MPhil Social Anthropology degree from Oxford? Pretty much what the title says. All my funding opportunities have been exhausted. I'm unsure if I'll be able to repay the debt with an Anthropology degree. fellow Anthropology graduates at Oxford please tell me if it's realistic to expect a well paying job post masters. thanks.","c_root_id_A":"i7jvubn","c_root_id_B":"i7jptb2","created_at_utc_A":1651843729,"created_at_utc_B":1651840798,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I wouldn't pay that much for my PhD. I paid ~$150 for my MA and paying around $6,000 so far (2 years in) for my PhD. This is just because my funding and assistantships don't cover partocular fees. I was told to not go to any program that didn't offer me funding when I started applying to grad programs. My current advisor even told me to wait a year when they didn't know if they couldn't cover 1 year or not because of COVID because \"it wasn't worth putting myself into that much debt over.\" EDIT: Corrected amounts.","human_ref_B":"Holy fork, that's a lot of money for MPhil! How much do they ask for a PhD?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2931.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gkkiwl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What reading material is there regarding cannibalism, evil spirits, mental illness in tribes? More specifically or if you can tell me, why is cannibalism accepted in some places, why do they need to believe in evil spirits and how do they deal with different kinds of mental illnesses? About mental illnesses, I know that there are the classic psychiatric ones like schizophrenia, manic depression, depression, epilepsy (maybe that's neurological, not sure), psychopathy, more recently discovered ones like OCD, different personality disorders, autism, addiction, paraphilias also there are regional\/culture-bound mental illnesses that happen only among specific cultures. I'm asking this latter mental illness question because I read somewhere that schizophrenic people tend to live peacefully, unperturbed in such cultures, or at least they are accepted.","c_root_id_A":"fqs44oz","c_root_id_B":"fqsqjvd","created_at_utc_A":1589598092,"created_at_utc_B":1589615353,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure about tribes and mental illness, but the book Mental Illness and Psychology by Michel Foucault is a pretty good place to start. If you like that then I would recommend moving to his other book, History of Madness. He has many good arguments concerning anthropology\/archaeology but he tends to write in a long, drawn out way which can be rough to read sometimes.","human_ref_B":"There's a few different questions here so I'll try to at least give you some literature that'll get you started. **Mental illness and cross-cultural relevance** It's first necessary to note that 'mental illness' is a category created by modern western science, and each diagnostic category is therefore a cultural artefact of modern western science. Mental illness is really just a name we give to a set of 'ways of being' that we classify as 'abnormal'. Basically, *everything* we call mental-illness is culture-bound in some way - some are just more widespread or common than others. More recently, one very common factor in *diagnosing* mental illness is that the 'abnormal' thing has to affect your ability to function in and interact with the world around you, and\/or cause harm to yourself and\/or others (e.g. affecting social relationships through aggression or withdrawal; inability to focus at school or work; inappropriately interacting with others; delusions, hallucinations, or compulsions that make it difficult or impossible to go about your day as you want to). It stands to reason, then, that *even if* we believe that the diagnostic categories of mental illness (e.g. depression, OCD) are universal, if we change the social and cultural context, the mental illness may very well just... not exist, or at least affect people very differently. Basically, our understanding and categorisation of mental illness is not universal, nor is it infallible even in our own societies. There are ongoing debates about the validity of diagnoses (e.g. many in the field believe the dissociative identity disorder \\DID\\] is not a universal psychopathology, but rather [a culture-bound learned trauma response); categories within the DSM change all the time as we learn more about neurology and neurochemistry, and as social norms change (e.g. the famous example of the removal of 'Homosexuality' from the DSM in 1973); psychopharmacology is changing very rapidly, making it easier to formalise and universalise drug therapies. You are right that there is some evidence that mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, presents differently and is socially regarded differently in different places. The basic theory goes that people in some cultural contexts view delusions and hallucinations more or less negatively than people in other cultural contexts, and this affects both the content of the delusions and hallucinations (e.g. whether they are more or less benevolent or malevolent; comforting or confronting); and the stigma associated with experiencing them. These things then reinforce each other: if we think psychosis is bad and dangerous, we're more likely to have a negative experience of psychosis, which leads to more stigma. Basically, we might call delusions and hallucinations 'symptoms' of a psychopathology, and therefore as undesirable and treatable. Other people might see them as holy, or spiritual, or just simply comforting. (I had a psych professor in Australia who told us about a client he'd had who stopped taking his meds, because even though some of the voices he heard were awful, some of them were really supportive and encouraging, and without them he got depressed; he'd rather learn to ignore the bad ones than live without all of them). So this raises a lot of important questions for the practice of psychiatry and psychology: How universally useful is it to call these things 'schizophrenia'? In doing so, do we risk introducing stigma to cultural contexts which do not currently stigmatise this? In *not* doing so, do we leave people who might actually want psychiatric help without access to it? Is medicating people, even if they want help, a universally valid approach? **Here are a few sources which discuss these cultural differences in detail: \\**[**1****\\] \\**[**2****\\] \\**[**3****\\]** **If you want to read more about mental illness in general, I'd suggest:** *Saints, scholars, and schizophrenics* by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (classic ethnography) *Of two minds* by Tanya Luhrmann (ethnography and I guess cultural critique) *Madness and Civilization* by Michel Foucault (historical philosophical account of 'madness' in the west by my main dude) ETA: I'm not sure what you mean by 'tribes', but I'm assuming you mean small-scale social groups outside the mainstream? In that case, all of the above still applies, although none of the literature is specific to a 'tribe'.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17261.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"sxwqu4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How was childhood in prehistoric times? Do we know what kind of responsibilities children had? Is there any evidence for them participating in activities like hunting and such to the extent of adults? By what age could they look after themselves? What did they do for fun?","c_root_id_A":"hxy5zdv","c_root_id_B":"hxy9mm6","created_at_utc_A":1645525466,"created_at_utc_B":1645528473,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I think it was in Genevieve von Petzinger\u2019s book \u201cThe First Signs\u201d that I read that there are a good deal of cave paintings that were made by children. So one thing they did for fun seems to have been drawing.","human_ref_B":"I have lived and worked with indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Children contribute to the family with their work but have plenty of time to play, they grow in groups of brothers and cousins, they recibe a lot of love and attention from adults, they are never beaten or verbally abused. But Prehistoric times is such a broad expanse of time. Surely there was a lot of diversity on the different cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3007.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"x0b18u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Is how the field of archaeology typically portrayed in movies and tv shows a good or bad thing? Movies like Indiana Jones are probably like 75% of most people\u2019s knowledge on the field. This leads to them thinking that archaeology is still a \u201ctreasure hunter and grave robbing\u201d sort of field rather than the scientific, methodological field it truly is. But the movies also get people interested and thinking about the field more than they typically would. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"im7cde5","c_root_id_B":"im76dv5","created_at_utc_A":1661737315,"created_at_utc_B":1661734428,"score_A":37,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As with many situations there is bad and good that comes from it. Indiana Jones was a starting point for people who would eventually become professional archaeologists. The movie was also popular with people who would go on to loot sites thinking they were the same as Indiana Jones. Fewer and fewer students are saying that Indiana Jones was their first or most influential introduction to the field. Tik Tok and YouTube have been the most popular answers the last few years in Freshman and Sophomore college students. While majority of archaeologists will complain about how archaeology is portrayed in the movies, most will also say that archaeology is boring to watch. This mentality just leads to a continued misrepresentation of archaeology in film and video. Archaeologists can't even properly evaluate how to show the public archaeology and any attempts to try and branch out into new media are usually followed by \"But why would anyone care to watch?\". Archaeologists are one of the largest issues in how the public is exposed and views archaeology.","human_ref_B":"100% a bad thing. I think that media discourages and alienates what could have been future archaeologists of color. Archaeology already has a colonialism issue, media doesn't help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2887.0,"score_ratio":18.5} {"post_id":"x0b18u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Is how the field of archaeology typically portrayed in movies and tv shows a good or bad thing? Movies like Indiana Jones are probably like 75% of most people\u2019s knowledge on the field. This leads to them thinking that archaeology is still a \u201ctreasure hunter and grave robbing\u201d sort of field rather than the scientific, methodological field it truly is. But the movies also get people interested and thinking about the field more than they typically would. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"im7oqlk","c_root_id_B":"im76dv5","created_at_utc_A":1661743508,"created_at_utc_B":1661734428,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It depends. In fiction, and perhaps moreso in American fiction, its either Indie or some weirdish geeky guy. In the UK there is a more positive view I think. Their TV has lots of quite popular archaelogy shows and I think most observers from there would be quite aware that Archaelogy is largely sitting a ditch brushing dust of a lumps of dirt. I think its seen more positive in the UK than other places, primarily because they have more relevant archaelogy that people can relate to. There are even popular comedies like The Detectorists which display a geeky but positive side to the whole area.","human_ref_B":"100% a bad thing. I think that media discourages and alienates what could have been future archaeologists of color. Archaeology already has a colonialism issue, media doesn't help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9080.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"x0b18u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Is how the field of archaeology typically portrayed in movies and tv shows a good or bad thing? Movies like Indiana Jones are probably like 75% of most people\u2019s knowledge on the field. This leads to them thinking that archaeology is still a \u201ctreasure hunter and grave robbing\u201d sort of field rather than the scientific, methodological field it truly is. But the movies also get people interested and thinking about the field more than they typically would. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"im85ry9","c_root_id_B":"im76dv5","created_at_utc_A":1661754592,"created_at_utc_B":1661734428,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The good thing is, that popular media portrayals of archaeologists and archaeology still attracts people to the field who, eventually, end up being great archaeologists. I have no shame in admitting that one of the major influences on me in becoming an archaeologist was watching Indiana Jones and playing Tomb Raider. And because of pop culture and the popular scientific media we have a very real presence in the minds of people. And we can use that (for better or worse). An example: here in Denmark we're completely and utterly in love with our viking forefathers. People eat that shit up. We're also deeply in love with Eske Willerslev and basically anything that pertains to ancient DNA research. Hell, both Eske and his twin brother, Rane continuously publish pop sci literature and autobiographies which are hugely popular. They're on the radio and even have their own tv shows. Which means, that when we, as archaeologists, apply for funding we're more inclined to actually get funding if we argue that stuff like viking age and aDNA are interesting not just for the scientific community but in the minds of the general public. And since we have an obligation to share our research with the general public it's advantageous to apply for funding for topics the public has a keen interest in. On the other hand, it means that it is much more difficult to get funding for less \"sexy\" topics. The bad thing is, that people tend to think that archaeology is all about adventure and treasure. If they'd actually see for themselves they'd probably find it tedious and boring. The baddest thing is, however, that we often get made out to be professional guessers with an expensive university degree. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that the popular media seldom if ever report on *why* we make the interpretations we do. It is often made to look as if what we find are isolated units on which we make an interpretation. But because it is \"boring\", they seldom report on the myriad of finds, interpretations and theories we use to actually interpret the past.","human_ref_B":"100% a bad thing. I think that media discourages and alienates what could have been future archaeologists of color. Archaeology already has a colonialism issue, media doesn't help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20164.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"x0b18u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Is how the field of archaeology typically portrayed in movies and tv shows a good or bad thing? Movies like Indiana Jones are probably like 75% of most people\u2019s knowledge on the field. This leads to them thinking that archaeology is still a \u201ctreasure hunter and grave robbing\u201d sort of field rather than the scientific, methodological field it truly is. But the movies also get people interested and thinking about the field more than they typically would. What do you think?","c_root_id_A":"im76dv5","c_root_id_B":"im8rk4i","created_at_utc_A":1661734428,"created_at_utc_B":1661772339,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"100% a bad thing. I think that media discourages and alienates what could have been future archaeologists of color. Archaeology already has a colonialism issue, media doesn't help.","human_ref_B":"I think a growing trend has been to show museums and archaeology as nothing more than hoarders of illegal loot. As such robbing from them is all ok and that there is always a worry free rightful owner to give the items to. Museums are being portrayed as morally correct places to steal from. Black Panther and Moon Knight had this but as someone who reads a lot of spec scripts (screenplays being sent out to agents and companies to be sold) and it is a big new trend there too. Whatever you may think of some (in)famous cases of a small proportion of displayed artefacts the whole profession is being tarred as grave robbers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37911.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"pgorl5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What did Charles C. Mann mean when he wrote ''But the worst thing the Spaniards did, some researchers say, was entirely without malice\u2014bring the pigs'' in his book 1491? Did they bring in the diseases? I thought first he meant that the Spaniards were pigs but then reread it and realized that was wronggg. Did the animals carry a bunch of diseases that the Indians were not used to? Is that why they lost the war against the Spaniards, because the got the smallpox from the animals? Or was it the people? ​ I'm sorry if this is the wrong sub, couldn't tell which sub to go to.","c_root_id_A":"hbd5v3s","c_root_id_B":"hbekw3v","created_at_utc_A":1630616539,"created_at_utc_B":1630640728,"score_A":7,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Not sure if the pigs were the culprits, but an estimated 90% of all Native Americans died out due to diseases that the Europeans brought to the New World.","human_ref_B":"Pigs tend to be a huge pest animal. They eat EVERYTHING in an area, especially crop foods, and aren't exactly easy to handle especially when feral. So I would assume that his commentary is more about the destructive nature of the pigs rather than the viral load they could carry. Interesting note though, In FL (especially North Florida) there are still a ton of wild pigs descended from those the Spanish brought and they are major seasonal pests, but all over north America wild pigs do billions of dollars in damage each year. There is even a whole ecology problem referring to the issue called \"the feral swine bomb\". The Atlantic wrote a piece on it last year that was pretty interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24189.0,"score_ratio":5.5714285714} {"post_id":"gqpwhn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What kinds of careers are possible with a Master's in anthropology in the UK? I'm considering doing a Master's in Biological Anthropology in the UK. What kinds of career paths would this open up for me? My main worry is that it wouldn't lead to a well-paying job, but I'm from the US and really don't know much about how marketable the degree would be over there. Any advice on what my post-graduation options would be? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"frvcu0b","c_root_id_B":"frvbaho","created_at_utc_A":1590501383,"created_at_utc_B":1590500495,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm an American with an MA in Archaeology from the UK. I can't give advice regarding the job market in Anth, but I want to tell you to make sure Anthropology is the right degree for you. Not from a marketability perspective, but because of the departmental differences between the US and the UK. In the U.S., Anthropology tends to be four-field, so it includes bits of archaeology, cultural anth, linguistics, and bioanth (especially at the undergrad level). In the UK, Anthropology and Archaeology are two completely separate fields. If you're leaning towards a career in cultural anthropology, you're on the right track! Just double-check the programs you're looking at to see if their modules\/classes match your expectations.","human_ref_B":"What kind of thing do you want to study, and what kind of path do you envision? I ask because if you are interested in human osteology in an archaeological context then you should know that it's really competitive for jobs in that field here. I know tons of people who are osteology specialists and only a few of them have jobs where they get to use that skill. You might get lucky but I think it will be difficult to get a permanent job here if that's your thing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":888.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"283t5a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are 'appropriate' applications of anthropology outside of the academy? What do 'ethics' mean to you as an anthropologist? **TL;DR at the top** in my experience there's always been a general philosophy that it's bad to do anthropology on behalf of corporations\/governments\/people with specific agendas. I am really interested to hear what different opinions and experiences people from different universities and subfields have re: this issue. I once had a professor declare her disappointment that a former student was working for the State Department. Another time, some students in a seminar got into a really heated debate about whether working for the US Army as part of the Human Terrain System (HTS) was a total corruption of principles as an anthropologist. A graduate came back to speak at an alumni event who spoke about how she was using her anthropology degree at AT&T and our department was buzzing with embarrassment and disappointment. There's a particular section of the AAA statement on ethics that says *\"one of the prime ethical obligations of anthropologists is to carefully and deliberately weigh the consequences and ethical dimensions of the choices they make \u2014 by action or inaction\"* and in grad school this was drilled into me to the point where I almost had an existential crisis. The issue of being an ethical anthropologist for me went way beyond having informed consent-- I felt like I couldn't work for a corporation (because capitalism is evil), or the government, but academia was also so bureaucratic and problematic. So what does being an ethical anthropologist mean to you? Also if you have literature on the issue to recommend, that would be awesome!","c_root_id_A":"ci7h35i","c_root_id_B":"ci7c3oo","created_at_utc_A":1402766363,"created_at_utc_B":1402750063,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Personally, I think it is ridiculous how much the academy shames people for getting \"real world\" jobs. We'd never look down on the people we interview and do research with if they got jobs with decent pay, benefits, job security, etc. at a perfectly normal position for a company like AT&T. Yet when one of our own gets such a job we act like they are working for the devil. A lot of professors are completely unrealistic about the job market today. We produce more anthro PhDs than there are real academic jobs. A recent report suggested that 76.4% of all US faculty across all university types (research, teaching, private, public) are adjuncts. That means no job security. No benefits. And really, really shitty pay. In fact, more than half of those adjuncts live below the poverty line. The academy tells us that anything outside of the academy is shameful but the vast majority of options that exist within the academy should be considered shameful too. If we're going to preach that we shouldn't take \"real world\" jobs then the academy needs to offer actual job opportunities. Until then, we can't just live in poverty hoping that someday that crappy adjunct position will turn into something real. I see no problem with working in the real world and most of my cohort is trying to position themselves in ways that they could go into the academy but they could also work for the UN, work on policy issues, work for NGOs or non-profits, etc. Most people don't want to work for a company that conducts itself in a manner that violates their own sense of ethics. I don't think that is unique to anthropologists. But I do think anthropology does train us to look more deeply than a lot of people do and that includes examining how corporations impact different levels of society. So we are more likely to look at the big picture - the workers, the locals in the region, how the company gets their materials, the impact of the products sold upon the people who consume them, etc. And that might mean we are more critical of certain corporations or business practices and if we have an option we'd turn down job offers from them. But honestly even non-profits aren't perfect. (And that includes universities!) We have to be realistic. Sometimes it is about trying to reform from within. Sometimes it is about picking positions that let us do the most we can even if it isn't perfect. And honestly sometimes it is about paying rent and paying off those damn student loans.","human_ref_B":"I did my undergrad in anthropology, but entered a different field (for now anyway). It seems to me that since much of anthropology is about trying to see things through someone else's eyes (someone of another culture, gender, etc) in order to mitigate some of the assumptions and privilege we may otherwise carry, there is something devious about using this understanding to better sell products to people, for example. It goes against the fundamentally compassionate spirit of the field and is a violation of the trust that is often placed in anthropologists when cultural or other practices are shared.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16300.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"dg3o7l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did pre-Columbian North American cultures practice entomophagy much at all, and was it more common in the lower latitudes than the north? I know entomophagy is somewhat common in parts of Mexico, but it's easy to find info because it's still practiced there (speaking of which, are all of the insects eaten there today also species that were eaten in pre-Columbian times or are any of them novel developments?). What about the rest of North America? Did entomophagy used to be common in areas where it is now unknown?","c_root_id_A":"f39gcx0","c_root_id_B":"f3a9h8s","created_at_utc_A":1570747799,"created_at_utc_B":1570765286,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I think it's almost mandatory that it would have been more common closer to the equator, because there are more insects there. Same reason that dark-climate peoples today have higher rates of sucrose intolerance--less solar energy and less insects = no sugar or honey. Even Europeans, despite being mixed with large swathes of Middle Eastern ancestry, still have a slightly higher intolerance rate--it's much higher in people like the Inuit.","human_ref_B":"\/u\/han_dies_01 does a good job of expressing the difficulties of addressing the question archaeologically, but it's an easy question to address ethnographically, and when it comes to very broad matters of how one makes a living in a given landscape (as opposed to very specific practices and beliefs) I don't personally see much problem in retrojecting practices from ethnographic informants into the past. Others may point out problems with that, and please feel free to get into it. Rather than talk more though, I'll delve in to entomophagy here locally in the PNW by turning things over to the venerable John B. Hudson, a Santiam Kalapuya elder from the Grande Ronde reservation, who gave the most vivid description I can recall offhand: >When it was summertime they \\the Kalapuya\\] burned over the land, when they wanted to eat grasshoppers. When they burned the land, then they burned the grasshoppers too. And then they (women) gathered up the grasshoppers, and they ate those grasshoppers it is said. I do not know what they did to them, when then wanted to eat them. Maybe they cooked them, and on the other hand perhaps they did not cook them. I never saw them eat them. Those people long ago spoke of it. > >And another thing too that they ate, they called it caterpillar \\[*tca'yet*\\] -- that was its name. When it was summertime they (women, perhaps men too) gathered that caterpillar, at the time when there were quantities of caterpillars. Those caterpillars ate the leaves of ash trees. Now then they (the people) made ground holes (six or seven inches deep, round, two feet wide, away from the trunk of an infested ash tree), and then those caterpillars would fill up the holes in the ground. Then they would gather up the caterpillars (which were thick in those holes). That is the way they did. And they took them back to their homes, and they boiled them. And so when boiled, then they would eat the caterpillars. The whites call this caterpillar \\[*tca'yet*\\] 'caterpillar.' [Jacobs, Kalapuya Texts, 26-27. If you are already doing seasonal burns of your camas\/tarweed patches to keep the competing plants out, it would be pretty silly to leave all that free protein just lying there. An in turn, you can readily imagine how those practices would have fallen away early in reservation days as people lost access to those traditional resources, the US government put its might behind directing people to adopt a 19th century agrarian economy and diet, and people became acculturated to Euro-American dietary norms. I know I've come across various shorter passing references, and historical accounts of settlers disgusted at the idea of people eating insects, especially in California and the Great Basin, I'm not recalling the citations offhand. Hope that's a helpful start though.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17487.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"flwrpu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Any good documentaries on ancient indigenous civilizations\/settlements? I am looking for good documentaries on ancient indigenous civilizations? I just recently watched PBS Nova: The First Face of America about a native skull they found in a cave lake in Mexico. It was mind blowing. I am really interested in Siberia, Canada & Alaska, Papua, South America.","c_root_id_A":"fl1rzgc","c_root_id_B":"fl1sqtd","created_at_utc_A":1584735074,"created_at_utc_B":1584735521,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Any sort of documentaries put out by PBS are usually pretty good. I agree that that one you mentioned was an interesting watch. It wasn't particularly groundbreaking information but I liked the way they pieced it together and told a story circling around the girl they found in the cenote. I think I watched something on pbs about Vikings in north America awhile ago, if that interests you, but I don't think it's on netflix anymore. If you liked the format of the one on the girl in the cenote, definitely look for the nova doc on Homo naledi (it's paleoanthropology, so not what you're asking for, but it's well made). I don't see much currently available on netflix (at least in the US, but if you've got a VPN you might be able to find more options), but if you've got amazon prime you might be able to find something. Looks like there's a few things on amazon prime that might be good but I've yet to watch them. In my opinion anything made my pbs is at least worth trying to watch. Looks like amazon prime has an episode of \"First civilizations\" on mesoamerica. I haven't watched it but it's pbs so I might give it a watch. I'll let ya know my thoughts (although I'm not an expert on the subject, the extent of my research is writing a couple undergrad research papers). Sometimes BBC documentaries are good too. I've watched mostly paleoanthropology docs, but generally shows like nova have a similar format regardless of the topic. Nat geo and Smithsonian docs are sometimes decent. Be cautious of anything put out by the history channel. There's no guarantee EVERYTHING is wrong, but I mean, you've gotta be skeptical of a channel who's most popular show depicts humans of the past as idiots incapable of building things and goes \"well obviously since this is so complicated it MUST'VE been aliens\". Humans have always been intelligent, resourceful, and observant. I pretty much stay far away from anything made by the history channel. Edit: so I'm just starting to watch the episode of \"first civilizations\" I said I'd watch on amazon prime. Not starting off great. It shows a VERY bias view of the purpose of warfare. I worry it's gonna start going down the rabbit hole of talking about \"progress\". This is starting with a very slippery slope of word choice. Not TERRIBLE yet, and actually seems to be following a similar format to an episode of nova, but I guess I'll hold off my final opinion until later. I'm taking notes on my thoughts while watching. Currently I'd say, bad introduction, but ok content. Edit (again, and for my final time before I shut up for a bit): I think my biggest issue is that this documentary is a bit outdated in its approach (in my opinion). This appears to be coming from a processual frame of thought, which I guess just irks me a bit. It's not terrible, but you need to watch it with a critical mind, otherwise you take every interpretation as strict fact, rather than an interpretation of data. The ideas presented aren't necessarily WRONG, but they're also generalized and perhaps presented is what I see as a somewhat irresponsible manner when presenting information to a non-academic audience. I don't know what I'd change here, and I'm not an expert. It seems to get better as you get further into it, so perhaps it's still worth a watch. It definitely is informative on early civilization in Mexico. It goes on to discuss trade of cultural ideas and materials, which is something I was hoping it'd discuss. It talks about obsidian too, which is an important topic to discuss. I wish it talked more about trade but I guess the documentary is focused on war so maybe it's just not the documentary for me. So it's definitely not a bad documentary. I initially started extremely critical. Now I'd say it doesn't hurt to watch it as long as you're watching it with a critical perspective.","human_ref_B":"This isn't a documentary, but just to plug my own people, Edge of The Knife is a movie based on Haida folklore, starring a Haida cast, and spoken in Haida (an incredibly endangered language). It shows how we used to dress, how we used to live, and of course, tells one of our stories. Here's a news clip about it by the CBC","labels":0,"seconds_difference":447.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"5mw20v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Were there any atheistic ancient civilizations? The only atheistic civilizations\/nations I can think of were the USSR and China (I could be mistaken). So have there been any civilizations in history that had a view that there were no gods or supernatural entities?","c_root_id_A":"dc7xy6t","c_root_id_B":"dc7iniw","created_at_utc_A":1484007365,"created_at_utc_B":1483989479,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Around the time of Buddha, there was a school of atheistic philosophy called Charvaka in India established by a man named Ajita Kesakambali(or rather he is the earliest known scholar of the tradition) . Because of persecution and anti-atheist sentiment not much information on this school survives but it was supposed to have a wide influence on other schools of thought (including Buddhism, Jainism). https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charvaka","human_ref_B":"Wouldn't Buddhism count as atheistic and ancient?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17886.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"exgvvo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Has there been any confluence of ancient Greek and Indian culture? Don't you think it's too much of a coincidence that they share a trident wielding God, a God who commands the dead, and a thunderbolt wielding God? Are there any more similarities?","c_root_id_A":"fg961os","c_root_id_B":"fgao5t1","created_at_utc_A":1580634613,"created_at_utc_B":1580653567,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The descendants of Alexander's troops who stayed in India after his death are typically referred to as Unani\/Yunani (a localized pronunciation of Ionian\/Ionic). Hope that helps provide some Google fuel.","human_ref_B":"According to Chris Brennan, indian astrology includes a strong greek influence (hellenistic period), but also has its own developments that are prior to the greeks. The nakshatras (lunar mansions) are the main example. Even with the hellenistic astrology being so prominent on the vedic astrology foundation, the association between astrologic ideas and the vedic worldview (with ideas like karma) came to be a new system, with its own complexity. This certainly marked the vedic astrology as independent of the ocidental astrology. Anyway, this was relatively recent and does not points to the question about the prior relationship between greeks and indians. The indo-europeans are the right track, as appointed out above.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18954.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy1fwft","c_root_id_B":"hy14fy1","created_at_utc_A":1645577615,"created_at_utc_B":1645572549,"score_A":47,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ll tell you this straight-up as someone who did my MA in Anthropology at one of the best anth unis in europe: some people in my research MA knew less core material than you probably do. In undergrad, you have plenty of people testing the waters. Plenty of people in my major (history) knew next to nothing, never had much interest, and were very apolitical. That doesn\u2019t mean they didn\u2019t turn into astounding researchers\/historians. Same with my MA. People who knew next to nothing at the start churned out some fantastic essays, asked some really out-there thought provoking questions, and may become great phd students. The question is how? With social sciences, the really important thing ends up being curiosity and specialization. One man in my MA had never studied on any real level in 40 years. He was curious about vegetarianism in culture. Because he was curious, because he was in vegetarian spaces, and because he had passion, he did fantastic. Imposter syndrome exists because some people seem to know everything you dont. Even for those of us who have been enamored in anth and history and political theory since we were kids, we still feel beat-out by the people who can more efficiently retain and process information. There\u2019s always someone miles ahead of you. The beautiful thing about anthropology is that that doesn\u2019t matter at all. Find your focus, whatever that is, whether it changes 2 dozen times- the point is that you learn a wide range of theory, compare across different contexts and cultural spheres, and find curiosity in the diversity of human experience. If you love food, focus on the anth of food. If you love romance, sexuality, if you\u2019re a part of the LGBT community or of a specific background, find the minoritarian perspectives from that background that clash with the majority. Confront your own difference. Courses where you dont necessarily know any of the material before-hand might seem difficult, but professors appreciate and accommodate lack of knowledge as a baseline. They\u2019re there to teach you and help you through. If you know all the material already, the only reason you\u2019re in that class is to flaunt your knowledge, and that\u2019s frankly a waste of time. And chances are, they\u2019re full of sh*t. (The loud, always raising his hand asking off the cuff hyper-specific questions to try to flaunt his knowledge and confuse the professor comes to mind. The guy who if you actually know anything sounds like an idiot but wont stop being the only person talking in a discussion because he\u2019s so full of himself). If your uni has access to the streaming service \u2018Kanopy\u2019, use it. Ask your professor for documentaries or movies. I love how much youtube has grown since I started my undergrad. But remember anthropology is so widespread and casts such a wide net that if you get to your MA, you\u2019ll have no idea how to approach the focus of your peers, you wont have read the scholarship they\u2019re reading, you wont have a grasp on their topic. You\u2019ll learn from them and enrich your knowledge and they\u2019ll do the same for you. Feeling bad about \u2018lack of knowledge\u2019 is for STEM. It\u2019s for banking and corporatism, for competition. Anthropology is for never \u2018knowing\u2019 at all. Always assuming you need to learn a new perspective, a new history, a new subjectivity. It\u2019s about collective knowledge-production and humility in the face of cultural relativism. Humility in the face of an ever-expanding understanding of just how immense, varied, and profoundly different we all are. Take it from me, never ever let yourself feel bad for needing to learn. Especially in anthropology. Always use it as a reason to listen, understand more deeply, and connect to other peoples\u2019 views. (And always remember, the loudest person in the class is not the one who knows the most or has the most to share. It\u2019s usually the quiet kid in the back of the class)","human_ref_B":"You might be surprised to find that many anthropologists specialize in specific disciplines or areas of interest. I think feeling a little imposter syndrome is quite common in our field. While I don\u2019t have a specific list of areas to study, I\u2019d say if you stick with anthropology with as much enthusiasm as you seem to have, the knowledge will come in time. Don\u2019t rush yourself, read up on what interests you most. That\u2019s the stuff that will keep you coming back. Cheers friend and welcome to a maddeningly wonderful, overwhelmingly broad field!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5066.0,"score_ratio":3.1333333333} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy1ikld","c_root_id_B":"hy1nv46","created_at_utc_A":1645578839,"created_at_utc_B":1645581278,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You could try to get your hands on a high school history book or two. It would be relatively quick reading (hopefully) for someone in college. It would give you some basic background at least.","human_ref_B":"Coming here to jump on the I'm an MA student train. I just started last semester after 10 years away from undergrad and only a Minor in Cultural Anth. My major was Linguistics but the MA program is cultural. My first semester I felt very very stupid. We always do intros in classes and people go round the room talking about all the research they've done and how much Anth they've been doing since undergrad and all I've got is bartending for the last tense years and a desire to help underserved populations through ethnographic research. I'm figuring it out as I go along and that's okay! One thing that's been super helpful for me to get used to is asking questions about my confusion in class. I at first felt dumb but I've got a great professor who's been helping me feel comfortable with not being comfortable. It's definitely easier said than done. But, once I've started asking questions when I'm confused, I've started noticing that other people seem confused sometimes too. Which is obviously validating. Also, don't be afraid to talk to your professors and go to their office hours if you're still confused. I know that's something hammered home but it's so true. I wouldn't feel so comfortable in this one class if I hadn't gone to her office hours and talked to her about things. The beauty of Anthrpology as well is it's such a great field for learning new things and being someone who doesn't have all the answers all the time!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2439.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy1nv46","c_root_id_B":"hy1m59c","created_at_utc_A":1645581278,"created_at_utc_B":1645580488,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Coming here to jump on the I'm an MA student train. I just started last semester after 10 years away from undergrad and only a Minor in Cultural Anth. My major was Linguistics but the MA program is cultural. My first semester I felt very very stupid. We always do intros in classes and people go round the room talking about all the research they've done and how much Anth they've been doing since undergrad and all I've got is bartending for the last tense years and a desire to help underserved populations through ethnographic research. I'm figuring it out as I go along and that's okay! One thing that's been super helpful for me to get used to is asking questions about my confusion in class. I at first felt dumb but I've got a great professor who's been helping me feel comfortable with not being comfortable. It's definitely easier said than done. But, once I've started asking questions when I'm confused, I've started noticing that other people seem confused sometimes too. Which is obviously validating. Also, don't be afraid to talk to your professors and go to their office hours if you're still confused. I know that's something hammered home but it's so true. I wouldn't feel so comfortable in this one class if I hadn't gone to her office hours and talked to her about things. The beauty of Anthrpology as well is it's such a great field for learning new things and being someone who doesn't have all the answers all the time!","human_ref_B":"Bruh you\u2019re in an excellent position! Don\u2019t worry about not having their background knowledge. You get to hear what they think for the first time and be critical of it! It\u2019s hard to re-think through ideas\/thoughts\/etc after the first exposures. So, just go through that process with a critical\/skeptical mind and attempt to understand their perspectives. Also, as a first year bachelor student, you\u2019re fine. You\u2019re not really expected to know a whole lot. Especially not of anthropology\/sociology\/etc. Not being overly involved in politics can help you keep a level head in discussions that might otherwise get heated if they were held between two opposing people. In terms of recommendations: read and ask questions. Read broadly. Ask your professor for reading suggestions (just\u2026make sure you\u2019re doing the readings before asking for more lol). And practice \u201cstepping outside of yourself.\u201d When hearing about something some group does or thinks, instead of gauging whether or not it\u2019s good or bad, or whether they\u2019re stupid, or political views\/etc, just try to see how their actions and ideas fit within their \u201cecosystem.\u201d Aside from that, as you read, take time to journal. Ask questions. Try to find where people have made assumptions about something. The process of working out your thoughts like that helps. I think I\u2019ve said it a few times but, again, ask questions of what you\u2019re coming across lol. I realize this is vague. So, I don\u2019t mean sit there and reread a paragraph over and over again hoping a question comes to you. Just be open to seeing opportunities for doubt, wonder, skepticism, benefit of the doubt. Have a notebook\/note taking method open and ready for you. And yes, chase the rabbit down the hole. It gets easier the more you do it, and you\u2019ll get better at navigating the warrens to find something of worth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":790.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy1nxwk","c_root_id_B":"hy25jvw","created_at_utc_A":1645581313,"created_at_utc_B":1645589489,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You can go straight to one professor you like the most and tell them exactly that. Alternatively, you can start watching videos online (in places like youtube) about basics of sociology\/anthropology\/philosophy. You will naturally gravitate towards important figures and their theory.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology and history are linked. For history, youtube channel crash course in world history by (forget first name) green. Start at the beginning and watch an episode or two a day","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8176.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy25jvw","c_root_id_B":"hy1q2cf","created_at_utc_A":1645589489,"created_at_utc_B":1645582278,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology and history are linked. For history, youtube channel crash course in world history by (forget first name) green. Start at the beginning and watch an episode or two a day","human_ref_B":"From a learning perspective, we learn best by tying the new information to what we already know about. It turns something from random trivia floating in the air to something meaningful when you can tie it to something with value to you already. You probably haven't been exposed to some of the information you are now learning, or you didn't have a frame of reference to incorporate it into. Your job now--as a student--is to learn and tie what you learn into your existing framework. Part of that framework will be given to you by the structure of the course. The rest sometimes just needs a connection to what you already know. For me, my interests as a kid were the military in general and warfare. That lends itself to learning about and understanding political and economic structures as well as the history of populations in conflict and transformation. I learned some EMT skills and got interested in physiology and anatomy, so a lot of biological elements about people and primates builds off that initial basis of looking at people medically and looking at what's the same and different. For me, learning is the continued process of tying what I know about people and (military history) to what I'm learning that's novel to create a better understanding. So, I don't know how far into business theory and the like you got but look at what you learn with that as a start sometimes. It might help you understand things about people and populations, especially with how they handle resources and what that part of their culture might be, then tie it into whatever other parts about them you want to or need to learn... Also... Don't be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes, other students will nod and agree with stuff they don't have any idea what it means because they don't want to look like a fool. Ask the questions. You'll learn, they'll learn, everyone gets ahead. If you aren't comfortable asking in class, make a note, go to officer hours, and ask then. If it's something your professor thinks is important you should know, they'll tell you or sometimes give you something additional to read. That said, read what's assigned first...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7211.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"sz1ljt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"I feel ignorant and stupid in class - Help? Hello, I am a first year bachelor student in anthropology. I dropped out from a business university to pursue my interest in this field. I ave always been interested in topics that can take an anthropological approach and I enjoy all of my classes. It is the first time in my life that I enjoy going to my lectures, listening to the professors and doing my assignments. However I have noticed that I do not have the same knowledge that other students in my class have. I regret not paying attention during History class in high school. I am not politically active and I have not been learning about past social issues or revolutions. One day in class the professor asked us if we know who Che Guevara was, and I was the only person that only knew him from the pictures. I was ashamed and I felt stupid. I hate the fact that I do not have the same knowledge as other students in my course. I don't know where to start and what to read\/watch in order to be more involved in discussion topics. It would be very helpful if you could list any topics that I should research. What should an anthropologist know? I would really appreciate any comments and advice.","c_root_id_A":"hy25jvw","c_root_id_B":"hy20mjz","created_at_utc_A":1645589489,"created_at_utc_B":1645587112,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology and history are linked. For history, youtube channel crash course in world history by (forget first name) green. Start at the beginning and watch an episode or two a day","human_ref_B":"i'm not an anthropologist but I understand how you feel. In the end, your love for the subject is all that matters. The knowledge will come as long as you apply yourself and pay attention--that means reading and studying outside of class time too. Once you graduate, chances are your knowledge will have come to around the same level as your classmates. There will be stuff you don't know that they do, and vice versa. Don't let this feeling get you down and question your choices. Keep your head down, keep learning, and you'll be fine.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2377.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"c320g5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are \"swear words\" universal? Do all cultures have words that are identical in meaning to common words but are taboo or forbidden? For example \"feces\" and \"shit\" are identical in meaning but one is considered vulgar and inappropriate and one is not. Is this sort of structure universal?","c_root_id_A":"erovwae","c_root_id_B":"erotdxl","created_at_utc_A":1561090274,"created_at_utc_B":1561088201,"score_A":22,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Having words which are taboo is a cultural universal, if I'm remembering from undergrad. Whether they always share meanings with a common word, I couldn't say.","human_ref_B":"the documentary \"FUCK\" from 2005 produced by ThinkFilm will answer a lot of your questions","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2073.0,"score_ratio":2.4444444444} {"post_id":"c320g5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are \"swear words\" universal? Do all cultures have words that are identical in meaning to common words but are taboo or forbidden? For example \"feces\" and \"shit\" are identical in meaning but one is considered vulgar and inappropriate and one is not. Is this sort of structure universal?","c_root_id_A":"erp0kul","c_root_id_B":"erp3ucg","created_at_utc_A":1561094804,"created_at_utc_B":1561098510,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Well in Japanese, there's \"chitsu\", which is \"vagina\", and \"manko\" which is \"cunt\", the latter of which is so filthy it has to be censored even in certain pornos.","human_ref_B":"Feces and shit are a great example of the legacy of classism in languages. \"Shit\" comes from the Germanic languages of the Anglo-Saxons, as does \"fuck,\" as well as words like \"clothes\" or \"cow.\" When the Normans invaded England in 1066, they brought their language with them and almost overnight the elite of England were speaking Norman French, a romance language. For the next few centuries, French was the language of the courts and thus of the elites, while the common people still spoke their Germanic language(s). So a divide occurs, where words with the same meaning in both languages seem much more aristocratic in the French. And even today the word \"garment\" seems much more elegant than \"clothes,\" garment being from the old French and clothes being the plural of cloth in Old English and its origins obscure. \"Fornicate\" comes directly from the Latin, but \"fuck\" seems to be Germanic (there's a lot of debate about that word though). The more common, less aristocratic word tends to mean something less or even turn into a swear word. In my example of \"cow\" above, the French equivalent is \"beuf\" or beef. It's easy to imagine how to the subjugated class imagines an animal, which can be used for labor and milk and they work with every day, while the elite class imagines the food on their plate. Another point about curse words is that which words are taboo vary across cultures. I'm more familiar with the Western world, but within that you can see that the worst words or phrases in Old World countries tend to be blasphemies or religious oaths, whereas in the New World the worst taboos are about the human body, possibly a legacy of Puritanism. As Penn Gillette once pointed out, saying \"santa vaca!\" might be a way for a Spanish speaker to avoid swearing, but to a Hindu that would be blasphemy. ​ Edit: I just realized this is AskAnthropology and not \/r\/answers so I apologize for the lack of sources. It's just what I remember from undergrad courses, but etymologyonline.com is a great resource if you like to look up curse words or any words. Also, strictly speaking, swears, curses, cusses, etc. have different shades of meaning and I have used them interchangeably here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3706.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"2vuaqt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Is there a consensus on the relation between violence and pre-agricultural societies? I've been reading a lot of popular history and pop-science (1491, The Blank Slate, Fields of Blood, Collapse etc) lately. While none of the books I've read are written by actual anthropologists, they rely on a lot of anthropology heavily for their analysis of early history. What has been annoying me is that a lot of these books come to entirely different conclusions about how violent these societies were. The war-like proponents take the view that most societies were either constantly in some low level state of war or had very intra-society levels of murder. Other writers take the position that high levels of violence are consequences of the hierarchy introduced with agriculture. All of these books seem well cited and I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to evaluate the quality of them. Does either position come close to the anthropology field's position? Perhaps violent and non-violent pre-agricultural societies existed in different places?","c_root_id_A":"colbiic","c_root_id_B":"coldnt9","created_at_utc_A":1423931063,"created_at_utc_B":1423935835,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Violence or warfare are not phenomena unique to agrarian society, and there are a wide range of explanations and hypotheses which attempt to explain their causes. There are debates as to which of these are correct or the most appropriate, and there are debates as to how best to define warfare. However both inter and intra group violence did happen in pre agrarian societies, although it may be true that there is a higher tendency towards violence in sedentary societies.","human_ref_B":"The short and tongue-in-cheek answer: No. No two anthropologists will ever come to a consensus on anything. Now it might be just me, but I almost feel like I'm getting hives thinking about arguments that the distinction between \"violent\" and \"not violent\" can be made on the basis of being agricultural or not. For me it seems needlessly and bizarrely deterministic, not considering the huge range of human experiences. And in any case, how can you separate \"violent\" and \"non-violent\" societies? These are two points on a continuum. Sure, you can identify either end easily, but move away from those and you're lost. As for agricultural, some people cultivate some crops at some times and not at others, although I guess that's an easier line to draw in some sand. There are TONS of anthropological works on violence. There are even a couple pairs of works that I can think of off the top of my head that look at a given ethnic group from different points of view. For example, *Yanomamo* by Chagnon and *Yanomami Warfare* by Ferguson take two very different views on things that factor into violence and warfare. Spoiler: Chagnon thinks it's inherent (although I don't remember if he made any nature vs. nurture judgment); Ferguson says it's the product of certain historical circumstances including outside intrusions. You could also look at how Evans-Pritchard wrote about violence in Nuer society (probably *The Nuer* is your best bet there; he wrote several other books). To simplify, he concluded that inter-group violence at different levels (e.g. between houses, villages, clans, etc.) serves to both divide and unite those same groupings which he saw in sort of a concentric circle pattern. He also discusses their nomadism, pastoralism, and agriculture. For a different (and later) approach to the Nuer, one which also discusses Evans-Pritchard's work, I recommend *Nuer Dilemmas* by Sharon Hutchison, which gets into how the Nuer have dealt with the massive changes they've seen since E-P's time (and indeed before that as well). Another work that comes to mind is *Controlling Anger: The Anthropology of Gisu Violence* by Suzette Heald which looks at factors such as state control and masculine identity. Vigdis Broch-Due has also edited a very good volume called *Violence and Belonging* which I highly recommend. Finally a lot of Carolyn Nordstrom's work is interesting, and I think is particularly accessible. *Shadows of War* might be a good place to start; she writes especially (although not exclusively!) about the role of informal economies in violence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4772.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"9onudh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"The People\u2019s Republic of China officially recognizes fifty-five ethnic minority groups; my question is, are there any ethnic minority groups in China that are NOT recognized by the Chinese government? If so, what is the status of these unrecognized indigenous ethnic minority groups in Chinese society, compared to both the Han Chinese majority as well as to the officially recognized minority groups?","c_root_id_A":"e7vocub","c_root_id_B":"e7vnux8","created_at_utc_A":1539709092,"created_at_utc_B":1539708711,"score_A":30,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist, but Thomas S. Mulaney wrote a really fascinating article about the massive project that was undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and Chinese social scientists to determine how many, and which, ethnic minority groups live in China. In his article he focuses on what was carried out in the southwest province of Yunnan in 1954. It can be read here. https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/14631369.2010.510874 The answer to your question is yes, there are many ethnic minority groups in China that are not recognized by the Chinese government (Jew, Lai, Deng, Gejia) and there are many that were grouped together with other, more prominent minorities (Tibetan Muslims were grouped together with Tibetan, Aynu and Dolan were classified as Uyghurs, Mosuo were classified as Naxi). In addition to that Mulaney article which is a must read for understanding the original PRC classification of ethnic minority groups, the book \"The Jews of China: Historical and Comparative Perspectives\" by Jonathan Goldstein and Benjamin Schwartz provide a really interesting case study of an unrecognized ethnic minority of china.","human_ref_B":"If I recall correctly the Mosuo aren't considered as an independent group by the government, even though they have major cultural differences from the ethnic group that they are represented by. Some Chinese ethnic groups may surround small peoples that share the same geography and history thus putting them in the same category, even though they don't share the same ethnicity and\/or culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":381.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ofzxa1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How did the concept of \"religion\" develop as a distinct part of identity? For instance, if I were to go back in time and ask an ancient or medieval person, \"What religion are you?\", would they even understand the question?","c_root_id_A":"h4h501b","c_root_id_B":"h4g7oij","created_at_utc_A":1625753835,"created_at_utc_B":1625729629,"score_A":20,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"As u\/JosBenson says this is a historical question more than an anthropological question, but it's still maybe relevant. Personally trained in this subject with regards to Japan, so I'll give you a concrete answer: no. The concept of religion as an identity is a modern one. It's a somewhat complicated concept to narrow down when it began, but as u\/JosBenson says, it started in the \"Enlightenment\" period, but that isn't the full picture, but I won't go on about that, let's simply say that the modern concept of \"religion\" began around the Reformation and then with the period of \"Revolution\" when \"science\" started to break away from Theology and Philosophy. The easy example has to deal with Japan. Japan had no native concept of religion or word that embodied the word religion until it had to deal with a treaty brought forth by William Perry in 1853. The problem dealt around \"freedom of religion\" as guaranteed by the treaty between the Tokugawa Bakufu, not the nation of Japan as it still had yet to be form. From there the concept of religion was invented to basically mean Christianity and if you ask people in Japan today if they believe in \"a religion\" they will answer, \"no\" despite non-Japanese, especially \"Westerners\" who view their practices as religious. So even in modern times, the modern concept of religion is still muddied. Based on this example alone, one could argue that no, the question would not be comprehensible. In Europe, the term religion would denote different things during different periods. During the medieval period the term religion was used in the context of the \"religious\" mean those who were monks\/priests\/nuns, etc. Those under monastic laws. Previous to that period, religions or *religio* was a type of duty of Rome. It was like a civic duty. I hope u\/Tom_Bombadil_1 reads this reply also as his argument misses the point. ​ Some readings: *The Invention of Religion in Japan -* Jason Ananda Josephson Storm This is a historical books for an anthropological look: *Magic, Science and Religion and the Scope of Rationality -* Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah ​ Edit: spacing","human_ref_B":"This is more a question for historians than anthropologists. The concept of Religion as a distinct identity is a very very new concept. The concept did not develops until the enlightenment and the industrial Revolution. When one\u2019s religion could became a private matter. When the idea of religion being a private affair, separate from other parts of your life. I\u2019m sorry I haven\u2019t got any specific sources to reference this. But we can see this when we talk about religion in any historical society that they did not have a concept of religion as separate from who they were, how they lived their life, their whole identity, politics or culture. It was entirely entwined. We can see, for example, if you were Jewish in the Middle Ages in Europe you couldn\u2019t just stop being Jewish, or become \u2018secular\u2019 - there was no such notion - if you wanted to stop being Jewish you had to convert to being Christian. That is why the philosopher Baruch Spinoza was so radical. He was expelled from the Jewish community- and stopped practicing Jewish rituals - but did not become a Christian. This was in 1655. He is said to be the first atheist. Although no where did he say he did not believe in god. But, thereafter being labelled a Spinozist could be dangerous, as it a sly way of saying that someone did not believe in god, which was highly dangerous in the period. If you went back to Rome or medieval time they would not understand that question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24206.0,"score_ratio":1.0526315789} {"post_id":"25w1gx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why do so many themes recur in folklore across history and cultures? (better articulated in text post) I guess what I am asking is why do so many different cultures across time and geographical spaces talk about a lot of the same folklore and legends? Why are there so many recurring tropes- vampire like creatures, evil canines, etc? Is there a theory or answer to why we all seem to fear the same things across time and cultures?","c_root_id_A":"chltryc","c_root_id_B":"chltg05","created_at_utc_A":1400515029,"created_at_utc_B":1400514297,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Detailed explanation #3: While Propp offered a means to explain apparent similarities without relying on historical diffusion, early psychologists looked to explanations deep within the mind and as part of the human experience. None pursued this avenue with more vigor than Carl Jung and his followers. Propp looked to the mechanics of storytelling while Jung explored what can only be described, at times, as more mystical explanations. Again, an excerpt from my draft Introduction to Folklore: In the last part of the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) created a great deal of interest in mythology and folklore with a series of publications on the subject. This was followed by a 1980s television series, and the result was extremely popular with the general public, but not necessarily with all within the discipline of folklore. To a certain extent, Campbell was relying on an older approach that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) developed. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) but later broke with his mentor\u2019s teachings to form his own approach to the study of the human mind. Jung developed the idea of the collective unconscious, maintaining in almost spiritual terms that all of humanity is linked by an unconscious common denominator. Ultimately, Jung implied that certain themes are woven into the fabric of the universe. This results, according to Jung, in a shared symbolic vocabulary, which manifests in dreams, mythology, folklore, and literature. Jungian psychology was extremely popular during the upheavals of the 1960s when people looked for mystical explanations of life to unify all existence. In spite of the faddish qualities of late twentieth-century consumption of Jungian ideas, it is easy to regard Jung as an exceptional thinker with an extraordinary background of diverse reading. Campbell borrowed heavily from Jung, presenting many of these ideas in an easily consumable package that, itself, became something of a fad during the 1980s. Campbell drew not only on Jung, but also on Otto Rank\u2019s 1932 publication, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. There are clearly many good ideas in this literature, but there are problems with this approach from the point of view of folklore studies. The first is that this body of literature presents the concept of tale types in mythology and folklore as though it were a new discovery. In other words, Jung and Campbell ignore the highly developed bibliography that folklore offers. The second, more serious problem is that there is no distinction between the core of a story and its culturally-specific or narrator-specific variants and variations. The Jungian-Campbell approach treats any variant of a story as an expression of the collective unconscious, regardless of whether its particular form is the product of an individual storyteller\u2019s idiosyncrasies or of the cultural predilections of a region made irrelevant by traveling to the next valley. This does not mean that there are no valuable insights in Jung and Campbell\u2019s literature. There are, of course, but folklorists regard their approach as removed from their own discipline and flawed, to a certain extent. Folklorist Alan Dundes presented a similar critique of Freudian-based psychoanalysis of folktales. In his The Study of Folklore (1965), he wrote that \u201cthe analysis is usually based upon only one version\u2026 To comparative folklorists who are accustomed to examining hundreds of versions of a folktale or folksong before arriving at even a tentative conclusion, this apparent cavalier approach to folklore goes very much against the grain. How does the analyst know, for example, whether or not the particular version he is using is typical and representative.\u201d (107) Dundes also pointed out that often the \u201cvariant\u201d presented by the psychological analysis is from \u201ca children\u2019s literature anthology, rather than directly from oral tradition.\u201d","human_ref_B":"Detailed explanation #1: In an earlier post to this question, I provide an overview answer. Now, with a series of posts, I will provide elaboration on the possibilities. First, the idea that traditions are historically linked. Early in nineteenth-century folklore studies, scholars realized that there were similar folktales (and later similar legends). Explaining these similarities inspired the development of indexes of types to structure research. The Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1867-1925) began a folktale type index, that was then augmented by the American Stith Thompson (1885-1976) and then most recently by the German Hans-J\u00f6rg Uther. The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Th. Christiansen (1886-1971) developed a similar index of legend types for Northern Europe. These indexes are predicated on the assumption that stories diffuse through space and time. It is not to say that all similar stories are historical related, but the indexes provide a means to launch comparative research. The following is a related draft excerpt from an Introduction to Folklore I am developing for release later this year: Regardless of the edition, the \u201cTale Type Index,\u201d lists all the known tale types recorded in European folklore. It also identifies known variants and describes some of the distribution based on recorded and catalogued material. Subsequent indexes have focused on specific countries. The Irish Tale Type Index, for examples, employs the same structure the originated with the work of Aarne. The Japanese index, however, can only refer to the European index since its material can be grouped in a similar way, but the oral tradition is distinct from that of the geographic zone from India to Ireland that exhibits a certain shared oral tradition. Originally, folklorists were hoping to answer questions regarding the origin of oral traditions. Many early folklorists believed that folktales represented the shattered remains of an ancient religion. By collecting and reassembling the pieces, they hoped to arrive at what they regarded as a prehistoric, Indo-Germanic religion. After more than a century of study, folklorists generally agree to one of two fundamental conclusions regarding this approach. Either the origin of a given folktale type is too illusive to define exactly, or the types are more recent than early folklorists had hoped. Often both conclusions come to play simultaneously, but the net result is that folklorists almost always stress different questions in the study of oral traditions. The preoccupation with origins affected the study of the folktale more than that of legends, largely because the folktale seemed to be the oldest form of oral tradition. Legends had the appearance of being short lived, given their limited distributions. Folktales, on the other hand, were often international and seemed to refer to an ancient time. Studies that were preoccupied with the origin of a folktale type are useful now for the encyclopedia-like treatment of the material, but some of their conclusions can be discarded.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":732.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"25w1gx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why do so many themes recur in folklore across history and cultures? (better articulated in text post) I guess what I am asking is why do so many different cultures across time and geographical spaces talk about a lot of the same folklore and legends? Why are there so many recurring tropes- vampire like creatures, evil canines, etc? Is there a theory or answer to why we all seem to fear the same things across time and cultures?","c_root_id_A":"chltryc","c_root_id_B":"chlhtm8","created_at_utc_A":1400515029,"created_at_utc_B":1400469631,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Detailed explanation #3: While Propp offered a means to explain apparent similarities without relying on historical diffusion, early psychologists looked to explanations deep within the mind and as part of the human experience. None pursued this avenue with more vigor than Carl Jung and his followers. Propp looked to the mechanics of storytelling while Jung explored what can only be described, at times, as more mystical explanations. Again, an excerpt from my draft Introduction to Folklore: In the last part of the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) created a great deal of interest in mythology and folklore with a series of publications on the subject. This was followed by a 1980s television series, and the result was extremely popular with the general public, but not necessarily with all within the discipline of folklore. To a certain extent, Campbell was relying on an older approach that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) developed. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) but later broke with his mentor\u2019s teachings to form his own approach to the study of the human mind. Jung developed the idea of the collective unconscious, maintaining in almost spiritual terms that all of humanity is linked by an unconscious common denominator. Ultimately, Jung implied that certain themes are woven into the fabric of the universe. This results, according to Jung, in a shared symbolic vocabulary, which manifests in dreams, mythology, folklore, and literature. Jungian psychology was extremely popular during the upheavals of the 1960s when people looked for mystical explanations of life to unify all existence. In spite of the faddish qualities of late twentieth-century consumption of Jungian ideas, it is easy to regard Jung as an exceptional thinker with an extraordinary background of diverse reading. Campbell borrowed heavily from Jung, presenting many of these ideas in an easily consumable package that, itself, became something of a fad during the 1980s. Campbell drew not only on Jung, but also on Otto Rank\u2019s 1932 publication, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. There are clearly many good ideas in this literature, but there are problems with this approach from the point of view of folklore studies. The first is that this body of literature presents the concept of tale types in mythology and folklore as though it were a new discovery. In other words, Jung and Campbell ignore the highly developed bibliography that folklore offers. The second, more serious problem is that there is no distinction between the core of a story and its culturally-specific or narrator-specific variants and variations. The Jungian-Campbell approach treats any variant of a story as an expression of the collective unconscious, regardless of whether its particular form is the product of an individual storyteller\u2019s idiosyncrasies or of the cultural predilections of a region made irrelevant by traveling to the next valley. This does not mean that there are no valuable insights in Jung and Campbell\u2019s literature. There are, of course, but folklorists regard their approach as removed from their own discipline and flawed, to a certain extent. Folklorist Alan Dundes presented a similar critique of Freudian-based psychoanalysis of folktales. In his The Study of Folklore (1965), he wrote that \u201cthe analysis is usually based upon only one version\u2026 To comparative folklorists who are accustomed to examining hundreds of versions of a folktale or folksong before arriving at even a tentative conclusion, this apparent cavalier approach to folklore goes very much against the grain. How does the analyst know, for example, whether or not the particular version he is using is typical and representative.\u201d (107) Dundes also pointed out that often the \u201cvariant\u201d presented by the psychological analysis is from \u201ca children\u2019s literature anthology, rather than directly from oral tradition.\u201d","human_ref_B":"Overview explanation: There are several ways to address this topic. Some traditions are historically related, the result of diffusion or shared cultural attributes. Some traditions appear to be similar, but upon closer scrutiny, the similarities are less than they might seem. In #AskHistorians there are repeated questions about dragons in Asia and dragons in European tradition. They are neither likely to be related nor are they really that similar. It is easy to be deceived because we have the same word for both. But a panda bear is not related to a brown bear even though they share a name. It is a matter of flawed perception. And finally, there is the matter of the common human denominator. One would not want to suggest that there are limits to cultural possibilities. But there certainly are some things that cultures tend to fall into repeatedly. So for these three reasons - historical relationship; false similarities; and the common human denominator, some traditions are similar and some merely seem similar. edit: I have added three more detailed explanations, which should be read in order (they are labeled numerically).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":45398.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"25w1gx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Why do so many themes recur in folklore across history and cultures? (better articulated in text post) I guess what I am asking is why do so many different cultures across time and geographical spaces talk about a lot of the same folklore and legends? Why are there so many recurring tropes- vampire like creatures, evil canines, etc? Is there a theory or answer to why we all seem to fear the same things across time and cultures?","c_root_id_A":"chltryc","c_root_id_B":"chltmv4","created_at_utc_A":1400515029,"created_at_utc_B":1400514721,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Detailed explanation #3: While Propp offered a means to explain apparent similarities without relying on historical diffusion, early psychologists looked to explanations deep within the mind and as part of the human experience. None pursued this avenue with more vigor than Carl Jung and his followers. Propp looked to the mechanics of storytelling while Jung explored what can only be described, at times, as more mystical explanations. Again, an excerpt from my draft Introduction to Folklore: In the last part of the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) created a great deal of interest in mythology and folklore with a series of publications on the subject. This was followed by a 1980s television series, and the result was extremely popular with the general public, but not necessarily with all within the discipline of folklore. To a certain extent, Campbell was relying on an older approach that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) developed. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) but later broke with his mentor\u2019s teachings to form his own approach to the study of the human mind. Jung developed the idea of the collective unconscious, maintaining in almost spiritual terms that all of humanity is linked by an unconscious common denominator. Ultimately, Jung implied that certain themes are woven into the fabric of the universe. This results, according to Jung, in a shared symbolic vocabulary, which manifests in dreams, mythology, folklore, and literature. Jungian psychology was extremely popular during the upheavals of the 1960s when people looked for mystical explanations of life to unify all existence. In spite of the faddish qualities of late twentieth-century consumption of Jungian ideas, it is easy to regard Jung as an exceptional thinker with an extraordinary background of diverse reading. Campbell borrowed heavily from Jung, presenting many of these ideas in an easily consumable package that, itself, became something of a fad during the 1980s. Campbell drew not only on Jung, but also on Otto Rank\u2019s 1932 publication, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. There are clearly many good ideas in this literature, but there are problems with this approach from the point of view of folklore studies. The first is that this body of literature presents the concept of tale types in mythology and folklore as though it were a new discovery. In other words, Jung and Campbell ignore the highly developed bibliography that folklore offers. The second, more serious problem is that there is no distinction between the core of a story and its culturally-specific or narrator-specific variants and variations. The Jungian-Campbell approach treats any variant of a story as an expression of the collective unconscious, regardless of whether its particular form is the product of an individual storyteller\u2019s idiosyncrasies or of the cultural predilections of a region made irrelevant by traveling to the next valley. This does not mean that there are no valuable insights in Jung and Campbell\u2019s literature. There are, of course, but folklorists regard their approach as removed from their own discipline and flawed, to a certain extent. Folklorist Alan Dundes presented a similar critique of Freudian-based psychoanalysis of folktales. In his The Study of Folklore (1965), he wrote that \u201cthe analysis is usually based upon only one version\u2026 To comparative folklorists who are accustomed to examining hundreds of versions of a folktale or folksong before arriving at even a tentative conclusion, this apparent cavalier approach to folklore goes very much against the grain. How does the analyst know, for example, whether or not the particular version he is using is typical and representative.\u201d (107) Dundes also pointed out that often the \u201cvariant\u201d presented by the psychological analysis is from \u201ca children\u2019s literature anthology, rather than directly from oral tradition.\u201d","human_ref_B":"Detailed explanation #2: While a previous post outlines the possibilities, and yet another post deals with the avenue of enquiry pursing historical relationships to explain similarities, other folklorists looked to non-historical explanations to address similarities. Early on, the Danish folklorist Axel Olrik. Again, an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore: At the turn of the century, Axel Olrik (1864-1917) at the University of Copenhagen took a different approach. This Danish scholar was influential in the early development of Scandinavian folklore. In 1909, he published his \u201cEpische Gesetze der Volksdictung\u201d (\u201cEpic Laws of Folk Narrative\u201d). It was originally presented at a congress of scholars in Berlin in 1908. Other folklorists expanded Olrik\u2019s work based on his notes, publishing new editions of the essay in 1919 and in 1921. The important contributions of Olrik\u2019s brief article are twofold. First, he broke from a concern about origins and started looking at other questions concerning the nature of oral tradition. His approach anticipates the structuralists after the war, but unlike those later scholars, he does not deny the validity of the Type as a concept. (Excerpt ended). A more direct assault on the idea of historically-related types was launched by the Soviet folklorist Vladimir Propp. Again, an excerpt: The greatest attack on the Finnish Method, however, came from a scholar in the Soviet Union, but the ramifications of his work would not be felt for several decades. Vlad\u00edmir Propp was a folklorist in the former U.S.S.R. who took a radically different look at oral tradition, again influenced by the positivists. Propp\u2019s 1928 publication of the Morfol\u00f3gija sk\u00e1zki (Morphology of the Folktale) suggested that the entire concept of the folktale type was an illusion. For Propp and his structuralism, there were no traditional types passing through time with variants added here and there. He suggested that there was a basic format, a set of rules that governed the telling of all folktales. A storyteller would simply follow the rules, picking from a vast menu of motifs. Because there were rules and a set number of motifs, the same stories would eventually reappear, but they were not traditionally linked. Propp\u2019s interpretation was particularly well suited to the Soviet Union. The Finnish Method \u2013 and even the Ociotype School \u2013 maintained that long ago some imaginative storyteller invented a folktale that diffused over time. This perspective ennobled each folktale type, suggesting that most peasant storytellers were merely vessels that held an ancient story, the expression of someone else\u2019s great artistry. For Propp, every storyteller had the potential for creativity. A storyteller might repeat a tale previously told, but the narrator could just as easily invent a new story, drawing on motifs and employing the accepted structure of the folktale genre. This interpretation was appropriate for egalitarian ideals of Soviet society, but this is not to dismiss the conclusion simply because it fit in with a political doctrine. Unfortunately, Propp\u2019s work remained untranslated for several decades, and politics did not encourage the discussion of ideas across the Soviet border during the 1930s. This was a time, however, when madmen used the Finnish Method for their own diabolical purposes. Hitler\u2019s racism drew strength from the idea of an ancient Indo-European culture that was purely Aryan, only to be debased and polluted through contact with other people. The idea that folklorists could delve into the past and reconstruct an ancient Teutonic mythology was extremely attractive to Hitler and his followers. The preoccupations of fascists caused some folklorists to brand attempts to reconstruct the origins of a folktale as somehow inherently racist. This was an unfortunate link particularly because it coincided with the growing inclinations of positivists to discredit attempts at historical analysis. After World War II, many folklorists sought a new approach. The Finnish Method survived, but it was wounded. Ironically, this was also the period of the most substantial international contribution to the Finnish Method. Stith Thompson at the University of Indiana published his revised and enlarged edition of the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1955), and he then released his updated version of Antti Aarne\u2019s The Types of the Folktale in 1961. These were not in any way linked to fascism, and the thorough documents were attempts to mold the Finnish approach to positivist ideals. Still, many Americans, in particular, would look in other directions for inspiration. In 1958, Svatava Pirkowa-Jakobson and Lawrence Scott edited and translated Propp\u2019s essay into English, striking a chord that fit the time. Internationally, folklore was ready for a change because of positivism, because of the fascists, and because the tired question of origins was not yielding adequate results in the eyes of many. North America was especially ripe for conversion. Lacking much by way of ancient traditions (aside from those of Native Americans), American folklorists were interested in the dynamic process of creativity. In addition, the combined effect of European fascism and liberal academics drew many American folklorists to an approach that seemed based on the egalitarianism of Karl Marx. Propp was immediately fashionable in many circles for political and philosophical reasons. Fashionable is one thing; accurate is another. Ultimately, we must ask whether Propp\u2019s approach fits the evidence. One major criticism of Propp\u2019s concept of independent invention is that folklorists for years have asked storytellers for new folktales. When offered large amounts of money, even the most gifted narrators have had to refuse the invitation, stating invariably that folktales are traditional things to be repeated, but they cannot be invented. It appears, in fact, that the invention of a folktale is extremely rare rather than an on-going process. Some societies, however, may treat the material in a more flexible, inventive way. Alan Dundes (1934-2005) in his path-finding Morphology of North American Indian Folktales (1964) found that details of various stories frequently changed from one telling to the next, even when told by the same narrator. There is less evidence of this sort of flexibility with European material, but even there, the option of changing folktales cannot be dismissed as non-existent. Cornish droll tellers, the professional storytellers of Cornwall, took pride in altering stories to suit the location and audience, changing stories in a way that might have seemed more often out of place in Ireland, for example. Propp\u2019s analysis of the constant invention of the folktale may not always fit the facts, but that does not mean there is no validity in the concept. It is quite clear that there is an underlying structure in oral narrative, and it is worthwhile to understand this structure as thoroughly as possible. Whether the structure can operate independently of a tale type, providing the outline necessary to create stories repeatedly over time, is the question. If the answer is no, the underlying structure may still exist and have significance.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":308.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"8piesx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"1 Have there been any case of large scale conflict where animal have war with one another? Or is this is a human construct? I know that there are small conflicts where animal fight for territory and food source? But, is there any record that indicates animal having a full-blown war with each other? If there is any, why did this happen? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e0bht3m","c_root_id_B":"e0bhixa","created_at_utc_A":1528451487,"created_at_utc_B":1528450865,"score_A":45,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"There are species of ants that raid the nests of other ants to steal their larvae which they then turn into slaves. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Slave-making_ant","human_ref_B":"There was that one time a cat single-handedly committed genocide.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":622.0,"score_ratio":1.9565217391} {"post_id":"8piesx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"1 Have there been any case of large scale conflict where animal have war with one another? Or is this is a human construct? I know that there are small conflicts where animal fight for territory and food source? But, is there any record that indicates animal having a full-blown war with each other? If there is any, why did this happen? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e0bhvq6","c_root_id_B":"e0bn4du","created_at_utc_A":1528451640,"created_at_utc_B":1528460424,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Ants.","human_ref_B":"Ant wars would fascinate me as a kid. I will stop and a watch an ant war.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8784.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"8piesx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"1 Have there been any case of large scale conflict where animal have war with one another? Or is this is a human construct? I know that there are small conflicts where animal fight for territory and food source? But, is there any record that indicates animal having a full-blown war with each other? If there is any, why did this happen? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e0bhvq6","c_root_id_B":"e0byzdu","created_at_utc_A":1528451640,"created_at_utc_B":1528472115,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Ants.","human_ref_B":"Yes, as many of the others have touched on, there have been \"wars\" between species or member of the same species. These species are generally group animals: flocks, hives, herd, pack etc and the wars have been over territory. Though for many species, even before actual terrirtory is fought over, it is first a natural instinct of males of one group to feel highly aggressive to males of another group. True for example for Chimpanzees. Territory may be at the bottom of it but the agression kicks in before any such question arise. Also at the microscopic scale bacteria fight against other colonies and it is a fight to the death.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20475.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"8piesx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"1 Have there been any case of large scale conflict where animal have war with one another? Or is this is a human construct? I know that there are small conflicts where animal fight for territory and food source? But, is there any record that indicates animal having a full-blown war with each other? If there is any, why did this happen? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e0czxeq","c_root_id_B":"e0bhvq6","created_at_utc_A":1528507590,"created_at_utc_B":1528451640,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In 1999 there was a week long battle between lions and hyenas that saw 6 lions and 30 hyenas dead. Story here and here","human_ref_B":"Ants.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":55950.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"dfkfmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Teacher looking for help: what hominids to cover in a middle school unit? I am a 6th grade teacher looking to modify an existing project about human origins\/paleolithic people. In another life I got an anthropology degree but it's been awhile! The current project has students focusing on 4 species- homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus, archaic homo sapiens, and australopithecus afarensis. The project is fairly dated at this point, and our printed resources are old and completely inaccurate. Here is where I need help. I am wondering 1) what hominids it is worth having the students study\/ learn about. It could be some are studied in depth and some more briefly. 2) are there resources, print or electronic, that are accurate and accessible to a middle school reading level? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"f33qg7z","c_root_id_B":"f33quzi","created_at_utc_A":1570643239,"created_at_utc_B":1570643447,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"How old are 6th grade children?","human_ref_B":"I would break down into genuses then several of the more well known species from there. I would explain the hominid tree and show how different primates evolved from earlier species. I would also do famous specimens as a way to humanize the fossils for the kids like Lucy, the Tuang Boy,","labels":0,"seconds_difference":208.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"dfkfmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Teacher looking for help: what hominids to cover in a middle school unit? I am a 6th grade teacher looking to modify an existing project about human origins\/paleolithic people. In another life I got an anthropology degree but it's been awhile! The current project has students focusing on 4 species- homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus, archaic homo sapiens, and australopithecus afarensis. The project is fairly dated at this point, and our printed resources are old and completely inaccurate. Here is where I need help. I am wondering 1) what hominids it is worth having the students study\/ learn about. It could be some are studied in depth and some more briefly. 2) are there resources, print or electronic, that are accurate and accessible to a middle school reading level? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"f33qg7z","c_root_id_B":"f34nyr6","created_at_utc_A":1570643239,"created_at_utc_B":1570657087,"score_A":7,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"How old are 6th grade children?","human_ref_B":"Not to call into question your teaching abilities or your students intellect but I would imagine if you can take the two photos below and spend one or two hours explaining how evolution is not a linear process and that species spread in space and time, get wiped out, interbreed etc you have done your job. Really if you get them to understand why evolution is real and that is why monkeys still exist I think that is a win which will prep them for high school biology etc... Maybe a third part can discuss populating of the world\/americas... I think that would also help prepare students to understand First Nations etc for future history classes and set the stage for Egypt\/Greece\/Rome and so on as you will not necessarily be able to continue with them into high school Just my two cents... https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-vector\/theory-evolution-man-development-neanderthaljava-australopithecine-529853602 https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-photo\/evolution-human-skull-sahelanthropus-tchadensis-australopithecus-726669265","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13848.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dfkfmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Teacher looking for help: what hominids to cover in a middle school unit? I am a 6th grade teacher looking to modify an existing project about human origins\/paleolithic people. In another life I got an anthropology degree but it's been awhile! The current project has students focusing on 4 species- homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus, archaic homo sapiens, and australopithecus afarensis. The project is fairly dated at this point, and our printed resources are old and completely inaccurate. Here is where I need help. I am wondering 1) what hominids it is worth having the students study\/ learn about. It could be some are studied in depth and some more briefly. 2) are there resources, print or electronic, that are accurate and accessible to a middle school reading level? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"f356pkq","c_root_id_B":"f34rsys","created_at_utc_A":1570669786,"created_at_utc_B":1570659178,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'd highly recommend askananthropologist.asu.edu for your students. It's a series of anthro articles and stories written for a middle school reading level, including some classroom activities and demonstrations that you can use. (I am a grad student and this is a website that I work on extensively, and you are exactly the type of teacher we are looking for to use it as a resource!) ​ For your class, I think it would be a good exercise to show them Homo floresiensis, Homo neanderthalensis, the Denisovans, and modern humans, Homo sapiens, and talk about how all four species were alive at the same time, and how all but our own species went extinct. There's theories about why that is, but it's still not known with 100% certainty why our species was better able to survive than any other. ​ I would also show them the fossil Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) and talk about how before she was discovered, it was unclear if hominins evolved to walk bipedally (on two legs) or evolved our large brains first, and her fossil demonstrated that bipedalism predated large brains. The two major things that are unique about our species and our lineage is our big brains and walking bipedally. On that point, show them Ardipithecus ramidus to talk about how we used to think our ancestors must have walked like other apes do on the ground, using their arms for support and knuckle walking. However, Ardipithecus ramidus was not a knuckle walker, and is a hominin. \"Ardi\" was most likely a partial biped, perhaps walking on two feet but supporting the upper body by grabbing tree branches above its head, which now seems like the ancestral way of walking for our lineage, rather than knuckle walking like our other ape relatives. ​ If you have other questions or want more info, feel absolutely free to DM me and I can talk more about all this!","human_ref_B":"I always was fascinated with Homo Florensis. http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/homo-floresiensis","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10608.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"dfkfmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Teacher looking for help: what hominids to cover in a middle school unit? I am a 6th grade teacher looking to modify an existing project about human origins\/paleolithic people. In another life I got an anthropology degree but it's been awhile! The current project has students focusing on 4 species- homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus, archaic homo sapiens, and australopithecus afarensis. The project is fairly dated at this point, and our printed resources are old and completely inaccurate. Here is where I need help. I am wondering 1) what hominids it is worth having the students study\/ learn about. It could be some are studied in depth and some more briefly. 2) are there resources, print or electronic, that are accurate and accessible to a middle school reading level? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"f35mls4","c_root_id_B":"f34rsys","created_at_utc_A":1570682232,"created_at_utc_B":1570659178,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I cant recommend enough that you add a module on Homo Naledi, they are a mosaic species that really helps exemplify that human evolution is not a straight shot from hairy apes to upright tool making humans. Plus Berger posted so much of the dig and discovery online for free. If you have access to a 3d printer, or about a hundred bucks, you can get a 1 to 1 replica of a Naledi skull pulled from a site back in 2016. I had one printed for a presentation I gave on them. The 3d scan are available online for free and there are several online vendors that will 3d print objects for you for a modest fee. I did a write up on them for my human evo undergrad back in 2018 I can send to you with a powerpoint and some other documents. Natgeo also has some excellent resources.","human_ref_B":"I always was fascinated with Homo Florensis. http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/homo-floresiensis","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23054.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dfkfmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Teacher looking for help: what hominids to cover in a middle school unit? I am a 6th grade teacher looking to modify an existing project about human origins\/paleolithic people. In another life I got an anthropology degree but it's been awhile! The current project has students focusing on 4 species- homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus, archaic homo sapiens, and australopithecus afarensis. The project is fairly dated at this point, and our printed resources are old and completely inaccurate. Here is where I need help. I am wondering 1) what hominids it is worth having the students study\/ learn about. It could be some are studied in depth and some more briefly. 2) are there resources, print or electronic, that are accurate and accessible to a middle school reading level? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"f35bd84","c_root_id_B":"f34rsys","created_at_utc_A":1570673128,"created_at_utc_B":1570659178,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There's a really great card game called Origins that helps teach the basics of human evolution, https:\/\/wwnorton.com\/books\/9780393603019 The hominins I would include are definitely Australopithecus afarensis, since Lucy is well known (definitely talk about the Laetoli footprints too!) , maybe Paranthropus boisei (since Zinj is one of the most famous skulls), so they can see how non-linear our evolutionary tree is, Homo erectus (definitely bring up the Turkana boy, since he was like your students' age when he died!), Neanderthals, and some of the earliest Homo sapiens in Africa (Herto and Omo skulls from Ethiopia, Florisbad skull from S. Africa). Nobody really uses \"archaic Homo sapiens\" as a term anymore. Other ones that you may want to bring up, but more briefly are Ardipithecus ramidus (one of the earliest putative hominins, the partial skeleton \"Ardi\" was published in 09), Australopithecus africanus (specifically the Taung child skull), Homo habilis (since it is the earliest named species in our genus), Homo floresiensis and Homo naledi (to show them weird\/cool examples of our evolutionary tree).","human_ref_B":"I always was fascinated with Homo Florensis. http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/evidence\/human-fossils\/species\/homo-floresiensis","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13950.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ynwwbx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Which anthropological scholars should I read if I am interested in drug production, trafficking, and usage? I am keeping the title broad because, although I am interested in medical anthropological research on drug use itself, I am also interested in drug production, trafficking, and markets more broadly. I am familiar with the work of Philippe Bourgois and have read Righteous Dopefiend and In Search of Respect. I also know of The Pastoral Clinic by Angela Garcia, but I haven't read it yet. Other than these three texts and authors, what other works or anthropologists should I be familiar with who do research that is related to drugs? ​ * *Just for clarification, I am more interested in \"hard\" drugs that are criminalized, stigmatized, and are often associated with adverse health effects, such as addiction or HIV transmission*","c_root_id_A":"ivcqrtx","c_root_id_B":"ivdq050","created_at_utc_A":1667780394,"created_at_utc_B":1667797935,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"On the medical side, I would suggest the work of Merrill Singer, who wrote a review article on the topic that, while a bit dated, is relevant. https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/j.1360-0443.2012.03879.x Bryan Page is another person who has been working on this for a long time who might be of interest. https:\/\/people.miami.edu\/profile\/bryan.page@miami.edu She hasn't published anything yet that I know of but Hillary Agro is doing PhD research that may also be of interest and could probably help identify more current research in anthropology itself. https:\/\/anth.ubc.ca\/profile\/hilary-agro\/","human_ref_B":"Check out Phillipe Bourgois\u2019 \u201cIn Search of Respect\u201d\u2014it\u2019s an ethnographic account of the crack cocaine economy in Spanish Harlem. https:\/\/medium.com\/medicine-matters-leeds-school-of-medicine\/book-review-in-search-of-respect-selling-crack-in-el-barrio-by-philippe-bourgois-22cf37b0259f","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17541.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zv0w7z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"What do anthropologists mean when they talk about body height\/stature? I often see anthropologists talking about body morphology of different populations in their papers and their descriptions seem rather vague to me. They'll often talk about a population being massively-built or being tall in height but measurements are never included in the paper. What population are they comparing them against when describing the physiques of people? Are there specific categories (e.g. short - 5'0-5'4 medium 5'5-5'9 tall 5'10-6'2 etc.)","c_root_id_A":"j1nf0pe","c_root_id_B":"j1mldyp","created_at_utc_A":1672002576,"created_at_utc_B":1671988686,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What kid of anthropology papers are you thinking of when you say this? Forensic? Cultural? If cultural, how old are the papers you're thinking of? In the 1880s-1910s, anthropologists were very into anthropometry: a practice or measuring human bodies (height, skull circumference, etc.) in an effort to pinpoint physical difference and often to argue that people from certain (non-european) places were \"less evolved\" than the Europeans who funded and conducted the studies. Papers like this often had very small sample sizes, until a massive study by Franz Boas and collaborators around the world proved that the size differences between Europeans and study subjects reported had often been exaggerated\/affected by a small\/biased sample size. After Boas' large-scale study, anthropometry kind of fell out of fashion with cultural anthropologists. From the 20s to the 80s, you might get vague references so people being especially tall or especially short, compared to what the writer would think of as \"normal\" from their own culture of origin. But these are usually more descriptive, and intended to \"paint a picture\"--the works are interested in culture and social behavior after all, so body size is a peripheral note at best. Details about height might matter more to a biological anthropologist, but they would often be very specific and present tables with associated variables, like calorie consumption, or hormone production, etc. After the 90s, generalizations about body size by ethnic groups had contributed to so many characatures\/brought difference into focus rather than shared human experiences\/reeked of the history of \"race science,\" that I personally haven't noticed many recent cultural anthropologists making generalized stature statements. Does that help? If not, names\/authors of some of the papers\/books you're thinking of would help.","human_ref_B":"Are you talking about gracile vs robust? If so it's just generalized characteristics that give an outline of the populations features. There is so much variation within different populations that it would be very difficult to give accurate specific categories.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13890.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"zv0w7z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"What do anthropologists mean when they talk about body height\/stature? I often see anthropologists talking about body morphology of different populations in their papers and their descriptions seem rather vague to me. They'll often talk about a population being massively-built or being tall in height but measurements are never included in the paper. What population are they comparing them against when describing the physiques of people? Are there specific categories (e.g. short - 5'0-5'4 medium 5'5-5'9 tall 5'10-6'2 etc.)","c_root_id_A":"j1mm5z3","c_root_id_B":"j1nf0pe","created_at_utc_A":1671989053,"created_at_utc_B":1672002576,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Could you provide some examples of this? Some context would be helpful in determining what the authors mean.","human_ref_B":"What kid of anthropology papers are you thinking of when you say this? Forensic? Cultural? If cultural, how old are the papers you're thinking of? In the 1880s-1910s, anthropologists were very into anthropometry: a practice or measuring human bodies (height, skull circumference, etc.) in an effort to pinpoint physical difference and often to argue that people from certain (non-european) places were \"less evolved\" than the Europeans who funded and conducted the studies. Papers like this often had very small sample sizes, until a massive study by Franz Boas and collaborators around the world proved that the size differences between Europeans and study subjects reported had often been exaggerated\/affected by a small\/biased sample size. After Boas' large-scale study, anthropometry kind of fell out of fashion with cultural anthropologists. From the 20s to the 80s, you might get vague references so people being especially tall or especially short, compared to what the writer would think of as \"normal\" from their own culture of origin. But these are usually more descriptive, and intended to \"paint a picture\"--the works are interested in culture and social behavior after all, so body size is a peripheral note at best. Details about height might matter more to a biological anthropologist, but they would often be very specific and present tables with associated variables, like calorie consumption, or hormone production, etc. After the 90s, generalizations about body size by ethnic groups had contributed to so many characatures\/brought difference into focus rather than shared human experiences\/reeked of the history of \"race science,\" that I personally haven't noticed many recent cultural anthropologists making generalized stature statements. Does that help? If not, names\/authors of some of the papers\/books you're thinking of would help.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13523.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkx9nv","c_root_id_B":"dqkroog","created_at_utc_A":1512081754,"created_at_utc_B":1512076064,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I had a major in Anthropology with a minor in Fine Arts. I have a great job, and had a couple of other offers. It is all about how you used your time in college. If you haven't yet, make sure you get an internship or a job, volunteer, etc.","human_ref_B":"Might not be what you think you'd prefer, but anthro is a great background for market research, marketing, communications, intel analysis, and many other things. Assuming your degree focus is in cultural anthropology, one is unlikely to find jobs with less than a Ph.D. Even then, the oversupply of anthropology Ph.Ds to demand for things like professors or professional anthropologists is pretty daunting. The study though is a great background for many jobs. If you have strong language skills that may create avenues as well depending on the languages.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5690.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkr9ud","c_root_id_B":"dqkx9nv","created_at_utc_A":1512075654,"created_at_utc_B":1512081754,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Are you interested in what you're doing? This concern comes up a lot from students that don't really know why they are in university in the first place. The fact that you are in your third year and only asking yourself this now is a bit, uh, worrisome. Are you simply trying to get a university degree because your parents are paying for it, or because all your friends are doing it? If this is the case, then perhaps you should take some time away from school and work instead. No sense wasting money (even if it's not your own) at university if you don't see it as meaningful and useful. Full-time paid positions in museums and galleries, no matter where you are, are extremely difficult to come by. Curating is a whole other level. If this is a field you are seriously interested in, I would suggest that you start volunteering ASAP and see if it's something you are seriously interested in. If you aren't already volunteering, also look at what you DO do in your spare time and see how you can turn that into a career.","human_ref_B":"I had a major in Anthropology with a minor in Fine Arts. I have a great job, and had a couple of other offers. It is all about how you used your time in college. If you haven't yet, make sure you get an internship or a job, volunteer, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6100.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkzcov","c_root_id_B":"dqkroog","created_at_utc_A":1512084043,"created_at_utc_B":1512076064,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Don't think about it in absolute terms. If you love it, even though you struggle, it's not a waste. Think about it in terms of opportunity cost. If you in a parallel universe works a meh job with a short commute for 40 hrs a week, but your free time is free time, and you can read and explore and talk with friends and be your passions on the side with good disposable income to boot for 10 hrs a week, what would that version of you say to the guy working 60 hours a week for scraps at a museum? Would he pity him? At the end of rhe day work is also work. Even if you land a job in your field you'll still have to do inventory, or balance spreadsheets, or fill out paperwork. If it was all fun they could fill the roles with volunteer work. The laws of labor economics are extrinsic to and unaffected by our desires. Find happiness by accepting this and being better at playing the game than your peers.","human_ref_B":"Might not be what you think you'd prefer, but anthro is a great background for market research, marketing, communications, intel analysis, and many other things. Assuming your degree focus is in cultural anthropology, one is unlikely to find jobs with less than a Ph.D. Even then, the oversupply of anthropology Ph.Ds to demand for things like professors or professional anthropologists is pretty daunting. The study though is a great background for many jobs. If you have strong language skills that may create avenues as well depending on the languages.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7979.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkroog","c_root_id_B":"dqkr9ud","created_at_utc_A":1512076064,"created_at_utc_B":1512075654,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Might not be what you think you'd prefer, but anthro is a great background for market research, marketing, communications, intel analysis, and many other things. Assuming your degree focus is in cultural anthropology, one is unlikely to find jobs with less than a Ph.D. Even then, the oversupply of anthropology Ph.Ds to demand for things like professors or professional anthropologists is pretty daunting. The study though is a great background for many jobs. If you have strong language skills that may create avenues as well depending on the languages.","human_ref_B":"Are you interested in what you're doing? This concern comes up a lot from students that don't really know why they are in university in the first place. The fact that you are in your third year and only asking yourself this now is a bit, uh, worrisome. Are you simply trying to get a university degree because your parents are paying for it, or because all your friends are doing it? If this is the case, then perhaps you should take some time away from school and work instead. No sense wasting money (even if it's not your own) at university if you don't see it as meaningful and useful. Full-time paid positions in museums and galleries, no matter where you are, are extremely difficult to come by. Curating is a whole other level. If this is a field you are seriously interested in, I would suggest that you start volunteering ASAP and see if it's something you are seriously interested in. If you aren't already volunteering, also look at what you DO do in your spare time and see how you can turn that into a career.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":410.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkzcov","c_root_id_B":"dqkr9ud","created_at_utc_A":1512084043,"created_at_utc_B":1512075654,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Don't think about it in absolute terms. If you love it, even though you struggle, it's not a waste. Think about it in terms of opportunity cost. If you in a parallel universe works a meh job with a short commute for 40 hrs a week, but your free time is free time, and you can read and explore and talk with friends and be your passions on the side with good disposable income to boot for 10 hrs a week, what would that version of you say to the guy working 60 hours a week for scraps at a museum? Would he pity him? At the end of rhe day work is also work. Even if you land a job in your field you'll still have to do inventory, or balance spreadsheets, or fill out paperwork. If it was all fun they could fill the roles with volunteer work. The laws of labor economics are extrinsic to and unaffected by our desires. Find happiness by accepting this and being better at playing the game than your peers.","human_ref_B":"Are you interested in what you're doing? This concern comes up a lot from students that don't really know why they are in university in the first place. The fact that you are in your third year and only asking yourself this now is a bit, uh, worrisome. Are you simply trying to get a university degree because your parents are paying for it, or because all your friends are doing it? If this is the case, then perhaps you should take some time away from school and work instead. No sense wasting money (even if it's not your own) at university if you don't see it as meaningful and useful. Full-time paid positions in museums and galleries, no matter where you are, are extremely difficult to come by. Curating is a whole other level. If this is a field you are seriously interested in, I would suggest that you start volunteering ASAP and see if it's something you are seriously interested in. If you aren't already volunteering, also look at what you DO do in your spare time and see how you can turn that into a career.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8389.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkzcov","c_root_id_B":"dqkxwnd","created_at_utc_A":1512084043,"created_at_utc_B":1512082436,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Don't think about it in absolute terms. If you love it, even though you struggle, it's not a waste. Think about it in terms of opportunity cost. If you in a parallel universe works a meh job with a short commute for 40 hrs a week, but your free time is free time, and you can read and explore and talk with friends and be your passions on the side with good disposable income to boot for 10 hrs a week, what would that version of you say to the guy working 60 hours a week for scraps at a museum? Would he pity him? At the end of rhe day work is also work. Even if you land a job in your field you'll still have to do inventory, or balance spreadsheets, or fill out paperwork. If it was all fun they could fill the roles with volunteer work. The laws of labor economics are extrinsic to and unaffected by our desires. Find happiness by accepting this and being better at playing the game than your peers.","human_ref_B":"Unless you already know what contacts you'll be taking advantage of to get high profile museum or gallery work, you're going to end up slogging through very low paying jobs for a long time if you pursue something in that field.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1607.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkr9ud","c_root_id_B":"dqlhemn","created_at_utc_A":1512075654,"created_at_utc_B":1512105657,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Are you interested in what you're doing? This concern comes up a lot from students that don't really know why they are in university in the first place. The fact that you are in your third year and only asking yourself this now is a bit, uh, worrisome. Are you simply trying to get a university degree because your parents are paying for it, or because all your friends are doing it? If this is the case, then perhaps you should take some time away from school and work instead. No sense wasting money (even if it's not your own) at university if you don't see it as meaningful and useful. Full-time paid positions in museums and galleries, no matter where you are, are extremely difficult to come by. Curating is a whole other level. If this is a field you are seriously interested in, I would suggest that you start volunteering ASAP and see if it's something you are seriously interested in. If you aren't already volunteering, also look at what you DO do in your spare time and see how you can turn that into a career.","human_ref_B":"The vast majority of Anthropology graduates (just as with other similar subjects) will not even try to get a job in the field. Any degree, especially one where you have to think critically, write effectively etc., will lead well into marketing, finance (that doesn't require specialist knowledge) and so on. If you want to work in Anthropology, or something directly related to anthropology, you will have to put in a lot of work, be very passionate, and do it for less pay.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30003.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkxwnd","c_root_id_B":"dqlhemn","created_at_utc_A":1512082436,"created_at_utc_B":1512105657,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Unless you already know what contacts you'll be taking advantage of to get high profile museum or gallery work, you're going to end up slogging through very low paying jobs for a long time if you pursue something in that field.","human_ref_B":"The vast majority of Anthropology graduates (just as with other similar subjects) will not even try to get a job in the field. Any degree, especially one where you have to think critically, write effectively etc., will lead well into marketing, finance (that doesn't require specialist knowledge) and so on. If you want to work in Anthropology, or something directly related to anthropology, you will have to put in a lot of work, be very passionate, and do it for less pay.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23221.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"7go7s6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Major in Anthropology with a minor in Art History? Am I wasting my time and money? I\u2019m a junior in college and my major is Anthropology, I just added a minor in Art History and I\u2019m thinking about a possible minor in Geography. Is this a total waste of time in regards to finding a job after I graduate?","c_root_id_A":"dqkxwnd","c_root_id_B":"dqluhhh","created_at_utc_A":1512082436,"created_at_utc_B":1512134594,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Unless you already know what contacts you'll be taking advantage of to get high profile museum or gallery work, you're going to end up slogging through very low paying jobs for a long time if you pursue something in that field.","human_ref_B":"I have basically the reverse as a BA (major in art history, minor in archaeology). I went on to get an MA in American studies and a PhD in history. I now work in a very large museum in DC, which I love. A few of things: 1. You\u2019re going to be the most successful if you get at least an MA. Depending on what you want to do, a master\u2019s in museum studies or something along those lines will make you a better candidate. The positions for people with BAs generally don\u2019t pay that well, I\u2019m afraid. You can definitely find gigs in smaller museums without a graduate degree, but again, the pay is kinda iffy. 2. The BA in anthro is actually quite common in museums. I worked on a team installing an exhibit last summer, and 5 out of 7 of us had degrees in the field, though we now all did things quite outside of anthro. 3. Think of a specialization that\u2019s marketable. Whatever you choose to focus on can definitely help or hinder you. I focused on historical archaeology specializing in African American archaeology. Since this field is really gaining momentum right now, it helped launch me into jobs as well as eventually get me into grad school, where I continued to focus on this subject matter. That led me to my job. If your focus is on something that isn\u2019t super marketable in museums in this country, that might limit you. I\u2019m very passionate about my subject and it helps that I feel very compelled to bring light to the connections between history and today. I know everyone talks about useless degrees in this era of STEM, but I think my background in anthro has really helped me become a better scholar. People who study anthro and art history have excellent critical thinking skills, are stronger writers, and tend to see the complexities of material culture and humanity. If this is your passion, then you should go for it. Edited to add: as other have suggested, finding an internship while you\u2019re still in school is a very good way of eventually finding a job. We have many former interns who are now staff members at my museum. Also, ingratiate yourself to your professors. Volunteer to label bones, clean labs, etc. I would not have gotten where I am today were it not for the help of my undergraduate mentor, who saw my talents and pushed me to go to grad school. He also helped me get my first field jobs in archaeology right out of college.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":52158.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ml5wua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"To PhD or PTSD? That\u2019s the concern On the Fence and no idea which way to go. I\u2019m truly on the fence about if I want to go back to school. A little background, last year I completed my MA in Bio. Anthropology at a university in the Midwest. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and for all intensive purposes looked great on paper. However, my graduate experience has left me with some PTSD. Like most people now I had to work through school to support myself. I worked at the lab I was studying in as a graduate assistant and at a separate place of employment. When I got into the program I was told of the opportunities I would get and do because I had experience. (I was an undergrad at the same university.) None of what I was sold was ever provided. I was in the lab more often than not, on top of honor society duties, homework and my other job, and when certain things came up, I was denied. Why? The answers went three ways: 1. I was too busy with my other job and no one knew my schedule. Which was a lie because it was a set schedule and every other graduate student in my department knew where I would be to the near minute of the day. 2. I wasn\u2019t as \u201cdedicated\u201d as I should be. Because I would go home for one week of the summer (when nothing was going on or planned as my advisor would also be doing other things.) and for two weeks during the winter holiday (lab was shut down and we literally couldn\u2019t enter the building.) 3. I was unfocused. My advisor made me change my thesis topic not once, not twice but 6 times. This was AFTER, he had approved it, seen my notes and multiple sources as well as the draft for my proposals. All of which he had given the green light until the last minute when I was told it wouldn\u2019t work. Only to have a friend of mine actually do a project based off what I had wanted to do for my thesis after telling me I couldn\u2019t. This was a constant. I was at the lab more than my own home. I was often told my thoughts were biased based on my ethnic background (Hispanic\/white and Apache.) and that I was smart for someone of my background. That they couldn\u2019t believe I passed my comprehensive exams. This all continued to when I was supposed to go collect the necessary data for my thesis. My advisor wouldn\u2019t let me contact the labs, and on several occasions became flat out offended that I would try. Saying it was his job to do so not mine. When telling other grad students this they were confused as they had contacted them and it was all right. I tried and when the lab contacted him to set up a date in which I could go, he told them to cancel my request. So I did as he wanted and let him. When spring of 2020 came around I was in his office every week asking if he had heard. He told me he had been contacting these labs and no one would return his emails. (Looking back it is bogus but I was extremely tired and worn down, trying to not rock the boat.) Then the week the world shut down in March I was told that a lab had finally answered. I wouldn\u2019t be able to collect data because of the pandemic. I was taken off my thesis track and placed onto a project. That same week I received 10 rejections from PhD programs due to my recommendation letters (which I had told had been sent) never being received. I was devastated as I had always wanted to get my PhD. I love the field and research but that along with everything else in the last two years really took a toll on me. I graduated snd am now in the workforce. Ironically, as my advisor had wanted it because to quote, \u201cYou would be able to have a family and marriage, if you only had a Masters, and did not continue on to a PhD.\u201d. So, here I am almost a year out from grad school. I look back now and I see the toll it took on me, mentally, emotionally and physically. None of which were good. I did have good experiences in grad school, but if I\u2019m honest I had more in the bad category. Grad school is supposed to be hard, but it shouldn\u2019t be damaging. Which is how I have felt since leaving along with my peers who did with me as well. A part of me still wants my PhD as it was a dream but I don\u2019t know if I can throw myself back into that toxicity. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"gtjnzve","c_root_id_B":"gtjy0f7","created_at_utc_A":1617694039,"created_at_utc_B":1617704079,"score_A":7,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I'm an undergrad, graduating this May, and I am still stuck deciding if I want to do grad school or just start looking for a job. This makes me think I should be looking for jobs lol.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m tenured in an adjacent field to Anthro with a US PhD. It sounds like you have a bad advisor and \/ or bad relationship with your advisor. That\u2019s too bad and yes it can effectively block your access to a program if they won\u2019t give you letters of recommendation. If you choose to apply again, obviously you need to resolve that problem. Not sure what advice you are really seeking here but it seems like there\u2019s a structural impediment regardless of what you want to do with your life. As for the notion that academia is toxic, bad for mental health or indeed traumatizing, that obviously varies from person to person and situation to situation. As for grad school being \u201cdamaging\u201d, it sometimes is, unfortunately. Despite everyone being aware of the problems of the academic system, it nevertheless persists in its present state for a variety of reasons. You don\u2019t express why you want to get a PhD so all I\u2019ll say is that if you are going to dedicate yourself to a life of the mind, a PhD from a good school will help you sharpen your thinking, become socialized in a research community, and have the time to conduct your own research. Nothing is guaranteed about it being pleasant or leading to a job.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10040.0,"score_ratio":4.1428571429} {"post_id":"ml5wua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"To PhD or PTSD? That\u2019s the concern On the Fence and no idea which way to go. I\u2019m truly on the fence about if I want to go back to school. A little background, last year I completed my MA in Bio. Anthropology at a university in the Midwest. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and for all intensive purposes looked great on paper. However, my graduate experience has left me with some PTSD. Like most people now I had to work through school to support myself. I worked at the lab I was studying in as a graduate assistant and at a separate place of employment. When I got into the program I was told of the opportunities I would get and do because I had experience. (I was an undergrad at the same university.) None of what I was sold was ever provided. I was in the lab more often than not, on top of honor society duties, homework and my other job, and when certain things came up, I was denied. Why? The answers went three ways: 1. I was too busy with my other job and no one knew my schedule. Which was a lie because it was a set schedule and every other graduate student in my department knew where I would be to the near minute of the day. 2. I wasn\u2019t as \u201cdedicated\u201d as I should be. Because I would go home for one week of the summer (when nothing was going on or planned as my advisor would also be doing other things.) and for two weeks during the winter holiday (lab was shut down and we literally couldn\u2019t enter the building.) 3. I was unfocused. My advisor made me change my thesis topic not once, not twice but 6 times. This was AFTER, he had approved it, seen my notes and multiple sources as well as the draft for my proposals. All of which he had given the green light until the last minute when I was told it wouldn\u2019t work. Only to have a friend of mine actually do a project based off what I had wanted to do for my thesis after telling me I couldn\u2019t. This was a constant. I was at the lab more than my own home. I was often told my thoughts were biased based on my ethnic background (Hispanic\/white and Apache.) and that I was smart for someone of my background. That they couldn\u2019t believe I passed my comprehensive exams. This all continued to when I was supposed to go collect the necessary data for my thesis. My advisor wouldn\u2019t let me contact the labs, and on several occasions became flat out offended that I would try. Saying it was his job to do so not mine. When telling other grad students this they were confused as they had contacted them and it was all right. I tried and when the lab contacted him to set up a date in which I could go, he told them to cancel my request. So I did as he wanted and let him. When spring of 2020 came around I was in his office every week asking if he had heard. He told me he had been contacting these labs and no one would return his emails. (Looking back it is bogus but I was extremely tired and worn down, trying to not rock the boat.) Then the week the world shut down in March I was told that a lab had finally answered. I wouldn\u2019t be able to collect data because of the pandemic. I was taken off my thesis track and placed onto a project. That same week I received 10 rejections from PhD programs due to my recommendation letters (which I had told had been sent) never being received. I was devastated as I had always wanted to get my PhD. I love the field and research but that along with everything else in the last two years really took a toll on me. I graduated snd am now in the workforce. Ironically, as my advisor had wanted it because to quote, \u201cYou would be able to have a family and marriage, if you only had a Masters, and did not continue on to a PhD.\u201d. So, here I am almost a year out from grad school. I look back now and I see the toll it took on me, mentally, emotionally and physically. None of which were good. I did have good experiences in grad school, but if I\u2019m honest I had more in the bad category. Grad school is supposed to be hard, but it shouldn\u2019t be damaging. Which is how I have felt since leaving along with my peers who did with me as well. A part of me still wants my PhD as it was a dream but I don\u2019t know if I can throw myself back into that toxicity. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"gtjy0f7","c_root_id_B":"gtjpvae","created_at_utc_A":1617704079,"created_at_utc_B":1617695899,"score_A":29,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m tenured in an adjacent field to Anthro with a US PhD. It sounds like you have a bad advisor and \/ or bad relationship with your advisor. That\u2019s too bad and yes it can effectively block your access to a program if they won\u2019t give you letters of recommendation. If you choose to apply again, obviously you need to resolve that problem. Not sure what advice you are really seeking here but it seems like there\u2019s a structural impediment regardless of what you want to do with your life. As for the notion that academia is toxic, bad for mental health or indeed traumatizing, that obviously varies from person to person and situation to situation. As for grad school being \u201cdamaging\u201d, it sometimes is, unfortunately. Despite everyone being aware of the problems of the academic system, it nevertheless persists in its present state for a variety of reasons. You don\u2019t express why you want to get a PhD so all I\u2019ll say is that if you are going to dedicate yourself to a life of the mind, a PhD from a good school will help you sharpen your thinking, become socialized in a research community, and have the time to conduct your own research. Nothing is guaranteed about it being pleasant or leading to a job.","human_ref_B":"I'm an undergraduate rn and I have always had the dream of going to grad school. After dealing with an entire yr of online school my mental health has completely declined. I had a hard time thinking about if I wanted to continue with my dream of getting a masters degree, it caused me alot of sleeplessnights and ALOT of crying. I ultimately decided that my mental health was more important and ultimately I don't know what I want to do with my life, so I'd like to experience the real world before making a decision. I think that this all is something you really have to think about for yourself. Are you strong enough to get through a PhD program if it turns out to be as horrible as your master program was? Are you comfortable risking your mental health? Is it worth it career wise?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8180.0,"score_ratio":5.8} {"post_id":"ml5wua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"To PhD or PTSD? That\u2019s the concern On the Fence and no idea which way to go. I\u2019m truly on the fence about if I want to go back to school. A little background, last year I completed my MA in Bio. Anthropology at a university in the Midwest. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and for all intensive purposes looked great on paper. However, my graduate experience has left me with some PTSD. Like most people now I had to work through school to support myself. I worked at the lab I was studying in as a graduate assistant and at a separate place of employment. When I got into the program I was told of the opportunities I would get and do because I had experience. (I was an undergrad at the same university.) None of what I was sold was ever provided. I was in the lab more often than not, on top of honor society duties, homework and my other job, and when certain things came up, I was denied. Why? The answers went three ways: 1. I was too busy with my other job and no one knew my schedule. Which was a lie because it was a set schedule and every other graduate student in my department knew where I would be to the near minute of the day. 2. I wasn\u2019t as \u201cdedicated\u201d as I should be. Because I would go home for one week of the summer (when nothing was going on or planned as my advisor would also be doing other things.) and for two weeks during the winter holiday (lab was shut down and we literally couldn\u2019t enter the building.) 3. I was unfocused. My advisor made me change my thesis topic not once, not twice but 6 times. This was AFTER, he had approved it, seen my notes and multiple sources as well as the draft for my proposals. All of which he had given the green light until the last minute when I was told it wouldn\u2019t work. Only to have a friend of mine actually do a project based off what I had wanted to do for my thesis after telling me I couldn\u2019t. This was a constant. I was at the lab more than my own home. I was often told my thoughts were biased based on my ethnic background (Hispanic\/white and Apache.) and that I was smart for someone of my background. That they couldn\u2019t believe I passed my comprehensive exams. This all continued to when I was supposed to go collect the necessary data for my thesis. My advisor wouldn\u2019t let me contact the labs, and on several occasions became flat out offended that I would try. Saying it was his job to do so not mine. When telling other grad students this they were confused as they had contacted them and it was all right. I tried and when the lab contacted him to set up a date in which I could go, he told them to cancel my request. So I did as he wanted and let him. When spring of 2020 came around I was in his office every week asking if he had heard. He told me he had been contacting these labs and no one would return his emails. (Looking back it is bogus but I was extremely tired and worn down, trying to not rock the boat.) Then the week the world shut down in March I was told that a lab had finally answered. I wouldn\u2019t be able to collect data because of the pandemic. I was taken off my thesis track and placed onto a project. That same week I received 10 rejections from PhD programs due to my recommendation letters (which I had told had been sent) never being received. I was devastated as I had always wanted to get my PhD. I love the field and research but that along with everything else in the last two years really took a toll on me. I graduated snd am now in the workforce. Ironically, as my advisor had wanted it because to quote, \u201cYou would be able to have a family and marriage, if you only had a Masters, and did not continue on to a PhD.\u201d. So, here I am almost a year out from grad school. I look back now and I see the toll it took on me, mentally, emotionally and physically. None of which were good. I did have good experiences in grad school, but if I\u2019m honest I had more in the bad category. Grad school is supposed to be hard, but it shouldn\u2019t be damaging. Which is how I have felt since leaving along with my peers who did with me as well. A part of me still wants my PhD as it was a dream but I don\u2019t know if I can throw myself back into that toxicity. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"gtk9buz","c_root_id_B":"gtk6xih","created_at_utc_A":1617712403,"created_at_utc_B":1617710933,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You should really ask yourself why you want one in the first place. Cause you\u2019re right, it is a lot. And it could be more of the same in the next program (I went to a different school than youand had some of those same problems. It\u2019s an acadmia thing to a great extent). It is expensive, time consuming, and stressful. Ask yourself what your end game is. That\u2019ll determine if you should go forward.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m so sorry that this was your experience. If you\u2019re able to access therapy, access it. I started while finishing my thesis and am continuing through my PhD. It\u2019s been helpful for coping with and navigating situations. I agree that the letters of rec will be the major hurdle. Finding or repairing relationships with supervisors\/professors will be necessary. Please also take time to evaluate why you want a PhD. Is it to prove something, necessary to conduct your research, or dedication to a field? There\u2019s a reason some people view academia as a cult, with over encouragement of PhDs over actual benefits (such as mental health or actual employment in the industry). Alt-ac can be fulfilling and can result in more sustainable life\/better mental health. The job is a job, whereas in academia, it always seems to become personal and you are your work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1470.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ml5wua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"To PhD or PTSD? That\u2019s the concern On the Fence and no idea which way to go. I\u2019m truly on the fence about if I want to go back to school. A little background, last year I completed my MA in Bio. Anthropology at a university in the Midwest. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and for all intensive purposes looked great on paper. However, my graduate experience has left me with some PTSD. Like most people now I had to work through school to support myself. I worked at the lab I was studying in as a graduate assistant and at a separate place of employment. When I got into the program I was told of the opportunities I would get and do because I had experience. (I was an undergrad at the same university.) None of what I was sold was ever provided. I was in the lab more often than not, on top of honor society duties, homework and my other job, and when certain things came up, I was denied. Why? The answers went three ways: 1. I was too busy with my other job and no one knew my schedule. Which was a lie because it was a set schedule and every other graduate student in my department knew where I would be to the near minute of the day. 2. I wasn\u2019t as \u201cdedicated\u201d as I should be. Because I would go home for one week of the summer (when nothing was going on or planned as my advisor would also be doing other things.) and for two weeks during the winter holiday (lab was shut down and we literally couldn\u2019t enter the building.) 3. I was unfocused. My advisor made me change my thesis topic not once, not twice but 6 times. This was AFTER, he had approved it, seen my notes and multiple sources as well as the draft for my proposals. All of which he had given the green light until the last minute when I was told it wouldn\u2019t work. Only to have a friend of mine actually do a project based off what I had wanted to do for my thesis after telling me I couldn\u2019t. This was a constant. I was at the lab more than my own home. I was often told my thoughts were biased based on my ethnic background (Hispanic\/white and Apache.) and that I was smart for someone of my background. That they couldn\u2019t believe I passed my comprehensive exams. This all continued to when I was supposed to go collect the necessary data for my thesis. My advisor wouldn\u2019t let me contact the labs, and on several occasions became flat out offended that I would try. Saying it was his job to do so not mine. When telling other grad students this they were confused as they had contacted them and it was all right. I tried and when the lab contacted him to set up a date in which I could go, he told them to cancel my request. So I did as he wanted and let him. When spring of 2020 came around I was in his office every week asking if he had heard. He told me he had been contacting these labs and no one would return his emails. (Looking back it is bogus but I was extremely tired and worn down, trying to not rock the boat.) Then the week the world shut down in March I was told that a lab had finally answered. I wouldn\u2019t be able to collect data because of the pandemic. I was taken off my thesis track and placed onto a project. That same week I received 10 rejections from PhD programs due to my recommendation letters (which I had told had been sent) never being received. I was devastated as I had always wanted to get my PhD. I love the field and research but that along with everything else in the last two years really took a toll on me. I graduated snd am now in the workforce. Ironically, as my advisor had wanted it because to quote, \u201cYou would be able to have a family and marriage, if you only had a Masters, and did not continue on to a PhD.\u201d. So, here I am almost a year out from grad school. I look back now and I see the toll it took on me, mentally, emotionally and physically. None of which were good. I did have good experiences in grad school, but if I\u2019m honest I had more in the bad category. Grad school is supposed to be hard, but it shouldn\u2019t be damaging. Which is how I have felt since leaving along with my peers who did with me as well. A part of me still wants my PhD as it was a dream but I don\u2019t know if I can throw myself back into that toxicity. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"gtk2rd8","c_root_id_B":"gtk6xih","created_at_utc_A":1617708043,"created_at_utc_B":1617710933,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I would recommend starting your PhD, but keeping in mind that your mental and physical health is more important than sticking to it. Have a regular self-assessment of your mental state, think often about how you feel and if it's worth it for you. Circumstances and people always change, so don't try to stick to if it's more damaging than not. So I recommend that you try it at least, if it's really your dream to do a PhD. But don't be afraid to change your mind later, if it proves to be not the right situation for you. That said, I think that yours was not necessarily a problem with academy itself, it seems that you got a bad advisor and hmyou got yourself exhausted. But probably not all of them are like that, I don't know how the system works where you are, but you could probably even change your advisor, maybe ask for advice from your colleagues or people you trust, they could recommend you good places to do your PhD. I'm not saying that getting a PhD is a piece of cake, it is a lot of work and yes, sometimes you have to deal with people who you don't like and sometimes unexpected things can happen that destroy your plans, but it doesn't have to be more damaging than not. Always analyse your current situation and try to be resilient. Good luck, and I hope you can get some better experiences with academic life. p.s. I think it could be a good idea to ask on other subreddits as well, like r\/advice or something similar. I think you could get some good answers.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m so sorry that this was your experience. If you\u2019re able to access therapy, access it. I started while finishing my thesis and am continuing through my PhD. It\u2019s been helpful for coping with and navigating situations. I agree that the letters of rec will be the major hurdle. Finding or repairing relationships with supervisors\/professors will be necessary. Please also take time to evaluate why you want a PhD. Is it to prove something, necessary to conduct your research, or dedication to a field? There\u2019s a reason some people view academia as a cult, with over encouragement of PhDs over actual benefits (such as mental health or actual employment in the industry). Alt-ac can be fulfilling and can result in more sustainable life\/better mental health. The job is a job, whereas in academia, it always seems to become personal and you are your work.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2890.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ml5wua","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"To PhD or PTSD? That\u2019s the concern On the Fence and no idea which way to go. I\u2019m truly on the fence about if I want to go back to school. A little background, last year I completed my MA in Bio. Anthropology at a university in the Midwest. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and for all intensive purposes looked great on paper. However, my graduate experience has left me with some PTSD. Like most people now I had to work through school to support myself. I worked at the lab I was studying in as a graduate assistant and at a separate place of employment. When I got into the program I was told of the opportunities I would get and do because I had experience. (I was an undergrad at the same university.) None of what I was sold was ever provided. I was in the lab more often than not, on top of honor society duties, homework and my other job, and when certain things came up, I was denied. Why? The answers went three ways: 1. I was too busy with my other job and no one knew my schedule. Which was a lie because it was a set schedule and every other graduate student in my department knew where I would be to the near minute of the day. 2. I wasn\u2019t as \u201cdedicated\u201d as I should be. Because I would go home for one week of the summer (when nothing was going on or planned as my advisor would also be doing other things.) and for two weeks during the winter holiday (lab was shut down and we literally couldn\u2019t enter the building.) 3. I was unfocused. My advisor made me change my thesis topic not once, not twice but 6 times. This was AFTER, he had approved it, seen my notes and multiple sources as well as the draft for my proposals. All of which he had given the green light until the last minute when I was told it wouldn\u2019t work. Only to have a friend of mine actually do a project based off what I had wanted to do for my thesis after telling me I couldn\u2019t. This was a constant. I was at the lab more than my own home. I was often told my thoughts were biased based on my ethnic background (Hispanic\/white and Apache.) and that I was smart for someone of my background. That they couldn\u2019t believe I passed my comprehensive exams. This all continued to when I was supposed to go collect the necessary data for my thesis. My advisor wouldn\u2019t let me contact the labs, and on several occasions became flat out offended that I would try. Saying it was his job to do so not mine. When telling other grad students this they were confused as they had contacted them and it was all right. I tried and when the lab contacted him to set up a date in which I could go, he told them to cancel my request. So I did as he wanted and let him. When spring of 2020 came around I was in his office every week asking if he had heard. He told me he had been contacting these labs and no one would return his emails. (Looking back it is bogus but I was extremely tired and worn down, trying to not rock the boat.) Then the week the world shut down in March I was told that a lab had finally answered. I wouldn\u2019t be able to collect data because of the pandemic. I was taken off my thesis track and placed onto a project. That same week I received 10 rejections from PhD programs due to my recommendation letters (which I had told had been sent) never being received. I was devastated as I had always wanted to get my PhD. I love the field and research but that along with everything else in the last two years really took a toll on me. I graduated snd am now in the workforce. Ironically, as my advisor had wanted it because to quote, \u201cYou would be able to have a family and marriage, if you only had a Masters, and did not continue on to a PhD.\u201d. So, here I am almost a year out from grad school. I look back now and I see the toll it took on me, mentally, emotionally and physically. None of which were good. I did have good experiences in grad school, but if I\u2019m honest I had more in the bad category. Grad school is supposed to be hard, but it shouldn\u2019t be damaging. Which is how I have felt since leaving along with my peers who did with me as well. A part of me still wants my PhD as it was a dream but I don\u2019t know if I can throw myself back into that toxicity. Any thoughts?","c_root_id_A":"gtk2rd8","c_root_id_B":"gtk9buz","created_at_utc_A":1617708043,"created_at_utc_B":1617712403,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would recommend starting your PhD, but keeping in mind that your mental and physical health is more important than sticking to it. Have a regular self-assessment of your mental state, think often about how you feel and if it's worth it for you. Circumstances and people always change, so don't try to stick to if it's more damaging than not. So I recommend that you try it at least, if it's really your dream to do a PhD. But don't be afraid to change your mind later, if it proves to be not the right situation for you. That said, I think that yours was not necessarily a problem with academy itself, it seems that you got a bad advisor and hmyou got yourself exhausted. But probably not all of them are like that, I don't know how the system works where you are, but you could probably even change your advisor, maybe ask for advice from your colleagues or people you trust, they could recommend you good places to do your PhD. I'm not saying that getting a PhD is a piece of cake, it is a lot of work and yes, sometimes you have to deal with people who you don't like and sometimes unexpected things can happen that destroy your plans, but it doesn't have to be more damaging than not. Always analyse your current situation and try to be resilient. Good luck, and I hope you can get some better experiences with academic life. p.s. I think it could be a good idea to ask on other subreddits as well, like r\/advice or something similar. I think you could get some good answers.","human_ref_B":"You should really ask yourself why you want one in the first place. Cause you\u2019re right, it is a lot. And it could be more of the same in the next program (I went to a different school than youand had some of those same problems. It\u2019s an acadmia thing to a great extent). It is expensive, time consuming, and stressful. Ask yourself what your end game is. That\u2019ll determine if you should go forward.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4360.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu8iuaa","c_root_id_B":"hu8k8qr","created_at_utc_A":1643161543,"created_at_utc_B":1643162142,"score_A":13,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"I think other bachelor-level degrees have more earning power out the gate: economics, computer science, math, natural sciences, etc. Anthropology and other social sciences are a bit more challenging because the options aren\u2019t as clearly defined, unless you are sure you want to continue at the graduate level. For me, anthropology gave me a perspective that I think is not always built into other majors. A perspective that focuses on equality, celebrating our differences and the things that we share, etc. College also was a time where I could learn and practice how to learn. So, I\u2019d say \u2014 think about what you want to do in the world. It\u2019s hard to choose in your early 20s and it\u2019ll likely shift over time, but what do you really want to do: Do you want to do ethnography? Teach anthropology classes? Continue learning anthropology theory? Etc. Then maybe graduate level anthro is right for you. If you\u2019re not interested in those things, think about what else you would like to do. I know anthro majors who are now medical doctors, entrepreneurs, anthropologists, etc. It\u2019s easier said than done, but you just have to figure out what you want and move yourself in that direction. It\u2019s easy to think that anthropology might hold you back \u2014 but you can actually go in a lot of different directions. The challenges is getting rid of others\u2019 expectations, zeroing in on what you want to do with your life, and taking steps toward that. Don\u2019t let your major define you \u2014 if working at McDonald\u2019s is your passion, try to make that happen. If it\u2019s becoming an anthropologist, do that. If it\u2019s going to divinity school, do that. Try not to get sidetracked by others\u2019 expectations of you.","human_ref_B":"Nah, you\u2019ve got plenty of time. I barely remember anything I learned in undergrad. Lately undergrad is more like high school. You\u2019ve got to go to grad school to learn anything. I think you answered some of your question in your comment about the religion professor. Quite a lot depends on the program and the staff. That dynamic is similar in grad school. I went a school that was very practicum-focused and the internship took up 30% of the time the first year, and 60% the second year. That was very helpful. There were also amazing professors and there were poor ones. I dropped the poor ones and switched to good classes whenever that was possible (work with your advisor on this one). Some assignments I vividly remember to this day even though it was two decades ago. I also created an ad hoc internship for myself in the niche field I wanted to study - that took building good relationships and advocating for myself a lot, and it was rewarding. You\u2019re not an imposter or fraud for not feeling ready. You know a lot more than you did when you started. Compare yourself now to yourself at high school graduation, rather than to what you wished you\u2019d learned. You\u2019re more equipped than the average person to work in anthropology. And you would not start a job leading a team, so don\u2019t measure yourself against that level of expertise - you\u2019d play one role on that team and be expected to learn along the way. If you\u2019re interested in research, then talk to an advisor or professor at a school you want to go to, and figure out how to set conditions for success in that area. Heck, find a few research articles or books about specific topics you\u2019re interested in, and contact the authors. Who knows, they may write you back! Ask them about what they\u2019d like to know more about in their chosen topic, what they wish someone would research, and if there any programs of study they\u2019d recommend, and if you may presume upon their generosity, any advice they may have for a person just starting out after undergrad and wanting to get smart in x field. You got this. Pursue your dreams. People apply to jobs all the time that they aren\u2019t qualified for. You know more than you think you do. And you\u2019ve got plenty of time **and grace** to learn all that you don\u2019t know.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":599.0,"score_ratio":2.6923076923} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu92yhy","c_root_id_B":"hu8ts7o","created_at_utc_A":1643170336,"created_at_utc_B":1643166188,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"> But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned nothing about anthropology. I felt this way too, right after I graduated. And then after a couple of years of talking and interacting with people who didn't have anthropology degrees (or sociology degrees, or other some other social science degree), I realized I actually had learned a lot. It's just that so much of what I had learned, I had internalized to the degree that I just assumed it was general knowledge. Things that seem obvious after having taken some anthropology classes are very often not even on the radar of the general populace.","human_ref_B":"So I was an anthology minor with a history major and like you I went to a standered state school. I remember some stuff from undergrad but the socal sciences in undergrad are mostly there to get you into graduate school. If it makes you feel better I have a Master's in Library Information Science and I learned nothing practical in grad school and neither do most librarians. My husband says the same about law school. You do most of your learning with internships and job experience.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4148.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu92yhy","c_root_id_B":"hu8nz10","created_at_utc_A":1643170336,"created_at_utc_B":1643163710,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"> But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned nothing about anthropology. I felt this way too, right after I graduated. And then after a couple of years of talking and interacting with people who didn't have anthropology degrees (or sociology degrees, or other some other social science degree), I realized I actually had learned a lot. It's just that so much of what I had learned, I had internalized to the degree that I just assumed it was general knowledge. Things that seem obvious after having taken some anthropology classes are very often not even on the radar of the general populace.","human_ref_B":">To be honest, I feel like I learned nothing about anthropology Give yourself some credit. A BA doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re an expert. You have not had the chance to specialize and really dig in. You have the foundation and probably you know more than you think. Now it\u2019s on you to decide how you want to use it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6626.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu92yhy","c_root_id_B":"hu92knx","created_at_utc_A":1643170336,"created_at_utc_B":1643170150,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"> But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned nothing about anthropology. I felt this way too, right after I graduated. And then after a couple of years of talking and interacting with people who didn't have anthropology degrees (or sociology degrees, or other some other social science degree), I realized I actually had learned a lot. It's just that so much of what I had learned, I had internalized to the degree that I just assumed it was general knowledge. Things that seem obvious after having taken some anthropology classes are very often not even on the radar of the general populace.","human_ref_B":"For the most part undergrad is about learning how to learn, jumping through hoops, and unlearning some of the convenient simplifications you learn in school before college. You degree tells others that you have demonstrated that you can do all that, and that you have at least a basic understanding to work from. Generally speaking, people don't really expect you to know a lot after undergrad, but they do expect you to know how to get up to speed fast and how to recognize where your knowledge stops so you don't make some unfounded assumption. Grad school definitely provides more opportunities for building your knowledge (those are there in undergrad too, but you often have to actively search them out), but I am very strongly in favor of people taking a few years in the real world before going to grad school. It helps to focus you and makes it so that you are going back for a reason, not just because, \"that's what you do next.\" Real world experience, even in an unrelated field, also often is appealing to graduate acceptance committees.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":186.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu98tlb","c_root_id_B":"hu92knx","created_at_utc_A":1643173278,"created_at_utc_B":1643170150,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"100% normal, this is not your fault but rather society's for making you believe a social science\/humanities degree is useless. I've heard more imposter syndrome in anthropology (one of my two majors) than a lot of other fields. I was an ambassador for my school's program (attracting incoming freshman\/transfers to the program) and what I always told prospective students was this: you will learn less tangible information in anthropology than you will *how to think*; how to approach problems from as neutral a perspective as possible and engage in them in a different way than most others are taught to problem solve. I guarantee you'll get into grad school and find this out and become confident in your abilities. Hope this helps :)","human_ref_B":"For the most part undergrad is about learning how to learn, jumping through hoops, and unlearning some of the convenient simplifications you learn in school before college. You degree tells others that you have demonstrated that you can do all that, and that you have at least a basic understanding to work from. Generally speaking, people don't really expect you to know a lot after undergrad, but they do expect you to know how to get up to speed fast and how to recognize where your knowledge stops so you don't make some unfounded assumption. Grad school definitely provides more opportunities for building your knowledge (those are there in undergrad too, but you often have to actively search them out), but I am very strongly in favor of people taking a few years in the real world before going to grad school. It helps to focus you and makes it so that you are going back for a reason, not just because, \"that's what you do next.\" Real world experience, even in an unrelated field, also often is appealing to graduate acceptance committees.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3128.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu98tlb","c_root_id_B":"hu93z0a","created_at_utc_A":1643173278,"created_at_utc_B":1643170827,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"100% normal, this is not your fault but rather society's for making you believe a social science\/humanities degree is useless. I've heard more imposter syndrome in anthropology (one of my two majors) than a lot of other fields. I was an ambassador for my school's program (attracting incoming freshman\/transfers to the program) and what I always told prospective students was this: you will learn less tangible information in anthropology than you will *how to think*; how to approach problems from as neutral a perspective as possible and engage in them in a different way than most others are taught to problem solve. I guarantee you'll get into grad school and find this out and become confident in your abilities. Hope this helps :)","human_ref_B":">But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. This is an incredibly common feeling for those of us who are applying to grad school or who are in grad school. (I'm doing both!) You are not alone in this sentiment. Honestly, it almost feels normal to have a little bit of imposter syndrome (or a great deal of it). Head to \/r\/gradschool or \/r\/gradadmissions and search for \"imposter syndrome.\" You'll find *a lot* of people feel the same way. I have a really great strategy for combatting imposter syndrome when I'm having a particularly bad day. I have two emails from some of my most significant academic mentors that I have saved and downloaded to an easily accessible folder. Both letters are, to varying degrees, letters wishing me well as I move on from one program to the next. They contain a lot of praise, and I use them as reminders that I am a strong student who is capable of overcoming each new academic barrier. That's helped to get me through my first graduate degree, and I'll have a master's (in criminology, I browse this sub because I did my bachelor's in anthropology) very soon. I also have an acceptance letter from a really cool PhD program. Leverage the resources you have! Do you have any good emails or notes from your mentors? If not, come join us in \/r\/gradschool. Come commiserate about how much academia sucks. You got this. You know more than you think.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2451.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu92knx","c_root_id_B":"hu9epsk","created_at_utc_A":1643170150,"created_at_utc_B":1643176562,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"For the most part undergrad is about learning how to learn, jumping through hoops, and unlearning some of the convenient simplifications you learn in school before college. You degree tells others that you have demonstrated that you can do all that, and that you have at least a basic understanding to work from. Generally speaking, people don't really expect you to know a lot after undergrad, but they do expect you to know how to get up to speed fast and how to recognize where your knowledge stops so you don't make some unfounded assumption. Grad school definitely provides more opportunities for building your knowledge (those are there in undergrad too, but you often have to actively search them out), but I am very strongly in favor of people taking a few years in the real world before going to grad school. It helps to focus you and makes it so that you are going back for a reason, not just because, \"that's what you do next.\" Real world experience, even in an unrelated field, also often is appealing to graduate acceptance committees.","human_ref_B":"Hi OP. This post really hit home for me because I feel like we were in very similar situations. I graduated from an unknown state school with a tiny Anthro department in Fall 2020. I had planned a field school and some other opportunities for post graduation, but COVID threw a wrench in everything. My degree was like yours, very broad and general with no real focus and only a few classes that were really challenging\/rigorous. There were little opportunities for research experience. However, I took 1 year off and then decided to apply to master's programs this cycle because even though my end goal is to get a PhD, I feel vastly underprepared and inexperienced. I felt like a master's before pursuing PhD could help fill in some gaps and allow me some research experience. By some miracle, I landed an acceptance to study Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthro at the University of Oxford with pretty much no research experience and coming from an unknown school. So I guess my point is that yes, our programs were probably not too-notch and the education we received was probably not comparable to well-established programs at better schools, but it doesn't have to hold you back from achieving your goals. During my degree as well as after, I did a lot of independent research and learning (mostly just reading books and journal articles about topics that interested me). My undergrad taught me almost nothing about cognitive or evolutionary anthro so I had to learn on my own. However, I will say that the best thing that my undergrad experience provided was the chance to get strong letters of recs. I was really able to connect with my profs because it was such a small program, and they ended up being some of my greatest supporters. So I wanted to share with you my journey because I feel like we started at very similar places, but just know it doesn't necessarily have to hold you back!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6412.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"scsevj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Mixed Feelings After Earning Degree Hi, first time poster here. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology (minor in Religion) in Spring 2020. Like a lot of people, my plans for that year and beyond were thrown out of whack because of covid. For me that resulted in a lot of soul-searching in terms of what I want my education\/career to look like when the world goes back to normal. It got me thinking a lot about the degree I already earned, and I'm starting to feel it wasn't worth it. To be clear I am *not* saying anthropology is a worthless degree, this is more about my specific program. I went to a pretty average state university, and like most unis its humanities\/social sciences programs were severely underfunded. But I can't help but feel that I should have learned more than I did. To be honest, I feel like I learned *nothing* about anthropology. I attribute part of it to general education requirements (I'm in the US) taking up probably 3\/4 of my degree, but my actual anthropology classes weren't much better. I spent my whole degree racing to finish as quickly as possible and get to grad school, where I was hoping I'd actually learn something and get to do meaningful research. But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. I don't feel qualified to apply for any sort of anthropology-related job. I feel very uncomfortable calling myself an anthropologist. So I guess I'm asking...is this normal? To not learn much during undergrad? Or was I in a particularly shitty program? I can say there was definitely a huge contrast with my religion minor--we only had one religion prof who taught all the classes, but those were the only ones where I was genuinely challenged, and felt like I was actually in college, not High School 2.0.","c_root_id_A":"hu93z0a","c_root_id_B":"hu9epsk","created_at_utc_A":1643170827,"created_at_utc_B":1643176562,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">But part of me feels like a fraud even applying to grad school, like I'm not even at that level yet. This is an incredibly common feeling for those of us who are applying to grad school or who are in grad school. (I'm doing both!) You are not alone in this sentiment. Honestly, it almost feels normal to have a little bit of imposter syndrome (or a great deal of it). Head to \/r\/gradschool or \/r\/gradadmissions and search for \"imposter syndrome.\" You'll find *a lot* of people feel the same way. I have a really great strategy for combatting imposter syndrome when I'm having a particularly bad day. I have two emails from some of my most significant academic mentors that I have saved and downloaded to an easily accessible folder. Both letters are, to varying degrees, letters wishing me well as I move on from one program to the next. They contain a lot of praise, and I use them as reminders that I am a strong student who is capable of overcoming each new academic barrier. That's helped to get me through my first graduate degree, and I'll have a master's (in criminology, I browse this sub because I did my bachelor's in anthropology) very soon. I also have an acceptance letter from a really cool PhD program. Leverage the resources you have! Do you have any good emails or notes from your mentors? If not, come join us in \/r\/gradschool. Come commiserate about how much academia sucks. You got this. You know more than you think.","human_ref_B":"Hi OP. This post really hit home for me because I feel like we were in very similar situations. I graduated from an unknown state school with a tiny Anthro department in Fall 2020. I had planned a field school and some other opportunities for post graduation, but COVID threw a wrench in everything. My degree was like yours, very broad and general with no real focus and only a few classes that were really challenging\/rigorous. There were little opportunities for research experience. However, I took 1 year off and then decided to apply to master's programs this cycle because even though my end goal is to get a PhD, I feel vastly underprepared and inexperienced. I felt like a master's before pursuing PhD could help fill in some gaps and allow me some research experience. By some miracle, I landed an acceptance to study Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthro at the University of Oxford with pretty much no research experience and coming from an unknown school. So I guess my point is that yes, our programs were probably not too-notch and the education we received was probably not comparable to well-established programs at better schools, but it doesn't have to hold you back from achieving your goals. During my degree as well as after, I did a lot of independent research and learning (mostly just reading books and journal articles about topics that interested me). My undergrad taught me almost nothing about cognitive or evolutionary anthro so I had to learn on my own. However, I will say that the best thing that my undergrad experience provided was the chance to get strong letters of recs. I was really able to connect with my profs because it was such a small program, and they ended up being some of my greatest supporters. So I wanted to share with you my journey because I feel like we started at very similar places, but just know it doesn't necessarily have to hold you back!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5735.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1i8pn1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What were common appliances and utilities during the Bronze\/Stone Age in Europe? I'm currently working on a game which deals with life as a Stone Age man. So far, I have come up with a few utilities which people of the period used, such as drying racks, stone ovens, and forges (for primitive metals). I would like to further investigate the tools and lifestyle of these people by finding out what utilities they used. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cb2j1lj","c_root_id_B":"cb25m3s","created_at_utc_A":1373826571,"created_at_utc_B":1373767932,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Grinding stones (for grinding grain) have been common throughout early history. I'd consider that as an \"appliance\" in the sense you're using.","human_ref_B":"When you say appliances and utilities do you just mean tools, clothing, technology, and other things that people made and which you could create for the game? I'm sure there are some archaeologists here who could help (though \/r\/archaeology might have additional suggestions.) But can you give us some more details about the time period and setting? The Stone age - Bronze Age is a *huge* time period. As in millions of years huge. And once you get into the Bronze Age the technology, architecture, tools, etc. will change pretty drastically depending on where in Europe you are and if you're in a big city or out in a rural agricultural area.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":58639.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"35mvgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the inhabitants really cut down all the trees on Easter Island? Why did they do this, and how did they not moderate their activities? I've heard it so many times, but I fail to see how this event happened.","c_root_id_A":"cr5wz71","c_root_id_B":"cr699dw","created_at_utc_A":1431378914,"created_at_utc_B":1431404226,"score_A":32,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"I think your disbelief stems from the fact that if they were intensively deforesting to the point that it was having detrimental social effects common sense dictates that they would have stopped behaving that way before all the trees were gone. You're right. If they had realised what would happen they probably would've stopped. The way I have seen it taught is that the inhabitants of the Island did not completely wipe out the trees on the Island but instead did enough damage to the ecosystem that it began to cave under the pressure of sustaining human life. So instead of suddenly looking up and there being no more trees the inhabitants carried on doing what they were doing without seeing any appreciable difference in their way of life until they did just enough damage to a fragile self contained ecosystem that it imploded and soil erosion and normal human consumption of resources finished the job. Source: Collapse - Jared Diamond and several anthropology discussions with professors who felt that Diamond didn't go into enough detail.","human_ref_B":"I work in a lab with one of the world's most well-known Pacific archaeologists and he believes that it was a combination of a) Polynesian rats (*Rattus exulans*) destroying the trees' reproductive abilities by eating all of their seeds\/seedlings, and b) overuse by inhabitants. BUT, in addition, the island environment itself is an unusual one that is not hospitable to plant growth. Geologically it is a very old volcanic island, and has very nutrient-depleted soils for this reason, contributing to the depauperate nature of the environment there. Due to its location, it also doesn't receive the nutrients carried in the Asian Dust that usually blows over onto many islands in the Pacific, including Hawai'i. This dust becomes the dominant source of soil nutrients (such as silicon and phosphorus) on islands that are weathered and whose nutrients have leached away. This dust therefore keeps old island soils fertile for plants. In addition, once seabirds stopped using it as a rookery (after humans arrived), a link in the nutrient chain was cut out-- seabirds often make old nutrient-leached islands fertile by dropping the nutrients of the guano (phosphorus, nitrogen) into the land continuously. On Easter Island (Rapa Nui), given its geologic age and the disappearance of the birds, it was very difficult to get stuff to grow without the aid of boulder mulching (breaking up un-leached rocks for nutrients), sunken gardens, and other innovative techniques. The people did the best they could. But the main point is that this was a fragile ecosystem, and the accretional effects of birds leaving, the island being old, rats eating seeds and seedlings, and people cutting trees down too, were more than enough to cause a major ecological disaster.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25312.0,"score_ratio":1.46875} {"post_id":"35mvgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the inhabitants really cut down all the trees on Easter Island? Why did they do this, and how did they not moderate their activities? I've heard it so many times, but I fail to see how this event happened.","c_root_id_A":"cr699dw","c_root_id_B":"cr5w3jj","created_at_utc_A":1431404226,"created_at_utc_B":1431377546,"score_A":47,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I work in a lab with one of the world's most well-known Pacific archaeologists and he believes that it was a combination of a) Polynesian rats (*Rattus exulans*) destroying the trees' reproductive abilities by eating all of their seeds\/seedlings, and b) overuse by inhabitants. BUT, in addition, the island environment itself is an unusual one that is not hospitable to plant growth. Geologically it is a very old volcanic island, and has very nutrient-depleted soils for this reason, contributing to the depauperate nature of the environment there. Due to its location, it also doesn't receive the nutrients carried in the Asian Dust that usually blows over onto many islands in the Pacific, including Hawai'i. This dust becomes the dominant source of soil nutrients (such as silicon and phosphorus) on islands that are weathered and whose nutrients have leached away. This dust therefore keeps old island soils fertile for plants. In addition, once seabirds stopped using it as a rookery (after humans arrived), a link in the nutrient chain was cut out-- seabirds often make old nutrient-leached islands fertile by dropping the nutrients of the guano (phosphorus, nitrogen) into the land continuously. On Easter Island (Rapa Nui), given its geologic age and the disappearance of the birds, it was very difficult to get stuff to grow without the aid of boulder mulching (breaking up un-leached rocks for nutrients), sunken gardens, and other innovative techniques. The people did the best they could. But the main point is that this was a fragile ecosystem, and the accretional effects of birds leaving, the island being old, rats eating seeds and seedlings, and people cutting trees down too, were more than enough to cause a major ecological disaster.","human_ref_B":"Something worth mentioning is there have been many, many, many teams of experimental archaeologists go over there and build rollers to attempt moving them. They all get it wrong, repetitively. Decades ago there was a team that did it properly, taking into account local legends of them \"walking\" into position. With a team of 25 and ropes they were able to walk the statue up into position by rhythmically rocking it forward. This correlates with wear patterns on the base of statues showing more wear on the bottom, the further they are from the quarry. Re-doing of the technique: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YpNuh-J5IgE","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26680.0,"score_ratio":5.2222222222} {"post_id":"35mvgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the inhabitants really cut down all the trees on Easter Island? Why did they do this, and how did they not moderate their activities? I've heard it so many times, but I fail to see how this event happened.","c_root_id_A":"cr699dw","c_root_id_B":"cr5wem0","created_at_utc_A":1431404226,"created_at_utc_B":1431377997,"score_A":47,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I work in a lab with one of the world's most well-known Pacific archaeologists and he believes that it was a combination of a) Polynesian rats (*Rattus exulans*) destroying the trees' reproductive abilities by eating all of their seeds\/seedlings, and b) overuse by inhabitants. BUT, in addition, the island environment itself is an unusual one that is not hospitable to plant growth. Geologically it is a very old volcanic island, and has very nutrient-depleted soils for this reason, contributing to the depauperate nature of the environment there. Due to its location, it also doesn't receive the nutrients carried in the Asian Dust that usually blows over onto many islands in the Pacific, including Hawai'i. This dust becomes the dominant source of soil nutrients (such as silicon and phosphorus) on islands that are weathered and whose nutrients have leached away. This dust therefore keeps old island soils fertile for plants. In addition, once seabirds stopped using it as a rookery (after humans arrived), a link in the nutrient chain was cut out-- seabirds often make old nutrient-leached islands fertile by dropping the nutrients of the guano (phosphorus, nitrogen) into the land continuously. On Easter Island (Rapa Nui), given its geologic age and the disappearance of the birds, it was very difficult to get stuff to grow without the aid of boulder mulching (breaking up un-leached rocks for nutrients), sunken gardens, and other innovative techniques. The people did the best they could. But the main point is that this was a fragile ecosystem, and the accretional effects of birds leaving, the island being old, rats eating seeds and seedlings, and people cutting trees down too, were more than enough to cause a major ecological disaster.","human_ref_B":"You don't think people can act selfishly in a way that destroys it for everyone? Think of the desperation to fix the fishing boat that is your only steady source of protein or way off the island. Textbook tragedy of the commons and a wonderful lesson for the rest of us.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26229.0,"score_ratio":9.4} {"post_id":"35mvgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the inhabitants really cut down all the trees on Easter Island? Why did they do this, and how did they not moderate their activities? I've heard it so many times, but I fail to see how this event happened.","c_root_id_A":"cr5w3jj","c_root_id_B":"cr5wz71","created_at_utc_A":1431377546,"created_at_utc_B":1431378914,"score_A":9,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Something worth mentioning is there have been many, many, many teams of experimental archaeologists go over there and build rollers to attempt moving them. They all get it wrong, repetitively. Decades ago there was a team that did it properly, taking into account local legends of them \"walking\" into position. With a team of 25 and ropes they were able to walk the statue up into position by rhythmically rocking it forward. This correlates with wear patterns on the base of statues showing more wear on the bottom, the further they are from the quarry. Re-doing of the technique: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YpNuh-J5IgE","human_ref_B":"I think your disbelief stems from the fact that if they were intensively deforesting to the point that it was having detrimental social effects common sense dictates that they would have stopped behaving that way before all the trees were gone. You're right. If they had realised what would happen they probably would've stopped. The way I have seen it taught is that the inhabitants of the Island did not completely wipe out the trees on the Island but instead did enough damage to the ecosystem that it began to cave under the pressure of sustaining human life. So instead of suddenly looking up and there being no more trees the inhabitants carried on doing what they were doing without seeing any appreciable difference in their way of life until they did just enough damage to a fragile self contained ecosystem that it imploded and soil erosion and normal human consumption of resources finished the job. Source: Collapse - Jared Diamond and several anthropology discussions with professors who felt that Diamond didn't go into enough detail.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1368.0,"score_ratio":3.5555555556} {"post_id":"35mvgr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Did the inhabitants really cut down all the trees on Easter Island? Why did they do this, and how did they not moderate their activities? I've heard it so many times, but I fail to see how this event happened.","c_root_id_A":"cr5wem0","c_root_id_B":"cr5wz71","created_at_utc_A":1431377997,"created_at_utc_B":1431378914,"score_A":5,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"You don't think people can act selfishly in a way that destroys it for everyone? Think of the desperation to fix the fishing boat that is your only steady source of protein or way off the island. Textbook tragedy of the commons and a wonderful lesson for the rest of us.","human_ref_B":"I think your disbelief stems from the fact that if they were intensively deforesting to the point that it was having detrimental social effects common sense dictates that they would have stopped behaving that way before all the trees were gone. You're right. If they had realised what would happen they probably would've stopped. The way I have seen it taught is that the inhabitants of the Island did not completely wipe out the trees on the Island but instead did enough damage to the ecosystem that it began to cave under the pressure of sustaining human life. So instead of suddenly looking up and there being no more trees the inhabitants carried on doing what they were doing without seeing any appreciable difference in their way of life until they did just enough damage to a fragile self contained ecosystem that it imploded and soil erosion and normal human consumption of resources finished the job. Source: Collapse - Jared Diamond and several anthropology discussions with professors who felt that Diamond didn't go into enough detail.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":917.0,"score_ratio":6.4} {"post_id":"1cvax0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did prehistoric humans shave or trim their fingernails? I sometimes wonder. Was there any good reason? They could bite their fingernails to trim them, of course, but were there any tools to cut hair?","c_root_id_A":"c9kj79c","c_root_id_B":"c9kk3qc","created_at_utc_A":1366668524,"created_at_utc_B":1366671078,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"If you ever have a manual labor type job involving near the amount of physical work prehistoric humans had to do to survive, you'll find that your fingernails usually don't grow long enough to present a problem. Foraging for food, carrying things, interfacing with the natural environment at such a high level, all of these things dull your fingernails down. As far as shaving, I have no idea. I know some Bronze Age civilizations, had \"razorblades\", for lack of a better word, but whether that came only with the advent of metalworking I do not know. Stone Age societies did have tools to scrape the fur from animal hides, which is kind of a similar concept.","human_ref_B":"We have in the archaeological record some amount of material evidence of tools likely used for the purpose of shaving facial hair. But it is approaching prehistory the wrong way to think of prehistoric humans as one homogenous group. Cultures in that period were likely greatly more diverse and varied than we see today (with the modern homogenizing phenomena caused by transportation and communications technology), and it is best to think of them in terms of small bands with their own unique cultural heritage and behavior.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2554.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"1cvax0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did prehistoric humans shave or trim their fingernails? I sometimes wonder. Was there any good reason? They could bite their fingernails to trim them, of course, but were there any tools to cut hair?","c_root_id_A":"c9kk3qc","c_root_id_B":"c9kjwpi","created_at_utc_A":1366671078,"created_at_utc_B":1366670529,"score_A":13,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"We have in the archaeological record some amount of material evidence of tools likely used for the purpose of shaving facial hair. But it is approaching prehistory the wrong way to think of prehistoric humans as one homogenous group. Cultures in that period were likely greatly more diverse and varied than we see today (with the modern homogenizing phenomena caused by transportation and communications technology), and it is best to think of them in terms of small bands with their own unique cultural heritage and behavior.","human_ref_B":"While I can't say it did occur, it is definitely possible. Some Native American tribes chipped off pieces of obsidian that were sharp enough to shave with. modern day demo, so assuming one had access to stones this sharp, it was a possibility.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":549.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"1cvax0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Did prehistoric humans shave or trim their fingernails? I sometimes wonder. Was there any good reason? They could bite their fingernails to trim them, of course, but were there any tools to cut hair?","c_root_id_A":"c9kj79c","c_root_id_B":"c9kjwpi","created_at_utc_A":1366668524,"created_at_utc_B":1366670529,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"If you ever have a manual labor type job involving near the amount of physical work prehistoric humans had to do to survive, you'll find that your fingernails usually don't grow long enough to present a problem. Foraging for food, carrying things, interfacing with the natural environment at such a high level, all of these things dull your fingernails down. As far as shaving, I have no idea. I know some Bronze Age civilizations, had \"razorblades\", for lack of a better word, but whether that came only with the advent of metalworking I do not know. Stone Age societies did have tools to scrape the fur from animal hides, which is kind of a similar concept.","human_ref_B":"While I can't say it did occur, it is definitely possible. Some Native American tribes chipped off pieces of obsidian that were sharp enough to shave with. modern day demo, so assuming one had access to stones this sharp, it was a possibility.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2005.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"6x8yo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"What customs do all\/most tribal societies have in common (in contrast to European societies)? I'm reading about uncontacted tribes and I'm struck by certain commonalities between tribes that live nowhere near each other -- even on different continents. Like body paint, body modification, jewelry (often beads), the use of feathers in headwear, and nudity or partial nudity. (Obviously, that last thing has a lot to do with which climate the tribe lives in.) It seems like those things would be more prevalent throughout history in European cultures, but body paint and modification hasn't been customary (I don't think), and neither has nudity, even in Mediterranean climates like Spain and Italy. Is my impression way off?","c_root_id_A":"dmekmyk","c_root_id_B":"dmen8nx","created_at_utc_A":1504227669,"created_at_utc_B":1504230877,"score_A":15,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Apart from nudity, european cultures exhibit the same characteristics you mentioned. there is a long tradition of Body modification and ~ painting (Piercings and tattoos). While feathers may not have been used commonly, there surely was a tradition of wearing animal parts (leather, fur, claws maybe?). now that I think about it, even nudity has since long been an important theme in \"european\" art.","human_ref_B":"As \/u\/tueftensalat points out, body painting and modification have a long history in Europe and elsewhere. Tattoos, war paint, ear piercings, corsets... it's not always easy to see the strangeness of what's familiar, but it reveals how \"the exotic\" is all in the eye of the beholder. Regarding clothes, Mediterranean climates are vastly different from the humid tropics of, say, the Amazon. Clothes, other than a loincloth perhaps, cling to the skin with sweat and condensation; they're both uncomfortable and impractical.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3208.0,"score_ratio":1.1333333333} {"post_id":"a0c24e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"When And why did humans start drinking cow milk? This is something that I\u2019ve always wondered","c_root_id_A":"eahdyd5","c_root_id_B":"eagnhzz","created_at_utc_A":1543204382,"created_at_utc_B":1543182312,"score_A":20,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"We have evidence of milk proteins being used from Catalhoyuk eight or nine thousand years ago https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-018-06335-6#ref-CR1 and the LBK six to seven thousand years ago https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5563807\/ The lactase persistence allele that 95% of (edit: british Isles, Ireland and Scandinavia) ~~Europeans~~ have perhaps started being selected for around 4000-6000 years ago. We start seeing it a great frequency in the Bell Beakers (the same group that possibly entirely replaced the stone henge building neolithic farmers in Britain) But you can be lactose intolerant and still eat dairy if you have the gut flora to digest the lactose for you, or you use microbes in the processing by making cheese or yoghurt. Or you just have some mild discomfort. There may also be lactase persistence alleles that we know nothing about. It's possible dairying was invented with the domestication of ruminants. There's some evidence to suggest this, which the second link asserts, but I don't know what it is sorry","human_ref_B":"Not sure exactly when, but I read once that the ancient peoples who lived in cloudy\/less-sunny geography started drinking it to help make up for the vitamin D deficiency in their diets","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22070.0,"score_ratio":2.2222222222} {"post_id":"a0c24e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"When And why did humans start drinking cow milk? This is something that I\u2019ve always wondered","c_root_id_A":"eah84me","c_root_id_B":"eahdyd5","created_at_utc_A":1543198959,"created_at_utc_B":1543204382,"score_A":4,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Probably as soon as civilizations started domesticating cows. Humans have always learned from animals and how they lived to find fresh water etc. And if a calf can drink it and doesn\u2019t die, it should be safe. It turned out to be a source of fresh clean \u2018water\u2019 with calories and calcium.","human_ref_B":"We have evidence of milk proteins being used from Catalhoyuk eight or nine thousand years ago https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-018-06335-6#ref-CR1 and the LBK six to seven thousand years ago https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5563807\/ The lactase persistence allele that 95% of (edit: british Isles, Ireland and Scandinavia) ~~Europeans~~ have perhaps started being selected for around 4000-6000 years ago. We start seeing it a great frequency in the Bell Beakers (the same group that possibly entirely replaced the stone henge building neolithic farmers in Britain) But you can be lactose intolerant and still eat dairy if you have the gut flora to digest the lactose for you, or you use microbes in the processing by making cheese or yoghurt. Or you just have some mild discomfort. There may also be lactase persistence alleles that we know nothing about. It's possible dairying was invented with the domestication of ruminants. There's some evidence to suggest this, which the second link asserts, but I don't know what it is sorry","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5423.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6mtod","c_root_id_B":"ed6l695","created_at_utc_A":1546556444,"created_at_utc_B":1546555204,"score_A":17,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d say we\u2019ve been contemplating the mean of life since we started burying our dead. Burials stem from the belief in an existence beyond the grave, but we might have not been the only species that thought like this. New evidence has come to light that might indicate that Neanderthals were also burying their dead. https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/relay.nationalgeographic.com\/proxy\/distribution\/public\/amp\/news\/2013\/12\/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves","human_ref_B":"As old as the drawing in caves.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1240.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed68thg","c_root_id_B":"ed6mtod","created_at_utc_A":1546546776,"created_at_utc_B":1546556444,"score_A":2,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I mean, otherwise they wouldn't have done that 'working' or 'life' thing, if they wouldn't see meaning in that, right? The question is first, what do you mean by meaning?","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d say we\u2019ve been contemplating the mean of life since we started burying our dead. Burials stem from the belief in an existence beyond the grave, but we might have not been the only species that thought like this. New evidence has come to light that might indicate that Neanderthals were also burying their dead. https:\/\/www.google.com\/amp\/s\/relay.nationalgeographic.com\/proxy\/distribution\/public\/amp\/news\/2013\/12\/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9668.0,"score_ratio":8.5} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6uhqe","c_root_id_B":"ed6wzi1","created_at_utc_A":1546562560,"created_at_utc_B":1546564597,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Since intentional burials became a thing. Ceremonially laying flowers, seeds, and other sentimental\/important objects suggests understanding that there may be some kind of life after death--they are offerings to the dead, to help guide and nourish them in the afterlife.","human_ref_B":"Hi. You can look at Caliban and the Witch for middle age farmers during the transition to capitalism. It's the meaning of the body and the conflict of body and mind. I'm not knowledgeable on Egypt but you can read this article about how we don't know why the pyramids were built. For something a little different but powerful, look into Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's an entirely different perspective about a psychologist in a concentration camp, but might be in a similar vein to what you're looking for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2037.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6wzi1","c_root_id_B":"ed6l695","created_at_utc_A":1546564597,"created_at_utc_B":1546555204,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hi. You can look at Caliban and the Witch for middle age farmers during the transition to capitalism. It's the meaning of the body and the conflict of body and mind. I'm not knowledgeable on Egypt but you can read this article about how we don't know why the pyramids were built. For something a little different but powerful, look into Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's an entirely different perspective about a psychologist in a concentration camp, but might be in a similar vein to what you're looking for.","human_ref_B":"As old as the drawing in caves.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9393.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6wzi1","c_root_id_B":"ed6ubk4","created_at_utc_A":1546564597,"created_at_utc_B":1546562418,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hi. You can look at Caliban and the Witch for middle age farmers during the transition to capitalism. It's the meaning of the body and the conflict of body and mind. I'm not knowledgeable on Egypt but you can read this article about how we don't know why the pyramids were built. For something a little different but powerful, look into Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's an entirely different perspective about a psychologist in a concentration camp, but might be in a similar vein to what you're looking for.","human_ref_B":"I think the hierarchy of needs can explain this fairly well. Every person has specific needs and once the primary needs are met you move on to the next level and start focusing on your next need. At the bottom of the hierarchy is basic sustenance, safety and shelter which would be the first thing on people\u2019s minds if they needed any of those things. At the top is \u201cwhat is the meaning of my life\/life in general?\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2179.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed68thg","c_root_id_B":"ed6wzi1","created_at_utc_A":1546546776,"created_at_utc_B":1546564597,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I mean, otherwise they wouldn't have done that 'working' or 'life' thing, if they wouldn't see meaning in that, right? The question is first, what do you mean by meaning?","human_ref_B":"Hi. You can look at Caliban and the Witch for middle age farmers during the transition to capitalism. It's the meaning of the body and the conflict of body and mind. I'm not knowledgeable on Egypt but you can read this article about how we don't know why the pyramids were built. For something a little different but powerful, look into Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's an entirely different perspective about a psychologist in a concentration camp, but might be in a similar vein to what you're looking for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17821.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6uhqe","c_root_id_B":"ed6l695","created_at_utc_A":1546562560,"created_at_utc_B":1546555204,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Since intentional burials became a thing. Ceremonially laying flowers, seeds, and other sentimental\/important objects suggests understanding that there may be some kind of life after death--they are offerings to the dead, to help guide and nourish them in the afterlife.","human_ref_B":"As old as the drawing in caves.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7356.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6uhqe","c_root_id_B":"ed6ubk4","created_at_utc_A":1546562560,"created_at_utc_B":1546562418,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Since intentional burials became a thing. Ceremonially laying flowers, seeds, and other sentimental\/important objects suggests understanding that there may be some kind of life after death--they are offerings to the dead, to help guide and nourish them in the afterlife.","human_ref_B":"I think the hierarchy of needs can explain this fairly well. Every person has specific needs and once the primary needs are met you move on to the next level and start focusing on your next need. At the bottom of the hierarchy is basic sustenance, safety and shelter which would be the first thing on people\u2019s minds if they needed any of those things. At the top is \u201cwhat is the meaning of my life\/life in general?\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":142.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed6uhqe","c_root_id_B":"ed68thg","created_at_utc_A":1546562560,"created_at_utc_B":1546546776,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Since intentional burials became a thing. Ceremonially laying flowers, seeds, and other sentimental\/important objects suggests understanding that there may be some kind of life after death--they are offerings to the dead, to help guide and nourish them in the afterlife.","human_ref_B":"I mean, otherwise they wouldn't have done that 'working' or 'life' thing, if they wouldn't see meaning in that, right? The question is first, what do you mean by meaning?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15784.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed68thg","c_root_id_B":"ed6l695","created_at_utc_A":1546546776,"created_at_utc_B":1546555204,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I mean, otherwise they wouldn't have done that 'working' or 'life' thing, if they wouldn't see meaning in that, right? The question is first, what do you mean by meaning?","human_ref_B":"As old as the drawing in caves.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8428.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"ac8uot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why\/When did humans start caring for the meaning and\/or purpose of life\/their life? Like do farmers in the middle age who works for their lord's land find meaning in what they were doing or were they worried at all about it? what about the people who built the pyramids? or our pre-historic ancestors?","c_root_id_A":"ed68thg","c_root_id_B":"ed6ubk4","created_at_utc_A":1546546776,"created_at_utc_B":1546562418,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I mean, otherwise they wouldn't have done that 'working' or 'life' thing, if they wouldn't see meaning in that, right? The question is first, what do you mean by meaning?","human_ref_B":"I think the hierarchy of needs can explain this fairly well. Every person has specific needs and once the primary needs are met you move on to the next level and start focusing on your next need. At the bottom of the hierarchy is basic sustenance, safety and shelter which would be the first thing on people\u2019s minds if they needed any of those things. At the top is \u201cwhat is the meaning of my life\/life in general?\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15642.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"570uza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Were the ancestors of humans really frugivores? Hopefully this doesn't become too political. Vegans often argue that our ancestors were frugivores. To what extent is this true? If this is the case, when did humans become omnivores?","c_root_id_A":"d8obfdq","c_root_id_B":"d8ogxz0","created_at_utc_A":1476242581,"created_at_utc_B":1476253034,"score_A":12,"score_B":56,"human_ref_A":"I assume you're asking this because of my comment in tomc :) I'm studying archaeology, so most of this is just what I remember from the intro to bio anth class I had to take, but: Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, are frugivores. So are bonobos. We have the same dentition as other old world monkeys and apes, who are all herbivores or frugivores, and in fact have smaller canines because we don't use them for fighting and display. Some people will argue that humans hunted long before we had tools to do so through persistence hunting, but that's only based on ethnographic data collected from modern persistence hunters in Sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, it's not something that we'd really be able to find evidence for in the physical record. But the oldest definitive proof that we have of hunting as an established practice are the Sch\u00f6ningen spears, which are around 400,000 years old and were found in Germany. Notable that they were found in a cold Northern climate, where people would have been less able to subsist primarily on fruits, veggies, nuts, insects, and scavenged meat. Even in modern populations we can see that while meat is a staple in Northern regions, in more tropical regions like Papua New Guinea the diet is still primarily vegetarian (struggling to find a written source I'd consider trustworthy with a quick google, but I cannot recommend the film *Ongka's Big Moka* enough, and it touches on the subject.) Although we have evidence of a shift toward *eating* more meat 2.6 million ya, we don't have definitive evidence that it was intentionally hunted rather than scavenged, and it was likely still a very small proportion of our overall diet. Since any tools they could have used were probably wood, and wood doesn't hold up very well, we'll probably never know for sure. We also only have evidence of regular consumption of shellfish from 35,000 to 20,000 years ago. Around the same time Cro-Magnons in Europe may have had as much as 50% of their diet consisting of meat, though again notable that they are in Ice Age Europe; not a great place to try to live primarily off of fruits. With the advent of agriculture, however, this ratio likely shifted closer to 90%\/10% in favor of plants. There are also plenty of health issues associated with this shift to agriculture, but again keep in mind that these crops were largely starches and grains, not the abundance of fruits and fair amount of leafy greens in a frugivorous diet.","human_ref_B":"Yes and No. Hominids are mostly Ominvores and we have a lot of specific adaptations and tool usage that is directly related to hunting behaviors. More so than other Apes we'd consider Frugivores. Stone hand axes for example were made by H.Erectus and H.Ergaster for more than a few million years. These were specifically used to butcher meat and kill animals. Fruther advances to Lithic tools ended up in Spear points and a particularly interesting method called the Levallois technique, something used by Neanderthals that produced an incredibly sharp and useful butchering knife. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Levallois_technique Further more Spears were extensively used, and it's been hypothesized that Spear throwing and other throwing tool usage by Erectus\/Ergaster changed our shoulder anatomy. http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/v498\/n7455\/full\/nature12267.html Another serious aspect is the shape of our jaws as compared to our ancestors. Over time we see the jaw and teeth become smaller and sligthly more oriented towards handling meat. Most of this is attributed to hunting animals with tools and cooked food. In respect to anatomy, we have a few telling factors in our anatomy that points again towards hunting behaviors that show up long before Homo Sapiens were around. First off is the Nuchel ligament. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nuchal_ligament In hominids this ligament is used to keep yor head balanced when running, and it's absent in Australopiths, but is found in the recently discovered Homo Naledi, and its been present in humans ever scence Homo Erectus. If you flex your head downwards you can actually feel this ligament down the back of your neck. 2nd is the pinch in the waist. This little detail is also absent in Austrailopiths, but again shows up pretty prominently in Ergaster and more modern. This little pinch in the waist allows our bodies to alternate, or \"wiggle\" as we run. allowing an incredibly effecient stride that allows the muscles of the body to counter-pull and balance as we run. 3rd is our butt. Humans have a huge butt, and specifically referring to the gluteal muscles. These muscles barely if at all activate when walking, but again just like the 2 previous features, once we start running these muscles kick into gear to keep us running balanced and efficiently. http:\/\/jeb.biologists.org\/content\/209\/11\/2143 4th. Our Teeth. According at least Paeloanthropologist Lee Burger, the classification of Homo was applied to Naledi due to its Jaws and teeth which was more similar in function and appearance to Hominids like Us and Erectus as compared to previous Australopiths.(See Lee Burger's appearance in Dawn of Humanity via PBS Nova.) If we look at our modern teeth compared to an Austrailopith, our teeth are tiny, and we have more sheering action in our teeth compared to them. Compared side by side, Modern Human teeth are better at chewing and cutting meat than even Erectus Teeth. Compared to austrailopiths our teeth especially molars have become very small and muchless useful and infact at this point in time many people are in the process of shedding their 3rd molar set(wisdom teeth) simply because we don't need them anymore. They're not useful to us biologically. Much of the tooth changes that we see is the reduction of Molars from the austrailopiths to the Hominins. 5th, Bare skin and Sweating. Humans Sweat to cooldown, which is incredibly useful for being a daylight hunter. This follows into the persistence hunting hypothesis, but this sort of cooling system again serves little use to an animal that's walking around searching for it's plant based diet. Proactive sweating is directly beneficial to an active daylight hunter. And there are people to this day that are capable of showing how this persistence hunting behavior worked. On a notable side note, it's been identified in people that some are partially capable of digesting insect and arachnids http:\/\/www.bio.unipd.it\/agroecology\/download\/pdf\/papers\/2009\/Chitin-Chitinases-Paoletti-From-Binomium-Chitnchitinase-Recent-Issues-Fp-Version.pdf In a sense for Hominins as Frugivores, the answer is not in particular, but is more an answer Leaning towards towards Omnivorous behavior. Humans didn't have as much access to fruits as much as we did roots, tubers, and other starchy foods. Which is why we have Amylase genes. http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/star.201000150\/pdf However when talking about Austrailopiths, most were extensive and dedicated vegetarians, especially considering species like Paranthropus boisei, which had a Huge set of chewing teeth and Jaw muscles. Infact P.Boisei had a crest on the top of it's skull that was a connector for large chewing muscles. Many of the austrailopiths had long arms, and poor running ability if at all, and we'rent particularly large brained. As we progress from the Austrailopiths to the Hominins we see adaptations for hunting, meat consumption and just regular omnivorous behavior. I would say that our bodies are a testament to just how strong and how adaptable an omnivore can be when given the chance to be an opportunist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10453.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"570uza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Were the ancestors of humans really frugivores? Hopefully this doesn't become too political. Vegans often argue that our ancestors were frugivores. To what extent is this true? If this is the case, when did humans become omnivores?","c_root_id_A":"d8ogxz0","c_root_id_B":"d8odl2p","created_at_utc_A":1476253034,"created_at_utc_B":1476246015,"score_A":56,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Yes and No. Hominids are mostly Ominvores and we have a lot of specific adaptations and tool usage that is directly related to hunting behaviors. More so than other Apes we'd consider Frugivores. Stone hand axes for example were made by H.Erectus and H.Ergaster for more than a few million years. These were specifically used to butcher meat and kill animals. Fruther advances to Lithic tools ended up in Spear points and a particularly interesting method called the Levallois technique, something used by Neanderthals that produced an incredibly sharp and useful butchering knife. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Levallois_technique Further more Spears were extensively used, and it's been hypothesized that Spear throwing and other throwing tool usage by Erectus\/Ergaster changed our shoulder anatomy. http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/v498\/n7455\/full\/nature12267.html Another serious aspect is the shape of our jaws as compared to our ancestors. Over time we see the jaw and teeth become smaller and sligthly more oriented towards handling meat. Most of this is attributed to hunting animals with tools and cooked food. In respect to anatomy, we have a few telling factors in our anatomy that points again towards hunting behaviors that show up long before Homo Sapiens were around. First off is the Nuchel ligament. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nuchal_ligament In hominids this ligament is used to keep yor head balanced when running, and it's absent in Australopiths, but is found in the recently discovered Homo Naledi, and its been present in humans ever scence Homo Erectus. If you flex your head downwards you can actually feel this ligament down the back of your neck. 2nd is the pinch in the waist. This little detail is also absent in Austrailopiths, but again shows up pretty prominently in Ergaster and more modern. This little pinch in the waist allows our bodies to alternate, or \"wiggle\" as we run. allowing an incredibly effecient stride that allows the muscles of the body to counter-pull and balance as we run. 3rd is our butt. Humans have a huge butt, and specifically referring to the gluteal muscles. These muscles barely if at all activate when walking, but again just like the 2 previous features, once we start running these muscles kick into gear to keep us running balanced and efficiently. http:\/\/jeb.biologists.org\/content\/209\/11\/2143 4th. Our Teeth. According at least Paeloanthropologist Lee Burger, the classification of Homo was applied to Naledi due to its Jaws and teeth which was more similar in function and appearance to Hominids like Us and Erectus as compared to previous Australopiths.(See Lee Burger's appearance in Dawn of Humanity via PBS Nova.) If we look at our modern teeth compared to an Austrailopith, our teeth are tiny, and we have more sheering action in our teeth compared to them. Compared side by side, Modern Human teeth are better at chewing and cutting meat than even Erectus Teeth. Compared to austrailopiths our teeth especially molars have become very small and muchless useful and infact at this point in time many people are in the process of shedding their 3rd molar set(wisdom teeth) simply because we don't need them anymore. They're not useful to us biologically. Much of the tooth changes that we see is the reduction of Molars from the austrailopiths to the Hominins. 5th, Bare skin and Sweating. Humans Sweat to cooldown, which is incredibly useful for being a daylight hunter. This follows into the persistence hunting hypothesis, but this sort of cooling system again serves little use to an animal that's walking around searching for it's plant based diet. Proactive sweating is directly beneficial to an active daylight hunter. And there are people to this day that are capable of showing how this persistence hunting behavior worked. On a notable side note, it's been identified in people that some are partially capable of digesting insect and arachnids http:\/\/www.bio.unipd.it\/agroecology\/download\/pdf\/papers\/2009\/Chitin-Chitinases-Paoletti-From-Binomium-Chitnchitinase-Recent-Issues-Fp-Version.pdf In a sense for Hominins as Frugivores, the answer is not in particular, but is more an answer Leaning towards towards Omnivorous behavior. Humans didn't have as much access to fruits as much as we did roots, tubers, and other starchy foods. Which is why we have Amylase genes. http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/star.201000150\/pdf However when talking about Austrailopiths, most were extensive and dedicated vegetarians, especially considering species like Paranthropus boisei, which had a Huge set of chewing teeth and Jaw muscles. Infact P.Boisei had a crest on the top of it's skull that was a connector for large chewing muscles. Many of the austrailopiths had long arms, and poor running ability if at all, and we'rent particularly large brained. As we progress from the Austrailopiths to the Hominins we see adaptations for hunting, meat consumption and just regular omnivorous behavior. I would say that our bodies are a testament to just how strong and how adaptable an omnivore can be when given the chance to be an opportunist.","human_ref_B":"I agree we should avoid politics if possible. The issue is that our 'ancestors' were potentially eaters of anything, depending on how far back you go. From fruit to other amoebas (going back thru time). None of our ancestors are THE ancestor, in the sense they hold a special place in our ancestry. However our last common ancestor with any other species appears to have been primarily or solely a herbivore\/frugivore (based on the limited fossil record). However its clear that meat eating of some kind has been going on for millions of years and become more prevalent as we became more proficient at using tools to do it or as the climate and environment dictated. The theory that we 'needed' meat to fuel our bodies, brains and lifestyles is an interesting one but somewhat contentious and not yet proven. From a purely scientific perspective though any argument that states that as an animal did THIS THING 4 million years ago that therefore its wrong or faulty that it is now doing THAT THING THAT IS DIFFERENT NOW is inherently faulty. Animals evolve to suit their circumstances and requirements. From another viewpoint I dont believe that dentition can dictate a creatures diet, once that creature has evolved to alter the world around it. That is, an animal (human in this case) may have the teeth of a frugivore, but it has developed knives and cooking too and thus its dentition might not alter but its diet could. An animal with dentition type A might 'need' to evolve new teeth to cope with a change in diet, but once technology comes into effect the environmental pressure to change can drop dramatically. Thus humans havent had many changes to a carnivore\/omnivore form (from their current one) as we developed technologies to do that for us. As is well known these days even our frugivore cousins can happily engage in meat eating at times.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7019.0,"score_ratio":9.3333333333} {"post_id":"6j2a13","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do we have any idea what the first words humans used were? I was wondering if there's any evidence or theories as to what the first vocabulary early humans used was? Is it similar to the vocabular a modern baby would first learn growing up?","c_root_id_A":"djb9818","c_root_id_B":"djb7jtw","created_at_utc_A":1498248940,"created_at_utc_B":1498247064,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Linguist here. No, no one knows the first words. As one commenter pointed out, it is also likely that humans started with gestures. Chimpanzees have been observed to use symbolic gestures in the wild. When did language evolve? Estimates range from around 60 kya (thousand years ago), claimed by people like Chomsky, to maybe 2-4 million years ago (think Dan Everett). Both hypotheses have some evidence, but there is not quite enough evidence to fully endorse either theory. Did language innovate multiple times in humans? Even though we can't know for sure, probably not. We have some evidence to consider. First of all, there are 7 human genome types. 6 are still in central Africa and everyone that left Africa is the 7th. There has been no observed difference in ability to aqcuire language between groups of modern humans. As Chomsky says, if you take a baby from New Guinea and one from the Amazon and raise them in Boston, both will grow to speak English with a Boston accent. This quite securely suggests that the language capacity was present in humans before exodus from Africa.It seems unlikely that humans had a fully developed language capacity before leaving Africa and then independently developed language multiple times. One piece of evidence is that there is no record of a culture ever discovered which did not have language (only individuals who have been denied adequate human contact). Additionally, genesis of language has been observed in songle generations among deaf communities that lacked a sign language. Scholars such as Everett actually propose that humans inherited language from our evolutionary ancestors. Heck, maybe even homoerectus had language! tl;dr We dont know Edit: cant see comment preview on mobile so need to fix a few typos and words","human_ref_B":"Two places I would look. One would be \"The Singing Neanderthal\". The other I do not have a great search reference for however the idea was that because hominids drink mothers milk the sound produced from releasing from a mothers teat is a foundation for creating speech for infants. Yes I know this is far fetched and I learnt it from a professor who was still trapped in structuralist theory however I hope this gives you a couple spots to look","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1876.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"6j2a13","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do we have any idea what the first words humans used were? I was wondering if there's any evidence or theories as to what the first vocabulary early humans used was? Is it similar to the vocabular a modern baby would first learn growing up?","c_root_id_A":"djb7jtw","c_root_id_B":"djbwi21","created_at_utc_A":1498247064,"created_at_utc_B":1498280305,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Two places I would look. One would be \"The Singing Neanderthal\". The other I do not have a great search reference for however the idea was that because hominids drink mothers milk the sound produced from releasing from a mothers teat is a foundation for creating speech for infants. Yes I know this is far fetched and I learnt it from a professor who was still trapped in structuralist theory however I hope this gives you a couple spots to look","human_ref_B":"Anthropologists look at words in two ways (meaning and sound, to be brief). There are certain meanings that appear in all languages, so it seems likely they are in the oldest languages as well. For example, \"Water\" (or another sound sequence meaning water or to drink...sometimes a verb is used to a noun-like concept and often, it's only water to drink anyway). Using the index finger and a sound to indicate \"that\" or \"there\" is universal. I think Merritt Ruhlen goes into the literature around this issue in his *The Origin of Language.*. Steven Pinkard has opined on this in his language books (and his bibliography is a good start at the academic literature). Something to mean \"okay,\" \"yes,\" \"assent,\" \"I'm not opposed to that\" is both verbal and spoken for chimps. It's in every human language. Something to mean, \"No,\" \"Cut it out,\" \"Stop,\" \"Not in agreement\" is also common to all human languages and chimp signs\/sounds. So, by studying the some 100-200 lexemes (Units of meaning) in chimps, we get some clues. Then, by looking at the 6000 or so known languages for words that are in all of them helps. Many languages (like English) use the same sound sequence for related meanings, and sometimes for opposite meanings, humans who have the syntax protein easily use context to tell what is meant (mostly). So, for example, a word that indicates what English speakers call \"moon\" can often mean a number of other things (like a month or a monthly cycle or the opposite of the Sun or a lesser source of light or night time). Yes No Moon Sun Mother Father There\/that Me You Eat Water ...seem to be popular with linguists as potential first words. 'Kwa (for example) means \"water\" in Kwakiutl, water in English, aqua in several Latin-based languages, maji in Swahili, Shui in Mandarin...these are just a few. If you look across language families (like, for example, the Sino-Tibetan family) you'll find they *all* have a word for water (just as all Indo-European languages do and all Amerindian languages do, etc.) Language will never its past be physically observable in the sense that a bone or rock is. But we can have good guesses.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33241.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"94rjyf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.64,"history":"Were people always this stupid or has social media made people do more stupid things in order to gain publicity? Are their any anthropological studies done on human stupidity?","c_root_id_A":"e3nbj5i","c_root_id_B":"e3nc7gw","created_at_utc_A":1533479321,"created_at_utc_B":1533480055,"score_A":7,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Stupid\u2019s an incredibly vague term. Attention seeking? Deliberately incorrect or provocative? Regardless of which of those, the answer is, probably, yes. Human nature hasn\u2019t seemed to change over much over our years of recorded history. The technology at our disposal amplifies our communication networks vastly, though, and acute mortality risks are at an all time low. So people are more able to talk about more things than ever, louder than ever, and suffer less consequences than ever. This starts to feed more into psychology, but this phenomenon of seeking easy gratification over the risk-free internet portal, therefore reinforcing those behaviors with rewards and suffering no ill consequences, people will act more and more egregiously as time allows. But for anything more specific, you\u2019d need specific cultures, persona, etc, or else we\u2019re just all wasting breath.","human_ref_B":"It all depends what do you mean by \"stupidity\". As a rule, contemporary anthropologists don't effect value judgement on the people we study, pretty much because that runs counter to one of the discipline's main tenets: *what people do makes sense to them*. There are loads of anthropological studies analysing the reasoning behind behaviours that run counter to what \"we\" (supposedly educated, supposedly Western) find nonsensical. Many studies on witchcraft (see 1] and [2] for examples), shamanism [3, 4, 5] and traditional beliefs and practices [6, 7] show that for the people practising them, they all make *lots* of sense. It is *not* \"stupid\" to vaccinate the bones of your dead ancestors, if you think about it from the right angle. Thus, in your question, you say that people do \"stupid things in order to gain publicity\". If these people are aware of what they are bound to gain (\"publicity\"), know what they are supposed to do (act in certain ways), and are able to effect a cost-benefit analysis of whether doing something is worth the gain, if they carry on doing so this is by definition the rational choice. Without giving particular examples, the many YouTube celebrities that are **rich** because they goof off in front of a camera are not acting stupidly, on the contrary. Likewise those people who *want* to get rich by doing so -- they are akin to athletes or drug dealers, just trying to \"make it big\" even if against the odds [8]. (note: I myself don't like the rational choice model too much because it tends to be extremely reifying, and \"utility maximisation\" is unfalsifiable - see [9, 10]) But trying to get to the core of your question: have people always goofed off? You bet they have. Joking, humour, and silliness are an integral part of what it means to be human [11]. You could go to \/r\/AskHistorians and they would give you many, *many* historical examples of people acting dumb for laughs. Those who know more ethology than I do could give examples of animals that do pretty much the same. So, what has changed with social media? I'd argue that **visibility**. Those of us who were born before the Internet or cellphones were a thing know very well that *we have always been idiots*. It's just that there are no records of that, much less the technology for these idiocies to go viral. And, of course, the reward was much smaller back then -- maybe you would impress your groups of friends, or your crush, rather than get actual money and fame. And as we know from years of media studies [12, 13], the higher the rewards, the higher the risks and\/or difficulties people are willing to take. So yeah, we have always been \"dumb\", but we probably have never been so publicly \"dumb\". ------------------------------ [1] EVANS-PRITCHARD, E.E. *Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande* [2] FAVRET-SAADA, Jeanne. *The Anti-Witch* [3] KOHN, Eduardo. *How Forests Think* [4] WILLERSLEV, Rane. * Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs* [5] HOLBRAAD, Martin; PEDERSEN, Morten A. *The Ontological Turn: An Anthropological Exposition* [6] FAUSTO, Carlos. *The bones affair: indigenous knowledge practices in contact situations seen from an Amazonian case* [7] SHELL-DUNCAN, Betina; HERNLUND, Ylva. *Female \"circumcision\" in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change* ([also here for an interview with S-D) [8] LEVITT, Steven D.; VENKATESH, Sudhir Alladi. *An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances* [9] BOURDIEU, Pierre. *The Logic of Practice* [10] HOGDSON, Geoffrey M. *On the Limits of Rational Choice Theory* [11] SWINKELS, Michiel; DE KONING, Anouk. *Etnofoor: special issue on Anthropology and Humour* (Vol. 28, No. 1, 2016) [12] GINSBURG, Faye D.; ABU-LUGHOD, Lila; LARKIN, Brian. *Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain* [13] GALBRAITH, Patrick W.; Karlin, Jason G. *Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":734.0,"score_ratio":6.4285714286} {"post_id":"hyhd1c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What\u2019s the earliest recorded use of irony?","c_root_id_A":"fzdb1lu","c_root_id_B":"fzcwj39","created_at_utc_A":1595820530,"created_at_utc_B":1595811542,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"With \"what's the earliest\" kind of questions in literature, the answer is usually The Epic of Gilgamesh. Irony and the Unity of the Gilgamesh Epic, Nicola Vulpe, Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol. 53, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 275-283 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/545400?seq=1","human_ref_B":"How far back are your first examples? In other words, can you give me a feeling for how far back you're at currently? And the reason for the question? Edit: I think about irony a lot.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8988.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"u6oqdm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are the evolutionary advantages to have epicanthic folds? I ask because both San peoples (formerly known as Bushmen), and Eastern Eurasians (formerly known as Mongoloids) (that include Amerindians, Siberians, Manchus, Mongols, Japanese people, Koreans, Chinese people, and South-East Asians) have epicanthic folds. There are even North-West Europeans, East Europeans, and Central Asians that have epicanthic folds (like most Uzbeks and Kazakhs, some Finnish people and Scandinavians, and occasionally Celts and Slavs), but, their close relatives, South Europeans, South-West Asians, North-Africans, and South Asians (like Italians, Greeks, Albanians, Berbers, Egyptians, Arabs, Jews, Syrians, Lebanese people, and Pakistanis) do not tend to have this facial feature.","c_root_id_A":"i59luye","c_root_id_B":"i59jlhg","created_at_utc_A":1650321082,"created_at_utc_B":1650320058,"score_A":210,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"have you heard of the founder effect? It's where a population of individuals can show a larger amount of a specific trait, simply because one of the few individuals to come there and establish that population had that trait. evolution is not a process of fine-tuning an organism into being ever more efficient. evolution is just the tendency for those whose differences mean they can have slightly more children survive to start making up more of the population over time. there are plenty of genes and thus traits in every organism that do not confer an advantage or disadvantage.","human_ref_B":"Why does there need to be an advantage? It could simply be a random preserved trait that isn't harmful or selected for. Perhaps a founder effect from the ancestral population.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1024.0,"score_ratio":1.9626168224} {"post_id":"u6oqdm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are the evolutionary advantages to have epicanthic folds? I ask because both San peoples (formerly known as Bushmen), and Eastern Eurasians (formerly known as Mongoloids) (that include Amerindians, Siberians, Manchus, Mongols, Japanese people, Koreans, Chinese people, and South-East Asians) have epicanthic folds. There are even North-West Europeans, East Europeans, and Central Asians that have epicanthic folds (like most Uzbeks and Kazakhs, some Finnish people and Scandinavians, and occasionally Celts and Slavs), but, their close relatives, South Europeans, South-West Asians, North-Africans, and South Asians (like Italians, Greeks, Albanians, Berbers, Egyptians, Arabs, Jews, Syrians, Lebanese people, and Pakistanis) do not tend to have this facial feature.","c_root_id_A":"i5bxq6g","c_root_id_B":"i5cl5gl","created_at_utc_A":1650369249,"created_at_utc_B":1650379837,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"While stressing that it is difficult to test, Daniel G. Blackburn theorizes among East Asians it may be an adaptation to cold and snow brightness. Amongst the Khoisan it may have been an adaptation to desert brightness. Source (see page 10).","human_ref_B":"From Wikipedia: The epicanthic fold is often associated with greater levels of fat deposition around the eyeball. The adipose tissue is thought to provide greater insulation for the eye and sinuses from the effects of cold, especially from freezing winds, and to represent an adaptation to cold climates. It has also been postulated that the fold itself may provide a level of protection from snow blindness. Though its appearance in peoples of Southeast Asia can be linked to possible descent from cold-adapted ancestors, its occurrence in various African peoples precludes a cold-adaptive explanation for it appearing in the latter groups. The epicanthic fold found in many African people has been tentatively linked to protection for the eye from the high levels of ultraviolet light found in desert and semi-desert areas.[21] The exact evolutionary function and origin of epicanthic folds remains unknown. Scientific explanations include either random variation and selection (presumably sexual selection), or possible adaption to desert environment and\/or high levels of ultraviolet light found in high-altitude environments, such as the Himalayas. A cold-adaptive explanation for the epicanthic fold is today seen as outdated by some, as epicanthic folds appear in some African populations. Dr. Frank Poirier, a physical anthropologist at Ohio State University, concluded that the epicanthic fold in fact may be an adaptation for Tropical regions, protecting the eyes from overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, and was already part of the natural diversity found among early modern humans.[22][23] Further evidence for a tropical, random or sexual selection as opposed to cold adapted one, is that East Asian-related populations originated in Mainland Southeast Asia rather than Siberia. Paleolithic Siberia was populated by a European- and Native American-related Ancient North Eurasian population, which was subsequently partially-replaced by several northwards migrations of Ancestral East Asians during the late Paleolithic and early Neolithic period.[24][25]","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10588.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"3mgzon","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Have there been cultures that DIDN'T commodify or particularly value female virginity? Have there ever been cultures which didn't care about female virginity or try to restrict female sexuality?","c_root_id_A":"cvey1hs","c_root_id_B":"cvewc63","created_at_utc_A":1443287837,"created_at_utc_B":1443284630,"score_A":69,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"Most Indigenous cultures of the Americas. Can't find good sources right now but in a research paper posted by Elizabeth Losh of University of California, San Diego: > Young women in Indian tribes were free to experiment sexually prior to marriage and eager to do so with white as well as native men (Godbeer 109). Since virginity was basically a non-issue, most Native American women had several sexual encounters before marriage. Among most tribes, marriages tended to be very casual affairs, and women could unilaterally end them. The Maricopa are a rare ethnic group that had no formal marriage ceremony. Although most tribes had very strict rules to prevent incest or marriage within one's clan.","human_ref_B":"I believe there's a few, Ancient Egypt is probably one. >\"There is no known word for virginity in ancient Egyptian and many have concluded that the concept of virginity was of little to no importance in ancient Egypt\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3207.0,"score_ratio":1.078125} {"post_id":"3mgzon","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Have there been cultures that DIDN'T commodify or particularly value female virginity? Have there ever been cultures which didn't care about female virginity or try to restrict female sexuality?","c_root_id_A":"cvey1hs","c_root_id_B":"cvextbs","created_at_utc_A":1443287837,"created_at_utc_B":1443287433,"score_A":69,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Most Indigenous cultures of the Americas. Can't find good sources right now but in a research paper posted by Elizabeth Losh of University of California, San Diego: > Young women in Indian tribes were free to experiment sexually prior to marriage and eager to do so with white as well as native men (Godbeer 109). Since virginity was basically a non-issue, most Native American women had several sexual encounters before marriage. Among most tribes, marriages tended to be very casual affairs, and women could unilaterally end them. The Maricopa are a rare ethnic group that had no formal marriage ceremony. Although most tribes had very strict rules to prevent incest or marriage within one's clan.","human_ref_B":"You may be interested in Malinowski's work on the Trobriand Islanders.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":404.0,"score_ratio":4.0588235294} {"post_id":"7yvk43","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"Why did so many cultures all around the world believe in the existence of souls? It is clear to me that the natural phenomena was explained by supernatural beings, but what exactly did souls explain and simplify?","c_root_id_A":"dujrlxe","c_root_id_B":"duji1lh","created_at_utc_A":1519144850,"created_at_utc_B":1519134847,"score_A":14,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"If you watch someone die, it can seem as though something has left the body, some animating energy. A body is still there but no longer \"the person.\" So what has \"left\" the body? You can imagine ancient folks (who saw death much more than we do) asking what animated that body, what gave it its character, its \"spirit,\" its personality. This can help explain why \"soul\" and \"breathe\" were often the same word in older languages (for example, \"atman\" in Sanskrit or \"pneuma\" in Ancient Greek). (Such a view also helps explain why we in the west have a philosophic tradition that, as PM_ME_YOUR_THEORY elaborates, saw bodies as \"merely\" machines.)","human_ref_B":"Because it feels like we aren't complex chemical machines, even if we are.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10003.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"3qa1m0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Have there been any societies where it's not taboo to have sex openly in public?","c_root_id_A":"cwdydkq","c_root_id_B":"cwdy1eo","created_at_utc_A":1445901476,"created_at_utc_B":1445900920,"score_A":25,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Depending on exactly what you mean by taboo, I guess the DDR (East Germany) could qualify for this. FKK - the 'Free Body Culture' became so popular and acceptable socially that the leadership had to if not endorse it, accept that participating was something a good communist could do. And a lot of people did. It wasn't exactly people screwing in town centres, and much more centered around being naked in public as opposed to anything sexual, but the resulting amount of sex in parks and on beaches was certainly not seen as a problem, if anything more of a symbol of advancement - none of that old fashioned religious based shame that you would find in the West.","human_ref_B":"Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher who is said to have eaten in the marketplace, urinated on some people who insulted him, defecated in the theatre, and masturbated in public. When asked about his eating in public he said, \"If taking breakfast is nothing out of place, then it is nothing out of place in the marketplace. But taking breakfast is nothing out of place, therefore it is nothing out of place to take breakfast in the marketplace.\" On the indecency of him masturbating in public he would say, \"If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.\" Don't know if that gives you any sort of starting point, but it is what first came to mind, as far as the philosophy of it goes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":556.0,"score_ratio":2.0833333333} {"post_id":"3qa1m0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Have there been any societies where it's not taboo to have sex openly in public?","c_root_id_A":"cwdydkq","c_root_id_B":"cwdmrnx","created_at_utc_A":1445901476,"created_at_utc_B":1445884009,"score_A":25,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Depending on exactly what you mean by taboo, I guess the DDR (East Germany) could qualify for this. FKK - the 'Free Body Culture' became so popular and acceptable socially that the leadership had to if not endorse it, accept that participating was something a good communist could do. And a lot of people did. It wasn't exactly people screwing in town centres, and much more centered around being naked in public as opposed to anything sexual, but the resulting amount of sex in parks and on beaches was certainly not seen as a problem, if anything more of a symbol of advancement - none of that old fashioned religious based shame that you would find in the West.","human_ref_B":"This question has been asked previously, although there haven't been *that* many reponses. Still, you may wish to look here and here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17467.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"3qa1m0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Have there been any societies where it's not taboo to have sex openly in public?","c_root_id_A":"cwdy1eo","c_root_id_B":"cwdmrnx","created_at_utc_A":1445900920,"created_at_utc_B":1445884009,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher who is said to have eaten in the marketplace, urinated on some people who insulted him, defecated in the theatre, and masturbated in public. When asked about his eating in public he said, \"If taking breakfast is nothing out of place, then it is nothing out of place in the marketplace. But taking breakfast is nothing out of place, therefore it is nothing out of place to take breakfast in the marketplace.\" On the indecency of him masturbating in public he would say, \"If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.\" Don't know if that gives you any sort of starting point, but it is what first came to mind, as far as the philosophy of it goes.","human_ref_B":"This question has been asked previously, although there haven't been *that* many reponses. Still, you may wish to look here and here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16911.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"kth28f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has there been any studies of the phenomenon of taboos and why human societies have them\/why they have the ones they do?","c_root_id_A":"gimcoil","c_root_id_B":"gimcqoq","created_at_utc_A":1610163896,"created_at_utc_B":1610163931,"score_A":11,"score_B":51,"human_ref_A":"I know about this book from my anthropology studies that is on this topic: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Purity\\_and\\_Danger. I unfortunately either didn't read it in depth or don't remember reading it, so I can't offer much insight, but perhaps others can.","human_ref_B":"Taboo has been the topic of extensive discussion in anthropology, perhaps most notably in Mary Douglas' *Purity and Danger*. Since it's so common, there's no single answer for why they exist or the role they play. Is there any particular type of taboo you are interested in, or perhaps the role of taboos in a certain place or time?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35.0,"score_ratio":4.6363636364} {"post_id":"1hltqw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are there any purely vegetarian societies that have been shocked or bewildered by outsider's consumption of meat? In India, we have a lot of communities that have a strong aversion to meat consumption. But I was wondering if there were any that never really considered meat to be a human food item. Like how many of us would feel towards soil, despite the existence of geophagy.","c_root_id_A":"cavt2u7","c_root_id_B":"cavt26i","created_at_utc_A":1372943063,"created_at_utc_B":1372942961,"score_A":16,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"No known hunter gatherer societies forsake meat by choice (See The Foraging Spectrum, Kelly) though there are some very northerly societies who eat almost nothing but meat due to low bio mass.. In most environments it would be horribly energetically suboptimal to forsake meat as it is a vital source of many important nutrients. When the difference is life or death, diets tend to be optimal...! (there is a large lit on the nutritional value of meat.. Check Google scholar) As for agricultural societies, these encompass a far smaller portion of human existence, though also one I know less about. Certainly meat is more of a luxury for high population density agricultural groups and it is more possible to get along without it... But I'm not sure if many do so by choice. I assume total vegetarianism or veganism would be fairly rare unless by necessity as I've heard some mention of a specific human 'meat hunger'... at least in anecdotal accounts of the Hadza and some of the other hunting lit. I've put this term into google and the evidence appears anecdotal but widely reported. My best guess is that population wide vegetarianism would be rare and that, when vegetarianism does occur, it would almost always be found in a small subset of a population... From the evidence I have seen, I would be very surprised to hear of a group to which meat-eating was unheard of.","human_ref_B":"Vegetarian societies in history usually resulted from a religious movement whose adherents chose to forego meat for humanitarian or ascetic reasons. (As in India.) Meat is the simplest way to get large amounts of fat. Fat is important to a human diet, especially on a subsistence level. I've never heard of a society which purposefully didn't eat meat when it was available before a larger agricultural society had been established.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":102.0,"score_ratio":1.2307692308} {"post_id":"23smcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do we know anything about Pre-Colombian New World humor? (x-post r\/AskHistorians) I've heard a lot about ancient jokes from the Egyptians and Greeks, but I've never heard anything about humor from the Americas. I'm particularly interested in the MesoAmerican societies, but I'll take anything really. What did the Native people of this new, vast land say and do for the LOLs?","c_root_id_A":"ch0ewp9","c_root_id_B":"ch0etvn","created_at_utc_A":1398300759,"created_at_utc_B":1398300589,"score_A":29,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The Maya loved puns and wordplay. There is a round limestone imperfection on the back of a stela in Copan's Great Plaza. The stela celebrated the reign of Maya ruler 18 Rabbit. Anyway, the round limestone imperfection is a reference to the Maya myth when a rabbit helped out the Hero Twins in a ball game. The rabbit disguised himself as the ball and then hopped away. The Hero Twins won the ball game and defeated the Lords of Xibalba who stupidly followed the rabbit instead of the real ball. Presumably whoever carved the stela left the imperfection intact, delighting in the pun. 18 Rabbit + round white shape on stela + mythical rabbit = Maya joke","human_ref_B":"\/u\/Tiako mentioned trickster tales as a place to start looking at humor in Native American cultures. I focus on biological anthropology, so cultural anthropology is not my strong suit, but I did find what looks to be an interesting graphic novel called Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection. The illustrator worked with Native American storytellers to create the images and bring the stories to life. I'm linking this here, instead of the \/r\/Ashistorians thread, so my fellow anthropologists, who know more than I do, can comment on the pros and cons of the book and hopefully open discussion on the roles of tricksters (coyote, raccoon, raven, rabbit, etc.) in Native American myths.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":170.0,"score_ratio":3.2222222222} {"post_id":"23smcb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Do we know anything about Pre-Colombian New World humor? (x-post r\/AskHistorians) I've heard a lot about ancient jokes from the Egyptians and Greeks, but I've never heard anything about humor from the Americas. I'm particularly interested in the MesoAmerican societies, but I'll take anything really. What did the Native people of this new, vast land say and do for the LOLs?","c_root_id_A":"ch0etvn","c_root_id_B":"ch0m1t1","created_at_utc_A":1398300589,"created_at_utc_B":1398317245,"score_A":9,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/Tiako mentioned trickster tales as a place to start looking at humor in Native American cultures. I focus on biological anthropology, so cultural anthropology is not my strong suit, but I did find what looks to be an interesting graphic novel called Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection. The illustrator worked with Native American storytellers to create the images and bring the stories to life. I'm linking this here, instead of the \/r\/Ashistorians thread, so my fellow anthropologists, who know more than I do, can comment on the pros and cons of the book and hopefully open discussion on the roles of tricksters (coyote, raccoon, raven, rabbit, etc.) in Native American myths.","human_ref_B":"The whole \"Fountain of Youth\" myth developed as a series of jokes back and forth between indigenous tribes in south Florida and Cuba, both trying to fuck with Spaniards. Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda wrote about the myth in his memoir after having been shipwrecked in the area for 17 years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16656.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9azuiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I've read radically different estimates of how much men vs. women provide in terms of calories through foraging and hunting in modern hunter-gatherer tribes. What does the best (and most consistent) data say? Is it 50\/50? Do men or women provide most of the calories in the majority of cases? Is this consistent across all tested populations, or are there a few populations that operate differently? If so, what factors probably make them operate differently?","c_root_id_A":"e4zdbk9","c_root_id_B":"e4zgki7","created_at_utc_A":1535473683,"created_at_utc_B":1535476434,"score_A":7,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Yes, the Aeta operate differently >In an Aeta family, there are concise gender roles in power and responsibility distribution. Men and women share equal responsibility in endowing the family. The men will usually do the hunting while the women will usually do the gathering. However, approximately 85 percent ofAeta women are also known to hunt (Brightman, 1996). They do not only collect wax and honey but also kill pigs and deers (Tanner, 1983). The Aeta is an exceptional tribe which does not marginalize women from participating in big hunting games women\u2019s use of weapons for hunting. However, there are specific weapons and strategies for different genders. Usually, men would hunt alone with bows or guns and use stalking or ambush techniques. On the other hand, most women employ a strategy of group hunting with dogs to locate food sources and use machetes as weapons.http:\/\/sc2218.wikifoundry-mobile.com\/m\/page\/The+Aeta+in+relation+to+Gender+Roles Not an expert, so somebody please correct me, but I think there is a tendency for women to adopt more low risk and reliable gathering strategies because they have more parental involvement. Men tend to adopt higher risk and more unreliable hunting strategies. If this has been quantified in terms of calorific provision, it would be interesting to see. I once saw the figure of gatherers providing 90% of the calorific intake, but the author may have been politically motivated.","human_ref_B":"The best overview of this issue is provided in \"The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum 2nd Edition\" by Robert Kelly. From this source and others, I would endorse the general view that in equatorial regions, where plant productivity is higher, women tend to produce 50%-80% of more the calories consumed, while within mid and high latitudes, where plant productivity is lower, men's food production tends to increase. There is an extensive literature on this topic and I'll share here some sources that I would recommend looking at. Before getting your hopes too high, know that measuring food production and food consumption is very difficult, and that almost each paper on this topic has used different methods and assumptions to produce final figures. Some papers consider the relative weight of food produced by men and women, others the relative calories, for example. Some are based on long-term observation, some on very short field visits. The values that are produced are certainly subject to a lot of measurement error, and in many cases, it is completely unknown what methods the original ethnographer used! For people who do modern and serious work on this topic, it involves close behavioral observation, weighing of food, nutritional analyses of the food, and ideally, long-term observation allowing for estimates of food production across seasons. Remember that hunter-gatherers are opportunistic and diet varies locally and across seasons, and rare events (such as killing a large animal) can have a huge effect on any estimates made. Here are some additional publications (there are many) that would be worth reading that address some of these issues: Seasonality in a Foraging Society: Variation in Diet, Work Effort, Fertility, and Sexual Division of Labor among the Hiwi of Venezuela A. Magdalena Hurtado and Kim R. Hill Journal of Anthropological Research 1990 46:3, 293-346 Berbesque, J. Colette, Brian M. Wood, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Audax Mabulla, and Frank W. Marlowe. \"Eat first, share later: Hadza hunter\u2013gatherer men consume more while foraging than in central places.\" Evolution and Human Behavior 37, no. 4 (2016): 281-286. Murdock, George P., and Caterina Provost. \u201cFactors in the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis.\u201d Ethnology, vol. 12, no. 2, 1973, pp. 203\u2013225. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/3773347. Marlowe, F. (2001). Male contribution to diet and female reproductive success among foragers. Current Anthropology, 42(5), 755-759. Marlowe, Frank W. \"Hunting and gathering: the human sexual division of foraging labor.\" Cross-Cultural Research 41, no. 2 (2007): 170-195.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2751.0,"score_ratio":4.8571428571} {"post_id":"9azuiz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I've read radically different estimates of how much men vs. women provide in terms of calories through foraging and hunting in modern hunter-gatherer tribes. What does the best (and most consistent) data say? Is it 50\/50? Do men or women provide most of the calories in the majority of cases? Is this consistent across all tested populations, or are there a few populations that operate differently? If so, what factors probably make them operate differently?","c_root_id_A":"e4zgki7","c_root_id_B":"e4ze6cf","created_at_utc_A":1535476434,"created_at_utc_B":1535474394,"score_A":34,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The best overview of this issue is provided in \"The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum 2nd Edition\" by Robert Kelly. From this source and others, I would endorse the general view that in equatorial regions, where plant productivity is higher, women tend to produce 50%-80% of more the calories consumed, while within mid and high latitudes, where plant productivity is lower, men's food production tends to increase. There is an extensive literature on this topic and I'll share here some sources that I would recommend looking at. Before getting your hopes too high, know that measuring food production and food consumption is very difficult, and that almost each paper on this topic has used different methods and assumptions to produce final figures. Some papers consider the relative weight of food produced by men and women, others the relative calories, for example. Some are based on long-term observation, some on very short field visits. The values that are produced are certainly subject to a lot of measurement error, and in many cases, it is completely unknown what methods the original ethnographer used! For people who do modern and serious work on this topic, it involves close behavioral observation, weighing of food, nutritional analyses of the food, and ideally, long-term observation allowing for estimates of food production across seasons. Remember that hunter-gatherers are opportunistic and diet varies locally and across seasons, and rare events (such as killing a large animal) can have a huge effect on any estimates made. Here are some additional publications (there are many) that would be worth reading that address some of these issues: Seasonality in a Foraging Society: Variation in Diet, Work Effort, Fertility, and Sexual Division of Labor among the Hiwi of Venezuela A. Magdalena Hurtado and Kim R. Hill Journal of Anthropological Research 1990 46:3, 293-346 Berbesque, J. Colette, Brian M. Wood, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Audax Mabulla, and Frank W. Marlowe. \"Eat first, share later: Hadza hunter\u2013gatherer men consume more while foraging than in central places.\" Evolution and Human Behavior 37, no. 4 (2016): 281-286. Murdock, George P., and Caterina Provost. \u201cFactors in the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis.\u201d Ethnology, vol. 12, no. 2, 1973, pp. 203\u2013225. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/3773347. Marlowe, F. (2001). Male contribution to diet and female reproductive success among foragers. Current Anthropology, 42(5), 755-759. Marlowe, Frank W. \"Hunting and gathering: the human sexual division of foraging labor.\" Cross-Cultural Research 41, no. 2 (2007): 170-195.","human_ref_B":"Most of the things I read were about sub Saharan African Hunter gathering societies. In general women provide the majority of calories, through foraging and ad hoc gardening of root veg. However, the men tended to provide calorie dense high prestige foods like meat and honey. Turnbull discusses this at length. The definitive book on this is Sahlin\u2019s Stone Age economics, which looks at gender division of labour amongst other things. However, my understanding of northern people\u2019s is quite different (and considerably less). By my understanding many Inuit groups rely on men to hunt and women to process. But I have read much less about them. Edit: for a properly referenced response, see below...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2040.0,"score_ratio":5.6666666667} {"post_id":"893xr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Did hunter-gatherers have lots of genetic defects? How would small, isolated bands of hunter-gatherers in, say, the Mesolithic era have avoided the mass accumulation of genetic defects that comes with breeding in small circles? Were their groups large enough to avoid inter-breeding? Did they frequently breed with other bands of hunter-gatherers? If so, do we know which of the mated pair would leave their group for the other one? Did all this vary widely depending on time and location?","c_root_id_A":"dwpisfn","c_root_id_B":"dwpbvew","created_at_utc_A":1522724040,"created_at_utc_B":1522717040,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":">Did they frequently breed with other bands of hunter-gatherers? From what I have read, it was mostly this strategy. Among modern day hunter gatherers, while people travel in small groups, they will meet up with other small groups or travel somewhere else in order to find a spouse. See this recent news article about genetic analysis of two hunter gatherer skeletons, with some additional sources on modern hunter gatherers. >If so, do we know which of the mated pair would leave their group for the other one? Did all this vary widely depending on time and location? Here is a paper on exactly that question! Unlike societies that use other methods of subsistence, hunter-gatherers don't seem to have a single most common type of post-marital residence.","human_ref_B":"Genetic defects are not a product of small groups. They are exacerbated by it. So if a small group with out genetic defects interbreed they would be fine. If a group did have a prevent genetic defect who ever had it or expressed the issue would just die off or be abandoned.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7000.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"893xr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Did hunter-gatherers have lots of genetic defects? How would small, isolated bands of hunter-gatherers in, say, the Mesolithic era have avoided the mass accumulation of genetic defects that comes with breeding in small circles? Were their groups large enough to avoid inter-breeding? Did they frequently breed with other bands of hunter-gatherers? If so, do we know which of the mated pair would leave their group for the other one? Did all this vary widely depending on time and location?","c_root_id_A":"dwpi9g3","c_root_id_B":"dwpisfn","created_at_utc_A":1522723557,"created_at_utc_B":1522724040,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"There is an interesting relevant thing called sperm competition. If you are having sex with multiple partners, sperm from closely related people is relatively inhibited. So the likely offspring would be between the least related members.","human_ref_B":">Did they frequently breed with other bands of hunter-gatherers? From what I have read, it was mostly this strategy. Among modern day hunter gatherers, while people travel in small groups, they will meet up with other small groups or travel somewhere else in order to find a spouse. See this recent news article about genetic analysis of two hunter gatherer skeletons, with some additional sources on modern hunter gatherers. >If so, do we know which of the mated pair would leave their group for the other one? Did all this vary widely depending on time and location? Here is a paper on exactly that question! Unlike societies that use other methods of subsistence, hunter-gatherers don't seem to have a single most common type of post-marital residence.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":483.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"1k7mfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"By your observation, speculation, or belief, what genetic adaptations have appeared in humans since the dawn of the agricultural revolution? I know of a few well-established phenotypic traits whose genes have popped up in the last 10000 years, such as malaria resistance\/sickle cell and lactose tolerance. I constantly wonder what other genetic adaptations are suited to (relatively) modern lifestyles, especially relating to behavior. I'd love to see some well-established, sourced information, but I'm also interested in unsupported hypotheses, if only for the sake of conversation.","c_root_id_A":"cbmaubh","c_root_id_B":"cbm69i8","created_at_utc_A":1376334146,"created_at_utc_B":1376322473,"score_A":17,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Lactase persistence, the ability to digest milk, developed in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and some parts of Asia within the last 10,000 years, due to the selective advantage that being able to drink milk conferred. http:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/mace-lab\/gallery\/lactase Drinking the milk of a cow is a far more efficient way to acquire calories from the cow than slaughtering it would be. Also, goats and camels are known to drink brackish or salty water. In coastal desert areas with very little fresh water in the Arabian peninsula, it's thought that camels and goats served as \"water purifiers\" of a sort, by drinking brackish water and turning it into milk, which could then be drunk by humans safely.","human_ref_B":"Just a note from the mods - this is an interesting topic that will hopefully get some great conversation going. But please provide some documentation for any genetic adaptation arguments you want to make even if it is just a CNN article link.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11673.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"1k7mfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"By your observation, speculation, or belief, what genetic adaptations have appeared in humans since the dawn of the agricultural revolution? I know of a few well-established phenotypic traits whose genes have popped up in the last 10000 years, such as malaria resistance\/sickle cell and lactose tolerance. I constantly wonder what other genetic adaptations are suited to (relatively) modern lifestyles, especially relating to behavior. I'd love to see some well-established, sourced information, but I'm also interested in unsupported hypotheses, if only for the sake of conversation.","c_root_id_A":"cbmaubh","c_root_id_B":"cbm8yhh","created_at_utc_A":1376334146,"created_at_utc_B":1376329483,"score_A":17,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Lactase persistence, the ability to digest milk, developed in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and some parts of Asia within the last 10,000 years, due to the selective advantage that being able to drink milk conferred. http:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/mace-lab\/gallery\/lactase Drinking the milk of a cow is a far more efficient way to acquire calories from the cow than slaughtering it would be. Also, goats and camels are known to drink brackish or salty water. In coastal desert areas with very little fresh water in the Arabian peninsula, it's thought that camels and goats served as \"water purifiers\" of a sort, by drinking brackish water and turning it into milk, which could then be drunk by humans safely.","human_ref_B":"One that always interests me, as I am from a high altitude place, is the genetic adaptations that have come about from people living at high altitude. This has been studied for people in Tibet, the Andes, and the highlands of Ethiopia. I would also be interested to know if the Ute people of the south-western US, specifically the Colorado Rockies, have any genetic adaptations to high altitude, but I haven't seen any studies about that. As everyone probably knows, living at high altitude can present numerous physiological challenges, especially to people who are not used to it. Above certain altitudes, life becomes very difficult indeed, even for people who have had a chance to acclimatise. The majority of these problems are caused by lower relative oxygen than in the lowlands where our species lived for most of its history (and where the vast majority of the world's population still lives -- I believe the number for living at high altitude, defined as above 2500 m or 8200 ft asl is about 150 million people, spread out among the Andes, Himalaya, Ethiopia, and Colorado portion of the Rockies). Genetic adaptations in the three biggest groups (excluding Colorado, as I said, there are no studies on that as far as I know) have been documented in recent years in a number of studies. These adaptations include variations in haemoglobin and blood-oxygen levels, which contribute to higher levels of infant survival rates -- one of the problems of high altitude is that it causes low birth weight and serious issues with pregnancy like preeclampsia in women who are not genetically adapted to higher altitude. By the way, the genetic adaptations of each group are different from the others in terms of which genes they affect, but they have the same general results. The Tibetan adaptations are the most recent known genetic adaptations for humans, dated to approximately 5000 years ago. Agriculture, however, has had mixed results at high altitudes. It seems that people were able to move into the Tibetan plateau because they gave up on most agriculture and reverted to a pastoral lifestyle. The various Ute groups in the southwestern US were agro-pastoralists, as were the Amhara (of Ethiopia). People living at high altitudes in the Andes have been supported in their agro-pastoral lifestyle by the movement of crops from lower altitudes. To add some sources: Genetic Evidence for High-Altitude Adaptation in Tibet, 2010 The Genetic Architecture of Adaptations to High Altitude in Ethiopia, 2013","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4663.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"1k7mfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"By your observation, speculation, or belief, what genetic adaptations have appeared in humans since the dawn of the agricultural revolution? I know of a few well-established phenotypic traits whose genes have popped up in the last 10000 years, such as malaria resistance\/sickle cell and lactose tolerance. I constantly wonder what other genetic adaptations are suited to (relatively) modern lifestyles, especially relating to behavior. I'd love to see some well-established, sourced information, but I'm also interested in unsupported hypotheses, if only for the sake of conversation.","c_root_id_A":"cbm8m63","c_root_id_B":"cbmaubh","created_at_utc_A":1376328633,"created_at_utc_B":1376334146,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I don't know about humans, but I recently read an interesting article about genetic mutations in dogs that allow them to metabolize starches and fat, that are absent in wolves. Here's the link to Nature. It seems that the agricultural revolution played a key part in the domestication of dogs. Or more precisely, that genetic mutations in wolves allowed them to adapt to take advantage of the agricultural revolution resulting in the domesticated dogs of today.","human_ref_B":"Lactase persistence, the ability to digest milk, developed in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and some parts of Asia within the last 10,000 years, due to the selective advantage that being able to drink milk conferred. http:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/mace-lab\/gallery\/lactase Drinking the milk of a cow is a far more efficient way to acquire calories from the cow than slaughtering it would be. Also, goats and camels are known to drink brackish or salty water. In coastal desert areas with very little fresh water in the Arabian peninsula, it's thought that camels and goats served as \"water purifiers\" of a sort, by drinking brackish water and turning it into milk, which could then be drunk by humans safely.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5513.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"1k7mfx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"By your observation, speculation, or belief, what genetic adaptations have appeared in humans since the dawn of the agricultural revolution? I know of a few well-established phenotypic traits whose genes have popped up in the last 10000 years, such as malaria resistance\/sickle cell and lactose tolerance. I constantly wonder what other genetic adaptations are suited to (relatively) modern lifestyles, especially relating to behavior. I'd love to see some well-established, sourced information, but I'm also interested in unsupported hypotheses, if only for the sake of conversation.","c_root_id_A":"cbm8yhh","c_root_id_B":"cbm8m63","created_at_utc_A":1376329483,"created_at_utc_B":1376328633,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"One that always interests me, as I am from a high altitude place, is the genetic adaptations that have come about from people living at high altitude. This has been studied for people in Tibet, the Andes, and the highlands of Ethiopia. I would also be interested to know if the Ute people of the south-western US, specifically the Colorado Rockies, have any genetic adaptations to high altitude, but I haven't seen any studies about that. As everyone probably knows, living at high altitude can present numerous physiological challenges, especially to people who are not used to it. Above certain altitudes, life becomes very difficult indeed, even for people who have had a chance to acclimatise. The majority of these problems are caused by lower relative oxygen than in the lowlands where our species lived for most of its history (and where the vast majority of the world's population still lives -- I believe the number for living at high altitude, defined as above 2500 m or 8200 ft asl is about 150 million people, spread out among the Andes, Himalaya, Ethiopia, and Colorado portion of the Rockies). Genetic adaptations in the three biggest groups (excluding Colorado, as I said, there are no studies on that as far as I know) have been documented in recent years in a number of studies. These adaptations include variations in haemoglobin and blood-oxygen levels, which contribute to higher levels of infant survival rates -- one of the problems of high altitude is that it causes low birth weight and serious issues with pregnancy like preeclampsia in women who are not genetically adapted to higher altitude. By the way, the genetic adaptations of each group are different from the others in terms of which genes they affect, but they have the same general results. The Tibetan adaptations are the most recent known genetic adaptations for humans, dated to approximately 5000 years ago. Agriculture, however, has had mixed results at high altitudes. It seems that people were able to move into the Tibetan plateau because they gave up on most agriculture and reverted to a pastoral lifestyle. The various Ute groups in the southwestern US were agro-pastoralists, as were the Amhara (of Ethiopia). People living at high altitudes in the Andes have been supported in their agro-pastoral lifestyle by the movement of crops from lower altitudes. To add some sources: Genetic Evidence for High-Altitude Adaptation in Tibet, 2010 The Genetic Architecture of Adaptations to High Altitude in Ethiopia, 2013","human_ref_B":"I don't know about humans, but I recently read an interesting article about genetic mutations in dogs that allow them to metabolize starches and fat, that are absent in wolves. Here's the link to Nature. It seems that the agricultural revolution played a key part in the domestication of dogs. Or more precisely, that genetic mutations in wolves allowed them to adapt to take advantage of the agricultural revolution resulting in the domesticated dogs of today.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":850.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"tdxcyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"I have always wondered about the quantitative definition of human subspecies, archaic etc Leading with \"I have always wondered\" has a certain feel to it, much akin to starting a knock knock joke or one involving a priest, a rabbi and a drinking establishment. Okay, let me see if I can frame this coherently and concisely, which are not always my strong points. We define canis lupus as a separate species from wolves starting as early as 29,000 years ago. From the point of domestication, we can see a mind boggling variety of physical variation in the skeletal structures of this one species (the ability to have such variation within one species is of course attributed to the abundance of tandem repeats they have in their genome) and yet only refer to such vastly different skeletal structures as different breeds of the same species. Comparatively, we see much less drastic differences in the various skeletons of subspecies of humans, all of which were interbreedable just like our canine companions, creating mutts and hybrids etc that we are now today. Do we refer to them as different species even though they're still interbreedable because of how long chronologically the branchings were apart from each other?","c_root_id_A":"i0ng4z7","c_root_id_B":"i0o5g3g","created_at_utc_A":1647283932,"created_at_utc_B":1647294006,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I have always wondered the same things as you have questioned, and look forward to reading any answers. I just wanted to nitpick a spot in your question, though. Canis lupus familiaris is the domestic dog, whereas canis lupus is the wolf. I hope this helps. ( sincerely! ) I had to reread it a couple of times.","human_ref_B":"Copying an old reply to \"why are neanderthals and homo sapiens different species?\" This question is NOT dumb at all. Most basic biology courses only teach one species concept: the Biological Species Concept (defined as groups of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring). This is\/has definitely been an accepted species concept, but it is not the only species concept. Defining \"what is a species?\" is a tricky philosophical question. It's basically about categorizing biological life, which is messy and shares genes and might interbreed and so on. In general, defining things is... hard near the boundaries. Maybe you've seen the memes where people are arguing over whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich? Basically they're asking what are the characteristics that define one type of food from another. Species concepts are similar. We need to be able to talk about meaningful taxonomic units, so we label things \"species\" so we can communicate about them. For example, if you go into a restaurant and you order a sandwich, you generally know the range of what to expect for your \"sandwich\" and you may (or may not) be surprised if you are given a hot dog. Likewise, scientists studying hominids need to be able to communicate generally which group they're talking about by using species names like \"Homo sapiens\" so other scientists know generally what they are talking about. The Biological Species Concept is good at drawing a line in the sand, saying \"look, we can literally check if something is a species or not by seeing if it makes fertile offspring\" but the problem with THAT is it doesn't apply to all biological life. For example, there are asexually reproducing organisms, like bacteria or New Mexico whiptail lizards. Since each one of those lizards can't produce fertile offspring with another lizard of the same \"species\" then is each individual lizard being its own species? Intuitively we'd say no, they are still one species. And then there is the matter of sexually reproducing organisms that can't be directly observed. There is also the problem of horizontal gene transfer. Sexual reproduction is not the only way you might share genes with another organism--if you're a bacterium you might pick up some antibiotic resistance genes from another species without reproducing with it! Or if you're a human you might get new genetic material from a retrovirus! And so on. At the time when Neanderthals were labeled a species, we had only fossil (not genetic) data, and they are extinct, so we couldn't observe if they could reproduce with humans or other hominid species or not. It might be somewhat possible to infer introgression (hybridization) if there had been sets of intermediate human-Neanderthal appearing bones that seemed to have offspring that were backcrossing (gaining more human or more Neanderthal traits over generations.) The Neanderthal fossils looked pretty, consistently different from human bones, so paleontologists and anthropologists said \"this collection of fossils belongs to a species and we will call it Homo neaderthalensis.\" Yes, fossils \"looking generally different\" is arbitrary. How much different do they have to look to be a different species? To describe a species, you have to list the morphological (appearance and anatomical) differences between it and similar species so they can be distinguished. For example, with the Neanderthal, we might talk about how they have a thicker brow-ridge and are more barrel-chested than humans and so forth. But there's no checklist of \"this many characteristics different = different species\" or some checklist defining what an important characteristic difference might be. This species concept is not the Biological Species Concept, but rather a Phylogenetic Species Concept based on diagnosability: fixed\/consistent differences between one species and all others, basically saying each species has a unique collection of traits. While this concept is an improvement in the sense that it can be applied to things that don't sexually reproduce or cannot easily be observed sexually reproducing (like fossils), it is difficult to talk about in the sense that there can be fixed differences in populations (subsets of species) that aren't necessarily things that we would philosophically want to label a whole different species. For example, is a sandwich still a sandwich if someone puts potato chips on it? Or, should humans that come from a population where everyone can digest lactose as adults be considered a different species than a population where everyone cannot digest lactose as adults? There are many other species concepts and it is a matter of debate among scientists what the \"best\" one is. Different species concepts tend to have dominance in different fields of study and about different groups of organisms. For example, you're not going to find many bacteriologists who go hard for the Biological Species Concept (which is meaningless for everything they study), and the person most likely to support, say, the Ecological Species Concept (each species fills a unique niche) is probably going to be an ecologist. So in the end, where does that leave us? What even is a species? Well, I tend to like the Evolutionary Species Concept (a species is defined by its unique evolutionary role and trajectory), but, while it nicely applies to all organisms extinct and extant, that concept is a little more abstract to talk about than the good old Biological Species Concept, which is one of the reasons that when species concepts are introduced, the main (or only) one talked about is going to be the BSC. I do not speak for all scientists, but I would say that the number of people who seriously follow the BSC is... not high. At least, not in this century. Lastly, I want to say something about the evolutionary process of hybridization. Every species has a different genome architecture (the way that genes are ordered and regulated (told when to be turned on and off)). When you take two individuals from different species (or, at least, whose ancestors have not exchanged a significant amount of DNA in a long, long time) you have two different, mildly to extremely incompatible genomic architectures. Generally this incompatibility is bad and will result in less genetic fitness until the incompatibilities are removed. The fastest way to remove the incompatibilities over the generations is to unequally get rid of the portions from the introgressing (minority) ancestor. So if a Neanderthal and human mate, and that offspring's descendants all backcross (mate) with their human community, the Neanderthal traits will be lost more quickly than would be expected if traits were lost randomly. We see this in modern humans with Neanderthal ancestry; Neanderthal DNA is consistently not found in major areas of the genome where the Neanderthal genes were probably disadvantageous. Sometimes you'll get an allele from the hybridization that is advantageous, and that will be likely to be retained. For example, Tibetans having alleles that help them live at high altitude that come from Denisovan ancestors. TL;DR: 1. Yes, according to the biological species concept, Neanderthals and humans would be one species. 2. Neanderthals were defined as a separate species under a different species concept before we knew they could\/did hybridize. 3. There are many species concepts accepted and used today, but the biological species concept isn't widely used; Neanderthals are generally accepted to be a separate species from humans. 4. Neanderthals and humans produced fertile offspring, but Neanderthal DNA was unequally removed from their descendants by the forces of evolution. Some of it remains.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10074.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"tdxcyd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"I have always wondered about the quantitative definition of human subspecies, archaic etc Leading with \"I have always wondered\" has a certain feel to it, much akin to starting a knock knock joke or one involving a priest, a rabbi and a drinking establishment. Okay, let me see if I can frame this coherently and concisely, which are not always my strong points. We define canis lupus as a separate species from wolves starting as early as 29,000 years ago. From the point of domestication, we can see a mind boggling variety of physical variation in the skeletal structures of this one species (the ability to have such variation within one species is of course attributed to the abundance of tandem repeats they have in their genome) and yet only refer to such vastly different skeletal structures as different breeds of the same species. Comparatively, we see much less drastic differences in the various skeletons of subspecies of humans, all of which were interbreedable just like our canine companions, creating mutts and hybrids etc that we are now today. Do we refer to them as different species even though they're still interbreedable because of how long chronologically the branchings were apart from each other?","c_root_id_A":"i0o5g3g","c_root_id_B":"i0nupbt","created_at_utc_A":1647294006,"created_at_utc_B":1647289665,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Copying an old reply to \"why are neanderthals and homo sapiens different species?\" This question is NOT dumb at all. Most basic biology courses only teach one species concept: the Biological Species Concept (defined as groups of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring). This is\/has definitely been an accepted species concept, but it is not the only species concept. Defining \"what is a species?\" is a tricky philosophical question. It's basically about categorizing biological life, which is messy and shares genes and might interbreed and so on. In general, defining things is... hard near the boundaries. Maybe you've seen the memes where people are arguing over whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich? Basically they're asking what are the characteristics that define one type of food from another. Species concepts are similar. We need to be able to talk about meaningful taxonomic units, so we label things \"species\" so we can communicate about them. For example, if you go into a restaurant and you order a sandwich, you generally know the range of what to expect for your \"sandwich\" and you may (or may not) be surprised if you are given a hot dog. Likewise, scientists studying hominids need to be able to communicate generally which group they're talking about by using species names like \"Homo sapiens\" so other scientists know generally what they are talking about. The Biological Species Concept is good at drawing a line in the sand, saying \"look, we can literally check if something is a species or not by seeing if it makes fertile offspring\" but the problem with THAT is it doesn't apply to all biological life. For example, there are asexually reproducing organisms, like bacteria or New Mexico whiptail lizards. Since each one of those lizards can't produce fertile offspring with another lizard of the same \"species\" then is each individual lizard being its own species? Intuitively we'd say no, they are still one species. And then there is the matter of sexually reproducing organisms that can't be directly observed. There is also the problem of horizontal gene transfer. Sexual reproduction is not the only way you might share genes with another organism--if you're a bacterium you might pick up some antibiotic resistance genes from another species without reproducing with it! Or if you're a human you might get new genetic material from a retrovirus! And so on. At the time when Neanderthals were labeled a species, we had only fossil (not genetic) data, and they are extinct, so we couldn't observe if they could reproduce with humans or other hominid species or not. It might be somewhat possible to infer introgression (hybridization) if there had been sets of intermediate human-Neanderthal appearing bones that seemed to have offspring that were backcrossing (gaining more human or more Neanderthal traits over generations.) The Neanderthal fossils looked pretty, consistently different from human bones, so paleontologists and anthropologists said \"this collection of fossils belongs to a species and we will call it Homo neaderthalensis.\" Yes, fossils \"looking generally different\" is arbitrary. How much different do they have to look to be a different species? To describe a species, you have to list the morphological (appearance and anatomical) differences between it and similar species so they can be distinguished. For example, with the Neanderthal, we might talk about how they have a thicker brow-ridge and are more barrel-chested than humans and so forth. But there's no checklist of \"this many characteristics different = different species\" or some checklist defining what an important characteristic difference might be. This species concept is not the Biological Species Concept, but rather a Phylogenetic Species Concept based on diagnosability: fixed\/consistent differences between one species and all others, basically saying each species has a unique collection of traits. While this concept is an improvement in the sense that it can be applied to things that don't sexually reproduce or cannot easily be observed sexually reproducing (like fossils), it is difficult to talk about in the sense that there can be fixed differences in populations (subsets of species) that aren't necessarily things that we would philosophically want to label a whole different species. For example, is a sandwich still a sandwich if someone puts potato chips on it? Or, should humans that come from a population where everyone can digest lactose as adults be considered a different species than a population where everyone cannot digest lactose as adults? There are many other species concepts and it is a matter of debate among scientists what the \"best\" one is. Different species concepts tend to have dominance in different fields of study and about different groups of organisms. For example, you're not going to find many bacteriologists who go hard for the Biological Species Concept (which is meaningless for everything they study), and the person most likely to support, say, the Ecological Species Concept (each species fills a unique niche) is probably going to be an ecologist. So in the end, where does that leave us? What even is a species? Well, I tend to like the Evolutionary Species Concept (a species is defined by its unique evolutionary role and trajectory), but, while it nicely applies to all organisms extinct and extant, that concept is a little more abstract to talk about than the good old Biological Species Concept, which is one of the reasons that when species concepts are introduced, the main (or only) one talked about is going to be the BSC. I do not speak for all scientists, but I would say that the number of people who seriously follow the BSC is... not high. At least, not in this century. Lastly, I want to say something about the evolutionary process of hybridization. Every species has a different genome architecture (the way that genes are ordered and regulated (told when to be turned on and off)). When you take two individuals from different species (or, at least, whose ancestors have not exchanged a significant amount of DNA in a long, long time) you have two different, mildly to extremely incompatible genomic architectures. Generally this incompatibility is bad and will result in less genetic fitness until the incompatibilities are removed. The fastest way to remove the incompatibilities over the generations is to unequally get rid of the portions from the introgressing (minority) ancestor. So if a Neanderthal and human mate, and that offspring's descendants all backcross (mate) with their human community, the Neanderthal traits will be lost more quickly than would be expected if traits were lost randomly. We see this in modern humans with Neanderthal ancestry; Neanderthal DNA is consistently not found in major areas of the genome where the Neanderthal genes were probably disadvantageous. Sometimes you'll get an allele from the hybridization that is advantageous, and that will be likely to be retained. For example, Tibetans having alleles that help them live at high altitude that come from Denisovan ancestors. TL;DR: 1. Yes, according to the biological species concept, Neanderthals and humans would be one species. 2. Neanderthals were defined as a separate species under a different species concept before we knew they could\/did hybridize. 3. There are many species concepts accepted and used today, but the biological species concept isn't widely used; Neanderthals are generally accepted to be a separate species from humans. 4. Neanderthals and humans produced fertile offspring, but Neanderthal DNA was unequally removed from their descendants by the forces of evolution. Some of it remains.","human_ref_B":">Do we refer to them as different species even though they're still interbreedable because of how long chronologically the branchings were apart from each other? Time is certainly a factor. At the time when Neanderthals went extinct, they had been genetically separated from modern humans for 600,000 to 800,000 years. In comparison, most dog breeds are only a couple hundred years old. Another metric might be the level of genetic difference. The modern human and Neanderthal lineages acquired differences via selection driven adaptive pressures as well as neutral mutations that accumulated without being selected. In contrast, dogs were deliberately bred by humans for specific purposes. I don't know much about dog genetics, but it may be that physically large differences between dog breeds result from the manipulation of a relatively tiny number of genes. In other words, physical appearance is a poor guide to the extent of genetic distance.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4341.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"xl1ro6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Was life expectancy among hunter gatherers really THAT bad? If so, why? I see on Wikipedia that the life expectancy is 25 to 30 years during the stone ages and even in bronze age and onwards, hunter gatherers seem to have a very low life expectancy, with those surviving till adulthood are expected to live till 40 only! Was it really that bad? If so, why?","c_root_id_A":"iphaiju","c_root_id_B":"iph7zn1","created_at_utc_A":1663860752,"created_at_utc_B":1663859781,"score_A":105,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"For what it's worth, life expectancy figures in many parts of the developed world before the Industrial Era were comparable. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2885717\/ (links to the full open-access article). As another poster mentioned, life expectancy is a difficult statistic because it changes through individuals' life. You start out as an infant with one \"expectancy\" that includes all the statistics that also include other infants. If someone makes it through infancy, then the \"expectancy\" is re-calculated based on the new population-- those who \"survived\" infancy. As you move through your life-- if you move through-- your expectancy changes. So these general \"life expectancy\" figures can be somewhat deceptive, and at best, kind of blunt force. They *don't* mean that people die young, but that-- when you include infants, children, women in childbirth, young men in violent conflict, etc.-- *on average* people didn't live that long. But it's nowhere near that simple. In the era before modern medicine, infant mortality was pretty high, so if you summed the life expectancy for an individual from infancy, that includes the estimated probability of death in childbirth, infancy, and early childhood, which was quite high. If a person got through childhood, their next major potential hurdle was (for women) the child-bearing years. If men got through childhood in a period when military service \/ conflict was not pervasive, they could expect to live much longer than the averaged probability age-at-death, approaching 60+ years. Women-- if they made it past their child-bearing years, or if they did not have children-- could also expect to live well beyond the 30-40 year estimate that we often see for historical (and earlier) societies. You can see how funky the \"life expectancy\" statistic is even in recent years, when-- in the US-- life expectancy has fallen in the last two years because more people have been dying at an earlier age due to COVID and related complications. It doesn't mean that people aren't going to make it to a ripe old age, or that people are now dying at 72 instead of 74. It's (simply put) a kind of measure of central tendency. It does mean that fewer people are surviving to the more advanced ages due to exiting the population at an earlier age. These kinds of statistics are okay for capturing general trends in populations, but they're less good about predicting individuals, especially when they're so complex as life history statistics can be. And with archaeological populations, they're especially problematic because of several things. First, we often have little opportunity to determine the age in years before present of every person in a burial site. Imagine if you were looking at unmarked graves in a pauper cemetery in New York that had been used for 150 years, say from 1800 to 1950. You probably have no way of accurately determining when each person was buried, and so you don't know what \"population\" they were drawn from. Lots of changes in life expectancy over that period of time in NY occurred. But now, you group all those burials together into a single \"population,\" (basically, assuming they all draw from the same group at roughly the same period of time, look at the ages as best you can estimate them from the bones, and come up with a figure that supposedly represents life expectancy for that population. There are so many potential sources of error in that estimate. But we try to do this for pre-Contact populations in large burial sites where the ages of individual burials in years before present may span centuries or even a couple thousand years. This is really not a great or particularly useful statistic archaeologically-speaking.","human_ref_B":"Life expectancy is a weird stat - even today in the US relatively few people die in their mid-70\u2019s: if you make it past your 60\u2019s you\u2019ll probably live to your 80\u2019s or 90\u2019s. It\u2019s useful as a population stat because it lumps together a bunch if factors into one number for how healthy people are overall, on average. But it\u2019s not a good predictor of individual results.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":971.0,"score_ratio":2.8378378378} {"post_id":"97r5zc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"I think I've read that most hunter-gatherer societies historically have a taboo about having a child after your first child due to limited resources making maintaining a high population difficult. Is that true?","c_root_id_A":"e4adxsc","c_root_id_B":"e4aener","created_at_utc_A":1534421954,"created_at_utc_B":1534422840,"score_A":6,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"A lot of women wait 5 years or so between pregnancies... they can sometimes successfully do this by breastfeeding during this entire time (it can stop ovulation). All the women help each other raise their children. It works well for their societies!","human_ref_B":"Gregory Clark, an economic historian at UCDavis, says there are various taboos about the number of years after the birth of child before the next one could be had. This was related to both food constraints and the time\/non- food resources that babies\/ very young children need","labels":0,"seconds_difference":886.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"rgu00x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What is the real science on Gender Equality among Hunter-Gatherers? I had previously taken it for granted that most anthropologists seem to hold the view that nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers (the default \u2018natural state\u2019 for humans) were very egalitarian and gender equal. In fact, a great number of my personal and political views were based on this fact. Examples of this seemingly common belief: https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2015\/05\/did-sexual-equality-fuel-evolution-human-cooperation https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/348\/6236\/796 https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-our-ancestors-were-more-gender-equal-than-us-41902 https:\/\/www.the-scientist.com\/the-nutshell\/gender-equality-in-hunter-gatherer-groups-35453 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.1086\/668207?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/676134?seq=1 http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.698.9360&rep=rep1&type=pdf https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-017-02036-8 https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2015\/may\/14\/early-men-women-equal-scientists https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/freedom-learn\/201105\/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways However, recently I came across a study that has cast doubt on my previously held position. This seems to be one of the only studies composed of data-driven meta-analysis of HG behavior. The results seem pretty disparaging towards describing HG as gender equal. It seems that the groups living in places where resources are scarce are quite sexist and dominant towards woman, and even the neutral groups are fairly negative by modern standards. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2FBF02436620 Full paper: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/225549309_Ecological_determinants_of_women's_status_among_huntergatherers Fairly comprehensive layman's overview of data on subject: https:\/\/www.cold-takes.com\/hunter-gatherer-gender-relations-seem-bad\/ I\u2019m unable to tell if they are using studies of existent (at the time, 1986) HG, or earlier accounts from the early 1900\u2019s and before. Either way, I have a few thoughts on it myself, such as the groups studied with negative beliefs being 1 of 3 of conditions. Perhaps 1, these gender unequal groups are more disrupted by civilization than previously thought, and don\u2019t represent \u2018true\u2019 or \u2018pristine\u2019 HG. 2, maybe they are indirectly disrupted by encroaching civilization by being forced off of their land and onto marginalized areas. Or 3, most damningly, perhaps this simply is the natural behavior of these groups who have chosen to live in resource scare areas and don\u2019t mind the subsequent lifestyle changes. All of these would simply be my amateurish guess at an explanation, and I\u2019m hoping that someone could enlighten me on the current science of HG gender equality, as well as potentially give me a reason to invalidate or call into question this study, which otherwise would make me have to question and reconsider my beliefs about humans and our nature. I would also appreciate any more meta-analytical, data-driven HG studies concerning this topic. Thanks to anyone taking the time to read and respond!","c_root_id_A":"homt5t8","c_root_id_B":"homwkcn","created_at_utc_A":1639568340,"created_at_utc_B":1639570652,"score_A":54,"score_B":88,"human_ref_A":"Consider that there is no hunter-gatherer band that simply popped into existence with predefined customs and purely biological drives. Even if you went so far into pre-history that there's no way you can know for certain how people codified their small societies, you can only study one group at a time. There is no de facto natural state for human beings, or any other animal for that matter. Every time you study a group, it always contains history. At some point they came into contact with group X, or split up with Y. Their ancestors experienced trauma Z, and they moved from area A to area B. These things have an effect on culture, not to mention any accidents, local beliefs, etc. So you can't really define a natural state for hunter-groups, as they wouldn't have any common history beyond a certain point in time. You can observe larger tendencies though. For example Northern-Eurasian groups have cultural layers that tend to follow the same trends, because people in specific areas might be related to each other, or have otherwise had long relations with each other.","human_ref_B":"Just in general, groups with a particular sociopolitical theory very often make the claim that their theory is the natural order of things and that everything was arranged that way in a golden era prior to some corruption and that their desire to enact their theory is really just going back to the right and proper arrangement from the golden era. So when a faction like this comes into power in domains that produce reports like histories or research papers or whatever, the intellectual output always comes out like \"everything in history is just as we've been saying!\" It's hard to sort out the good information from the bad. European gentlemen scholars in the 1800s wrote a lot of stuff confirming how great they were and how savage everyone else was, and it's tricky to sort out their shit from the nuggets of true facts they discovered, just as it will be tricky to sort out the true facts produced in this era by people who really super duper want it to be the case that egalitarianism along all lines is the right and proper order of history and the natural world. The real story is, as always, is \"it depends on everything and it's super complicated.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2312.0,"score_ratio":1.6296296296} {"post_id":"rgu00x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What is the real science on Gender Equality among Hunter-Gatherers? I had previously taken it for granted that most anthropologists seem to hold the view that nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers (the default \u2018natural state\u2019 for humans) were very egalitarian and gender equal. In fact, a great number of my personal and political views were based on this fact. Examples of this seemingly common belief: https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2015\/05\/did-sexual-equality-fuel-evolution-human-cooperation https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/348\/6236\/796 https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-our-ancestors-were-more-gender-equal-than-us-41902 https:\/\/www.the-scientist.com\/the-nutshell\/gender-equality-in-hunter-gatherer-groups-35453 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.1086\/668207?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/676134?seq=1 http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.698.9360&rep=rep1&type=pdf https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-017-02036-8 https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2015\/may\/14\/early-men-women-equal-scientists https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/freedom-learn\/201105\/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways However, recently I came across a study that has cast doubt on my previously held position. This seems to be one of the only studies composed of data-driven meta-analysis of HG behavior. The results seem pretty disparaging towards describing HG as gender equal. It seems that the groups living in places where resources are scarce are quite sexist and dominant towards woman, and even the neutral groups are fairly negative by modern standards. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2FBF02436620 Full paper: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/225549309_Ecological_determinants_of_women's_status_among_huntergatherers Fairly comprehensive layman's overview of data on subject: https:\/\/www.cold-takes.com\/hunter-gatherer-gender-relations-seem-bad\/ I\u2019m unable to tell if they are using studies of existent (at the time, 1986) HG, or earlier accounts from the early 1900\u2019s and before. Either way, I have a few thoughts on it myself, such as the groups studied with negative beliefs being 1 of 3 of conditions. Perhaps 1, these gender unequal groups are more disrupted by civilization than previously thought, and don\u2019t represent \u2018true\u2019 or \u2018pristine\u2019 HG. 2, maybe they are indirectly disrupted by encroaching civilization by being forced off of their land and onto marginalized areas. Or 3, most damningly, perhaps this simply is the natural behavior of these groups who have chosen to live in resource scare areas and don\u2019t mind the subsequent lifestyle changes. All of these would simply be my amateurish guess at an explanation, and I\u2019m hoping that someone could enlighten me on the current science of HG gender equality, as well as potentially give me a reason to invalidate or call into question this study, which otherwise would make me have to question and reconsider my beliefs about humans and our nature. I would also appreciate any more meta-analytical, data-driven HG studies concerning this topic. Thanks to anyone taking the time to read and respond!","c_root_id_A":"homwkcn","c_root_id_B":"homtpby","created_at_utc_A":1639570652,"created_at_utc_B":1639568727,"score_A":88,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Just in general, groups with a particular sociopolitical theory very often make the claim that their theory is the natural order of things and that everything was arranged that way in a golden era prior to some corruption and that their desire to enact their theory is really just going back to the right and proper arrangement from the golden era. So when a faction like this comes into power in domains that produce reports like histories or research papers or whatever, the intellectual output always comes out like \"everything in history is just as we've been saying!\" It's hard to sort out the good information from the bad. European gentlemen scholars in the 1800s wrote a lot of stuff confirming how great they were and how savage everyone else was, and it's tricky to sort out their shit from the nuggets of true facts they discovered, just as it will be tricky to sort out the true facts produced in this era by people who really super duper want it to be the case that egalitarianism along all lines is the right and proper order of history and the natural world. The real story is, as always, is \"it depends on everything and it's super complicated.\"","human_ref_B":"> In fact, a great number of my personal and political views were based on this fact. Why include this detail? You shouldn\u2019t be basing your ideas on how to live on the ideal of the noble savage, or the idea that everyone once behaved and thought the same way and we should model ourselves on that simpler, more true time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1925.0,"score_ratio":3.0344827586} {"post_id":"rgu00x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What is the real science on Gender Equality among Hunter-Gatherers? I had previously taken it for granted that most anthropologists seem to hold the view that nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers (the default \u2018natural state\u2019 for humans) were very egalitarian and gender equal. In fact, a great number of my personal and political views were based on this fact. Examples of this seemingly common belief: https:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2015\/05\/did-sexual-equality-fuel-evolution-human-cooperation https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/348\/6236\/796 https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-our-ancestors-were-more-gender-equal-than-us-41902 https:\/\/www.the-scientist.com\/the-nutshell\/gender-equality-in-hunter-gatherer-groups-35453 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.1086\/668207?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/676134?seq=1 http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.698.9360&rep=rep1&type=pdf https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-017-02036-8 https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2015\/may\/14\/early-men-women-equal-scientists https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/freedom-learn\/201105\/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways However, recently I came across a study that has cast doubt on my previously held position. This seems to be one of the only studies composed of data-driven meta-analysis of HG behavior. The results seem pretty disparaging towards describing HG as gender equal. It seems that the groups living in places where resources are scarce are quite sexist and dominant towards woman, and even the neutral groups are fairly negative by modern standards. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2FBF02436620 Full paper: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/225549309_Ecological_determinants_of_women's_status_among_huntergatherers Fairly comprehensive layman's overview of data on subject: https:\/\/www.cold-takes.com\/hunter-gatherer-gender-relations-seem-bad\/ I\u2019m unable to tell if they are using studies of existent (at the time, 1986) HG, or earlier accounts from the early 1900\u2019s and before. Either way, I have a few thoughts on it myself, such as the groups studied with negative beliefs being 1 of 3 of conditions. Perhaps 1, these gender unequal groups are more disrupted by civilization than previously thought, and don\u2019t represent \u2018true\u2019 or \u2018pristine\u2019 HG. 2, maybe they are indirectly disrupted by encroaching civilization by being forced off of their land and onto marginalized areas. Or 3, most damningly, perhaps this simply is the natural behavior of these groups who have chosen to live in resource scare areas and don\u2019t mind the subsequent lifestyle changes. All of these would simply be my amateurish guess at an explanation, and I\u2019m hoping that someone could enlighten me on the current science of HG gender equality, as well as potentially give me a reason to invalidate or call into question this study, which otherwise would make me have to question and reconsider my beliefs about humans and our nature. I would also appreciate any more meta-analytical, data-driven HG studies concerning this topic. Thanks to anyone taking the time to read and respond!","c_root_id_A":"honaqjh","c_root_id_B":"hona4iq","created_at_utc_A":1639578236,"created_at_utc_B":1639577956,"score_A":28,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":">I had previously taken it for granted that most anthropologists seem to hold the view that nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers (the default \u2018natural state\u2019 for humans) On this point, modern anthropologists do not believe that nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers is the default \"natural state\", and they also do not believe that nomadic band-society Hunter-Gatherers in the contemporary modern era are necessarily reflective of how Humans organized themselves or behaved hundreds or tens of thousands of years ago. Even the \"untouched\" tribes deep in the amazon or on isolated Indonesian Islands have at some point had contact with modernity to some degree. Some have been relatively isolated and have had contact through intermediaries, some have been in closer contact and have decided to isolate themselves, etc. Anthropologists studying nomadic, band-society Hunter-Gatherers in the modern era will not use their ethnographic studies to make assertions on some \"natural state\" for humans.","human_ref_B":"One thing a professor of mine liked to note: poor people oppress less, because they can't afford to. Most of the more egregious forms of gender-based oppression are really mostly rich people things that the poor would only nod towards, because of the need for everyone's labor. IE something like foot-binding was resisted by peasants as long as possible because they needed the girls' labor. Rich people, who did not need that labor, could afford to cripple their girls at a fairly young age as a form of conspicuous consumption. So presumably, in less stratified societies (especially ones without much log-term food storage capacity) you need everyone working to their potential. This shuts down a lot of gender-based labor restrictions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":280.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} {"post_id":"q830jx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Breastfeeding and child wearing practices among early humans and earlier hominids I'm just an enthusiast doing a bit of personal research into lactation and child-wearing in early humans. I'm actually a healthcare provider and I have really very little formal information on the subject. The questions I'm trying to solve are these: For how long does tribal societies usually breastfeed childrens? How and for how long does humans carry small children in tribal societies? What do we know about other hominids like Neanderthals, Homo erectus, etc. on these topics? ​ I actually read a book called \"unearthing childhood\" by Robin Derricourt that goes into these topics but I'd love to learn more about it, so anything you can share will be greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"hgnlz3n","c_root_id_B":"hgmr53b","created_at_utc_A":1634243548,"created_at_utc_B":1634230794,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"As always, disclaimer. I am not an anthropologist. I don't know anything about other hominids. Kelly in *The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers* has a table showing the weaning age for a number of different foragers. The range is between 12 - 72 months. At a glance, the most common number appears to be around 36 months, so breastfeeding would happen for about 3 years (198). EDIT: The table also nicely lists the studies that have the data on each population. He mentions baby wearing in reference to the Ju\/'hoansi, Hadza, and Agta, but I don't think he has a section or table devoted to that, which is odd!","human_ref_B":"Sadly, I haven't read much on the topic, but I remember this paper from one of my courses that may help with your first question: Daniel W. Sellen, Comparison of Infant Feeding Patterns Reported for Nonindustrial Populations with Current Recommendations, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 131, Issue 10, October 2001, Pages 2707\u20132715, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/jn\/131.10.2707","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12754.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"2x92bk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What are some basic business formalities in native american culture?","c_root_id_A":"coxzzj8","c_root_id_B":"coy2sbc","created_at_utc_A":1424973205,"created_at_utc_B":1424977518,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I know with the Ponca tribe (and others) that it is an insult to refuse a gift of any kind. Even if it's something as simple as a drink offered in the home.","human_ref_B":"Is there a specific group you're thinking of? I would wager that customs differ across the continent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4313.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"9112sl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the Aboriginal Australians (prior to any contact with the European settlers) have property norms with regard to land and natural resources? Did the Aboriginal Australians (prior to any contact with the European settlers) have property norms with regard to land and natural resources? If so, what kinds of norms were these? How did they work? I ask because I did some brief reading on their ancient practice of firestick farming. Did they ever divide land between people, families, clans, etc... such that each individual\/family\/clan (whatever the unit of ownership of land was - if there was such a thing at all) decided where and how much to apply the firestick farming practice?","c_root_id_A":"e2v7s7i","c_root_id_B":"e2vna07","created_at_utc_A":1532316841,"created_at_utc_B":1532343937,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/aiatsis.gov.au\/explore\/articles\/aiatsis-map-indigenous-australia I remembered this from a class. They had some concept of land ownership as shown by these boundaries. I don't know how thus was divided on the local level though.","human_ref_B":"This is a complicated question to answer properly only in the sense that it is loaded politically and ties in with colonial notions of western racial superiority - a great deal of the sources that describe Aboriginal behaviour are tarnished by this legacy of racism - to this day this is an political issue in the media as well as in academia. The western notions of farming, land management, titles, rights and politics are not a useful lens to discuss Aboriginal culture. **The short answer to your question is of course yes**, but describing them properly and in their entirety becomes a bit more difficult for a few reasons. Terra Nullius, the law by which Aboriginals were dispossessed of their land and the \"legal\" basis by which the British claimed Australia, was founded on the assumption that the Aboriginals had not tended to the land and therefore had no rights to it. This law was only overturned in 1992 in a famous High Court case called the Mabo case. There is also the Frontier Wars, Genocide, Stolen Generation and disease that killed or displaced a great deal of the Aboriginal population in Australia, and therefore the cultural knowledge that they possessed. Although it is not necessarily widely known in Australia, \"Blackbirding\" or the taking and forced labor of slaves from Oceania occurred particularly in the Plantations to the north. The mixture of a largely (but not solely) oral transfer of history, the killing, displacement, and Christian missionary style \"civilising\" of Aboriginal populations had a devastating effect on cultural transfer and education. The next problem answering this question is that Australia is massive. For a perspective of size, the distance between Perth and Sydney is 3280km. The amount of cultures that make up Aboriginal Australia is enormous, as shown by the map that u\/FuckYouJohnW has provided, and should be considered similar to describing the cultures that make up most of Western and inner Eastern Europe in land size (not population density). This makes talking about uniform cultural behaviours fraught, and although there are cultural similarities between different Aboriginal Tribes and language groups, I think its important to recognise the pronounced difference between culture, climate and therefore land management, agriculture, housing, tools and staple ingredients. The Fire-stick Farming that you are perhaps describing is not practiced in all parts of Australia, and customs towards land management do change drastically between climate. Managed burning of the landscape is important in parts of Australia because, particularly in areas like Victoria and NSW, large lush deposits of greenery can build up in forests after plentiful rain in winter, only to become dry and easily flammable when the summer comes and days climb above 40 degrees C. The Eucalyptus, which grows heavily in these regions, is very flammable due to its high oil content and has adapted to being periodically burnt in large bushfires. Controlled burning has many benefits, the largest of which being if bushfires do occur they can be at least reduced in their intensity or even suppressed. They also rejuvenate the landscape, promoting the growth of smaller bracken and creating better habitats for game animals that were then hunted. Australia's landscape is brutal and dominated by harsh burnt landscapes. The entire centre is desert, and even today cities hug the coastlines. The size of the challenge of wrestling control of a highly combustible landscape is an incredible achievement, and cannot be readily compared to European agriculture, where growing conditions are more predictable and weather milder in summer. Dark Emu, a great book on pre colonial land management in Australia, tells us that there was farming on an enormous scale, I'll quote Bruce Pascoe the author: *'Hunter-gatherer societies forage and hunt for food and do not employ agricultural methods or build permanent dwellings,'* 'But as I read these early journals, I came across repeated references to people building dams and wells, planting, irrigating and harvesting seed, preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds or secure vessels ... and manipulating the landscape.' \\- Bruce Pascoe Bill Gammage gives a great explanation of some Aboriginal land management techniques. Gammage tells us that the land was already primed for later British sheep and cattle production due to the land management practices of the Aboriginal Australians, who periodically burnt the landscape. Black As is an excellent show, following a group of Aboriginal men as they source local delicacies using a broken down car they fix up. This is less an example of land management than just a great show. showing some very enterprising hunting. Finally, here is an article about Eel and fish traps that are dated to roughly 6000 years old. This makes them some of the earliest examples of aquaculture in the world. I've written a lot and probably need to leave it there. if you want any more information I can try and provide it, but **the best source of information about** **Aboriginal people is themselves.** Look up a region you are interested in and find local groups various foods, hunting techniques, agriculture and culture. **I have used wikipedia only for the topics that are well established in Australian History** \\- I consider these topics to be not up for argument as to their existence or validity, though their are some Australians who still deny any wrongdoing or genocide occurred. I'll post some links underneath if I get the time of some more land management aspects of various Aboriginal cultures across Australia.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27096.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"9112sl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the Aboriginal Australians (prior to any contact with the European settlers) have property norms with regard to land and natural resources? Did the Aboriginal Australians (prior to any contact with the European settlers) have property norms with regard to land and natural resources? If so, what kinds of norms were these? How did they work? I ask because I did some brief reading on their ancient practice of firestick farming. Did they ever divide land between people, families, clans, etc... such that each individual\/family\/clan (whatever the unit of ownership of land was - if there was such a thing at all) decided where and how much to apply the firestick farming practice?","c_root_id_A":"e2v7s7i","c_root_id_B":"e2xmydk","created_at_utc_A":1532316841,"created_at_utc_B":1532419843,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/aiatsis.gov.au\/explore\/articles\/aiatsis-map-indigenous-australia I remembered this from a class. They had some concept of land ownership as shown by these boundaries. I don't know how thus was divided on the local level though.","human_ref_B":"\/u\/form_work has already provided a bunch of info\/references about fire farming, about which I\u2019m not particularly knowledgeable, so I\u2019ll probably be more help with the first part of your Q (re: property) than the second part. The legal processes of land claims and native title claims have seen significant academic attention devoted to exactly the kinds of issues you're concerned with, so there's a lot to work with. **The short answer is yes, Aboriginal groups did have \"property\" norms- with a few qualifiers**. This is a bit long, so if you just want a brief and introductory overview of the division of land as property *skip down to the* **Nuts and Bolts**. **Q1, diversity:** The first qualifier is that, as form_work said, Australia is truly enormous, and local relationships to land vary significantly across its expanses and between the myriad language groups that inhabit them. The forms and expressions of these relationships to land will vary between groups on the west coast (like Payungu), through the centre (i.e. Arrente), to the east coast (i.e. Daingatti)- and Arnhem Land will be different again. I'm most familiar with Central Australia, (esp. Warlpiri areas), so I\u2019ll focus on there. **Q2, property:** The second qualifier is more complex, and it concerns notions of property. Here I think it is useful to reflect on our own historically and culturally specific ideas of 'property'. I acknowledge that the view I\u2019ll present is a heavily simplified view of property within our own society- I only mean to draw attention to certain important differences between Aboriginal understandings of 'property' and our own. In European (especially Anglo- and Western European) ontologies, land (as property) is commodified, and exists primarily within \u2018the market\u2019, a sphere of exchange which often takes on a kind of \u2018phantom objectivity\u2019, existing outside and independent of the separate sphere of social relations. Theoretically, anyone can buy or sell any piece of land (if they own it, of course), and there are no \u2018natural\u2019 or inextricable ties between an individual and their land that preclude them from doing so. Put another way, the market and the commodities within it (inc. land, which Karl Polanyi considered a \u201cfictitious commodity\u201d) are what Polanyi would term *\u2018disembedded\u2019* from social relations, operating as \u2018things\u2019 in their own right and with their own logics (at least within the typical popular imaginary). At this point, anthropologist Igor Kopytoff\u2019s definition of commodity may be helpful: \u201ca commodity is a thing that has use value and that can be exchanged in a discrete transaction for a counterpart\u2026\u201d (Kopytoff 1986). For our purposes, the most important quality of a commodity is its *exchangeability*- its alienability from social relations. **Aboriginal ideas of land as property** With all of that in mind, I\u2019ll now zero in on Aboriginal relationships to property. While trade was certainly a significant part of Aboriginal lives (there are numerous anthropological and archaeological discussions of this- I remember liking the chapter on it in Mike Smith\u2019s 2013 *The Archaeology of Australia\u2019s Deserts*, available on libgen) and spheres of exchange did of course exist (although not in the disembedded way that the market does in our own society), land was beyond the purview of such exchange. It could not be commodified and exchanged- it was *deeply embedded* in cosmologies, kinship systems, and the constitution of the self and social group. Even continuing to refer to it with the culturally-loaded neutrality of \u2018land\u2019 might be misleading- \u2018country\u2019 (as in \u201cso-and-so\u2019s country\u201d, \u201cwhere\u2019s your country?\u201d etc.) is perhaps more accurate, and is certainly used in Central Australia. Your mother\u2019s and your father\u2019s country are both important, as is where you were conceived, which all impact upon the Dreamings and songs you inherit access to and responsibility for. This is important- the land is not simply yours to use, but also yours to care for (i.e. fire farming)- you are inextricably linked through obligation to your own land and to that of your relevant kin (I\u2019ll remember the Warlpiri terms for this at some point, but Nic Peterson (2015) has a neat short paper which discusses it and its implications for modern central Australia, and there other good ones about changing attitudes and interpretations of these relationships). Your country not only situates you geographically and linguistically, but also situates you within the kinship system- all of which are essential to ideas of self and interaction in a society with a relational ontology. See Peterson (2015:57) referencing Nancy Munn, who wrote that \u2018\u2018the country is the fundamental object system external to the conscious subject within which . . . consciousness and identity are anchored\u2019\u2019. **Nuts and bolts of land tenure\/division** So the Aboriginal relationship to land relies upon fundamentally different logics than does our own- now to actually answer your question. Again, it\u2019s a complex question, but chapter 3 in Leon Terrill\u2019s 2015 book *Beyond Communal and Individual Ownership: Indigenous Land Reform in Australia* is useful. If you\u2019re interested in this, I\u2019d highly recommend reading the whole chapter- it\u2019s easy to read and succinct. He recounts (and adds up-to-date information to) the five key elements of \u201cthe classical model (of land tenure) enunciated by Justice Edward Woodward in his two reports into Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory\u201d (Terrill 2015:68). These, Terrill writes, are \u201cestates; levels of connection; clans; family groups; and the interplay between economy and religion\u201d (Terrill 2015:68). For this section, I\u2019ll basically just rip small bits from his piece, because he\u2019s got a much better understanding than I do. All from Terrill 2015: *Estates:* \u201cAn estate is a reasonably large area of country, the boundaries of which are determined by reference to key locations called \u2018sites\u2019, although the way in which sites are used to determine estate boundaries varies from region to region.\u201d (68) *Levels of connection and rights:* \u201cWoodward found that there was a central, fairly well-defined group with primary rights and responsibilities, and then a broader and less-defined group with lesser rights and responsibilities. In his view, the most important distinguishing feature was that the first group had not only a right to use the land but also the primary spiritual responsibility for sites.\u201d (69) *Clans:* \u201cWoodward found that for each estate there was a group of people called the \u2018land-owning clan\u2019 who were the primary owners, and that the membership of this group was determined by patrilineal descent. This finding is now generally considered too narrow in several respects, and over time there has been a \u2018progressive expansion\u2019 of understandings about how people establish a primary connection.\u201d (69) *Family groups and bands:* \u201cWoodward also found that while the land-owning clan were \u2018a group of people who share the same links with the same land\u2019, they were not the group around which daily life was organised. Daily life was instead organised around the \u2018family group\u2019, a collection of extended family members who travelled, hunted and harvested food together, at times on their own, at times as part of a larger \u2018band\u2019. A family group might contain people from several clans and the movements of family groups were not contained to any particular estate.\u201d (70) *A religious and economic institution:* \u201cA final element of Aboriginal land tenure is that it shares both religious and economic features. As Langton and Peterson note, there has been a tendency among non-Aboriginal Australians to focus on the religious or spiritual elements of the Aboriginal relationship to land, at times at the expense of recognising its economic features.\u201d (70) Anyway, I feel like I\u2019ve been writing for aeons now, so I\u2019ll stop here and hope that makes any sense at all. If anyone has any questions or quibbles or clarifications let me know, I hope this was at all helpful. I\u2019ll chuck the references below, if you\u2019re not affiliated with a uni and want access to any of them and google\/libgen don\u2019t help then let me know. **References:** Kopytoff, I. 1986 Peterson, N. 2015, \"Place, Personhood and Marginalization: Ontology and Community in Remote Desert Australia\", Anthropologica, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 491-500. Smith, M.A. 2013, The archaeology of Australia's deserts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Terrill, L. & ProQuest Ebooks 2016, Beyond communal and individual ownership: indigenous land reform in Australia, Routledge, New York, NY;Abingdon, Oxon","labels":0,"seconds_difference":103002.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ctac3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"This book claims that human traded away the freedom of hunting and gathering, leisure and stability for the servitude and malnutrition of Agriculture. How acceptable\/controversial that view is among Historians today ? The book in question is \"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind\". It says that hunting and gathering gave people more time to do other things, and because people ate different sources of food, nutrition was not a problem. In agriculture, people no longer had time to do anything, had to spend every waking hour taking care of their crops, people actually became shorter because of malnutrition, and the risk of famine from failed crops were actually much higher than hunter gatherer societies. Lastly but not least that the abundance of agriculture created class division, the ruling elite, the priests, the peasants, etc. Are all these the acceptable view among Historians today ?","c_root_id_A":"dhxdss6","c_root_id_B":"dhxckdh","created_at_utc_A":1495541382,"created_at_utc_B":1495538825,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I think the overall point Harari was making (which he supports with some of the details you mentioned) is that human progress isn't necessarily linear. Or that even if humanity as a whole is progressing, it doesn't always look like progress to the individual humans who are going about their daily lives. If you read his new book, Homo Deus, or any of the commentary he's made around it, I think you will find that overall theme is Harari's most important message. He talks about the agriculturual revolution in Sapiens and then in Homo Deus talks about the technological, the AI revolution. His overall concern both times, and this is my interpretation and paraphrasing, is that humanity enters new ages which has drastic repercussions for the lives of individual humans, yet those individual humans often never have any awareness or intent to submit to those changes. In other words, nobody is really steering the ship when it comes to \"where are we going as a species\" - but perhaps now we are at a time where we are capable of more reflection and collective decision making when it comes to such questions, particularly around the advancement of AI.","human_ref_B":"FWIW, this is not the only book \/ author that has put forward this idea. I've read a number of semi-scientific and pop-science works that put the idea forward in various forms. Jared Diamond for example has written a short piece arguing this. My personal take is that it's not meant to taken simply or solely at face value but rather intended to drive a more balanced & nuanced discussion of the capabilities and lifestyles of hunter gathers which might go well beyond the popular conception of barely evolved ignorant savages... e.g. a mindset which goes beyond the assumption that what man did earlier is by definition entirely inferior to what man did later, simply because of the order in which the events transpired.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2557.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"6ctac3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"This book claims that human traded away the freedom of hunting and gathering, leisure and stability for the servitude and malnutrition of Agriculture. How acceptable\/controversial that view is among Historians today ? The book in question is \"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind\". It says that hunting and gathering gave people more time to do other things, and because people ate different sources of food, nutrition was not a problem. In agriculture, people no longer had time to do anything, had to spend every waking hour taking care of their crops, people actually became shorter because of malnutrition, and the risk of famine from failed crops were actually much higher than hunter gatherer societies. Lastly but not least that the abundance of agriculture created class division, the ruling elite, the priests, the peasants, etc. Are all these the acceptable view among Historians today ?","c_root_id_A":"dhxcd6m","c_root_id_B":"dhxdss6","created_at_utc_A":1495538386,"created_at_utc_B":1495541382,"score_A":2,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"It's pretty wrong. During the \"\"\"\"Dark Ages\"\"\"', farmers did NOT spend all of their time working. We work way more hours nowadays than back then.","human_ref_B":"I think the overall point Harari was making (which he supports with some of the details you mentioned) is that human progress isn't necessarily linear. Or that even if humanity as a whole is progressing, it doesn't always look like progress to the individual humans who are going about their daily lives. If you read his new book, Homo Deus, or any of the commentary he's made around it, I think you will find that overall theme is Harari's most important message. He talks about the agriculturual revolution in Sapiens and then in Homo Deus talks about the technological, the AI revolution. His overall concern both times, and this is my interpretation and paraphrasing, is that humanity enters new ages which has drastic repercussions for the lives of individual humans, yet those individual humans often never have any awareness or intent to submit to those changes. In other words, nobody is really steering the ship when it comes to \"where are we going as a species\" - but perhaps now we are at a time where we are capable of more reflection and collective decision making when it comes to such questions, particularly around the advancement of AI.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2996.0,"score_ratio":9.0} {"post_id":"6ctac3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"This book claims that human traded away the freedom of hunting and gathering, leisure and stability for the servitude and malnutrition of Agriculture. How acceptable\/controversial that view is among Historians today ? The book in question is \"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind\". It says that hunting and gathering gave people more time to do other things, and because people ate different sources of food, nutrition was not a problem. In agriculture, people no longer had time to do anything, had to spend every waking hour taking care of their crops, people actually became shorter because of malnutrition, and the risk of famine from failed crops were actually much higher than hunter gatherer societies. Lastly but not least that the abundance of agriculture created class division, the ruling elite, the priests, the peasants, etc. Are all these the acceptable view among Historians today ?","c_root_id_A":"dhxcd6m","c_root_id_B":"dhxckdh","created_at_utc_A":1495538386,"created_at_utc_B":1495538825,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's pretty wrong. During the \"\"\"\"Dark Ages\"\"\"', farmers did NOT spend all of their time working. We work way more hours nowadays than back then.","human_ref_B":"FWIW, this is not the only book \/ author that has put forward this idea. I've read a number of semi-scientific and pop-science works that put the idea forward in various forms. Jared Diamond for example has written a short piece arguing this. My personal take is that it's not meant to taken simply or solely at face value but rather intended to drive a more balanced & nuanced discussion of the capabilities and lifestyles of hunter gathers which might go well beyond the popular conception of barely evolved ignorant savages... e.g. a mindset which goes beyond the assumption that what man did earlier is by definition entirely inferior to what man did later, simply because of the order in which the events transpired.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":439.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"6ctac3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"This book claims that human traded away the freedom of hunting and gathering, leisure and stability for the servitude and malnutrition of Agriculture. How acceptable\/controversial that view is among Historians today ? The book in question is \"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind\". It says that hunting and gathering gave people more time to do other things, and because people ate different sources of food, nutrition was not a problem. In agriculture, people no longer had time to do anything, had to spend every waking hour taking care of their crops, people actually became shorter because of malnutrition, and the risk of famine from failed crops were actually much higher than hunter gatherer societies. Lastly but not least that the abundance of agriculture created class division, the ruling elite, the priests, the peasants, etc. Are all these the acceptable view among Historians today ?","c_root_id_A":"dhxcd6m","c_root_id_B":"dhxvx30","created_at_utc_A":1495538386,"created_at_utc_B":1495563683,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"It's pretty wrong. During the \"\"\"\"Dark Ages\"\"\"', farmers did NOT spend all of their time working. We work way more hours nowadays than back then.","human_ref_B":">Are all these the acceptable view among Historians today ? Not really, no. At least, not in the flat, 2-dimensional, black-and-white way that they are often depicted. Yes, evidence suggests that early hunter-gatherer cultures were often collectively healthier than some later agriculturalist groups. But the causes are myriad, and not just related to agriculture. >It says that hunting and gathering gave people more time to do other things, and because people ate different sources of food, nutrition was not a problem. First, hunting \/ gathering has been practiced by humans for the bulk of our existence, and in a variety of different environments. In some regions where the environment was rich, relatively predictable from year to year, and where some h \/ g groups weren't being forced into marginal environments by increasingly sedentary neighbors, hunting and gathering was efficient and effective. But we need to consider that the groups that developed and ultimately adopted first cultivation and eventually agriculture made active decisions to rely increasingly on practices that allowed them to produce stable and reliable food resources. It's also important to remember that many agriculturalist cultures continued to rely heavily on wild foods as well as cultivated crops. It's not nearly so black and white as people like Jared Diamond have suggested. We should also remember that the idea of hunter-gatherers as the \"Original Affluent Society\" is based largely on ethnoarchaeological and ethnographic research with modern or recent historic hunting and gathering groups during the first half of the 20th century. And the accounts are a bit misleading. H\/G folks may not have to spend all day every day hunting and gathering food resources, but the idea that they had plenty of time to just relax is a misreading of the literature. In fact, H\/G peoples spend most of their time working in one respect or another. But they also socialize during much of this time (equipment manufacture and repair, for example). So it's not \"downtime\" so much as it's \"worktime + socializing.\" >In agriculture, people no longer had time to do anything, had to spend every waking hour taking care of their crops, people actually became shorter because of malnutrition, and the risk of famine from failed crops were actually much higher than hunter gatherer societies. Again, this is based on a 2-D understanding of early horticulturalist and agriculturalist societies. It's true that later societies (large-scale permanent settlements or urban societies) were more reliant on agricultural crops, but this was not an immediate development. It's an historical one. Early agriculturalists were doing what they thought was best. >Lastly but not least that the abundance of agriculture created class division, the ruling elite, the priests, the peasants, etc. Early social and economic stratification likely appeared before agricultural societies appeared, and the more elaborate forms and greater social complexity is an historical development out of earlier forms of social inequality. Agriculturalism did not begin these things, although it allowed them to develop more fully.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25297.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdezhy","c_root_id_B":"gxd89se","created_at_utc_A":1620467242,"created_at_utc_B":1620460541,"score_A":44,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"As has been said, the term \"race realism\" is used by the alt right and hardcore white nationalism (Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, etc). Searchs with that term will take you to lots of neo-nazi websites. Social construction of race is better. The Mismeasure of Man by S. J. Gould is a classic. Mapping Human History by Olsen might also be in the area you want. Everyone is African by Fairbanks is also a good read. All of these are noted scholars.","human_ref_B":"I don't think you'll find many for #2. As u\/CeramicLicker said, race is considered a social construct, not a biological feature. Physical variations are referred to as a phenotype and aren't directly tied to race. I doubt you'll find any studies supporting the idea that intelligence varies by race, ethnicity, or phenotype. The closest would be achieved education level, because in some nations there are racial or ethnic barriers to education. I don't understand #1. A book about the history of racism and how xenophobia looked before modern concepts of race, but not focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination, and not a memoir or biography. How could a book be about racism and xenophobia but not be focused on racism and discrimination?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6701.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdezhy","c_root_id_B":"gxdckac","created_at_utc_A":1620467242,"created_at_utc_B":1620464818,"score_A":44,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"As has been said, the term \"race realism\" is used by the alt right and hardcore white nationalism (Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, etc). Searchs with that term will take you to lots of neo-nazi websites. Social construction of race is better. The Mismeasure of Man by S. J. Gould is a classic. Mapping Human History by Olsen might also be in the area you want. Everyone is African by Fairbanks is also a good read. All of these are noted scholars.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/54218.The_Mismeasure_of_Man The Mismeasure of Man is dated but on topic for what you want. I have not read it yet as it was only recently added to my tbr pile. I found out about it from this podcast episode https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/dirt\/131 where \"Rachel Watkins, a biological anthropologist and scholar-activist whose research centers on social and biological histories of Black Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.\" Mentioned it as one of her first exposures to the topic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2424.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdezhy","c_root_id_B":"gxcvent","created_at_utc_A":1620467242,"created_at_utc_B":1620449494,"score_A":44,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As has been said, the term \"race realism\" is used by the alt right and hardcore white nationalism (Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, etc). Searchs with that term will take you to lots of neo-nazi websites. Social construction of race is better. The Mismeasure of Man by S. J. Gould is a classic. Mapping Human History by Olsen might also be in the area you want. Everyone is African by Fairbanks is also a good read. All of these are noted scholars.","human_ref_B":"Human Biodiversity by Jonathon Marks is pretty good. The Nature of Race by Ann Morning is also worth a read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17748.0,"score_ratio":22.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxcvent","c_root_id_B":"gxd89se","created_at_utc_A":1620449494,"created_at_utc_B":1620460541,"score_A":2,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Human Biodiversity by Jonathon Marks is pretty good. The Nature of Race by Ann Morning is also worth a read.","human_ref_B":"I don't think you'll find many for #2. As u\/CeramicLicker said, race is considered a social construct, not a biological feature. Physical variations are referred to as a phenotype and aren't directly tied to race. I doubt you'll find any studies supporting the idea that intelligence varies by race, ethnicity, or phenotype. The closest would be achieved education level, because in some nations there are racial or ethnic barriers to education. I don't understand #1. A book about the history of racism and how xenophobia looked before modern concepts of race, but not focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination, and not a memoir or biography. How could a book be about racism and xenophobia but not be focused on racism and discrimination?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11047.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdkldi","c_root_id_B":"gxdckac","created_at_utc_A":1620472522,"created_at_utc_B":1620464818,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"> A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). I suggest you do a search in r\/AskHistorians and maybe ask. The tldr is that race and racism were developed to justify slavery and colonialism. Previous justifications were based in religion. I've recently read *Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World* by Katharine Gerbner. The focus may be too narrow for your purposes but it does trace the racialization process in some detail.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/54218.The_Mismeasure_of_Man The Mismeasure of Man is dated but on topic for what you want. I have not read it yet as it was only recently added to my tbr pile. I found out about it from this podcast episode https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/dirt\/131 where \"Rachel Watkins, a biological anthropologist and scholar-activist whose research centers on social and biological histories of Black Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.\" Mentioned it as one of her first exposures to the topic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7704.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxcvent","c_root_id_B":"gxdkldi","created_at_utc_A":1620449494,"created_at_utc_B":1620472522,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Human Biodiversity by Jonathon Marks is pretty good. The Nature of Race by Ann Morning is also worth a read.","human_ref_B":"> A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). I suggest you do a search in r\/AskHistorians and maybe ask. The tldr is that race and racism were developed to justify slavery and colonialism. Previous justifications were based in religion. I've recently read *Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World* by Katharine Gerbner. The focus may be too narrow for your purposes but it does trace the racialization process in some detail.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23028.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdckac","c_root_id_B":"gxewas3","created_at_utc_A":1620464818,"created_at_utc_B":1620498946,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/54218.The_Mismeasure_of_Man The Mismeasure of Man is dated but on topic for what you want. I have not read it yet as it was only recently added to my tbr pile. I found out about it from this podcast episode https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/dirt\/131 where \"Rachel Watkins, a biological anthropologist and scholar-activist whose research centers on social and biological histories of Black Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.\" Mentioned it as one of her first exposures to the topic.","human_ref_B":"Hi ! If you want content on that specific subject I suggest **Nina Jablonski.** Author of the books *\u201cSkin: A Natural History\u201d,* and *\u201cLiving Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color\u201d.* She has a PhD in anthropology and had a talk recently posted on r\/evolution. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/evolution\/comments\/n71l1u\/nina\\_jablonski\\_explains\\_the\\_evolution\\_of\/ In that video, she mostly sums up what have already been said here by demonstrating why race is primarily a social construct. It is a very meaningful talk that needs more attention. I would add for your second point that science often ask more questions than it gives answers. For instance, we haven\u2019t got a reliable way to measure intelligence to this day. We can't even define it properly for that matter. We\u2019re a pretty long shot from having good reliable scientific evidence from what I know on *\"explicit claims about race and intelligence\"* There is much more evidence on how poverty affect it than there is evidence for disparity between population. Be careful about cherry picking research work to fit a narrative. That is a slippery slope and absolutely not good science. The best material usually come in context of other works which is exactly why you\u2019ll land back on the same books on the modern stance on evolution. A focus on consensus rather than fringe reports do make sense. :) The bottom line is that the scientific consensus is that there\u2019s only one human race biologically speaking. With actually very little genetic diversity, possibly because of a genetic drift. The idea of race itself seem to be almost exclusively a social construct driven by cultures and is thus more the field of sociology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34128.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxdckac","c_root_id_B":"gxcvent","created_at_utc_A":1620464818,"created_at_utc_B":1620449494,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/54218.The_Mismeasure_of_Man The Mismeasure of Man is dated but on topic for what you want. I have not read it yet as it was only recently added to my tbr pile. I found out about it from this podcast episode https:\/\/www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com\/dirt\/131 where \"Rachel Watkins, a biological anthropologist and scholar-activist whose research centers on social and biological histories of Black Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.\" Mentioned it as one of her first exposures to the topic.","human_ref_B":"Human Biodiversity by Jonathon Marks is pretty good. The Nature of Race by Ann Morning is also worth a read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15324.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"n7hjbf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Anthropological ConsensusBooks On \u201cRace Realism\u201d? There exist numerous books on the scientific consensus about evolution (e.g. books by Richard Dawkins and many other biologists). To my great shock, I managed to find only very few books on the modern question of \u201crace realism\u201d and race-intelligence questions (actually, I found only one book resembling what I want - ***Race: Are We So Different?*** by Goodman et al. recommended by AAA, and I\u2019m asking maybe there are some other books that I missed). Ideally, I would want a book that would deal with the following questions: 1. A brief history of racism and how xenophobia looked like before the modern concept of race became widespread. However, I would not want a book focused solely on the history of racism and racial discrimination (even less so - on memoirs or biographies). 2. Modern anthropological consensus about the \u201crace realism\u201d and how professional anthropologists treat the very concept of race (e.g. how physical variation correlates with the \u201cracial groups\u201d) - I would be very happy if some of the popular \u201chuman biodiversity\u201d claims about race and intelligence are explicitly considered. I have a personal prejudice about science books written by people without at least a PhD in a corresponding science, so ideally such a book should NOT be written by a professional writer or a journalist.","c_root_id_A":"gxewas3","c_root_id_B":"gxcvent","created_at_utc_A":1620498946,"created_at_utc_B":1620449494,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hi ! If you want content on that specific subject I suggest **Nina Jablonski.** Author of the books *\u201cSkin: A Natural History\u201d,* and *\u201cLiving Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color\u201d.* She has a PhD in anthropology and had a talk recently posted on r\/evolution. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/evolution\/comments\/n71l1u\/nina\\_jablonski\\_explains\\_the\\_evolution\\_of\/ In that video, she mostly sums up what have already been said here by demonstrating why race is primarily a social construct. It is a very meaningful talk that needs more attention. I would add for your second point that science often ask more questions than it gives answers. For instance, we haven\u2019t got a reliable way to measure intelligence to this day. We can't even define it properly for that matter. We\u2019re a pretty long shot from having good reliable scientific evidence from what I know on *\"explicit claims about race and intelligence\"* There is much more evidence on how poverty affect it than there is evidence for disparity between population. Be careful about cherry picking research work to fit a narrative. That is a slippery slope and absolutely not good science. The best material usually come in context of other works which is exactly why you\u2019ll land back on the same books on the modern stance on evolution. A focus on consensus rather than fringe reports do make sense. :) The bottom line is that the scientific consensus is that there\u2019s only one human race biologically speaking. With actually very little genetic diversity, possibly because of a genetic drift. The idea of race itself seem to be almost exclusively a social construct driven by cultures and is thus more the field of sociology.","human_ref_B":"Human Biodiversity by Jonathon Marks is pretty good. The Nature of Race by Ann Morning is also worth a read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":49452.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"uj5t6x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What motivated the inuits to Stay in the \"icy desert\"? Considering\/assuming they came from somewhere else,,Bering strait,why did these tribes choose to remain in such a difficult enviroment? Were they unable to get past it and go elsewhere,or why didnt they just go back? I think inuit diet is awesome and want to apply it but I also wonder why a group of settlers would stay where they are in a constant struggle to survive.","c_root_id_A":"i7h1vjd","c_root_id_B":"i7het3d","created_at_utc_A":1651783872,"created_at_utc_B":1651789399,"score_A":42,"score_B":76,"human_ref_A":"There are a couple of different ways to think about this question. The simplest way is to remember that moving to better climates would mean either having to compete with whoever lived there, or hope that the people there would allow you to join their group. But I am not sure that is the whole answer. Groups living in tough environments adapt and create successful strategies to survive. So, if what you are doing is working, why move? You would need to develop whole new skill sets. Also, people acclimate to all kinds of things -- abusive families, slavery, colonialism, sexism, etc. We are born into these places and don't know that there are other ways to do things or that other people have it easier (even if we know we are suffering). We may still have attachments to the cultures and places that oppress us and make our lives harder, and this can make us motivated to try to improve local conditions rather than move to somewhere else. Humans rise to challenges and try to make things work -- it is part of what makes us so biologically adaptable and successful. And finally, it's not like indigenous groups from the arctic circle knew what all the options were. They may have known that life was like a bit to south, but they didn't necessarily know that moving to coastal Southern California was an option. When they compared their lives to the groups just a bit further south, it probably didn't seem like such a big difference. In a way you could ask yourself this same question -- there is probably somewhere on the planet that would be better or easier for you to live in, so why don't you move? There are lots of things that keep us where we are.","human_ref_B":"That could be asked of many groups: Why do the Tuareg live predominantly in the Sahara? Why do the Saami live in the artic tundra? Why do the Din\u00e9 (Navajo) live in the high deserts? Ancient cultures are complex. Their lifestyles, mores and folkways, spirituality are intimately tied to the environments they inhabit. Given that, up until around 6k years ago , most of us got around by walking, at most a human can only walk around 20 miles a day. If you spent two weeks walking (14 days) you'd only have covered, at most 280 miles and that's assuming it's fairly flat ground, no other apex predators that you look tasty to, and you could find enough resources yourself on that trek to supply your energy and hydration needs. Many humans choose to live, even these days, in places that are familiar to them. Not everyone, of course, but enough that most humans will live their entire lives within a few hundred miles of where they were born. As I understand it, it took modern humans around 45k years to colonize the world. Like, 15k-20k years for Europe alone. We're not fast colonizers but we are persistent. As peoples moved into uncharted (at least to them) environments they'd have to learn the flora and fauna of that area in order to become successful - that's a lot of work! So by staying in areas they knew well, they had better opportunities to survive and thrive. The Inuit are no different. Try living a traditional Inuit life if all you've ever known is living in an American Town in the lower 48? You'd fail miserably, which - if you remember American history, is exactly what happened with many of the first colonist to the Americas from England when they first came to the eastern seaboard.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5527.0,"score_ratio":1.8095238095} {"post_id":"sdvs2v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Can the uncanny valley be from instinctual biological fear of others within the Homo genus? I'm reading about the origins of language and we're briefly learning about Homo erectus and all the human species(?) that originated from Homo erectus success as a species(?) If I have understood things correctly, a lot of different branches in the Homo genus were born from them populating different parts of the world, co-existed for a very long time and eventually interbreeding (and likey eradicating some in violent conflcits) with others in the Homo genus. Eventually though the one remaining (and currently prevalent) are us, Homo sapiens sapiens. There is a theory that the fear caused by things falling into the \"uncanny valley\" is from a biological fear of things that \"look sorta like us but not quite\" which would logically be others within the Homo genus. I was wondering of this is a question discussed within anthropology? Is it possible that this fear from the \"uncanny valley\" is a remaining biological instinct to be afraid of others within the Homo genus?","c_root_id_A":"hugf1wm","c_root_id_B":"hugmtnb","created_at_utc_A":1643300722,"created_at_utc_B":1643303521,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"We haven't talked about the Uncanny Valley much in any of my classes? I don't really think we were that afraid of our close evolutionary relatives though. There may have been some conflict but we also mated with them a lot. This seems like a bit of a stretch.","human_ref_B":"You don't need to stretch it into a just-so story. Humans are really good at looking at other humans. We see this all the time with character animation- you'll quickly suss out even the smallest inconsistencies in a 3D character, for the not at all surprising reason that you've a lot of experience looking at humans. But if, say, you see an animated snake or horse -- most viewers will accept all sorts of errors, because they're just much less familiar with the subject. Think of the problem animators have with human gaze. We walk into a room, and we're very quick to intuit \"who's looking at whom\" - as evolutionary sociobiology, we've got the super high contrast of iris and pupil and sclera, a target. Now, when you do animation, you've to consciously decide \"what do the eyes do\", and there are all sorts of choices that can seem unnatural. So there's not much need to hypothesize . . . we're really good at looking at humans. You'll notice idiosyncrasies of facial movement from even the smallest of strokes, for example. So when something is artificial, contrived - we notice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2799.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"rtxpg1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Best Universities in Europe for Prehistoric Archaeology I'm currently working on my bachelor for Anthropology in the US. I wish to study primarily Prehistoric Archaeology in Europe. Most likely the bronze age but possibly a little before that as well. I also have some interest in studying Doggerland as well in some ways related to Underwater Archaeology. I do not have a specific area of study I am interested in yet but I am generally want to study something focused in Eurasia possibly something related to Indo-European. I know there's many different universities to choose from and many different countries to go to. While I sift through all these universities I'm a little overwhelm with my choices. Finances is not a huge concern. I would be interested in a university that offer many different research option across Europe and not primarily one centralized location. Though knowing which university provide the best opportunity for research would also be good to know. I have looked at different universities in the UK, Germany, and Sweden mostly but I wonder if there are any good universities in Eastern Europe as well. One that had interest my is The University of Tubingen. Though any help would be appreciated. Also I'm a student studying in the US and I doubt it would be the best idea for me to study in US for Prehistoric Archaeology in Europe.","c_root_id_A":"hqwoz9l","c_root_id_B":"hqwd5f7","created_at_utc_A":1641106040,"created_at_utc_B":1641099172,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You might have better luck asking in r\/archaeology! Archaeology in Europe is usually separate from anthropology over here so it might be hard to find good info. Either way UCL is good for prehistoric stuff, Southampton is good for marine archaeology. There was recently a question in r\/archaeology about marine\/underwater arch that might be helpful. The only thing is for an American in the UK it will be expensive. Any degree you choose will be roughly \u00a340,000 total or so and you\u2019re unlikely to get any funding or assistance for it. That being said, you\u2019re also more likely to be accepted to harder programs or programs you don\u2019t think you\u2019d be accepted to. If anything, I\u2019d suggest looking at programs on the mainland that are either free or have a smaller fee.","human_ref_B":"UCL in London is one of the biggest in the world. It ranks high in the leagues, I enjoyed my time there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6868.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"i1pqte","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What book to read if I want to learn how anthropologists conduct interview? To my knowledge anthropologists can conduct interviews better than most other social scientists. Getting the natural response out of the informants, capturing the *essence* of a culture, and all that. I might be wrong though. I just want to improve my qualitative methods that I severely lack.","c_root_id_A":"fzzavbm","c_root_id_B":"fzz7ef0","created_at_utc_A":1596287083,"created_at_utc_B":1596284310,"score_A":28,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Short but solid interview techniques section. imho...I tried to \"study\" my way to become a better interviewer but beyond \"tricks\" (the loooong pause after they answer) and overall techniques, actually doing interviews and making mistakes is what got me there. Stay safe and healthy! Bernard Research Methods In Anthropology qualitative and quantitative approaches","human_ref_B":"Maybe take a look at \u201cInterViews\u201d by Svend Brinkmann and Steiner Kvale. It\u2019s like the go-to book on qualitative interviewing in Denmark for most disciplines that does qualitative work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2773.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"i1pqte","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What book to read if I want to learn how anthropologists conduct interview? To my knowledge anthropologists can conduct interviews better than most other social scientists. Getting the natural response out of the informants, capturing the *essence* of a culture, and all that. I might be wrong though. I just want to improve my qualitative methods that I severely lack.","c_root_id_A":"fzzavbm","c_root_id_B":"fzz9zfk","created_at_utc_A":1596287083,"created_at_utc_B":1596286415,"score_A":28,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Short but solid interview techniques section. imho...I tried to \"study\" my way to become a better interviewer but beyond \"tricks\" (the loooong pause after they answer) and overall techniques, actually doing interviews and making mistakes is what got me there. Stay safe and healthy! Bernard Research Methods In Anthropology qualitative and quantitative approaches","human_ref_B":"I really liked \"Doing Naturalistic Inquiry\" by Henk de Vries and Joost Beuving. They discuss the entire process but give actual concrete advice on arranging and conducting interviews. Both one-on-one as well as focus groups.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":668.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"ir8qgz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Where to study anthropology in general over the internet in a semi-academic\/casual-but-a-bit-more-serious-than-casual Hi! I'm currently a student in 10th grade, taking the Social Sciences and Humanities academic track for grades 11-12 and heavily considering taking up Anthropology in college. Primarily, I just want to familiarise myself with the foundations of anthropology since I probably won't be able to understand anything more advanced than that for now. I'm interested in checking out online courses, videos, documentaries (preferably free), and maybe a bit of related literature. This may be too specific but it would be amazing if you guys know any online anthropological resources on Philippine culture. Thanks in advance for your answers!","c_root_id_A":"g4xc0s9","c_root_id_B":"g4y3z2u","created_at_utc_A":1599915661,"created_at_utc_B":1599929824,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Depending on your area\/financial situation, you might look into taking an online intro anthropology course through a local community college. I was able to do this in 11th grade (and even take an independent study class period to do my online work) and it was really helpful just to learn the basics and confirm that it was what I wanted to major in!","human_ref_B":"Take a look at a MOOC, it\u2019s a great way to pick up new study topics. https:\/\/www.futurelearn.com\/courses\/cultures-societies-introducing-anthropology","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14163.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"fo9y64","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do light skinned people near the equator have higher rates of ADHD and neural tube defects? Dark skin protects folates, folates are important in making neurotransmitters and lack of these neurotransmitters causes ADHD, thus it stands to reason that lighter skinned people near equator have higher rates of ADHD. Lower folates also mean neural tube defects are more likely.","c_root_id_A":"fleuek1","c_root_id_B":"flexohm","created_at_utc_A":1585091736,"created_at_utc_B":1585093638,"score_A":35,"score_B":73,"human_ref_A":"As far as I know, ADHD doesn\u2019t really have a set cause. It\u2019s technically a spectrum disorder, with people having certain traits up down the spectrum, like autism. There is a relationship with ADHD and other spectrum disorders, such as dyslexia and once again, autism. People with dyslexia and or autism have a much higher prevalence of ADHD. I for instance have both dyslexia and ADHD. Not all people with ADHD are missing neurotransmitters either, only some have that, often with what might be called a comorbidity with depression at times as well.","human_ref_B":"The cause of ADHD is unknown. It is definitely not as simple as missing transmitters. The idea that it is is a simplistic extrapolation from the *known* actions of the primary drugs used to treat it. But some medicines that are effective for some people with ADHD have marginal or no known dopaminergic activity at all. So, I think your question is clever one, but misguided - it's predicated on a theory of ADHD that is untrue. I should also note that there is limited evidence that sunlight actually improves ADHD symptoms in some people, and while there IS a sunlight correlation, it's the reverse of your guess: ADHD becomes less common in populations that live in very sunny areas, regardless of skin color.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1902.0,"score_ratio":2.0857142857} {"post_id":"zodev7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Tattoo friendly field? Hi! I\u2019m a student in anthropology. I already work in 2 research labs and they haven\u2019t said anything other than \u201coh that\u2019s a cool tattoo\u201d. The only really visible tattoo I have is on my chest and it\u2019s not always visible depending on what I\u2019m wearing. I eventually want to be covered in tattoos, including a neck piece. This is what I\u2019ve always wanted since I was a kid. I want to continue working in research labs and field work after I\u2019m done with school. Anthropology is my passion so I want to make sure I don\u2019t ruin my career opportunities by being coveted in tattoos. I feel like anthropology is probably the most tattoo friendly field but I just want to make sure! Thanks ahead of time!","c_root_id_A":"j0mr46z","c_root_id_B":"j0mr80p","created_at_utc_A":1671311586,"created_at_utc_B":1671311632,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I have my MA in anthropology and have my arms and legs sleeved (pant legged?) and have never really had an issue getting a job. It's 2022 and it's more rare if you DON'T have tattoos these days, that being said, you should be fine if you just want to do research and field work. Worst comes to worse you can always just wear long sleeves and pants.","human_ref_B":"I would consider how other countries and institutions where you might work have tattoo acceptance. Consider how peoples you may study and interact with may be affected by your tattoos.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":46.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"zodev7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Tattoo friendly field? Hi! I\u2019m a student in anthropology. I already work in 2 research labs and they haven\u2019t said anything other than \u201coh that\u2019s a cool tattoo\u201d. The only really visible tattoo I have is on my chest and it\u2019s not always visible depending on what I\u2019m wearing. I eventually want to be covered in tattoos, including a neck piece. This is what I\u2019ve always wanted since I was a kid. I want to continue working in research labs and field work after I\u2019m done with school. Anthropology is my passion so I want to make sure I don\u2019t ruin my career opportunities by being coveted in tattoos. I feel like anthropology is probably the most tattoo friendly field but I just want to make sure! Thanks ahead of time!","c_root_id_A":"j0nmvb9","c_root_id_B":"j0nptn2","created_at_utc_A":1671325868,"created_at_utc_B":1671327331,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Tattoos the overwhelming norm in the archaeological circles I have run in. It\u2019s more of a surprise when it comes up that someone doesn\u2019t have any at all! As long as you stay away from the blatantly offensive, such as putting a slur on your forehead for funsies, you should be fine.","human_ref_B":"From what I've seen, there's parts of the world that care about tattoos, and parts that don't. I'm from the US and there's a pretty wide range of views depending on what part of the country you live in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1463.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"zodev7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Tattoo friendly field? Hi! I\u2019m a student in anthropology. I already work in 2 research labs and they haven\u2019t said anything other than \u201coh that\u2019s a cool tattoo\u201d. The only really visible tattoo I have is on my chest and it\u2019s not always visible depending on what I\u2019m wearing. I eventually want to be covered in tattoos, including a neck piece. This is what I\u2019ve always wanted since I was a kid. I want to continue working in research labs and field work after I\u2019m done with school. Anthropology is my passion so I want to make sure I don\u2019t ruin my career opportunities by being coveted in tattoos. I feel like anthropology is probably the most tattoo friendly field but I just want to make sure! Thanks ahead of time!","c_root_id_A":"j0nptn2","c_root_id_B":"j0nos7f","created_at_utc_A":1671327331,"created_at_utc_B":1671326815,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"From what I've seen, there's parts of the world that care about tattoos, and parts that don't. I'm from the US and there's a pretty wide range of views depending on what part of the country you live in.","human_ref_B":"certain (USA) dept. of interior Services have an absolutely confounding dress code, but if they\u2019re easy to cover up you should be fine. might not even have to most of the time","labels":1,"seconds_difference":516.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1hryht","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are concepts like irony and sarcasm universal to every human culture? Or do they only exist in some? If the latter, why might such things arise in one culture and not in another?","c_root_id_A":"caxukln","c_root_id_B":"caxlej9","created_at_utc_A":1373238582,"created_at_utc_B":1373209419,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Irony and sarcasm have very nuanced meanings in our society so it is a little complicated to answer. But humor has been recorded in every society we've bothered to document on the issue. And language is often a very important way of conveying whatever it is that we find humorous. Playing with words for comedic effect is a very common, too, though how we play with those words obviously changes depending on the society. So building on \/u\/admiralteal 's suggestion, I can answer a little bit about the anthropology of humor. Anthropologist Mahadev Apte wrote *Humor and laughter: an anthropological approach*, which is a good starting point. Apte argues that humor occurs in all human cultures. To be human is to know humor. Now what one community might find funny might make no sense to you, but that is probably something you've already experienced when encountering other people's \"inside jokes.\" Some scholars think there may be an evolutionary benefit to humor as a way of defusing tension, making connections, initiating social interactions, reinforcing social norms, and performing shared perspectives. NPR had an article about an anthropologist studying this topic. Further studies have even suggested other species use laughter for similar though less complex reasons. For example, the Panksepp article I linked below looks at laughter in rats. And chapter 5 in Provine's book looks at potential evidence for humor and laughter among chimpanzees. Further reading suggestions: * Polimeni, Joseph, and Jeffrey P. Reiss. \"The first joke: exploring the evolutionary origins of humor.\" Evolutionary Psychology 4 \\(2006\\): 347-366. * Panksepp, Jaak. \"Neuroevolutionary sources of laughter and social joy: Modeling primal human laughter in laboratory rats.\" Behavioural brain research 182, no. 2 \\(2007\\): 231-244.] (http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0166432807000976) * Provine, Robert R. *Laughter: A scientific investigation.* Penguin Press, 2001. * Apte, Mahadev L. Humor and laughter: An anthropological approach. Ithaca, NY: Cornell university press, 1985. * [Weisfeld, Glenn E. \"The adaptive value of humor and laughter.\" Ethology and Sociobiology 14, no. 2 \\(1993\\): 141-169. * Davies, Christie. Ethnic humor around the world: A comparative analysis. Indiana University Press, 1990. * Attardo, Salvatore. Linguistic theories of humor. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter, 1994. * Pepicello, William J., and Robert W. Weisberg. \"Linguistics and humor.\" In Handbook of humor research, pp. 59-83. Springer New York, 1983.","human_ref_B":"Since this question isn't even getting traction, I'd like to ask if anyone can give a broader answer - are there many useful anthropological studies on humor in general, and how it differs between cultures?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29163.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"unl2tg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are your thoughts on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as anthropologists? I apologize if this question has been asked a million times. I would love to have an open discussion, because my brain is buzzing to hear new perspectives. I also apologize if this is better suited to r\/linguistics. I couldn't find a sub dedicated to the intersection of these fields, and I am also seeking a more anthropological side to this story. I first learned about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in a university anthropology class dedicated to Native American Studies. Our professor, a non-Native, very much believed in this hypothesis and rooted much of his teachings in it. I'm not going to go into too much detail, and I don't want to bias people's answers, but I have more recently heard strong dissent, especially from my girlfriend, who is M\u00e9tis. What are your thoughts on this hypothesis? In which contexts is it applicable? Is it applicable at all? How would you summarize your own conception of the relationship between language and culture? I am particularly interested to hear from other Indigenous people and People of Global Majority, if you would like to share.","c_root_id_A":"i8aeh00","c_root_id_B":"i896kj1","created_at_utc_A":1652337756,"created_at_utc_B":1652314256,"score_A":31,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Which version was your professor talking about? The strong form of Sapir-Whorf is disregarded outright. Languages constantly evolve in accordance with the needs and preferences of those who speak them. The soft form is more often accepted, if only because language \"influencing\" thought processes is so nonspecific a claim. I personally don't think it would be surprising that the act of learning how to express a concept also influences how you understand that concept.","human_ref_B":"Non-anthropologist here My understanding is that the strong sense of Sapir-Whorf has long since fallen out of favor (to put it nicely), though the weak sense (\"having a word for it makes a concept more available\") is accepted, but not very interesting. > Our professor, a non-Native, very much believed in this hypothesis and rooted much of his teachings in it. How long ago was this?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23500.0,"score_ratio":1.24} {"post_id":"unl2tg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are your thoughts on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as anthropologists? I apologize if this question has been asked a million times. I would love to have an open discussion, because my brain is buzzing to hear new perspectives. I also apologize if this is better suited to r\/linguistics. I couldn't find a sub dedicated to the intersection of these fields, and I am also seeking a more anthropological side to this story. I first learned about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in a university anthropology class dedicated to Native American Studies. Our professor, a non-Native, very much believed in this hypothesis and rooted much of his teachings in it. I'm not going to go into too much detail, and I don't want to bias people's answers, but I have more recently heard strong dissent, especially from my girlfriend, who is M\u00e9tis. What are your thoughts on this hypothesis? In which contexts is it applicable? Is it applicable at all? How would you summarize your own conception of the relationship between language and culture? I am particularly interested to hear from other Indigenous people and People of Global Majority, if you would like to share.","c_root_id_A":"i89wpw3","c_root_id_B":"i8aeh00","created_at_utc_A":1652326367,"created_at_utc_B":1652337756,"score_A":19,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Sapir-Whorf is not accepted, and its strong sense is often racist in its applications, to be frank. Linguistic relativism of a certain degree is generally accepted, and I think this makes more intuitive sense. I mean, we always encounter concepts which our languages can\u2019t easily articulate, but which other languages (or future neologisms) manage to articulate very succinctly. It doesn\u2019t mean we never could have had those concepts; that would be a contradiction. Of course, this doesn\u2019t falsify Sapir-Whorf or anything, but I think this sort of reasoning (among many others) can also make it seem clear why Sapir-Whorf is bogus.","human_ref_B":"Which version was your professor talking about? The strong form of Sapir-Whorf is disregarded outright. Languages constantly evolve in accordance with the needs and preferences of those who speak them. The soft form is more often accepted, if only because language \"influencing\" thought processes is so nonspecific a claim. I personally don't think it would be surprising that the act of learning how to express a concept also influences how you understand that concept.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11389.0,"score_ratio":1.6315789474} {"post_id":"6hbsh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Who are today's leading anthropologists and what are they working on ?","c_root_id_A":"dixffcj","c_root_id_B":"dix4v5c","created_at_utc_A":1497507699,"created_at_utc_B":1497490689,"score_A":18,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"As \/u\/magicsauc3 pointed out, anthropology, even divided into its primary branches, is too massive to give you a comprehensive answer. I'll attempt to throw out names for a hopelessly incomplete list of prominent (and \"current\") sociocultural anthropologists, however, and although I don't have the time right now to give an overview of each, they are all quite google-able. In no particular order: - Tim Ingold - Philippe Descola - Eduardo Viveiros de Castro - Didier Fassin - Anna Tsing - Aihwa Ong - Talal Asad - Veena Das - Philippe Bourgois - Marisol de la Cadena - David Graeber - Nancy Scheper-Hughes - Daniel Miller - Sally Merry - Bruno Latour - Paul Rabinow - John & Jean Comaroff - Lila Abu-Lughod - Arjun Appadurai - Akhil Gupta - Elizabeth Povinelli - Jo\u00e3o Biehl","human_ref_B":"What particular field are you interested in? Or topic of interest? All of anthropology is too massive to have universal \"leaders\" so to speak. Though once you narrow down a little there are definitely prominent voices.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17010.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"tcff07","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"What is anthropologists opinion on povertarianism ? I know this sounds really weird and stupid. But it's a recent phenomenon on the internet where people try being poor and homeless and adapt to it and tell stories about how they adapted to it. Doesn't this imply that humans can adapt to any situation ? Does this count as evidence for povertarianism and anarcho primitivism ? People cite countries like Africa and the extreme poor sections of India and how people are able to survive in those conditions.","c_root_id_A":"i0h1os7","c_root_id_B":"i0gohuw","created_at_utc_A":1647162014,"created_at_utc_B":1647151703,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but the notion that poverty is a prerequisite of virtue is common in Cynic and other ascetic philosophies. Here's an excerpt from Dio Chrysostom's Fourth Discourse on Kingship: \"[Alexander] himself needed his Macedonian phalanx, his Thessalian cavalry, Thracians, Paeonians, and many others if he was to go where he wished and get what he desired; but Diogenes went forth unattended in perfect safety by night as well as by day whithersoever he cared to go. Again, he himself required huge sums of gold and silver to carry out any of his projects; and what is more, if he expected to keep the Macedonians and the other Greeks submissive, must time and again curry favor of their rulers and the general populace by words and gifts; whereas Diogenes cajoled no man by flattery, but told everybody the truth and, even though he possessed not a single drachma, succeeded in doing as he pleased, failed in nothing he set before himself, was the only man who lived the life he considered the best and happiest, and would not have accepted Alexander's throne or the wealth of the Medes and Persians in exchange for his own poverty.\" I feel like a lot of the modern motivation for voluntary poverty stems from the same thought, insofar as it isn't larping of course. I certainly prefer to live something like it myself.","human_ref_B":"Asceticism isn't a recent phenomena and people have been giving up materialist lifestyles for thousands of years. Minimalism, simple living and other recent trends are a secular spin on an old religious idea. I can't answer your questions directly because as others have pointed out it's filled with misused terms, but I hope the above is informative. Just remember that even if individuals can adapt, that doesn't mean society has a high probability of changing. So no, it's not evidence of much. A couple of people voluntarily taking on an alternative lifestyle is very different from structural change.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10311.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"reoxv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Who Are All The Most Essential Cultural Anthropologists That Every Advanced Student Should Read and Know? After finishing off school I plan on dedicating a year to reading cultural anthropology's lineage. Y'know I'll read the old guys to the most influential newer guys and that will be a monster task. I suspect reading one book per major character will be the way to go but Im open to suggestions. For example, Clifford Geertz - The Interpretation of Cultures is on my list. Franz Boas and Margaret Mead is too but I have yet to file out a long comprehensive lists of major names and their major works and to learn their major concepts. I hope to read them all and gain an opinion and understanding of how I may like to pursue research of my own style and learn the important terms\/concepts for possibly pursuing higher education in the future or at the very least learn something new and hopefully relevant. What can you recommend to a budding student? Thank you","c_root_id_A":"ho95fvc","c_root_id_B":"ho8wl5k","created_at_utc_A":1639321872,"created_at_utc_B":1639317994,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You should add some more recent authors to your list as well. Include anthropologists like David Graeber, Judith Okely, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Renato Rosaldo, Arjun Appadurai, and works done in collaboration with anthropologists like Behrouz Boochani's *No Friend But the Mountains*. I'm sure there are more, but these are my suggestions! Edit: I am also adding Anand Pandian onto this list. He is amazing. I highly recommend \"A Possible Anthropology, Methods for Uneasy Times\". His work is digestible, impactful, and empowering.","human_ref_B":"Claude Levi-Strauss would be in there too, IMO. From the 19th century\/ early 20th century, there are the anglophones E.B. Tylor and Radcliffe-Browne, though idk if they're now considered beyond their historical value. There's also several names that weren't 'officially' anthropologists - i.e. they didn't do that subject as their primary degree - but still had an impact on the field. Emile Durkheim comes to mind here. ​ Ruith Benedict is another. However, I don't know who's 'hot' in modern anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3878.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"35bfgh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Does anyone know the factors playing into the high rape statistics in Papa New Guinea? What are they? My boyfriend I were skimming Wikipedia when we came across the sexual violence statistics in Papa New Guinea. For review, it is estimated that one out of two (or 55%) women have had forced sex in Papa New Guinea,. Furthermore, 50% of those women are estimated to be under 16, and 1 out of 2 girls are at risk for being involved in sex work, or internal tracking. On top of this, 41% of men admit to raping a non-partner. The only thing I could really find about the high rate of rape is that in urban areas, Raskol gangs have rape as an initiation requirement. Itried asking \/r\/asksociology but its not a very active sub, so I was hoping you guys could answer our question.","c_root_id_A":"cr3cqsh","c_root_id_B":"cr34xrv","created_at_utc_A":1431149229,"created_at_utc_B":1431132109,"score_A":24,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There has been some work suggesting that the high instances of sexual violence in Papua New Guinea are related to the financial dependancy of women on their husbands and polygamous partners, including bridal dowries etc. you might want to check out: \"Violence against women in Papua New Guinea\" by Ione Lewis et al . There is also no legislation that exists to protect women from being raped by their husbands in PNG. Other studies have noted that women in PNG are more likely to report instances of sexual violence as there is less social shame associated with being a victim of sexual assault. There is also some interesting work on Malawi (so take its application to the situation of PNG with a grain of salt) that the spread of global human rights narratives, rather than liberating women from social and economic precariousness, has been applied unevenly along gender lines, serving to alleviate men from their familial obligations and provide them with an increasingly uneven share of new wealth. What has emerged (in Malawi) is a scenario where women are seen as the keepers of traditional culture and their gender roles have been galvanized (including subservience to male sexual desires) in the face of social change. This has lead to greater economic dependence on men (often multiple men), and as a corollary, a lot of pressure (read strong expectation) for sexual activity. 2013 - \u201cHuman Rights Discourse, Gender, and HIV in Southern Malawi.\u201d Anthropologica 55(2):349-358. If you don't want to look it up, here's a link to the dissertation abstract from which the paper was assembled http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/files\/2011\/07\/Nicole-Hayes-Final-Abstract.pdf Despite the historical, political, and cultural incongruities between Malawi and PNG as \"sites\", I bring up Malawi because it shows that extreme gender violence can have less to do with existing outside the rubric of so-called \"modernity\" than it does with (and here I'm tempted to reference Aihwa Ong's work on neoliberalism as a mobile technology) localized, idiosyncratic unfoldings of what we might consider to be \"progressive discourse\". Sorry for doing a billion edits....I'm having a bout of insomnia and keep coming back to it out of frustration from not being able to fall asleep.","human_ref_B":"Papua. Once I can forgive...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17120.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"vxtc5i","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"does anyone have a good and concise explanation of the myth of progress Im able to explain it well enough to people who dont know, but sometimes people just dont get it and it takes a decent amnt of time which is kinda a pain. Wondering if anyone has any good arguments for it which are concise and easy to explain to people who are less involved in social sciences.","c_root_id_A":"ifzrycg","c_root_id_B":"ig19j8i","created_at_utc_A":1657721456,"created_at_utc_B":1657742325,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Christian thought about domination of nature, that is there for our benefit (so we have the western dicotomy of nature vs culture), plus all the modern thought of humans as rational unlike animals (culture vs. nature again), and the developping of western science (like darwinism), created a narrative that in the history there was different stages of development, where the \"primitive\" (nature) occupied the lesser stage of development and the western societies the most evolutioned and civilized form (culture again) All of this happened in a society that was changing very fast and science was breaking everything (industrial revolution), so that reinforced that we everything was changing for the good. Even socialist, who saw that progress brought explotation, believed in it. Only that was bad used in benefit of the capitalist class, but it could be brought under socialist guidance to the benefit of all.","human_ref_B":"I usually describe it as the idea that human society is moving in a particular direction that is characterized by increasingly better technology, better art and culture, more wealth more freedom and justice, and the replacement of superstition\/religion with secular science. It is rooted in the late European enlightenment period as people started to apply scientific principles to social life, economics and government. The belief was that science and rationality gave us the tools we needed to conquer the environment and improve our societies. The problem is it is oversimplified, it ignores history (especially non-European history), it posits Europe as the height of human achievement, it drastically under-estimates the power and importance of religion and non-rational beliefs, and it ignores the negative aspects of social change.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20869.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"dqrvav","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Does anyone know the name of the culture which has this family structure? From what I remember it's an Asian culture (maybe Central Asian?). Sorry if I'm describing it weirdly. The way it would work is that a woman would invite a man she's interested in to her home, have sex, and carry the child. However, instead of the man staying to raise the child, the man leaves and the child is raised by the woman's family with the brothers being surrogate fathers. Often the man in question is also the surrogate father to his sister's child as well. Is anyone aware of the name of this culture?","c_root_id_A":"f6a5g5e","c_root_id_B":"f69uz2h","created_at_utc_A":1572752193,"created_at_utc_B":1572747883,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This type of practice is also found in Ashanti of Ghana, apart from tribes of Asia .","human_ref_B":"I do believe the culture you are describing is in Stephanie Coontz\u2019s book Marriage: a history. She goes into detail about the family structure and how this is the only culture without marriage.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4310.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"r01kt3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How did the Yaghans and the Selk'nam in Tierra del Fuego survive in such a very cold climate while reportedly wearing little clothing? Wikipedia has some short information about it, but I want to learn more about it!","c_root_id_A":"hlsca0p","c_root_id_B":"hlrr8pc","created_at_utc_A":1637686546,"created_at_utc_B":1637677759,"score_A":12,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I think a key nuance here is where on Tierra Del Fuego people lived. As I understand it, those living inland wore what you would imagine people in sub-arctic areas to wear (skins, furs etc). However, those who lived on the coast and got most of their calories from fish were much more likely to not wear heavy clothes- in part because they became heavy and unwieldy when wetted in the spray. They insulated themselves in copious amounts of fat - this actually keeps you surprisingly warm, and has the added benefit of being quite suited to environments where you are often being splashed. The clue to how they stayed warm is also in the name of the island - land of fire. This was as the first Western observers saw many, many campfires burning on the coast when they first passed. These were often kept semi-permanently lit to help people warm up. Interestingly, people also developed a way of keeping a small fire going in their wooden kayaks, which also kept them warm. If you're wondering - no, I have no idea how they managed that either!","human_ref_B":"What you are looking for is cold adaptation. Populations native to cold areas generally physiologically adapt to the cold over generations. This adaptation can be both in the ability to increase their metabolism to produce more heat, increased capillaries in the skin to combat frost bite and increased insulation, like a layer of fat. https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4861193\/ Tierra del Fuego is sub-artic and apparently has mild weather. Average of 48 F in summer to 32 F in winter. Besides a population adaptation to cold weather, many humans can adapt their bodies to that temperature. When I was ice climbing, ice diving and snow camping I would cold-adapt by not turning on the heat or wearing anything more insulate than a jean jacket or a turtleneck until the temperature was below freezing for a greater than 24 hour period, though I did sleep under a warm blanket. The native populations would probably have done similar, but not by choice. A page about people cold-adapting with examples of Europeans in arctic climates exercising in shorts and tee-shirts below freezing: https:\/\/www.coolantarctica.com\/Antarctica%20fact%20file\/science\/cold_acclimation_human.php","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8787.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9exfuz","c_root_id_B":"e9esor7","created_at_utc_A":1541848915,"created_at_utc_B":1541838705,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"AskAnthroplogy seems like a poor choice for this question. Better in \/r\/AskBiology no reason to expect anthropologists to know anything at all about what sexually attracts other species.","human_ref_B":"That would have to do with the concept of self and group-identification. Don't some domesticated animals - especially social animals such as dogs and cows, group-identify as human? Or is it the other way around? In that case wouldn't they see us as potential mating partners in any case, but lacking interest\/mating ritual knowledge\/physiological signs from our side see us as \"malformed\" or \"socially stunted\" and therefore unsuitable mating partners? Anyway, this is a brilliant question!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10210.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9f8wx9","c_root_id_B":"e9fmkxf","created_at_utc_A":1541864124,"created_at_utc_B":1541875248,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There was a strange case I read about a woman who was experimenting acid on dolphins, she satisfied it's sexual needs and the two became rather... close. It was a bizzare but interesting read I'll see if I can find it.","human_ref_B":"Naturally, or when it's raised in captivity? I don't know of any animals that are typically attracted to humans, but it can certainly happen when an animal is raised without much interaction with other members of their species. Birds sometimes latch onto their owners and consider them their mate, leading to sexual frustration and behavioral problems. Female owners of male iguanas can attest to the fact that their pets will sometimes attempt to mate with them during certain points of their menstrual cycle. They're more than capable of detecting changes in hormone levels, but I'm not sure being instinctively driven to mate with any nearby ovulating female is the same thing as being sexually attracted to humans, especially since it only happens with isolation from more suitable mates.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11124.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9fmkxf","c_root_id_B":"e9f7475","created_at_utc_A":1541875248,"created_at_utc_B":1541862514,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Naturally, or when it's raised in captivity? I don't know of any animals that are typically attracted to humans, but it can certainly happen when an animal is raised without much interaction with other members of their species. Birds sometimes latch onto their owners and consider them their mate, leading to sexual frustration and behavioral problems. Female owners of male iguanas can attest to the fact that their pets will sometimes attempt to mate with them during certain points of their menstrual cycle. They're more than capable of detecting changes in hormone levels, but I'm not sure being instinctively driven to mate with any nearby ovulating female is the same thing as being sexually attracted to humans, especially since it only happens with isolation from more suitable mates.","human_ref_B":"I think the first question that needs to be answered is \u201cwhat does it mean to be sexually attracted?\u201d If we mean \u201cmate recognition\u201d then it seems very unlikely that other species see humans as potential reproductive mates. There is a whole species definition that uses this criteria. The next issue we have to deal with is the purpose of sex. For humans, sex occurs for a myriad of reasons and most are non-reproductive. There seem to be very few animals that have much sex outside of a reproductive context (bonobos being one and chimpanzees fairly rarely being another). There are certain social cues that indicate sexual receptivity within species and since humans and other apes have very different social cues (humans have culture-specific cues. Apes have secondary sex swellings, receptive postures, vocalizations). We don\u2019t perform those cues and so do not present ourselves as potential mates. Source: me. I study primate social and reproductive behavior as part of my research. If you\u2019re interested in a book covering primate sexuality, the I recommend \u201cPrimate Sexuality\u201d by Dixson.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12734.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9f8wx9","c_root_id_B":"e9jmtdh","created_at_utc_A":1541864124,"created_at_utc_B":1542016775,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There was a strange case I read about a woman who was experimenting acid on dolphins, she satisfied it's sexual needs and the two became rather... close. It was a bizzare but interesting read I'll see if I can find it.","human_ref_B":"Your premise is false. People have put orangutans in brothels, and speaking of orangutans, they've been known to sexually assault human women. Then there's the fact H. sapiens had sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Neither humans nor other animals seem to be very particular about sex.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":152651.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9jmtdh","c_root_id_B":"e9f7475","created_at_utc_A":1542016775,"created_at_utc_B":1541862514,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Your premise is false. People have put orangutans in brothels, and speaking of orangutans, they've been known to sexually assault human women. Then there's the fact H. sapiens had sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Neither humans nor other animals seem to be very particular about sex.","human_ref_B":"I think the first question that needs to be answered is \u201cwhat does it mean to be sexually attracted?\u201d If we mean \u201cmate recognition\u201d then it seems very unlikely that other species see humans as potential reproductive mates. There is a whole species definition that uses this criteria. The next issue we have to deal with is the purpose of sex. For humans, sex occurs for a myriad of reasons and most are non-reproductive. There seem to be very few animals that have much sex outside of a reproductive context (bonobos being one and chimpanzees fairly rarely being another). There are certain social cues that indicate sexual receptivity within species and since humans and other apes have very different social cues (humans have culture-specific cues. Apes have secondary sex swellings, receptive postures, vocalizations). We don\u2019t perform those cues and so do not present ourselves as potential mates. Source: me. I study primate social and reproductive behavior as part of my research. If you\u2019re interested in a book covering primate sexuality, the I recommend \u201cPrimate Sexuality\u201d by Dixson.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":154261.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"e9fq5hn","c_root_id_B":"e9jmtdh","created_at_utc_A":1541877785,"created_at_utc_B":1542016775,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"\"Any other animal\"? Members of H.sapiens whose ancestors had not remained in Africa, interbred with Neanderthals and\/or Denisovans. So had concluded Svante Paabo's team at the Max Planck Institute. Were Neanders a different species? Where do you draw a line","human_ref_B":"Your premise is false. People have put orangutans in brothels, and speaking of orangutans, they've been known to sexually assault human women. Then there's the fact H. sapiens had sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Neither humans nor other animals seem to be very particular about sex.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":138990.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"9vr63e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Humans are not sexually attracted to any other animal, but is any other animal sexually attracted to humans - like another Great Ape?","c_root_id_A":"ium18kr","c_root_id_B":"e9fq5hn","created_at_utc_A":1667301562,"created_at_utc_B":1541877785,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"First some humans are attracted to other animals because people can be weird, but also yes some animals have shown attraction to humans. I've noticed a trend where higher intelligent species seem to have a higher incident of arousal than others. Notoriously dolphins have not only been attracted but have had sexual relationships with some humans. I've also heard of some primates and even elephants having at least some basis of attraction.","human_ref_B":"\"Any other animal\"? Members of H.sapiens whose ancestors had not remained in Africa, interbred with Neanderthals and\/or Denisovans. So had concluded Svante Paabo's team at the Max Planck Institute. Were Neanders a different species? Where do you draw a line","labels":1,"seconds_difference":125423777.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ycjnk3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How is Richard wrangham using the words alpha and beta male ? I thought that alpha males don't exist in humans but the primatologist Richard wrangham uses them constantly when talking about early humans, so i wonder what does he mean when using them.","c_root_id_A":"itmku78","c_root_id_B":"itmrvor","created_at_utc_A":1666639214,"created_at_utc_B":1666641945,"score_A":19,"score_B":106,"human_ref_A":">Richard wrangham uses them constantly when talking about early humans What is the source that you're reading, and what is the date it was published?","human_ref_B":"Even Dave Mech the person who had the most influence on the \"alpha male\" term would much prefer it not get used anymore because it is plain *wrong*. That whole concept of the strongest, most aggressive individual getting to the top of the pecking order, well, it does apply to that, chickens. Not wolves in their natural habitat, not primates, including humans. Chimpanzee males win social standing via aggression, against the opposing group. It's more like a gang war.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2731.0,"score_ratio":5.5789473684} {"post_id":"1s19rj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How universal, if at all, and how old, is the expectation of long female hair and short male hair?","c_root_id_A":"cdtguoj","c_root_id_B":"cdtbntl","created_at_utc_A":1386179620,"created_at_utc_B":1386166063,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It's not universal. In the area where I do my fieldwork it's common for a lot of women to have very short hair and many of them shave their heads frequently.","human_ref_B":"Here are several previous threads on AskHistorians about this","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13557.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"2bn1ey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Is this a Stone Age hand tool? [X-post from r\/AskHistorians] Hello all, About 15 years ago I found this interesting rock in Conwy, North Wales. It looks and feels as though it has been shaped to fit the hand. Does anybody have any idea what this might be and (if it is a tool) how old it might be? Pictures: http:\/\/imgur.com\/a\/Dowfj Remember to include the 15 years in any age estimates.","c_root_id_A":"cj7hwnd","c_root_id_B":"cj6xipr","created_at_utc_A":1406302018,"created_at_utc_B":1406242761,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm an archaeologist - that is definitely an artifact. It's a large, steep-angled flake removed from a semi-pepared core with centripetal flake removals (think cruder version of Levallois core) (which doesn't mean it is older or anything). The flake has then been marginally retouched into a scraper with multiple working edges.","human_ref_B":"Do you remember seeing any similar rocks nearby? Did this one seem \"out of place?\" in the rock neighborhood? I don't know enough to say whether this was produced by human hands, but the rock has most definitely been impacted several times by an outside force. If that force was a cave-dude or the Earth itself, I can't say.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":59257.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"2bn1ey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Is this a Stone Age hand tool? [X-post from r\/AskHistorians] Hello all, About 15 years ago I found this interesting rock in Conwy, North Wales. It looks and feels as though it has been shaped to fit the hand. Does anybody have any idea what this might be and (if it is a tool) how old it might be? Pictures: http:\/\/imgur.com\/a\/Dowfj Remember to include the 15 years in any age estimates.","c_root_id_A":"cj7hwnd","c_root_id_B":"cj6xmkx","created_at_utc_A":1406302018,"created_at_utc_B":1406243003,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm an archaeologist - that is definitely an artifact. It's a large, steep-angled flake removed from a semi-pepared core with centripetal flake removals (think cruder version of Levallois core) (which doesn't mean it is older or anything). The flake has then been marginally retouched into a scraper with multiple working edges.","human_ref_B":"It almost definitely looks worked, hard to tell without having it in my hand. I'm not sure about the purpose, it might have just been a source of flakes. Although, the core is often made into something useful as said flakes are chipped off.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":59015.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"2bn1ey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Is this a Stone Age hand tool? [X-post from r\/AskHistorians] Hello all, About 15 years ago I found this interesting rock in Conwy, North Wales. It looks and feels as though it has been shaped to fit the hand. Does anybody have any idea what this might be and (if it is a tool) how old it might be? Pictures: http:\/\/imgur.com\/a\/Dowfj Remember to include the 15 years in any age estimates.","c_root_id_A":"cj7f521","c_root_id_B":"cj7hwnd","created_at_utc_A":1406295903,"created_at_utc_B":1406302018,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Looks a bit like a broken scraper (for removing fat from hide) to me, but I only did a little paleo-archeology.","human_ref_B":"I'm an archaeologist - that is definitely an artifact. It's a large, steep-angled flake removed from a semi-pepared core with centripetal flake removals (think cruder version of Levallois core) (which doesn't mean it is older or anything). The flake has then been marginally retouched into a scraper with multiple working edges.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6115.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"51s3hp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"People keep joking \"wheat and gluten allergies are a new fad\" but is there any evidence of such?","c_root_id_A":"d7fcbfy","c_root_id_B":"d7en51a","created_at_utc_A":1473402443,"created_at_utc_B":1473364233,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"When I researched \"gluten sensitivities\" I came across this article From what I can remember it basically said that cutting out milk\/lactose was more effective than cutting out gluten but it here's the one part of the study that talks about gluten. >A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled rechallenge trial of gluten in patients with IBS resulted in significantly worse overall symptoms of pain, bloating, and stool consistency in the gluten group (who received gluten-containing foods) compared to the placebo group. Interestingly, a subsequent double-blinded crossover trial in subjects with nonceliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and IBS without celiac disease performed by the same group found no evidence of specific or dose-dependent effects of gluten, while improvements in symptoms were seen with a diet low in fermentable carbohydrates (Fermentable Oligosaccharide, Disaccharide, Monosaccharide, and Polyols [FODMAPs]). This study41 suggests that the carbohydrate component (fructans and galacto-oligosaccharides) of the wheat as opposed to the gluten may be responsible for the IBS symptoms experienced by patients with NCGS and IBS. Thus, it may be that a combination of incompletely absorbed carbohydrates may be responsible for eliciting many symptoms of IBS rather than one specific food or food component. (Nanayakkara, W. S., Skidmore, P. M., O\u2019Brien, L., Wilkinson, T. J., & Gearry, R. B. (2016) **TLDR:** People with IBS without celiac disease showed no evidence that a reduced gluten diet improves symptoms. Wheat may contribute to painful symptoms but nothing solid can be concluded.","human_ref_B":"I suspect you need to separate out genuine gluten allergies and intolerance from what I will refer to as \"perceived gluten intolerance.\" That is there are likely three categories. Diagnosed and un-diagnosed people who are on some spectrum of gluten intolerance--and thirdly people who think they're are on the spectrum but are full of beans. Beans I say! The latter group being the largest and most vocally \"on-board\" the gluten free bandwagon. edit: spelling","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38210.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"51s3hp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"People keep joking \"wheat and gluten allergies are a new fad\" but is there any evidence of such?","c_root_id_A":"d7fcbfy","c_root_id_B":"d7emk3d","created_at_utc_A":1473402443,"created_at_utc_B":1473363520,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"When I researched \"gluten sensitivities\" I came across this article From what I can remember it basically said that cutting out milk\/lactose was more effective than cutting out gluten but it here's the one part of the study that talks about gluten. >A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled rechallenge trial of gluten in patients with IBS resulted in significantly worse overall symptoms of pain, bloating, and stool consistency in the gluten group (who received gluten-containing foods) compared to the placebo group. Interestingly, a subsequent double-blinded crossover trial in subjects with nonceliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and IBS without celiac disease performed by the same group found no evidence of specific or dose-dependent effects of gluten, while improvements in symptoms were seen with a diet low in fermentable carbohydrates (Fermentable Oligosaccharide, Disaccharide, Monosaccharide, and Polyols [FODMAPs]). This study41 suggests that the carbohydrate component (fructans and galacto-oligosaccharides) of the wheat as opposed to the gluten may be responsible for the IBS symptoms experienced by patients with NCGS and IBS. Thus, it may be that a combination of incompletely absorbed carbohydrates may be responsible for eliciting many symptoms of IBS rather than one specific food or food component. (Nanayakkara, W. S., Skidmore, P. M., O\u2019Brien, L., Wilkinson, T. J., & Gearry, R. B. (2016) **TLDR:** People with IBS without celiac disease showed no evidence that a reduced gluten diet improves symptoms. Wheat may contribute to painful symptoms but nothing solid can be concluded.","human_ref_B":"Maybe you should r\/AskScience this instead?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38923.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"51s3hp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"People keep joking \"wheat and gluten allergies are a new fad\" but is there any evidence of such?","c_root_id_A":"d7emk3d","c_root_id_B":"d7en51a","created_at_utc_A":1473363520,"created_at_utc_B":1473364233,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Maybe you should r\/AskScience this instead?","human_ref_B":"I suspect you need to separate out genuine gluten allergies and intolerance from what I will refer to as \"perceived gluten intolerance.\" That is there are likely three categories. Diagnosed and un-diagnosed people who are on some spectrum of gluten intolerance--and thirdly people who think they're are on the spectrum but are full of beans. Beans I say! The latter group being the largest and most vocally \"on-board\" the gluten free bandwagon. edit: spelling","labels":0,"seconds_difference":713.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6aj5g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"X-post from r\/AskHistorians] Does the new edition of Renfrew & Bahn's Archaeology really accept Korea as the original site of rice domestication? According to a [recent article in a Korean newspaper, Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn's *Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice*, now in its seventh edition, has revised its description of the origin of domesticated rice. While \"before 2004\" this popular introduction to the academic field of archaeology had rice from 9,000 BC discovered in China's Hunan province as the oldest example, in the latest edition it is supposed to have changed this to rice from 13,000 BC discovered in the Sorori site in Cheongju, South Korea. I have to say I really doubt the claims in this article, given that the there was strong skepticism in academia about the Sorori rice claims that were first publicized in 2003 and even led to a BBC article, but which smack of a nationalist agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole article was a fabrication or the product of some sort of a wishful misinterpretation. However, I don't have access to *Archaeology*, so I'm wondering if any redditors can tell me what it really has to say on the subject.","c_root_id_A":"dhfs1r1","c_root_id_B":"dhfhl1w","created_at_utc_A":1494536002,"created_at_utc_B":1494524978,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"From Renfrew & Bahn 2016 7th Edition, page 537: \"... Settlement at the site itself proved to be too late (2000bc) to overturn the conventional view that rice cultivation began further north in China, in the Yangzi valley, between 10,000 and 5000 bc, and spread south from there (indeed, what appears to be even earlier domesticated rice has recently been found in Korea, dating to c. 13,000 bc).\" Pm me if you want more!","human_ref_B":"I've never heard of this. Do you have a link to the original paper?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11024.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"3nu6qn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are insults like in matriarchies? Some friends and I were discussing insults in modern American society. I brought up my theory that the insults directed toward men usually center around implying that he's powerless in some way, while insults directed toward women usually imply that she's unfit for marriage, either by being unattractive, insufficiently passive or promiscuous. This got us wondering whether insults differ in matriarchies. Does anyone have any experience in this area?","c_root_id_A":"cvrvmx0","c_root_id_B":"cvresug","created_at_utc_A":1444260380,"created_at_utc_B":1444235092,"score_A":15,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but from what I've read it seems fairly well accepted that there haven't actually been any *real* matriarchies. See this \/r\/askhistorian thread for example and the wikipedia page on matriarchy. Your question is still interesting in regards to non-patriarchal societies though.","human_ref_B":"Might it still be the same? The insults would probably still stem from a man's capacity for physical labor and a woman's fertility\/health.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25288.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"u0cwba","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Modern forest (internet) monster, their belief, and what this says about society... Anyway work being done on this? As many of you know their is this monster craze now. It seems to have started back in the 90s and early 2000s with Discovery channel \"documentaries\"... From their though the internet took over, now the web is awash in \"true sightings\" of monsters, especially in the wilderness. Bigfoot, dogmen, crawlers, lizard men, shadow people, predators\/invisible men. I spoke with a man recently, who was a \"hunter\". I put this in quotes not because he's one of those self described bigfoot hunters, but because I grew up in the hunting tradition back in Kentucky, and this guy definitely didn't grow up in the hunting tradition and didn't seem to actually be much of a hunter or outdoorsman. None the less he was a hunter I guess. During our conversation her said outright that he doesn't campout after dark, because of the \"things\" out there after dark. Long story short, I worked out that he age 27-33 years old I guess, believes in monsters in the woods. One case of arrested development you say. Nope, I've been told by people in recent years that they basically believe in monsters in the woods, asked if I've seen any by many who were very serious. I want to stress actual people in the flesh, not internet people who might just be trying to scare others or get followers or likes for a good story. Now I'm actually training, welcome to look at my post history, for a 333 mile thru hike. I'm not doing very good in my training honestly, but the point is I've spent many many nights backpacking in the wilderness up until now... Never a hobgoblin one, onetime a beautiful black bear at a distance, but no monsters. Yes there are forest that are dangerous; flooding, lots of grizzly bears, holes to fall in, drug gangs. That said, this isn't the usual thing or that common and those places are well known by hikers, and not really in my area anyway. Then there are more likely dangers; slipping and hitting your head, dehydration, heart attacks, lost, so on... Anyway this guy I talked to hunted with a semi-automatic in 308 Winchester. Basically you can hunt grizzly bear with a 308, it's not safari huge but it's a good sized round. I actually don't think people should be able to own semi-automatic rifles, let alone hunt with them, but not the point. This was a scout gun, usually a short fairly light rifle often in a 308 round. Usually they are semi-automatic nowadays (unfortunately) and have 5-10 round capacity.... He could have stood off and likely downed a real pride of hungry African lions with this, but he's afraid of imaginary monsters. Again this guy isn't one guy, he's got lots of people like him. Is there any research into these people? Not the monsters, the people who really believe in the monsters.","c_root_id_A":"i45ymqv","c_root_id_B":"i47f7zj","created_at_utc_A":1649599880,"created_at_utc_B":1649621563,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"People are superstitious, tell stories to each other, and when you're away from the bright lights of a town, it's very easy for your tired brain to pattern match to a cultural space and start believing in things. (Anecdote: I was on firewatch one night, and spent the early hours of a morning watching a giant snake slowly trying to make its way towards me. It didn't exist, beyond misfiring nerves making pictures in the dark) In a scientific world, you can dismiss something like the Basket woman, Baba Yaga, or the Wild Hunt. but a physical monster, undiscovered (except briefly by its victims) fills the same space, especially as there's the mantra of \"scientists don't know everything\" that people like to repeat. I'm trying to remember the classifications of folktales and \"Folkloristic Morphology\" like the Aarne-Thompson-uther index and apply them to the intersection around stories like the missing 411, goatmen, cryptids, alien abduction etc. It would be interesting to see old worries repackaged for a modern age. Whether it's bogles, sidhe, goatmen; or slightly more realistically:Bandits and wild animals every culture has their charms to ward off the other. Firearms are the ultimate comfort blanket for some people, as they could be a bit more effective than a stone with a hole in them, if a belief turned out to be real. (Or a hiker, or dumb kids)","human_ref_B":">Again this guy isn't one guy, he's got lots of people like him. Is there any research into these people? Not the monsters, the people who really believe in the monsters. Yes, there is. Dr. Robert Pyle -- a lepidopterist and forester by training who has spent decades hiking the Pacific Northwest. He wrote a wonderful book called *\"Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide\"* which is substantially about Sasquatch enthusiasts and the environment\\[s\\] they inhabit. This book was subsequently made into a movie which is less about the cryptozoological community and more about him . . . the film isn't bad, but the book is a much better discussion of the question you ask. He's studied Sasquatch hunters more or less the same way he's studied butterflies and other ecologies. While not an anthropologist by training, as an ecologist he's well enough situated to approach these things with some care and distance, even if he does take a bit of a mystical turn. Pyle has a chapter \"Natural History of Bigfoot Hunters\" which is more or less exactly your topic . . . a sample: >So while it is not true, as often asserted, that science has willfully ignored the phenomenon, far and away the greatest number of Bigfoot buffs have been nonacademics, if not antiacademics. It is common at Sasquatch gatherings to hear vicious derogations of the academy for \u201crepressing\u201d information or for blindly ignoring the obvious and thereby pulling the rug out from under the worthy ranks of the dedicated amateurs. These charges, however naive and lacking in empathy for the scientific method, are not without basis. Many tenured or tenure-hopeful scientists have pooh-poohed the topic without any critical attention to its substance. Grover Krantz and the BC Twenty can thus be seen as courageously bucking the tide, sometimes to their detriment. > >The amateurs (true lovers of the search) have no such tethers on their enthusiasm. Nor do they labor under the restraints of experimental protocol. This results in a vibrant output of opinions, publications, and theories that run the gamut from brilliant to disturbed, from cleverly intuitive to sloppy and gullible, and from helpful to hopeless. > >Most of the Bigfooters begin by gathering all the information they can find, then rejecting those reports or references they deem groundless or unsupportive of their biases. A few of the major players apply certain standards to weed out the more vacuous or obviously fatuous data. Others build great middens of material, like Grendel\u2019s bone pile in the mere, where chaff and kernel compost together. Ray Crowe, the big, voluble, white-mustached director of the Western Bigfoot Society, is the model for this catholic approach. His periodical, the Track Record, is a repository of all things Bigfootish, from obvious dross to genuinely intriguing gems. Ray says of his all-embracing approach, \u201cAlways read with your skepticals on.\u201d > >Of the many cataloguers, one of the most thorough and opinionated is Danny Perez of the Center for Bigfoot Studies in Norwalk, California. He has published an odd, detailed critique of the Patterson-Gimlin film in his BigfooTimes, as well as a very useful bibliography of ape-man publications entitled Big Footnotes. Perez is also one of the most outspoken advocates of gunning down a Sasquatch and is known for attempting to do the same to his friends and colleagues in verbal exchanges. In action he is like an impatient terrier, yipping and nipping.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21683.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"rgi6ti","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some examples where human culture\/adaptation has led to actual genetic changes? The only examples I can think of are lactose tolerance and changes living at high altitudes, but I'm sure there are a lot of fascinating examples! I would like to work them into their own lecture next semester.","c_root_id_A":"hol1wuu","c_root_id_B":"hokrcc7","created_at_utc_A":1639529737,"created_at_utc_B":1639524916,"score_A":85,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Certain populations around the SE Asia have developed a number of genetic changes that help with diving . Larger spleen, better oxygen retention, etc.","human_ref_B":"'Perhaps' eyesight. The latest research lends towards a required level of natural daylight during early childhood as key to avoiding 'most' myopia. This pretty easy to get when you live most-all of your life outdoors. However when humans progressively did less of this, then shortsightedness grew in proportion. Note that this is still correlation and not undisputed, but 'seems' to hold up.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4821.0,"score_ratio":5.3125} {"post_id":"rgi6ti","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some examples where human culture\/adaptation has led to actual genetic changes? The only examples I can think of are lactose tolerance and changes living at high altitudes, but I'm sure there are a lot of fascinating examples! I would like to work them into their own lecture next semester.","c_root_id_A":"hol1wuu","c_root_id_B":"hokt0p9","created_at_utc_A":1639529737,"created_at_utc_B":1639525672,"score_A":85,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Certain populations around the SE Asia have developed a number of genetic changes that help with diving . Larger spleen, better oxygen retention, etc.","human_ref_B":"Birth control hormones impact our choice of mate. OCP and partner choice","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4065.0,"score_ratio":7.0833333333} {"post_id":"rgi6ti","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some examples where human culture\/adaptation has led to actual genetic changes? The only examples I can think of are lactose tolerance and changes living at high altitudes, but I'm sure there are a lot of fascinating examples! I would like to work them into their own lecture next semester.","c_root_id_A":"hom8jm8","c_root_id_B":"hokt0p9","created_at_utc_A":1639551714,"created_at_utc_B":1639525672,"score_A":14,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Lean-burn physiology gives Sherpas peak-performance Nepalese Sherpas have a physiology that uses oxygen more efficiently than those used to the atmosphere at sea level. https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-40006803","human_ref_B":"Birth control hormones impact our choice of mate. OCP and partner choice","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26042.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"69ho53","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Today people say \"like\" as a frequent verbal tic. What verbal tic(s) was (were) common before that?","c_root_id_A":"dh6q6g8","c_root_id_B":"dh6r73h","created_at_utc_A":1494026040,"created_at_utc_B":1494027559,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"um like I am not sure. We would probably have a hard time finding out since tics do not leave a physical representations. Historians might write about famous tics, or possibly common tics of the era. I've never read anything about it though unfortunately. Such tics were probably very regional as well since mass communication is a new thing.","human_ref_B":"Might be worth checking \/r\/askhistorians as the only way to know is through written sources. And if those people take an interest in your question you will for sure have an answer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1519.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"69ho53","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Today people say \"like\" as a frequent verbal tic. What verbal tic(s) was (were) common before that?","c_root_id_A":"dh6q6g8","c_root_id_B":"dh7a6ab","created_at_utc_A":1494026040,"created_at_utc_B":1494066483,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"um like I am not sure. We would probably have a hard time finding out since tics do not leave a physical representations. Historians might write about famous tics, or possibly common tics of the era. I've never read anything about it though unfortunately. Such tics were probably very regional as well since mass communication is a new thing.","human_ref_B":"These \"tics\" are called linguistic fillers), if that should help you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40443.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"zl2kp0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"How much does oral tradition decays over time? For example if the story of an event is transmitted orally, how reliable the informations will remain over time? I'm asking in the context of groups that doesn't use a writing system. I'm always a bit surprised when I hear a story is a proven fact but also has been passed down orally for centuries before being written down","c_root_id_A":"j02xyf0","c_root_id_B":"j036prv","created_at_utc_A":1670956073,"created_at_utc_B":1670959387,"score_A":15,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I'll plan to come back to this when I have more time and add sources \/ more info. But in short, oral tradition is very useful despite having been vilified for quite some time. Written and oral records are simply different types of sources. Both have strengths and both have weaknesses in terms of the information they can provide us, but neither is necessarily more reliable or valuable. That isn't to say that we can approach them the exact same way, but rather that there isn't some hierarchy in which oral sources are more suspect \/ prone to inaccuracy. Frankly, that written sources are often viewed more favorably speaks to bias more than anything else. Of course, unless it has been transcribed or recorded, it's difficult for us to know if a given oral story sounds *exactly* like it did 300 years ago. They change over time due to a variety of factors, such as being intentionally reframed to address concerns contemporary to the speaker. But similar issues can be found in written texts. Off the top of my head: a reader in 2022 failing to read sarcasm in a historical text from 1800, but that sarcasm would have been clear to readers in the 1800; the meaning may be lost to us. It's impossible to put a number down on \"how\" accurate oral sources are. Anthropologically speaking, however, historical accuracy isn't the utmost concern. Even if the stories people tell about themselves are not rooted in history, oral traditions can help us make sense of how people view themselves, how they conceptualize of their history, how they relate to the world, etc. In short, decaying isn't really the right way to look at oral traditions: they evolve.","human_ref_B":"This will be an annoying answer, but I think that sometimes asking this question misses the mark a bit (that\u2019s not me saying it\u2019s a bad question, it\u2019s not). The fact of the matter is that, for the societies that have them, oral traditions are generally seen as a very important part of their cultural identity, so they are worthy of study regardless of whether or not they contain any information that would be interesting to a historian. It is understandable to me that you would be surprised when oral traditions that are hundreds or even thousands of years old are proven correct by historical research. But it\u2019s a little less surprising when you consider that an oral tradition is not the same thing as a rumor, hearsay or an urban legend. Rather than being transmitted from individual to individual, they are generally created and passed down by many people at once. This means other people can step in and correct you if there\u2019s a discrepancy between your retelling and the original story, and accurate memorization is considered very important. This isn\u2019t to say that the retelling is completely static and doesn\u2019t change *at all* over the centuries, but the key parts of the narrative are generally preserved. Lastly, it also depends on what you\u2019re looking to find out. I\u2019m answering this as a historian, so, while there is obviously a lot of overlap between the fields, anthropologists generally have different research goals. For me, a written text generally gives me more to work with, even if the accuracy of the information is dubious. A text can be accurately dated, it will often (definitely not always) have an author\u2019s name attached, and if you\u2019re really lucky, you can compare it to earlier\/later editions of the same text. These things all help with figuring out what was changed over the years, who changed it, and why they might have done that. But text can also have disadvantages, precisely because it makes memorization outdated. If I burn down the only library in the city, nobody knows wtf was in all those books, and the information is lost forever. With an oral tradition, as long as the people survive, so does their history. And for an anthropologist, depending on what they\u2019re studying, sometimes viewing everything through the lens of trying to figure out what \u201creally\u201d happened can be missing the forest for the trees. And an \u201cinaccuracy\u201d can also tell you a whole lot about how a particular society thinks and how they view themselves in relation to the world.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3314.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zl2kp0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"How much does oral tradition decays over time? For example if the story of an event is transmitted orally, how reliable the informations will remain over time? I'm asking in the context of groups that doesn't use a writing system. I'm always a bit surprised when I hear a story is a proven fact but also has been passed down orally for centuries before being written down","c_root_id_A":"j03vgdg","c_root_id_B":"j02xyf0","created_at_utc_A":1670968376,"created_at_utc_B":1670956073,"score_A":17,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"This question gets asked quite often -- and the answer is: \"it varies\" The very longest lived oral traditions relate to animals and topographical features in a landscape, where the people in question have remained in that place. So, for example, Aboriginal Australians have what are often asserted to be the very oldest surviving oral traditions - several thousand years, and possibly tens of thousands in the case of Matchan, Erin L., et al. \"Early human occupation of southeastern Australia: New insights from 40Ar\/39Ar dating of young volcanoes.\" Geology 48.4 (2020): 390-394. . . . though this is murky. What is clear is that things like volcanoes that created new islands, these give use some useful benchmarks for unique events with very specific dates to crosscheck against oral traditions, see Fast, Phyllis A. \"The volcano in Athabascan oral narratives.\" Alaska Journal of Anthropology 6.1-2 (2008): 131-140. We're on much more solid ground with hundreds of years -- indigenous North Americans preserved stories of the coming of horses in the early 16th century, for example, which can be confirmed by archaeology and genetics. Maori have quite detailed oral traditions of the arrival in Aotearoa\/New Zealand in the 13th century . . . though its notable that they've lost a specific memory of just where they came \\_from, an open question in both Maori tradition and archaeology. But they do have a strong oral tradition of just who was on the first boats, starting with the celebrated navigator, Kupe. Very likely a real person, as were his companions Sheppard, Peter J. \"Entangled histories: Oral history and archaeology in the Pacific.\" Theory in the Pacific, the Pacific in TheoryArchaeological perspectives (2020): 277-298. The first thing that decays is relative time. So you'll find people saying something like \"in my grandfather's grandfather's time\" -- which really just means \"long ago\". Names of specific people can be conflated, stories combined, and so on. So of the things that always have a question mark, time and sequence would be notable. We have deep mathematical analysis of folk tales, looking at the ways the stories change, split and recombine, for example Tehrani, Jamshid J., and Julien d\u2019Huy. \"Phylogenetics meets folklore: Bioinformatics approaches to the study of international folktales.\" Maths meets myths: Quantitative approaches to ancient narratives. Springer, Cham, 2017. 91-114.","human_ref_B":"I'll plan to come back to this when I have more time and add sources \/ more info. But in short, oral tradition is very useful despite having been vilified for quite some time. Written and oral records are simply different types of sources. Both have strengths and both have weaknesses in terms of the information they can provide us, but neither is necessarily more reliable or valuable. That isn't to say that we can approach them the exact same way, but rather that there isn't some hierarchy in which oral sources are more suspect \/ prone to inaccuracy. Frankly, that written sources are often viewed more favorably speaks to bias more than anything else. Of course, unless it has been transcribed or recorded, it's difficult for us to know if a given oral story sounds *exactly* like it did 300 years ago. They change over time due to a variety of factors, such as being intentionally reframed to address concerns contemporary to the speaker. But similar issues can be found in written texts. Off the top of my head: a reader in 2022 failing to read sarcasm in a historical text from 1800, but that sarcasm would have been clear to readers in the 1800; the meaning may be lost to us. It's impossible to put a number down on \"how\" accurate oral sources are. Anthropologically speaking, however, historical accuracy isn't the utmost concern. Even if the stories people tell about themselves are not rooted in history, oral traditions can help us make sense of how people view themselves, how they conceptualize of their history, how they relate to the world, etc. In short, decaying isn't really the right way to look at oral traditions: they evolve.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12303.0,"score_ratio":1.1333333333} {"post_id":"zl2kp0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"How much does oral tradition decays over time? For example if the story of an event is transmitted orally, how reliable the informations will remain over time? I'm asking in the context of groups that doesn't use a writing system. I'm always a bit surprised when I hear a story is a proven fact but also has been passed down orally for centuries before being written down","c_root_id_A":"j039gcd","c_root_id_B":"j03vgdg","created_at_utc_A":1670960388,"created_at_utc_B":1670968376,"score_A":9,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"The other issue no one ever seems to bring up is that if written sources are incorrect or partial (which they always are) then we are left with stories we think are true just because they were written down. So while truth might be easier to preserve in writing, so I\u2019d falsehood.","human_ref_B":"This question gets asked quite often -- and the answer is: \"it varies\" The very longest lived oral traditions relate to animals and topographical features in a landscape, where the people in question have remained in that place. So, for example, Aboriginal Australians have what are often asserted to be the very oldest surviving oral traditions - several thousand years, and possibly tens of thousands in the case of Matchan, Erin L., et al. \"Early human occupation of southeastern Australia: New insights from 40Ar\/39Ar dating of young volcanoes.\" Geology 48.4 (2020): 390-394. . . . though this is murky. What is clear is that things like volcanoes that created new islands, these give use some useful benchmarks for unique events with very specific dates to crosscheck against oral traditions, see Fast, Phyllis A. \"The volcano in Athabascan oral narratives.\" Alaska Journal of Anthropology 6.1-2 (2008): 131-140. We're on much more solid ground with hundreds of years -- indigenous North Americans preserved stories of the coming of horses in the early 16th century, for example, which can be confirmed by archaeology and genetics. Maori have quite detailed oral traditions of the arrival in Aotearoa\/New Zealand in the 13th century . . . though its notable that they've lost a specific memory of just where they came \\_from, an open question in both Maori tradition and archaeology. But they do have a strong oral tradition of just who was on the first boats, starting with the celebrated navigator, Kupe. Very likely a real person, as were his companions Sheppard, Peter J. \"Entangled histories: Oral history and archaeology in the Pacific.\" Theory in the Pacific, the Pacific in TheoryArchaeological perspectives (2020): 277-298. The first thing that decays is relative time. So you'll find people saying something like \"in my grandfather's grandfather's time\" -- which really just means \"long ago\". Names of specific people can be conflated, stories combined, and so on. So of the things that always have a question mark, time and sequence would be notable. We have deep mathematical analysis of folk tales, looking at the ways the stories change, split and recombine, for example Tehrani, Jamshid J., and Julien d\u2019Huy. \"Phylogenetics meets folklore: Bioinformatics approaches to the study of international folktales.\" Maths meets myths: Quantitative approaches to ancient narratives. Springer, Cham, 2017. 91-114.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7988.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"y6o1lo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best Books on Pacific Islands Hello ! I'm looking for book recommendations on Pacific Island peoples. What are some of the most up-to-date books on Polynesian cultures, histories and archaeology ?? I've only recently started reading anthropology- I'm loving Steven Mithen's After the Ice and am looking for something else to read once I am finished. Thanks !!! :))","c_root_id_A":"isrdojk","c_root_id_B":"israrhe","created_at_utc_A":1666063430,"created_at_utc_B":1666061974,"score_A":18,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Check out *Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia* by Christina Thompson","human_ref_B":"On the Road of the Winds An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact By\u00a0Patrick Vinton Kirch\u00a0\u00b7 2002","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1456.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"y6o1lo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best Books on Pacific Islands Hello ! I'm looking for book recommendations on Pacific Island peoples. What are some of the most up-to-date books on Polynesian cultures, histories and archaeology ?? I've only recently started reading anthropology- I'm loving Steven Mithen's After the Ice and am looking for something else to read once I am finished. Thanks !!! :))","c_root_id_A":"istcttw","c_root_id_B":"ist5xxp","created_at_utc_A":1666107731,"created_at_utc_B":1666104974,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Patrick Kirch's books, mentioned in another comment. He's a world expert\/founding father of contemporary Polynesian archaeology. I knew him personally (took his classes and worked in his lab at Berkeley) and he was\/is an absolutely fantastic scholar, truly singular.","human_ref_B":"Not up-to-date in the slightest, but a beautifully-written book not only on the people of the Marqueses (Te Enata), but on the ways we write and think about anthropology and history. I can't recommend it enough: Greg Dening -- Islands and Beaches, Discourse on a Silent Land: Marquesas, 1774-1880 (1980)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2757.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"y6o1lo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best Books on Pacific Islands Hello ! I'm looking for book recommendations on Pacific Island peoples. What are some of the most up-to-date books on Polynesian cultures, histories and archaeology ?? I've only recently started reading anthropology- I'm loving Steven Mithen's After the Ice and am looking for something else to read once I am finished. Thanks !!! :))","c_root_id_A":"istcttw","c_root_id_B":"issk3m8","created_at_utc_A":1666107731,"created_at_utc_B":1666094724,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Patrick Kirch's books, mentioned in another comment. He's a world expert\/founding father of contemporary Polynesian archaeology. I knew him personally (took his classes and worked in his lab at Berkeley) and he was\/is an absolutely fantastic scholar, truly singular.","human_ref_B":"For a \"classic\" work, Marshall Sahlins' *Islands of History* is always great.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13007.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"y6o1lo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Best Books on Pacific Islands Hello ! I'm looking for book recommendations on Pacific Island peoples. What are some of the most up-to-date books on Polynesian cultures, histories and archaeology ?? I've only recently started reading anthropology- I'm loving Steven Mithen's After the Ice and am looking for something else to read once I am finished. Thanks !!! :))","c_root_id_A":"issk3m8","c_root_id_B":"ist5xxp","created_at_utc_A":1666094724,"created_at_utc_B":1666104974,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For a \"classic\" work, Marshall Sahlins' *Islands of History* is always great.","human_ref_B":"Not up-to-date in the slightest, but a beautifully-written book not only on the people of the Marqueses (Te Enata), but on the ways we write and think about anthropology and history. I can't recommend it enough: Greg Dening -- Islands and Beaches, Discourse on a Silent Land: Marquesas, 1774-1880 (1980)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10250.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zh1sa9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Looking for book recommendations on nutritional anthropology Or a podcast!","c_root_id_A":"izjtx2e","c_root_id_B":"izk5chb","created_at_utc_A":1670605822,"created_at_utc_B":1670610021,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I don't think I can answer your question either way, but you might get more responses if you clarify -- are you looking for anthropological research on the nutrition industry and nutrition advice, or are you looking for information from anthropologists about what makes a healthy human diet?","human_ref_B":"There's an ethnography about nutrition in Guatemala called The Weight of Obesity by Emily Yates-Doerr. It talks about the shift of diet in Guatemala due to globalization. Lots of info on how generalized and standardized the subject of nutrition has become there and how dieting has become a major trend.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4199.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"zh1sa9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Looking for book recommendations on nutritional anthropology Or a podcast!","c_root_id_A":"izkw7hd","c_root_id_B":"izjtx2e","created_at_utc_A":1670620524,"created_at_utc_B":1670605822,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Some books on nutritional anthropology that you may find interesting are:\r \r \"Culture and the Evolution of Obesity\" by Theresa A. Randle and Helen R. Murphy\r \"Food and Culture: A Reader\" edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik\r \"Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives\" by Carolyn Steel\r \"The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals\" by Michael Pollan\r \"In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto\" by Michael Pollan\r \"Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us\" by Michael Moss\r A podcast on this topic that you may find interesting is \"Gastropod,\" which explores the science and history of food.","human_ref_B":"I don't think I can answer your question either way, but you might get more responses if you clarify -- are you looking for anthropological research on the nutrition industry and nutrition advice, or are you looking for information from anthropologists about what makes a healthy human diet?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14702.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vrs96b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Books on cultural differences between nationalities Apologies if this is a stupid\/unanswerable question, I'm not an anthropologist. \ud83d\ude22 I'm looking for works (books rather than studies, ideally, but I'll be grateful for anything) on the differences between national cultures. But rather than looking at works that just document those differences (e.g books like Watching the English or Geek in Japan, or even books\/podcasts like Culture Matters that talk about multiple cultures at once), I am interested in the origins of national cultural differences. A more wholistic look at how and why national cultures emerge and change, some overarching principles, and theories around this area. Why do some cultures treat time differently? What predetermines gender roles? Why does attitude to work and play differ across the nations? Why do some nations treat their children differently than others? Etc. etc. Could anyone point me in the right direction, please? Thank you so much.","c_root_id_A":"iex3abp","c_root_id_B":"ieyhrap","created_at_utc_A":1657008677,"created_at_utc_B":1657037554,"score_A":9,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"So you're asking a very broad topic that is surely covered in many papers but more in the manner \"something here, something there\". I do not know of any monography of that topics. On top of that, the reasons of many things you ask are very subjective to the specific culture. The same practise may have entirely different roots and can be valued differenly. And there is also problem with the notion of nation as it's not that coherent term at all and some scholars refuses to use the term at all. I'd try looking for books about nationalism and notion of nation as it might cover topics you're asking for (e.g \"Ethnicity inc.\" by Comarof, \"Small places, large issues\" by Eriksen). It should give you a general overviev I be a good starting point (then you can look for citations used in said books)","human_ref_B":"Having an MA in Cultural Heritage, as well as a background in Japanese Studies, I think you need to break down your question as it contains some false assumptions. The biggest one is the idea that culture respects national boundaries. Culture, like humans, is fluid, constantly mixing and merging with those around us. For starters, I recommend looking into historian Eric Hobsbawm to understand how young the idea of the nation-state is, and how those in power have an interest in fabricating the notion of \"national culture\". If you're looking at culture in Japan, much of their culture was influenced by previous Chinese dynasties, the ever-evolving spread of Buddhism, and importation and manipulation of foreign words into Japanese (gairaigo) to adapt to modern concepts. Also consider indigenous groups like the Ainu in Hokkaido and various Ryukuan people of Okinawa who have had their cultures repressed to fit a national culture imposed by past Japanese governments. I have done a few podcast episodes specifically addressing these issues when considering Japan if you're interested: * Japanese as \"Other\" with Dr Chris Harding: https:\/\/japaninnorwich.org\/2022\/01\/20\/s2e15-japan-as-other\/ * The Ainu in Japan with Amanda Macguire: https:\/\/japaninnorwich.org\/2021\/07\/22\/beyond-japan-ep-45-the-ainu-in-japan-with-amanda-mcguire\/ * Japan in the British Media with Dr Christopher Hayes: https:\/\/japaninnorwich.org\/2021\/07\/01\/beyond-japan-ep-42-japan-in-thebritish-media-with-dr-christopher-hayes\/ * Nihonjinron: The Future of \"Japanese-ness\" with Dr David Rear: https:\/\/japaninnorwich.org\/2021\/03\/18\/beyond-japan-ep-28-nihonjinron-the-future-of-japanese-ness-with-prof-david-rear\/ Hope these help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28877.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"ytbhv9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How reliable is Helen Fisher's work, specifically her claims in the media? A lot of what Helen Fisher says in the video linked below, reeks of pop-science\/pseudoscience\/self-help. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Oz, The Secret, Freud type stuff, that might pass as actual \"science\" to the layperson, but when examined critically, lacks gold standard scientific rigour & peer-review. I'm wondering what serious Anthropologists and\/or other people in academia think about her work and the comments she makes when communicating to the public. As far as I know, Myers\u2013Briggs type tests and Rorschach tests are considered bullshit or unreliable in academia although still popular and seen as reliable by the general public. Furthermore she makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims (i.e. I can't find any research papers other than her own self-help books when googling), that should raise some eyebrows in academia, regardless of her PhD credentials. The video in question: Biological Anthropologist Answers Love Questions From Twitter","c_root_id_A":"iw4g6or","c_root_id_B":"iwf5xwm","created_at_utc_A":1668290198,"created_at_utc_B":1668485749,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Some of her quotes seem questionable at best. She's also against the use of some antidepressants as they can lower people's sex drive. Thanks, but I'd take the advice of my psychiatrist on that one. I couldn't find much on this, but it seems that her theory's completely skip over Asexual\/Aromantic people. Here's an example: https:\/\/asexualagenda.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/asexualmodel.png.","human_ref_B":"In my opinion, Helen Fisher is held in low regard by many anthropologists \"because\" she writes for a general audience. As a professional archaeologists, I have found her publications on human sexuality to be brilliantly insightful, useful, well-reasoned, and soundly researched. She deserves far more accolades than she has received from academe.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":195551.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"fkbrza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What are some interesting anthropology works on illness\/sickness and infectious disease? In regards to how do people understand illness? What does it mean to be \"sick\"? How do people perceive something\/a disease as infectious? How do people understand this in relation to modern\/Western biomedical sciences? How is the biomedical science - with its jargon and explanation - experienced in daily lives? I remember getting treated by a practicioner who blends his alternative medicinal practice (I think it's related to reflexology) with technical biomedicine terms. I'm sorry if this sounds like a very broad strokes - because it is. I have no clue where to start. Thank you in advance. :)","c_root_id_A":"fmldvwe","c_root_id_B":"fks4rn9","created_at_utc_A":1586184439,"created_at_utc_B":1584482265,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Medical anthropologist, here! The term for using multiple medical systems is 'medical pluralism', which might help you find some resources on that specific question. Fully seconding all the previous recommendations. I'd add Rayna Rapp (disease 'risk' and genetics); Carlo Caduff (*The Pandemic Perhaps*; government and social responses to fear of infection); and Jo\u00e3o Biehl (political and economic disparity in medical care). *An Anthropology of Biomedicine* by Margaret Lock and Vinh-Kim Nguyen is great book to give you a broad overview of medical anthropology which will answer some of your questions pretty neatly. Basically MedAnth 101. Finally, if you want to get your teeth deep into the philosophy of \"What even is illness, anyway? Is anything I thought I knew even real?\" I'd recommend my main man, Foucault: *The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception* by Michel Foucault *Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason* by Michel Foucault (focuses on mental health)","human_ref_B":"Medical anthropology deals with all of those questions. Checking out some general medical anthropology readers\/companions would be a great start (I can't think of the publishers at the moment, but if you google it, a lot of books will come up).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1702174.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"fkbrza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What are some interesting anthropology works on illness\/sickness and infectious disease? In regards to how do people understand illness? What does it mean to be \"sick\"? How do people perceive something\/a disease as infectious? How do people understand this in relation to modern\/Western biomedical sciences? How is the biomedical science - with its jargon and explanation - experienced in daily lives? I remember getting treated by a practicioner who blends his alternative medicinal practice (I think it's related to reflexology) with technical biomedicine terms. I'm sorry if this sounds like a very broad strokes - because it is. I have no clue where to start. Thank you in advance. :)","c_root_id_A":"fmldvwe","c_root_id_B":"fks9qmf","created_at_utc_A":1586184439,"created_at_utc_B":1584485284,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Medical anthropologist, here! The term for using multiple medical systems is 'medical pluralism', which might help you find some resources on that specific question. Fully seconding all the previous recommendations. I'd add Rayna Rapp (disease 'risk' and genetics); Carlo Caduff (*The Pandemic Perhaps*; government and social responses to fear of infection); and Jo\u00e3o Biehl (political and economic disparity in medical care). *An Anthropology of Biomedicine* by Margaret Lock and Vinh-Kim Nguyen is great book to give you a broad overview of medical anthropology which will answer some of your questions pretty neatly. Basically MedAnth 101. Finally, if you want to get your teeth deep into the philosophy of \"What even is illness, anyway? Is anything I thought I knew even real?\" I'd recommend my main man, Foucault: *The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception* by Michel Foucault *Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason* by Michel Foucault (focuses on mental health)","human_ref_B":"Sociology of Health and Illness by Rose Weitz. Do an amazon search for anthropology of health","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1699155.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"fkbrza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What are some interesting anthropology works on illness\/sickness and infectious disease? In regards to how do people understand illness? What does it mean to be \"sick\"? How do people perceive something\/a disease as infectious? How do people understand this in relation to modern\/Western biomedical sciences? How is the biomedical science - with its jargon and explanation - experienced in daily lives? I remember getting treated by a practicioner who blends his alternative medicinal practice (I think it's related to reflexology) with technical biomedicine terms. I'm sorry if this sounds like a very broad strokes - because it is. I have no clue where to start. Thank you in advance. :)","c_root_id_A":"fks4rn9","c_root_id_B":"fkt6pw7","created_at_utc_A":1584482265,"created_at_utc_B":1584507931,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Medical anthropology deals with all of those questions. Checking out some general medical anthropology readers\/companions would be a great start (I can't think of the publishers at the moment, but if you google it, a lot of books will come up).","human_ref_B":"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25666.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"fkbrza","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What are some interesting anthropology works on illness\/sickness and infectious disease? In regards to how do people understand illness? What does it mean to be \"sick\"? How do people perceive something\/a disease as infectious? How do people understand this in relation to modern\/Western biomedical sciences? How is the biomedical science - with its jargon and explanation - experienced in daily lives? I remember getting treated by a practicioner who blends his alternative medicinal practice (I think it's related to reflexology) with technical biomedicine terms. I'm sorry if this sounds like a very broad strokes - because it is. I have no clue where to start. Thank you in advance. :)","c_root_id_A":"fks9qmf","c_root_id_B":"fkt6pw7","created_at_utc_A":1584485284,"created_at_utc_B":1584507931,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sociology of Health and Illness by Rose Weitz. Do an amazon search for anthropology of health","human_ref_B":"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22647.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"a2ozxe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What do the Sentinelese do for shelter, also fresh water? What type of homes do they build? And how do they get fresh water? There don't seem to be any bodies of water on the island.","c_root_id_A":"eb0x24r","c_root_id_B":"eb0zhvv","created_at_utc_A":1543870959,"created_at_utc_B":1543872637,"score_A":18,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure anyone could answer this as they're completely uncontacted. There's no way of knowing any specifics about them.","human_ref_B":"While I don't think those things are known about the sentinelese specifically, a lot more stuff has been written about the jarawas. They are the native people who live on the bigger Andaman islands next to north sentinel island. Interestingly, they weren't capable of making fire themselves, they relied on fire. The sentinelese language also seems quite distinct from the jarawan language as the jarawas could not understand it at all, which hints at a long isolation period for the sentinelese.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1678.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"7jc8v8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did aztecs\/mayans and other meso americans originate from the bering strait ice bridge? And if so, why did they look more different from native north americans, than siberians do?","c_root_id_A":"dr7pxgd","c_root_id_B":"dr611g9","created_at_utc_A":1513208651,"created_at_utc_B":1513130587,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"They don't look that much different, but they difference that do exist may be attributed to allans rule and being closer to the equator. As humans go into colder climates they slowly become more stocky in order to better thermoregulate. As they move into warmer areas they get every so slightly lankier in order to cool off more efficiently. But again i say they look no different as south american groups still retain a great deal of physical features found in asians Siberians and Northern first nation native groups. This is likely inherited from from the Mammoth steppes of Russia. Features like narrow eyes, sinodont teeth, high cheekbones, broad stocky bodies.","human_ref_B":"It's entirely possible they made their way by boat from Asia along the land bride area, and spent time spreading along the Pacific coast","labels":1,"seconds_difference":78064.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rzi5y","c_root_id_B":"e3ros4f","created_at_utc_A":1533666286,"created_at_utc_B":1533657833,"score_A":17,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Most societies through history were like this until there was a top-down government enforced implementation of a standardized written and spoken language. Radio, television and internet make this much faster and easier and accelerate the \u2018loss\u2019 of languages and dialects.","human_ref_B":"The Slavic people speak multiple languages. All have the same root, and some are mutually intelligible to a degree, while others are not.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8453.0,"score_ratio":1.8888888889} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rxr6x","c_root_id_B":"e3rzi5y","created_at_utc_A":1533664865,"created_at_utc_B":1533666286,"score_A":5,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Arabic would be the best example of what OP seems to be looking for I think. The rapid expansion of the Arab conquests carried a vigorously proselytising Islam that carried Arab identity as it spread. Arabic script is today pretty consistent across most of the Muslim world, and in the perceptions of many \"Arab\" often seems falsely conflated with Muslim, whilst the spoken word varies much more than the written. This points to the problem with ethnicity as a concept - it's such a blurry thing. So many traits can fit it into it: language, faith, civic identity, class, occupation, clothing, nationality, physical appearance (i.e race)... and many others. Which of these traits are core, primary or dominant is something always contested - it suits Vladimir Putin to claim that the high proportion of Russian speakers in the Crimea made them, and therefore it should be part of the motherland.","human_ref_B":"Most societies through history were like this until there was a top-down government enforced implementation of a standardized written and spoken language. Radio, television and internet make this much faster and easier and accelerate the \u2018loss\u2019 of languages and dialects.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1421.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rzi5y","c_root_id_B":"e3rq1sr","created_at_utc_A":1533666286,"created_at_utc_B":1533658859,"score_A":17,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Most societies through history were like this until there was a top-down government enforced implementation of a standardized written and spoken language. Radio, television and internet make this much faster and easier and accelerate the \u2018loss\u2019 of languages and dialects.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s an area in I believe southern India where each caste has a distinct language they use in the home, and in public spaces they use a sort of pidgin language which is also the home language of the lowest caste. So everyone but the lowest caste is bilingual or more.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7427.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rzqhx","c_root_id_B":"e3ros4f","created_at_utc_A":1533666469,"created_at_utc_B":1533657833,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I listened to an interview with Patrick Stewart and he said in his youth he was raised with an English dialect that wasn't intelligible to Londoners, and he couldn't understand the Queen's English.","human_ref_B":"The Slavic people speak multiple languages. All have the same root, and some are mutually intelligible to a degree, while others are not.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8636.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rxr6x","c_root_id_B":"e3rzqhx","created_at_utc_A":1533664865,"created_at_utc_B":1533666469,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Arabic would be the best example of what OP seems to be looking for I think. The rapid expansion of the Arab conquests carried a vigorously proselytising Islam that carried Arab identity as it spread. Arabic script is today pretty consistent across most of the Muslim world, and in the perceptions of many \"Arab\" often seems falsely conflated with Muslim, whilst the spoken word varies much more than the written. This points to the problem with ethnicity as a concept - it's such a blurry thing. So many traits can fit it into it: language, faith, civic identity, class, occupation, clothing, nationality, physical appearance (i.e race)... and many others. Which of these traits are core, primary or dominant is something always contested - it suits Vladimir Putin to claim that the high proportion of Russian speakers in the Crimea made them, and therefore it should be part of the motherland.","human_ref_B":"I listened to an interview with Patrick Stewart and he said in his youth he was raised with an English dialect that wasn't intelligible to Londoners, and he couldn't understand the Queen's English.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1604.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rq1sr","c_root_id_B":"e3rzqhx","created_at_utc_A":1533658859,"created_at_utc_B":1533666469,"score_A":4,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s an area in I believe southern India where each caste has a distinct language they use in the home, and in public spaces they use a sort of pidgin language which is also the home language of the lowest caste. So everyone but the lowest caste is bilingual or more.","human_ref_B":"I listened to an interview with Patrick Stewart and he said in his youth he was raised with an English dialect that wasn't intelligible to Londoners, and he couldn't understand the Queen's English.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7610.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"95c2ov","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Besides Han Chinese, are there other instances of a single ethnic group speaking multiple, mutually unintelligible languages?","c_root_id_A":"e3rxr6x","c_root_id_B":"e3rq1sr","created_at_utc_A":1533664865,"created_at_utc_B":1533658859,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Arabic would be the best example of what OP seems to be looking for I think. The rapid expansion of the Arab conquests carried a vigorously proselytising Islam that carried Arab identity as it spread. Arabic script is today pretty consistent across most of the Muslim world, and in the perceptions of many \"Arab\" often seems falsely conflated with Muslim, whilst the spoken word varies much more than the written. This points to the problem with ethnicity as a concept - it's such a blurry thing. So many traits can fit it into it: language, faith, civic identity, class, occupation, clothing, nationality, physical appearance (i.e race)... and many others. Which of these traits are core, primary or dominant is something always contested - it suits Vladimir Putin to claim that the high proportion of Russian speakers in the Crimea made them, and therefore it should be part of the motherland.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s an area in I believe southern India where each caste has a distinct language they use in the home, and in public spaces they use a sort of pidgin language which is also the home language of the lowest caste. So everyone but the lowest caste is bilingual or more.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6006.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3bp7l1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Humans and apes, both evolved in tropical Africa. Why do humans have a lot less hair than apes? I was taught that humans loss most of their body hair due to evolving in the tropics and the humidity. If apes also evolved in the tropics why do they still retain their hair?","c_root_id_A":"csoab24","c_root_id_B":"cso8bdy","created_at_utc_A":1435719192,"created_at_utc_B":1435715285,"score_A":57,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Excuse me, but since no one's pointed it out: taxonomically, humans *are* apes.","human_ref_B":"One theory is that it served as a way to combat lice, ticks, etc, and eventually sexual selection made it a predominant feature.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3907.0,"score_ratio":3.5625} {"post_id":"3bp7l1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Humans and apes, both evolved in tropical Africa. Why do humans have a lot less hair than apes? I was taught that humans loss most of their body hair due to evolving in the tropics and the humidity. If apes also evolved in the tropics why do they still retain their hair?","c_root_id_A":"csoforc","c_root_id_B":"cso8bdy","created_at_utc_A":1435731168,"created_at_utc_B":1435715285,"score_A":44,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"The endurance running hypothesis attempts to explain this human evolutionary trait, among others such as bipedalism, by proposing that humans evolved in Africa as persistence hunters. > * Evaporative Cooling: The majority of mammals, including humans, rely on evaporative cooling to maintain body temperature. > * Sweating vs. Panting: Most medium-to-large mammals rely on panting, while humans rely on sweating, to dissipate heat. Advantages to panting include cooler skin surface, little salt loss, and heat loss by forced convection instead of reliance on wind or other means of convection. On the other hand, sweating is advantageous in that evaporation occurs over a much larger surface area (the skin), and it is independent of respiration, thus is a much more flexible mode of cooling during intense activity such as running. > * Human Advantages: Because human sweat glands are under a higher level of neuronal control than those of other species, they allow for the excretion of more sweat per unit surface area than any other species. Heat dissipation of later hominins was also enhanced by the reduction in body hair.[5] By ridding themselves of an insulating fur coat, running humans are better able to dissipate the heat generated by exercise.","human_ref_B":"One theory is that it served as a way to combat lice, ticks, etc, and eventually sexual selection made it a predominant feature.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15883.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"r1tvdz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Before we had leatherworking\/metalworking skills to make waterproof wineskins and the like, how did hunting parties keep themselves hydrated during long chases? Human hunters are described as persistence hunters, enabled to do this due to sweating, hairlessness and bipedal movement. However, looking at modern athletes participating in marathons and sprints, hydration is vital. And the absence of said hydration can cause the athlete to seize and injure themselves due to either lack of electrolytes, or lack of solvent. This makes me wonder - humans who would chase a herbivore for possibly hours if not days on end in the scorching sun of african savannahs - before the metal and leatherworking needed to make waterproof containers they could bring with them - how did they stay hydrated? Even clay jugs would mean there was a time before they existed, and clay jugs seem incompatible with chasing something for a long time due to weight and inflexibility.","c_root_id_A":"hm1qt7b","c_root_id_B":"hm1gbdx","created_at_utc_A":1637857266,"created_at_utc_B":1637852500,"score_A":52,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Bladders from animals, and plants like gourds can be made into water holders. You don't necessarily need leather working skills to be able to dry out a bladder and create a waterskin.","human_ref_B":"Although I\u2019m not sure if this would apply to the persistence hunting example specifically but some cultures make woven water carriers. This is reasonably common in the American South West, where different indigenous cultures like the Pueblo and Navajo have a tradition of weaving baskets out of yucca to carry water. It might not be quite as sturdy as a plastic water bottle but a master weaver can make water proof enough containers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4766.0,"score_ratio":8.6666666667} {"post_id":"1k4ho2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"In terms of gender roles, was the agrarian revolution a male dominated or mixed gender revolution? IOW: who did the gardening?","c_root_id_A":"cbmuz3h","c_root_id_B":"cbm53pz","created_at_utc_A":1376406472,"created_at_utc_B":1376319190,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In the Southeastern US, much of the actual work involved in the selection, planting, and harvesting (lather, rinse, repeat) of seed and related crops that were ultimately domesticated was likely the realm of women. In general, among hunter-gatherer societies we see women (to a greater extent than men) engaged in gathering of plants and plant-based foods (such as nuts). There've been a number of scholars who've explored this idea in considerable detail (I'm not near my usual bibliography, so I can't really provide sources here at the moment) ethnographically, and there's solid evidence among later horticultural \/ agricultural societies in the American Southeast (see particularly Lynne Sullivan's work with the Southern Appalachian Mississippian societies of Tennessee) that men and women had different \"paths to social status\" within those later, fully agricultural societies. Ethnographically, we see that women controlled the land and the crops and were engaged in most agricultural activities. These traditions develop historically, not *sui generis*, and so it's entirely likely that female control of the means of production (so to speak) extends to earlier expressions of sexual division of labor among some of the Southeastern hunter-gatherer (and later horticultural) societies. It's important to remember that the idea that \"women's work\" is somehow lower status is very much a Western idea, and just as we cannot assume that lower status work is automatically \"women's work,\" we also cannot make the circular argument that women's work is automatically low status. In the Southeast at least, women were typically those people responsible for gathering and planting, and thus it is very likely (or at least probable, based on what we know about the region's history and prehistory) that women were the driving force behind the actual domestication of plants in this part of the world.","human_ref_B":"OP as \/u\/erinaceous points out some more context and elaboration for your question would be useful. Which agricultural revolution are you referencing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":87282.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"j1nrie","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"How much of a social construct would you say gender roles are? For instance are feminists completely wrong when they say gender roles are a social construct? In pretty much all cultures are women soley care givers and men providers? Have there ever been any cultures that had women do work like fishing, construction or had women leaders? And what about dating? Do men always do the pursuing everywhere?","c_root_id_A":"g72af8u","c_root_id_B":"g723nbg","created_at_utc_A":1601389900,"created_at_utc_B":1601386763,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Much of this relies on the scholarship of Judith Butler, and Judith Butler is often misunderstood. In their book Gender Trouble, Butler talks about gender as 'performative' but understanding that requires understanding the term as used by J.L. Austin. Austin refers to performatives as linguistic actions that have social consequences. Basically, statements that change the social structure around them. One of the clearest examples is when a priest says \"I now pronounce you husband and wife\". This is just a spoken phrase, but the combination of authority, context and intention mean that it affects the social structure. Everyone is expected to treat the people involved differently. That pronouncement is performative speech. While this example is big, performative speech happens in everyday life all the time. When you promise to do something, when you ask someone to follow a rule of behavior, when you declare an opinion, all of these are performative statements that build the social reality around you. If you break a promise, the consequences come from the fact that you stated reality was one way, then behaved in a different way. Butler's contribution is that gender norms within society are established in similar ways, not generally through massive performative speech, but through everyday actions that build up a social construct of gendered expectations. Gender is built in our minds from the observation of people around us and the ways in which everyday actions are marked as gendered. For instance, norms about clothing come from the fact that everyone dresses with attention to gender and as we observe other people dressing with attention to gender, we build categories in our mind as to what clothing means in relation to gender. These things aren't 'natural', they are social. So, gender roles are entirely a social construct, even in hunter-gatherer societies. Every aspect of culture is a social construct. That doesn't mean they aren't deeply consequential. Money is a social construct. Truth is a social construct. Nations are social constructs. But all of those are deeply consequential to modern human relations. Part of how we know that gender roles are a social construct is that they vary between cultures. Expectations about who owns what kind of property(among the Lakhota, women traditionally owned the tipi), expectations about whether skirts are appropriate for men or women(the kilt is a masculine garment in Scotland), expectations about the properly gendered display of emotion(crying and masculinity in ancient Greek epics or medieval Japanese samurai poetry, for instance), all of these things have demonstrated variation from culture to culture that show us that there isn't a 'natural' mode that gender roles default to.","human_ref_B":"I highly recommend checking out Margaret Mead's \"Sex and Temperament\" for a classic example. See the link to excerpt below for an example. Gender being constructed simply means that cultures provide frameworks for how gender is performed and how this performativity relates to broader society. One way to think of gender is as a biocultural construction. In the US (and West in general) we link gender with kinds of bodies and through this linking project meaning and expectations on to these bodies. Gender often looks different in different cultures with different attentions to the body. For instance, some groups in Papua New Guinea see women as better suited for carrying water because they have stronger heads and necks than men. This is a different kind of attention to parts of the body which we do not distinguish in the US as being relevant to gender (and I'm guessing the rest of the West). This anatomy is thus constructed. To give an easy example of biocultural construction: It is a biological necessity to eat food. If you do not, you will die. However, what you eat, when, with what implements, with whom, how often, what can't you eat, etc. are all shaped by cultural forms. Biological necessity that is constructed by culture. I'm not saying that gender is a biological necessity but it is one way we make sense out of reproductive bodies. The construction of gender goes far beyond that. Note: We have to correct for colonization and Christian missionaries in how gender has come to look more similar throughout the world. Prior to colonization, there were a lot more textures to gender across cultural groups. https:\/\/personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu\/\\~mduncombe\/WS%20110\/Mead,%20Sex%20and%20Temperament.pdf","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3137.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"3b9ku4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When did humans start wanting to avoid passing gas, defecating, urinating in front of their sexual partners out of embarrassment? Or is this common in animals too?","c_root_id_A":"csk69rg","c_root_id_B":"cskm8vh","created_at_utc_A":1435375387,"created_at_utc_B":1435424803,"score_A":3,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Do you mean during sexual intercourse or in general?","human_ref_B":"It's common in other primates. When we studied chimps from Gombe Tanzania at the Jane Goodall Research Center we would often see them get embarrassing diarrhea if they got scared or nervous. You could tell they were trying to hold it in or get away and hide it, but it was something they couldn't control. Other chimps would run away in shock and embarrassment for the other individual.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":49416.0,"score_ratio":9.0} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codtzx3","c_root_id_B":"codt7p5","created_at_utc_A":1423284777,"created_at_utc_B":1423282856,"score_A":17,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I start with the thumb if I'm going past four. I'm a Texan. (Yes, we can count that high. LOL)","human_ref_B":"American Sign Language is even weirder. http:\/\/www.lifeprint.com\/asl101\/pages-layout\/numbersdiscussion.htm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1921.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codtzx3","c_root_id_B":"codsbkh","created_at_utc_A":1423284777,"created_at_utc_B":1423280781,"score_A":17,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I start with the thumb if I'm going past four. I'm a Texan. (Yes, we can count that high. LOL)","human_ref_B":"I start with my pinky, is that odd?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3996.0,"score_ratio":8.5} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codt7p5","c_root_id_B":"coe0iiq","created_at_utc_A":1423282856,"created_at_utc_B":1423312179,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"American Sign Language is even weirder. http:\/\/www.lifeprint.com\/asl101\/pages-layout\/numbersdiscussion.htm","human_ref_B":"I always thought all westerners did it the same as me. I'm Australian and I start with my thumb.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29323.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codsbkh","c_root_id_B":"coe0iiq","created_at_utc_A":1423280781,"created_at_utc_B":1423312179,"score_A":2,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I start with my pinky, is that odd?","human_ref_B":"I always thought all westerners did it the same as me. I'm Australian and I start with my thumb.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31398.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"coe56zq","c_root_id_B":"codt7p5","created_at_utc_A":1423326407,"created_at_utc_B":1423282856,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Actually it was meant to be an undercover British agent, although the actor Michael Fassbender was actually born in Germany which kind of makes it funnier.","human_ref_B":"American Sign Language is even weirder. http:\/\/www.lifeprint.com\/asl101\/pages-layout\/numbersdiscussion.htm","labels":1,"seconds_difference":43551.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codsbkh","c_root_id_B":"coe56zq","created_at_utc_A":1423280781,"created_at_utc_B":1423326407,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I start with my pinky, is that odd?","human_ref_B":"Actually it was meant to be an undercover British agent, although the actor Michael Fassbender was actually born in Germany which kind of makes it funnier.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":45626.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"2v2375","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Why do Americans finger-count starting with their pointer finger, and Europeans with their thumb? I was watching Inglorious Basterds, and there is a scene where an undercover US soldier is identified by a German based upon the way he counts with his fingers. How did this cultural difference evolve?","c_root_id_A":"codsbkh","c_root_id_B":"codt7p5","created_at_utc_A":1423280781,"created_at_utc_B":1423282856,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I start with my pinky, is that odd?","human_ref_B":"American Sign Language is even weirder. http:\/\/www.lifeprint.com\/asl101\/pages-layout\/numbersdiscussion.htm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2075.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"sn9h6s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Help finding information about a specific incident? So, I'm taking my first Anthropology class this semester, and something my professor said really caught my attention. She said that around the 1950's during a food aid mission, children in Africa were given dairy milk for the first time. They had not had any kind of milk since they were weaned as babies, and the day after drinking milk they all woke up blind. This was apparently due to some kind of genetic cause that they all had due to their small gene pool. This sounded very far-fetched to me, so I immediately looked it up and can't find anything even similar to what she described. Has anyone heard of this or is it possibly some old myth? My professor is quite old and she also had 'Bolivia' under Africa on the ppt slide, as if that's where it took place, but Bolivia isn't even in Africa lol Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"hw1fqx0","c_root_id_B":"hw2564k","created_at_utc_A":1644293011,"created_at_utc_B":1644308658,"score_A":17,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Headache and blurred vision are sometimes listed as symptoms of lactose intolerance and--depending on the age of the children involved--i.e. weaned children--they may have experienced a reaction to lactose. If you're talking genetics, a good source is going to be OMIM: https:\/\/www.omim.org\/entry\/223100#:\\~:text=Due%20to%20the%20reduced%20lactase,%2C%20flatulence%2C%20and%20abdominal%20pain. I'm not where I can do a lot of searching, but I would consider fishing around the earliest references on the OMIM page as the incident may be references and have a link to a journal article about the incident from a use in a discussion or introduction article. I would also fish around for related genes\/conditions in OMIM because--if it's not lactose intolerance and it's been researched--it's probably in there somewhere. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"I also want to point out that \"Africa\" is not a particularly accurate way of indicating much beyond the continent. It is massive, properly massive, containing over 50 separate countries, thousands of different cultures, languages, peoples etc. It's a very Western reductionist notion that the term Africa describes something specific. It really doesn't. For example, there are many cultures \/ groups of people in Africa that are heavily dependent on cattle, and grow up drinking cow's milk. Rule of thumb: any reference to \"Africa\" as a generic term for people in Africa is highly likely to be reductionist enough to qualify as racism in some people's eyes, even if inadvertent. The place is too large, too diverse, and simply cannot be contained in the phrase \"African\". It is effectively meaningless when applied to almost anything other than statements about the continent as a whole. Handle with care!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15647.0,"score_ratio":1.6470588235} {"post_id":"3q1mpm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"How tightly are marriage and religion tied together throughout history? Can we possibly tell whether one appeared significantly before the other?","c_root_id_A":"cwbad86","c_root_id_B":"cwbcgsj","created_at_utc_A":1445705779,"created_at_utc_B":1445709396,"score_A":16,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The problem is that religion definitely emerged in pre-history, before there are any written records. Some of the earliest archaeological sites discovered are thought to be religious in nature. Therefore it is basically impossible to know how old it is. Moreover marriage is extremely old too. And it is impossible to know if there were forgotten rites which signified a relationship (like giving someone a necklace, for example) which go right back into pre-history and are impossible to trace. So unfortunately it isn't really possible to answer the question of which appeared first.","human_ref_B":"As \/u\/parkway_parkway noted, your second question is difficult to answer. But we can say a fair amount about your first question. > How tightly are marriage and religion tied together throughout history? This varies from culture to culture. For European\/Christian culture, the answer is, not nearly as tightly as many suppose. In particular, marriage was a mostly civil thing throughout the first millenium of Christianity. Some couples requested the church's blessing on their marriage, but there was not the idea that the church actually *married* people. Marriage was not declared to be one of the seven sacraments until the 12th century (Council of Verona, 1184), and witnessed marriages officiated by priests did not become a requirement in the Roman Catholic Church until the 16th century (Council of Trent, 1536). Reference: History of the Sacrament of Matrimony. So, we know little about the origins of either marriage or religion, but historians know a great deal about how they became intertwined. I therefore suggest that your first question -- suitably reformulated -- might be better asked on \/r\/AskHistorians. (\"Reformulated\" because they prefer more focused questions over there. Asking about something \"throughout history\" is frowned upon.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3617.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"1htfvo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"I'm somewhat amazed that this has not been asked before... What are some of the weirdest or more unusual sexual practices throughout history as well as today? I used the search function, but found nothing too relevant to this topic. So either it's not allowed (and this post will be deleted) or it is and nobody has dared to ask it yet. I'm aware of some tribes, which have peculiar sexual habits involving children, but that's probably the extent of my knowledge on the weird and the unusual. (Weird and unusual to a modern Western viewer, anyway.)","c_root_id_A":"caxuc1v","c_root_id_B":"caxu8zm","created_at_utc_A":1373237830,"created_at_utc_B":1373237560,"score_A":28,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"While we're on the topic of unfamiliar sexual practices, many societies in South America, including the well-know Paraguayan Ache, practice partible paternity. This is the belief that it takes the semen of more than one man to create a child. In the Ache, and possibly other groups, women have one primary partner and a number of secondary partners who generally contribute to raising her child. For more on this topic, put partible paternity into Google scholar. There are some very good articles on it including \"Evolutionary history of partible paternity in lowland South America\" by Walker et al, 2010.","human_ref_B":"Quite a few aboriginal societies in central and western Australia practice something called subincision. It's an initiation rite, rather than a sexual practice... But it does have some affect on sex... Males in their teens have their penises sliced down the eurethra. It means that you pee and.. Other things from the base of the penis. Australian Aborigines are among the only hunter-gatherer societies known to have high levels of polygyny.. some have argued that subincision is practised as it reduces the risk of cuckoldry - it is a lot harder to get someone pregnant if you have a cut through your urethra. I'm not sure if I buy this theory, but it is at least interesting! Subincision is something I would advise against Googling....","labels":1,"seconds_difference":270.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"1htfvo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"I'm somewhat amazed that this has not been asked before... What are some of the weirdest or more unusual sexual practices throughout history as well as today? I used the search function, but found nothing too relevant to this topic. So either it's not allowed (and this post will be deleted) or it is and nobody has dared to ask it yet. I'm aware of some tribes, which have peculiar sexual habits involving children, but that's probably the extent of my knowledge on the weird and the unusual. (Weird and unusual to a modern Western viewer, anyway.)","c_root_id_A":"cay0jjm","c_root_id_B":"caxupat","created_at_utc_A":1373257259,"created_at_utc_B":1373239000,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Some Greek men, and men from other cultures, practiced inter-femoral (between the thighs) sex when they had relations with younger men, rather than practice anal sex.","human_ref_B":"I regret I can't remember which culture but years ago my Anthro teacher told us about a group of agriculturalists in tropical Africa who would dig a hole and fuck the earth at the beginning of the growing season. The point of the lecture was that it seemed preposterous to outsiders - including other local tribes! - but it was an imporrant religious practice to \"inseminate\" the earth so she would bear fruit. Later in the semester we got into how religion is the meta-adaptive part of culture, and how things that seem superstitious or arbitrary may give a valuable advantage when performed in context of one culture's environs. That's when the lights started clicking on for me....dang, I miss Anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18259.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"2ycznx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why do \"modern\" societies in general view sex and sexuality as something shameful or taboo? Was told this sub would be good for this question. Why do \"modern\" societies in general view sex and sexuality as something shameful or taboo? I'm not taking modern to mean western, more like... Not tribal, maybe? Basically, why did the human race change from (I assume) looking at sex as something natural or normal to something you shouldn't talk about at dinner parties? I have asked that question to some people and almost always the answer has something to do with the religion and the church, but, is that really all there is to it?","c_root_id_A":"cp8pb99","c_root_id_B":"cp8qh9x","created_at_utc_A":1425865352,"created_at_utc_B":1425867631,"score_A":9,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Honestly the answers to your questions are extremely long and complicated going through several discussions of history and society in different places as everyone in the world looks at this a bit differently. Honestly I would have to spend a ton of time to write out anything and because I am not an expert on this would probably get things wrong. I will recommend some books from when I studied this back in school though. The Transformation of Intimacy by Anthony Giddens and (small parts from)The Origins of Sex If you are looking for something a bit freeer I believe the History Channel is running a series on sex in history but I don't know how good that may be. My $0.02 is that a great majority of our current views were likely formed around the time of the Reformation when the Christian religion was spiting up and reforming itself. And that would be a good time to look into to see where things started, but that is only a mildly educated guess. Edit: assuming by modern you mean Americas\/Europe. If you mean everyone then see the above but about 100X more complicated.","human_ref_B":"Your premise is faulty. Not all \"modern\" societies feel the same about sex. France feels about sex a LOT different to the United States. And the same can be said that not all non-modern societies feel the same about sex either. The question might be better rephrased as why does the United States see sex as something shameful or taboo.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2279.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"2ycznx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why do \"modern\" societies in general view sex and sexuality as something shameful or taboo? Was told this sub would be good for this question. Why do \"modern\" societies in general view sex and sexuality as something shameful or taboo? I'm not taking modern to mean western, more like... Not tribal, maybe? Basically, why did the human race change from (I assume) looking at sex as something natural or normal to something you shouldn't talk about at dinner parties? I have asked that question to some people and almost always the answer has something to do with the religion and the church, but, is that really all there is to it?","c_root_id_A":"cp8pb99","c_root_id_B":"cp8zewx","created_at_utc_A":1425865352,"created_at_utc_B":1425894517,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Honestly the answers to your questions are extremely long and complicated going through several discussions of history and society in different places as everyone in the world looks at this a bit differently. Honestly I would have to spend a ton of time to write out anything and because I am not an expert on this would probably get things wrong. I will recommend some books from when I studied this back in school though. The Transformation of Intimacy by Anthony Giddens and (small parts from)The Origins of Sex If you are looking for something a bit freeer I believe the History Channel is running a series on sex in history but I don't know how good that may be. My $0.02 is that a great majority of our current views were likely formed around the time of the Reformation when the Christian religion was spiting up and reforming itself. And that would be a good time to look into to see where things started, but that is only a mildly educated guess. Edit: assuming by modern you mean Americas\/Europe. If you mean everyone then see the above but about 100X more complicated.","human_ref_B":"I don't have my notes with me, they're in storage while I'm doing my fieldwork, but I would say it has just as much to do with the development of an upwardly-mobile middle class, and ideas about personal privacy as it does with religion. I'd think that examining the context in Europe and America where living and sleeping areas became separated (and then individualised even further, so each person can have his or her own sleeping room), first for noble and upper classes and then for middle classes would be quite productive in answering your question. Also, if you really love reading a lot, probably the most well-known work on the subject would be Foucault's *History of Sexuality* which comes in three huge bloody volumes! Part 1, *The Will to Knowledge*; Part 2, *The Use of Pleasure*; and Part 3, *The Care of the Self*. In Volume 1, Foucault's goal is to debunk the idea that European society repressed discourses on sex between the 17th-20th centuries, and to argue that there was loads of talk about sex, but that it became increasingly science-ified. I haven't read Volume 2. Volume 3 deals a lot with Greek and Roman ideas about sex and also about the formation of the idea of the individual self, and how this is tied to sexuality. He did complete much of the work on Volume 4 before his death, addressing Christianity specifically, but it was never published. You don't necessarily have to agree with Foucault, but if you want to approach questions of sexuality in the humanities and in some of the social sciences, you pretty much have to *read* Foucault.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29165.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"44cprp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Have lost texts or hidden histories been discovered that rewrote our understanding of certain cultures? I have heard of certain 'secret histories' that have provided an alternate view of historical events, such as Procopius's \"Secret History\" about the reign of Emperor Justinian. Have there been other examples, perhaps some that were later corroborated?","c_root_id_A":"czpf7wd","c_root_id_B":"czpg8bq","created_at_utc_A":1454714845,"created_at_utc_B":1454716540,"score_A":4,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I also find this really interesting. Most of what we know from records was written by the rich and literate, meaning they could shape it however they wanted for their own legacy.","human_ref_B":"You should crosspost to askhistorians","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1695.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"5d9lhi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Have women predominantly been the ones with long hair in most cultures? How many examples are there of cultures where men and women have long hair as a norm, or short hair as a norm?","c_root_id_A":"da3l41o","c_root_id_B":"da3xdyb","created_at_utc_A":1479345321,"created_at_utc_B":1479366059,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"One recent anecdote which frames the questions of hair length as a presentation of gender is China. Traditionally Chinese women would wear their hair longer but the cultural revolution made short hair the more popular trend for women because it was a sign of working along side men. Long hair was seen as being a symbol of the lazy and the aristocratic. Modern China's women were to be powerful, active and equal along side their male comrades. Gradually over the last 30 years, we've seen this ideal die along with the Maoist zeal and hair length become more on par with most of the rest of the world.","human_ref_B":"I can't answer your primary question with certainty, however I can give you a few examples of cultures that fit what you're looking for: In many ancient cultures, long hair was a symbol of social status for *both* women and men. Practically speaking, the short version is: poor guy doesn't have the means, time, and reason to upkeep long hair; rich guy does. You see this basic trend throughout quite a number of older civilizations, ranging from Rome to Egypt, all throughout Europe, all throughout Asia, Pacific Islanders, some Native American cultures... the list goes on. In China, up to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, long hair often denoted various things, ranging from wealth to respect or even political loyalty. In Ancient Korea and Japan, long hair was similarly a sign of social status- you bet the elite (both men and women) would grow magnificently long hair (and pin them into braids or topknots), and it was even an encouraged mode of respectable dress for military officials, such as police captains during the Joseon period, or samurai. For the Gaelic Irish, long hair for men was quite normalized until the English came along and whatnot. Some Native American tribes whose men historically grew out their hair include the Sioux (Here's Sitting Bull), Comanche, Cheyenne, and generally most of the Plains tribes. I could go on so very broadly speaking, if you were not a man of esteem, education, wealth, or piety, or power, you did not have long hair. So, long hairstyles for men was quite popular or at least seen as favorable in many places around the world. However, variation in hairstyle has always been around, and just because a many men favored long braids during X era or culture doesn't mean that EVERY man did, or even most- many had theirs short, others sported a medium-length, for all sorts of reasons ranging from religious to practicality to just personal choice, much like today. It's also worth noting that in many of the cultures I listed, if long hair on men was desirable, it was the same for women. I would love to learn more about any cultures where women sported short hair, and men (of similar rank, piety, so on) traditionally had theirs much longer, however I haven't come across any that I can recall right now. As for modern cultures, off the top of my head I can think of many Sikh, who do not cut their hair for religious reasons, as well as M\u0101ori and Native American men who may enjoy keeping long hair in cultural respect or connection. Edit: apologies for lack of citations, will provide if asked. First time posting here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20738.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"7yftzu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it realistically possible to go to live with an extant hunter-gatherer society for an extended period of time to learn how to live that way? If so how? There is a _lot_ of personal context to this question and my own reasons for wanting to do this. If you're interested or think it's important I explain, I can elaborate, but I won't bore you now. I want to learn about the realities of hunter-gatherer life, especially in 'primitive' (not reliant on modern technologies) societies\/tribes\/bands. My question is whether this is realistically possible by going to live, alone (as in not taking a camera crew or similar) as a member of such a society, for _at least_ a couple of years. And If the answer to the above is 'yes, it is possible', my next question is 'how and where?'. I can't find a comprehensive resource for modern hunter-gatherer societies anywhere. Even I could, I wouldn't know where to begin with approaching such a society, with language, etiquette, or contact (know any Sentinelese with a Reddit account?). Any and all help and advice is appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"dugu0mh","c_root_id_B":"dugd8px","created_at_utc_A":1519000138,"created_at_utc_B":1518981142,"score_A":44,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"This is probably a bad idea. Going by the fact that you refer to them as \"primitive\" is an indicator you are not really quite sure what you are getting into. Even trained ethnographers will have trouble their first time to a new place. You'd also need to learn the language. The closest thing is tribal tourism, though a lot of it is ethically dubious IMO. If you want comprehensive sources to start on, I'd suggest Robert L. Kelly's The Foraging Spectrum and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by Lee and Daly.","human_ref_B":"The hadza tribe in Tanzania seem accepting of strangers. You can get hooked up with them easily enough. They showed me how to make arrows from the bushes around me, straighten them with my teeth, fletch it with the feather of a bird tied on with bark from a plant. They had nails hammered into arrow heads that they tied on with bark. Fibers actually. We didn't share a common language, so all communications was by gestures. But that works well enough. It was pretty obvious that they were explaining about the poison they put on their arrows. I couldn't figure out where the poison comes from, the root of some plant. I was camping in Tanzania and they would just wander into camp. Two or three usually. They'd sit in a bush near the fire and make arrows. An elephant had killed a villager nearby and they were waiting for the police to kill it so they could get some of its meat.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18996.0,"score_ratio":1.1578947368} {"post_id":"7yftzu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Is it realistically possible to go to live with an extant hunter-gatherer society for an extended period of time to learn how to live that way? If so how? There is a _lot_ of personal context to this question and my own reasons for wanting to do this. If you're interested or think it's important I explain, I can elaborate, but I won't bore you now. I want to learn about the realities of hunter-gatherer life, especially in 'primitive' (not reliant on modern technologies) societies\/tribes\/bands. My question is whether this is realistically possible by going to live, alone (as in not taking a camera crew or similar) as a member of such a society, for _at least_ a couple of years. And If the answer to the above is 'yes, it is possible', my next question is 'how and where?'. I can't find a comprehensive resource for modern hunter-gatherer societies anywhere. Even I could, I wouldn't know where to begin with approaching such a society, with language, etiquette, or contact (know any Sentinelese with a Reddit account?). Any and all help and advice is appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"dugfvxi","c_root_id_B":"dugu0mh","created_at_utc_A":1518984067,"created_at_utc_B":1519000138,"score_A":13,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"They are more pastoral, but the Masaai tribe in kenya\/ Tanzania are extremely welcoming of strangers. I met many tourists there who had lived with them for a while, even though they have some practices that are jarring to westerners. The Hadza also live in Tanzania. I've never met anyone who has lived with them, but apparently they are extremely welcoming, peaceful, and smoke lots of marijuana for fun.","human_ref_B":"This is probably a bad idea. Going by the fact that you refer to them as \"primitive\" is an indicator you are not really quite sure what you are getting into. Even trained ethnographers will have trouble their first time to a new place. You'd also need to learn the language. The closest thing is tribal tourism, though a lot of it is ethically dubious IMO. If you want comprehensive sources to start on, I'd suggest Robert L. Kelly's The Foraging Spectrum and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, edited by Lee and Daly.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16071.0,"score_ratio":3.3846153846} {"post_id":"3qt1g1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Does this genetic study overturn migration of Aryans into India ? \"Biologist Gyaneshwar Chaubey from an Estonian research centre and his collaborators in India say their genetic analysis suggests India has not witnessed any massive influx of populations for at least 12,500 years.\" (www.telegraphindia.com\/1150628\/jsp\/nation\/story_28288.jsp#.VjJPFJm6bqB) This is the paper as far as I can tell.. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/26061398 Can anyone comment on the plausibility of this theory, or he validity of the genetic analysis ?","c_root_id_A":"cwia7e9","c_root_id_B":"cwiesel","created_at_utc_A":1446208894,"created_at_utc_B":1446217515,"score_A":4,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"> Aryans Is that a clinical anthropology term?","human_ref_B":"I think this is a case of hindu nationalists using a specific type of genetic comparison to try to prove the theory that India has been pure and invasion-free. For invasions, Y-chromosomes are much more suitable as evidence, because invaders are usually all male, and eons later, you can still determine if some male has paternal ancestry that shows he migrated from some other area. Because the Y chromosome doesn't change. The test displayed here shows that India is a place where various Indian populations are mixed with various other Indian populations, well duh... any invader must eventually mix into the local population... after thousands of years, they will mostly be of the same genetic composition as the majority in that land... but if you look at Y-chromosomes of the males, you can clearly see that some ancestor of theirs came from another land - in India, the Y-chromosomes of priest and warrior castes are more closely related to males from Central Asia or Eastern Europe than they are to males from other castes, or from southern India. Even if we completely disregard genetics, written history has seen a bunch of invasions into India from the likes of Kushans, various Iranian peoples, various Turkic invasions etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8621.0,"score_ratio":4.25} {"post_id":"1wnw14","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When did smoking become a thing? Is it universal to all cultures? It seems strange to suddenly want to inhale the biproducts of combusting various objects. When did people start doing this? Why? What were the first things smoked?","c_root_id_A":"cf42po2","c_root_id_B":"cf3s9xx","created_at_utc_A":1391218828,"created_at_utc_B":1391195381,"score_A":19,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Rodrigo de Jerez, a crew member of Columbus's expedition to the New World, was considered to be the first European smoker of tobacco and, supposedly, was arrested by Spanish Inquisitors upon his return because it was thought that only the devil could teach a man to inhale smoke. If someone has some better sources, I'd be very interested in them. Googling around I didn't find anything that I'd be comfortable using in a paper to support this assertion and it looks like it might be long-standing hear-say.","human_ref_B":"Campfires and slash and burn agriculture are a great way to discover the effects of breathing in smoke from various products. That's just a simple answer to the first part of your question; as to the cultural history of smoking, that's for the experts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23447.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"zwl1k9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Archaeology Field School Question Hi! Apologies if this is not the right forum to post on, feel free to point me towards a better one. I am graduating this May with a BA in anthropology and a minor in classical archaeology (not necessarily the type of archaeology I wanted to study, just the type my college offered). Because of the COVID pandemic, I am only now applying for field schools for this upcoming summer. I have narrowed down to three options (all accredited), with one in the US and two in Europe (Ireland and Italy). The Italy school focuses more on museum conservation archaeology and is associated with a museum, while the schools in Ireland and the US are associated with field sites like field schools traditionally are. I am not planning on going into academia, but I am interested in museum work and am planning to get a job as a field technician prior to applying to graduate programs and after field school. All three field schools are approximately the same price (US one is a bit less expensive, especially bc I am American). Any suggestions on which field school to choose? Should I apply to all three and then choose? Is one better than the other two? Or does it really matter if I just want to learn excavation techniques and then settle on a archaeological region through a field technician position?","c_root_id_A":"j1xtcfy","c_root_id_B":"j1w15ck","created_at_utc_A":1672202538,"created_at_utc_B":1672173834,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It would make sense to build connections where you are going to work but I would also say, you probably won\u2019t have many chances to go and work abroad. I\u2019ve worked in CRM and museums and honestly it doesn\u2019t seem like it matters that much. We really need field techs so I don\u2019t think you will have an issue getting a job no matter where you go. Like someone else said, you will have to learn a lot on your first couple of jobs anyways. I would just do the one that seems the most fun and interesting. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"Hello! Great call that you're planning to go to field school at this stage! As a former hiring manager of archaeology field techs, field school is definitely something I looked for. If you want a US-based job, I would do a US-based field school (I agree with \/u\/retarredroof about why). If you ultimately plan to work in museums, I am not sure that any field school at all is really necessary, but it depends on what you want to do. There are lots of different kinds of museum jobs. You referenced conservation - that is one kind of museum job and if that's what you want to do, then the Italy field school would probably get you the most exposure to that kind of work and may lead to opportunities to grow in that way. Please note that museum jobs, including conservation jobs, are incredibly competitive and attending this field school does not differentiate you in the slightest from others applying to those kinds of jobs. It just might set you on a better path or provide networking opportunities to further your career. Here's some general career advice\/a big overview of museums. At the top of the spectrum of jobs - Big museum curator jobs are generally academic type jobs and they are looking for people with PhDs, which means you'd have to get really deep into academia to pursue those jobs. This route likely requires field school, but also would be pretty intensely academic. These jobs are INSANELY competitive. Conservation type jobs - There are very few museums that have conservation labs. The Getty in California is one of the big well-known ones. What that means is that these kinds of jobs are super competitive. The people that I know that have these types of jobs have lots of background in things like chemistry and materials science. They are not archaeologists. Mid-range jobs - There are lots of collections assistants and people who perform laboratory work at museums. The people that I know who have these jobs mostly have master's degrees and worked as archaeologists for a while before working in museums. They transitioned from the field tech job to the laboratory tech job and then managed to transition into a museum. This route likely requires field school. These jobs and intensely competitive. Other jobs - There are lots and lots of other jobs in museums. I recommend taking a look at the kinds of job openings in museums to familiarize yourself with the options before going the grad school in Anthropology\/archaeology route to make sure that's really what you want. Volunteering - A fantastic way to build your resume for this kind of work is to use all of your spare time\/down time\/time between jobs to volunteer in a museum. Lots of museums are underfunded and they get LOTS of work done with volunteer help. You can do things like collections volunteering (working in the lab) to tour-guide\/docent volunteering. This would give you a good idea of what work in a museum would actually look like so that you can make decisions from there. There are several books about the different kinds of jobs at museums, one is called \"Museum Careers: A Practical Guide for Students and Novices.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28704.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed524hw","c_root_id_B":"ed59fbx","created_at_utc_A":1546508736,"created_at_utc_B":1546519079,"score_A":23,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"Let's assume this is even true in the first place (can anyone verify the numbers?), what you wrote is: > Why are **most** neanderthal finds male? This implies that not all of them are - and that we have some female ones. Therefore how can the conclusion be that there's a female version that isn't classified as neanderthalensis when this already implies that there are already females? I'm a bit confused by the thought process here...","human_ref_B":"About zero. a\/ How does he explain the female Neanderthal remains that his claim suggests exists (if almost all are male, the rest must be female). b\/ Homo erectus remains go back a million years or more more than NT. How do you explain that there were female Neanders (which we call H.Erectus) for over a million years before the males. Its a long time to wait. c\/No one, but him, seem to think that skeletons this different are merely different sexes of the same species. Whats the odds he's cracked on to The Great Mystery that no one else has? As to why there is more males (assuming thats even true). a\/ Science doesnt NEED to answer that right now, it just is. If at some stage people thing there is a statistically significant pattern emerging then answers may be looked for, but not found. b\/ As \/u\/wrensandrobbins says, this may nothing more than simple cultural reasons. You can make any guess you like there. \"Women belong to the sky, they must be buried in the trees' 'Men belong to the dark, they must be buried in caves or hollows'.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10343.0,"score_ratio":2.5652173913} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed51qau","c_root_id_B":"ed59fbx","created_at_utc_A":1546508022,"created_at_utc_B":1546519079,"score_A":15,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"Perhaps we must consider the circumstances of which a body would be preserved, or perhaps burial traditions or a lack thereof for different sexes. I know that in many cultures males would be buried while females might not be or perhaps cremated. There are numerous circumstances that could produce such results, although your professor's theory seems like a very long reach that really doesn't make much sense.","human_ref_B":"About zero. a\/ How does he explain the female Neanderthal remains that his claim suggests exists (if almost all are male, the rest must be female). b\/ Homo erectus remains go back a million years or more more than NT. How do you explain that there were female Neanders (which we call H.Erectus) for over a million years before the males. Its a long time to wait. c\/No one, but him, seem to think that skeletons this different are merely different sexes of the same species. Whats the odds he's cracked on to The Great Mystery that no one else has? As to why there is more males (assuming thats even true). a\/ Science doesnt NEED to answer that right now, it just is. If at some stage people thing there is a statistically significant pattern emerging then answers may be looked for, but not found. b\/ As \/u\/wrensandrobbins says, this may nothing more than simple cultural reasons. You can make any guess you like there. \"Women belong to the sky, they must be buried in the trees' 'Men belong to the dark, they must be buried in caves or hollows'.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11057.0,"score_ratio":3.9333333333} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed59fbx","c_root_id_B":"ed555gf","created_at_utc_A":1546519079,"created_at_utc_B":1546513995,"score_A":59,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"About zero. a\/ How does he explain the female Neanderthal remains that his claim suggests exists (if almost all are male, the rest must be female). b\/ Homo erectus remains go back a million years or more more than NT. How do you explain that there were female Neanders (which we call H.Erectus) for over a million years before the males. Its a long time to wait. c\/No one, but him, seem to think that skeletons this different are merely different sexes of the same species. Whats the odds he's cracked on to The Great Mystery that no one else has? As to why there is more males (assuming thats even true). a\/ Science doesnt NEED to answer that right now, it just is. If at some stage people thing there is a statistically significant pattern emerging then answers may be looked for, but not found. b\/ As \/u\/wrensandrobbins says, this may nothing more than simple cultural reasons. You can make any guess you like there. \"Women belong to the sky, they must be buried in the trees' 'Men belong to the dark, they must be buried in caves or hollows'.","human_ref_B":"There is a possibility that it could be down to an amass of \\[early sociocultural\\] reasons -- e.g. The development of \\[pre-\\]Neolithic and \\[pre-\\]Palaeolithic burial customs could greatly impact archaeological findings and the conceivability of finding \\[prehistorical\\] female Homo-sapien remains. Though such anthropological and archaeological finds and the likelihood of finding more Female Neanderthals does appear too be on the rise; (on the basis of the fact that the development of more archeologically adapt technologies and the plausibility of discovering more about the culture(s) of said periods, e.g. again: burial customs, sacrificial customs, cannibalistic ritualism, etc.). ​","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5084.0,"score_ratio":19.6666666667} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed524hw","c_root_id_B":"ed51qau","created_at_utc_A":1546508736,"created_at_utc_B":1546508022,"score_A":23,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Let's assume this is even true in the first place (can anyone verify the numbers?), what you wrote is: > Why are **most** neanderthal finds male? This implies that not all of them are - and that we have some female ones. Therefore how can the conclusion be that there's a female version that isn't classified as neanderthalensis when this already implies that there are already females? I'm a bit confused by the thought process here...","human_ref_B":"Perhaps we must consider the circumstances of which a body would be preserved, or perhaps burial traditions or a lack thereof for different sexes. I know that in many cultures males would be buried while females might not be or perhaps cremated. There are numerous circumstances that could produce such results, although your professor's theory seems like a very long reach that really doesn't make much sense.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":714.0,"score_ratio":1.5333333333} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed5dyk0","c_root_id_B":"ed555gf","created_at_utc_A":1546523884,"created_at_utc_B":1546513995,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This guy's a teacher? Yeesh. ​ As others have said, there's really no way to know why more finds would be identified as male, but the reasons (if that's true) could be numerous. Finds are often fragmentary, and may be misattributed. It's also possible it has something to do with how neanderthals treated their deceased. We have evidence they practiced some form of ceremonial burial\/disposal, and if that varied between the sexes, that could contribute significantly to how the remains were preserved. When looking at fossil evidence in any field from anthropology and archaeology to paleontology, it's important to remember that finds do not represent an accurate picture of the past, only an idea of the animals and peoples that died in such a way that their remains were well preserved. There are some general assumptions you can make in the fields, such as the fact that hadrosaur fossils are so abundant that they must have been very widespread, but you can't make assumptions about your knowledge of the actual diversity of species or that you even have evidence for half of the species in a given ecosystem, especially in ecosystems that don't have regular flooding. For archaeology, we have similar problems. We can only see remains which aren't desiccated by predators or destroyed by natural processes. If a body was left out in the open air\/sun it might be picked apart by scavengers and scattered, or eroded by the wind and other elements.","human_ref_B":"There is a possibility that it could be down to an amass of \\[early sociocultural\\] reasons -- e.g. The development of \\[pre-\\]Neolithic and \\[pre-\\]Palaeolithic burial customs could greatly impact archaeological findings and the conceivability of finding \\[prehistorical\\] female Homo-sapien remains. Though such anthropological and archaeological finds and the likelihood of finding more Female Neanderthals does appear too be on the rise; (on the basis of the fact that the development of more archeologically adapt technologies and the plausibility of discovering more about the culture(s) of said periods, e.g. again: burial customs, sacrificial customs, cannibalistic ritualism, etc.). ​","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9889.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ac397e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are most neanderthal finds male? I recently learned in my intro to anthrobio class that almost all Neanderthal remains we\u2019ve found have been identified as male - can we think of any reason why that might be? My prof suggested maybe Homo erectus could be the female version of Homo sapiens neanderthalis - how likely could this be?","c_root_id_A":"ed555gf","c_root_id_B":"ed6dgcj","created_at_utc_A":1546513995,"created_at_utc_B":1546549856,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There is a possibility that it could be down to an amass of \\[early sociocultural\\] reasons -- e.g. The development of \\[pre-\\]Neolithic and \\[pre-\\]Palaeolithic burial customs could greatly impact archaeological findings and the conceivability of finding \\[prehistorical\\] female Homo-sapien remains. Though such anthropological and archaeological finds and the likelihood of finding more Female Neanderthals does appear too be on the rise; (on the basis of the fact that the development of more archeologically adapt technologies and the plausibility of discovering more about the culture(s) of said periods, e.g. again: burial customs, sacrificial customs, cannibalistic ritualism, etc.). ​","human_ref_B":"I don't believe this is accurate. You must have either misunderstood your professor, or they were saying things based on their own perception. The vast majority of Neanderthal remains we have are fragmented, so we don't know what sex they have. Secondly, of the ones we do have, I can't recall anyone suggesting there are many more males than females. What there is, however, is a disproportionate number of complete children and elderly. Regardless, the reason I struggle to believe that a professor would say this is simple; it means nothing. Because there are very few intact remains to begin with, even if things were disproportionate it just means we've found more males than females. To answer the second part of your question, I echo u\/thecna2: About zero.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35861.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"9e3zc4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"why does the Venus of Willendorf's head look the way it does? https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/5\/50\/Venus\\_von\\_Willendorf\\_01.jpg\/220px-Venus\\_von\\_Willendorf\\_01.jpg ​ Is she wearing some kind of hat? Does she deliberately have an inhuman head? Is it supposed to be hair, like in this amazing knit recreation? ​ https:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-26-at-2.47.24-PM.png ​ I guess, what I'm asking is... I'm creating a comic book in which she appears briefly and we don't know how to draw her head. The best case scenario for us is to draw her with a face, so she can be expressive, but we'd prefer to be as faithful to the figurine as possible. We just can't figure out what her head is supposed to depict.","c_root_id_A":"e5mrp8w","c_root_id_B":"e5mchap","created_at_utc_A":1536443379,"created_at_utc_B":1536428432,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Skeletons with beads covering their heads have been interpreted as beaded hats or beads strung on the hair, this appears to be what the Venus of willendorf is wearing","human_ref_B":"I also used this figure as a basis for an illustrated character, but went monstrous with it so the odd proportions and freaky, faceless head played well with the theme. I think if you represented it as hair with the face turned down and the chin tucked in, you would be in a reasonable place. You can then raise the face to reveal features, and allow your needs for the character to determine the details. If she's meant to be erotic and beautiful, make it so.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14947.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"9e3zc4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"why does the Venus of Willendorf's head look the way it does? https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/5\/50\/Venus\\_von\\_Willendorf\\_01.jpg\/220px-Venus\\_von\\_Willendorf\\_01.jpg ​ Is she wearing some kind of hat? Does she deliberately have an inhuman head? Is it supposed to be hair, like in this amazing knit recreation? ​ https:\/\/media.boingboing.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-26-at-2.47.24-PM.png ​ I guess, what I'm asking is... I'm creating a comic book in which she appears briefly and we don't know how to draw her head. The best case scenario for us is to draw her with a face, so she can be expressive, but we'd prefer to be as faithful to the figurine as possible. We just can't figure out what her head is supposed to depict.","c_root_id_A":"e5mywk2","c_root_id_B":"e5n3xbj","created_at_utc_A":1536450605,"created_at_utc_B":1536456022,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It's not a realistic representation, it's relatively abstract. The artist focused on the features important to them: breasts and butt. Those are exaggerated in size. The face was apparently not important to them, so they didn't bother with it. The same seems goes for legs and arms: they are there, but apparently considered less important and so they are kept unnaturally small. One can only speculate why the face was unimportant. Maybe she was supposed to be a generic idol or goddess and not a specific person. Maybe she was a fertility\/health charm and so only those body parts related to this mattered. Maybe the artist didn't know how to sculpt a face.","human_ref_B":"It's impossible to know with certainty if it was a hat or hair, but there's little reason to suspect that it's anything other than hair. You'll find many statues with definite hair that look similar to the Venus of Willendorf's style if you do an image search for: ancient OR prehistoric stylized hair statue Realism is not always a goal, and since the rest of the venus' sculpture is highly stylized (not realistic), so we should not be expecting a realistic representation of hair. Compare the statue to its rough contemporary: https:\/\/www.wikiwand.com\/en\/Venus_of_Brassempouy The Brassempouy statue is still stylized, though more realistic in comparison, with unrealistic hair. Look across culture\/time and you'll find many more recent sculptures with stylized hair that look like the Venus of Willendorf: https:\/\/www.mfa.org\/collections\/ancient-world\/tour\/egyptian-art https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/253370 You can pick almost any Buddhist culture (e.g. Japan's) and look at their sculpture and find that the stylized hair of the Buddha follows a similar pattern, even though his hair is written as curly. His hair does not look at all natural, because realism was not a goal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5417.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"24z205","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What were humans doing prior to the last ice age 10k years ago? The oldest civilization I have been able to find was only founded in 7500 BC. My guess is that civilizations started sprouting up around this one because of the invention of agriculture. But do we have any idea what was happening before the last ice age? It seems like I have seen several events recently that all took place around 10k years ago. For example, agriculture was invented, the ice age happened, the first civilizations were formed, and humans inherited the gene for blue eyes. So what happened before?","c_root_id_A":"chc3hmu","c_root_id_B":"chc3p7v","created_at_utc_A":1399492519,"created_at_utc_B":1399492934,"score_A":17,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The earth was not in an ice age (glacial period) 10 kya years ago, it was already in the current interglacial period. The last glacial period ended around 15 kya and the last glacial maximum was around 25 kya. Anyway, before the rise of civilization came the rise of modern human behavior around 50 kya (that is the generally accepted date, based on Paleolithic artwork and burials I would argue that modern human behavior came about around 80 kya). Behavioral modernity is essentially the appearance of what we would now call culture, the ability to come up with unique ideas and solutions, and advanced communication skills. From there we have gotten more complex and our ability to create and interact has snowballed into the world we have today. Humans became anatomically modern around 200 kya and have been rapidly advancing ever since. Generally speaking, prior to the introduction of agriculture the vast majority of people were foragers (hunter-gatherers). If you're looking for more info I would suggest looking up \"Stone Age humans\" or \"Paleolithic humans.\" The wikipedia page on the Stone Age might be a good place to start, the citations seem reliable. The book \"The Human Career\" by Richard Klein does a good job of describing human history and it's an easy read.","human_ref_B":"Just to be a little nit-picky, 10k years ago is considered to be the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the Holocene. The way the question is worded makes it look like you're saying that the last ice age started 10k years ago. And by last ice age, I assume you mean the last glacial advance and not the whole span of the Pleistocene, which lasted about two million years. So sorry for the semantic stuff, we just love getting bogged down in that, don't we? So I'm going to assume you're asking about what was going on between 20,000 (the Last Galcial Maximum) and 10,000 (end of the Pleistocene) years ago. In my particular field of research, quite a lot happened, since that's when people arrived in the Americas. Basically, this is the interval in which humans reached every habitable continent on Earth, so that's kind of a big deal. Questions of when, how, and from where these people arrived in the Americas continues to stir quite a bit of debate among archaeologists. But we do know that people were well enough established in the North America to spawn the Clovis complex by 13,000 years ago. At roughly the same time, fishtail points that may be technologically related to Clovis appear in South America. These people were hunter-gatherers, and agriculture did not appear for several thousand years longer yet (although Tom Dillehay is finding some evidence to push limited cultivation back to 10k in South America). Many of the initial Clovis sites in North America were mammoth kill sites (which is no small feat, obviously). For a long time it had been assumed that this meant that people during the Clovis period were specialized big game hunters who brought about many of the extinctions that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene. But now most archaeologists would agree that the reality is more complicated, with the extreme climatic swings of the Younger Dryas also playing a large role. At the same time, the Clovis complex is starting to look like it had a more varied subsistence base, and was not always as highly mobile as we had originally assumed. So, I guess the moral of my story is: don't rule out the hunter-gatherers! And there was plenty that was going on in the Old World during this time as well (*cough* G\u00f6bekli Tepe *cough*).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":415.0,"score_ratio":1.0588235294} {"post_id":"6yno7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"\"We in the modern West live in the least racist and least sexist society to ever exist.\" True or false? Why\/why not? General thoughts? I know this question is probably tricky and will depend a lot on what's meant by \"racist\" and \"sexist\" etc., but I'm interested in nuanced answers as it seems like this statement strikes some as common-sense and others as obviously deluded.","c_root_id_A":"dmpav44","c_root_id_B":"dmp1fde","created_at_utc_A":1504819633,"created_at_utc_B":1504809086,"score_A":19,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"\"Racism\" and \"Sexism\" are simply modern western ideas. You can say that someone or something is racist or that ours is the least sexist society to ever exist only because you have the idea of racism and sexism. These concepts aren't useful when you have to describe ancient societies like, say, the romans, simply because they didn't have the concept of race, or they didn't have our concept of race. This is not to say that non-presentday non-westerners can't be racist. It is to say that the ideas of \"racism\" and \"sexism\" are not universals and, especially when applied to past civilizations, don't always make sense. Therefore, I think it's hard to give a meaningful answer to your question.","human_ref_B":"False, the western world might be more equal in concerns to gender than for a long time but this is quite a new development. From Silvia Federicis book Caliban and the Witch it becomes quite apparent that it's basically a downward trend from the late middle ages to the early 20th century in concerns to womens rights, treatment and equality in the west. Basically women had a lot more power in the household and economy in general in the feudal period than during the capitalist era. If this is not enough many societies are as good as gender neutral especially hunter gatherers and other nomadic people. In China there are areas that are to some extent matriarchys where men are excluded from ownership and power. When it comes to racism it becomes a bit harder. Racism is historically quite a new phenomena, basically dating to 15th century europe and taking its current form in the middle of the 19th. That is the idea that some people because of some inherent property is less valuable, good etc than another group and has always and will always be so. This again coupled to a power relation where these ideas can actually lead to consequences for real people in the real world. It comes with the protestant reformation in Germany and a essensialisation of jewishness where conversion cannot help. That is antisemitism is older but connected to Judaism not the jews, now it is to the jewish heritage. The same phenomena appears in Spain at about the same time also applied to muslims. The ideas develop with colonialism peaking with the 19th and early 20th century scientific racism practices in all western countries, in my own country sweden against Sami people and Roma, but also against other groups including of course the holocaust. In the US, racism takes a different form now in the domestic economy not only the international colonial economy. Racism has the main purpose of dividing black and white workers\/slaves. To make it so that white workers feel that even in their exploitation they are at least better than the N***ers. From this short historical expose we see that racism as we understand it is quite new and uniquely western. Thus the west today is less racist than a hundred or even 50years ago. But I would think you mean racism in the more general sense as hatred or aversion towards other cultural and or ethnic groups. This is probably as old as humans in groups. There are always friends and enemies. If we take the roman empire they were no fans of the Germanic barbarians, and probably had a lot of quite xenophobic ideas, but germanic tribes were integrated into the roman empire, and became a part of roman society. This is a general trend where people have fears justified or unjustified of other people but they can become united and integrated or assimilated into each other. Racism is when this is essentialised that the \"enemy\" is so because of some inherent property, that mixing is bad, that \"they\" can never be like \"us\". In conclusion, racism is new and western, thus the west now can't be the least racist society ever because it is about 500years old and uniquely western. Xenophobia and fear and hatred towards others e.g. the general use of the word racism might be quite low in the west today, even if I would argue that just during my lifetime it has increased in my home country sweden, I think it is quite low compared to many places and the west 50 years ago. Sexism is much clearer that the west is not uniquely equal not now nor historically. Sources: Silvia Federici: Caliban and the Witch George Fredrickson:Racism a Short History https:\/\/youtu.be\/WqCCx4wj79o","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10547.0,"score_ratio":1.9} {"post_id":"yf42od","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"survey of anthropology hi! i am a part-time student at a community college and am taking a survey of anthropology class- i was really excited to begin because i thought i would love anthropology, but five weeks in and we are still delving very deeply into the skull shape of hominins and archaic humans vs. primates and moderns humans. i am not against learning this, maybe it is fundamental, but we only have so much time in a quarter and i was definitely more interested in linguistic and cultural anthropology, and we haven't touched on any of that at all. is this normal for a first, low-level anthropology class? the description made it seem like it would be an overview of all the branches of anthropology. feeling discouraged, as most of this currently just goes over my (short, high, globular) head. ​ thanks!","c_root_id_A":"iu355mg","c_root_id_B":"iu2zk0f","created_at_utc_A":1666933946,"created_at_utc_B":1666930384,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I attended a community college, work at another one, and previously worked at a third as well. Sadly this seems to be common for community college anthro - all three colleges really focused on physical anthro and basically ignored cultural. I'd say consider not taking any more classes on the subject at your college so that it doesn't turn you off the subject. I transferred to a four year school where the anthro program was quite good and I managed to graduate with an anthro degree despite not having taken any classes in the subject previously (precisely because I wanted to focus on cultural anthro).","human_ref_B":"So sorry you've had an experience of an intro class focusing so much on one specialisation. Most likely the prof\/curriculum writer specialises in a more physical anthropology rather than social\/cultural\/linguistic\/etc. Content is typically left to the person teaching the class, so they naturally privilege their own speciality. But an intro course really ought to give equal weight to all subfields\/specialisations. Best bet would be to take a level 2 course that focuses on linguistics or cultural anth, if it still interests you. You can always start reading in the linguistics or cultural anth field(s) as well. I'm sure there is a thread somewhere here with some suggested readings for new students. I'd recommend starting with the history of anthropology as a discipline, starting with the oldies like Tylor, for instance, and working your way through the decades. I still read Levi-Strauss although his work seems less relevant to contemporary cultural anthropologists since the ontological turn (regrettably). I also recommend not turning your back on reading some philosophy too, if you have the time. I find quite a few cultural anthropologists read a bit in phenomenology and also philosophy of social science in particular.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3562.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"mjp166","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Archaeologists, what do you do when unlabeled artifacts from various contexts get mixed up? Because of covid I've been doing my cataloging and analysis for my dissertation project at home. I've been leaving multiple contexts of artifacts out on a desk in the living room at night so the base coat for labels can dry. So these are artifacts aren't labeled yet with pens as dividers between them and sticky notes labeling each context. My roommate got drunk tonight for the first time this entire pandemic. So this is not a normal thing for her. And she somehow ran into my desk even though it is super out of the way and knocked all of my unlabeled artifacts on the floor. There is literally no way to know what came from which context. I know how many pieces came from each one, but not which ones. It is mostly vessel glass that were cataloged in batches like \"30, colorless, unidentified container, unidentified portion of whole\" and weights for the whole group. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do? Obviously never leave things out over night again, but now i have ten contexts mixed up on the floor that I have to figure out how to deal with. They have thankfully been cataloged already.","c_root_id_A":"gtcfgf3","c_root_id_B":"gtc8twx","created_at_utc_A":1617542665,"created_at_utc_B":1617537846,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You didn\u2019t happen to take any photos when they were laying out did you? Also, do the excavation\/field notes happen to detail what are in these individual proveniences? It is definitely a good learning lesson. I\u2019ve learned a similar lesson - take pictures of your artifacts with their convenience tags as they are laid out in case this happens.","human_ref_B":"I can\u2019t guarantee it will get everything right. But I\u2019ve done a lot of correcting of this on a small scale. I go back to the notes of what was dug and inventoried. It\u2019s a long process but can work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4819.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vh09ks","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How do you keep up to date with anthropology in the non-academic world? Hi all! I studied anthropology in undergrad and LOVED it. Not enough to sit down and get a PhD and make significant contributions to the field (I don't think the field would enjoy anything I had to say), but I adored reading works from it and used the knowledge gained to critically look at the world around me. But now that I've graduated, I feel super out of touch with what's happening in anthropology and a little lost without my school's resources (I hate paywalls grr) and the guidance of my professors on what books were best, etc., and am wondering if anyone has any resources (favorite websites with articles, favorite blogs, etc) that would help one keep a little more in the loop. I particularly studied archaeological anthropology, but enjoyed learning the other branches\/reading theory.","c_root_id_A":"id5cxp4","c_root_id_B":"id5z7mq","created_at_utc_A":1655788175,"created_at_utc_B":1655806562,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"One potential thing you could do is look at programs from the SAA (Society for American Archaeology) and ask for copy of a paper given. I have had other graduate students ask for copies of my papers and one wasn't at the conference, a classmate just told them about it. A few of the different archaeological societies will have book links to particular topics that cover a topic or region. You can also check out archaeology section from publishers (i.e. University of Alabama or University of Florida Press) and can see a bunch of new books that have been published on a variety of topics. You can also just ask for feedback on here - especially if there is a particular topic you are interested in that would help people know what to recommend to you. Lastly, don't undervalue your opinion on anthropological topics. For a discipline as multidisciplinary as anthropology, the field needs more perspectives than we currently have. In the past I had professors tell me that I needed to think about something other than grad school because \"it wasn't for people like me\" and that I \"wasn't qualified to be a researcher\" - now I am a PhD student at a well respected university.","human_ref_B":"One hack I've used is to sign up to Academia and Research Gate and start following some authors you know and like. I absolutely hate algorithms, but turns out they're actually pretty good at recommending new papers based on who you've followed. It's not a complete solution, but it's going a long way in keepimg me in touch with new developments in my fields of interest.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18387.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"vh09ks","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"How do you keep up to date with anthropology in the non-academic world? Hi all! I studied anthropology in undergrad and LOVED it. Not enough to sit down and get a PhD and make significant contributions to the field (I don't think the field would enjoy anything I had to say), but I adored reading works from it and used the knowledge gained to critically look at the world around me. But now that I've graduated, I feel super out of touch with what's happening in anthropology and a little lost without my school's resources (I hate paywalls grr) and the guidance of my professors on what books were best, etc., and am wondering if anyone has any resources (favorite websites with articles, favorite blogs, etc) that would help one keep a little more in the loop. I particularly studied archaeological anthropology, but enjoyed learning the other branches\/reading theory.","c_root_id_A":"id5g9gy","c_root_id_B":"id5z7mq","created_at_utc_A":1655790555,"created_at_utc_B":1655806562,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Twitter is fantastic for anthropology in particular. I'd suggest start following some anthropologists you know and then see who they follow. https:\/\/twitter.com\/Historysmilo is a good place to start IMO","human_ref_B":"One hack I've used is to sign up to Academia and Research Gate and start following some authors you know and like. I absolutely hate algorithms, but turns out they're actually pretty good at recommending new papers based on who you've followed. It's not a complete solution, but it's going a long way in keepimg me in touch with new developments in my fields of interest.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16007.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"7kx3dq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Early humans are said to have sex doggy style; how on earth do anthropologists know that?","c_root_id_A":"drhxw7n","c_root_id_B":"dri3w09","created_at_utc_A":1513729903,"created_at_utc_B":1513737043,"score_A":39,"score_B":115,"human_ref_A":"Well, I remember learning at some point that \"christian missionaries\" visited tribes and encouraged them to stop having sex like animals and have sex the way god ordained (i.e., missionary position). Wikipedia addresses this as something that may or may not be true (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Missionary_position) But let's pretend it is true for a minute... if missionaries shaped how primitive people had sex, then it could probably be concluded that much of early man had sex \"like animals\" (presumably doggystyle) *Honestly though -- and this is just my personal opinion on the matter -- I really doubt anyone had sex in one single position throughout history. While we likely mimicked our ape ancestors and other animals, I really doubt nobody ever had sex face-to-face or did the ol' \"change positions\" move during sex. We've been getting off for thousands of years, so I mean.. I dunno.. *","human_ref_B":"We don\u2019t know it. They use non-European peoples as proxies for early humans. This is not rigorous science. Generally, sex is not relegated to one position except where there are cultural taboos associated with them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7140.0,"score_ratio":2.9487179487} {"post_id":"2oe1mt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do human's have any evolutionary advantage in dealing with burns compared to animals since humans have been harnessing fire for hundreds of thousands of years? Got a burn on my thumb and a nice big blister to keep the wound safe, I didn't pop it, and after a week the lymph started getting re-absorbed and the skin re-attached itself. And I was thinking about how great the human body in dealing with burns. Do animals deal with them as good as humans?","c_root_id_A":"cmmjiys","c_root_id_B":"cmmore6","created_at_utc_A":1417829016,"created_at_utc_B":1417841061,"score_A":8,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"We don't have some unique \"burn mechanism\" by which human bodies respond to burn injuries instead the burn itself that causes the changes we see. A burn does things like change capillary permeability which causes localized swelling (that bubble) not to mention the tissue injury brings forward the immune system to repair damaged tissue, clear debris, and where needed add in scar tissue to fill any gaps. I think any mammal would be able to do the same. If anything we might be more susceptible to burn injury compared to other animals because our skin is so much thinner than say a hippo. The biological changes that have occurred from fire was a move towards a less robust GI system as fire tended to predigest our food for us.","human_ref_B":"OP, I don't really know anything at all about burns but I know a lot about human evolution, and I think you pose a very thoughtful question that (apart from u\/Derpese_simplex's comment) is not getting the credit it deserves. My assumption would be that the selective pressure from a burn injury would not be the burn itself, but from the subsequent complications, especially infection. A cursory Google Scholar search suggests to me that there is a buttload of research into immune response following burns, going back decades, and it seems that the immune system is suppressed for a period of time as a result of severe burns. This abstract (from the first results page of a quick google search) suggests that in a period of suppressed immune response following a burn, rats were more prone to potentially fatal infections from other sources than the control group. So given that humans have been handling fire for probably a million years, and that we therefore most likely experience a much higher frequency of burns than any other animal, it is very plausible to consider that we should have some signature of this in the evolutionary history of our immune system. I don't know if we do though, I just think it's a really good question :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12045.0,"score_ratio":3.625} {"post_id":"2oe1mt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do human's have any evolutionary advantage in dealing with burns compared to animals since humans have been harnessing fire for hundreds of thousands of years? Got a burn on my thumb and a nice big blister to keep the wound safe, I didn't pop it, and after a week the lymph started getting re-absorbed and the skin re-attached itself. And I was thinking about how great the human body in dealing with burns. Do animals deal with them as good as humans?","c_root_id_A":"cmmore6","c_root_id_B":"cmmh721","created_at_utc_A":1417841061,"created_at_utc_B":1417823861,"score_A":29,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"OP, I don't really know anything at all about burns but I know a lot about human evolution, and I think you pose a very thoughtful question that (apart from u\/Derpese_simplex's comment) is not getting the credit it deserves. My assumption would be that the selective pressure from a burn injury would not be the burn itself, but from the subsequent complications, especially infection. A cursory Google Scholar search suggests to me that there is a buttload of research into immune response following burns, going back decades, and it seems that the immune system is suppressed for a period of time as a result of severe burns. This abstract (from the first results page of a quick google search) suggests that in a period of suppressed immune response following a burn, rats were more prone to potentially fatal infections from other sources than the control group. So given that humans have been handling fire for probably a million years, and that we therefore most likely experience a much higher frequency of burns than any other animal, it is very plausible to consider that we should have some signature of this in the evolutionary history of our immune system. I don't know if we do though, I just think it's a really good question :)","human_ref_B":"I'd say it comes from cultural evolution, it's better to ask the following: How have our tools and knowledge improved our ability to harness the fire throughout the years? This includes treatment of burns.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17200.0,"score_ratio":5.8} {"post_id":"2oe1mt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do human's have any evolutionary advantage in dealing with burns compared to animals since humans have been harnessing fire for hundreds of thousands of years? Got a burn on my thumb and a nice big blister to keep the wound safe, I didn't pop it, and after a week the lymph started getting re-absorbed and the skin re-attached itself. And I was thinking about how great the human body in dealing with burns. Do animals deal with them as good as humans?","c_root_id_A":"cmmmnno","c_root_id_B":"cmmore6","created_at_utc_A":1417836025,"created_at_utc_B":1417841061,"score_A":3,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Not likely. In order for such a mutation to be selected for, burns would have had to have been a significant problem for our ancestors. We would have had to burn ourselves so frequently, with such extreme consequences that those without this mutation were actively selected against. This is very unlikely. People have always had the \"fire-hot\" mentality and as such have likely always handled it with care. I hope this makes sense, finals have me pretty tired.","human_ref_B":"OP, I don't really know anything at all about burns but I know a lot about human evolution, and I think you pose a very thoughtful question that (apart from u\/Derpese_simplex's comment) is not getting the credit it deserves. My assumption would be that the selective pressure from a burn injury would not be the burn itself, but from the subsequent complications, especially infection. A cursory Google Scholar search suggests to me that there is a buttload of research into immune response following burns, going back decades, and it seems that the immune system is suppressed for a period of time as a result of severe burns. This abstract (from the first results page of a quick google search) suggests that in a period of suppressed immune response following a burn, rats were more prone to potentially fatal infections from other sources than the control group. So given that humans have been handling fire for probably a million years, and that we therefore most likely experience a much higher frequency of burns than any other animal, it is very plausible to consider that we should have some signature of this in the evolutionary history of our immune system. I don't know if we do though, I just think it's a really good question :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5036.0,"score_ratio":9.6666666667} {"post_id":"2oe1mt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Do human's have any evolutionary advantage in dealing with burns compared to animals since humans have been harnessing fire for hundreds of thousands of years? Got a burn on my thumb and a nice big blister to keep the wound safe, I didn't pop it, and after a week the lymph started getting re-absorbed and the skin re-attached itself. And I was thinking about how great the human body in dealing with burns. Do animals deal with them as good as humans?","c_root_id_A":"cmmh721","c_root_id_B":"cmmjiys","created_at_utc_A":1417823861,"created_at_utc_B":1417829016,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'd say it comes from cultural evolution, it's better to ask the following: How have our tools and knowledge improved our ability to harness the fire throughout the years? This includes treatment of burns.","human_ref_B":"We don't have some unique \"burn mechanism\" by which human bodies respond to burn injuries instead the burn itself that causes the changes we see. A burn does things like change capillary permeability which causes localized swelling (that bubble) not to mention the tissue injury brings forward the immune system to repair damaged tissue, clear debris, and where needed add in scar tissue to fill any gaps. I think any mammal would be able to do the same. If anything we might be more susceptible to burn injury compared to other animals because our skin is so much thinner than say a hippo. The biological changes that have occurred from fire was a move towards a less robust GI system as fire tended to predigest our food for us.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5155.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"q5hfc4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did ancient civilizations have the wherewithal and ability to adjust financial markets as a whole? In the modern U.S., and I assume many other countries, we have the ability to adjust our economy using various financial tools like interest rates, tariffs, monetary policy...etc. Have we always had these tools to some degree? For example in ancient Sumeria would they be cognizant of fluctuations and corrections in the pottery market and would the powers that be step in to prevent disaster? I'm sure there are better scenarios but you get the gist.","c_root_id_A":"hg7h579","c_root_id_B":"hg75jb0","created_at_utc_A":1633941101,"created_at_utc_B":1633931514,"score_A":12,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This would probably be better served by the Economic History reddit. Interest rates have been around since at least Babylon, but the ability to control the interest rate in a competitive economy requires a central bank at the top of the market. Even today, there is some difficulty with it. But there was no \"lender of last resort\" to bail out a failing sector. Monetary policy was quite different and based on precious metals. There are hundreds of books dedicated to the topic and I won't touch on it much. Land borders were mostly open and taxes on imports would be very hard to enforce other than at the sea port. I do believe that such taxes existed, but likely not as part of a trade-war strategy or anything you'd be much familiar with today. In many ancient societies, taxes were used as a form of personal income. There was no such thing as a \"public purse\", taxes directly went to the account of the lord, king or emporer. In a feaudal economy, various offices earned their income through taxation and fines. In the 14th Century, Ibn Kaldun thought that higher taxes could lead to lower revenue, a precursor the the laffer curve. But it should be emphasized that markets were a small portion of production in many areas until recent times. Neoclassical models and questions about the economy do not apply to things like a gift economy or feudalism very well. So when you talk about \"fluctuations in the pottery market\" your talking about a very small part of overall pottery production which takes place in the home and isn't made for sale. Economics hundreds of years ago was defined as \"home management\" and thats largely what the economy was instead of markets.","human_ref_B":"For a starting point, you might be interested in looking at Diocletian's *Edict on Maximum Prices*, an attempt to control inflation due to debasement of coinage. The Romans had certain levers available to adjust their economy, but very little understanding of the effect those levers would actually have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9587.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"fbzaw1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What are some good educational research papers about the history and prehistory of the Balkan countries (Illyrians, Thracians, Dacians, and others) Mesolithic through 20th Century It is a big hole in my mental map. I dont know anything about the history of the Balkans. All I know is that it was an important region in the spread of the Neolithic. Thousands of years later, it was conquered by Rome and at some point Slavs settled there. I would love to read some comprehensive research papers about the history and waves of peoples who settled there. Thanks in advance","c_root_id_A":"fj7xssm","c_root_id_B":"fj7mhdw","created_at_utc_A":1583100630,"created_at_utc_B":1583093684,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"\u201cThe horse the wheel and language\u201d paints a decent picture of the spread of Indo European languages and culture in the Balkans","human_ref_B":"I can recommend you one edition about prehistoric Yugoslavia (stone and the metal ages). The only problem is that those five books are written in Serbocroatian. The edition is called Praistorija jugoslovenskih zemalja.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6946.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"cc23rg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Is \u201cjinxing\u201d a concept in many cultures? Where did it come from? In America, and I\u2019m assuming most other England-descendant cultures, saying things like \u201cwhat could possibly go wrong\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m sure the weather will be perfect tomorrow\u201d are sometimes considered bad luck, often referred to as a jinx, because the exact opposite of what you want will happen. Is this concept something that appears in cultures worldwide, or it more unique? On another note, where did this superstition originate? Why?","c_root_id_A":"etml87c","c_root_id_B":"etlxhim","created_at_utc_A":1562962482,"created_at_utc_B":1562947497,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The basic logic is that words have power, names have power, saying things out loud in some way universally recognizes them, and attracts attention. This belief takes on myriad forms. Even today, Jews and Christians (except Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses) generally do not try to pronounce the four letter name of God. The might say the LORD, or Adonai, or haShem. It\u2019s even one of the Ten Commandment not to \u201ctake the LORD\u2019s name in vain.\u201d This is true for evil things as well. In Christian areas, the Devil has myriad nicknames (Old Nick, the Old Deuce, Beelzebub, etc) because \u201cspeak of the Devil and he shall appear.\u201d In Muslim areas, it\u2019s common to be caution around saying the word djinn (genie, spirit) because it might bring them. In Turkey, religious people might refer to them as \u201cthe Three Lettereds\u201d (in Turkish, Djinn is spelled *cin*, i.e. it has only three letters). The jinx has this same broad belief in the power of words, specifically their power to attract unwanted attention. In much of the Mediterranean Basin, the power of this is understood to be the evil eye. The causal structure is that someone else hears, becomes jealous, curses intentionally or inadvertently curses you. But this is not always how it\u2019s treated in practice and even if there\u2019s no third party, one ought to be cautious. Why? Because of the possibly jealousy of invisible third parties, like djinns. There can be remedies. In Muslim countries, it\u2019s common to say \u201cmash\u2019Allah\u201d, which literally means \u201cGod has willed it\u201d. This is meant to obviate the possibility of jealousy. It redirects the feelings from the thing being complimented to God himself, simultaneously giving credit and getting protection. Other traditions exist. Jews traditionally do not say a male baby\u2019s name allowed until the circumcision, in part to confuse the invisible evil spirts. The superstitious tradition in the Anglo-American theater that good wishes will result in bad luck (the causal structure of which is not as developed as the evil eye) leads to wishes for bad luck (which really mean good luck), most famously \u201cbreak a leg\u201d.","human_ref_B":"The Persian and middle eastern cultures have this as a redundant theme. The evil eye and other talismans are meant to protect the user from jinxing and bad luck. (The word Talisman itself is of Arabic\/Greek origin)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14985.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"uasvnu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where does the concept of soulmate come from?","c_root_id_A":"i60oi6w","c_root_id_B":"i606w81","created_at_utc_A":1650818483,"created_at_utc_B":1650811126,"score_A":97,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes relates a myth on the origin of love. In it, humans originally existed as pairs of man and man, man and woman, or woman and woman. These original humans were very powerful, so Zeus had them cut in half. That is why we all search for our missing half. I dont know how widespread this myth was outside of Plato's writing, or how influential it was on later concepts of love, but it certainly seems relevent.","human_ref_B":"To the best of my knowledge, the term was popularized by the New Age movement, riffing on earlier usage by theosophists - a sort of esoteric religious movement of the late 1800s. Theosophy was also very influential on occultism and spiritism in the early 20th century, and by the mid 20th century became relevant as a resource for the New Age movement. The New Age movement was notable for combining and reimagining various concepts and practices from other religious contexts, leading to highly syncretic and eclectic concepts that are sometimes quite different from their meaning outside the New Age movement. More broadly, Theosophy may be seen as a precursor to New Age, as it introduced concepts from buddhism and hinduism to western esotericism - something that is also very characteristic of New Age. It is possible the theosophists adopted the term from one of the sources they were drawing on, or perhaps came up with it to adapt a borrowed concept, but I am afraid that\u2019s beyond the scope of my knowledge.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7357.0,"score_ratio":3.5925925926} {"post_id":"uasvnu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Where does the concept of soulmate come from?","c_root_id_A":"i60odkq","c_root_id_B":"i60oi6w","created_at_utc_A":1650818431,"created_at_utc_B":1650818483,"score_A":12,"score_B":97,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s much older. I don\u2019t know if the suddenly usage comes from Plato, but it seems very similar. https:\/\/humanities.byu.edu\/plato-and-soul-mates\/","human_ref_B":"In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes relates a myth on the origin of love. In it, humans originally existed as pairs of man and man, man and woman, or woman and woman. These original humans were very powerful, so Zeus had them cut in half. That is why we all search for our missing half. I dont know how widespread this myth was outside of Plato's writing, or how influential it was on later concepts of love, but it certainly seems relevent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":52.0,"score_ratio":8.0833333333} {"post_id":"2hd5g2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Is the ritualistic consumption of certain food (ex: chocolate) during menstruation common across cultures or unique to modern Western cultures? Hello anthropologists, I am a modern North American woman and I am curious about the connection between menstruation and the consumption of certain foods. I enjoy consuming junk food throughout the month I personally don't experience any increase in cravings for specific foods immediately before or during menstruation. I'm always shocked by the number of other North American women who believe that they \"need\" chocolate and\/or other specific foods when they are menstruating or experiencing PMS. Is this idea of treating menstruation with special foods a broader cultural trend, or just something whipped up by candy companies in the modern Western world? **TL;DR Do other cultures have the expectation that women \"need\" to eat specific foods during menstruation or is that unique to certain modern cultures?**","c_root_id_A":"ckrt64f","c_root_id_B":"ckrsh0p","created_at_utc_A":1411610340,"created_at_utc_B":1411608804,"score_A":16,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Pregnancy cravings are a known phenomenon in a wide variety of cultures. For instance, there's an exception in Jewish dietary law for pregnant women who have cravings for non-kosher food.","human_ref_B":"I would not call my monthly dark chocolate and wine imbibing day ritualistic. More like desperate and necessary.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1536.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"2hd5g2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Is the ritualistic consumption of certain food (ex: chocolate) during menstruation common across cultures or unique to modern Western cultures? Hello anthropologists, I am a modern North American woman and I am curious about the connection between menstruation and the consumption of certain foods. I enjoy consuming junk food throughout the month I personally don't experience any increase in cravings for specific foods immediately before or during menstruation. I'm always shocked by the number of other North American women who believe that they \"need\" chocolate and\/or other specific foods when they are menstruating or experiencing PMS. Is this idea of treating menstruation with special foods a broader cultural trend, or just something whipped up by candy companies in the modern Western world? **TL;DR Do other cultures have the expectation that women \"need\" to eat specific foods during menstruation or is that unique to certain modern cultures?**","c_root_id_A":"ckrt64f","c_root_id_B":"ckrsigl","created_at_utc_A":1411610340,"created_at_utc_B":1411608890,"score_A":16,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Pregnancy cravings are a known phenomenon in a wide variety of cultures. For instance, there's an exception in Jewish dietary law for pregnant women who have cravings for non-kosher food.","human_ref_B":"I have no idea, but am also curious about the perceived correlation. I think this sounds like a great dissertation. Best of luck! Also- let me know when you publish so I can read about your findings.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1450.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"407krk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I hear a lot about how crime is caused partly by systemic poverty. There was a lot of systemic poverty in the past, so in ancient times or the medieval ages was there more crime?","c_root_id_A":"cys8jng","c_root_id_B":"cys8mkh","created_at_utc_A":1452379372,"created_at_utc_B":1452379503,"score_A":11,"score_B":66,"human_ref_A":"There is no statistical evidence we can use to make any meaningful comparison. There were many laws that are different from todays and data wasnt collected about the whole process. Penalties were extremely harsh and there was no police force or even a structured coherent Judicial system. So there is really no way of comparing these societies. However comparing crimes throughout the world then yes there would be a strong correlation to socioeconomic status and crime and even types of crimes.","human_ref_B":"You need to define \"crime\" if you want to make any kind of coherent comparison. The modern state defines many things as \"criminal\" which would not be against any law in the past. For instance, restricting the speed at which people could move on a public highway would probably be unthinkable. Domestic violence, a major category of crime today, didn't exist as a category in most places until rather late in the 20th century. Many very sophisticated and bureaucratic ancient societies did not even consider the policing of behavior as a state function- individuals in certain periods of ancient Rome would be expected to defend themselves, and if they were the victim of violence, might be able to bring a public proceeding to get vengeance, but it would be one in which the state was not a party (more similar to a civil lawsuit today.) I'd also question your premise that there was \"a lot of systemic poverty\" in the past. How do you define \"system poverty?\" Is it in absolute terms or in comparative terms (e.g. - is it a function of inequality?) Is someone who owns a flock of sheep, a tent, and some basic goods \"systemically poor?\" What about someone who has land they are allowed to live on and work? The type of alienation from the means of production (i.e. not having stuff to make stuff with) that we now call \"systemic poverty\" is a product of capitalism, so it seems difficult to make a comparison to a feudal system. Tl;dr - Crime and systemic poverty, as you understand them, are terms that are meaningless before the modern era, so the comparison seems impossible.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":131.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"tevrn6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am interested in marriage across cultures - where do I start?","c_root_id_A":"i0t45nd","c_root_id_B":"i0sorld","created_at_utc_A":1647382554,"created_at_utc_B":1647376639,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Stay away from the dating apps and beware of bigamy rules and laws... Kidding. This is going to sound odd, but consider starting on the theoretical end with reading Elinor Ostrom - Governing The Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action for the analytical framework and then go into individual cultures. Just an idea...","human_ref_B":"It's fiction but My Antonia by Cather is an interesting delve into it. Actually any work from Willa Cather touches base on the subject for the American west at least.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5915.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"bwfxr7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Sweating; How has the Ability to sweat evolved in humans?","c_root_id_A":"epxhgwo","c_root_id_B":"epxvuto","created_at_utc_A":1559600889,"created_at_utc_B":1559612226,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I am by no means qualified to answer, but the ability to sweat isnt just a human thing.","human_ref_B":"Sweating is just one of a number of different ways animals can control their temperature. Humans (and many others) sweat, dogs pant, lizards find shade. It evolved for the same reasons everything else did; chance plus a survival advantage.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11337.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"jit6ah","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Ethnographies on the diverse economic systems that exist within capitalism? I'm trying to think of ethnographic examples of different economic systems that exist under capitalism but don't exactly conform to capitalist base and superstructure. In particular, I'm looking for ethnographies that would illustrate arguments from J. K. Gibson-Graham's \"End of capitalism\" that conceptualizes multiple aspects of capitalism and not as *one big thing*.","c_root_id_A":"ga912p4","c_root_id_B":"ga8ywyp","created_at_utc_A":1603781374,"created_at_utc_B":1603779183,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The Mushroom at the End of the World is also my first instinct to answer you. After you've read it maybe check out Gendered Commodity Chains: Seeing Women's Work and Households in Global Production edited by Wilma Dunaway. I found the insights from Mushroom enriched this book. I might also look into mutual aid as a topic, and the idea of communism of the rich for insights on different microeconomies within capitalism.","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry I can't think of an exact title that's on my mind... I'll have to do some digging. But I know there is a lot of work about Lebanon and the Lebanese civil war that relates to this topic. I'm not sure if this particular article is relevant, but check out the bibliography: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Michiel\\_Van\\_Meeteren\/publication\/305697861\\_Manning\\_circuits\\_of\\_value\\_Lebanese\\_professionals\\_and\\_expatriate\\_world-city\\_formation\\_in\\_Beirut\/links\/5b1415340f7e9b498108d950\/Manning-circuits-of-value-Lebanese-professionals-and-expatriate-world-city-formation-in-Beirut.pdf Also take a look at James Ferguson's work. https:\/\/anthropology.stanford.edu\/people\/james-ferguson","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2191.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"jit6ah","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Ethnographies on the diverse economic systems that exist within capitalism? I'm trying to think of ethnographic examples of different economic systems that exist under capitalism but don't exactly conform to capitalist base and superstructure. In particular, I'm looking for ethnographies that would illustrate arguments from J. K. Gibson-Graham's \"End of capitalism\" that conceptualizes multiple aspects of capitalism and not as *one big thing*.","c_root_id_A":"ga95sy6","c_root_id_B":"ga8ywyp","created_at_utc_A":1603786655,"created_at_utc_B":1603779183,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Our late professor of anthropology Prof Paul Clough specialised in economic anthropology has a brilliant book about this very concept - his fieldwork was conducted in Nigeria among the Hausa :) This is a link to his book which has significantly increased in price since I bought it for whatever reason - anyway if you're interested just msg me. https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Paul-Clough-Indigenous-Accumulation-Hausaland\/dp\/B01GMI45OU He also used to recommend Jeff Pratt regarding this topic: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rationality-Rural-Life-Economic-Anthropology\/dp\/1138984566","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry I can't think of an exact title that's on my mind... I'll have to do some digging. But I know there is a lot of work about Lebanon and the Lebanese civil war that relates to this topic. I'm not sure if this particular article is relevant, but check out the bibliography: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Michiel\\_Van\\_Meeteren\/publication\/305697861\\_Manning\\_circuits\\_of\\_value\\_Lebanese\\_professionals\\_and\\_expatriate\\_world-city\\_formation\\_in\\_Beirut\/links\/5b1415340f7e9b498108d950\/Manning-circuits-of-value-Lebanese-professionals-and-expatriate-world-city-formation-in-Beirut.pdf Also take a look at James Ferguson's work. https:\/\/anthropology.stanford.edu\/people\/james-ferguson","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7472.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"upym1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Can you switch careers to become an \u201canthropologist\u201d in your mid 30s \/ USA Imagine that I\u2019m 100% committed \u2014 is this even possible? Like a lot of industries\/professions, theres obviously a lot of time and money involved. But what range are we talking? How many years would this take? What job prospects are there? What is your day to day like? Where do you live? Why am I glamorizing academia and have a premature midlife existential crisis?","c_root_id_A":"i8ol0yh","c_root_id_B":"i8oaxrk","created_at_utc_A":1652612227,"created_at_utc_B":1652603597,"score_A":25,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Gosh. I went to school for Archaeology, and got a job as an archaeological researcher. I worked in the field (and in the field, hahaha) for several years. But as u\/SuchSuggestion mentioned, the difficulty is in the hustle. Most of the archaeology you're interested in doing is going to be through academic institutions, and that academic grind where you beg people for money to fund projects is only getting harder. The \"Golden Age\" of archaeology was fueled by a bunch of rich Europeans and Americans running around the world, looting in the name of knowledge. They didn't necessarily have ill-intent, but they were taking valuable resources. Fast forward to modern times, and a lot of the communities that had been taken advantage of now realize what was lost. What's that mean for you? Cultural patrimony laws largely prohibit the export of antiquities, even as part of academic exploration. Wealthy benefactors no longer parade their society friends around museums to show off the material they paid to have extracted from exotic locales. The cache of funding archaeology has dropped off considerably. I worked for an Ivy League University with a billion dollar endowment for several years on a grant funded project. There were three points during that period where it was unclear whether I would have a job the following month. My boss, a PhD with an Ivy League education and 20 more years of experience was making less than $20k more than my introductory level position pay. For field seasons for another university's project, the most I was ever paid was a $1k honorarium and travel for a month of work at a field school. Add in the fact that tenure track positions are going away and the complex socio-political complexities of university hiring in a field that, like many others, has been dominated by white men, and you have a recipe for difficulty finding a position combined with a difficulty to be fairly compensated. Now, typically, in a five paragraph essay this is where I would put my conclusion summarizing the above points. HOWEVER. There are viable careers in archaeology and anthropology outside of academia. The US Government employs archaeologists and anthropologists in many departments: the US Army Corps of Engineers (not military), the Department of the Interior, the Smithsonian, etc. With the exception of the Smithsonian and other small museum positions, most of the positions you find for the government have to do with sensitive site assessments. Before a major construction project a cultural survey will take place to ensure that we are not destroying objects and places of cultural significance, and to perform rescue archaeology in cases where removal of objects will act to preserve them. There are also private firms that perform these assessments for governments and businesses. If you incorporate restoration work into your portfolio, then there is certainly work restoring historical buildings and sites for public use, again both through government and private firms. These jobs can pay quite well, but it's a limited job market. Hope is not lost, and you can do worse things than study archaeology. Understanding the job market before you get involved is really important. I look forward to getting back into archaeology when I retire and don't need it to support a family.","human_ref_B":"Maybe an unpopular opinion but everyone I know that did anthro for undergrad and the ones that continued to PhD level aren't really doing true anthropology anymore. We got tired of begging for grant money. You might be able to find something loosely related, but I would really advise against it if you have to rely on a job for money. If you don't need to pay bills, it's the most beautiful study and can open worlds up. But, you are free to read ethnography right now without doing a PhD. Editing to add: a lot of people that are interested in anthro are looking for something that they feel they've lost, but they're not sure what. Becoming an anthropologist might help you dedicate time to the study of your own taboos, but it's not required. The best article I have read on this subject is called \"Answering Daima's Question\" by Peter Gow.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8630.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"upym1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Can you switch careers to become an \u201canthropologist\u201d in your mid 30s \/ USA Imagine that I\u2019m 100% committed \u2014 is this even possible? Like a lot of industries\/professions, theres obviously a lot of time and money involved. But what range are we talking? How many years would this take? What job prospects are there? What is your day to day like? Where do you live? Why am I glamorizing academia and have a premature midlife existential crisis?","c_root_id_A":"i8omxx5","c_root_id_B":"i8p8ygf","created_at_utc_A":1652613717,"created_at_utc_B":1652626063,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently looking for work as a Design Researcher (went back to school and did a Masters in my 30s) and a lot of positions request a masters in anthropology. It may not be what you imagine doing, but the research skillsets apply to a lot of fields.","human_ref_B":"OP, I am absolutely not trying to piss in your Cheerios here. This is coming from the point of view of a person who is-- and has been for 20 years-- a professional archaeologist in one capacity or another, who has completed a PhD in the field, and who has worked in almost every area of the field in the US, including academia at the level of tenure track, in commercial archaeology at the level of project manager and principal investigator (current), in a couple of state government positions, and as a federal contractor. I am not trying to be pessimistic. Just realistic. Which may look like the same thing in this context... >Imagine that I\u2019m 100% committed \u2014 is this even possible? I'll break this down as succinctly as I can. Note that this is from the perspective of a career in *archaeology* in the US, which is probably the most attainable career area, and the one that translates most directly from anthropology, right now. 1) It is 100% possible to start the sequence of BA \/ master's (and potentially on through the PhD) in anthropology in your 30s. 2) It is much less likely that you will complete this sequence. In your 30s, it's difficult to step back from a job \/ source of income sufficiently that you can focus on your course schedule sufficiently to complete a bachelor's degree, let alone a graduate degree. Without an alternative source of income, a PhD is likely beyond your reach. 3) Assuming that you complete a BA and a master's degree, you can expect several years of low-level \/ low-paying positions to move up to higher-paying and higher-responsibility positions. To succeed in cultural resource management or in a similar position in state or federal government, you will need to have a decent amount of experience leading to increased responsibility in personnel management, logistics, project proposal writing, and report writing. 4) To be truthful, aspirations to academia at *any* age are almost the equivalent of expecting to win the lottery as a means of funding your retirement. In your 30s the probability of attaining an academic position that actually provides you with a decent income is even lower. >Like a lot of industries\/professions, theres obviously a lot of time and money involved. But what range are we talking? >How many years would this take? Depends entirely on the degree programs, how many of them you go through, and how long it takes. Assuming full time-- and let's assume that you don't have to do a full 4-year degree because you already (presumably) have a BA \/ BS in some field. BA, 2 years. MA \/ MS, 2 - 4 years. PhD, 4 - 8 years. Building experience, 2 - 6 years (time can be served concurrently with a grad program, potentially). >What job prospects are there? What is your day to day like? Where do you live? In cultural resource management (commercial archaeology) the job prospects are actually pretty good for people with experience and a graduate degree. Even better if you have a related skill \/ experience (quant methods \/ stats, GIS, FAA-licensed drone piloting, etc.). Day to day at my level varies, but in the office from Monday through Friday of last week I did the following: * worked on a compliance \/ regulatory document for a client * reviewed a draft of a project report on a project I ran in the field, and that I'm the PI for * produced mapping (using GIS software) for a report * coordinated with one of my crews in the field on a project I'm managing * tracked progress of that project and others I'm involved with in terms of budget, etc. * prepared proposals for new work with one of our regular clients * updated a database I built for our lab * discussed upcoming project staffing needs If I were in the field running a large project (I don't really run small ones in the field anymore), it would be non-stop management of my crew, monitoring progress, and running the spatial data station. Mornings would be spent planning the day's work, evenings would be spent handling artifact inventory and keeping up crew timesheets, making runs to replenish project supplies, and handling phone calls \/ emails for other projects I'm involved in. >Why am I glamorizing academia and have a premature midlife existential crisis? I would recommend against even considering academia. Truthfully, it's dying. The next incarnation will be very interesting to see, but I don't foresee it as being *less* exploitative of \"the talent.\" Tenure-track faculty, term or long-term lecturers, adjunct faculty, and graduate students are over-worked, under-compensated, and for the most part, under-appreciated. There's little to no work life balance at any level. Overall, my recommendation is this: **It's easy to glamorize _any_ profession or field. Archaeology \/ anthropology has been so mis-represented in the popular media that its *especially* easy to glamorize. Look before you leap (as you're doing).**","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12346.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"upym1z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Can you switch careers to become an \u201canthropologist\u201d in your mid 30s \/ USA Imagine that I\u2019m 100% committed \u2014 is this even possible? Like a lot of industries\/professions, theres obviously a lot of time and money involved. But what range are we talking? How many years would this take? What job prospects are there? What is your day to day like? Where do you live? Why am I glamorizing academia and have a premature midlife existential crisis?","c_root_id_A":"i8oxdga","c_root_id_B":"i8p8ygf","created_at_utc_A":1652620320,"created_at_utc_B":1652626063,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"It really depends on what area of study. Cultural is probably hardest, most jobs are relegated to academia, which is in pretty dire straits right now when it comes to getting jobs. Physical is also pretty hard. Higher Ed again. Archeology is probably the simplest. There are lots of government jobs. To do any major construction, all entities must do surveys to make sure there aren\u2019t any significant historical\/archeological sites that would be destroyed. Some of these jobs actually pay pretty well (GS9-11 in the federal gov) and would come with the 10-year student loan forgiveness program. Whatever way you go, most opportunities will require grad school. So figure a couple years to get the undergrad classes you\u2019d need to add to your (assumed) existing bachelors. Then 2-3 years of grad school for a Masters. If you wanted the PhD to get into higher Ed, add 3-7 years to that. You\u2019re looking at anywhere from 4-15? years if you started today.","human_ref_B":"OP, I am absolutely not trying to piss in your Cheerios here. This is coming from the point of view of a person who is-- and has been for 20 years-- a professional archaeologist in one capacity or another, who has completed a PhD in the field, and who has worked in almost every area of the field in the US, including academia at the level of tenure track, in commercial archaeology at the level of project manager and principal investigator (current), in a couple of state government positions, and as a federal contractor. I am not trying to be pessimistic. Just realistic. Which may look like the same thing in this context... >Imagine that I\u2019m 100% committed \u2014 is this even possible? I'll break this down as succinctly as I can. Note that this is from the perspective of a career in *archaeology* in the US, which is probably the most attainable career area, and the one that translates most directly from anthropology, right now. 1) It is 100% possible to start the sequence of BA \/ master's (and potentially on through the PhD) in anthropology in your 30s. 2) It is much less likely that you will complete this sequence. In your 30s, it's difficult to step back from a job \/ source of income sufficiently that you can focus on your course schedule sufficiently to complete a bachelor's degree, let alone a graduate degree. Without an alternative source of income, a PhD is likely beyond your reach. 3) Assuming that you complete a BA and a master's degree, you can expect several years of low-level \/ low-paying positions to move up to higher-paying and higher-responsibility positions. To succeed in cultural resource management or in a similar position in state or federal government, you will need to have a decent amount of experience leading to increased responsibility in personnel management, logistics, project proposal writing, and report writing. 4) To be truthful, aspirations to academia at *any* age are almost the equivalent of expecting to win the lottery as a means of funding your retirement. In your 30s the probability of attaining an academic position that actually provides you with a decent income is even lower. >Like a lot of industries\/professions, theres obviously a lot of time and money involved. But what range are we talking? >How many years would this take? Depends entirely on the degree programs, how many of them you go through, and how long it takes. Assuming full time-- and let's assume that you don't have to do a full 4-year degree because you already (presumably) have a BA \/ BS in some field. BA, 2 years. MA \/ MS, 2 - 4 years. PhD, 4 - 8 years. Building experience, 2 - 6 years (time can be served concurrently with a grad program, potentially). >What job prospects are there? What is your day to day like? Where do you live? In cultural resource management (commercial archaeology) the job prospects are actually pretty good for people with experience and a graduate degree. Even better if you have a related skill \/ experience (quant methods \/ stats, GIS, FAA-licensed drone piloting, etc.). Day to day at my level varies, but in the office from Monday through Friday of last week I did the following: * worked on a compliance \/ regulatory document for a client * reviewed a draft of a project report on a project I ran in the field, and that I'm the PI for * produced mapping (using GIS software) for a report * coordinated with one of my crews in the field on a project I'm managing * tracked progress of that project and others I'm involved with in terms of budget, etc. * prepared proposals for new work with one of our regular clients * updated a database I built for our lab * discussed upcoming project staffing needs If I were in the field running a large project (I don't really run small ones in the field anymore), it would be non-stop management of my crew, monitoring progress, and running the spatial data station. Mornings would be spent planning the day's work, evenings would be spent handling artifact inventory and keeping up crew timesheets, making runs to replenish project supplies, and handling phone calls \/ emails for other projects I'm involved in. >Why am I glamorizing academia and have a premature midlife existential crisis? I would recommend against even considering academia. Truthfully, it's dying. The next incarnation will be very interesting to see, but I don't foresee it as being *less* exploitative of \"the talent.\" Tenure-track faculty, term or long-term lecturers, adjunct faculty, and graduate students are over-worked, under-compensated, and for the most part, under-appreciated. There's little to no work life balance at any level. Overall, my recommendation is this: **It's easy to glamorize _any_ profession or field. Archaeology \/ anthropology has been so mis-represented in the popular media that its *especially* easy to glamorize. Look before you leap (as you're doing).**","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5743.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"8s3zsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Roughly how many hours per week do Nomadic Pastoralists work, on average? Marshall Sahlins called Immediate-Return, Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers the \"Original Affluent Society\" and emphasized their short work week of about 20ish hours per week. I'm curious if anyone here knows of a rough estimate for the average number of hours per week that nomadic pastoralists work. If it would be easier to provide multiple averages based on geography or cultural groups, I'd love to get an answer like that as well! I'm curious how a nomadic pastoralist work week would differ from that of an immediate-return, nomadic hunter-gatherer in terms of the number of hours. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e0wp446","c_root_id_B":"e0ws46s","created_at_utc_A":1529376204,"created_at_utc_B":1529379611,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Would love to see data as well. But also I wouldn't believe much of anything written by Marshall Sahlins. Always take him with a huge pinch of salt.","human_ref_B":"These kind of assumptions are always a bit unfound imo. As someone who comes from a rural background, who is familiar with the pastoral lifestyle, the thought that you work 3 hours\/any other ammount and nothing for the rest of the day is so miss founded that I don't even know how to approach answering it. For one, if you managed to finish all of your work for the day, you will definitely find a way to further your goal (which is to survive and spread, same for every individual life forms on this rock), whether that's through improving your resources or taking resources from others. Second, even if you do feel that you are free at the moment, there are bunch of chores that are not a priority but still need to be done - clothes sewing, rope weaving, shoe making, animal healing, killing off excess animals, trading with neighbouring people, collecting less needed resources (herbs, wax, oil, metal), collecting firewood (or animal dung), people exchange, and everything else a nomadic but still very complex society needs. And after that comes what they want - war, art, etc. So in that sence you are never free, but you get the gust; even not counting that last part, you still have plenty of work from sunrise to sunset, if you are working for the better of your community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3407.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"8s3zsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Roughly how many hours per week do Nomadic Pastoralists work, on average? Marshall Sahlins called Immediate-Return, Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers the \"Original Affluent Society\" and emphasized their short work week of about 20ish hours per week. I'm curious if anyone here knows of a rough estimate for the average number of hours per week that nomadic pastoralists work. If it would be easier to provide multiple averages based on geography or cultural groups, I'd love to get an answer like that as well! I'm curious how a nomadic pastoralist work week would differ from that of an immediate-return, nomadic hunter-gatherer in terms of the number of hours. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e0ws46s","c_root_id_B":"e0wpavl","created_at_utc_A":1529379611,"created_at_utc_B":1529376412,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"These kind of assumptions are always a bit unfound imo. As someone who comes from a rural background, who is familiar with the pastoral lifestyle, the thought that you work 3 hours\/any other ammount and nothing for the rest of the day is so miss founded that I don't even know how to approach answering it. For one, if you managed to finish all of your work for the day, you will definitely find a way to further your goal (which is to survive and spread, same for every individual life forms on this rock), whether that's through improving your resources or taking resources from others. Second, even if you do feel that you are free at the moment, there are bunch of chores that are not a priority but still need to be done - clothes sewing, rope weaving, shoe making, animal healing, killing off excess animals, trading with neighbouring people, collecting less needed resources (herbs, wax, oil, metal), collecting firewood (or animal dung), people exchange, and everything else a nomadic but still very complex society needs. And after that comes what they want - war, art, etc. So in that sence you are never free, but you get the gust; even not counting that last part, you still have plenty of work from sunrise to sunset, if you are working for the better of your community.","human_ref_B":"That all depends on what you call 'work'.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3199.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"1ob656","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Help me figure out a term roughly approximating \"intended targets or beneficiaries of missionaries\" that doesn't sound bad I'm writing a research proposal, which relates to short-term missions. It hasn't been studied very much, nevermind by anthropologists, and where it has been, almost all studies focus on the missionaries - participating in short-term missions results in increased civic participation, stronger religious beliefs, it makes for an important life narrative, blah blah blah. I want to study how short-term missions are experienced from the other side, but I'm having trouble finding a nice accurate term for these people that doesn't sound crass or condescending. Terms I have thought about include: * missionized * targets * intended beneficiaries * residents of the area * hosts * locals * potential converts * [insert nationality or ethnicity here] All unsatisfactory! Can anyone help me with a bit of brainstorming?","c_root_id_A":"ccqfwq3","c_root_id_B":"ccqkwwm","created_at_utc_A":1381615502,"created_at_utc_B":1381631927,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You could use \"evangelized\".","human_ref_B":"How about subjects?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16425.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1ob656","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Help me figure out a term roughly approximating \"intended targets or beneficiaries of missionaries\" that doesn't sound bad I'm writing a research proposal, which relates to short-term missions. It hasn't been studied very much, nevermind by anthropologists, and where it has been, almost all studies focus on the missionaries - participating in short-term missions results in increased civic participation, stronger religious beliefs, it makes for an important life narrative, blah blah blah. I want to study how short-term missions are experienced from the other side, but I'm having trouble finding a nice accurate term for these people that doesn't sound crass or condescending. Terms I have thought about include: * missionized * targets * intended beneficiaries * residents of the area * hosts * locals * potential converts * [insert nationality or ethnicity here] All unsatisfactory! Can anyone help me with a bit of brainstorming?","c_root_id_A":"ccqm5o4","c_root_id_B":"ccqfwq3","created_at_utc_A":1381636046,"created_at_utc_B":1381615502,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Victims, jk. Participants\/Recipients?","human_ref_B":"You could use \"evangelized\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20544.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"o46xds","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"why were humans so violent and extremely brutal in the past? i\u2019m currently abroad and i\u2019ve been visiting museum after museum and i\u2019ve just reflected a lot on the art \u2014 not that i haven\u2019t been to a plethora of museums in the past but this trip really made me question the past a lot, maybe because i\u2019m alone this time round. anyway, i\u2019m not saying we\u2019re saints today and non violent. after all, there is literal war still happening and crimes committed everyday. however, compared to history, we\u2019re a lot less brutal and violent. i\u2019m sure us being sensitized from a young age comes in play too, but why is it that people had no issue torturing, beheading, and so on? i know humans are animals but are we really inherently prone to cruel torture?","c_root_id_A":"h2g1g6p","c_root_id_B":"h2fzbq5","created_at_utc_A":1624208432,"created_at_utc_B":1624207399,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm going to advance an alternate conception of violence. This is one that is raised in the analysis of western Early Medieval (often considered the \"Dark Ages\") violence (taking a cue from Halsall's book). **Violence as communication not requiring consent.** When you think about animal communication, much of it is equally physical. Like when a mom cat smacks her kitten with her paw to not do something, an \"instinctual\" reaction one could see a human parent doing to their kid. Or wheen two male sibling dogs fight with each other not to kill but to establish pecking order. Are they being violent to each other? Certainly. But... are they not also communicating with each other? Violence exists because it's the \"fastest\" form of communication. It does not require an agreed upon language. It does not require previously agreed-upon consent. It is a lashing out, with the recipient being forced to interpret, and if successful, the doler of the violence achieves their goals. However, \"lashing out\" is an important consideration, because similar to babies, even though all violence might be communication, the violator may not be communicating to anyone or thing that can accept such a communication. Take a man who has been berated by his boss at work, and returns home to drunkenly beat his wife. The wife did nothing wrong, but the beating is itself an attempt by the man to communicate to the boss, even though it is not possible for him to do so without suffering repercussions. So what's the opposition to violence? It's \"consented\/expected\" communication, which only occurs with regularity, and with time. If I threaten to beat you up if you don't give me your lunch money, that's violence. But if you come to expect that I will take your lunch money every day, and that by doing so you'll experience no violence, that becomes a \"tax.\" It becomes expected. But in order to have regularization, you need complex social structures. You need time, expectation, etc. But violence? Require no one but the violator and the victim. It is fast, it is immediate, it gets the violator what they want. So why were humans so violent and brutal in the past? Because social structures were simpler, and violence as a form of communication, was the simplest and fastest way to get one's point across. It still is... * Halsall, Guy, ed. 2002. Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West. Rochester, NY, USA.","human_ref_B":"I am no an anthropologist, but historian. My answer is that we have a very limited view of the past for various reasons. Personal access to our past with our own opinions and biases but not only that, humanity in general has limited access: We can only know has much has is documented and passed orally. Unfortunately (and interesting) these bits of our history have their own biases based in the interests of the people that write or talk about it: politics, religious, interests and even science permeates it. That's not bad per se, it just is part of human nature I guess. So we only are going to have a very limited and biased view of our past, no matter what tells you that politic or religious person. Now, this leads to my second point. Like I said, not every bit of things that happen is recorded (writer, painted, passed orally and the various forms that can be registered), is just simply impossible so the need of choice is necessary and only the most influential and important events past the test. What the society consider important varies greatly. Unfortunately for us, small non violent and pretty normal folks, we almost never been a great choices for history and I would say even more in our modern society that comes from a long history of society that appreciate more the great history of kingdoms, empires and conquest based of heroes and what not. Note that, I think most of society across the world and time have done the same, history is a standard weapon of choice in politics. So, in conclusion, what kind of museums did you visit? Maybe changing the perspective could change your view in history?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1033.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"967all","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know some Neolithic tribes were matrilineal? In the \"Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness (Jeremy Rifkin) he writes: \"Matriarchal forms of familial relations gave way to patriarchal forms of power\" referring to the human \"mega-machine\" of corralled human beings building canals, dikes etc at around 6000 years ago.","c_root_id_A":"e3yfe67","c_root_id_B":"e3yl83c","created_at_utc_A":1533916629,"created_at_utc_B":1533921327,"score_A":15,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Far as I know, Jeremy Rifkin has absolutely no qualifications in anthropology, he has a bachelors in economics. I wouldn't take his claim seriously.","human_ref_B":"Your post title and body use two very different terms: matrilineal and matriarchal. Matrilineal societies track descent through the mother. They can be found throughout history, and in some cultures today. Many Jewish people, for example, practice matrilineal descent. Matriarchy refers to societies where women hold the positions of political power, in contrast to patriarchy. There are no records of any society having absolute matriarchy. Some cultures did have women in power, but never at the exclusion of men from political power. The Haudenosaunee (of Iroquois) Confederacy would be an example. It is likely matrilineal descent was practiced throughout much of the Neolithic world, as motherhood is easier to prove than fatherhood. Edit: For further clarification as well, matrilineal descent and matriarchy (were it to actually exist) would not require one another. Plenty of matrilineal societies were patriarchal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4698.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"967all","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know some Neolithic tribes were matrilineal? In the \"Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness (Jeremy Rifkin) he writes: \"Matriarchal forms of familial relations gave way to patriarchal forms of power\" referring to the human \"mega-machine\" of corralled human beings building canals, dikes etc at around 6000 years ago.","c_root_id_A":"e3ye1j3","c_root_id_B":"e3yl83c","created_at_utc_A":1533915537,"created_at_utc_B":1533921327,"score_A":2,"score_B":45,"human_ref_A":"Chaco canyon, USA: http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2017\/02\/did-women-control-bloodline-ancient-chaco-canyon","human_ref_B":"Your post title and body use two very different terms: matrilineal and matriarchal. Matrilineal societies track descent through the mother. They can be found throughout history, and in some cultures today. Many Jewish people, for example, practice matrilineal descent. Matriarchy refers to societies where women hold the positions of political power, in contrast to patriarchy. There are no records of any society having absolute matriarchy. Some cultures did have women in power, but never at the exclusion of men from political power. The Haudenosaunee (of Iroquois) Confederacy would be an example. It is likely matrilineal descent was practiced throughout much of the Neolithic world, as motherhood is easier to prove than fatherhood. Edit: For further clarification as well, matrilineal descent and matriarchy (were it to actually exist) would not require one another. Plenty of matrilineal societies were patriarchal.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5790.0,"score_ratio":22.5} {"post_id":"967all","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know some Neolithic tribes were matrilineal? In the \"Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness (Jeremy Rifkin) he writes: \"Matriarchal forms of familial relations gave way to patriarchal forms of power\" referring to the human \"mega-machine\" of corralled human beings building canals, dikes etc at around 6000 years ago.","c_root_id_A":"e3ye1j3","c_root_id_B":"e3yfe67","created_at_utc_A":1533915537,"created_at_utc_B":1533916629,"score_A":2,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Chaco canyon, USA: http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2017\/02\/did-women-control-bloodline-ancient-chaco-canyon","human_ref_B":"Far as I know, Jeremy Rifkin has absolutely no qualifications in anthropology, he has a bachelors in economics. I wouldn't take his claim seriously.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1092.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"967all","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How do we know some Neolithic tribes were matrilineal? In the \"Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness (Jeremy Rifkin) he writes: \"Matriarchal forms of familial relations gave way to patriarchal forms of power\" referring to the human \"mega-machine\" of corralled human beings building canals, dikes etc at around 6000 years ago.","c_root_id_A":"e3ye1j3","c_root_id_B":"e3yvvyp","created_at_utc_A":1533915537,"created_at_utc_B":1533929905,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Chaco canyon, USA: http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2017\/02\/did-women-control-bloodline-ancient-chaco-canyon","human_ref_B":"IF the priestesses at matriarchal potentials like Ur or Knossos ran things for awhile, isn't there a strong possibility that they had tribal precedent?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14368.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"96sdd8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Are there examples of prehistotic genocide or something close to it? If so, what is believed to haved caused it? I have heard there is a theory that humans committed genocide against the Neanderthals but I wonder what caused it, and whether there were other instances.","c_root_id_A":"e434zue","c_root_id_B":"e42zoxq","created_at_utc_A":1534119471,"created_at_utc_B":1534113751,"score_A":19,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The Neanderthal genocide thing seems to be more a creature of pop science. There is the possibility that a human stabbed a Neanderthal buried at Shanidar in modern day Iraq, based on some stabbing experiments. As far as I'm aware, this is the only evidence for interpersonal violence between humans and Neanderthals in the archaeological record, much less genocide.","human_ref_B":"There are many records of smaller, genetically destinct tribes existing in Japan after the Yayoi era (which signifies the end of the civilization of the prehistoric Jomon people, and the beginning of the spread and domination of the Yayoi \"tribe\" over the archipelago. Only two fairly diverse tribes escaped complete annihilation; the Ainu in the north and the Ryukyuans in the south. There is some evidence of intermixing but the vast majority of modern Japanese heritage is believed to come from the Yayoi peoples. What caused the genocide? Well, they were different. And the reigning powers murdered them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5720.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} {"post_id":"kwphnk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What is the history of bison derived dairy in north america among native populations? Did bison cheese, butter, and milk exist? If so was it common?","c_root_id_A":"gj6hwua","c_root_id_B":"gj61kv8","created_at_utc_A":1610587518,"created_at_utc_B":1610579295,"score_A":92,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"While there is no record of domestication, especially for dairy production, I was able to find a citation that mentions milk being harvested for drinking from fresh bison kills by the Sioux. Referenced work is Mandelbaum's The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study, vol. 1st edition. 1979.","human_ref_B":"How would that work? If you somehow managed to trap a lactating American bison cow, you'd never get close enough to milk her without getting killed. You may be confusing American bison, which are sometimes called buffalo, but were never domesticated, with water buffalo, which have been domesticated for thousands of years and are raised for dairy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8223.0,"score_ratio":3.1724137931} {"post_id":"kwphnk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What is the history of bison derived dairy in north america among native populations? Did bison cheese, butter, and milk exist? If so was it common?","c_root_id_A":"gj76m4k","c_root_id_B":"gj61kv8","created_at_utc_A":1610601359,"created_at_utc_B":1610579295,"score_A":30,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist, but I know a bit about dairy farming. Bison are not an animal that can be milked by humans for several reasons. They are enormous, but they have very thick hair, tiny udders, & lethal protection instincts for their babies. The milk they produce is extremely rich and sweet tasting, so in the 19th century a few people experimented with milking bison (american buffalo). Keeping in mind that animal welfare wasn't a consideration in the 1800's of course. I found a reference that, while not scholarly, contains a timeline of bison milk experimentation, & mentions several native practices, including drinking partially digested bison milk from the stomach of a freshly slaughtered bison calf. https:\/\/allaboutbison.com\/bison-milk-and-the-orphan-calf\/","human_ref_B":"How would that work? If you somehow managed to trap a lactating American bison cow, you'd never get close enough to milk her without getting killed. You may be confusing American bison, which are sometimes called buffalo, but were never domesticated, with water buffalo, which have been domesticated for thousands of years and are raised for dairy.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22064.0,"score_ratio":1.0344827586} {"post_id":"cwznvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is known about the use of mushrooms in the Paracas culture (800 BCE-100 BCE)? Reason I ask is their embroidery seems to often depict various types of fungal basidiocarps held by flying\/falling\/laying figures. Any information or leads where to look would be very much appreciated! Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"eyjoobl","c_root_id_B":"eymg80q","created_at_utc_A":1567124157,"created_at_utc_B":1567208205,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You should look into their embroidery and see what it meant or was influenced by rather than starting at a conclusion and then trying to verify it.","human_ref_B":"Do you have an example of an embroidered piece with a mushroom on it? I can't find any good literature that supports the idea of mushrooms in Paracas art. The few weird internet sites that do are quite obviously ones that *want* there to be mushrooms. The usual suspect is this figure and others like it that hold a vaguely fungal object in there hand. This is most definitely a *tumi* knife and not a mushroom. This character of the \"flying sacrificer\" appears in several southern Andean traditions, such as on these lintels at Tiwanaku. Other Paracas textiles with the figure show him holding a severed head instead of a rod in the other hand. Tumi knives much more close resemble that shape and coloration. Some do have mushrooms on them; this one has a head with mushrooms on top. This has much more to do with the Moche tradition on the other end of Peru of depicting guys with mushrooms on their heads. Mushrooms are hard to detect archaeologically, unfortunately. It's unlikely that they were used as psychoactive substances, at least in the areas I'm familiar with, because they were so busy other ones, e.g. San Pedro cactus.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":84048.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"caq616d","c_root_id_B":"caq5l99","created_at_utc_A":1372198977,"created_at_utc_B":1372197751,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I found Theodore Bestor's (2004) Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World to be a particularly interesting look at Japanese culture. While focused primarily on the fish market, surrounding history and culture resulting from it, the book also goes on at length about Japanese food culture and other fascinating topics. Good read.","human_ref_B":"Beauty Up has been popular with my students.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1226.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"caq3laf","c_root_id_B":"caq616d","created_at_utc_A":1372192596,"created_at_utc_B":1372198977,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Obligatory, although outdated: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture By R. Benedict","human_ref_B":"I found Theodore Bestor's (2004) Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World to be a particularly interesting look at Japanese culture. While focused primarily on the fish market, surrounding history and culture resulting from it, the book also goes on at length about Japanese food culture and other fascinating topics. Good read.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6381.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"caq3laf","c_root_id_B":"caq5l99","created_at_utc_A":1372192596,"created_at_utc_B":1372197751,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Obligatory, although outdated: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture By R. Benedict","human_ref_B":"Beauty Up has been popular with my students.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5155.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"caq3laf","c_root_id_B":"caq8a0t","created_at_utc_A":1372192596,"created_at_utc_B":1372205428,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Obligatory, although outdated: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture By R. Benedict","human_ref_B":"I really like Takie Sugiyama Lebra's *Japanese Patterns of Behaviour*. IMO, she did quite a good job building upon the forementioned (and, although outdated, a must-read) *The Chrysanthemum and the Sword*, recognizing its importance while correcting and adding some stuff of her own. I'm quite partial to the chapter about the importance of the household (*ie*) on Japanese society in general, and on Yakuza subculture in particular. **edit:** sorry, just saw that you wanted books on contemporary Japanese culture. I'm not home right now, but there's an extensive bibliography about anime, manga and otaku culture, if you're interested (in fact, I can recommend lots of stuff, since this is my research theme). I'll updated this later!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12832.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cauyut0","c_root_id_B":"caq3laf","created_at_utc_A":1372823517,"created_at_utc_B":1372192596,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"*Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan* by Dr. Junichi Saga The book is descrbied as a 'collective autobiography based on interviews taped by a provincial doctor'. The recordings were made after the war but deal with provincial life in Japan in the first 40 years of the 20th century. It's a fascinating read. Alan Booth, author of *The Roads to Sata* called it \"The finest book on the realities of Japanese traditional life to have been published in English for a very long time - if ever.\"","human_ref_B":"Obligatory, although outdated: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture By R. Benedict","labels":1,"seconds_difference":630921.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1h1xgj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Good anthropology or ethnography books to read on culture in Japan? Basically what i'm after are books that study the culture (or media\/ pop culture even) of contemporary Japan I'm finishing up Islands of Eight Million Smiles which studies \"pop idols\" In Japan So looking for some other good reads, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"caqge5r","c_root_id_B":"cauyut0","created_at_utc_A":1372231521,"created_at_utc_B":1372823517,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I recently took a class on Women in East Asia. One of the books we had to read was called *Erotic Grotesque Nonsense* - it's about the ways in which women's bodies were viewed during Japan's modernization period. Parts of it are a little dry as it's very academic, but it's still really interesting. I would definitely give it a shot if you want to know more about the modernization\/war era Japan.","human_ref_B":"*Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan* by Dr. Junichi Saga The book is descrbied as a 'collective autobiography based on interviews taped by a provincial doctor'. The recordings were made after the war but deal with provincial life in Japan in the first 40 years of the 20th century. It's a fascinating read. Alan Booth, author of *The Roads to Sata* called it \"The finest book on the realities of Japanese traditional life to have been published in English for a very long time - if ever.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":591996.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nu06nw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Readings in culinary anthropology\/foodways history of Central and SE Asia? I'm starting a position soon at a Singapore-based restaurant where my role will primarily be researching culinary history and anthropology in the aforementioned regions. I'm not very familiar with this field, and would really appreciate some sources. Thanks very much!","c_root_id_A":"h0w0j8h","c_root_id_B":"h0vonyp","created_at_utc_A":1623055179,"created_at_utc_B":1623044605,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There's a journal called Archaeology of Food and Foodways, and one of the editors researches Southeast Asian food. I don't k ow if it ever took off though.","human_ref_B":"Sorry I can't recommend specific work but I know that Raymond Menot researches drinking culture in Indonesia, and Repa Kustipia researches Indonesian gastronomy. There are also other anthropologists I know working on spice and coconut in eastern Indonesia but I'm not sure if that's directly relevant to your interest? I'm on mobile, I'll think about it more later. By the way, your job seems interesting! Didn't know restaurants do have a specific job conducting anthropological research on culinary.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10574.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1ypuxq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"are the conventions of story telling (the three act structure and all that monomyth stuff) so common because we spread them everywhere at some point in prehistory or do they naturally emerge independently in every culture? if you dumped a bunch of children on another planet would their decedents be telling stories with a three act structure if you came back in 3000 years?","c_root_id_A":"cfmtc84","c_root_id_B":"cfmqi72","created_at_utc_A":1393190689,"created_at_utc_B":1393184132,"score_A":21,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure how universal the monomyth idea is, or storytelling modes in general. Take for example Propp's \"Morphology of a Folktale\", in which he analyzes the stereotypical Russian folktale. He famously came up with 31 steps that every Russian (in fact almost every western) story can be placed into, where every action in that story, from the hero leaving home, meeting mysterious stranger, receipt of magical agent, and so on until he\/she returns (see here for more). Not only does this outline cover Russian tales, but it can be applied to most television, most movies, and so on. I once decided to see how the stories in Ovid's *Metamorphoses* compared to Propp's outline, and discovered that with one or two exceptions, the tales were completely different - they all had common functions, common events, but the pattern was not in any way a subset of those outlined by Propp, they formed their own system, something that goes a long ways towards explaining how strange they sound to most readers. Modern retellings of Ovid's stories often end up combining the two - for example I found a chapter in Lucy Maud Montgomery's *The Story Girl* in which the main character retells a Greek story of metamorphosis, and manages to fulfill all the important steps of *both* Propp's functions, and the argued functions of the Ovid-style stories. I remember getting a crowd of people actually angry at me when, after being asked to tell a \"Canadian\" story, I told Gitxsan (First Nations) stories. The audience (other Canadians in Tunisia) complained that it had no end, and felt that I wasn't representing \"Canada\" very well to the Tunisians. Why these different structures? One of the main reasons I can give is that stories are a reflection of larger narratives. In the case of Joseph Campbell's comparisons of the hero's journey, when he compares Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed, he's comparing epic stories from cultures, all of which have strong beliefs in a very powerful single deity, who has something of a benevolent relationship with his creations\/subjects. If you look at the view of gods presented by Ovid, they are portrayed as capricious, vindictive, and the main story is often that when man goes against god, the god will f him up. In first nations stories, or many other animist type cultures, the central theme is often a specific type of relation to nature, sometimes even emphasizing the non-predictable, non-narrative reality of life (potentially messing with the three act structure as well). If the central story of your culture is the importance of your relationship to a deity, you're might have stories of redemption, if your world is based on survival in a capricious and hostile environment, you might focus on trickster figures. If you believe in the existence of absolute truth and duty, to be followed even in the face of reason, you'll have thousands of tragic, cathartic stories of people having to choose between love\/family and duty - it really depends on how you view the nuts and bolts of reality. As an aside, I don't know to what extent we've really had an atheistic approach to narrative - perhaps Randian writings would be one possible example, but I suspect that as time goes by and if a secular, atheistic worldview is ever able to escape from it's western cultural roots, we might see yet another style of narrative. Okay. I've been going in circles now - time to answer the last question. If you dumped a bunch of children on another planet, in three thousand years their descendents could be doing anything, depending on how they saw themselves in the world, on what they valued, on what they thought of in terms of a supreme\/non-supreme deity\/force\/reality. The conventions of story telling as they've often been described are so common not because we spread them, but because as humans we have largely fallen into only a handful or so of major groups based on how we view ourselves in the world, the questions of whence and why. These worldviews can be shared, they can be adopted and adapted, and I'll stop there.","human_ref_B":"I don't know about the three act stucture, but if you look at stories coming from Native Americans, they often have the fourth time's the charm instead of the European three (A NA version would be called Goldilocks and the Four Bears). This is coming from my professor in a Native American History class and I have read stories where the hero tries 4 times instead of three.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6557.0,"score_ratio":5.25} {"post_id":"1ypuxq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"are the conventions of story telling (the three act structure and all that monomyth stuff) so common because we spread them everywhere at some point in prehistory or do they naturally emerge independently in every culture? if you dumped a bunch of children on another planet would their decedents be telling stories with a three act structure if you came back in 3000 years?","c_root_id_A":"cfmx23r","c_root_id_B":"cfmqi72","created_at_utc_A":1393199111,"created_at_utc_B":1393184132,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The conventions of storytelling as you describe are part of the Western tradition, but they are different in other cultures. Vladimir Propps *Morphology of the Folktale* applies only to a narrow range of folktales. Joseph Campbell's *Hero With a Thousand Faces* claims that certain themes are universal, but a study of the folktales of non-western cultures shows it's not universal. If you want to read more, check out the works of Alan Dundes.","human_ref_B":"I don't know about the three act stucture, but if you look at stories coming from Native Americans, they often have the fourth time's the charm instead of the European three (A NA version would be called Goldilocks and the Four Bears). This is coming from my professor in a Native American History class and I have read stories where the hero tries 4 times instead of three.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14979.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coypesi","c_root_id_B":"coypuu9","created_at_utc_A":1425017822,"created_at_utc_B":1425019043,"score_A":23,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"In Italian, it's Mario Rossi \/ Maria Rossi. Another funny concept that gets thrown around a lot to mean \"average woman\" is \"Voghera's housewife\", Voghera being an actual small town with no particularly distinctive features.","human_ref_B":"I'd just like to point out that 'John Doe' and 'Jane Doe' are US and Canadian English only. In the UK it's more common to use 'Joe Bloggs' or 'Joe Public' - the latter of which is used most often by public sector workers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1221.0,"score_ratio":2.5217391304} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coypuu9","c_root_id_B":"coyogjk","created_at_utc_A":1425019043,"created_at_utc_B":1425015435,"score_A":58,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'd just like to point out that 'John Doe' and 'Jane Doe' are US and Canadian English only. In the UK it's more common to use 'Joe Bloggs' or 'Joe Public' - the latter of which is used most often by public sector workers.","human_ref_B":"In Modern Standard Arabic, it's ful\u0101n\/ful\u0101nah \u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\/\u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\u0629","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3608.0,"score_ratio":3.4117647059} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyqmz7","c_root_id_B":"coypesi","created_at_utc_A":1425021475,"created_at_utc_B":1425017822,"score_A":44,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Placeholder_name http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language","human_ref_B":"In Italian, it's Mario Rossi \/ Maria Rossi. Another funny concept that gets thrown around a lot to mean \"average woman\" is \"Voghera's housewife\", Voghera being an actual small town with no particularly distinctive features.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3653.0,"score_ratio":1.9130434783} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyogjk","c_root_id_B":"coyqmz7","created_at_utc_A":1425015435,"created_at_utc_B":1425021475,"score_A":17,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"In Modern Standard Arabic, it's ful\u0101n\/ful\u0101nah \u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\/\u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\u0629","human_ref_B":"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Placeholder_name http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6040.0,"score_ratio":2.5882352941} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyogjk","c_root_id_B":"coypesi","created_at_utc_A":1425015435,"created_at_utc_B":1425017822,"score_A":17,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"In Modern Standard Arabic, it's ful\u0101n\/ful\u0101nah \u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\/\u0641\u0644\u0627\u0646\u0629","human_ref_B":"In Italian, it's Mario Rossi \/ Maria Rossi. Another funny concept that gets thrown around a lot to mean \"average woman\" is \"Voghera's housewife\", Voghera being an actual small town with no particularly distinctive features.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2387.0,"score_ratio":1.3529411765} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyruyv","c_root_id_B":"coyrsus","created_at_utc_A":1425025959,"created_at_utc_B":1425025717,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"In Iceland we tend to use J\u00f3n J\u00f3nsson.","human_ref_B":"In Norwegian we use Ola Normann and Kari Normann.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":242.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyr916","c_root_id_B":"coyruyv","created_at_utc_A":1425023583,"created_at_utc_B":1425025959,"score_A":6,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"French is \"Jean Dupont\", which is why Tintin had the \"Dupont\/d\". The actual most common name would be something like Marie Bertrand.","human_ref_B":"In Iceland we tend to use J\u00f3n J\u00f3nsson.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2376.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyruyv","c_root_id_B":"coyr34n","created_at_utc_A":1425025959,"created_at_utc_B":1425022991,"score_A":16,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In Iceland we tend to use J\u00f3n J\u00f3nsson.","human_ref_B":"I know it's not another language (but it sure sounds like one), the U.S. Air Force uses Airman Snuffy as a generic name for an airman - albeit in a slightly derogatory way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2968.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyr916","c_root_id_B":"coys6oq","created_at_utc_A":1425023583,"created_at_utc_B":1425027336,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"French is \"Jean Dupont\", which is why Tintin had the \"Dupont\/d\". The actual most common name would be something like Marie Bertrand.","human_ref_B":"In Serbia, it's \"Petar Petrovi\u0107\", or \"Pera Peri\u0107\"... I think officially an unknown person is called \"Persona N.N.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3753.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyr34n","c_root_id_B":"coys6oq","created_at_utc_A":1425022991,"created_at_utc_B":1425027336,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I know it's not another language (but it sure sounds like one), the U.S. Air Force uses Airman Snuffy as a generic name for an airman - albeit in a slightly derogatory way.","human_ref_B":"In Serbia, it's \"Petar Petrovi\u0107\", or \"Pera Peri\u0107\"... I think officially an unknown person is called \"Persona N.N.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4345.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyrsus","c_root_id_B":"coyr916","created_at_utc_A":1425025717,"created_at_utc_B":1425023583,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In Norwegian we use Ola Normann and Kari Normann.","human_ref_B":"French is \"Jean Dupont\", which is why Tintin had the \"Dupont\/d\". The actual most common name would be something like Marie Bertrand.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2134.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coyrsus","c_root_id_B":"coyr34n","created_at_utc_A":1425025717,"created_at_utc_B":1425022991,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In Norwegian we use Ola Normann and Kari Normann.","human_ref_B":"I know it's not another language (but it sure sounds like one), the U.S. Air Force uses Airman Snuffy as a generic name for an airman - albeit in a slightly derogatory way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2726.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coytnx5","c_root_id_B":"coyr916","created_at_utc_A":1425034544,"created_at_utc_B":1425023583,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I thought Jane and John Doe were specifically unidentified corpses or coma\/amnesia patients. In Australia at least the association with corpses is strong and you wouldn't use it to refer to a generic member of the public. That's Joe Bloggs. In law there's also \"the man on the Clapham omnibus\" (in the UK) or his Australian equivalent, \"the man on the Bondi tram\" for an ordinary member of the public (even though the Bondi tramline was ripped up decades ago)","human_ref_B":"French is \"Jean Dupont\", which is why Tintin had the \"Dupont\/d\". The actual most common name would be something like Marie Bertrand.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10961.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xbi5h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"In English, \"John Doe\" and \"Jane Doe\" are used as generic names in advertisements and entertainment. What are the generic names in other languages?","c_root_id_A":"coytnx5","c_root_id_B":"coyr34n","created_at_utc_A":1425034544,"created_at_utc_B":1425022991,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I thought Jane and John Doe were specifically unidentified corpses or coma\/amnesia patients. In Australia at least the association with corpses is strong and you wouldn't use it to refer to a generic member of the public. That's Joe Bloggs. In law there's also \"the man on the Clapham omnibus\" (in the UK) or his Australian equivalent, \"the man on the Bondi tram\" for an ordinary member of the public (even though the Bondi tramline was ripped up decades ago)","human_ref_B":"I know it's not another language (but it sure sounds like one), the U.S. Air Force uses Airman Snuffy as a generic name for an airman - albeit in a slightly derogatory way.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11553.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"fgqlaj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did Native American Nations influence the English language in any way, and if so, how? I'm not an expert in anthropology, just a filthy casual who is curious about language and culture (and can't decide between anthropology or sociology before I return to school). I appreciate any insight on this, or any sources where I could read about this.","c_root_id_A":"fk6dmye","c_root_id_B":"fk6eerc","created_at_utc_A":1583899359,"created_at_utc_B":1583899918,"score_A":14,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"Out here in the Pacific Northwest the early settlers often spoke Chinook Jargon (Wawa) which was a mix of Indigenous, English, and French and a few words even from Hawaiian. Spoken until the early 20th century. La Push (WA), Boston Bar (BC), and Alki (Seattle) are a few examples of place names that originated from the language. Some schools around Seattle use the term \"Tolo\" instead of Sadie Hawkins Dances. In BC you'll often hear \"skookum\" to describe something strong or sturdy. Tldr yes the PNW dialect was affected, but not by much","human_ref_B":"Most of the influence (which I am aware of) comes from European descendants borrowing words and place names from Native languages. For example, numerous placenames stem from the languages of the local Indigenous groups.Here's an entire wikipedia page listing these placenames. There are so many places named in this manner that it would be impractical to list them in this response. In addition, a number of nouns are called by a word derived from an indigenous language. Here is a short list from Merriam-Webster which includes \"squash\" \"toboggan\", and \"skunk.\" Once again, wikipedia has a more comprehensive list including names from a variety of language families, including Algonquin, Nahuatl, and Quecha. Unfortunately, some examples of Indigenous words used by Euro-Americans are misappropriated. For example, people say \"Let's have a pow-wow\" when they want to have a discussion or chat, when a Powwow is an important ceremony\/festival\/gathering for Native Americans which still occurs today! I only bring this up because I've heard discontent from Native Groups at the appropriation of this term. Same with calling something your \"spirit animal\" or the inappropriate use of Dream-catchers. However, I myself am not Native and encourage you to seek out twitter threads, websites, and books written by Native activists and academics to get a clearer image of these issues! ​ Edit: Some wording","labels":0,"seconds_difference":559.0,"score_ratio":3.5714285714} {"post_id":"fgqlaj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did Native American Nations influence the English language in any way, and if so, how? I'm not an expert in anthropology, just a filthy casual who is curious about language and culture (and can't decide between anthropology or sociology before I return to school). I appreciate any insight on this, or any sources where I could read about this.","c_root_id_A":"fk6doqn","c_root_id_B":"fk6eerc","created_at_utc_A":1583899394,"created_at_utc_B":1583899918,"score_A":6,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"Depends on what you mean. Many towns, counties and even states names are bastardized native american names. Same with with rivers, mountains etc.","human_ref_B":"Most of the influence (which I am aware of) comes from European descendants borrowing words and place names from Native languages. For example, numerous placenames stem from the languages of the local Indigenous groups.Here's an entire wikipedia page listing these placenames. There are so many places named in this manner that it would be impractical to list them in this response. In addition, a number of nouns are called by a word derived from an indigenous language. Here is a short list from Merriam-Webster which includes \"squash\" \"toboggan\", and \"skunk.\" Once again, wikipedia has a more comprehensive list including names from a variety of language families, including Algonquin, Nahuatl, and Quecha. Unfortunately, some examples of Indigenous words used by Euro-Americans are misappropriated. For example, people say \"Let's have a pow-wow\" when they want to have a discussion or chat, when a Powwow is an important ceremony\/festival\/gathering for Native Americans which still occurs today! I only bring this up because I've heard discontent from Native Groups at the appropriation of this term. Same with calling something your \"spirit animal\" or the inappropriate use of Dream-catchers. However, I myself am not Native and encourage you to seek out twitter threads, websites, and books written by Native activists and academics to get a clearer image of these issues! ​ Edit: Some wording","labels":0,"seconds_difference":524.0,"score_ratio":8.3333333333} {"post_id":"fgqlaj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Did Native American Nations influence the English language in any way, and if so, how? I'm not an expert in anthropology, just a filthy casual who is curious about language and culture (and can't decide between anthropology or sociology before I return to school). I appreciate any insight on this, or any sources where I could read about this.","c_root_id_A":"fk6rwah","c_root_id_B":"fk6doqn","created_at_utc_A":1583913473,"created_at_utc_B":1583899394,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"There's a fair amount of words in the english language which come from Nahuatl, which is the Aztec language essentially. Tomato, Coyote, Ocelot, Shack, Avocado, Guacamole, Chilli, Axolotl, Chipotle, Peyote, Copal, Quetzal, etc either originate from Nahuatl or are Nahuatl words.","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you mean. Many towns, counties and even states names are bastardized native american names. Same with with rivers, mountains etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14079.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"icspr5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Linguistic Anthro : Why are the vowels in the English language so phonetically inconsistent as opposed to languages like Spanish, etc.?","c_root_id_A":"g2660gk","c_root_id_B":"g25wi00","created_at_utc_A":1597889377,"created_at_utc_B":1597884186,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Depending on what dialect one looks at, there are between 15 and 20 unique vowel sounds in English. Despite this, there are only 6 letters that are regularly used to represent vowels. In contrast, Spanish is generally considered to have exactly 5 vowels and has exactly 5 letters used to represent vowels. This means that vowels (or actually all sounds, as far as I know) in Spanish have a one-to-one mapping with a corresponding letter, whereas English's sounds have to fight for control of a limited number of letters. So why is this the case? For one thing, all Western European languages use variations on the Roman alphabet, which was designed for Latin. This works great for some languages that have similar sets of sounds to Latin. But for other languages (like English), the Roman alphabet does not align so well. The reason for this misalignment comes from a combination of two factors. Firstly, languages evolve over time. Think of the difference between modern English and Shakespearean English. That difference is caused by 500 years of evolution, so imagine the amount of change that has occurred since the adoption of the Roman alphabet in late antiquity! Secondly, there is more than one language family that share the Roman alphabet. In much of Southern Europe Romance languages are spoken. These are languages that evolved from Latin, like Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. In other parts of Europe, language families like the Germanic and Slavic families are dominant. These share a common ancestor with Latin, but from what we know by the time writing was invented they were already mutually unintelligible. All of these languages, along with a few that have no known relationship with Latin at all, are sharing the same orthography. This means their writing system may be designed to include sounds that don't exist in their languages while excluding multiple sounds that do. There are a few different solutions to this problem. Some languages add additional letters to the mix, like the Icelandic \u00e6, \u00f0, and \u00fe. Other languages go for diacritics, like the Spanish \u00f1 and \u00fc. Other languages, like English, attempt to combine existing letters in new ways (think \"th\" \"ou\" etc.). English has one additional level of obfuscation in its writing system though. English spelling was standardized by the 19th century, but has continued to evolve since that time- especially it's vowels. This is why \"caught\" and \"cot\" are pronounced in the same way by many native English speakers but are spelled differently. When their spelling was standardized, they were phonetic, but now they are not. The same goes for a lot of other sets of words, like \"Mary\", \"marry\", and \"merry\" or \"knight\" and. \"night\". tldr; languages change over time and writing systems do not necessarily change with them For more information, I recommend checking out A History of the English Language by Baugh. The Wikipedia article for this topic is well written too iirc, so if that's more your speed you could check it out too.","human_ref_B":"Just to clarify, are you asking why English has more vowel sounds than vowel characters? Or are you asking about dialect variation in which sounds are used?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5191.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ed3ulp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How do phrases as names work, and how common among the worlds languages are they. Recently, I was reading up on Crazy Horse, I learnt that his name in Lakota is T\u021fa\u0161\u00fa\u014bke Witk\u00f3 (lit. His Horse is Crazy) this prompted me to try and find more names like this, with Geronimo (lit. the one who yawns), & Puckshinwa, tecumseh's father (lit. alights from falling, or something that drops) being a few other examples. This also reminded me of my old days of reading Halo lore as a kid, where the Engineers also had names like these (i.e. Quick to adapt, lighter than some, etc). Growing up in the US, I would hear lots of names like these in text books but they are still seem so foreign of a concept, but I would love to learn more about naming conventions like these, how Sioux and other American languages went about forming these names, and if this is something that is more common than I believe it to be, and if so, what other cultures take advantage of this style of name formation?","c_root_id_A":"fbgtl2r","c_root_id_B":"fbhcgrb","created_at_utc_A":1576858282,"created_at_utc_B":1576870395,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"As a sidenote, I'm positive Vietnamese uses this naming convention. The words we use for names are literally the words we use in standard conversation. There no naming form of a word, parents just pick a phrase or sentiment they like, and that's your name. For instance, I'm \"Joyful\/Festive Community\" or \"Happy to Cooperate.\" I know a guy named \"Strength of Many Nations,\" and another called \"Virtuous Stormwind\" or \"Rightous Stormwind.\"","human_ref_B":"It is roughly the same as calling someone \"Victor\", which used to mean \"the winner\" or \"the victorious\", but it is now a common name throughout the romance-language speaking world. Another example is Richard, which comes from the germanic words \"ric\", meaning ruler, king etc. and \"hard\", which obviously means strong. Therefore, \"strong ruler\" or \"strong in rule\". It's weird that when you call your friend Rick you, technically, say: \"Hey, strong ruler! How you doing? \" The reason they sound weird or specific to westerners such as us is really just because it's a totally foreign and unrelated language to the Indo-European languages. That, and the translators just kinda translated the names \"mot-a-mot\"(word-for-word), rather than just taking them as they are. Just as they aren't weird to us westerners, it is not weird for them to call people by these names.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12113.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2nw6ef","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"What people mean when they say race is a \"social construct?\" How can you say there are no differences between black people and white people? Especially when black people have some diseases (anemia) and white people have others (down syndrome)?","c_root_id_A":"cmhq99p","c_root_id_B":"cmhn6z9","created_at_utc_A":1417418178,"created_at_utc_B":1417409445,"score_A":36,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The way it was explained to me: Take two people from Rwanda. One is Hutu, the other is Tutsi. In Rwanda these are separate races in conflict, with genocide in the recent history. Take those same two people and put them in downtown Los Angeles. The Hutu\/Tutsi divide is meaningless in the USA, to the residents of LA both people are one race: black. How can two people be different races in one culture, but the same race in another? Because their race is not an intrinsic property, but a construct of their society and context.","human_ref_B":">black people have some diseases (anemia) and white people have others (down syndrome) Well, there are white people with anemia, and black people with down syndrome. From the perspective of the genetic makeup of the human species, the human genome project has looked at the question of race, and their results show that there is very little genetic variation between different ethnicities. They state that \"no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other.\" In other words, once you remove societal conditioning form the picture, from an objective standpoint the similarities between different races far outweigh our superficial, inconsistent, and trivial differences. The *only* reasons to make distinctions between different ethnicities are purely social reasons.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8733.0,"score_ratio":2.7692307692} {"post_id":"2nw6ef","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"What people mean when they say race is a \"social construct?\" How can you say there are no differences between black people and white people? Especially when black people have some diseases (anemia) and white people have others (down syndrome)?","c_root_id_A":"cmhq99p","c_root_id_B":"cmhpdyq","created_at_utc_A":1417418178,"created_at_utc_B":1417415238,"score_A":36,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The way it was explained to me: Take two people from Rwanda. One is Hutu, the other is Tutsi. In Rwanda these are separate races in conflict, with genocide in the recent history. Take those same two people and put them in downtown Los Angeles. The Hutu\/Tutsi divide is meaningless in the USA, to the residents of LA both people are one race: black. How can two people be different races in one culture, but the same race in another? Because their race is not an intrinsic property, but a construct of their society and context.","human_ref_B":"Discrete categories corresponding to our conceptions of \"race\" simply don't exist or appear genetically. If you look at a genome and try to predict exactly what a person looks like, it can be difficult to do that totally accurately. Human phenotypes exist on a population-by-population continuum across the globe, not in large discrete groupings. Did you know that there is more genetic diversity within Africa than in all other world populations combined? Certain populations have certain traits that are conserved based on geographic location (with associated environmental conditions), geographic isolation, social mores, etc., and that sometimes are beneficial or related to survival in that particular environment. For example, black people and anemia. Having heterozygous anemia makes it more likely that one will survive malaria, which is endemic in Africa. But that's just one trait. Is one trait enough to define an entire group of people as being totally different from another? No. What we as a society do is take a couple of physical traits and decide that those few things make the person who has them distinctly different from the rest of humanity. That is the first step of the social construction of race. Taking a few phenotypic traits out of the many millions that humans have and deciding that only those traits matter and somehow make those people different from any others. We then load all of our other historical discriminatory baggage-- including many years of institutional oppression over generations, in some cases--and attach that to these constructed categories that we've made. We project these identities onto people and we make them into realities through social conditioning, whether purposeful or not. As for down syndrome, every population has that--but if I were to make a guess, I would think that if \"white people\" have higher rates of that (in the United States at least), it would be because many white people in recent decades in the US choose to have children later in life. Down syndrome is often associated with late pregnancies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2940.0,"score_ratio":12.0} {"post_id":"2nw6ef","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"What people mean when they say race is a \"social construct?\" How can you say there are no differences between black people and white people? Especially when black people have some diseases (anemia) and white people have others (down syndrome)?","c_root_id_A":"cmhqeqb","c_root_id_B":"cmhpdyq","created_at_utc_A":1417418736,"created_at_utc_B":1417415238,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Take every person on earth and line them up from most to least of some racial feature, say dark skin color. There is no point on that continuum to draw a line between races.","human_ref_B":"Discrete categories corresponding to our conceptions of \"race\" simply don't exist or appear genetically. If you look at a genome and try to predict exactly what a person looks like, it can be difficult to do that totally accurately. Human phenotypes exist on a population-by-population continuum across the globe, not in large discrete groupings. Did you know that there is more genetic diversity within Africa than in all other world populations combined? Certain populations have certain traits that are conserved based on geographic location (with associated environmental conditions), geographic isolation, social mores, etc., and that sometimes are beneficial or related to survival in that particular environment. For example, black people and anemia. Having heterozygous anemia makes it more likely that one will survive malaria, which is endemic in Africa. But that's just one trait. Is one trait enough to define an entire group of people as being totally different from another? No. What we as a society do is take a couple of physical traits and decide that those few things make the person who has them distinctly different from the rest of humanity. That is the first step of the social construction of race. Taking a few phenotypic traits out of the many millions that humans have and deciding that only those traits matter and somehow make those people different from any others. We then load all of our other historical discriminatory baggage-- including many years of institutional oppression over generations, in some cases--and attach that to these constructed categories that we've made. We project these identities onto people and we make them into realities through social conditioning, whether purposeful or not. As for down syndrome, every population has that--but if I were to make a guess, I would think that if \"white people\" have higher rates of that (in the United States at least), it would be because many white people in recent decades in the US choose to have children later in life. Down syndrome is often associated with late pregnancies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3498.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"am2pdt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How come European Anthropologists refer to African people as tribes or tribal? I dont see how the Yoruba, Mandinka, Zulu, Sonnike are a tribe but not Irish, Scots, Brits, Germans, Gaul, Roma.","c_root_id_A":"efivrim","c_root_id_B":"efj4soc","created_at_utc_A":1549034270,"created_at_utc_B":1549040329,"score_A":47,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"Each of the European examples you've given have been called tribes by anthropologists and historians in the past, it's just that they no longer fit the description. With the exception of extinct Gaul, the Irish, Scots, English and Germans have all formed nation-states based on their ethnicity. None of your African examples have, for many reasons. That's the distinction.","human_ref_B":"I have a Masters in Anthropology. I would not use the term tribe if I have the choice. Tribe has a specific meaning which does not apply to all African groupings. To use it as a blanket term is inaccurate and the word has developed into a negative referent in the minds of many users of the term.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6059.0,"score_ratio":1.2553191489} {"post_id":"am2pdt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How come European Anthropologists refer to African people as tribes or tribal? I dont see how the Yoruba, Mandinka, Zulu, Sonnike are a tribe but not Irish, Scots, Brits, Germans, Gaul, Roma.","c_root_id_A":"efj4soc","c_root_id_B":"efiy6ah","created_at_utc_A":1549040329,"created_at_utc_B":1549035884,"score_A":59,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I have a Masters in Anthropology. I would not use the term tribe if I have the choice. Tribe has a specific meaning which does not apply to all African groupings. To use it as a blanket term is inaccurate and the word has developed into a negative referent in the minds of many users of the term.","human_ref_B":"Are Yourba even considered a \u201ctribe\u201d and not an ethnic grouping? There are like 45 million Yourba and they are the dominate group in the very large country of Nigeria. That is a big tribe","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4445.0,"score_ratio":1.4390243902} {"post_id":"bsiouh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What's the purpose of \"BP\" dating? Why would I ever say \"2000 years before 1950 CE\" instead of \"50 BC\"? Is it just because historians are still people and can't help themselves from saying things were \"2000 years ago,\" but they're precise enough to be annoyed when their article is \"wrong\" if read 2 years later? If that's the case, do any legitimate scholarly works use BP? Won't it be pretty silly to keep using BP a couple hundred years from now? *I know why 1950 was the year they chose (vaguely), I'm just asking why they chose any year at all.","c_root_id_A":"eonpo0c","c_root_id_B":"eonjyg5","created_at_utc_A":1558718453,"created_at_utc_B":1558714376,"score_A":30,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s all to do with carbon dating. It\u2019s based on the half-life of C14. The decay of C14 cannot be as accurately measured with samples from after the 1950s due to the impact of nuclear technology and the radiation they\u2019ve released. Many many serious scholars do use BP as a measure, be they archaeologists, palaeo-climatologists or other adjacent fields.","human_ref_B":"Because time is relative, and there is no scientific basis for using a cultural historical marker as an arbitrary zero date. Doing so quietly advances a cultural agenda without any scientific purpose. https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/45510-anno-domini.html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4077.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"b9nimv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"We know that the today's Europeans look very different from ancient Europeans (i.e. prior to 8,000 years ago). Has this kind of analysis been done on the Chinese, Indians, or Central Asians? We know that the today's Europeans look very different from ancient Europeans (i.e. prior to 8,000 years ago). Has this kind of analysis been done on the Chinese, Indians, or Central Asians?","c_root_id_A":"ek5ruaf","c_root_id_B":"ek5v7ky","created_at_utc_A":1554445540,"created_at_utc_B":1554450499,"score_A":16,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"It's my understanding that, at least in part, the history of those ethnicities are the same as the ancient Europeans in that time period.","human_ref_B":"Genetic evidence has identified several big waves of immigration originating in the Middle East that travelled into Europe, ranging roughly from 6,000-4,000 BCE. It varies by region, but genetically these immigrants account for over >50% of Europe's gene pool. For example, only about 25% of genes in Germany can be traced to populations that pre-date that period. Similar analysis done in East Asia shows that there has not been a similar migration from outside East Asia in. Rather, the two major waves of immigration within East Asia have been from Central China into South China (the ancient people living in South China were genetically more similar to southeast Asians), and from Korea into Japan (the ancient people of Japan are related to the Ainu minority group in Japan; they do not appear to be related to any large modern ethnic group). AFAIK there hasn't been a big wave of immigration into India either, but I'm less familiar with that region.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4959.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"bvmusx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"why did polytheism die out in the west?","c_root_id_A":"eps97hr","c_root_id_B":"epshklg","created_at_utc_A":1559441401,"created_at_utc_B":1559449215,"score_A":3,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Aggressive Christian proselytism and suppression of \u201cheretics\u201d probably is the factor that really ended it. The last straw.","human_ref_B":"I mean.. did it really? You could argue that Catholicism with all its saints and especially with how revered Mary is, is still polytheistic, or polylatric.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7814.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"ftnf4f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Archaeology question about Native American Settlement preferences in the 1780's I am a recent graduate of University, I focused my studies on historical archaeology, and archaeology of India. However, I have been hired to do a research job that focuses on both Historical archaeology, and prehistorical archaeology. I had a question about Native American towns circa 1780's. Is there a specific type of topography that they would have preferred to build their towns? The area I am looking at is near the mountains of North Carolina, and South Carolina. I am unable to do any shovel testing as much of the area is now underwater and is owned by the local power company. However, the director has tasked me with trying to find where said town would have been located. Would they have preferred hills? or valleys? would they have preferred close to a river, or farther from said river? Any help you could give me would be awesome. I am not well versed in Native American history or settlement preferences. ​ Thanks for your help!","c_root_id_A":"fm8dazz","c_root_id_B":"fm8ma4h","created_at_utc_A":1585847317,"created_at_utc_B":1585851947,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Most of the artificial lakes and reservoirs in that area were surveyed by archaeologists before they were inundated. You need to locate the survey reports (my guess is they're dated to the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s). Archaeological sites would have been recorded, including colonial-era Native American towns. North and South Carolina will have the site records, and you should be able to get access to the site forms. PM me for more assistance if you'd like a hand. **edit:** I would suggest asking your professor to reach out to the state agencies responsible for this kind of information. They usually charge for access, but academic institutions typically are granted exceptions for data requests. At any rate, what you want to do... 1) Contact NC Office of State Archaeology and SC Department of Archives and History. Access to site records may be restricted for general public, or you may have to pay a fee for access. However, if you're working for an academic institution (if the professor you're working for makes the contact), they may be able to assist you without charge. **and \/ or** 2) Search online for \"name of reservoir\" archaeological survey. You may have to do a little digging, but if you can narrow down when the lake was created (e.g., when the dam was constructed) you may be able to add a date or date range to your search. You might also contact the same agencies as referenced above and inquire about survey reports. They will have copies on file or in their archives and probably can provide digital copies of them. You can also begin to do some background research for yourself in two ways. **The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA)** This site has summary information on archaeological sites in a number of US states, including NC and SC. Use the search function and start by entering the name of the lake \/ reservoir you're interested in. You can start to get an idea of sites that are recorded in that area, and that may assist you with looking for information on the work in the area in question. **Historical topographic maps and predictive modeling** \/u\/CommodoreCoCo referred to predictive modeling. While that can get very complex, simple predictive modeling is done all the time by archaeologists. We use topographic maps (which can be obtained here, for example) to examine areas of interest. Generally, if they had a choice people didn't build homes or settlements in low-lying areas, but on elevated landforms adjacent to lower-lying areas. This is definitely going to be the case for 18th century Native American communities, which would have been farming. So what you would want to do is look in areas where there is an elevated area above a river of creek floodplain. The settlement would be on the elevated area, while farming could be done on the lower floodplain area. If I were looking for areas of high probability, that's where I would target.","human_ref_B":"This question was one of the first in archaeology to be intensively approached through GIS, which continues to be the most productive mode of study. What you're looking for is \"predictive modeling\" of settlement patterns. These approaches consider the variables shared by known sites (e.g. distance from water, elevation, land cover, etc.), plot those variables across an entire region, and then identify locations with similar variables to known sites. Some resources to get you started: Practical Applications of GIS for Archaeologists: A Predictive Modelling Toolkit by Wescott and Brandon Julin, Angela J. 2015. \u201cPredictive Modeling of Archaeological Resource Locations at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.\u201d M.A., United States -- Arizona: Northern Arizona University. Stirn, Matthew. 2014. \u201cModeling Site Location Patterns amongst Late-Prehistoric Villages in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.\u201d Journal of Archaeological Science 41 (January): 523\u201332. Predictive Modeling Upper Delaware Valley Practices a state report by Michael Stewart You'll also be interested in this chapter and its bibliography from *Middle Atlantic Prehistory*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4630.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg70wfc","c_root_id_B":"cg728d7","created_at_utc_A":1395278932,"created_at_utc_B":1395281827,"score_A":13,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"DISCLAIMER: Not an anthropologist! Do not attempt at home! Man, this is going to get some flak on this subreddit, and to a lot of anthropologists what you're asking is a hugely controversial, shitstirring question. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of my points. \"Race\" as people generally call it is, at its core, a huge misnomer. I challenge people who believe it's not to please locate \"afroasian\" on a census form (mixed doesn't count), or to pin the Malagasy to what we usually think of as a single race. That being said, and some people will get a bit uncomfortable at me saying so: Certain regions tend towards certain bunches of phenotypes. Denial in this can get silly. (mind you, these are averages of faces from countries, which are frequently throughout history arbitrarily defined. Kind of helps to serve the point though.) That being said, phenotypes are interesting because they can express themselves in different ways in different regions, without even changing their genotype! A group of flowers grown on a rocky cliff don't necessarily change their entire species to grow properly! They change themselves so much we can observe differences in things like how many flowers are on a branch, or how narrow a leaf is, but all without changing a thing in their actual genotype! (Epigenetics is crazy cool btw!) So if epigenetics is a thing, and if we're not all that genetically (genotypally?) different why don't we take on the characteristics of the areas around us when we're born? This is because of a thing called canalisation! Canalisation is a measure of how a population's phenotype (which we frequently use \"race\" to describe in huge overly general terms) DOESN'T change! Or rather, how even when its surroundings change, we keep the same phenotype (which remember, is just a way of \"physically displaying\" a certain gene) just the same. Unfortunately, canalisation in natural selection is still a very hot topic, and something we're still trying to really figure out! If you'd like to know more, then you should look into the topic of something called genetic assimilation, which is the process by which phenotypes are created in response to our environment. Whew! Sorry to wrap this up, without directly answering all of your questions, but... In conclusion, it's important to take into consideration things like epigenetics, what things like \"race\" mean to you and me, and phenotypes and biology in general when we try to apply questions like this anthropologically. With all that said, the AAA's statement on race is pretty interesting, and is worth a read (or two!) with these things in mind! Oh! And remember! If you're ashamed to ask a question in class, there's always office hours and talking with the professor one on one, no? Edit: oops, the intro to this post makes no sense because at the time, no one had posted yet. whoopsies.","human_ref_B":"Forensic anthropologist cannot determine ancestry (race) with that much accuracy. When morphological traits are combined with metrical analysis, they can generally make positive assessments. But it's become far less accurate due to increasing variability.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2895.0,"score_ratio":1.5384615385} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg70wfc","c_root_id_B":"cg76hms","created_at_utc_A":1395278932,"created_at_utc_B":1395292244,"score_A":13,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"DISCLAIMER: Not an anthropologist! Do not attempt at home! Man, this is going to get some flak on this subreddit, and to a lot of anthropologists what you're asking is a hugely controversial, shitstirring question. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of my points. \"Race\" as people generally call it is, at its core, a huge misnomer. I challenge people who believe it's not to please locate \"afroasian\" on a census form (mixed doesn't count), or to pin the Malagasy to what we usually think of as a single race. That being said, and some people will get a bit uncomfortable at me saying so: Certain regions tend towards certain bunches of phenotypes. Denial in this can get silly. (mind you, these are averages of faces from countries, which are frequently throughout history arbitrarily defined. Kind of helps to serve the point though.) That being said, phenotypes are interesting because they can express themselves in different ways in different regions, without even changing their genotype! A group of flowers grown on a rocky cliff don't necessarily change their entire species to grow properly! They change themselves so much we can observe differences in things like how many flowers are on a branch, or how narrow a leaf is, but all without changing a thing in their actual genotype! (Epigenetics is crazy cool btw!) So if epigenetics is a thing, and if we're not all that genetically (genotypally?) different why don't we take on the characteristics of the areas around us when we're born? This is because of a thing called canalisation! Canalisation is a measure of how a population's phenotype (which we frequently use \"race\" to describe in huge overly general terms) DOESN'T change! Or rather, how even when its surroundings change, we keep the same phenotype (which remember, is just a way of \"physically displaying\" a certain gene) just the same. Unfortunately, canalisation in natural selection is still a very hot topic, and something we're still trying to really figure out! If you'd like to know more, then you should look into the topic of something called genetic assimilation, which is the process by which phenotypes are created in response to our environment. Whew! Sorry to wrap this up, without directly answering all of your questions, but... In conclusion, it's important to take into consideration things like epigenetics, what things like \"race\" mean to you and me, and phenotypes and biology in general when we try to apply questions like this anthropologically. With all that said, the AAA's statement on race is pretty interesting, and is worth a read (or two!) with these things in mind! Oh! And remember! If you're ashamed to ask a question in class, there's always office hours and talking with the professor one on one, no? Edit: oops, the intro to this post makes no sense because at the time, no one had posted yet. whoopsies.","human_ref_B":">Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. There are some traits that are common (but not universal and not limited to) Khoisan peoples, such as epicanthic folds (\"Asian\" eyes), medium-light skin, wide-set eyes, small nose and ears, &c. However, for each of these traits I've seen San people who lacked them (and often more than one of them). You listed a bunch of old stereotypes about Khoisan appearance, but you missed some others. If you read a source from the nineteenth century, you'd not only see what you wrote in a description of Khoisan people. You'd also \"learn\" that San men have permanently erect penises, that Khoisan people are naturally covered in deep wrinkles from adulthood on, and that they have protruding, monkey-like faces and small craniums. A lot of the writing on physical peculiarities of Khoisan people is *very* old, usually a century or more. Anthropologists who began studying Khoisan groups in the 50's and 60's weren't really interested in those things because they're rather superficial. Because of this, when you go searching for stuff about Khoisan physical characteristics, you're going to get a lot of *very* outdated sources. A lot of these traits are either exaggerated or outright made up. How a bunch of people who would have actually seen San men on a regular basis ended up thinking that they had permanent boners is a mystery for the ages, because it's very obviously not true.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13312.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg76hms","c_root_id_B":"cg72y75","created_at_utc_A":1395292244,"created_at_utc_B":1395283408,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":">Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. There are some traits that are common (but not universal and not limited to) Khoisan peoples, such as epicanthic folds (\"Asian\" eyes), medium-light skin, wide-set eyes, small nose and ears, &c. However, for each of these traits I've seen San people who lacked them (and often more than one of them). You listed a bunch of old stereotypes about Khoisan appearance, but you missed some others. If you read a source from the nineteenth century, you'd not only see what you wrote in a description of Khoisan people. You'd also \"learn\" that San men have permanently erect penises, that Khoisan people are naturally covered in deep wrinkles from adulthood on, and that they have protruding, monkey-like faces and small craniums. A lot of the writing on physical peculiarities of Khoisan people is *very* old, usually a century or more. Anthropologists who began studying Khoisan groups in the 50's and 60's weren't really interested in those things because they're rather superficial. Because of this, when you go searching for stuff about Khoisan physical characteristics, you're going to get a lot of *very* outdated sources. A lot of these traits are either exaggerated or outright made up. How a bunch of people who would have actually seen San men on a regular basis ended up thinking that they had permanent boners is a mystery for the ages, because it's very obviously not true.","human_ref_B":"\\**Sigh*\\* A question about race is asked every once in a while, but let's go. > There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. There're also definite differences between Khoisan and Solomon Islanders, or between, say, Greeks and Norwegians. Not to say, in my specialty, among \"Asians\". Westerners seem to think Japanese, Korean and Chinese (and Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) all look alike, but nothing could be farther from the truth - it's actually easier to distinguish them than it is to distinguish, say, mainland Europeans from eachother. This is, in fact, supported by the fact that 94% of human genetic variation is found within so-called \"race groups\". As an anecdote, I've talked to Japanese people who claimed to only manage to tell \"European\" people apart by \"non-facial\" characteristics (hair color, height, clothes, etc.). They said all the faces looked the same to them. >I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Oh boy, that is a tough question, and I see no definite answer for it in my lifetime. Google \"Nurture vs Nature\" to have an idea. >literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. OK, that's a (somewhat) fair point. I was actually writing a huge wall of text trying to explain this, but it doesn't matter. Skin color is not race, there can be ~~non-genetic~~ non-racial explanations for that and how can you be so sure that > they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life ? Nevertheless, it's quite possibly, yes, that some genetically homogeneous populations have some traits which are typical of them. And this brings us to the next point: > I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. So, honestly, let's drop all this and talk about spherical cows in a vacuum. People have contact with outsiders all the time. People have sex with outsiders, have children with outsiders, and pass their traits to their children. And it only takes one of these children inheriting one trait (say, skin color) and not the other (say, athletic prowess) to make this \"admittance of physical variations in populations\" a rather silly topic, IMO. >I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy Dunno, it always sounded like witchcraft to me. Also, here's an interesting fact: in Brazil, because of the \"racial\" miscigenation, it's pratically impossible to use necroidentification to determine skin color. Our forensic anthropologists focus on more reliable skeleton traits, like sex, age, height, eating habits, etc. And, finally, > could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Not likely. That's because, even if mental or emotional characteristics were genetically inheritable (and, mind you, I've never been convinced that they are) AND \"racially\" related, brain evolution is a tough topic. But we know that, in fact, it goes quite faster than \"physical\" evolution. So even if, at some time in the past, there were \"racially-based mental differences\", we probably won't find them on contemporary humans. \/rant **TL;DR**: there's no race (heck, some would say there's no species), therefore there's no racially-based nothing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8836.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg76hms","c_root_id_B":"cg74m86","created_at_utc_A":1395292244,"created_at_utc_B":1395287173,"score_A":18,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. There are some traits that are common (but not universal and not limited to) Khoisan peoples, such as epicanthic folds (\"Asian\" eyes), medium-light skin, wide-set eyes, small nose and ears, &c. However, for each of these traits I've seen San people who lacked them (and often more than one of them). You listed a bunch of old stereotypes about Khoisan appearance, but you missed some others. If you read a source from the nineteenth century, you'd not only see what you wrote in a description of Khoisan people. You'd also \"learn\" that San men have permanently erect penises, that Khoisan people are naturally covered in deep wrinkles from adulthood on, and that they have protruding, monkey-like faces and small craniums. A lot of the writing on physical peculiarities of Khoisan people is *very* old, usually a century or more. Anthropologists who began studying Khoisan groups in the 50's and 60's weren't really interested in those things because they're rather superficial. Because of this, when you go searching for stuff about Khoisan physical characteristics, you're going to get a lot of *very* outdated sources. A lot of these traits are either exaggerated or outright made up. How a bunch of people who would have actually seen San men on a regular basis ended up thinking that they had permanent boners is a mystery for the ages, because it's very obviously not true.","human_ref_B":"Go read Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It's a history of intelligence testing that talks about the ways in which these ideas about categorizing people have a long history that is loaded with race and political assumptions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5071.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg736hm","c_root_id_B":"cg76hms","created_at_utc_A":1395283898,"created_at_utc_B":1395292244,"score_A":4,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"When I was graduating in the 90's the trend was to use clines) where we used to use the term race. There are geographic distinctions and it even takes into account that there are variations in any specific clinal group. Here is a pretty good write up. As far as judging a skeletons race, age etc; we did a lot of bone work in the lab and we would give general estimates but rarely could we be 100% certain. I had to \"age\" & \"sex\" a particular set of bones and when I was done my report said 85% likely 18-34 female, 90% likely Asian. Turned out upon further info the skeleton was a 24 y\/o Vietnamese girl.","human_ref_B":">Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. There are some traits that are common (but not universal and not limited to) Khoisan peoples, such as epicanthic folds (\"Asian\" eyes), medium-light skin, wide-set eyes, small nose and ears, &c. However, for each of these traits I've seen San people who lacked them (and often more than one of them). You listed a bunch of old stereotypes about Khoisan appearance, but you missed some others. If you read a source from the nineteenth century, you'd not only see what you wrote in a description of Khoisan people. You'd also \"learn\" that San men have permanently erect penises, that Khoisan people are naturally covered in deep wrinkles from adulthood on, and that they have protruding, monkey-like faces and small craniums. A lot of the writing on physical peculiarities of Khoisan people is *very* old, usually a century or more. Anthropologists who began studying Khoisan groups in the 50's and 60's weren't really interested in those things because they're rather superficial. Because of this, when you go searching for stuff about Khoisan physical characteristics, you're going to get a lot of *very* outdated sources. A lot of these traits are either exaggerated or outright made up. How a bunch of people who would have actually seen San men on a regular basis ended up thinking that they had permanent boners is a mystery for the ages, because it's very obviously not true.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8346.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg76hms","c_root_id_B":"cg747dz","created_at_utc_A":1395292244,"created_at_utc_B":1395286189,"score_A":18,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. There are some traits that are common (but not universal and not limited to) Khoisan peoples, such as epicanthic folds (\"Asian\" eyes), medium-light skin, wide-set eyes, small nose and ears, &c. However, for each of these traits I've seen San people who lacked them (and often more than one of them). You listed a bunch of old stereotypes about Khoisan appearance, but you missed some others. If you read a source from the nineteenth century, you'd not only see what you wrote in a description of Khoisan people. You'd also \"learn\" that San men have permanently erect penises, that Khoisan people are naturally covered in deep wrinkles from adulthood on, and that they have protruding, monkey-like faces and small craniums. A lot of the writing on physical peculiarities of Khoisan people is *very* old, usually a century or more. Anthropologists who began studying Khoisan groups in the 50's and 60's weren't really interested in those things because they're rather superficial. Because of this, when you go searching for stuff about Khoisan physical characteristics, you're going to get a lot of *very* outdated sources. A lot of these traits are either exaggerated or outright made up. How a bunch of people who would have actually seen San men on a regular basis ended up thinking that they had permanent boners is a mystery for the ages, because it's very obviously not true.","human_ref_B":"Ok, re: genetic variation (and I think this is in line with a lot of what \/u\/vladesko was trying to say). This quick click-through animation --from a website designed by the American Anthropological Association to address everyone's questions about race-- might help clear up some of the confusion about trends in genetic variation and the whole \"population vs. race\" thing. People seem to be confusing and mixing up definitions on here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6055.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg72y75","c_root_id_B":"cg7a10k","created_at_utc_A":1395283408,"created_at_utc_B":1395309354,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"\\**Sigh*\\* A question about race is asked every once in a while, but let's go. > There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. There're also definite differences between Khoisan and Solomon Islanders, or between, say, Greeks and Norwegians. Not to say, in my specialty, among \"Asians\". Westerners seem to think Japanese, Korean and Chinese (and Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) all look alike, but nothing could be farther from the truth - it's actually easier to distinguish them than it is to distinguish, say, mainland Europeans from eachother. This is, in fact, supported by the fact that 94% of human genetic variation is found within so-called \"race groups\". As an anecdote, I've talked to Japanese people who claimed to only manage to tell \"European\" people apart by \"non-facial\" characteristics (hair color, height, clothes, etc.). They said all the faces looked the same to them. >I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Oh boy, that is a tough question, and I see no definite answer for it in my lifetime. Google \"Nurture vs Nature\" to have an idea. >literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. OK, that's a (somewhat) fair point. I was actually writing a huge wall of text trying to explain this, but it doesn't matter. Skin color is not race, there can be ~~non-genetic~~ non-racial explanations for that and how can you be so sure that > they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life ? Nevertheless, it's quite possibly, yes, that some genetically homogeneous populations have some traits which are typical of them. And this brings us to the next point: > I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. So, honestly, let's drop all this and talk about spherical cows in a vacuum. People have contact with outsiders all the time. People have sex with outsiders, have children with outsiders, and pass their traits to their children. And it only takes one of these children inheriting one trait (say, skin color) and not the other (say, athletic prowess) to make this \"admittance of physical variations in populations\" a rather silly topic, IMO. >I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy Dunno, it always sounded like witchcraft to me. Also, here's an interesting fact: in Brazil, because of the \"racial\" miscigenation, it's pratically impossible to use necroidentification to determine skin color. Our forensic anthropologists focus on more reliable skeleton traits, like sex, age, height, eating habits, etc. And, finally, > could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Not likely. That's because, even if mental or emotional characteristics were genetically inheritable (and, mind you, I've never been convinced that they are) AND \"racially\" related, brain evolution is a tough topic. But we know that, in fact, it goes quite faster than \"physical\" evolution. So even if, at some time in the past, there were \"racially-based mental differences\", we probably won't find them on contemporary humans. \/rant **TL;DR**: there's no race (heck, some would say there's no species), therefore there's no racially-based nothing.","human_ref_B":"I think a lot of people have addressed the issue of race well so far. And if you search on this sub you'll find tons of previous discussions of whether race is \"real\" and how anthropologists think about it. I also recommend you listen to \/u\/AndCat whom we gave forensic anthropology flair because they have graduate training in the subject and know what they are talking about regarding identifying race with skeletal remains. I just wanted to briefly point out the problems with what you're saying regarding the Khoisan. It sounds like you stumbled upon writings about Saartjie \"Sarah\" Baartman AKA the Hottentot Venus. She was a Khoisan woman born in 1789 whose family was killed in a raid and she became a slave to a Dutch farmer. Her rather large buttocks was unusual to the colonialists and she ended up being displayed as an object in Europe for a long time. She was sold to a number of different museums and individuals who wished to exhibit her and curious Europeans could come and gawk at her butt. Steatopygia (a high degree of fat accumulation around the buttocks) is common among the Khoisan but also many Bantu peoples, Negritos, and it isn't uncommon in the general Southern African region. But some argue that if you look at paleolithic venus figurines from Europe and Asia you see steatopygia along with extended labia, which sometimes goes hand in hand. My point isn't that the Khoisan aren't interesting genetically - in fact they are unique in a lot of ways and go to show how \"black\" as a category hides a ton of genetic variation. But the big butts aren't limited to their population nor are they usually as dramatic as the images of Baartman (which were probably somewhat exaggerated.) You can also just google images of Khoisan people and see that while some ladies do have larger rear ends, plenty don't. And I'm pretty sure \/r\/gonewild has lots of non-Khoisan ladies with impressive behinds as well. The Victorian period had a bizarre fascination with the private parts of the colonized and side show type displays of extremes like the ones Baartman ended up at were incredibly popular. What makes the Khoisan genetically interesting really isn't large rear ends or longer on average labias except in the sideshow manner.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25946.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg78vq4","c_root_id_B":"cg7a10k","created_at_utc_A":1395302053,"created_at_utc_B":1395309354,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Going to wade in here, although I may be a bit late to the party. To address the question of race, I'd like to summarize a study that was done I believe in the '90s that took an interesting approach. Essentially phenotypic data for hundreds (maybe more?) of people with as much racial\/geolocal\/ethnic diversity as possible was fed into a computer database. The computer was asked to aggregate the data into four categories, and it came up with a breakdown more or less similar than the race groups referenced in the West (black, white, Asian, and can't remember how sorted the fourth off the top of head). When asked to aggregate in different numbers of categories, however, the results showed completely different ways of organizing differences. Three, if I remember correctly, sorted a category similar to Asian but including indigenous Americans, Europeans and Africans, and Polynesian\/islanders. Any way, the point being that our categories of racial categorization are entirely arbitrary but the lines of difference are so culturally embedded that we don't even think about them. Which takes me to another point, which is that this particular system we use is entirely based on bad science in the so-called age of Enlightenment. According to Guillaumin, the idea of race in Europe had previously been an issue of heritage and blood in the sense of tracking aristocratic blood lines. However with the expansions of colonialism and increased contract with \"others\", the metropole needed to assure itself of its superiority and police that superiority. So you see in this period studies that quite literally question the humanity of the other \"races\", studies that talk about the dangers of creating racial hybrids because they will lead to the downfall of good white Europe, etc. We see the systematic dismissal of the non-white other's ability to participate in knowledge creation, as instead they become the subject of observation. Enter subaltern studies generations later, and post-colonial studies. Both emerge from similar places with similar ideas, namely that the colonized are not unintelligible, illogical or emotionally stunted others needing to be saved from themselves, but instead demanding and reclaiming their ability to be heard. And if you take the time to read what they have to say, what you might see are different *ways* of responding to emotional stimulus, but from what I have read this has less to do with outright genetic difference and more to do with the socio-spatial context of the person and their community. You might, as the old-school anthropologist Evans-Prichard described in his book *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande* (which is problematic in it's own right but that's a different conversation), see different forms of knowledge that while entirely different from what you know, are no less valuable and rich. De Sousa Santos calls this concept \"ecologies of knowledge\". So I really don't think it's reasonable to postulate that some racially different groups might be more or less intelligent, or have more or less developed emotional capacities. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that shows emotion and mental stability have more to do with society and one's relationships within it than with individual characteristics. And knowledge develops in ways that are temporally, socially, and spatially relevant to communities. Priorities may differ by community, but I have yet to see any reasonable evidence that actual ability across a group of the nature you describe does so. Sources: *Health Disparities in the United States*, *Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology*, *Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race*, \"Science Gone Native in Colonial India\", The SGG (I recommend Spivak \"Can the Subaltern Speak\" as a good starting point), *Black Skin, White Masks*; *On the Postcolony*, *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande*, \"Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Differences\", among many others.","human_ref_B":"I think a lot of people have addressed the issue of race well so far. And if you search on this sub you'll find tons of previous discussions of whether race is \"real\" and how anthropologists think about it. I also recommend you listen to \/u\/AndCat whom we gave forensic anthropology flair because they have graduate training in the subject and know what they are talking about regarding identifying race with skeletal remains. I just wanted to briefly point out the problems with what you're saying regarding the Khoisan. It sounds like you stumbled upon writings about Saartjie \"Sarah\" Baartman AKA the Hottentot Venus. She was a Khoisan woman born in 1789 whose family was killed in a raid and she became a slave to a Dutch farmer. Her rather large buttocks was unusual to the colonialists and she ended up being displayed as an object in Europe for a long time. She was sold to a number of different museums and individuals who wished to exhibit her and curious Europeans could come and gawk at her butt. Steatopygia (a high degree of fat accumulation around the buttocks) is common among the Khoisan but also many Bantu peoples, Negritos, and it isn't uncommon in the general Southern African region. But some argue that if you look at paleolithic venus figurines from Europe and Asia you see steatopygia along with extended labia, which sometimes goes hand in hand. My point isn't that the Khoisan aren't interesting genetically - in fact they are unique in a lot of ways and go to show how \"black\" as a category hides a ton of genetic variation. But the big butts aren't limited to their population nor are they usually as dramatic as the images of Baartman (which were probably somewhat exaggerated.) You can also just google images of Khoisan people and see that while some ladies do have larger rear ends, plenty don't. And I'm pretty sure \/r\/gonewild has lots of non-Khoisan ladies with impressive behinds as well. The Victorian period had a bizarre fascination with the private parts of the colonized and side show type displays of extremes like the ones Baartman ended up at were incredibly popular. What makes the Khoisan genetically interesting really isn't large rear ends or longer on average labias except in the sideshow manner.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7301.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg74m86","c_root_id_B":"cg7a10k","created_at_utc_A":1395287173,"created_at_utc_B":1395309354,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Go read Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It's a history of intelligence testing that talks about the ways in which these ideas about categorizing people have a long history that is loaded with race and political assumptions.","human_ref_B":"I think a lot of people have addressed the issue of race well so far. And if you search on this sub you'll find tons of previous discussions of whether race is \"real\" and how anthropologists think about it. I also recommend you listen to \/u\/AndCat whom we gave forensic anthropology flair because they have graduate training in the subject and know what they are talking about regarding identifying race with skeletal remains. I just wanted to briefly point out the problems with what you're saying regarding the Khoisan. It sounds like you stumbled upon writings about Saartjie \"Sarah\" Baartman AKA the Hottentot Venus. She was a Khoisan woman born in 1789 whose family was killed in a raid and she became a slave to a Dutch farmer. Her rather large buttocks was unusual to the colonialists and she ended up being displayed as an object in Europe for a long time. She was sold to a number of different museums and individuals who wished to exhibit her and curious Europeans could come and gawk at her butt. Steatopygia (a high degree of fat accumulation around the buttocks) is common among the Khoisan but also many Bantu peoples, Negritos, and it isn't uncommon in the general Southern African region. But some argue that if you look at paleolithic venus figurines from Europe and Asia you see steatopygia along with extended labia, which sometimes goes hand in hand. My point isn't that the Khoisan aren't interesting genetically - in fact they are unique in a lot of ways and go to show how \"black\" as a category hides a ton of genetic variation. But the big butts aren't limited to their population nor are they usually as dramatic as the images of Baartman (which were probably somewhat exaggerated.) You can also just google images of Khoisan people and see that while some ladies do have larger rear ends, plenty don't. And I'm pretty sure \/r\/gonewild has lots of non-Khoisan ladies with impressive behinds as well. The Victorian period had a bizarre fascination with the private parts of the colonized and side show type displays of extremes like the ones Baartman ended up at were incredibly popular. What makes the Khoisan genetically interesting really isn't large rear ends or longer on average labias except in the sideshow manner.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22181.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg736hm","c_root_id_B":"cg7a10k","created_at_utc_A":1395283898,"created_at_utc_B":1395309354,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"When I was graduating in the 90's the trend was to use clines) where we used to use the term race. There are geographic distinctions and it even takes into account that there are variations in any specific clinal group. Here is a pretty good write up. As far as judging a skeletons race, age etc; we did a lot of bone work in the lab and we would give general estimates but rarely could we be 100% certain. I had to \"age\" & \"sex\" a particular set of bones and when I was done my report said 85% likely 18-34 female, 90% likely Asian. Turned out upon further info the skeleton was a 24 y\/o Vietnamese girl.","human_ref_B":"I think a lot of people have addressed the issue of race well so far. And if you search on this sub you'll find tons of previous discussions of whether race is \"real\" and how anthropologists think about it. I also recommend you listen to \/u\/AndCat whom we gave forensic anthropology flair because they have graduate training in the subject and know what they are talking about regarding identifying race with skeletal remains. I just wanted to briefly point out the problems with what you're saying regarding the Khoisan. It sounds like you stumbled upon writings about Saartjie \"Sarah\" Baartman AKA the Hottentot Venus. She was a Khoisan woman born in 1789 whose family was killed in a raid and she became a slave to a Dutch farmer. Her rather large buttocks was unusual to the colonialists and she ended up being displayed as an object in Europe for a long time. She was sold to a number of different museums and individuals who wished to exhibit her and curious Europeans could come and gawk at her butt. Steatopygia (a high degree of fat accumulation around the buttocks) is common among the Khoisan but also many Bantu peoples, Negritos, and it isn't uncommon in the general Southern African region. But some argue that if you look at paleolithic venus figurines from Europe and Asia you see steatopygia along with extended labia, which sometimes goes hand in hand. My point isn't that the Khoisan aren't interesting genetically - in fact they are unique in a lot of ways and go to show how \"black\" as a category hides a ton of genetic variation. But the big butts aren't limited to their population nor are they usually as dramatic as the images of Baartman (which were probably somewhat exaggerated.) You can also just google images of Khoisan people and see that while some ladies do have larger rear ends, plenty don't. And I'm pretty sure \/r\/gonewild has lots of non-Khoisan ladies with impressive behinds as well. The Victorian period had a bizarre fascination with the private parts of the colonized and side show type displays of extremes like the ones Baartman ended up at were incredibly popular. What makes the Khoisan genetically interesting really isn't large rear ends or longer on average labias except in the sideshow manner.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25456.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg7a10k","c_root_id_B":"cg747dz","created_at_utc_A":1395309354,"created_at_utc_B":1395286189,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think a lot of people have addressed the issue of race well so far. And if you search on this sub you'll find tons of previous discussions of whether race is \"real\" and how anthropologists think about it. I also recommend you listen to \/u\/AndCat whom we gave forensic anthropology flair because they have graduate training in the subject and know what they are talking about regarding identifying race with skeletal remains. I just wanted to briefly point out the problems with what you're saying regarding the Khoisan. It sounds like you stumbled upon writings about Saartjie \"Sarah\" Baartman AKA the Hottentot Venus. She was a Khoisan woman born in 1789 whose family was killed in a raid and she became a slave to a Dutch farmer. Her rather large buttocks was unusual to the colonialists and she ended up being displayed as an object in Europe for a long time. She was sold to a number of different museums and individuals who wished to exhibit her and curious Europeans could come and gawk at her butt. Steatopygia (a high degree of fat accumulation around the buttocks) is common among the Khoisan but also many Bantu peoples, Negritos, and it isn't uncommon in the general Southern African region. But some argue that if you look at paleolithic venus figurines from Europe and Asia you see steatopygia along with extended labia, which sometimes goes hand in hand. My point isn't that the Khoisan aren't interesting genetically - in fact they are unique in a lot of ways and go to show how \"black\" as a category hides a ton of genetic variation. But the big butts aren't limited to their population nor are they usually as dramatic as the images of Baartman (which were probably somewhat exaggerated.) You can also just google images of Khoisan people and see that while some ladies do have larger rear ends, plenty don't. And I'm pretty sure \/r\/gonewild has lots of non-Khoisan ladies with impressive behinds as well. The Victorian period had a bizarre fascination with the private parts of the colonized and side show type displays of extremes like the ones Baartman ended up at were incredibly popular. What makes the Khoisan genetically interesting really isn't large rear ends or longer on average labias except in the sideshow manner.","human_ref_B":"Ok, re: genetic variation (and I think this is in line with a lot of what \/u\/vladesko was trying to say). This quick click-through animation --from a website designed by the American Anthropological Association to address everyone's questions about race-- might help clear up some of the confusion about trends in genetic variation and the whole \"population vs. race\" thing. People seem to be confusing and mixing up definitions on here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23165.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg74m86","c_root_id_B":"cg78vq4","created_at_utc_A":1395287173,"created_at_utc_B":1395302053,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Go read Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It's a history of intelligence testing that talks about the ways in which these ideas about categorizing people have a long history that is loaded with race and political assumptions.","human_ref_B":"Going to wade in here, although I may be a bit late to the party. To address the question of race, I'd like to summarize a study that was done I believe in the '90s that took an interesting approach. Essentially phenotypic data for hundreds (maybe more?) of people with as much racial\/geolocal\/ethnic diversity as possible was fed into a computer database. The computer was asked to aggregate the data into four categories, and it came up with a breakdown more or less similar than the race groups referenced in the West (black, white, Asian, and can't remember how sorted the fourth off the top of head). When asked to aggregate in different numbers of categories, however, the results showed completely different ways of organizing differences. Three, if I remember correctly, sorted a category similar to Asian but including indigenous Americans, Europeans and Africans, and Polynesian\/islanders. Any way, the point being that our categories of racial categorization are entirely arbitrary but the lines of difference are so culturally embedded that we don't even think about them. Which takes me to another point, which is that this particular system we use is entirely based on bad science in the so-called age of Enlightenment. According to Guillaumin, the idea of race in Europe had previously been an issue of heritage and blood in the sense of tracking aristocratic blood lines. However with the expansions of colonialism and increased contract with \"others\", the metropole needed to assure itself of its superiority and police that superiority. So you see in this period studies that quite literally question the humanity of the other \"races\", studies that talk about the dangers of creating racial hybrids because they will lead to the downfall of good white Europe, etc. We see the systematic dismissal of the non-white other's ability to participate in knowledge creation, as instead they become the subject of observation. Enter subaltern studies generations later, and post-colonial studies. Both emerge from similar places with similar ideas, namely that the colonized are not unintelligible, illogical or emotionally stunted others needing to be saved from themselves, but instead demanding and reclaiming their ability to be heard. And if you take the time to read what they have to say, what you might see are different *ways* of responding to emotional stimulus, but from what I have read this has less to do with outright genetic difference and more to do with the socio-spatial context of the person and their community. You might, as the old-school anthropologist Evans-Prichard described in his book *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande* (which is problematic in it's own right but that's a different conversation), see different forms of knowledge that while entirely different from what you know, are no less valuable and rich. De Sousa Santos calls this concept \"ecologies of knowledge\". So I really don't think it's reasonable to postulate that some racially different groups might be more or less intelligent, or have more or less developed emotional capacities. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that shows emotion and mental stability have more to do with society and one's relationships within it than with individual characteristics. And knowledge develops in ways that are temporally, socially, and spatially relevant to communities. Priorities may differ by community, but I have yet to see any reasonable evidence that actual ability across a group of the nature you describe does so. Sources: *Health Disparities in the United States*, *Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology*, *Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race*, \"Science Gone Native in Colonial India\", The SGG (I recommend Spivak \"Can the Subaltern Speak\" as a good starting point), *Black Skin, White Masks*; *On the Postcolony*, *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande*, \"Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Differences\", among many others.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14880.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg78vq4","c_root_id_B":"cg736hm","created_at_utc_A":1395302053,"created_at_utc_B":1395283898,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Going to wade in here, although I may be a bit late to the party. To address the question of race, I'd like to summarize a study that was done I believe in the '90s that took an interesting approach. Essentially phenotypic data for hundreds (maybe more?) of people with as much racial\/geolocal\/ethnic diversity as possible was fed into a computer database. The computer was asked to aggregate the data into four categories, and it came up with a breakdown more or less similar than the race groups referenced in the West (black, white, Asian, and can't remember how sorted the fourth off the top of head). When asked to aggregate in different numbers of categories, however, the results showed completely different ways of organizing differences. Three, if I remember correctly, sorted a category similar to Asian but including indigenous Americans, Europeans and Africans, and Polynesian\/islanders. Any way, the point being that our categories of racial categorization are entirely arbitrary but the lines of difference are so culturally embedded that we don't even think about them. Which takes me to another point, which is that this particular system we use is entirely based on bad science in the so-called age of Enlightenment. According to Guillaumin, the idea of race in Europe had previously been an issue of heritage and blood in the sense of tracking aristocratic blood lines. However with the expansions of colonialism and increased contract with \"others\", the metropole needed to assure itself of its superiority and police that superiority. So you see in this period studies that quite literally question the humanity of the other \"races\", studies that talk about the dangers of creating racial hybrids because they will lead to the downfall of good white Europe, etc. We see the systematic dismissal of the non-white other's ability to participate in knowledge creation, as instead they become the subject of observation. Enter subaltern studies generations later, and post-colonial studies. Both emerge from similar places with similar ideas, namely that the colonized are not unintelligible, illogical or emotionally stunted others needing to be saved from themselves, but instead demanding and reclaiming their ability to be heard. And if you take the time to read what they have to say, what you might see are different *ways* of responding to emotional stimulus, but from what I have read this has less to do with outright genetic difference and more to do with the socio-spatial context of the person and their community. You might, as the old-school anthropologist Evans-Prichard described in his book *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande* (which is problematic in it's own right but that's a different conversation), see different forms of knowledge that while entirely different from what you know, are no less valuable and rich. De Sousa Santos calls this concept \"ecologies of knowledge\". So I really don't think it's reasonable to postulate that some racially different groups might be more or less intelligent, or have more or less developed emotional capacities. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that shows emotion and mental stability have more to do with society and one's relationships within it than with individual characteristics. And knowledge develops in ways that are temporally, socially, and spatially relevant to communities. Priorities may differ by community, but I have yet to see any reasonable evidence that actual ability across a group of the nature you describe does so. Sources: *Health Disparities in the United States*, *Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology*, *Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race*, \"Science Gone Native in Colonial India\", The SGG (I recommend Spivak \"Can the Subaltern Speak\" as a good starting point), *Black Skin, White Masks*; *On the Postcolony*, *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande*, \"Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Differences\", among many others.","human_ref_B":"When I was graduating in the 90's the trend was to use clines) where we used to use the term race. There are geographic distinctions and it even takes into account that there are variations in any specific clinal group. Here is a pretty good write up. As far as judging a skeletons race, age etc; we did a lot of bone work in the lab and we would give general estimates but rarely could we be 100% certain. I had to \"age\" & \"sex\" a particular set of bones and when I was done my report said 85% likely 18-34 female, 90% likely Asian. Turned out upon further info the skeleton was a 24 y\/o Vietnamese girl.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18155.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"20uwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"This is going to sound incredibly racist, but are there real physical differences between--I hesitate to use this word because it means skin color too much as opposed to place of origin--\"races?\" And if there are, is it not possible that there are other differences? Look, I recently learned about the Khoisan people. I was very surprised, to say the least, because I didn't know there was so much human variation. There are definite differences between theirs and, say, an Asian body. Women typically have fat deposits on the buttocks that can grow to pretty impressive amounts at a 90 degree angle to their spine, their hair is brittle enough that people break it off in patterns, their hair grows in circular-ish patches, there are differences in labia length oftentimes, etc. Obviously we're all still people, but there are some superficial differences. And I have been arguing with someone recently who believes there are mental differences between races. Of course, like most normal people who pride themselves on being openminded, I have always argued that culture shapes people far more than any genetics do, but how right am I? Am I being closed-minded in totally discounting this view because that's what I've been told is right? I totally believed that all people were the same until I started running track in high school--literally 95% of the time in sprinting races the black girls ALWAYS won. This bothered me because it didn't support the idea that everyone was the same--after all, they didn't practice any more or less than we did and led the same quality of early active life. Also, I'm not talking about populations that have intermingled with outsiders for centuries. I'm talking about populations that have been isolated for very long amounts of time. I was also informed that forensic anthropologists can tell \"race\" from a skull with almost 100% accuracy. This bothers me. Why, if we admit physical variations in populations, could there also not be mental or emotional differences as well? Am I actually being racist in asking this? I'd be way too terrified to ask this in a class because it's super taboo, but why not? It seems logical to suggest that if there are superficial differences, why not also a few not-so-superficial differences? We have different breeds of dogs, and they've evolved for the same amount of time that we have--admittedly, under intense human pressure. But, for example, Inuit people have also evolved under intense pressure. Someone help me out here. I wanted to ask this of a community that would be rational about it all.","c_root_id_A":"cg78vq4","c_root_id_B":"cg747dz","created_at_utc_A":1395302053,"created_at_utc_B":1395286189,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Going to wade in here, although I may be a bit late to the party. To address the question of race, I'd like to summarize a study that was done I believe in the '90s that took an interesting approach. Essentially phenotypic data for hundreds (maybe more?) of people with as much racial\/geolocal\/ethnic diversity as possible was fed into a computer database. The computer was asked to aggregate the data into four categories, and it came up with a breakdown more or less similar than the race groups referenced in the West (black, white, Asian, and can't remember how sorted the fourth off the top of head). When asked to aggregate in different numbers of categories, however, the results showed completely different ways of organizing differences. Three, if I remember correctly, sorted a category similar to Asian but including indigenous Americans, Europeans and Africans, and Polynesian\/islanders. Any way, the point being that our categories of racial categorization are entirely arbitrary but the lines of difference are so culturally embedded that we don't even think about them. Which takes me to another point, which is that this particular system we use is entirely based on bad science in the so-called age of Enlightenment. According to Guillaumin, the idea of race in Europe had previously been an issue of heritage and blood in the sense of tracking aristocratic blood lines. However with the expansions of colonialism and increased contract with \"others\", the metropole needed to assure itself of its superiority and police that superiority. So you see in this period studies that quite literally question the humanity of the other \"races\", studies that talk about the dangers of creating racial hybrids because they will lead to the downfall of good white Europe, etc. We see the systematic dismissal of the non-white other's ability to participate in knowledge creation, as instead they become the subject of observation. Enter subaltern studies generations later, and post-colonial studies. Both emerge from similar places with similar ideas, namely that the colonized are not unintelligible, illogical or emotionally stunted others needing to be saved from themselves, but instead demanding and reclaiming their ability to be heard. And if you take the time to read what they have to say, what you might see are different *ways* of responding to emotional stimulus, but from what I have read this has less to do with outright genetic difference and more to do with the socio-spatial context of the person and their community. You might, as the old-school anthropologist Evans-Prichard described in his book *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande* (which is problematic in it's own right but that's a different conversation), see different forms of knowledge that while entirely different from what you know, are no less valuable and rich. De Sousa Santos calls this concept \"ecologies of knowledge\". So I really don't think it's reasonable to postulate that some racially different groups might be more or less intelligent, or have more or less developed emotional capacities. There is a wealth of empirical evidence that shows emotion and mental stability have more to do with society and one's relationships within it than with individual characteristics. And knowledge develops in ways that are temporally, socially, and spatially relevant to communities. Priorities may differ by community, but I have yet to see any reasonable evidence that actual ability across a group of the nature you describe does so. Sources: *Health Disparities in the United States*, *Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology*, *Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race*, \"Science Gone Native in Colonial India\", The SGG (I recommend Spivak \"Can the Subaltern Speak\" as a good starting point), *Black Skin, White Masks*; *On the Postcolony*, *Oracles, Magic, and Witchcraft among the Azande*, \"Opening Up the Canon of Knowledge and Recognition of Differences\", among many others.","human_ref_B":"Ok, re: genetic variation (and I think this is in line with a lot of what \/u\/vladesko was trying to say). This quick click-through animation --from a website designed by the American Anthropological Association to address everyone's questions about race-- might help clear up some of the confusion about trends in genetic variation and the whole \"population vs. race\" thing. People seem to be confusing and mixing up definitions on here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15864.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkefbgl","c_root_id_B":"hkecjcc","created_at_utc_A":1636763502,"created_at_utc_B":1636762175,"score_A":60,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"The difference is largely institutional and, in some ways, still reflects the \"two\" fields' historical developments. Most universities in North America have separate sociology and anthropology departments, while European schools (at least, UK schools) will have mishmash of social science faculty and degrees. Anthropology developed in a primordial soup of social sciences in the UK, but in the US and Canada it developed specifically to address issues related to indigenous Americans; the Bureau of American Ethnography's first major project was codifying that, yes, the Hopewell and Cahokia mounds were built by Native Americans, and not some \"lost civilized race.\" American archaeology coevolved to answer the same questions with a historical perspective. Since then, their methodologies and topics have converged. There are a couple general things that still separate their approaches: * Anthropology asks broad questions about small groups, sociology asks narrow questions about big groups. This is most evident in journals that publish articles from both fields, like the Annals of Tourism Research. An anthropologist's article might summarize months of living with a single community (small group) in which many mothers sell souvenirs on the streets of Cusco, Peru and discuss how they engage with concepts of class and race at home and at work (broad questions). A sociologist's article might discuss how souvenir vendors across the entire city (big group) price and market their goods to specifically target tourists and encourage them to make purchases (narrow question). * Anthropology questions social categories and asks how they are constructed and performed; sociology begins with them as social facts then asks how people navigate a world within them. The anthropologist might ask \"These people identify as indigenous- what does that actually mean and how do they do it?\" The sociologist might ask \"Given that these people are recognized as indigenous, what does that mean for their lives and how do other people experience the same things?\" * Anthropology studies culture: a collection of shared practices and beliefs. Often, it struggles with the issue of subjectivity: how do individuals relate to their culture? Sociology studies society: a collection of individual actors. Often, it struggles with collective action: how do groups behave as groups? Again, as has been mentioned, the methods and subjects of both fields overlap significantly, and you're likely to find little difference after the research process has finished. There are so many anthropologists and sociologists doing ethnography (not to mention political scientists, etc.) that it's difficult to provide a general answer. You can undoubtedly find two anthropologists whose ethnographic methods are more different from each other than from sociology's.","human_ref_B":"Long-term participant observation generally characterized anthropological ethnography. It is not practiced widely in sociology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1327.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkefbgl","c_root_id_B":"hke0yh5","created_at_utc_A":1636763502,"created_at_utc_B":1636756758,"score_A":60,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The difference is largely institutional and, in some ways, still reflects the \"two\" fields' historical developments. Most universities in North America have separate sociology and anthropology departments, while European schools (at least, UK schools) will have mishmash of social science faculty and degrees. Anthropology developed in a primordial soup of social sciences in the UK, but in the US and Canada it developed specifically to address issues related to indigenous Americans; the Bureau of American Ethnography's first major project was codifying that, yes, the Hopewell and Cahokia mounds were built by Native Americans, and not some \"lost civilized race.\" American archaeology coevolved to answer the same questions with a historical perspective. Since then, their methodologies and topics have converged. There are a couple general things that still separate their approaches: * Anthropology asks broad questions about small groups, sociology asks narrow questions about big groups. This is most evident in journals that publish articles from both fields, like the Annals of Tourism Research. An anthropologist's article might summarize months of living with a single community (small group) in which many mothers sell souvenirs on the streets of Cusco, Peru and discuss how they engage with concepts of class and race at home and at work (broad questions). A sociologist's article might discuss how souvenir vendors across the entire city (big group) price and market their goods to specifically target tourists and encourage them to make purchases (narrow question). * Anthropology questions social categories and asks how they are constructed and performed; sociology begins with them as social facts then asks how people navigate a world within them. The anthropologist might ask \"These people identify as indigenous- what does that actually mean and how do they do it?\" The sociologist might ask \"Given that these people are recognized as indigenous, what does that mean for their lives and how do other people experience the same things?\" * Anthropology studies culture: a collection of shared practices and beliefs. Often, it struggles with the issue of subjectivity: how do individuals relate to their culture? Sociology studies society: a collection of individual actors. Often, it struggles with collective action: how do groups behave as groups? Again, as has been mentioned, the methods and subjects of both fields overlap significantly, and you're likely to find little difference after the research process has finished. There are so many anthropologists and sociologists doing ethnography (not to mention political scientists, etc.) that it's difficult to provide a general answer. You can undoubtedly find two anthropologists whose ethnographic methods are more different from each other than from sociology's.","human_ref_B":"My background is primarily archaeology, but from my experience with taking some sociology and cultural anth classes and talking to colleagues it seems that a (perhaps oversimplified) version is that anthropology starts with the individual and extrapolates about the broader culture and society. Sociology starts with a broad cultural\/societal view and extrapolates what that might mean to the individual. There are exceptions to this, of course. I'd love to hear what some people in the fields think of this explanation, though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6744.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkefbgl","c_root_id_B":"hke6shv","created_at_utc_A":1636763502,"created_at_utc_B":1636759450,"score_A":60,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The difference is largely institutional and, in some ways, still reflects the \"two\" fields' historical developments. Most universities in North America have separate sociology and anthropology departments, while European schools (at least, UK schools) will have mishmash of social science faculty and degrees. Anthropology developed in a primordial soup of social sciences in the UK, but in the US and Canada it developed specifically to address issues related to indigenous Americans; the Bureau of American Ethnography's first major project was codifying that, yes, the Hopewell and Cahokia mounds were built by Native Americans, and not some \"lost civilized race.\" American archaeology coevolved to answer the same questions with a historical perspective. Since then, their methodologies and topics have converged. There are a couple general things that still separate their approaches: * Anthropology asks broad questions about small groups, sociology asks narrow questions about big groups. This is most evident in journals that publish articles from both fields, like the Annals of Tourism Research. An anthropologist's article might summarize months of living with a single community (small group) in which many mothers sell souvenirs on the streets of Cusco, Peru and discuss how they engage with concepts of class and race at home and at work (broad questions). A sociologist's article might discuss how souvenir vendors across the entire city (big group) price and market their goods to specifically target tourists and encourage them to make purchases (narrow question). * Anthropology questions social categories and asks how they are constructed and performed; sociology begins with them as social facts then asks how people navigate a world within them. The anthropologist might ask \"These people identify as indigenous- what does that actually mean and how do they do it?\" The sociologist might ask \"Given that these people are recognized as indigenous, what does that mean for their lives and how do other people experience the same things?\" * Anthropology studies culture: a collection of shared practices and beliefs. Often, it struggles with the issue of subjectivity: how do individuals relate to their culture? Sociology studies society: a collection of individual actors. Often, it struggles with collective action: how do groups behave as groups? Again, as has been mentioned, the methods and subjects of both fields overlap significantly, and you're likely to find little difference after the research process has finished. There are so many anthropologists and sociologists doing ethnography (not to mention political scientists, etc.) that it's difficult to provide a general answer. You can undoubtedly find two anthropologists whose ethnographic methods are more different from each other than from sociology's.","human_ref_B":"I once said that anthropologists study other cultures, while remaining aware that each culture has its own standards and must be judged on its own terms. Sociologists OTOH study their own culture, which is horribly unjust and people should be ashamed of themselves. I deliberately worded that, then and now, to be snarky. All the same, I can't quite spot the part where I was *wrong*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4052.0,"score_ratio":30.0} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hke0yh5","c_root_id_B":"hkecjcc","created_at_utc_A":1636756758,"created_at_utc_B":1636762175,"score_A":9,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"My background is primarily archaeology, but from my experience with taking some sociology and cultural anth classes and talking to colleagues it seems that a (perhaps oversimplified) version is that anthropology starts with the individual and extrapolates about the broader culture and society. Sociology starts with a broad cultural\/societal view and extrapolates what that might mean to the individual. There are exceptions to this, of course. I'd love to hear what some people in the fields think of this explanation, though.","human_ref_B":"Long-term participant observation generally characterized anthropological ethnography. It is not practiced widely in sociology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5417.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hke6shv","c_root_id_B":"hkecjcc","created_at_utc_A":1636759450,"created_at_utc_B":1636762175,"score_A":2,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I once said that anthropologists study other cultures, while remaining aware that each culture has its own standards and must be judged on its own terms. Sociologists OTOH study their own culture, which is horribly unjust and people should be ashamed of themselves. I deliberately worded that, then and now, to be snarky. All the same, I can't quite spot the part where I was *wrong*.","human_ref_B":"Long-term participant observation generally characterized anthropological ethnography. It is not practiced widely in sociology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2725.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkffp3b","c_root_id_B":"hke0yh5","created_at_utc_A":1636782898,"created_at_utc_B":1636756758,"score_A":10,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"As one of my professor liked to say: if you ask a sociologist a question, they\u2019ll give you an answer. If you ask an anthropologist, they\u2019ll say \u201cwell\u2026it depends\u201d. Jokes aside, I think it\u2019s somewhat accurate of a characterization as anthropology is somewhat more likely to focus on smaller groups and their specific circumstances whereas sociology is somewhat more likely to look more at larger groups and the common circumstances across them. Of course there are exceptions to both of those. After all, anthropology and sociology aren\u2019t things in and of themselves. Rather, they are socially and historically constructed phenomena. So the differences between them really depend on what kind of anthropology or sociology you\u2019re talking about. Which I fully recognize the irony of saying!","human_ref_B":"My background is primarily archaeology, but from my experience with taking some sociology and cultural anth classes and talking to colleagues it seems that a (perhaps oversimplified) version is that anthropology starts with the individual and extrapolates about the broader culture and society. Sociology starts with a broad cultural\/societal view and extrapolates what that might mean to the individual. There are exceptions to this, of course. I'd love to hear what some people in the fields think of this explanation, though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26140.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkffp3b","c_root_id_B":"hkei5mp","created_at_utc_A":1636782898,"created_at_utc_B":1636764893,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"As one of my professor liked to say: if you ask a sociologist a question, they\u2019ll give you an answer. If you ask an anthropologist, they\u2019ll say \u201cwell\u2026it depends\u201d. Jokes aside, I think it\u2019s somewhat accurate of a characterization as anthropology is somewhat more likely to focus on smaller groups and their specific circumstances whereas sociology is somewhat more likely to look more at larger groups and the common circumstances across them. Of course there are exceptions to both of those. After all, anthropology and sociology aren\u2019t things in and of themselves. Rather, they are socially and historically constructed phenomena. So the differences between them really depend on what kind of anthropology or sociology you\u2019re talking about. Which I fully recognize the irony of saying!","human_ref_B":"Okay so the research METHODS are basically the same as far as I can tell, except a lot of sociologists I've read don't seem to do participant observation. As far as overall METHODOLOGY goes, many sociologists approach data collection and analysis from a predetermined \"favourite\" theory. I.e. I've heard sociology grad students, and profs tbh, say things like \"I study refugees from a Marxist perspective.\" Well how would you ever know the theories of Marx would apply before you actually started collecting and analysing your data? Anthropologists work from a tradition of grounded theory, where the data is telling you what theory to use, not that the theory is telling you how to manipulate your data. Just my 2 cents.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18005.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hke6shv","c_root_id_B":"hkffp3b","created_at_utc_A":1636759450,"created_at_utc_B":1636782898,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I once said that anthropologists study other cultures, while remaining aware that each culture has its own standards and must be judged on its own terms. Sociologists OTOH study their own culture, which is horribly unjust and people should be ashamed of themselves. I deliberately worded that, then and now, to be snarky. All the same, I can't quite spot the part where I was *wrong*.","human_ref_B":"As one of my professor liked to say: if you ask a sociologist a question, they\u2019ll give you an answer. If you ask an anthropologist, they\u2019ll say \u201cwell\u2026it depends\u201d. Jokes aside, I think it\u2019s somewhat accurate of a characterization as anthropology is somewhat more likely to focus on smaller groups and their specific circumstances whereas sociology is somewhat more likely to look more at larger groups and the common circumstances across them. Of course there are exceptions to both of those. After all, anthropology and sociology aren\u2019t things in and of themselves. Rather, they are socially and historically constructed phenomena. So the differences between them really depend on what kind of anthropology or sociology you\u2019re talking about. Which I fully recognize the irony of saying!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23448.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"qskpgx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How Do Anthropologists and Sociologists Conduct Ethnography Differently?? Often I get so confused as to how different sociology and anthro is from each other. Sociology seems to be more in touch with some more mathematical modeling but then again some nich anthropology is too. I came to here sociologists also conduct ethnography but is it the same in anthro? Im so lost as to whats the difference and what are the goals","c_root_id_A":"hkei5mp","c_root_id_B":"hke6shv","created_at_utc_A":1636764893,"created_at_utc_B":1636759450,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Okay so the research METHODS are basically the same as far as I can tell, except a lot of sociologists I've read don't seem to do participant observation. As far as overall METHODOLOGY goes, many sociologists approach data collection and analysis from a predetermined \"favourite\" theory. I.e. I've heard sociology grad students, and profs tbh, say things like \"I study refugees from a Marxist perspective.\" Well how would you ever know the theories of Marx would apply before you actually started collecting and analysing your data? Anthropologists work from a tradition of grounded theory, where the data is telling you what theory to use, not that the theory is telling you how to manipulate your data. Just my 2 cents.","human_ref_B":"I once said that anthropologists study other cultures, while remaining aware that each culture has its own standards and must be judged on its own terms. Sociologists OTOH study their own culture, which is horribly unjust and people should be ashamed of themselves. I deliberately worded that, then and now, to be snarky. All the same, I can't quite spot the part where I was *wrong*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5443.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"esouey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Metal heads, goths, satanists, etc, what can the love of dark imagery be compared with or traced to? Many cultures have celebrated and displayed skulls, threatening images, symbols of death and or suffering, for millennia. I can only think of perhaps the Nazi's and Hells Angels, and pirates as using these images in a \"deadly serious\" way. But even they sort of use these images in the same way that goth, punk, metal people wrap themselves in them in -for lack of a better term - \"ironic\" kind of way. No one truly identifies with real death and doom unless maybe they are in an acute period of mental illness or trauma. Can this celebration of death imagery be traced back or at least seen in ancient cultures? How about iron-age war bands? Or Aztec priests? Voodoo and day of the dead comes to mind. And perhaps we all do this as a culture in America with the Halloween traditions. I'd love to hear what you guys think and what you can share! Thanks","c_root_id_A":"ffbjcst","c_root_id_B":"ffc2xho","created_at_utc_A":1579768033,"created_at_utc_B":1579790218,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bit of a metalhead and had a goth phase when younger. I once heard the Gothic aesthetic can be seen as finding a beauty in decay. Can't remember where but wasn't an academic source! However I find truth to it. Look at the ivy clad ruins of an old castle or the fallen pillars of some ancient temple. They're as beautiful as a castle that survived being pillaged or a well maintained classical ruin to me. There's even \"neo\/post gothic\" apparently. Admiring the decrepit beauty of modern buildings in ruin. People go on so called dark tourism to abandoned shopping malls in the USA or the areas around Chernobyl that are starting to get reclaimed by nature. I can see the allure. I can't say where it originated historically but for me as far back as I can remember I've always loved old ruins. I'm in the UK and there's a full array of castles from total wrecks to still occupied ones in perfect condition. I prefer to visit the former. As for the black aesthetic of gothic clothes. No idea either. Perhaps my love of Christopher Lee Dracula films as a teen. Sorry I can't be more help.","human_ref_B":"> No one truly identifies with real death and doom unless maybe they are in an acute period of mental illness or trauma This is a big assumption in two ways: it assumes that there are not other reasons people might gravitate toward certain aesthetics and themes, and it assumes that the reason metalheads gravitate toward them is because they identify with them. There are lots of reasons that bands might use gore or dark imagery. There's a great band called Cattle Decapitation whose albums are very gross and feature lots of gore. The reason for this? The band members are vegan animal rights activists who think that the violence of the meat industry is truly frightening and they want to confront people with it. Here, the point of the aesthetic is to provoke thought. In the black metal scene, dark imagery is meant to demarcate the subculture from other \"less extreme\" metal scenes. Here, the point is gatekeeping. Neither are about trauma, illness, or identifying with death (though those might exist for some people).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22185.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"krykqy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Accessible Layman Read? \"Debt The First 5000 Years\" by David Graeber The history and study of human systems of governance, economy, and similar is incredibly interesting to me as a way to contextualize current events against a bigger picture. Asking some questions over on \/u\/AskEconomics got me a recommendation of David Graeber's work as mentioned in the title. First, is this recommended reading for a layman? I don't care about understanding every term necessarily, it's more about whether the subject matter is itself inherently interesting vs entirely technical? Second, any experts out there that want to chime in on whether his work is well regarded, their own research on the history of debt, etc...I'd be 100% for someone barfing a novel out here if it's someone's passionate interest ;)","c_root_id_A":"gicsgxr","c_root_id_B":"gid5gu8","created_at_utc_A":1609972103,"created_at_utc_B":1609977951,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I've read it twice and found it very accessible. I have a BA in Anthropology, but there's very little prior knowledge of anthropology or economics\/economic history presumed. I've tried to find negative reviews of it, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.","human_ref_B":"I would say that *Debt* is one of the best anthropology books ever written *because* it is so accessible. Graeber\u2019s works are always much better writing than one is accustomed to from anthropologists and academics more broadly. But also it is very insightful besides. I think everyone should read it and I literally do recommend it to everyone when something on topic comes up. It gives a very different take on the nature of money itself than you will find everywhere else, especially mainstream economics, where they usually ignore most of the subjects he demonstrates as relevant","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5848.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"1cvfv0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How does the academic world feel about David Graeber? This guy has interested me for a long time and I know he's pretty popular here on Reddit from the AMA he did 2 or so months back but I'm more or less in the dark on what the academic world thinks about him.","c_root_id_A":"c9km3je","c_root_id_B":"c9khant","created_at_utc_A":1366676666,"created_at_utc_B":1366663448,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'll post again since it seems like no one else is. Graeber has been, as far as I can tell, quite well received by the anthropological community (except of course at Yale, where he wasn't given tenure). Of course, no one is free from critique. Savage Minds (the best anthro blog?) did a whole forum on him... but Savage Minds seems to be having pretty extreme server problems and their archives I don't think are currently available. When their site works again, that should be the first thing you check out. I can't remember the details but IIRC many people were positive but at one point it got catty. Crooked Timber (often called a philosophy blog, but really just a whole mix of smart people from a variety of disciplines) did what they called a \"David Graeber *Debt* Seminar\" where variety of very smart people talked about the book (remember that the above link lists everything in reverse chronological order).","human_ref_B":"There are many academic worlds. I don't know how anthropologists feel about him (I suspect the archaeologists and the socio-cultural anthropologists might come to different consensuses). But the \"open-minded\" wing of orthodox economists very often seemed to have the reaction \"Wrong in places, but interesting and worth reading none the less\". Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz tweeted: \"Get a copy of David Graeber's book 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years'\". Chris Blattman copy-pasted Tyler Cowen's \"100 words or less\" review under the title \"Debt: I could not have said it better myself\". Tyler Cowen (of Marginal Revolution) said: >Do you seek an overly verbose, sometimes fascinating synthesis of economic anthropology, early 20th century credit theories of money, and the history of debt? The book overinterprets early historical evidence and falls apart as it approaches contemporary times, still it has a vitality which many other tracts lack. Here is a chat with the author. I know this is supposed to be a sub mainly about anthropology, but I think this reaction was noteworthy as well because that's probably just about the best reception a contemporary economic anthropologist writing macro-history could hope to get from a group of economists (old rational choice guys like Barth could hope for better, *maybe*, as could those working with behavioral economists who after 100 years realized that, hey, culture might matter). I don't think someone like Greg Mankiw (more conservative than those mentioned above--he was for a while associated with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign) ever touched it, but I'd be curious if anyone knows if Reinhart\/Rogoff (also associated with more conservative politics, especially austerity, and have been in the news recently because of a pointed critique of their paper \"Growth in a Time of Debt\") ever commented on it because their book *This Time is Different* was often mentioned in same breath as *Debt* as an expansive history, though they only covered eight centuries instead of five millennia.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13218.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"ggpgx7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why some cultures use a single word for younger and elder brother or sister? I know at least two south Indian languages that have single words for younger brother, elder brother, younger sister and elder sister. Other Languages in India like Hindi doesn\u2019t have equivalent single word, neither do English. Does it have any anthropological reasons or is it purely linguistical?","c_root_id_A":"fq4uwss","c_root_id_B":"fq50p2w","created_at_utc_A":1589084737,"created_at_utc_B":1589089005,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Just to chime in: Chinese has separate terms too. Gege (sounds like guhguh) = older brother. Didi (sounds like deedee) = younger brother. Jiejie = older sister. Meimei = younger sister.","human_ref_B":"A linguist or linguistic anthropologist would be able to answer this question better, but part of the reason is social conventions and hierarchy. The differentiation between older and younger siblings is useful in societies where you typically defer to or interact differently with people based on age. (For the purposes of answering your question, I'm specifically talking about age differences which are *not generational* \\- e.g. a child and an adult, or a 25yo and a 55yo). This is especially obvious in languages where you might use the same term for 'older brother' (etc.) for your actual siblings as well as for people who are just older or younger than you (e.g. Hindi, Korean). It's often seen as rude or disrespectful to use the wrong term (or fail to act accordingly), especially when addressing older people. In many 'Western' societies\/cultures, differentiation based on relative age isn't really socially important. As a white Australian, I don't defer to my older brother, nor do I interact differently with him than I do with my younger brother; similarly, when I hang out with a group of people or meet someone new, our respective ages don't really determine how we are expected to interact. And it would be kind of socially strange (in the sense that people around us would think it was strange) if they did. Basically, English has a relatively simple set of kinship terms; we tend only to differentiate between men and women, and fairly broad lateral 'degrees' of separation. Your mother's brother and your father's brother are both your uncles. Your mother's brother's children and your father's brother's children are all your cousins (regardless of gender). As well as this, we tend to use kinship terms only for people we consider kin (whether they're blood-related or not), like your dad's best friend you call 'Uncle Dave', or to metaphorically denote or encourage kin-like closeness, like 'brothers in arms', 'sorority sisters'.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4268.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpb1brk","c_root_id_B":"hpaljwn","created_at_utc_A":1640015578,"created_at_utc_B":1640008144,"score_A":39,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"As a biologist I'm hoping you realize that definition is junk being that there are instances of if species A is male and B female the offspring is infertile, but switch that around and the offspring is fertile, or A and B are totally fertile but due to style of mating dance will never mate in wild. And for some fish and reptiles there are cases of same family different genus hybrids. Also as a wildlife biologist I'd expect you are familiar with politics, policy, and public appearance can all play a part when deciding is this two separate species or a new subspecies. (example: red wolf - species or subspecies? Or do we have to redefine coyote as a subspecies of wolf) So, after saying all that, I frequently see Homo sapiens neanderthal vs Homo sapiens sapiens, so for at least some, they are being treated as subspecies of H. sapiens","human_ref_B":"We don't think that \"inter-species\" breeding between types of hominids was actually very fruitfull. When looking at DNA in modern humans, we find neanderthal genes. But we suspect that offspring between the two was most likely not very common and have found no evidence of fertile males from neanderthal - sapian mating. \"Because mtDNA is passed down exclusively from mother to offspring, if Neanderthal males were the only ones contributing to the human genome, their contributions would not be present in the mtDNA line. It is also possible that while interbreeding between Neanderthal males and human females could have produced fertile offspring, interbreeding between Neanderthal females and modern human males might not have produced fertile offspring, which would mean that the Neanderthal mtDNA could not be passed down.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7434.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpagnsv","c_root_id_B":"hpb1brk","created_at_utc_A":1640005376,"created_at_utc_B":1640015578,"score_A":8,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":">Were we all Homo erectus all along? That's what the modern paleoanth community seems to be shifting towards, and I fucking hate it because it glosses over all of the variation that we see across both time and space.","human_ref_B":"As a biologist I'm hoping you realize that definition is junk being that there are instances of if species A is male and B female the offspring is infertile, but switch that around and the offspring is fertile, or A and B are totally fertile but due to style of mating dance will never mate in wild. And for some fish and reptiles there are cases of same family different genus hybrids. Also as a wildlife biologist I'd expect you are familiar with politics, policy, and public appearance can all play a part when deciding is this two separate species or a new subspecies. (example: red wolf - species or subspecies? Or do we have to redefine coyote as a subspecies of wolf) So, after saying all that, I frequently see Homo sapiens neanderthal vs Homo sapiens sapiens, so for at least some, they are being treated as subspecies of H. sapiens","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10202.0,"score_ratio":4.875} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpaljwn","c_root_id_B":"hpagnsv","created_at_utc_A":1640008144,"created_at_utc_B":1640005376,"score_A":30,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"We don't think that \"inter-species\" breeding between types of hominids was actually very fruitfull. When looking at DNA in modern humans, we find neanderthal genes. But we suspect that offspring between the two was most likely not very common and have found no evidence of fertile males from neanderthal - sapian mating. \"Because mtDNA is passed down exclusively from mother to offspring, if Neanderthal males were the only ones contributing to the human genome, their contributions would not be present in the mtDNA line. It is also possible that while interbreeding between Neanderthal males and human females could have produced fertile offspring, interbreeding between Neanderthal females and modern human males might not have produced fertile offspring, which would mean that the Neanderthal mtDNA could not be passed down.\"","human_ref_B":">Were we all Homo erectus all along? That's what the modern paleoanth community seems to be shifting towards, and I fucking hate it because it glosses over all of the variation that we see across both time and space.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2768.0,"score_ratio":3.75} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpb3uya","c_root_id_B":"hpagnsv","created_at_utc_A":1640016664,"created_at_utc_B":1640005376,"score_A":19,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Welcome to the debate the erupts at every AABA conference I've attended. How much they interbred and to what extent that led to viable fertile offspring is a hot debate but so is where we draw the lines even just looking at their morphology. How we examine fossil species to determine if they are just examples of variation within the species or should be considered different species or just sub-species is a giant discussion. There is certainly some cred to be earned by having discovered your own special species. At the same time, there are deep arguments that some species seem to have evolved in such a way that they are quite distinct from Homo erectus suggesting that they were their own little lineage. The in-between gets messy. ​ Here's an example. Homo naledi who was discovered by Lee Berger's team seems to have walked in a very different way than Homo erectus. When I was in grad school I took classes from one of the co-authors who spent his days trying to walk around campus like naledi, which apparently was rather painful. He also had a chimpanzee foot in his lab that he spent hours comparing it to (as well as other hominin and modern human feet). Their conclusion was that naledi represented one of many ways that evolution was \"playing\" with bipedality at the time. And that naledi likely wasn't one of our direct ancestors but more like a cousin branch that eventually died out. The reasoning is that they had a common ancestor with ours but then went on this weird little evolutionary track with a form of bipedality different from our own. They were also better built for being in the trees. For a population to evolve such unique forms of locomotion separate from other branches and then revert\/adjust to what we know anatomically modern humans did seems unlikely. Here's a couple summary links with citations to the peer reviewed publications: https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/10\/151006131938.htm https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/index.php\/english-news\/item\/17750-a-new-discovery-about-homo-naledi-he-had-a-unique-form-of-locomotion-within-the-evolution-of-the-human-species They were alive about 300,000ya so they overlapped with erectus. Did they have sex? Make offspring? Could those offspring have kids? We don't know. And would that change how we classify them? Well... maybe? Neanderthals and how to classify them is another example of this debate. This Sapiens article summarizes it well: https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/biology\/hominin-species-neanderthals\/. As it says, >Such ideas raise questions as to what it really means to be a distinct \u201cspecies.\u201d They also raise the possibility that perhaps H. sapiens did not outcompete Neanderthals into extinction, as some scientists have suggested. Rather, one species may have simply absorbed the other\u2014and so, Neanderthals, in a sense, could survive in us...In 1863, King declared it a new species, which he named Homo neanderthalensis. Scientists have been arguing over whether H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis are truly separate species ever since. The article goes on to give a good summary of the different perspectives and debates about whether they are different species. In short, there are likely some fossil species that are so distinct that we did not create viable fertile offspring so a hybrid or sub-species consideration is off the table. But there are others that make these discussions much more complex. A lot of scientists fall to thinking about it more as what is useful for understanding our evolutionary history rather than debates about the usefulness of which definition of species you pick. There may be value in separating out these groups. There is also value in being a bit skeptical when every new fossil discovery someone tries to claim it is an entirely new species. Understanding the variation within a species is useful, too.","human_ref_B":">Were we all Homo erectus all along? That's what the modern paleoanth community seems to be shifting towards, and I fucking hate it because it glosses over all of the variation that we see across both time and space.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11288.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpc2elz","c_root_id_B":"hpb7vt2","created_at_utc_A":1640030798,"created_at_utc_B":1640018351,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"First off, as a biologist, you clearly indicate you use a biological species concept. This just isn't applicable to extinct species. We can't tell from the fossil record which specimens meet that criteria. Paleoanthropologists use a paleontological species concept, based on morphology from fossils. So you are effectively comparing apples to oranges. The most common philosophical divide in paleoanthropological speciation debate comes between what's often called \"lumpers\" and \"splitters\" casually. Lumpers like to lump fossils together in as few species as possible, emphasizing variation across species. Splitters like to articulate variation in to separate species, or sub-species, to highlight potential adaptations. Neither avenue is really right or wrong, just different philosophical approaches. My old grad school advisor, John Hawks, summed up the whole process best for me. He indicated the whole point of paleontological species is to provide hypothesis. It drives research and thinking about variation and adaptations, and leads to more thoughtful research overall. Species can always be lumped or split later, depending on more research. Especially as the fossil record grows and we find more specimens to increase our pool of data.","human_ref_B":"It's just a semantic argument. There doesn't seem to be much consensus between academic fields. If you want to clearly define what you mean by species then it can be determined whether there was multiple species or not. Someone else might use a different definition and come to a different conclusion. Neither has any bearing on what we know about the homo genus.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12447.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpb7vt2","c_root_id_B":"hpb43lz","created_at_utc_A":1640018351,"created_at_utc_B":1640016764,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It's just a semantic argument. There doesn't seem to be much consensus between academic fields. If you want to clearly define what you mean by species then it can be determined whether there was multiple species or not. Someone else might use a different definition and come to a different conclusion. Neither has any bearing on what we know about the homo genus.","human_ref_B":"If memory serves, the anthropologist Clive Finlayson has made this exact argument. From wikipedia: >Finlayson's 2009 book on Neanderthals and their interaction with Homo sapiens expands on the idea that we were the same species since modern man contains genetic sequences that are shared with neanderthals and the possibility of interbreeding is likely. I could be wrong, but I thought he expanded the argument to include all the different species.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1587.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpc2elz","c_root_id_B":"hpbhcr7","created_at_utc_A":1640030798,"created_at_utc_B":1640022223,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"First off, as a biologist, you clearly indicate you use a biological species concept. This just isn't applicable to extinct species. We can't tell from the fossil record which specimens meet that criteria. Paleoanthropologists use a paleontological species concept, based on morphology from fossils. So you are effectively comparing apples to oranges. The most common philosophical divide in paleoanthropological speciation debate comes between what's often called \"lumpers\" and \"splitters\" casually. Lumpers like to lump fossils together in as few species as possible, emphasizing variation across species. Splitters like to articulate variation in to separate species, or sub-species, to highlight potential adaptations. Neither avenue is really right or wrong, just different philosophical approaches. My old grad school advisor, John Hawks, summed up the whole process best for me. He indicated the whole point of paleontological species is to provide hypothesis. It drives research and thinking about variation and adaptations, and leads to more thoughtful research overall. Species can always be lumped or split later, depending on more research. Especially as the fossil record grows and we find more specimens to increase our pool of data.","human_ref_B":"Remember, the whole concept of species is totally make-believe. Those categories don't exist in reality. It's just a way to group and understand. Also note the general rule of speciation isn't fertile offspring but rather meaning genetic exchange. What exactly is meaningful? That's always open to debate but 3% one way and 0% the other probably doesn't reach that criteria once we remove the\"but it's US\" factor","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8575.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpc2elz","c_root_id_B":"hpb43lz","created_at_utc_A":1640030798,"created_at_utc_B":1640016764,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"First off, as a biologist, you clearly indicate you use a biological species concept. This just isn't applicable to extinct species. We can't tell from the fossil record which specimens meet that criteria. Paleoanthropologists use a paleontological species concept, based on morphology from fossils. So you are effectively comparing apples to oranges. The most common philosophical divide in paleoanthropological speciation debate comes between what's often called \"lumpers\" and \"splitters\" casually. Lumpers like to lump fossils together in as few species as possible, emphasizing variation across species. Splitters like to articulate variation in to separate species, or sub-species, to highlight potential adaptations. Neither avenue is really right or wrong, just different philosophical approaches. My old grad school advisor, John Hawks, summed up the whole process best for me. He indicated the whole point of paleontological species is to provide hypothesis. It drives research and thinking about variation and adaptations, and leads to more thoughtful research overall. Species can always be lumped or split later, depending on more research. Especially as the fossil record grows and we find more specimens to increase our pool of data.","human_ref_B":"If memory serves, the anthropologist Clive Finlayson has made this exact argument. From wikipedia: >Finlayson's 2009 book on Neanderthals and their interaction with Homo sapiens expands on the idea that we were the same species since modern man contains genetic sequences that are shared with neanderthals and the possibility of interbreeding is likely. I could be wrong, but I thought he expanded the argument to include all the different species.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14034.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"rkkoh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Only one human species Okay, just to specify, there may be exceptions. I'm a wildlife biologist not an anthropologist. So hear me out. Apparently there are several or even dozens of human species that coexisted at the same time according to whom you ask. These species had phenotypes that shifted over time but many overlapped with each other and even modern humans. Get to Homo heidelbergensis and and it apparently splits into sapiens, denisovans and Neanderthals and all four \"species\" with overlapping phenotypes interbred to form modern humans. Apparently even Homo erectus interbred with other Homo sp. So in wildlife biology we normally go by the biological definition of species. If it can breed and produce fertile offspring, that can produce fertile offspring, it is a species. So how are these different species? Wouldn't it be more logical to say it's just one species that shifted in phenotype over time and adapted to local conditions? Is this just a case of overzealous scientists all wanting their own Homo species? Like tigers, black bears or wolves, we had phenotypes and adapted to local conditions and we shifted in time. But stick us together and we'll make babies. Subspecies, but not species. Were we all Homo erectus all along?","c_root_id_A":"hpb43lz","c_root_id_B":"hpbhcr7","created_at_utc_A":1640016764,"created_at_utc_B":1640022223,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"If memory serves, the anthropologist Clive Finlayson has made this exact argument. From wikipedia: >Finlayson's 2009 book on Neanderthals and their interaction with Homo sapiens expands on the idea that we were the same species since modern man contains genetic sequences that are shared with neanderthals and the possibility of interbreeding is likely. I could be wrong, but I thought he expanded the argument to include all the different species.","human_ref_B":"Remember, the whole concept of species is totally make-believe. Those categories don't exist in reality. It's just a way to group and understand. Also note the general rule of speciation isn't fertile offspring but rather meaning genetic exchange. What exactly is meaningful? That's always open to debate but 3% one way and 0% the other probably doesn't reach that criteria once we remove the\"but it's US\" factor","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5459.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u23p3e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Is the majority of human genetic diversity inclusions of other hominid dna? Basically, the expansion of humans from east Africa was rapid biologically speaking. I am wondering if the majority of differences between populations are a result of inclusions of other hominids. Whether unidentified hominids in west and South Africa, or the Neanderthals and Denisovans. It just seems like these populations probably had local adaptations and much larger differences than the small sapien population that expanded from east Africa.","c_root_id_A":"i4kdu9f","c_root_id_B":"i4j072w","created_at_utc_A":1649858340,"created_at_utc_B":1649825143,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Humans outside of Sub Saharan Africa are considerably less genetically diverse from each other due to what is presumed to be a bottlenecking effect caused by migration out of Africa. There's actually a lot of evidence to support that this happened. Additionally, as my bioanth prof told us, humans aren't that genetically diverse as a species to begin with. Even still, the vast majority of our DNA, regardless of whether someone is from inside or outside of Sub Saharan Africa, is disinctly human. Traces of additional hominin in us are relatively small and vary a lot by population (not nationality or ethnicity, i mean specific traceable regions and migration groups) and individual inheritance. Idk if this will be a useful metaphor but here we go. If you think of genes as music notes, I have a lot more \"free jazz\" distinct to me and my family lineage in my DNA that's straight up human than the maybe 1-2% overall that might be Neanderthal contribution. Everything that makes me different than others isn't stored in that 1-2% shared genetic markers with Neandertals that I may or may not have. There are a lot of gene variants particular to our species. In fact the main theorized cause of genetic diversity in humans is genetic drift due to founder effect scenarios like I mentioned above with the out of Africa hypothesis. We also have plenty of random mutations and things that have come under selection pressure. Don't even get me started on the gene-culture coevolution theory and lactose tolerance. That's really cool stuff. There is some evidence that there may have been hominin in Africa that are unknown to science that contributed to the human genome. These are relatively new studies, but have some interesting results when it comes to the history of human evolution. But again, we are only really seeing what's potentially left in some populations after possible events that may have happened hundreds of thousands of years ago for possibly relatively brief periods. tldr So yeah overall most of our diversity, which as a species we have precious little of, comes from our own human specific genome. Mostly this happened through founder effects and genetic drift after several bottlenecking events. My background in this that I have a ba and have taken some bioanth, archaeology and evolution courses, and I also like to keep up on human migration science. So not an expert but maybe helpful to point you in the right direction.","human_ref_B":"I recently read in The Dawn of Everything that the vast array of diversity that existed in Africa from half a million years to 100,000 years was beyond anything humans have known. Not un similar to how radically different culture and linguistics are in Pap\u00faa New Guinea. But instead of a group of humans the next valley over speak a different language, but rather look physically very different than you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33197.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"90pssj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What do we know about the religious practices and beliefs and the mythology of the ancient Slavs? Were they really practicing human sacrifice when they reached Central Europe or that is only propaganda?","c_root_id_A":"e2sqq64","c_root_id_B":"e2t1hwv","created_at_utc_A":1532205236,"created_at_utc_B":1532217101,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What do you mean by \"ancient Slavs\"?","human_ref_B":"Do you speak any Slavic languages? Radoslav Katicic has several book on the topic of the reconstruction of Slavic sacred texts (Bo\u017eanski boj, Gazdarica na vratima, etc.). If you know Latin and \/ or Greek you might want to take a look at Fontes historiae religionis slavicae. Here is a link to an academic journal devoted to the topic, they offer free downloads of articles and books: http:\/\/sms.zrc-sazu.si I\u2019ll be back tomorrow with more!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11865.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9of19a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Going to Ethiopia for an archaeological dig and having a hard time finding firm info on the modern culture Hey all! I\u2019m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and I\u2019m very excited to be taking part in my first dig this winter in Ethiopia. I\u2019ve been trying to get some info on the culture there, but I\u2019ve only been able to find a limited amount- it\u2019s almost like this stuff is so seldom searched for it just doesn\u2019t exist. So I\u2019m curious if anyone has any knowledge on the day to day culture in Ethiopia in modern times (I HAVE found plenty of outright current event news etc, but not information on basics like how people currently live dress and eat in different regions). We\u2019ll be in the country for about 6 weeks, and will split time between Addis Ababa and our outcrop, which I believe is near but not in the highlands. Also, just for reference- I am an American person so yes I know I will stick out. It\u2019s just important to me to be as respectful and knowledgeable as possible before I get on the plane.","c_root_id_A":"e7ttbkw","c_root_id_B":"e7tv2jc","created_at_utc_A":1539634253,"created_at_utc_B":1539635643,"score_A":10,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"Sorry I dont have any personal experience with this as I am yet to visit the country myself. I can tell you that I have been to east africa so when people say that Ethiopians dress \"conservatively\" they most likely mean khakis and a collared shirt. Anyways, I left a few links here as well including an episode of Anthony Bourdain there cause why not... he does a solid enough job for what you are looking for I think https:\/\/www.roughguides.com\/destinations\/africa\/ethiopia\/culture-etiquette\/ http:\/\/www.bigworldsmallpockets.com\/ethiopia-packing-list\/ https:\/\/explorepartsunknown.com\/ethiopia\/bourdains-field-notes-ethiopia\/ The episode: https:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/video\/x5cvdc0","human_ref_B":"Hello fellow Ethiopianist archaeologist (or soon to be)! Mind if I ask what project you're on? I do my work there too so I probably know your professor (send me a private message if you prefer\/wish to). Regardless, your question is quite broad. Both Addis and the country are incredibly diverse and you'll find very different cultures in every quarter of the country and city. Do you know the name of the town or region you'll be working in, or the name of the site? ​ If you want to see some Ethiopian culture while in Addis, here are some of my suggestions: Go to a soccer match at the stadium near Meskal Sqr; maybe catch a play at the National Theater if you can stand not understanding what is being said for an hour or two (despite is drab exterior and bland first foyer, the grand foyer and interior are marvelous and free); eat\/drink at some cafes and chic youthful restaurants and if people invite you to sit with them, take them up on it (more likely to happen outside Addis), between Arat and Sidist Kilo are good places for this; likewise drink at a few low-key tejj and araki bets, but ideally go with an Ethiopian if you're not going to one of the big tourism guide ones; walk around the outdoor market north of Arat Kilo toward the mountain and if you're a dude and its a quiet day, be prepared for some intense interactions with the market women!; also go to Mercato if you wish, but go with a local or you'll get lost and targeted by pickpockets; check out some media that covers local events like art shows, festivals, and musical events - I forgot the name of a good one, but big hotels like the Sheraton or Hilton will carry their newsletters if they're still published; and of course also then go to some night clubs, an art show, or one of the city's frequent street events. Finally, the Bole area has been transforming rapidly so if you want to see how the other half, the young and wealthy live, it's a good place to tour.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1390.0,"score_ratio":4.3} {"post_id":"9of19a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Going to Ethiopia for an archaeological dig and having a hard time finding firm info on the modern culture Hey all! I\u2019m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and I\u2019m very excited to be taking part in my first dig this winter in Ethiopia. I\u2019ve been trying to get some info on the culture there, but I\u2019ve only been able to find a limited amount- it\u2019s almost like this stuff is so seldom searched for it just doesn\u2019t exist. So I\u2019m curious if anyone has any knowledge on the day to day culture in Ethiopia in modern times (I HAVE found plenty of outright current event news etc, but not information on basics like how people currently live dress and eat in different regions). We\u2019ll be in the country for about 6 weeks, and will split time between Addis Ababa and our outcrop, which I believe is near but not in the highlands. Also, just for reference- I am an American person so yes I know I will stick out. It\u2019s just important to me to be as respectful and knowledgeable as possible before I get on the plane.","c_root_id_A":"e7tv2jc","c_root_id_B":"e7tscln","created_at_utc_A":1539635643,"created_at_utc_B":1539633491,"score_A":43,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello fellow Ethiopianist archaeologist (or soon to be)! Mind if I ask what project you're on? I do my work there too so I probably know your professor (send me a private message if you prefer\/wish to). Regardless, your question is quite broad. Both Addis and the country are incredibly diverse and you'll find very different cultures in every quarter of the country and city. Do you know the name of the town or region you'll be working in, or the name of the site? ​ If you want to see some Ethiopian culture while in Addis, here are some of my suggestions: Go to a soccer match at the stadium near Meskal Sqr; maybe catch a play at the National Theater if you can stand not understanding what is being said for an hour or two (despite is drab exterior and bland first foyer, the grand foyer and interior are marvelous and free); eat\/drink at some cafes and chic youthful restaurants and if people invite you to sit with them, take them up on it (more likely to happen outside Addis), between Arat and Sidist Kilo are good places for this; likewise drink at a few low-key tejj and araki bets, but ideally go with an Ethiopian if you're not going to one of the big tourism guide ones; walk around the outdoor market north of Arat Kilo toward the mountain and if you're a dude and its a quiet day, be prepared for some intense interactions with the market women!; also go to Mercato if you wish, but go with a local or you'll get lost and targeted by pickpockets; check out some media that covers local events like art shows, festivals, and musical events - I forgot the name of a good one, but big hotels like the Sheraton or Hilton will carry their newsletters if they're still published; and of course also then go to some night clubs, an art show, or one of the city's frequent street events. Finally, the Bole area has been transforming rapidly so if you want to see how the other half, the young and wealthy live, it's a good place to tour.","human_ref_B":"That\u2019s a pretty broad subject you\u2019re looking into which makes it hard to find exactly what you\u2019re looking for in one place. For my money the best way to learn about a region ahead of a visit is to read modern non-fiction and fiction, research photographers who have shot projects their recently, listen to the music, etc. The State Dept. also has general overviews of countries which is useful when taken with a grain of salt. That\u2019s my approach.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2152.0,"score_ratio":14.3333333333} {"post_id":"9of19a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Going to Ethiopia for an archaeological dig and having a hard time finding firm info on the modern culture Hey all! I\u2019m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and I\u2019m very excited to be taking part in my first dig this winter in Ethiopia. I\u2019ve been trying to get some info on the culture there, but I\u2019ve only been able to find a limited amount- it\u2019s almost like this stuff is so seldom searched for it just doesn\u2019t exist. So I\u2019m curious if anyone has any knowledge on the day to day culture in Ethiopia in modern times (I HAVE found plenty of outright current event news etc, but not information on basics like how people currently live dress and eat in different regions). We\u2019ll be in the country for about 6 weeks, and will split time between Addis Ababa and our outcrop, which I believe is near but not in the highlands. Also, just for reference- I am an American person so yes I know I will stick out. It\u2019s just important to me to be as respectful and knowledgeable as possible before I get on the plane.","c_root_id_A":"e7tscln","c_root_id_B":"e7ttbkw","created_at_utc_A":1539633491,"created_at_utc_B":1539634253,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"That\u2019s a pretty broad subject you\u2019re looking into which makes it hard to find exactly what you\u2019re looking for in one place. For my money the best way to learn about a region ahead of a visit is to read modern non-fiction and fiction, research photographers who have shot projects their recently, listen to the music, etc. The State Dept. also has general overviews of countries which is useful when taken with a grain of salt. That\u2019s my approach.","human_ref_B":"Sorry I dont have any personal experience with this as I am yet to visit the country myself. I can tell you that I have been to east africa so when people say that Ethiopians dress \"conservatively\" they most likely mean khakis and a collared shirt. Anyways, I left a few links here as well including an episode of Anthony Bourdain there cause why not... he does a solid enough job for what you are looking for I think https:\/\/www.roughguides.com\/destinations\/africa\/ethiopia\/culture-etiquette\/ http:\/\/www.bigworldsmallpockets.com\/ethiopia-packing-list\/ https:\/\/explorepartsunknown.com\/ethiopia\/bourdains-field-notes-ethiopia\/ The episode: https:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/video\/x5cvdc0","labels":0,"seconds_difference":762.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"9of19a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Going to Ethiopia for an archaeological dig and having a hard time finding firm info on the modern culture Hey all! I\u2019m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and I\u2019m very excited to be taking part in my first dig this winter in Ethiopia. I\u2019ve been trying to get some info on the culture there, but I\u2019ve only been able to find a limited amount- it\u2019s almost like this stuff is so seldom searched for it just doesn\u2019t exist. So I\u2019m curious if anyone has any knowledge on the day to day culture in Ethiopia in modern times (I HAVE found plenty of outright current event news etc, but not information on basics like how people currently live dress and eat in different regions). We\u2019ll be in the country for about 6 weeks, and will split time between Addis Ababa and our outcrop, which I believe is near but not in the highlands. Also, just for reference- I am an American person so yes I know I will stick out. It\u2019s just important to me to be as respectful and knowledgeable as possible before I get on the plane.","c_root_id_A":"e7tscln","c_root_id_B":"e7udxru","created_at_utc_A":1539633491,"created_at_utc_B":1539652458,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"That\u2019s a pretty broad subject you\u2019re looking into which makes it hard to find exactly what you\u2019re looking for in one place. For my money the best way to learn about a region ahead of a visit is to read modern non-fiction and fiction, research photographers who have shot projects their recently, listen to the music, etc. The State Dept. also has general overviews of countries which is useful when taken with a grain of salt. That\u2019s my approach.","human_ref_B":"Fellow American here, and I travel around the world for work including 4 trips to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of my favorite countries but you\u2019re right, it\u2019s so tough to find info on modern culture. Based only on my experience doing business in Addis, here\u2019s what I can tell you: 1. Ethiopians are incredibly proud of their history and culture, and will all recommend you go to one of the 2 main touristy \u201ccultural\u201d restaurants in Addis. I do mean all - hotel, cabbies, coffee shop baristas, everyone. And you might be skeptical but go! I\u2019ve been to Yod Abyssinia 3 times and the food is amazing, the atmosphere is fantastic, and surprisingly, there always seem to be more than 50% locals there. It\u2019s a very rare tourist spot that is also local and well worth going. 2. Everyone will also tell you that Ethiopia was the only country in Africa not to be colonized, and that they invented\/discovered coffee. It\u2019s one of my favorite things about meeting anyone; they inevitably bring it up. 3. Someone told me before I had my first project that you don\u2019t find colleagues in Ethiopia, you find friends, and that\u2019s true. I keep in touch with my last local consultant there and when I put past clients in touch with others coming to Addis, the interest in catching up was incredibly genuine. Lean into it! I realize that this may not completely answer your question, but I hope it helps a little bit. And while it\u2019s not specifically about modern Ethiopian culture, here are a couple other amazing places: 1. Mama\u2019s Kitchen for jazz. Intimate but hip, and check the listings because they\u2019ll often have local singers. 2. Bear with me: the best Chinese food I\u2019ve ever had was from the place on the 3rd floor in the mall next door to the Radisson Blu. I\u2019m not kidding. The chef is a former valet who befriended a Chinese restaurant chef, learned from him, and now runs this restaurant that I went back to after 2years and it was just as good. Maybe not modern Ethiopian culture but I can\u2019t not recommend it. Anyway. Enjoy, it\u2019s an amazing place, and I really hope you share your findings because I for one would love to hear about it!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18967.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"zpbvsc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any happy anthropologist here? So I'm currently suffering from my career choice given that in my country (Chile) it is a varely employable major. I feel undervalued and with very little opportunities. I have read too many comments from people feeling the same way. I'd like to read any of you that is happy with his\/her career choice to light me up a little bit and to regain hope about the career path ahead of me. Thank you everyone in advance.","c_root_id_A":"j0sj20v","c_root_id_B":"j0s832m","created_at_utc_A":1671415815,"created_at_utc_B":1671410617,"score_A":39,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I have a government job right now, but before this worked in education. It was pretty easy for me to find work with my Masters in anthro. I'd just suggest keep an open mind. A lot of employers like to see someone with a people-centric degree, so just think outside the box when it comes to applications and don't close any doors to any opportunities. Edit: yes am happy too lol","human_ref_B":"The good news: anthropology offers lots of career opportunities. The bad news: many of them, whilst interesting, kind of suck. You can go into HR, which sucks. Or you can do qualitative research, which people don't want to listen to because it tells them things they don't want to hear and doesn't have numbers attached.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5198.0,"score_ratio":1.2580645161} {"post_id":"zpbvsc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any happy anthropologist here? So I'm currently suffering from my career choice given that in my country (Chile) it is a varely employable major. I feel undervalued and with very little opportunities. I have read too many comments from people feeling the same way. I'd like to read any of you that is happy with his\/her career choice to light me up a little bit and to regain hope about the career path ahead of me. Thank you everyone in advance.","c_root_id_A":"j0shlzf","c_root_id_B":"j0sj20v","created_at_utc_A":1671415135,"created_at_utc_B":1671415815,"score_A":12,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"A guy I know who majored in anthropology now works in IT in system design and he\u2019s extremely good at it. He claims what he learned in the program is surprisingly helpful.","human_ref_B":"I have a government job right now, but before this worked in education. It was pretty easy for me to find work with my Masters in anthro. I'd just suggest keep an open mind. A lot of employers like to see someone with a people-centric degree, so just think outside the box when it comes to applications and don't close any doors to any opportunities. Edit: yes am happy too lol","labels":0,"seconds_difference":680.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"zpbvsc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any happy anthropologist here? So I'm currently suffering from my career choice given that in my country (Chile) it is a varely employable major. I feel undervalued and with very little opportunities. I have read too many comments from people feeling the same way. I'd like to read any of you that is happy with his\/her career choice to light me up a little bit and to regain hope about the career path ahead of me. Thank you everyone in advance.","c_root_id_A":"j0szvjp","c_root_id_B":"j0sw31u","created_at_utc_A":1671424325,"created_at_utc_B":1671422332,"score_A":12,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Is there something you want to do? I think anthropologists can do anything! Do you want to work in video games? Because anthropologists understand human motivations in gaming and how to make a successful model. Do you want to work in an HR or training job? Anthropologists understand how humans learn cross culturally and allow flexibility in tailoring approaches and often have the most successful results. Do you want to work in data analysis? Oh good because anthropologists have tons of experience not just gathering data, but translating the information into something meaningful to literally anyone looking looking at the results. What do you want to do? I will tell you exactly how it would be beneficial to have an anthropology background \ud83e\udd0e\ud83e\udd0e","human_ref_B":"Funny this has come up. I was at a bar earlier meeting random people and kinda talking Anthropology and nobody really got it. It sucked cause I was just trying to make new friends and I felt a little ostracized cause nobody really got it. I guess such is the Anthropologist life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1993.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"zpbvsc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Any happy anthropologist here? So I'm currently suffering from my career choice given that in my country (Chile) it is a varely employable major. I feel undervalued and with very little opportunities. I have read too many comments from people feeling the same way. I'd like to read any of you that is happy with his\/her career choice to light me up a little bit and to regain hope about the career path ahead of me. Thank you everyone in advance.","c_root_id_A":"j0t5pmz","c_root_id_B":"j0sw31u","created_at_utc_A":1671427739,"created_at_utc_B":1671422332,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I turned my anthropology degree into a masters in archaeology, and currently I am an insurance adjuster, because I got sick of doing CRM archaeology for companies that are just destroying things, and getting paid entry level pay for such work My hope is to go back someday, and just volunteer and do the work I want rather than having to suffer through terrible projects just to make a living","human_ref_B":"Funny this has come up. I was at a bar earlier meeting random people and kinda talking Anthropology and nobody really got it. It sucked cause I was just trying to make new friends and I felt a little ostracized cause nobody really got it. I guess such is the Anthropologist life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5407.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"8ttdd7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Interested in the Anthropology of Graphic Design...Does this career even exist and how can I get started? Hello there! I graduated in 2017 with a major in Graphic Design and a minor in Cultural Anthropology. During my college career I was able to combine the two by studying abroad with the Kayapo in the Brazilian Amazon. My research focused on their tradition of body painting, the history behind it, what the different shapes and patterns meant, and how painting is so integrated into their social life. I absolutely loved studying the different designs of another culture, and am interested in getting more information on how to have a career in this niche field. Any suggestions, leads, or connections would be greatly appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"e1a94r2","c_root_id_B":"e1a7j3g","created_at_utc_A":1529961354,"created_at_utc_B":1529959924,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a graphic designer in Vanuatu by way of being former Peace Corps. I'd say quite a bit of what I do, and especially a lot of what my collaborator does, could be categorized this way. We think more about design for development which tries to understand the way people see the world here, which certainly is informed by anthropological thinking. When we package messages that NGOs have determined, such as gender equality or water sanitation, we try to work within preexisting understandings of ni-Vanuatu people, which we gain by living here and observing. This hopefully makes the messages more effective. The second episode of the most recent season on the podcast Invisibilia is all about this; you might be interested to check that out.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology of art. It's a big field.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1430.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8ttdd7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Interested in the Anthropology of Graphic Design...Does this career even exist and how can I get started? Hello there! I graduated in 2017 with a major in Graphic Design and a minor in Cultural Anthropology. During my college career I was able to combine the two by studying abroad with the Kayapo in the Brazilian Amazon. My research focused on their tradition of body painting, the history behind it, what the different shapes and patterns meant, and how painting is so integrated into their social life. I absolutely loved studying the different designs of another culture, and am interested in getting more information on how to have a career in this niche field. Any suggestions, leads, or connections would be greatly appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"e1aa6d3","c_root_id_B":"e1a7j3g","created_at_utc_A":1529962313,"created_at_utc_B":1529959924,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Look into the burgeoning field of Digital Humanities.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology of art. It's a big field.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2389.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cbko6x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is the difference between sociology and anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"etgjy8z","c_root_id_B":"etg88ed","created_at_utc_A":1562792632,"created_at_utc_B":1562785690,"score_A":32,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"While the distinction give by u\/WideEyedWand3R is correct, there is more to the story. Anthropology as a discipline is really less of a discipline in a strict sense and more of a discipline of mediation. It exists on the boundaries of the sciences and humanities and thus is is concerned with understanding who we are and where we come from in a holistic sense. Anthropology synthesizes biological, social science, and humanities data together to create a big-picture story of humanity. While some individual research projects in both sociology and anthropology look similar, the big-picture questions and scholarly narrative differ substantially.","human_ref_B":"The study of society vs. the study of cultures. Cultures can be nomadic or civilized. Big and small. Someone may have their own culture but rarely communicate with others. They may or may not consider themselves part of a larger society. They may or may not, in fact, be part of a larger society. One can be influenced by societal culture but have few ties to the society itself. Societies rise and fall, but culture can persist through hundreds and thousands of years. Society can't exist without both the one and the other. Society regards both the cooperative and the adversarial, but society is more than just the self (psychology); society, and sociology, is of us all. That's about how I've always understood it. I went to school for Sociology and Criminology. I've always thought Anthro and Soc to be two sides of the same coin. Psychology heavily affects both and vice versa, too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6942.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1i7157","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Could you teach a Paleolithic man Calculus? I was trying to explain to my friend that humanity is and has been capable of the level of abstract thought we have achieved today for a long time. She is convinced, however, that our ability to think as we do today, i.e. understand our smallness in the universe or develop advanced technology such as computers, was due to a sort of human evolution that has brought us \"farther along\" compared to early homo sapiens. I lack the knowledge to prove it one way or the other. I feel like the question has a lot of baggage, but I hope someone has time to see it through. I hope it's not too silly.","c_root_id_A":"cb1xa30","c_root_id_B":"cb1r54y","created_at_utc_A":1373738733,"created_at_utc_B":1373707306,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The two of you have landed on two sides of a fairly active debate about the origins and evolution \/ development of human cognition. There are a number of people who have argued that human thought (as we know it today) essentially begins with anatomically modern humans, as much as 150-20K years ago, and that anatomically modern people at more or less any time since our appearance in the fossil record would be capable of essentially the same kind of thought that modern humans today are capable of. However, there are some folks who suggest that the fact that we don't see various forms of artistic expression until much later (cave painting, portable artwork like carvings, etc.) is an indication that until that time, even if they were anatomically modern, ancient humans' thought processes and abilities were very, very different from our own. We have to contend with the damage that time (and environmental and geological processes) does to the archaeological record, and so an argument based on the earliest appearance of some forms of material culture (cave paintings, carved bone) has to consider that it may simply be time shrouding the origins of that kind of expression, rather than some kind of cognitive \/ evolutionary boundary in the past. I think it's probably safe to say that if you could get past the language barrier and teach an Upper Paleolithic human all the basic information necessary, then yes, you could probably teach a Paleolithic person calculus. It's less certain if you just use the term \"Paleolithic,\" since the Lower Paleolithic includes Neanderthals, and there's *far* less certainty about the similarity of their cognitive abilities to our own, never mind archaic *Homo sapiens*.","human_ref_B":">She is convinced, however, that our ability to think as we do today, i.e. understand our smallness in the universe or develop advanced technology such as computers, was due to a sort of human evolution that has brought us \"farther along\" compared to early homo sapiens. That's pretty much exactly the opposite of what's happened. Both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons had bigger brains than we do. I've seen various attempts to explain that away, but nobody questions that more brain size = more intelligence for every hominid *until* modern humans, so it's more than a little special pleading to say that that suddenly changed. Really, we've lost brain mass for the same reason other domesticated animals do; we don't need our brains as much as we did in the wild. Yes, today being smart means having a better job, but you can still survive and breed if you're the sort of idiot that couldn't survive in a forest for a day.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31427.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"1cv32n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why are humans and the other great apes, save bonobos, patriarchal? What evolutionary advantages did it pose if any? Also why *aren't* Bonobos?","c_root_id_A":"c9kib7q","c_root_id_B":"c9kc1mr","created_at_utc_A":1366666069,"created_at_utc_B":1366649148,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"You cannot accurately say that humans are of necessity patriarchal in the same sense as the great apes. In every instance of gorilla groups, for example, we see every one of them existing as a patriarchy. Although it is true that humans over the past 7000 years of textual historical data have exhibited more patriarchies than matriarchies\/egalitarian societies, it is certainly not a universal. Moreover, patriarchy has been primarily causally linked to the cultural phenomenon of agriculture rather than any explicitly biological cause. That is why in industrial and post-industrial societies, by and large most developed nations exhibit an express tendency towards economic and political equality. Between humans and apes, there is the curious fact that though such apes as chimpanzees exhibit greater genetic diversity with chimps a few kilometers away than the entire genetic diversity among every human on the planet, humans have an exponentially greater variety of behaviors and social organizations. To break it down to a few words: the idea that humans are a priori patriarchal is not supported from ethnographic, archaeological, or biological data.","human_ref_B":"Although it's definitely more rare, there are examples of matriarchal human societies, both presently and in the past. One example is the Mosuo in Yunan and Sichuan Province (China). ER Walsh - 2001 - Temple University - The Mosuo: beyond the myths of matriarchy: gender transformation and economic development Documentary: A World Without Husbands or Fathers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16921.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"a9u8e4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What does the human practice of animal husbandry tell us about the possible consequences of automation? As humans learned to use animals to be more productive, they had less need for each other's labor and thus less need for human interactions for sustenance. ​ Similarly, automation makes us less dependent on each other's services. I wonder if there are lessons from our history of animal husbandry that are instructive on the likely or possibly consequences of automation in our future. ​ I welcome your thoughts.","c_root_id_A":"ecmna3q","c_root_id_B":"ecmopb9","created_at_utc_A":1545876829,"created_at_utc_B":1545878170,"score_A":21,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"Why would you look to animal husbandry, and not to the many instances of automation that have occurred in the past?","human_ref_B":"> As humans learned to use animals to be more productive, they had less need for each other's labor and thus less need for human interactions for sustenance. I am not an anthropologist, so I'll defer to informed opinion, but this immediately stands out to me as an unjustified assumption. Looking over the big picture of history, I'd say that as humans have discovered more efficient means of labor, be it delegating to animals or devices, we've responded by building more complex structures that involve both more interactions and increased intellectual nuance. It takes tens of thousands of people working under insanely difficult constraints to produce a state of the art technology like a jet engine or microprocessor. We aren't exactly living as steampunk feudal lords that never talk to our neighbors.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1341.0,"score_ratio":2.0952380952} {"post_id":"6v1ofn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Did any ancient monotheistic religions that were unrelated to the Abrahamic religions exist? (Besides Ancient Egypt's flirtation with monotheism under Akhenaten's reign.)","c_root_id_A":"dlxcin8","c_root_id_B":"dlxr4qt","created_at_utc_A":1503327742,"created_at_utc_B":1503345322,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Knowing historians, it's probably a matter of debate whether Mithraism was monotheistic, but my understanding was that they only worshipped one god.","human_ref_B":"I don't know, but I think this is a good opportunity to distinguish between the different worship and belief categories: * polytheism (belief in multiple gods), * monotheism (belief in only one god), * monolatrism (worship of only one god but belief in multiple gods), and * henotheism (worship of only one god without denying that other people worship equally valid gods).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17580.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"8ml38c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Have there been cultures\/civilizations that did not use jail time as a punishment? What were the alternatives?","c_root_id_A":"dzovjhn","c_root_id_B":"dzp2p2f","created_at_utc_A":1527477293,"created_at_utc_B":1527487456,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Social exclusion is the most basal form of punishment, exercised in all cultures. It functions by making culturally inappropriate behavior visible to the group, thus being more of a deterrent than a real punishment. Crazy people be crazy.","human_ref_B":"In cultures that had frequent food scarcities, feeding convicts in prison while citizens were starving didn't make any sense. In Nepal and parts of India, convicts were set free after they were made to wear a wooden restraint on their shoulders (impossible to remove until their prison term was up) which let them work, but restrained them from inflicting violence on others. They were thus forced to fend for themselves as far as food, shelter and livelihoods were concerned. The State did not have to spend on them, but they were clearly identifiable as convicts (on account of the restraint they were wearing) by the rest of society.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10163.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"3sbprk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why does Uganda have such high rates of alcohol consumption compared to other African nations? Based on this map. Units are liters of pure alcohol consumed per capita.","c_root_id_A":"cww01df","c_root_id_B":"cww0rk8","created_at_utc_A":1447204260,"created_at_utc_B":1447205488,"score_A":3,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"A large moonshine industry.","human_ref_B":"The fact that they're majority Christian and not Muslim like the northern African nations probably has something to do with it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1228.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"3sbprk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why does Uganda have such high rates of alcohol consumption compared to other African nations? Based on this map. Units are liters of pure alcohol consumed per capita.","c_root_id_A":"cww01df","c_root_id_B":"cww29v1","created_at_utc_A":1447204260,"created_at_utc_B":1447208003,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"A large moonshine industry.","human_ref_B":"I'm in the precious mineral mining business in eastern Africa so I have a bit if insight. Uganda, while leading, isn't that ahead by a big gap when compared to Rwanda and Burundi (slightly more so for the other countries). As with other regions it has been in turmoil for quite a while. No jobs and lower standard of living paves a great path for home brewed alcohol. It provides a means of running a business with tiny starting costs and well... when your life is in shambles it makes drinking look pretty nice. A factor that also helps is that Uganda is more Christian than Muslim which also leaves more room for the acceptance of alcohol consumption. It's actually a pretty sad cycle, people drink themselves further into poverty.Waragi is their go to, it's pretty much gin. The crappy stuff is called rotgut and is pretty dangerous. Beer is more popular for the more affluent people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3743.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"ustb2o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why did things like guilt over killing and PTSD evolve? When humans had first begun to evolve, the world was kill or be killed, and often people (I assume) would be forced to kill and watch others from their group get killed. So why do we get PTSD from warfare and stuff","c_root_id_A":"i9663cj","c_root_id_B":"i95tmdy","created_at_utc_A":1652939689,"created_at_utc_B":1652931638,"score_A":211,"score_B":77,"human_ref_A":">When humans had first begun to evolve, the world was kill or be killed This is one of those persistent assumptions that people have about our ancestors, early and otherwise, that isn't really founded on fact. The survival of our lineage is very much bound up in *group* behavior, cooperative action, communication, and the like, which requires a certain level of empathy to maintain over the long term. That's not to say that there wasn't violence between groups and within groups, but there was far less of it than people think, and, based on analogies drawn from historical people living in situations we think are\/were similar to that of our ancestors, even that violence was often ritualized and codified in order to minimize the extent of it. Things like PTSD likely weren't ever selected for, and only minimally against if at all, and are likely more of a knock-on effect of experiencing something that goes so fundamentally against the empathy that was very heavily selected for in our evolution.","human_ref_B":"Something that I think is useful to remember in these situations is that traits are only selected against to the extent that they affect reproduction. There are some scenarios when guilt\/ptsd could affect reproduction, but there are plenty of people living with ptsd who have families. Some models of PTSD suggest that the cognitive patterns may have been beneficial in the environment where a trauma occurred, but become maladaptive in a more peaceful environment. Consider veterans who startle easily at explosives, survivors of abuse who learn to downplay their own needs, etc: Ehlers A, Clark DM. A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behav Res Ther. 2000 Apr;38(4):319-45. doi: 10.1016\/s0005-7967(99)00123-0. PMID: 10761279. This doesn\u2019t fully explain guilt, which is what I think you\u2019re most interested in. I also would like to add that not all soldiers or witnesses to violence get ptsd.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8051.0,"score_ratio":2.7402597403} {"post_id":"ustb2o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why did things like guilt over killing and PTSD evolve? When humans had first begun to evolve, the world was kill or be killed, and often people (I assume) would be forced to kill and watch others from their group get killed. So why do we get PTSD from warfare and stuff","c_root_id_A":"i95sff6","c_root_id_B":"i9663cj","created_at_utc_A":1652930998,"created_at_utc_B":1652939689,"score_A":43,"score_B":211,"human_ref_A":"Social animal living in extended family groups, you need empathy to survive. The \"survival of the fittest\" thing doesn't really apply to (morphologically) modern humans as much as you may think. There is good evidence that extremely primitive paleolithic (pre farming) people cared for elders and the disabled, these groups tended to live much longer than they would have in a state of pure nature. War as we know it is kind of more a neolithic thing, protecting your land. (not that primitive people didn't fight, but it wasn't the organized thing we know now) Social empathy predates it by many many generations. Remember that all mammals need social empathy for their offspring to survive. a newly hatched lizard can go catch bugs, a newborn mammal needs a mother and, in many cases, a social unit to protect and support her.","human_ref_B":">When humans had first begun to evolve, the world was kill or be killed This is one of those persistent assumptions that people have about our ancestors, early and otherwise, that isn't really founded on fact. The survival of our lineage is very much bound up in *group* behavior, cooperative action, communication, and the like, which requires a certain level of empathy to maintain over the long term. That's not to say that there wasn't violence between groups and within groups, but there was far less of it than people think, and, based on analogies drawn from historical people living in situations we think are\/were similar to that of our ancestors, even that violence was often ritualized and codified in order to minimize the extent of it. Things like PTSD likely weren't ever selected for, and only minimally against if at all, and are likely more of a knock-on effect of experiencing something that goes so fundamentally against the empathy that was very heavily selected for in our evolution.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8691.0,"score_ratio":4.9069767442} {"post_id":"ustb2o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why did things like guilt over killing and PTSD evolve? When humans had first begun to evolve, the world was kill or be killed, and often people (I assume) would be forced to kill and watch others from their group get killed. So why do we get PTSD from warfare and stuff","c_root_id_A":"i95tmdy","c_root_id_B":"i95sff6","created_at_utc_A":1652931638,"created_at_utc_B":1652930998,"score_A":77,"score_B":43,"human_ref_A":"Something that I think is useful to remember in these situations is that traits are only selected against to the extent that they affect reproduction. There are some scenarios when guilt\/ptsd could affect reproduction, but there are plenty of people living with ptsd who have families. Some models of PTSD suggest that the cognitive patterns may have been beneficial in the environment where a trauma occurred, but become maladaptive in a more peaceful environment. Consider veterans who startle easily at explosives, survivors of abuse who learn to downplay their own needs, etc: Ehlers A, Clark DM. A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder. Behav Res Ther. 2000 Apr;38(4):319-45. doi: 10.1016\/s0005-7967(99)00123-0. PMID: 10761279. This doesn\u2019t fully explain guilt, which is what I think you\u2019re most interested in. I also would like to add that not all soldiers or witnesses to violence get ptsd.","human_ref_B":"Social animal living in extended family groups, you need empathy to survive. The \"survival of the fittest\" thing doesn't really apply to (morphologically) modern humans as much as you may think. There is good evidence that extremely primitive paleolithic (pre farming) people cared for elders and the disabled, these groups tended to live much longer than they would have in a state of pure nature. War as we know it is kind of more a neolithic thing, protecting your land. (not that primitive people didn't fight, but it wasn't the organized thing we know now) Social empathy predates it by many many generations. Remember that all mammals need social empathy for their offspring to survive. a newly hatched lizard can go catch bugs, a newborn mammal needs a mother and, in many cases, a social unit to protect and support her.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":640.0,"score_ratio":1.7906976744} {"post_id":"2pws7r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What books should I read to find out what everyday life was like 37,000 years ago? I'm sure life wasn't the same in all parts of the world, but any will do for my purposes. I've looked at the suggested reading list for the sub and was hoping for a bit more guidance. Consider me a total layman. Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"cn0udsu","c_root_id_B":"cn0ozgu","created_at_utc_A":1419118570,"created_at_utc_B":1419106244,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It's fiction, and not quite that far back, but Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cavebear is generally commended for its anthropological authenticity. I don't have a copy handy, but she may also site the studies she used in her research.","human_ref_B":"You may have some trouble with this one considering the oldest known civilizations emerged less than 10,000 years ago.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12326.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1x5b6q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why did we beat out Neanderthals? I've always read how Neanderthals were so much stronger and tougher than we are, and now that I'm reading through this subreddit I'm seeing that they were at least close to our level of intelligence, if not on par with it. So why did we end up being the surviving species? Was it because we had more advanced speech?","c_root_id_A":"cf8djw5","c_root_id_B":"cf8gstx","created_at_utc_A":1391670679,"created_at_utc_B":1391689747,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"You will find a comprehensive answer to your question in a r\/AskHistorians thread from a few months ago. Link","human_ref_B":"I want to emphasize the extent to which we don't have a satisfying answer, and--a distinct matter--there might not *be* a simple one. I illustrate with a couple of homely analogies: US society invests enormous energy in, say, electoral and professional sports outcomes. Still, even after the apparent facts are in--the election ballots are tallied, the championship medals have been awarded--there sometimes remains argument about what happened. That's with replays and pundits and professional advisors and so on. Neanderthals were on the map 40,000 years ago, and they aren't, now (although many of their descendants remain). The explanation could well be a \"fluke\": not a failure, or unambiguous defect, as much as an unfortunate coincidence. Species go extinct. It happens. I think it's wonderful to study everything possible about the Neanderthals. The end result of that study is *not* guaranteed to be, \"they underperformed because a particular allele on chromosome 7 left them too needy for calories to support their expensive cognitive metabolism\" or some equally-impressive explanation. The end result might be, \"we don't know\", or, \"wrong place, wrong time; they just had a rough millenium, and never got over it.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19068.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"v42kxm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"what kind of values\/social structures lead to low rates of homelessness in Japan? I was looking at some data which indicates that Japan has an extremely low rate of homelessness, well over ten times lower than most developed nations. But none of the articles I read about it suggest Japan has done anything particularly special to achieve this: they don't spent tons of money on homeless shelters, nor do they have a welfare state that is particularly expensive compared to most similarly developed nations. Granted, it is possible that there is substantial undercounting, but I couldn't find any firsthand accounts that contradicts the notion that Japan has very few homeless people. Since Japan's government appears to do little to materially prevent homelessness, what kind of informal structures\/cultural values exist that keep people from living on the streets?","c_root_id_A":"ib30s9p","c_root_id_B":"ib3dxb5","created_at_utc_A":1654292067,"created_at_utc_B":1654299207,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":">Japan's total numbers place it significantly outside the top 10, but suicide is nonetheless a serious concern there. Suicide is the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 20-44 and women between the ages of 15-34","human_ref_B":"I think they tax empty housing units\/homes super high. Theres a lot of empty homes in the us. Theres less of an incentive to fill those vacancies, and landlords dont want property to lose value.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7140.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"c2khln","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are some interesting ways we have evolved since we lost our primitive life style","c_root_id_A":"erlfs6i","c_root_id_B":"erll62g","created_at_utc_A":1560986021,"created_at_utc_B":1560990134,"score_A":13,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"As another user mentioned, our mouths are all fucked up now. With the widespread adoption of agriculture, our species started to rely heavily on a high-carbohydrate diet. Not only did our jaws and teeth need to work less, but those who adopted an agricultural lifestyle were less healthy due to this reliance on carbohydrates. Basically, we are highly susceptible to dental malocclusions now, which may include overbites\/underbites and dental crowding. So, myself and others can thank those farmers from 12,000+ years ago for the shitty braces I had to wear throughout high school. In general, our bones are more gracile too (thinner cortical layer, especially in long bones), and we have a less robust craniofacial morphology. A good example of this is the brow ridge. Pre-agricultural populations would have had a far more protursive brow ridge than we do today, and slightly smaller foreheads as well.","human_ref_B":"People already mentioned lactose tolerance and teeth, so I'll go for the fun one: alcohol dehydrogenase. We couldn't always efficiently break down ethanol. Many people (most famously East Asians, but they're far from the only population) still can't.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4113.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"pv6ffe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the Indo-Europeans nearly entirely replace the pre-existing populations in Europe on a genetic level or is there still significant input from earlier peoples? I know this is a broad topic and I'm sure it varies by country, but on a different thread here somebody posted this paper:https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5048219\/ It seems to suggest that modern Europeans have ancestry from a wide variety of groups with the oldest hunter gatherer populations being most common in the Baltic area, the steppe ancestry being most common the far north, and early neolithic agriculturalists being most common in the southern Mediterranean. So far so good, but then I found this more recent Guardian article that says that, in Britain specifically, the incoming peoples from the steppe who brought Indo-European languages resulted in 90% of the current ancestry for the historical population of the British Isles. This makes it sound like the previous inhabitants of Britain had such a marginal impact on the current genetic makeup of the island they might as well not exist. I'm a bit confused by all of this and I might be reading the data wrong, but I'd appreciate if I could get some clarification, did Indo-Europeans just come in the last few thousand years and expel the previous inhabitants to such an extent that they made next to no impact on the genes of currently existing Europeans? Or was there more integration than this implies? One of the reasons I ask is because I've noticed some people use this to suggest that about 5000 years ago White people conquered Europe to exterminate and replace its native population. I hate to use such modern racialized language for something where I know that makes little but I'm just relaying the arguments I've heard other people make with this data.","c_root_id_A":"he8yk44","c_root_id_B":"he8jjoa","created_at_utc_A":1632593726,"created_at_utc_B":1632587118,"score_A":31,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The Reich lab paper Guardian is citing discusses this: some mitochondrial EEF\/Anatolian admixture was already baked into the Bell Beaker people before their probable invasion. this chart shows in black the percentage of beaker-complex peoples that were steppe pastoralist. So the invasion of Britain was massively genetically impactful, replacing north of 90% of the indigenous population, but by the time the invaders had migrated all the way to the shores of Britain they were themselves a good portion EEF, which shared ancestral affinity with the megalith builders on Britain who were about to be replaced.","human_ref_B":"Your second paragraph is right in line with the general scientific consensus. It is the overwhelmingly best model to explain current and ancient DNA. That doesn't mean that there aren't still surprises to come as more evidence is found. But given the amount of ancient DNA already found, those surprises are likely to be at the margins - minor details applicable to a particular area or time slice. So there is still much science to be done to clarify the genomic details. To me the really interesting question isn't the model anymore - the \"what\" - but the \"how\". What actually happened to our ancestors and those they encountered that led to our modern genomic patterns? Genes give clues, but this is where we must really lean on archaeology to tell the story.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6608.0,"score_ratio":2.8181818182} {"post_id":"pv6ffe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the Indo-Europeans nearly entirely replace the pre-existing populations in Europe on a genetic level or is there still significant input from earlier peoples? I know this is a broad topic and I'm sure it varies by country, but on a different thread here somebody posted this paper:https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5048219\/ It seems to suggest that modern Europeans have ancestry from a wide variety of groups with the oldest hunter gatherer populations being most common in the Baltic area, the steppe ancestry being most common the far north, and early neolithic agriculturalists being most common in the southern Mediterranean. So far so good, but then I found this more recent Guardian article that says that, in Britain specifically, the incoming peoples from the steppe who brought Indo-European languages resulted in 90% of the current ancestry for the historical population of the British Isles. This makes it sound like the previous inhabitants of Britain had such a marginal impact on the current genetic makeup of the island they might as well not exist. I'm a bit confused by all of this and I might be reading the data wrong, but I'd appreciate if I could get some clarification, did Indo-Europeans just come in the last few thousand years and expel the previous inhabitants to such an extent that they made next to no impact on the genes of currently existing Europeans? Or was there more integration than this implies? One of the reasons I ask is because I've noticed some people use this to suggest that about 5000 years ago White people conquered Europe to exterminate and replace its native population. I hate to use such modern racialized language for something where I know that makes little but I'm just relaying the arguments I've heard other people make with this data.","c_root_id_A":"he8f8sl","c_root_id_B":"he8yk44","created_at_utc_A":1632585177,"created_at_utc_B":1632593726,"score_A":9,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"90% is about right. You cant use this fact to argue for anything except one population was more successful for some reason, and one possible reason is pure chance. Note it doesn't take much for one sub-group to become dominant numbers-wise, and it does not take genocide. A good contemporary example is viral variants. Small advantages in one can lead to it entirely pushing out others. Or a variant might just have happened to be there when a new host population was seeded and became dominant that way.","human_ref_B":"The Reich lab paper Guardian is citing discusses this: some mitochondrial EEF\/Anatolian admixture was already baked into the Bell Beaker people before their probable invasion. this chart shows in black the percentage of beaker-complex peoples that were steppe pastoralist. So the invasion of Britain was massively genetically impactful, replacing north of 90% of the indigenous population, but by the time the invaders had migrated all the way to the shores of Britain they were themselves a good portion EEF, which shared ancestral affinity with the megalith builders on Britain who were about to be replaced.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8549.0,"score_ratio":3.4444444444} {"post_id":"pv6ffe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the Indo-Europeans nearly entirely replace the pre-existing populations in Europe on a genetic level or is there still significant input from earlier peoples? I know this is a broad topic and I'm sure it varies by country, but on a different thread here somebody posted this paper:https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5048219\/ It seems to suggest that modern Europeans have ancestry from a wide variety of groups with the oldest hunter gatherer populations being most common in the Baltic area, the steppe ancestry being most common the far north, and early neolithic agriculturalists being most common in the southern Mediterranean. So far so good, but then I found this more recent Guardian article that says that, in Britain specifically, the incoming peoples from the steppe who brought Indo-European languages resulted in 90% of the current ancestry for the historical population of the British Isles. This makes it sound like the previous inhabitants of Britain had such a marginal impact on the current genetic makeup of the island they might as well not exist. I'm a bit confused by all of this and I might be reading the data wrong, but I'd appreciate if I could get some clarification, did Indo-Europeans just come in the last few thousand years and expel the previous inhabitants to such an extent that they made next to no impact on the genes of currently existing Europeans? Or was there more integration than this implies? One of the reasons I ask is because I've noticed some people use this to suggest that about 5000 years ago White people conquered Europe to exterminate and replace its native population. I hate to use such modern racialized language for something where I know that makes little but I'm just relaying the arguments I've heard other people make with this data.","c_root_id_A":"he8f8sl","c_root_id_B":"he8jjoa","created_at_utc_A":1632585177,"created_at_utc_B":1632587118,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"90% is about right. You cant use this fact to argue for anything except one population was more successful for some reason, and one possible reason is pure chance. Note it doesn't take much for one sub-group to become dominant numbers-wise, and it does not take genocide. A good contemporary example is viral variants. Small advantages in one can lead to it entirely pushing out others. Or a variant might just have happened to be there when a new host population was seeded and became dominant that way.","human_ref_B":"Your second paragraph is right in line with the general scientific consensus. It is the overwhelmingly best model to explain current and ancient DNA. That doesn't mean that there aren't still surprises to come as more evidence is found. But given the amount of ancient DNA already found, those surprises are likely to be at the margins - minor details applicable to a particular area or time slice. So there is still much science to be done to clarify the genomic details. To me the really interesting question isn't the model anymore - the \"what\" - but the \"how\". What actually happened to our ancestors and those they encountered that led to our modern genomic patterns? Genes give clues, but this is where we must really lean on archaeology to tell the story.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1941.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"sqeshc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Definition of a \"cult\" vs. religious movement So this has been bugging me for a while now. I saw an askreddit thread that said the Moonies are a cult even though there are millions of followers. Yet I'm a Unitarian Universalist and no one calls us a cult (as far as I am aware) even though it seems like there is a comparable number of people. It got me thinking about where the line is between being a religion and being a cult. I kind of dove into the local university library in the anthropology and theology section and near as I can tell a cult is a religious movement that the speaker is not approving of but also religion = cult+time ? Does this seem about right? How would you draw the line between cult, new religious movement, sect, and denomination?","c_root_id_A":"hwlxa7i","c_root_id_B":"hwlg4qo","created_at_utc_A":1644643592,"created_at_utc_B":1644634764,"score_A":67,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"A \"Cult\" as we currently understand it is a High Control Group, typically with a highly charismatic leader - that uses some or most of the elements found in the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. BITE stands for Behavior Information Thought and Emotion Control. In a cult, some of the things you might see is the group actively controlling the behavior of members through reporting and regulating behavior and sexual abuse and forced marriages, the flow of information through what is and is not acceptable to read and who can be learned from such as elders and community teachers vs outsiders, what thoughts are acceptable, and emotions are permissible to express. There are more forms of BITE control in cults - all the the stuff you have heard stories about - but they all tend to follow in one or more (usually more) of the 4 areas of Behavior, Information, Thought or Emotion control by members on members to reinforce authoritarian structures of power. While organized religions typically give guidance on some or all areas of what is best in terms of model behavior, information, thought, and emotional expression that provide a code of ethics that defines morality - outside of personal choice there typically isn't anyone dealing out consequences and rewards based on those guidelines(this of course blurs when governments are influenced by religion but that's a whole other conversation). but in religion - rather than a cult - those moral codes are just that - guidelines for living a moral life. Cults(high control groups) are not limited to religious organizations. Self-help groups, political organizations, multilevel marketing structures. Any group that falls into the category of a high control group tends to fall into the same patterns of abusive behaviors over and over. The more you learn, the more you'll see. If you're looking for a place to start, maybe check out stuff by Dr. Steven Hassan and Janja Lalich - who are both cult survivors themselves and psychoanalytical professionals who have made the area of research their life's work.","human_ref_B":"In religious studies, the word cult isn\u2019t being used that much anymore because it\u2019s seen as a pejorative. Usually if it\u2019s a new(ish) thing, then it\u2019ll just get called a new religious movement. The word \u201ccult\u201d tends to be used in a more limited sense to refer to certain religious practices (see here))","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8828.0,"score_ratio":2.3928571429} {"post_id":"8w8piv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Can anyone explain the variance in 'age of consent' laws worldwide? I am not a pervert, but I heard on a podcast recently that age of consent in most US states is under 18, which shocked me, as it did the hosts. Looking at the map of North America referenced in the podcast, many parts of Mexico go as low as 12... Then I look at Europe, which has a similar variance. So I actually have two sub-questions: 1. Is there any sort of common thread throughout organized societies as to when one becomes an adult capable of having sexual agency, beyond puberty itself.... 2. In your personal opinions as academics (and at risk of breaking the relativist credo), do you think there is an age that makes sense across cultures, or does it make sense that it continues to be fluid?","c_root_id_A":"e1u5dv6","c_root_id_B":"e1udeei","created_at_utc_A":1530805781,"created_at_utc_B":1530812599,"score_A":3,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I think everyone agrees a few things. 1) its an arbitrary line 2) ages of consent can actually be harmful to kids - having sex with someone a year older or younger than you shouldn\u2019t label you a rapist or a pervert. 3) different cultures perceive sexual maturity differently 4) the real issue with underage sex isn\u2019t the sex, or even the risks, it\u2019s the exploitation inherent in it.","human_ref_B":"It's arbitrary and always will be. People mature at different rates, some 13 year olds are more capable of genuinely consenting (ie with an understanding of what they are consenting to) than some 18 year olds. But the law finds it difficult to deal with intangibles so it gets codified as age limits. English law is quite interesting in this respect. It is commonly understood that the age of consent is 16 but this is not strictly correct. It is an offence for anyone aged 18 or over to have intercourse with someone under 16 but it is not unlawful for someone closer to their own age. The absolute age of consent is 13. Below this and it is not considered legally possible to consent whatever the circumstances. From ages 13-15 the age difference is effectively taken into account, although it gets a bit messy for a 17 year old having legal relations with an under-16 if the 17 year old turns 18 before their partner turns 16. In practice, the law would not get involved in a situation like this. There is also a third age of consent, 18, for teachers and people in a position of responsibility for the child. These laws reflect that the concern is about power, and especially relative power. Older people and trusted adults taking advantage of the naivety of a child is very much frowned on. Young people consensually fooling around from relatively equal social positions, not so much. It is always possible to quibble about the details because turning nuance into clear rules is hard. But I think English law does a reasonably good job here. (The law for marriage is 16 with parental consent and 18 without. This is why Gretna Green is associated with running away to get married. It's the first stop over the Scottish border, where the law is different and 16 year olds can get married without parental consent.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6818.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"t08rye","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Can anyone recommend any books or essays on the nature of human conflict? Hi, I don\u2019t know if this the right sub the ask but does anyone have any good recommendations for any kind of text regarding the nature of human conflict. More specifically reflecting on whether it\u2019s part of our nature and therefore unavoidable. I\u2019m open to fiction but I\u2019m looking for a more non fiction, educational body of work.","c_root_id_A":"hy93q6l","c_root_id_B":"hy9jvje","created_at_utc_A":1645717276,"created_at_utc_B":1645723351,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views (ed. by Douglas Fry, Oxford University Press 2013) is a beautiful collection of papers that covers the spectrum of views on the subject, and Brian Ferguson\u2019s (mentioned in u\/yodatsracist\u2019s comment) chapters specifically deal with the incredibly poor command of the archaeological evidence that Pinker and other dilettante non-specialists have when they try to play in this space.","human_ref_B":">More specifically reflecting on whether it\u2019s part of our nature and therefore unavoidable. Many things are \"part of our nature\" but the corollary \"and therefore unavoidable\" is wrong. It is in our nature -- many of us -- to get fat on a Western diet. It is not, however, unavoidable. Don't let ideas about \"human nature\" elide into some notion of \"ineluctable destiny\"; that's a mistaken inference. Human nature includes possibilities; the question you have to ask is \"under what circumstances do those possibilities become acts\". For example, consider the social organization of violence -- armies. People who would not, in other social settings, consider harming another, and would live long lives with no violence, can be taught to kill and organized into social groups that kill. That's an example of just how much social context matters. Christopher Browning wrote a truly chilling book \"Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland\" -- which argues, fairly convincingly, that how very ordinary middle aged Germans became not just violent, but committed genocide. It wasn't a matter of \"human nature\", it was a matter of culture and context. Absent the Nazis, absent a uniform and a culture of socialized violence -- these men, would they have been much of anything? Not likely. They were not destined by \"nature\" to become notorious for war crimes . . . . (but see Daniel Goldhagen's \"Hitler's Willing Executioners\" for a somewhat different line; I am more convinced by Browning, but Goldhagen has to be read and thought about)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6075.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ak5k5x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Would it be ethical to observe uncontacted tribes via satellite, making the data available to anyone? When the technology becomes widespread enough to be affordable, would it be ethical to use it to spy on people unaware they're being spied on?","c_root_id_A":"ef2n2rv","c_root_id_B":"ef2qzjf","created_at_utc_A":1548564793,"created_at_utc_B":1548568437,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"What data would that be? Difficult to imagine anything worthwhile in terms of ethnography using those means. Sounds like Buzzfeed anthropology, no offense to either of you. Sure, people go from A to B, linger a bit in C every other weekend and seem to talk to folks from X and Y, dress this and that and pray at some idol every wednesday. But what about the contexts, what about the cultural, maybe even biological or evolutionary reasons for the behavior, their emic symbols, motives and drives? You know the stuff monographies are made of and how real knowledge is created. So to answer your question, in my opinion, the answer is no because it feels like you'd be just nosing around without real knowledge of a situation and giving away info without any context liable to be misinterpreted. Make what avaliable to whom, and for what?","human_ref_B":"This is really not a question about anthropology- it's a question about ethics in general, because you really won't get any actual anthropological knowledge by spying on people from afar. It's tempting to equate the 'clandestine' aspect of such a setup with a sense of 'objectivity', as you might think the people you're watching are behaving 'naturally' (as they don't know they're being spied on). But whatever information you gather is quite useless unless you've embedded yourself in the contexts of the people you're observing, and gleaned something about their conceptual universe. It's only with this deep socio-cultural understanding that you can scientifically make sense of why people behave the way they do. So this sort of clandestine observation wouldn't add anything to what we already know about humanity, because it's so methodologically incomplete as to not even qualify as a valid, scientific form of ethnography (i.e. 'data collection'). Taking this into account, the question really becomes an ethical one- is it ok to spy on people for whatever reason? The short answer for me is 'absolutely not', but for a deeper discussion on this and similar questions, you can perhaps check out scholars such as Michel Foucault or Judith Butler. (I'm not well versed in literature on ethics, but I'm sure others here can help you out). Of course there's no clean line dividing ethics and anthropology (or for that matter any other scientific practice) as any ethical system is itself socially constructed- but for practical purposes, a good rule of thumb is: if it's unethical, don't make a methodology out of it. I'd recommend having a look at Clifford Geertz's classic essay 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture' in his book 'The Interpretation of Cultures' (PDF), specifically, his example of how a simple wink can have countless meanings, depending on countless cultural factors (Geertz actually gets this example from philosopher Gilbert Ryle). Additionally, if you'd like to know more about similar (and more pertinent) ethical issues central to ethnographic research, the book 'Writing Culture' edited by James Clifford & George Marcus is a great place to start. The book was part of what some call the 'reflexive turn' in anthropology and to this day continues to make scholars think about the way they do research, their relationship with the subjects of their research, the extent to which anthropologists 'create' ethnographic knowledge, and so on.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3644.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"ak5k5x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Would it be ethical to observe uncontacted tribes via satellite, making the data available to anyone? When the technology becomes widespread enough to be affordable, would it be ethical to use it to spy on people unaware they're being spied on?","c_root_id_A":"ef2nh92","c_root_id_B":"ef2qzjf","created_at_utc_A":1548565173,"created_at_utc_B":1548568437,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Hopefully, your institution will require you to take the CITI ethics modules for Social\/Behavioral Research, which will explain ethics in research. If not, you should most definitely have an entire course or portion of a semester course that covers ethics. There are federal regulations for the U. S. and International research, but also different countries follow different laws. Informed consent is important. It can be waived by IRB in certain cases that cause harm to subjects for participating, such as domestic abuse victims. Privacy and confidentiality are also pertinent in research for human subjects. Allowing anyone to have access to the data is extremely dangerous, especially when the human subjects have no knowledge that they're being observed and that their privacy and confidentiality has been disturbed. You may not have names, zip codes, or birthdates, but being an uncontacted tribe would make identifying much easier and probably impossible to code the data to elimate identifying markers.","human_ref_B":"This is really not a question about anthropology- it's a question about ethics in general, because you really won't get any actual anthropological knowledge by spying on people from afar. It's tempting to equate the 'clandestine' aspect of such a setup with a sense of 'objectivity', as you might think the people you're watching are behaving 'naturally' (as they don't know they're being spied on). But whatever information you gather is quite useless unless you've embedded yourself in the contexts of the people you're observing, and gleaned something about their conceptual universe. It's only with this deep socio-cultural understanding that you can scientifically make sense of why people behave the way they do. So this sort of clandestine observation wouldn't add anything to what we already know about humanity, because it's so methodologically incomplete as to not even qualify as a valid, scientific form of ethnography (i.e. 'data collection'). Taking this into account, the question really becomes an ethical one- is it ok to spy on people for whatever reason? The short answer for me is 'absolutely not', but for a deeper discussion on this and similar questions, you can perhaps check out scholars such as Michel Foucault or Judith Butler. (I'm not well versed in literature on ethics, but I'm sure others here can help you out). Of course there's no clean line dividing ethics and anthropology (or for that matter any other scientific practice) as any ethical system is itself socially constructed- but for practical purposes, a good rule of thumb is: if it's unethical, don't make a methodology out of it. I'd recommend having a look at Clifford Geertz's classic essay 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture' in his book 'The Interpretation of Cultures' (PDF), specifically, his example of how a simple wink can have countless meanings, depending on countless cultural factors (Geertz actually gets this example from philosopher Gilbert Ryle). Additionally, if you'd like to know more about similar (and more pertinent) ethical issues central to ethnographic research, the book 'Writing Culture' edited by James Clifford & George Marcus is a great place to start. The book was part of what some call the 'reflexive turn' in anthropology and to this day continues to make scholars think about the way they do research, their relationship with the subjects of their research, the extent to which anthropologists 'create' ethnographic knowledge, and so on.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3264.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"5sl7rk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What is the current most accepted theory for why humans transitioned from hunter gatherers to farmers? In retrospect it is easy to recognise the benefits of transitioning to a permanent resident agricultural way of life but from what I've read the transition from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural one was hard; less time, more labour intensive, greater risk from disease etc so what caused early human cultures to move towards an agricultural Model? What was the initial incentive? I know it's not clean cut but is there a general consensus reason?","c_root_id_A":"ddghucn","c_root_id_B":"ddgeap3","created_at_utc_A":1486500409,"created_at_utc_B":1486496499,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There is no consensus. Ask 10 different archaeologists and you're going to get 7 different answers. One of the more popular theories is that we had a perfect storm in the Fertile Crescent. Cultivation has been happening long before we started with agriculture. The earliest example I know of is Ohalo II, Israel, where cultivation was taking place around 23,000 BC (probably, cultivation isn't always clear-cut to spot). The most commonly noted date for farming is ~11,000 cal BC. However, that date keeps being moved around. Cultivation, in case you're unaware, is the act of ensuring good growing conditions for crops without necessarily attempting to selectively breed (simply put). And worth noting, just because cultivation may have happened early doesn't necessarily mean it was hugely widespread, organic material has a tendency to not stick around for too long. Ohalo II has incredible conditions for organic preservation. So we were already cultivating plants more than 10,000 years before we actually started farming. Why? Again, different answers for different archaeologists. A common idea is that if you had a patch of *H. spontaneum* in one area, you did your hunting in that area, you made sure the barley had decent growing conditions, you ate, you moved on as the seasons passed. The next year you came back and did the same thing. So it was, in a sense, opportunistic. Speaks for itself though, it's easier to have a patch of edible plants already prepared for the next year than having to go out and forage random stuff in the wilderness. So going from cultivation to agriculture took a long time. The benefits should have been clear already then. However, there were obstacles. Farming is quite labor intensive, the climatic conditions have to be right, and it requires a fair bit of trial and error. And this is when the perfect storm comes into play. The Holocene climatic optimum started around 9,000 BP (So about 11,000 BC) and lasted for about 4,000 years, preceded by the Younger Dryas. Couple that with growing populations, more hunting pressure, and all of a sudden all that knowledge cultivating stuff would come in real handy. A fair amount of archaeologists will say that this was when we had the ideal conditions to begin agriculture. We had the knowledge, we had the climate, we had the people, we had the need. Some will even go so far as to claim that agriculture was impossible prior to this date because we didn't have everything we needed. I can't remember the sources on that though, it's the kind of stuff you pick up here and there. I'm sure something could be found though. Personally I think more specific reasons would come more into play when you look at what we cultivated or farmed. For instance, in the late Chalcolithic we see a shift from hulled wheats into more barley and naked wheats, in Northern Mesopotamia. The naked wheats are easy to explain, simply being easier to use. McCorriston and Weisberg argues that one of the reasons for this shift was the need for MOAR BEER! Just a few sources for your pleasure, there are hundreds out there: Ohalo II - http:\/\/www.bioone.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1663\/0013-0001(2004)58%5BS125:SWGASF%5D2.0.CO%3B2 Zeder 2011, Origins of Agriculture Bar-Yosef 1998, who is a real authority on Natufian Near East, talks about three separate centers of early cultivation - http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/(SICI)1520-6505(1998)6:5%3C159::AID-EVAN4%3E3.0.CO;2-7\/full McCorriston & Wesiberg 2002","human_ref_B":"One key element to consider is that the transition was likely one of necessity due to growing population density. Foraging requires less time and work, but requires lots of land. Agriculture is time-intensive, but can produce more calories per acre. So if the population is getting high enough to deplete existing food resources, you start farming.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3910.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"t3q2g4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.66,"history":"Why has homosexuality been suppressed in so much of the world? What are the anthropological reasons behind this? Homosexuality, like being trans or. similar things, is apparently a relatively normal behaviour, within humanity and without. So why have past and current societies seemed to so broadly take issue with it? Is this a post-agricultural phenomenon?","c_root_id_A":"hyudp02","c_root_id_B":"hyuf5jo","created_at_utc_A":1646090849,"created_at_utc_B":1646091521,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"This seems sort of NOT like an anthropology question but I don\u2019t mean offense by that. Nonetheless it is a fairly interesting question. Or, at any rate, I don\u2019t know how to answer it with research and study. Anthropologists study humans. Modern cultural anthropologists (to whom I guess the question is best addressed\ud83e\udd37\ud83c\udffc\u200d\u2642\ufe0f) study cultures. But those cultures are generally studied and explained within the contexts of themselves. So someone might be able to tell you why one culture tends to marginalize (or not - I\u2019m Not necessarily convinced that the overall premise of your claim is universally true) homosexuality. But to say why many do is a different kind of question. Here\u2019s maybe a different way to look at this generally: I often hear, lately, claims along the lines of \u201cgender is just a made up cultural idea.\u201d This is a kind of weird claim to me. I mean, in one sense this is kind of true because EVERYTHING is, I guess. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to deny that things like sexual dimorphism, generally aligned gender roles and divisions of labor cross culturally, and things like biological brain sex might be actual things. At least, that seems the case to me. It is a fact that biologically female humans are the only humans who can give birth. This seems to put evolutionary pressure on their being necessarily different mating strategies for biologically male versus biologically female people (just as such different strategy pressures exist in all species with two sexes). It would be pretty surprising if these biological facts didn\u2019t end up having downstream cultural artifacts. So there, at least, are some things we might point to and say, \u201chey, could we make general conclusions about how cultures might behave regarding, for example, treatment of (biological) males versus females and maybe also treatment of women? Well, maybe. But when you then affix a cultural lens on top of that it becomes difficult to predict what all the downstream reactions might end up being. Here\u2019s a larger question: why do human cultures tend to have major cultural artifacts which surround major life events (I\u2019m thinking of birth, sex, and death here) at all? Because they all seem to. Sorry. This was probably more of a stream of conscious meander than a true answer but I guess I\u2019m just not sure I agree with the general premise. I\u2019m not convinced that \u201cmost\u201d (if we were to somehow know the state of all cultural norms throughout history) cultures would generally suppress homosexual behavior. I\u2019m not sure we can know that. The answer TODAY, I suspect is that several of the major religions of the past couple of millennia which have ended up being culturally dominant tend to take a dim view of homosexuality so their cultural carriers have taken up that view as well. I feel like this same answer might somewhat answer your \u201cpast societies\u201d comment as well but I\u2019m not sure. Hope this was helpful in stimulating thought if in no other way.","human_ref_B":"The answer is likely a combination of factors including religion, cultural expectations\/customs and a lack of scientific development. The understanding of inheritance, genes, embryology, and DNA are relatively new. Most people believed, and some do to this day, that homosexuality was a choice, rather than a trait one is born with. That being the case it could have annoyed certain families that their child wasn't on the 'correct path' to starting a family. Customs, traditions are often rigid. You were expected to do things a certain way. Your behavior was expected to mirror that of your parents. If you strayed from 'the path' in any way, you were suspected of being a dangerous deviant that could upset the order of the culture. Sexual behavior was only one of these ways one could be deemed an unpredictable, non-compliant dissident. Certain religions clearly state that this is what God thinks. So for plenty of people, that's enough in and of itself. If that's what God thinks, then that's the way it is. Unfortunately, the top 2 most adhered to religions in the world according to conventional interpretations contain some version of homosexuality being forbidden. In contrast the 3rd most 'popular' religion, Hinduism, teaches that homosexuality is natural & even enjoyable. Another factor is our own imagination & sexuality. By definition, unless you're bisexual, you're attracted to one group, and thus not attracted to the other. The concept of 'not being attracted' to something can be magnified & projected in our imagination. Humans very often engage in the self-centered thought pattern of \"if I don't like X, X is 'bad'. People often say \"That person is not funny\" or \"That food tastes bad\" or whatever definitive declarative statement about things which are true for them, but not necessarily universally true. Very simply put, if a sexually mature male from the distant past imagined for a brief moment, a sexual act with whichever group they were not attracted to, they would be displeased with the idea, to the point it would upset them. They then projected this displeasure onward. It's a very common phenomena and takes higher level abstract thinking to circumvent mixed with empathy + modern scientific knowledge.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":672.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"9szbhg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did civilization advance so differently in North America and Europe? I know that\u2019s a broad question, but I\u2019m curious. The Mayans, Aztecs, etc. were advanced in their own right, but Spain (for example) seemed much more \u201cadvanced\u201d by the 15th century. Is that a misconception, or is there something to it? And what\u2019s the cause of the disparity?","c_root_id_A":"e8syhbx","c_root_id_B":"e8t13c4","created_at_utc_A":1541011341,"created_at_utc_B":1541013345,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm into the whole brevity thing, so I'll try to be brief. In a nutshell, societies didn't 'evolve' until they stopped hunting and gathering and began farming. Having surplus goods at the end of the season allowed groups to begin to trade, which led to specialization of roles, which led to travel for trade and the exchange of ideas. Not having to find food everyday leaves people more time to learn a trade or specialize.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s a really good book out that talks about the America\u2019s before the Colombian exchange that describes some of the civilizations and technologies there called 1491. I\u2019ve read from a few sources as well that the geography of Asia and Europe allowed for much easier contact between groups of people. This meant the spread of ideas and technology. Civilizations in the Americas were much more isolated from each other and had smaller pots for ideas and knowledge to brew in. By the fifteenth century Europe had been invaded and conquered many times by people from the east who\u2019s technology stayed behind. European groups had been trading extensively with the east as well, which allowed for the adoption of various advancements. Throughout history we see conquered people absorb knowledge and technology from their conquerors and as the conquerors\u2019 civilizations peak and plummet, replace them in the position of power. Also, the civilizations in the Americas and Europe advanced down different paths due to their cultures which had their minds thinking about different areas of civilization.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2004.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9szbhg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did civilization advance so differently in North America and Europe? I know that\u2019s a broad question, but I\u2019m curious. The Mayans, Aztecs, etc. were advanced in their own right, but Spain (for example) seemed much more \u201cadvanced\u201d by the 15th century. Is that a misconception, or is there something to it? And what\u2019s the cause of the disparity?","c_root_id_A":"e8uw5kn","c_root_id_B":"e8t9mg2","created_at_utc_A":1541091027,"created_at_utc_B":1541020301,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You have to take into account the length of time that people had been in those places and also the number of people there. It wasnt like 2 groups of people were dropped into Europe and North America at the same time and somebody said \"Ok now start a civilization.\" Using your example, humans had been in Spain for ~25000 years before humans reached North America.","human_ref_B":"The Aztecs were pretty damn advanced. Considering the disadvantages mentioned in other posts, it\u2019s pretty amazing what they accomplished in a pretty short period of time. Also, remember that Europeans had been fighting all kinds of wars on all fronts for more than 1500 years. Barbarian invasions, Muslim invasions, crusades and reconquistas, internal power struggles, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":70726.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"pc9sy6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is Generational Anthropology a thing? Of course an anthropologist can study generational divides but is there a specific category for this? It bleeds into demography but that course of study seems to be more numbers based.","c_root_id_A":"hahu0ey","c_root_id_B":"hahuol1","created_at_utc_A":1630024166,"created_at_utc_B":1630024480,"score_A":8,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Yeah, sort of. There's a more developed literature in sociology around the work of Karl Mannheim. (see here: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Theory_of_generations) Some anthropologists have taken this on, too. Generations and Globalization, edited by Jennifer Cole and Deborah Durham is one book that I know of.","human_ref_B":"Some academics dispute the idea that generations are worth studying, unless the material conditions of a given generation is different enough to warrant it. And then at that point, you\u2019re essentially just analyzing the impact of more\/less wealth on a group of people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":314.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dlbhg6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is there such thing as a \"greed\" gene? Hello and thanks for reading. First of all i want to say that I've never asked a question on reddit before, the reason is that English is not my native language and I'm afraid of looking stupid. So if there's any grammatical mistakes i apologize in advance and you 're more than welcome to correct me. ​ Ok, now to whats important. I'm intersted in knowing if there is a genetic predisposition for being more \"greedy\", I've read in an article on wikipedia that says there is a \"genetic basis for greed\", the article names one gene in particular named \"the ruthlessness gene\", so my question is can we assert that this gene is in some form risponsable of say, the level of greed of an individual?","c_root_id_A":"f4pfrp7","c_root_id_B":"f4p2rgn","created_at_utc_A":1571728295,"created_at_utc_B":1571714389,"score_A":19,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The \"candidate gene paradigm\" is considered discredited in most cases. Most traits are highly polygenetic, and influenced by genes that impact various distinct biological pathways. (Some aren't, though - notably many developmental disorders.) When you think of attention span, dopamine uptake, reward salience, discount rates, etc., all of these are going to be genetically influenced and will have some impact on greed or greedy behaviors. But it's an oversimplification to suppose that one gene would have such an enormous effect. But it's absolutely the case that groups of genes have a tremendous effect on behaviors.","human_ref_B":"Follow up: are you thinking physically changing the gene and expression of the gene? Or affecting the behavior that the gene influences? I think there is some overlap but the different contexts stand out to me. The best control for this gene overall might be taxes. Raise the rates on people who are successfully greedier than healthy norms should allow, to counteract their unfairness and lack of sociality. Maybe we can help them connect with cognitive behavioral therapists who can assist them in understanding how their greed affects others so that they may lead healthier lives and have better relationships. I don\u2019t know of a mechanism for a meaningful agonist to amplify or diminish the gene other than CRISPR or other direct editing techniques which wouldn\u2019t be moral or practical currently, but certainly there are compounds and substances that would affect the behaviors the gene influences. Anti depressants and bipolar medication could help, perhaps? Stimulants like caffeine, amphetamines and cocaine might allow the individual to be more productive in their greed, but perhaps they encourage greed directly, in addition to increasing the rate at which the persons greed affects others. This seems like a very intriguing question with profound social implications and potential for helping society. Thank you for sharing this question with me!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13906.0,"score_ratio":1.9} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqyvp","c_root_id_B":"eitm8wt","created_at_utc_A":1552939614,"created_at_utc_B":1552936156,"score_A":135,"score_B":109,"human_ref_A":"Gout. It used to be associated with wealth because only rich people could afford to eat and drink in a way that would lead to gout. Now it's associated with men who have crappy diets of chicken wings and beer.","human_ref_B":"Pineapples was a big one in the UK","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3458.0,"score_ratio":1.2385321101} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqyvp","c_root_id_B":"eitoyj4","created_at_utc_A":1552939614,"created_at_utc_B":1552938032,"score_A":135,"score_B":59,"human_ref_A":"Gout. It used to be associated with wealth because only rich people could afford to eat and drink in a way that would lead to gout. Now it's associated with men who have crappy diets of chicken wings and beer.","human_ref_B":"Off the top of my head... Wigs Also Glassware used to be a major luxury item Many spices used to be very high status items, particularly Cloves and Nutmeg As far as cloths. Color used to be a huge indicator of status. Certain colors, like purple or Indigo were reserved for the wealthy & powerful. Also books. They used to have to be written out by hand, and made from somewhat expensive materials like leather & velum, and when you add in Illuminations done with expense colored inks and gold or silver leaf, a library could cost an absolute fortune.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1582.0,"score_ratio":2.2881355932} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqj4n","c_root_id_B":"eitqyvp","created_at_utc_A":1552939282,"created_at_utc_B":1552939614,"score_A":41,"score_B":135,"human_ref_A":"Being obese.","human_ref_B":"Gout. It used to be associated with wealth because only rich people could afford to eat and drink in a way that would lead to gout. Now it's associated with men who have crappy diets of chicken wings and beer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":332.0,"score_ratio":3.2926829268} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqyvp","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552939614,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":135,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Gout. It used to be associated with wealth because only rich people could afford to eat and drink in a way that would lead to gout. Now it's associated with men who have crappy diets of chicken wings and beer.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1916.0,"score_ratio":4.6551724138} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitoyj4","c_root_id_B":"eitsrdi","created_at_utc_A":1552938032,"created_at_utc_B":1552940894,"score_A":59,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"Off the top of my head... Wigs Also Glassware used to be a major luxury item Many spices used to be very high status items, particularly Cloves and Nutmeg As far as cloths. Color used to be a huge indicator of status. Certain colors, like purple or Indigo were reserved for the wealthy & powerful. Also books. They used to have to be written out by hand, and made from somewhat expensive materials like leather & velum, and when you add in Illuminations done with expense colored inks and gold or silver leaf, a library could cost an absolute fortune.","human_ref_B":"Aluminum. Until the mid-19th century, it was worth more than gold. Napoleon supposedly ate with aluminum utensils while his less honored guests had to make do with solid gold. Now it's so cheap people literally throw it away (ideally in the recycling bin; it still takes a large amount of energy to create).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2862.0,"score_ratio":1.813559322} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitrz4j","c_root_id_B":"eitsrdi","created_at_utc_A":1552940338,"created_at_utc_B":1552940894,"score_A":47,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"Mandarin Oranges. When I was a kid you only got them for Christmas in your stocking and they were expensive. Now they are in the grocery stores almost year round and very cheap.","human_ref_B":"Aluminum. Until the mid-19th century, it was worth more than gold. Napoleon supposedly ate with aluminum utensils while his less honored guests had to make do with solid gold. Now it's so cheap people literally throw it away (ideally in the recycling bin; it still takes a large amount of energy to create).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":556.0,"score_ratio":2.2765957447} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqj4n","c_root_id_B":"eitsrdi","created_at_utc_A":1552939282,"created_at_utc_B":1552940894,"score_A":41,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"Being obese.","human_ref_B":"Aluminum. Until the mid-19th century, it was worth more than gold. Napoleon supposedly ate with aluminum utensils while his less honored guests had to make do with solid gold. Now it's so cheap people literally throw it away (ideally in the recycling bin; it still takes a large amount of energy to create).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1612.0,"score_ratio":2.6097560976} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitsrdi","c_root_id_B":"eitsd9z","created_at_utc_A":1552940894,"created_at_utc_B":1552940617,"score_A":107,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Aluminum. Until the mid-19th century, it was worth more than gold. Napoleon supposedly ate with aluminum utensils while his less honored guests had to make do with solid gold. Now it's so cheap people literally throw it away (ideally in the recycling bin; it still takes a large amount of energy to create).","human_ref_B":"Jello (gelatine) was considered a massive privilege and wealth indicator. Especially if you had hello molds. Now they've become massively low key.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":277.0,"score_ratio":3.962962963} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitogte","c_root_id_B":"eitsrdi","created_at_utc_A":1552937698,"created_at_utc_B":1552940894,"score_A":29,"score_B":107,"human_ref_A":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","human_ref_B":"Aluminum. Until the mid-19th century, it was worth more than gold. Napoleon supposedly ate with aluminum utensils while his less honored guests had to make do with solid gold. Now it's so cheap people literally throw it away (ideally in the recycling bin; it still takes a large amount of energy to create).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3196.0,"score_ratio":3.6896551724} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitoyj4","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552938032,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":59,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Off the top of my head... Wigs Also Glassware used to be a major luxury item Many spices used to be very high status items, particularly Cloves and Nutmeg As far as cloths. Color used to be a huge indicator of status. Certain colors, like purple or Indigo were reserved for the wealthy & powerful. Also books. They used to have to be written out by hand, and made from somewhat expensive materials like leather & velum, and when you add in Illuminations done with expense colored inks and gold or silver leaf, a library could cost an absolute fortune.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":334.0,"score_ratio":2.0344827586} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitw7w2","c_root_id_B":"eitrz4j","created_at_utc_A":1552943313,"created_at_utc_B":1552940338,"score_A":49,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","human_ref_B":"Mandarin Oranges. When I was a kid you only got them for Christmas in your stocking and they were expensive. Now they are in the grocery stores almost year round and very cheap.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2975.0,"score_ratio":1.0425531915} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqj4n","c_root_id_B":"eitrz4j","created_at_utc_A":1552939282,"created_at_utc_B":1552940338,"score_A":41,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Being obese.","human_ref_B":"Mandarin Oranges. When I was a kid you only got them for Christmas in your stocking and they were expensive. Now they are in the grocery stores almost year round and very cheap.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1056.0,"score_ratio":1.1463414634} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitrz4j","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552940338,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":47,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Mandarin Oranges. When I was a kid you only got them for Christmas in your stocking and they were expensive. Now they are in the grocery stores almost year round and very cheap.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2640.0,"score_ratio":1.6206896552} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitw7w2","c_root_id_B":"eitqj4n","created_at_utc_A":1552943313,"created_at_utc_B":1552939282,"score_A":49,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","human_ref_B":"Being obese.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4031.0,"score_ratio":1.1951219512} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitw7w2","c_root_id_B":"eitsd9z","created_at_utc_A":1552943313,"created_at_utc_B":1552940617,"score_A":49,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","human_ref_B":"Jello (gelatine) was considered a massive privilege and wealth indicator. Especially if you had hello molds. Now they've become massively low key.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2696.0,"score_ratio":1.8148148148} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitw7w2","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552943313,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":49,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5615.0,"score_ratio":1.6896551724} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitvnki","c_root_id_B":"eitw7w2","created_at_utc_A":1552942911,"created_at_utc_B":1552943313,"score_A":22,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Having ice in hot weather, for either consumption or refrigeration, was a luxury that was made progressively more accesible from the Industrial Revolution onwards.","human_ref_B":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":402.0,"score_ratio":2.2272727273} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eittyvk","c_root_id_B":"eitw7w2","created_at_utc_A":1552941738,"created_at_utc_B":1552943313,"score_A":9,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"Furs and tophats","human_ref_B":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1575.0,"score_ratio":5.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitw7w2","c_root_id_B":"eitu13k","created_at_utc_A":1552943313,"created_at_utc_B":1552941781,"score_A":49,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Hayfever was an aristocratic disease in the UK because it was a sign you'd never been exposed to agriculture. https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/03\/12\/health\/immune-system-allergies.html","human_ref_B":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1532.0,"score_ratio":5.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitqj4n","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552939282,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":41,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Being obese.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1584.0,"score_ratio":1.4137931034} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu9mzp","c_root_id_B":"eiu02p9","created_at_utc_A":1552953233,"created_at_utc_B":1552946053,"score_A":38,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","human_ref_B":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7180.0,"score_ratio":1.1176470588} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitsd9z","c_root_id_B":"eiu9mzp","created_at_utc_A":1552940617,"created_at_utc_B":1552953233,"score_A":27,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Jello (gelatine) was considered a massive privilege and wealth indicator. Especially if you had hello molds. Now they've become massively low key.","human_ref_B":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12616.0,"score_ratio":1.4074074074} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu9mzp","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552953233,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":38,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15535.0,"score_ratio":1.3103448276} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitvnki","c_root_id_B":"eiu9mzp","created_at_utc_A":1552942911,"created_at_utc_B":1552953233,"score_A":22,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Having ice in hot weather, for either consumption or refrigeration, was a luxury that was made progressively more accesible from the Industrial Revolution onwards.","human_ref_B":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10322.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu9mzp","c_root_id_B":"eitztux","created_at_utc_A":1552953233,"created_at_utc_B":1552945880,"score_A":38,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","human_ref_B":"I highly recomend the series The Supersizers. You'll get a shit load of answers from a wide variety of time periods, and it's a fun light watch","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7353.0,"score_ratio":1.8095238095} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu9mzp","c_root_id_B":"eiu2rws","created_at_utc_A":1552953233,"created_at_utc_B":1552948027,"score_A":38,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","human_ref_B":"Celery was once an expensive food. Victorians would display it proudly in celery vases on their dinner tables.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5206.0,"score_ratio":1.8095238095} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitx83b","c_root_id_B":"eiu9mzp","created_at_utc_A":1552944040,"created_at_utc_B":1552953233,"score_A":16,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","human_ref_B":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9193.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu9mzp","c_root_id_B":"eittyvk","created_at_utc_A":1552953233,"created_at_utc_B":1552941738,"score_A":38,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","human_ref_B":"Furs and tophats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11495.0,"score_ratio":4.2222222222} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitu13k","c_root_id_B":"eiu9mzp","created_at_utc_A":1552941781,"created_at_utc_B":1552953233,"score_A":9,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","human_ref_B":"Carpet. Carpet was once more expensive than wood floors, and the extra effort to keep it clean meant you could afford a housekeeper. Then, with the advent of cheaper synthetic materials, your aunt Nancy carpeted over all her nice wood floors to look rich, which is why you're pulling them back up to expose the original wood now that you've inherited her house.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11452.0,"score_ratio":4.2222222222} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitsd9z","c_root_id_B":"eiu02p9","created_at_utc_A":1552940617,"created_at_utc_B":1552946053,"score_A":27,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Jello (gelatine) was considered a massive privilege and wealth indicator. Especially if you had hello molds. Now they've become massively low key.","human_ref_B":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5436.0,"score_ratio":1.2592592593} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu02p9","c_root_id_B":"eitogte","created_at_utc_A":1552946053,"created_at_utc_B":1552937698,"score_A":34,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","human_ref_B":"It's not *quite* what you seem to be looking for, but you could read up on the practice of Potlatch in the Pacific Northwest. While it's not directly a commodity, it absolutely is a prime example of something that was once a status symbol in the Americas, and then had that taken away after the arrival of Europeans. It might be an interesting thing to juxtapose with the commodities that you are looking for to address this question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8355.0,"score_ratio":1.1724137931} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu02p9","c_root_id_B":"eitvnki","created_at_utc_A":1552946053,"created_at_utc_B":1552942911,"score_A":34,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","human_ref_B":"Having ice in hot weather, for either consumption or refrigeration, was a luxury that was made progressively more accesible from the Industrial Revolution onwards.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3142.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitztux","c_root_id_B":"eiu02p9","created_at_utc_A":1552945880,"created_at_utc_B":1552946053,"score_A":21,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"I highly recomend the series The Supersizers. You'll get a shit load of answers from a wide variety of time periods, and it's a fun light watch","human_ref_B":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":173.0,"score_ratio":1.619047619} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu02p9","c_root_id_B":"eitx83b","created_at_utc_A":1552946053,"created_at_utc_B":1552944040,"score_A":34,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","human_ref_B":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2013.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eittyvk","c_root_id_B":"eiu02p9","created_at_utc_A":1552941738,"created_at_utc_B":1552946053,"score_A":9,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"Furs and tophats","human_ref_B":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4315.0,"score_ratio":3.7777777778} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiu02p9","c_root_id_B":"eitu13k","created_at_utc_A":1552946053,"created_at_utc_B":1552941781,"score_A":34,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the discussion about another family's wealth was usually how much meat they could afford. Having meat with every dinner in 1973 was pretty exclusive territory in the suburbs of Boston.","human_ref_B":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4272.0,"score_ratio":3.7777777778} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitvnki","c_root_id_B":"eittyvk","created_at_utc_A":1552942911,"created_at_utc_B":1552941738,"score_A":22,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Having ice in hot weather, for either consumption or refrigeration, was a luxury that was made progressively more accesible from the Industrial Revolution onwards.","human_ref_B":"Furs and tophats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1173.0,"score_ratio":2.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitu13k","c_root_id_B":"eitvnki","created_at_utc_A":1552941781,"created_at_utc_B":1552942911,"score_A":9,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","human_ref_B":"Having ice in hot weather, for either consumption or refrigeration, was a luxury that was made progressively more accesible from the Industrial Revolution onwards.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1130.0,"score_ratio":2.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitx83b","c_root_id_B":"eitztux","created_at_utc_A":1552944040,"created_at_utc_B":1552945880,"score_A":16,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","human_ref_B":"I highly recomend the series The Supersizers. You'll get a shit load of answers from a wide variety of time periods, and it's a fun light watch","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1840.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eittyvk","c_root_id_B":"eitztux","created_at_utc_A":1552941738,"created_at_utc_B":1552945880,"score_A":9,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Furs and tophats","human_ref_B":"I highly recomend the series The Supersizers. You'll get a shit load of answers from a wide variety of time periods, and it's a fun light watch","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4142.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitu13k","c_root_id_B":"eitztux","created_at_utc_A":1552941781,"created_at_utc_B":1552945880,"score_A":9,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","human_ref_B":"I highly recomend the series The Supersizers. You'll get a shit load of answers from a wide variety of time periods, and it's a fun light watch","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4099.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitx83b","c_root_id_B":"eiu2rws","created_at_utc_A":1552944040,"created_at_utc_B":1552948027,"score_A":16,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","human_ref_B":"Celery was once an expensive food. Victorians would display it proudly in celery vases on their dinner tables.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3987.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eittyvk","c_root_id_B":"eiu2rws","created_at_utc_A":1552941738,"created_at_utc_B":1552948027,"score_A":9,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Furs and tophats","human_ref_B":"Celery was once an expensive food. Victorians would display it proudly in celery vases on their dinner tables.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6289.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitu13k","c_root_id_B":"eiu2rws","created_at_utc_A":1552941781,"created_at_utc_B":1552948027,"score_A":9,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","human_ref_B":"Celery was once an expensive food. Victorians would display it proudly in celery vases on their dinner tables.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6246.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitx83b","c_root_id_B":"eittyvk","created_at_utc_A":1552944040,"created_at_utc_B":1552941738,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","human_ref_B":"Furs and tophats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2302.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitx83b","c_root_id_B":"eitu13k","created_at_utc_A":1552944040,"created_at_utc_B":1552941781,"score_A":16,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Mashed potatoes (really, mashed and creamed anything) was once a status symbol because it was so labor intensive to make. Source: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat","human_ref_B":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2259.0,"score_ratio":1.7777777778} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiuap3s","c_root_id_B":"eittyvk","created_at_utc_A":1552954037,"created_at_utc_B":1552941738,"score_A":13,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"pale, untanned skin","human_ref_B":"Furs and tophats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12299.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eitu13k","c_root_id_B":"eiuap3s","created_at_utc_A":1552941781,"created_at_utc_B":1552954037,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","human_ref_B":"pale, untanned skin","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12256.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiukd9e","c_root_id_B":"eittyvk","created_at_utc_A":1552961481,"created_at_utc_B":1552941738,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'll add Asian porcelain. By the 15th century, Asian porcelain (hard-paste and bone-china, primarily) was one of the ultimate luxury goods. It was bulky and had to travel around the world, so it was already expensive and rare, but it was regarded as far superior to European ceramics in many ways (which it was). From the 1400s through the mid-1700s, European artisans worked hard on improving ceramic techniques and technologies, turning ceramics into a high-art industry. Aided in no small part by stolen trade secrets from missionaries and other travelers in the early 1700s, a few places begin to start producing hard-paste porcelains, though notably the Meissen factory, replicating many of China's qualities. With the advent of figures like Wedgewood and other contemporaries in the mid to late 1700s, these early techniques are improved and being more widely produced. By the early to mid 1800s, the technology for high porcelain production was fairly well established, and the Industrial Revolution made replication of true porcelain products and its contemporary inferior imitators virtually limitless. Combined with globalization making the transport of ceramics faster and cheaper, and the value of porcelain as an expression of wealth generally declines, though even today its still socially relevant.","human_ref_B":"Furs and tophats","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19743.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"b2m59m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Symbols of wealth\/indulgence that are no longer recognized as such in the West? Hi all, I'm looking for help with researching food\/clothing\/other items that were at one point considered status symbols in the West but are no longer, such as formerly exotic imported foodstuffs that are now available in every grocery store. I'm not looking for anything particularly specific (though if anyone knows some examples offhand I'd love to hear them), more just wondering how I could go about searching for that information myself.","c_root_id_A":"eiukd9e","c_root_id_B":"eitu13k","created_at_utc_A":1552961481,"created_at_utc_B":1552941781,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'll add Asian porcelain. By the 15th century, Asian porcelain (hard-paste and bone-china, primarily) was one of the ultimate luxury goods. It was bulky and had to travel around the world, so it was already expensive and rare, but it was regarded as far superior to European ceramics in many ways (which it was). From the 1400s through the mid-1700s, European artisans worked hard on improving ceramic techniques and technologies, turning ceramics into a high-art industry. Aided in no small part by stolen trade secrets from missionaries and other travelers in the early 1700s, a few places begin to start producing hard-paste porcelains, though notably the Meissen factory, replicating many of China's qualities. With the advent of figures like Wedgewood and other contemporaries in the mid to late 1700s, these early techniques are improved and being more widely produced. By the early to mid 1800s, the technology for high porcelain production was fairly well established, and the Industrial Revolution made replication of true porcelain products and its contemporary inferior imitators virtually limitless. Combined with globalization making the transport of ceramics faster and cheaper, and the value of porcelain as an expression of wealth generally declines, though even today its still socially relevant.","human_ref_B":"Cigarettes & other tobacco products","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19700.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"2ufa04","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Genetically, are white Americans of Northern European descent more similar to Germans or the English?","c_root_id_A":"co7ulu6","c_root_id_B":"co7wukd","created_at_utc_A":1422812703,"created_at_utc_B":1422816896,"score_A":19,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"By Northern European, are you talking about Scandinavians? There's a crazy amount of variation in the US, so this seems pretty difficult to answer.","human_ref_B":"Most population genetics programs use the CEU cohort to stand in for this population of people. The CEU cohort represents a sample of \"generic\" american white people, the sort that you're referring to I think. You can do some research into the CEU group to find out more about this, but I found this post about CEU genetic substructures (that is, ethnic compositions of the \"generic white american\" sample population) here on the Eurogenes site, which is home to a statistical modeling program that calculates ancestry using a database of genetic population samples from around the globe, but namely europe. That author writes, \"I attempt to characterize more precisely the origins of some of the individuals from the HapMap CEU cohort. These samples are described by the HapMap project as Utah Americans of Western and Northern European descent. But this doesn't seem to be exactly true for at least two of them, who actually come out very Central European in all my tests. Moreover, it's obvious that some of the samples fit nicely into very specific areas of Western and Northern Europe. For instance, at this level of resolution, a few could pass as Irish, and others for Danes or even Swedes.\" According to statistical analysis of the CEU group, the CEU group seemed homogenous phenotypically, but it actually was more varied genetically than expected: \"...[in terms of genetic signatures] at least six of the CEU samples might pass for unmixed Scandinavians, most likely Danes or southern Swedes...at least five could be confused for Irish or western British samples\". And then there are the few anomalies who leaned very Central European. So...essentially, white Americans are very admixed by this point and could be \"more similar\" to a lot of things-- including Irish peoples, Germans, Scandinavians, or the English. It varies but isn't necessarily obvious just from looking at someone or their last name.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4193.0,"score_ratio":1.2631578947} {"post_id":"ab2wi5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before proper dental care, were there any societies that developed methods or customs to adequately prevent complications with dental health, or was tooth decay and the likes just an inevitable aspect of life back then? I heard about pirates getting scurvy as a kid, but I assumed that it's just a consequence of the lifestyle. That got me thinking, were there any ancient (or at least very old) societies that acknowledged dental health\/care? And if so, did they ever develop any efficient ways to prevent damage to their teeth or curate a diet that would at least promote stronger teeth, or was this not something that was important enough to think about?","c_root_id_A":"ecxfiru","c_root_id_B":"ecxd7ui","created_at_utc_A":1546236030,"created_at_utc_B":1546233888,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Ooh, anthropology and dental care, my two loves. I recently (okay, so within the last two years) read an article where they found the earliest example of dental care, and it was I *think* -sorry I had to look it up because I forgot- 13,000 years ago. Looks like two root canals done on the front two teeth. Like others have said, diet leads to a lot of dental decay in developed countries in our time. It lead to the development of our current dental care system.","human_ref_B":"I ended up binge watching the Timeliness World History YouTube channel's medieval documentaries (especially the let's cook ones) which mentioned dental health due to the results of their diets. I'm pretty sure they went over when sugar was introduced to the Europeans diet, and the effect it had on their teeth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2142.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"ab2wi5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Before proper dental care, were there any societies that developed methods or customs to adequately prevent complications with dental health, or was tooth decay and the likes just an inevitable aspect of life back then? I heard about pirates getting scurvy as a kid, but I assumed that it's just a consequence of the lifestyle. That got me thinking, were there any ancient (or at least very old) societies that acknowledged dental health\/care? And if so, did they ever develop any efficient ways to prevent damage to their teeth or curate a diet that would at least promote stronger teeth, or was this not something that was important enough to think about?","c_root_id_A":"ecxy3ta","c_root_id_B":"ecxd7ui","created_at_utc_A":1546262613,"created_at_utc_B":1546233888,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"**The Egyptians:** *They are well-known for having bad dental hygiene - as proven by recent archaeological and epidemiological studies, but they did develop orthodontic customs and treatments, in which they believed would prevent issues.* Many Anthropologists and Archaeologists have discovered skulls, mandibles, maxilla's, etc that have shown signs of infection, disease and general ware. For example, recently a team of Archaeologists found a set of skulls in a track of burial shafts and tombs; in which all said skulls' mandibles showed signs of disease, \\the primary cause being in relation to dental anatomy rather than plague, other general health issues, etc\\], and concluded that it was likely due too Attrition; one of the most prevalent dental and health issues in Ancient Egypt (alongside a general lack of dental knowledge) -- in which their diet of uncooked vegetables and bread \\[which had large amounts of grit and sand within it\\] led to a lack of necessary minerals and vitamins, and wore away their enamel, leading too inflammation of the jawbone, gums, tooth loss, etc, and would lead to abscesses, inflammation of the jawbone and gums and tooth loss. However, whilst they hadn\u2019t established dentistry, \\[in the modern sense\\], they did create the world\u2019s oldest known formula for toothpaste, in which they would crush rock, mint, salt, pepper and dried iris flower to create a tooth cleaning powder. Whilst this would initially clean the teeth of plaque - the concoction is now known to have caused bleeding gums and pain in \\[primarily succedaneous\\] teeth, mandible and maxilla. Moreover, the Egyptians also had numerous mouthwashes to combat gum disease, which usually had to be chewed up and spit out; and where made with an amalgamation of ingredients, such as bran and celery, \\[some included more active ingredients\\], in which was used to provide the patient with a form of pain relief from toothache and other oral pains, (others were just for the singular purpose of preserving a healthy mouth and teeth). And, according to a variation of historians, dental braces (and similar dentistry practices) date back to as far as the Egyptian period. These theories where concluded as being fact when Archaeologists discovered mummies with metal bands around their teeth and believe that said bands were used to create pressure on the teeth and gums, and would lead too movement of said teeth into a more aesthetically pleasing (or less painful) position. Onward from that, it was also found that lost teeth were reattached by means of silver or gold wire, and would be clipped onto the remaining teeth. However, it's not (yet) known if these procedures were performed when the patient was alive - or post-mortem. This was theorised because the Egyptians placed a large amount of value on the appearance of the dead, to which they would be assured that the deceased were sent off 'correctly' into the afterlife. ​ **References:** [http:\/\/www.freshdentalcare.co.uk\/extracting-the-egyptians-dentistry-in-ancient-egypt\/ https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/sj.bdj.2009.309 https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/19396207 ​ ​ ​ ​","human_ref_B":"I ended up binge watching the Timeliness World History YouTube channel's medieval documentaries (especially the let's cook ones) which mentioned dental health due to the results of their diets. I'm pretty sure they went over when sugar was introduced to the Europeans diet, and the effect it had on their teeth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28725.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"u9vrc4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"How Are the Terms Under-developed, Developing, and Developed Not Problematic I know there is or was a paradigm shift away from 1st, 2nd, 3rd World to under-developed, developing, and developed but these terms still seem problematic. These words still seemed packed with value judgements. Are there any newer paradigms that are cropping up or are these still accepted?","c_root_id_A":"i5utnhj","c_root_id_B":"i5uachr","created_at_utc_A":1650702170,"created_at_utc_B":1650687723,"score_A":25,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I have worked in the \"development\" sector for thirty years, and these terms are understood to be value laden, western centric and problematic. There has been a bit of a movement, particularly over the last decade or so, to describe countries in income related terms - lower income, middle income etc. The problem is that these labels are also criticised for being problematic too, ie they reduce \"development\" to being simply about income, when in fact there are a huge and dizzying range of factors that are important, not just income. A colleague of mine once looked into this during her academe years. The conclusion of her work was that ALL simple and catchy descriptive summary words or phrases were problematic in some way, mostly because they all encode some kind of normative value judgements and privilege certain values and judgements over others. They HAVE TO, in fact, in order to be short and snappy enough to be... well, short and snappy. I came to the conclusion that there was no way round it. Apart from acknowledging the value judgements thus encoded, doing one's best to both explain how one is remaining aware of those biases and also attempting to level them to the extent possible for humans, one cannot use simple descriptive phrases that are not problematic in some way. So acknowledge, aim for transparency, aim for as much non-bias and objectivity as possible, and don't get hung up on it. Transparency is worth it. Genuine and honest effort to be non-biased is worth it. Aiming for objectivity (or at least intellectual honesty) is worth it. Reflexivity is worth it. Agonising about one word or phrase... isn't, really.","human_ref_B":"These words certainly embed the assumptions of the various international development organizations that the goal of nations should be to move from under-developed to developing to developed rather than focusing on issues like food insecurity, water, and health independently of assumptions on how they should be addressed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14447.0,"score_ratio":1.9230769231} {"post_id":"u9vrc4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"How Are the Terms Under-developed, Developing, and Developed Not Problematic I know there is or was a paradigm shift away from 1st, 2nd, 3rd World to under-developed, developing, and developed but these terms still seem problematic. These words still seemed packed with value judgements. Are there any newer paradigms that are cropping up or are these still accepted?","c_root_id_A":"i5uvzdh","c_root_id_B":"i5wgubu","created_at_utc_A":1650704223,"created_at_utc_B":1650735776,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"How do you see the Global North and the Global South or the West and the Rest divides? No intrinsic value judgment, only implied via geopolitical connotations.","human_ref_B":"There aren\u2019t better terms because the same set of hierarchal values underlies them all. If you find the terminology problematic, it\u2019s because the broader scenario that requires their use is. That\u2019s not to say the work isn\u2019t good or necessary, just that it is probably operating within a certain paradigm that is inherently hierarchal according to western and capitalistic values. Unfortunately survival often necessitates focusing on immediate material needs rather than broad ontologies so we end up with a need for these problematic terms to organize efforts.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31553.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"5o1wj1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Why didn't early humans who left Africa remember where they came from and form communications across continents earlier?","c_root_id_A":"dch1miz","c_root_id_B":"dcgmu6y","created_at_utc_A":1484520235,"created_at_utc_B":1484501528,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"To put it into a modern context: I don't even keep in touch with most of my high school friends. I came out of high school well before the Facebook (or even MySpace) era. I went back home occasionally, but there was simply no reason to maintain contact with those people. Now extend that into the era of letter writing. Now extend it before the era of written language. Or even before the era of fully developed language at all. The enormous amount of energy and effort that it would have taken to maintain contact over vast distances is beyond comprehension to prehistoric peoples 100,000 years ago. You may as well ask why they didn't fly home when they were lonely. It's also worth pointing out that we don't even really know how anatomically modern humans *thought* 100,000 years ago. There are questions about whether or not anatomy developed thousands or tens of thousands of years before cognition. They were no doubt intelligent (they *were* anatomically modern, after all) but the degree to which they acted *like us* is a subject of considerable debate.","human_ref_B":"Modest local networks existed and ideas and things did ravel, although clearly many places were cut off at various times.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18707.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30vmga","c_root_id_B":"f30slfe","created_at_utc_A":1570563196,"created_at_utc_B":1570561524,"score_A":20,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Hamlet's Mill, according to those inclined to the theory, is older than recorded history and also stretches across continents. Little red riding hood is probably thousands of years old and in some forms exists in Asia, too. On the other hand, you could simply point out that you can only fit so many basic mythemic puzzle pieces in certain ways together. There's no good answer apart from: it's possible.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if there's a connection to the stories' beginnings, but it's not an uncommon theme. A favourite poem of mine by our good old Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 'The Song of Wandering Aengus' is a similar story. It tells of a man who catches a trout that transforms into a beautiful woman who runs away, and he spends the rest of his life searching for her.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1672.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30vmga","c_root_id_B":"f30jhzp","created_at_utc_A":1570563196,"created_at_utc_B":1570555752,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hamlet's Mill, according to those inclined to the theory, is older than recorded history and also stretches across continents. Little red riding hood is probably thousands of years old and in some forms exists in Asia, too. On the other hand, you could simply point out that you can only fit so many basic mythemic puzzle pieces in certain ways together. There's no good answer apart from: it's possible.","human_ref_B":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7444.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30jhzp","c_root_id_B":"f30slfe","created_at_utc_A":1570555752,"created_at_utc_B":1570561524,"score_A":3,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if there's a connection to the stories' beginnings, but it's not an uncommon theme. A favourite poem of mine by our good old Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 'The Song of Wandering Aengus' is a similar story. It tells of a man who catches a trout that transforms into a beautiful woman who runs away, and he spends the rest of his life searching for her.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5772.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30yqhe","c_root_id_B":"f314rmi","created_at_utc_A":1570564830,"created_at_utc_B":1570568038,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"In 1961 an american farmer claimed aliens gave him buckwheat pancakes: https:\/\/www.dailygrail.com\/2016\/03\/the-1961-story-about-a-chicken-farmer-who-claimed-that-aliens-gave-him-pancakes\/ I'd recommend you read this comparison between his account and a traditional fairy tale from 200 years earlier on the other side of the world. https:\/\/mysteriousuniverse.org\/2014\/08\/take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-unless-youre-an-alien-a-fairy-or-alux\/ sometimes coincidences do happen!","human_ref_B":"most of myths have common elements that belong to archetypical models. Carl Jung describes some, but Joseph Campbell's The Hero with Thousand Faces goes deep in the topic","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3208.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f314rmi","c_root_id_B":"f30jhzp","created_at_utc_A":1570568038,"created_at_utc_B":1570555752,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"most of myths have common elements that belong to archetypical models. Carl Jung describes some, but Joseph Campbell's The Hero with Thousand Faces goes deep in the topic","human_ref_B":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12286.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30yqhe","c_root_id_B":"f31r4gr","created_at_utc_A":1570564830,"created_at_utc_B":1570582551,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In 1961 an american farmer claimed aliens gave him buckwheat pancakes: https:\/\/www.dailygrail.com\/2016\/03\/the-1961-story-about-a-chicken-farmer-who-claimed-that-aliens-gave-him-pancakes\/ I'd recommend you read this comparison between his account and a traditional fairy tale from 200 years earlier on the other side of the world. https:\/\/mysteriousuniverse.org\/2014\/08\/take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-unless-youre-an-alien-a-fairy-or-alux\/ sometimes coincidences do happen!","human_ref_B":"I'd look at what in the story is universal to early human experience, rather than a literal \"some Korean guy told some Irish guy\" theory. Specifically, I'd look at the anxiety around marriages that take one partner away from his or her culture of origin. There's a really big tension in that situation, cultural risk, but it happened a whole bunch, all ove rthe planet. Usually it was women leaving their homes with a man, but the tension is what's universal. \"I miss my homeland\" is a really common feeling. Then I'd point to the story-trick in this one that I know shows up in a ton of other stories: the \"watch out\" warning. It's a perfect story device, framed as a rule our main character is told not to break. This could be \"but be careful: you can't eat anything while you're there or you'll be stuck forever\" or \"you can't fall asleep or they'll steal your soul\" or \"you can't fail to curtsy properly or she'll eat your head\" or \"you can't make a noise or you'll lose your invisibility\" or \"you mustn't open that closet\" or \"no matter what you hear you can't open your eyes\" -- over and over it's a \"Broken Rule Ruins Everything\" experience. Someties it comes along with a specific temptation, like, here are the keys... but don't open htat door! And don't we all have those kinds of anxieties? leftover from when we were kids, and your parents had one rule, which you broke. (We all actually had tons of rules, but the anxiety around breaking one can feel mythological, like it was the ONE AND ONLY rule, and we were somehow fated to break it. ) Then the element of \"paradise lost\" is pretty common, globally, too. That's just human nostalgia, painting itself onto a story. As in: Remember when magic was real? Remember the Garden of Eden? Remember the age of Dragons and Merlin? Or more accurately: remember when I myself was younger, more believing, felt stronger and more hopeful? Looking at myth, I tend to get more understanding when I deliberately ignore the Jung and Campbell tropes (whcih are Euro male in bias), and instead think about actual early human existence and societal concerns. Like, why doo so many cultures include a story where a diety puts on a disguise and sleeps with a human? Or why do so many cultures have a \"we longed for a child and then one magically showed up\" story. Or a \"Labored in Vain\" trope, when the main character does waht he\/she thinks is supposed to win, but then the authority changes the rules, making them harder. Because this was a huge anxiety in deal-making. There's a great pod called Myths and Legends that does nice cross-cultural work which I recommend. https:\/\/www.mythpodcast.com\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17721.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30jhzp","c_root_id_B":"f31r4gr","created_at_utc_A":1570555752,"created_at_utc_B":1570582551,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","human_ref_B":"I'd look at what in the story is universal to early human experience, rather than a literal \"some Korean guy told some Irish guy\" theory. Specifically, I'd look at the anxiety around marriages that take one partner away from his or her culture of origin. There's a really big tension in that situation, cultural risk, but it happened a whole bunch, all ove rthe planet. Usually it was women leaving their homes with a man, but the tension is what's universal. \"I miss my homeland\" is a really common feeling. Then I'd point to the story-trick in this one that I know shows up in a ton of other stories: the \"watch out\" warning. It's a perfect story device, framed as a rule our main character is told not to break. This could be \"but be careful: you can't eat anything while you're there or you'll be stuck forever\" or \"you can't fall asleep or they'll steal your soul\" or \"you can't fail to curtsy properly or she'll eat your head\" or \"you can't make a noise or you'll lose your invisibility\" or \"you mustn't open that closet\" or \"no matter what you hear you can't open your eyes\" -- over and over it's a \"Broken Rule Ruins Everything\" experience. Someties it comes along with a specific temptation, like, here are the keys... but don't open htat door! And don't we all have those kinds of anxieties? leftover from when we were kids, and your parents had one rule, which you broke. (We all actually had tons of rules, but the anxiety around breaking one can feel mythological, like it was the ONE AND ONLY rule, and we were somehow fated to break it. ) Then the element of \"paradise lost\" is pretty common, globally, too. That's just human nostalgia, painting itself onto a story. As in: Remember when magic was real? Remember the Garden of Eden? Remember the age of Dragons and Merlin? Or more accurately: remember when I myself was younger, more believing, felt stronger and more hopeful? Looking at myth, I tend to get more understanding when I deliberately ignore the Jung and Campbell tropes (whcih are Euro male in bias), and instead think about actual early human existence and societal concerns. Like, why doo so many cultures include a story where a diety puts on a disguise and sleeps with a human? Or why do so many cultures have a \"we longed for a child and then one magically showed up\" story. Or a \"Labored in Vain\" trope, when the main character does waht he\/she thinks is supposed to win, but then the authority changes the rules, making them harder. Because this was a huge anxiety in deal-making. There's a great pod called Myths and Legends that does nice cross-cultural work which I recommend. https:\/\/www.mythpodcast.com\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26799.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f31ky02","c_root_id_B":"f31r4gr","created_at_utc_A":1570578031,"created_at_utc_B":1570582551,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I was aboutto say no way, when I realized something. The Horse.... Were both traditionally featuring a horse? That sets a baseline in possible date of origin. Could Indo European migrations have gone both directions and a story shared in the copper or bronze age?","human_ref_B":"I'd look at what in the story is universal to early human experience, rather than a literal \"some Korean guy told some Irish guy\" theory. Specifically, I'd look at the anxiety around marriages that take one partner away from his or her culture of origin. There's a really big tension in that situation, cultural risk, but it happened a whole bunch, all ove rthe planet. Usually it was women leaving their homes with a man, but the tension is what's universal. \"I miss my homeland\" is a really common feeling. Then I'd point to the story-trick in this one that I know shows up in a ton of other stories: the \"watch out\" warning. It's a perfect story device, framed as a rule our main character is told not to break. This could be \"but be careful: you can't eat anything while you're there or you'll be stuck forever\" or \"you can't fall asleep or they'll steal your soul\" or \"you can't fail to curtsy properly or she'll eat your head\" or \"you can't make a noise or you'll lose your invisibility\" or \"you mustn't open that closet\" or \"no matter what you hear you can't open your eyes\" -- over and over it's a \"Broken Rule Ruins Everything\" experience. Someties it comes along with a specific temptation, like, here are the keys... but don't open htat door! And don't we all have those kinds of anxieties? leftover from when we were kids, and your parents had one rule, which you broke. (We all actually had tons of rules, but the anxiety around breaking one can feel mythological, like it was the ONE AND ONLY rule, and we were somehow fated to break it. ) Then the element of \"paradise lost\" is pretty common, globally, too. That's just human nostalgia, painting itself onto a story. As in: Remember when magic was real? Remember the Garden of Eden? Remember the age of Dragons and Merlin? Or more accurately: remember when I myself was younger, more believing, felt stronger and more hopeful? Looking at myth, I tend to get more understanding when I deliberately ignore the Jung and Campbell tropes (whcih are Euro male in bias), and instead think about actual early human existence and societal concerns. Like, why doo so many cultures include a story where a diety puts on a disguise and sleeps with a human? Or why do so many cultures have a \"we longed for a child and then one magically showed up\" story. Or a \"Labored in Vain\" trope, when the main character does waht he\/she thinks is supposed to win, but then the authority changes the rules, making them harder. Because this was a huge anxiety in deal-making. There's a great pod called Myths and Legends that does nice cross-cultural work which I recommend. https:\/\/www.mythpodcast.com\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4520.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f3162kh","c_root_id_B":"f30yqhe","created_at_utc_A":1570568727,"created_at_utc_B":1570564830,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Yes, it's very likely related. I studied folklore under Alan Dundes and he discussed situations like this. There are numerous tale types that are found in both East Asia and Europe. The most notable one is Cinderella (you can read more in *Cinderella: A Casebook,* edited by Dundes). The point is, folklorists have collected tens of thousands of versions of folktales throughout Europe and Asia, and they've found tales and tale elements that the different regions share in common, too many to be coincidental (you can read more about these tale elements in Antti Aarne's *Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography)*. While I'm not familiar with this particular tale element, it would certainly not be inconceivable that Ireland and Korea represent geographic extremes of the spread of one story element. There was lots of trade throughout those areas for millennia. It's not likely that the tale spread via one guy traveling from China to Ireland or vice versa. What more likely happened is that the tale elements were common in a continuous way across all of Eurasia. Like someone in a place like where modern day Armenia is located invented the tale, and traders went east and west, telling this type of story at night around the fire to people with whom they shared a common language, and the story spread that way over the centuries. Each teller put their own spin on the story and so they ended up quite different but still with identifiable elements.","human_ref_B":"In 1961 an american farmer claimed aliens gave him buckwheat pancakes: https:\/\/www.dailygrail.com\/2016\/03\/the-1961-story-about-a-chicken-farmer-who-claimed-that-aliens-gave-him-pancakes\/ I'd recommend you read this comparison between his account and a traditional fairy tale from 200 years earlier on the other side of the world. https:\/\/mysteriousuniverse.org\/2014\/08\/take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-unless-youre-an-alien-a-fairy-or-alux\/ sometimes coincidences do happen!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3897.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30jhzp","c_root_id_B":"f3162kh","created_at_utc_A":1570555752,"created_at_utc_B":1570568727,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","human_ref_B":"Yes, it's very likely related. I studied folklore under Alan Dundes and he discussed situations like this. There are numerous tale types that are found in both East Asia and Europe. The most notable one is Cinderella (you can read more in *Cinderella: A Casebook,* edited by Dundes). The point is, folklorists have collected tens of thousands of versions of folktales throughout Europe and Asia, and they've found tales and tale elements that the different regions share in common, too many to be coincidental (you can read more about these tale elements in Antti Aarne's *Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography)*. While I'm not familiar with this particular tale element, it would certainly not be inconceivable that Ireland and Korea represent geographic extremes of the spread of one story element. There was lots of trade throughout those areas for millennia. It's not likely that the tale spread via one guy traveling from China to Ireland or vice versa. What more likely happened is that the tale elements were common in a continuous way across all of Eurasia. Like someone in a place like where modern day Armenia is located invented the tale, and traders went east and west, telling this type of story at night around the fire to people with whom they shared a common language, and the story spread that way over the centuries. Each teller put their own spin on the story and so they ended up quite different but still with identifiable elements.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12975.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"df23pa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Is it likely that an Irish myth and Korean folktale have a shared ancestry? I was just reading about the Irish myth of Oisin and the Land of Eternal Youth. I knew it sounded familiar, so I pulled out an old Korean textbook and rediscovered The Fairy and the Woodcutter (\uc120\ub140\uc640 \ub098\ubb34\uafbc). Both tell of a mortal man falling in love and winning the heart of an immortal woman. He goes to her home where life is perfect. He makes a return visit to Earth on a horse but is told not to step foot on the ground, and when he inevitably does is doomed never to return to his wife's magical land. There are plenty of differences between the stories, but they seem to be just the local flavor of the cultures that produced them. I know folktales often branch off like languages. Is there any common ancestor between these stories, was there communication between these ancient cultures, or is it just an unlikely coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"f30yqhe","c_root_id_B":"f30jhzp","created_at_utc_A":1570564830,"created_at_utc_B":1570555752,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In 1961 an american farmer claimed aliens gave him buckwheat pancakes: https:\/\/www.dailygrail.com\/2016\/03\/the-1961-story-about-a-chicken-farmer-who-claimed-that-aliens-gave-him-pancakes\/ I'd recommend you read this comparison between his account and a traditional fairy tale from 200 years earlier on the other side of the world. https:\/\/mysteriousuniverse.org\/2014\/08\/take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-unless-youre-an-alien-a-fairy-or-alux\/ sometimes coincidences do happen!","human_ref_B":"Genghis Khan united the world for a time so, at least in theory, someone could travel from South Korea all the way to the borders of Poland and beyond, and not leave the protection of the Khan's earthly empire. Horse cultures like the Mongols' are highly mobile and share mythology and transmit their stories across continents. Additionally, Europeans have been sailing to East Asia for centuries. Christian missionaries have over those hundreds of years been going deep into the hinterlands of Far Eastern nations and telling the illiterate locals tall tales, so there is another possible path of cross contact. Of course, there also could be a shared ancestor story the ancients created so long ago no one will ever know who created the concept of magic feet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9078.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"pcdue6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is there a word to describe \"thinking humanity is at the apex of cultural and moral evolution\"? Lately, this has been on my mind. Many groups, whether ideological, cultural, political, or economic, seem to think that what they hold as truth IS the final step of that field. Nothing will come after it because it is the absolute truth. When in fact, we see that empires fall, cultures change, ideologies die out, and so on, and these changes take a lot of time. People fail to see and accept this, thinking their way of life will never change.","c_root_id_A":"haj4ml3","c_root_id_B":"haikml6","created_at_utc_A":1630050864,"created_at_utc_B":1630037115,"score_A":67,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"Based on the title, *Anthropocentrism* might be what you're thinking about. It refers to a human-centric or human-biased view of things, as if humans are the measure or reference point for any inquiry, whether it be philosophical, cultural, or moral. Kind of a human-bias in perspective. More on Anthropocentrism, for example, on Oxford Bibliographies Online","human_ref_B":"*Ethnocentrism* is similar to what you describe in the text, but it's not necessarily what you describe in the subject line (thinking that ALL of humanity is at the apex if cultural evolution). It's thinking that MY CULTURE is at the apex of cultural evolution. *Presentism* fits the belief you describe in the subject line pretty well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13749.0,"score_ratio":1.34} {"post_id":"pcdue6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is there a word to describe \"thinking humanity is at the apex of cultural and moral evolution\"? Lately, this has been on my mind. Many groups, whether ideological, cultural, political, or economic, seem to think that what they hold as truth IS the final step of that field. Nothing will come after it because it is the absolute truth. When in fact, we see that empires fall, cultures change, ideologies die out, and so on, and these changes take a lot of time. People fail to see and accept this, thinking their way of life will never change.","c_root_id_A":"haj130t","c_root_id_B":"haj4ml3","created_at_utc_A":1630047889,"created_at_utc_B":1630050864,"score_A":24,"score_B":67,"human_ref_A":"Well for poli sci people talk about \u201cthe end of history\u201d which was a phrase coined by a very shortsighted neoliberal conservative named francis fukayama in a paper he wrote in the 90\u2019s about how, since fascism and communism had \u201cfallen\u201d that meant capitalism was the big true end ideology and history was over because from now on everything would just turn into free trade market capitalist liberal democracies forever until the end of time.","human_ref_B":"Based on the title, *Anthropocentrism* might be what you're thinking about. It refers to a human-centric or human-biased view of things, as if humans are the measure or reference point for any inquiry, whether it be philosophical, cultural, or moral. Kind of a human-bias in perspective. More on Anthropocentrism, for example, on Oxford Bibliographies Online","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2975.0,"score_ratio":2.7916666667} {"post_id":"ofgap1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any recommended books by people who grew up in non-literate societies? I\u2019ve read accounts by Geronimo and Titu Cusi Yupanqui, but my understanding is that both were dictated through translators and seem heavily filtered through the transcribers\u2019 eyes, and I\u2019m curious if there\u2019s anything written personally by people who lived most of their lives in cultures without writing.","c_root_id_A":"h4coywb","c_root_id_B":"h4dyg7d","created_at_utc_A":1625665088,"created_at_utc_B":1625685475,"score_A":20,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Not an anthropologist but majored in linguistics. The problem you're going to run into is there's something known in language acquisition as the \"critical period\". Basically, after this period (around puberty), languages become more difficult to learn (and, if you haven't acquired one yet, you probably won't be able to), and there are reasons to think this applies to literacy as well. This doesn't mean that you can never learn to read and write after puberty; but, if that's the case, reading and writing is going to be much more difficult for you and you're unlikely to ever reach the same competency as someone who learned when they were a child. Basically, any adults from a pre-literate society will likely have a very difficult time writing a book. Your best bet would probably be to find a child who grew up in a pre-literate society but was taught how to write from an early age. A place with productive missions (e.g., Jesuits) would probably be a good bet.","human_ref_B":"Not exactly what you're looking for, but Buchi Emecheta grew up in a household where her mother was not literate, and her father probably barely so (in Nigeria). Her brothers were sent to school, but the family believed that girls didn't need to learn to read and write. She was able to persuade her parents that she should go to school. She grew up to be an amazing novelist. She had an arranged marriage. She was 11 when the marriage was arranged. So, in other words, she grew up partly in a non-literate, traditional African culture. Her book *The Joys of Motherhood* is wonderful. Since she grew up with arranged marriages, brideprice, lack of birth control (etc), her perspective on a woman's life in in Africa is keenly realized. But of course, she did learn to read and write. Many anthropologists have collected oral histories, myths, legends, genealogies, and family histories in the course of their work. The bibliographic notes in this article might be interesting to you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20387.0,"score_ratio":1.05} {"post_id":"ofgap1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any recommended books by people who grew up in non-literate societies? I\u2019ve read accounts by Geronimo and Titu Cusi Yupanqui, but my understanding is that both were dictated through translators and seem heavily filtered through the transcribers\u2019 eyes, and I\u2019m curious if there\u2019s anything written personally by people who lived most of their lives in cultures without writing.","c_root_id_A":"h4es31j","c_root_id_B":"h4ey2la","created_at_utc_A":1625698499,"created_at_utc_B":1625701482,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A great deal of folklore and the like is essentially written-down oral culture - Grimm's Fairy Tales, Homer, etc. but I assume this is not what you mean. You want autobiography?","human_ref_B":"There's a great ghost-written autobiography in Scottish Gaelic (G\u00e0idhlig) called Suileabhan, in which a former sailor from the Isle of Lewis recounts stories of his travels around the world between the 1890s and 1930s. Hardly anybody would have been able to write in Gaelic in those Highland and Island communities at that time, and the oral tradition and was still very much alive.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2983.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2h9ak9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"How common is anxiety\/depression compared to non-western societies? I feel like anxiety and depression seems to be a unique epidemic in western society. Am I wrong? If I am, is it just undiagnosed or talked about in other societies? If I'm right, why is it this way?","c_root_id_A":"ckr68wu","c_root_id_B":"ckr627e","created_at_utc_A":1411564366,"created_at_utc_B":1411563833,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hi, I suggest that you read about Culture Bound Syndrome which was included on DSM-IV. Because depression and anxiety exist outside Western Culture, but, they might don't call and you might not have heard it as depression. For example, amok is quite similiar to depression and anxiety. Anthropologists have stated that amok is caused by costum on Malay people to keep your rage instead of expressing it. People could be dangerous if they keep rage for too long, people who suffers amok will attack people and if they see any weapon, murder would instantly happen. That's where the word run amok came from. Windigo is a common belief among American-Indian that during winter, there are people who get possesed by windigo and becomes murderous cannibal. This could be explained by winter depression which is existed among modern Western community too. The difference is, while you're depressed heat and food are available, for American-Indian, winter soemtimes forced them to stay inside their house. Hunger and cold might caused depression and halucination. Most ghost related CBS are related to depression after death of beloved ones. Trance too might be explained on the same way, except for trance where the spirits are called for ceremonial or art reasons. I hope this answer your question.","human_ref_B":"When you say Western do you mean industrialized? Would you consider, eg., China to be Western for the purposes of this question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":533.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"2h9ak9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"How common is anxiety\/depression compared to non-western societies? I feel like anxiety and depression seems to be a unique epidemic in western society. Am I wrong? If I am, is it just undiagnosed or talked about in other societies? If I'm right, why is it this way?","c_root_id_A":"ckreuv6","c_root_id_B":"ckr627e","created_at_utc_A":1411581601,"created_at_utc_B":1411563833,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Quantifying depression rates is incredibly difficult even in the West. So I doubt anyone could give you rates to compare. But as others have pointed out, culture bound syndromes sometimes provide pathways for expressing what we'd call depression through embodied experiences and symptoms. This is sometimes called the somatic expression of grief, depression, and illness. Arthur Kleinman wrote about this at length in his book *Rethinking Psychiatry* (he is a psychiatrist who also holds a PhD in anthropology.) I highly recommend it as a starting point for exploring the topic because it is well informed, a classic, and pretty easy to read. A while back someone also asked about whether depression exists in non-Western indigenous societies and you might find that discussion useful: http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/1whcls\/does_depression_exist_in_indigenous_communities\/ If you want a bibliography of academic sources about culture and depression I'm happy to give some suggestions.","human_ref_B":"When you say Western do you mean industrialized? Would you consider, eg., China to be Western for the purposes of this question?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17768.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"54a6ly","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How did the early human societies viewed paedophilia? I know it\u2019s a difficult question as word paedophilia itself came into existence in 1800 and there was no clear demarcation of age for adults like we have nowadays, but I was curious to know how society considered anything in the similar context?. Did they consider it wrong or was it acceptable?. I appreciate if anyone could shed some light into this topic or provide some source where I could dig upon it.","c_root_id_A":"d8046ku","c_root_id_B":"d807ngr","created_at_utc_A":1474725999,"created_at_utc_B":1474732056,"score_A":11,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"I know the Greeks had something called pederasty. It was sort of a form of pedophilia where older men would mentor young boys with sexual favors tacitly implied. However, I'm no anthropologist and I have only seen it implied in some ancient philosophy readings, i.e. Plato.","human_ref_B":"Marriage to children in European royalty (breeder) classes was well documented but it was considered extremely distasteful to consummate the marriage before the girl came of age. I'm on my phone so I don't have the paper, but even in puritan New England, the average age of marriage was like 22 for a woman. That's not very early but that's as early as you get if you want documented stats. Biologically, a woman's chances of dying during childbirth goes up dramatically the younger the age she conceives, which is logically the why so many cultures around the world may have independently established the taboo of pedophilia. Of course there are many well known exceptions to this rule, but they do not undermine the general trend that pedophilia was generally frowned upon, historically. But I'm sure some le gentle sir will find a way to correct me somehow.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6057.0,"score_ratio":4.3636363636} {"post_id":"54a6ly","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How did the early human societies viewed paedophilia? I know it\u2019s a difficult question as word paedophilia itself came into existence in 1800 and there was no clear demarcation of age for adults like we have nowadays, but I was curious to know how society considered anything in the similar context?. Did they consider it wrong or was it acceptable?. I appreciate if anyone could shed some light into this topic or provide some source where I could dig upon it.","c_root_id_A":"d8046ku","c_root_id_B":"d811zzy","created_at_utc_A":1474725999,"created_at_utc_B":1474784502,"score_A":11,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"I know the Greeks had something called pederasty. It was sort of a form of pedophilia where older men would mentor young boys with sexual favors tacitly implied. However, I'm no anthropologist and I have only seen it implied in some ancient philosophy readings, i.e. Plato.","human_ref_B":"What I know of ritualistic sexual behaviors among groups like Sambia in Papua New Guinea is it usually starts around puberty for boys. The boys will ingest semen to take in manliness from older males. https:\/\/www.ipce.info\/booksreborn\/martinson\/infant\/InfantAndChildSexuality.html >The discovery of a relationship between suckling and eroticism is not new. The Peruvian, Mochica Indians of 900 A.D., left all sorts of pottery decorated with sexual themes, a mother having intercourse while nursing her baby, for example. Nipple stimulation resulting in uterine contractions was known in early history. Leonardo Da Vinci in his drawings depicted a nerve leading from the nipples to the uterus. (Lowry, 1970). As early as 1931, Dickinson and Beam in their study of a thousand marriages reported on orgasms resulting from suckling an infant. >Besides the suckling encounters, in a few primitive societies, adults participate actively in the erotic stimulation of infants and young children. This is less common in contemporary American society, but does occur as will be indicated later. Among the Kazak, adults who are playing with small children, especially boys, excite the young one's genitals by rubbing and playing with them. Autogenital stimulation by the young child is accepted also as a normal practise. (Ford and Beach, 1951, p. 188). >Among the Balinese, play and teasing with the genitals is common. A mother will pat her baby girl on the vulva and exclaim, \"Pretty! Pretty!\" (Bateson and Mead, 1942, p. 26, 32, 131). A boy's penis will be stroked and rubbed. After he has urinated, he will be dried by a flick of his penis. As he grows older, his penis will be pulled and stretched and ruffled, and he will often attempt to keep his balance when learning to walk by holding on to it. Babies are comforted and quieted by manipulating their genital organs. In fact, in Bali, a baby, especially a baby's genital, is a toy with which to play. There is much delight taken in stimulating and playing with the baby to watch him respond. >There are societies, and the United States is not one of them, in which no effort or only limited effort is made to conceal parental sexual encounters from children. Among the Melanesian Islanders where a certain amount of parental privacy is considered desirable, if a child becomes too curious and bold it is told to mind its own business and is instructed not to look. (Brecher and Brecher, 1966, p. 188). But among the Alorese, by the age of five children are informed on details of the reproductive act. Members of the Pukapukan household sleep in the same room and although parents may wait until the children are asleep, there are opportunities for youngsters to observe adult sexual activity and sexual matters are talked about. Lesu children are free to observe adult coitus with the exception that they are not to watch their own mothers having coitus. On Ponape children are given instruction in coitus from the fourth or fifth year. Trukese children receive no formal education but they learn by watching adults at night and by asking their elders about sexual matters. (Ford and Beach, 1951, p. 188-189).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":58503.0,"score_ratio":1.6363636364} {"post_id":"lginpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Who are Hittites' closest living relatives? I ask because Hittites are a forgotten people: most contemporary people only know them because of their genocide described in the Bible.","c_root_id_A":"gms8yli","c_root_id_B":"gmsfaea","created_at_utc_A":1612932625,"created_at_utc_B":1612936864,"score_A":6,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The Anatolian languages seem to have split off from indo-european before the other major splits, so in that sense Hittites are about equally distant to all Indo-Europeans. But Hittite people were absorbed into Assyrian and Greek societies, so there are probably descendents of Hittites among current residents of Anatolia.","human_ref_B":"It's important to point out that the people called \"Hittites\" in the Bible are not the same people termed \"Hittites\" in modern anthropology. The identity of the Biblical Hittites is disputed, but most theories suggest they were one of the Canaanite groups or were the people we now call the Hatti. The people more commonly referred to as the Hittites (as in the Hittite Empire) are an Indo-European group that lived in central Anatolia. They were misnamed by Biblical archeologists looking to connect their discoveries with peoples mentioned in the Bible. If the Biblical Hittites actually were the Hatti, it's possible that they have some connection with the archeological Hittites since the Hittite Empire conquered the lands of the Hatti (though the Hatti themselves are generally considered to be unrelated linguistically to the dominant ethnic group of the Hittite Empire).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4239.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ky0n3g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What words did ancient humans use to describe the universe\/sky\/stars? Hello there, I hope this is the right subreddit. I'm graduating in Graphic Design this March and for my final exam I'm creating a book about universe and astronomy, mentioning also human discoveries and experiences. I need a title for the book and the idea is to use a short word that can be meaningful or symbolic. For example I searched for how universe, sky and stars were called in different ancient cultures, but it's mostly name of Gods. My idea is to connect the modern view of the space, as pictured in the book, with an older view\/concept of it. You can also help me suggesting some words related to the general astronomy topic, or a concept of whole\/infinity, in your language\/culture. The ones with no translation in other languages (for example \u0422\u043e\u0441\u043a\u0430) are welcome, in my opinion they have their own beauty and cultural value and would really fit my vision of the book! ​ I will research the authenticity of all the chosen suggested words and the meaning of the chosen one as the title will be well explained in the inside of the book. Also, you'll be mentioned in the end credits if you like, together with this subreddit! :) If you need more informations or are just curious about my project, please feel free to ask. Thanks everyone for your help!","c_root_id_A":"gjewflk","c_root_id_B":"gjeu58j","created_at_utc_A":1610764537,"created_at_utc_B":1610763291,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"No specific words offhand but places to start looking: Check the NASA + Skywatchers series for various first nations astronomy, the twa\/battwa\/khoisan\/khoikhoi people (among the oldest people in the world period) and Dogon (renowned for their astronomy, according to some possibly for a caste of night watchers, plus dance that described a system of twin revolving stars which was later found accurate after telescopes came to be invented and used in Western science), and also indigenous Aboriginal Australian language groups. There's a book on ancient Egyptian math and science (called that) floating on the internet which had raw Hieroglyphic and English translations--I think it was mostly practical measures and some recipes when I glanced through it but it may have astronomy as well. Skywatchers initiative I think is an Anishinaabeg centered endeavor, their culture is pretty old and the language is the root to a lot of first nations in the woodland region and some of the plains to NE continental North America. Also Anishinaabe roughly translates as \"original people\" in some accounts. I recall the word for star can be anang \/ anong though the anong also often indicates place. I also recall them having a name for the sound a shooting star makes, which I really appreciated as I've heard the sound of meteors passing overhead a few times and it was neat to see some cultures actually describe it. The word for milky way I forget but translates basically to the river of souls\/spirits. For cultures that experienced genocides and still have languages and knowledge systems in danger of extinction (especially indigenous peoples), it's probably best to learn by developing genuine relationships with elders or even let them have leadership\/co-authorship in their own cultural knowledge.","human_ref_B":"Proto-Indo-Europeans had Dyeus Ptehr meaning sky father which later turned into zeus, and in latin Deus and now diety meaning sky. Ptehr we still use, but a modified version= father","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1246.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ky0n3g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What words did ancient humans use to describe the universe\/sky\/stars? Hello there, I hope this is the right subreddit. I'm graduating in Graphic Design this March and for my final exam I'm creating a book about universe and astronomy, mentioning also human discoveries and experiences. I need a title for the book and the idea is to use a short word that can be meaningful or symbolic. For example I searched for how universe, sky and stars were called in different ancient cultures, but it's mostly name of Gods. My idea is to connect the modern view of the space, as pictured in the book, with an older view\/concept of it. You can also help me suggesting some words related to the general astronomy topic, or a concept of whole\/infinity, in your language\/culture. The ones with no translation in other languages (for example \u0422\u043e\u0441\u043a\u0430) are welcome, in my opinion they have their own beauty and cultural value and would really fit my vision of the book! ​ I will research the authenticity of all the chosen suggested words and the meaning of the chosen one as the title will be well explained in the inside of the book. Also, you'll be mentioned in the end credits if you like, together with this subreddit! :) If you need more informations or are just curious about my project, please feel free to ask. Thanks everyone for your help!","c_root_id_A":"gjewflk","c_root_id_B":"gjeuc9x","created_at_utc_A":1610764537,"created_at_utc_B":1610763397,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"No specific words offhand but places to start looking: Check the NASA + Skywatchers series for various first nations astronomy, the twa\/battwa\/khoisan\/khoikhoi people (among the oldest people in the world period) and Dogon (renowned for their astronomy, according to some possibly for a caste of night watchers, plus dance that described a system of twin revolving stars which was later found accurate after telescopes came to be invented and used in Western science), and also indigenous Aboriginal Australian language groups. There's a book on ancient Egyptian math and science (called that) floating on the internet which had raw Hieroglyphic and English translations--I think it was mostly practical measures and some recipes when I glanced through it but it may have astronomy as well. Skywatchers initiative I think is an Anishinaabeg centered endeavor, their culture is pretty old and the language is the root to a lot of first nations in the woodland region and some of the plains to NE continental North America. Also Anishinaabe roughly translates as \"original people\" in some accounts. I recall the word for star can be anang \/ anong though the anong also often indicates place. I also recall them having a name for the sound a shooting star makes, which I really appreciated as I've heard the sound of meteors passing overhead a few times and it was neat to see some cultures actually describe it. The word for milky way I forget but translates basically to the river of souls\/spirits. For cultures that experienced genocides and still have languages and knowledge systems in danger of extinction (especially indigenous peoples), it's probably best to learn by developing genuine relationships with elders or even let them have leadership\/co-authorship in their own cultural knowledge.","human_ref_B":"How about a Native American language source? I went looking for the word for universe in Chickasaw, but found this first: \"Wemi Tali,\u201d the \u201cAll Where\u201d in the Delaware-Len\u00e1pe language. From an article in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences website.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1140.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2gwhb9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Representation of Culture in Video Games (I'm a first year grad student and could use some advice on designing an ethnography) This is my first semester as a grad student, but I do have plans for my thesis already. I plan to look at the representation of a specific culture in modern video games. Much of my research will involve raw data with the games themselves and analyzing my results for real world implications. One of my classes this semester requires a a small semester long ethnography. I would like to take the opportunity to do some preliminary groundwork on my thesis, but I'm having trouble designing interviews, focus groups, and observations related to my topic. I would like to study the publics cultural awareness of my target group, but I new to this and have a tendancy to create questions that are leading. Some ideas so far are to create a basic questionaire which asks participants to list games they know which include the target culture and if the characters tend to be protagonists or antagonists. I would like to see if the public sees any negativity in the representation, but I don't know how to get to that information with out using a leading question. I would also like to do a focus group where I show participants footage of about 10 games containing the culture in question and seeing what they notice about the scenes and if there is awareness of how they are represented. Again, I can't lead the participants... Any suggetions are welcome, I'm new to this.","c_root_id_A":"ckn93ur","c_root_id_B":"ckn9pla","created_at_utc_A":1411173810,"created_at_utc_B":1411175398,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This is great! Are you looking to see if the games themselves are representing a culture (and how) or if games are targeting a specific culture as their audience\/ consumers?","human_ref_B":"One thing you might try is to dilute the questions you're really looking to get answered with more questions. Hide your questions in plain sight. This is a really interesting topic, I encourage you to pursue this line. Tangentially to this kind of topic, something that interests me is the degree to which western biases skew game design. For instance in Civilization, It is clearly Western Civilization, with a lot of the typical American choices (Liberty, Freedom, Tolerance) providing some of the best advantages. This isn't a bad thing per say, but I'd be curious about the differences if a Chinese or Russian team developed a similar game. How might that effect game balance.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1588.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"2gwhb9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Representation of Culture in Video Games (I'm a first year grad student and could use some advice on designing an ethnography) This is my first semester as a grad student, but I do have plans for my thesis already. I plan to look at the representation of a specific culture in modern video games. Much of my research will involve raw data with the games themselves and analyzing my results for real world implications. One of my classes this semester requires a a small semester long ethnography. I would like to take the opportunity to do some preliminary groundwork on my thesis, but I'm having trouble designing interviews, focus groups, and observations related to my topic. I would like to study the publics cultural awareness of my target group, but I new to this and have a tendancy to create questions that are leading. Some ideas so far are to create a basic questionaire which asks participants to list games they know which include the target culture and if the characters tend to be protagonists or antagonists. I would like to see if the public sees any negativity in the representation, but I don't know how to get to that information with out using a leading question. I would also like to do a focus group where I show participants footage of about 10 games containing the culture in question and seeing what they notice about the scenes and if there is awareness of how they are represented. Again, I can't lead the participants... Any suggetions are welcome, I'm new to this.","c_root_id_A":"ckn93ur","c_root_id_B":"ckoucwj","created_at_utc_A":1411173810,"created_at_utc_B":1411342628,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"This is great! Are you looking to see if the games themselves are representing a culture (and how) or if games are targeting a specific culture as their audience\/ consumers?","human_ref_B":"Have you checked out the research on video games done in the field of Communication Studies? There has been a fair amount done about human computer interactions through the medium of video games but most of it is through surveys and frankly they aren't very good and incorporating issues of culture. It might give you a good starting place, though, for where to start with your data collection because it will show you where the holes are and give you some ideas about what methods have already been tried. Often COM publications list out many of their survey questions explicitly which will help you in crafting your own. But it will also help you see if they are ignoring something important (sometimes a strawman is useful!) Some articles I've run across recently: * Barr, Pippin, James Noble, and Robert Biddle. \"Video game values: Human\u2013computer interaction and games.\" Interacting with Computers 19, no. 2 (2007): 180-195. * Dickey, Michele D. \"Game design and learning: A conjectural analysis of how massively multiple online role-playing games (MMORPGs) foster intrinsic motivation.\" Educational Technology Research and Development 55, no. 3 (2007): 253-273. * Williams, Dmitri, Nicole Martins, Mia Consalvo, and James D. Ivory. \"The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games.\" New Media & Society 11, no. 5 (2009): 815-834. * Leonard, David J. \"Not a Hater, Just Keepin'It Real The Importance of Race-and Gender-Based Game Studies.\" Games and Culture 1, no. 1 (2006): 83-88. Also, there is an entire journal called *Games and Culture* which you might want to check out.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":168818.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"l89dpd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What would Graeber say about this Gamestop situation? Any other interesting perspectives and economic anthros to consider? Just to explain I am slowly coming to terms with this hedge fund stuff. Naturally I stumbled upon this guy this morning (viva youtube algorithms - you will understand if you see his other channel and my username). He seems to have a nice reductionist take on how hedge funds work and what has generally happened so I am wondering if people want to chime in with basic 101's ideally from texts post 2008 but obviously not limited to...","c_root_id_A":"glbr1e5","c_root_id_B":"glc5sao","created_at_utc_A":1611975246,"created_at_utc_B":1611983010,"score_A":35,"score_B":54,"human_ref_A":"In a general sense, think he would approve of people realizing the power that they have. I'm sure people who know more about his involvement in occupy would be able to give a more detailed answer","human_ref_B":"He might welcome the havoc that this is wreaking on the economy. When everything is running smoothly, it's hard to question the 'rightness' of how the rich stay rich. In *Debt*, he really hammered home that the idea that debt obligations aren't always moral obligations. If the banks had to be bailed out AGAIN, it might really wake people up to the idea that we could actually have some sort of \"jubilee\", where poor folk's debts are wiped clean and some more equality injected into the economy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7764.0,"score_ratio":1.5428571429} {"post_id":"mr1mp8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"When did hominids start making music, specifically singing? I know ancient instruments have been found such as flutes\/drums, but specifically when did our ancient relatives (Neanderthals, etc) start to sing? What is the earliest evidence? Especially when it comes to writing music, creating music notes, and creating \u201clyrics\u201d? I always wonder how far back it stems, since I\u2019ve never seen an ape or chimpanzee make music with their throat lol","c_root_id_A":"guk7jco","c_root_id_B":"guk7nvp","created_at_utc_A":1618452923,"created_at_utc_B":1618452991,"score_A":11,"score_B":85,"human_ref_A":"There's simply no way to know how long ago this happened, unfortunately. It's the sort of thing I expect could only be resolved with a mechanism for viewing the past directly in some manner, which seems an impossible thing to say the least. That being said, there's good cause to presume that we probably sang before we made musical instruments. Early language is even thought to have possibly evolved out of mimicking bird calls. There are even a small number of extant groups who use whistles as language to this very day. The Hmong is the only one that I can think of off top of my head but there's also a Spanish-speaking group that also has a different whistle-based language. I'm sure you can find others if that's of interest to you.","human_ref_B":"When we started singing and when we have evidence for it are two entirely different things. Possibly the former occurred millions of years before the first evidence we have of it. Singing is not something that will leave an archaeological record. The oldest musical instrument is around 35000 year old but it is probably not even near the earliest invention of instruments. https:\/\/www.spektrum.de\/news\/aelteste-floete-vom-hohle-fels\/999323 If I was to make an estimate then singing arose from a combination of complex speech abilities and a rise in base 'intelligence', so anywhere from several million to 500,000 years ago. I suspect music (as we think of it) arrived much later. However, this isnt something that leaves much record in the system, sadly.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":68.0,"score_ratio":7.7272727273} {"post_id":"mr1mp8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"When did hominids start making music, specifically singing? I know ancient instruments have been found such as flutes\/drums, but specifically when did our ancient relatives (Neanderthals, etc) start to sing? What is the earliest evidence? Especially when it comes to writing music, creating music notes, and creating \u201clyrics\u201d? I always wonder how far back it stems, since I\u2019ve never seen an ape or chimpanzee make music with their throat lol","c_root_id_A":"gukd41e","c_root_id_B":"guk7jco","created_at_utc_A":1618455961,"created_at_utc_B":1618452923,"score_A":30,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":">What is the earliest evidence? Especially when it comes to writing music, creating music notes, and creating \u201clyrics\u201d? Oh, hi. Not an anthropologist, amateur music historian. As of this moment, the earliest written music we have are the Hurrian Songs, from about 1400 BCE, written in cuneiform on clay tablets. They are songs, they have lyrics. I said \"as of this moment\" because the history-of-the-history-of-music is its own weird thing, and consequently, because of reasons, I would not at all be surprised if someone turned up a new-to-us record that turned out to be much, much older musical notation than we presently have, particularly in China and India. But, as of right now, this is what we've got. There are many forms of musical notation before the development of the concept of the \"note\" as you are familiar with from modern western musical notation. That was invented by Franco of Cologne in mid-13th century CE, which, in anthropological terms, is practically yesterday. It's sometimes called \"franconian notation\". It was (and is) considered a huge innovation in music notation because it made the notation of rhythm rigorously specific and very clear, which was not the case in earlier forms of notation. Not sure how much you want to know about the history of music notation, since it's vastly younger than basically all our other evidence of music making short of actual recordings. It will tell you nothing about the origination of singing in primates.","human_ref_B":"There's simply no way to know how long ago this happened, unfortunately. It's the sort of thing I expect could only be resolved with a mechanism for viewing the past directly in some manner, which seems an impossible thing to say the least. That being said, there's good cause to presume that we probably sang before we made musical instruments. Early language is even thought to have possibly evolved out of mimicking bird calls. There are even a small number of extant groups who use whistles as language to this very day. The Hmong is the only one that I can think of off top of my head but there's also a Spanish-speaking group that also has a different whistle-based language. I'm sure you can find others if that's of interest to you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3038.0,"score_ratio":2.7272727273} {"post_id":"mr1mp8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"When did hominids start making music, specifically singing? I know ancient instruments have been found such as flutes\/drums, but specifically when did our ancient relatives (Neanderthals, etc) start to sing? What is the earliest evidence? Especially when it comes to writing music, creating music notes, and creating \u201clyrics\u201d? I always wonder how far back it stems, since I\u2019ve never seen an ape or chimpanzee make music with their throat lol","c_root_id_A":"gukxczt","c_root_id_B":"guk7jco","created_at_utc_A":1618470857,"created_at_utc_B":1618452923,"score_A":24,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Just so you know, Neanderthals weren't a precursor to our form of homo, we shared a common ancestor and they were alive when we were alive, we didnt evolve from them. We interacted with them to the extent that in some areas we procreated with them, but they weren't \"behind\" us on the evolutionary tree. We coexisted.","human_ref_B":"There's simply no way to know how long ago this happened, unfortunately. It's the sort of thing I expect could only be resolved with a mechanism for viewing the past directly in some manner, which seems an impossible thing to say the least. That being said, there's good cause to presume that we probably sang before we made musical instruments. Early language is even thought to have possibly evolved out of mimicking bird calls. There are even a small number of extant groups who use whistles as language to this very day. The Hmong is the only one that I can think of off top of my head but there's also a Spanish-speaking group that also has a different whistle-based language. I'm sure you can find others if that's of interest to you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17934.0,"score_ratio":2.1818181818} {"post_id":"7ph818","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why aren't more people fascinated with European anthropology? Growing up in a \"Western\" country we were always taught about the three continents, South America, Africa, and Asia in an exotic lensed microscope, but none of the courses taken ever studied Europe under the same lense. Why is that? There's so much to be learned if we were to observe the European population in the same way - or so I think, I'm not a professional Anthropologies by any means.","c_root_id_A":"dshb767","c_root_id_B":"dshad6g","created_at_utc_A":1515610318,"created_at_utc_B":1515609528,"score_A":28,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"There is. It is just more associated with Urban Anthropology, which for a lot of people is less sexy than more exotic (non historically white) locales. I think people associated Anthropology with the study of the other and having a historical or cultural link to Europe destroys that. I personally studied Eastern Europe in uni and then moved there. Where the horde stopped, another Europe begins.","human_ref_B":"Speaking for myself, I am quite interested in the exotic cultural landscape of Europe and their quaint native customs!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":790.0,"score_ratio":1.5555555556} {"post_id":"7ph818","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why aren't more people fascinated with European anthropology? Growing up in a \"Western\" country we were always taught about the three continents, South America, Africa, and Asia in an exotic lensed microscope, but none of the courses taken ever studied Europe under the same lense. Why is that? There's so much to be learned if we were to observe the European population in the same way - or so I think, I'm not a professional Anthropologies by any means.","c_root_id_A":"dsir6g2","c_root_id_B":"dsii2b7","created_at_utc_A":1515682285,"created_at_utc_B":1515666836,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I worked on an excavation at the oldest known farming site in Europe (in Albania) and I\u2019m shocked at the lack of articles and information available to the public about such an important site. Hopefully it changes soon.","human_ref_B":"Check out \"Europe and the People Without History\" by Eric Wolf.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15449.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"7ph818","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why aren't more people fascinated with European anthropology? Growing up in a \"Western\" country we were always taught about the three continents, South America, Africa, and Asia in an exotic lensed microscope, but none of the courses taken ever studied Europe under the same lense. Why is that? There's so much to be learned if we were to observe the European population in the same way - or so I think, I'm not a professional Anthropologies by any means.","c_root_id_A":"dsisluw","c_root_id_B":"dsii2b7","created_at_utc_A":1515683847,"created_at_utc_B":1515666836,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There's a perception among many people that *anthropology* is about \"the other\" and not ourselves. This is not helped by things like National Geographic, or even by many current anthropology professors, who approach teaching cultural anthropology in the same way that the subject was approached two decades or more ago. The fact is that modern cultural anthropology very much focuses on the Western world as much as it does on so-called \"native peoples.\" But it blurs into sociology, economics, and many cultural anthropologists today are what people on the right would call \"SJWs\" (fuck that term, by the way). One of the things I explicitly do in my cultural anthropology classes is try to bring my students around to the idea that the same methods and theories that apply to indigenous cultures in the jungles of wherever can also be used to look at the homeless population in San Francisco, or white teenage male gamers, or groups of tailgaters at an SEC game. So yeah, anthropology can look just as well at European populations as it can any other population. It's just that people are not really as aware of the anthropologists who are doing that, because they're not necessarily wearing pith helmets and eating bugs.","human_ref_B":"Check out \"Europe and the People Without History\" by Eric Wolf.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17011.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"7ph818","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Why aren't more people fascinated with European anthropology? Growing up in a \"Western\" country we were always taught about the three continents, South America, Africa, and Asia in an exotic lensed microscope, but none of the courses taken ever studied Europe under the same lense. Why is that? There's so much to be learned if we were to observe the European population in the same way - or so I think, I'm not a professional Anthropologies by any means.","c_root_id_A":"dsir6g2","c_root_id_B":"dsisluw","created_at_utc_A":1515682285,"created_at_utc_B":1515683847,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I worked on an excavation at the oldest known farming site in Europe (in Albania) and I\u2019m shocked at the lack of articles and information available to the public about such an important site. Hopefully it changes soon.","human_ref_B":"There's a perception among many people that *anthropology* is about \"the other\" and not ourselves. This is not helped by things like National Geographic, or even by many current anthropology professors, who approach teaching cultural anthropology in the same way that the subject was approached two decades or more ago. The fact is that modern cultural anthropology very much focuses on the Western world as much as it does on so-called \"native peoples.\" But it blurs into sociology, economics, and many cultural anthropologists today are what people on the right would call \"SJWs\" (fuck that term, by the way). One of the things I explicitly do in my cultural anthropology classes is try to bring my students around to the idea that the same methods and theories that apply to indigenous cultures in the jungles of wherever can also be used to look at the homeless population in San Francisco, or white teenage male gamers, or groups of tailgaters at an SEC game. So yeah, anthropology can look just as well at European populations as it can any other population. It's just that people are not really as aware of the anthropologists who are doing that, because they're not necessarily wearing pith helmets and eating bugs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1562.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8nq4qv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Apart from the Big Dipper, the constellations are not very convincing in their imagery. Why were they chosen? When shown the constellations in a starry night sky, I never found most of the shapes to be very convincing as pictorial representations and I wondered why the ancients went to the trouble to create such poor shapes and preserve their names? Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dzxqdfj","c_root_id_B":"dzxm6h5","created_at_utc_A":1527856750,"created_at_utc_B":1527850571,"score_A":17,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"It's difficult to tell where constellations come from, how old they are, why they are what they are etc. Probably the most important thing to keep in mind is that, as a normal person living in a Western country these days, you've *probably* never seen the sky the way it looks without light pollution. Today, the constellation *are* a few bright stars connected by imaginary lines. Other stars and celestial structures lie \"inside\" a constellation but aren't considered part of. But it's entirely possible that originally, whenever this may have been, people saw constellations as the whole sum of all structures and stars around the main stars, more like a painting, in which case the similarity to their name sakes might become clearer. For example, the Inca apparently didn't see figures in the stats but rather in the dark patches between stars of the Milky Way. Maybe dark interstellar patches originally played a much greater role in \"our\" constellations as well. Maybe we simply aren't able to see the \"eyes\", \"fur\" or \"clothes\" of those constellation anymore in today's bright skies. Also, not all constellations have the same age. All souther sky constellations are a few hundred years old at most. On the northern sky, the 13 constellations on the celestial equator (zodiac + Ophiuchus) are *probably* the oldest because they're most useful for calendric purposes and there are hypotheses that the four largest (I forget which) are the oldest and were originally \"created\" thousands of years ago when they still marked the four important points of the solar year (the equinoxes and solstices). I'm pointing that out because I think that especially the zodiac signs but also the other, large (oldest?) northern constellations often look a lot more like what they're supposed to represent. Maybe people only ever really recognized anything in those and the other, smaller ones were \"designed\" much later and named not after what they actually look like but more as memorization aids. It's easier to remember and find a group of stars called \"Lyra\" instead of \"constellation 16\", even if the group doesn't *really* look like a musical instrument at all. That's all speculation though. As I said, it's difficult to trace back the history of constellations because they're probably a lot older than any written record about them.","human_ref_B":"The Bg Dipper isn\u2019t an exception. It\u2019s classically the Big Bear, not a \u201cdipper.\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6179.0,"score_ratio":1.7} {"post_id":"8fxxs7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Book recommendation on pre-history\/Younger Dryas? Is there anything at all remotely respectable published concerning this period? I am not trying to be glib, so far I have only found very speculative dribble that wouldn't hold up to review.","c_root_id_A":"dy7mxi1","c_root_id_B":"dy7vfsi","created_at_utc_A":1525096601,"created_at_utc_B":1525104930,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The Making of the Middle Sea touches on it, and has a good hundred pages on the mediterranian paleolithic, but it isn't the main focus of the book. I haven't seen too many other recent books that include modern research on it though","human_ref_B":"After the Ice by Steven Mithen is a good account of that period from all over the world.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8329.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo4ar5","c_root_id_B":"dmo3w2o","created_at_utc_A":1504754704,"created_at_utc_B":1504754136,"score_A":14,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BSc in Biology and Anthropology. I am a line cook right now (did not expect that!) and I mostly use my knowledge to educate my coworkers while bantering. I am planning on going to law school though! I would like to work in human rights\/indigenous law or policy making.","human_ref_B":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":568.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo56wf","c_root_id_B":"dmo8mqw","created_at_utc_A":1504755970,"created_at_utc_B":1504761606,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I'm teaching anthropology at a university.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthropology. Worked at an embroidery and screen printing shop for about a year and a half while working on an archaeology certificate at the community college. Lucked my way into a job doing GIS\/fieldwork at a CRM firm for about 3 years. No room for growth. Posted my resume on Indeed and forgot about it, 6 months later I was recruited for a contract GIS position at Apple. Worked hard and got hired full time as a supervisor on the Maps team!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5636.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo56wf","c_root_id_B":"dmo3w2o","created_at_utc_A":1504755970,"created_at_utc_B":1504754136,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm teaching anthropology at a university.","human_ref_B":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1834.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo8mqw","c_root_id_B":"dmo7iow","created_at_utc_A":1504761606,"created_at_utc_B":1504759655,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural anthropology. Worked at an embroidery and screen printing shop for about a year and a half while working on an archaeology certificate at the community college. Lucked my way into a job doing GIS\/fieldwork at a CRM firm for about 3 years. No room for growth. Posted my resume on Indeed and forgot about it, 6 months later I was recruited for a contract GIS position at Apple. Worked hard and got hired full time as a supervisor on the Maps team!","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthropology. Went overseas briefly to teach English hoping that would give me something on a resume after a long search with no luck. I now do admissions for another university.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1951.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo8mqw","c_root_id_B":"dmo8aqt","created_at_utc_A":1504761606,"created_at_utc_B":1504760991,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural anthropology. Worked at an embroidery and screen printing shop for about a year and a half while working on an archaeology certificate at the community college. Lucked my way into a job doing GIS\/fieldwork at a CRM firm for about 3 years. No room for growth. Posted my resume on Indeed and forgot about it, 6 months later I was recruited for a contract GIS position at Apple. Worked hard and got hired full time as a supervisor on the Maps team!","human_ref_B":"I was an Anthropology major at Cal. I ended up getting a decent paying job out of college as an Executive Assistant. Later moved in to Executive Recruiting (I discovered quite a few Anthro majors who wound up in recruiting). Got tired of all the game playing and dishonesty in recruiting though and am now back as a senior EA while I raise my daughter. Eventually I plan to go back to get a Masters in Psychology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":615.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo82h0","c_root_id_B":"dmo8mqw","created_at_utc_A":1504760589,"created_at_utc_B":1504761606,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthropology. Worked at an embroidery and screen printing shop for about a year and a half while working on an archaeology certificate at the community college. Lucked my way into a job doing GIS\/fieldwork at a CRM firm for about 3 years. No room for growth. Posted my resume on Indeed and forgot about it, 6 months later I was recruited for a contract GIS position at Apple. Worked hard and got hired full time as a supervisor on the Maps team!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1017.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo8mqw","c_root_id_B":"dmo3w2o","created_at_utc_A":1504761606,"created_at_utc_B":1504754136,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural anthropology. Worked at an embroidery and screen printing shop for about a year and a half while working on an archaeology certificate at the community college. Lucked my way into a job doing GIS\/fieldwork at a CRM firm for about 3 years. No room for growth. Posted my resume on Indeed and forgot about it, 6 months later I was recruited for a contract GIS position at Apple. Worked hard and got hired full time as a supervisor on the Maps team!","human_ref_B":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7470.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo3w2o","c_root_id_B":"dmo7iow","created_at_utc_A":1504754136,"created_at_utc_B":1504759655,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthropology. Went overseas briefly to teach English hoping that would give me something on a resume after a long search with no luck. I now do admissions for another university.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5519.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo82h0","c_root_id_B":"dmo8aqt","created_at_utc_A":1504760589,"created_at_utc_B":1504760991,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","human_ref_B":"I was an Anthropology major at Cal. I ended up getting a decent paying job out of college as an Executive Assistant. Later moved in to Executive Recruiting (I discovered quite a few Anthro majors who wound up in recruiting). Got tired of all the game playing and dishonesty in recruiting though and am now back as a senior EA while I raise my daughter. Eventually I plan to go back to get a Masters in Psychology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":402.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo3w2o","c_root_id_B":"dmo8aqt","created_at_utc_A":1504754136,"created_at_utc_B":1504760991,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","human_ref_B":"I was an Anthropology major at Cal. I ended up getting a decent paying job out of college as an Executive Assistant. Later moved in to Executive Recruiting (I discovered quite a few Anthro majors who wound up in recruiting). Got tired of all the game playing and dishonesty in recruiting though and am now back as a senior EA while I raise my daughter. Eventually I plan to go back to get a Masters in Psychology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6855.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmochwy","c_root_id_B":"dmo82h0","created_at_utc_A":1504770328,"created_at_utc_B":1504760589,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthropology, MS and PhD in the same. I did contract archaeology for a couple years, and teach and do research at a university now.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9739.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofssj","c_root_id_B":"dmo82h0","created_at_utc_A":1504780048,"created_at_utc_B":1504760589,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19459.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo82h0","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504760589,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30354.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo82h0","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504760589,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology major, minors in history and Canadian studies. I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I'm doing now.","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":44881.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofssj","c_root_id_B":"dmochwy","created_at_utc_A":1504780048,"created_at_utc_B":1504770328,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology, MS and PhD in the same. I did contract archaeology for a couple years, and teach and do research at a university now.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9720.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo3w2o","c_root_id_B":"dmochwy","created_at_utc_A":1504754136,"created_at_utc_B":1504770328,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology, MS and PhD in the same. I did contract archaeology for a couple years, and teach and do research at a university now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16192.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo9zse","c_root_id_B":"dmochwy","created_at_utc_A":1504764293,"created_at_utc_B":1504770328,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology, MS and PhD in the same. I did contract archaeology for a couple years, and teach and do research at a university now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6035.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmobx25","c_root_id_B":"dmochwy","created_at_utc_A":1504768771,"created_at_utc_B":1504770328,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology, MS and PhD in the same. I did contract archaeology for a couple years, and teach and do research at a university now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1557.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo3w2o","c_root_id_B":"dmofssj","created_at_utc_A":1504754136,"created_at_utc_B":1504780048,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25912.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofn6i","c_root_id_B":"dmofssj","created_at_utc_A":1504779619,"created_at_utc_B":1504780048,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"BA in Anthropology, current field is social services \/education for at risk youth.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":429.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofssj","c_root_id_B":"dmo9zse","created_at_utc_A":1504780048,"created_at_utc_B":1504764293,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","human_ref_B":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15755.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmobx25","c_root_id_B":"dmofssj","created_at_utc_A":1504768771,"created_at_utc_B":1504780048,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11277.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolltb","c_root_id_B":"dmoilwo","created_at_utc_A":1504790943,"created_at_utc_B":1504786270,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad, masters and PhD in archaeology - now a lecturer in archaeology (teaching and research). I've been very lucky, it's a great job and the only one I'm really qualified for now. But the vast majority of my classmates when I was an undergrad have left the field, ditto for my masters cohort. PhD cohort is probably about 50\/50 and that was from the \"top\" department in the country.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4673.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoilwo","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504786270,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad, masters and PhD in archaeology - now a lecturer in archaeology (teaching and research). I've been very lucky, it's a great job and the only one I'm really qualified for now. But the vast majority of my classmates when I was an undergrad have left the field, ditto for my masters cohort. PhD cohort is probably about 50\/50 and that was from the \"top\" department in the country.","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19200.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo9zse","c_root_id_B":"dmoilwo","created_at_utc_A":1504764293,"created_at_utc_B":1504786270,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","human_ref_B":"Undergrad, masters and PhD in archaeology - now a lecturer in archaeology (teaching and research). I've been very lucky, it's a great job and the only one I'm really qualified for now. But the vast majority of my classmates when I was an undergrad have left the field, ditto for my masters cohort. PhD cohort is probably about 50\/50 and that was from the \"top\" department in the country.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21977.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoilwo","c_root_id_B":"dmobx25","created_at_utc_A":1504786270,"created_at_utc_B":1504768771,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad, masters and PhD in archaeology - now a lecturer in archaeology (teaching and research). I've been very lucky, it's a great job and the only one I'm really qualified for now. But the vast majority of my classmates when I was an undergrad have left the field, ditto for my masters cohort. PhD cohort is probably about 50\/50 and that was from the \"top\" department in the country.","human_ref_B":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17499.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoilwo","c_root_id_B":"dmogpcq","created_at_utc_A":1504786270,"created_at_utc_B":1504782299,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Undergrad, masters and PhD in archaeology - now a lecturer in archaeology (teaching and research). I've been very lucky, it's a great job and the only one I'm really qualified for now. But the vast majority of my classmates when I was an undergrad have left the field, ditto for my masters cohort. PhD cohort is probably about 50\/50 and that was from the \"top\" department in the country.","human_ref_B":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3971.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo3w2o","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504754136,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36807.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofn6i","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504779619,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in Anthropology, current field is social services \/education for at risk youth.","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11324.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolltb","c_root_id_B":"dmoh6pv","created_at_utc_A":1504790943,"created_at_utc_B":1504783425,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","human_ref_B":"Worked in marketing agencies for years. Went back to school for writing, and now I teach with a masters and do non-profit work. Having an anthropology degree always helped me stand out in marketing. It's all in how you sell yourself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7518.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo9zse","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504764293,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26650.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmobx25","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504768771,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22172.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolltb","c_root_id_B":"dmogpcq","created_at_utc_A":1504790943,"created_at_utc_B":1504782299,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","human_ref_B":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8644.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolltb","c_root_id_B":"dmol0kx","created_at_utc_A":1504790943,"created_at_utc_B":1504790127,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology (my university didn't offer focii). Now work as a sales manager for a major telecommunications company in the US.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":816.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmol46k","c_root_id_B":"dmolltb","created_at_utc_A":1504790268,"created_at_utc_B":1504790943,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural anthro......didn't even try to make it work. Went back to school for a BA in compsci. Much better haha","human_ref_B":"BA cultural anthropology. Software developer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":675.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmo3w2o","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504754136,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"Majored in Psychobiology (Neuroscience) with a minor in Evolutionary Studies. I work in a children's psych office. No one cares about my minor and I have to explain my major. Thinking about changing it to Neuroscience and dropping my minor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":51334.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmofn6i","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504779619,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"BA in Anthropology, current field is social services \/education for at risk youth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25851.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmoh6pv","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504783425,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"Worked in marketing agencies for years. Went back to school for writing, and now I teach with a masters and do non-profit work. Having an anthropology degree always helped me stand out in marketing. It's all in how you sell yourself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22045.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13697.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmotaes","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504800073,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5397.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmo9zse","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504764293,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41177.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmobx25","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504768771,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36699.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmogpcq","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504782299,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23171.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmol0kx","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504790127,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthropology (my university didn't offer focii). Now work as a sales manager for a major telecommunications company in the US.","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15343.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmol46k","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504790268,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthro......didn't even try to make it work. Went back to school for a BA in compsci. Much better haha","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15202.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolovq","c_root_id_B":"dmoy6fv","created_at_utc_A":1504791059,"created_at_utc_B":1504805470,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and I just got my MA in the same field. I'm looking to apply to doctorate programs this fall. Meanwhile, I hope to do CRM","human_ref_B":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14411.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoy6fv","c_root_id_B":"dmolq52","created_at_utc_A":1504805470,"created_at_utc_B":1504791105,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in mental health rehab, I managed to convince the hiring manager that anthropology and psychology were almost the same.","human_ref_B":"B.A. In Anthropology. I now am a software engineer that specializes in Geographic Information Systems, and moonlight at a community college.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14365.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmo9zse","c_root_id_B":"dmofn6i","created_at_utc_A":1504764293,"created_at_utc_B":1504779619,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","human_ref_B":"BA in Anthropology, current field is social services \/education for at risk youth.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15326.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmofn6i","c_root_id_B":"dmobx25","created_at_utc_A":1504779619,"created_at_utc_B":1504768771,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"BA in Anthropology, current field is social services \/education for at risk youth.","human_ref_B":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10848.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoh6pv","c_root_id_B":"dmo9zse","created_at_utc_A":1504783425,"created_at_utc_B":1504764293,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Worked in marketing agencies for years. Went back to school for writing, and now I teach with a masters and do non-profit work. Having an anthropology degree always helped me stand out in marketing. It's all in how you sell yourself.","human_ref_B":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19132.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmoh6pv","c_root_id_B":"dmobx25","created_at_utc_A":1504783425,"created_at_utc_B":1504768771,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Worked in marketing agencies for years. Went back to school for writing, and now I teach with a masters and do non-profit work. Having an anthropology degree always helped me stand out in marketing. It's all in how you sell yourself.","human_ref_B":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14654.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmogpcq","c_root_id_B":"dmoh6pv","created_at_utc_A":1504782299,"created_at_utc_B":1504783425,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","human_ref_B":"Worked in marketing agencies for years. Went back to school for writing, and now I teach with a masters and do non-profit work. Having an anthropology degree always helped me stand out in marketing. It's all in how you sell yourself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1126.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmo9zse","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504764293,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27480.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmobx25","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504768771,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23002.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmogpcq","c_root_id_B":"dmom84i","created_at_utc_A":1504782299,"created_at_utc_B":1504791773,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","human_ref_B":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9474.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmol0kx","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504790127,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology (my university didn't offer focii). Now work as a sales manager for a major telecommunications company in the US.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1646.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmol46k","c_root_id_B":"dmom84i","created_at_utc_A":1504790268,"created_at_utc_B":1504791773,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in cultural anthro......didn't even try to make it work. Went back to school for a BA in compsci. Much better haha","human_ref_B":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1505.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmolovq","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504791059,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and I just got my MA in the same field. I'm looking to apply to doctorate programs this fall. Meanwhile, I hope to do CRM","labels":1,"seconds_difference":714.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmom84i","c_root_id_B":"dmolq52","created_at_utc_A":1504791773,"created_at_utc_B":1504791105,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got a BA in anthropology, focused mainly on biological and culture anthropology, I am currently working as a nanny :\/","human_ref_B":"B.A. In Anthropology. I now am a software engineer that specializes in Geographic Information Systems, and moonlight at a community college.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":668.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmotaes","c_root_id_B":"dmo9zse","created_at_utc_A":1504800073,"created_at_utc_B":1504764293,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","human_ref_B":"Graduated with a BA\/BS from a directional college with a great anthropology department. I studied mostly archaeology and when I graduated I got a job in CRM (a private sector of archaeology). I've been doing that for about two years and love it. I live in a major US city now and still don't have to look far for an archaeology project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35780.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmotaes","c_root_id_B":"dmobx25","created_at_utc_A":1504800073,"created_at_utc_B":1504768771,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","human_ref_B":"I've been working in the kitchen for most of my time out of school. I'd like to make anthropology relevant again. I guess I'm still figuring out what I want to *do* with the discipline. If anything at all! For reference I got a BS, but most of my focus was on human ritual, religion, magic, use of substances, techniques for altering consciousness. The problem was, and still is, that I just don't know what I'm looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31302.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmotaes","c_root_id_B":"dmogpcq","created_at_utc_A":1504800073,"created_at_utc_B":1504782299,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","human_ref_B":"MA in Cultural Anthropology. Actually went to the US for it and after working there for a year (in consulting NGOs and Federal Programs) came back to Chile to stay unemployed for half a year, then got a shitty job and now have been working in ESG\/Sustainability since the beginning of the year. Not really using the skills I learned, besides research skills and a new personal view on the world (BA in History). So I don't know if this helps","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17774.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmol0kx","c_root_id_B":"dmotaes","created_at_utc_A":1504790127,"created_at_utc_B":1504800073,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"BA in anthropology (my university didn't offer focii). Now work as a sales manager for a major telecommunications company in the US.","human_ref_B":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9946.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmotaes","c_root_id_B":"dmol46k","created_at_utc_A":1504800073,"created_at_utc_B":1504790268,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","human_ref_B":"BA in cultural anthro......didn't even try to make it work. Went back to school for a BA in compsci. Much better haha","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9805.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmotaes","c_root_id_B":"dmolovq","created_at_utc_A":1504800073,"created_at_utc_B":1504791059,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and I just got my MA in the same field. I'm looking to apply to doctorate programs this fall. Meanwhile, I hope to do CRM","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9014.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6ykdn5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Those on this subreddit who got degrees in anthropology and its subfields, what are you doing now? I just got my BA in anthropology and will soon be attending an MA program in archaeology, and I'm interested to see what everyone does with their degrees. I'm essentially trying to prepare myself if academia doesn't pan out! I'm also just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dmolq52","c_root_id_B":"dmotaes","created_at_utc_A":1504791105,"created_at_utc_B":1504800073,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"B.A. In Anthropology. I now am a software engineer that specializes in Geographic Information Systems, and moonlight at a community college.","human_ref_B":"I do Human Resources for one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Not because they asked for Anthro majors, but during the interview I argued why an Anthro degree would be such a good fit. Since a lot of the issues that come to me turn out to involve \"My supervisor of this other race is discriminating against me!\" whoever hired me agreed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8968.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"doc1cf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Can someone explain post modernism and provide examples? I'm taking a basic Anthropology class in college. Today, my professor was going over various theories and I understand them all except for post modernism. My professor went through this one rather quickly, and the only example she used was that one day she met someone who was a hyper post modernist who refused to drive on bridges because her culture believed that the bridges were built to fall down. This confused me even more as to what the theory actually is. I need someone to explain the theory in the simplest way possible, please, and possibly provide an example, because I'm still not understanding it after looking it up on Google.","c_root_id_A":"f5oaigp","c_root_id_B":"f5ufbo1","created_at_utc_A":1572313526,"created_at_utc_B":1572472407,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you want a more detailed explanation, I recommend this three part podcast series part one part two part three","human_ref_B":"Post modernism is a movement which questions the base assumptions we make. The existence of sole \u201ctruth\u201d, the infallibility of \u201cscience\u201d, and the very existence of categories themselves. It forces the anthropologist to situate their own interpretation in their own contexts and question the accuracy their findings.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":158881.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"4t8wev","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some good examples of medieval poetry\/literature or where can I go to find examples? I'm not sure if this is the proper subreddit for this question, but it seemed like a good place to start. By medieval poetry and literature, I'm looking for things that were written in the medieval period. I've read The Canterbury Tales, and I'm interested in reading more. Anything would interest me, be it poetry\/literature depicting daily life or warfare or sociopolitical attitudes at the time or anything. Really anything that you could throw at me, or any resources you could let me know about. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"d5fuiyx","c_root_id_B":"d5fgrn6","created_at_utc_A":1468779044,"created_at_utc_B":1468745747,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you looking for a specific country\/region, or just medieval poetry and literature in general? As for recommendations, I don't think Dante's *Divine Comedy* has been suggested yet. Edit: Apparently it has. To stay in the Italian theme, Boccaccio's *Decamerone* is a somewhat satirical take of late medieval Italian society. Edit2: If you're looking for more Northwestern European literature\/poetry, the stories about the Grail\/King Arthur might be nice. *Le Morte d'Arthur* has already been suggested, but the work of Chr\u00e9tien de Troyes might for example be a good addition.","human_ref_B":"Look for used period anthologies - maybe at campus bookstores or on Amazon.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33297.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"4t8wev","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some good examples of medieval poetry\/literature or where can I go to find examples? I'm not sure if this is the proper subreddit for this question, but it seemed like a good place to start. By medieval poetry and literature, I'm looking for things that were written in the medieval period. I've read The Canterbury Tales, and I'm interested in reading more. Anything would interest me, be it poetry\/literature depicting daily life or warfare or sociopolitical attitudes at the time or anything. Really anything that you could throw at me, or any resources you could let me know about. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"d5fuiyx","c_root_id_B":"d5fh8bi","created_at_utc_A":1468779044,"created_at_utc_B":1468747646,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you looking for a specific country\/region, or just medieval poetry and literature in general? As for recommendations, I don't think Dante's *Divine Comedy* has been suggested yet. Edit: Apparently it has. To stay in the Italian theme, Boccaccio's *Decamerone* is a somewhat satirical take of late medieval Italian society. Edit2: If you're looking for more Northwestern European literature\/poetry, the stories about the Grail\/King Arthur might be nice. *Le Morte d'Arthur* has already been suggested, but the work of Chr\u00e9tien de Troyes might for example be a good addition.","human_ref_B":"I can recommend you Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais and his series *Gargantua and Pantagruel* and as a supplementary reading the work of Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin about Rabelais.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31398.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"4t8wev","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some good examples of medieval poetry\/literature or where can I go to find examples? I'm not sure if this is the proper subreddit for this question, but it seemed like a good place to start. By medieval poetry and literature, I'm looking for things that were written in the medieval period. I've read The Canterbury Tales, and I'm interested in reading more. Anything would interest me, be it poetry\/literature depicting daily life or warfare or sociopolitical attitudes at the time or anything. Really anything that you could throw at me, or any resources you could let me know about. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"d5fuiyx","c_root_id_B":"d5frgla","created_at_utc_A":1468779044,"created_at_utc_B":1468774127,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you looking for a specific country\/region, or just medieval poetry and literature in general? As for recommendations, I don't think Dante's *Divine Comedy* has been suggested yet. Edit: Apparently it has. To stay in the Italian theme, Boccaccio's *Decamerone* is a somewhat satirical take of late medieval Italian society. Edit2: If you're looking for more Northwestern European literature\/poetry, the stories about the Grail\/King Arthur might be nice. *Le Morte d'Arthur* has already been suggested, but the work of Chr\u00e9tien de Troyes might for example be a good addition.","human_ref_B":"Check out the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. They deal with Scandinavian culture and religion. Both are focused on eras slightly before your period of interest, but were written during the medieval time frame you are looking for.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4917.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"4t8wev","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some good examples of medieval poetry\/literature or where can I go to find examples? I'm not sure if this is the proper subreddit for this question, but it seemed like a good place to start. By medieval poetry and literature, I'm looking for things that were written in the medieval period. I've read The Canterbury Tales, and I'm interested in reading more. Anything would interest me, be it poetry\/literature depicting daily life or warfare or sociopolitical attitudes at the time or anything. Really anything that you could throw at me, or any resources you could let me know about. Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"d5fu95o","c_root_id_B":"d5fuiyx","created_at_utc_A":1468778604,"created_at_utc_B":1468779044,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Dante Alighieri, *Divine Comedy.* Anonymous, *Beowulf.* Anonymous, *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.* Anonymous, *The Nibelungenlied.* Geofferey Chaucer, *Troilus and Criseyde.* Desiderius Erasmus, *The Praise of Folly.* Sir Thomas Malory, *Le Morte D'Arthur.* Marco Polo, *The Travels of Marco Polo.*","human_ref_B":"Are you looking for a specific country\/region, or just medieval poetry and literature in general? As for recommendations, I don't think Dante's *Divine Comedy* has been suggested yet. Edit: Apparently it has. To stay in the Italian theme, Boccaccio's *Decamerone* is a somewhat satirical take of late medieval Italian society. Edit2: If you're looking for more Northwestern European literature\/poetry, the stories about the Grail\/King Arthur might be nice. *Le Morte d'Arthur* has already been suggested, but the work of Chr\u00e9tien de Troyes might for example be a good addition.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":440.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"rdu0yt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How does this sub feel about attributing modern political philosophies to pre-modern\/historic societies? Just a student wondering how to reconcile attempts to compare past societies with current political philosophies. ​ It seems that in order to garner legitimacy, proponents of certain philosophies attempt to tie the maxims of their movements with seemingly natural human societal processes. For example, using trade and private\/personal property in pre-modern\/historic societies (Rome, Egypt, Songhai, Tuareg, Malawi are among some names I've personally heard mentioned) to validate capitalism, or inversely, communal ownership of the means of production in agricultural\/pastoral\/hunter-gatherer economies to validate socialism. It would probably become more relevant the closer one got to the present, but I'm not convinced. ​ Just hearing alot of attempts among my as equally unprofessional peers to justify beliefs by claiming X or Y society is \\[*insert political philosophy*\\], therefore, I'm right because look how well they did and we should do more of that etc.","c_root_id_A":"ho3vpyz","c_root_id_B":"ho3ztek","created_at_utc_A":1639219808,"created_at_utc_B":1639222827,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology will always be influenced by modern political beliefs. Which in turn create bias when analyzing the past. One of the most read authors in core cultural anthropology classes for grad school is Karl Marx. Anthropological theorists than developed approaches for analysis (or theories) based on the political atmosphere of their time. So, one could always question the validity of the arguments others are saying about how past societies functioned. Then did those societies actually have those beliefs about the system or did modern anthropologists look at these systems with current biases that influenced how we understood people in those structures? Additionally, political systems change. Those societies experienced multiple structures throughout time or some other occurence that led to a different form of change. Also, the argument \"X society having a political belief and it did Y\" ignores a large number of variables that influenced the society to whichever political structure they had. Ask for the attributes that led to that political system - if they can't understand that then how can they say one system works or does not work.","human_ref_B":"I'd like to mention that modern European ideologies don't even apply very well to tons of current modern day areas. Politics in Kyrgystan is based on language, clan, and region, and doesn't follow ideology very closely. Likewise, I found politics in NewBrunswick Canada to largely be language-based and not on ideology. While NewBrunswick does have Liberal and Conservative parties, the party people vote for are largely determined by languistic, ethnic, and religious community. French Acadienne people are very conservative in their own ways, but don't vote for the Conservative party. Ideology only mattered to the swing voters or people that followed politics very closely. Even with contemporary societies, the political spectrum frequently fails. Anything longer than a decade and it really breaks down. Liberals\/Conservatives have switched sides on a lot of issues over the last 100 years causing us to create terms like classical liberal and classical conservative. Republicans were the party of free trade until Trump came in with protectionism. During the 80s conservatives were the ones putting warning labels on movies and music albums while today trigger warnings are associated with the Left. Anything longer than a couple election cycles and the spectrum has a possibility of being inaccurate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3019.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"37e5h6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Why does American culture seem to be more self-centered and individualistic than many other countries? [x-post from AskReddit] I've noticed that when traveling to places like Cuba, India, Mexico, Cambodia, etc., people tend to be more communal and involved directly with their neighbors. They will sit outside in the afternoons\/evenings, the kids all play together, and the adults chat and mingle. Meanwhile, here in the US, we tend just keep to ourselves, and to not want to speak to or interact with our neighbors. Does anyone know where this particular cultural difference comes from?","c_root_id_A":"crm7f1o","c_root_id_B":"crmmigb","created_at_utc_A":1432703467,"created_at_utc_B":1432744288,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I have noticed and remarked on this. I'm not exactly sure why, but I strongly suspect if you ask someone who is over 60 years old, you will find that when they were young, the kind of community involvement you describe was the norm. So, what changed? I think it is a mix of factors: technology (less time spent outside or with other people for entertainment, more time spent watching TV or on the computer), social factors (I know that I am far more suspicious of people due to the prevalence of drugs in my community), perhaps demographics (more communities with an older, sedentary population, fewer children and young people to \"liven things up\").","human_ref_B":"Sociology student jumping in here - if you're into finding out more about this, I'd really recommend reading Putnam's 'Bowling Alone' which discusses the downfall of community which he argues once existed more strongly in North America. There's loads of contributing factors as people before me have said, but I reckon technology (particularly the growth of television) and capitalism (which breeds individualism through competition) are the main ones.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40821.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"37e5h6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Why does American culture seem to be more self-centered and individualistic than many other countries? [x-post from AskReddit] I've noticed that when traveling to places like Cuba, India, Mexico, Cambodia, etc., people tend to be more communal and involved directly with their neighbors. They will sit outside in the afternoons\/evenings, the kids all play together, and the adults chat and mingle. Meanwhile, here in the US, we tend just keep to ourselves, and to not want to speak to or interact with our neighbors. Does anyone know where this particular cultural difference comes from?","c_root_id_A":"crmmigb","c_root_id_B":"crmet0u","created_at_utc_A":1432744288,"created_at_utc_B":1432729852,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Sociology student jumping in here - if you're into finding out more about this, I'd really recommend reading Putnam's 'Bowling Alone' which discusses the downfall of community which he argues once existed more strongly in North America. There's loads of contributing factors as people before me have said, but I reckon technology (particularly the growth of television) and capitalism (which breeds individualism through competition) are the main ones.","human_ref_B":"Everywhere is different in America. In the small town I grew up in, everyone waved at each other passing by, and my family was best friends with the family next door. Now that I live in the city, I barely even know the person living in the condo next to mine and everyone struggles not to make eye contact with each other while on the sidewalk or subway. Go to any small midwestern\/southern town and I believe you will probably find the camaraderie you're talking about.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14436.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1gq2gy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"If humans are predominantly right-handed, why are so many languages written right-to-left?","c_root_id_A":"camo9c3","c_root_id_B":"camqm5e","created_at_utc_A":1371737784,"created_at_utc_B":1371744530,"score_A":3,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"As a follow-up\/alternate question, I'd like to know how some languages came to be written right-to-left to start with.","human_ref_B":"Early writing was carved, written with a brush, or pressed into clay, a point that \/u\/felicia_Svilling made. Writing like we do now with a pencil or ball point pen was not how most writing was done even a couple hundred years ago. If you've ever tried your hand at Chinese brush calligraphy or Arabic brush writing you really need to keep your hand upright - you can't lean against the paper in a way that would smudge previously written words. Even when I do calligraphy with a quill it doesn't work well if I hold it at too much of an angle. Carving and pressing clay also mean that smudging isn't an issue. I can't really think of any other benefit\/detriment when it comes to direction for writing. Writing systems seem to have developed independently in different places. So if you're thinking about how to take spoken words and impart them into a fixed medium there is no practical reason why those symbols need to go in any particular direction. Either direction works just fine as long as everyone learning the system does the same thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6746.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"npv1m1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"The effects of the discovery of agriculture on civilizations Hello lovely people, my main question is how did this affect the crime (I know this is a term that means nothing on its own but let's frame it as direct violence, such as a beating or rape) and how did it affect the forms of government of the societies that settled down and started farming. I would also appreciate some book recommendations so I can read more into the topic.","c_root_id_A":"h07csrm","c_root_id_B":"h07kk37","created_at_utc_A":1622562079,"created_at_utc_B":1622565448,"score_A":4,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Is there any particular place you are interested in?","human_ref_B":"Just a note: it is essentially impossible to quantify the rate of injuries in the past that did not have a notable and long-lasting effect on the skeletal remains of individuals. \"Rape\" (a culturally-defined type of criminal act whose definition has even changed over the last 50 years in the US) leaves no skeletal trace. Applying the modern definition of rape to the past would probably result in reclassifying as rape a significant proportion of past human sexual activity. Soft-tissue injuries, including fatal injuries, that are the result of assault also would not be identifiable as such. Added to that is the issue of basic preservation: Interment of the dead is by no means the only option for disposing of the bodies of the dead, and mobile groups are less likely to maintain permanent cemeteries or mortuary locations. Furthermore, the perpetrators of violence probably aren't all that likely to have buried the remains of their victims. By contrast, permanent settlements tend to maintain areas specifically for the disposal of the dead (if they use interment as a primary means of disposal). So you're left with a real problem of sampling, and it's *not* something that can readily be extrapolated. For these reasons and others, many modern anthropologists and archaeologists are less comfortable with speculation of this sort, because there are often simply too many questions. Rather, the data may be presented, but they are most appropriately presented with strong caveats and clear acknowledgements of their limitations. (I have not read James Scott's book, but my strong suspicion is that it, like many such attempts to synthesize deep human history and prehistory for a popular audience, tends toward more definitive statements than are really supported by the data.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3369.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"3lpyhi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"What are some general misconceptions\/criticisms of Anthropology? That go against critical and creative thinking. For example saying engineers just do math all day and aren't creative.","c_root_id_A":"cv8jxet","c_root_id_B":"cv8qeoe","created_at_utc_A":1442798804,"created_at_utc_B":1442811217,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'm not exactly sure of what you mean precisely. There are a lot of criticisms about the power imbalance in anthropology, for example westerners going to \"Exotic\" places and observe what the locals do through their western gaze, so that the locals are Othered and seen as being strange (\"exotic\" is the more common term). The power imbalance comes from who gets to visit a foreign place, make observations, and write and publish their observations - and consequently their perspective - to be read by the public. How this manifests is in terms of how certain cultures are seen as \"backwards\" or \"uncivilized,\" such as the Orientalism.","human_ref_B":"One I hear a lot (and not always just from the perspective of criticizing anthropology) is a critique of cultural relativism that misconstrues the concept as anthropologists being unable to make moral judgement about other societies. The confusion comes from not understanding that cultural relativism is a research position, and not a moral position. As a person I can think that arranged marriages are morally wrong, but if, as a researcher or thinker, I want to *understand* it as a social practice and not just *judge* it I need to put my moral judgement aside.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12413.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3lpyhi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"What are some general misconceptions\/criticisms of Anthropology? That go against critical and creative thinking. For example saying engineers just do math all day and aren't creative.","c_root_id_A":"cv8qeoe","c_root_id_B":"cv8p2d2","created_at_utc_A":1442811217,"created_at_utc_B":1442807672,"score_A":10,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"One I hear a lot (and not always just from the perspective of criticizing anthropology) is a critique of cultural relativism that misconstrues the concept as anthropologists being unable to make moral judgement about other societies. The confusion comes from not understanding that cultural relativism is a research position, and not a moral position. As a person I can think that arranged marriages are morally wrong, but if, as a researcher or thinker, I want to *understand* it as a social practice and not just *judge* it I need to put my moral judgement aside.","human_ref_B":"A common criticism of the field is that sexual harassment and predation by well-established male researchers runs rampant. I've heard this from all my female friends who are working and\/or studying. I even experienced it myself. Further reading: https:\/\/www.nursing.uic.edu\/news\/rutherford-and-her-research-continue-get-national-attention","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3545.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"51eog3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"When did people first start viewing poverty as a personal moral failing? Has poverty always been viewed this way?","c_root_id_A":"d7bizfy","c_root_id_B":"d7beto1","created_at_utc_A":1473173289,"created_at_utc_B":1473165983,"score_A":22,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I can't give you the first instance, but to follow one thread you could start with either 18thC political economy (eg. Mandeville) or Weber (*The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism*) and work backwards. I assume this is the kind of thing you have in mind.","human_ref_B":"First, I think you need to support your implicit assumption. Because, I'm not sure it is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7306.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"51eog3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"When did people first start viewing poverty as a personal moral failing? Has poverty always been viewed this way?","c_root_id_A":"d7bkqo0","c_root_id_B":"d7beto1","created_at_utc_A":1473175837,"created_at_utc_B":1473165983,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":">Has poverty always been viewed this way? There has been a strong thread of of aestheticism within the Christian tradition, throughout pretty much its entire history. Many monastic movements saw poverty as a virtue, often to quite extreme lengths, such as banning almost all personal property for their members. You will find many Christian texts throughout history that are disdainful of riches, and that promote \"simple living\", or even abject poverty. Of course, at the same time you have many bishops living in ostentatious opulence, so it's a bit of a mixed bag. But at the very least, there has been a tradition of reverence for poverty within some aspects of Western society.","human_ref_B":"First, I think you need to support your implicit assumption. Because, I'm not sure it is.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9854.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"51eog3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"When did people first start viewing poverty as a personal moral failing? Has poverty always been viewed this way?","c_root_id_A":"d7beto1","c_root_id_B":"d7bm0ym","created_at_utc_A":1473165983,"created_at_utc_B":1473177638,"score_A":8,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"First, I think you need to support your implicit assumption. Because, I'm not sure it is.","human_ref_B":"In anthropological terms, i.e. in terms of the whole spectrum of human societies, I'd say that there is probably a strong correlation between the rigidity of a social hierarchy and the prevelance or dominance of ideologies that attribute social position to merit\/lack of merit. If something like a caste system, race-based slavery or a class system develops, it will do so alongside theories such as karma, divinely ordered authority, or natural division among the races. In modern western societies, the version that seems currently to prevail is that economic success can be achieved if one works hard enough. This is pretty much a myth, but there you go.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11655.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"gbj2a6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why did so many civilizations all over the world all similarly create a God\/Gods despite having no contact with each other? Originally posted in r\/askhistorians but was told to post here as well. My dad\u2019s a skeptic (history channel watcher, alien believer, etc etc) and he asked me this recently and I didn\u2019t know the answer. Apologies if this has been posted already and I just haven\u2019t seen it. Anyone have any info regarding this topic?","c_root_id_A":"fp69v7v","c_root_id_B":"fp6wuis","created_at_utc_A":1588348665,"created_at_utc_B":1588359978,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Might be worth considering deification (apotheosis), where the memory of a real notable human evolves into a god over generations. You can see this all over the world where major historical figures are deified. This is found in disparate societies so it seems likely that the process of deification of a remembered historical figure is a fairly natural process. It'd have to be speculative whether this is the origin of gods as a concept, but it seems plausible to me, especially in the context of ancestor worshipping societies, prevalent in a lot of traditional religions.","human_ref_B":"Scott Atran\u2019s theory is that belief in the supernatural is a side effect of our cognitive capacity to assign motivation to actions. Our brains are wired for social interaction, so when we interact with others, we assume they do or say things with a particular intention. What if we applied this thought to everything? Suddenly the world is governed by unseeable forces.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11313.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"gbj2a6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why did so many civilizations all over the world all similarly create a God\/Gods despite having no contact with each other? Originally posted in r\/askhistorians but was told to post here as well. My dad\u2019s a skeptic (history channel watcher, alien believer, etc etc) and he asked me this recently and I didn\u2019t know the answer. Apologies if this has been posted already and I just haven\u2019t seen it. Anyone have any info regarding this topic?","c_root_id_A":"fp6rrvs","c_root_id_B":"fp6wuis","created_at_utc_A":1588357479,"created_at_utc_B":1588359978,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"This is complicated and I've been taking an anthro course specifically about these concepts and am happy to finally have a reason to share some of what I've been learning. People project a sense of sentience onto objects around them, this is a key concept in the Theory of Mind in regards to magical\/mystical thinking and emerges early in human history. This is partially a means to make sense of things yes but a lot of it has to do with your ability to control the uncontrollable. If you are in dire need you create a system of mystical thinking that enables you to control things which you cannot, yet rely on for survival. Ritual often takes place to ensure the success of different things. It's desperation. God's are birthed after animism has been long established and as civilizations begin to take root and project animistic concepts and specific cultural ideologies (geographically influenced) onto physical things turning them into entities. These entities are the epitome of their geographies, their weather, their food sources, their behaviors, their material culture and their needs. Look into Theory of Mind, Animism\/animatism, contagious magic, sympathetic magic, and the law of similarity\/law of contagion. These are all core concepts around the need\/use of magic and I think you will find a lot of it helpful in understanding your question about the emergence of Gods. The need for them is the same but comes about through different immediate influences reflecting diverse character traits. Remember magic existed before more formal god's emerged, which is interesting to consider.","human_ref_B":"Scott Atran\u2019s theory is that belief in the supernatural is a side effect of our cognitive capacity to assign motivation to actions. Our brains are wired for social interaction, so when we interact with others, we assume they do or say things with a particular intention. What if we applied this thought to everything? Suddenly the world is governed by unseeable forces.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2499.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"69m0px","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did many civilizations seemingly arise from desert regions? Egypt, Mesopotamian cultures, and even the Indus River Valley to some degree. Even given the rivers in these areas, it would surely be more productive to farm in areas full of arable land, right?","c_root_id_A":"dh7py7w","c_root_id_B":"dh7p5v6","created_at_utc_A":1494094702,"created_at_utc_B":1494093621,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"So, there are some good answers but I will also add, these areas require agriculture to survive. Places that are tropical practice horticulture but are largely still hunter gatherers and places like north America and Europe had large game animals to support their caloric intake. In these river valleys the populations had to find a way to have a stable and ample food supply. So they invented farming. Edit for clarification: did not mean to imply large game is important for agriculture. It's actually the opposite large game produces enough food that agriculture is unneeded.","human_ref_B":"Another question you could ask about the same observation is what do you think a civilization looks like? If you think it looks like big, large structures, then you're going to need to find a culture that needed to build strong structures for defense, or to manipulate the powers of nature, such as water. There is a clear need to manipulate water in order to survive permanently in arid parts of the world, which is perhaps one reason that we see a lot of agricultural (and defensive) technology in the arid-semi-dry areas of the world.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1081.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"brcczb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is the trickster god archetype so common in indigenous cultures like in Africa and North America?","c_root_id_A":"eody362","c_root_id_B":"eocj9q7","created_at_utc_A":1558483720,"created_at_utc_B":1558459092,"score_A":36,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Not all tricksters are gods, but almost all cultures have folktales or fables with recurrent \u201cmischievous\u201d archetypes. In the same way many myths exist to explain things we (humans) cannot control (the rising and setting of the sun, for example), trickster stories teach us why the world is the way it is \u2014 how the mountains came to be, why there is one particular type of animal in an environment, why we as a village are fighting with the neighbouring village, etc. Some of these stories teach us big things about ethics, morals, and the natural forces of the earth. But other stories teach us about much smaller things, which are not necessarily less important!","human_ref_B":"Trickster represents the folly of knowledge of science. The trickster brings knowledge of metallurgy, medicine, etc but also the trickster shows this can be used to abuse society.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24628.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"brcczb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Why is the trickster god archetype so common in indigenous cultures like in Africa and North America?","c_root_id_A":"eodzi94","c_root_id_B":"eoe3apw","created_at_utc_A":1558484674,"created_at_utc_B":1558487176,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Because pantheonic religions have gods that generally represent the archetypes of human personality as well as covering topics relevant to that society.","human_ref_B":"Myth were based down by storytellers, and storytellers like to entertain their audiences, and you can make great stories about trickery, so you need a stock character that audiences recognize, good ole' Trickster. You know how he is.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2502.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"tp42zs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Have you read any ethnographies out there that had exceptional writing or were surprisingly entertaining?","c_root_id_A":"i2aidtp","c_root_id_B":"i29u02w","created_at_utc_A":1648368916,"created_at_utc_B":1648351321,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"**In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio** by Philippe Bourgois, is perhaps the most readable one I've been through. I read and absorbed it in an afternoon. I think it's a statement to how accessible research *can* be written.","human_ref_B":"A War of Witches by Timothy Knab","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17595.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"su1vce","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Interested in Precolumbian Americas. Could you point me to undergrad resources?","c_root_id_A":"hx78zej","c_root_id_B":"hx86nnd","created_at_utc_A":1645034398,"created_at_utc_B":1645047704,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"From the Olmecs to the Aztecs by Michael D. Coe is a great starting point. It's both academic and readable. Anything by him is good, and everything by Mary Ellen Miller is great if you're interested in Precolumbian art.","human_ref_B":"An important popular history of the pre-contact Americas is Charles C. Mann's 1491. This is a book that launched a *lot* of archaeology\/anthropology careers. It's interesting, and Mann tells a good story. I can't recommend it highly enough. https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/en\/book\/show\/39020.1491","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13306.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"l0kesv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is there any evidence of hunter-gatherers participating in sexual sadism? Once upon a time, I was a PhD student in Anthropology, but went on leave to be an at-home parent. As a student, I was very interested in whether sexual sadism (BDSM, humiliation, etc) even exists among hunter-gatherers, and it's something I've periodically tried to look into since leaving academia, with no success. I'm curious about whether this question has ever been asked & there's info out there I'm not seeing. I've had a theory that these practices arise in extremely stratified, transactional societies where violence is normalized, and were not necessarily a \"natural\" (for want of a better word) part of human sexuality for most of human history. Open to the idea that I'm wrong, but I've found some other discussion boards where people asked similar questions, and the only responses pointing to these \"kinks\" being widespread prior to sedentary civilization actually ended up referring to art or literature from ancient, but still sedentary and stratified, societies. Thanks in advance for any info!","c_root_id_A":"gjwmit3","c_root_id_B":"gjwokgv","created_at_utc_A":1611112483,"created_at_utc_B":1611113654,"score_A":23,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"This is, without a doubt, one of the most bizarre questions I've ever come across on Reddit, and I've been here for years. Nothing wrong with BDSM or hunter-gatherer studies, mind you, but why attempt to combine the two? And how would you even be able to verify its existence through archeological evidence?","human_ref_B":"Interesting question! Can't add anything specifically to \"sadism\", but I can add something regarding odd sexual fetishes: I've recorded rock-art in Australia depicting sexual acts between anthropomorphs and animals (e.g. a lizard performing cunnilingus on a spread-legged woman). The paintings are certainly pre-European contact (probably around 500 - 1000 years I'd assume based on their style, pigment, and preservation). There are also Ancestor\/Dreaming stories mentioning men who would make a hole in soft mud and go to town. Edit: Now that I think about it, the last story had an element of humiliation to it - the story was told as a \"you shouldn't do that...men who do have bad things happen to them\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1171.0,"score_ratio":1.3043478261} {"post_id":"lm80jm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Career Development] Considering Doing a joint degree PhD in Anthropology and a Master's in Public Health. Any Thoughts or Advice? I am a recent graduate from a medical anthropology program and want to pursue further studies. I would like the option of going into academia and continuing with anthropology, and I would also love to work as an anthropologist with a major health organization like MSF, for example. However, I am not sure how secure this would be, so I am also considering doing a Master's in Public Health involving internships and getting skills that would help me be more readily prepared for that field. I would love to have the options to do either, so I can continue with my passion but have something to fall back on. For this reason, I am considering dual degree programs involving a PhD in anthropology alongside an MPH. I know of a couple of universities that have joint programs like this: [Northwestern University, University of South Florida, University of Washington, Emory University, University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve, and possibly University of North Texas but that is not confirmed. I am curious if anyone here has any background in anthropology and has tried or considering trying doing anything like this and transitioning into public or global health. Are there any thoughts on what to expect and how it may affect my job security after graduating? Also, is there a similar route that I could take if I want to continue doing anthropology but apply it more for a public health context? Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"gnu4zby","c_root_id_B":"gntvxnp","created_at_utc_A":1613612973,"created_at_utc_B":1613608463,"score_A":20,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I don't have an MPH. All my degrees (BA, MA, PhD) are in anthropology. However, I spent several years working in applied health research and rubbed elbows with people with the MPH. I don't see a downside to picking up a MPH on your way to an Anth. Ph.D. if your end game is Med Anthro. IMO an MPH makes you more marketable..","human_ref_B":"sorry this isnt answering your question in anyway but I was wondering about your experience studying medical anthropology as I am interested in possibly studying medical\/psych anthropology at the graduate level. How was your experience like? Was it more \"culture\" focused or more \"science\/biology\" focused if that makes any sense.. sorry for the questions but I was just curious and wish you good luck for your phd program!!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4510.0,"score_ratio":2.2222222222} {"post_id":"lm80jm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Career Development] Considering Doing a joint degree PhD in Anthropology and a Master's in Public Health. Any Thoughts or Advice? I am a recent graduate from a medical anthropology program and want to pursue further studies. I would like the option of going into academia and continuing with anthropology, and I would also love to work as an anthropologist with a major health organization like MSF, for example. However, I am not sure how secure this would be, so I am also considering doing a Master's in Public Health involving internships and getting skills that would help me be more readily prepared for that field. I would love to have the options to do either, so I can continue with my passion but have something to fall back on. For this reason, I am considering dual degree programs involving a PhD in anthropology alongside an MPH. I know of a couple of universities that have joint programs like this: [Northwestern University, University of South Florida, University of Washington, Emory University, University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve, and possibly University of North Texas but that is not confirmed. I am curious if anyone here has any background in anthropology and has tried or considering trying doing anything like this and transitioning into public or global health. Are there any thoughts on what to expect and how it may affect my job security after graduating? Also, is there a similar route that I could take if I want to continue doing anthropology but apply it more for a public health context? Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"gntvxnp","c_root_id_B":"gnut1wi","created_at_utc_A":1613608463,"created_at_utc_B":1613625785,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"sorry this isnt answering your question in anyway but I was wondering about your experience studying medical anthropology as I am interested in possibly studying medical\/psych anthropology at the graduate level. How was your experience like? Was it more \"culture\" focused or more \"science\/biology\" focused if that makes any sense.. sorry for the questions but I was just curious and wish you good luck for your phd program!!","human_ref_B":"I am an epidemiologist (MPH) who did my undergrad in anthropology. I think getting an MPH is very smart if you want to work outside academia. I would also look into Columbia's department of Sociomedical Sciences within the department of public health, particularly their Sociomedical Sciences PhD program.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17322.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"3e7tyn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Why did the land around the Danube not give rise to early advanced civilizations as did the Nile, Indus, Yellow, or Tigris\/Euphrates? title. I would have thought that the Danube would have been an ideal cradle of civilization - a massive river, emptying into a sea ideal for trade, good farmland. It even played host to the beginnings of culture, according to this article from the NYT. Yet, from what I can recall, the Danube area was inhabited by Thracians, Germanic tribesmen, etc. - not utter savages, but not a civilization along the lines of Egypt or the Indus Valley people. What gives?","c_root_id_A":"ctcqdaq","c_root_id_B":"ctcjvzj","created_at_utc_A":1437607643,"created_at_utc_B":1437597542,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Depends what you mean by \"civilization\" and \"advanced\", it's a problematic narrative of progress that tends to breed prejudice rather than a deeper understanding of humanity and human culture. That said, I'm sure you'd rather just get an answer. Other posters have suggested that climate and physical geography played a part in the development of urbanised societies. Since static societies leave physical traces (wooden buildings \/ artefacts not withstanding), we think of these cultures are being superior because they've \"stood the test of time\". A number of nomad groups leave little trace of their existence but have exerted enormous influence on history. Europe at this time was dominated by forest, making wood a natural choice as a building material. This rather biases our archaeology and our understanding of the people that inhabited the area. There were pre-historic civilizations in the Balkans. The two best understood groups are Star\u010devo\u2013K\u0151r\u00f6s\u2013Cri\u0219 and Vin\u010da. The latter is notable because they developed a system of proto-writing that predates Sumerian texts (Old European Script circa 5000 BC). South European cultures also innovated in bronze-working and were using wheel technology before Mesopotamian societies, though whether or not they simultaneously invented the wheel alongside contemporary Steppe groups is unclear. The Star\u010devo\u2013K\u0151r\u00f6s\u2013Cri\u0219 culture, focusing on the 5th millennium BC, seems to have been a middle ground between a hunter-gatherer and agrarian society. Egypt was already moving towards an agricultural base at this time, Mesopotamia was utilising sophisticated irrigation but Europe was still off hunting alongside farming. This would suggest Europe hadn't reached a population threshold where food, and unmolested territory, was scarce enough to warrant a sedentary lifestyle. Edited to add a few dates.","human_ref_B":"Not an expert but the factor that jumps out at me is climate. Wikipedia has articles on the climates of various cities around each river, with a number of European capitals appearing on the Danube. The daily mean temperature for Vienna is 11.4 C, for Bratislava is 10.5 C, for Budapest is 11.3 C, for Belgrade is 12.5 C. Now if we look at cities on the Nile, Indus, and Tigris rivers, we see Baghdad has a daily mean temperature of 22.7 C, Dera Ismail Khan on the Indus River has a daily mean temperature of 24.23 C, and Cairo on the Nile has a daily mean of 21.38 C. The Yellow River is harder to reconcile though. Climate data on wikipedia is limited, but it seems to indicate a temperature range straddling or slightly colder than the Danube river. My guess is that the difference is that south of the Yellow River the climate gets tropical or subtropical as you approach south-east Asia and the peoples that lived in those areas were able to reach and settle the Yellow River. While the river itself has a similar climate to the Danube, the Danube is largely bordered by the Alps to the south, which would make it difficult for cultures from the south to reach it. Of course, I'm talking out my ass, but I might be on to something.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10101.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"pc3ljl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What is the right term for people living in the Southern Pacific? I gather that Polynesia\/Melanesia\/Micronesia is falling out of favor (and would be curious to hear from an expert why that is). What name is preferred for people living in those cultural areas\/from those cultures? Pacific Islanders? Pasifika? Oceanians? What are the cultural and political stakes attached to each?","c_root_id_A":"hagm1v6","c_root_id_B":"hah1m8r","created_at_utc_A":1630005182,"created_at_utc_B":1630011458,"score_A":7,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":">*\"I gather that Polynesia\/Melanesia\/Micronesia is falling out of favor\"* I've visited the area many times for months at a time and never heard that.","human_ref_B":"Part of the community I work with includes a lot of people from Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii. From them I mostly hear the terms \"Pacific Islands\/Islander\" and \"Pasifika\" when they're referring to the region and its people at large. But they usually refer to themselves with refence to specific islands and cultures. I haven't heard whether they reject the term \"Polynesia.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6276.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"z0y2th","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"When was it first proposed that inca architecture was made to be earthquake resistant? I'm looking for the earliest proposal that inca architecture, like the walls in Machu Picchu, was made to be earthquake resistant. I've found a few references on wikipedia but as far was I can tell none of the papers I've seen referenced makes any mention as to when this was first proposed. Any Mesoamerica nerds out there who can help me out?","c_root_id_A":"ixatprz","c_root_id_B":"ix99vt3","created_at_utc_A":1669080751,"created_at_utc_B":1669056909,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I can try and help. A google scholar search for \"inca earthquake architecture\" reveals that several publications are citing: R. Calder\u00f3n Pe\u00f1aylillo Mec\u00e1nica As\u00edsmica en el orden Arquitect\u00f3nico Incano, vol. 11, *Revista del Instituto Americano de Arte* (1963), pp. 17-21 So it looks like no later than 1963, but that doesn't mean its necessarily the very first case. It might just be the one everybody cites now, or the one that became popular for english-language authors to cite. To try and follow the idea back further, you'd probably need to get a physical copy of that article and see who it cites. That's where the trail ended for me. Hope that helps!","human_ref_B":"You might have better luck on r\/AskHistorians as this is more of a historiography type of question I think","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23842.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"73faxe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How did ancient peoples (and more recently Native Americans) store acorns underground? Where I live, it is a bumper crop (mast year) of acorns, especially in the White Oak group. I have hot-leached and eaten some of the acorns (I have several years of foraging experience) and made good outdoor food with them, but the process of shelling and drying (the usual modern method for storage of acorns) is too time consuming for me to store my whole harvest by this method, at least at once. Also I do not have a good place where I camp to store all of the acorns above ground due to rain and animals too lazy to collect their own (lol), so I have followed extremely vague accounts of ancient people's storage of acorns which basically involved digging a hole in the ground and placing the acorns into it. The accounts I have based this practice on are extremely lacking in procedural information as to how ancient people stored acorns underground for the long term or even for the short term. Does anyone have some more detailed accounts on the underground storage of acorns for human consumption, be it in ancient Europe, Native America or elsewhere? - What kind of processes were involved in preparation of the acorns for burial (if any)? - What kind of ground conditions were preferred, how deep were the holes, and how long could the acorns be stored? - As a bonus, is there a differentiation between pits used to simply store the acorns and those used to \"cold-leach\" the acorns over months underground?","c_root_id_A":"dnq8irg","c_root_id_B":"dnqe082","created_at_utc_A":1506802188,"created_at_utc_B":1506809522,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I will speak to the region I know. More often than underground, Central \/ Northern California natives often stored them in tall, upright acorn granaries on posts. They secured them for storage mainly without burying, probably because of the seasonal wetlands condition that much of the mix oak scrub grasslands had. I'm sure they buried when possible too in dry areas, much of the granary infrastructure could work for burying in treestumps or underground. You can find images of these granaries online, IIRC Tending the Wild mentions it too.","human_ref_B":"I specialize in Northern California and Northwest Coast. My information, drawing on early ethnologies in California by Stephen Powers, A. Kroeber, P.E. Goddard, C. Hart Merriam and later work by Thomas Keeling, William Wallace, Arnold Pilling and many others, is that acorns were stored in large burden baskets in wooden plank houses. They were stored unhusked and even in perfect conditions a certain amount of the yearly supply would be wormy. Later, acorns were stored in burlap sacks in sawn lumber houses. I have never seen a credible reference to storing acorns underground in the region I study.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7334.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1vo7ll","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"In prehistoric and ancient times did women ever milk themselves to provide substance for their group? If there was a limited supply of food or water would lactating women ever make themselves continue to produce milk for an easy way of getting nutrients for the whole group? Sort of like a communal wet nurse.","c_root_id_A":"ceu867y","c_root_id_B":"ceua2l6","created_at_utc_A":1390231854,"created_at_utc_B":1390236637,"score_A":14,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Women need food and water in order to produce milk. It would mean wasting more than they produced.","human_ref_B":"As \/u\/1point618 points out, breastfeeding is very energy intensive. It takes more calories to produce breastmilk than it does to support the fetus inutero. It takes an additional 500 calories per day to produce enough breastmilk (in contrast, pregnant women only need about 300 more calories per day than usual.) This is why you'll often hear moms talk about how breastfeeding helps you lose weight gained during pregnancy. And why breastfeeding can delay the return of menses and be a useful tool for family planning in areas with calorie restricted diets. But that's a lot of calories to take from the food stores just to continue producing breast milk if you're not giving that breastmilk to a child. If there was a limited supply of food and water, as your question poses, it would be counterproductive to consume breastmilk. Now breastfeeding until the child is 3-5 is fairly normal in some societies. And occasionally it is used medicinally. But I've never heard of a society using breastmilk as an important part of an adult diet likely because it isn't practical. Though, there are societies where women will breastfeed babies of other species such as the Awa Guaja who breastfeed monkeys. But monkeys are considered sacred and fulfill certain social & psychological needs.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4783.0,"score_ratio":1.7857142857} {"post_id":"1vo7ll","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"In prehistoric and ancient times did women ever milk themselves to provide substance for their group? If there was a limited supply of food or water would lactating women ever make themselves continue to produce milk for an easy way of getting nutrients for the whole group? Sort of like a communal wet nurse.","c_root_id_A":"ceua2l6","c_root_id_B":"ceu9sz0","created_at_utc_A":1390236637,"created_at_utc_B":1390236011,"score_A":25,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"As \/u\/1point618 points out, breastfeeding is very energy intensive. It takes more calories to produce breastmilk than it does to support the fetus inutero. It takes an additional 500 calories per day to produce enough breastmilk (in contrast, pregnant women only need about 300 more calories per day than usual.) This is why you'll often hear moms talk about how breastfeeding helps you lose weight gained during pregnancy. And why breastfeeding can delay the return of menses and be a useful tool for family planning in areas with calorie restricted diets. But that's a lot of calories to take from the food stores just to continue producing breast milk if you're not giving that breastmilk to a child. If there was a limited supply of food and water, as your question poses, it would be counterproductive to consume breastmilk. Now breastfeeding until the child is 3-5 is fairly normal in some societies. And occasionally it is used medicinally. But I've never heard of a society using breastmilk as an important part of an adult diet likely because it isn't practical. Though, there are societies where women will breastfeed babies of other species such as the Awa Guaja who breastfeed monkeys. But monkeys are considered sacred and fulfill certain social & psychological needs.","human_ref_B":"If food and water was that limited they might not even be able to produce milk. Unless the whole group gave her al their food, which would mean they got less back than they put in...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":626.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"1vo7ll","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"In prehistoric and ancient times did women ever milk themselves to provide substance for their group? If there was a limited supply of food or water would lactating women ever make themselves continue to produce milk for an easy way of getting nutrients for the whole group? Sort of like a communal wet nurse.","c_root_id_A":"ceucvwz","c_root_id_B":"ceu9sz0","created_at_utc_A":1390242772,"created_at_utc_B":1390236011,"score_A":14,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Adding to what others have said, the utility of consuming milk from cows, sheep or goats is that these animals do not eat the same food as humans. In effect, dairy animals convert indigestible plant material into digestible milk, meat, etc. for human consumption. One human producing milk for other adults would be a waste of resources.","human_ref_B":"If food and water was that limited they might not even be able to produce milk. Unless the whole group gave her al their food, which would mean they got less back than they put in...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6761.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"1vo7ll","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"In prehistoric and ancient times did women ever milk themselves to provide substance for their group? If there was a limited supply of food or water would lactating women ever make themselves continue to produce milk for an easy way of getting nutrients for the whole group? Sort of like a communal wet nurse.","c_root_id_A":"ceuchls","c_root_id_B":"ceucvwz","created_at_utc_A":1390241944,"created_at_utc_B":1390242772,"score_A":2,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"In Mongolia it is common for women to breastfeed their children up to 6 years old. There is also no social taboo against adults drinking breast milk, but its not exactly an every day occurrence. The best article I have found on it is more anecdotal: Here. Drinking it, or adding it to coffee. So not a staple of diet by any stretch, but a recognition of its status and nutritional value. However Unicef statistics support very late weaning Here where most other countries, particularly in the west see a sharp around 1 year.","human_ref_B":"Adding to what others have said, the utility of consuming milk from cows, sheep or goats is that these animals do not eat the same food as humans. In effect, dairy animals convert indigestible plant material into digestible milk, meat, etc. for human consumption. One human producing milk for other adults would be a waste of resources.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":828.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"aafda6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where did Native Americans and other early civilizations get their salt intake from? Salt trade was a huge business in many parts of the world since it was a rare commodity and needed for bodily functions but how about landlocked\/pre global trade civilizations?","c_root_id_A":"ecrts2f","c_root_id_B":"ecrylfc","created_at_utc_A":1546046760,"created_at_utc_B":1546051116,"score_A":5,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"There are also many regions of the world with salt deposits large enough to be mined, and ingenious ways of collecting salt from inland areas. The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia and Danakil Desert in Ethiopia, for example, are both still mined for salt by local people. Additionally, salt can be extracted from some streams that run through salty soil. In Peru, the Maras salt mines have been in use since pre-Inca times. An underground river flows through relatively salty soil, picking up salt, and then comes out at a spring. From there, the water is artificially diverted into hundreds of rectangular pans that evaporate the water, leaving salt. The overall effect is something like white terraces that produce salt instead of crops. And your question does contain part of the answer: having easy access to salt was extremely valuable, and salt would be traded long distances to people that couldn't get it themselves.","human_ref_B":"A number of Canadian nations didn't seem to use salt on their food, or at least salt it to european preferences. For example Champlain complained about Huron and Algonkwin food was lacking in salt. In John Jewitt's captivity narrative there is a story of them trying to boil down sea water to salt their food when they are discovered by the village headman who knocks over their pot and scolds them for this act. Both Jewitt and his fellow captive note the lack of salt in Nootka sound traditional foods and make many attempts to salt their food and try to prepare more european cuisine. sources: Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic John R. Jewitt, A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt,","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4356.0,"score_ratio":4.8} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdxwhk","c_root_id_B":"cfdx08i","created_at_utc_A":1392254271,"created_at_utc_B":1392252188,"score_A":10,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The \"Stoned Ape\" theory posits that the exact cause for our consciousness, or at least a heavy trigger, was that of the consumption of psychotropic drugs. It is difficult to say what exactly caused us to develop our consciousness, but my bet is on tool use rather than drug use. We know that humans co-evolved with certain plants - cultivation, so drugs no doubt played a part in some groups (as they do today). I think that a lot of information will always be out of our reach - especially anything regarding origins. The best we can hope for is to cultivate a new species that can eventually be as conscious as we are and leave them a legacy. Of course, this connects into other theories such as those you might see on \"Ancient Aliens\" where this has already happened, and just by the amount of time, distance and contact our true origins have already been forgotten anyway.","human_ref_B":"I find it such an interesting theory but to deem an entire shift within consciousness and the vast psychotic all attributes that makes us what we are today cannot necessarily (in my own opinion) be boiled down to strictly ingesting a substance. Perhaps more or less it happened slowly over time through learning what to and by to do as well as natural curiousity which we see in several different species being played (although on a different scale). As much as I love mushrooms and psychedelics, perhaps it could of been a small stepping stone as opposed to contributing to an entire shift in thought.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2083.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdxwhk","c_root_id_B":"cfdvc89","created_at_utc_A":1392254271,"created_at_utc_B":1392248436,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The \"Stoned Ape\" theory posits that the exact cause for our consciousness, or at least a heavy trigger, was that of the consumption of psychotropic drugs. It is difficult to say what exactly caused us to develop our consciousness, but my bet is on tool use rather than drug use. We know that humans co-evolved with certain plants - cultivation, so drugs no doubt played a part in some groups (as they do today). I think that a lot of information will always be out of our reach - especially anything regarding origins. The best we can hope for is to cultivate a new species that can eventually be as conscious as we are and leave them a legacy. Of course, this connects into other theories such as those you might see on \"Ancient Aliens\" where this has already happened, and just by the amount of time, distance and contact our true origins have already been forgotten anyway.","human_ref_B":"Given what we can objectively say about our evolution (in regards to developing speech, language, etc.), it's probably just as good of a theory as any other - and it will forever be an interesting and humorous guess. It is well known that \"you are what you eat\" at least in some sense, so its certainly possible that ingesting certain foods will have an eventual effect on a population. I don't know enough about the topic to comment further.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5835.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfe9du6","c_root_id_B":"cfdx08i","created_at_utc_A":1392292504,"created_at_utc_B":1392252188,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"At least according to the Wikipedia page, the genus in which psychedelic mushrooms appear is not native to Africa, which strikes me as something of a flaw in the theory. Also, they seem to grow primarily in humid forests which, again, will be something of a problem.","human_ref_B":"I find it such an interesting theory but to deem an entire shift within consciousness and the vast psychotic all attributes that makes us what we are today cannot necessarily (in my own opinion) be boiled down to strictly ingesting a substance. Perhaps more or less it happened slowly over time through learning what to and by to do as well as natural curiousity which we see in several different species being played (although on a different scale). As much as I love mushrooms and psychedelics, perhaps it could of been a small stepping stone as opposed to contributing to an entire shift in thought.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":40316.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdvc89","c_root_id_B":"cfe9du6","created_at_utc_A":1392248436,"created_at_utc_B":1392292504,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Given what we can objectively say about our evolution (in regards to developing speech, language, etc.), it's probably just as good of a theory as any other - and it will forever be an interesting and humorous guess. It is well known that \"you are what you eat\" at least in some sense, so its certainly possible that ingesting certain foods will have an eventual effect on a population. I don't know enough about the topic to comment further.","human_ref_B":"At least according to the Wikipedia page, the genus in which psychedelic mushrooms appear is not native to Africa, which strikes me as something of a flaw in the theory. Also, they seem to grow primarily in humid forests which, again, will be something of a problem.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":44068.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdx08i","c_root_id_B":"cfefl07","created_at_utc_A":1392252188,"created_at_utc_B":1392311617,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I find it such an interesting theory but to deem an entire shift within consciousness and the vast psychotic all attributes that makes us what we are today cannot necessarily (in my own opinion) be boiled down to strictly ingesting a substance. Perhaps more or less it happened slowly over time through learning what to and by to do as well as natural curiousity which we see in several different species being played (although on a different scale). As much as I love mushrooms and psychedelics, perhaps it could of been a small stepping stone as opposed to contributing to an entire shift in thought.","human_ref_B":"Here's a link to an informal critique of Mckenna's Stoned Ape hypothesis that hits on a lot of the problems and untestable propositions of the hypothesis. An excerpt: >The problem with this line of argument is that it relies on a series of assumptions which, while possible, are not backed up by convincing evidence. Perhaps magic mushrooms in low doses could increase visual acuity, but McKenna goes on to assume that magic mushrooms grew where our ancestors lived, that our ancestors ate these mushrooms, that they hunted under their effect, that they hunted more successfully, and so on. The argument basically consists of: \u201cIf this is possible, then so is this, and this, and this, etc.\u201d At the end of the day, Mckenna's hypothesis tries to cram psychedelia into the evolutionary record in a way that wholly untestable, ridiculously contrived, and completely unparsimonious when compared to \"mundane\" explanations regarding the evolution of language and conciousness and the derived adaptations of *Homo erectus*. Also, Here's a comment I wrote a while ago about some overall issues that arise when looking at the potential evolutionary influence of psychotropic drugs. Might be worth a look.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":59429.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdvc89","c_root_id_B":"cfefl07","created_at_utc_A":1392248436,"created_at_utc_B":1392311617,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Given what we can objectively say about our evolution (in regards to developing speech, language, etc.), it's probably just as good of a theory as any other - and it will forever be an interesting and humorous guess. It is well known that \"you are what you eat\" at least in some sense, so its certainly possible that ingesting certain foods will have an eventual effect on a population. I don't know enough about the topic to comment further.","human_ref_B":"Here's a link to an informal critique of Mckenna's Stoned Ape hypothesis that hits on a lot of the problems and untestable propositions of the hypothesis. An excerpt: >The problem with this line of argument is that it relies on a series of assumptions which, while possible, are not backed up by convincing evidence. Perhaps magic mushrooms in low doses could increase visual acuity, but McKenna goes on to assume that magic mushrooms grew where our ancestors lived, that our ancestors ate these mushrooms, that they hunted under their effect, that they hunted more successfully, and so on. The argument basically consists of: \u201cIf this is possible, then so is this, and this, and this, etc.\u201d At the end of the day, Mckenna's hypothesis tries to cram psychedelia into the evolutionary record in a way that wholly untestable, ridiculously contrived, and completely unparsimonious when compared to \"mundane\" explanations regarding the evolution of language and conciousness and the derived adaptations of *Homo erectus*. Also, Here's a comment I wrote a while ago about some overall issues that arise when looking at the potential evolutionary influence of psychotropic drugs. Might be worth a look.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":63181.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfe9ote","c_root_id_B":"cfdx08i","created_at_utc_A":1392294242,"created_at_utc_B":1392252188,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"No, it is pseudoscience. Wishful thinking by the 'expanded conscious' people. While hallucinogenics have been used for a long time, this has nothing to do with human evolution.","human_ref_B":"I find it such an interesting theory but to deem an entire shift within consciousness and the vast psychotic all attributes that makes us what we are today cannot necessarily (in my own opinion) be boiled down to strictly ingesting a substance. Perhaps more or less it happened slowly over time through learning what to and by to do as well as natural curiousity which we see in several different species being played (although on a different scale). As much as I love mushrooms and psychedelics, perhaps it could of been a small stepping stone as opposed to contributing to an entire shift in thought.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42054.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfdvc89","c_root_id_B":"cfdx08i","created_at_utc_A":1392248436,"created_at_utc_B":1392252188,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Given what we can objectively say about our evolution (in regards to developing speech, language, etc.), it's probably just as good of a theory as any other - and it will forever be an interesting and humorous guess. It is well known that \"you are what you eat\" at least in some sense, so its certainly possible that ingesting certain foods will have an eventual effect on a population. I don't know enough about the topic to comment further.","human_ref_B":"I find it such an interesting theory but to deem an entire shift within consciousness and the vast psychotic all attributes that makes us what we are today cannot necessarily (in my own opinion) be boiled down to strictly ingesting a substance. Perhaps more or less it happened slowly over time through learning what to and by to do as well as natural curiousity which we see in several different species being played (although on a different scale). As much as I love mushrooms and psychedelics, perhaps it could of been a small stepping stone as opposed to contributing to an entire shift in thought.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3752.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1xr1ij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do anthropologists give any credence to the \"Stoned Ape\" Theory of Human Evolution? This is my first time posting here so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I've just always been curious to know what the scientific community thinks about the idea that human evolution might have been greatly influenced by the ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms, or similar hallucinogenics. Edit: My apologies if this isn't technically a theory, I've just heard it referred to as such","c_root_id_A":"cfe9ote","c_root_id_B":"cfdvc89","created_at_utc_A":1392294242,"created_at_utc_B":1392248436,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"No, it is pseudoscience. Wishful thinking by the 'expanded conscious' people. While hallucinogenics have been used for a long time, this has nothing to do with human evolution.","human_ref_B":"Given what we can objectively say about our evolution (in regards to developing speech, language, etc.), it's probably just as good of a theory as any other - and it will forever be an interesting and humorous guess. It is well known that \"you are what you eat\" at least in some sense, so its certainly possible that ingesting certain foods will have an eventual effect on a population. I don't know enough about the topic to comment further.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":45806.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"4vzw1b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Is there any books regarding soccer seen through and anthropologist perspective? Hell any sports will do really.","c_root_id_A":"d62xvsg","c_root_id_B":"d630277","created_at_utc_A":1470254790,"created_at_utc_B":1470257461,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Could you be more specific?I have a few books that could possibly fall into that category. This for example? https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0099492261\/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Or this? https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Football-Against-Enemy-Simon-Kuper\/dp\/0752848771\/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CWMF0VCGJ7X1NRTJYPBZ I'd recommend both","human_ref_B":"How Soccer Explains the World may interest you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2671.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ec0pqw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Do any anthropologists study anthropologists?","c_root_id_A":"fb9087q","c_root_id_B":"fb8us0c","created_at_utc_A":1576626080,"created_at_utc_B":1576622362,"score_A":14,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I can speak first and foremost for archaeology, which has really seen a boom of reflective pieces, asking about the ethics and legality of the practice. A few authors come to mind: Alison Wylie comes to mind first. She's done some great work breaking down the science of archaeology, and describing the practice of its science: https:\/\/alisonwylie.net\/ Also, folks working in indigenous or community-based archaeology have done some great work in studying the interactions between anthropologists and native communities. Just a few that I can name off the top of my head include Kathleen Kawelu's *Kuleana and Commitment,* Charles Menzies's work using Anthropological and Historical methods to critique and reshape the modern practice of ethnography and cultural resource management (https:\/\/anth.ubc.ca\/faculty\/charles-menzies\/ ), and of course Linda Tuhiwai Smith's *Decolonizing Methodologies*, which uses anthropology and indigenous studies to fiercely critique academic (and especially anthropological) practices. The IPINCH project also brought together a bunch of academic archaeologists and anthropologists to address questions of how they conduct research, and for whom: https:\/\/www.sfu.ca\/ipinch\/# Hope that helps!","human_ref_B":"You might be interested in The Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel, in which the author, Israeli anthropologist Orit Abuhav, conducts observations of and interviews with Israeli anthropologists. Quoting the review: \"Orit Abuhav has authored a fascinating ethnography presenting an unusual fieldwork site and society of 'natives': the community of Israeli anthropologists\u2013her own compatriots, teachers, and colleagues. Her lucid narrative, based on extended interviews with a large cohort of veteran and younger Israeli anthropologists as well as an examination of their writings in Hebrew and English, reveals \u2026 their diverse social backgrounds,as well as the disparate motivations inducing them to choose ethnographic sites mostly within the borders of Israeli society.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3718.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fy8c5","c_root_id_B":"e2fvae2","created_at_utc_A":1531683393,"created_at_utc_B":1531680528,"score_A":52,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I'm the kind of guy who used to avoid most social gatherings thinking they were 'lame'. It was only through reading about anthropology that made me realise that we're basically a bunch of gibbering primates and that socializing benefits us as individuals, and a species. I still don't go out that much, but i at least see the point of it now.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure how your question of identity issues related to the violence and cooperative nature of apes and humans. At first glance it seems that you think that violence and cooperation are at odds with one another hence the identity issues. But I might be missing something. If this is the question, then just look at modern warfare. It is violent, extremely so, but requires cooperation from people on the same side. You create alliances and go to war with people on the other side. Why would it provide any conflict within a person's identity? Hope this helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2865.0,"score_ratio":1.7931034483} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fttiu","c_root_id_B":"e2fy8c5","created_at_utc_A":1531679096,"created_at_utc_B":1531683393,"score_A":4,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"Yes, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. What you are describing hit me while I was taking cell bio, comparing the Krebs cycle and Calvin cycle. >where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. You lost me here. Compare and contrast the \"culture\" of Bonabos and Chimpanzees. The differences that I feel are analogous to human are access to resources and a matriarchal vs patriarchal command structure. If you have time I found The Elephant in the Brain inlightening as to the motivations of human behavior.","human_ref_B":"I'm the kind of guy who used to avoid most social gatherings thinking they were 'lame'. It was only through reading about anthropology that made me realise that we're basically a bunch of gibbering primates and that socializing benefits us as individuals, and a species. I still don't go out that much, but i at least see the point of it now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4297.0,"score_ratio":13.0} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fy8c5","c_root_id_B":"e2fxugm","created_at_utc_A":1531683393,"created_at_utc_B":1531683018,"score_A":52,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm the kind of guy who used to avoid most social gatherings thinking they were 'lame'. It was only through reading about anthropology that made me realise that we're basically a bunch of gibbering primates and that socializing benefits us as individuals, and a species. I still don't go out that much, but i at least see the point of it now.","human_ref_B":"I highly recommend this. Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1250105307\/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_r.5sBbKWKGTS1 Wonderful book about evolution and the nature of coexistence. Written by the frontman of the greatest punk band ever, in my humble opinion, to boot!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":375.0,"score_ratio":26.0} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fttiu","c_root_id_B":"e2fvae2","created_at_utc_A":1531679096,"created_at_utc_B":1531680528,"score_A":4,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Yes, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. What you are describing hit me while I was taking cell bio, comparing the Krebs cycle and Calvin cycle. >where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. You lost me here. Compare and contrast the \"culture\" of Bonabos and Chimpanzees. The differences that I feel are analogous to human are access to resources and a matriarchal vs patriarchal command structure. If you have time I found The Elephant in the Brain inlightening as to the motivations of human behavior.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure how your question of identity issues related to the violence and cooperative nature of apes and humans. At first glance it seems that you think that violence and cooperation are at odds with one another hence the identity issues. But I might be missing something. If this is the question, then just look at modern warfare. It is violent, extremely so, but requires cooperation from people on the same side. You create alliances and go to war with people on the other side. Why would it provide any conflict within a person's identity? Hope this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1432.0,"score_ratio":7.25} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2gbrv0","c_root_id_B":"e2g1l1v","created_at_utc_A":1531697238,"created_at_utc_B":1531686708,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think I understand more or less what you mean. I'm not a paleontologist specifically, but I do study anthropology. It's not really some new revelation because it's common sense if you think about it, but I've become distinctly aware of that lack of separation between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. Yeah we're smart and social, and that's been really advantageous to us and kind of makes us different. But at the same time we're still very much just dumb animals following survival instinct and it's pretty scary. Studying the timeline of our species and our cultural histories really puts things in perspective and shows you just how fallible we are as a group and as individuals. I sometimes wonder if this development is just due to getting older and having to face my own maturity\/mortality, but I do think there's something about the field that teaches you how small and scary our world is in a much more personal fashion. If it helps, I try to combat the stress of it by embracing the existential crisis. If we're just apes bumbling around and surviving with each other, then we have to do it to the best of our ability. We're not that special, so we should help each other and be kind because there's no time or reason to do anything else. There's so much evidence of the ways that entire communities improve because of some small kindness or cooperation that has far-reaching effects. Be good - be the best social, smart, dumb, frustrated animal you can be, and define your humanity by the interactions we all share.","human_ref_B":"Man, that's a question for r\/philosophy, even with the imbedded physical anthropology. Still, I have a soft spot for the Judeo-Christian answer, even as a non-christian: that the human is where the rising ape meets the falling angle. The metaphor means that we posses both animalistic and idealistic natures simultaneously with all of the give and take that comes with such a position. It's a subjective position of course, for the simple reason that we can't quantify an ideal in any meaningful way. And really, crosspost this to r\/philosophy, they will love it over there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10530.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fttiu","c_root_id_B":"e2gbrv0","created_at_utc_A":1531679096,"created_at_utc_B":1531697238,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Yes, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. What you are describing hit me while I was taking cell bio, comparing the Krebs cycle and Calvin cycle. >where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. You lost me here. Compare and contrast the \"culture\" of Bonabos and Chimpanzees. The differences that I feel are analogous to human are access to resources and a matriarchal vs patriarchal command structure. If you have time I found The Elephant in the Brain inlightening as to the motivations of human behavior.","human_ref_B":"I think I understand more or less what you mean. I'm not a paleontologist specifically, but I do study anthropology. It's not really some new revelation because it's common sense if you think about it, but I've become distinctly aware of that lack of separation between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. Yeah we're smart and social, and that's been really advantageous to us and kind of makes us different. But at the same time we're still very much just dumb animals following survival instinct and it's pretty scary. Studying the timeline of our species and our cultural histories really puts things in perspective and shows you just how fallible we are as a group and as individuals. I sometimes wonder if this development is just due to getting older and having to face my own maturity\/mortality, but I do think there's something about the field that teaches you how small and scary our world is in a much more personal fashion. If it helps, I try to combat the stress of it by embracing the existential crisis. If we're just apes bumbling around and surviving with each other, then we have to do it to the best of our ability. We're not that special, so we should help each other and be kind because there's no time or reason to do anything else. There's so much evidence of the ways that entire communities improve because of some small kindness or cooperation that has far-reaching effects. Be good - be the best social, smart, dumb, frustrated animal you can be, and define your humanity by the interactions we all share.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18142.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2gbrv0","c_root_id_B":"e2fxugm","created_at_utc_A":1531697238,"created_at_utc_B":1531683018,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think I understand more or less what you mean. I'm not a paleontologist specifically, but I do study anthropology. It's not really some new revelation because it's common sense if you think about it, but I've become distinctly aware of that lack of separation between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. Yeah we're smart and social, and that's been really advantageous to us and kind of makes us different. But at the same time we're still very much just dumb animals following survival instinct and it's pretty scary. Studying the timeline of our species and our cultural histories really puts things in perspective and shows you just how fallible we are as a group and as individuals. I sometimes wonder if this development is just due to getting older and having to face my own maturity\/mortality, but I do think there's something about the field that teaches you how small and scary our world is in a much more personal fashion. If it helps, I try to combat the stress of it by embracing the existential crisis. If we're just apes bumbling around and surviving with each other, then we have to do it to the best of our ability. We're not that special, so we should help each other and be kind because there's no time or reason to do anything else. There's so much evidence of the ways that entire communities improve because of some small kindness or cooperation that has far-reaching effects. Be good - be the best social, smart, dumb, frustrated animal you can be, and define your humanity by the interactions we all share.","human_ref_B":"I highly recommend this. Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1250105307\/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_r.5sBbKWKGTS1 Wonderful book about evolution and the nature of coexistence. Written by the frontman of the greatest punk band ever, in my humble opinion, to boot!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14220.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2g1l1v","c_root_id_B":"e2fttiu","created_at_utc_A":1531686708,"created_at_utc_B":1531679096,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Man, that's a question for r\/philosophy, even with the imbedded physical anthropology. Still, I have a soft spot for the Judeo-Christian answer, even as a non-christian: that the human is where the rising ape meets the falling angle. The metaphor means that we posses both animalistic and idealistic natures simultaneously with all of the give and take that comes with such a position. It's a subjective position of course, for the simple reason that we can't quantify an ideal in any meaningful way. And really, crosspost this to r\/philosophy, they will love it over there.","human_ref_B":"Yes, we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men. What you are describing hit me while I was taking cell bio, comparing the Krebs cycle and Calvin cycle. >where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. You lost me here. Compare and contrast the \"culture\" of Bonabos and Chimpanzees. The differences that I feel are analogous to human are access to resources and a matriarchal vs patriarchal command structure. If you have time I found The Elephant in the Brain inlightening as to the motivations of human behavior.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7612.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2fxugm","c_root_id_B":"e2g1l1v","created_at_utc_A":1531683018,"created_at_utc_B":1531686708,"score_A":2,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I highly recommend this. Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1250105307\/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_r.5sBbKWKGTS1 Wonderful book about evolution and the nature of coexistence. Written by the frontman of the greatest punk band ever, in my humble opinion, to boot!","human_ref_B":"Man, that's a question for r\/philosophy, even with the imbedded physical anthropology. Still, I have a soft spot for the Judeo-Christian answer, even as a non-christian: that the human is where the rising ape meets the falling angle. The metaphor means that we posses both animalistic and idealistic natures simultaneously with all of the give and take that comes with such a position. It's a subjective position of course, for the simple reason that we can't quantify an ideal in any meaningful way. And really, crosspost this to r\/philosophy, they will love it over there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3690.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"8z37ck","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Do anthropologists have identity issues? Watching a documentary about bones connecting Australopithecus to Homo habilis gave me a few perspective points I never really had before: we're all animals like all the others, where descendants from distinctly violent apes, our survival is highly correlated with our distinct character of cooperation. So we are different but still the same in some way. We are violent but cooperative. I just imagined people going into paleontology thinking they will study some interesting scientific topics and then having a similar epiphany of I'm an animal, a descendant of violence, our survival depends on our cooperation. These issues are very new to me I don't have my curiosity finely-tuned yet but I welcome your thoughts along these lines. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"e2goduh","c_root_id_B":"e2fxugm","created_at_utc_A":1531711214,"created_at_utc_B":1531683018,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If you\u2019ve got time, I recommend reading \u201cWhat it Means to be 98% Chimpanzee\u201d by Jon Marks. It\u2019s a fun read but beneath the witty writing is a deep exploration of our place in the natural world. https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book\/9780520240643\/what-it-means-to-be-98-chimpanzee","human_ref_B":"I highly recommend this. Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1250105307\/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_r.5sBbKWKGTS1 Wonderful book about evolution and the nature of coexistence. Written by the frontman of the greatest punk band ever, in my humble opinion, to boot!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28196.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"obd8sx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Has any anthropologist studied, say, white collar culture? University culture? Sorry for the awkward phrasing, and sorry also if this question is rude. As a total outsider to anthropology, working off of stereotypes and popular knowledge, I get the impression that it's focused on studying *Other* cultures; that is, anthropologists are educated in universities primarily in rich, industrial, Western or westernized places, and they produce academic literature on cultures that are different and foreign to them. If they study people in their own country, it would be a poor or marginalized subculture, that *feels* foreign to the academic culture that trained them. (The sub reading list has one on inner city drug culture, for example.) This feels like it produces (or reproduces) an ongoing tradition of \"normal\" and \"Other\"; **and** those normative, dominant, mainstream cultures escape anthropological study. For example, an anthropologist wouldn't study white collar management culture, or university culture, the way they would study Appalachian folklore. Even though to me, as a broke urbanite, they're all equally foreign. This is something I found interesting in David Graeber's \"Bullshit Jobs\" - although I don't find a lot of value in his pop books - it seems like he was turning his anthropologically-trained eye on the traditions of bureaucracy, and I've never seen anything like that. So my question is, how wrong or right are those impressions? No longer accurate? Never accurate?","c_root_id_A":"h3nfmih","c_root_id_B":"h3o4z59","created_at_utc_A":1625116809,"created_at_utc_B":1625138054,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'd like echo Unusual\\_jelly & add that Keith Murphy's *Swedish Design: an Ethnography*, as well as Natasha Dow Schull's *Addiction by Design* may interest you.","human_ref_B":"You are right that anthropology still to a high degree fills the 'savage slot' and focuses on the subaltern to a much higher degree than the relatively privileged. The geographic shift towards studies of the 'self' or 'at home' came with the deconstruction of national borders as 'natural' limits to culture areas and new ideas of how to study nations, nationalisms and ethnicity. This trend also coincided with new interests in globalization and transnational phenomena that made bounded culture areas a less viable form of understanding social life. There are some sub-fields that are prone to researching the relatively privileged such as organizational anthropology, the anthropology of finance and so on. However, my (highly personal) experience is that studying 'up' is seen as of less scientific value than studying the subaltern. In my fieldsight, West Bank Palestine, this is extremely prominent in the almost complete domination of resistance litterature (see Ortner on Dark Anthropology and its others). My project about university life and middle-class youth culture in the west bank is often received with a slightly dissapointed sigh...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21245.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"obd8sx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Has any anthropologist studied, say, white collar culture? University culture? Sorry for the awkward phrasing, and sorry also if this question is rude. As a total outsider to anthropology, working off of stereotypes and popular knowledge, I get the impression that it's focused on studying *Other* cultures; that is, anthropologists are educated in universities primarily in rich, industrial, Western or westernized places, and they produce academic literature on cultures that are different and foreign to them. If they study people in their own country, it would be a poor or marginalized subculture, that *feels* foreign to the academic culture that trained them. (The sub reading list has one on inner city drug culture, for example.) This feels like it produces (or reproduces) an ongoing tradition of \"normal\" and \"Other\"; **and** those normative, dominant, mainstream cultures escape anthropological study. For example, an anthropologist wouldn't study white collar management culture, or university culture, the way they would study Appalachian folklore. Even though to me, as a broke urbanite, they're all equally foreign. This is something I found interesting in David Graeber's \"Bullshit Jobs\" - although I don't find a lot of value in his pop books - it seems like he was turning his anthropologically-trained eye on the traditions of bureaucracy, and I've never seen anything like that. So my question is, how wrong or right are those impressions? No longer accurate? Never accurate?","c_root_id_A":"h3ohc8o","c_root_id_B":"h3nfmih","created_at_utc_A":1625145624,"created_at_utc_B":1625116809,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Shamus Kahn\u2019s \u201cPrivilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School \u201c is an ethnography about an elite boarding school. It is excellent.","human_ref_B":"I'd like echo Unusual\\_jelly & add that Keith Murphy's *Swedish Design: an Ethnography*, as well as Natasha Dow Schull's *Addiction by Design* may interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28815.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"obd8sx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Has any anthropologist studied, say, white collar culture? University culture? Sorry for the awkward phrasing, and sorry also if this question is rude. As a total outsider to anthropology, working off of stereotypes and popular knowledge, I get the impression that it's focused on studying *Other* cultures; that is, anthropologists are educated in universities primarily in rich, industrial, Western or westernized places, and they produce academic literature on cultures that are different and foreign to them. If they study people in their own country, it would be a poor or marginalized subculture, that *feels* foreign to the academic culture that trained them. (The sub reading list has one on inner city drug culture, for example.) This feels like it produces (or reproduces) an ongoing tradition of \"normal\" and \"Other\"; **and** those normative, dominant, mainstream cultures escape anthropological study. For example, an anthropologist wouldn't study white collar management culture, or university culture, the way they would study Appalachian folklore. Even though to me, as a broke urbanite, they're all equally foreign. This is something I found interesting in David Graeber's \"Bullshit Jobs\" - although I don't find a lot of value in his pop books - it seems like he was turning his anthropologically-trained eye on the traditions of bureaucracy, and I've never seen anything like that. So my question is, how wrong or right are those impressions? No longer accurate? Never accurate?","c_root_id_A":"h3q8jiy","c_root_id_B":"h3qlix9","created_at_utc_A":1625173626,"created_at_utc_B":1625179611,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"We study other cultures and we study our own cultures. There are many Native anthropologists who have studied their own culture. There many anthropologists who've written on both their own cultures and other cultures. I've done both. ANd yes, we sometimes \"study up\" as Laura Nader termed it: https:\/\/files.eric.ed.gov\/fulltext\/ED065375.pdf In fact, I've done quite a bit of consulting in my own culture and a lot of it was \"studying up\" (studying leaders of organizations or...politicians). No one in my cohort at grad school went and studied a \"foreign\" culture. We all studied parts of our own culture, although those cultures included Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, Greece and...various subcultures in the USA. Naturally, the Taiwanese study was done by my Taiwanese colleague, but she has also written on the United States. I don't know anyone who regards the USA or any of its subcultures as a reference point for \"normal.\" Was the domestic violence mentioned by some of the subjects in my own fieldwork \"normal\"? TONS of people have studied University culture. I did. One of my closest colleagues did (and still does). I have studied several \"white collar\" cultures (my favorite was the upper management in a big law enforcement agency, but I've also studied law firms, medical firms, regular hospitals and their organizations, mental hospitals and military bases and their management - invited in to those situations and did ethnographic work). I've been doing this for...a long time. My best friend studied white collar culture for most of her career, focusing on sex, sexuality and gender. She's published almost 50 articles and hosted many international conferences on the topic Only one person at my grad school studied anything \"folkish\" (Eastern European folk dancing). He was a few years ahead of me. He was living with distant relatives in EE when he did this research, so in some sense, it was partly \"his culture\" (he certainly saw it that way). Reading Nader's work was considered essential when I was in grad school. Since then, almost every anthropologist I've known has done some of that. And we've trained others (journalists, documentarians, managers) to use some of the same techniques we use. I am personally still very interested in the methodologies we use to study up. Studying a group of psychiatrists as they went through residency and into their first years of practice was probably my favorite.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s not rude at all! Modern anthropologists recognize that there is culture everywhere you look. For the American white collar world specifically I recommend a book by an old professor of mine, \u201cLiquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street\u201d by Karen Ho.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5985.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ytkrgb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Where can I learn about gift economies and command economies? I was referred to this subreddit from r\/askeconomics. I was wondering where I could learn about some in depth theory on different kinds of economies","c_root_id_A":"iw8msws","c_root_id_B":"iw626c4","created_at_utc_A":1668370270,"created_at_utc_B":1668318976,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The fact that economists have no idea how non-capitalist economies work says SO MUCH about the field of economics. There is anthropology on these topics, but it is not really my area. If you don't get other responses, try posting on r\/askhistorians because many of those folks study societies and time periods where non-capitalist economies dominated.","human_ref_B":"I don't really know about command economies, but for gift economies, Marcel Mauss' The Gift is definitely the one to go since he is the first that sort of theorize about gift economiy","labels":1,"seconds_difference":51294.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"307mdc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any cultures that did not\/ do not have a 'story of creation', or 'afterlife'?","c_root_id_A":"cpq3f77","c_root_id_B":"cpq34qf","created_at_utc_A":1427281105,"created_at_utc_B":1427279774,"score_A":20,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"For 'afterlives', I think I do know of one- the Sadducees. They're no longer around as far as I know, but according to Josephus (*Judean War*), they disavowed the idea of an immortal soul or any kind of reward or punishment beyond death. Many kinds of Judaism have different approaches to death, I'm sure you can find a lot of interesting ideas there. I don't know how factually to take Everett's account of the Piraha people of Brazil, but that seems another good avenue to look at. In addition, this book, p695 states that the Hadza have no concept of an afterlife (I looked them up because I knew about their burial practices, or rather lack of).","human_ref_B":"I think you'll need define these terms a little more precisely--what do you mean by afterlife, in particular? Also, for \"story of creation,\" it's generally the case in Indigenous American societies that \"creation\" is not \"out of nothing\" (like the Abrahamic creation) but rather out of an eternal, uncreated power that animates everything. Creation was a matter of transformation, not \"creation\" in the sense most Westerners think.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1331.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"1r65rq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are there any cultures that did not mourn the death of loved ones? Are\/were there any known cultures that for whatever reason, do not experience grief after the death of a loved one?","c_root_id_A":"cdjzlh3","c_root_id_B":"cdkbbmh","created_at_utc_A":1385072810,"created_at_utc_B":1385102702,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You might consult Death Without Weeping by Nancy Scheper-Hughes.","human_ref_B":"We (Romanians) are taught in schools that our ancestors the Daco-Thracians used to celebrate funerals and cry when people were born. A bit of googling yielded this paper. From the paper: > Herodotus also mentioned their habit of crying when a baby was born, coming into this world full of sorrow and laughing when one of them was dead... The original source is Herodotus' fourth book of histories. Somewhat related: Merry Cemetery.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29892.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"zf6ihy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"How conformist are hunter-gatherer societies? From this psychology today article; \"As I noted in an earlier essay, hunter-gatherers everywhere maintain an extraordinary ethic of personal autonomy, to a degree that may seem radically extreme by our standards. They deliberately avoid telling each other how to behave, in work as in any other context. Each person is his or her own boss.\" Yet this essay characterizes hunter-gatherer's culture of sharing as being motivated by shame and envy and a high pressure to conform. Which one is more accurate? Obviously, different hunter-gatherer societies are different, but I think there are generalizations to be made, just as we have generalizations about premodern agricultural societies and modern capitalism.","c_root_id_A":"izb4atf","c_root_id_B":"izabksl","created_at_utc_A":1670444925,"created_at_utc_B":1670433683,"score_A":24,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I think the problem is in the early days of social science we had this model of social change that assumed \"primitive\" humans started off as ignorant conformists ruled by tradition and superstition, but that the enlightenment and modern civilization gave us rational individualism for the first time ever. So the question of differences and similarities between hunter-gatherers and modern people has always been warped by this other set of arguments we are trying to have about whether the past is superior to the present or the present is superior to the past. We assume these major and binary differences must exist and we make arguments based on those ideas -- if we are rich they must have been poor. If we have time for pleasure and relaxation, they must have been overworked and barely surviving. If we are individualistic, they must be conformists. And then someone comes along and makes the opposite argument in order to dislodge the old one. And then we debate one vs the other until we are all exhausted and we finally admit that the answer is less binary and more complicated than previous debates allowed for. Just like industrialized societies can be more individualistic or more collective, so could hunter-gatherers. Some societies have strong social norms and allow little deviation, others have loose norms and allow more deviation. We also have to be careful to distinguish collectivism from conformity. In a society that values individualism, the person with a strong sense of individuality is a conformist.","human_ref_B":"One is an article published in a popular magazine and written by a non-anthropologist. The other was published in a peer-reviewed anthropological journal and written by a professional anthropologist. The second is more accurate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11242.0,"score_ratio":1.0434782609} {"post_id":"zf6ihy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"How conformist are hunter-gatherer societies? From this psychology today article; \"As I noted in an earlier essay, hunter-gatherers everywhere maintain an extraordinary ethic of personal autonomy, to a degree that may seem radically extreme by our standards. They deliberately avoid telling each other how to behave, in work as in any other context. Each person is his or her own boss.\" Yet this essay characterizes hunter-gatherer's culture of sharing as being motivated by shame and envy and a high pressure to conform. Which one is more accurate? Obviously, different hunter-gatherer societies are different, but I think there are generalizations to be made, just as we have generalizations about premodern agricultural societies and modern capitalism.","c_root_id_A":"izali6q","c_root_id_B":"izb4atf","created_at_utc_A":1670437544,"created_at_utc_B":1670444925,"score_A":10,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I find myself struggling to ascertain what you mean by \"conformist\" and how that would inform the lens through which a separate society is viewed. Hunter gatherers would be neither 0 or 100% on that scale, because it exists in our modern understanding. We can't quantify it, but it's likely both sometimes. If that helps. All societies require the use of shared social contracts to establish norms and tradition. These contracts might have practical, ecological, biological, or social advantages. We can talk about it, but there's no way to provide a \"scientific\"\/ quantifiable answer.","human_ref_B":"I think the problem is in the early days of social science we had this model of social change that assumed \"primitive\" humans started off as ignorant conformists ruled by tradition and superstition, but that the enlightenment and modern civilization gave us rational individualism for the first time ever. So the question of differences and similarities between hunter-gatherers and modern people has always been warped by this other set of arguments we are trying to have about whether the past is superior to the present or the present is superior to the past. We assume these major and binary differences must exist and we make arguments based on those ideas -- if we are rich they must have been poor. If we have time for pleasure and relaxation, they must have been overworked and barely surviving. If we are individualistic, they must be conformists. And then someone comes along and makes the opposite argument in order to dislodge the old one. And then we debate one vs the other until we are all exhausted and we finally admit that the answer is less binary and more complicated than previous debates allowed for. Just like industrialized societies can be more individualistic or more collective, so could hunter-gatherers. Some societies have strong social norms and allow little deviation, others have loose norms and allow more deviation. We also have to be careful to distinguish collectivism from conformity. In a society that values individualism, the person with a strong sense of individuality is a conformist.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7381.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"cj49fy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"This may be controversial but is there any research on societies that have more arranged marriages producing less fit offspring by hijacking the sexual selection process?","c_root_id_A":"evbaux9","c_root_id_B":"evb1iv3","created_at_utc_A":1564371077,"created_at_utc_B":1564363228,"score_A":14,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The question would then be, \"Less fit in what way?\" and it probably wouldn't have any clear answer. If you did manage to narrow down your meaning, I'm still not sure there would be any good datasets to answer your question.","human_ref_B":"I'm not offend, just curious as to how one would define \"fit\" objectively in this context...?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7849.0,"score_ratio":1.0769230769} {"post_id":"pgikr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are the best beginner books? I'm looking for some books to get started in the anthropology field.","c_root_id_A":"hbdy18k","c_root_id_B":"hbdx2bq","created_at_utc_A":1630629744,"created_at_utc_B":1630629292,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What subject in anthropology? That covers a huge field including cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology and linguistic anthropology. If you're looking for intro books check out the intro syllabi for various schools and rent their textbook to read.","human_ref_B":"I'd say a good book would be *Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists.* It provides a history of Anthropology through it's most influential thinkers, with short biographies and overviews of their theories about culture. It's really hard to find books that provide an overview of anthropology, because it consists of subfields. So beyond *Visions of Culture (*honestly even *Anthropology for Dummies* ain't a bad start) your best bet is going to be introductory textbooks or textbooks focused on one of the fields of anthropology: archaeology, linguistics, cultural, biological, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":452.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"pgikr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are the best beginner books? I'm looking for some books to get started in the anthropology field.","c_root_id_A":"hbdx2bq","c_root_id_B":"hbdwvze","created_at_utc_A":1630629292,"created_at_utc_B":1630629209,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'd say a good book would be *Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists.* It provides a history of Anthropology through it's most influential thinkers, with short biographies and overviews of their theories about culture. It's really hard to find books that provide an overview of anthropology, because it consists of subfields. So beyond *Visions of Culture (*honestly even *Anthropology for Dummies* ain't a bad start) your best bet is going to be introductory textbooks or textbooks focused on one of the fields of anthropology: archaeology, linguistics, cultural, biological, etc.","human_ref_B":"my suggestion is to find a theory book. Alan Barnard has an intro book and the chapters are not long but give a solid 101 on the history\/trends of thought. Moreover if you get an understanding of that it will make ethnography's and other work make a lot of sense especially when reading classic works but also can help question certain assumptions in with contemporary work I still think of how lucky I was to have had a good theory prof during undergrad. It does not have to be super in depth but understanding the historical shifts in the field make life very easy in the field imo","labels":1,"seconds_difference":83.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"pgikr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What are the best beginner books? I'm looking for some books to get started in the anthropology field.","c_root_id_A":"hbdwvze","c_root_id_B":"hbdy18k","created_at_utc_A":1630629209,"created_at_utc_B":1630629744,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"my suggestion is to find a theory book. Alan Barnard has an intro book and the chapters are not long but give a solid 101 on the history\/trends of thought. Moreover if you get an understanding of that it will make ethnography's and other work make a lot of sense especially when reading classic works but also can help question certain assumptions in with contemporary work I still think of how lucky I was to have had a good theory prof during undergrad. It does not have to be super in depth but understanding the historical shifts in the field make life very easy in the field imo","human_ref_B":"What subject in anthropology? That covers a huge field including cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology and linguistic anthropology. If you're looking for intro books check out the intro syllabi for various schools and rent their textbook to read.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":535.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"pb321a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What are your favorite anthropology books you've ever read?","c_root_id_A":"ha980vy","c_root_id_B":"ha95lmq","created_at_utc_A":1629866707,"created_at_utc_B":1629865242,"score_A":20,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Sidney Mintz \u201cSweetness and Power\u201d. Great examination of power\/culture\/economics through the lens of \u201csugar\u201d and how it influenced early industrial society and became a driving force for the transatlantic slave trade\/colonization of the West Indies","human_ref_B":"Any of the books by David Graeber. (rip) looking forward to the posthumous collaboration he was working on when it comes out Matthew Desmond's Evicted The Land of Open Graves by Jason de Le\u00f3n If you do happen to read any of these I'd love to hear what you think!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1465.0,"score_ratio":1.5384615385} {"post_id":"ghck51","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"what are some major theories on the origin and history of language made by academics im new to this sub and i love it i cant stop asking questions","c_root_id_A":"fq9460m","c_root_id_B":"fq9a10s","created_at_utc_A":1589184912,"created_at_utc_B":1589191023,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Adding to u\/SecondChanceUsername's comment: There is actually a lot of work in a wide range of subfields happening now to try to address this, from looking at development of the white matter in brains of human and closely related non-human primates to determine when this likely occurred, to looking at fossil evidence of neanderthal skulls to work out if they would have had the right machinery to produce human speech. A lot of different approaches are being taken, and a lot of different ideas are being investigated. It's worth noting though that how we define \"the start of language\" is pretty variable, and that's why you're going to see so many different estimates of when it happened. Are we defining it as the development of anatomical features? Brain development? Cultural artefacts indicating complex communication? It's a huge range of possible 'features' so it's not surprising that there's such a range of estimates. But yeah, if you have a look at some of the recent articles posted on r\/linguistics you'll see a few recent \"discoveries\" shared relating to this, and surely in the coming years we will see a dozen more, and these are likely to be sensationalised along the lines of \"Origin of language discovered!\", but it's all just small points on a complex web of possible developments.","human_ref_B":"Terrence deacon is a great look into this His book the symbolic species the co-evolution of language and the brain are great insights into how we develop language and why it came into be. This is a neurology\/cog Sci\/anthropology textbook. It was used as the class text book when I took some of his courses at UC Berkeley. The book is neurology heavy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6111.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"6bjqsb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"The Anarchist Contention That Quality of Life Was Better In Hunter-Gatherer Times. Where does this come from? Is it correct? I am sure that this point has been made by more than Anarchists, but they are the only ones I've heard make the claim. That overall, human life was better in hunter-gatherer times. People had more to eat, were less likely to suffer from mental illness, they had more free time, and there was less prejudice and discrimination. I am definitely getting the quote wrong but they stated 'all of man's ills grew from the time when one individual said \"that's mine\"' - and they seemed to reference the invention of agriculture as the beginning of this process. This seemed completely contradictory to common sense, but I found it hard to explain beyond the absence of infant mortality. Anything I claimed like cars and hummus they claimed were only of use to further a consumerist society - ie we don't need cars if we don't have an office job to drive to. This seems counter-intuitive to me, but it has left me with a bit of a headache, so I decided to ask here. I do not have a background in anthropology so please go easy on me if I have made some unforgiveable error in my question. Surely","c_root_id_A":"dhnliy1","c_root_id_B":"dhn9i30","created_at_utc_A":1494983117,"created_at_utc_B":1494968302,"score_A":15,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"One influence on this train of thought (though I don't know if anarchists specifically cite it) is Colin Turnbull's extremely controversial book *The Mountain People*. It depicts the people he studied as hunter-gatherers forced by modern politics to become farmers. This (and famine) supposedly transformed them into extreme individualists who did not care when children and relatives died next to them. Later investigation by others poked many holes in this whole analysis and even the basic facts involved, but you can see why someone dissatisfied with modern capitalist society might find the story appealing. The image of hunter-gatherer life as leisurely and abundant with food seems like wishful thinking. There's nothing stopping hunter gatherers from experiencing politics, wars, trade, food shortages, and so on. Your anarchist contacts might be imagining a very small group of people isolated from other societies, but some hunter gatherer societies (e.g. many in northern California) can be quite large and in contact with many other peoples. But instead of debating the immensely complicated pros and cons list of the history of human civilizations, you could try to outdo them by harkening back to even earlier days: \"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans.\" (Douglas Adams)","human_ref_B":"First, not all anarchists say this. It's not part of the core ideology, just something some leftists will say. That said, anti-work sentiment has been a key feature in a lot of anarchism since at least the 70's. Second, it gained some popularity recently probably from this article, or one like it: https:\/\/libcom.org\/library\/why-hunter-gatherers-work-play-peter-gray","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14815.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6bjqsb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"The Anarchist Contention That Quality of Life Was Better In Hunter-Gatherer Times. Where does this come from? Is it correct? I am sure that this point has been made by more than Anarchists, but they are the only ones I've heard make the claim. That overall, human life was better in hunter-gatherer times. People had more to eat, were less likely to suffer from mental illness, they had more free time, and there was less prejudice and discrimination. I am definitely getting the quote wrong but they stated 'all of man's ills grew from the time when one individual said \"that's mine\"' - and they seemed to reference the invention of agriculture as the beginning of this process. This seemed completely contradictory to common sense, but I found it hard to explain beyond the absence of infant mortality. Anything I claimed like cars and hummus they claimed were only of use to further a consumerist society - ie we don't need cars if we don't have an office job to drive to. This seems counter-intuitive to me, but it has left me with a bit of a headache, so I decided to ask here. I do not have a background in anthropology so please go easy on me if I have made some unforgiveable error in my question. Surely","c_root_id_A":"dhnliy1","c_root_id_B":"dhn7a3w","created_at_utc_A":1494983117,"created_at_utc_B":1494965865,"score_A":15,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"One influence on this train of thought (though I don't know if anarchists specifically cite it) is Colin Turnbull's extremely controversial book *The Mountain People*. It depicts the people he studied as hunter-gatherers forced by modern politics to become farmers. This (and famine) supposedly transformed them into extreme individualists who did not care when children and relatives died next to them. Later investigation by others poked many holes in this whole analysis and even the basic facts involved, but you can see why someone dissatisfied with modern capitalist society might find the story appealing. The image of hunter-gatherer life as leisurely and abundant with food seems like wishful thinking. There's nothing stopping hunter gatherers from experiencing politics, wars, trade, food shortages, and so on. Your anarchist contacts might be imagining a very small group of people isolated from other societies, but some hunter gatherer societies (e.g. many in northern California) can be quite large and in contact with many other peoples. But instead of debating the immensely complicated pros and cons list of the history of human civilizations, you could try to outdo them by harkening back to even earlier days: \"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans.\" (Douglas Adams)","human_ref_B":"Don't know about anarchists in particular, but there's Sahlins' The Original Affluent Society (going off of Galbraith's The Affluent Society ) that argues that hunter-gathers had it pretty good. There's some reason to argue it, like looking at health of early farmers vs. foragers but I think you get lost in the weeds over \"quality of life\" pretty quickly, like you need to get particular over what the benefits and negatives are, making pat observations difficult.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17252.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"6bjqsb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"The Anarchist Contention That Quality of Life Was Better In Hunter-Gatherer Times. Where does this come from? Is it correct? I am sure that this point has been made by more than Anarchists, but they are the only ones I've heard make the claim. That overall, human life was better in hunter-gatherer times. People had more to eat, were less likely to suffer from mental illness, they had more free time, and there was less prejudice and discrimination. I am definitely getting the quote wrong but they stated 'all of man's ills grew from the time when one individual said \"that's mine\"' - and they seemed to reference the invention of agriculture as the beginning of this process. This seemed completely contradictory to common sense, but I found it hard to explain beyond the absence of infant mortality. Anything I claimed like cars and hummus they claimed were only of use to further a consumerist society - ie we don't need cars if we don't have an office job to drive to. This seems counter-intuitive to me, but it has left me with a bit of a headache, so I decided to ask here. I do not have a background in anthropology so please go easy on me if I have made some unforgiveable error in my question. Surely","c_root_id_A":"dhn7a3w","c_root_id_B":"dhn9i30","created_at_utc_A":1494965865,"created_at_utc_B":1494968302,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Don't know about anarchists in particular, but there's Sahlins' The Original Affluent Society (going off of Galbraith's The Affluent Society ) that argues that hunter-gathers had it pretty good. There's some reason to argue it, like looking at health of early farmers vs. foragers but I think you get lost in the weeds over \"quality of life\" pretty quickly, like you need to get particular over what the benefits and negatives are, making pat observations difficult.","human_ref_B":"First, not all anarchists say this. It's not part of the core ideology, just something some leftists will say. That said, anti-work sentiment has been a key feature in a lot of anarchism since at least the 70's. Second, it gained some popularity recently probably from this article, or one like it: https:\/\/libcom.org\/library\/why-hunter-gatherers-work-play-peter-gray","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2437.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"6bjqsb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"The Anarchist Contention That Quality of Life Was Better In Hunter-Gatherer Times. Where does this come from? Is it correct? I am sure that this point has been made by more than Anarchists, but they are the only ones I've heard make the claim. That overall, human life was better in hunter-gatherer times. People had more to eat, were less likely to suffer from mental illness, they had more free time, and there was less prejudice and discrimination. I am definitely getting the quote wrong but they stated 'all of man's ills grew from the time when one individual said \"that's mine\"' - and they seemed to reference the invention of agriculture as the beginning of this process. This seemed completely contradictory to common sense, but I found it hard to explain beyond the absence of infant mortality. Anything I claimed like cars and hummus they claimed were only of use to further a consumerist society - ie we don't need cars if we don't have an office job to drive to. This seems counter-intuitive to me, but it has left me with a bit of a headache, so I decided to ask here. I do not have a background in anthropology so please go easy on me if I have made some unforgiveable error in my question. Surely","c_root_id_A":"dhpat44","c_root_id_B":"dhnqbvk","created_at_utc_A":1495070639,"created_at_utc_B":1494988871,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Essentially, it comes from early modern political philosophy, specifically the concept of a \"state of nature.\" I'm going to fly through hundreds of years of thought, so some straw-manning and oversimplification is inevitable. But the two traditions generally associated with this are the Hobbesian and Rousseau-ian traditions. In the Hobbesian state of nature, individuals engage in a \"War of all against all\" in which life is \"poor, nasty, brutish and short.\" Rousseau's version also begins with isolated individuals who initially avoid each other, though what most people are referring to when they talk about Rousseau is his idea of egalitarian social groupings that pre-existed civil society (IIRC, this is actually the second or third step in his sequence). These two opposing views on the state of nature shaped thought about prehistory within anthropology and in general, even today. For more details on that, some good sources are: The SEP pages on Hobbes and Rousseau: https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/rousseau\/ https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/hobbes-moral\/ And Chapter 7 of Ideologies in Archaeology by Bernbeck and McGuire, which reviews the way their ideas influenced hunter-gatherer studies. So once you move into 19th and 20th century anthropology, there is still the concept of the \"state of nature,\" and where the anarcho-primitivist ideology descends from is Marxism. (They'll deny this, but they're wrong.) Marx and Engels were more anthropologically astute than Hobbes or Rousseau as they borrowed heavily from Lewis Henry Morgan's work, some of the earliest professional anthropological works. Marx and Engels were closer to the truth in that they understood that humans never existed as isolated individuals. However, their concept of \"primitive communism\" falls into the state of nature trap as well by positing this primitive communism as the first stage in the evolutionary schema. The idea that the development of hierarchy and inequality requires agriculture comes from the Marxist argument that inequality requires an economic surplus, and only agricultural societies could develop sufficient surpluses. While the Hobbesian view continued to be popular, the mid-20th c. saw a shift in theoretical orientation with the development of cultural ecology and cultural materialism. These schools included figures such as Julian Steward, Leslie White, Marshall Sahlins, and Marvin Harris, some of whom were openly Marxist but all were at least influenced by Marxist concepts such as historical materialism. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Sahlins' The Original Affluent Society, and the Man the Hunter symposium] (http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/164\/3883\/1045.1) more generally. While Sahlins' work helped debunk the Hobbesian conception, his work also recapitulated a state of nature by reifying hunter-gatherers as a sort of idealized type. The thinking has now moved on to focusing on variation among hunter-gatherers and has scrapped the state of nature idea entirely. One of the issues identified earlier by [Bird-David with Sahlins' original formulation is whether wage labor is actually comparable to the work of hunter-gatherers. Regardless of this, his data was also limited at the time. When you look at the data across all HG societies, it does average less than our eight-hour work-day (~5 hrs.), but ranges from ~2-3 hrs.\/day on the low end and 8-9 on the high end. HG societies can vary widely not only on this scale but also a number of other measures. For instance, there are societies that rely almost entirely on hunting and others on gathering for subsistence as well as many with balances in-between. These differences depend on local ecology and accidents of history and culture. (This is recorded in Kelly's The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers, which has a wealth of data in it.) There is also variability in social organization and political economy. One of the basic divisions made is between simple or mobile HGs and complex or sedentary HGs (or \"trans-egalitarian\" in Hayden's terminology). The latter are more hierarchical in nature, and this is where the problem with Marxist interpretations of agriculture comes in. Conventionally, the rise of complex\/semi-sedentary HG societies is seen as occurring in the Upper Paleolithic, thousands of years prior to agriculture, based on things such as differential grave goods in ceremonial burials. Also especially interesting in certain parts of North America, particularly the Northeastern US, is the development of pottery prior to agriculture. Increases in the frequency of storage pits and pottery indicate a need to store larger surpluses. Even this, however, has been questioned by Wengrow and Graeber, who contend that using the simple\/complex dichotomy oversimplifies things. The key to this argument is seasonality -- the fact that HGs often move or shift social arrangements based on season. Often, this is seen as just a function of subsistence practices. However, Wengrow and Graeber argue that it can also involve ritual and shifting between different types of political organization. So HGs do not necessarily belong to a static political type. This also comports with Boehm's concept of \"social leveling mechanisms,\" in which egalitarian and hierarchical impulses struggle against each other. Those who attempt to capture too much power can be stopped through a variety of social leveling mechanisms, from simply picking up and moving to outright assassination. Whatever you do with this information is up to you -- the methodology of cultural relativism doesn't give you any criteria by which to make value judgments about societies. If you want to inject political philosophy into it, though, the subject of the OP is a claim mostly made by anarcho-primitivists. Primitivists still operate on the primitive communism model and their work is not taken seriously by any anthropologists I know of. Generally, the argument made by anarchists, particularly anarchist anthropologists, is that HG societies provide examples of stateless societies with some form of democratic organization. The best overview is Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, and there are other works on this topic by Brian Morris, James C. Scott, and Pierre Clastres.","human_ref_B":">People had more to eat We're dying of obesity today. >there was less prejudice and discrimination. Tribes were, of course, homogenous. You can't discriminate against who's not there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":81768.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"4yoooz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What are some some articles\/books that could be defined as foundings of Anthropology, especially some that build\/develop some classic concepts ? Hello, I'll explain the situation briefly. I come from a \"hard sciences\" cursus (classes pr\u00e9pa of Physics\/Chemistry in France) and have then done a \"BS\" in Math, but for several reasons ended up doing a bachelor in Anthropology. However I started straight in third year, where we started to learn more about our professors' subjects than about the bases, which were covered during the 2 first years which I did not attend. Still, I passed without too much trouble, and I don't feel like I'll need such readings I ask for in the title for the sake of getting my Master degree since it's mainly a Cognitive Anthropology Master degree, however, I feel like I should at least read some founding texts that I hear regularly in the discussions between other students\/professors, that I have a very vague clue of. Mostly because I feel like if I am to become an Anthropologist and do not know anything about those (in France, ethnology being pretty nation-centered, they are namely some Mauss, Levi-Strauss, Godelier...), it might be a problem if I have not acquired some concepts that people consider every Anthropologists have. I don't know if you get it, but I'm pretty sure I would sort of feel like a \"lesser Anthropologist\". All the more, I believe that it will still help me in my works at some point, and have a broader look at what Anthropology was, and is. Also, reading some fouding Anthropoly works from other countries might be a plus. So, 1) as non-French(or even French), which French Anthropologist works do you believe are really part of the \"core\" of Anthropology (even those that might be slightly \"outdated) 2) Same with non-French Anthropologist works Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"d6pqnea","c_root_id_B":"d6qmhx7","created_at_utc_A":1471723398,"created_at_utc_B":1471791459,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In a lot of British social anthropology, the foundational trinity is Durkheim, Marx, and Weber. You are perhaps fortunate to be able to read Durkheim well in its original language, and *Formes \u00c9l\u00e9mentaires* is really one of the foundational texts. *Suicide* is also up there, but not as much. As for Weber, he wrote very prolifically but the writings most referenced in anthropology are *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism*, followed by *Sociology of Religion* and various collected lectures - e.g. I've been assigned *Politics as a Vocation* and *Science as a Vocation*. As for Marx, *Communist Manifesto* is required reading in plenty of anthropology theory courses, and for one of mine, so was *The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*. If you want to read more of L\u00e9vi-Strauss' work, Clifford Geertz once wrote that *Tristes Tropiques* is not the best anthropology book ever written, but certainly the best book ever written by an anthropologist. *Structural Anthropology* (both volumes) is also well-read, if outdated of course. A good historical overview of this sort of \"foundational\" period, though obviously it does focus very much on British social anthropology, is *Anthropology and Anthropologists* by Adam Kuper. Other French writers: Michel Foucault was *enormously* influential in anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History. The books itself is foundational because it argues that Europe is not the driver of world history as previously thought, and that non-Europeans were important players in the development of the modern world. It signaled a 'course correction' for anthropology and has contributed positively to political-economic anthropology ever since. In addition to this broad argument, Wolf writes intelligently about the three modes of production: kin-ordered, tributary and capitalist. If you're interested in learning more about anthropology, do yourself a favour and read this section. In the Introduction he also talks about the 'rise of the social sciences,' which describes how the formation of the social sciences is intimately intertwined with the rise of capitalism. An important read, especially for those who believe that the boundaries between disciplines are 'natural' rather than socially constructed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":68061.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4hvco7","c_root_id_B":"i4i8zvf","created_at_utc_A":1649806406,"created_at_utc_B":1649812285,"score_A":43,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"\u201cOh man I love dinosaurs!\u201d or \u201cWhat job can you get with that?\u201d (The implication being because when you go to job search sites and punch in anthropologist or anthropology you don\u2019t get any hits outside of academia\u2026 even though if you consider the degree as more of a methodological thing it\u2019s a much different outlook)","human_ref_B":"\"What do you think you're going to do with that?\" To be clear - I pretty much always had a job in my field. Maybe not always the best jobs, certainly not the highest paying, but I like my life. Highly recommend archaeology as a career path!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5879.0,"score_ratio":1.1395348837} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4i7yhh","c_root_id_B":"i4i8zvf","created_at_utc_A":1649811844,"created_at_utc_B":1649812285,"score_A":32,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"\u201cWhat the hell is anthropology?\u201d","human_ref_B":"\"What do you think you're going to do with that?\" To be clear - I pretty much always had a job in my field. Maybe not always the best jobs, certainly not the highest paying, but I like my life. Highly recommend archaeology as a career path!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":441.0,"score_ratio":1.53125} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4ja3s4","c_root_id_B":"i4i7yhh","created_at_utc_A":1649831934,"created_at_utc_B":1649811844,"score_A":38,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"I often don't mind the questions asking if I enjoy digging up dinosaur bones. We as anthropologists do not make the work we do easily assessible to the public, nor do we do well showing the benefits of the discipline. I did not really know what anthropology was till I returned to a university after taking a few years off and working - and that was only because of the show Bones and I took an introduction to archaeology class that finally detailed what it was. The HBCU I attended after community college didn't even have an anthropology department (not many do). My home community was even a part of an anthropological study when I was a kid and I had no idea what is was. I believe instead of saying things such as \"I'm shocked at how uneducated people are\" - We as anthropologists should be asking ourselves why we aren't able to show the importance of our field the the public, especially to marginalized communities that suffer from poorer educational systems that we always pat ourselves on the back for being stewards and advocates of.","human_ref_B":"\u201cWhat the hell is anthropology?\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20090.0,"score_ratio":1.1875} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6a8k","c_root_id_B":"i4ja3s4","created_at_utc_A":1649829108,"created_at_utc_B":1649831934,"score_A":9,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Usually \u201coh\u201d coupled with a vacant look in the persons eyes because they don\u2019t know what it means, or something that seems like they\u2019re looking down on me for getting a \u201cuseless degree\u201d, but recently I told someone and they responded \u201coh cool my friends an anthropologist, she works in x museum\u201d","human_ref_B":"I often don't mind the questions asking if I enjoy digging up dinosaur bones. We as anthropologists do not make the work we do easily assessible to the public, nor do we do well showing the benefits of the discipline. I did not really know what anthropology was till I returned to a university after taking a few years off and working - and that was only because of the show Bones and I took an introduction to archaeology class that finally detailed what it was. The HBCU I attended after community college didn't even have an anthropology department (not many do). My home community was even a part of an anthropological study when I was a kid and I had no idea what is was. I believe instead of saying things such as \"I'm shocked at how uneducated people are\" - We as anthropologists should be asking ourselves why we aren't able to show the importance of our field the the public, especially to marginalized communities that suffer from poorer educational systems that we always pat ourselves on the back for being stewards and advocates of.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2826.0,"score_ratio":4.2222222222} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4ja3s4","c_root_id_B":"i4j6apo","created_at_utc_A":1649831934,"created_at_utc_B":1649829117,"score_A":38,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I often don't mind the questions asking if I enjoy digging up dinosaur bones. We as anthropologists do not make the work we do easily assessible to the public, nor do we do well showing the benefits of the discipline. I did not really know what anthropology was till I returned to a university after taking a few years off and working - and that was only because of the show Bones and I took an introduction to archaeology class that finally detailed what it was. The HBCU I attended after community college didn't even have an anthropology department (not many do). My home community was even a part of an anthropological study when I was a kid and I had no idea what is was. I believe instead of saying things such as \"I'm shocked at how uneducated people are\" - We as anthropologists should be asking ourselves why we aren't able to show the importance of our field the the public, especially to marginalized communities that suffer from poorer educational systems that we always pat ourselves on the back for being stewards and advocates of.","human_ref_B":"Paleontologists also get the \"You Love Dinosaurs\" thing, and generally get pretty confused when you explain that you don't work on Dinosaurs or in sediments young enough to have Dinosaurs. Lay people sort of view Time in 3 distinct periods, Now, History (Stuff we have writing for), and Dinosaurs (Possibly with Cavemen). It's interesting to say the least. But hey at least I do like Dinosaurs and can entertain their questions, imagine it's much worse if you don't.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2817.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4ja3s4","c_root_id_B":"i4j2ogd","created_at_utc_A":1649831934,"created_at_utc_B":1649826668,"score_A":38,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I often don't mind the questions asking if I enjoy digging up dinosaur bones. We as anthropologists do not make the work we do easily assessible to the public, nor do we do well showing the benefits of the discipline. I did not really know what anthropology was till I returned to a university after taking a few years off and working - and that was only because of the show Bones and I took an introduction to archaeology class that finally detailed what it was. The HBCU I attended after community college didn't even have an anthropology department (not many do). My home community was even a part of an anthropological study when I was a kid and I had no idea what is was. I believe instead of saying things such as \"I'm shocked at how uneducated people are\" - We as anthropologists should be asking ourselves why we aren't able to show the importance of our field the the public, especially to marginalized communities that suffer from poorer educational systems that we always pat ourselves on the back for being stewards and advocates of.","human_ref_B":"I have gotten more positive responses from Telling people that I am an anthropology major than when I started my degree as a psyc major. People ask me if I am going to be like Dr. Brennen from Bones though","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5266.0,"score_ratio":5.4285714286} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j5zax","c_root_id_B":"i4ja3s4","created_at_utc_A":1649828898,"created_at_utc_B":1649831934,"score_A":2,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","human_ref_B":"I often don't mind the questions asking if I enjoy digging up dinosaur bones. We as anthropologists do not make the work we do easily assessible to the public, nor do we do well showing the benefits of the discipline. I did not really know what anthropology was till I returned to a university after taking a few years off and working - and that was only because of the show Bones and I took an introduction to archaeology class that finally detailed what it was. The HBCU I attended after community college didn't even have an anthropology department (not many do). My home community was even a part of an anthropological study when I was a kid and I had no idea what is was. I believe instead of saying things such as \"I'm shocked at how uneducated people are\" - We as anthropologists should be asking ourselves why we aren't able to show the importance of our field the the public, especially to marginalized communities that suffer from poorer educational systems that we always pat ourselves on the back for being stewards and advocates of.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3036.0,"score_ratio":19.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6a8k","c_root_id_B":"i4jj32c","created_at_utc_A":1649829108,"created_at_utc_B":1649839428,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Usually \u201coh\u201d coupled with a vacant look in the persons eyes because they don\u2019t know what it means, or something that seems like they\u2019re looking down on me for getting a \u201cuseless degree\u201d, but recently I told someone and they responded \u201coh cool my friends an anthropologist, she works in x museum\u201d","human_ref_B":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10320.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6apo","c_root_id_B":"i4jj32c","created_at_utc_A":1649829117,"created_at_utc_B":1649839428,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Paleontologists also get the \"You Love Dinosaurs\" thing, and generally get pretty confused when you explain that you don't work on Dinosaurs or in sediments young enough to have Dinosaurs. Lay people sort of view Time in 3 distinct periods, Now, History (Stuff we have writing for), and Dinosaurs (Possibly with Cavemen). It's interesting to say the least. But hey at least I do like Dinosaurs and can entertain their questions, imagine it's much worse if you don't.","human_ref_B":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10311.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jj32c","c_root_id_B":"i4j2ogd","created_at_utc_A":1649839428,"created_at_utc_B":1649826668,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","human_ref_B":"I have gotten more positive responses from Telling people that I am an anthropology major than when I started my degree as a psyc major. People ask me if I am going to be like Dr. Brennen from Bones though","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12760.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jj32c","c_root_id_B":"i4jgcp4","created_at_utc_A":1649839428,"created_at_utc_B":1649837070,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","human_ref_B":"It pains me to say, but definitely the most common response is a tie between \u201cthat has to do with bugs, right?\u201d or just \u201cuh, and what is that?\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2358.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jj32c","c_root_id_B":"i4j5zax","created_at_utc_A":1649839428,"created_at_utc_B":1649828898,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10530.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jj32c","c_root_id_B":"i4jak72","created_at_utc_A":1649839428,"created_at_utc_B":1649832291,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I told someone about my Masters Thesis interest involving people who inject drugs and he was like \"that's not really Anthrpology, though. You gotta study tribes and stuff.\" *Sigh*","human_ref_B":"Varied responses ranging from confusion to questions on career prospects but people who know what anthro is have always been encouraging. Often I just respond that I study humans but everyone sort of thinks it only applies to some \"remote\" \"tribal\" \"exotic\" people they often don't seem to get that they are also fair game.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7137.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6a8k","c_root_id_B":"i4j2ogd","created_at_utc_A":1649829108,"created_at_utc_B":1649826668,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Usually \u201coh\u201d coupled with a vacant look in the persons eyes because they don\u2019t know what it means, or something that seems like they\u2019re looking down on me for getting a \u201cuseless degree\u201d, but recently I told someone and they responded \u201coh cool my friends an anthropologist, she works in x museum\u201d","human_ref_B":"I have gotten more positive responses from Telling people that I am an anthropology major than when I started my degree as a psyc major. People ask me if I am going to be like Dr. Brennen from Bones though","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2440.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6a8k","c_root_id_B":"i4j5zax","created_at_utc_A":1649829108,"created_at_utc_B":1649828898,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Usually \u201coh\u201d coupled with a vacant look in the persons eyes because they don\u2019t know what it means, or something that seems like they\u2019re looking down on me for getting a \u201cuseless degree\u201d, but recently I told someone and they responded \u201coh cool my friends an anthropologist, she works in x museum\u201d","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":210.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j6apo","c_root_id_B":"i4j5zax","created_at_utc_A":1649829117,"created_at_utc_B":1649828898,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Paleontologists also get the \"You Love Dinosaurs\" thing, and generally get pretty confused when you explain that you don't work on Dinosaurs or in sediments young enough to have Dinosaurs. Lay people sort of view Time in 3 distinct periods, Now, History (Stuff we have writing for), and Dinosaurs (Possibly with Cavemen). It's interesting to say the least. But hey at least I do like Dinosaurs and can entertain their questions, imagine it's much worse if you don't.","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":219.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j5zax","c_root_id_B":"i4jgcp4","created_at_utc_A":1649828898,"created_at_utc_B":1649837070,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","human_ref_B":"It pains me to say, but definitely the most common response is a tie between \u201cthat has to do with bugs, right?\u201d or just \u201cuh, and what is that?\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8172.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jak72","c_root_id_B":"i4jgcp4","created_at_utc_A":1649832291,"created_at_utc_B":1649837070,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Varied responses ranging from confusion to questions on career prospects but people who know what anthro is have always been encouraging. Often I just respond that I study humans but everyone sort of thinks it only applies to some \"remote\" \"tribal\" \"exotic\" people they often don't seem to get that they are also fair game.","human_ref_B":"It pains me to say, but definitely the most common response is a tie between \u201cthat has to do with bugs, right?\u201d or just \u201cuh, and what is that?\u201d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4779.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4j5zax","c_root_id_B":"i4k4a5b","created_at_utc_A":1649828898,"created_at_utc_B":1649853975,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm sorry, but that's funny. For what it's worth, were you to ask me, I'd ask you what group of people you are focusing on, and then no matter what the answer was I would talk about the Mexica.","human_ref_B":"I told my mom, her first reaction was, \"but you hate getting dirty.\" Jokes on her, I've been doing archaeology now for 23 years. I still hate getting dirty, though. Never liked that part of the job. I look forward to showers at the end of the day whenever I'm in the field. To be fair, my folks were always supportive. But when I used to be a college prof, I *hated* it when my department chair would talk about \"recruitment,\" because I knew that for most of the students who majored in anthropology, their job outlook wouldn't be great without a lot of other years of schooling. I never pushed the major on anyone who didn't come to me and directly express an interest. And then I was pretty blunt about what it entailed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25077.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4jak72","c_root_id_B":"i4k4a5b","created_at_utc_A":1649832291,"created_at_utc_B":1649853975,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Varied responses ranging from confusion to questions on career prospects but people who know what anthro is have always been encouraging. Often I just respond that I study humans but everyone sort of thinks it only applies to some \"remote\" \"tribal\" \"exotic\" people they often don't seem to get that they are also fair game.","human_ref_B":"I told my mom, her first reaction was, \"but you hate getting dirty.\" Jokes on her, I've been doing archaeology now for 23 years. I still hate getting dirty, though. Never liked that part of the job. I look forward to showers at the end of the day whenever I'm in the field. To be fair, my folks were always supportive. But when I used to be a college prof, I *hated* it when my department chair would talk about \"recruitment,\" because I knew that for most of the students who majored in anthropology, their job outlook wouldn't be great without a lot of other years of schooling. I never pushed the major on anyone who didn't come to me and directly express an interest. And then I was pretty blunt about what it entailed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21684.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4juf3u","c_root_id_B":"i4k4a5b","created_at_utc_A":1649848388,"created_at_utc_B":1649853975,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I did it in undergrad and pretty much everyone was supportive. The few who weren\u2019t said that it didn\u2019t really matter what you studied in undergrad as it doesn\u2019t really have much impact on what you wind up doing with the rest of your life and career.","human_ref_B":"I told my mom, her first reaction was, \"but you hate getting dirty.\" Jokes on her, I've been doing archaeology now for 23 years. I still hate getting dirty, though. Never liked that part of the job. I look forward to showers at the end of the day whenever I'm in the field. To be fair, my folks were always supportive. But when I used to be a college prof, I *hated* it when my department chair would talk about \"recruitment,\" because I knew that for most of the students who majored in anthropology, their job outlook wouldn't be great without a lot of other years of schooling. I never pushed the major on anyone who didn't come to me and directly express an interest. And then I was pretty blunt about what it entailed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5587.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"u2bhh1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When you told people you were majoring in anthropology what was a common answer you got? I recently declared an anthro major and a common response i get is \u201cso you like dinosaurs\u201d\u2026 it kind of annoys me because people r really so uneducated on what anthropologist really do","c_root_id_A":"i4k4a5b","c_root_id_B":"i4jydpq","created_at_utc_A":1649853975,"created_at_utc_B":1649850830,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I told my mom, her first reaction was, \"but you hate getting dirty.\" Jokes on her, I've been doing archaeology now for 23 years. I still hate getting dirty, though. Never liked that part of the job. I look forward to showers at the end of the day whenever I'm in the field. To be fair, my folks were always supportive. But when I used to be a college prof, I *hated* it when my department chair would talk about \"recruitment,\" because I knew that for most of the students who majored in anthropology, their job outlook wouldn't be great without a lot of other years of schooling. I never pushed the major on anyone who didn't come to me and directly express an interest. And then I was pretty blunt about what it entailed.","human_ref_B":"Often get, \"Oh! That's really interesting\". Sometimes genuine, sometimes it leads to convo on what cultural anthros do, sometimes questions on what i plan to do with it after I graduate","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3145.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"5us5gr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ancient humans and \"exchanging children.\" I've seen a few portrayals of this, where adults exchange children between tribes. How fictional or factual is this? I specifically remember an instance of this between 2 Neanderthal groups in a \"historical fiction\" movie called Ao the Last Neanderthal. Where these two groups exchanged 2 boys into each others tribe splitting up Ao and his brother(Both juveniles at the time.) I think I've read something about this before. As an Idea to keep groups from inbreeding too much. Is this just pure fiction or is there some basis of this in reality?","c_root_id_A":"ddwx77g","c_root_id_B":"ddwsq3h","created_at_utc_A":1487450406,"created_at_utc_B":1487443857,"score_A":18,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Well the Masai people did give children as gifts. Women had no ownership over anything. They had milking rights of cows, and house responsibilities, but not actual ownership. If a woman had no children, and their husband died, they would be basically destitute, or at the will of whomever may take care of her out of kindness. Because of this, women would sometimes give children to childless women, so that they would not be alone and poor if the husband died. Also, women lived separately from their husbands, and women would give children as a gift so that childless women would not be lonely. How often this occurred, is unclear to my knowledge. It's a little different from what your example is, though.","human_ref_B":"It's thought that such \"exchanges\" were accomplished largely through things like raiding neighboring groups for mating partners, and later by more formal and organized exchanges of mating partners (inter-group marriage). We often talk about \"seasonal aggregations,\" which really just means smaller bands coming together into larger groups during certain times of the year. Exchanges of marriage partners would likely have taken place during these periods. In some regions, we have evidence of exchange networks spanning many hundreds of kilometers. There's no reason to think that there weren't other things-- information, people, ideas, innovations-- exchanged across those same networks.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6549.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"9fmffi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Term for the kind of tools that haven't significantly changed over history These kind of items first uses usually date from humanity's early days, haven't changed much in form or function across the times and are still widely used. Spoons or needles are the kind of items that the term can be used on. And may be used in this way: \"Needles are an example of a _______ tool\" Note: *If I recall correctly, the age of the item isn't the point, and the unchanging characteristic of the objects (or little change across large periods) is far more important in the definition of this word; one can even be very adventurous and say that email, spoons and needles all could belong to this type of tools (You know how everyone have wanted to change or kill email but couldn't).* *Like spoons that have preserved its basic shape and function for milennia even if they are ergonomic now and the materials they are built with aren't the rocks in your yard any more.* I heard the word in a history of art lesson more than a decade ago so my definition may be a bit off... Also the part about the email is mine; needles and spoons however were examples given by the professor at that time. I've asked at Stackexchange too and the community over there have given me some replacements for the word I can't remember like **\"primitive\"** or **\"ur-tool\"**. But those words even if usable aren't the specific term I'm looking for, hopefully you guys can lend me your help too, I would really appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"e5y8qi0","c_root_id_B":"e5xy8jc","created_at_utc_A":1536902933,"created_at_utc_B":1536890654,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Fundamental?","human_ref_B":"Stable?\u00a0Enduring? Neolithic?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12279.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"9fmffi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Term for the kind of tools that haven't significantly changed over history These kind of items first uses usually date from humanity's early days, haven't changed much in form or function across the times and are still widely used. Spoons or needles are the kind of items that the term can be used on. And may be used in this way: \"Needles are an example of a _______ tool\" Note: *If I recall correctly, the age of the item isn't the point, and the unchanging characteristic of the objects (or little change across large periods) is far more important in the definition of this word; one can even be very adventurous and say that email, spoons and needles all could belong to this type of tools (You know how everyone have wanted to change or kill email but couldn't).* *Like spoons that have preserved its basic shape and function for milennia even if they are ergonomic now and the materials they are built with aren't the rocks in your yard any more.* I heard the word in a history of art lesson more than a decade ago so my definition may be a bit off... Also the part about the email is mine; needles and spoons however were examples given by the professor at that time. I've asked at Stackexchange too and the community over there have given me some replacements for the word I can't remember like **\"primitive\"** or **\"ur-tool\"**. But those words even if usable aren't the specific term I'm looking for, hopefully you guys can lend me your help too, I would really appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"e5y8qi0","c_root_id_B":"e5xzmur","created_at_utc_A":1536902933,"created_at_utc_B":1536892078,"score_A":9,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Fundamental?","human_ref_B":"I'd call it a \"living fossil\", like turtles, or your uncle Petunia. All the quirks with twice the wisdom.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10855.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"9fmffi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Term for the kind of tools that haven't significantly changed over history These kind of items first uses usually date from humanity's early days, haven't changed much in form or function across the times and are still widely used. Spoons or needles are the kind of items that the term can be used on. And may be used in this way: \"Needles are an example of a _______ tool\" Note: *If I recall correctly, the age of the item isn't the point, and the unchanging characteristic of the objects (or little change across large periods) is far more important in the definition of this word; one can even be very adventurous and say that email, spoons and needles all could belong to this type of tools (You know how everyone have wanted to change or kill email but couldn't).* *Like spoons that have preserved its basic shape and function for milennia even if they are ergonomic now and the materials they are built with aren't the rocks in your yard any more.* I heard the word in a history of art lesson more than a decade ago so my definition may be a bit off... Also the part about the email is mine; needles and spoons however were examples given by the professor at that time. I've asked at Stackexchange too and the community over there have given me some replacements for the word I can't remember like **\"primitive\"** or **\"ur-tool\"**. But those words even if usable aren't the specific term I'm looking for, hopefully you guys can lend me your help too, I would really appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"e5y8qi0","c_root_id_B":"e5y715x","created_at_utc_A":1536902933,"created_at_utc_B":1536900492,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Fundamental?","human_ref_B":"Tool technology has changed as we evolved and although some tools may do the same thing from one time period to the next, there are specific names for most of it. Such as the Oldowan industry, Acheulian, Musterian etc. They get increasingly complex. In the needle example for instance, I would personally say it\u2019s looking more for a descriptor such as perforator. Other descriptors would include scraper, chopper, hammer stone, etc which are the basics that can be found in practically all tool industries dating back to Homo erectus. Side note, chimpanzees and other primates are known to be tool users as well. The capuchin for example will use rocks to break open tree nuts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2441.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"9fmffi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Term for the kind of tools that haven't significantly changed over history These kind of items first uses usually date from humanity's early days, haven't changed much in form or function across the times and are still widely used. Spoons or needles are the kind of items that the term can be used on. And may be used in this way: \"Needles are an example of a _______ tool\" Note: *If I recall correctly, the age of the item isn't the point, and the unchanging characteristic of the objects (or little change across large periods) is far more important in the definition of this word; one can even be very adventurous and say that email, spoons and needles all could belong to this type of tools (You know how everyone have wanted to change or kill email but couldn't).* *Like spoons that have preserved its basic shape and function for milennia even if they are ergonomic now and the materials they are built with aren't the rocks in your yard any more.* I heard the word in a history of art lesson more than a decade ago so my definition may be a bit off... Also the part about the email is mine; needles and spoons however were examples given by the professor at that time. I've asked at Stackexchange too and the community over there have given me some replacements for the word I can't remember like **\"primitive\"** or **\"ur-tool\"**. But those words even if usable aren't the specific term I'm looking for, hopefully you guys can lend me your help too, I would really appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"e5xzmur","c_root_id_B":"e5ykxwi","created_at_utc_A":1536892078,"created_at_utc_B":1536926028,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'd call it a \"living fossil\", like turtles, or your uncle Petunia. All the quirks with twice the wisdom.","human_ref_B":"The mode-1 stone toolkit (dating to 3.3 Mya) of our Homin anchestors remained largely unchanged for 1.5M years. The mode-2 toolkit then evolved and it changed only slowly until about 100Kya, at which point, it is thought, recursive language developed and the complexity of the toolkit began to grow rapidly and continues to do so through the present.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33950.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"9fmffi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Term for the kind of tools that haven't significantly changed over history These kind of items first uses usually date from humanity's early days, haven't changed much in form or function across the times and are still widely used. Spoons or needles are the kind of items that the term can be used on. And may be used in this way: \"Needles are an example of a _______ tool\" Note: *If I recall correctly, the age of the item isn't the point, and the unchanging characteristic of the objects (or little change across large periods) is far more important in the definition of this word; one can even be very adventurous and say that email, spoons and needles all could belong to this type of tools (You know how everyone have wanted to change or kill email but couldn't).* *Like spoons that have preserved its basic shape and function for milennia even if they are ergonomic now and the materials they are built with aren't the rocks in your yard any more.* I heard the word in a history of art lesson more than a decade ago so my definition may be a bit off... Also the part about the email is mine; needles and spoons however were examples given by the professor at that time. I've asked at Stackexchange too and the community over there have given me some replacements for the word I can't remember like **\"primitive\"** or **\"ur-tool\"**. But those words even if usable aren't the specific term I'm looking for, hopefully you guys can lend me your help too, I would really appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"e5ykxwi","c_root_id_B":"e5y715x","created_at_utc_A":1536926028,"created_at_utc_B":1536900492,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The mode-1 stone toolkit (dating to 3.3 Mya) of our Homin anchestors remained largely unchanged for 1.5M years. The mode-2 toolkit then evolved and it changed only slowly until about 100Kya, at which point, it is thought, recursive language developed and the complexity of the toolkit began to grow rapidly and continues to do so through the present.","human_ref_B":"Tool technology has changed as we evolved and although some tools may do the same thing from one time period to the next, there are specific names for most of it. Such as the Oldowan industry, Acheulian, Musterian etc. They get increasingly complex. In the needle example for instance, I would personally say it\u2019s looking more for a descriptor such as perforator. Other descriptors would include scraper, chopper, hammer stone, etc which are the basics that can be found in practically all tool industries dating back to Homo erectus. Side note, chimpanzees and other primates are known to be tool users as well. The capuchin for example will use rocks to break open tree nuts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25536.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"8g7g98","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"I want to master in Archaeology. What other courses aside from Anthropology can I graduate from? is the title correct english? i hope so... so I've been wanting to pursue my dream as an archaeologist (i'm currently in high school), and I don't know if I could get into an anthropology course because my nearest university doesn't offer the course. I have got to travel far away to get to the nearest university with anthropology course. so my question is, what other courses aside from anthropology and history I can graduate from that can help me master in archaeology?","c_root_id_A":"dy9lnut","c_root_id_B":"dy9kngw","created_at_utc_A":1525181905,"created_at_utc_B":1525180721,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Geographic Information Systems","human_ref_B":"Sedimentation, stratigraphy, geology, to name a few","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1184.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"iwapju","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is Rene Girard right about the origins of Religion? His theory is that religion originated in the need to end what he calls a \"Mimetic Crisis\" a conflict that is initially between two parties over an object, that grows to subsume the entire community, and become an end in itself. Religion supposedly originated when the community unanimously blames the conflict on one person, and kills them. He pinpoints this event, what he calls the \"founding murder\" as the origin point of all culture and religion. Was he right? Do his views have any purchase among currently working anthropologists?","c_root_id_A":"g5ywam0","c_root_id_B":"g5z2afs","created_at_utc_A":1600604522,"created_at_utc_B":1600606820,"score_A":10,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"So there\u2019s a pretty influential school (maybe not the right word) of theorists (think continental philosophy) that is inspired by psychoanalysis, i.e., Freud, Lacan. And by Levi-Strauss and structuralist thought, esp., anthropology. It sounds like Girard is closer to this \u201cschool.\u201d If you\u2019ve only ever read and studied anglophone anthropology, you\u2019re going to find some of these ideas pretty wild and fantastical. But, they can be pretty profound. For e.g., Bataille is still mentioned by Graeber as one of the great early anthropology-type thinkers. I\u2019ll have a read around Girard. Thanks for sharing!","human_ref_B":"\u201cRight?\u201d Probably not. There\u2019s no reason to believe that there is one origin of religion. I assume the text you\u2019re referencing is \u201cViolence and the Sacred.\u201d If so, the most pressing issue is that there is little empirical or ethnographic value in that book. Which is to say: right or wrong, Girard doesn\u2019t present any evidence for his theories. In the absence of a) positive empirical evidence and b) a necessary and sufficient reason to believe religion has one cause, it\u2019s safe to say that at best, this theory is closer to a neat story than a compelling theory.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2298.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"w31w07","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Claude Levi-Strauss and Agriculture Hi, I'm a plant biologist venturing into the study of plant domestication. In my reading, Levi-Straus comes up everywhere, so I figured I need to understand him and his theories in order to get a handle on the field. However, his work is voluminous and complicated. As such, I was hoping someone might be able to point me to a specific resource on my question: Did Levi-Strauss ever discuss the raw and the cooked in terms of how groups relate to one another? From my limited understanding, the lesson is about the crossing the barrier between the state of nature and a state of being truly human. Does it also affect people comparing themselves to other groups? I was thinking about such situations as Romans underscoring the Huns' perceived inhumanity by describing them as eating raw meat and never going indoors, or in *The Epic of Gilgamesh* when Enkidu becomes human through consuming the fruits of agriculture in beer and bread. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"iguv2zs","c_root_id_B":"igtvfcr","created_at_utc_A":1658279028,"created_at_utc_B":1658264164,"score_A":16,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"A lot of Levi-Strauss' ideas are a bit dated because they focus on the idea of civilized vs primitive, which has been pretty terribly abused. It was a necessary and useful step in early discussions of how we define \"culture,\" but there has been a lot of work since then showing this is not a useful or helpful framework anymore with the way these ideas were used to justify colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous peoples. I'll second the Hodder recommendation as a place to start. With your interest in interactions between agricultural and non agricultural groups, I recommend looking at ethnographies from different regions in Africa, and central Africa in particular. Try this article and associated sources: https:\/\/irispublishers.com\/wjass\/fulltext\/foragers-and-food-production-in-africa-a-cross-cultural-and-analytical-perspective.ID.000522.php","human_ref_B":"I am less familiar with Levi-Strauss' work on domestication, but there is a lot of work by archaeologists on plant and animal domestication. For something of a structuralist take that focuses on social and symbolic aspects of domestication, I would recommend *The Domestication of Europe* by Ian Hodder. For a different perspective, you could also take a look at David Rindos' *The Origins of Agriculture*, which considers domestication as a coevolutionary process between plants and humans. Both are dated, and there is much more important recent work on the topic of domestication, but these two are both early examples that shift the focus from observing morphological and genetic changes in plants and animals to considering plant, animal, and human relationships. I hope these help!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14864.0,"score_ratio":1.2307692308} {"post_id":"a7nyrt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"So I read this paper by Sweatman and Coombs and I'm...skeptical (has some extraordinary claims about having interpreted G\u00f6bekli Tepe and paleolithic cave art). The published work is here: https:\/\/www.athensjournals.gr\/history\/2018-1-X-Y-Sweatman.pdf And even in the work they seem...rather defensive of their own work: > Through this comparison of predicted and measured dates, we verify our scientific hypothesis to an extraordinary level of statistical confidence, far surpassing the usual demands for publication of scientific results. Therefore, in a scientific sense, we prove our hypothesis is correct. Essentially, our statistical result is so strong that, unless a significant flaw in our methodology is found, it would be irrational to doubt our hypothesis. It follows that any proposition about these artworks that is inconsistent with our hypothesis can automatically be rejected \u2013 it is almost certainly wrong, since our hypothesis is almost certainly correct. Wow, alright, that seems a little defensive for an academic paper to throw right into its introduction. As for their result...essentially they claim to have deciphered a zodiac sign in cave paintings with some level of continuity (and some likely regional variation with animal symbols they don't recognize in a few pieces of cave art). And claim that they can figure out the date within 1500 years when they see the zodiac signs for the four equinoxes represented thanks to the procession of the equinoxes. I'm a mathematician, not an anthropologist, but the raw numerical data (once its been extracted and put into table form) looks convincingly statistically significant to me. What I don't know is what level of interpretation is required of the images to get those numbers, whether they're maybe seeing the zodiac signs they want to see, whether they're ignoring cave paintings that don't fit their model, that kind of thing. Is this actually an accepted result, or is there mostly skepticism about this paper?","c_root_id_A":"ec4zpaf","c_root_id_B":"ec594bk","created_at_utc_A":1545254509,"created_at_utc_B":1545262086,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Are these the two guys who took over from Klaus Schmidt? That's the only name I recognize associated with Gobekli Tepe but he passed away in 2014(?) and I was not sure who was heading up the work on this site now.","human_ref_B":"Probably also worth noting the credentials of the authors, neither of which are anthropology or archaeology: * Martin B. Sweatman, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh * Alistair Coombs, Department of Religious Studies, University of Kent As far as I can tell Alistair is not faculty at Kent and so presumably is publishing as a postgraduate researcher there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7577.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"9a4hnq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have any known cultures believed in an afterlife that is an absolute paradise that everyone (regardless of deeds or social status) gets to enter upon death? I'm talking the murderers, the thieves, the rebels, the apostates, the nobodies, the common folk, the kings, the heroes, the virtuous. Is there any afterlife idea that is (1) universal and (2) a paradise? ​ Edit: Asking about historical cultures, so I'm talking 500+ years ago.","c_root_id_A":"e4tpcis","c_root_id_B":"e4tqbkk","created_at_utc_A":1535225718,"created_at_utc_B":1535226713,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In ancient Sumer, the afterlife was universally a wretched place resembling Earth, so there is an element of universality there. However, as far as a culture that believed in a peaceful afterlife for everyone, I think you are going to run into problems trying to find one that fits that exact description. However, there are many societies on earth with a cosmology where nothing corresponds to \"hell\". I'm not as familiar with Gnostic and mystical strains of Christianity, but I believe some heretical versions of Christianity believe that there is no hell or that Jesus at the end of times will empty hell. I think that may be the religious sect that most fits that description. ​ Descriptions of the afterlife in indigenous societies of the Americas are sometimes very non-descriptive. The *Atchei-Gatu,* for instance, or the Guayaki Indians, believed that men became the stars, and there is no description of a hell. However, it is possible to become an angry spirit roaming the earth and haunting the living in that system. There are more detailed and layered cosmologies in the Inca and Aztec belief systems. When I say layered, I mean literally- in Inca cosmology there was a belief in something corresponding to a lower realm (hell) and a higher realm (heaven). Often stratification in cosmology corresponds to level of social stratification. ​ Despite the fact that Buddhism believes in multi-layered heavens and hells, because Buddhism believes in reincarnation, even though a being may collect karma and stay in hell for countless eons, that will eventually be used up. Therefore, hell is not permanent in Buddhism, nor is life in any other realm. In Pure Land Buddhism, the only thing necessary to get into the Pure Land realm of Amitabha (Sukhavati) is to faithfully recite Namo Amitabha Buddha once. It does not matter how much negative karma one has collected in one's lifetime, this will always work. ​","human_ref_B":"While Jewish eschatology has changed over the centuries to emphasize various (at times somewhat contradictory) aspects of the \"end of days\", there is (and has been, so it fits with your 500+ years in the past time frame) an interpretation that the World to Come is a paradise for everyone. \"The righteous\" are further rewarded\/recognized for their actions, but there's no concept of \"Hell\" or further punishment for those who are not righteous. However, there are other views within the Jewish tradition that do include a concept of a punishing afterlife for the wicked, and still others that posit that afterlife is only for the righteous.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":995.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"71uqoc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Is Inbreeding a \"problem\" within parts of the Muslim World, and if so, does this have any broader social\/political implications? I understand that this title seems informed by Islamophobic views; I will admit, I heard this information from less-than-savory sources, but I've had a lot more difficulty debunking such claims in comparison to many others. Some reputable sources: http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/health\/children\/11723308\/First-cousin-marriages-in-Pakistani-communities-leading-to-appalling-disabilities-among-children.html http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/05\/01\/world\/saudi-arabia-awakes-to-the-perils-of-inbreeding.html https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cousin_marriage#Islam (not really reputable per se, but a good overview)","c_root_id_A":"dndzpme","c_root_id_B":"dndv3gf","created_at_utc_A":1506145022,"created_at_utc_B":1506136591,"score_A":29,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Maybe rephrase it to \"How does inbreeding affect the society in those places where cousin-marriage is common\" ? It certainly affects some groups of immigrants to Norway, in that there is a terrible pressure for some of the young people to marry their cousin. There is a help telephone that receives sadly, a lot of calls. It also affects other parts of life for those who have not married their cousin. No research to back up this, but people talk, I know a lot of immigrant parents with children with mental disability: The doctors often just assume that the parents are closely related, even when it is not true. The result is that other reasons for the disability is not looked for. Since of course many of these parents come from areas in war, I do wonder about the poison from landmines and other weapons. It seems that money makes things worse in Norway. Because the Norwegian passport is seen as a passport to get rich, so the parents gets pressured by relatives from the start country. Without the difference in living standards I think this would have been a much smaller problem. And here is a question to the anthropologists out there: When arranged marriage is the norm, the young people don\u00b4t need to look around for a mate in the same way. Young people are supposedly more interested in hanging out with friends than when they get older, I can\u00b4t help but think this is our evolutionary way of looking for a mate. If there is an arranged marriage in the waiting, they have less reason to get to know people from everywhere, and there is a higher possibility of being able to maintain a divided society, between religions, ethnic groups, whatever. Because the parents will chose someone from the same cast\/class\/religion while the child will want to experiment with new and interesting people. Even if they end up marrying by choice someone from the same group, the mere experience of fooling around with someone from another group, might make them more accepting and have fewer prejudices of the other group. Any comments to my theory?","human_ref_B":"No its partly true for some parts of the Muslim World, its not linked to Islam specifically though. Its a local cultural practice, perhaps more linked to arabisation (copying Arab culture). So it can be seen in other cultures as well (it's certainly legal in many western places). It appears heavily linked to insular traditional tribal societies. Here's an example of study of it in Amazonian Indian group where its almost compulsory to intermarry closely. http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/114\/13\/E2590.full","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8431.0,"score_ratio":1.0357142857} {"post_id":"w08m7y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How does social anthropology differ from sociology? I recognize the differences between other branches of anthropology (e.g. cultural anthropology) and sociology, but the line becomes blurred when I try to distinguish between *social* anthropology and sociology.","c_root_id_A":"ige7h1s","c_root_id_B":"igfawik","created_at_utc_A":1657979316,"created_at_utc_B":1657996498,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak for the present, however, historically, anthropology was created to study \"primitive\" cultures and is rooted in Western imperialism. Sociology was for the study of societies, the so-called 'civilised' world and it wasn't believed that people like those in the colonies were capable of forming complex societies. Very backward. Read Herbert Vilakazi's 1989 inaugural speech 'When Sociology Comes to Africa' if you can.","human_ref_B":"You may be interested in my comment here. You're likely running into difficulty because there are very few situations in which \"social anthropology\" and \"cultural anthropology\" exist as distinct entities. You will almost *never* see the term social anthropology used in the US (it's typicaly sociocultural or cultural), and I've yet to find a department in Europe that differentiates social from cultural anth. The core courses in most places places could easily be the same a \"cultural anthropology\" student took in the US. While there are certainly differences in how North American and European schools approach anthropology, there's no easy delineation, and I wouldn't say it's any greater than the difference between, say, how an Ivy League school and a urban state school would approach it in the US. To repeat myself in the linked comment, the difference is largely institutional.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17182.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"l65uyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where should I look if I'm interested in the intersection between anthropology, pandemic, and politics? It's been a year since the pandemic hit. In US alone we can already see how corona is tied deeply with domestic politics, it's the same in other countries too. There are already much written about this in IR and public health studies, but how does anthropology discuss this covid-19 pandemic? How did anthropology discuss past pandemics or epidemics, like Ebola, Hong Kong flu, Spanish flu? Would love to get some direction here. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gl03t4p","c_root_id_B":"gkztmzw","created_at_utc_A":1611782923,"created_at_utc_B":1611778963,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure if there is a specific term for this, but there's been a growing number of people working specifically in interdisciplinary anthro and public health research. Harvard is the big name in that field and The University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, Rwanda also offers similar degrees. If you take a look at their curriculum information or recently published research that could give you some good directions to pursue. I'm not sure how much those will be related directly to politics in the discussions of results, however you can always read multiple studies about the same public health circumstance that come from different angles and find your own thesis as to how they relate\/interact\/influence one another.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t know if you read spanish but this meets your criteria: http:\/\/iips.usac.edu.gt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Sopa-de-Wuhan-ASPO.pdf","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3960.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"l65uyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where should I look if I'm interested in the intersection between anthropology, pandemic, and politics? It's been a year since the pandemic hit. In US alone we can already see how corona is tied deeply with domestic politics, it's the same in other countries too. There are already much written about this in IR and public health studies, but how does anthropology discuss this covid-19 pandemic? How did anthropology discuss past pandemics or epidemics, like Ebola, Hong Kong flu, Spanish flu? Would love to get some direction here. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gl03t4p","c_root_id_B":"gkz0tdj","created_at_utc_A":1611782923,"created_at_utc_B":1611767954,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure if there is a specific term for this, but there's been a growing number of people working specifically in interdisciplinary anthro and public health research. Harvard is the big name in that field and The University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, Rwanda also offers similar degrees. If you take a look at their curriculum information or recently published research that could give you some good directions to pursue. I'm not sure how much those will be related directly to politics in the discussions of results, however you can always read multiple studies about the same public health circumstance that come from different angles and find your own thesis as to how they relate\/interact\/influence one another.","human_ref_B":"You could check out Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Keck. It looks at earlier avian flus through an anthropological lense. There's a pdf version of it out there, if you cant find it feel free to DM me and I can send it along :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14969.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"l65uyl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where should I look if I'm interested in the intersection between anthropology, pandemic, and politics? It's been a year since the pandemic hit. In US alone we can already see how corona is tied deeply with domestic politics, it's the same in other countries too. There are already much written about this in IR and public health studies, but how does anthropology discuss this covid-19 pandemic? How did anthropology discuss past pandemics or epidemics, like Ebola, Hong Kong flu, Spanish flu? Would love to get some direction here. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"gkztmzw","c_root_id_B":"gkz0tdj","created_at_utc_A":1611778963,"created_at_utc_B":1611767954,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I don\u2019t know if you read spanish but this meets your criteria: http:\/\/iips.usac.edu.gt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Sopa-de-Wuhan-ASPO.pdf","human_ref_B":"You could check out Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Keck. It looks at earlier avian flus through an anthropological lense. There's a pdf version of it out there, if you cant find it feel free to DM me and I can send it along :)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11009.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8cqwb0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Are some forms of body language universal? Particularly curious about nodding or shaking your head as a \"yes\" or \"no\" response. I've heard that thumbs up\/down is more of a Western thing, although today it's meaning is very widely understood.","c_root_id_A":"dxheg7e","c_root_id_B":"dxh3gqy","created_at_utc_A":1523924407,"created_at_utc_B":1523913182,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"No, these are all cultural, or learned, behaviours. So, for example, in South Asia (particularly India) there are a whole range of meanings for head shakes - there was a decent short video on the BBC on the subject; http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/blogs-trending-26390944","human_ref_B":"I think Balkan countries, such as Bulgaria, nod \"no\" for yes, and vice versa","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11225.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"b6rwt9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Has anyone done a scholarly comparison of communication and early writing \/ glyphs and emojis? As frivolous as they are, they really convey complex concepts in simple, universal ways that transcend a lot of language barriers.","c_root_id_A":"ejmsdig","c_root_id_B":"ejmqwix","created_at_utc_A":1553830190,"created_at_utc_B":1553828923,"score_A":27,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"There is a book called The Semiotics of Emoji by Marcel Danesi, a linguistic anthropologist. I haven't gotten to it yet, so I'm not sure if he compares emojis to glyphs in depth. It may be a start!","human_ref_B":"This is a cool question. You might want to post it on r\/mediastudies as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1267.0,"score_ratio":2.7} {"post_id":"1kquvy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"In brief, how do oral traditions work? I have read that the Hindu sacred scriptures were transmitted orally. It seems almost impossible for people to remember such a vast volume of books. So how do oral traditions work? How do people remember such a vast volume of books? Although this is a huge topic, explain only in brief.","c_root_id_A":"cbrttcu","c_root_id_B":"cbrszte","created_at_utc_A":1377033070,"created_at_utc_B":1377030904,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Last week someone asked almost the reverse - when and why do cultures forget? My answer to that question may not have been exactly what OP was looking for but I think it does get at your question about oral traditions. I'll copy paste below too so you don't have to go to the link. I assume you're talking about oral traditions since written traditions can obviously extend past when a local community talks about an issue. This is a little hard to explain because it depends greatly on whether a society or individual thinks something is worth remembering. I'm sure you've forgotten all sorts of things from your own life already. What color shirt was the person sitting across from you on the subway last week wearing? When did they build the latest statue in your hometown, who was the artist, and what does it symbolize? One of my masters cohort members did an archaeological dig on a segregation era black schoolhouse and then interviewed former students about the space. They remembered all kinds of incorrect things about the number of rooms, dates, how it was used, etc. It is also worth remembering that not everyone in a society has the same depth of knowledge about every topic. My sister, mom, and cousins are painters and they get much more meaning and symbolism from a piece when we go to a museum than I do. Similarly, when we go out into the field some people don't know about the symbolism and meaning of certain spaces or activities even if they grew up with it being part of their cultural worlds. I'm reminded of Robert Hefner, an anthropologist who does his fieldwork in Indonesia, relating a story about how he asked all these villagers why they decorated a pig's head for a particular ceremony. Everyone just looked at him like he was crazy and said, \"I dunno. It looks nice. It wouldn't be the festival without a fancy pig head!\" All that being said, societies can and do preserve important narratives, meanings, and histories for very long periods if they are considered important enough to continue telling and preserving. This usually happens either because the song or story is a good one worth retelling\/singing for entertainment and educational purposes. Or because it was institutionalized through a system of formal oral historians. Here are a couple of examples (sorry they are both African but as you can see from my flair that's what I know best!): * *The Language You Cry In* is a great documentary about an African American family in Georgia who had preserved a family song sung in an African language. It was first recorded by anthropologists in the 1930s but was still being sung in the 1990s when they decided to do a film about it. A team of linguistic anthropologists and ethnomusicologists decided to go to Africa to see if they could find the origins of the song. Sure enough after a very long hunt they actually found the village where the song originated and were able to reunite the long distant families. It was touching and fascinating but worth noting that the family had no idea what the song was about or meant. Like many preserved memories it was a snippet out of context. * Jan Vansina wrote *Once Upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa* in 1971 and it really did revolutionize the way that African historians began treating oral histories. Previously, they tended to ignore local narratives and assume they were just cultural myths without factual basis. Vansina was one of the first to really take them seriously. Griots are oral historians assigned to keep the lineages, epics, legal codes, religious texts, and histories of the group. They memorize the information through a variety of techniques and then teach the next generation who carry on that knowledge. As one of his informants said, \"Our books are in our heads.\" Since Vansina's seminal article (which you can read for free with the link I gave you - it is pretty accessible for non-scholars and is interesting) other African historians have more seriously taken up his points and found that many formalized oral traditions do match with the available archaeological and historical data. It is now taught in African historiography courses as an accepted and legitimate way to get to the history of a people.","human_ref_B":"One example from a tribal group I've been reading about is the Hinilawod, an epic poem composed by the Panay-Bukidnon people in the Philippines. It's one of the longest poems in all of world literature, and typical recitations take anywhere from three to five days to complete. Historically, it's transmitted beginning at a very young age to boys or girls in training to become a *babaylan* (technically not the same thing as a shaman, but close). They'd learn the poem through recitation until they'd eventually memorized the entire thing, using musical cues and repeated phrases as guides. The poem is usually performed at marriages or other social gatherings, where it's usually either summarized or only one of the episodes is recited. Also, the *babaylan* is allowed to deviate from the \"script\" to make the story more interesting (for instance, emphasizing fight scenes for an audience of children) or more applicable to the situation at hand (emphasizing portions about husband\/wife dynamics at a wedding performance). You can read portions of it in English, but your best bet is WorldCat if you have institutional access, since Amazon is currently out of stock.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2166.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"rpnsfo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a paradigm shift or discussion going on similar to the ontological turn in anthropology in other disciplines? I have been reading a lot on the ontological turn and I was just wondering if anthropology was alone in its paradigm shift or are there similar trends in other disciplines, probably social sciences or humanities.","c_root_id_A":"hq5v8u6","c_root_id_B":"hq5zi35","created_at_utc_A":1640623178,"created_at_utc_B":1640624922,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"There has been a similar, parallel and cross-disciplinary conversation in qualitative sociology. You can find it most clearly in intersectional feminist theory where it is discussed as Standpoint Theory. Most of the current manifestations of the conversation have roots going back much further in anthropology and sociology by men and women of color, indigenous authors, etc.","human_ref_B":"You might find an answer here, but you're likely to get better responses by asking people in those other disciplines. Try \/r\/asksocialscience or \/r\/askhistorians","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1744.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"rpnsfo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a paradigm shift or discussion going on similar to the ontological turn in anthropology in other disciplines? I have been reading a lot on the ontological turn and I was just wondering if anthropology was alone in its paradigm shift or are there similar trends in other disciplines, probably social sciences or humanities.","c_root_id_A":"hq5v8u6","c_root_id_B":"hq6msyn","created_at_utc_A":1640623178,"created_at_utc_B":1640634411,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There has been a similar, parallel and cross-disciplinary conversation in qualitative sociology. You can find it most clearly in intersectional feminist theory where it is discussed as Standpoint Theory. Most of the current manifestations of the conversation have roots going back much further in anthropology and sociology by men and women of color, indigenous authors, etc.","human_ref_B":"Yes its part of a significant interdisciplinary trend: *\"An inventory of those lines of thought should include not only the speculative realist philosophy and object-oriented ontology respectively associated with Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman but also the ontological anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Philippe Descola, the cosmopolitical and ecological thinking of Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour, the planetary turn in Gayatri Spivak and Achille Mbembe, Fran\u00e7ois Lauruelle\u2019s nonstandard philosophy, the posthumanism of the Accelerationists and Xenofeminists, the cosmic pessimism of Eugene Thacker and the virulent nihilism of Nick Land, the Afrofuturism associated with Octavia Butler and Samuel Delaney, and the \u201ccthulucenic\u201d thought of the late Donna Haraway (to name only a few!).\"* https:\/\/theisci.org\/course4.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11233.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4i4bmb","c_root_id_B":"e4huz4i","created_at_utc_A":1534743527,"created_at_utc_B":1534731686,"score_A":14,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Either go to sleep in a bog or on the [top of a cold, windy mountain.] (http:\/\/static.azteca.com\/imagenes\/2013\/34\/doncella-1775774.jpg)","human_ref_B":"Tie heavy weights to your whole body\u2019s sink yourself to the bottom of the Black Sea. The chemistry at the bottom will preserve you. Maybe you\u2019ll need to tie some sort of bobber so someone can find you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11841.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4hy85y","c_root_id_B":"e4i4bmb","created_at_utc_A":1534735105,"created_at_utc_B":1534743527,"score_A":6,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Not my area but I suspect one of the plastination techniques used to make anatomical specimens might have good longevity. Perhaps they could be modified for extreme longevity and\/or be combined with a sturdy casket with a completely anoxic interior filled with an inert gas or liquid.","human_ref_B":"Either go to sleep in a bog or on the [top of a cold, windy mountain.] (http:\/\/static.azteca.com\/imagenes\/2013\/34\/doncella-1775774.jpg)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8422.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4i6s2a","c_root_id_B":"e4ibbp0","created_at_utc_A":1534747815,"created_at_utc_B":1534757453,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"While you're there, get a bunch of high quality clay, and a passage of something with a large vocabulary and proper names. Translate it word-for-word into English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese, write it down on thick tablets, fire them and include them in your grave goods. Even if your body ends up not preserving as well, future archaeolinguists will really appreciate the cypher, since those tablets are gonna last basically forever","human_ref_B":"Take a look at some of the Japanese self-mummifying Monks for ideas. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sokushinbutsu Hope you enjoy eating pine resin.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9638.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4huz4i","c_root_id_B":"e4i6s2a","created_at_utc_A":1534731686,"created_at_utc_B":1534747815,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Tie heavy weights to your whole body\u2019s sink yourself to the bottom of the Black Sea. The chemistry at the bottom will preserve you. Maybe you\u2019ll need to tie some sort of bobber so someone can find you.","human_ref_B":"While you're there, get a bunch of high quality clay, and a passage of something with a large vocabulary and proper names. Translate it word-for-word into English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese, write it down on thick tablets, fire them and include them in your grave goods. Even if your body ends up not preserving as well, future archaeolinguists will really appreciate the cypher, since those tablets are gonna last basically forever","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16129.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4hy85y","c_root_id_B":"e4i6s2a","created_at_utc_A":1534735105,"created_at_utc_B":1534747815,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Not my area but I suspect one of the plastination techniques used to make anatomical specimens might have good longevity. Perhaps they could be modified for extreme longevity and\/or be combined with a sturdy casket with a completely anoxic interior filled with an inert gas or liquid.","human_ref_B":"While you're there, get a bunch of high quality clay, and a passage of something with a large vocabulary and proper names. Translate it word-for-word into English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese, write it down on thick tablets, fire them and include them in your grave goods. Even if your body ends up not preserving as well, future archaeolinguists will really appreciate the cypher, since those tablets are gonna last basically forever","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12710.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4ibbp0","c_root_id_B":"e4huz4i","created_at_utc_A":1534757453,"created_at_utc_B":1534731686,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Take a look at some of the Japanese self-mummifying Monks for ideas. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sokushinbutsu Hope you enjoy eating pine resin.","human_ref_B":"Tie heavy weights to your whole body\u2019s sink yourself to the bottom of the Black Sea. The chemistry at the bottom will preserve you. Maybe you\u2019ll need to tie some sort of bobber so someone can find you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25767.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"98otam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What would be the best way to preserve my body for future archeologists\/anthropologists? This is a pretty unorthodox question, but I basically want to know, if I was to try and preserve my body after my death for future archeologists what would be the best way to do that, and what kinds of materials should I bury with me? Let\u2019s have three different scenarios, preparing for archeologists 500 years in the future, 1000 years in the future, and 5000 years in the future. First, lets think about preserving my body, what are the important things that I should consider? Would it be best to enbalm my body in formaldehyde, or would it be better to bury myself in a desert or a glacier so that natural mummification could occur? Is it better to be buried near my place of living or in an area well suited for body preservation? Secondly, lets think about how my grave should be marked. Would a plastic gravestone be durable enough to be legible in the future? Should I take precautions against grave robbers? And lastly, what should I be buried with? Maybe some shrink wrapped clothes and food from my time period, maybe some photos of my life perhaps? Lets say I wrote an autobiography and had it buried with me, would it be important to have it translated into other major languages like spanish, arabic etc, or is english good enough? What are the aspects of life historians and archeologists oftentimes miss about ancient people and how could I communicate those with future peoples? Sorry if this isn\u2019t a good question to ask, but I thought it could be interesting to think about.","c_root_id_A":"e4hy85y","c_root_id_B":"e4ibbp0","created_at_utc_A":1534735105,"created_at_utc_B":1534757453,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Not my area but I suspect one of the plastination techniques used to make anatomical specimens might have good longevity. Perhaps they could be modified for extreme longevity and\/or be combined with a sturdy casket with a completely anoxic interior filled with an inert gas or liquid.","human_ref_B":"Take a look at some of the Japanese self-mummifying Monks for ideas. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sokushinbutsu Hope you enjoy eating pine resin.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22348.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"59ix76","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are some examples of how indigenous societies handled menstruation? I'm curious about the variety of practical methods indigenous societies used to handle menstruation, and any beliefs around it, spiritual or otherwise. Any good examples from a particular people?","c_root_id_A":"d994yak","c_root_id_B":"d993c3h","created_at_utc_A":1477519246,"created_at_utc_B":1477517167,"score_A":38,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In Papua New Guinea, women would retreat to a menstrual hut for their time of the month. Funnily enough, researchers realized that women were visiting the hut sometimes 3-4 times a month (which is very unusual) Turns out that it was sometimes used as a sort of break from the labor that women undertook daily (much of the farming, child rearing, and housework was done by women) I can't find a good academic source right now for you to read, but the social dynamics of indigenous people of Papua New Guinea is fascinating. Onka's Big Mokka is a good documentary for this culture. I love that film.","human_ref_B":"Not sure if considered indigenous, but I know that the Bedouins pretty much forbid women to be religious when they are on their periods.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2079.0,"score_ratio":5.4285714286} {"post_id":"59ix76","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are some examples of how indigenous societies handled menstruation? I'm curious about the variety of practical methods indigenous societies used to handle menstruation, and any beliefs around it, spiritual or otherwise. Any good examples from a particular people?","c_root_id_A":"d993c3h","c_root_id_B":"d99kt6n","created_at_utc_A":1477517167,"created_at_utc_B":1477542380,"score_A":7,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Not sure if considered indigenous, but I know that the Bedouins pretty much forbid women to be religious when they are on their periods.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist, but I've lived in Hawai'i my entire life and have studied our ancient culture extensively. Note that everything I am going to be talking about in this response was in practice pre-contact. Beyond how menstruation was handled, there were many varied *kapu* (Hawai'ian for *taboo* \u2013 the words are linguistically related, but do not always have the same meaning \u2013 which I will explain below) for both men and women. To give a few examples of feminine *kapu*: women were not allowed to enter the men's eating house (the *mua*), nor eat with men (*kane*) at all. Women (*wahine*) also had several dietary restrictions. It was *kapu* for women to eat bananas, pork, coconut and red fish. Women were considered ready for sexual intercourse once they'd have first gone into menses, however during menses, they had to separate and sequester themselves in a menstrual hut known as a *hale pe'a*. The word *kahapouli* refers to menstruating women and their time within the *hale pe'a*. The attitudes Hawai'ian society had regarding menses, the *hale pe'a*, and *kahapouli* were two-fold. One aspect of *kahapouli* related to cleanliness. Hawai'ian culture was very aware of cleanliness and hygiene \u2013 both bodily and in their environment. They were surprisingly advanced in their medical practices, performed several types of surgeries, and we still use a large variety of Hawai'ian medicinal plants today. They had an intrinsic knowledge of what certain compounds found in their environment could do for healing, people did not often get sick and quality of life was good. A person going about their day and their work whilst continuously bleeding may have seemed unclean. (I have heard as much, but that last sentence was just conjecture on my part \u2013 I'm female by the way.) Another aspect of the *kahapouli* had to do as well with respecting the sacred life-giving power of *wahine* by giving them this time to rest within the *hale pe'a*, socialize with other women, and be mindful of their bodies. *Kahapouli* translates to \"place of dark night\", but this was a misnomer. The atmosphere and activities in the *hale pe'a* centered around relaxation and realigning the mind, body and soul. The *wahine* was in no way expected to take part in daily family or community work, including the rearing of their children. That would be handled by other female family members, and if need be for very young children and babies, a type of wet-nurse. This is where the *kapu* comes in, and differs in definition from *taboo*. A *taboo* is more like a law. In Hawai'ian culture, *kapu* relates broadly to the sacred, the holy, concecrated, and things that are off-limits. It's often used to refer to religious and sacred sites and acts of all kinds. *Kapu* in this sense, as with their polytheistic religion, is steeped in all aspects of ancient Hawai'ian life, culture, society, family, and even personal identity. Finally, when the *wahine* was finished with her cycle, the blood that had been until now collected on fine wood fiber was buried, and a *kapu* of sacredness was placed on the spot of burial. I think this covers most of the subject, and this is my first time answering a question on \/r\/AskAnthropology. If I was unclear about anything, or you would like to know more about this or other aspects of Hawai'ian culture or anthropology, let me know. I could point you in the direction of some scholarly works or books about Hawai'ian history, anthropology, and culture. I live very near the University of Hawai'i and have access to a lot of works and artifacts many wouldn't even dream existed! Interesting tidbit: we still use the word *kapu*, but it now mostly means \"no tresspassing\" or \"keep out\", unless you're using it in the context of talking about the real, original meaning. Many homes and properties have a big \"KAPU!\" sign at the front of their driveways, including myself! Edited for spelling and grammar.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25213.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"4dssns","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What are some of the indigenous societies currently facing problems due to globalization?","c_root_id_A":"d1ur7ec","c_root_id_B":"d1u9zm2","created_at_utc_A":1460112596,"created_at_utc_B":1460073627,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Rarely thought of as an example of an indigenous group, but the Saami in Scandinavia and Russia have issues making a livelihood off their reindeer production since globalization has made their trade undesirable. People don't want to buy expensive reindeer meat over cheaper alternatives. Many return to \"normal\" western lifestyles because living as a Saami isn't feasible. It causes huge internal conflicts among families as the other family members think of it as a betrayal to their traditional lifestyle. Global warming also affects where the reindeer can graze which also creates conflict of interest.","human_ref_B":"Throughtout the Amazon there have been numerous clashes between indigenous groups, loggers, and government authorities. It's gotten pretty nasty in a lot of cases.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38969.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"74uul1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why are signatures becoming less and less common among young people? I was filling a chart today and realized that the only ones who had an actual signature were people of older age. The majority of the young people only write their names. For context I love in a Spanish speaking country, in South America. I'm not sure if this is a world wide phenomenon. Are millennials killing signatures? (Sorry I had to do this).","c_root_id_A":"do1g6vi","c_root_id_B":"do1i94u","created_at_utc_A":1507394253,"created_at_utc_B":1507396861,"score_A":10,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Born in 1996, had cursive in 2nd grade, was told it would be expected of me in the future... well it never was and I can't read it at all now. My younger brother, meanwhile never had cursive.","human_ref_B":"It's about frequency. I'm early 30s and I used to half-print my signature. Then I had a job that required me to sign my name dozens of times a day. You get lazy, you omit letters and make big dramatic swoops with others. Eventually it becomes just motor movement and you're not writing your name anymore, your signature is born.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2608.0,"score_ratio":4.7} {"post_id":"zhl3xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ethnography about the Romani or Travellers? Hello, I'm looking for ethnographies on either the Romani people or the Travellers of Ireland. Would anyone happen to know some?","c_root_id_A":"iznte0i","c_root_id_B":"iznt3zb","created_at_utc_A":1670682644,"created_at_utc_B":1670682505,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I live on a council estate which used to be a common field camped on by travellers who worked the farm next to it. The started building a council estate here in the 1930s but the travellers were allowed to keep or purchase the plots they lived on and they're still here. Some of their kids and grandkids live in the council houses on the estate. A lot of them still in the old plots have horse heads statues on their gates and live quite traditionally with little bungalows and lots of caravans about. They own the equestrian farm next to the estate and keep horses. A number of them do trades like cars and building. They're really good people and very involved in the community. I think all of the families are romanichal - British romani who have been here for 500 odd years. We're on the outskirts of quite a posh town. They're generally really friendly and conscientious. They won't cross you unless you cross them first.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve got some recommendations for Gitanos if that\u2019s helpful? THE SPANISH GYPSY: The History of a European Obsession by Lou Charnon-Deutsch Gypsies in Madrid: Sex, Gender and the Performance of Identity By Paloma Gay y Blasco Gitanos.org has lots of resources as well https:\/\/www.gitanos.org\/centro_documentacion\/index.php For GRT in the UK & Ireland maybe try starting with the resources available here: https:\/\/travellermovement.org.uk","labels":1,"seconds_difference":139.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"zhl3xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ethnography about the Romani or Travellers? Hello, I'm looking for ethnographies on either the Romani people or the Travellers of Ireland. Would anyone happen to know some?","c_root_id_A":"iznt1mu","c_root_id_B":"iznte0i","created_at_utc_A":1670682471,"created_at_utc_B":1670682644,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I just finished reading In the Field: Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology by George and Sharon Gmelch that has a chapter about their field work with the travellers, its mentioned that both did their doctoral dissertations on the travellers, so maybe look into their work.","human_ref_B":"I live on a council estate which used to be a common field camped on by travellers who worked the farm next to it. The started building a council estate here in the 1930s but the travellers were allowed to keep or purchase the plots they lived on and they're still here. Some of their kids and grandkids live in the council houses on the estate. A lot of them still in the old plots have horse heads statues on their gates and live quite traditionally with little bungalows and lots of caravans about. They own the equestrian farm next to the estate and keep horses. A number of them do trades like cars and building. They're really good people and very involved in the community. I think all of the families are romanichal - British romani who have been here for 500 odd years. We're on the outskirts of quite a posh town. They're generally really friendly and conscientious. They won't cross you unless you cross them first.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":173.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"zhl3xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ethnography about the Romani or Travellers? Hello, I'm looking for ethnographies on either the Romani people or the Travellers of Ireland. Would anyone happen to know some?","c_root_id_A":"iznt3zb","c_root_id_B":"izo6e2n","created_at_utc_A":1670682505,"created_at_utc_B":1670688610,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ve got some recommendations for Gitanos if that\u2019s helpful? THE SPANISH GYPSY: The History of a European Obsession by Lou Charnon-Deutsch Gypsies in Madrid: Sex, Gender and the Performance of Identity By Paloma Gay y Blasco Gitanos.org has lots of resources as well https:\/\/www.gitanos.org\/centro_documentacion\/index.php For GRT in the UK & Ireland maybe try starting with the resources available here: https:\/\/travellermovement.org.uk","human_ref_B":"Lemon, Alaina. 2000. Between Two Fires Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism. Dr. Lemon wrote a very good ethnography about the Romani in Russia. https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/between-two-fires Please note that \"travellers\" refers to many people who may or may not be Romani. I write this because some people conflate the Romani with travellers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6105.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"zhl3xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ethnography about the Romani or Travellers? Hello, I'm looking for ethnographies on either the Romani people or the Travellers of Ireland. Would anyone happen to know some?","c_root_id_A":"izo6e2n","c_root_id_B":"iznt1mu","created_at_utc_A":1670688610,"created_at_utc_B":1670682471,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Lemon, Alaina. 2000. Between Two Fires Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism. Dr. Lemon wrote a very good ethnography about the Romani in Russia. https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/between-two-fires Please note that \"travellers\" refers to many people who may or may not be Romani. I write this because some people conflate the Romani with travellers.","human_ref_B":"I just finished reading In the Field: Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology by George and Sharon Gmelch that has a chapter about their field work with the travellers, its mentioned that both did their doctoral dissertations on the travellers, so maybe look into their work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6139.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"zhl3xq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Ethnography about the Romani or Travellers? Hello, I'm looking for ethnographies on either the Romani people or the Travellers of Ireland. Would anyone happen to know some?","c_root_id_A":"iznt1mu","c_root_id_B":"iznt3zb","created_at_utc_A":1670682471,"created_at_utc_B":1670682505,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I just finished reading In the Field: Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology by George and Sharon Gmelch that has a chapter about their field work with the travellers, its mentioned that both did their doctoral dissertations on the travellers, so maybe look into their work.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve got some recommendations for Gitanos if that\u2019s helpful? THE SPANISH GYPSY: The History of a European Obsession by Lou Charnon-Deutsch Gypsies in Madrid: Sex, Gender and the Performance of Identity By Paloma Gay y Blasco Gitanos.org has lots of resources as well https:\/\/www.gitanos.org\/centro_documentacion\/index.php For GRT in the UK & Ireland maybe try starting with the resources available here: https:\/\/travellermovement.org.uk","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ayq22o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Any suggestions for great anthro lectures? My new job has a lot of down time and I'm looking for any good anthropology lectures on youtube, podcasts, etc. Any subject, any realm of anthro is fine. Just looking for any good stuff. Any suggestions or links would be deeply appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"ei2vzym","c_root_id_B":"ei2uplg","created_at_utc_A":1552063934,"created_at_utc_B":1552063043,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"David Graeber and David Wengrow on paleoanthropology and history: https:\/\/vimeo.com\/145285143 Rejoinder to the above: https:\/\/vimeo.com\/260771955 Also, any lecture by David Graeber on YouTube. ​","human_ref_B":"BBC Radio 4 has some really good 45min lecture\/discussion series (audio only) on a number of anthropology related topics for free. I have greatly enjoyed many of them so far.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":891.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"k1uq9u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"17 year old wanting to study anthropology! please help with advice! hello everyone! i hope you all are having a nice day! i decided to post this under this subreddit because i am looking for some advice or guidance from someone that has studied anthropology in college or university or maybe just someone that knows the topic very well. any and all advice is greatly appreciated! so, first i would like to give a little background and explain why anthropology interest me. i am a queer black guy\/man\/boy (???) that was raised in a bicultural household in the united states (my mother is from colombia and my father in from the united states). when i was in elementary school, i went to a very conservative christian private school where the student body was mostly white. due to the conservative ideals held by most of my school, i was often subject to bullying, not only for being black, but also for speaking spanish and being queer. i don't really think i took most of it to heart, but it was difficult growing up in an environment where my intersections were something constantly being made fun of or not having many friends because of them. typically, people begin to question their identity when entering their teenage years, but due to my experience in elementary, i began to question mine much earlier. i grew up as a little kid around the inception of youtube and would constantly look up and watch videos that talked about race, ethnicity, culture, sexuality etc. in an attempt to find people i could relate to and people who could teach me about myself. for example, as i said before my mother is from colombia. she is a biracial black and indigenous colombian and my father is a black american which would make me black (in my opinion, 3\/4 black outweighs the 1\/4 indigenous). however when i was little, when asked what race i was (when they found out my mother was from colombia or when i would speak spanish in public etc.) i would say i was biracial black and hispanic due to my ignorance of the fact that hispanic isn't a race, but an ethnicity. around the time i was middle school, the term afro-latino started to become very popular. through youtube i was able to learn the difference between hispanic and latino, that racially i was not biracial, i was black, and, ethnically i was african-american and afro-colombian. these identities were (and still are) things i was extremely proud to call myself. especially since when i started middle school, i left the private school i was going to and began to attend public school which was far more diverse and i was actually embraced for being black and being able to speak spanish. the newfound pride i felt didn't deter me from continuing to learn more about my identities, but even pushed me to learn more about the identities of others. i learned about other afro-latino cultures, i took a deeper dive into my own afro-colombian and african-american cultures, and began to venture out and learn about other cultures from all over the planet. even from a young age, i was very tolerant and accepting of other cultures and people. i believe i can account that to three things. first, ever since i was little i was able to travel to colombia during summer breaks so i was immersed in the life and people from there. hence, bicultural. not to mention the humility gained from being able to see real third world poverty. second, i understand what it feels like to be treated poorly because you're different due to my experience in elementary school and i never want anyone to feel that way. and lastly, i've always been respectfully curious about other ways of life. next year, i will begin college and even though i have about two years until i decide my major i am pretty confident in my desire to study anthropology and specifically cultural anthropology. so my first question is, do i sound like someone that would enjoy anthropology or would i be better suited for another humanities major? i currently take psychology in school, but believe i would enjoy anthropology more. secondly, from my understanding, not much can be done with a bachelors degree in anthropology. with that in mind, i have considered double majoring in anthropology and film. this is because i have always been interested in film due to my long history with youtube and loved to learn from the documentaries and educational videos i watch on youtube. i believe that with both of these under my belt i would be able to film and create similar content. so my next question is, would taking both anthropology and film be studies that would pair up well with what i currently want to do? i understand this is a anthropology subreddit, so if not much advice can be given for this one, that's fine. thank you if you read all of this! and again any and all advice is greatly appreciated. have a good day!","c_root_id_A":"gdqr2dh","c_root_id_B":"gdqr908","created_at_utc_A":1606458756,"created_at_utc_B":1606458903,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Most of my friend dont fit molds. Some of them make money and some don't. Many of the ones who make no money regret it and go back to college for a degree to get them a job or they go to trade school. Follow your dreams if you can't imagine living any other way, but you passion absolutely shouldn't be your job. Jobs tend to kill passion. Live for your hobbies and your interests, not for your work. But find work that you can do to support yourself and your ambitions. My only regret in life is that I didn't come to understand this sooner.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology sounds like a perfect major for you, and would certainly help with film studies. I graduated from Chico State a couple years ago and even though I don\u2019t have a job directly related to anthropology, the lessons I learned can be applied to any career. Follow your passion, my friend!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":147.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"k1uq9u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"17 year old wanting to study anthropology! please help with advice! hello everyone! i hope you all are having a nice day! i decided to post this under this subreddit because i am looking for some advice or guidance from someone that has studied anthropology in college or university or maybe just someone that knows the topic very well. any and all advice is greatly appreciated! so, first i would like to give a little background and explain why anthropology interest me. i am a queer black guy\/man\/boy (???) that was raised in a bicultural household in the united states (my mother is from colombia and my father in from the united states). when i was in elementary school, i went to a very conservative christian private school where the student body was mostly white. due to the conservative ideals held by most of my school, i was often subject to bullying, not only for being black, but also for speaking spanish and being queer. i don't really think i took most of it to heart, but it was difficult growing up in an environment where my intersections were something constantly being made fun of or not having many friends because of them. typically, people begin to question their identity when entering their teenage years, but due to my experience in elementary, i began to question mine much earlier. i grew up as a little kid around the inception of youtube and would constantly look up and watch videos that talked about race, ethnicity, culture, sexuality etc. in an attempt to find people i could relate to and people who could teach me about myself. for example, as i said before my mother is from colombia. she is a biracial black and indigenous colombian and my father is a black american which would make me black (in my opinion, 3\/4 black outweighs the 1\/4 indigenous). however when i was little, when asked what race i was (when they found out my mother was from colombia or when i would speak spanish in public etc.) i would say i was biracial black and hispanic due to my ignorance of the fact that hispanic isn't a race, but an ethnicity. around the time i was middle school, the term afro-latino started to become very popular. through youtube i was able to learn the difference between hispanic and latino, that racially i was not biracial, i was black, and, ethnically i was african-american and afro-colombian. these identities were (and still are) things i was extremely proud to call myself. especially since when i started middle school, i left the private school i was going to and began to attend public school which was far more diverse and i was actually embraced for being black and being able to speak spanish. the newfound pride i felt didn't deter me from continuing to learn more about my identities, but even pushed me to learn more about the identities of others. i learned about other afro-latino cultures, i took a deeper dive into my own afro-colombian and african-american cultures, and began to venture out and learn about other cultures from all over the planet. even from a young age, i was very tolerant and accepting of other cultures and people. i believe i can account that to three things. first, ever since i was little i was able to travel to colombia during summer breaks so i was immersed in the life and people from there. hence, bicultural. not to mention the humility gained from being able to see real third world poverty. second, i understand what it feels like to be treated poorly because you're different due to my experience in elementary school and i never want anyone to feel that way. and lastly, i've always been respectfully curious about other ways of life. next year, i will begin college and even though i have about two years until i decide my major i am pretty confident in my desire to study anthropology and specifically cultural anthropology. so my first question is, do i sound like someone that would enjoy anthropology or would i be better suited for another humanities major? i currently take psychology in school, but believe i would enjoy anthropology more. secondly, from my understanding, not much can be done with a bachelors degree in anthropology. with that in mind, i have considered double majoring in anthropology and film. this is because i have always been interested in film due to my long history with youtube and loved to learn from the documentaries and educational videos i watch on youtube. i believe that with both of these under my belt i would be able to film and create similar content. so my next question is, would taking both anthropology and film be studies that would pair up well with what i currently want to do? i understand this is a anthropology subreddit, so if not much advice can be given for this one, that's fine. thank you if you read all of this! and again any and all advice is greatly appreciated. have a good day!","c_root_id_A":"gdqwzg0","c_root_id_B":"gdr27u1","created_at_utc_A":1606463857,"created_at_utc_B":1606468967,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"i\u2019m biracial and held a lot of the same questions you do at the time i was going to college. anthropology helped me \u201canswer\u201d those questions in the loose sense of the word, in that it completely shifted the way i thought about my culture and my own position. my advice would be to take a few anthro classes if you can before you decide. sometimes, what we imagine a field of study to be like and what is actually taught in classrooms can be two completely different things. consider that anthropology isn\u2019t always just a field of study where we stay in academia and theorize, but involves real-life application like performing fieldwork and dedicating large parts of our life to research and ethics. that is, of course, if you decide to stay in anthropology when you graduate. but any good program will involve some kind of application of the theories we study. like others have said, i wouldn\u2019t worry too much about your prospects if you choose to pursue a degree in anthropology. there are so many things you could do with it; it really depends on where life takes you.","human_ref_B":"Medical anthropology major here and I have to say I have zero regrets taking this major over business or psychology.. Anthro is the best the teachers are the chillest and u learn amazing stuff. All Anthroplogy students I know have a super accepting and loving mindset. Best of luck","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5110.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"9co7n2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Let's talk about warrior women! Hello everyone! One of my favourite observations of David Graeber is that no matter what universalist statement you are making (\"History has *always* favoured capitalism\", \"femininity has *always* been seen as meek and submissive\", etc.), anthropology can help with debunking it by the huge and awesome number of cultures which have been extensively studied which show the opposite. Unfortunately most of my knowledge of this stuff is more about political cultures and I really don't know too much about how different societies have conceived of masculinity and femininity or of the differing roles of women. For example, I made a post on \/r\/AskFeminists recently about how women simply have not had the same universal roles at all even within the same culture, let alone in different cultures. I was wondering: * Which cultures have existed where women did most of the fighting? There may be something about warrior women on the Uzbek steppes in ancient times but sources seem vague, as do historical reports from Brazil and South America. The closest I've been able to find have been the warrior women of Dahomey who were an elite kingsguard but that's not exactly the same as a society where women made exclusively the highest ranks of military. But given the huge variety of human culture in virtually all other aspects of society, I'm really struggling to believe this has *never* happened even if its through some strange accident of history or geography like the all-female society in Walking Dead, or Mad Max. * Which cultures saw femininity as dominant, assertive and aggressive? I got the Tchambuli and the Mundagamor both from Margaret Mead and a fascinating article about aggressive women in Western societies but surely there must be a lot more? * Has sacred prostitution and holy women been practiced in more recent times or is that exclusively an old-world phenomenon? Is there anything else I should know and be talking about when it comes to sex differences and construction of gender between cultures? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"e5cxmqt","c_root_id_B":"e5ccbhe","created_at_utc_A":1536033848,"created_at_utc_B":1536011867,"score_A":38,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Two of the key developments that produced a lot of female warriors was the small, lighter and more accurate bow, and horseriding. Both of these equalised the genders in terms of effectiveness, particularly with the introduction of cavalries. The hot-spot for all this was the eurasian steppes. The Sarmatians in particular had what appears to be many female warriors. In fact the first women to wear trousers. At least 20% of gravesites contained women in full armour. We have evidence of battle injuries. They would also hunt with dogs and falcons. These women fascinated the Greeks, who made up a lot of bullshit about them.... Including the famous myth they removed one breast to become better archers (they didn't. The way their bows were held were more forward from the body) The plethora of huntresses in Greek mythology is also telling, but hopefully someone else can step in and expand on that. For tribes, we have the Aeta. While their men hunt singly, the women hunt in groups. They use both different tactics and different weapons.","human_ref_B":">that's not exactly the same as a society where women made exclusively the highest ranks of military. Why would this be so surprising? Humans do exhibit sexual dimorphism, even if it's not as pronounced as in many other species. Males have higher average muscle mass, and usually exhibit about twice the strength of females. If you're putting together a society, there's not much sense in creating a warrior class that's going to be physically only half as strong as your neighbor's. Even if some \"strange accident of history or geography\" created such a situation, it would be unlikely to survive in the long term. >Has sacred prostitution and holy women been practiced in more recent times or is that exclusively an old-world phenomenon? No sacred prostitution in the West, no. That ended in the ~4th century. I'm not aware of any similar practices in (non-mediterranean) pagan Europe. No idea about elsewhere in the world. As for \"holy women\", it entirely depends upon what you mean by that; the woman most recently beatified by the Catholic Church died in 2006, for example, and so the idea of \"holy women\" is emphatically not a strictly ancient one. It's not a concept that ought to be lumped in with sacred prostitution as though they're necessarily equivalent or related.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21981.0,"score_ratio":1.8095238095} {"post_id":"ubc0gu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Anthro majors: what is your career\/salary like now? I graduated with a degree in Environmental Anthropology and minor in Biology. I wish I could study this all for a living, but uncertainty with jobs\/salaries has pushed me to the healthcare side. Financial stability is my #1 goal in a career\u2026 I\u2019m very interested in anatomy so might pursue physical therapy, but anthropology feels more meaningful. Does anyone care to share their salary working in the anthro field?","c_root_id_A":"i637ivx","c_root_id_B":"i64d83v","created_at_utc_A":1650859000,"created_at_utc_B":1650888987,"score_A":20,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I work in HR now (specifically as a recruiter in healthcare) Currently 50k but I\u2019m actively looking for better right now. PT is a solid field - heck, any healthcare field is a solid, stable career if you can handle it.","human_ref_B":"Without a grad degree, if you want to work in anthropology, financial stability is unlikely. I have a master's and a PhD and make about $77.5k before taxes in the US. I work in cultural resources management as a principal investigator and project manager.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29987.0,"score_ratio":2.05} {"post_id":"ubc0gu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Anthro majors: what is your career\/salary like now? I graduated with a degree in Environmental Anthropology and minor in Biology. I wish I could study this all for a living, but uncertainty with jobs\/salaries has pushed me to the healthcare side. Financial stability is my #1 goal in a career\u2026 I\u2019m very interested in anatomy so might pursue physical therapy, but anthropology feels more meaningful. Does anyone care to share their salary working in the anthro field?","c_root_id_A":"i64d83v","c_root_id_B":"i6410px","created_at_utc_A":1650888987,"created_at_utc_B":1650880800,"score_A":41,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Without a grad degree, if you want to work in anthropology, financial stability is unlikely. I have a master's and a PhD and make about $77.5k before taxes in the US. I work in cultural resources management as a principal investigator and project manager.","human_ref_B":"Got a BA in Anthro with a focus on cultural and bio Anthro and a minor in Africana Studies. I've been a nanny for a decade and own my own agency to help place nannies for others. Last year I made $48k total from both jobs. It's not enough. I want to pursue something different eventually but I love being a nanny currently","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8187.0,"score_ratio":2.5625} {"post_id":"ubc0gu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Anthro majors: what is your career\/salary like now? I graduated with a degree in Environmental Anthropology and minor in Biology. I wish I could study this all for a living, but uncertainty with jobs\/salaries has pushed me to the healthcare side. Financial stability is my #1 goal in a career\u2026 I\u2019m very interested in anatomy so might pursue physical therapy, but anthropology feels more meaningful. Does anyone care to share their salary working in the anthro field?","c_root_id_A":"i64vtyw","c_root_id_B":"i6525iu","created_at_utc_A":1650897607,"created_at_utc_B":1650900156,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I majored in Anthropology with a focus on Human Evolution and Biology. I really wanted to work in the field with remains but ran into the same problem - financial security is nonexistent. I currently work a \u201cnormal\u201d job in insurance and make 55k, but am on track to go to med school next year because like you, I love anatomy. I\u2019ve found it\u2019s extremely difficult to get both a fulfilling career directly in anthropology and financial stability - however, the beautiful thing about anthro is you can go so many different directions!","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology, MA in anthropology and museum studies. I worked a short-term contract job (9 months) in a museum for $8\/hour and no benefits, then 5 years in a university architecture slide collection for $8\/hour and benefits (promoted to a salary when my boss left and I got his job), but it was still less than $30K in the late 90s\/early 2000s. I then went to library school and focused on digital imaging to increase the range of jobs I could apply for, since most museum jobs were either $8\/hour with no benefits, or requiring years and years for experience to get positions that would allow me to pay my student loans. Almost 20 years in academic libraries now, working on the technical side and while I started at $36k I\u2019m now making a bit over $60K. Where is the anthropology, you ask? The part of my job that deals with accessibility, for which I do usability testing, things that involve social science techniques. Also a degree in anything in addition to librarianship makes you attractive to university libraries. A note: you could do the exact same thing in the private sector and make closer to $90K but that\u2019s the way universities roll.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2549.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"ubc0gu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Anthro majors: what is your career\/salary like now? I graduated with a degree in Environmental Anthropology and minor in Biology. I wish I could study this all for a living, but uncertainty with jobs\/salaries has pushed me to the healthcare side. Financial stability is my #1 goal in a career\u2026 I\u2019m very interested in anatomy so might pursue physical therapy, but anthropology feels more meaningful. Does anyone care to share their salary working in the anthro field?","c_root_id_A":"i65m5j1","c_root_id_B":"i65nyym","created_at_utc_A":1650907825,"created_at_utc_B":1650908522,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":">I\u2019m very interested in anatomy so might pursue physical therapy, but anthropology feels more meaningful. long story short my wife has a lot of medical conditions, physical therapists are what people want chiropractors to be. they can legit help people recovery from injuries and accidents. anyway, that is not to take you out of anthropology \\[heck, I am in IT\\] just saying is all.","human_ref_B":"I graduated with a double major in English lit and anthropology. I didn't think I wanted to do a doctoral program for anthro, so I started looking for jobs in publishing or at nonprofits that fit my interest in social justice. I couldn't really get anything and was pretty discouraged. So I said fuck it and went to law school. Now I'm a public defender. Its definitely not a traditionally recognized \"anthropology\" job, but i do think it requires many skills that overlap with cultural anthro\/sociology. Talking with many people from vastly different backgrounds in different situations, telling their stories, identifying patterns, etc. I make $54k per year and will probably get about $12.5k in bonuses, for a total income of $66.5k.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":697.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"xwuabp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Intro linguistic anthropologists? Hi!! I\u2019m a senior sociology major in undergrad currently working on an honors thesis about language socialization practices in preschool classrooms. I\u2019ve never taken an anthro class or have much background knowledge on linguistic anthropology but since starting this process have obviously been doing some deep dives into language socialization theories! Was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for intro level linguistic anthro texts or authors, feel like I need to have more of a base understanding of the field before I go coocoo with the dense theory.","c_root_id_A":"ir95yy7","c_root_id_B":"ir9j605","created_at_utc_A":1665040924,"created_at_utc_B":1665052428,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Have you looked at the Handbook of Language Socialization edited by Duranti, Ochs, and Schiefflein? That's the first thing that comes to mind for me. They have a variety of articles\/texts that would be interesting. Depending on what you are looking at, you might want to have a look through some of the early works of Marjorie Harness Goodwin. She did some studies on play and language socialization, though mostly in an urban and African American context.","human_ref_B":"Just to get a start, I'd say Duranti's _Linguistic Anthropology_ or Ahearn's _Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology_. Both are overviews, which will be more useful than something that's a deep dive into a specific topic\/area.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11504.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"g7b5rb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are the differences between Sociology and Sociocultural Anthropology? 1. What makes both different? Is it only in terms of research methods where Sociology combines both qualitative and quantitative whereas Social & Cultural Anthropology focuses on ethnography? 2. And what is the better option if you have background in applied linguistics? 3. And want to conduct research based on how the Internet and language\/second language play roles in social exclusion at the individual level particularly in relation to how a certain discourse community is shaped and enables like-minded people to interact.","c_root_id_A":"fog830x","c_root_id_B":"fog8tmp","created_at_utc_A":1587749143,"created_at_utc_B":1587749429,"score_A":13,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"1) what I've heard my professors say is that sociology is more quantitative (focused on statistics) while sociocultural anthropology is more qualitative (based on long descriptions, subjective experiences, non-concrete stuff). it's roughly what you said. however there are many many many exceptions and quantitative data is integrated into ethnography all the time. I don't know what the relationship of sociology to ethnography is, but I would say anthropology's focus on ethnography is its distinguishing trait, yes. 2-3) it really depends on what style of research you are more comfortable with. your topic of interest sounds perfect for sociocultural anthropology, especially the whole \"digital ethnography\" thing. I am about to graduate as a double major in sociocultural anthropology and linguistics. I can see how the research methods of linguistics are more similar to sociological ones, but I still integrate what I've learned in both fields together all the time. Just the way an education in linguistics teaches you to unpack the elements of speech and how they create meaning is a skill you can draw on again and again and again in ethnography.","human_ref_B":"1. There is a lot of overlap. The way I think of it is that sociology focuses more on the institutions of modern society, inequality, etc. whereas anthropology looks at humanity as a species; it covers belief systems, practices, ways of living, and incorporates more of the historical context. Either discipline can do research that\u2019s qualitative, quantitative, or both. 2. Anthropology. There\u2019s actually an entire field called linguistic anthropology. 3. You could do research on that as a sociologist or anthropologist honestly. I\u2019m biased towards anthropology though.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":286.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1l7yny","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are there any societies in which acne is considered attractive or socially acceptable? Bonus question: if pop stars such as Justin Bieber and One Direction began promoting acne as attractive or socially acceptable, would it become so?","c_root_id_A":"cbwxe42","c_root_id_B":"cbwva2o","created_at_utc_A":1377691961,"created_at_utc_B":1377675383,"score_A":27,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There have been some interesting studies and suggestions on the issue. I don't know of any society that views acne as sexually attractive. It is possible that it exists (and according to rule #34 of the internet there is probably at least some subgroup out there that appreciates it.) But there are a few interesting suggestions out there regarding skin, acne, and sexual selection. First, there was a study done in 2012 that women were attracted to healthy skin as indicated by golden skin-tones in the skin of their own ethnic groups (they seemed to have a hard time recognizing those markers in other ethnic groups.) This actually trumped interest in masculine features of the face. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables gives your skin this coloration and a good diet obviously links to a lot of positive things you want in a mate. Likewise, a 2001 study done where men looked at digitally adjusted faces of women suggested that they preferred women with smooth similar skin that was a similar color allover and darker skin. Because it does not seem that they looked for the golden skin tones of the above paper (it was done before that one), it is possible that darker skin was linked to that. But it may also simply reflect current concepts of beauty. Either way, women were judged as more sexually attractive if they had smooth skin. Unfortunately, there are few studies done on how women view men's skin texture - most seem to focus on male perceptions of female skin. To tie this together, in 2004 a medical hypothesis was published suggesting that acne may actually be the result of sexual selection because it is a way to ward of potential mates until the individual is ready to be a parent. Basically, the idea is that acne shows up around the same time that the person is physically capable of reproducing but before they are really emotionally and socially ready to be a parent. The author suggests that cross-culturally people are not attracted to acne (though he does not cite a source for this claim), it shows up primarily on the face where clothing cannot hide it well, and usually goes away by late teens\/early twenties. Individuals who wait until then to reproduce may be better parents and their children may be more likely to be healthy and well taken care of. Now I want to stress that this is purely a hypothesis and there are certainly valid criticisms of it. But it is an interesting suggestion.","human_ref_B":"It suggests an issue with the health of the individual so probably not. Acne can be caused by hormonal imbalance, chronic stress, yeast overgrowth, or infection. The body would heal the skin if it were able to.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16578.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"vs4vcx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Anthropological sources regarding the Black Death in medieval Islamic society? I\u2019ve always had a fascination with the Black Death, but the problem is, it seems all we know about the pestilence is from mostly European sources. There has to be more to the pandemic than that, though. Which is why I\u2019ve been wondering, what was the effect of the Black Death on Islamic society and culture? Did it take a similar tole on them as their European counterparts? More specifically, did the pestilence impact their religious practices or change social conventions? And how did they handle the disease? I would assume a little bit differently from their Christian counterparts, given their reputation for advanced medical knowledge for a medieval society, but it\u2019s possible I\u2019m wrong.","c_root_id_A":"iezlvm8","c_root_id_B":"if11dq3","created_at_utc_A":1657053483,"created_at_utc_B":1657076453,"score_A":17,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"You may like the 24-part lecture series on the Black Death. I watched it during pandemic lockdown. The lecturer is really compelling and her examination of the Black Death is very thorough. https:\/\/www.thegreatcourses.com\/courses\/the-black-death-the-worlds-most-devastating-plague","human_ref_B":"This is actually my area of expertise! I study the Black Death in Central Asia, and while I personally don\u2019t work on Islamic contexts, I\u2019ve read all of the non-European literature from the Second Pandemic I can get my hands on and in whatever languages I understand. As I\u2019m away from my computer for a few days right now I can provide some English language sources from memory and elaborate more later if you\u2019re interested. The most recent and probably best book on the topic is Nukhet Varlik\u2019s Plague in the Mediterranean which focuses on the Ottoman Empire. There are some older books, one by Michael Dols from the 1970s which focuses mostly on the Levant, and another by Stuart Borsch which compares Egypt with England. Some recent articles have come out looking at Islamic Spain and North Africa but you\u2019d need journal access to get to those. There is also a translated primary source from 1340s Syrian write Ibn al-Wardi which describes the account of the Black Death sweeping through Aleppo that probably best shows the response to the pandemic that you\u2019re interested in. A few key things I remember offhand from these sources: Egyptian society became vastly more stratified in contrast to Western Europe as populations shrunk and labor needs increased. A lot of medical innovation by Islamic scholars came about as a response to the plague, based on accounts from Tunis and C\u00f3rdoba. For further plague studies, I highly recommend reading anything by Monica Green, she\u2019s the leader of Black Death lit right now and most of her stuff is open access - her 2014 Medieval Globe special issue is certainly available online and has tons of articles that would be relevant to your interests. Also, shameless plug for my own research area, but an article in Nature came out 2-3 weeks ago by Spyrou et al which confirms northern Kyrgyzstan as the earliest known Black Death site from the Second Pandemic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22970.0,"score_ratio":1.2352941176} {"post_id":"44395o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did early civilizations translate each other's languages when they first came into contact with each other? Also, what were the first civilizations to come into contact with each other?","c_root_id_A":"czn7bxn","c_root_id_B":"czn57xo","created_at_utc_A":1454559406,"created_at_utc_B":1454556023,"score_A":18,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Pidgin is the main answer. But its not a simple question. Firstly, in most cases, Civilisations dont exist in isolation, they lived side by side with other civilisations, and in both of them there would have been many people with shared knowledge of languages. There arent many cases of Civ1 meeting a totally unknown Civ2 in any significant sense until the European expansion. Even then in many cases there would be some way to translate. So a Portugese merchant landing in India may have several non-portugese on board who knew a bit of language A a lot of language B and bit of Portugese and theyd meet someone locally who knew Language B and a smidge of Language A and in the end some degree of communication was enabled. I'm sure that when the Romans landed in Britain they had with them some Gaulish trader or two who could speak quite well with the locals and so on. When completely isolated civs DID meet then, as AOEDUD says then a crude form of intermediary pidgin would have to come into place. As to when this occurred first, then like most of history, all we could say is when is it first documented. A notable case would be Marco Polo perhaps, but is one going to China a case of previously unknown civilisations metting for the first time. Or just one man?","human_ref_B":"This might help you out. In short: they make a new language known as a pidgin, a simplified version with aspects of both but simple enough to be learned without instruction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3383.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"gdvq0b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your current research project? Since anthropologists have to be in close contact with communities they research, I imagine current researches are very affected by physical and social distancing mandate. Also wonder if any anthropologist has published some thoughts on this pandemic from anthropological perspective.","c_root_id_A":"fpkgstb","c_root_id_B":"fpkdtj3","created_at_utc_A":1588694419,"created_at_utc_B":1588692864,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I've cancelled two conference presentations, archival research, and two fieldwork trips so far. I also lost a few thousand dollars in research funding. All relatively minor setbacks but since I'm not collecting new data things have definitely slowed down. There are some writings by anthropologists here: https:\/\/culanth.org\/fieldsights\/editors-forum\/covid-19","human_ref_B":"Same here (\u201cnot an anthropologist\u201d), but my research was just about to get the go ahead for community sampling of 1000 people. I submitted the final question draft on the Tuesday, and everything was closed on the Thursday. So the whole project has been postponed, the research assistant\u2019s contract will run out before data is back, so no statistical analysis, meaning an extension was needed and extra funding for a second assistant. The end date is pushed back a fair few months too","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1555.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"31avfj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Prof claims that a certain Indian tribe followed \"fourth time's a charm in their stories. Is this true and\/or common? Professor claimed he could tell a certain story was European in origin and not from the Indian tribe it is ascribed to (sorry can't remember the tribe, I believe it was in Mexico and the story was about a Catholic saint) because someone does something three times and is successful the third time like in Goldilocks, where in this tribe's stories it is the 4th try that is always successful. I always figured 3rd times a charm illustrated the Golden Mean (Too hot, too cold, just right in the middle). If some cultures do 4th time's a charm stories, what are they trying to indicate? What are the three failing ways and the one good way?","c_root_id_A":"cpzvkjm","c_root_id_B":"cpzvxm2","created_at_utc_A":1428063550,"created_at_utc_B":1428064706,"score_A":5,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"This might be something that \/u\/itsallfolklore knows about?","human_ref_B":"Your professor is referring to the fact that most European and Semitic cultures employ three as the critical number for repetition, but some other cultures use four or five. Why some cultures fall into one or the other pattern is not as easily explained as it is described. These are simply differences that occur, reminding us that most things we see as absolutes dictated by the universe - \"Golden Means\" as you say - are merely cultural assumptions. Axel Olrik, the great Danish folklorist (1864-1917) at the University of Copenhagen, outlined some rules that dictated how oral tradition functioned. The following is an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore addressing his second and third laws: 2. The Law of Repetition. Folk narrative repeats action for emphasis. Olrik pointed out that the hero may go into a field three days in a row to kill giants, or that he tries three times to ride up a glass mountain. In literature, these events would be as different as possible; in folk narrative, they are as similar as possible. Olrik wrote: \u201cevery time a striking scene occurs in a narrative, and continuity permits, the scene is repeated.\u201d 3. The Law of Three. In Indo-European and Semitic folktales, repetition occurs in threes. This almost has the appearance of being universal, but there are important exceptions. Where there are three repetitions or three brothers in a European folktale, the story in India will feature four, in keeping with the importance of that number in the subcontinent. Similarly, various American Indian cultures feature four or five as the preferred number, and this manifests in its oral tradition. Olrik made the point that literature, with the need for great realism, has fallen away from this rule, leaving oral tradition as the original form of storytelling exhibiting this rigid approach to narrative.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1156.0,"score_ratio":4.6} {"post_id":"2er79e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How established is the idea the Basque people are direct descendants of our very first migrant ancestors out of Africa? I learned in a class I took studying abroad in Spain that the people of Basque country (including the Navarra state if I remember correctly) have completely unique DNA compared to the rest of the world. This was made possible by the high mountains that surround the region, naturally protecting people living there from the numerous invasions the rest of Europe endured over time i.e. Romans, Germanic tribes, Moors, and Vikings. The teacher mentioned that some people think these populations might have DNA that would resemble our ancestors dating back to when there was first migration out of Africa, the theory going that most people moved East into what became known as the fertile crescent, and some others went North. This population that went North would supposedly be the same as those who inhabit Pays Basco and Navarra today. I was wondering if this theory has ever been proven, or if it is even well established? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"ck2j1x1","c_root_id_B":"ck2i8nj","created_at_utc_A":1409199504,"created_at_utc_B":1409197513,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Approaching your statements in order.. The Basques do have a genetic sequence that appears unique to them compared to many of the people in surrounding regions. The 'high mountains' around them are the Pyrenees, and theyre not THAT hard to get into. Its not shangri-la remote type valley they live in. So whilst it may have assisted its unlikely to be the simplest unique cause of their differences. The Romans were in full contact with them and so some degree of interaction is known about. As to whether they have DNA that resembles 'our ancestors' this is largely false. They're just one set of ancestors, and theyre probably not yours. But theres nothing special about them apart from being different. Their genes are exactly as old and as unique as yours are, that is, theyre no primal ancestor race presevered in time. However, DNA is hard to interpret and be can easily misleading. In popular science and discussions its easy to interpret these things simplistically. Currently there is evidence that supports the theory that Basques are from a ethnic grouping that predates other ethnic groupings in that area, but its not a simple guaranteed thing. For a start it seems that Y chromosome studies link Male Basques with far-western Celts (Irish and Welsh), either through admixture, or from common ancestry. So the current assumption, which is not guaranteed and subject to change, is that the Basques probably arise from a pre-farming european community which has been corralled in by later arrivals. So its not provent, but its the current best theory.","human_ref_B":"It's definitely not well established. I think, and hope, that what he meant is that some small wave of migration -- which would have had to come out of Africa through the Middle East, not directly into Spain -- settled there and subsequently had little genetic exchange. However, this is not the same as saying they are African, or have the same genes as those who left Africa. After all, evolution proceeds, whether in Basque lands or not!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1991.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"tk1z6h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What Makes an Ethnography Scientifically Valid? Can Introspection be Scientifically Valid? Ethnography is inherently imbued with the researcher. Much of is unfalsifiable which is problematic when it comes to scientifically rigid guidelines. That said knowledge is definitely derivable from introspection and\/or observations however creating a systematized view for further implications is rather difficult. I even see many ethnographers have an aesthetic bent to their final products which further implies a bridge to the humanities. Again cool but again the goal is to say something that is perhaps arguable in the context validity to a particular subsect of knowledge whatever it may be. Im just lost as to how I can make my ethnographies robust as a student. I rely on my introspective Ariadne thread to develop cool ideas for myself but Im not sure how to transmute this for an acedmically accepted assignment... Im very worried about bias and developing research that others can confidently use. I also like the goal of creating research that can be used across disciplines.","c_root_id_A":"i1oqz87","c_root_id_B":"i1pss38","created_at_utc_A":1647970668,"created_at_utc_B":1647985386,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'd think of ethnographies and some other qualitative tools as an option in situations where robust quantitative data is either absent or impossible to get. For example, if someone has had an extremely abusive childhood and endured severe pain and suffering for many years, what quantitative technique can you use to scientifically study this experience? Maybe you can do brain scans etc. but that is only studying a very specific effect of that experience, not what the actual experience was felt like for that person. Ethnographies and other qualitative techniques provide a way to understand these types of phenomena at a deeper level. They are not scientific and shouldn't be used as a replacement for scientific tools if available, but if used correctly can definitely provide a useful perspective into extremely important topics.","human_ref_B":"This is a question with a ton written about it! Exploring the tensions and conflicts here is sort of a key pillar of anthropology itself. You might also benefit from just exploring publications that look at the differences between qualitative and other forms of inquiry. A pretty common way of introducing these things would be something like grounded theory: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grounded_theory I think an anthropologist would first ask what you mean by 'science.' You make some assumptions already about what good science is, or what 'counts' as 'robust' and then conclude that ethnography doesn't do these things or at least there's serious tension. There are many models of science and it's forms of possible inquiry or methods. An anthro would argue that all science, even basic science on, say, proteins is always imbued with individual and social biases -- often times at more abstract levels like how certain paradigms in a given field limit possible frameworks for doing research\/experimenting (this might be further reinforced by funding schemes that are hard to change, etc.) [Remember science is something that people and things actively *do*, it's not a set of philosophical principles alone, meaning it matters a lot how the world works socially, economically, and so on]. Acknowledging and working through these biases and social forces is actually pivotal to doing good science, rather than trying to eliminate these factors or refuse to integrate them into our analysis. It's interesting you think that ethnography is not falsifiable but I'd actually argue that it's the opposite: ethnography is a way of doing lots of falsification all the time - it's sort of like a falsification machine! By doing fieldwork we are iteratively tacking back and forth between published ideas, theories, and descriptions of places\/phenomena\/people\/concepts and looking at how they work or don't work in specific grounded contexts under really detailed empirical observation and description. It's actually really good science. \"ethnographers have an aesthetic bent\" This is interesting and I appreciate what you're saying here, but I'd ask, do other kinds of scientists\/science not have aesthetic? What counts as the realm of aesthetic for you?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14718.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"s7gt7q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"I still can\u2019t not figure out the differences between Cultural Anthropology and Sociology Hey guys I\u2019m struggling here. I\u2019ve been reading and reading but still can not seem to get a clear understanding of what separates cultural anthropology from sociology. I\u2019ve googled it I\u2019ve asked professors but it all seems so vague. Can anyone give some clarity please? Thanks in advance maybe I\u2019m just dumb.","c_root_id_A":"htaeo3g","c_root_id_B":"hta6dp5","created_at_utc_A":1642575210,"created_at_utc_B":1642570131,"score_A":59,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"You might find my comments here and here useful. The most simple way to differentiate how the two approach problems is that sociologists ask very specific questions about broad groups of people (i.e. \"societies\" of nominally\/demographically related people) while anthropologists ask broad questions about specific people (i.e. \"cultures\" of people who interact). It seems like you're in the US, which means it can feel awfully weird that the two aren't one field. We're used to things being easily divided based on what you study, and both anthropology and sociology study, well, people. The separation is mostly a quirk of history. American anthropology began as ethnological studies of Native American tribes; biological anthropology and archaeology developed to supplement this with different datasets. US anthro departments grew via the work of the American Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian\/AMNH\/Field Museums, and of Morgan, Tyler, and Boas. European anthropology was shaped by the likes of Tylor and Malinowski out of the primordial social science soup of Marx\/Durkheim\/Weber\/etc. Thus you get the fields of social anthropology, cultural anthropology, and sociology developing in tandem based on which scholarly precedent you followed. The difference between social and cultural anthropology just doesn't exist in the US, because the departments here began rather untethered from the general thread of \"Social Science.\" At the end of the day, these are just labels that people put on departments, journals, and professional associations; people who police what counts as counts as one field or another are being pedantic.","human_ref_B":"One way they differ is in their research methodology: Cultural anthropologists usually try to study a population by cohabitation with them and embracing their customs, way of life, etc. They essentially 'live' the culture. Sociologists could, but (afaik) typically don't study their social groups with that methodology. They may collect surveys from a certain demographic, or do field interviews on a population, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5079.0,"score_ratio":3.6875} {"post_id":"s7gt7q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"I still can\u2019t not figure out the differences between Cultural Anthropology and Sociology Hey guys I\u2019m struggling here. I\u2019ve been reading and reading but still can not seem to get a clear understanding of what separates cultural anthropology from sociology. I\u2019ve googled it I\u2019ve asked professors but it all seems so vague. Can anyone give some clarity please? Thanks in advance maybe I\u2019m just dumb.","c_root_id_A":"htaeo3g","c_root_id_B":"htacthp","created_at_utc_A":1642575210,"created_at_utc_B":1642573980,"score_A":59,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"You might find my comments here and here useful. The most simple way to differentiate how the two approach problems is that sociologists ask very specific questions about broad groups of people (i.e. \"societies\" of nominally\/demographically related people) while anthropologists ask broad questions about specific people (i.e. \"cultures\" of people who interact). It seems like you're in the US, which means it can feel awfully weird that the two aren't one field. We're used to things being easily divided based on what you study, and both anthropology and sociology study, well, people. The separation is mostly a quirk of history. American anthropology began as ethnological studies of Native American tribes; biological anthropology and archaeology developed to supplement this with different datasets. US anthro departments grew via the work of the American Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian\/AMNH\/Field Museums, and of Morgan, Tyler, and Boas. European anthropology was shaped by the likes of Tylor and Malinowski out of the primordial social science soup of Marx\/Durkheim\/Weber\/etc. Thus you get the fields of social anthropology, cultural anthropology, and sociology developing in tandem based on which scholarly precedent you followed. The difference between social and cultural anthropology just doesn't exist in the US, because the departments here began rather untethered from the general thread of \"Social Science.\" At the end of the day, these are just labels that people put on departments, journals, and professional associations; people who police what counts as counts as one field or another are being pedantic.","human_ref_B":"You are correct in recognizing some significant overlap, but it's possible to be more specific. Cultural Anthropology and *cultural* sociology have significant overlap, but - and perhaps this might clarify things - cultural anthropology and the sociology *of culture* do not necessarily have as much overlap. u\/black_elk_streaks makes a good point but didn't quite get it right. Lots of cultural sociologists today use ethnography. although black elk streaks (not sure if i love that name...) are not entirely wrong, you are more likely to find ethnography used among cultural anthropologists than you are among sociologists at large (but these are not two entirely comparable categories. as cultural anth is a subdiscipline, whereas sociology is a full discipline). but nevertheless, you are indeed 100% much more likely to find quantitative methods and the use of large data sets in sociology than anthropology. However, it was not always like this. In the earliest days of each discipline they sort of occupied inverse roles. Anthropologists were doing things like quantitative research on people's skull sizes and the incidence of certain family structures, whereas early sociologists like Durkheim to William Foote Whyte were more interested in using qualitative data. In short, the forthcoming may seem like a cop out of an answer but one take away for you is that there are not necessarily inherent differences, but differences are largely contained within convention, habit, the titles of positions and the 'name on the door' so to speak. If we are going to put a line in the sand somewhere, then sociologists are more interested in how groups form and how membership in a certain group mediates ones experience. Anthropologist are more concerned with how individuals or communities navigate the world and make meaning of it. key here is that groups and communities are not necessarily the same (although they may be). White people comprise an intelligible *group*, but not a meaningful community. That is, anthropologists are less interested (in a single study anyway) in studying across meaning-making communities, for it is difficult\/impossible to do ethnography among people who do not share membership is a certain group (which may or may not be an *ethnic* group). Sociologists, in general (though less so cultural sociologists) would still be interested in the way that group membership (e.g. white skin) mediates experiences and opportunities, even if there are not specific meaning making practices that they study that transpire *between* members of this group. Another way to think of it: because scholars in these two disciplines think about groups a little differently, sociologists will care more about how people *get grouped* (by institutions, social forces, states, etc) and anthropologists are more likely to care about how people produce\/participate in communities and make meaning out of this participation. But again, these may not be hard wired into the discipline but rather a product of what colleagues care about. Edit to add: we could say that (most) sociocultural anthropologists are today fundamentally concerned with meaning making processes. Sociologists are not necessarily concerned with this (though many are). To give some context, cultural sociologists and sociocultural anthropologists are neighbors, who likely share much more in common with each other than they do with people on the far side of their own discipline. Like people living in Vancouver and Seattle might share more in common culturally than the seattle resident does with a florida resident and the vancouver resident does with someone from rural quebec. So a *real* answer is far less dependent on 'inherent' or 'conceptual' differences, because conceptual and theoretical differences are at least as much a result - rather than a cause - of sociohistorical factors. ​ So the real difference between sociocultural anthropologists and cultural sociologists (which I think is the real question you are asking, for the one you have is not comparing like entities) depends largely on which bodies of theory you are using and who you are citing. It's as much about the scholars toward whom your work is oriented as much as it is about inherent differences between these two subfields. ​ A ridiculous analogy: are americans and canadians really that different? Maybe not. the main difference is of course their citizenship (ie. their location within the academy, the name on the door). These different citizenships do indeed *create* different cultures and americans tend to be oriented towards the US more and Canadians more toward canada, but it is not as if it was the cultural differences between americans and canadians that *first* produced the national boundary. Rather, the national boundary is perhaps what produced the differences! so american media end up reporting on american issues more because *that's what their readers care about* and same thing for canada - not simply because there is a substantive difference in the kind of issues that americans and canadians care about. ​ But again - just to make the point one last time - these differences are largely reified *by the disciplines themselves.* its perhaps not that they are inherently so different themselves (as a quick look over intertwined histories of the disciplines indicates) but that students in sociology programs have to take X courses, which develops X1 skills, which leads to conceptualizing and addressing problems in X2 ways, whereas anthropologists take Y courses, which develops Y1 skills....etc. And because sociologists are indeed concerned with larger groups (rather strictly with meaning-making communities) they are necessarily going to be, by and large, more quantitatively oriented and comfortable dealing with larger data sets. Anthropologists are usually comfortable deal with thicker data sets.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1230.0,"score_ratio":4.2142857143} {"post_id":"s7gt7q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"I still can\u2019t not figure out the differences between Cultural Anthropology and Sociology Hey guys I\u2019m struggling here. I\u2019ve been reading and reading but still can not seem to get a clear understanding of what separates cultural anthropology from sociology. I\u2019ve googled it I\u2019ve asked professors but it all seems so vague. Can anyone give some clarity please? Thanks in advance maybe I\u2019m just dumb.","c_root_id_A":"htaeo3g","c_root_id_B":"htae4q0","created_at_utc_A":1642575210,"created_at_utc_B":1642574847,"score_A":59,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You might find my comments here and here useful. The most simple way to differentiate how the two approach problems is that sociologists ask very specific questions about broad groups of people (i.e. \"societies\" of nominally\/demographically related people) while anthropologists ask broad questions about specific people (i.e. \"cultures\" of people who interact). It seems like you're in the US, which means it can feel awfully weird that the two aren't one field. We're used to things being easily divided based on what you study, and both anthropology and sociology study, well, people. The separation is mostly a quirk of history. American anthropology began as ethnological studies of Native American tribes; biological anthropology and archaeology developed to supplement this with different datasets. US anthro departments grew via the work of the American Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian\/AMNH\/Field Museums, and of Morgan, Tyler, and Boas. European anthropology was shaped by the likes of Tylor and Malinowski out of the primordial social science soup of Marx\/Durkheim\/Weber\/etc. Thus you get the fields of social anthropology, cultural anthropology, and sociology developing in tandem based on which scholarly precedent you followed. The difference between social and cultural anthropology just doesn't exist in the US, because the departments here began rather untethered from the general thread of \"Social Science.\" At the end of the day, these are just labels that people put on departments, journals, and professional associations; people who police what counts as counts as one field or another are being pedantic.","human_ref_B":"Historically speaking, sociology came from folkloristics. Basically, anthropologists traveled abroad to study other cultures but they didn't really cared about studying their own societies. That how folkloristics as a discipline were born. Folklorists started by studying the cultural and social practices of the peasants. Some even arguing that european peasants weren't so different than other type of \"savages\" (not my word). But then they moved on from only studying peasants to studying other social groups within their own societies. That's what the original difference between sociology and anthropology was. Anthropologists studies other people societies while sociologists studied their own society. But it's not true anymore. Another difference is that, traditionally, sociologists favor the quantitative approach while anthropologists will prefer the qualitative approach. But this is also not always true. Soooo, to answer your question, the modern difference between social anthropology and sociology isn't a difference of goal but a difference of means. The reason why sociology and social anthropology are seen as two different disciplines is because they have two different histories. And those histories are still relevant to their current methodologies, theories and subject matters.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":363.0,"score_ratio":9.8333333333} {"post_id":"aiyk0j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"In cultures with three and four genders, what would happen if a person did not conform to one of them? A recent article suggested that gender has often been more fluid in other cultures. I'm not sure that I agree with that statement. I recognize that many cultures have additional gender configurations than western society tends to have, but that just gives more boxes. It does not imply that a person didn't have to conform to a box. ​ For instance, in Native American tribes that practiced the two-spirit system, were people able to express a role which did not conform to the four gender system? For instance, was a male, who had a feminine spirit (don't know the words), but who still wanted to hunt, allowed to do so or were they confined to a given role?","c_root_id_A":"eerhmdd","c_root_id_B":"eergw9h","created_at_utc_A":1548248480,"created_at_utc_B":1548247665,"score_A":41,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"The way it was taught in my classes is that the take-away from studies about gender roles and gender expression in different cultures shouldn't be that gender is more fluid there, in the sense that gender can be expressed freely according to the individuals wishes. Even where there are more than the binary gender categories, the rules for how these genders are expressed and who is allowed to take up these roles are often quite strict and not necessarily fluid. However, what this does show us is that gender roles and gender expression are culturally constructed, since they differ in time and space. Pointing to different categories of gender elsewhere doesn't necessarily give examples on gender fluidity, but it does show that binary gender categories are not simply inevitable, they could be otherwise. I don't know if fluidity is the right concept here, because it does denote something quite specific iirc. But it does show that across time and space gender is expressed in quite diverse ways (and you might deduce that gender expression generally shouldn't be strictly bound to biological sex).","human_ref_B":"Somewhat oblique, but I recall from Harriet Whitehead's discussion of the Navajo *nadleehi* that while young boys who dreamt of picking cotton while wearing a burden strap could eventually identify themselves as women, the opposite was not the case (i.e. young girls wouldn't be similarly accepted as 'men' if they dreamt of hunting with a bow, or simply expressed more 'masculine' traits or behaviours). So although Navajo cosmology did technically imply that the category of 'trans-woman' was possible, this was not the case in practice. ​ I feel confident about her overall discussion, but I'm not sure I'm fully correct about her conclusion (final sentence above)- perhaps others can help out here?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":815.0,"score_ratio":1.8636363636} {"post_id":"69etei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"When\/where did the middle finger develop as the \"obscene gesture\" we know today?","c_root_id_A":"dh6q8mt","c_root_id_B":"dh757yi","created_at_utc_A":1494026129,"created_at_utc_B":1494051224,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There are a lot of stories I have heard as to why. It is an old gesture though so the origins are had to pin down.","human_ref_B":"The idea is that the raised middle finger, surrounded by two curled fingers on either side, resembles the male genitals. When done in anger, a raised hand can be more easily seen, and further, than a waggled willie. Another similarly lewd gesture is the 'fig', a fist made with the thumb protruding from between the first and middle fingers, most likely representing the female genitalia. It's widely used throughout Europe. Hand gestures are most likely the first forms of communication we have, so it's likely that the flipped bird is of ancient origins.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25095.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"brpmj0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When did humans first develop the idea of music?","c_root_id_A":"eofvpow","c_root_id_B":"eofupky","created_at_utc_A":1558544626,"created_at_utc_B":1558543933,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The San people of Africa have traditional music that has no words because (they claim) the music is older than language. Anecdotal, sure, but I always thought that was such a lovely idea.","human_ref_B":"I think first you need to define music. But even if you did, this question probably could not be answered, since the definition you would likely use would include just one voice, or more, singing, and there's no way to know when the first person sang a song. I have often thought that at the very least, the first time a person with a good ear entered a cave or what have you with a really long reverb tail, that would incite them to make music, if they hadn't already. And I believe that's why music began with the modes it began with, since those lend themselves well to drones, which I find a long reverb will act as.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":693.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"brpmj0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When did humans first develop the idea of music?","c_root_id_A":"eofupky","c_root_id_B":"eogaci1","created_at_utc_A":1558543933,"created_at_utc_B":1558553945,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I think first you need to define music. But even if you did, this question probably could not be answered, since the definition you would likely use would include just one voice, or more, singing, and there's no way to know when the first person sang a song. I have often thought that at the very least, the first time a person with a good ear entered a cave or what have you with a really long reverb tail, that would incite them to make music, if they hadn't already. And I believe that's why music began with the modes it began with, since those lend themselves well to drones, which I find a long reverb will act as.","human_ref_B":"In terms of the *idea* of music (as opposed to the activity of producing it), that's a really awesome question. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer - that said, it might be interesting to look at the origins of the following: * Homeric poetic forms - poetry in the time of Homer would have been sung-spoken and therefore neither quite poetry nor music but something of both * Indian poetic forms - I understand something similar was in play in tellings of stories involved in the Sanskrit Mah\u0101bh\u0101rata In English at least, I don't think it's a coincidence that ***harmony*** has at least the following meanings: * a pleasant musical sound made by different notes being played or sung at the same time * a situation in which people are peaceful and agree with each other, or when things seem right or suitable together: * agreement of ideas, feelings, or actions, or a pleasing combination of different parts: * Harmony is the combination of separate but related parts in a way that uses their similarities to bring unity to a painting, drawing, or other art object.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10012.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"anhd8g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What do anthropologists think of the World Values Survey? The world values survey is intriguing, and this image which came out of it seems interesting as a way of categorising different cultures at a very broad level. I'm guessing anthropologists would tend to disagree with this kind of thing, but I'd be interested in detail on what exactly is wrong with it. Are the variables captured in the survey meaningful at all?","c_root_id_A":"eftekb8","c_root_id_B":"eftl56r","created_at_utc_A":1549395436,"created_at_utc_B":1549400075,"score_A":14,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not an anthropologist and I don\u2019t know about the World Values Survey, but I can share some quick thoughts. It is interesting to me that the authors decided to present \u201csurvival and self-expression\u201d and \u201ctraditional and secular-rational\u201d as extremes of some spectrum. At first glance these dichotomies might make sense, but I\u2019m not convinced these concepts are as mutually exclusive as the graph would imply. Moreover, the groupings do not seem to be based on a single means of categorisation, but combine several (e.g. religion and language). I would be interest to know the reason for this. Overall, I get the feeling the figure reinforces existing world views \/ ways of ordering the world. This is not necessarily a bad thing and might actually be helpful depending on the purpose the authors had in mind. As sociologist, I feel that values are complex and not easily reduced to a number of dimensions.","human_ref_B":"Ronald Inglehart - the political scientist who came up with this - is working from the assumption that nation states form rather homogenous units that are meaningful when talking about \"values\", operates from a late 19th century understanding of human society (societies as different \"stages\", from primitive (survival oriented) to modern (wealth oriented) to post-modern (self-fulfillment oriented)) combined with a rather outdated secularization thesis, which posits authoritarian religion on the beginning and democratic \"secular\" society on the end of a scale of human development. His groupings look arbitrary and euro-centric. His theory is based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which is not supported by empirical evidence. Also, on a more personal note: It make me incredibly furious if peoples work is *so obviously* ideological but because they work from a quantitative angle people think it is meaningful \"science\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4639.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"anhd8g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"What do anthropologists think of the World Values Survey? The world values survey is intriguing, and this image which came out of it seems interesting as a way of categorising different cultures at a very broad level. I'm guessing anthropologists would tend to disagree with this kind of thing, but I'd be interested in detail on what exactly is wrong with it. Are the variables captured in the survey meaningful at all?","c_root_id_A":"eftszor","c_root_id_B":"eftekb8","created_at_utc_A":1549405657,"created_at_utc_B":1549395436,"score_A":17,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Most modern anthropologists would probably call it too processual for their taste. Charting and categorizing doesn't tell us much about the people who actually live there. Without knowing what they're talking about, it's an arbitrary chart. A few things make me wonder about whether this was created in good faith. \"Muslim-majority countries are in italics\". Why are muslim-majority countries in italics? Where are some major countries missing on this list (Iran, Israel, etc?)? Why are most of the groupings done by geography but then others by religion? Why is South Africa not included in with English Speaking? Why is Poland in Latin America and why does the South Asia region expand to include Cyprus? While I can't figure out the agenda behind the World Values Survey (if there is one), I can safely recommend being wary about making meaningful conclusions from this chart.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not an anthropologist and I don\u2019t know about the World Values Survey, but I can share some quick thoughts. It is interesting to me that the authors decided to present \u201csurvival and self-expression\u201d and \u201ctraditional and secular-rational\u201d as extremes of some spectrum. At first glance these dichotomies might make sense, but I\u2019m not convinced these concepts are as mutually exclusive as the graph would imply. Moreover, the groupings do not seem to be based on a single means of categorisation, but combine several (e.g. religion and language). I would be interest to know the reason for this. Overall, I get the feeling the figure reinforces existing world views \/ ways of ordering the world. This is not necessarily a bad thing and might actually be helpful depending on the purpose the authors had in mind. As sociologist, I feel that values are complex and not easily reduced to a number of dimensions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10221.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"4t6yb5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Is it common to spare the lives of non-pest bugs that are found in a house? At least where I have been brought up in the UK, if there's a spider or insect in the house or office we capture it in a glass and put it outside. Of course this policy does not apply to pests such as bedbugs or harmful infestations, but it is still normal to spare the lives of lone bees or wasps. Is this a usual or unusual practice?","c_root_id_A":"d5femlh","c_root_id_B":"d5fi5rz","created_at_utc_A":1468738282,"created_at_utc_B":1468751588,"score_A":4,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Anything that's not a spider goes in a glass and put outside. Spiders - depends in the circumstances. I am irrationally petrified of them, so it's about 50\/50 whether they live or die. If I can catch them easily I will get them in a glass and chuck them out of a window (usually involves some hysterical panicking) but if they are threatening me, like running around or in a place I can't get a cup, I will hit them with a shoe whilst hysterical panicking. I never feel guilty after squashing one. I'm usually too busy recovering with a lie down and a medicinal gin to care.","human_ref_B":"In my country, Czechia, spiders and especially cross spiders are traditionally believed to be a symbol of happiness and throwing them out, not even speaking about killing them, is viewed as throwing out your happiness by superstitious people. On the Holy Saturday (known as \"White Saturday\" here) for example, there is a custom that you have to sweep all your household clean with a new broomstick but you are forbidden to remove spider webs. Today, it's mostly argumented that one does not kill spiders because they are beneficial so they are taken in a glass or more brave people catch them in a hand and put them outside. I am arachnophobic so I kill them mercilessly on sight and usually get disapproval from people around. For other insects, I guess it depends how they are percieved. Bees or seven-spot ladybirds are carefully put outside, wasps or earwigs are killed. However, there are of course people who kill everything and people who don't kill anything. Maybe except bees which virtually nobody ever kill.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13306.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"9i9jdw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Maps and GIS are rooted in Western thought and science. They are not always able to accurately represent indigenous thoughts and ideas about the landscape. Has anyone tried to develop indigenous based map projections to try and more accurately represent their knowledge in Western contexts? For example, Inuits have a history of map making. Has anyone tried to compile their maps into a map projection to then better understand their knowledge of the landscape in GIS?","c_root_id_A":"e6i0qqw","c_root_id_B":"e6i1si9","created_at_utc_A":1537724660,"created_at_utc_B":1537725486,"score_A":16,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Keith Basso mentions working on something like this with a Western Apache community in *Wisdom Sits in Places* but I don't think the results were made public, as they were made specifically for the community.","human_ref_B":"While I have not heard of a specific project about indigenous mapping projections being applied to GIS, Indigenous Geography is a sub-field of Geography, and there are dedicated groups within the field focused on indigenous peoples. For example, the American Association of Geographers has an Indigenous Peoples specialty group focused on better representation of indigenous thought and people within geography (as well as increasing trust between indigenous peoples and academic geographers). Personally, I have heard mostly about participatory GIS projects aimed at working within indigenous group express their geographic knowledge to various institutions, but there various kinds of research happening. To give a few specific examples of geographic research focusing on mapping and GIS (I suggest looking at their cited articles for further context within the field): Kiowa Storytelling Around a Map is about the use of maps for understanding the personal and societal history of Kiowa participants. Facilitating native land reacquisition in the rural USA through collaborative research and Geographic Information Systems is focused on land tenure of Native Americans in reservations within Minnesota, with a goal of aiding land reacquisition\/management projects. (Open Source!) Unsettling decolonizing geographies is a theory-heavy paper about the limitations of \"decolonizing\" geographies, and argues that the field of Geography has inherently colonialist structural tendencies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":826.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"9zmmlj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What was Europe like before the Indo-Europeans? What languages did they speak? What was their belief systems? What ethnicities were they? Do any survive besides the Basques? Are there any surviving cities?","c_root_id_A":"eaapdb5","c_root_id_B":"eaaka4y","created_at_utc_A":1542979565,"created_at_utc_B":1542972040,"score_A":71,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Basically the different cultures would have been a mix between mesolithic hunter gatherer populations and neolithic farmers from the middle east. We know they continued to hunt as well as practise agriculture. They had some advanced metallurgy for the time. The first tin bronze artifact we have is from Europe. They were smelting copper 7500 years ago. They had an abundance of what appear to be fertility figurines and had shrines at home. They were more egalitarian than the indo Europeans but we also have strong signs of social stratification. We have burials that look like chiefs (all male), one of which was buried with over 9000 gold artifacts. We have a candidate for a proto script, the vinca script. We know they were dairying and eating milk products well, well before the appearance of the so called lactase persistence allele. They either used microbes to digest the lactose by making cheese and yoghurt, suffered some mild discomfort or had another lactase persistence gene we know nothing about. We also know that some of their settlements were huge...several km wide and capable of holding a population of up to 40000, half a millennia before the first cities in Mesopotamia. It's likely that the largest, however, weren't permanently populatied but were rather seasonal abodes. They don't show much differentiation in building size. Generally all over europe status wasn't reflected in the size of the home, although we see some stratification with materials used. Then they all collapsed because of (climate change? Environmental degradation?) and those that didn't either got finished off by the (much taller) cow-thieving cowboys from the Steppe. Or were recruited or made clients. There's a lot, there's more... Somebody else can go on. Just to end on a speculative possibility. There's a hypothesis that proto germanic has a substrate language of the original neolithic farmers - up to thirty percent. Who knows what we'll find out in the future about the language the neolithic Europeans spoke...","human_ref_B":"Follow-up question: someone once told me that the Basque are the descendants of the cro-magnon. Is there any truth to this?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7525.0,"score_ratio":6.4545454545} {"post_id":"9zmmlj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What was Europe like before the Indo-Europeans? What languages did they speak? What was their belief systems? What ethnicities were they? Do any survive besides the Basques? Are there any surviving cities?","c_root_id_A":"eaapdb5","c_root_id_B":"eaanw0g","created_at_utc_A":1542979565,"created_at_utc_B":1542977528,"score_A":71,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Basically the different cultures would have been a mix between mesolithic hunter gatherer populations and neolithic farmers from the middle east. We know they continued to hunt as well as practise agriculture. They had some advanced metallurgy for the time. The first tin bronze artifact we have is from Europe. They were smelting copper 7500 years ago. They had an abundance of what appear to be fertility figurines and had shrines at home. They were more egalitarian than the indo Europeans but we also have strong signs of social stratification. We have burials that look like chiefs (all male), one of which was buried with over 9000 gold artifacts. We have a candidate for a proto script, the vinca script. We know they were dairying and eating milk products well, well before the appearance of the so called lactase persistence allele. They either used microbes to digest the lactose by making cheese and yoghurt, suffered some mild discomfort or had another lactase persistence gene we know nothing about. We also know that some of their settlements were huge...several km wide and capable of holding a population of up to 40000, half a millennia before the first cities in Mesopotamia. It's likely that the largest, however, weren't permanently populatied but were rather seasonal abodes. They don't show much differentiation in building size. Generally all over europe status wasn't reflected in the size of the home, although we see some stratification with materials used. Then they all collapsed because of (climate change? Environmental degradation?) and those that didn't either got finished off by the (much taller) cow-thieving cowboys from the Steppe. Or were recruited or made clients. There's a lot, there's more... Somebody else can go on. Just to end on a speculative possibility. There's a hypothesis that proto germanic has a substrate language of the original neolithic farmers - up to thirty percent. Who knows what we'll find out in the future about the language the neolithic Europeans spoke...","human_ref_B":"Apart from Basque we dont have any real information on pre-Indo European languages. No others remain. Belief systems are hard to gauge due to a lack of written evidence. What is known is largely inferred by their artifacts. We have a set of huge rocks at Stonehenge, as clear an artifact as you can want, and we still have no clear idea what its about. This was a pre-city era. We do have settlements, but they're all pretty small.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2037.0,"score_ratio":7.8888888889} {"post_id":"9zmmlj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What was Europe like before the Indo-Europeans? What languages did they speak? What was their belief systems? What ethnicities were they? Do any survive besides the Basques? Are there any surviving cities?","c_root_id_A":"eabyzy0","c_root_id_B":"eaaqhg0","created_at_utc_A":1543020461,"created_at_utc_B":1542981001,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"While Basque is the only surviving pre-Indo-European language in Western Europe, there are other surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Eastern Europe, and a few extinct, but known (i.e., we have texts in those languages), pre-Indo-European European languages. Eastern European survivors: * Uralic languages (including Finnish, Saami, Estonian, Samoyed) * North Caucasian languages (including Chechen, Abkhaz) Extinct but attested pre-Indo-European languages: * Iberian * Etruscan * North Picene * Minoan Various other pre-Indo-European languages have been hypothesized based on substrate words, such as Pelasgian, substrate Sardic, substrate Germanic, Lapplandic. According to the latest consensus based on genetic studies, Indo-Europeans spread to most of Europe during the Bronze Age, coming from the Black Sea steppes. So the population immediately preceding them in most of Europe would have been the first neolithic farmers. Since farming had spread a few thousand years before from Anatolia, these farmers most likely spoke a language related to one of the original languages of Anatolia, possibly Hattic.","human_ref_B":"This seems like a good place to tell that the Indo's (a small group of about 1 million living in europe) are commonly referred to as indo-europeans. I am one of them, when I hear indo-european I first think of people and of a language group second. I dunno, figured this'd be an interesting tidbit to add here. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Indo_people","labels":1,"seconds_difference":39460.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"3v641r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Not sure how to phrase this, but is there a possibility of \"environmental astrology\"? That title sounds dumb as hell, but I just had a thought a few days ago about the horoscope and zodiac or whatever. Is it possible that the date of your birth can have an impact on your personality? For example, an infant born in July and one born in December will have somewhat different environments that shape their interactions with the world, especially if the first formative moments happen at a culturally significant time like Christmas or something. So while horoscopes are obviously bullshit, I'm wondering if there are some very broad patterns of personality that depend on when someone was born. Is there any kind of research on that?","c_root_id_A":"cxkzgxo","c_root_id_B":"cxkn0ez","created_at_utc_A":1449097893,"created_at_utc_B":1449080773,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Well, the majority of Canadian pro hockey players are born between January and March, so there's that...","human_ref_B":"this is pretty much how I justify people's beliefs in astrology. a child born in the winter will have a vastly different initial worldview from a baby born in the summer. the first few moths of their life will shape them dramatically. I think signs are bullshit, but this always made more sense to me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17120.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3v641r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Not sure how to phrase this, but is there a possibility of \"environmental astrology\"? That title sounds dumb as hell, but I just had a thought a few days ago about the horoscope and zodiac or whatever. Is it possible that the date of your birth can have an impact on your personality? For example, an infant born in July and one born in December will have somewhat different environments that shape their interactions with the world, especially if the first formative moments happen at a culturally significant time like Christmas or something. So while horoscopes are obviously bullshit, I'm wondering if there are some very broad patterns of personality that depend on when someone was born. Is there any kind of research on that?","c_root_id_A":"cxkzgxo","c_root_id_B":"cxkyf6l","created_at_utc_A":1449097893,"created_at_utc_B":1449096333,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Well, the majority of Canadian pro hockey players are born between January and March, so there's that...","human_ref_B":"I know that summer and winter babies learn to walk at different times. I can't imagine that's the only difference between the two. I doubt you'll find too much on this, because anyone coming anywhere near astrology would never get accepted into the science community.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1560.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3v641r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Not sure how to phrase this, but is there a possibility of \"environmental astrology\"? That title sounds dumb as hell, but I just had a thought a few days ago about the horoscope and zodiac or whatever. Is it possible that the date of your birth can have an impact on your personality? For example, an infant born in July and one born in December will have somewhat different environments that shape their interactions with the world, especially if the first formative moments happen at a culturally significant time like Christmas or something. So while horoscopes are obviously bullshit, I'm wondering if there are some very broad patterns of personality that depend on when someone was born. Is there any kind of research on that?","c_root_id_A":"cxkyn4d","c_root_id_B":"cxkn0ez","created_at_utc_A":1449096648,"created_at_utc_B":1449080773,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's also worth keeping in mind that the sort of block birthday sort of astrology that we generally think of these days as what horoscopes are about is a pretty recent invention or recast of earlier astrological principles that didn't as a rule work so generally for any given period of time.","human_ref_B":"this is pretty much how I justify people's beliefs in astrology. a child born in the winter will have a vastly different initial worldview from a baby born in the summer. the first few moths of their life will shape them dramatically. I think signs are bullshit, but this always made more sense to me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15875.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3v641r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Not sure how to phrase this, but is there a possibility of \"environmental astrology\"? That title sounds dumb as hell, but I just had a thought a few days ago about the horoscope and zodiac or whatever. Is it possible that the date of your birth can have an impact on your personality? For example, an infant born in July and one born in December will have somewhat different environments that shape their interactions with the world, especially if the first formative moments happen at a culturally significant time like Christmas or something. So while horoscopes are obviously bullshit, I'm wondering if there are some very broad patterns of personality that depend on when someone was born. Is there any kind of research on that?","c_root_id_A":"cxkyn4d","c_root_id_B":"cxkyf6l","created_at_utc_A":1449096648,"created_at_utc_B":1449096333,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's also worth keeping in mind that the sort of block birthday sort of astrology that we generally think of these days as what horoscopes are about is a pretty recent invention or recast of earlier astrological principles that didn't as a rule work so generally for any given period of time.","human_ref_B":"I know that summer and winter babies learn to walk at different times. I can't imagine that's the only difference between the two. I doubt you'll find too much on this, because anyone coming anywhere near astrology would never get accepted into the science community.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":315.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"b409i3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How universal is xenophobia\/hatred for others among humans and other primates? I\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking due to recent events and I was wondering how common is \u201cxenophobia\u201d in humans and other primates? I mean, the simple fact that primates can\u2019t seem to stand each other is a universal truth. Just look at our history: ethnic cleansings, genocides, massacres and hate crimes are all part of our collective past. Also, there\u2019s the fact that social primates tend to reject outsiders and also there was the whole Gombe Chimp War episode; which, as you know, shook Dr. Goodall.","c_root_id_A":"ej4f7yf","c_root_id_B":"ej51q16","created_at_utc_A":1553267739,"created_at_utc_B":1553281569,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Domination in the way you're mentioning didn't exist for vast majority of human existence on a time scale: >The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total, but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by palaeoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.^source If anything, human social interaction and behavior has been a radical departure from the rest of the animal world.","human_ref_B":"There's a book, \"The social Leap\" by William Von Hippel... (chapter 8 in particular) In the book, there's a case made that although intra-group cooperation is what made humans as successful as they are, Inter-group cooperation was not part of our evolution, leading to xenophobic tendencies... This is because of many factors including diseases, and cultural differences... I would rather just recommend the reading than to imperfectly try to parrot it...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13830.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"b409i3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How universal is xenophobia\/hatred for others among humans and other primates? I\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking due to recent events and I was wondering how common is \u201cxenophobia\u201d in humans and other primates? I mean, the simple fact that primates can\u2019t seem to stand each other is a universal truth. Just look at our history: ethnic cleansings, genocides, massacres and hate crimes are all part of our collective past. Also, there\u2019s the fact that social primates tend to reject outsiders and also there was the whole Gombe Chimp War episode; which, as you know, shook Dr. Goodall.","c_root_id_A":"ej4oeul","c_root_id_B":"ej51q16","created_at_utc_A":1553273107,"created_at_utc_B":1553281569,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Modern xenophobia is more of a result of a combination of ultra nationalism, racism, and fear of particular outside groups. So if we break these three factors down, then you can see that most (or arguable all) are all a result of our modern world, not a result of our evolution or genetics. And since they are a result of our modern world, it is limited to humans\/ Homo sapiens. The ultra nationalism is obviously only political and therefore completely limited to humans. Sure, there may be certain chimpanzee groups that live to themselves and would go as far as killing or even going into \"warfare\" with other chimpanzee groups even though they are the same species, but unless these groups enter into another groups territory or actually commit an act of violence, there wouldn't be any violence \/hatred between them. With ultra nationalism, most of the hatred of other countries and other people stems arbitrarily to what any other country of group of people is actually doing in many cases. In fascist countries, it may result from government lies. Fear of particular outside groups can be seen as Islamophobia. This is a perfect example because we have people who may feel hatred towards a Muslim that they may see walking down the street, but that particular Muslim might (and most likely doesn't) have anything at all with past terrorist attacks. This is only found in humans. Now racism can certainly be seen as a modern factor as well, but this is the one factor that I may say has some connection to evolution. Note: I am in no way saying that just because there may be some evolutionary explanation of racism that racism is therefore acceptable. I personally find no kinds of racism to be acceptable in any way, shape, or form. Now as I was saying... The most commonly accepted definition of what a species is a group of organisms that have reproductive isolation within themselves and that this is a result of shared variations. Another words, they only reproduce within themselves because they recognize each other as their own based on physical traits. This also means that speciation occurs (one species diverging into two separate species in the course of evolution) when a species splits into group A and group B. Group A has (for whatever reason; there are various reasons why this could be) been separated from group B for such a long time (thousands of years in most cases, sometimes hundreds) that they may look, act, or sound differently than group B. Therefore, because they are physically different, group B will either not recognize them as their own or (this is the important part) will see them as different, therefore be disgusted and will not want to reproduce with them. So in a nutshell, although there is no doubt that racism is psychological, it is a result of people within our own species (obviously we are all Homo sapiens) behaving or looking so differently from what we are used to that we see them as weird and strange or even inferior than us. The difference between us and practically any other species alive today is that every other species will simply avoid the other group so much that they speciate and now become two distinct species. We on the other hand have such evolved brains and consciousness that we have two things that only we have: the ability to have intense feelings of disgust and hatred (more than any other species) and the ability to create advanced tools\/weapons of mass murder. So, if the finches in the Galapagos islands had the same potential of intense emotion and had weapons such as ours (and the ability to use them as well) Darwin would have only found one species of finches since they would have most likely all killed each other instead of simply separated from each other peacefully. ​ IN SUMMARY: In conclusion, human xenophobia is purely modern and limited to humans and the factors it involves are only limited to humans as well other than racism.","human_ref_B":"There's a book, \"The social Leap\" by William Von Hippel... (chapter 8 in particular) In the book, there's a case made that although intra-group cooperation is what made humans as successful as they are, Inter-group cooperation was not part of our evolution, leading to xenophobic tendencies... This is because of many factors including diseases, and cultural differences... I would rather just recommend the reading than to imperfectly try to parrot it...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8462.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"466zvf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is pointing at an object\/something to direct someone's attention to that object\/something universal? How universal is it in cultures when one person points to something say a tree and have someone else know that means look at that object","c_root_id_A":"d03217m","c_root_id_B":"d039cwq","created_at_utc_A":1455705434,"created_at_utc_B":1455723035,"score_A":7,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I know in some places in south America people point using their lips. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can expand on or explain that.","human_ref_B":"Pointing is a species-level development, it pre-dates culture...there's research about how the ability to point and be understood is one of the abilities which allowed the human mind to pull away from the other primate minds: *An act of pointing, thus, creates a referential triangle that incorporates distant objects into the relationship between a signaler and the recipient of the gesture .* *The capacity to create this referential triangle is widely believed to be foundational for humans\u2019 acquisition of speech during infancy. Butterworth (2003) referred to pointing as the \u2018royal road to language\u2019 because when a child looks in the direction of a point at the same time that a mature speaker utters the name of the entity indicated, the link between the word and the entity for which it stands is facilitated through an auditory\u2013visual learned association*. *For this and other reasons, developmental psychologists have long claimed that pointing, like speech, is a human species-specific adaptation for reference*. Fascinating stuff!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17601.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"466zvf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is pointing at an object\/something to direct someone's attention to that object\/something universal? How universal is it in cultures when one person points to something say a tree and have someone else know that means look at that object","c_root_id_A":"d039cwq","c_root_id_B":"d0308jd","created_at_utc_A":1455723035,"created_at_utc_B":1455698254,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Pointing is a species-level development, it pre-dates culture...there's research about how the ability to point and be understood is one of the abilities which allowed the human mind to pull away from the other primate minds: *An act of pointing, thus, creates a referential triangle that incorporates distant objects into the relationship between a signaler and the recipient of the gesture .* *The capacity to create this referential triangle is widely believed to be foundational for humans\u2019 acquisition of speech during infancy. Butterworth (2003) referred to pointing as the \u2018royal road to language\u2019 because when a child looks in the direction of a point at the same time that a mature speaker utters the name of the entity indicated, the link between the word and the entity for which it stands is facilitated through an auditory\u2013visual learned association*. *For this and other reasons, developmental psychologists have long claimed that pointing, like speech, is a human species-specific adaptation for reference*. Fascinating stuff!","human_ref_B":"Depends what you mean by pointing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24781.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"466zvf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is pointing at an object\/something to direct someone's attention to that object\/something universal? How universal is it in cultures when one person points to something say a tree and have someone else know that means look at that object","c_root_id_A":"d03217m","c_root_id_B":"d0308jd","created_at_utc_A":1455705434,"created_at_utc_B":1455698254,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I know in some places in south America people point using their lips. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can expand on or explain that.","human_ref_B":"Depends what you mean by pointing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7180.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"3dwduc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did humans do for the first 150,000-200,000 years or so? If humans have existed for 200,000 to 250,000 years, why is it that civilization only seems to have gotten rolling within the last 10,000 years or so? Why would it take so long for humans to develop agriculture, towns, language, etc?","c_root_id_A":"ct9d3io","c_root_id_B":"ct9cpfj","created_at_utc_A":1437365722,"created_at_utc_B":1437364888,"score_A":112,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Most likely because they simply didn't need to. There was plenty to eat, plenty of territory, and no particular population pressure forcing people to do something like invent agriculture. Civilization ain't all it's cracked up to be, if you have everything you need from the surrounding landscape. Also, to clarify, it's almost certain that humans have had language for far longer than 10,000 years. Most linguists agree that language has existed at least as long as Homo sapiens, and at this point there's even a level of consensus that Neanderthals and other Homo species may have had it as well. Did you maybe mean written language? Because writing is something that, like agriculture, cities, class stratification, etc. has really only existed as long as we've needed it. If your culture is simple enough that you don't need to keep written records, you stick with your nice oral tradition. (We have ample evidence that the first writing was for record keeping, bureaucracy, accounting, and the like.) Towns, too, are one of those sort of slippery concepts. Most likely, some humans in some times and places had sedentary settlements because the landscape enabled them to stay in the same place most of the time in a sustainable manner. You can sustain a village on a nice cliff to drive antelope off of if you have a rudimentary sense of animal husbandry. But cities are a bigger and more complicated thing, and you need agriculture for cities. In terms of why we developed agriculture when we did, there are a few schools of thought. Traditionally (and not widely agreed with nowadays), there was some kind of Cultural Revolution possibly brought about by the end of the Ice Age that enabled humanity to invent agriculture in a fit of Progress. When I was an undergrad a decade ago, we were taught that it was more likely in response to population pressure and potentially even famine. The choice was figure out how to control food production, or die. People chose the former even though the food produced was more labor intensive and inferior. (This Discover Magazine piece by Jared Diamond was hot shit in my Intro to Anthropology class circa 2000. No idea if it's still relevant.) More and more now, alternate theories are being thrown out there. Patrick McGovern has speculated that humans invented staple-crop agriculture in order to make beer, as opposed to the more traditional idea that humans domesticated wheat and then discovered you could use it to make beer. I'm sure there are other theories as well that aren't quite as sexy. **TL;DR**: We invented agriculture, possibly out of necessity. Then everything else followed.","human_ref_B":"It's unknowable what they did. However, \"civilization\" isn't a guarantee of progress. Innovation and change often results from a need and if early homo-sapiens did not have a need then they did not need to progress in the same way they would progress millenia upon millenia later. You also have to consider that they may have had similar things, things there are no record of (or that we have found yet) or there were things that could have been lost and rediscovered. Brush gardens that some Native Americans used don't leave much archaeological information behind, for example. Verbal language isn't something we can dig up. Settlements vary in size and in duration.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":834.0,"score_ratio":5.6} {"post_id":"3dwduc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did humans do for the first 150,000-200,000 years or so? If humans have existed for 200,000 to 250,000 years, why is it that civilization only seems to have gotten rolling within the last 10,000 years or so? Why would it take so long for humans to develop agriculture, towns, language, etc?","c_root_id_A":"ct9eqvb","c_root_id_B":"ct9lq91","created_at_utc_A":1437369527,"created_at_utc_B":1437394379,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A follow up question: How would human population play a role in this?","human_ref_B":"I'm just going to chime in with a book suggestion. I'm currently flying through Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. It covers more than just the period you specify and it is not a massively in depth book in anthropological terms but it gives a very clear picture of what we know for certain, what we suspect and what we do not know at all about human behaviours in your specified time period. It is also extensively footnoted so you can follow up with the more academic source material if you're inclined to.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24852.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rwr0w4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"What would it have taken for a prehistoric person to become permanently emotionally scarred and broken? Did this happen to people back when survival was the only important thing? You can only imagine the horrors that must have been pretty normal for people living in a world with no laws where you fought to survive literally every day. Were they impervious to emotional scarring as we know it today? Or could someone really be broken back then and what do you think it would generally take? I just assume maybe incorrectly that even if someone had their entirely family murdered back then they'd try to shrug it off and keep going, but who knows?","c_root_id_A":"hrgm504","c_root_id_B":"hrhjns0","created_at_utc_A":1641451626,"created_at_utc_B":1641474927,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":">What would it have taken for a prehistoric person to become permanently emotionally scarred and broken? When you read about life in past cultures you find that all too often, life was incredibly hard. But, when you are raised in those conditions you know no other way. Hardship is just how life is.","human_ref_B":"I think that emotionality in general was probably a concept that had a highly negative association. If a person were crying all the time or was too \"depressed\" to work to help support the group, he or she would probably just be abandoned or banished. They didn't have the kind of surplus to be able to easily support useless eaters. In harder times I think that optimism is selected for as opposed to pessimism. They couldn't afford to be pessimistic, they couldn't afford dealing with the burden of a pessimistic person. I'm sure violence did happen at times, but for much of the ice age, there would have generally been more space than there were people. I think that even coming across a group of humans who were not part of your immediate group might have often been a sort of rare event in many parts of the world during that period. We might be surprised if we were somehow capable of observing them that they were more cooperative and less warlike than we imagine. The wooly mammoth required such coordination and cooperation to kill with sticks and rocks that more people would have meant a higher likelihood of collective survival. The now-extinct predators and megafauna that then existed would have made the environment the primary enemy as opposed to rival groups competing for resources, and even without much war the environment was more than capable of keeping the population levels fairly low. I'm sure they were sometimes violent, and I'm not trying to lean into the \"noble savage\" trope, but I do think there are technological and climatological reasons why the tribal peoples of say, north and south America in the 1500's would probably exhibit more violence towards each other than ice-age peoples ever did. Simply put, the better you get at survival the more your opponents become other people instead of the environment. Another way of putting it might be, the more surplus you have the higher the likelihood of people fighting over it. Another might be that after we defeated our environment the only thing left to defeat was each other.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23301.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9tqjhd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Maybe this isn't the right place to ask, but what would be a list of good books to outline the evolution of mankind? Hello, as the title says I am looking for a book or collection of books that can outline how humanity has risen up within the past 200-300 million years. I found out recently that my parents don't actually believe in the evolution of man and are closer to creationists. Whenever the topic comes up I always try to bring up the various evolutions of mankind and the paths multiple species took from Africa throughout the world but having a list of books I could pull from and provide empirical evidence from would be extremely beneficial! thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"e8yqzup","c_root_id_B":"e8yntvl","created_at_utc_A":1541231553,"created_at_utc_B":1541225477,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"\/r\/paleoanthropology is also a good sub for this. There are a few books, but most of that information is relatively out of date. The field has been expanding it's methodology for identification and classification significantly over the past 10-20 years and this has caused some disruption in the timeline placement of some species. With the introduction of DNA (Human Genome Project) mapping and the relative cost of analyzing fossil DNA with comparison to Sapien Sapiens reducing, the data is better suited to be put on to the internet rather than distributed through hard copy. Also, your timeline might be a bit exaggerated for what you are trying to accomplish. I'd suggest sticking to the past 10 million years. Limit the data that you are putting forward to them, concentrate your efforts a bit. To get to your question though: \\- I'd first start off with asking them if they believe in a 3 billion year old earth. If they don't, then you'll have an expanded task to bring them to evolutionary theory. \\- Secondly, and if they are in agreement about the age of the earth, I'd ask them if they believe in Selection Pressure affecting other organisms? (ie domestication of wolves leading to different dog breeds, etc) Whether it be through natural selection or artificial, it doesn't matter, the point is 'do they know what it is and do they agree that it exists'. It's an important foundation to evolutionary theory. \\[The eye is another good explanation of adaptive selection\\] \\- Then I'd follow up with a basic explanation of 'this same process affected apes'. Climate change in southern Africa caused some species to transition to bipedalism (fewer trees, growing savanna) in search of food. This started slowly and later developed into 100% bipedal motion. (As evidenced by hip\/pelvic bones, and the spinal cord entry into the base of the skull) \\- Successful in this new environment, a wide variety of species began to fragment with specializations for various food groups. Some maintained leafy or nut diets, while others adopted a more omnivore approach. \\- Through 8-2mya, we have fossil evidence for significant diversity in hominids, approximately 10 or so different species existing across Africa. Various selection pressures led to tool making (Habalis), better diets led to running (Erectus), which led to expansion out of Africa, which led to expanded specializations (Neanderthal, Denisova, etc). \\- Its currently uncertain as to where the first Sapien appeared, but it is narrowed to either northern Africa or Mesopotamia. Sapiens effectively we're better at hunting and adapting to all environments as the ice age ended and therefore are the only hominids to survive. \\- It's also known through DNA that European Sapiens have on average 3% Neanderthal DNA and Asian Sapien's also have an average of 3% Neanderthal DNA, but different DNA strands were carried within each line. Whereas, African Sapiens are are pure Sapiens (as best we know it). \\- Sapien evolution hasn't stopped. There are several genetic groups of Sapien, and for contrast I like to use the Inuit (thicker, shorter bones) and the Sherpas (there cells are better at handling lowered oxygen levels). There are several references you can use online (videos, infographics, etc). I'd recommend having this saved and ready to access before talking with them. I will try to reply to this post with links to all of these points.","human_ref_B":"Personally I loved Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, gives a view of humanity of our ancient past and how and why we have developed our current society and structures, however it isn't as broad as 200-300 million years but nonetheless I think you'll enjoy it. It isn't too academic or dense either it's very easy to read and has some biology in it (regarding brain capacity, how mouths changed in regards to language etc). https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/318485807\\_Sapiens\\_A\\_brief\\_history\\_of\\_humankind","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6076.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"3ms866","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Have any societies been able to come up with a creative solution to the Tragedy of the Commons? The Tragedy of the Commons is a situation where people do things they know they shouldn't because they know that if they don't someone else will so they might as well help themselves. One place I see this happen a lot is with pharmaceuticals. Are there any solutions to this problem that were once implemented that have potential use today?","c_root_id_A":"cvhzor2","c_root_id_B":"cvhwfur","created_at_utc_A":1443529575,"created_at_utc_B":1443516811,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"tragedy of the commons is a myth and was literally made up. For most of human history all resources have been 'common'. Here's Elinor Ostrom debunking it in a short clip.","human_ref_B":"Fisheries is usually considered as an open access resource. However, many communities--particularly island communities--manage their fishery resource through traditional community-based fisheries management regimes. Examples are found in the South Pacific, Indonesia and South Asia.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12764.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"1ped2o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is the Aboriginal Australian practice of subincision a derivative of circumcision? Or did it appear independently? I asked this question on \/r\/askhistorians and didn't get a single answer. Hoping that it might be more relevant here. The Aborigines are a really old people, and as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) they've been isolated from the rest of our species for 10's of thousands of years. The oldest known circumcision record is about 6,000 years old from Egypt, but from what I've read, it didn't depict the origin of the surgery. It was already well in place by that time. Is the current opinion of historians that these two practices are derivatives? Or did Australian subincision appear independently? Either way, I would consider the answer very fascinating. Thanks for any insight!","c_root_id_A":"cd1s84p","c_root_id_B":"cd1n4o1","created_at_utc_A":1383010171,"created_at_utc_B":1382998084,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"So first, yes, the Australian aborigines were one of the first groups to move out and become relatively isolated. They did this about 70,000 years ago and we can trace this via DNA. We also know that around 4,000 years ago peoples from Southern India migrated to Australia and intermarried with aborigines. But since subincision and other forms of genital cutting only affect flesh until communities start writing about this stuff (or drawing it) we don't have any archaeological evidence. So it is very difficult to say much about the -pre-history of a practice that doesn't leave forensic evidence. If you want to know more about the practice itself, I wrote out a rather long explanation the last time someone asked about subincision - you can read it here. In general, though, humans often have rites of passage that relate in some way to reproduction. Rites of passage are social rituals that transition individuals and groups from one position in society into another. The bigger or more important the transition often the more elaborate and complex the rite. Each has three main stages: 1) separation from normal position and place in society 2) liminality where you are betwixt and between and therefore somewhat taboo 3) reintegration back into society with your new position. If you think about your own life there are all kinds of rites of passage you've probably already witnessed like graduations, baptisms, marriages, funerals, etc. There are many societies out there that don't circumcise either sex. And like I said there is no way to know if 70,000 years ago there was some precursor rite to what we see today. But it is very possible they developed independently like many other practices around the world did. Often procreation, marriage, and adulthood are linked conceptually and genitalia might play a part of that rite of passage. Sometimes this is male genital cutting, sometimes it is female genital cutting (or both), or proof of other concepts that are associated with that gender role reaching adulthood like hunting, fighting, or giving birth. **TL;DR** *Probably no way to know for sure because 70,000 year old penises aren't likely to fossilize. But it may not be a result of diffusion - just ritual framing and rites of passage that focus on a part of the body necessary for any society to survive to the next generation.*","human_ref_B":"For anyone else who didn't know http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Penile_subincision","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12087.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i88f1ql","c_root_id_B":"i886rgy","created_at_utc_A":1652302230,"created_at_utc_B":1652298965,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It's a lot of writing, and you should know how to write well. You need need to be clear and concise while stringing together a lot of abstract thought and hard data. If you don't mind writing, you'll do fine.","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you consider to be hard, the professors you have, and the classes you take. One of my undergrad classes involved memorizing the names of and identifying small bones. I've always thought strict memorization was hard, so that was hard for me. Typically Anthro has more reading and writing then some of the other degrees you might take.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3265.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i88txdh","c_root_id_B":"i886rgy","created_at_utc_A":1652308401,"created_at_utc_B":1652298965,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m studying for my BA in anthropology right now! I have been finding it very interesting and not particularly difficult, but there IS a lot of reading and critical thinking skills you need to have and I can imagine it would be different difficult for different people.","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you consider to be hard, the professors you have, and the classes you take. One of my undergrad classes involved memorizing the names of and identifying small bones. I've always thought strict memorization was hard, so that was hard for me. Typically Anthro has more reading and writing then some of the other degrees you might take.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9436.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i88yyeg","c_root_id_B":"i886rgy","created_at_utc_A":1652310668,"created_at_utc_B":1652298965,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Just curious what you want to do with the degree? I would say that the majority of my colleagues I went to school with or at least keep in touch with have done absolutely nothing pertaining to the degree.","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you consider to be hard, the professors you have, and the classes you take. One of my undergrad classes involved memorizing the names of and identifying small bones. I've always thought strict memorization was hard, so that was hard for me. Typically Anthro has more reading and writing then some of the other degrees you might take.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11703.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i89wydo","c_root_id_B":"i886rgy","created_at_utc_A":1652326489,"created_at_utc_B":1652298965,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"keep a realistic eye on your potential employment and renumeration otherwise you'll be clever, unemployed and massively in debt wondering if you can employ your skills at the coal face of the fast food insustry.","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you consider to be hard, the professors you have, and the classes you take. One of my undergrad classes involved memorizing the names of and identifying small bones. I've always thought strict memorization was hard, so that was hard for me. Typically Anthro has more reading and writing then some of the other degrees you might take.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27524.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i8akvcu","c_root_id_B":"i886rgy","created_at_utc_A":1652343047,"created_at_utc_B":1652298965,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I graduated with a BA in 1977 and the anthropology students had the lowest grade point average on campus because all of our tests were essay tests...","human_ref_B":"Depends on what you consider to be hard, the professors you have, and the classes you take. One of my undergrad classes involved memorizing the names of and identifying small bones. I've always thought strict memorization was hard, so that was hard for me. Typically Anthro has more reading and writing then some of the other degrees you might take.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":44082.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"uni5sk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"how difficult is it to get a BA in anthropology? i currently plan on getting a liberal studies degree so i can transfer to a four-year college and turn it into an anthro degree because my community college doesn't offer anthro. i was wondering what exactly i should expect from this degree. is it a lot of reading? was anything about it tough? or is it one of the easier majors?","c_root_id_A":"i8akvcu","c_root_id_B":"i8a8b84","created_at_utc_A":1652343047,"created_at_utc_B":1652333281,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I graduated with a BA in 1977 and the anthropology students had the lowest grade point average on campus because all of our tests were essay tests...","human_ref_B":"You get what you out into it. I did a BA in anthro and committed to summers doing field schools, working in museums, weekends spent on research, etc. Look at the degree requirements and decide if a BA or BS is better. In my case the BA required more math, less science, and more hours in the major. It can be a lot of reading, writing and critical thinking. Some people in the department found it tough, but I had known as long as i could remember it was something I wanted to do regardless of how much money it made and I regularly use my degree in my kob today even though its not a typical archeology\/anthropology career.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9766.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2fkar8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"We have a cultural stereotype, that once we've killed our enemy, the hatred suddenly drains away and we treat them with respect. Is this a real, species-wide phenomenon or is it just a way we prefer to think about ourselves? In movies and on tv, the hero will look down at his vanquished enemy and now, seeing their humanity, says something relatively kind or compassionate about them. Never having vanquished my enemies in so permanent a way, I wonder if that's what often happens in real life.","c_root_id_A":"cka1xv9","c_root_id_B":"cka3gkk","created_at_utc_A":1409938129,"created_at_utc_B":1409941028,"score_A":16,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"No it doesn't. Post WW2 France wanted to be punitive to Germany at first just like they were post WW1. Many people from the WW2 generation in the US still hold negative feelings about Japan post WW2. After beating the native people and moving them to reservations the US then began to break up families and their culture by forcing the children into special schools or into non-native adoptions. In fact I think the story in movies is more of a moral play and does not represent the standard outcome after hard fought decisive victories.","human_ref_B":"Not at all. Historically, warfare against an \"other\" led to long-lasting hatred of the other side that persisted far beyond victory. See: * Carthage and Rome fought. Rome won, and a few years went by, and then Rome wiped Carthage off the map as a punitive measure. * France, England, and Germany have hated each other more or less continuously since the fall of the Roman Empire to the 1950s\/60s. * After victory over China, Japan embarked on a deliberate plan to rape\/destroy the entirety of China. Japanese officers were instructed to mistreat their troops so that the soldiers would have more hatred to unleash on Chinese civilians. * France wanted to destroy everything that was left of Germany after WWI but was prevented by the US. * Russia wanted to de-industrialize East Germany at the end of WWII and turn it into an agrarian wasteland, and succeeded. * The Hutus in Rwanda won power from the Tutsi minority and proceeded to slaughter over half of the Tutsi population. * After having successfully having enslaved blacks for years, slave states in America developed a racist ideology that persists to this day. Ditto this for South Africa. * The British established concentration camps and used them on captured Boers during the Boer Wars. * Hell, look at Nazis. Putting the Jews in ghettos wasn't enough - they had to kill as many Jews as possible by the war's end. * The Strait of Malacca, the most piracy-filled waters on the planet, used to have kingdoms until they were destroyed by Western Imperialists. The people in this area are still angry over this and have committed themselves to attacking Western shipping vessels over the grudge that has been held for hundreds of years now. Plus, there's tons and tons of psychological studies pointing to how seeing others as an \"enemy\" makes you hate them unconditionally, whether you're winning or not.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2899.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"apg3og","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How has learning Anthropology changed the way you view life and or your values\/beliefs?","c_root_id_A":"eg8cv58","c_root_id_B":"eg837de","created_at_utc_A":1549901897,"created_at_utc_B":1549894746,"score_A":10,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Just like why someone else said on here, learning Anthropology has really shown me how things that we take as \u201cnormal\u201d are usually cultural constructs. It\u2019s also crazy to me how these things range from the smallest of differences to huge noticeable ones. This is one of my best examples of an experience I\u2019ve had. For many Americans (like myself), you for the most part don\u2019t touch someone unless you\u2019re close with them. When 2 people like each other, we say that they need to \u201cbreak the touch barrier\u201d so that it\u2019s ok for them to touch each other. I know it sounds like high school drama but it\u2019s an actual thing that happens (but as people get older the less it matters). The idea is that you are being respectful of the other person by respecting their personal space. Some examples of this is not letting your legs touch if you\u2019re sitting next to each other, leaving space between each other at the bar so you don\u2019t touch, basically leaving an invisible line between you two where you aren\u2019t touching. On the other hand, Italians do not follow this rule. For them, it\u2019s weird if you don\u2019t touch (I\u2019m generalizing here). Hugging, kisses on the cheek, brushing the arm, laying a head on someone else\u2019s shoulder. These kind of things are extremely common and expected much sooner then they\u2019d be expected in the US. Of course, you still need to know the person, don\u2019t just walk up to a stranger and do this in italy, but it still stands that Italians really don\u2019t have a touch barrier with each other. Something as small as this has really opened my eyes to the fact that what I might perceive as normal or polite, are actually just cultural constructs. Leaving a space between you and someone else is polite for me. For an Italian, it means you don\u2019t like them. I always find it funny and it makes me wonder what else do I do that I consider to be normal that is actually rude or impolite in another culture? It just makes me want to know more about other people and the world. Learning Anthropology has also taught me to not judge something as right or wrong. That\u2019s probably the most important thing I\u2019ve learned. There is no right or wrong culture, only different cultures. Just because I don\u2019t agree with what\u2019s culturally accepted doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s wrong. It just means that it\u2019s different. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean some of the more controversial cultural things shouldn\u2019t change. It just doesn\u2019t mean you should look at that one thing and go, \u201cyour culture is wrong\u201d. There\u2019s plenty of things that people don\u2019t realize are bad if it\u2019s apart of their own culture. For us Americans, our pride and insistence on independence is huge. It\u2019s in everything from how we view our country, to how people are expected to live on their own without any help. For many places, that\u2019s wrong and\/or wasteful. For them, you\u2019re expected to share. You\u2019re expected to always live with your parents and help them later in life. It\u2019s not considered \u201cpoor\u201d for you to take public transportation everywhere and owning a car is not as glamorized as it is in the US. Sorry for the wall of text. My point is just that learning Anthropology has really opened my eyes to what\u2019s considered normal and to be able to try and look at my own culture\u2019s quirks to try and better myself\/community.","human_ref_B":"I saw evidence that evolution was a viable concept (grew up in religious schools that taught it as a preposterous theory that was to be mocked). So my religious and as a result political beliefs were completely shook. Al this from one GE physical anthropology class. I dont remember half the material, but it got me looking deeper into the world.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7151.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"apg3og","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How has learning Anthropology changed the way you view life and or your values\/beliefs?","c_root_id_A":"eg8arhr","c_root_id_B":"eg8cv58","created_at_utc_A":1549900533,"created_at_utc_B":1549901897,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Understanding how two different people can encode vastly dissimilar meaning onto one phenomenon. Learning about semiotic ideology had a pretty big effect on my growth.","human_ref_B":"Just like why someone else said on here, learning Anthropology has really shown me how things that we take as \u201cnormal\u201d are usually cultural constructs. It\u2019s also crazy to me how these things range from the smallest of differences to huge noticeable ones. This is one of my best examples of an experience I\u2019ve had. For many Americans (like myself), you for the most part don\u2019t touch someone unless you\u2019re close with them. When 2 people like each other, we say that they need to \u201cbreak the touch barrier\u201d so that it\u2019s ok for them to touch each other. I know it sounds like high school drama but it\u2019s an actual thing that happens (but as people get older the less it matters). The idea is that you are being respectful of the other person by respecting their personal space. Some examples of this is not letting your legs touch if you\u2019re sitting next to each other, leaving space between each other at the bar so you don\u2019t touch, basically leaving an invisible line between you two where you aren\u2019t touching. On the other hand, Italians do not follow this rule. For them, it\u2019s weird if you don\u2019t touch (I\u2019m generalizing here). Hugging, kisses on the cheek, brushing the arm, laying a head on someone else\u2019s shoulder. These kind of things are extremely common and expected much sooner then they\u2019d be expected in the US. Of course, you still need to know the person, don\u2019t just walk up to a stranger and do this in italy, but it still stands that Italians really don\u2019t have a touch barrier with each other. Something as small as this has really opened my eyes to the fact that what I might perceive as normal or polite, are actually just cultural constructs. Leaving a space between you and someone else is polite for me. For an Italian, it means you don\u2019t like them. I always find it funny and it makes me wonder what else do I do that I consider to be normal that is actually rude or impolite in another culture? It just makes me want to know more about other people and the world. Learning Anthropology has also taught me to not judge something as right or wrong. That\u2019s probably the most important thing I\u2019ve learned. There is no right or wrong culture, only different cultures. Just because I don\u2019t agree with what\u2019s culturally accepted doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s wrong. It just means that it\u2019s different. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean some of the more controversial cultural things shouldn\u2019t change. It just doesn\u2019t mean you should look at that one thing and go, \u201cyour culture is wrong\u201d. There\u2019s plenty of things that people don\u2019t realize are bad if it\u2019s apart of their own culture. For us Americans, our pride and insistence on independence is huge. It\u2019s in everything from how we view our country, to how people are expected to live on their own without any help. For many places, that\u2019s wrong and\/or wasteful. For them, you\u2019re expected to share. You\u2019re expected to always live with your parents and help them later in life. It\u2019s not considered \u201cpoor\u201d for you to take public transportation everywhere and owning a car is not as glamorized as it is in the US. Sorry for the wall of text. My point is just that learning Anthropology has really opened my eyes to what\u2019s considered normal and to be able to try and look at my own culture\u2019s quirks to try and better myself\/community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1364.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"apg3og","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How has learning Anthropology changed the way you view life and or your values\/beliefs?","c_root_id_A":"eg837de","c_root_id_B":"eg95r4b","created_at_utc_A":1549894746,"created_at_utc_B":1549918502,"score_A":8,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I saw evidence that evolution was a viable concept (grew up in religious schools that taught it as a preposterous theory that was to be mocked). So my religious and as a result political beliefs were completely shook. Al this from one GE physical anthropology class. I dont remember half the material, but it got me looking deeper into the world.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology as a whole has been a strong component in the loss of my religion. I grew up religious and like many religious people I believed that humans were some exalted children of gods. The study of Hominin evolution has utterly and drastically changed my belief system to the very core. I obviously am atheist now, and know the actual origins of humanity. My perception of Humanity has drastically changed as a result, as well. I no longer look at people as such just people but I wonder their ethnic origins, each persons face tells a story. I like at people as a whole, rather than individual groups. Human diversity is fascinating and amazing yet also we are all the same species, and so undiverse at the same time. The ideas of Race I have come to realize and learn are so irrelevant and pointless. So, as a result, I am very much against racist ideas and racism as a whole. I view it as ignorant, and vile. I went from wildly detaching humans from nature, to seeing humanity as the wild and impressively elegant ape we really are. And how beautiful humanity can really be. I less often detach humans from animals, and rather often consider us and reference as Apes, rather than just \"people.\" When I think of Apes, I don't think of just Chimps and gorillas anymore. I also think of Homo Sapiens, and Neanderthals along with them. I often ponder what it would be like to meet a Neanderthal, or an Erectus. What would they look like, what would they say? Would there be a potential for us to understand each other? Do they take care of their hair, Or does it run wild? It makes me realize my own existence is so powerful, and yet so fragile and instantaneous. Maybe I'm a little eccentric? Maybe this makes me the weird one, but I used to be very misanthropic as a teenager, but now I'm very much in love with human existence. There are so many things I wish we, as a species could do better, but It doesn't stop me from admiring us as whole anymore.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23756.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"apg3og","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"How has learning Anthropology changed the way you view life and or your values\/beliefs?","c_root_id_A":"eg8arhr","c_root_id_B":"eg95r4b","created_at_utc_A":1549900533,"created_at_utc_B":1549918502,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Understanding how two different people can encode vastly dissimilar meaning onto one phenomenon. Learning about semiotic ideology had a pretty big effect on my growth.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology as a whole has been a strong component in the loss of my religion. I grew up religious and like many religious people I believed that humans were some exalted children of gods. The study of Hominin evolution has utterly and drastically changed my belief system to the very core. I obviously am atheist now, and know the actual origins of humanity. My perception of Humanity has drastically changed as a result, as well. I no longer look at people as such just people but I wonder their ethnic origins, each persons face tells a story. I like at people as a whole, rather than individual groups. Human diversity is fascinating and amazing yet also we are all the same species, and so undiverse at the same time. The ideas of Race I have come to realize and learn are so irrelevant and pointless. So, as a result, I am very much against racist ideas and racism as a whole. I view it as ignorant, and vile. I went from wildly detaching humans from nature, to seeing humanity as the wild and impressively elegant ape we really are. And how beautiful humanity can really be. I less often detach humans from animals, and rather often consider us and reference as Apes, rather than just \"people.\" When I think of Apes, I don't think of just Chimps and gorillas anymore. I also think of Homo Sapiens, and Neanderthals along with them. I often ponder what it would be like to meet a Neanderthal, or an Erectus. What would they look like, what would they say? Would there be a potential for us to understand each other? Do they take care of their hair, Or does it run wild? It makes me realize my own existence is so powerful, and yet so fragile and instantaneous. Maybe I'm a little eccentric? Maybe this makes me the weird one, but I used to be very misanthropic as a teenager, but now I'm very much in love with human existence. There are so many things I wish we, as a species could do better, but It doesn't stop me from admiring us as whole anymore.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17969.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izj4u8k","c_root_id_B":"izj2702","created_at_utc_A":1670595611,"created_at_utc_B":1670594404,"score_A":44,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Anthro turned epidemiologist here. Generally speaking, an anthropological perspective would be that these phenomena and the relationship between them are going to be understood differently in each particular context where you look. To answer more broadly, you would look at globally entrenched systems of hegemonic meaning making and resource distribution which serve to reproduce socioeconomic phenomena in different times and different places, but that's very different than just saying there's a natural tendency among humans to have lots of babies when they have limited access to resources. Epidemiologists are more likely to answer your question in the form of \"we developed a statistical model which shows that the factors relating poverty and birth rate are XYZ\" edit: type on phone make bad word typo","human_ref_B":"Having more children doesn't necessarily mean the individuals with children have a higher fertility rate. Agricultural societies often had high numbers of children because they could help with all the tasks around the farm. From experience, I've observed that Hmong traditionally have a large number of children. It might benefit you to begin by studying their culture and why high numbers of children might be encouraged. Finally, there is a biology principle called \"r\/K selection theory\". It was developed mostly to explain why some organisms produce large numbers of young and others produce few young. It *can* be applied to humans living under differing conditions in different cultures, although there are a number of external factors that r\/K selection theory does not even begin to address.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1207.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izj4u8k","c_root_id_B":"izizxo4","created_at_utc_A":1670595611,"created_at_utc_B":1670593334,"score_A":44,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Anthro turned epidemiologist here. Generally speaking, an anthropological perspective would be that these phenomena and the relationship between them are going to be understood differently in each particular context where you look. To answer more broadly, you would look at globally entrenched systems of hegemonic meaning making and resource distribution which serve to reproduce socioeconomic phenomena in different times and different places, but that's very different than just saying there's a natural tendency among humans to have lots of babies when they have limited access to resources. Epidemiologists are more likely to answer your question in the form of \"we developed a statistical model which shows that the factors relating poverty and birth rate are XYZ\" edit: type on phone make bad word typo","human_ref_B":"Do you mean, \"why do all those poor people keep having kids?\" Because thats a pretty fucked up question, if that is what you mean. Have you considered that poor farmers need a lot more kids because only a few of them ever survive to adulthood? Or that they need to produce their own workforce to till fields since they cant afford to hire employees? Additionally, this is another point I'd like to bring up: The **choice** whether or not to have kids is a luxury tied inherently to access to birth control and the subjugation of women. Modern humanitarian studies such as Holbrook et al (2019) point out that it is literally impossible for some women to **consent** to sex work or motherhood because they have NO other options. They face food insecurity plus lack of employment, transportation, and rights. This means that they cannot afford to say no when soldiers \"date\" them and give them AIDS.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2277.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"iziuzro","c_root_id_B":"izj4u8k","created_at_utc_A":1670590740,"created_at_utc_B":1670595611,"score_A":16,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"Is there a region or community that you're interested in? There are complex interacting factors at play in this kind of relationship. It's not a simple equation, and reasons can vary significantly. If you provide some information about where \/ what part of the world \/ what culture you're interested in, people who comment may be better able to target information they provide to suit your interest. --- (Note: I am not a mod, but I *do* report a lot of threads that are posted to this sub that are clearly bad faith \/ trolls. And the moderating team here is quite responsive when they agree. See, this sub gets a *lot* of questions from bad faith posters who aren't actually interested in information or discussion, but just want to cause trouble or find ways to disparage people in other cultures. Your question doesn't seem like that at first glance, but questions about birth rates and poverty can often indicate a poster is pointing toward a particular disadvantaged community and looking for ways to dehumanize them. I'm not accusing you of bad faith posting... but answering the question I posed above about region of interest, etc., can help to clarify that you're seeking information in good faith. My finger is hovering near the report button, though...)","human_ref_B":"Anthro turned epidemiologist here. Generally speaking, an anthropological perspective would be that these phenomena and the relationship between them are going to be understood differently in each particular context where you look. To answer more broadly, you would look at globally entrenched systems of hegemonic meaning making and resource distribution which serve to reproduce socioeconomic phenomena in different times and different places, but that's very different than just saying there's a natural tendency among humans to have lots of babies when they have limited access to resources. Epidemiologists are more likely to answer your question in the form of \"we developed a statistical model which shows that the factors relating poverty and birth rate are XYZ\" edit: type on phone make bad word typo","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4871.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izizxo4","c_root_id_B":"izj2702","created_at_utc_A":1670593334,"created_at_utc_B":1670594404,"score_A":24,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Do you mean, \"why do all those poor people keep having kids?\" Because thats a pretty fucked up question, if that is what you mean. Have you considered that poor farmers need a lot more kids because only a few of them ever survive to adulthood? Or that they need to produce their own workforce to till fields since they cant afford to hire employees? Additionally, this is another point I'd like to bring up: The **choice** whether or not to have kids is a luxury tied inherently to access to birth control and the subjugation of women. Modern humanitarian studies such as Holbrook et al (2019) point out that it is literally impossible for some women to **consent** to sex work or motherhood because they have NO other options. They face food insecurity plus lack of employment, transportation, and rights. This means that they cannot afford to say no when soldiers \"date\" them and give them AIDS.","human_ref_B":"Having more children doesn't necessarily mean the individuals with children have a higher fertility rate. Agricultural societies often had high numbers of children because they could help with all the tasks around the farm. From experience, I've observed that Hmong traditionally have a large number of children. It might benefit you to begin by studying their culture and why high numbers of children might be encouraged. Finally, there is a biology principle called \"r\/K selection theory\". It was developed mostly to explain why some organisms produce large numbers of young and others produce few young. It *can* be applied to humans living under differing conditions in different cultures, although there are a number of external factors that r\/K selection theory does not even begin to address.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1070.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"iziuzro","c_root_id_B":"izj2702","created_at_utc_A":1670590740,"created_at_utc_B":1670594404,"score_A":16,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Is there a region or community that you're interested in? There are complex interacting factors at play in this kind of relationship. It's not a simple equation, and reasons can vary significantly. If you provide some information about where \/ what part of the world \/ what culture you're interested in, people who comment may be better able to target information they provide to suit your interest. --- (Note: I am not a mod, but I *do* report a lot of threads that are posted to this sub that are clearly bad faith \/ trolls. And the moderating team here is quite responsive when they agree. See, this sub gets a *lot* of questions from bad faith posters who aren't actually interested in information or discussion, but just want to cause trouble or find ways to disparage people in other cultures. Your question doesn't seem like that at first glance, but questions about birth rates and poverty can often indicate a poster is pointing toward a particular disadvantaged community and looking for ways to dehumanize them. I'm not accusing you of bad faith posting... but answering the question I posed above about region of interest, etc., can help to clarify that you're seeking information in good faith. My finger is hovering near the report button, though...)","human_ref_B":"Having more children doesn't necessarily mean the individuals with children have a higher fertility rate. Agricultural societies often had high numbers of children because they could help with all the tasks around the farm. From experience, I've observed that Hmong traditionally have a large number of children. It might benefit you to begin by studying their culture and why high numbers of children might be encouraged. Finally, there is a biology principle called \"r\/K selection theory\". It was developed mostly to explain why some organisms produce large numbers of young and others produce few young. It *can* be applied to humans living under differing conditions in different cultures, although there are a number of external factors that r\/K selection theory does not even begin to address.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3664.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"iziuzro","c_root_id_B":"izizxo4","created_at_utc_A":1670590740,"created_at_utc_B":1670593334,"score_A":16,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Is there a region or community that you're interested in? There are complex interacting factors at play in this kind of relationship. It's not a simple equation, and reasons can vary significantly. If you provide some information about where \/ what part of the world \/ what culture you're interested in, people who comment may be better able to target information they provide to suit your interest. --- (Note: I am not a mod, but I *do* report a lot of threads that are posted to this sub that are clearly bad faith \/ trolls. And the moderating team here is quite responsive when they agree. See, this sub gets a *lot* of questions from bad faith posters who aren't actually interested in information or discussion, but just want to cause trouble or find ways to disparage people in other cultures. Your question doesn't seem like that at first glance, but questions about birth rates and poverty can often indicate a poster is pointing toward a particular disadvantaged community and looking for ways to dehumanize them. I'm not accusing you of bad faith posting... but answering the question I posed above about region of interest, etc., can help to clarify that you're seeking information in good faith. My finger is hovering near the report button, though...)","human_ref_B":"Do you mean, \"why do all those poor people keep having kids?\" Because thats a pretty fucked up question, if that is what you mean. Have you considered that poor farmers need a lot more kids because only a few of them ever survive to adulthood? Or that they need to produce their own workforce to till fields since they cant afford to hire employees? Additionally, this is another point I'd like to bring up: The **choice** whether or not to have kids is a luxury tied inherently to access to birth control and the subjugation of women. Modern humanitarian studies such as Holbrook et al (2019) point out that it is literally impossible for some women to **consent** to sex work or motherhood because they have NO other options. They face food insecurity plus lack of employment, transportation, and rights. This means that they cannot afford to say no when soldiers \"date\" them and give them AIDS.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2594.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izl839m","c_root_id_B":"iziuzro","created_at_utc_A":1670625359,"created_at_utc_B":1670590740,"score_A":23,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Lack of access to contraceptives, lack of sexual education, and anthropologically speaking, lack of women\u2019s rights. When the patriarchy is so powerful in many of these countries, women do not have a choice in child-bearing. It is seen as their duty. Once feminism can make a difference, then more women are empowered to make their own reproductive decisions. It\u2019s not a fertility thing, it\u2019s cultural and social.","human_ref_B":"Is there a region or community that you're interested in? There are complex interacting factors at play in this kind of relationship. It's not a simple equation, and reasons can vary significantly. If you provide some information about where \/ what part of the world \/ what culture you're interested in, people who comment may be better able to target information they provide to suit your interest. --- (Note: I am not a mod, but I *do* report a lot of threads that are posted to this sub that are clearly bad faith \/ trolls. And the moderating team here is quite responsive when they agree. See, this sub gets a *lot* of questions from bad faith posters who aren't actually interested in information or discussion, but just want to cause trouble or find ways to disparage people in other cultures. Your question doesn't seem like that at first glance, but questions about birth rates and poverty can often indicate a poster is pointing toward a particular disadvantaged community and looking for ways to dehumanize them. I'm not accusing you of bad faith posting... but answering the question I posed above about region of interest, etc., can help to clarify that you're seeking information in good faith. My finger is hovering near the report button, though...)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34619.0,"score_ratio":1.4375} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izl839m","c_root_id_B":"izkqdpl","created_at_utc_A":1670625359,"created_at_utc_B":1670618299,"score_A":23,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Lack of access to contraceptives, lack of sexual education, and anthropologically speaking, lack of women\u2019s rights. When the patriarchy is so powerful in many of these countries, women do not have a choice in child-bearing. It is seen as their duty. Once feminism can make a difference, then more women are empowered to make their own reproductive decisions. It\u2019s not a fertility thing, it\u2019s cultural and social.","human_ref_B":"Are you looking at worldwide or in the US? In the United States, women in lower socioeconomic classes do technically have more children on average than those in middle and upper class, but its averages out to less than one kid per women. I don\u2019t remember the exact statistic, but I believe middle and upper class average 2.1 kids and poor average 2.7.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7060.0,"score_ratio":1.6428571429} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izkrxe9","c_root_id_B":"izl839m","created_at_utc_A":1670618894,"created_at_utc_B":1670625359,"score_A":3,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"The higher one rises in a market economy, the higher the investment requirement for profitable participation becomes for one's children. These can be real training requirements, but also artificial means tests and barriers to entry erected to maintain the exclusivity of the class. It doesn't matter which. Having fewer children is a rational response to any increased investment requirements. It is is also behavioral plasticity we're well suited to psychologically due to our adaptive phenotypic flexibility in fertility (see embodied capital theory below). Look into embodied capital theory. From the abstract: >The embodied-capital theory generalizes existing life history theory inevolutionary biology by treating the processes of growth, developmentand maintenance as investments in stocks of somatic or embodied-capital.In a physical sense, embodied capital is organized somatictissue\u2014muscles, digestive organs, brains, etc. In a functional sense,embodied capital includes strength, immune function, coordination,skill, knowledge, and other abilities. Since such stocks tend todepreciate with time, allocations to maintenance can also be seen asinvestments in embodied capital. There are two trade-os aecting naturalselection on fertility. The first is the trade-o between present andfuture reproduction. By growing, an organism can increase its energycapture rates in the future and thus increase its future fertility. Thiscan be understood in terms of optimal investments in own embodiedcapital vs. reproduction. The second trade-o is between quantity andquality of ospring, where quality is a function of parental investmentin ospring and reflects its ability to survive and reproduce. This canbe understood in terms of investments in the embodied- capital ofospring. Natural selection has resulted in physiological andpsychological mechanisms by which individuals adjust fertility onset andfertility rates in relation to changing environmental conditions.Embodied-capital theory links several existing theories of demographictransition and, in so doing, provides a new perspective on each one. Itrationalizes the shift from natural fertility to parity-specificfertility in terms of a changing quality}quantity trade-o, as atransition from high fertility}low parental investment to lowfertility}high parental investment. It also shows why the shift to lowermortality rates can lead to lower fertility, but for very dierentreasons than traditional demographic transition theory proposes. https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/237391040\\_Fertility\\_Theory\\_Embodied-Capital\\_Theory\\_of\\_Life\\_History\\_Evolution https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/chapters\/mono\/10.4324\/9781315128467-23\/embodied-capital-theory-human-evolution-hillard-kaplan-kim-hill-magdelena-hurtado-jane-lancaster-peter-ellison?context=ubx&refId=efb71513-6976-41b3-be45-5dde742f3e4c","human_ref_B":"Lack of access to contraceptives, lack of sexual education, and anthropologically speaking, lack of women\u2019s rights. When the patriarchy is so powerful in many of these countries, women do not have a choice in child-bearing. It is seen as their duty. Once feminism can make a difference, then more women are empowered to make their own reproductive decisions. It\u2019s not a fertility thing, it\u2019s cultural and social.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6465.0,"score_ratio":7.6666666667} {"post_id":"zgrndj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Anthropological perspectives on reasons for high fertility rate in poor communities Hello. I'm looking for resources on anthropological perspectives regarding the relationship between poverty and high fertility rate","c_root_id_A":"izkrxe9","c_root_id_B":"izo0jbi","created_at_utc_A":1670618894,"created_at_utc_B":1670686092,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The higher one rises in a market economy, the higher the investment requirement for profitable participation becomes for one's children. These can be real training requirements, but also artificial means tests and barriers to entry erected to maintain the exclusivity of the class. It doesn't matter which. Having fewer children is a rational response to any increased investment requirements. It is is also behavioral plasticity we're well suited to psychologically due to our adaptive phenotypic flexibility in fertility (see embodied capital theory below). Look into embodied capital theory. From the abstract: >The embodied-capital theory generalizes existing life history theory inevolutionary biology by treating the processes of growth, developmentand maintenance as investments in stocks of somatic or embodied-capital.In a physical sense, embodied capital is organized somatictissue\u2014muscles, digestive organs, brains, etc. In a functional sense,embodied capital includes strength, immune function, coordination,skill, knowledge, and other abilities. Since such stocks tend todepreciate with time, allocations to maintenance can also be seen asinvestments in embodied capital. There are two trade-os aecting naturalselection on fertility. The first is the trade-o between present andfuture reproduction. By growing, an organism can increase its energycapture rates in the future and thus increase its future fertility. Thiscan be understood in terms of optimal investments in own embodiedcapital vs. reproduction. The second trade-o is between quantity andquality of ospring, where quality is a function of parental investmentin ospring and reflects its ability to survive and reproduce. This canbe understood in terms of investments in the embodied- capital ofospring. Natural selection has resulted in physiological andpsychological mechanisms by which individuals adjust fertility onset andfertility rates in relation to changing environmental conditions.Embodied-capital theory links several existing theories of demographictransition and, in so doing, provides a new perspective on each one. Itrationalizes the shift from natural fertility to parity-specificfertility in terms of a changing quality}quantity trade-o, as atransition from high fertility}low parental investment to lowfertility}high parental investment. It also shows why the shift to lowermortality rates can lead to lower fertility, but for very dierentreasons than traditional demographic transition theory proposes. https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/237391040\\_Fertility\\_Theory\\_Embodied-Capital\\_Theory\\_of\\_Life\\_History\\_Evolution https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/chapters\/mono\/10.4324\/9781315128467-23\/embodied-capital-theory-human-evolution-hillard-kaplan-kim-hill-magdelena-hurtado-jane-lancaster-peter-ellison?context=ubx&refId=efb71513-6976-41b3-be45-5dde742f3e4c","human_ref_B":"u\/AlisonChrista has the big picture answer in their post.\u00a0 There is also some sociological ethnography that adds details to this bigger picture. One is that women's sexual activityis similar across class, so the difference in childbearing is partly about contraception use or access, and partly about low income women being less willing to have abortions. Contraception is particularly important because the less power women have, the less able they are to control the conditions under which they have sex, including whether or not men use contraception. Here is a paper exploring this issue.Low income women have fewer abortions. Part of that is access -- the lowest income people with the highest rates of intergenerational poverty live in rural areas with poor access to health care and limitations on abortion providers. The other part is being opposed to abortion either as a general principle or just for the self. Living in poverty is brutal and difficult and often produces despair. Major family events are one of the few sources of everyday happiness and social celebration. Having a child is seen as a blessing and a way to survive in a society that devalues you and discounts your suffering. Here is a nice article exploring this issue. And finally, if you are a young woman with few prospects for upward mobility who finds herself pregnant, having the child is the rational choice. You are young and relatively healthy, your family and community (including the state) are more willing to offer support to get you through your pregnancy and help raise the child. When you get older much of that supportwill disappear. The child will not significantly decrease your lifetime earnings the way it will for middle and upper income girls because you were never going to earn much anyway. Edin and Kefales' Promises I Can Keep is an excellent book on this issue. I think if we turn the question around and ask, \"Why don't middle and upper class people have more children?\" the answer to the other question becomes more obvious. Higher income people have access to many options besides parenting, they have better access to health care and health information, and they make the choice to put their class standing ahead of family and community. So in some ways this is a question of the relative value of family and social relationships vs the value of work and professional advancement. If you are denied one side of this equation, you look to the other.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":67198.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"2kdb91","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What was the ancient equivalent of an alarm clock to people of the first centuries AD in Europe and the Middle East? Before the sun came up, what woke people for occasions when they had to get up early? The obvious and easy answear is a rooster but was there other methods?","c_root_id_A":"clkcavq","c_root_id_B":"clk8idv","created_at_utc_A":1414346521,"created_at_utc_B":1414339200,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've heard of people pushing a nail into a candle and then letting it burn down. When the wax around the nail gets soft, the nail falls out, possibly onto a plate so it makes a noise. May not wake one up from a deep sleep, but might startle you if you're dozing or deep in study.","human_ref_B":"A wonderful British\/Irish profession was the Knocker-up http:\/\/www.sparththenandnow.org.uk\/pic\/600\/421.jpg Bloke with a stick you who pay to knock on your window to wake you up in the mornings :D edit - oh, 1st century - maybe the idea was used back then?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7321.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1qtlyg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some other forms of ritual suicide besides the Japanese practice seppuku?","c_root_id_A":"cdgfcgu","c_root_id_B":"cdggzn5","created_at_utc_A":1384707987,"created_at_utc_B":1384712185,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Though it is NOT suicide, some Jain masters end their lives by ritually starving themselves. This process is called Sallekhana. I don't know much beyond that, but my professor continually stressed that it's NOT suicide. Even so, it seemed relevant to your question.","human_ref_B":"The ancient and now banned Hindu ritual of sati. It involved the wife of a Hindu man casting herself onto his funeral pyre, presumably voluntarily.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4198.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"1qtlyg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some other forms of ritual suicide besides the Japanese practice seppuku?","c_root_id_A":"cdgj1kp","c_root_id_B":"cdgfcgu","created_at_utc_A":1384716794,"created_at_utc_B":1384707987,"score_A":13,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It could be argued that suicide bombing is a form of ritual suicide.","human_ref_B":"Though it is NOT suicide, some Jain masters end their lives by ritually starving themselves. This process is called Sallekhana. I don't know much beyond that, but my professor continually stressed that it's NOT suicide. Even so, it seemed relevant to your question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8807.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"6bppnl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Are race classifications such as \"Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Congoid\", etc valid in any way? Would it be scientifically acceptable to label the Chinese and Polynesians as Mongoloids?","c_root_id_A":"dhp7kwu","c_root_id_B":"dhp07cl","created_at_utc_A":1495066756,"created_at_utc_B":1495057466,"score_A":58,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"America's last President had a \"white\" mother and a \"black\" father and was raised by his \"white\" grandparents in Hawaii. Yet he is considered to be black. Why? Racism, which resulted in the concept of hypodescent. What makes someone whose genetic heritage is 1\/8 African a \"black\"? Nothing, other than the \"one-drop\" rule which has absolutely no bearing in science. What \"race\" are these babies? If you arrange humans into groups based on how they are actually related, those groups won't correspond even approximately to common notions of \"race.\" Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic \"racial\" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within \"racial\" groups than between them. In formal terms, phenotype (outward appearance) was supposed to be a good predictor of genotype (deeper biological similarities). However, today we know that phenotype is a LOUSY indicator of genotype. Worthless, in fact. Ethiopians are more closely related to certain Mediterranean Europeans than they are to Pygmies, even though both are \"black.\" Australian Aborigines are as distantly related to Africans as it's possible for two living populations to be, yet they are both superficially \"black.\" One thing only accomplishes this scientifically discredited hokum, and it's racism. There is no controversy about this in biology. When someone starts talking about so-called distinct \"races\" they are either ignorant, or racist, and usually both.","human_ref_B":"They are valid in forensic anthropology. In my forensics class we were taught the ways to differentiate between caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid skulls. There is enough difference between them to put them into three main categories.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9290.0,"score_ratio":2.6363636364} {"post_id":"6bppnl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Are race classifications such as \"Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Congoid\", etc valid in any way? Would it be scientifically acceptable to label the Chinese and Polynesians as Mongoloids?","c_root_id_A":"dhttp94","c_root_id_B":"dhq86p9","created_at_utc_A":1495325510,"created_at_utc_B":1495125996,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"\"Slightly over half of all biological\/physical anthropologists today believe in the traditional view that human races are biologically valid and real. Furthermore, they tend to see nothing wrong in defining and naming the different populations of Homo sapiens.\" http:\/\/www.cabrillo.edu\/~crsmith\/gill.html","human_ref_B":"Racism is illogical - a result of people fearing the unfamiliar. However, I don't think subjective classification based on genes is inherently racist in and of itself. To me, that presents a slippery slope. Really, people classify others (and themselves) subjectively on what they look like. What people look like are based (with some variation) on their ancestors, or their 'genes', and the 'run of the genes' is where the term 'race' originates (I believe). Though sometimes they inherit certain features more than others, as certain genes take the helm more than others (others are recessive and whatever; I'm not a geneticist). Therefore, scientifically, racial classification can be wrong, since you can be entirely innacurate in a classification based only on observing what someone looks like. The lack of precision means it's not a useful scientific method of classification. But I wouldn't go assuming that people are racist, because they still use the term 'race'. People self-identify as certain races after all, without bearing hatred towards those with their genes. Calling someone 'racist' is like calling them a 'rapist', 'insane', 'mentally challenged', or (at the extreme end) a 'pro-genocide\/holocaust denier'. Even if it's not technically equivalent, it does create an emotional equivocation in the brains of most people - so it's not a good social strategy, in my opinion. If for the sake of being PC more than anything else, I'd avoid calling people racist if you want to continue interacting with them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":199514.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"tf8ovx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but is anyone aware of any works on 16th-century Spanish artifacts found in the US southeast? I know there have been items found, but I\u2019m curious as to whether anyone\u2019s compiled what we know.","c_root_id_A":"i0unwkq","c_root_id_B":"i0uqyky","created_at_utc_A":1647409051,"created_at_utc_B":1647411249,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Don't know anything about this personally, but my best idea is to look for contact info for whoever does archaeology here: https:\/\/anthro.ufl.edu\/people\/ And drop them an e-mail asking. My bet is--if they don't know--they will know who to ask. Alternatively: https:\/\/museumoffloridahistory.com\/ Another place to drop a line and ask. Somewhere between the two, you might have a connection to where to go to find what you're looking for.","human_ref_B":"There's some post-conquistador artifacts in the Bulluck museum in Austin. the houston fine arts museum also has some good ones, not sure on current display status but you could ask a curator. Edit: Just remembered the collection at the Menil in Houston too. Free museum bequeathed to the public on the death of the original conservator (french magnates who immigrated here). Again, not sure on current display status but, if you come here, there's great food and parks nearby the museum.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2198.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"tf8ovx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but is anyone aware of any works on 16th-century Spanish artifacts found in the US southeast? I know there have been items found, but I\u2019m curious as to whether anyone\u2019s compiled what we know.","c_root_id_A":"i0uvngt","c_root_id_B":"i0unwkq","created_at_utc_A":1647414936,"created_at_utc_B":1647409051,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"- National Geographic *Conquistador Was Deep in U.S.: \"Stunning\" Jewelry Find Redraws Route?* - Deagan *The Historical Archaeology of Sixteenth-Century La Florida* - *Charlesfort-Santa Elena Site* - French and Spanish occupation on the site - Brean, AP News 2022 *Tucson archaeologist: Found artifacts linked to 16th century* - this is SW though, not SE And a bunch more with a little Googling.","human_ref_B":"Don't know anything about this personally, but my best idea is to look for contact info for whoever does archaeology here: https:\/\/anthro.ufl.edu\/people\/ And drop them an e-mail asking. My bet is--if they don't know--they will know who to ask. Alternatively: https:\/\/museumoffloridahistory.com\/ Another place to drop a line and ask. Somewhere between the two, you might have a connection to where to go to find what you're looking for.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5885.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"g86lio","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Professional Anthropologists (with PhDs), how long did it take you to complete your degree? I'm a anthropology student (graduating in 2021), possibly looking to get a PhD in it. However, I'm still debating about what to do, so if any of you followed a different track but is still doing Anthoropologcial work, I value your opinion too!","c_root_id_A":"fomp8ak","c_root_id_B":"fomg78g","created_at_utc_A":1587898769,"created_at_utc_B":1587888853,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Are you hoping to work in academia? The academic job market it notoriously poor. It\u2019s not the only reason to get a PhD but just be aware it can be quite difficult to land a job","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m about to being my PhD in anthro and the program length is 4.5-5 years, which seems pretty standard (though I know many people who took longer!). It\u2019s wise to check how much the department will push you to stay on track so you aren\u2019t in grad school for 9-10 years.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9916.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"3gvcak","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"When did humans start enslaving each other? On wikipedia, it says, \"Evidence of slavery predates written records, the practice of slavery would have proliferated after the development of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.\" But there's a citation needed. Is it fair to say that humans didn't start enslaving each other until after we began farming? https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_slavery","c_root_id_A":"cu1vgfx","c_root_id_B":"cu1wn10","created_at_utc_A":1439491282,"created_at_utc_B":1439492964,"score_A":10,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"You know I just started researching it to prove you wrong but you may be right. The consensus seems to be that slavery is at least much less common in hunter gatherer societies. Tribal warfare is not though, and according to the Wikipedia article you posted many early slaves were prisoners of war.","human_ref_B":"Well, if Chimpanzee habits are any indiction to our early hominid ancestor, then its been happening for forever and day. When Chimps go to war, part of why they go to war is to gain access to more mates and more food. Now, slave there is broadly applied.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1682.0,"score_ratio":1.3} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e78yeus","c_root_id_B":"e78xlh6","created_at_utc_A":1538786250,"created_at_utc_B":1538785392,"score_A":24,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Not really expected in any way? Just to clarify, Italian-Argentinians are the forefathers of most of the country's population today. Your statement is like saying that Irish immigration to the US was odd and unexpected.","human_ref_B":"Belize has a very large Mennonite population. They have an interesting history behind their settlements there, but I can't tell it myself so you'll probably be better off looking it up. Belize also has a good sized community of Chinese expats.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":858.0,"score_ratio":1.2631578947} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e78mjya","c_root_id_B":"e78yeus","created_at_utc_A":1538774393,"created_at_utc_B":1538786250,"score_A":11,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"There used to be a Carribbean island with Irish accents, specifically a Cork accent. We were shown a clip in school.","human_ref_B":"Not really expected in any way? Just to clarify, Italian-Argentinians are the forefathers of most of the country's population today. Your statement is like saying that Irish immigration to the US was odd and unexpected.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11857.0,"score_ratio":2.1818181818} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e78xlh6","c_root_id_B":"e78mjya","created_at_utc_A":1538785392,"created_at_utc_B":1538774393,"score_A":19,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Belize has a very large Mennonite population. They have an interesting history behind their settlements there, but I can't tell it myself so you'll probably be better off looking it up. Belize also has a good sized community of Chinese expats.","human_ref_B":"There used to be a Carribbean island with Irish accents, specifically a Cork accent. We were shown a clip in school.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10999.0,"score_ratio":1.7272727273} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e79c272","c_root_id_B":"e798z9a","created_at_utc_A":1538802454,"created_at_utc_B":1538798261,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The Czech Republic has a population of Vietnamese folks who immigrated as guest workers several decades ago, many of whom found ways of staying.","human_ref_B":"South Africa has a significant Indian community. The Cajun culture in Louisiana were originally French-Canadian refugees.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4193.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e79c272","c_root_id_B":"e799l0m","created_at_utc_A":1538802454,"created_at_utc_B":1538799032,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Czech Republic has a population of Vietnamese folks who immigrated as guest workers several decades ago, many of whom found ways of staying.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s the Confederados in Brazil. Descendants of Southerners who fled after the end of the war.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3422.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e79f4uq","c_root_id_B":"e799l0m","created_at_utc_A":1538807575,"created_at_utc_B":1538799032,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are tons of Javanese (from what is now Indonesia) living in Suriname in South America. It's the same quirk of the colonial system that led to Indians being spread across the British empire - Suriname was a Dutch colony, as was the East Indies, so Javanese were sent as indentured labor to work on plantations in Suriname. There isn't a huge Javanese diaspora outside of the Malay world, but there is another exception: the Javanese of New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific. Also dating back more than a thousand years, many people don't know that the people of Madagascar are partially descendants of Austronesian people of what is now Indonesia - their language, which is Austronesian, has been traced back to Borneo, and even their musical instruments can be linked to similar instruments in the Austronesian world.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s the Confederados in Brazil. Descendants of Southerners who fled after the end of the war.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8543.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e799l0m","c_root_id_B":"e79il9i","created_at_utc_A":1538799032,"created_at_utc_B":1538813992,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s the Confederados in Brazil. Descendants of Southerners who fled after the end of the war.","human_ref_B":"Maybe not what your asking for but still interesting: While their history and origin is debated, Kaifeng jews is a small jewish community in China dating back at least 1000 years. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kaifeng_Jews","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14960.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9lq2wm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Which nation's have the odd (in a not really expected kinda way) population of immigrants and successive generations like The Brazilian- Japanese or the Italian Argentinians? Except the popular ones like the UK, US, Canada, Oz etc","c_root_id_A":"e79il9i","c_root_id_B":"e79g5ye","created_at_utc_A":1538813992,"created_at_utc_B":1538809432,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Maybe not what your asking for but still interesting: While their history and origin is debated, Kaifeng jews is a small jewish community in China dating back at least 1000 years. https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kaifeng_Jews","human_ref_B":"My kids are 4th generation Of Uzbek\u2019s in Makkah, which is not odd given the religious factor but you would find the oddest of origins here in the western side of Saudi who are now Saudis (3rd and 4th generations) such as Albania, England, China, America, Russia, Greece, Cyprus, central , south, Southeast, and Far East Asia,","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4560.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzensq7","c_root_id_B":"dzemmq9","created_at_utc_A":1527021467,"created_at_utc_B":1527020432,"score_A":53,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I think you're taking too simplistic of an approach to myth. It's not necessarily the case that every myth is meant to 'answer a question' or explain the existence of some natural phenomenon. Myths can develop for all kinds of complex reasons.","human_ref_B":"Maybe go back farther to Sumerians. They had a great flood myth at 6,500 years ago was probably the first before the Hebrews. And it was probably well-known in oral history traditions by everyone else even if they didn't know where it originated. And wouldn't ancient Hebrews have been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism too would they not?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1035.0,"score_ratio":1.962962963} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzensq7","c_root_id_B":"dzem7yr","created_at_utc_A":1527021467,"created_at_utc_B":1527020071,"score_A":53,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think you're taking too simplistic of an approach to myth. It's not necessarily the case that every myth is meant to 'answer a question' or explain the existence of some natural phenomenon. Myths can develop for all kinds of complex reasons.","human_ref_B":"I've always interpreted it as a \"why you should listen to the rules\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1396.0,"score_ratio":6.625} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzemd5w","c_root_id_B":"dzensq7","created_at_utc_A":1527020198,"created_at_utc_B":1527021467,"score_A":4,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"you should ask r\/AcademicBiblical this is their bailiwick.","human_ref_B":"I think you're taking too simplistic of an approach to myth. It's not necessarily the case that every myth is meant to 'answer a question' or explain the existence of some natural phenomenon. Myths can develop for all kinds of complex reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1269.0,"score_ratio":13.25} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzek1dl","c_root_id_B":"dzensq7","created_at_utc_A":1527018135,"created_at_utc_B":1527021467,"score_A":4,"score_B":53,"human_ref_A":"I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe \"Why are you special?\"","human_ref_B":"I think you're taking too simplistic of an approach to myth. It's not necessarily the case that every myth is meant to 'answer a question' or explain the existence of some natural phenomenon. Myths can develop for all kinds of complex reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3332.0,"score_ratio":13.25} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzent2t","c_root_id_B":"dzemmq9","created_at_utc_A":1527021476,"created_at_utc_B":1527020432,"score_A":31,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I think everyone misses the obvious answer sometimes of \"they thought it happened\"","human_ref_B":"Maybe go back farther to Sumerians. They had a great flood myth at 6,500 years ago was probably the first before the Hebrews. And it was probably well-known in oral history traditions by everyone else even if they didn't know where it originated. And wouldn't ancient Hebrews have been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism too would they not?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1044.0,"score_ratio":1.1481481481} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzem7yr","c_root_id_B":"dzent2t","created_at_utc_A":1527020071,"created_at_utc_B":1527021476,"score_A":8,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I've always interpreted it as a \"why you should listen to the rules\".","human_ref_B":"I think everyone misses the obvious answer sometimes of \"they thought it happened\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1405.0,"score_ratio":3.875} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzent2t","c_root_id_B":"dzemd5w","created_at_utc_A":1527021476,"created_at_utc_B":1527020198,"score_A":31,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I think everyone misses the obvious answer sometimes of \"they thought it happened\"","human_ref_B":"you should ask r\/AcademicBiblical this is their bailiwick.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1278.0,"score_ratio":7.75} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzek1dl","c_root_id_B":"dzent2t","created_at_utc_A":1527018135,"created_at_utc_B":1527021476,"score_A":4,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe \"Why are you special?\"","human_ref_B":"I think everyone misses the obvious answer sometimes of \"they thought it happened\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3341.0,"score_ratio":7.75} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzemmq9","c_root_id_B":"dzem7yr","created_at_utc_A":1527020432,"created_at_utc_B":1527020071,"score_A":27,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Maybe go back farther to Sumerians. They had a great flood myth at 6,500 years ago was probably the first before the Hebrews. And it was probably well-known in oral history traditions by everyone else even if they didn't know where it originated. And wouldn't ancient Hebrews have been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism too would they not?","human_ref_B":"I've always interpreted it as a \"why you should listen to the rules\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":361.0,"score_ratio":3.375} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzemmq9","c_root_id_B":"dzemd5w","created_at_utc_A":1527020432,"created_at_utc_B":1527020198,"score_A":27,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Maybe go back farther to Sumerians. They had a great flood myth at 6,500 years ago was probably the first before the Hebrews. And it was probably well-known in oral history traditions by everyone else even if they didn't know where it originated. And wouldn't ancient Hebrews have been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism too would they not?","human_ref_B":"you should ask r\/AcademicBiblical this is their bailiwick.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":234.0,"score_ratio":6.75} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzek1dl","c_root_id_B":"dzemmq9","created_at_utc_A":1527018135,"created_at_utc_B":1527020432,"score_A":4,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe \"Why are you special?\"","human_ref_B":"Maybe go back farther to Sumerians. They had a great flood myth at 6,500 years ago was probably the first before the Hebrews. And it was probably well-known in oral history traditions by everyone else even if they didn't know where it originated. And wouldn't ancient Hebrews have been heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism too would they not?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2297.0,"score_ratio":6.75} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzem7yr","c_root_id_B":"dzek1dl","created_at_utc_A":1527020071,"created_at_utc_B":1527018135,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've always interpreted it as a \"why you should listen to the rules\".","human_ref_B":"I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe \"Why are you special?\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1936.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzf16xc","c_root_id_B":"dzevcmt","created_at_utc_A":1527034836,"created_at_utc_B":1527028673,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Imo flood myths propogate in places where floods were common, and then less so, due to irrigation. In Mesopotamia, floods did reduce in frequency due to environmental change from growing human irrigation. Perhaps people wanted to explain that.","human_ref_B":"Genesis offers the following reasons for the Flood: >'The wickedness of man was great in the earth' (v. 5); >'Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' (v. 5); ' >The earth was filled with violence' (v. 11); >'The earth...was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth' (v. 12). (All the people on earth had corrupted their way.) It's pretty clear that the flood tales exists answer the question, \"Why should we behave ourselves and be good?\" The answer: OR ELSE.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6163.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzevcmt","c_root_id_B":"dzepbg8","created_at_utc_A":1527028673,"created_at_utc_B":1527022822,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Genesis offers the following reasons for the Flood: >'The wickedness of man was great in the earth' (v. 5); >'Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' (v. 5); ' >The earth was filled with violence' (v. 11); >'The earth...was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth' (v. 12). (All the people on earth had corrupted their way.) It's pretty clear that the flood tales exists answer the question, \"Why should we behave ourselves and be good?\" The answer: OR ELSE.","human_ref_B":"A lot of cultures have a flood myth. It's probably less of a parable and more historical record keeping.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5851.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzevcmt","c_root_id_B":"dzenvej","created_at_utc_A":1527028673,"created_at_utc_B":1527021533,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Genesis offers the following reasons for the Flood: >'The wickedness of man was great in the earth' (v. 5); >'Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' (v. 5); ' >The earth was filled with violence' (v. 11); >'The earth...was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth' (v. 12). (All the people on earth had corrupted their way.) It's pretty clear that the flood tales exists answer the question, \"Why should we behave ourselves and be good?\" The answer: OR ELSE.","human_ref_B":"Why do bad things happen in nature?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7140.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzf16xc","c_root_id_B":"dzemd5w","created_at_utc_A":1527034836,"created_at_utc_B":1527020198,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Imo flood myths propogate in places where floods were common, and then less so, due to irrigation. In Mesopotamia, floods did reduce in frequency due to environmental change from growing human irrigation. Perhaps people wanted to explain that.","human_ref_B":"you should ask r\/AcademicBiblical this is their bailiwick.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14638.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzek1dl","c_root_id_B":"dzf16xc","created_at_utc_A":1527018135,"created_at_utc_B":1527034836,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe \"Why are you special?\"","human_ref_B":"Imo flood myths propogate in places where floods were common, and then less so, due to irrigation. In Mesopotamia, floods did reduce in frequency due to environmental change from growing human irrigation. Perhaps people wanted to explain that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16701.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzf16xc","c_root_id_B":"dzepbg8","created_at_utc_A":1527034836,"created_at_utc_B":1527022822,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Imo flood myths propogate in places where floods were common, and then less so, due to irrigation. In Mesopotamia, floods did reduce in frequency due to environmental change from growing human irrigation. Perhaps people wanted to explain that.","human_ref_B":"A lot of cultures have a flood myth. It's probably less of a parable and more historical record keeping.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12014.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"8lcqud","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"In reading the Book of Genesis, I can understand why some origin myths were included. For instance, the Creation story. (Where did humanity come from?) The Fall. (Why is there death and evil in the world?) The story of Abraham. (What makes our people unique?) But I'm trying to figure out why the story of the Flood was included. I mean, it's an interesting read, but what questions would it answer for the ancient Hebrews?","c_root_id_A":"dzenvej","c_root_id_B":"dzf16xc","created_at_utc_A":1527021533,"created_at_utc_B":1527034836,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Why do bad things happen in nature?","human_ref_B":"Imo flood myths propogate in places where floods were common, and then less so, due to irrigation. In Mesopotamia, floods did reduce in frequency due to environmental change from growing human irrigation. Perhaps people wanted to explain that.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13303.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"eovqg5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What archaeological evidence of a civilization or culture could survive a period of glacial advance? This is mostly targeted towards civilizations and cultures whose architectural complexity had reached that of simple stone, earth, or wooden strictures.","c_root_id_A":"fegv5nd","c_root_id_B":"fegw83u","created_at_utc_A":1579103241,"created_at_utc_B":1579103919,"score_A":4,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Tangentially related, but Craig M Lee has done some really interesting archeology in high alpine regions. They look for spots where long held snow is starting to melt out because of claimate change. Above 11k feet they've found a number of organic and inorganic items including horse bridles, attal attal hafts and heads and other hunting debris. In the northern Rockies, they have found items dating as far back as 10k years ago and as recent as 1780ad. Most of the usage seems to be hunting related. This interview is a good introduction to his work and hosts a video he made about ice patch archeology.","human_ref_B":"Midden pits, post holes, large embankments, shell mounds, fire pits, pot sherds, projectile points, and that's just the material remains that I can come up with off the top of my head. Also, any sort of \"lost civilization\" buried under a glacier which would have met the common perception of that term would also have left secondary evidence of its existence through changes on the lived environment through forest clearing and hydraulic control. There is also the inevitable influence on the biological record. Humans select for advantageous animals and crops. Even before the adoption of certain grains as staples we can see the influence of humanity on selecting for useful traits in edible or otherwise useful plants. The palynological signal of forest clearing with replacement by these cultivated crops is one of the clearest archaeological signs of sedentary agricultural society. So to can the increased presence of certain animals in faunal assemblages signal a domestication event, which can also have genetic markers. Changes in diets also produce particular results in the isotope analyses of human remains, as well as their dentition and skeletal remains. Humans change things. We alter landscapes and the plants and animals living in those landscapes. The notion (which your question implies) of some long-lost advanced civilization buried beneath the ice (or rising sea levels, which is the more common formulation) has no basis in anthropology because the evidence is non-existent. In fact, the actual evidence militates against the idea of an advanced civilization crushed beneath glacier or swamped beneath the waves, because even in geographic areas where the archaeological evidence is scant we can examine nearby areas and infer from there. Civilizations do not exist in a vacuum and long-distance trade is actually a key marker of complex societies. So to posit a pre-Holocene society of the complexity we see arise in the Holocene, we would not only expect to see signs in all of the archaeological, physical, and environmental lines of evidence listed above, but also the influence of the hypothesized society on its neighbors. As we do not see such signals in any such way in any of the lines of evidence listed above, anthropologists feel quite secure in stating that anatomically modern humans evolved in the Pleistocene, but that the Holocene brought significant changes in our cultural organizations, which in turn led to changes in our environment and biology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":678.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2fwpb0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"I love Frazer's *Golden Bough*, what the the current view of the book and best science today? I know that the book was ground breaking and that it is old (science old, not cosmos old). What should I read to unlearn the errors I got from *Golden Bough*? And what should I read to get the best current science on those topics?","c_root_id_A":"ckdgk4v","c_root_id_B":"ckdjv70","created_at_utc_A":1410275077,"created_at_utc_B":1410281500,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A great book on these topics (though not particularly recent) is Marcel Mauss's *A General Theory of Magic*. It speaks to some of Frazier's conclusions as well.","human_ref_B":"Some good stuff: -Any textbook on anthropology of religion. I like Robert L. Winzeler's *Anthropology and Religion: What We Know, Think, and Question* because it debunks a lot of myths about religion. -*Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion* by Brian Hayden. What it says on the tin. -Any of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's books dealing with religion. They often undermine the unilineal evolutionary schema of Frazer-esque thought. -*Religion Explained* by Pascal Boyer or *In Gods We Trust* by Scott Atran -- cognitive anthropology of religion, as above, undermines unilinear evolutionism.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6423.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"c37hel","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Why do Sikhs appear to be disproportionately represented in the American trucking industry? How is it related to the fact that Punjabis appear to be disproportionately represented in the Indian trucking industry? I suppose this is more of a sociology question, or a history one, but the sociology subreddit doesn't seem that lively, and the r\/askhistorians mods deleted it.","c_root_id_A":"erqs5kg","c_root_id_B":"erq305d","created_at_utc_A":1561150710,"created_at_utc_B":1561134023,"score_A":12,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The way I've heard it told is that it began in 1947, with the partition of India. Punjab was one of the richest and most densely populated provinces in British India, and it was hit the hardest. The larger western part of Punjab went to Pakistan, which forced an exodus of the Hindu and Sikh population into India. Millions left their homes and migrated to India. Punjab was known as India's breadbasket at the time, and the majority of these people were prosperous farmers before the partition. But they had to abandon their farms when they fled to India, and lost their livelihoods. India had just come out of the colonial era. There was no economy worth speaking of, no manufacturing or service sectors. 90% of the population made their living off agriculture. There were no jobs available for these new arrivals. They had lost their land, but they did manage to hang on to their jewelry or other valuables when they made the trek to India. Many of them therefore had some cash available, not enough to buy land and become farmers again, but enough to get started in some small business. Trucking was a good choice, it required only an investment in a truck, no education was needed. A lot of them became truck drivers. Those who didn't have enough to buy a truck could buy a car instead and became taxi drivers. Others opened street side stalls (called *dhabas* in India) along the highways, selling food to cater to the Punjabi truckers. Even today, you can be anywhere in North India and you won't be more than a few miles from a Punjabi roadside *dhaba*. There are many times more *dhabas* in India than McDonalds in the US. Something similar happened when Punjabi Sikhs began migrating to the US and Canada in the 1950's. They arrived as laborers, not educated to western standards, not speaking the language. They were ill-suited for other jobs. But trucking requires very little education, just a drivers' course. And you work alone, you don't have to communicate with other people all that much. You're free to wear a turban, carry your *kripan* and other religious symbols in the privacy of the truck, nobody asks questions or looks askance at you. It was a good fit for them. They are enterprising people, and soon enough those lone truckers driving for other companies saved enough to buy their own trucks. Some of them started their own trucking companies, offering employment to other, recently arrived Sikh migrants. Today, out of half a million Sikhs in the US, about 150,000 (30%) are in the trucking industry.","human_ref_B":"Not sure this would be better suited for sociology but then again I'm biased. To get you started in a direction, you might look into phenomena where immigrants from a certain area or country group in certain places. It can be due to factors like lower rents or cost of living, but is also often because of preexisting relationships with other immigrants in the area. Similarly, you'll see clusters of immigrants in certain businesses, like Korean convenience store owners, or Indian hotel operators.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16687.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"6sejsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Would it be possible for civilization to form like in the neolithic revolution if it had large amounts of food surplus from fishing? I was wondering if a civilization could gain enough resources from another source like fishing instead of agriculture could they form a stable society with stable roles.","c_root_id_A":"dlchwnt","c_root_id_B":"dlc3vgy","created_at_utc_A":1502224058,"created_at_utc_B":1502209520,"score_A":28,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Yes. In fact it\u2019s quite possible that the oldest city in the Americas was fed by fishing. The Norte Chico civilizations was along the Peruvian coast. A lot of the finds there suggest the main food supply came from fishing. They did farm, but it appears they mostly farmed cotton, possibly used mainly for fishing nets.","human_ref_B":"What you're referring to is called delayed-return hunter-gatherers: http:\/\/libcom.org\/files\/EGALITARIAN%20SOCIETIES%20-%20James%20Woodburn.pdf They display a higher degree of inequality, more specialized social and productive roles, more intensive technology use, etc. Immediate return hunter-gatherers are still characterized by stable societies. They're just somewhat more individualistic and mobile. But the societies themselves are quite stable (they've lasted for quite awhile!) and it looks like tribal level institutions help engender this stability. Small isolated populations are more prone to demographic processes which reduce cultural complexity (think, someone dies and they take all their knowledge with them. In larger societies, someone else is likely to have that knowledge. In smaller, that's less likely). See http:\/\/www2.psych.ubc.ca\/~henrich\/Website\/Papers\/HenrichTasmania.pdf","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14538.0,"score_ratio":3.1111111111} {"post_id":"6sejsk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Would it be possible for civilization to form like in the neolithic revolution if it had large amounts of food surplus from fishing? I was wondering if a civilization could gain enough resources from another source like fishing instead of agriculture could they form a stable society with stable roles.","c_root_id_A":"dlc3vgy","c_root_id_B":"dld1e1m","created_at_utc_A":1502209520,"created_at_utc_B":1502246967,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"What you're referring to is called delayed-return hunter-gatherers: http:\/\/libcom.org\/files\/EGALITARIAN%20SOCIETIES%20-%20James%20Woodburn.pdf They display a higher degree of inequality, more specialized social and productive roles, more intensive technology use, etc. Immediate return hunter-gatherers are still characterized by stable societies. They're just somewhat more individualistic and mobile. But the societies themselves are quite stable (they've lasted for quite awhile!) and it looks like tribal level institutions help engender this stability. Small isolated populations are more prone to demographic processes which reduce cultural complexity (think, someone dies and they take all their knowledge with them. In larger societies, someone else is likely to have that knowledge. In smaller, that's less likely). See http:\/\/www2.psych.ubc.ca\/~henrich\/Website\/Papers\/HenrichTasmania.pdf","human_ref_B":"In much of the southern Sahara and Sahel, there is an archaeological period sometimes called the African Aqualithic. After the last ice age, the Sahara was lush with rivers, enormous lakes, and extensive wetlands. By 7000 BCE or so, there were large, generally sedentary populations of pottery-making people who intensively exploited aquatic resources like fish, along with hunting and gathering other available flora and fauna. Sedentary societies were forming likewise in other parts of the world at that time too, the Levant for example, but in that case they were exploiting terrestrial resources like wild wheat, which they would eventually domesticate. As others have pointed out, Norte Chico and some American Northwest societies also formed large, socially complex sedentary populations that subsisted mostly on gathered marine resources. I think the crux of your question is scale. Large-scale, socially complex societies have existed off gathered marine resources, or other gathered resources, but as you compare those societies to even larger settlements and societies (e.g. early historic cities, states and empires), the trend definitely skews toward diversity. Diversity in resource acquisition like fishing intensively but *also* adopting agriculture, for example, can have benefits like a more varied diet, greater resource surpluses that can go to supporting more and newer specialist producers, and better hedging against calamities that might take out a resource for a season or more (one theory goes the El Nino effect may have led to the abandonment of many early Chilean\/Peruvian coastal populations due to its effect on the Humboldt current, and by extension the marine life it brought to the coastal waters). Then there are also social practices like competitive feasting and what it says about us as humans - we like to show off and have the best of everything, why constrain yourself with one resource when you can rub it in your neighbors' faces that you have all the foods?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":37447.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"2fd4ip","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What cultural factors drive some cultures to build cities and others to not?","c_root_id_A":"ck8defw","c_root_id_B":"ck86onb","created_at_utc_A":1409779544,"created_at_utc_B":1409766907,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am all over this! I worked on a senior thesis on a very similar topic! Cities first developed during the neolithic period, which worked in the same basic pattern for every culture that experienced it. * After a food shortage due to exhausting local food resources (or the Ice Age for Northern Europe), farming settlements were built as a last-ditch attempt at carbohydrates. It wasn't culture that started city-building, but starvation. * Most settlements got to populations of 200 before splintering. The only factor that determined whether cities got beyond the 200 population limit was the strength of their societal \/ interpersonal bonds. The more complex the settlement's rituals, the higher the chance that the settlement would grow. My sources and other comments are here in a related thread.","human_ref_B":"Can you define what you mean by a cultural factor? \/u\/ClumsyCriminal has a great point about subsistence strategies, which I'd certainly consider a cultural factor.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12637.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"2z4bkf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What are critical factors in creating a fictional culture? Hello all, For a long time I have been thinking of writing a story on a fictional story of colonization. I want to make some factions based on European countries, mainly the British and the Dutch. They would be the Europeanlike factiosn colonizing a sort of indigenous culture. What are some main things I have to think of in order to create these cultures? I am think of religion, weaponry, food habits, natural environment,... What are some things I most certainly can not forget about? In other words, what are some pilars that form the base of a human culture?","c_root_id_A":"cpfpgti","c_root_id_B":"cpfphla","created_at_utc_A":1426439788,"created_at_utc_B":1426439829,"score_A":13,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Attitudes about sex, marriage, and kinship. Subsistence practices like agricultural, hunting, and economy. Fairly basic stuff. The number one thing is probably **death**. What happens when you die? This bring up questions about what is considered a *good* life to the culture. Normally flows into religion, but maybe people are more interested in legacy. Ritual behaviors really tie a cultural identity together more than living with geopolitical boundaries so what rituals, festivals, or holidays do they practice.","human_ref_B":"Not really answering your question directly, but if you're interested in speculative fiction with anthropological question, you must read the sci-fi works of Ursula K. Leguin. Her father was a famous anthropologist, and she has carried over that into her books. Her fantasy works are great to read as well in this regard (Earthsea), but books like The Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed are important reads for everyone. I could, however, as a start recommend her book Changing Planes, which is something inbetween of a novel and a short story collection, each chapter dedicated to one fictional culture. There's a lot of content and inspiration inside that one, and it is really witty and funny too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":41.0,"score_ratio":1.4615384615} {"post_id":"2z4bkf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What are critical factors in creating a fictional culture? Hello all, For a long time I have been thinking of writing a story on a fictional story of colonization. I want to make some factions based on European countries, mainly the British and the Dutch. They would be the Europeanlike factiosn colonizing a sort of indigenous culture. What are some main things I have to think of in order to create these cultures? I am think of religion, weaponry, food habits, natural environment,... What are some things I most certainly can not forget about? In other words, what are some pilars that form the base of a human culture?","c_root_id_A":"cpfkvj4","c_root_id_B":"cpfphla","created_at_utc_A":1426430160,"created_at_utc_B":1426439829,"score_A":8,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Inheritance is key: Of property, of rank, of lineage. Read up a little about different patterns of it, but to offer an example: In mediaeval Europe, the noble title of Duke was inherited by a Duke's eldest son. That son got the castle, property and rights associated with the position. The family could be short of cash, but have those inalienable rights. Now, if the heir married any young lady in the local town, the family wouldn't benefit much. However, if he marries a young bride from another noble family, maybe one slightly lower ranked but a bit richer, your families seal a nice secure treaty of cooperation and gain the prestige and wealth they desire. Just because this is Europe, doesn't mean that you can't apply the same principles to clans, castes, tribes and countries. Rights have value, and marriages and children cement families together.","human_ref_B":"Not really answering your question directly, but if you're interested in speculative fiction with anthropological question, you must read the sci-fi works of Ursula K. Leguin. Her father was a famous anthropologist, and she has carried over that into her books. Her fantasy works are great to read as well in this regard (Earthsea), but books like The Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed are important reads for everyone. I could, however, as a start recommend her book Changing Planes, which is something inbetween of a novel and a short story collection, each chapter dedicated to one fictional culture. There's a lot of content and inspiration inside that one, and it is really witty and funny too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9669.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"2z4bkf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What are critical factors in creating a fictional culture? Hello all, For a long time I have been thinking of writing a story on a fictional story of colonization. I want to make some factions based on European countries, mainly the British and the Dutch. They would be the Europeanlike factiosn colonizing a sort of indigenous culture. What are some main things I have to think of in order to create these cultures? I am think of religion, weaponry, food habits, natural environment,... What are some things I most certainly can not forget about? In other words, what are some pilars that form the base of a human culture?","c_root_id_A":"cpfpgti","c_root_id_B":"cpfkvj4","created_at_utc_A":1426439788,"created_at_utc_B":1426430160,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Attitudes about sex, marriage, and kinship. Subsistence practices like agricultural, hunting, and economy. Fairly basic stuff. The number one thing is probably **death**. What happens when you die? This bring up questions about what is considered a *good* life to the culture. Normally flows into religion, but maybe people are more interested in legacy. Ritual behaviors really tie a cultural identity together more than living with geopolitical boundaries so what rituals, festivals, or holidays do they practice.","human_ref_B":"Inheritance is key: Of property, of rank, of lineage. Read up a little about different patterns of it, but to offer an example: In mediaeval Europe, the noble title of Duke was inherited by a Duke's eldest son. That son got the castle, property and rights associated with the position. The family could be short of cash, but have those inalienable rights. Now, if the heir married any young lady in the local town, the family wouldn't benefit much. However, if he marries a young bride from another noble family, maybe one slightly lower ranked but a bit richer, your families seal a nice secure treaty of cooperation and gain the prestige and wealth they desire. Just because this is Europe, doesn't mean that you can't apply the same principles to clans, castes, tribes and countries. Rights have value, and marriages and children cement families together.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9628.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"2z4bkf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"What are critical factors in creating a fictional culture? Hello all, For a long time I have been thinking of writing a story on a fictional story of colonization. I want to make some factions based on European countries, mainly the British and the Dutch. They would be the Europeanlike factiosn colonizing a sort of indigenous culture. What are some main things I have to think of in order to create these cultures? I am think of religion, weaponry, food habits, natural environment,... What are some things I most certainly can not forget about? In other words, what are some pilars that form the base of a human culture?","c_root_id_A":"cphl4z4","c_root_id_B":"cpgbj5u","created_at_utc_A":1426595447,"created_at_utc_B":1426483178,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Think about what givens exist in that society and how attitudes towards things would radiate outwards from them. Perhaps a useful metaphor is a tree. What we see most are all the leaves, but those are end products of a much larger system. The roots can be seen as individual foundational pillars that are the givens of a society meaning they are accepted as undeniable truths. This includes environmental perspective, general concept of religion, how many genders exist, etc. For example, the bible is literally true, this river is sacred, we've been farmers of this land, there are 3 genders, families are patrilineal. The trunk is where these individual parts combine together to create the unique and coherent cultural worldview. Then the branches are the major categories of society that flow out from that. Politics, gender relations, subsistence, religion, etc. And the leaves are the products of that - kings, carpenters, priests, marriage rites, behaviors and texts. If you start at the roots and work upwards you can construct a world that is internally consistent and coherent and then predict how your characters would behave. *However* no society is perfectly consistent (i.e. functionalism is limiting) and entirely predictable characters are boring. And recognize two things: First, every tree has some funky leaves, barren branches, parts that get pruned, and imperfections. From afar it looks perfect but up close there are always little things that seem out of place or damaged. That's what makes a painting of a tree look realistic and your society needs them too. Contradictions, social tensions, and disagreements are your realistic flaws. Heck you might even find that another tree has been grafted onto it bringing with it the root givens even though the roots were cut off. Yet it still found a way to combine and link up to the new context (i.e. creolization\/hybridity\/syncretism.) Second, this is the cultural worldview but there are always outliers and no one is an automaton. Your characters will make logical decisions within this framework but they may not always agree with social norms. People are perfectly capable of ignoring, rejecting, twisting, molding, and reinventing social expectations and norms. But understanding those norms are essential for ensuring your character behaves in a realistic way as do the other people responding to them.","human_ref_B":"I think especially if you're going to have two different cultures present in the story, you might benefit from including time orientation (long term versus short term perspective). Definitely not most important but it can affect daily lives quite a bit.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":112269.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"kayro1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Having severe trouble socially fitting in to American culture. What is a brief article based on anthropological principles that can help me here? I am from Bangladesh and I attend some groups on zoom that comprise almost universally of Americans. The problem is, I am having trouble fitting in and be accepted as any other American in that group and its mostly due to cultural differences. There are different topics that people talk about or shun, different tone, different expectations and so many other things. I have read books on etiquette and I am not breaking any etiquette rules as per those books. I don't know what rules I am breaking or what I am doing wrong but its definitely not given in those books because I am following the books very diligently. Can someone suggest a brief yet comprehensive article on how to fit into a culture based on Anthropological principles?","c_root_id_A":"gffrvdk","c_root_id_B":"gffheqk","created_at_utc_A":1607718381,"created_at_utc_B":1607715040,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Do you speak quickly? I've worked with more than a few people from your part of the world, and many speak quite fast. Combine that with a strong accent can make a person difficult to understand. Then add computer microphone and speakers. It may well be just that the participants don't understand a lot of what you're saying? You may just need to slow your speech.","human_ref_B":"Late but I'm not seeing anyone give you an answer it seems you want. So here are three good places to begin! - Ethics Across Borders: Incommensurability and affinity (2015) Johnathan Mair and Nicholas Evans. - The Hermeneutics of Ethical Encounters: Between Traditions and Practice (2015) Michael Lambek - Anthropology as a Moral Science of Possibilities (2005) Michael Carrithers Edit: Source, am PhD Anth grad student","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3341.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1iic8e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Where did the idea of funeral viewings come from? I tried doing some research, but I wasn't able to find anything. Why do we have viewings? Is it a recent practice? If not, which culture started it? Thanks! I've been curious about this for a while.","c_root_id_A":"cb4sxnr","c_root_id_B":"cb4w8q2","created_at_utc_A":1374099417,"created_at_utc_B":1374108597,"score_A":2,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"not an answer to your question - many years ago I heard an NPR story about Victorian era photographs of the dead with living family members --- seems there was a totally different view of death at the time, with the deceased often in the home for several days until burial instead of funeral homes this is the best link I found, I am certain there is a book on this topic http:\/\/www.environmentalgraffiti.com\/history\/news-victorian-memento-mori-photographing-dead","human_ref_B":"Wakes, funeral viewings, washing the dead, cremation, and other rites are common in a lot of societies as part of the final rite of passage for the individual who died. Rites of passage are rituals that transition an individual from one position to another within society. Death is that last doorway we step through so it isn't surprising that we have a number of rituals to assist with it. Funeral viewings (a last look at the dead) in the West develop out of the Roman Catholic tradition of wakes. If you grew up in a Catholic area like I did the word wake makes a lot of sense because you stay up all night long keeping vigil with the dead. You pray for their souls as they hopefully ascend to heaven, comfort one another, and learn to cope with the fact that the person is actually dead. In places like Ireland, wakes are important social spaces of music, laughter, celebrating the life of the deceased, and community. It is a moment to reinforce networks and values too. Historically, knowledge of death was sometimes imperfect too. Wakes allow a time to not only ensure that the dead are really dead but to make sure their souls travel to the next stage and don't stick around as ghosts. Thursby notes there are also other practical concerns such as protecting the body from animals. Butler writes about the Newfoundland wake tradition and argues that the process helps through a symbolic representation of separation and restoring order for soul, body, society, and the living. *\"The Newfoundland wake may be seen as a process whereby the social order, which has been disturbed by the death of one of its members, is restored. It serves to remove the imbalance between the profane and sacred domains which death as created. Each of these domains has its place, and the community maintains a clearly established relationship with each. When a death occurs, the sacred enters into uncomfortable contact with the profane and is embodied in the deceased, who is suddenly neither profane nor sacred; the wake, through an organized synthesis of sacred and profane relationships, literally puts things in their proper place.\"* (Mary Douglas's work on dirt as matter out of place might be appropriate here too). Today some viewings are much shorter than the all night events. And people aren't always buried as quickly either, making wakes more complicated. But what we see in the West stems from that tradition, which likely does come from something even older.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9180.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"2gswmt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"I've seen blog posts claiming that \"no culture has been less tolerant of queer folk than the 20th century West\" and \"all other cultures tolerant nonbinary people\". Is this true? I'm very skeptical of this claim. The blogger seemed to be under the impression that the Greeks and Romans were fully accepting of all types of same-sex activity, which I know to be untrue.","c_root_id_A":"ckmls79","c_root_id_B":"ckmab53","created_at_utc_A":1411116156,"created_at_utc_B":1411084648,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"For all its anti-religious sentiments, the soviet union became pretty darn anti-gay under Stalin. Homophobia has more than one source and more than one origin point. Colonialism certainly spread homophobic laws and policies around the world in the name of Christian piety, but it was hardly the genesis of all anti-gayness.","human_ref_B":"What you are reading is a political statement, one that draws interest to the issues of our generation. This is a cry from, likely, a member or well-involved supporter of the cause for increased rights for, and information distributed about, the LGBTQ community. It highlights intolerances, offenses taken, and injuries incurred as a focal point for this generation. It is not meant to be a factual statement, but acts as one in a sort of manifesto of self-definition. Our culture is not comparable to other cultures. There are different norms, and the supporters of the cause will pick out notable historical instances that support the lifestyles that they are used to - ignorant of the total cultural context. Thus, we know it is not factual. We do know, however, that they have a strong emotional message to convey and are able to do so by bending the facts. How do I know this? I was a member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy when I was in college. Among ourselves we would distribute the facts, but for outreach and communication, there could be no doubt that we had a bias. We wanted to convince you that there were better policies for dealing with this and that issue, and we might even cite a few sources that supported our views. Of course there were other sources that went against them, but that is what stuff like this is about. It's about convincing people of the importance of the situation, and bending the facts with emotional bias - either slightly or extremely - in order to get your point across. **Tl;dr - It's not true or false because we can't know other cultures like that; it's a persuasive and discussion-generating statement.** ***Addendum - it's a blog. What is a blog? A place where people share non-objective, high subjective, thoughts and feelings. Why did it take me this long to come up with a simple answer, and one that relates to the title of the post? I am not sure. It is like asking if any question is true. There is no answer, you just have to figure out if it is or not for yourself!***","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31508.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"6a9912","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Are all Native Americans descended from 12 families? The Inverse quotes Neil deGrasse Tyson saying: >\u201cThey\u2019re sending in people who are just to make babies and start a new civilization \u2014 that\u2019s cool,\u201d Tyson says. \u201cTurns out, genetic research shows that only about 12 families started all human life in North and South America, across the Bering Strait. So it\u2019s not a weird thing to imagine just a few fertile couples beginning an entire new generation of human species.\u201d I seem to remember reading an article in Scientific American or Discovery Magazine. if I recall correctly, the ancestry of Native Americans was thought to be broader and more diverse than predicted by earlier models of a small groups crossing the Bering Strait. But of course my vague memory of a pop sci article isn't the last word.","c_root_id_A":"dhdscpo","c_root_id_B":"dhdaojt","created_at_utc_A":1494436836,"created_at_utc_B":1494412690,"score_A":18,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"With all due respect to Dr. Tyson, he's not so great outside of his field.","human_ref_B":"The ancient settling of North America is hardly settled science. Some Solutrean wanderer might have drifted over Ice Age oceans from Europe years ago. Archaeologists including Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley suggest that the early North American Clovis point derived from the points of the Solutrean culture of southern France (19,000 BP) through the Cactus Hill points of Virginia (16,000 BP) to the Clovis point. There seems to be no genetic evidence left among aboriginal Americans to support this European migration, but then that isn't proof no one came at all. The original idea that an overland ice bridge opened up a one time opportunity for terrestrial human traffic into the Americas is also disputed. This may not be, as it may not be true all the first Americans arrived more or less at once 12,500 years ago in 12 imaginary clans. It seems possible coastal seafarers made it much earlier and that other populations may have occasionally came from Europe or Asia to further people the continent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24146.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"qywdb0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"What is the most up to date book on the origin and spread of agriculture? Basically I am looking for something like Bellwood's *First Farmers* but updated to reflect the last fifteen years of research. I currently have access to Stephen Shannon's *The First Farmers of Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective* but of course it is limited to Europe, and its account of the origin of agriculture itself is a bit too bleep bloop for my taste.","c_root_id_A":"hljdyif","c_root_id_B":"hln6k8o","created_at_utc_A":1637519145,"created_at_utc_B":1637592737,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Graeber and Wengrow's new book The History of Everything is not specifically on the history of agriculture, but does include a lot of detail from archaeology on the matter in different regions around the world.","human_ref_B":"For a classical introduction to the subject, I'd suggest Barker's 2006 book \"The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory\". Its been a while since it came out but actually not much ground-breaking has happened in SW Asian archaeological research that appertains agriculture, and I can attest to it through my reading of the book a few years back and following research in the Levant. The most up-to-date work would undoubtedly be previous year's \"A companion to Ancient Agriculture\", edited by Hollander and Howe. An interesting work is Gilligan's \"Cliimate, Clothing and Agriculture in Prehistory\" that came out in 2019, and linked adoption of clothing with that of agriculture. For briefer gists of the same, you could also look into these chapters: Bellwood himself, in 2018, contributed a chapter to Wiley's \"The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology\", titled \"Agricultural Origins\", so you could look into that for a general review. (link: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/9781118924396.wbiea2385) Tanno and Maedo also wrote a brief introduction in the 2016 book \"Ancient West Asian Civilization\", by the name of \"The Origins of Agriculture\" (link: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-981-10-0554-1_6) I could share these with you if you might want, happy reading:)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":73592.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"akocl8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I want to learn more about bear worship (arctolatry). Please recommend me some papers or books. Thank you Hello, I'd like to learn more about bear worship (arctolatry). I don't think a comparative study has been done about practices among different cultures, since unfortunately I have a hard time even just locating per se this kind of subject in literature. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Some populations which first come to mind would be the Ainu of Japan and the Forest Sami of Fennoscandia, however I am not finding much literature particularly about the latter. Could you please recommend me some papers or books? Thank you","c_root_id_A":"ef6mjwf","c_root_id_B":"ef7mxor","created_at_utc_A":1548693551,"created_at_utc_B":1548715630,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I'd love to learn more about any & all sources you have on the Ainu- at one point I wanted to pursue doctoral research amongst modern day Ainu! I'm aware of John Batchelor's collections but not much otherwise. Any and all pointers would be appreciated! Also- as far as I knew, the Ainu practiced bear sacrifice, right? Would you include this under 'worship' as well? (I'm not sure myself!)","human_ref_B":"There are quite a lot of papers in this field actually. An old but quite thick paper would be Hallowell's Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere from 1926. More recent examples would include \"Bear imagery and ritual in northeast North America: an update and assessment of A. Irving Hallowell's work.\" by Berres, Thomas E., David M. Stothers, and David Mather. For the Ainu, a number of papers are available via here, related to their bear festival *Iyomate\/Iomate*. Regarding Fennoscandia it may not be worship per se but there is *Bears and meanings among hunter-fisher-gatherers in Northern Fennoscandia 9000\u20132500 BC* by Helskog. Have fun!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22079.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"akocl8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I want to learn more about bear worship (arctolatry). Please recommend me some papers or books. Thank you Hello, I'd like to learn more about bear worship (arctolatry). I don't think a comparative study has been done about practices among different cultures, since unfortunately I have a hard time even just locating per se this kind of subject in literature. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Some populations which first come to mind would be the Ainu of Japan and the Forest Sami of Fennoscandia, however I am not finding much literature particularly about the latter. Could you please recommend me some papers or books? Thank you","c_root_id_A":"ef7m356","c_root_id_B":"ef7mxor","created_at_utc_A":1548715077,"created_at_utc_B":1548715630,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I may be wrong, but I think Mircea Eliade may have touched upon that that subject, but it wouldn't likely be in _Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy_.","human_ref_B":"There are quite a lot of papers in this field actually. An old but quite thick paper would be Hallowell's Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere from 1926. More recent examples would include \"Bear imagery and ritual in northeast North America: an update and assessment of A. Irving Hallowell's work.\" by Berres, Thomas E., David M. Stothers, and David Mather. For the Ainu, a number of papers are available via here, related to their bear festival *Iyomate\/Iomate*. Regarding Fennoscandia it may not be worship per se but there is *Bears and meanings among hunter-fisher-gatherers in Northern Fennoscandia 9000\u20132500 BC* by Helskog. Have fun!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":553.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"sxlj7s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Neanderthal habitations: more than just caves? Im always intrigued to hear about new (and older) discoveries of neanderthal domestic sites Ive seen maps of the neanderthal \"zone\" which stretches from the UK to Siberia and some hot spots which include Croatia (uh.. what are the other hot spots?) But I dont feel like I have a decent understanding of where neanderthals spent a lot of their time. Were they pretty much nomadic, following prey animals? Was that always the case? In the older ice age and interglacial? Did they only ever occupy caves? Was it long term? and is there any evidence that they may have built structures for living in? I mean, theres no way you could find a cave every night when on a hunting expedition. I'm sure they probably tried to stay as long as possible if they found a cave close to abundant resources. I would love to hear about what know and have heard regarding neanderthal domestic sites and migrations. Thank you very much","c_root_id_A":"hxtcl87","c_root_id_B":"hxter4q","created_at_utc_A":1645436374,"created_at_utc_B":1645438183,"score_A":19,"score_B":65,"human_ref_A":"Read \"Kindred\", by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. It just came out last year, and is the most complete book of the latest findings and discoveries regarding Neanderthals. It answers these questions and lots more. Your library should have a copy.","human_ref_B":"Caves are environments that are well suited to the preservation of remains, so there is a *massive* bias toward finding remains in caves. Very few of the species we associated with caves (the various branches of humanity included) spent as much time in caves as people imagine them to have. The Terra Amata site in France has what appear to be house structures that were likely made by either *H. erectus* or Neanderthals some 400,000 years ago. There is highly divisive potential evidence of *H. erectus* open-air shelters having been built 1.2 million years ago in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, and there are other similar finds. These open air sites don't tend to survive though, and of the ones that did many were likely destroyed as agriculture and later city building spread, so finds like that are rare. In short, no, caves were not the only places Neanderthals lived, indeed, given the relative scarcity of caves it's likely that they rarely ever lived in caves, its just that we can more easily find their remains in caves. There is good evidence to suggest that boat building and intentional navigation has been a part of our toolkit from *H. erectus* times, and that Neanderthals also made boats and made trips out to islands in the Mediterranean. Anyone who can do that can easily make an open air shelter.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1809.0,"score_ratio":3.4210526316} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6fn133","c_root_id_B":"f6fdl9d","created_at_utc_A":1572816098,"created_at_utc_B":1572813227,"score_A":53,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"This is an awkward question. If you are just looking for a bunch of minutia to define a culture I could add to your list. Foodways, feasts\/festivals, art, symbols, rites of passage (often gender specific), language (writing?), horticulture, animal husbandry, shelter, funerary practices, origin myth, ethno medicine, technology (lithic, pottery, hide), trade etc. My education focus on the relationship between culture and ecology. Every aspect of a culture develops in a particular ecological system and works within that ecology. For example your foodways are based around what is locally available or what's traded. Marriage practices typically make emic (subject perspective) and etic (observers perspective). In parts of Tibet a woman will marry multiple brothers. The brothers take turn shepherding and the land isn't fracture in inheritance. They've adopt a culture to the needs of the landscape. In the tropics little clothing is worn. In deserts you will see loose but well covered people. They might have different ideas about modesty, but you will find clothing often matches the climate. To me the culture needs to fit the ecology and before you even begin to pick your quirks and values you would need to know what you are dealing with ecologically. There are something that are inherently connected as well for example you don't have true classes like priest, artisan or ruling elite until you develop agricultural. A shaman or healer wasn't a \"full time\" occupation. They still had to do all the substance practices of their group. Whereas priest are maintained by others. You are going to have a hard time getting serious anthropologist to help you. They can spend their entire career on one trait or cultural group. To them it would likely seem like folly. At some point your game is going to make an evaluation of these cultural practices which actually goes against what Anthropologist are taught via cultural relativism. You are essentially describing a Structuralist Theory which had a place in the development in the field of Anthropology, but we have since moved past. If you were creating a game that will exist in virtual world that uses math then structuralist are the intellectuals you want to read. I wish you luck on your project. My advice is use real world culture for inspiration, but create unique customs not directly tied to any group in particular.","human_ref_B":"You can get overwhelmed with detail pretty quick, with this kind of research. I'd recommend you start with anthropology essays and research papers. There also may be some value in some of the works of fiction set in that era(s).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2871.0,"score_ratio":2.65} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6fn133","c_root_id_B":"f6ffbhz","created_at_utc_A":1572816098,"created_at_utc_B":1572813695,"score_A":53,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"This is an awkward question. If you are just looking for a bunch of minutia to define a culture I could add to your list. Foodways, feasts\/festivals, art, symbols, rites of passage (often gender specific), language (writing?), horticulture, animal husbandry, shelter, funerary practices, origin myth, ethno medicine, technology (lithic, pottery, hide), trade etc. My education focus on the relationship between culture and ecology. Every aspect of a culture develops in a particular ecological system and works within that ecology. For example your foodways are based around what is locally available or what's traded. Marriage practices typically make emic (subject perspective) and etic (observers perspective). In parts of Tibet a woman will marry multiple brothers. The brothers take turn shepherding and the land isn't fracture in inheritance. They've adopt a culture to the needs of the landscape. In the tropics little clothing is worn. In deserts you will see loose but well covered people. They might have different ideas about modesty, but you will find clothing often matches the climate. To me the culture needs to fit the ecology and before you even begin to pick your quirks and values you would need to know what you are dealing with ecologically. There are something that are inherently connected as well for example you don't have true classes like priest, artisan or ruling elite until you develop agricultural. A shaman or healer wasn't a \"full time\" occupation. They still had to do all the substance practices of their group. Whereas priest are maintained by others. You are going to have a hard time getting serious anthropologist to help you. They can spend their entire career on one trait or cultural group. To them it would likely seem like folly. At some point your game is going to make an evaluation of these cultural practices which actually goes against what Anthropologist are taught via cultural relativism. You are essentially describing a Structuralist Theory which had a place in the development in the field of Anthropology, but we have since moved past. If you were creating a game that will exist in virtual world that uses math then structuralist are the intellectuals you want to read. I wish you luck on your project. My advice is use real world culture for inspiration, but create unique customs not directly tied to any group in particular.","human_ref_B":"You might get better results if you can steer some of your dev budget towards hiring an expert.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2403.0,"score_ratio":2.3043478261} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6ffbhz","c_root_id_B":"f6fdl9d","created_at_utc_A":1572813695,"created_at_utc_B":1572813227,"score_A":23,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"You might get better results if you can steer some of your dev budget towards hiring an expert.","human_ref_B":"You can get overwhelmed with detail pretty quick, with this kind of research. I'd recommend you start with anthropology essays and research papers. There also may be some value in some of the works of fiction set in that era(s).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":468.0,"score_ratio":1.15} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6id695","c_root_id_B":"f6gsmxm","created_at_utc_A":1572876450,"created_at_utc_B":1572829971,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You\u2019ve gotten good feedback already, but I wanted to add that you can check out r\/worldbuilding for additional resources","human_ref_B":"You might find some of my game material on human societies useful. It's intended for a roleplaying game set in a fantasy equivalent of early colonial North America, but there might be some useful overlap with your goals. * basics of a human tribe, especially what they eat influencing many other aspects of society * inner workings: leadership, gender roles, religion So far my professional game design experience has all been with board games, but if you're looking for some feedback on your project, I'd be glad to help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":46479.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6h6tzz","c_root_id_B":"f6id695","created_at_utc_A":1572838423,"created_at_utc_B":1572876450,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I second the ecology grounding. As for arbitrary cultural gadgets, a strucutralist to read is Mary Douglas, particularly if you read her work etically..., (emically you would have to know Durkheim) ...from the point of view of chaos theory influenced systems theory where every butterfly decision made reflects\/ reinforces a thought style and by the same token antagonises, and so defines, the relations with other thought styles (which are limited in number). Yes i have considered a game based on this dynamic in the past and then Sid meiers Civ came out.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve gotten good feedback already, but I wanted to add that you can check out r\/worldbuilding for additional resources","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38027.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dr4kc3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"I am a game designer and need some help about for designing a system to design a new society\/tribe . I am a game designer and planning to design a computer game to play as a tribe in late stone , early copper age. The key idea of the game is , the player can design and guide the culture of the tribe. Cultures is every aspect of their live , from marriage system to political system , to their attitude to outsiders , and even to specific custom like \" old man should suicide \" I am planning on a system , a simplified model to describe a society\/tribe . I am not a anthropologist and I guess there should be something like a guide or a checklist , to describe a society\/tribe ? Here is the system I currently working on , a society have the following aspects : 1. political system. How decision is made ? is there classes ? who enforce laws ? is there age set system 2. Economic system. \uff08 Is there private property or things are shared in the whole tribe ? 3. Marriage system , ( that part can be quite complicated for a game 4. inheritance system ( Patrilineality or matrilineal or dead members property is shared ?) 5. Religion and taboo 6. Value ( how is the ideal person looks like ? what kind of skill is most valued 7. Attitude towards outsiders.","c_root_id_A":"f6hccjm","c_root_id_B":"f6id695","created_at_utc_A":1572842862,"created_at_utc_B":1572876450,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This might be a little too broad but I was taught to categorize and define society based on these main elements: POETS. Population Organization Education Technology Superstructure Hopefully this may help you arrange things in your head to revolve around these tenets.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve gotten good feedback already, but I wanted to add that you can check out r\/worldbuilding for additional resources","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33588.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1nh2qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"How far back in time would we need to go in order for the English of the time to be completly incomprehensible when compared with modern english. I think this question is pretty self explanitory. I'm just curious as I've been reading about the origins of welsh\/scottish 'english'.","c_root_id_A":"ccilbb3","c_root_id_B":"ccipzu3","created_at_utc_A":1380592600,"created_at_utc_B":1380608023,"score_A":5,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"You might have better luck over at \/r\/linguistics.","human_ref_B":"However many hours it takes to get to Glasgow.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15423.0,"score_ratio":5.4} {"post_id":"1nh2qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"How far back in time would we need to go in order for the English of the time to be completly incomprehensible when compared with modern english. I think this question is pretty self explanitory. I'm just curious as I've been reading about the origins of welsh\/scottish 'english'.","c_root_id_A":"cciljme","c_root_id_B":"ccipzu3","created_at_utc_A":1380593242,"created_at_utc_B":1380608023,"score_A":5,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"You may find this interesting and somewhat related: http:\/\/dialectblog.com\/2011\/02\/09\/north-americas-strange-island-dialects\/","human_ref_B":"However many hours it takes to get to Glasgow.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14781.0,"score_ratio":5.4} {"post_id":"1nh2qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"How far back in time would we need to go in order for the English of the time to be completly incomprehensible when compared with modern english. I think this question is pretty self explanitory. I'm just curious as I've been reading about the origins of welsh\/scottish 'english'.","c_root_id_A":"ccir1au","c_root_id_B":"ccilbb3","created_at_utc_A":1380614264,"created_at_utc_B":1380592600,"score_A":15,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"This is one of \/r\/askhistorians' popular questions. * Could a Middle English speaker and a Modern English speaker have been able to verbally communicate * If we could go back in time, who would be the first English monarch with whom modern English speakers could easily carry on a conversation? * When is the latest time I could've gone back knowing a modern language and still be able to communicate with people? * How far back in time can I go and still be able to communicate with English speakers relatively easy? * As a speaker of modern English, if I went back in time in England, how long until I wouldn't understand what the natives were saying? As \/r\/askhistorians answers have generally improved, and the list goes oldest on top, I generally read these things bottom to top.","human_ref_B":"You might have better luck over at \/r\/linguistics.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21664.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1nh2qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"How far back in time would we need to go in order for the English of the time to be completly incomprehensible when compared with modern english. I think this question is pretty self explanitory. I'm just curious as I've been reading about the origins of welsh\/scottish 'english'.","c_root_id_A":"cciljme","c_root_id_B":"ccir1au","created_at_utc_A":1380593242,"created_at_utc_B":1380614264,"score_A":5,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"You may find this interesting and somewhat related: http:\/\/dialectblog.com\/2011\/02\/09\/north-americas-strange-island-dialects\/","human_ref_B":"This is one of \/r\/askhistorians' popular questions. * Could a Middle English speaker and a Modern English speaker have been able to verbally communicate * If we could go back in time, who would be the first English monarch with whom modern English speakers could easily carry on a conversation? * When is the latest time I could've gone back knowing a modern language and still be able to communicate with people? * How far back in time can I go and still be able to communicate with English speakers relatively easy? * As a speaker of modern English, if I went back in time in England, how long until I wouldn't understand what the natives were saying? As \/r\/askhistorians answers have generally improved, and the list goes oldest on top, I generally read these things bottom to top.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21022.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"25iy1j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why is wallpaper use so prevalent in England\/UK? I'm not sure if this extends to all of the UK but every picture\/movie home interior set in England I can think of is covered in wallpaper. Why do the English love their wallpaper so?!","c_root_id_A":"chi1hnz","c_root_id_B":"chhtxds","created_at_utc_A":1400099819,"created_at_utc_B":1400084858,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Other countries don't use wallpaper...??! I ought to be more observant...","human_ref_B":"Russia and Baltic States love them too.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14961.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"3iy8bv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are some examples of folklore and legend related to craters? I hope this is the right place to ask this. Many impact craters, such as meteor crater in Arizona, have a very distinct look about them. I'm curious what cultures have considered them sacred and what legends they have regarding their creation. Any examples would be helpful. I'm having trouble finding anything online and I don't really know where to look.","c_root_id_A":"cuktx42","c_root_id_B":"cul7gax","created_at_utc_A":1440950046,"created_at_utc_B":1440974519,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I know on Easter Island they held the birdman festival on thenedge of a crater. I'm not much help but that came to mind when I saw your post.","human_ref_B":"For North America there is a section of a book titled Skull Wars by David Hurst Thomas. He talks about a 7,400 year old oral story that survived to the 1800s when an American soldier wrote it down. I'll lift the passage which starts on page 249. *Chief Lalek begins the Klamath story like this: \"A long time ago, so long that you cannot count it the white man ran wild in the woods and my people lived in rock-built houses. In that time, long ago, before the stars fell, the spirits of the earth and the sky, the spirits of the sea and the mountains, often came and talked with my people...\" Lalek then described the spirits living inside Mount Mazama and its sister mountain, Mount Shasta. The two massive peaks had openings that led to a lower world through which the spirits could pass. The Chief of the Below-World loved a Klamath chief's daughter, Loha, and demanded that she marry him. When this amorous overture was rebuked, the result did not sit well with the spirit, who threatened total destruction of the people as revenge. \"Raging and thundering,\" the story went, \"he rushed up through the opening and stood on top of his mountain,\" terrorizing the people below.* *At this point, the spirit of Mount Shasta intervened as a cloud appeared over the peak of Shasta, and the two mountains engaged in a horrible combat: \"Red-hot rocks as large as hills hurled through the skies. Burning ashes fell like rain. The chief of the Below-World (Mazama) spewed fire from its mouth. Like an ocean of flame it devoured the forests on the mountains and in the valleys. On and on the Curse of Fire swept until it reached the homes of the people. Fleeing in terror before it, the people found refuge in the waters of Klamath Lake.\"* *The Klamaths then decided that someone should be sacrificed to calm the chaos. Two medicine men climbed Mount Mazama and jumped into the caldera: \"Once more the mountains shook. This time the Chief of the Below-World was driven into his home and the top of the mountain fell upon him. When the morning sun arose, the high mountain was gone... for many years, rain fell in torrents and filled the great hole that was made when the mountain fell...\"* *Chief Lalek ended his story this way: \"Now you understand why my people never visit the lake. Down through the ages we have this story. From father to son has come the warning, \"look not upon the place... for it means death or everlasting sorrow.\"* *Deloria emphasizes the parallels between the pre-1865 Klamath account-recorded decades before the first scientist explored Crater Lake-and the modern geological explanation, which dates only to the 1920s. In both, Mount Mazama was destroyed in a catastrophic explosion, characterized by superheated avalanches, a massive cloud of volcanic dust, the dramatic collapse of the peak into the belly of the mountain, and the formation of a new deepwater lake atop the truncated mountain.*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24473.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"3iy8bv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What are some examples of folklore and legend related to craters? I hope this is the right place to ask this. Many impact craters, such as meteor crater in Arizona, have a very distinct look about them. I'm curious what cultures have considered them sacred and what legends they have regarding their creation. Any examples would be helpful. I'm having trouble finding anything online and I don't really know where to look.","c_root_id_A":"cukusuv","c_root_id_B":"cul7gax","created_at_utc_A":1440951700,"created_at_utc_B":1440974519,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Here's an article I read recently about how Australian aborigines have legends about ancient events that can be attributed to meteor impacts from thousands of years ago. http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/find-meteorites-listen-legends-australian-aborigines-180952941\/","human_ref_B":"For North America there is a section of a book titled Skull Wars by David Hurst Thomas. He talks about a 7,400 year old oral story that survived to the 1800s when an American soldier wrote it down. I'll lift the passage which starts on page 249. *Chief Lalek begins the Klamath story like this: \"A long time ago, so long that you cannot count it the white man ran wild in the woods and my people lived in rock-built houses. In that time, long ago, before the stars fell, the spirits of the earth and the sky, the spirits of the sea and the mountains, often came and talked with my people...\" Lalek then described the spirits living inside Mount Mazama and its sister mountain, Mount Shasta. The two massive peaks had openings that led to a lower world through which the spirits could pass. The Chief of the Below-World loved a Klamath chief's daughter, Loha, and demanded that she marry him. When this amorous overture was rebuked, the result did not sit well with the spirit, who threatened total destruction of the people as revenge. \"Raging and thundering,\" the story went, \"he rushed up through the opening and stood on top of his mountain,\" terrorizing the people below.* *At this point, the spirit of Mount Shasta intervened as a cloud appeared over the peak of Shasta, and the two mountains engaged in a horrible combat: \"Red-hot rocks as large as hills hurled through the skies. Burning ashes fell like rain. The chief of the Below-World (Mazama) spewed fire from its mouth. Like an ocean of flame it devoured the forests on the mountains and in the valleys. On and on the Curse of Fire swept until it reached the homes of the people. Fleeing in terror before it, the people found refuge in the waters of Klamath Lake.\"* *The Klamaths then decided that someone should be sacrificed to calm the chaos. Two medicine men climbed Mount Mazama and jumped into the caldera: \"Once more the mountains shook. This time the Chief of the Below-World was driven into his home and the top of the mountain fell upon him. When the morning sun arose, the high mountain was gone... for many years, rain fell in torrents and filled the great hole that was made when the mountain fell...\"* *Chief Lalek ended his story this way: \"Now you understand why my people never visit the lake. Down through the ages we have this story. From father to son has come the warning, \"look not upon the place... for it means death or everlasting sorrow.\"* *Deloria emphasizes the parallels between the pre-1865 Klamath account-recorded decades before the first scientist explored Crater Lake-and the modern geological explanation, which dates only to the 1920s. In both, Mount Mazama was destroyed in a catastrophic explosion, characterized by superheated avalanches, a massive cloud of volcanic dust, the dramatic collapse of the peak into the belly of the mountain, and the formation of a new deepwater lake atop the truncated mountain.*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22819.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzb9wdo","c_root_id_B":"gzbmq9w","created_at_utc_A":1621887586,"created_at_utc_B":1621893553,"score_A":24,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"I think to get the most help, it would be great to narrow it down to a specific society and maybe pick a certain aspect of monsters for your research question. Which society are you looking at, which time period and what kind of depictions. Are you looking at monsters in movies, literature, urban legends\/oral transmission, any form of artistic rendering (statues, frescos, paintings). And then focus on one aspect\/phrase a clear research question (it can of course cover multiple aspects). Depending on what type of monster you are looking at, other aspects might be more important to study. Because monsters and the European Middle Ages vs monsters in Japanese Cinema need a different approach because they symbolize different things\/concerns. I hope that helps you a bit!","human_ref_B":"I think most anthropologists would be skeptical of one singular explanation for any phenomenon - and even more so of a singular biological explanation. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some deep-seated evolutionary drive involved. Bruce Chatwin, who is not an anthropologist and who liked to exaggerate and invent and who does not in any way represent the state of the field and generally should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, made that argument in a pretty artistically-compelling way in *The Songlines.* But it's also worth considering political-economic factors: Silvia Federici's influential book *Caliban and the Witch* argues that witch hunts (and fear of witches) were an important part of the rise of capitalism. Michael Taussig, who is a bit out there and a bit dated but still worth considering, argues in *The Devil and Commodity Fetishism* that stories of run-ins with the devil in the sugarcane fields of Colombia and the mines of Potosi are basically critiques of capitalism, with the capitalist cast in the role of Satan. I think Mary Weismantel makes some related arguments in *Cholas & Pistacos*, regarding the pistaco (a kind of Andean vampire) - that accounts of piscatos tend to follow colonial incursions into native regions. Though I don't have the citation in front of me, I know that other scholars have made similar readings of zombies as expressing the horrors of slavery. More modern monsters - such as Skynet and various killer robots, or even Frankenstein's monster - can also pretty easily be read as anxieties about modernity, technology, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5967.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbmq9w","c_root_id_B":"gzbd0wp","created_at_utc_A":1621893553,"created_at_utc_B":1621889014,"score_A":28,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I think most anthropologists would be skeptical of one singular explanation for any phenomenon - and even more so of a singular biological explanation. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some deep-seated evolutionary drive involved. Bruce Chatwin, who is not an anthropologist and who liked to exaggerate and invent and who does not in any way represent the state of the field and generally should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, made that argument in a pretty artistically-compelling way in *The Songlines.* But it's also worth considering political-economic factors: Silvia Federici's influential book *Caliban and the Witch* argues that witch hunts (and fear of witches) were an important part of the rise of capitalism. Michael Taussig, who is a bit out there and a bit dated but still worth considering, argues in *The Devil and Commodity Fetishism* that stories of run-ins with the devil in the sugarcane fields of Colombia and the mines of Potosi are basically critiques of capitalism, with the capitalist cast in the role of Satan. I think Mary Weismantel makes some related arguments in *Cholas & Pistacos*, regarding the pistaco (a kind of Andean vampire) - that accounts of piscatos tend to follow colonial incursions into native regions. Though I don't have the citation in front of me, I know that other scholars have made similar readings of zombies as expressing the horrors of slavery. More modern monsters - such as Skynet and various killer robots, or even Frankenstein's monster - can also pretty easily be read as anxieties about modernity, technology, etc.","human_ref_B":"For scholarly approaches to fairy tales and folklore, I\u2019d check out Maria Tatar, Jack Zipes, or Bruno Bettelheim. All three have written extensively on the origins and psychological need for oral folklore across cultures and time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4539.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbmq9w","c_root_id_B":"gzbmkhc","created_at_utc_A":1621893553,"created_at_utc_B":1621893475,"score_A":28,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I think most anthropologists would be skeptical of one singular explanation for any phenomenon - and even more so of a singular biological explanation. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some deep-seated evolutionary drive involved. Bruce Chatwin, who is not an anthropologist and who liked to exaggerate and invent and who does not in any way represent the state of the field and generally should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, made that argument in a pretty artistically-compelling way in *The Songlines.* But it's also worth considering political-economic factors: Silvia Federici's influential book *Caliban and the Witch* argues that witch hunts (and fear of witches) were an important part of the rise of capitalism. Michael Taussig, who is a bit out there and a bit dated but still worth considering, argues in *The Devil and Commodity Fetishism* that stories of run-ins with the devil in the sugarcane fields of Colombia and the mines of Potosi are basically critiques of capitalism, with the capitalist cast in the role of Satan. I think Mary Weismantel makes some related arguments in *Cholas & Pistacos*, regarding the pistaco (a kind of Andean vampire) - that accounts of piscatos tend to follow colonial incursions into native regions. Though I don't have the citation in front of me, I know that other scholars have made similar readings of zombies as expressing the horrors of slavery. More modern monsters - such as Skynet and various killer robots, or even Frankenstein's monster - can also pretty easily be read as anxieties about modernity, technology, etc.","human_ref_B":"I just finished a book called Superstitions: A Handbook of Folklore, Myths and Legends From Around the World by D.R. McElroy. Pretty general information, but very broad in scope. It's broken up into geographical locations, and each location has sections on gods, monsters and superstitions. The monster sections would definitely give you somewhere to start with lesser known folklore areas (i wasnt familiar with any of the items listed under Oceania for instance). There's also a book called Monstrous Tales from Chronicle Books that present 21 stories of monsters from around the world. This book has actual narrative stories, rather than just general information but it is more limited in scope. There is a podcast called Mythical Monsters by Parcast. Every episode they delve into a different monster, describe the origins and the importance of the monster in a cultural context, and how that monster has changed over time (dragons and unicorns were very interesting episodes). Parcast also has related podcasts on mythology, and folktales that could be of help.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":78.0,"score_ratio":3.1111111111} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbc4jk","c_root_id_B":"gzbmq9w","created_at_utc_A":1621888602,"created_at_utc_B":1621893553,"score_A":3,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"The Origins of Monsters by David Wengrow ​ maybe this ?","human_ref_B":"I think most anthropologists would be skeptical of one singular explanation for any phenomenon - and even more so of a singular biological explanation. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some deep-seated evolutionary drive involved. Bruce Chatwin, who is not an anthropologist and who liked to exaggerate and invent and who does not in any way represent the state of the field and generally should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, made that argument in a pretty artistically-compelling way in *The Songlines.* But it's also worth considering political-economic factors: Silvia Federici's influential book *Caliban and the Witch* argues that witch hunts (and fear of witches) were an important part of the rise of capitalism. Michael Taussig, who is a bit out there and a bit dated but still worth considering, argues in *The Devil and Commodity Fetishism* that stories of run-ins with the devil in the sugarcane fields of Colombia and the mines of Potosi are basically critiques of capitalism, with the capitalist cast in the role of Satan. I think Mary Weismantel makes some related arguments in *Cholas & Pistacos*, regarding the pistaco (a kind of Andean vampire) - that accounts of piscatos tend to follow colonial incursions into native regions. Though I don't have the citation in front of me, I know that other scholars have made similar readings of zombies as expressing the horrors of slavery. More modern monsters - such as Skynet and various killer robots, or even Frankenstein's monster - can also pretty easily be read as anxieties about modernity, technology, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4951.0,"score_ratio":9.3333333333} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbd0wp","c_root_id_B":"gzbnyhx","created_at_utc_A":1621889014,"created_at_utc_B":1621894156,"score_A":12,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"For scholarly approaches to fairy tales and folklore, I\u2019d check out Maria Tatar, Jack Zipes, or Bruno Bettelheim. All three have written extensively on the origins and psychological need for oral folklore across cultures and time.","human_ref_B":"You might want to check out Weinstock\u2019s \u201cmonster theory reader.\u201d Lots of foundational articles in this area. Also, it\u2019s worth noting that while lots of folks are doing research along the lines you\u2019re thinking there are also lots of folks doing academic research on monsters that don\u2019t start with the assertion that monsters need to be explained away like that. I\u2019m mostly familiar with this research in the Jewish Studies community but these researchers start with other questions such as \u201cwhat is the evolution of the description of this monster\u201d or \u201chow does this monster exist within the cultural experience of the community.\u201d I can point you to foundational work in Golems, Angels, and Dybbuks like this if you\u2019re interested.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5142.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbmkhc","c_root_id_B":"gzbnyhx","created_at_utc_A":1621893475,"created_at_utc_B":1621894156,"score_A":9,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I just finished a book called Superstitions: A Handbook of Folklore, Myths and Legends From Around the World by D.R. McElroy. Pretty general information, but very broad in scope. It's broken up into geographical locations, and each location has sections on gods, monsters and superstitions. The monster sections would definitely give you somewhere to start with lesser known folklore areas (i wasnt familiar with any of the items listed under Oceania for instance). There's also a book called Monstrous Tales from Chronicle Books that present 21 stories of monsters from around the world. This book has actual narrative stories, rather than just general information but it is more limited in scope. There is a podcast called Mythical Monsters by Parcast. Every episode they delve into a different monster, describe the origins and the importance of the monster in a cultural context, and how that monster has changed over time (dragons and unicorns were very interesting episodes). Parcast also has related podcasts on mythology, and folktales that could be of help.","human_ref_B":"You might want to check out Weinstock\u2019s \u201cmonster theory reader.\u201d Lots of foundational articles in this area. Also, it\u2019s worth noting that while lots of folks are doing research along the lines you\u2019re thinking there are also lots of folks doing academic research on monsters that don\u2019t start with the assertion that monsters need to be explained away like that. I\u2019m mostly familiar with this research in the Jewish Studies community but these researchers start with other questions such as \u201cwhat is the evolution of the description of this monster\u201d or \u201chow does this monster exist within the cultural experience of the community.\u201d I can point you to foundational work in Golems, Angels, and Dybbuks like this if you\u2019re interested.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":681.0,"score_ratio":2.4444444444} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbnyhx","c_root_id_B":"gzbc4jk","created_at_utc_A":1621894156,"created_at_utc_B":1621888602,"score_A":22,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You might want to check out Weinstock\u2019s \u201cmonster theory reader.\u201d Lots of foundational articles in this area. Also, it\u2019s worth noting that while lots of folks are doing research along the lines you\u2019re thinking there are also lots of folks doing academic research on monsters that don\u2019t start with the assertion that monsters need to be explained away like that. I\u2019m mostly familiar with this research in the Jewish Studies community but these researchers start with other questions such as \u201cwhat is the evolution of the description of this monster\u201d or \u201chow does this monster exist within the cultural experience of the community.\u201d I can point you to foundational work in Golems, Angels, and Dybbuks like this if you\u2019re interested.","human_ref_B":"The Origins of Monsters by David Wengrow ​ maybe this ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5554.0,"score_ratio":7.3333333333} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbc4jk","c_root_id_B":"gzbd0wp","created_at_utc_A":1621888602,"created_at_utc_B":1621889014,"score_A":3,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"The Origins of Monsters by David Wengrow ​ maybe this ?","human_ref_B":"For scholarly approaches to fairy tales and folklore, I\u2019d check out Maria Tatar, Jack Zipes, or Bruno Bettelheim. All three have written extensively on the origins and psychological need for oral folklore across cultures and time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":412.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbmkhc","c_root_id_B":"gzbc4jk","created_at_utc_A":1621893475,"created_at_utc_B":1621888602,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I just finished a book called Superstitions: A Handbook of Folklore, Myths and Legends From Around the World by D.R. McElroy. Pretty general information, but very broad in scope. It's broken up into geographical locations, and each location has sections on gods, monsters and superstitions. The monster sections would definitely give you somewhere to start with lesser known folklore areas (i wasnt familiar with any of the items listed under Oceania for instance). There's also a book called Monstrous Tales from Chronicle Books that present 21 stories of monsters from around the world. This book has actual narrative stories, rather than just general information but it is more limited in scope. There is a podcast called Mythical Monsters by Parcast. Every episode they delve into a different monster, describe the origins and the importance of the monster in a cultural context, and how that monster has changed over time (dragons and unicorns were very interesting episodes). Parcast also has related podcasts on mythology, and folktales that could be of help.","human_ref_B":"The Origins of Monsters by David Wengrow ​ maybe this ?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4873.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzbc4jk","c_root_id_B":"gzdx0sj","created_at_utc_A":1621888602,"created_at_utc_B":1621947328,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The Origins of Monsters by David Wengrow ​ maybe this ?","human_ref_B":">But this is speculation on my part. Your own words point to a problem that infests most treatments of subjects like this. There are massive encyclopedias on monsters and the monstrous (there can be a difference!). See, for example, the work of Carol Rose. The problem you will face is how to prevent the encyclopedic description of the material from becoming both the means and the end. The temptation to avoid this problem is to delve into speculation about what all this material means. The problem with most speculation is that it is not a working hypothesis that can be tested and evaluated. Most speculation just sits there as the beginning and end of the discussion: folklore about monsters is a response to a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct. OK. Prove it. Oh, you can't? Well then, those reading your work can only accept it on faith or reject it - for lack of faith. Faith is a flimsy material when crafting a piece of furniture! I'm not being critical of the seed ideas like this that can inspire the launching of a journey. There is nothing wrong with these sorts of conjectures. In fact, I thrive on them! I am simply asserting that one needs to place these ideas in perspective. If I were undertaking such a project, I would do what I can to limit the exploration. What you are describing could take a lifetime. Initially, I would make a distinction between monsters and the monstrous: define what you mean and stick to that narrow scope. But then there are other ways to narrow your study: Beowulf fought Grendel and a dragon. Both are monsters. If you pursue both the monstrous animals and the monstrous human-like entities - in the entire world, I hope you live a long life, because it will be needed for your study. Break down your subject; narrow it both geographically and with regard to the nature of the subject. Comparison of two cultures would be manageable and may give you a hypothesis that can be considered in more rigorous terms. I'm just throwing things out here - the things your thesis director will no doubt raise as well. You are at the beginning, and that is always a time when everything at the buffet looks delicious, a time before you realize the limits of your stomach! Best wishes on your journey.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":58726.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzdx0sj","c_root_id_B":"gzdb1l5","created_at_utc_A":1621947328,"created_at_utc_B":1621930102,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">But this is speculation on my part. Your own words point to a problem that infests most treatments of subjects like this. There are massive encyclopedias on monsters and the monstrous (there can be a difference!). See, for example, the work of Carol Rose. The problem you will face is how to prevent the encyclopedic description of the material from becoming both the means and the end. The temptation to avoid this problem is to delve into speculation about what all this material means. The problem with most speculation is that it is not a working hypothesis that can be tested and evaluated. Most speculation just sits there as the beginning and end of the discussion: folklore about monsters is a response to a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct. OK. Prove it. Oh, you can't? Well then, those reading your work can only accept it on faith or reject it - for lack of faith. Faith is a flimsy material when crafting a piece of furniture! I'm not being critical of the seed ideas like this that can inspire the launching of a journey. There is nothing wrong with these sorts of conjectures. In fact, I thrive on them! I am simply asserting that one needs to place these ideas in perspective. If I were undertaking such a project, I would do what I can to limit the exploration. What you are describing could take a lifetime. Initially, I would make a distinction between monsters and the monstrous: define what you mean and stick to that narrow scope. But then there are other ways to narrow your study: Beowulf fought Grendel and a dragon. Both are monsters. If you pursue both the monstrous animals and the monstrous human-like entities - in the entire world, I hope you live a long life, because it will be needed for your study. Break down your subject; narrow it both geographically and with regard to the nature of the subject. Comparison of two cultures would be manageable and may give you a hypothesis that can be considered in more rigorous terms. I'm just throwing things out here - the things your thesis director will no doubt raise as well. You are at the beginning, and that is always a time when everything at the buffet looks delicious, a time before you realize the limits of your stomach! Best wishes on your journey.","human_ref_B":"I don't know if it's relevant for you, but recently Lars Kofoed R\u00f8mer, a Danish anthropologist published his PhD on the folklore surrounding the *Underjordiske* (the *Subterraneans*) on the island of Bornholm. Even his thesis isn't interesting as such, perhaps his bibliography could point you in the right direction. https:\/\/anthropology.ku.dk\/staff\/part-time-lecture-and-research-assistant\/?pure=en%2Fpersons%2Flars-christian-kofoed-roemer(28140e14-b4e3-4821-8925-8a436a282ba1).html","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17226.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nk2ut7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Where to start with monsters? Hello! I am a master's student prepping a project involving an examination of folklore, specifically the idea of monsters. Ie, negative cultural entities\/supernatural beings and the like. It would seem that there is a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct inherent in the creation of monsters. But this is speculation on my part. What I want to know is where should I start? Can anyone recommend any reading\/happens to specialise themselves and would be open to private discussion? Of particular interest is; are there any cultures with no monsters? Thanks for reading. Be well.","c_root_id_A":"gzdh3rk","c_root_id_B":"gzdx0sj","created_at_utc_A":1621935986,"created_at_utc_B":1621947328,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"That's an interesting topic for study and research! I would like to recommend The Rise of the Vampire. It is very light reading, but could be a great launch point for investigating how monsters such as vampires could be linked towards a society's or culture's fears. There are examples of vampires in many different forms across the world, each different abilities, different rules and different horrors. It may also be interesting to examine how monsters become fantasised as love interests or later adored. Twilight, for example. https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/15999856-the-rise-of-the-vampire","human_ref_B":">But this is speculation on my part. Your own words point to a problem that infests most treatments of subjects like this. There are massive encyclopedias on monsters and the monstrous (there can be a difference!). See, for example, the work of Carol Rose. The problem you will face is how to prevent the encyclopedic description of the material from becoming both the means and the end. The temptation to avoid this problem is to delve into speculation about what all this material means. The problem with most speculation is that it is not a working hypothesis that can be tested and evaluated. Most speculation just sits there as the beginning and end of the discussion: folklore about monsters is a response to a biological drive, a misplaced survival instinct. OK. Prove it. Oh, you can't? Well then, those reading your work can only accept it on faith or reject it - for lack of faith. Faith is a flimsy material when crafting a piece of furniture! I'm not being critical of the seed ideas like this that can inspire the launching of a journey. There is nothing wrong with these sorts of conjectures. In fact, I thrive on them! I am simply asserting that one needs to place these ideas in perspective. If I were undertaking such a project, I would do what I can to limit the exploration. What you are describing could take a lifetime. Initially, I would make a distinction between monsters and the monstrous: define what you mean and stick to that narrow scope. But then there are other ways to narrow your study: Beowulf fought Grendel and a dragon. Both are monsters. If you pursue both the monstrous animals and the monstrous human-like entities - in the entire world, I hope you live a long life, because it will be needed for your study. Break down your subject; narrow it both geographically and with regard to the nature of the subject. Comparison of two cultures would be manageable and may give you a hypothesis that can be considered in more rigorous terms. I'm just throwing things out here - the things your thesis director will no doubt raise as well. You are at the beginning, and that is always a time when everything at the buffet looks delicious, a time before you realize the limits of your stomach! Best wishes on your journey.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11342.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"bu9b0y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"I read that Records of Norse and Celtic Myths Had aspects of Greco-Roman Myth put in To make them appear more \u201cclassy\u201d and Civilized not to mention the heavily Christen Bias of a bunch of Monks. This Extends to the Myhts recorded in the Age of \u201cdiscovery\u201d where the writers Put Christian elements in the recordings of Say Hawaiian myths. What are some examples of it ? And what does this mean in study of those mythology\u2019s","c_root_id_A":"ep98d8f","c_root_id_B":"ep9smci","created_at_utc_A":1559106022,"created_at_utc_B":1559115525,"score_A":42,"score_B":44,"human_ref_A":"Source? I studied Celtic history, languages, and folklore in college, and the general consensus was that the seeming \"Greco-Roman\" aspects are actually common Indo-European or even pre-Indo-European in origin.","human_ref_B":"A few points, in no particular order: * Storytellers, bards, skjalds, fili etc travelled around. Stories travelled around. People travelled around. Stories daisy-chained their way along geographical regions, told and retold, and everyone would change it a little. For example, Cinderella (or a proto-Cinderella sharing many of the same story beats) is attested as far East as Vietnam and as far West as France in the medieval period - each version is different and reflects the culture of the storyteller and the audience. * Trade facilitates movement of people and people tell stories. Ireland, Wales and the Nordic countries, for example, share stories with a similar 'template' because they are all relatively accessible to one another; tales in the Mabinogion (a collection of Welsh myths\/folk tales\/legends\/stories to be read aloud - see below comment about genres) share parallels ('analogues') with stories in the Icelandic sagas. Stories of Hild often share similarities to stories about Branwen, for example. It's likely someone heard a retelling of a retelling of a retelling of one and used parts of it to retell another story. * Storytellers generally want to put on a good show, so they add and adjust bits and pieces as they go. Compare the famous film adaptation of *The Lord of the Rings* - even though there is clearly a love and respect for the source work, it was adapted for a modern audience (such as bringing female characters into the foreground more often) and a change in medium required a change in storytelling (thinning out of the long ending, reduction of the explanations about the lives of Hobbits). *How Cwlhwch won Olwen* has audience participation written into the 'myth' and about five minutes dedicated entirely to puns and shoutouts. The Second Branch of the Mabinogi basically has Efnysien sing a little jingle after a more arduous part of the text, probably as a way of refocusing audience attention. * Christian shaping of native tales is another issue, slightly. There is a bit of a tendency on the internet to dress up Christianisation as cackling monks trying to eradicate cultures, but this was *absolutely* not the case in the Medieval period. For example, in Ireland, there is a considerable canon of work recorded by monks where they seem to be making a conscious effort to *include* native tales in Christian works, and vice-versa. The Voyage of Brendan is an interesting example as it blends a very monastic, Christian worldview into an Irish travellers' tale. Irish pre-Christian gods were sometimes interpreted as saints or agents of God, which is about the best you can get without blasphemy. The Mabinogion has very, very pre-Christian stories with \"and then something something God\" thrown in once or twice. They were interpreting stories in a way that fit in with their understanding of the world. * Some Greek and Roman myths were familiar (in some form) for the more educated, and therefore ripe for harvest. *The Lion King* cribbing heavily from *Hamlet* is a good example from modern storytelling. The three spirits of Christmas past, present and future from *A Christmas Carol* appearing in every sitcom Christmas special ever made is another. Stealing from other stories is the norm in what we have of medieval European literature. Everyone ripped everyone else off, wholesale. Greek and Roman myths probably weren't seen as more legitimate or higher culture by most people (that came later), but if you knew the story had some juicy bits you could borrow, who's stopping you? * There is some support for an Indo-European pantheon, or proto-legendarium, but it's hard to isolate. Certainly, some gods share similar domains and have similar traits ascribed to them ('reflexes') and some legends, myths and stories share similarities ('analogues'), but it's impossible to draw any conclusions about this for reasons discussed above: people moved around a bit and stories moved even further. Basically, what I'm saying is that stories change over time and sometimes they import bits of other stories. People retell and reshape stories in a way that fits in with how they and their audience understand the world. What does it mean for the study of mythology? It's a reminder that that's really the study of people, and how they moved and how this influenced the stories they told. (am starting research for my MA dissertation, focussing at the moment on the transmission of stories in medieval Europe - subject to change, though. I'm sure someone here can provide a more learned response) Small edits were made after I checked a couple of bits.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9503.0,"score_ratio":1.0476190476} {"post_id":"lg3c1j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"What did humans do between 200.000 and 50.000 years ago? Literature tells us humans have been engaged with forming civilizations roughly 40-50k years ago. The oldest Homo Sapien fossils were dated approx. 280-350k years ago. What were we doing for so long? And what arguments can be given for: \"They just hunted and gathered\" Ty :)","c_root_id_A":"gmpo6fr","c_root_id_B":"gmpwm8q","created_at_utc_A":1612888619,"created_at_utc_B":1612892210,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"As I understand it, around 150,000 years ago we start to see the evidence that humans are gathering red ochre as a preference over other colours. They are using fire to alter the colour of the ochre gathered and seem to be making pigment. This is interesting as it shows we're starting to get interested in things other than basic survival. We're starting to think beyond just hunting and gathering. This book is great on this.","human_ref_B":"You seem to have fallen prey to a major misconception in human evolution: that humans and human-like ancestors have been evolving towards modern civilization. That there was some goal in mind, and that everything we\u2019ve done up until now was to further that goal. Thats totally untrue. For the 150,000 years you described, humans we simply another animal on the plains. Sure they were more advanced and had language but its perfectly plausible to think that they lived their lives, day to day, trying to survive, find mates, and raise children (just as every other species does). They werent thinking \u201coh we have a few thousand years until domesticated crops\u201d or \u201coh if i do this it will lead me one step further to the advent of metallurgy\u201d.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3591.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"lg3c1j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"What did humans do between 200.000 and 50.000 years ago? Literature tells us humans have been engaged with forming civilizations roughly 40-50k years ago. The oldest Homo Sapien fossils were dated approx. 280-350k years ago. What were we doing for so long? And what arguments can be given for: \"They just hunted and gathered\" Ty :)","c_root_id_A":"gmppxju","c_root_id_B":"gmpwm8q","created_at_utc_A":1612889363,"created_at_utc_B":1612892210,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"It is an important question that it usually answered with a wave of the hand. The true is we don't know why but we assume there weren't civilized. There are a couple of curious things that don't really make any sense. One is the spontaneous domestication of food plants all over the world by people who couldn't possibly communicate at approximately the same time. My belief is that chaotic climate changes during most of history kept human population low and make it impossible for us to settle down. Only after the end of the ice age 13K years ago has the climate been stable enough to allow civilization to develop.","human_ref_B":"You seem to have fallen prey to a major misconception in human evolution: that humans and human-like ancestors have been evolving towards modern civilization. That there was some goal in mind, and that everything we\u2019ve done up until now was to further that goal. Thats totally untrue. For the 150,000 years you described, humans we simply another animal on the plains. Sure they were more advanced and had language but its perfectly plausible to think that they lived their lives, day to day, trying to survive, find mates, and raise children (just as every other species does). They werent thinking \u201coh we have a few thousand years until domesticated crops\u201d or \u201coh if i do this it will lead me one step further to the advent of metallurgy\u201d.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2847.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"lg3c1j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"What did humans do between 200.000 and 50.000 years ago? Literature tells us humans have been engaged with forming civilizations roughly 40-50k years ago. The oldest Homo Sapien fossils were dated approx. 280-350k years ago. What were we doing for so long? And what arguments can be given for: \"They just hunted and gathered\" Ty :)","c_root_id_A":"gmre4bg","c_root_id_B":"gmppxju","created_at_utc_A":1612916062,"created_at_utc_B":1612889363,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I agree with another poster that your timeline of forming civilizations seems off. So rather than years I'll read it as 'what did humans do before creating permanent settlements' Humans invested time in getting enough food to eat primarily by hunting and gathering. Now, some people have looked at existing hunter-gatherer tribes and assumed that ancient humans also had the same time divide - but this is bad science. It's quite likely that H\/G societies only remained viable in places where there were extremely abundant resources and hence only a short amount of time H\/G was needed. So we don't know how much spare time H\/Gs had in the ancient world. They did spend time indirectly related to food gathering - making baskets, clothing, and tools. They also buried their dead with care and often grave goods - this seems to imply that they spent a lot of time engaging in social activities to form those bonds. So a lot of time just chattering, gossiping away, playing with their children. We also have discovered ancient art - pictographs carved in rocks, paintings etc. - so creation of art was likely a part of life. Looking at burials and the art we do find, it seems unlikely that the ancient peoples spent the vast majority of their time in non-artistic fashions, and then on rare occasions exploded into creativity. What seems more logical that art in the form of crafting everyday objects of social or religious reasons took place, as well as creating visual art on media that didn't survive (animal skins, wood) and it's likely there was singing, chanting, and dancing that went along with this. Some of the earliest art also seems to imply story-telling. It's likely storytelling was also verbal as well. So, when not actively gathering food, or crafting tools, or just chatting about 'whatever' there was likely dancing, singing, storytelling, painting, crafting, and carving. What was the subject of this dancing, singing, storytelling, painting, carving, and crafting? It was likely a blend of religious as well as practical - probably interwoven. The steps for how to hunt a certain beast were likely couched in the terms for how to appeal to its spirit so it would allow itself to be caught. It was also likely that there were stories of how you and that person sitting next to you were related - enforcing the bonds of kinship. You weren't just two random humans working together, but the stories told of the intermarriages and children that wove together to bring you both here and bind you together in social obligation. It's this kind of framework that would make it more likely for a band to care for the sick or wounded. And there is a lot of evidence of people with serious wounds living long lives after the wound. I'm talking about having your arm ripped off and your group sticking with you so you died of old age 40 years later - and archeologists can tell that knob that was the remainder of your arm had healed itself decades before the death. But I also like to think of us in our most primitive form - we probably had to spend a large amount of time constantly H\/G - the way a troop of gorillas or baboons do today. I wildly speculate that maybe our stories about how we had succeeded in hunts carried us forward, making the band a little bit more efficient at H\/G. Maybe originally we H\/G for 12 hours a day, and then later as we were better able to pass on what we as a group (rather than just an individual hunter) learned now maybe H\/G was 10 hours a day because of that passed down knowledge, with 2 hours spent passing on the stories. And it continued that way, as we became better storytellers, we were better able to pass on H\/G knowledge first learned hundreds of years before. It was this slowly growing body of knowledge carried by the band that allowed for more and more free-time, which allowed us to more time to explore and discover even more info. It's also one of the reasons we can't judge modern H\/G societies vs ancient. Modern H\/G societies might be working with a ton more info. Maybe those hunters in the amazon today know what plants to use to get toxin for their blowguns. But did humans in that same location 10,000 years ago have that same knowledge? And without it wouldn't they have had to expend a lot more effort hunting?","human_ref_B":"It is an important question that it usually answered with a wave of the hand. The true is we don't know why but we assume there weren't civilized. There are a couple of curious things that don't really make any sense. One is the spontaneous domestication of food plants all over the world by people who couldn't possibly communicate at approximately the same time. My belief is that chaotic climate changes during most of history kept human population low and make it impossible for us to settle down. Only after the end of the ice age 13K years ago has the climate been stable enough to allow civilization to develop.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26699.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1cxcih","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"When and why did humans start to bury the dead?[Xpost- Ask Historians]","c_root_id_A":"c9lb1x9","c_root_id_B":"c9kzm6j","created_at_utc_A":1366761243,"created_at_utc_B":1366731581,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I put this on the AskHistorians thread, but I'll post it here too: \/u\/400-rabbits (an archeologist and mod at AskHistorians) gave me a very solid answer when I asked a similar question a month ago.","human_ref_B":"As a follow up question, I know there is some evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead. Did any early hominids do the same?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29662.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1v0ovf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did Neanderthals (200,000 BCE - 30,000 BCE) start burying their dead? This question was brought up in my history class. Some simple responses were made, but I think there is more to it.","c_root_id_A":"cenqulp","c_root_id_B":"cenqm5t","created_at_utc_A":1389547309,"created_at_utc_B":1389546694,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I don't think there is really an answer. Although maybe we can hypothesize something? Leaving dead bodies around can obviously give off a bad odour, and can certainly bring about a multitude of diseases and infections for anyone in contact with the decaying corpse. Over time, these people realize that burying the body is the best solution to avoid all of these problems. Also, consider how religious or spiritual concepts might interplay here. Perhaps the awful smell and the death brought about by disease might be considered a punishment from \"God\". Of course, we can't say anything about religion in Neanderthals, let alone early homo-sapiens, but I'm just throwing some thoughts around. This may be why funerals and notions of cemetaries and burial rituals and the \"afterlife\" are all very religiously oriented in more recent and human socities. Could the health impacts of leaving dead bodies in the open have been the catalyst to moving to burial practices? Again, no sources here, I'm just thinking out loud.","human_ref_B":"There are many many speculations, but we have no evidence that will support one over the other. I mean, I know that some people still argue that Neaderthals did not even do intentional burials.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":615.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"1v0ovf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did Neanderthals (200,000 BCE - 30,000 BCE) start burying their dead? This question was brought up in my history class. Some simple responses were made, but I think there is more to it.","c_root_id_A":"cenq219","c_root_id_B":"cenqm5t","created_at_utc_A":1389545139,"created_at_utc_B":1389546694,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Basically, we don't know. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but wanted to let you know why you're getting upvotes and no answers. Any ideas we have are conjecture.","human_ref_B":"There are many many speculations, but we have no evidence that will support one over the other. I mean, I know that some people still argue that Neaderthals did not even do intentional burials.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1555.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"1v0ovf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did Neanderthals (200,000 BCE - 30,000 BCE) start burying their dead? This question was brought up in my history class. Some simple responses were made, but I think there is more to it.","c_root_id_A":"cenqulp","c_root_id_B":"cenq219","created_at_utc_A":1389547309,"created_at_utc_B":1389545139,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I don't think there is really an answer. Although maybe we can hypothesize something? Leaving dead bodies around can obviously give off a bad odour, and can certainly bring about a multitude of diseases and infections for anyone in contact with the decaying corpse. Over time, these people realize that burying the body is the best solution to avoid all of these problems. Also, consider how religious or spiritual concepts might interplay here. Perhaps the awful smell and the death brought about by disease might be considered a punishment from \"God\". Of course, we can't say anything about religion in Neanderthals, let alone early homo-sapiens, but I'm just throwing some thoughts around. This may be why funerals and notions of cemetaries and burial rituals and the \"afterlife\" are all very religiously oriented in more recent and human socities. Could the health impacts of leaving dead bodies in the open have been the catalyst to moving to burial practices? Again, no sources here, I'm just thinking out loud.","human_ref_B":"Basically, we don't know. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but wanted to let you know why you're getting upvotes and no answers. Any ideas we have are conjecture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2170.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"1v0ovf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why did Neanderthals (200,000 BCE - 30,000 BCE) start burying their dead? This question was brought up in my history class. Some simple responses were made, but I think there is more to it.","c_root_id_A":"cenz7yc","c_root_id_B":"cenvy0y","created_at_utc_A":1389566066,"created_at_utc_B":1389558897,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hi from the mods - it is true that we usually require answers to be informed and in-depth. But many posters like \/u\/magicsauc3's response actually reflect a number of academic theories currently out there about why the Neanderthals might have buried their dead. As well as the point that since the Neanderthals didn't leave any writing behind we can't ever know for sure what was going on in their heads. So even academics are still just making educated guesses. As long as posters admit they are not speaking authoritatively, for posts like this it is hard to require \"accurate\" answers because there aren't any. But for a more academic approach, you can read this article, which discusses whether they were intentional and the different arguments about it.. Essentially, the primary hypotheses are: 1. Burying dead for practical reasons: prevent scavengers from coming around, bad smells, disease, etc. 2. Accidental burials: Bodies just happened to end up in holes because they died there, scavengers drop them there, or it was a trash pit and bodies were among other trash thrown in there (this last point arguing against items found with bodies being offerings.) 3. Burying the dead because of sentiment: there may have been no concept of an afterlife but they still didn't want to watch a loved one rot and\/or be consumed by scavengers & bugs. 4. Burying for religious reasons: there was a concept that some part of the person continued after death, which is why some sites may indicate the presence of grave goods. Heavy emphasis on later more well understood burial practices of *Homo sapien sapiens* being a continuation of this line of thinking\/belief. You may have seen the recent interest in a study about Neanderthal burials. The primary reason it was exciting was that the authors claimed it definitively proved the burials at their site were purposeful. The bones had no evidence of being gnawed on by scavengers and they argued that the holes were not naturally made.","human_ref_B":"It seems they were done quite a long time ago, even if some are contested as being misinterpreted, I think of some case of a burial in a cave, the counterclaim was hat the dead body had been covered by rocks falling from the roof, and not by rocks put there by there Neandertals. http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/arts-culture\/the-skeletons-of-shanidar-cave-7028477\/ http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2013\/12\/131216-la-chapelle-neanderthal-burials-graves\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7169.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"1d6k7z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why did humans start to dispose the corpses of their dead? Was it for practical reasons as to avoid diseases\/predators in settlements or for superstitious\/religious\/social reasons?","c_root_id_A":"c9nlzay","c_root_id_B":"c9nghje","created_at_utc_A":1367043411,"created_at_utc_B":1367023656,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"We discussed this question in my archaeology of seat class. While there are a multitude of reasons out teacher was more geared towards the idea that it was social. He cited Arthur(?) Saxe and Lewis Binford in his rationale. Between the two of them their theories could be summed up into what he called the Saxe-Binford Hypothesis. Which summed that people buried their dead to have more legitimate land claims it allowed them to settle more, also it gave a way to express power in death, so think of things like burial mounds and the pyramids. They were big and noticeable as well as signs of power\/status. Personally I like these ideas though they are more of a best guess rather than definitive fact. I also don't know how someone like Hodder would conceptualize funeral ritual. Hope this answered your question enough.","human_ref_B":"I don't think this is something we can really ever know. There had to be a psychological reason for it. Neanderthal's places flowers on the bodies of their dead. This began long before the written word. We can only speculate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19755.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"4qlghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"When did humans start wiping their asses? Bonus question: Apart from Romans, who used wet sponges on a stick, which they shared in public bathrooms; do we have any evidence\/clue what ancient people used?","c_root_id_A":"d4ueytx","c_root_id_B":"d4ugkaq","created_at_utc_A":1467316747,"created_at_utc_B":1467318780,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Not able to answer your questions, but from firsthand ethnographic research in the Middle East I will say that wiping as we understand it is not universal. Many folks use a strong stream of water provided by either a pressurized hose hooked up to the plumbing or a highly specialized kind of pot. I'm guessing this pot, which looks like of like a cross between a vase and a watering can, has been in use for a while.","human_ref_B":"I would assume the practice is quite old. Given the tendency of non-stone materials to degrade over time, the only wiping implements we would likely have from ancient times would be made of stone, and from the looks of it, wiping one's ass with stone tools was not common practice. Edit (added more below as I'm no on mobile): There seems to be a decent amount of information on what people use around the world for wiping today, and while obviously there are no ancient cultures today, these can give clues to possible other ways of wiping one's posterior. Common practice in many places today is to eschew an actual wiping substance at all, instead using a receptacle of water or even water alone to clean up afterwards. Without researching it, I'd hypothesize that people traditionally would've preferred using water to clean up, with or without the use of any additional tools, which probably would not be particularly common if a source of water were nearby. I suppose that to adequately answer your question, I would need to know what exactly you mean by wiping. Wiping on objects is observed in many non-human primates, and it's likely that this practice would be employed by early humans as well, but paper products would take quite some time to develop still. When paper is available, it is preferred by people in many cultures, with anecdotal evidence saying that the American colonists from Britain were known to wipe with corncobs prior to the abundance of paper. So whether you mean wiping with toilet paper or wiping with anything at all greatly changes the scope of the question, as well as how one should approach it. Today there are many who do not prefer toilet paper, so treating it as the ultimate form of a linear progression of ass-wiping wouldn't make a ton of sense. Without specifying more clearly how the question is meant, it can not be adequately answered.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2033.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"4qlghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"When did humans start wiping their asses? Bonus question: Apart from Romans, who used wet sponges on a stick, which they shared in public bathrooms; do we have any evidence\/clue what ancient people used?","c_root_id_A":"d4uq3gy","c_root_id_B":"d4ueytx","created_at_utc_A":1467332700,"created_at_utc_B":1467316747,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Completely anecdotal but I've encountered archaeologists who focus in the American southwest who joke about not picking up corn cobs on survey because they were utilized for wiping. Never heard\/seen any literature on it and don't know if it's ethnographically attested.","human_ref_B":"Not able to answer your questions, but from firsthand ethnographic research in the Middle East I will say that wiping as we understand it is not universal. Many folks use a strong stream of water provided by either a pressurized hose hooked up to the plumbing or a highly specialized kind of pot. I'm guessing this pot, which looks like of like a cross between a vase and a watering can, has been in use for a while.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15953.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1cwnnc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Could Basque be evidence of a Neandertal language? This one's a stretch, I'll grant, but given Basque's total linguistic isolation, and given that the Neandertal likely last lived in northern France and the Iberian Peninsula, is there anything to the idea that Basque could be, at least in part, a language spoken by a group of Neandertals whose culture survived through interbreeding with Homo sapiens?","c_root_id_A":"c9kpm94","c_root_id_B":"c9kp9hj","created_at_utc_A":1366686306,"created_at_utc_B":1366685332,"score_A":39,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Actually, recent evidence has come to light from an Oxford study that the \"last neandertals\" found in Iberia and France were in fact improperly dated: http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/neanderthal-settlements-point-to-earlier-extinction-1.12355 and that their extinction likely occured around 45,000 BCE rather than the previous date of 35,000 BCE, and therefore occurred long before Homo Sapiens' migrations into the area. However, even if Neandertals did last die out around 35,000 BCE, that's still 34,500 years prior to the existence of proto-Basque and numerous incursions into the area by an unimaginably vast number of different cultures and peoples. For perspective, 30,000 years constitutes well over three times the entire span of the existence of written language. It is tremendously unlikely that Basque represents any sort of derivative of a Neandertal language, if indeed they possessed the ability.","human_ref_B":"There's no way to tell. We don't even know if the Neanderthals had language, or how similar to human languages it might have been. There is also a very large time-gap, I believe, between the demise of the Neanderthals and the arrival of Indo-European to western Europe, and there's no reason not to think that Basque might just as well be descended from the language(s) of the *Homo sapiens* population(s) that mixed with local Neanderthals, or from some other language family entirely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":974.0,"score_ratio":5.5714285714} {"post_id":"1cwnnc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Could Basque be evidence of a Neandertal language? This one's a stretch, I'll grant, but given Basque's total linguistic isolation, and given that the Neandertal likely last lived in northern France and the Iberian Peninsula, is there anything to the idea that Basque could be, at least in part, a language spoken by a group of Neandertals whose culture survived through interbreeding with Homo sapiens?","c_root_id_A":"c9kpelm","c_root_id_B":"c9kpm94","created_at_utc_A":1366685716,"created_at_utc_B":1366686306,"score_A":6,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Neandertal's weren't capable of modern speech. Their hyoid bones were developed enough for them to make sounds, but they wouldn't have been able to make a large variety of sounds. There has actually been some really interesting studies done with linguists and speech specialists about how the Neandertal's would've sounded when they spoke and they found that their chests were so broad they would have been incapable of whispering or speaking softly. Also, their hyoid bones are shaped more like modern women's are today so male and female Neandertal's would've had very high pitched voices. Sorry I kind of went on about that, but it's exciting I just got to actually use some knowledge I've learned in my anthro classes in college!","human_ref_B":"Actually, recent evidence has come to light from an Oxford study that the \"last neandertals\" found in Iberia and France were in fact improperly dated: http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/neanderthal-settlements-point-to-earlier-extinction-1.12355 and that their extinction likely occured around 45,000 BCE rather than the previous date of 35,000 BCE, and therefore occurred long before Homo Sapiens' migrations into the area. However, even if Neandertals did last die out around 35,000 BCE, that's still 34,500 years prior to the existence of proto-Basque and numerous incursions into the area by an unimaginably vast number of different cultures and peoples. For perspective, 30,000 years constitutes well over three times the entire span of the existence of written language. It is tremendously unlikely that Basque represents any sort of derivative of a Neandertal language, if indeed they possessed the ability.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":590.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"9f27f7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What's the current consensus on the Indus Script? I've been reading about the Indus script. Most of what I am seeing takes the position that it's a written language but \\this paper\\]([https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/419f\/d9cefad84cb597af3396828106e4fbf48da6.pdf) makes a strong argument that it isn't based on the brevity of inscriptions and the rarity of repeated signs within a given inscription. What is the current scholarly consensus? I ask partly because I have a math research background that would lend itself to statistical investigations of the script, and I'm strongly considering getting into it if it looks like it's truly language. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e5ts9n6","c_root_id_B":"e5tv26o","created_at_utc_A":1536726073,"created_at_utc_B":1536729976,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"iirc correctly the key problem is that the inscriptions are too short and brief. The first long text to be found will galvanise the historical linguistics world. This question might also get some good answers over at r\/AskHistorians or r\/linguistics","human_ref_B":"You're right that the brevity of inscriptions is a huge problem, the longest widely accepted example contains 26 signs. Shinde and Willis recently claimed the discovery of nine copper plates - the longest of which features 34 signs - but not everyone is convinced (I'm not) as they come from an unprovenanced source and are quite unlike anything found before. Anyway = regardless of whether the longest example is 34 or 26, most inscriptions are much much shorter, the \"signboard\" at Dholavira is 10 symbols, and that's one of the longest known examples. Another (minor) issue is that we've not found that many examples of the Indus script - a little less than 3000 known examples (iirc). That might sound like a lot, but it pales in comparison with Hittite tablets, Mesopotamian tablets, or Egyptian inscriptions (for example). In terms of consensus... I'm not really sure there is one. I guess maybe there's a slight lean towards it being a full written language, but plenty argue against that. If you're thinking of trying to use maths\/stats to investigate it, it's worth looking at Rajesh Rao's work - there's a TED Talk (I know) here if you're curious","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3903.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8a3x1d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there more or less death by violence, between humans, after the dawn of agriculture? Including deaths by interpersonal feuds, executions, inter-community violence, organised raids, wars, etc. I have tried looking but there seems to be conflicting information. From what I have read so far I'm assuming this can be figured out with a degree of certainty by looking at things like skeletons, ie. how the person died, evidence of fires, sudden changes in cultural objects, large amounts of male skeletons in one place, a sudden lack of male skeletons in settlement sites, etc.","c_root_id_A":"dww3vdt","c_root_id_B":"dwvwjvq","created_at_utc_A":1522981781,"created_at_utc_B":1522974706,"score_A":15,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"In terms warfare, more common after agriculture.","human_ref_B":"per capita? If its not per capita then it definetly increased with population. You could argue larger population means larger army means more devastation, whereas as nomads you might have what amounts to gang violence, but not large scale warfare","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7075.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"rr77tm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"PhD research doing computer simulations So I'm in kind of a weird situation, I have a masters degree in maths and I work as a software developer, but I've also always been interested in philosophy. I've recently been reading a lot of books, one of which is The Secret of our Success by Joseph Henrich which is about evolutionary anthropology and dual inheritance theory. I also read a book called Natural Justice by Ken Binmore, which explains how human morality could have evolved as a set of cultural practices from reciprocal altruism, and justifies the process through game theory. It reminded me of an earlier book called The Evolution of Co-operation by Robert Axelrod which shows how co-operation can evolve in the iterated prisoners' dilemma by running computer tournaments. I want to do a PhD in which I use computer simulations to back up this thesis of the development of morality (e.g. setting up a pool of self-interested neural networks time and examining how moral rules evolve between them, evolving them using a genetic algorithm such as NEAT), and also applying my findings to moral and political philosophy. Does this sound like worthwhile research? (or am I just yet another case of a software developer with Dunning-Kruger syndrome?). If it is, could anyone recommend schools to apply to or further books to read? I imagine it would be difficult to find a supervisor since the ideas lie at the intersection of so many different fields. Thanks in advance for your advice :)","c_root_id_A":"hqglw0z","c_root_id_B":"hqfj0sm","created_at_utc_A":1640813074,"created_at_utc_B":1640798113,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"This is something where you'll likely find a warmer response in a behavioral economics or neuroeconomics faculty. See, for example Kvaran, Trevor, and Alan G. Sanfey. \"Toward an integrated neuroscience of morality: the contribution of neuroeconomics to moral cognition.\" Topics in cognitive science 2.3 (2010): 579-595. Zak, Paul J. \"Moral markets.\" Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 77.2 (2011): 212-233. Levinson, Justin D., and Kaiping Peng. \"Valuing cultural differences in behavioral economics.\" ICFAI journal of behavioral finance 4 (2007): 32-47. Hodgson, Geoffrey M. \"The evolution of morality and the end of economic man.\" Journal of Evolutionary Economics 24.1 (2014): 83-106. Navarrete, C. David, et al. \"Virtual morality: Emotion and action in a simulated three-dimensional \u201ctrolley problem\u201d.\" Emotion 12.2 (2012): 364.","human_ref_B":"I think you should read more sociological works. Raymond Boudon talked at length about rational choice theory v altruistic motivation v axicological rationality. He related et directly to political choice\/ d\u00e9cision making. Symbolic interactionism: would also be useful, as it explores the interactions of individuals and their millions of simultaneous influences. When conducting quantitative research, often the most looming variables are actively taken into account. Much like economic modeling ( think world 3 by MIT). I suggest Sociology: because it considers the human \u00e9l\u00e9ment beyond the theoretical idea. No philosophical idea is created or played out within a vacuum. The difference between Various 'actors', their ontology, epitstimology, methodology, and d\u00e9viance all play a Role in their core posture. Add on hundreds of stimulants and learned socialization and the question of philosophies interacting with one another can be underlined.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14961.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"alvnat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Biological anthropology making me feel really down, anyone experience something like this? I'm taking biological anthropology, I'm in my second semester. Just last week my teacher told us about mating behaviors. He gave us studies to read that showed among animals and human societies there has been a preference for larger males, not only as leaders and high status, but also as mates. I'm a short guy myself, and I've always struggled to get dates. I always thought it was just luck, but now to realize its some kind of evolutionary behavior that probably won't ever change is hard to swallow. Not only on a biological level are larger males preferred, but also on a cultural one as well. Our teacher told us that in time of war the united states as elected presidents who were taller than those elected in a time of peace. As well as the fact that most presidents were tall to begin with. People use language like \"the high and mighty\" to refer to kings and \"the little people\" to everyone else. All this stuff just makes me see humans in a different way and changes my perception of my place in the world. I know its probably vain, but every time I talk to women I'm interested in I can't feel like I'm clawing my way up an evolutionary and cultural mountain. As a side note I talked with our schools counselor, but she doesn't understand. She says what does evolution have to do with it? anyway has anyone struggled with course material on a emotional rather than purely an intellectual level? Am I just an idiot who shouldn't take this stuff so seriously?","c_root_id_A":"efhf80y","c_root_id_B":"efhkjtp","created_at_utc_A":1548981165,"created_at_utc_B":1548985443,"score_A":19,"score_B":55,"human_ref_A":"When i was studying bio anthro, I felt like you many times. The content seems to cut at the \"truth\" of human behavior and culture, both making it really fun and threatening to any current paradigms we may hold. But, personally, it all kinda broke down that a lot of claims were flimsy and full of holes. Being a gay man, I felt sidelined by the entire field. Mating behaviors were explained through heterosexual contexts. At first, I thought I was being too emotional and that I didn't take the field seriously enough. But after a bit, I realized that these feelings can make for the foundation of critique and inquiry -- I mean, anthropology are encouraged to take ownership of their subjectivity, no? P.S. I think when it comes to attractiveness, the only thing that has been substantiated was symmetry. Stuff like hip:shoulder ratio or size turns out to be mostly culturally specific. P.P.S. Consider speaking to another therapist. I'm surprised a school counselor wouldn't take your reaction to class material more seriously.","human_ref_B":"If you study anthropology of science (a subfield in cultural anthropology), you'll learn how \"science\" often reflects the biases of its creators. That's not to say science is trash -- it isn't! It's important and has real, tangible value. But I suspect what you're being taught is out of date and not the best science has to offer. Cultural anthropologists will tell you (with plenty of data to back it up) that attractiveness is a social construct and we're far more influenced by social than biological factors (though both are admittedly at play). Also, as we're social animals and evolved as a social species, so individual evolutionary advantage isn't really the bottom line for this stuff. You're not at all foolish for feeling this way, but please take what you're being taught with a grain of salt, and maybe take a class in the anthropology (or sociology or philosophy) of science if you have the chance, to put some of these claims into perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4278.0,"score_ratio":2.8947368421} {"post_id":"alvnat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Biological anthropology making me feel really down, anyone experience something like this? I'm taking biological anthropology, I'm in my second semester. Just last week my teacher told us about mating behaviors. He gave us studies to read that showed among animals and human societies there has been a preference for larger males, not only as leaders and high status, but also as mates. I'm a short guy myself, and I've always struggled to get dates. I always thought it was just luck, but now to realize its some kind of evolutionary behavior that probably won't ever change is hard to swallow. Not only on a biological level are larger males preferred, but also on a cultural one as well. Our teacher told us that in time of war the united states as elected presidents who were taller than those elected in a time of peace. As well as the fact that most presidents were tall to begin with. People use language like \"the high and mighty\" to refer to kings and \"the little people\" to everyone else. All this stuff just makes me see humans in a different way and changes my perception of my place in the world. I know its probably vain, but every time I talk to women I'm interested in I can't feel like I'm clawing my way up an evolutionary and cultural mountain. As a side note I talked with our schools counselor, but she doesn't understand. She says what does evolution have to do with it? anyway has anyone struggled with course material on a emotional rather than purely an intellectual level? Am I just an idiot who shouldn't take this stuff so seriously?","c_root_id_A":"efi7nj5","c_root_id_B":"efjk7ji","created_at_utc_A":1549008815,"created_at_utc_B":1549050656,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"In the latest cutting edge of cultural anthropology, we are taking this kind of thing very seriously. There has always been a big divide between cultural anthropologists and biological anthropology's view of the human, particularly when it comes to \"evolutionism\". (things get complex here bear with me). Now \"evolutionism\" may refer to the view that social systems evolve to greater and greater complexity, a notion that has been thoroughly debunked by generations of anthropologists and archaeologists. Why? Because societies are not organisms, despite what Radcliffe Brown might tell you. However, evolutionism can also be viewed as a philosophical perspective, a view that Darwinian evolution tells the whole story to being human in the world, which it certainly does not. You could also call that \"scientism\". ​ Humans are not just animals. We function in very different ways than just animals, despite what biological anthropology may tell you. We form far more complex social systems than any other animal, and as far as we know, we are the only animal with religion\/spirituality, a defining feature of human societies (I consider Neanderthals to be fully human and they don't exist anymore). ​ I have felt the exact same feeling as you. But what you are feeling is based on the mistaken idea that humans are automatons, robots, programmed by our anatomy to reproduce. If we were automatons compelled by our biology to reproduce, there would be no monks or nuns in the world. ​ Also the idea of \"high and mighty\" in terms conflating physical power with political power or any other kind of power is not a cultural universal. So not only should you not worry about those ideas you are having, they are a perfectly natural existential response to wondering \"are human beings determined by their biology?\" To a certain degree, we are, but we are fundamentally cultural beings as well, and to say we aren't is biological reductionism. ​ Finally: to those who would call me \"anti-science\": see the previous link. ​","human_ref_B":"There is some interesting research comparing factors that are attractive in the West to see if they are just as impactful upon mate selection in other societies. Cultural variation does not negate potential biological influences, of course, but such research can suggest which influences are emphasized, which ones can be culturally \"overcome\", and which ones do seem to be both culturally and biologically universals. So let's take height. Do women around the world view men taller than themselves as attractive? That can be hard to measure, but there are some studies on this which you might find interesting. First, let's get at the reason why height differences might have some ecological basis, which is sort of what your professor was getting at but perhaps not in a very articulate way. Beard and Blaser argue that since height is linked to nutrition during periods of ecological stress (ex: warfare or famine), increased height indicates health, which is important for reproductive success. The idea is that when the environment is relatively stable and access to resources more egalitarian, height is less of a concern because it isn't need to indicate health or resource acquisition. When there are deep disparities and\/or fears about lack of access to resources, someone who is signaling that they managed to figure it out via height is someone potentially worth following and\/or mating with. Of course, height isn't necessarily actually linked to reproductive success. Among the !Kung, taller men didn't have more offspring. It was actually the opposite correlation (Kirchengast and Winkler 1995). What that means is that height does not necessarily indicate reproductive success in every society and from an evolutionary perspective it is viable offspring that really matter. Not sexiness in and of itself. But clearly, we as a society care about sexiness. So what about that? Interestingly, among the Hadza research has suggested that height isn't that important a factor for women assessing mates. Sear and Marlowe (2009) write: >We also find **no evidence for a male-taller norm in this society.** In 8.2 per cent of all marriages the wife was taller than the husband (17 of 207 marriages). This is no different from the proportion of female-taller marriages expected by chance (8.8%: x2 \u00bc 0.089, d.f. \u00bc 1, p \u00bc 0.765)... This lack of size-related mating patterns might appear surprising, since size is usually assumed to be an indicator of health, productivity and overall quality. But health and productivity may be signalled in alternative ways in the Hadza, who are a small, relatively homogeneous population. An individual\u2019s health history may be more important than size, for example, and this may be relatively well known in a small, mobile population. Additionally, there may be some disadvantages to large size in food-limited societies, where the costs of maintaining large size during periods of food shortage may be high. Such disadvantages will not be seen in foodabundant societies, so that large size may be a better indicator of quality in post-industrial populations. **Finally, research on another African forager population found that height is negatively correlated with hunting returns (Lee 1979), suggesting that tall height may not be an indicator of productivity in such economies.** That last point is really interesting - in hunter-gatherer societies, height may be a disadvantage. If true, it makes sense that from an evolutionary perspective taller men would be less attractive (though there is always individual mate selection influence and no group is homogeneous with relation to this.) What about other subsistence patterns? Sorokowski, Fink, and Mberira found that among the pastoralist Himba women were not as interested in taller men as Western comparisons and men tended to prefer taller women. >**In the Himba tribe a significant percentage of participants (over 30%) preferred partners\u2019 body height to be similar to their own, this being true for both men and women.** However, in comparison to almost all previous findings (Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003; Pawlowski & Koziel, 2002; Pierce, 1996; Salska et al., 2008; Shepperd & Strathman, 1989; Swami et al., 2008), many Himba men preferred relatively taller women, which cannot be explained through the actual SDS in this tribe... about 20% preferred the pair where the man is shorter than the woman... Moreover, and contrary to previous reports (Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003), we found no evidence for an adjustment of SDS preferences in relation to one\u2019s own height in women, as only the shortest women had preferences for a partner who was much taller than them. **In men, even the tallest participants expressed preferences towards women taller than them, which is contrary to results obtained in Western cultures (e.g., Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003).** ​ Let's take one more example: the Yali in Papua, Indonesia (Sorokowski and Agniaszka 2012). This group still hunts and gathers for some resources but they also practice shifting cultivation (i.e. small plots of land that they alternate.) The study authors write: >In the Yali tribe, the \u201cmale-taller norm\u201d was far weaker than in Western cultures. More than 60% of participants preferred relationships where a man was taller than a woman; however, it was significantly lower than in Western societies (i.e., 96.3% in Poland, Pawlowski, 2003). **Additionally, Yali men who were older and lived farther from Wamena preferred taller women, which suggests that male preferences for female height may change and that 10 or 20\u00a0years ago men may have had a greater preference for tall women than was observed among present day Yali men.** That last point is really interesting because this is a group that was largely not in contact with the rest of the world up to 50 years ago. Then there was rapid change in the 1970s because the rumors they practiced cannibalism resulted in missionaries quickly descending upon the population. Now the vast majority of the community identifies as Christian. So it is possible that this cultural influence has changed much more than just ideas about the afterlife. Hope all of this helps you contextualize and think about this issue. I realize I'm not addressing anything about \\_how\\_ you should think about this issue or the ways you should relate it to your personal life. But I only have a PhD in anthropology so I'm not really qualified to do that. What I can say is that biology influences attraction as do ecology and culture. But, importantly, attraction even from an evolutionary perspective is not based upon a singular factor. A man might be very tall but also be judged as very unattractive due to other factors. And a shorter man might be judged very attractive for a host of other factors (ex: see the many movie stars who are rather short.) It is always a mistake to assume something as complex as the evolution of human reproductive behavior can boil down to one factor. That's just bad science. * Beard, A. S., & Blaser, M. J. (2002). The ecology of height. *Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,* *45*, 475\u2013498. * Kirchengast, S., & Winkler, E. M. (1995). Differential reproductive success and body dimensions in Kavango males from urban and rural areas in northern Namibia. *Human Biology,* *67*, 307\u2013325. * Sear, R., & Marlowe, F. W. (2009). How universal are human mate choices? Size doesn\u2019t matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate. *Biology Letters,* *5*, 606\u2013609. * Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Fink, B., & Mberira, M. (2012). Variable preferences for sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS) might not be universal: Data from a semi nomad population (Himba) in Namibia. *Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,* *43*, 32\u201337. * Sorokowski, Piotr, and Agnieszka Sorokowska. \"Judgments of sexual attractiveness: A study of the Yali tribe in Papua.\" *Archives of Sexual Behavior* 41.5 (2012): 1209-1218. \\*Small edits for grammar. All bolding is my own.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":41841.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"alvnat","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Biological anthropology making me feel really down, anyone experience something like this? I'm taking biological anthropology, I'm in my second semester. Just last week my teacher told us about mating behaviors. He gave us studies to read that showed among animals and human societies there has been a preference for larger males, not only as leaders and high status, but also as mates. I'm a short guy myself, and I've always struggled to get dates. I always thought it was just luck, but now to realize its some kind of evolutionary behavior that probably won't ever change is hard to swallow. Not only on a biological level are larger males preferred, but also on a cultural one as well. Our teacher told us that in time of war the united states as elected presidents who were taller than those elected in a time of peace. As well as the fact that most presidents were tall to begin with. People use language like \"the high and mighty\" to refer to kings and \"the little people\" to everyone else. All this stuff just makes me see humans in a different way and changes my perception of my place in the world. I know its probably vain, but every time I talk to women I'm interested in I can't feel like I'm clawing my way up an evolutionary and cultural mountain. As a side note I talked with our schools counselor, but she doesn't understand. She says what does evolution have to do with it? anyway has anyone struggled with course material on a emotional rather than purely an intellectual level? Am I just an idiot who shouldn't take this stuff so seriously?","c_root_id_A":"efjk7ji","c_root_id_B":"efiz0iw","created_at_utc_A":1549050656,"created_at_utc_B":1549036428,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There is some interesting research comparing factors that are attractive in the West to see if they are just as impactful upon mate selection in other societies. Cultural variation does not negate potential biological influences, of course, but such research can suggest which influences are emphasized, which ones can be culturally \"overcome\", and which ones do seem to be both culturally and biologically universals. So let's take height. Do women around the world view men taller than themselves as attractive? That can be hard to measure, but there are some studies on this which you might find interesting. First, let's get at the reason why height differences might have some ecological basis, which is sort of what your professor was getting at but perhaps not in a very articulate way. Beard and Blaser argue that since height is linked to nutrition during periods of ecological stress (ex: warfare or famine), increased height indicates health, which is important for reproductive success. The idea is that when the environment is relatively stable and access to resources more egalitarian, height is less of a concern because it isn't need to indicate health or resource acquisition. When there are deep disparities and\/or fears about lack of access to resources, someone who is signaling that they managed to figure it out via height is someone potentially worth following and\/or mating with. Of course, height isn't necessarily actually linked to reproductive success. Among the !Kung, taller men didn't have more offspring. It was actually the opposite correlation (Kirchengast and Winkler 1995). What that means is that height does not necessarily indicate reproductive success in every society and from an evolutionary perspective it is viable offspring that really matter. Not sexiness in and of itself. But clearly, we as a society care about sexiness. So what about that? Interestingly, among the Hadza research has suggested that height isn't that important a factor for women assessing mates. Sear and Marlowe (2009) write: >We also find **no evidence for a male-taller norm in this society.** In 8.2 per cent of all marriages the wife was taller than the husband (17 of 207 marriages). This is no different from the proportion of female-taller marriages expected by chance (8.8%: x2 \u00bc 0.089, d.f. \u00bc 1, p \u00bc 0.765)... This lack of size-related mating patterns might appear surprising, since size is usually assumed to be an indicator of health, productivity and overall quality. But health and productivity may be signalled in alternative ways in the Hadza, who are a small, relatively homogeneous population. An individual\u2019s health history may be more important than size, for example, and this may be relatively well known in a small, mobile population. Additionally, there may be some disadvantages to large size in food-limited societies, where the costs of maintaining large size during periods of food shortage may be high. Such disadvantages will not be seen in foodabundant societies, so that large size may be a better indicator of quality in post-industrial populations. **Finally, research on another African forager population found that height is negatively correlated with hunting returns (Lee 1979), suggesting that tall height may not be an indicator of productivity in such economies.** That last point is really interesting - in hunter-gatherer societies, height may be a disadvantage. If true, it makes sense that from an evolutionary perspective taller men would be less attractive (though there is always individual mate selection influence and no group is homogeneous with relation to this.) What about other subsistence patterns? Sorokowski, Fink, and Mberira found that among the pastoralist Himba women were not as interested in taller men as Western comparisons and men tended to prefer taller women. >**In the Himba tribe a significant percentage of participants (over 30%) preferred partners\u2019 body height to be similar to their own, this being true for both men and women.** However, in comparison to almost all previous findings (Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003; Pawlowski & Koziel, 2002; Pierce, 1996; Salska et al., 2008; Shepperd & Strathman, 1989; Swami et al., 2008), many Himba men preferred relatively taller women, which cannot be explained through the actual SDS in this tribe... about 20% preferred the pair where the man is shorter than the woman... Moreover, and contrary to previous reports (Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003), we found no evidence for an adjustment of SDS preferences in relation to one\u2019s own height in women, as only the shortest women had preferences for a partner who was much taller than them. **In men, even the tallest participants expressed preferences towards women taller than them, which is contrary to results obtained in Western cultures (e.g., Fink et al., 2007; Pawlowski, 2003).** ​ Let's take one more example: the Yali in Papua, Indonesia (Sorokowski and Agniaszka 2012). This group still hunts and gathers for some resources but they also practice shifting cultivation (i.e. small plots of land that they alternate.) The study authors write: >In the Yali tribe, the \u201cmale-taller norm\u201d was far weaker than in Western cultures. More than 60% of participants preferred relationships where a man was taller than a woman; however, it was significantly lower than in Western societies (i.e., 96.3% in Poland, Pawlowski, 2003). **Additionally, Yali men who were older and lived farther from Wamena preferred taller women, which suggests that male preferences for female height may change and that 10 or 20\u00a0years ago men may have had a greater preference for tall women than was observed among present day Yali men.** That last point is really interesting because this is a group that was largely not in contact with the rest of the world up to 50 years ago. Then there was rapid change in the 1970s because the rumors they practiced cannibalism resulted in missionaries quickly descending upon the population. Now the vast majority of the community identifies as Christian. So it is possible that this cultural influence has changed much more than just ideas about the afterlife. Hope all of this helps you contextualize and think about this issue. I realize I'm not addressing anything about \\_how\\_ you should think about this issue or the ways you should relate it to your personal life. But I only have a PhD in anthropology so I'm not really qualified to do that. What I can say is that biology influences attraction as do ecology and culture. But, importantly, attraction even from an evolutionary perspective is not based upon a singular factor. A man might be very tall but also be judged as very unattractive due to other factors. And a shorter man might be judged very attractive for a host of other factors (ex: see the many movie stars who are rather short.) It is always a mistake to assume something as complex as the evolution of human reproductive behavior can boil down to one factor. That's just bad science. * Beard, A. S., & Blaser, M. J. (2002). The ecology of height. *Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,* *45*, 475\u2013498. * Kirchengast, S., & Winkler, E. M. (1995). Differential reproductive success and body dimensions in Kavango males from urban and rural areas in northern Namibia. *Human Biology,* *67*, 307\u2013325. * Sear, R., & Marlowe, F. W. (2009). How universal are human mate choices? Size doesn\u2019t matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate. *Biology Letters,* *5*, 606\u2013609. * Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Fink, B., & Mberira, M. (2012). Variable preferences for sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS) might not be universal: Data from a semi nomad population (Himba) in Namibia. *Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,* *43*, 32\u201337. * Sorokowski, Piotr, and Agnieszka Sorokowska. \"Judgments of sexual attractiveness: A study of the Yali tribe in Papua.\" *Archives of Sexual Behavior* 41.5 (2012): 1209-1218. \\*Small edits for grammar. All bolding is my own.","human_ref_B":"I think you're falling into an \"ecological fallacy\" \\-- i.e., drawing conclusions about individual cases from population-level data, especially in the setting of complex phenomena (e.g. dating, and especially specific, individual cases). And even if we're looking at population-level data, the majority of men with heights under the median find love and get married in the US! Per the 2015 American Community Survey, over three-quarters of US men have been married at least once by age 40. Please, please also look into the critiques of this type of science that various other commenters have suggested here! And ignore the commenters suggesting the \"black pill\" stuff and related subs\/communities -- that whole constellation poses as being critical but is basically self-serving cherry-picking.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14228.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"73ueqj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did humans go from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists? Why did the Neolithic Revolution occur?","c_root_id_A":"dntvvv9","c_root_id_B":"dnu7eo7","created_at_utc_A":1506996805,"created_at_utc_B":1507017292,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Here is an old post I did: >There is no consensus on many of the details and particulars in terms of explanation, but certain sequences of events are generally agreed upon. Agriculture has its origins in what Kent Flannery called the \"Broad Spectrum Revolution\" (BSR). This involved an increase in diet breadth beginning some time ~20,000 years ago. The domestication of wild grasses began as something of an accident -- it took thousands of years for truly domesticated cereals to appear. This came about because of selection for non-shattering seeds. There are cereal variants in which the ears shatter to disperse their seeds and non-shattering variants. The non-shattering variants became selected for inadvertently as humans ate them and pooped them out, effectively fertilizing the non-shattering cereals. >Why the expansion in diet breadth happened, as well as other proximate causes such as climatic conditions, are subject to debate. The traditional BSR explanation is that population pressure, ecological conditions, and lack of resources in certain areas led to the exploitation of cereals and their eventual domestication. This was enabled ~8-10 kya because of the end of the most recent ice age as climate warmed. There is also a general increase of semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer societies during the Upper Paleolithic, and sedentism is generally correlated with an increase in dietary breadth. In short, beggars can't be choosers. When you are less mobile, it is more difficult to target specific foods (this can be achieved through sending out seasonal task groups to form smaller camps, but it can't usually beat the ease of being completely mobile) and more convenient to eat whatever is in range of the central place. >What is more controversial are what the relative importance of the causes are. Some of the earlier explanations of BSR rely on models of hunter-gatherers seeking to efficiently exploit resources in the face of increasing scarcity (optimal foraging theory). Alternately, Zeder has proposed a niche construction theory account in which instances of the expansion of dietary breadth can be explained through resource management strategies employed in areas with already abundant resources. >There are also debates over the timing of climatic events, local ecological conditions, etc. such that one model of the BSR will likely not hold true for all times and places. For instance, we can find cases of cycling between agriculture and hunting\/gathering. If your population is not so large that agriculture is absolutely required, you can buffer against a bad crop with hunting and gathering or a bad hunting\/gathering season with a decent crop. >Flannery, Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. >Stiner, Thirty years on the \u201cBroad Spectrum Revolution\u201d and paleolithic demography >Zeder, The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: Resource diversity, intensification, and an alternative to optimal foraging explanations >Price and Bar-Yosef, The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas: An Introduction to Supplement 4 - this is the beginning of a special issue of Current Anthropology on the origins of agriculture if you wan to get deeper into the specifics of the debate. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/6kdp9h\/why_ancient_people_decided_to_farm_instead_of\/djmr0n3\/","human_ref_B":"No one has mentioned Beer Theory yet. Is that still considered a possible factor? \ud83c\udf7a","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20487.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"73ueqj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did humans go from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists? Why did the Neolithic Revolution occur?","c_root_id_A":"dntvvv9","c_root_id_B":"dntnuc2","created_at_utc_A":1506996805,"created_at_utc_B":1506986723,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Here is an old post I did: >There is no consensus on many of the details and particulars in terms of explanation, but certain sequences of events are generally agreed upon. Agriculture has its origins in what Kent Flannery called the \"Broad Spectrum Revolution\" (BSR). This involved an increase in diet breadth beginning some time ~20,000 years ago. The domestication of wild grasses began as something of an accident -- it took thousands of years for truly domesticated cereals to appear. This came about because of selection for non-shattering seeds. There are cereal variants in which the ears shatter to disperse their seeds and non-shattering variants. The non-shattering variants became selected for inadvertently as humans ate them and pooped them out, effectively fertilizing the non-shattering cereals. >Why the expansion in diet breadth happened, as well as other proximate causes such as climatic conditions, are subject to debate. The traditional BSR explanation is that population pressure, ecological conditions, and lack of resources in certain areas led to the exploitation of cereals and their eventual domestication. This was enabled ~8-10 kya because of the end of the most recent ice age as climate warmed. There is also a general increase of semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer societies during the Upper Paleolithic, and sedentism is generally correlated with an increase in dietary breadth. In short, beggars can't be choosers. When you are less mobile, it is more difficult to target specific foods (this can be achieved through sending out seasonal task groups to form smaller camps, but it can't usually beat the ease of being completely mobile) and more convenient to eat whatever is in range of the central place. >What is more controversial are what the relative importance of the causes are. Some of the earlier explanations of BSR rely on models of hunter-gatherers seeking to efficiently exploit resources in the face of increasing scarcity (optimal foraging theory). Alternately, Zeder has proposed a niche construction theory account in which instances of the expansion of dietary breadth can be explained through resource management strategies employed in areas with already abundant resources. >There are also debates over the timing of climatic events, local ecological conditions, etc. such that one model of the BSR will likely not hold true for all times and places. For instance, we can find cases of cycling between agriculture and hunting\/gathering. If your population is not so large that agriculture is absolutely required, you can buffer against a bad crop with hunting and gathering or a bad hunting\/gathering season with a decent crop. >Flannery, Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. >Stiner, Thirty years on the \u201cBroad Spectrum Revolution\u201d and paleolithic demography >Zeder, The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: Resource diversity, intensification, and an alternative to optimal foraging explanations >Price and Bar-Yosef, The Origins of Agriculture: New Data, New Ideas: An Introduction to Supplement 4 - this is the beginning of a special issue of Current Anthropology on the origins of agriculture if you wan to get deeper into the specifics of the debate. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/6kdp9h\/why_ancient_people_decided_to_farm_instead_of\/djmr0n3\/","human_ref_B":"To copy\/paste an answer I gave previously on \/r\/AskHistorians > There's a number of factors that can contribute to this answer and the debate has raged on for 100 years. Factors such as population density and a dwindling food supply are often mentioned, but I am of the mind that it was the weather. Up until 12,000 years ago the climate around the world fluctuated from hot to cold and back again in intervals as small as a decade in some cases. This makes it extremely difficult to cultivate plants to grow in a certain climate if the climate is never stable. 12,000 years ago marks the Holocene and we have had a relatively stable climate that allowed people to settle down and begin farming. Whether that is, in fact, the case or not is still up for debate but the fact remains that people just were not able to farm before the Holocene. > Richerson, Peter J., Robert Boyd, and Robert L. Bettinger 2001, Was Agriculture Impossible During the Pleistocene But Mandatory During the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis. American Antiquity 66(3):387-411. To quote the source cited > \"Might we not expect agriculture to have emerged in the last interglacial 130,000 years ago or even during one of the older interglacials? No archaeological evidence has come to light suggesting the presence of technologies that might be expected to accompany forays into intensive plant collecting or agriculture at this time. Anatomically modern humans may have appeared in Africa as early as 130,000 years ago, but they were not behaviorally modern. Humans of the last interglacial were uniformly archaic in behavior. Very likely, then, the humans of the last interglacial were neither cognitively nor culturally capable of evolving agricultural subsistence. However, climate might also explain the lack of marked subsistence intensification during previous interglacials. Ice cores from the thick Antarctic ice cap at Vostok show that each of the last four interglacials over the last 420,000 years were characteristic by a short, sharp peak of warmth rather than the 11,600 year long stable plateau of the Holocene. Further, the GRIP ice core suggests the last interglacial (130,000-80,000 BP) was more variable than the Holocene, although its lack of agreement with a nearby replicate for for this time period makes this interpretation tenuous. On the other than, the atmospheric concentration of C02 was higher in the three previous interglacials than during the Holocene, and was stable at high levels for about 20,000 years following the warm peak during the last interglacial. The highly continental Vostok site unfortunately does not record the same high-frequency variation in the climate as most other proxy climate records, even those in the southern hemisphere. Some northern hemisphere marine and terrestrial records suggest that the last interglacial was highly variable while other data suggest a Holocene-length period of stable climates ca. 127,000-117,000 BP. Better data on the high frequency part of the Pleistocene beyond the reach of the Greenland ice cores is needed to test hypotheses about events antedating the latest Pleistocene. Long marine cores from areas of rapid sediment accumulation are beginning to reveal the millennial scale record from previous glacial-interglacial cycles. At least the last five glacials have millennial-scale variations like the last glacial. The degree of fluctuations during previous interglacials is still not clear, but at least some proxy data suggest that the Holocene has been less variable than earlier interglacials.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10082.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"73ueqj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why did humans go from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists? Why did the Neolithic Revolution occur?","c_root_id_A":"dnu7eo7","c_root_id_B":"dntnuc2","created_at_utc_A":1507017292,"created_at_utc_B":1506986723,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"No one has mentioned Beer Theory yet. Is that still considered a possible factor? \ud83c\udf7a","human_ref_B":"To copy\/paste an answer I gave previously on \/r\/AskHistorians > There's a number of factors that can contribute to this answer and the debate has raged on for 100 years. Factors such as population density and a dwindling food supply are often mentioned, but I am of the mind that it was the weather. Up until 12,000 years ago the climate around the world fluctuated from hot to cold and back again in intervals as small as a decade in some cases. This makes it extremely difficult to cultivate plants to grow in a certain climate if the climate is never stable. 12,000 years ago marks the Holocene and we have had a relatively stable climate that allowed people to settle down and begin farming. Whether that is, in fact, the case or not is still up for debate but the fact remains that people just were not able to farm before the Holocene. > Richerson, Peter J., Robert Boyd, and Robert L. Bettinger 2001, Was Agriculture Impossible During the Pleistocene But Mandatory During the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis. American Antiquity 66(3):387-411. To quote the source cited > \"Might we not expect agriculture to have emerged in the last interglacial 130,000 years ago or even during one of the older interglacials? No archaeological evidence has come to light suggesting the presence of technologies that might be expected to accompany forays into intensive plant collecting or agriculture at this time. Anatomically modern humans may have appeared in Africa as early as 130,000 years ago, but they were not behaviorally modern. Humans of the last interglacial were uniformly archaic in behavior. Very likely, then, the humans of the last interglacial were neither cognitively nor culturally capable of evolving agricultural subsistence. However, climate might also explain the lack of marked subsistence intensification during previous interglacials. Ice cores from the thick Antarctic ice cap at Vostok show that each of the last four interglacials over the last 420,000 years were characteristic by a short, sharp peak of warmth rather than the 11,600 year long stable plateau of the Holocene. Further, the GRIP ice core suggests the last interglacial (130,000-80,000 BP) was more variable than the Holocene, although its lack of agreement with a nearby replicate for for this time period makes this interpretation tenuous. On the other than, the atmospheric concentration of C02 was higher in the three previous interglacials than during the Holocene, and was stable at high levels for about 20,000 years following the warm peak during the last interglacial. The highly continental Vostok site unfortunately does not record the same high-frequency variation in the climate as most other proxy climate records, even those in the southern hemisphere. Some northern hemisphere marine and terrestrial records suggest that the last interglacial was highly variable while other data suggest a Holocene-length period of stable climates ca. 127,000-117,000 BP. Better data on the high frequency part of the Pleistocene beyond the reach of the Greenland ice cores is needed to test hypotheses about events antedating the latest Pleistocene. Long marine cores from areas of rapid sediment accumulation are beginning to reveal the millennial scale record from previous glacial-interglacial cycles. At least the last five glacials have millennial-scale variations like the last glacial. The degree of fluctuations during previous interglacials is still not clear, but at least some proxy data suggest that the Holocene has been less variable than earlier interglacials.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30569.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqjc9e","c_root_id_B":"eeqkbnh","created_at_utc_A":1548207932,"created_at_utc_B":1548208673,"score_A":3,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"I would say you can refer to yourself as an anthropologist after being published.","human_ref_B":"When it directly relates to your primary source of income? I got my anthro degree in 2010, but I became a cafe manager.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":741.0,"score_ratio":15.6666666667} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqp0xd","c_root_id_B":"eer36et","created_at_utc_A":1548212320,"created_at_utc_B":1548226268,"score_A":19,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I've heard \"after you've done fieldwork\"","human_ref_B":"A lot of the comments here seem like pretty arbitrary gatekeeping. I would take the broader view that you\u2019re an anthropologist if you exercise your anthropological knowledge and training in whatever aspect of life (and not simply in a work context).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13948.0,"score_ratio":1.2631578947} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqolp6","c_root_id_B":"eer36et","created_at_utc_A":1548211985,"created_at_utc_B":1548226268,"score_A":8,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"When your primary activity is anthropology. If you\u2019re a full time student, I think that counts","human_ref_B":"A lot of the comments here seem like pretty arbitrary gatekeeping. I would take the broader view that you\u2019re an anthropologist if you exercise your anthropological knowledge and training in whatever aspect of life (and not simply in a work context).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14283.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqjc9e","c_root_id_B":"eer36et","created_at_utc_A":1548207932,"created_at_utc_B":1548226268,"score_A":3,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I would say you can refer to yourself as an anthropologist after being published.","human_ref_B":"A lot of the comments here seem like pretty arbitrary gatekeeping. I would take the broader view that you\u2019re an anthropologist if you exercise your anthropological knowledge and training in whatever aspect of life (and not simply in a work context).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18336.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqnb30","c_root_id_B":"eer36et","created_at_utc_A":1548210980,"created_at_utc_B":1548226268,"score_A":3,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"All opinion, but my money is on: When you publish if you stay in academia or if you go into a public\/private section job that carries a similar title (eg, we'd probably all call someone working CRM an archaeologist or if you went into some sort of corporate\/NGO cultural relations position...you could probably go by \"anthropologist?\")","human_ref_B":"A lot of the comments here seem like pretty arbitrary gatekeeping. I would take the broader view that you\u2019re an anthropologist if you exercise your anthropological knowledge and training in whatever aspect of life (and not simply in a work context).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15288.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqp0xd","c_root_id_B":"eeqolp6","created_at_utc_A":1548212320,"created_at_utc_B":1548211985,"score_A":19,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I've heard \"after you've done fieldwork\"","human_ref_B":"When your primary activity is anthropology. If you\u2019re a full time student, I think that counts","labels":1,"seconds_difference":335.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqjc9e","c_root_id_B":"eeqp0xd","created_at_utc_A":1548207932,"created_at_utc_B":1548212320,"score_A":3,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I would say you can refer to yourself as an anthropologist after being published.","human_ref_B":"I've heard \"after you've done fieldwork\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4388.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqnb30","c_root_id_B":"eeqp0xd","created_at_utc_A":1548210980,"created_at_utc_B":1548212320,"score_A":3,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"All opinion, but my money is on: When you publish if you stay in academia or if you go into a public\/private section job that carries a similar title (eg, we'd probably all call someone working CRM an archaeologist or if you went into some sort of corporate\/NGO cultural relations position...you could probably go by \"anthropologist?\")","human_ref_B":"I've heard \"after you've done fieldwork\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1340.0,"score_ratio":6.3333333333} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqolp6","c_root_id_B":"eeqjc9e","created_at_utc_A":1548211985,"created_at_utc_B":1548207932,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"When your primary activity is anthropology. If you\u2019re a full time student, I think that counts","human_ref_B":"I would say you can refer to yourself as an anthropologist after being published.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4053.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eeqnb30","c_root_id_B":"eeqolp6","created_at_utc_A":1548210980,"created_at_utc_B":1548211985,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"All opinion, but my money is on: When you publish if you stay in academia or if you go into a public\/private section job that carries a similar title (eg, we'd probably all call someone working CRM an archaeologist or if you went into some sort of corporate\/NGO cultural relations position...you could probably go by \"anthropologist?\")","human_ref_B":"When your primary activity is anthropology. If you\u2019re a full time student, I think that counts","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1005.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eer5365","c_root_id_B":"eeqjc9e","created_at_utc_A":1548228920,"created_at_utc_B":1548207932,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Good, but tough question. There's quite a bit of arbitrary gate-keeping in the associated fields of archaeology\/anthropology. Is it once you publish? Once you've done fieldwork? Once you've completed your undergraduate degree? What if you are an amateur or self-taught? Position titles like \"achaeologist\" and \"anthropologist\" carry a lot of weight (or baggage?), so the gate-keeping is understandable, but there's no hard or fast rule. My background is archaeology and I've been lucky enough to work across the spectrum, and my consideration of when someone is an archaeologist\/anthropologist has been different each time. In cultural heritage management, I'd say it's post-degree and once you are supervising field work (i.e. not a trainee). When I was in academia, it was when you were at a post-graduate level. Now I'm in government (heritage related) and we have our own legislative definition (which we term \"qualified archaelogist\/anthropologist\") which involves both degree completion AND experience in the field. I like the latter definition...I think you need to have finished your degree and have some field experience before you can consider yourself an archy\/anthro - otherwise all you know is theory, with no practical application. That's key. Interestingly, if I went on to do other work, completely unrelated, I'd still consider myself to be an archaeologist...I'd just happen to be doing something else. To me it's not just a job title, but goes to describing myself in other ways too I guess. ​ ​","human_ref_B":"I would say you can refer to yourself as an anthropologist after being published.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20988.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"aiub06","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"When do you become an anthropologist? Is it during your studies? Is it after you get your degree? When?","c_root_id_A":"eer5365","c_root_id_B":"eeqnb30","created_at_utc_A":1548228920,"created_at_utc_B":1548210980,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Good, but tough question. There's quite a bit of arbitrary gate-keeping in the associated fields of archaeology\/anthropology. Is it once you publish? Once you've done fieldwork? Once you've completed your undergraduate degree? What if you are an amateur or self-taught? Position titles like \"achaeologist\" and \"anthropologist\" carry a lot of weight (or baggage?), so the gate-keeping is understandable, but there's no hard or fast rule. My background is archaeology and I've been lucky enough to work across the spectrum, and my consideration of when someone is an archaeologist\/anthropologist has been different each time. In cultural heritage management, I'd say it's post-degree and once you are supervising field work (i.e. not a trainee). When I was in academia, it was when you were at a post-graduate level. Now I'm in government (heritage related) and we have our own legislative definition (which we term \"qualified archaelogist\/anthropologist\") which involves both degree completion AND experience in the field. I like the latter definition...I think you need to have finished your degree and have some field experience before you can consider yourself an archy\/anthro - otherwise all you know is theory, with no practical application. That's key. Interestingly, if I went on to do other work, completely unrelated, I'd still consider myself to be an archaeologist...I'd just happen to be doing something else. To me it's not just a job title, but goes to describing myself in other ways too I guess. ​ ​","human_ref_B":"All opinion, but my money is on: When you publish if you stay in academia or if you go into a public\/private section job that carries a similar title (eg, we'd probably all call someone working CRM an archaeologist or if you went into some sort of corporate\/NGO cultural relations position...you could probably go by \"anthropologist?\")","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17940.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"6hum7r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What kinds of writing are involved in being an anthropologist? For an intro technical writing class at my university, I need to find ten different kinds of writing in the field of anthropology, specifically medical anthropology. This can include things like specific types of forms an anthropologist fills out on a regular basis, published studies, etc. What kinds of writing can an anthropologist expect to do in their job? So far I have: 1. memos\/emails 2. ethnographies 3. published research 4. published critical essays about theory 5. survey forms and questions 6. advertisements for participation in studies 7. grant proposals 8. I guess you would call these policy proposals? Writing policies for governments based on research Any other kinds of writing? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"dj1iel7","c_root_id_B":"dj1ssej","created_at_utc_A":1497735398,"created_at_utc_B":1497750040,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"8 are usually called white papers, but there may be some specific term used in medical anthropology. You could also split publications into more categories: Original research\/experiment, review article, book review, meta-analysis, comment, letter to the editor. I can't give anything specific to medical anthropology though.","human_ref_B":"Here are some more: book reviews, peer review comments (i.e. your unpublished responses when a journal asks you to write comments on someone else's submission), recommendation letters, panel\/presentation proposals for conferences, a call for papers for a local conference, review articles (i.e. for something like the Annual Review of Anthropology, an article that surveys the state of some topic rather than presenting original research), a thesis\/dissertation proposal, a book proposal, a CV, etc., etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14642.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"62uazd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there any biological\/mental basis in humans for the creation of borders? Is there any evidence of any underlying mental structures that makes us so willing to produce borders between territories, populations, or even nations?","c_root_id_A":"dfpmcqg","c_root_id_B":"dfpuvat","created_at_utc_A":1491092749,"created_at_utc_B":1491106831,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"What you are asking about is territory, and specifically, group territory. The best evidence that I can think of for group territory being deeply embedded in our mammalian heritage is that territorial behavior exists not only in the majority of non-human primates, but also in many other \"social\" mammals such as wolves and lions. As for what kind of selective pressures may have led to the evolution of these behaviors, I have to think that it was a combination of resource protection and protection of the young, though no doubt there are other factors as well.","human_ref_B":"Many animals have claimed territories where they roam and live, and will challenge other members of their species who stray into their territories. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Territory_(animal) and https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dear_enemy_effect There is a biological basis for the concept of borders, to what extent they're a sociological phenomenon vs a biological one is entirely beyond me, but they do exist in non-human animals to an extent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14082.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"itfjjr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How useful is Biology (A level) for Archaeology and Anthropology? Hi, I'm a 16 year old from the UK and I just started my lower sixth term, having picked Maths, History, Ancient Greek and Biology as my A levels (Idk what this is the equivalent of in the USA, but in the UK its like the last 2 years before Uni). I have also done a Latin GCSE, which I still remember most of. My issue last year was picking between Latin and Biology, but since I thought I wouldn't be going too heavy on classics, I chose my favourite one out of Greek and Latin. The reason I was considering Bio in the first place is because I was (and still am) interested in the evolutionary and more biological side of anthropology rather than the modern social-science-type stuff. I also rly like Biology and find it interesting anyway. Back then I didn't think much of dropping Latin, but having now realised that I spent so long learning a language, only to just get a grade and forget it, I feel really bad about it. Not only sentimentally, but doing Latin also has its advantages, as I'm guessing in Archaeology some of the most abundant sources are Roman or Latin. Anyway I've talked to teachers about switching my subjects now, which would still be possible at this stage. My biology teacher said that most of the course won't really help with evolutionary anthropology, but there are a few important key biological concepts that are good to have an understanding of, and some parts of the course do cover ecology and evolution etc. My options now are to either carry on with Biology (and I would try to keep my Latin language going on the side - my classics teachers said they could get me private lessons to help me out) OR I could completely switch bio for Latin and if I needed to know some evolutionary anthropology, I could just read up on it. So my question would be: How useful is biology in not just anthropology, but also archaeology? (When it comes to dating and stuff, I think its mostly chemistry involved, but I've also heard that there's a bit of Bio) Any general advice regarding my situation would also be greatly appreciated :) (I know I have quite a workload with 4 A-levels, but I am quite determined, and I could at least try to fit some extra stuff in. Also dropping Maths, History or Greek is not happening, sorry)","c_root_id_A":"g5e6p8r","c_root_id_B":"g5el20o","created_at_utc_A":1600199224,"created_at_utc_B":1600205094,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Pick whichever one you like and feel comfortable with. Neither will be really useful moving forward as you will learn the science you need to know for anthropology at the university level.","human_ref_B":"Hey, I'm a biological anthropologist and bioarchaeologist! Did my MPhil in the UK and have a UK supervisor for the PhD so I can provide some UK-specific context. It will be *very* helpful to have a biology background. Archaeology in particular is having a big transformative moment in which molecular techniques (stable isotopes, ancient DNA, etc) are being employed and having a STEM background is really valued. You'll also have the option to do research in things like palaeoparasitology, palaeopathologies, and evolution using skeletons (physical anthropology\/osteology), all of which require a strong understanding of biology. You'll be able to expand your knowledge of evolutionary theory during your coursework in the future, don't worry that what you're learning now isn't 100% the same as training in evolution. Also, when I was applying for postgrad programs all the archaeology and bioanth programs listed \"biology\" as an acceptable training background :) If you're into biology there will be *a lot* of opportunities in anthropology and archaeology. As for switching to Latin, that really depends on what you want out of archaeology. Archaeology is a lot bigger than just the Roman era (I work on medieval fisheries and human-environment coevolution using ancient DNA). People are doing archaeology all around the world at all sorts of timescales and learning Latin is not a sure bet of that being actually useful for archaeology. I would say sticking with bio is a better option in that it gives you flexibility to move around later. If you already have maths, history, and greek having biology in there as well will give you a really nice framework to develop out from :) Like the others have said, you'll get your real training at the university level so I wouldn't worry too much about it now, though, either way. Just wanted to give you an idea of what might be out there! Hopefully this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5870.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"itfjjr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How useful is Biology (A level) for Archaeology and Anthropology? Hi, I'm a 16 year old from the UK and I just started my lower sixth term, having picked Maths, History, Ancient Greek and Biology as my A levels (Idk what this is the equivalent of in the USA, but in the UK its like the last 2 years before Uni). I have also done a Latin GCSE, which I still remember most of. My issue last year was picking between Latin and Biology, but since I thought I wouldn't be going too heavy on classics, I chose my favourite one out of Greek and Latin. The reason I was considering Bio in the first place is because I was (and still am) interested in the evolutionary and more biological side of anthropology rather than the modern social-science-type stuff. I also rly like Biology and find it interesting anyway. Back then I didn't think much of dropping Latin, but having now realised that I spent so long learning a language, only to just get a grade and forget it, I feel really bad about it. Not only sentimentally, but doing Latin also has its advantages, as I'm guessing in Archaeology some of the most abundant sources are Roman or Latin. Anyway I've talked to teachers about switching my subjects now, which would still be possible at this stage. My biology teacher said that most of the course won't really help with evolutionary anthropology, but there are a few important key biological concepts that are good to have an understanding of, and some parts of the course do cover ecology and evolution etc. My options now are to either carry on with Biology (and I would try to keep my Latin language going on the side - my classics teachers said they could get me private lessons to help me out) OR I could completely switch bio for Latin and if I needed to know some evolutionary anthropology, I could just read up on it. So my question would be: How useful is biology in not just anthropology, but also archaeology? (When it comes to dating and stuff, I think its mostly chemistry involved, but I've also heard that there's a bit of Bio) Any general advice regarding my situation would also be greatly appreciated :) (I know I have quite a workload with 4 A-levels, but I am quite determined, and I could at least try to fit some extra stuff in. Also dropping Maths, History or Greek is not happening, sorry)","c_root_id_A":"g5el20o","c_root_id_B":"g5e4yfg","created_at_utc_A":1600205094,"created_at_utc_B":1600198554,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hey, I'm a biological anthropologist and bioarchaeologist! Did my MPhil in the UK and have a UK supervisor for the PhD so I can provide some UK-specific context. It will be *very* helpful to have a biology background. Archaeology in particular is having a big transformative moment in which molecular techniques (stable isotopes, ancient DNA, etc) are being employed and having a STEM background is really valued. You'll also have the option to do research in things like palaeoparasitology, palaeopathologies, and evolution using skeletons (physical anthropology\/osteology), all of which require a strong understanding of biology. You'll be able to expand your knowledge of evolutionary theory during your coursework in the future, don't worry that what you're learning now isn't 100% the same as training in evolution. Also, when I was applying for postgrad programs all the archaeology and bioanth programs listed \"biology\" as an acceptable training background :) If you're into biology there will be *a lot* of opportunities in anthropology and archaeology. As for switching to Latin, that really depends on what you want out of archaeology. Archaeology is a lot bigger than just the Roman era (I work on medieval fisheries and human-environment coevolution using ancient DNA). People are doing archaeology all around the world at all sorts of timescales and learning Latin is not a sure bet of that being actually useful for archaeology. I would say sticking with bio is a better option in that it gives you flexibility to move around later. If you already have maths, history, and greek having biology in there as well will give you a really nice framework to develop out from :) Like the others have said, you'll get your real training at the university level so I wouldn't worry too much about it now, though, either way. Just wanted to give you an idea of what might be out there! Hopefully this helps!","human_ref_B":"Archaeology courses usually accept pretty much any combination of subjects and teach you the science stuff from the bottom up so nothing is strictly-speaking \\*necessary\\*, but unless you specialise in Roman archaeology I doubt you'll make any use of Latin. Plus, biology has the advantage of adding diversity to your lineup - you'll have an A Level in a science subject in addition to Maths, History, and Greek, instead of another classical language. Just my 2 cents anyway","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6540.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"itfjjr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"How useful is Biology (A level) for Archaeology and Anthropology? Hi, I'm a 16 year old from the UK and I just started my lower sixth term, having picked Maths, History, Ancient Greek and Biology as my A levels (Idk what this is the equivalent of in the USA, but in the UK its like the last 2 years before Uni). I have also done a Latin GCSE, which I still remember most of. My issue last year was picking between Latin and Biology, but since I thought I wouldn't be going too heavy on classics, I chose my favourite one out of Greek and Latin. The reason I was considering Bio in the first place is because I was (and still am) interested in the evolutionary and more biological side of anthropology rather than the modern social-science-type stuff. I also rly like Biology and find it interesting anyway. Back then I didn't think much of dropping Latin, but having now realised that I spent so long learning a language, only to just get a grade and forget it, I feel really bad about it. Not only sentimentally, but doing Latin also has its advantages, as I'm guessing in Archaeology some of the most abundant sources are Roman or Latin. Anyway I've talked to teachers about switching my subjects now, which would still be possible at this stage. My biology teacher said that most of the course won't really help with evolutionary anthropology, but there are a few important key biological concepts that are good to have an understanding of, and some parts of the course do cover ecology and evolution etc. My options now are to either carry on with Biology (and I would try to keep my Latin language going on the side - my classics teachers said they could get me private lessons to help me out) OR I could completely switch bio for Latin and if I needed to know some evolutionary anthropology, I could just read up on it. So my question would be: How useful is biology in not just anthropology, but also archaeology? (When it comes to dating and stuff, I think its mostly chemistry involved, but I've also heard that there's a bit of Bio) Any general advice regarding my situation would also be greatly appreciated :) (I know I have quite a workload with 4 A-levels, but I am quite determined, and I could at least try to fit some extra stuff in. Also dropping Maths, History or Greek is not happening, sorry)","c_root_id_A":"g5e4yfg","c_root_id_B":"g5e6p8r","created_at_utc_A":1600198554,"created_at_utc_B":1600199224,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology courses usually accept pretty much any combination of subjects and teach you the science stuff from the bottom up so nothing is strictly-speaking \\*necessary\\*, but unless you specialise in Roman archaeology I doubt you'll make any use of Latin. Plus, biology has the advantage of adding diversity to your lineup - you'll have an A Level in a science subject in addition to Maths, History, and Greek, instead of another classical language. Just my 2 cents anyway","human_ref_B":"Pick whichever one you like and feel comfortable with. Neither will be really useful moving forward as you will learn the science you need to know for anthropology at the university level.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":670.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"53biui","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How come there are no first world nations in Africa....despite that continents abundance of natural resources there?","c_root_id_A":"d7ru6gq","c_root_id_B":"d7rxf82","created_at_utc_A":1474212585,"created_at_utc_B":1474217439,"score_A":5,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Another theory on this topic besides world systems theory is the idea laid out in Jared Diamond's \"Guns, Germs and Steel\". This is also a controversial theory but it also has some supporters. The gist of his argument is that the majority of the world's early domesticated plants and animals come from Eurasia. Eurasian domesticated crops moved better in an East to west direction while they stayed on the same latitude (more likely to have a similar climate). So domestication and advanced agriculture did not return to Africa as readily as it came to grow on the Eurasian continent. This is why southeast Asia, Europe and eventually North America are home to most first world nations. This agricultural advantage started early and was not matched by the other continents. Any level of complexity that was reached by Native Americans, Africans or the island nations in the Indian and south Pacific oceans was also reverted in the age of colonialism. This reversion is a function of imperial actions but it was also the result of the spread of disease (an often unintended part of colonialism by europeans).","human_ref_B":"For my money, Acemoglu and Robinson's, \"Why Nations Fail; The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty,\" is by far the most convincing explanation of those generally put forward. In a nutshell their argument is that it's all about institutions in the economic sense, and what proportion of a society are actual stakeholders in said institutions. In very broad terms this roughly translates into developed countries having populations that have a great stake in upholding institutions such as the rule of law, the sanctity of contracts, property rights, consumer protections, human rights and so on, whereas in less developed countries these institutions only apply to those at the top so that those at the bottom have no incentive to participate in wider formal economy and are often taken advantage of. It's actually much more complicated than that, so I suggest reading the book.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4854.0,"score_ratio":6.4} {"post_id":"1uths9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Is there a relationship between monotheism and monocropping? Is agriculture usually associated with monotheistic religions? I've seen it claimed a few places that there is a connection between monotheism and agriculture (that is societies who's subsistence is largely dependant on a single crop) and polytheistic religions tend to be associated with cultures that garden (have multiple crops and food sources) or forage. The argument basically goes that religion shifts from multiple interacting spirits in the environment to the single sky god who controls the weather and on whom the harvest depends. This contrasts with foragers who don't depend on a single crop but have multiple food sources that appear and disappear over the course of the seasons. Is this generally true? What are the exceptions? Where could I find further reading on the subject. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"celk7z7","c_root_id_B":"celjdud","created_at_utc_A":1389301022,"created_at_utc_B":1389299312,"score_A":23,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"So *that's* where that idea comes from. I've heard it pop up before but with absolutely no evidence and certainly as an anthropologist I can list plenty of polytheistic societies with agriculture off the top of my head. For example: * Hindus (India & Bali - though forms of Hinduism can be monotheistic, polytheistic, and monistic certainly the earliest writings point to polytheism) * Kalash peoples (live mostly in Pakistan) * Serer Peoples (Senegal) * Ancient Greece * Ancient Egypt * Ancient Rome * Everything in the Indus Valley where agriculture actually originated (or at least one of the places it did) * Ancient Aztecs * Ancient Mayans * Ancient Incas * OK let's save some time and just say the vast majority of the ancient world agricultural and otherwise And then you have all of the societies that might believe in one creator god but have beliefs about ancestors, spirits, and other beings. So are such arguments counting these groups? Monotheism & Polytheism is way too simplistic a divide if you actually study religion. But in short, let's take one example: Ancient Egypt. They were heavily agricultural relying primarily on barley (but no society is completely reliant on just one crop - you need other foods to survive!) And they were polytheistic & powerful state society for thousands of years. Certainly religions reflect the situations of the people who practice them. But I think it is a basic error to assume means of subsistence are the only things going on in society that need religious explanations & narratives. As well as assuming that agriculture is ever just one crop and that there is only one concern regarding agriculture. After all, for agriculture to succeed you need a lot of things to go right and many societies do have religious beings that embody things like sunlight, rain, the crops themselves, labor, the products the crops are turned into, etc. I don't think there is anything inherent in agriculture that pushes a shift to monotheism. I also disagree with his claims that monotheism developed in deserts because deserts teach just one thing about the world. Why then were desert societies in the Middle East polytheistic prior to Abrahamic traditions missionizing & conquering? I also think he picks and chooses selectively while ignoring a lot of other data. His arguments about who is monotheistic, for example, seem to be based on a strange way of categorizing religions - I wouldn't really call the !Kung religion monotheistic. Grammar edit","human_ref_B":"I think that statement is very unverifiable and quite possibly false. Lets take Neolithic religion of southern Scandinavia: Most Archaeologists agree that this place in time and space practiced some form of Ancestor Cult or Death Cult if you will. This is based on digs done on the thousands of Megaliths in the area in addition to Deposits in bogs, so-called Wood Henges and a few big religious centres in the area which've been identified (I'm thinking of Sarup I and II). Hence, we have a lot of great theories regarding social structure, the Neolithic perception of the their ancestors etc. We just have no way of knowing to which extent they believed in non-ancestral spirits or Gods. I, personally, buy more into the idea of Neolithic spirits than actual god(s) but that would be completely unverifiable. The same can be said for the Southern Scandinavian Bronze Age: We have art, ornaments, graves, Bog deposits and so on which indicate their metaphysical beliefs but its almost impossible to know wether or not these beliefs manifested themselves in specific God(s). I honestly dont think Biologists, Neurologists or the like have the credibility or academic authority to say anything of substance regarding prehistoric or early historic religion. For this we need Ethnography and Archaeology. EDIT: We know of quite a few human sacrifices during the Southern Scandinavian Neolithic. This could, i guess, be an offering to something non-ancestral but as you can see this is complete speculation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1710.0,"score_ratio":2.875} {"post_id":"21uwg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"When in human evolution did control of urination and defecation begin and why?","c_root_id_A":"cggus5s","c_root_id_B":"cgguu3y","created_at_utc_A":1396306921,"created_at_utc_B":1396307042,"score_A":13,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Could you clarify? It's assumed that \"we\" were able to \"control\" urination and defecation well before we became \"human\". Or are you referring to control for specifically social reasons?","human_ref_B":"I almost all animals can control it. Its not a human thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":121.0,"score_ratio":1.9230769231} {"post_id":"21uwg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"When in human evolution did control of urination and defecation begin and why?","c_root_id_A":"cggus5s","c_root_id_B":"cgha2az","created_at_utc_A":1396306921,"created_at_utc_B":1396357105,"score_A":13,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Could you clarify? It's assumed that \"we\" were able to \"control\" urination and defecation well before we became \"human\". Or are you referring to control for specifically social reasons?","human_ref_B":"I once did a stint of Chimpanzee fieldwork in Uganda. I was sitting underneath a tree, notebook in hand, watching a large adult male chimp (lets call him Rex) eating figs in a nearby tree. Rex caught sight of me and swung through the canopy until he was sitting on a branch directly above my head. Just at that moment I heard raindrops falling on my notebook. \"Drat!\" I thought, \"another rainstorm\". The shower intensified and rain dripped down my neck. Or so I thought. I noticed, with dawning horror, that the droplets were yellow. My brain made the calculations. This.... is..... not..... rain!!! I jumped out of the way, and just in time too. No sooner had I escaped the deluge when a large steaming chunk of chimpanzee poo landed exactly where my head had been. Rex screeched and waved his arms in glee. My point is that humans are certainly not the only animals with precise control of these particular bodily functions. I applaud you, however, for asking a brain-bending metaphysical question about the nature of consciousness with reference to our assorted excreta.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":50184.0,"score_ratio":1.8461538462} {"post_id":"1vkj5y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why don't people in developed countries learn to carry loads on their heads the way that they do in developing countries? When I travel outside of my home country, I see people, especially women, carrying loads on their heads. This seems to be prevalent in the tropics, but not in northern countries. Why is that? It looks like such a practical skill.","c_root_id_A":"cet7t9y","c_root_id_B":"cet9npv","created_at_utc_A":1390110008,"created_at_utc_B":1390116386,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I remembered this article from many years ago about slave skeletons unearthed in New York city. http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1997-02-10\/news\/1997041013_1_african-burial-ground-howard-university-slavery","human_ref_B":"Just as a reference I am a worker who often balances extremely heavy boxes on my head. Often times it is the only way I can move things of such weight up and down ladders(which I have to do a dozen or so once or twice a season). Not only is it much easier, but it also has not caused the same type of pain I feel in my knees\/lower legs that other methods have caused. Remember this is the opinion of some one in the field, not a professional. If you have serious concerns about the medical implications about this practice, talk to your personal doctor; not a anthropologist. The difference between the way we carry things is likely cultural. For example most workers who come from a background in the food industry tell new workers to lift with their knees, not their back. As some one from many industries I find that most lifting methods damage your body at roughly equal speed, with the exception of balancing things on my head; which has not exasperated any apparent issues that I did not already have. Again if you have concerns or interest in following this line of thinking I recommend talking to a doctor, not a anthropologist. PS: If your concerned about pain in your bones while aging I find the most important factor to be the ground your working on. After years of lifting with my knees at one location I felt minimal issues in my knees. One year in a tiled location has caused what seems like permanent damage, sensitivity to temperature and a much more genuine concern about my health then when I was younger. PPS: I am not a doctor, always talk to your doctor about personal problems, even if it's expensive. Unless your will to trade decades of pain for a at maximum a few hundred dollars.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6378.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1vkj5y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Why don't people in developed countries learn to carry loads on their heads the way that they do in developing countries? When I travel outside of my home country, I see people, especially women, carrying loads on their heads. This seems to be prevalent in the tropics, but not in northern countries. Why is that? It looks like such a practical skill.","c_root_id_A":"cethl4x","c_root_id_B":"cet7t9y","created_at_utc_A":1390153000,"created_at_utc_B":1390110008,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Okay, I have never read any other anthropological literature on this, but it did come up fairly regularly in my own fieldwork. For reference I was researching a group of American teenagers on a short-term missions trip in East Africa, and they had to fetch all their own water from either the river (for washing and construction, they were mixing cement) or the well (for cooking\/drinking). The river was about a 5 minute walk there and 10 back; the well 15 minutes there and 30 back, with a small creek to cross via stepping stones on the way. Usually there was one trip to the well per day and 1-5 to the river. They found it preeettty tough. Almost all of them began by trying to carry the bucket by the handle but as you can imagine this is quite difficult. Now. I know why African women carry water on their heads (and there probably are *many* sources out there on the gendered division of domestic labour, I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment though). It's just easier in almost every way. I'd kind of gotten the hang of it myself on a previous trip to Africa, so I suggested it to the kids, and a few of them eventually did implement it, but not all of them. A few reasons why it didn't work as well for this group of people: * They didn't have the neck strength - so pretty soon their neck muscles get tired. * They didn't have the little donuts that people use to make a flat surface. Pretty soon some of them started improvising - they'd fold up up sweaters or trousers, which helped for some cushioning, but then it didn't make a flat surface; so then some of them realised how to roll it into a donut shape. A couple devised particular folding strategies, tucking sleeves into pockets and things like that to make a donut that stayed together. But it still wasn't nearly as effective as the rubber thing African women use which is more solid. One of the neighbours would always laugh when she saw these white kids going by with clothes draped all over their heads. * They didn't have the sense of balance and movement required to keep their heads still while the rest of their body is moving around. * Many of them didn't have the strength needed to get the bucket on top of their head in the first place. You actually need to get it higher than the top of your head, since you need to clear your donut or else you'll knock it off and have to reposition and start over. Their buckets were tall enough that most of them needed to change hand position (from the top of the bucket to the bottom) halfway through the hoist. It kind of is like a clean and jerk movement, the ones who were most successful held the bucket near the top, balanced it on their chest, moved one hand lower, and got it on top of their head that way. It's still difficult though and most of them needed help. There was one time I just couldn't get it myself, I was the last one having helped all the kids to put theirs on, and I had to call a local six year old to come over to help me hold the donut still, which she barely managed to do since she was giggling so hard. * They were using open-topped buckets which allows a lot more sloshing and makes it much harder to balance. For African women, the favoured receptacle was a jerry can with a lid. If you fill it completely up and close it, there's absolutely no sloshing, so balancing is much easier, and of course there's no spillage. As to *why* they didn't have the necessary arm\/neck strength, sense of balance, and materials - they never needed to develop them. And if you want numbers here's the breakdown. On one of the later water runs I took a pretty detailed description. So of 25 teenagers (15 girls, 10 boys), 12 were carrying their buckets on their heads, 9 girls and 3 boys. The ones who carried it on their heads tended to be faster. The arrival order back where we were staying was like this: * female (head) * male * female (head) * male (head) * female (head) * male * female (head) * female (head) * male (head) * male (Head) * female * male (this was the most athletic guy of the group) * female * female (head) * male * female (head) * female * female (this and the previous girl were probably the most athletic of the group) * male * female * female (head) * male * female (head) * female As for why only half of them adopted it when it was pretty clear it was easier - that I don't know. It might have to do with the audience - I mentioned this twice above, but local people absolutely did find this a hilarious spectacle and maybe kids felt a bit self-conscious carrying buckets on their heads. I also don't have an idea on the gendered breakdown of carrying things on one's head for local people. I never saw an African man carrying water for sure though. This hasn't totally answered your question but I hope it helps a bit!","human_ref_B":"I remembered this article from many years ago about slave skeletons unearthed in New York city. http:\/\/articles.baltimoresun.com\/1997-02-10\/news\/1997041013_1_african-burial-ground-howard-university-slavery","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42992.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cttgk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How credible is Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jeth\u00e1 in the anthropology community? Are there any glaring flaws to their arguments?","c_root_id_A":"c9kci6x","c_root_id_B":"c9k9o7j","created_at_utc_A":1366650455,"created_at_utc_B":1366642233,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Using Twitter magic, I sent the link to this thread to Dr. Ryan and he responded with the following: >Mixed, like everyone else. I responded to critics in a podcast episode. It's being taught in many universities. https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisRyanPhD\/status\/326381013410385922 Edit: He also wanted to express the following. >Neither am I, which is why some of them are so angry (IMHO). Also, \"Lynn Saxon\" isn't a real person. Fake name. (\"Neither am I\" was him admitting that he is not an academic. \"Lynn Saxon\" is the author of \"Sex at Dusk\", a critique of Sex at Dawn.) https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisRyanPhD\/status\/326387541328666625","human_ref_B":"I thought it was ok, but it seemed to have a biased opinion that bonding is a bad thing and that were naturally promiscuous. It seems very one sided and largely speculative. \"The Sex Contract,\" by Helen Fischer is still one of my favorite books on sexuality. She talks about bonding and promiscuity and the reasons behind it by looking at other primate species and their social structure. She discuses the varieties of relationship types, why they form and are beneficial and also what their weak points are. I found the book more even grounded and without as much of a \"social agenda\". I also love the idea of the beta male being ideal for female pair bonding over the alpha, but that the alpha has its place. Fischer I think hit the nail on the head when she talks about it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8222.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"1cttgk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How credible is Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jeth\u00e1 in the anthropology community? Are there any glaring flaws to their arguments?","c_root_id_A":"c9kav39","c_root_id_B":"c9kci6x","created_at_utc_A":1366645821,"created_at_utc_B":1366650455,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"*Sex at Dawn* has received a great deal of criticism and many in anthropology and psychology view it in a negative light, and it has not gained much traction as a credible account among academics. Perhaps the most glaring criticism is that the authors, in arguing against overly monogamous views of foraging societies, have argued too strongly the idea of sexuality as a sort of equally shared commodity. Ultimately, this view is very limiting to the known diversity of different cultures, and runs contrary to the plethora of evidence we have about the importance of kinship in many societies (whether foraging, horticultural, pastoral, or agricultural). *Sex at Dusk*, written by Lynn Saxon, has since been published as a critique and attempts to provide nuance and corrections, and it has received positive academic reviews. -\"The Myth of Promiscuity,\" Book review of *Sex at Dusk* by anthropologist Ryan Esllworth in the journal *Evolutionary Psychology* -*Sex at Dusk* on Amazon (EDIT: Formatting)","human_ref_B":"Using Twitter magic, I sent the link to this thread to Dr. Ryan and he responded with the following: >Mixed, like everyone else. I responded to critics in a podcast episode. It's being taught in many universities. https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisRyanPhD\/status\/326381013410385922 Edit: He also wanted to express the following. >Neither am I, which is why some of them are so angry (IMHO). Also, \"Lynn Saxon\" isn't a real person. Fake name. (\"Neither am I\" was him admitting that he is not an academic. \"Lynn Saxon\" is the author of \"Sex at Dusk\", a critique of Sex at Dawn.) https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisRyanPhD\/status\/326387541328666625","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4634.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"b8boje","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How much do we know about the arrowhead \u201cIndustry\u201d? There are endless endless quantities of Native American arrowheads to be found in certain areas of the United States. I was wondering if we can tell from what we know if there was any sort of \u201cindustry\u201d for the manufacture of arrowheads with specialized crafters and vendors or if everyone was responsible for their own.","c_root_id_A":"ejxi1x8","c_root_id_B":"ejx1duy","created_at_utc_A":1554183836,"created_at_utc_B":1554168098,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sites like Cahokia almost definitely had specialized craftsmen, though as someone else said, it's likely that most could do it with some level of skill.","human_ref_B":"I would imagine that knapping your own chert into tools like drills, blades, choppers, and projectile points was an invaluable skill and that most people could do it to some extent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15738.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db8ulbq","c_root_id_B":"db841ij","created_at_utc_A":1481840285,"created_at_utc_B":1481805576,"score_A":10,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"It's rather my speculation but I think it sounds like something Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss would write about. L\u00e9vi-Strauss was a introducer of structuralism in anthropology. He believed myths, fairy tales and legends are not so much about their actual explicit content but rather about unconscious structures of human mind hidden beneath. The structures in his view were constructed from systems of binary oppostitions (up-down, living-dead, old-young etc.). In a nutshell, L\u00e9vi-Strauss thinks myths could act as a sort of simulation where you can let interact these oppositions and solve dilemmas and conflicts human mind comes into. A recurring motif in a lot of myths is a \"a mediator\" or \"a trickster\", something that defies the binary categories , something between that can bring the oppositions closer, such as fog (not a liquid nor gas, not transparent nor opaque) or scavengers (not herbivores nor predators) etc. Sunshower also looks like such mediator because it's both rain and sunshine, it's cold from rain and it's warm from sun rays... This would connect it to the \"trickster animals\" menitoned in the wiki article. I can recommend you read something about L\u00e9vi-Strauss' structuralism but I warn you it's a bit speculative approach in anthropology. Zden\u011bk Salzmann wrote imho a comprehensive summary in his Language, Culture, and Society.","human_ref_B":"Either this is the biggest coincidence on earth, or you've just found a naming tendency that started millennia ago before humans spread all over the place, so the theme of wedding\/marriage got passed down, generation to generation for a ridiculously long time and into new cultures as they developed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34709.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db7zfjh","c_root_id_B":"db8ulbq","created_at_utc_A":1481791444,"created_at_utc_B":1481840285,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Something to do with June weather?","human_ref_B":"It's rather my speculation but I think it sounds like something Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss would write about. L\u00e9vi-Strauss was a introducer of structuralism in anthropology. He believed myths, fairy tales and legends are not so much about their actual explicit content but rather about unconscious structures of human mind hidden beneath. The structures in his view were constructed from systems of binary oppostitions (up-down, living-dead, old-young etc.). In a nutshell, L\u00e9vi-Strauss thinks myths could act as a sort of simulation where you can let interact these oppositions and solve dilemmas and conflicts human mind comes into. A recurring motif in a lot of myths is a \"a mediator\" or \"a trickster\", something that defies the binary categories , something between that can bring the oppositions closer, such as fog (not a liquid nor gas, not transparent nor opaque) or scavengers (not herbivores nor predators) etc. Sunshower also looks like such mediator because it's both rain and sunshine, it's cold from rain and it's warm from sun rays... This would connect it to the \"trickster animals\" menitoned in the wiki article. I can recommend you read something about L\u00e9vi-Strauss' structuralism but I warn you it's a bit speculative approach in anthropology. Zden\u011bk Salzmann wrote imho a comprehensive summary in his Language, Culture, and Society.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":48841.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db8ulbq","c_root_id_B":"db8s9mv","created_at_utc_A":1481840285,"created_at_utc_B":1481837423,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's rather my speculation but I think it sounds like something Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss would write about. L\u00e9vi-Strauss was a introducer of structuralism in anthropology. He believed myths, fairy tales and legends are not so much about their actual explicit content but rather about unconscious structures of human mind hidden beneath. The structures in his view were constructed from systems of binary oppostitions (up-down, living-dead, old-young etc.). In a nutshell, L\u00e9vi-Strauss thinks myths could act as a sort of simulation where you can let interact these oppositions and solve dilemmas and conflicts human mind comes into. A recurring motif in a lot of myths is a \"a mediator\" or \"a trickster\", something that defies the binary categories , something between that can bring the oppositions closer, such as fog (not a liquid nor gas, not transparent nor opaque) or scavengers (not herbivores nor predators) etc. Sunshower also looks like such mediator because it's both rain and sunshine, it's cold from rain and it's warm from sun rays... This would connect it to the \"trickster animals\" menitoned in the wiki article. I can recommend you read something about L\u00e9vi-Strauss' structuralism but I warn you it's a bit speculative approach in anthropology. Zden\u011bk Salzmann wrote imho a comprehensive summary in his Language, Culture, and Society.","human_ref_B":"I want to know what is an animal wedding...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2862.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db8ulbq","c_root_id_B":"db83ris","created_at_utc_A":1481840285,"created_at_utc_B":1481804898,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It's rather my speculation but I think it sounds like something Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss would write about. L\u00e9vi-Strauss was a introducer of structuralism in anthropology. He believed myths, fairy tales and legends are not so much about their actual explicit content but rather about unconscious structures of human mind hidden beneath. The structures in his view were constructed from systems of binary oppostitions (up-down, living-dead, old-young etc.). In a nutshell, L\u00e9vi-Strauss thinks myths could act as a sort of simulation where you can let interact these oppositions and solve dilemmas and conflicts human mind comes into. A recurring motif in a lot of myths is a \"a mediator\" or \"a trickster\", something that defies the binary categories , something between that can bring the oppositions closer, such as fog (not a liquid nor gas, not transparent nor opaque) or scavengers (not herbivores nor predators) etc. Sunshower also looks like such mediator because it's both rain and sunshine, it's cold from rain and it's warm from sun rays... This would connect it to the \"trickster animals\" menitoned in the wiki article. I can recommend you read something about L\u00e9vi-Strauss' structuralism but I warn you it's a bit speculative approach in anthropology. Zden\u011bk Salzmann wrote imho a comprehensive summary in his Language, Culture, and Society.","human_ref_B":"Cool question!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35387.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db7zfjh","c_root_id_B":"db841ij","created_at_utc_A":1481791444,"created_at_utc_B":1481805576,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Something to do with June weather?","human_ref_B":"Either this is the biggest coincidence on earth, or you've just found a naming tendency that started millennia ago before humans spread all over the place, so the theme of wedding\/marriage got passed down, generation to generation for a ridiculously long time and into new cultures as they developed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14132.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db841ij","c_root_id_B":"db83ris","created_at_utc_A":1481805576,"created_at_utc_B":1481804898,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Either this is the biggest coincidence on earth, or you've just found a naming tendency that started millennia ago before humans spread all over the place, so the theme of wedding\/marriage got passed down, generation to generation for a ridiculously long time and into new cultures as they developed.","human_ref_B":"Cool question!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":678.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"5ife24","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Why are sunshowers so often associated with weddings? Particularly animal weddings? I was looking at a list of names for sunshowers and I noticed that a lot of cultures seem to associate them with the weddings of animals, despite being geographically very distant.","c_root_id_A":"db83ris","c_root_id_B":"db8s9mv","created_at_utc_A":1481804898,"created_at_utc_B":1481837423,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Cool question!","human_ref_B":"I want to know what is an animal wedding...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32525.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8hypo4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why are many underworld\/death associated deities connected to canines Anubius ,Cerberus, etrc","c_root_id_A":"dynk3l5","c_root_id_B":"dynk0pu","created_at_utc_A":1525803220,"created_at_utc_B":1525803151,"score_A":41,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"There's no grand, unifying reason, but dogs serve a lot of roles in human society, some intentional and some not. Role one: They are guardians, protectors, and companions, and so in some traditions, they continue these roles in the afterlife as well. The Aztec god Xolotl, for example, is a canine deity associated with death. His job is to protect the Sun as it makes a nightly journey through the underworld, and he guided the souls of the dead through the underworld as well. Cereberus guards the Greek underworld to prevent the dead from escaping. Role two: Feral dogs or wild dogs, however, will scavenge the corpses of the dead if they have they chance. The same goes for many members of the canine family, like jackals (Anubis), wolves, and coyotes. In addition, dogs are...well, they are dogs. They eat poop, roll in dead things, and can be reservoirs for disease-causing fleas and ticks. So these negative aspects of dogs also find their way into mythology, with some dog gods\/creatures being harbingers of death, filth, and disease.","human_ref_B":"Anubis has a jackal's head, jackals are carrion-eating scavengers. It is quite reasonable to form a symbolic association between animals that eat the dead and the notion of death itself... This is certainly not limited to canids. There are similar symbolic association of crows or vultures with death, because crows and vultures are also carrion-eating scavengers. It is very common to see what ever animals are the scavengers in a region being associated with death by the people of that region. Sometimes the association forms by accident. There is a lovely little woodboring beetle in North America called the deathwatch beetle that is said to be a harbinger of death, perhaps because in past centuries when people would sit in vigil over an extremely sick individual, there would be long stretches of uninterrupted silence during which the faint and decidedly eerie \"tick-tick-tick-tick\" sound of the male beetles drumming their heads on the wooden beams of the house in order to attract mates could be heard, a sound which would not normally be heard when people were healthy and active and making noise.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":69.0,"score_ratio":5.125} {"post_id":"8mk0c3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"What is the difference between cultural \"Creolization\" and \"M\u00e9tissage\" ? I am currently reading Gilles Havard's \"Coureurs de Bois\" (2016), a historic volume that looks at the history of fur traders in North America and he uses a lot of ethnology in his work here too. One thing that keeps coming up is that there are populations that are the product of a cultural M\u00e9tissage in the West, where they took elements of the French (Or Scottish, or other European) and Indigenous and it was fundamental in creating a new culture. But he also mentions other populations in the West that he refers to as being Creoles, and the product of Creolization, in which \"Indianization\" (as the colonial administrators often called it) was fundamental to their new culture too. So I am confused - what is the difference between a cultural \"M\u00e9tissage\" and cultural \"Creolization\" in Ethnology? (Ie without the question of 'biological' M\u00e9tissage). It is a French work and I am not sure what an English equivilant to the term \"M\u00e9tissage\" is.","c_root_id_A":"dzod0me","c_root_id_B":"dzpbyni","created_at_utc_A":1527456356,"created_at_utc_B":1527506811,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"So it depends entirely on context. Mestijaze has many meanings. To some it can mean a middle class that is practically white. Sometimes these people draw upon indigenous heritages, but often it is a tokenised affair at the expense of indigenous groups of that country. BUT, mestizaje can often realistically be the same thing as creole with the only difference being it's from a Spanish not a French root.","human_ref_B":"In a Canadian context, the difference might be a matter of political distinction. Remember that the M\u00e9tis, apart from being culturally distinct, were also excluded from any political rights and entitlements until the Riel rebellion. Expressing and fighting for M\u00e9tissage was a political movement different from the various forms of Indigenous linguistic creolization that happened in the west that may not have been underpinned by a fight for the same kind of recognition.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":50455.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8mk0c3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"What is the difference between cultural \"Creolization\" and \"M\u00e9tissage\" ? I am currently reading Gilles Havard's \"Coureurs de Bois\" (2016), a historic volume that looks at the history of fur traders in North America and he uses a lot of ethnology in his work here too. One thing that keeps coming up is that there are populations that are the product of a cultural M\u00e9tissage in the West, where they took elements of the French (Or Scottish, or other European) and Indigenous and it was fundamental in creating a new culture. But he also mentions other populations in the West that he refers to as being Creoles, and the product of Creolization, in which \"Indianization\" (as the colonial administrators often called it) was fundamental to their new culture too. So I am confused - what is the difference between a cultural \"M\u00e9tissage\" and cultural \"Creolization\" in Ethnology? (Ie without the question of 'biological' M\u00e9tissage). It is a French work and I am not sure what an English equivilant to the term \"M\u00e9tissage\" is.","c_root_id_A":"dzpbyni","c_root_id_B":"dzogu2i","created_at_utc_A":1527506811,"created_at_utc_B":1527460723,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In a Canadian context, the difference might be a matter of political distinction. Remember that the M\u00e9tis, apart from being culturally distinct, were also excluded from any political rights and entitlements until the Riel rebellion. Expressing and fighting for M\u00e9tissage was a political movement different from the various forms of Indigenous linguistic creolization that happened in the west that may not have been underpinned by a fight for the same kind of recognition.","human_ref_B":"The history of creole languages is so tightly related with colonialism. Within colonialism, hierarchies develop, and language reinforces these distinctions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":46088.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"uizsi5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What is an alternative position to cultural relativism, to curtail epistemic violence? I am currently thinking that cultural relativism can be a form of epistemic violence, as it does not necessarily consider the moral positions and practices of a different culture, but remains indifferent. I am also considering this in terms of Wittgenstein; that different cultures play different 'language-games' and the differences of the games played result in the variety of 'life-forms'. Especially on an institutional level, I think it is more useful\/fair\/just to actually understand the language-game\/life-form of non-Hegemonic others to incorporate their epistemic positions and expand knowledge of the understanding of the world. For example, that climate science should incorporate the perspectives and experiences of the non-scientific communities around the world by becoming attuned to their knowledge systems. What could such a position be, since it is not the mere tolerance of cultural relativism? Are there any theory papers or other publications that discuss alternate positions to deal with epistemic violence?","c_root_id_A":"i7gdd97","c_root_id_B":"i7fws3z","created_at_utc_A":1651774008,"created_at_utc_B":1651767129,"score_A":29,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"Cultural relativism is not moral relativism. It is the *methodological* lens that says we need to describe and interpret a culture's practices on its own terms and not in reference to general rules. It has nothing, absolutely *nothing* to do with how we apply anthropological insights to real world issues. > For example, that climate science should incorporate the perspectives and experiences of the non-scientific communities around the world by becoming attuned to their knowledge systems. What could such a position be, since it is not the mere tolerance of cultural relativism? This is the position held by most every anthropologist I've worked with.","human_ref_B":"Cultural relativism in ethnography is methodological. It\u2019s not a moral theory.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6879.0,"score_ratio":1.2608695652} {"post_id":"25m7jn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is doomsaying\/\"end of the world prophecy\" a consistent theme throughout history? After having some conversations with some religious colleagues (one Christian, one Muslim) both independently expressed the belief that humanity is in the end days. They both believe that the degradation of the moral fabric of society, violence, food security etc plus God will lead to the end of humanity. Obviously humanity will not last *forever* but my colleagues were of the belief that we won't last out this century or their lifetimes. This took me by surprise. Is this a new thing? Or is there evidence of belief in the end of the world through most cultures in history? Have we, as humans, always had a pessimistic view on the future?","c_root_id_A":"chiyghh","c_root_id_B":"chitp2a","created_at_utc_A":1400188469,"created_at_utc_B":1400178932,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Oh man, I wrote a paper on this! http:\/\/ceramicfiver.tumblr.com\/post\/5393518448\/psychologically-why-do-we-believe-in-apocalyptic This was for my 100 level Apocalypse themed English class. While I focus on the psychology of it, I refer to its universality to make my point. Edit: yes I know it's not perfect and needs revising but this was written three years ago so fuck it. For example, I shouldn't have used dictionary.com as a citation, Merriam-Webster would've been better. Prof gave me a B if I recall correctly, and said it could've been an A if I included more sources and fixed it up.","human_ref_B":"Premillenialism is very common in both of those religions and was a core concept in early Christianity in particular. In fact, one of the first crises of the Western Church was a theological coming to terms with the fact that the world had not ended yet. I don't know if it is okay to link to Wikipedia in this thread but that site's article on Premillenialism is an outstanding overview.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9537.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"25m7jn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is doomsaying\/\"end of the world prophecy\" a consistent theme throughout history? After having some conversations with some religious colleagues (one Christian, one Muslim) both independently expressed the belief that humanity is in the end days. They both believe that the degradation of the moral fabric of society, violence, food security etc plus God will lead to the end of humanity. Obviously humanity will not last *forever* but my colleagues were of the belief that we won't last out this century or their lifetimes. This took me by surprise. Is this a new thing? Or is there evidence of belief in the end of the world through most cultures in history? Have we, as humans, always had a pessimistic view on the future?","c_root_id_A":"chitp2a","c_root_id_B":"chj50ki","created_at_utc_A":1400178932,"created_at_utc_B":1400203285,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Premillenialism is very common in both of those religions and was a core concept in early Christianity in particular. In fact, one of the first crises of the Western Church was a theological coming to terms with the fact that the world had not ended yet. I don't know if it is okay to link to Wikipedia in this thread but that site's article on Premillenialism is an outstanding overview.","human_ref_B":"At least since the time the Bible was written. What a lot of people don't seem to understand by reading the text is that Jesus was actually an \"end of days\" rabbi. He believed that the end of the world was coming where God would make himself a literal kingdom on Earth, kill all the pesky Romans and lift the Jews to the rightful place by his side.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24353.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5xkv3c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"At what point did humans become the \"top of the food chain\"?","c_root_id_A":"dej6emp","c_root_id_B":"dej4rwt","created_at_utc_A":1488711035,"created_at_utc_B":1488705418,"score_A":33,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Let's arbitrarily define \"top of the food chain\" as \"the point at which there is no realistic likelihood that a human in a given population will end up as prey.\" In which case, the facile answer would be: when humans started living in large enough groups that large predators were no longer able to effectively include humans among the species that they regularly preyed upon. Culture and society insulate us from the natural world. But as individuals... drop the average Reddit reader into the wilderness where large predators still live, and that person will most likely end up as food. **edit:** I'm going to add that this is not a great question. As \/u\/Ostwind points out, \"top of the food chain\" is neither easily defined, nor does it accurately portray the position of humans in the world's ecosystems.","human_ref_B":"Could you please clarify what you mean by \"top of the food chain\"? How is \"top\" defined? I am not sure there are actually \"top\"s in Food webs. This wiki article about Anthropocentrism might be interesting to you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5617.0,"score_ratio":4.7142857143} {"post_id":"6hmwij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any cultures that do not have a seven day week? I understand days, years and seasons. But months, and especially weeks seem very arbitrary to me. Yet somehow every culture I know has a seven day week. How come?","c_root_id_A":"dizt4ou","c_root_id_B":"dizn4ux","created_at_utc_A":1497636396,"created_at_utc_B":1497629928,"score_A":52,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Though our modern global system mostly uses the seven day week that dates to the Ancient Near East, and while complexities exist in various implementations these traditions often link to fractions of lunar cycles. Notably the Tang dynasty also came to use a seven day week, as did the Indian Golden Age, most likely without the Babylonian influence that informed the previously mentioned cultures. Other methods tied to commerce, religion, \"class equity\", and self-aggrandizement have all tried to split up the indisputable, solar year into chunks of time more suitable to tracking and human routine. Ultimately the word week is associated with the seven day period, but similar temporal increments, with similar societal roles have spring up (and persist) in many cultures. Usually these are 4 to 10 day periods and here's some examples for further research: Very Ancient - Ancient Etruscan and then Roman civilizations used an 8 day week, called the nundium for their market biz. The Welsh and Celts had 9 words for sequential days, but we don't have a firm understanding of their calendars. Ancient China and Egypt had 10 day calendars. Pre Modern - In what is now Burma an 8 day week based Theravada Buddhism dates to this period. The Aztecs temporal cycle featured the Trecena, a 13 day period that revolved 20 times a 'year'. The Korean 'market calendar' used a 5 day week in conjunction with the civil 7 Day week. Several peninsular and island cultures also favored 5 weeks. Modern - The Bah\u00e1'\u00ed faith does observe a seven day week, but also has a 19 day cycle called the V\u00e1\u1e25id. France after the Revolution used a 10 day week and the USSR very briefly used a 5 day week.","human_ref_B":"Months are not arbitrary; they're based on the moon cycle, about 28 days. A week is one phase of the moon (e.g. first quarter, etc). The modern calendar is somewhat deceptive since it doesn't count along with the moon exactly, but that WAS the original intent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6468.0,"score_ratio":1.3684210526} {"post_id":"6hmwij","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Are there any cultures that do not have a seven day week? I understand days, years and seasons. But months, and especially weeks seem very arbitrary to me. Yet somehow every culture I know has a seven day week. How come?","c_root_id_A":"dizqm9c","c_root_id_B":"dizt4ou","created_at_utc_A":1497633698,"created_at_utc_B":1497636396,"score_A":6,"score_B":52,"human_ref_A":"The Mayan calander uses a 260 day count called *Tzolkin*. There was also a 360 solar count called *Haab* and 52 year count called Calander Round.","human_ref_B":"Though our modern global system mostly uses the seven day week that dates to the Ancient Near East, and while complexities exist in various implementations these traditions often link to fractions of lunar cycles. Notably the Tang dynasty also came to use a seven day week, as did the Indian Golden Age, most likely without the Babylonian influence that informed the previously mentioned cultures. Other methods tied to commerce, religion, \"class equity\", and self-aggrandizement have all tried to split up the indisputable, solar year into chunks of time more suitable to tracking and human routine. Ultimately the word week is associated with the seven day period, but similar temporal increments, with similar societal roles have spring up (and persist) in many cultures. Usually these are 4 to 10 day periods and here's some examples for further research: Very Ancient - Ancient Etruscan and then Roman civilizations used an 8 day week, called the nundium for their market biz. The Welsh and Celts had 9 words for sequential days, but we don't have a firm understanding of their calendars. Ancient China and Egypt had 10 day calendars. Pre Modern - In what is now Burma an 8 day week based Theravada Buddhism dates to this period. The Aztecs temporal cycle featured the Trecena, a 13 day period that revolved 20 times a 'year'. The Korean 'market calendar' used a 5 day week in conjunction with the civil 7 Day week. Several peninsular and island cultures also favored 5 weeks. Modern - The Bah\u00e1'\u00ed faith does observe a seven day week, but also has a 19 day cycle called the V\u00e1\u1e25id. France after the Revolution used a 10 day week and the USSR very briefly used a 5 day week.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2698.0,"score_ratio":8.6666666667} {"post_id":"dulbz0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any cultures where men are berated for promiscuity? I asked here before about the study of sexuality in anthropology. I looked at one of the sources linked. It noted that in the societies surveyed, premarital sex is disapproved of for women in 65 percent of societies and for men in 45 percent. The gender bias was noted. But that got me thinking. Are there societies where males are strongly castigated for their promiscuity, even if no pregnancy results? Are there societies where men are \"slut-shamed\"? What terms are used to condemn them?","c_root_id_A":"f77nmiz","c_root_id_B":"f77jmfa","created_at_utc_A":1573466352,"created_at_utc_B":1573459940,"score_A":25,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I once learned in my history class that in the laws of the Malay Kingdom of Perak called the 99 Laws of Perak during the 19th century there was laws regarding this upon men. It went more or less that men who take another mans wife is to be exiled and to pay a penalty of gold. I don't know if this can be interpreted as promiscuous but it must also be known that a punishment was also put upon women who took the husband of another woman.","human_ref_B":"What makes you so sure it doesn\u2019t happen in a our own culture?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6412.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"dulbz0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Are there any cultures where men are berated for promiscuity? I asked here before about the study of sexuality in anthropology. I looked at one of the sources linked. It noted that in the societies surveyed, premarital sex is disapproved of for women in 65 percent of societies and for men in 45 percent. The gender bias was noted. But that got me thinking. Are there societies where males are strongly castigated for their promiscuity, even if no pregnancy results? Are there societies where men are \"slut-shamed\"? What terms are used to condemn them?","c_root_id_A":"f77nmiz","c_root_id_B":"f76zdtk","created_at_utc_A":1573466352,"created_at_utc_B":1573439785,"score_A":25,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I once learned in my history class that in the laws of the Malay Kingdom of Perak called the 99 Laws of Perak during the 19th century there was laws regarding this upon men. It went more or less that men who take another mans wife is to be exiled and to pay a penalty of gold. I don't know if this can be interpreted as promiscuous but it must also be known that a punishment was also put upon women who took the husband of another woman.","human_ref_B":"I'm not sure about the answer here. If you were looking at an academic source, however, they should have their research listed and that would include the nations and cultures examined.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26567.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"44jwg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Why are some cultures more physically affectionate than others? From personal observation, it seems Latin American cultures and Mediterranean cultures tend to be more physically affectionate (e.g. kiss on the cheek to greet, more \"touchy-feely\", hugs, etc.) when compared to Northern Europeans or East Asians. Some common denominators are warmer climates and maybe Latin origins (as in Romance language speakers), the former I find counter-intuitive because I don't want people touching me when I'm hot. Are there any theories regarding this phenomena?","c_root_id_A":"czqwwhx","c_root_id_B":"czqya5i","created_at_utc_A":1454836360,"created_at_utc_B":1454842538,"score_A":3,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I think to really answer this you would need to define more carefully what you mean by physical affection. In Taiwan it is a lot more common to see people holding hands than it is in the United States but it is much less common to hug.","human_ref_B":"That's an interesting question, that would merit its own research. I can give, however, some counter-facts to (purely) environmental explanations: * Even within countries with the same \"culture\", this behaviour changes from region to region, and not always according to the \"climate theory\": for instance, my home state in Brazil is virtually identical to the state of Rio de Janeiro regarding climate (you can check that for yourselves+rio+de+janeiro)), but people in Rio are considerably more physically affectionate than people in Vitoria - they kiss and hug a lot more, to my experience. * Japan, on the other hand, is probably one of the least physically affectionate countries in the world - almost no hugging, kissing or holding hands in public (and even in private, comparing to Brazil) - but its weather is not so different, from, say, Spain. So we can see a glimpse of a falsification going on. * If you think about it, the \"cultures\" we consider the least physically affectionate are also the most formal ones: hugging strangers during introductions is much more of a breach of etiquette in Tokyo or London than it is on Rio or Buenos Aires. In fact, a leading Brazilian intellectual of the 1930s tried to explain the \"Brazilian temperament\" by saying that we inherited the \"informal ethos\" typical of the Iberian Peninsula - and he compares it with the more \"formal ethos\" of the Anglo world. ^1 * Some behaviours that we may think of as universals are not so: romantic kisses, for example, are present only on a minority of cultures. I'd argue that since social behaviour, in this case demonstrations of affection, is inherently mimetic ^2 , people on \"affectionate\" \"cultures\" are more affectionate because they are socialized in that way, and vice-versa. If you like ^3 , you could look at it in memetic terms, and see affectionate behaviour as a meme that was or wasn't transmitted on some \"cultures\" because there was a trade-off between formality and affection, and some ended up \"choosing\" one or the other. Also, just as a closing thought, I have seen a change in the patterns of display of affectionate behaviour in my own life: as an immigrant to the UK, I didn't use to hug my new friends because I thought they would see it as improper. When I said that to them, they said they felt quite OK with hugging, and they just didn't do that with their own friends because, and I quote, \"that is not usually *a thing*\". So there. --------------------- ^1 I am simplifying his arguments for the sake of clarity and brevity - and I do not completely agree with him anyway. If you want to know more about his research, do read the book. ^2 M**i**metic, from mimesis, following Taussig's work. ^3 I don't.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6178.0,"score_ratio":8.3333333333} {"post_id":"81t71q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"During a talk show from Mexico, the the lady that runs the show mentioned young girls being sold and in some cases bartered for horses and cows. How common is this in the present age?","c_root_id_A":"dv59trw","c_root_id_B":"dv5crnf","created_at_utc_A":1520127076,"created_at_utc_B":1520130866,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I think she's the Jerry Springer of latin america. I spend a lot of time in MX and have never heard of this but it's possible.","human_ref_B":"Yes she is talking about human trafficking. It\u2019s happening around the world and even in America.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3790.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"81t71q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"During a talk show from Mexico, the the lady that runs the show mentioned young girls being sold and in some cases bartered for horses and cows. How common is this in the present age?","c_root_id_A":"dv53d6v","c_root_id_B":"dv5crnf","created_at_utc_A":1520119065,"created_at_utc_B":1520130866,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"source? sauce?","human_ref_B":"Yes she is talking about human trafficking. It\u2019s happening around the world and even in America.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11801.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"81t71q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"During a talk show from Mexico, the the lady that runs the show mentioned young girls being sold and in some cases bartered for horses and cows. How common is this in the present age?","c_root_id_A":"dv5crnf","c_root_id_B":"dv597bu","created_at_utc_A":1520130866,"created_at_utc_B":1520126282,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Yes she is talking about human trafficking. It\u2019s happening around the world and even in America.","human_ref_B":"I'd imagine extremely uncommon. I've read a fair bit of articles on Mexico and never bumped into something like this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4584.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"81t71q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"During a talk show from Mexico, the the lady that runs the show mentioned young girls being sold and in some cases bartered for horses and cows. How common is this in the present age?","c_root_id_A":"dv59trw","c_root_id_B":"dv53d6v","created_at_utc_A":1520127076,"created_at_utc_B":1520119065,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think she's the Jerry Springer of latin america. I spend a lot of time in MX and have never heard of this but it's possible.","human_ref_B":"source? sauce?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8011.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"81t71q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"During a talk show from Mexico, the the lady that runs the show mentioned young girls being sold and in some cases bartered for horses and cows. How common is this in the present age?","c_root_id_A":"dv59trw","c_root_id_B":"dv597bu","created_at_utc_A":1520127076,"created_at_utc_B":1520126282,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think she's the Jerry Springer of latin america. I spend a lot of time in MX and have never heard of this but it's possible.","human_ref_B":"I'd imagine extremely uncommon. I've read a fair bit of articles on Mexico and never bumped into something like this.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":794.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ai18l1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How are infants born in early human evolution different than infants born today? Human babies at present are fully dependant on another human being. Certain animals (who tend to be easy prey), seem to have basic survival traits right at birth (eg, gazelle, buffalo, etc). During our early evolutionary period, humans were easy prey so we're our infants more physically capable or quick to become physically capable than infants born now?","c_root_id_A":"eekigg3","c_root_id_B":"eekewip","created_at_utc_A":1548020321,"created_at_utc_B":1548018478,"score_A":62,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Short answer: \"No different, they were completely dependant on others then as now\" ​ Discussion: If you're referring to humans, then no, infants were no different. To have markedly different capacities as a newborn would require massive change-- species level and beyond. Many other primates are fairly helpless at birth, but humans are moreso; and you're correct, human infants were as they are, entirely dependant on other humans for their survival. If by \"early evolution\" you mean other species, then they do have different characteristics as newborns, but once you're talking about humans, or even hominins generally, they're very dependent. There's been a longstanding debate over just why human infants are so limited in their capacities as newborns-- the hypothesis you'll hear most often is the \"obstetrical dilemma\" -- the problem of how to develop a big brained infant in a mother with narrowed hips for walking upright, the answer being essentially \"even at nine months, a human infant is effectively 'premature' in development as compared with other animal newborns-- in order that birth can be accomplished at all.\" That's not the only idea, though-- in a 2012 article in the *Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences,* Dunsworthy and colleagues suggested \"that limits to maternal metabolism are the primary constraints on human gestation length and fetal growth. \" -- the fetus grows as big and capable as it can do with the mother's metabolism and then its born, at which point its got much, much less energy. So the mother is delivering a somewhat premature baby because that's the limit of her physiologic endurance. A third argument goes that the incapacity of human infants enforces otherwise useful social behaviors on humans, that is the cooperation required in order to keep human infants alive to independence is itself of value in other ways, compelling humans to act as group. See E.O Wilson and Sarah Hrdy for useful discussions of humans, the value of eusociality, and how dependency might be just one aspect of an asset. As to why humans weren't selected for some bodyplan that was less demanding-- plainly our extreme brains are an outlier, the suggestion would be that intellectual capacity, even coming with the vulnerability of the neonate, was \"worth it\" as a trade off. There are plenty of critters with other evolutionary bargains in reproduction-- but there's been a consistently effective strategy of \"more maternal investment yields more functional critters-- which have some unique advantages that make that investment worthwhile\" ​ Sources Metabolic hypothesis for human altriciality \\- Dunsworthy paper referred to above Metopic suture of Taung (Australopithecus africanus) and its implications for hominin brain evolution \\- we wish we had more fossils like this, evidence of just how a hominid's skull might have fused and when. Gives a sense of how skulls have changed in evolutionary time, key point-- *Austrolopithecus* had a difficult birth too, and brain development was going on for quite a while after it was born. Femoral ontogeny in humans and great apes and its implications for their last common ancestor \\- useful data on the nature of the change in the femur (hips) between humans and great apes. Developmental evidence for obstetric adaptation of the human female pelvis \\- an argument taking the \"it's a birth canal issue, not a metabolic issue\" line, that is, against Dunsworthy. E.O. Wilson The Social Conquest of Earth \\- only partly about humans, but takes the strongest line that social behavior itself is the evolved trait, and that its highly valuable. E.O Wilson has been a somewhat controversial figure as he extended his analysis from his primary domain (insects) to humans, and this book is no exception. Sarah B. Hrdy Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. \\- Hrdy makes a great case for the \"the fact that it takes a lot of care to keep a human alive isn't a bug, it's a feature\" line.","human_ref_B":"I believe infantile dependence on their mothers corresponds to increased levels of energy demand. Comparing reptiles and mammals, for example, homeostasis is a huge energy sucker and therefore mammalian young are more dependant (and for longer periods) on their parents to provide them with the necessary energy until they\u2019re self sufficient. Brain size is also a big one - animals with increased brainpower tend to also require more energy, and correspondingly are more dependant. Hope that helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1843.0,"score_ratio":31.0} {"post_id":"ai18l1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"How are infants born in early human evolution different than infants born today? Human babies at present are fully dependant on another human being. Certain animals (who tend to be easy prey), seem to have basic survival traits right at birth (eg, gazelle, buffalo, etc). During our early evolutionary period, humans were easy prey so we're our infants more physically capable or quick to become physically capable than infants born now?","c_root_id_A":"eekewip","c_root_id_B":"eel4bz9","created_at_utc_A":1548018478,"created_at_utc_B":1548034707,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I believe infantile dependence on their mothers corresponds to increased levels of energy demand. Comparing reptiles and mammals, for example, homeostasis is a huge energy sucker and therefore mammalian young are more dependant (and for longer periods) on their parents to provide them with the necessary energy until they\u2019re self sufficient. Brain size is also a big one - animals with increased brainpower tend to also require more energy, and correspondingly are more dependant. Hope that helps!","human_ref_B":"The reason human babies are so weak and stupid is actually because we're so smart. Let me explain. We have very large brains compared to our body size, and as we continued to evolve, our brains continued to get bigger, along with our heads. At a certain point, craniums got so large that mothers were dying far too often during childbirth. A newborn without a mother has a lower likelihood of surviving childhood and becoming a parent himself. So basically, human babies are born far more premature than other animals, so that their underdeveloped brain and cranium doesn't kill the mother. Evolution isn't perfect, and obviously mothers still die during childbirth, but its seldom enough that a high enough % of offspring can grow up to have offspring of their own.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16229.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xw8jv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"How accurate is the anthropology in Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces? I've been reading it for fun and am finding it interesting, but it seems a bit outdated. How is the work as a whole\/the specific anthropological references Campbell uses seen by modern anthropologists? Are any of the non-western examples distorted\/altered to fit with western examples\/his idea of the monomyth in general?","c_root_id_A":"cp3zqvh","c_root_id_B":"cp3z5ge","created_at_utc_A":1425472680,"created_at_utc_B":1425470288,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I personally tend to agree with \/u\/itsallfolklore who summarized a lot of their feelings about Campbell here. I do think Campbell is entertaining and was a fun read until I began learning more about the cultures and beliefs of the groups he was discussing and then he just became frustrating.","human_ref_B":"I find them very useful but I'm not an anthropologist. I do however, find they allow me to talk easily with anthropologists. Sure, some conclusions are outdated because we're talking what, 1949? but that happens with Desmond Morris or Margaret Meade or whomever you're talking about. FYI, a peculiar thing you can notice is if you bring up Campbell's points, they are rarely refuted on their own until his name gets mentioned. There's an academic slant against him maybe due to his popularity? or too many new age \/ hippies quoting him? He's rarely deemed acceptable in academia anymore which is sad because the guy did a hell of a lot of solid scholarly work which most of his critics never seem to have read. Anyways, whatever responses you get in this thread, have people cite sources from books if you can. As for his work on the Monomyth, you might want to read Otto Rank or moreso Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale. It's much dryer as far as a read, but I find his patterns more useful as far as writing stories. Propp was a Russian structuralist who did a lot of work on Russian folktales and isolated 33+ motifs. Beyond that, you could ramp up and check out the Motif Index of Folklore and Literature by Stith Thompson or perhaps some of Alan Dundes' work. Beyond that, which excerpts in particular are you referencing?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2392.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"vlwb69","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Does anyone have any good sources for more info along these lines? https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/new-dna-technology-is-shaking-up-the-branches-of-the-evolutionary-tree \"As our new research shows, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to family. New DNA technology is shaking up the family trees of many plants and animals. The primates, to which humans belong, were once thought to be close relatives of bats because of some similarities in our skeletons and brains. However, DNA data now places us in a group that includes rodents (rats and mice) and rabbits. Astonishingly, bats turn out to be more closely related to cows, horses, and even rhinoceroses than they are to us.\"","c_root_id_A":"idy4vtw","c_root_id_B":"idyaay1","created_at_utc_A":1656348087,"created_at_utc_B":1656350231,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"This is better asked over in r\/evolution, r\/askscience, or one of those subs. It's not really anthropology related. Look up studies in convergent evolution, taxonomy, cladistics, and genetics and you'll find a lot of articles on things like this. Genetic studies have been instrumental in revising taxonomy.","human_ref_B":"As stated, there may be better subs for this question where you will find insightful discussion. But, as a general procedure for virtually any science press release, you can follow some of these steps to find out more. * Pop sci articles are, by nature, light on details (sometimes misleading or flat out wrong). Find in the article where it mentions the author, title, or best an actual link, of the scientific publication, and go there or search it and try to read the original. The pop sci articles are often too light on details, but the scientific paper is too hard for someone not in the field. That's ok. Try anyway. * Find the lead author, or the \"author for whom correspondence should be addressed.\" Usually the first author is the Principal Investigator , but in some fields PI is the last author and the grad student who did the work and wrote the paper is the first. The article will usually have an asterisk (or a mail icon) by the lead author name. * Search for that author on Google. Find their research home page, it will usually have an overview of their work. It will also have a detailed bibliography (and often there will even be download links to the .pdf's) * Sometimes you will also find info on the website about grad students or postdocs, and they may have more layperson overview of their research * Search for that author on https:\/\/scholar.google.com to find more of their works and works by others that cite the original author. You may find other supporting studies or you may find conflicting and dissenting work. Either way, jackpot, you will learn from both. * Search for theses by the students of that author. Generally, the first chapter of a student thesis is an extremely rich review of the work in the field leading up to the novel work, and places it in perfect context. The library of the university that the professor works at will usually have a section for digital theses and is usually accessible to the public. So, if you don't want to go directly to the original research, finding the author's homepage or their student's homepages is a pretty direct way to get a simplified summary.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2144.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn0vc7c","c_root_id_B":"cn0syqq","created_at_utc_A":1419120730,"created_at_utc_B":1419115323,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Let's not forget we're escaping another environment here - the city I presume - it would be interesting to ask people living in scenic environments (fjords etcetera) about how they perceive their home and how they find cities.","human_ref_B":"Sounds magnificent. Yes, there is a rich tradition of thought about this kind of experience. Happy exploring. http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sublime_(philosophy)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5407.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn1jxk2","c_root_id_B":"cn19oa3","created_at_utc_A":1419193978,"created_at_utc_B":1419169296,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Rather tangential but bears have been known to spend an unusual amount of time staring at sunsets. We can't really know what they're thinking but it might not be a phenomenon related solely to humans \/ primates.","human_ref_B":"Surprisingly, we haven't always enjoyed looking at scenery. In the medieval ages, the idea of looking at a landscape for the sole purpose of deriving pleasure from it was an alien concept. I'm certain that Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie discusses this idea in his book *Montaillou*, but unfortunately I don't have it on me at the moment so I can't really expand on *why* the concept was unknown.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24682.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn1c489","c_root_id_B":"cn1jxk2","created_at_utc_A":1419178042,"created_at_utc_B":1419193978,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"This entire talk is interesting, but the part starting around 06:50 touches on what you're asking. [15:30]","human_ref_B":"Rather tangential but bears have been known to spend an unusual amount of time staring at sunsets. We can't really know what they're thinking but it might not be a phenomenon related solely to humans \/ primates.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15936.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn1jxk2","c_root_id_B":"cn0vf0v","created_at_utc_A":1419193978,"created_at_utc_B":1419120901,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Rather tangential but bears have been known to spend an unusual amount of time staring at sunsets. We can't really know what they're thinking but it might not be a phenomenon related solely to humans \/ primates.","human_ref_B":"Unfortunately I can't dig around right now, but there's research on the cognitive toll of being in an urban environment as well as place attachment research dealing with nature parks and other more scenic environments. Environmental psychology as a field is probably a good place to start, if you're interested in psychological approaches.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":73077.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn1c489","c_root_id_B":"cn19oa3","created_at_utc_A":1419178042,"created_at_utc_B":1419169296,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This entire talk is interesting, but the part starting around 06:50 touches on what you're asking. [15:30]","human_ref_B":"Surprisingly, we haven't always enjoyed looking at scenery. In the medieval ages, the idea of looking at a landscape for the sole purpose of deriving pleasure from it was an alien concept. I'm certain that Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie discusses this idea in his book *Montaillou*, but unfortunately I don't have it on me at the moment so I can't really expand on *why* the concept was unknown.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8746.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2pwzm2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are there any widely accepted theories answering why humans enjoy 'scenic views'? I was backpacking through Big Bend National Park this past week and found myself wondering why I felt so euphoric looking out at the Chihuahuan Desert from atop a mountain. I have some theories and did some googling, but haven't come up with anything satisfying. Are there any accepted speculations?","c_root_id_A":"cn1c489","c_root_id_B":"cn0vf0v","created_at_utc_A":1419178042,"created_at_utc_B":1419120901,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This entire talk is interesting, but the part starting around 06:50 touches on what you're asking. [15:30]","human_ref_B":"Unfortunately I can't dig around right now, but there's research on the cognitive toll of being in an urban environment as well as place attachment research dealing with nature parks and other more scenic environments. Environmental psychology as a field is probably a good place to start, if you're interested in psychological approaches.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":57141.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"9likr7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Is there any research on how early social inequality began and why it did? I mean things like racism, classism, sexism, etc. and how those things that we are taught are social constructs originated","c_root_id_A":"e77r6a1","c_root_id_B":"e775i3b","created_at_utc_A":1538748528,"created_at_utc_B":1538714352,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In \"Ecology of Freedom\" by Murray Bookchin, he argues that social inequality first began among genders. There are a few reasons but it mainly has to do with child-rearing. Women were often preoccupied with children while the men were more preoccupied with protection. Another early form of hierarchy emerged between the elderly and everyone else. As the elderly lost their biological power, they gained social power. This is a tactic for their survival since the elderly need the protection of the group more than others. Bookchin further argues that social inequality finally is cemented into society with the rise of the shaman. The shaman uses \"magic\", which is based on the religious beliefs of the community, and tends to gain power fast within a group. However, this power is very insecure. If the shaman \"cures\" someone and they wind up not being cured, the shaman is at risk of being injured or killed since people often will give large tributes to a shaman in exchange for their services. In order to solidify power, the shaman tends to makes alliances with certain people within the community, and, in particular, the elderly. This is essentially what Bookchin argues is the foundation for government. This argument helps to explain why governments tend to be tied together with religion. Edit: In terms of the research used, Bookchin heavily relies on the anthropological work of Paul Radin for those curious.","human_ref_B":"Debt by David Graeber has some interesting insights into this although its not the direct focus of the book. Also I believe James C Scott has written about it a lot. Against the Grain talks a lot about early governments and accompanying inequality.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34176.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"axda0d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Are there any anthropological studies or monographs available to the public that deal with the corporate world and the corporate mindset?","c_root_id_A":"ehsrz8o","c_root_id_B":"ehsy5g6","created_at_utc_A":1551738434,"created_at_utc_B":1551743035,"score_A":5,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"Tons! There\u2019s one that escapes my mind about American stock traders. Here\u2019s another: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Trading-Crowd-Ethnography-Cambridge-Anthropology\/dp\/B008SMPO6W And there are a bunch of corporate ethnographic books I can follow up with later. Edit to follow up as I remember: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Ethnography-Corporate-Encounter-Corporations-Anthropology\/dp\/1845457773\/ref=nodl_","human_ref_B":"Karen Ho's *Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street* is fantastic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4601.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"axda0d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Are there any anthropological studies or monographs available to the public that deal with the corporate world and the corporate mindset?","c_root_id_A":"eht9vo0","c_root_id_B":"ehsrz8o","created_at_utc_A":1551752252,"created_at_utc_B":1551738434,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently reading Kimberly Chong's *Best Practice: Management Consulting and the Ethics of Financialization in China* and can't recommend it enough. Amazing read.","human_ref_B":"Tons! There\u2019s one that escapes my mind about American stock traders. Here\u2019s another: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Trading-Crowd-Ethnography-Cambridge-Anthropology\/dp\/B008SMPO6W And there are a bunch of corporate ethnographic books I can follow up with later. Edit to follow up as I remember: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Ethnography-Corporate-Encounter-Corporations-Anthropology\/dp\/1845457773\/ref=nodl_","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13818.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"axda0d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Are there any anthropological studies or monographs available to the public that deal with the corporate world and the corporate mindset?","c_root_id_A":"eht9vo0","c_root_id_B":"eht1fjx","created_at_utc_A":1551752252,"created_at_utc_B":1551745605,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently reading Kimberly Chong's *Best Practice: Management Consulting and the Ethics of Financialization in China* and can't recommend it enough. Amazing read.","human_ref_B":"Moral Mazes by Robert Jackall is all about how corporate managers think. I don't think it's ethnography - I think it was based on interviews - but it's a great read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6647.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dny0af","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What's the most intriguing anthropology article or book you read this year? Looking for some of the best stuff people have read in the past year. I am always reading new work, but it's always nice to know what everyone else is reading.","c_root_id_A":"f5j1w01","c_root_id_B":"f5hgwg6","created_at_utc_A":1572220345,"created_at_utc_B":1572204290,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I came late to this topic, but discovered this only last year and read it a few months ago: Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm Very thought-provoking topic.","human_ref_B":"Haven\u2019t read it in awhile but Tell My Horse was one of my favorites back in undergrad. https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Tell-My-Horse-Voodoo-Jamaica\/dp\/0061695130","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16055.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"dny0af","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What's the most intriguing anthropology article or book you read this year? Looking for some of the best stuff people have read in the past year. I am always reading new work, but it's always nice to know what everyone else is reading.","c_root_id_A":"f5j1w01","c_root_id_B":"f5hn7az","created_at_utc_A":1572220345,"created_at_utc_B":1572206093,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I came late to this topic, but discovered this only last year and read it a few months ago: Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm Very thought-provoking topic.","human_ref_B":"Must read https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Who-Are-How-Got-Here\/dp\/110187032X","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14252.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"dny0af","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What's the most intriguing anthropology article or book you read this year? Looking for some of the best stuff people have read in the past year. I am always reading new work, but it's always nice to know what everyone else is reading.","c_root_id_A":"f5jkyai","c_root_id_B":"f5hn7az","created_at_utc_A":1572231500,"created_at_utc_B":1572206093,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"My favorite this year is Masters of the Planet by Ian Tattersall LINK I think the part that intrigued me the most was the finding of bones that appeared butchered, did we eat everyone until we were the last ones left? Really stayed with me...","human_ref_B":"Must read https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Who-Are-How-Got-Here\/dp\/110187032X","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25407.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dny0af","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What's the most intriguing anthropology article or book you read this year? Looking for some of the best stuff people have read in the past year. I am always reading new work, but it's always nice to know what everyone else is reading.","c_root_id_A":"f5hn7az","c_root_id_B":"f5jmss4","created_at_utc_A":1572206093,"created_at_utc_B":1572233060,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Must read https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Who-Are-How-Got-Here\/dp\/110187032X","human_ref_B":"Clam Gardens","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26967.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dny0af","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What's the most intriguing anthropology article or book you read this year? Looking for some of the best stuff people have read in the past year. I am always reading new work, but it's always nice to know what everyone else is reading.","c_root_id_A":"f5jlu5o","c_root_id_B":"f5jmss4","created_at_utc_A":1572232233,"created_at_utc_B":1572233060,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Reading this for my Urban Anthroplogy Class and it\u2019s probably one of the most insightful things I\u2019ve ever read. https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/White-Metropolis-Ethnicity-Religion-1841-2001\/dp\/029271274X\/ref=asc_df_029271274X_nodl\/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312610812881&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5700031586353407285&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026808&hvtargid=pla-489632817996&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=61194519294&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312610812881&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5700031586353407285&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9026808&hvtargid=pla-489632817996","human_ref_B":"Clam Gardens","labels":0,"seconds_difference":827.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2xdm7r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Has there been any work on anthropology of doomsday? In Christianity and Islam. In Judith Herrin (1987) I read that early Christians were expecting the world to end in matter of centuries. If I recall correctly the world should not exceed the year 300. There is also this 19th century The Great Disappointment where thousands of people expected Jesus to return: \"Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.\" And left in disappointment when he actually didn't come. Similarly stories can be heard from Islam. Shi'ite has been long waiting for the Mahdi to come. The early 20th century Sulukiyya movement was expecting armageddon in matter of years for the \"chaos\" the world has plunged into. This hoping for doomsday is not limited to Shi'ite. The infamous Sunni ISIS brought a strong eschatological message (Hassan, 2015): that this war they are fighting is the war of the end times (*al-malhalmah al-kubra*). It starts in Syria and will end with Rome (similar to Muhammad's expansion: from Syria to Persia to Rome). Mahdi will come when it reaches Rome. The reason I asked this is because an emphasis on eschatology seem to come and go in very different centuries both in the history of Islam and Christianity. My guess they all came in the times of hardship. Has there been any work examining expectation of doomsday in these two religious traditions\/religious believers?","c_root_id_A":"coz6obk","c_root_id_B":"cozadkl","created_at_utc_A":1425063848,"created_at_utc_B":1425070005,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My advisor in undergrad did work on New Religious Movements (commonly called cults), and many of the NRMs he studied were offshoots of mainstream Christianity, and many of those were preoccupied with doomsday\/the apocalypse. You could check academic literature for discussions about these fringe movements and possibly backtrack from there. I can PM you the name of my advisor if you want to look for him specifically.","human_ref_B":"Abou Farman, an anthropologist of science and technology, has written about eschatological thinking embedded in modern day cryogenic research and practices. http:\/\/www.academia.edu\/8271954\/The_Informatic_Self http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=\/journals\/anthropological_quarterly\/v085\/85.4.farman.html Eschatologies are also embedded in a lot of scholarly discourses regarding the future of technology. Baudrillard, in particular, paints a rather eschatological picture with his ideas about the \"death of the real\" in Simulacra and Simulation. There are post-human apocalypses prophesied by Donna Haraway (in a tongue-in-cheek way), and by many other posthumanists. Deleuze too has alluded to a post-oedipal apocalypse. We see eschatological myth making in a lot of cyberpunk dystopian literatures produced by authors like George Orwell (who meant his work as a warning), and William Gibson. Eschotological myths were also central to doctrine of many anti-nuclear activists. My point is that eschatologies are a common narrative form and are not limited to what we generally think of as religious practices.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6157.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1h44s5","c_root_id_B":"h1gwam6","created_at_utc_A":1623464660,"created_at_utc_B":1623460130,"score_A":32,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"geronimo had an autobiography transcribed through his cousin to an author. it\u2019s pretty short and it\u2019s pretty era specific, but he does describe the lifestyle and belief system pretty thoroughly. there\u2019s a version with an introduction written by fredrick turner that gives very in depth notes into the context of certain sections.","human_ref_B":"I highly suggest a book called 9 Years Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann. Herman was kidnapped as a child and raised by the Apache. Later he joined with the Comanche and became an adopted son of Quanah Parker. It is a fascinating read as it's told completely from Hermans own perspective. Laconic and violent I would describe his stories, that paint a picture of just how tough a warring, nomadic tribal life was. Check it out","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4530.0,"score_ratio":1.8823529412} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1gu99c","c_root_id_B":"h1h44s5","created_at_utc_A":1623458948,"created_at_utc_B":1623464660,"score_A":8,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.amazon.ca \u203a Apache-V... Web results Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball: Robinson, Sherry ... I havent read it but dan carlin gave it high praise on his pidcast","human_ref_B":"geronimo had an autobiography transcribed through his cousin to an author. it\u2019s pretty short and it\u2019s pretty era specific, but he does describe the lifestyle and belief system pretty thoroughly. there\u2019s a version with an introduction written by fredrick turner that gives very in depth notes into the context of certain sections.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5712.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1gwam6","c_root_id_B":"h1h9x5s","created_at_utc_A":1623460130,"created_at_utc_B":1623468191,"score_A":17,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I highly suggest a book called 9 Years Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann. Herman was kidnapped as a child and raised by the Apache. Later he joined with the Comanche and became an adopted son of Quanah Parker. It is a fascinating read as it's told completely from Hermans own perspective. Laconic and violent I would describe his stories, that paint a picture of just how tough a warring, nomadic tribal life was. Check it out","human_ref_B":"Keith Basso's ethnographic work is pretty stellar, although he is not Apache himself. His book *Wisdom Sits in Places* is a classic for a reason.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8061.0,"score_ratio":1.2352941176} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1h9x5s","c_root_id_B":"h1gu99c","created_at_utc_A":1623468191,"created_at_utc_B":1623458948,"score_A":21,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Keith Basso's ethnographic work is pretty stellar, although he is not Apache himself. His book *Wisdom Sits in Places* is a classic for a reason.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/www.amazon.ca \u203a Apache-V... Web results Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball: Robinson, Sherry ... I havent read it but dan carlin gave it high praise on his pidcast","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9243.0,"score_ratio":2.625} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1gu99c","c_root_id_B":"h1gwam6","created_at_utc_A":1623458948,"created_at_utc_B":1623460130,"score_A":8,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/www.amazon.ca \u203a Apache-V... Web results Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball: Robinson, Sherry ... I havent read it but dan carlin gave it high praise on his pidcast","human_ref_B":"I highly suggest a book called 9 Years Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann. Herman was kidnapped as a child and raised by the Apache. Later he joined with the Comanche and became an adopted son of Quanah Parker. It is a fascinating read as it's told completely from Hermans own perspective. Laconic and violent I would describe his stories, that paint a picture of just how tough a warring, nomadic tribal life was. Check it out","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1182.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"nxtu1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are there any good books on Apache culture? I\u2019m wanting to write a book that includes someone from the tribe, but I want it to be culturally accurate.","c_root_id_A":"h1ip6c7","c_root_id_B":"h1j1s70","created_at_utc_A":1623508478,"created_at_utc_B":1623515036,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Yessss!! \u201cEmpire of the Summer Moon\u201d by S.C. Gwynne was amazing and really changed the way I thought about the Apache. Really enjoyable read.","human_ref_B":"Check out Western Apache Raiding and Warfare by Grenville Goodwin, In the Days of Victorio; Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache by Eve Ball. I read those a long time ago and enjoyed them. Goodwin was an interesting person. He dropped out of school and lived among the Apache in the early twentieth century and died in his early thirties. His son later found a bunch of his work, in-particular his work looking for the \"Sierra Madre\" Apache. A band of Apache that left reservations\/never surrendered and lived in the mountains in N. Mexico. His son wrote a book about this and even went and found some places his father found. The book is titled: The Apache Diaries: A Father-Son Journey. It's fascinating. The author looks over accounts showing there was a group of free Apache in the mountains until maybe even into the 1940s.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6558.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56sugm","c_root_id_B":"d56yq3k","created_at_utc_A":1468169583,"created_at_utc_B":1468178866,"score_A":15,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Migration myths and stories sometimes have a lot of truth to them. A good example of this would be the Chadic people's of the Sahel and West Africa, specifically the Hausa. The oral stories pertaining to the origins of these people usually go along the line of 'migrated from Eurasia' and into the Sahel and West Africa. Genetics proved this by researching Chadic male Y-dna markers (haplogroups) that trace a direct patrilineal lines of descent, as sons inherit the Y-dna marker of their father, and so on. They found that Chadic males, including Hausa's, have very high levels (~50-90%) of Y-dna haplogroups R1, which is associated almost exclusively with Western European men and Celtic and Germanic and less so in other Indo-European groups. This proved that there was an actual migration of people ~7000 ybp from western Siberia\/Central Asia\/Russian steppes and into Egypt and into the eastern Sahara and further deep into West Africa and Nigeria and Cameroon with millions of Chadic and Niger-Kordafian males in these regions possessing this Eurasian male marker in West Africa today.","human_ref_B":"In 1700, the east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami, but no one hadreported an earthquake preceding it. So where did the quake happen? In the 1980's, researchers found that indigenous people in the Vancouver-Oregon region had legends of a massive earth-shaking and land-flooding event, and by counting the generations said to have passed since, they determined this quake would have happened in 1700. It seems the quake was on the North American side of the Pacific and that's they the tsunami surprised the Japanese. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2015\/07\/20\/the-really-big-one (scroll down a bit or Ctrl+F for \"1804\" - or read the whole thing, it's neat) http:\/\/www.oregongeology.org\/sub\/earthquakes\/oraltraditions.htm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9283.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56yq3k","c_root_id_B":"d56tdns","created_at_utc_A":1468178866,"created_at_utc_B":1468170409,"score_A":39,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"In 1700, the east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami, but no one hadreported an earthquake preceding it. So where did the quake happen? In the 1980's, researchers found that indigenous people in the Vancouver-Oregon region had legends of a massive earth-shaking and land-flooding event, and by counting the generations said to have passed since, they determined this quake would have happened in 1700. It seems the quake was on the North American side of the Pacific and that's they the tsunami surprised the Japanese. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2015\/07\/20\/the-really-big-one (scroll down a bit or Ctrl+F for \"1804\" - or read the whole thing, it's neat) http:\/\/www.oregongeology.org\/sub\/earthquakes\/oraltraditions.htm","human_ref_B":"I'm afraid I don't have any sources at hand but while traveling in Australia I heard about oral traditions of being able to walk to certain islands in the past - which would have been possible in the last ice age. Just from my own thoughts a lot of stories about giant animals (rainbow serpent, etc) make sense in the context of Australia's extinct megafauna.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8457.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56xesl","c_root_id_B":"d56yq3k","created_at_utc_A":1468176810,"created_at_utc_B":1468178866,"score_A":11,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Archaeologists were able to find the the HMS Erebus from Frankin's Expedition using Inuit oral stories of seeing the boat and some of the crew. Season 14, episode 2 of Nova is a great documentary of the search.","human_ref_B":"In 1700, the east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami, but no one hadreported an earthquake preceding it. So where did the quake happen? In the 1980's, researchers found that indigenous people in the Vancouver-Oregon region had legends of a massive earth-shaking and land-flooding event, and by counting the generations said to have passed since, they determined this quake would have happened in 1700. It seems the quake was on the North American side of the Pacific and that's they the tsunami surprised the Japanese. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2015\/07\/20\/the-really-big-one (scroll down a bit or Ctrl+F for \"1804\" - or read the whole thing, it's neat) http:\/\/www.oregongeology.org\/sub\/earthquakes\/oraltraditions.htm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2056.0,"score_ratio":3.5454545455} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56q6j7","c_root_id_B":"d56yq3k","created_at_utc_A":1468165149,"created_at_utc_B":1468178866,"score_A":8,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Native American lore about a husband and wife fighting actually being tales of thousand plus year old volcanic eruptions. Mount saint Helens I think?","human_ref_B":"In 1700, the east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami, but no one hadreported an earthquake preceding it. So where did the quake happen? In the 1980's, researchers found that indigenous people in the Vancouver-Oregon region had legends of a massive earth-shaking and land-flooding event, and by counting the generations said to have passed since, they determined this quake would have happened in 1700. It seems the quake was on the North American side of the Pacific and that's they the tsunami surprised the Japanese. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2015\/07\/20\/the-really-big-one (scroll down a bit or Ctrl+F for \"1804\" - or read the whole thing, it's neat) http:\/\/www.oregongeology.org\/sub\/earthquakes\/oraltraditions.htm","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13717.0,"score_ratio":4.875} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56yq3k","c_root_id_B":"d56n5iu","created_at_utc_A":1468178866,"created_at_utc_B":1468159176,"score_A":39,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In 1700, the east coast of Japan was hit by a tsunami, but no one hadreported an earthquake preceding it. So where did the quake happen? In the 1980's, researchers found that indigenous people in the Vancouver-Oregon region had legends of a massive earth-shaking and land-flooding event, and by counting the generations said to have passed since, they determined this quake would have happened in 1700. It seems the quake was on the North American side of the Pacific and that's they the tsunami surprised the Japanese. http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2015\/07\/20\/the-really-big-one (scroll down a bit or Ctrl+F for \"1804\" - or read the whole thing, it's neat) http:\/\/www.oregongeology.org\/sub\/earthquakes\/oraltraditions.htm","human_ref_B":"Joseph Henrich wrote about a great example of this in his recent book, you should check it out. It might not be exactly what you're looking for but it's pretty rad anyway: *The Secret of Our Success*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19690.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56q6j7","c_root_id_B":"d56sugm","created_at_utc_A":1468165149,"created_at_utc_B":1468169583,"score_A":8,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Native American lore about a husband and wife fighting actually being tales of thousand plus year old volcanic eruptions. Mount saint Helens I think?","human_ref_B":"Migration myths and stories sometimes have a lot of truth to them. A good example of this would be the Chadic people's of the Sahel and West Africa, specifically the Hausa. The oral stories pertaining to the origins of these people usually go along the line of 'migrated from Eurasia' and into the Sahel and West Africa. Genetics proved this by researching Chadic male Y-dna markers (haplogroups) that trace a direct patrilineal lines of descent, as sons inherit the Y-dna marker of their father, and so on. They found that Chadic males, including Hausa's, have very high levels (~50-90%) of Y-dna haplogroups R1, which is associated almost exclusively with Western European men and Celtic and Germanic and less so in other Indo-European groups. This proved that there was an actual migration of people ~7000 ybp from western Siberia\/Central Asia\/Russian steppes and into Egypt and into the eastern Sahara and further deep into West Africa and Nigeria and Cameroon with millions of Chadic and Niger-Kordafian males in these regions possessing this Eurasian male marker in West Africa today.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4434.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56sugm","c_root_id_B":"d56n5iu","created_at_utc_A":1468169583,"created_at_utc_B":1468159176,"score_A":15,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Migration myths and stories sometimes have a lot of truth to them. A good example of this would be the Chadic people's of the Sahel and West Africa, specifically the Hausa. The oral stories pertaining to the origins of these people usually go along the line of 'migrated from Eurasia' and into the Sahel and West Africa. Genetics proved this by researching Chadic male Y-dna markers (haplogroups) that trace a direct patrilineal lines of descent, as sons inherit the Y-dna marker of their father, and so on. They found that Chadic males, including Hausa's, have very high levels (~50-90%) of Y-dna haplogroups R1, which is associated almost exclusively with Western European men and Celtic and Germanic and less so in other Indo-European groups. This proved that there was an actual migration of people ~7000 ybp from western Siberia\/Central Asia\/Russian steppes and into Egypt and into the eastern Sahara and further deep into West Africa and Nigeria and Cameroon with millions of Chadic and Niger-Kordafian males in these regions possessing this Eurasian male marker in West Africa today.","human_ref_B":"Joseph Henrich wrote about a great example of this in his recent book, you should check it out. It might not be exactly what you're looking for but it's pretty rad anyway: *The Secret of Our Success*.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10407.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56tdns","c_root_id_B":"d56q6j7","created_at_utc_A":1468170409,"created_at_utc_B":1468165149,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm afraid I don't have any sources at hand but while traveling in Australia I heard about oral traditions of being able to walk to certain islands in the past - which would have been possible in the last ice age. Just from my own thoughts a lot of stories about giant animals (rainbow serpent, etc) make sense in the context of Australia's extinct megafauna.","human_ref_B":"Native American lore about a husband and wife fighting actually being tales of thousand plus year old volcanic eruptions. Mount saint Helens I think?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5260.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56n5iu","c_root_id_B":"d56tdns","created_at_utc_A":1468159176,"created_at_utc_B":1468170409,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Joseph Henrich wrote about a great example of this in his recent book, you should check it out. It might not be exactly what you're looking for but it's pretty rad anyway: *The Secret of Our Success*.","human_ref_B":"I'm afraid I don't have any sources at hand but while traveling in Australia I heard about oral traditions of being able to walk to certain islands in the past - which would have been possible in the last ice age. Just from my own thoughts a lot of stories about giant animals (rainbow serpent, etc) make sense in the context of Australia's extinct megafauna.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11233.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56q6j7","c_root_id_B":"d56xesl","created_at_utc_A":1468165149,"created_at_utc_B":1468176810,"score_A":8,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Native American lore about a husband and wife fighting actually being tales of thousand plus year old volcanic eruptions. Mount saint Helens I think?","human_ref_B":"Archaeologists were able to find the the HMS Erebus from Frankin's Expedition using Inuit oral stories of seeing the boat and some of the crew. Season 14, episode 2 of Nova is a great documentary of the search.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11661.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56n5iu","c_root_id_B":"d56xesl","created_at_utc_A":1468159176,"created_at_utc_B":1468176810,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Joseph Henrich wrote about a great example of this in his recent book, you should check it out. It might not be exactly what you're looking for but it's pretty rad anyway: *The Secret of Our Success*.","human_ref_B":"Archaeologists were able to find the the HMS Erebus from Frankin's Expedition using Inuit oral stories of seeing the boat and some of the crew. Season 14, episode 2 of Nova is a great documentary of the search.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17634.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d56n5iu","c_root_id_B":"d56q6j7","created_at_utc_A":1468159176,"created_at_utc_B":1468165149,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Joseph Henrich wrote about a great example of this in his recent book, you should check it out. It might not be exactly what you're looking for but it's pretty rad anyway: *The Secret of Our Success*.","human_ref_B":"Native American lore about a husband and wife fighting actually being tales of thousand plus year old volcanic eruptions. Mount saint Helens I think?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5973.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"4s58ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What are some interesting oral traditions\/stories that have plausibility or evidence to back them up? They could be from any time period, but specifically I was thinking of oral histories, stories or myths that were passed down from pre-writing eras. An example of one that interests me: apparently there is an indigenous tribe in Northern Australia that has a dream time myth where its tribal animal crossed the sea to a new homeland (Australia). The 'plausibility' is this may be a story that traced back to the aborigines original crossing of the ocean into Australia from Southeast Asia. They could be like these or they could have stronger plausibility or even evidence supporting them","c_root_id_A":"d57zhmc","c_root_id_B":"d57d3dx","created_at_utc_A":1468252746,"created_at_utc_B":1468202425,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist; however my tribe, the Tlingit, have a number of stories which plausibly document historic events that occurred prior to the written record. These stories belong to specific clans, so I can't write any specifics. However, some of the more notable ones recount: - flood events and the resulting relocation of village sites - the advance and receding of glaciers - volcanic eruptions - migration stories that trace the dozens of different paths that clans took to eventually settle in Tlingit Country. These stories include land marks, first encounters with other clans","human_ref_B":"Noah's Flood is an interesting book. I think there's some controversy over the Deluge Hypothesis, but the book is good. The hypothesis is that flood myths (at least in the middle east) originated with the end of the last Ice Age raising ocean levels until they overflowed into valleys and fresh water seas. The specific instance the book focuses on is the Mediterrean overflowing into the Black Sea, which was once fresh water, and driving away multiple civilizations. The book spends a chapter (or at least part of a chapter) on oral tradition and study of oral tradition. An interesting part of the study was that oral tradition rarely told the story exactly the same twice, but always\/usually got the details consistent. Also, the reason you so often see repeating phrases was that these were parts the orator could repeat mindlessly while recalling the next part of the narration. http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/480122.Noah_s_Flood","labels":1,"seconds_difference":50321.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"9b5hon","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Are there any cultures who don't engage in fictional storytelling? My background is in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. In particular my research looks at the evolution of 'fictional competency', the kinds of cognitive capacities that allow us to engage with our culture's stories and storytelling practices. In my reading I've found quite a lot of anthropological work on the *content* of myths, legends, folk tales, etcetera, but less on the storytelling practices themselves. I'm interested in how, developmentally, children are inducted in to their respective culture's storytelling practices. I haven't come across a lot of work in this area, so if there are any suggestions, I'd be grateful for them. But my question here is essentially whether fictional narratives can be considered a cultural universal. Are there any examples of cultures who don't engage in explicitly fictional storytelling? By explicitly fictional I mean stories where both the storyteller and the receiver understand the non-veridical nature of the narrative. Not really stories that are intended as creation myths, or recounting historical events, etcetera, but stories that are known to be about people and events that have never existed. I'm curious about this, because it's often assumed that 'fiction' as a category exists in every culture, and I'm wondering whether this really is the case. Thanks in advance for your replies :)","c_root_id_A":"e50whyj","c_root_id_B":"e50qdyw","created_at_utc_A":1535530918,"created_at_utc_B":1535519793,"score_A":33,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Linguist Daniel Everett says that the Pirah\u00e3s of Brazil only value narratives that people experienced first hand. \"The immediacy of experience principle means that if you haven't experienced something directly, your stories about it are largely irrele\u00advant.\" For this reason they largely avoid fictional story telling although they do tell lies, like everyone else, so it isn't like they aren't capable of it - it is just not something that they value as a culture. (Quote from his book \"Don't Sleep There are Snakes\")","human_ref_B":"Oral narrative is likely a universal, but when you leave out recounting myth and historical tales it gets quite blurry. Certainly many societies discourage or even have strict taboos against saying anything not strictly truthful (like the Quakers). John McDowell, Richard Bauman, Keith and Ellen Basso, and Eugene d'Aquili are some researchers I've been getting into who study oral narrative. They only talk a little bit about cognition, but looking into folklore and performance studies will help answer (more from a cultural perspective) a lot of your questions about how and why storytelling affects us.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11125.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"a0ml3p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What are some good examples of anthropologists\/papers from the Soviet Union under Stalin? And how would I access them? I'm writing a paper on Soviet anthropology for my anth class.","c_root_id_A":"eajkfi9","c_root_id_B":"eaj07s5","created_at_utc_A":1543283548,"created_at_utc_B":1543266629,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"While I dont know a ton on soviet anthropology in general, I do know a good book for soviet archaeology. Mikhail Miller, Archaeology in the U.S.S.R, New York (1956) It's a good review of the history of the field and talks a bit about the ethnographic work done in tandem with archaeological studies. There's a lot of name dropping throughout so it might give you some leads on names of researchers. Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"Soviet archives have a lot of issues, and that's not including the translation issues. What kind of topic are you looking for or is allowed? If you can do let's say, East Germany as a Soviet Bloc, you might be able to find some better preserved and translated works for your paper.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16919.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2n3mrk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Are there any indications or proofs of alcoholism\/addiction of any kind in smaller bands and cheiftains of peoples such as the Aborigines or Yanomamo prior to their introductions to the Western world? I ask because I'm reading Jared Diamond's \"The World Until Yesterday\" and it is noted that extravagances and luxury items have existed since the days of the Cro-Magnon man, so I was wondering if excessive drinking or drug use or gambling of some sort was also existent or if it is solely a product of civilization where individuals have enough downtime to not worry solely about food and partake in leisure activities.","c_root_id_A":"cma3oco","c_root_id_B":"cmadf94","created_at_utc_A":1416692075,"created_at_utc_B":1416715232,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Alcohol is generally made from grain. There are a number of exceptions (fruits, palm sap) but it is unlikely to have occurred in areas without some form of naturally occurring easily fermentable thingumy. Fermentation could be logistically difficult without long-term storage. It seems quite likely that where naturally occurring drugs were available (e.g. Cannabis), people would have used them. I know numerous reports of people in hunter-gatherer groups gambling. Coin flips and the like. I know the Hadza do it and have been doing so for at least eighty years... Whether they learnt it from other groups is hard to say. However, it seems reasonably likely to me that people would have gambled before the advent of civilizations. My connection is not very good so I cannot give you any good references but I would like to pick you up on the idea that people in 'traditional societies' did not have any downtime. Many forager groups have a lot of downtime - Diamond himself has written about this (see: Humanity's greatest mistake and... also... I think... \"The world Until Yesterday\") but for more references see Sahlins, I think Lee has given some figures for the !Kung (san) foragers and might also try looking at papers from the man the hunter conference. **Edit: King of Beards has given a better answer with sources and examples! Check it out!**","human_ref_B":"Gambling, games involving gambling, and sport gambling existed in indigenous societies in the Americas. The Chunkey sport was spread across various groups in North America and is famously linked to the Cahokia people. Ethnohistoric reports say that people very often gambled on the game. Another example comes from the West Coast of North America before the arrival of the Spanish, English explorers, Russians, et cetera: called *peon* or *peone*, it is associated with indigenous peoples from California. Ethnographic sources, archaeological excavations, and historical documents have noted that indigenous groups confined in the Mission system in California would secretly play these gambling games which were forbidden by the Catholic missionaries because they represented \"sinful\" traditional practices that needed to be eradicated. However, they were fundamental in maintaining social ties and creating communities both outside of these conditions and especially under brutal Mission regimes. Source: Kent Lightfoot's *Indians, Missions, and Merchants* (2006) And to echo duncanstibs, \"traditional societies\" that didn't have to spend all of their time attending to agriculture actually would have had much more leisure time than any of us today. On average, studies on contemporary h\/g groups have shown that gatherers spent only a few hours a day gathering and were\/are able to spend the rest of the time doing whatever else they need or want to do. See the \"original affluent society\" theory for more on this, especially the case studies on the !Kung and others at the bottom. As for alcohol, there is also an incredibly long history of the fermentation of things like corn into maize beer or \"chicha\" that we can see for thousands of years in the Andes as well as in Mesoamerica. Palm and fruit, as duncanstibs mentioned, were also sources of alcohol, and it could have been made and used by anyone, even in the smallest village. Later on it is very much associated with use in religious activities, feasting (with other political and religious meaning), and consumed at public events by higher-ranking people. I haven't heard of any evidence of addiction or alcoholism as we understand it now, but that is more difficult to find in the archaeological record. It would possible to find evidence of it via bioarchaeological study but I haven't heard of anything like that at this point. I do know that bioarch studies have shown that Andean sacrificial victims later in Andean history were given rich diets and a lot of corn alcohol, stimulants, and psychoactive drugs before their deaths. This has been confirmed by bioarch studies like this one about the Ice Maiden and the *capacocha* ritual she was subjected to. As for drugs, people in general used and had access to things like coca and hallucinogens for thousands of years in the Andes and it became a part of the religious complex for thousands of years. It is thought that people from the Amazon in particular were bringing in those psychotropic drugs and associated traditions to the Highlands for shamanic activities. Edit: formatting","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23157.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"4fyeez","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How many fossils of modern humans would there be in a million years?","c_root_id_A":"d2dc40n","c_root_id_B":"d2d9m9o","created_at_utc_A":1461348016,"created_at_utc_B":1461344672,"score_A":34,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"You know, that's an interesting question. I am no anthropologist, but common sense can at least tell us some things. Actual fossils form under very specific conditions: the individual must be covered with an airtight layer of sediment directly after death, to start with (for the whole process,check here: http:\/\/www.fossilmuseum.net\/fossilrecord\/fossilization\/fossilization.htm ) So, for a human fossil to form, a person must die somewhere alone, and be quickly covered in sediment (so, maybe a mudslide, or in the delta of a river). Furthermore, searchparties must be unable to locate our unfortunate friend. Especially that last part is important. In the animal kingdom, dead individuals are usually simply abandoned, raising the likelihood of carcasses to end up dead under the correct circumstances. The human tendency to look for their missing peers is what limits our chances to end up as fossils these days. Your question really translates to \"how many people will die and be covered in sediment immediately and never be found?\". I keep thinking about those villages that get washed away by mudslides and lahars sometimes. I don't know if every victim gets recovered each time, but I doubt it. That may be a surprisingly big source of future human fossils.","human_ref_B":"I've thought about this many times. What will it be like in thousands of years for a future civilization to study Homo sapiens? Have all the things we've accomplished aided or hurt anthropological studies of the current\/ recent times?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3344.0,"score_ratio":3.7777777778} {"post_id":"2ovrfw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What was a cavemans posture like? How does it compare to our posture now? Did they have any health problems because of it? Is it more natural to stand up straight or hunch your back? Title explains. THANKS!","c_root_id_A":"cmr1438","c_root_id_B":"cmqzduz","created_at_utc_A":1418239127,"created_at_utc_B":1418236161,"score_A":30,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There was an old idea that Neanderthals were hunched over or stooped in some way. This was based on the first real look at the complete skeleton over a hundred years ago. However this was the skeleton of a very old man who was effected by arthritis, but somehow it was proposed that all neanderthals were like this one individual. Since then most people agree that there was no bases for the portrayal of neanderthals as stooped. They stood straight. Like most people who live an active lifestyle they properly had a better posture than the average sedentary office worker hunched over a keyboard and then slumped on a couch (like myself for example).","human_ref_B":"Why do you think it was much different from today?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2966.0,"score_ratio":10.0} {"post_id":"2ovrfw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What was a cavemans posture like? How does it compare to our posture now? Did they have any health problems because of it? Is it more natural to stand up straight or hunch your back? Title explains. THANKS!","c_root_id_A":"cmqzduz","c_root_id_B":"cmr2wub","created_at_utc_A":1418236161,"created_at_utc_B":1418242206,"score_A":3,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Why do you think it was much different from today?","human_ref_B":"Cavemen, if you refer to Homo sapiens, were not any different to modern humans. Our species hasn't significantly changed since it appeared ~175,000 years ago.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6045.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"d877s0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Homo naledi and floresienses - Why Homo? They seem much more distant than neanderthal or denisovan It seems like scientists are very eager to add more relatives to the homo genus. I was wondering if someone here was familiar with the science and knew why floresiensis and naledi were considered Homo. It's looking like floresiensis may have been a survivor of an Australopithecine, and naledi's reconstruction gives it an ape-like face and nose.","c_root_id_A":"f1amhcw","c_root_id_B":"f19tutw","created_at_utc_A":1569298471,"created_at_utc_B":1569278343,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In short, they're both very young, in the hominin timescale. While they do display some \"primitive\"\/retained characteristics, a lot of their overall body plan\/dentition is much more Homo-like than australopith-like. Hominin evolution is super messy, and there's potentially a lot of environmentally caused variation in characteristics (especially in the postcrania). Both of these species are interesting because they challenge the prevailing paradigm for body-size and brain size progression in hominins (e.g. both have small brains, and are diminutive). It was well-accepted before that there was a linear progression in Homo of increasing brain size and increasing body size. What exactly defines the genus Homo has been a topic of debate since we first started finding hominin skulls. Scientists aren't necessarily \"eager\" to add more relatives to Homo. There's a lot of debate between what we call \"lumpers\" vs. \"splitters\" about if we're seeing speciation or within-species variation. For instance some, like Milford Wolpoff from U of Michican, think there is very little speciation going on in Homo, and subsume everything into a couple species. Some go as far to argue that almost everything from Homo erectus on is Homo sapiens, but with a lot of variation as it evolves to modern humans. Others, especially those that study australopithecines, see this variation as evidence of multiple species in an adaptive radiation. There are varying degrees within this, but these are the two broad camps. I fall within the splitter category, but I'm less inclined to believe in the taxonomic validity of certain species, like the newly named Homo Luzonesis, or even the Denisovans. Mark Collard and Bernard Wood have a good review article that goes over how we define our genus and why its tricky. Wood, B. and Collard, M., 1999. The human genus. *Science*, *284*(5411), pp.65-71.","human_ref_B":"Homo floresiensis fossils have been found with stone tools bearing very close resemblance to the strike patterns of stone tools found with homo erectus. I.e. the way it\u2019s shaped, honed and smoothed. Generally, they also look at how the tendons attach to bones to infer whether the hominin was bipedal or arboreal as arboreal species generally have stronger \u201cpull-up\u201d muscles for lack of better term. That\u2019s all I remember for now, but I could ask my dad who worked on the floresiensis project. I\u2019m not familiar with naledi. Essentially species classification is a flawed human effort at creating order in the fluidity of evolution. At some point a group of people decided Australopithecus has x features while homo has y features to make communicating easier, but there will undoubtedly be fossils that fall in between, transition fossils. As someone pointed out some species might \u201cregress\u201d in our eyes, but from their perspectives they would\u2019ve evolved to be the fittest in their local environment; dwarfism allows for better heat transfer in a very hot island like Flores due to a large surface to volume ratio among other things. Fossil elephants found in the same cave also show signs of dwarfism. This can also be seen now with Homo Sapiens where people around the equator are on average smaller than those traditionally from areas further from the equator. Edit: extra info.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20128.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"s7ua6p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What comparisons can be reasonably made between human and hive species? The complex hierarchical elements of both interest me and I'm curious about the ways that we can or can't learn more about one from the other. For example Ant hierarchical \"castes\" are genetics based right? To what degree is that true for humans?","c_root_id_A":"htc57uc","c_root_id_B":"htdpb0e","created_at_utc_A":1642610859,"created_at_utc_B":1642631609,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I think the distinction must be made that hive organisms are not individuals rather the colony itself is the organism. In a very real way a formless body of discrete components not a continuous being in one blob.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to assume by this question that \"hive species\" are just generally any eusocial species, where to be eusocial is to at minimum meet the three criteria of: high extramaternal care, overlapping generations, and reproductive division of labour. Firstly, humans entirely lack biologically based caste differentiation mechanisms. But we do have a very high degree of specialization and division of labour and have quite a few things that have convergently evolved with similar adaptations in eusocial insects. Other than that, there are actually a lot of similarities between humans and creatures we know to be eusocial (even if we don't technically count ourselves unless you slightly relax the third requirement) In this paper, \"The Insectan Apes\" by Bernard Crespi, he goes over a number of similarities between humans and eusocial ants as well as a few of the dissimilarities. To summarize the similarities between the two that Crespi highlighted: 1. groups with genetically and environmentally defined structures; 2. extensive divisions of labor; 3. specialization of a relatively restricted set of females for reproduction, with enhanced fertility; 4. extensive extramaternal care; 5. within-group food sharing; 6. generalized diets composed of high-nutrient-density food; 7. solicitous juveniles, but high rates of infanticide; 8. ecological dominance; 9. enhanced colonizing abilities; and 10. collective, cooperative decision-making. he also highlighted a few key differences between eusocial ants and humans: 1. **humans do not have reproductive division of labour, instead having egalitarian reproduction** 2. individual humans have large brains 3. helper mortality is not increased in humans while it is in eusocial insects 4. helper lifespan is still long in humans, and decreased in eusocial insects That is one paper that touches on comparing humans and insects, but it's not really much of an uncommon thing to look for similarities between humans and eusocial creatures. There's also at least a few people who look to different human groups and figure that roman catholics are probably more eusocial than the rest of us. * Why looking for similarities between ants, honey bees, and priests can be justified ​ hope this was interesting to read!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20750.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"s7ua6p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What comparisons can be reasonably made between human and hive species? The complex hierarchical elements of both interest me and I'm curious about the ways that we can or can't learn more about one from the other. For example Ant hierarchical \"castes\" are genetics based right? To what degree is that true for humans?","c_root_id_A":"htc57uc","c_root_id_B":"htexfwo","created_at_utc_A":1642610859,"created_at_utc_B":1642650917,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think the distinction must be made that hive organisms are not individuals rather the colony itself is the organism. In a very real way a formless body of discrete components not a continuous being in one blob.","human_ref_B":"The main difference is that hive organisms achieve division of labor through biological castes (worker, soldier, drone, queen, door) whereas humans can achieve division of labor just fine without that because advanced tool use and social engineering makes these caste adaptations unnecessary.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40058.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"pkohh3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What size box\/tote could I reasonably expect to fit a 170cm disarticulated skeleton into? Yes, I know, weird question. I swear to God I'm not a serial killer. I'm a third-year anthropology major, and I've got a Human Osteology course this semester. My university has a really cool bone lab, but unfortunately COVID restrictions in my area won't let more than four people in that room at a time so my professor has decided we will be doing the course remotely. \"Unless \\we\\] have access to an actual human skeleton\", we're to order [this model. I don't have a whole lot of storage in the house I'm living in right now, so I feel like a tote bin might be the most practical option. Does anyone have a guess as to into what size of container I could expect to fit a 5'6\" adult man's skeleton?","c_root_id_A":"hc51eti","c_root_id_B":"hc52vxy","created_at_utc_A":1631156485,"created_at_utc_B":1631157268,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am making an educated estimate but the longest human bone averages around 19 inches in length. The length of the skull averages 8\" to 9\". You can use a tote bin 24\" x 7\" x 13\" or the next step larger if you want to include protective packaging (recommended).","human_ref_B":"I was looking at different product listing trying to find the package dimensions. I was able to find this: Package Dimensions:\u00a017.72 x 14.02 x 8.11 inches; 17 Pounds I'd use this as a starting point at least. Will depend on how compact you will want things versus how well you want to protect the pieces.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":783.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1zkhv8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Asking the experts about something from an Ask Reddit thread. In countries where dry sex is the preferred method, is this truly a cultural preference or is it preferred because of misconceptions about sex? More detail inside. There's this sex-ed thread going on over in Ask Reddit. The topic of dry sex came up. I learned in my Cultural Anthropology class that in some countries, men prefer dry sex. We didn't really go into this specific example in detail. Over in the Ask Reddit thread (and yes, I know Reddit is not a reliable source), someone mentioned that in countries where dry sex is preferred, it is because people are told it is better or told that \"any lubrication meant that a woman had just had sex with someone else.\" I'm just wondering how much of this is a cultural preference and\/or if it exists in certain places because of misinformation.","c_root_id_A":"cfvr55h","c_root_id_B":"cfv3emh","created_at_utc_A":1394101605,"created_at_utc_B":1394041287,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I just wanted to add that in countries where dry sex is the preferred method, this is a cultural preference, and any misconceptions about sex are also culturally based. So the question is kind of a false dichotomy. The cultural preference is based on conceptions\/misconceptions about sex.","human_ref_B":"This 2003 Population Council study may be of interest: Cultural Norms and Behavior Regarding Vaginal Lubrication During Sex:. It notes the following: *\"Traditional vaginal practices are usually taught to young women by their older female relatives, female peers, or other women in the community, and represent, to some extent, a culture\u2019s norms and ideologies about the body. For example, if people believe sex should be \u201cdry,\u201d they may use products that dry the vagina prior to sex. Further, although women typically initiate vaginal practices without the involvement of their male partners, engaging in such practices depends heavily on gender roles, interpersonal dynamics, and couple communication. As such, engaging in vaginal practices may or may not align with women\u2019s own sexual desires. Cultural or religious values and ideas that describe women\u2019s bodies as contaminated or impure influence women\u2019s perceptions of their own bodies and sexuality, men\u2019s perceptions of women\u2019s bodi es and sexuality, and individuals\u2019 and couples\u2019 sexual behavior (e.g., Bang and Bang 1994; Snowde n and Christian 1983). Societal or personal perceptions of vaginal lubrication, discharge, or menstrual blood as \u201cdirty\u201d or \u201cunclean\u201d might compel women to engage in practices to alter or remove vaginal fluids prior to sex in order to demonstrate good personal hygiene and adherence to sociocultural norms (Vermund et al. 2001; Ray et al. 1996; Pitts et al. 1994). A review of the literature on vaginal practices demonstrates that such practices are one mechanism through which dominant sociocultural and sexual ideals\u2014 relating to gender, sexuality, the body, and notions of \u201chealth\u201d and \u201cillness\u201d\u2014are reinforced\"*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":60318.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3azrxx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there a general consensus on who was correct in the Mead-Freeman controversy over Samoan sexuality?","c_root_id_A":"cshyzfx","c_root_id_B":"cshwoww","created_at_utc_A":1435211399,"created_at_utc_B":1435205799,"score_A":39,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There's a number of elements that have to be teased out here. Firstly we have to look at the differences in the context of their fieldwork. Mead did her fieldwork in a fairly isolated corner of Samoa in the 1920s. As a young woman, she had better access to informants who were also young woman. Freeman worked in Samoa at various points beginning in the 1940s. Freeman worked in a different area and was generally more connected with chiefs and higher-ups. This time difference is also important because of increasing US influence and conversion to Christianity. The work of either is not considered entirely discredited, even by their respective opponents. So we have to separate out to some degree this fieldwork from the accusations made against Mead by Freeman. Now to get to the reactions to Freeman. The initial reactions and the ones that continued on throughout the 1980s were largely dismissive of Freeman. However, the most interesting critiques were probably by those who critiqued both Mead and Freeman. Some of the broad brush accusations made against Mead had some truth to them. Eleanor Leacock agreed that Mead had romanticized Samoa to some extent, but not to the extent that Freeman claimed. Bradd Shore believed the overall picture was somewhere between Mead and Freeman. However, Shore, Leacock and others (I am also drawing on recent histories by James Cote, Paul Shankman, and Martin Orans here) demonstrate both that Freeman systematically misrepresented Mead on many points and had a number of inconsistencies in his accusations. For example, some of Freeman's own work -- statistics and interviews -- contradicted his own claims. The biggest misrepresentation, though, is Freeman's later claim that Mead was \"hoaxed\" by an informant. Freeman misrepresented this informant as being key to Mead's fieldwork and conclusion about sexual activity. This was not true -- Mead devoted only a few sentences to her in Coming of Age. The interview which the hoax claim was derived from was dubious in a number of ways. The interviewee was with a relative of the chief and a higher-up in the Samoan government. Admitting to pre-marital sexual relations was taboo in this context. By the 1980s, many Samoans considered pre-Christian social practices (esp. pre-marital sex) to be a sort of dark age period and mentioning them was dishonorable. The manuscripts of unpublished interviews show inconsistencies in the informant's testimony as well. Recent histories of the controversies all consider this hoaxing idea to be entirely discredited. Even Orans, whose *Not Even Wrong* was a huge criticism of Mead, was at pains to show that the hoax hypothesis was false. Cote, Shankman, and Orans are unanimous on the fact that Freeman distorted Mead's work. Also, Freeman like to portray himself as a level-headed scientist fighting against lunatic ideologues. Freeman himself was however not purely calm and rational during this controversy. He bullied his opponents, even trying to have some of their doctorates revoked. Here are the sources I meantion: Cote, James E. (1994) Adolescent Storm and Stress: An Evaluation of the Mead Freeman Controversy. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum. Leacock, Eleanor. (1988) Anthropologists in Search of a Culture: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman and All the Rest of Us. Central Issues in Anthropology Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 3\u201320, June 1988. http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1525\/cia.1988.8.1.3\/abstract Orans, Martin. (1996) Not Even Wrong: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoans. Novato: Chandler and Sharp. Shankman, Paul. (2013) The \"Fateful Hoaxing\" of Margaret Mead: A Cautionary Tale. Current Anthropology, Vol. 54, No. 1 (February 2013), pp. 51-70 http:\/\/anthropology.colorado.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/FatefulHoaxingpdf.pdf Shankman, Paul. (2009) The Trashing of Margaret Mead. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press. There is a brief excerpt here: http:\/\/www.unl.edu\/rhames\/courses\/current\/readings\/Shankman-Trashing%20of%20Margaret%20Mead.pdf Shore, Bradd. (1983) Paradox Regained: Freeman's Margaret Mead and Samoa. American Anthropologist New Series, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 935-944 http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/679594?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents","human_ref_B":"Mead and Freeman studied in different areas of Samoa and different groups of people (Mead, group of girls, Freeman, group of officials, predominantly). Imo, both had a unique perspective because their worldview differed as did the specifics of their research. Most people that I have debated the topic with have split consensuses. I tend to lean towards Mead.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5600.0,"score_ratio":13.0} {"post_id":"pye0m7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Layperson needing help understanding some aspects of the \u2018Ice-Free Corridor\u2019 of Bering Land Bridge theory Hi, I am a layperson whom recently have been reading up a lot on early human prehistory, and recently, I was reading up a lot on the differences between the land bridge theory and the coastal migration route theory. My previous understanding, from pop-sci articles, was that during the last Ice Age, sea levels were low and there was above-sea level dry land in between Alaska and Siberia, but it was covered by glaciers, and when the Ice Age started to end, in its last periods, some of the glaciers started to retreat, providing a window of time for humans to migrate from Asia to Americas, before rising sea levels eventually swallowed up the land bridge. But when I see some online images of science articles, they also show a \"ice-free corridor\" in the western parts of Canada, in the sense of an ice-free passageway between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. I am assuming that in the \"ice-free corridor theory\", it means that after early humans migrated across the Bering Land Bridge, they moves westwards towards and into the ice-free passageway between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. What were the climatic conditions such that there was an ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets? To my layperson thinking, wouldn't it be more likely that the western edge of the Cordilleran ice sheet retreats first, creating a coastal \"ice-free\" corridor? I am also curious to know, when exactly did the Bering Land Bridge actually became \"ice-free\" enough for overland human migration, notwithstanding the coastal migration theory?","c_root_id_A":"hevd7yn","c_root_id_B":"heun0mw","created_at_utc_A":1633021240,"created_at_utc_B":1633010238,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You might find this article helpful. There is growing evidence that there were ice-free refugia along the British Columbia coast during the last glacial maximum. However, the \"ice-free corridor\" between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice shields is also touted by some. The recent finds of archaeological sites in the ~14,000 year age range in Haida Gwaii, and the absence of similarly dated sites (or older) along the ice-free corridor argues for the coastal route in my opinion. But we do not know for sure yet.","human_ref_B":"There is evidence of refugia within the Cordilleran ice sheet. Most likely, corridors were there. I am not sure if there is evidence that they were used by people. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20143352","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11002.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"pye0m7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Layperson needing help understanding some aspects of the \u2018Ice-Free Corridor\u2019 of Bering Land Bridge theory Hi, I am a layperson whom recently have been reading up a lot on early human prehistory, and recently, I was reading up a lot on the differences between the land bridge theory and the coastal migration route theory. My previous understanding, from pop-sci articles, was that during the last Ice Age, sea levels were low and there was above-sea level dry land in between Alaska and Siberia, but it was covered by glaciers, and when the Ice Age started to end, in its last periods, some of the glaciers started to retreat, providing a window of time for humans to migrate from Asia to Americas, before rising sea levels eventually swallowed up the land bridge. But when I see some online images of science articles, they also show a \"ice-free corridor\" in the western parts of Canada, in the sense of an ice-free passageway between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. I am assuming that in the \"ice-free corridor theory\", it means that after early humans migrated across the Bering Land Bridge, they moves westwards towards and into the ice-free passageway between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. What were the climatic conditions such that there was an ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets? To my layperson thinking, wouldn't it be more likely that the western edge of the Cordilleran ice sheet retreats first, creating a coastal \"ice-free\" corridor? I am also curious to know, when exactly did the Bering Land Bridge actually became \"ice-free\" enough for overland human migration, notwithstanding the coastal migration theory?","c_root_id_A":"hevlbhn","c_root_id_B":"heun0mw","created_at_utc_A":1633024566,"created_at_utc_B":1633010238,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/wondery.com\/shows\/tides-of-history\/episode\/5629-who-were-the-first-americans\/ This podcast By Patrick Wyman (Historian) is a pretty good look at the current understanding of the peopling of the Americas. There is constantly new research being done, and literally, the day after he recorded the podcast there was a new publication that brought some aspects into question. But it's still a very good overview for a layperson or undergraduate.","human_ref_B":"There is evidence of refugia within the Cordilleran ice sheet. Most likely, corridors were there. I am not sure if there is evidence that they were used by people. https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20143352","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14328.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8duu3j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Can anyone help identify a found mortar and pestle? Story inside. (X-post from r\/askhistorians) A little over 100 years ago, my wife\u2019s great grand father found this mortar and pestle while plowing their field located in Christian County Kentucky. Their family farm has been there since the late 1700\u2019s. Both my wife and her mother are interested in finding out if anyone can identify it based on the photos located here: photos This area was primarily occupied by Shawnee Indians as well as Cherokee Indians; also this area of Christian county is on the Northern route of the Trail of Tears, so it may not be Shawnee or Cherokee. We have found very little in our research and hoping to find out a little more.","c_root_id_A":"dxq6a6h","c_root_id_B":"dxqmw62","created_at_utc_A":1524307037,"created_at_utc_B":1524331505,"score_A":5,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"You should crosspost this to \/r\/whatisthisthing.","human_ref_B":"I'm an archaeologist and work in and around the region where you said you found these objects. For the larger piece, it probably is a mortar. From some angles, it's a little hard to tell, because with the water reflecting off the surfaces, I can't tell much about the actual surface of the stone. A mortar is made from grinding and smoothing. The surface should be relatively smooth, and relatively rounded. There should be no major hills \/ valleys in the depression, because that would defeat the purpose of it being a mortar. To be able to tell more, I'd want to see it dry. But the last picture in the series is pretty convincing. As to the other object... I have no idea what that is, but it's not like any pestle I've seen from the region. Formal (that is, intentionally shaped) pestles from this area are typically \"bell pestles,\" and are mostly **shaped like this.** Whatever that is-- and it does appear to have been shaped-- it doesn't look like a pestle. The stone from which it's been shaped looks rather soft, and the fairly smooth surface seems to back that up. Is it heavy or light? My guess is that it was intentionally shaped, because that degree of symmetry is pretty unusual in geofacts. But I don't think it's a pestle.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24468.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"8duu3j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Can anyone help identify a found mortar and pestle? Story inside. (X-post from r\/askhistorians) A little over 100 years ago, my wife\u2019s great grand father found this mortar and pestle while plowing their field located in Christian County Kentucky. Their family farm has been there since the late 1700\u2019s. Both my wife and her mother are interested in finding out if anyone can identify it based on the photos located here: photos This area was primarily occupied by Shawnee Indians as well as Cherokee Indians; also this area of Christian county is on the Northern route of the Trail of Tears, so it may not be Shawnee or Cherokee. We have found very little in our research and hoping to find out a little more.","c_root_id_A":"dxqmw62","c_root_id_B":"dxqivei","created_at_utc_A":1524331505,"created_at_utc_B":1524326928,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm an archaeologist and work in and around the region where you said you found these objects. For the larger piece, it probably is a mortar. From some angles, it's a little hard to tell, because with the water reflecting off the surfaces, I can't tell much about the actual surface of the stone. A mortar is made from grinding and smoothing. The surface should be relatively smooth, and relatively rounded. There should be no major hills \/ valleys in the depression, because that would defeat the purpose of it being a mortar. To be able to tell more, I'd want to see it dry. But the last picture in the series is pretty convincing. As to the other object... I have no idea what that is, but it's not like any pestle I've seen from the region. Formal (that is, intentionally shaped) pestles from this area are typically \"bell pestles,\" and are mostly **shaped like this.** Whatever that is-- and it does appear to have been shaped-- it doesn't look like a pestle. The stone from which it's been shaped looks rather soft, and the fairly smooth surface seems to back that up. Is it heavy or light? My guess is that it was intentionally shaped, because that degree of symmetry is pretty unusual in geofacts. But I don't think it's a pestle.","human_ref_B":"\/r\/Archaeology might be able to help also.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4577.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"kntiuh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"When did we evolve into meat eaters? So I am not a anthropology student or anything like that. Just someone with adhd who\u2019s current hyper fixation is anthropology That being said I was watching a short documentary on homo evolution and they made kinda a small side comment about how we evolved from \u201ckiller apes\u201d who potentially turned cannibalistic. They didn\u2019t really expand on that in the video; so I guess what I\u2019m really asking is which one of our ancestors decided berries and nuts just didn\u2019t cut it anymore? And was it out of necessity that we became omnivores?","c_root_id_A":"ghmsmn9","c_root_id_B":"ghmwmnx","created_at_utc_A":1609442408,"created_at_utc_B":1609444542,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Some good insight is here: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/scitable\/knowledge\/library\/evidence-for-meat-eating-by-early-humans-103874273\/ I think it co-evolved with stone tool making and using, and early proto-humans got more 'bang for the buck' by incorporating meat into their diet i.e. more calories and nutrition without putting as much work into obtaining it compared to other sources of food.","human_ref_B":"You might enjoy the book Close Encounters with Humankind by Dr. Sang-Hee Lee! It's not overly technical but is a lovely read about many different aspects of human evolution. And the best part is each chapter is something different, so you can read one, two, or all of them and in any order.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2134.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"eay426","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Are there any cultures that don\u2019t have weddings? When I try to look this question up, I just get a bunch of pages talking about weddings in different countries. Are weddings a universal human experience?","c_root_id_A":"fb0c2rp","c_root_id_B":"fazq750","created_at_utc_A":1576424679,"created_at_utc_B":1576418534,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"There are cultures without committed, life-long marriages, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re asking. There does tend to be a ceremony whenever we move from one stage to another: van Gennep called these \u201crites of passage\u201d. Think of baptisms, circumcisions, graduations, bar mitzvahs, first communions, quincea\u00f1era, and, yes, marriages. These all mark the transition (the passage) from one status to another. Now, do *any* cultures have no ceremony to mark the beginning of... what? A permanent sexual Union. Some cultures differentiate between concubinage and marriage and as such would generally have no rituals for one and vast rituals for the other. Other cultures don\u2019t have one man, one woman type marriages, generally having polygyny but occasionally in land poor regions you also have polyandry (I think Tibet is the most famous example). The group anthropologist have traditionally called the Mosuo of China (they call themselves the Na, apparently) famously have what\u2019s called a \u201cwalking marriage\u201d, which is a mostly secret sexual relationship. There the ritual emphasis is on a woman coming of age (and therefore, eligible to secretly invite men to visit her for a sexual relationship) rather than on the celebration of the union of two people\/families. There are a couple of other cultures that don\u2019t have some sort of permanent\/semi-permanent formalized\/ritualized romantic\/sexual union (\u201cmarriage\u201d), but the Mosuo are the most famous and the name that\u2019s coming to mind right now. The Mosuo do typically exclusively practice a kind of (potentially serial) monogamy (rather than some sort of free-wheeling polyandry as more salacious accounts emphasize)\u2014it\u2019s just never ritualized. Again, to emphasize, while it\u2019s not universal, it\u2019s one of those things that\u2019s very nearly universal.","human_ref_B":"Are you asking about modern times or the past? And weddings as a commitment ceremony or celebration? Back in the day, handfasting used to be enough in the West for commitment, and only the couple needed to be present. This doesn\u2019t address whether the couple then celebrated with others. The church banned the practice to exercise greater control. In modern times, the state has taken over the power of regulating marriage so there are set rules to follow. The celebration aspect is up to the couple. There aren\u2019t many places left where there isn\u2019t some form of organized state and I don\u2019t know enough about native cultures to speak on the topic but would assume that some sort of ceremony is generally involved because in tribal societies, mass celebrations are a way to reinforce community bonds.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6145.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1vbf1o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Do all cultures associate bodily cleanliness with feeling good? When I take a shower at the end of a long day, it feels great. I love feeling clean. Are there cultures for home this association does not exist, or is reversed? Is it 'gross' to be not covered in sweat and dirt in some societies? (I realize that ideas of 'clean' and 'dirty' are culturally dependent, so any insight into what counts as clean\/dirty, good\/bad would be appreciated.)","c_root_id_A":"cesgqp5","c_root_id_B":"cer01xz","created_at_utc_A":1390017519,"created_at_utc_B":1389879751,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"People perceive things differently. Why do you assume everyone feels great after taking a shower? I shower out of duty, I hate taking showers. I shower to prevent bodily odor, not to feel good.","human_ref_B":"Your question somewhat rememebers me the works of Mary Douglas. The wiki really doesnt do justice to the depth of data and analysis of this book, if you are intetested in cultural anthropology and want to explore your question, i do reccomend you to check her works.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":137768.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"awb182","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Are there any \u201cmust see\u201d documentaries on early man, and early civilization? If you have any other great anthropology to recommend, I\u2019d love to hear about them too.","c_root_id_A":"ehlvs4z","c_root_id_B":"ehlvmoi","created_at_utc_A":1551501651,"created_at_utc_B":1551501497,"score_A":53,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"If you look for comprehensive history of X, documentaries probably wouldn't do it. They skip a lot of \"boring\" details and empathize cool parts like battles. Comprehensive video sources on history are Great Courses from The Teaching Company, they have video lecture courses on Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc. There is also 28 part course 'World Civilization to 1500' from University of Houston: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL32431938AF5F757F Out of documentaries, must see: \u2295 BBC -- The Ascent of Man, 13 eps May see on early men: \u2295 BBC -- Walking with Cavemen, 4 eps \u2295 BBC -- Human Planet, 8 eps \u2295 BBC -- Planet of the Apemen, 2 eps \u2295 BBC -- Origins of Us, 3 eps \u2295 PBS -- Becoming Human, 3 eps \u2295 BBC -- The Incredible Human Journey, 5 eps \u2295 CBC -- The Great Human Odyssey, 3 eps \u2295 NG -- Origins: The Journey of Humankind, 8 eps \u2295 History -- Mankind: The Story of All of Us, 12 eps Related: \u2295 BBC -- Your Inner Fish: An Evolution Story, 3 eps \u2295 BBC -- The Human Animal, 6 eps May see on early civilizations (no aliens): \u2295 ITV -- Legacy: The Origins of Civilization, 6 eps \u2295 Time Life -- Lost Civilizations, 10 eps \u2295 BBC -- Ancient Worlds, 6 eps \u2295 NG -- Guns, Germs and Steel, 3 eps \u2295 BBC -- What the Ancients Did for Us, 9 eps \u2295 BBC -- History of the World, 8 eps May see on specific civilizations (no aliens): \u2295 SBS -- East to West, 7 eps \\[Near and Middle East\\] \u2295 History - Ancient Egypt, 10 eps \u2295 NG -- The Greeks, 3 eps \u2295 History -- The Great Empire: Rome, 4 eps \u2295 BBC -- The Story of India, 6 eps \u2295 BBC -- The Story of China, 6 eps","human_ref_B":"There are some but really they come down to the presenter or academics used. In short there are great BBC docs for example but you will find some contradicting ideas in each and few agreed upon \"facts\". Maybe you can be a little more specific as to what you mean by \"early civilization\" so people can list what they know exists on a topic","labels":1,"seconds_difference":154.0,"score_ratio":10.6} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e58onx3","c_root_id_B":"e585101","created_at_utc_A":1535847139,"created_at_utc_B":1535827876,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My brother did his undergrad in electrical engineering, a masters in cultural anthropology and is now back to being an electrical engineer.","human_ref_B":"I have a friend who did a degree in musicology and then went for an MA in archaeology. I can't say how he prepared for it, but it's doable. I know he had taken some ethnomusicology courses. There will be a lot of catching up to do though. I would recommend doing a field school before applying.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19263.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e58iqa3","c_root_id_B":"e58onx3","created_at_utc_A":1535841105,"created_at_utc_B":1535847139,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I had a TA who majored in, I want to say English Literature? But she ended up getting involved in lots of side projects, attended and later led some digs, and built up her CV that way so that even without requisite coursework from undergrad she was still able to get in to a top-level Master's program.","human_ref_B":"My brother did his undergrad in electrical engineering, a masters in cultural anthropology and is now back to being an electrical engineer.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6034.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e58onx3","c_root_id_B":"e58j16w","created_at_utc_A":1535847139,"created_at_utc_B":1535841404,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My brother did his undergrad in electrical engineering, a masters in cultural anthropology and is now back to being an electrical engineer.","human_ref_B":"I worked with a young woman who was doing CRM archaeology with a BA in English. She had completed an archaeological field school and impressed us her first time out, so she was good to go. Last I talked to her she was in grad school in anthropology up north. So yes, it can be done.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5735.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e585101","c_root_id_B":"e592s9p","created_at_utc_A":1535827876,"created_at_utc_B":1535863173,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I have a friend who did a degree in musicology and then went for an MA in archaeology. I can't say how he prepared for it, but it's doable. I know he had taken some ethnomusicology courses. There will be a lot of catching up to do though. I would recommend doing a field school before applying.","human_ref_B":"My BA is in theatre. My MA is in anthropology. I took a total of one anthropology course in undergrad. You can totally go straight into a Masters program. I even had funding!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35297.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e58iqa3","c_root_id_B":"e592s9p","created_at_utc_A":1535841105,"created_at_utc_B":1535863173,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I had a TA who majored in, I want to say English Literature? But she ended up getting involved in lots of side projects, attended and later led some digs, and built up her CV that way so that even without requisite coursework from undergrad she was still able to get in to a top-level Master's program.","human_ref_B":"My BA is in theatre. My MA is in anthropology. I took a total of one anthropology course in undergrad. You can totally go straight into a Masters program. I even had funding!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22068.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"9c59r4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Has Anyone Here Gotten a Masters in Anthropology With a Bachelors in Something Completely Different? So, I have a degree in flute performance. Not at all related to anthropology, I know. I did take anthropology, and specifically Archaeology electives through my degree. At the end of this year I\u2019ll have enough credits for a minor in Archaeology, though I can\u2019t declare it because I\u2019ve already graduated from my music degree. I was thinking about going back for an anthropology degree at the undergraduate level in order to continue with a masters in Archaeology, as I did a musicology study on ancient instruments in my fourth year. I found the research incredibly interesting. I had a second thought however, and sent some emails out to a few universities regarding a masters in Archaeology, and they said that as long as I had a decent background in anthropology, they\u2019d consider an application from me. I was wondering if anyone else had started with a degree that was pretty far from anthropology, and went into anthropology at the masters level? If so, how did you prepare for the jump between the two differing degrees? Edit: Words","c_root_id_A":"e592s9p","c_root_id_B":"e58j16w","created_at_utc_A":1535863173,"created_at_utc_B":1535841404,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"My BA is in theatre. My MA is in anthropology. I took a total of one anthropology course in undergrad. You can totally go straight into a Masters program. I even had funding!","human_ref_B":"I worked with a young woman who was doing CRM archaeology with a BA in English. She had completed an archaeological field school and impressed us her first time out, so she was good to go. Last I talked to her she was in grad school in anthropology up north. So yes, it can be done.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21769.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"sx5gpi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Sapiens and Neanderthals My (limited) studies, and current thinking have all suggested that Sapiens and Neanderthals have a very recent common ancestor. It is also suggested that when Sapiens began to colonise Europe there was an established population of Neanderthals, with whom they co-existed. There is a (New scientist) article that states that Neanderthals never inhabited Africa. These points seem incompatible, since if we accept that Sapiens evolved IN Africa, and that Neanderthals have recent (even immediate) common root, then they must have BOTH been in Africa at some time. My question is where did the northern population of Neanderthals come from and how did the populations of sapiens and Neanderthal become geographically separate given the above...?","c_root_id_A":"hxq3127","c_root_id_B":"hxqk8sv","created_at_utc_A":1645377390,"created_at_utc_B":1645384408,"score_A":35,"score_B":48,"human_ref_A":"It is my understanding that the current thinking is that Neanderthal and Denisovian evolved from homo erectus after they left Africa. Homo Sapiens evolved from homo erectus still in Africa. This is why we were able to actually interbreed with both Neanderthal and denisovians. They are like cousins to us. There are some theories that homo sapien evolved from homo erectus in Asia then worked their way back. I don\u2019t believe most paleoanthropologists agree with this premise though.","human_ref_B":">These points seem incompatible, since if we accept that Sapiens evolved IN Africa, and that Neanderthals have recent (even immediate) common root, then they must have BOTH been in Africa at some time. Be aware of just how tenuous this period in hominin evolution is. It is maddening -- due to poor survival in many environments as well as the political\/security difficulties in doing fieldwork in many places, we're missing a lot of this moment in human prehistory. What we can find is filtered by \"where we can look\" and \"what didn't rot away or get buried too deep\". When you compare to drier areas around the Mediterranean- we get wonderful survival of remains, including many from which DNA can be sequenced. So, for example, Spain has been a fantastic site. That doesn't mean that there wasn't as much hominin activity in North Africa, it's just our sampling is distinctly non random, and one discovery can change everything. We now have several recent finds, some just skeletal remains, others including recoverable genetic material that give us evidence of recent interbreeding events (\"recent\" in the sense that the remains are of an individual just a few generations away from some such match). Until that moment, it had been widely assumed that Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo Sapiens didn't have much to do with each other, earlier references described such events as \"extremely rare\" -- now we've got evidence that they substantially overlapped, and interacted, including sexually, and such discoveries are appearing with surprising frequency, where we can look for them. Imagine what might have been happening in place where we either can't look, or where preservation was poor. That's a long way of saying \"don't assume too much about what we can't observe\". It is an incredibly exciting time for paleoanthropology, but its exciting precisely because people are finding things which surprise us in big ways. A great time to be curious, a bad time to be certain . . . See: Villanea, Fernando A., and Joshua G. Schraiber. \"Multiple episodes of interbreeding between Neanderthal and modern humans.\" Nature ecology & evolution 3.1 (2019): 39-44. Heydari-Guran, Saman, et al. \"The discovery of an in situ Neanderthal remain in the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, West-Central Zagros Mountains, Kermanshah.\" PloS one 16.8 (2021): e0253708. Fu, Qiaomei, et al. \"An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor.\" Nature 524.7564 (2015): 216-219. Rogers, Alan R., Nathan S. Harris, and Alan A. Achenbach. \"Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors interbred with a distantly related hominin.\" Science advances 6.8 (2020):","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7018.0,"score_ratio":1.3714285714} {"post_id":"sx5gpi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Sapiens and Neanderthals My (limited) studies, and current thinking have all suggested that Sapiens and Neanderthals have a very recent common ancestor. It is also suggested that when Sapiens began to colonise Europe there was an established population of Neanderthals, with whom they co-existed. There is a (New scientist) article that states that Neanderthals never inhabited Africa. These points seem incompatible, since if we accept that Sapiens evolved IN Africa, and that Neanderthals have recent (even immediate) common root, then they must have BOTH been in Africa at some time. My question is where did the northern population of Neanderthals come from and how did the populations of sapiens and Neanderthal become geographically separate given the above...?","c_root_id_A":"hxri87m","c_root_id_B":"hxrme33","created_at_utc_A":1645398852,"created_at_utc_B":1645400716,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"First off, the dividing line between two distinct species vs two different subspecies...well to be honest there isn't one. The idea that it can somehow be ascertained by ability to produce fertile offspring is just absolutely incorrect. There are some mammals of different genus that can breed and produce fertile offspring. Cattle x Bison is an example. And how do you figure out fertility in extinct populations. instead what you have is a group of individuals which allows you to form a base of what is 'normal' on a few dozen characteristics and what level of deviation do you find from that baseline. And then if you find another population that has most of it's members falling outside that baseline, beyond a reasonable deviation, you treat it as a different species, or maybe a different subspecies. As far as Sapiens vs Neanderthal I prefer the methodology that views them as two different subspecies. how can Neanderthal form outside of Africa? Easy. A third subspecies from which both Sapiens and Neanderthal existed in both Africa and parts of the middle east as well as Europe. That sub-species gave rise to a both Neanderthal and Sapiens.","human_ref_B":"Something to think about evolutionary-wise. You have a population. let's say it's a bird. It's got green feathers. Over time due to environmental pressures, it evolves to bluish-green, then blue. And then through more pressure, to bluish purple, then to purple, then purplish red, then red. We'll say this is due to it hiding in trees and liking to be the same color as the flowers and hiding right next to them. At any given time, 99% of the birds in this population are the colors indicated. So how do you classify that? Most likely as 4 different species (green, blue, purple, red) and notes about 'transitional populations'. But it could easily be 7 if those transitionals are counted, the change is gradual after all, and the reason 4 was chosen was because of color theory not biology. But you might also call it one species that just adapts to whatever the environmental pressures are. However, what do you do in a situation where some of the original green ones remain in an isolated area, but someplace else the greens all turn blue then purple then red. Now do you have 2 species? Or 4? Or 1? Or 8, because the one that stayed green had some other change going on as it adapted, like body size or tail length, but exactly where you draw the line between a 3 inch tail gradually transitioning to a 5 inch tail? 3 different species because you have a new one at each inch? or 5 because you measure in centimeters? We say species or subspecies when we really mean 'this population seems related very closely to that population - but there are some significant differences. and they probably didn't have meaningful genetic exchange for dozens of generations if not hundreds'","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1864.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"7b8t9s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did humans figure out that salt was good on food? Did they just grind up different rocks on their food until they found one that tasted good?","c_root_id_A":"dpgwmm5","c_root_id_B":"dpgwi7s","created_at_utc_A":1510055088,"created_at_utc_B":1510054794,"score_A":26,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Salt isn't just good on food, it's essential: like all animals, we need sodium in order to function. Given that salt is both essential, it tastes good. Asking how humans figured out that salt tasted good isn't really a question that we can answer, because our ancestors have doubtless sought out and consumed salt _since long before there were humans_! Observing the behaviour of other mammals, we see that many of them exhibit behaviours specifically geared-towards the collection of salt: ruminant herbivores like these bison or this elephant will seek out salty rocks to lick in order to attain the mineral. Sodium is rare in plants, but is concentrated in animals, and so most carnivores (including humans on a meat-heavy diet, such as those traditionally living in arctic and\/or mountainous regions) are able to get most or all of their salt intake from eating meat alone. Owing to its taste and necessity, salt has been mined or extracted from seawater in temperate and tropical areas for about 8,000 years: almost as long as we've been domesticating plants. Our relationship with salt is long and important: Europe's oldest known town is believed to have been a salt-mining settlement, and centuries old traditions and sayings (e.g. words like \"salary\", which implies payment in salt, and phrases like \"worth his salt\") about its importance stick with us to this day. It's only relatively recently that mass-production of salt has become possible (and with it we're discovering the harmful effects of too-much salt in our diets, just as we have with sugar: another essential nutrient that used to be less-commonplace). **tl;dr: humans already knew that salt tasted good since before they were humans**","human_ref_B":"The phenomena of adding salt for taste has been observed in modern times with the Macaque Monkeys of Koshima, Japan. Basically, the Macaques leaned to wash their sweet potatoes in rivers to rid them of dirt, later it was observed that they started to clean their potatoes in the ocean for seasoning\/flavour. Others soon followed. This is known as the Hundredth monkey effect.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":294.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"3uu2s0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"Why does this subreddit have more topics about biological and archaeological anthropology than its \"softer\" socio-cultural coutnerparts I shall first set the premise for my question by saying I was \"born\" out of the socio-cultural branch of anthropology. I graduated from the University of Melbourne last year with one of my majors in Anthropology, and I believe that the majority of the Social Science department has little interaction with the Science and Archaeological department because pretty much none of the assignments are grounded in positivist methodology. There seems to be more interaction with Sociologists and Political Scientists just based on the subject choices offered. Perhaps, does the prevalence of the \"positivist\" topics have to do with different traditions because of geography? I assume that the majority of users here are of the North American school of thought (I was told that the UK and Europe generally have a slant in Sociology, e.g. Levi-Strauss, Radcliffe-Brown; while \"cultural anthropology\" and \"biological anthropology\" stuck on in the States), but I'd like to confirm with fellow redditors.","c_root_id_A":"cxhyblm","c_root_id_B":"cxhy9jx","created_at_utc_A":1448897231,"created_at_utc_B":1448897123,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You are correct that archaeology and bio-anth are inseparable from anthropology in the US. This is also reddit, where scientific=cool but any YouTuber with fancy moving inforgraphics can convince a while group of something social science-y because he's just, well, so convincing. Critical analysis is for boring nitpickers, unless it's science, then nitpicking is the greatest pasttime since the N64. Rant over. In any case, I'm not sure your assumption is correct. Going through the first two pages of recent submissions, we have: * 24 on socio-cultural topics * 8 on biological anthro * 4 on paleo stuff * 4 on archaeology * 1 on linguistics * 8 other \"meta\" ones on the field or sub Yeah, it's hard to sort everything explicitly by field. But I'm just not seeing the same shortage you are.","human_ref_B":"It's interesting that you think this. Have you quantified the number of questions by type? As an archaeologist, I feel that this sub has a ton of the \"softer\" questions you think it's lacking. I'm a US-based archaeologist, and I would like to answer your question regarding geography, but frankly I don't really understand what you're getting at. We get a background in all sorts of theory, including Levi-Strauss and Radcliffe-Brown, but that stuff is pretty outdated at this point don't you think? I think the largest recent(ish) influence in American archaeology theory has been Lewis Binford, one of the \"inventors\" of Processual Archaeology. Other recent theoreticians with widespread influence are Ian Hodder (post-processualist) and Tim Ingold (phenomenology\/landscape archaeology).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":108.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1dhi8l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What can anthropologists (and other social scientists) do to convince non-social scientists that their research is vital and deserves funding? I read this article in Slate, posted in \/r\/Anthropology by \/u\/xnoybis, which describes the Republican effort in the US Congress to cut NSF funding to various social science projects because they aren't \"promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States\". The Republicans leading the charge seem to think that the private sector will step in and fund research instead. In both the UK and the US (the two places I have experience with), funding cuts by the government are making it incredibly hard for scientists of many kinds, including social scientists, to carry on with their research. Dedicated, talented people are leaving behind research and seeking other jobs as they search for stability and security in their lives. Often it's easy to feel that the system is stacked against us, but I'd like us to think that we're the only ones who can convince people that our research deserves funding. What are some arguments we can make to convince non-social scientists that our work is vital?","c_root_id_A":"c9qizvo","c_root_id_B":"c9qkyc7","created_at_utc_A":1367439985,"created_at_utc_B":1367445069,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Well this is why you see sub fields of anthropology like applied anthropology where they do research for a client. Applied anthropologist do not have to be connected to academia in any way too. I think the best example of the use\/importance of anthropology is the famous case of Robert Rhoades' research for the international potato center. His work showed the waste and mismanagement of so called hard scientist and also the benefit of interdisciplinary work. But that's the ultimate reality. No matter what, all the disciplins know that interdisciplinary work is the most effective and relevant.","human_ref_B":"The best explanation for the need for anthropology was given by u\/virantiquus last year. It was discussing archaeology in particular, but it could apply to other subfields as well: > The majority of the people who have ever lived on earth were never recorded in history. History was, and still is, written largely by the educated elite. Therefore, it tends to record the history of the elite. Archaeology gives a voice to the billions of everyday people because that's the majority of what remains in the archaeological record: the stuff that everyday people used. > In this way, Archaeology is political. It can serve to give a history and an identity to disenfranchised people around the world, who are otherwise told that their ancestors were \"nothing but a bunch of savages\". That's why the Soviet Union suppressed the archaeology of native peoples in the places they occupied, because they feared it would support nationalism by fostering an ethnic identity. Now, you can say this is good or bad, but it definitely propels Archaeology into the political and moral realm. I don't know if this form of research is in the best interests of those in charge, but it explains very well the necessity of what we do. And of course, there's always my favorite SMBC comic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5084.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"e6jz9h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I'm looking for a yt series or podcast focusing on our transition from hunter\/gatherer to agrarian. I'm a big fan of Terence McKenna, and he talks a little about the discovery of the \"tanged point complex\", the grain silo of Jericho being the biggest construction of its time, the creation of our concepts of private property, monogamy, and war going hand in hand with our transition to an agrarian society and the food surpluses that go with that. But even though I love Terence, he wasn't an anthropologist, and many of his ideas probably aren't the best representation of the current scientific consensus. So, I'm looking to learn more about this period in our history, and separate the facts from the speculation. Does anyone have any idea for good anthropology podcasts or yt videos, etc. that might focus on or cover this era of human history? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"f9rhksa","c_root_id_B":"f9rjv5o","created_at_utc_A":1575576436,"created_at_utc_B":1575577351,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The book Civilized to Death just came out on this subject and it's very good. It's by Chris Ryan who I think is an anthropologist. He also has a podcast but the podcast is much less focused and more about life in general","human_ref_B":"Stefan Milo is your guy! I recently found his channel which has a ton of videos with a wide variety of anthropological\/archaeological topics. No doubt he has a few on the development of agriculture and sedentism","labels":0,"seconds_difference":915.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"e6jz9h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"I'm looking for a yt series or podcast focusing on our transition from hunter\/gatherer to agrarian. I'm a big fan of Terence McKenna, and he talks a little about the discovery of the \"tanged point complex\", the grain silo of Jericho being the biggest construction of its time, the creation of our concepts of private property, monogamy, and war going hand in hand with our transition to an agrarian society and the food surpluses that go with that. But even though I love Terence, he wasn't an anthropologist, and many of his ideas probably aren't the best representation of the current scientific consensus. So, I'm looking to learn more about this period in our history, and separate the facts from the speculation. Does anyone have any idea for good anthropology podcasts or yt videos, etc. that might focus on or cover this era of human history? Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"f9se5n3","c_root_id_B":"f9rhksa","created_at_utc_A":1575590656,"created_at_utc_B":1575576436,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m an anthropologist that largely focuses on some of these things! For the layman looking to learn more, I often recommend Jared Diamond\u2019s book Guns, Germs, & Steel. It discusses the results of the Neolithic Revolution and focuses on some of the topics you listed. However, it warrants a disclaimer: Jared Diamond is also not an anthropologist, and his books are often written with the \u201cpopular general audience\u201d in mind. So he sometimes both cherry-picks the information he uses from his sources, and draws some conclusions that he presents as fact, despite little evidence or consensus from other historians\/anthropologists\/archaeologists. If you go into the book with that in mind, though, and can critically engage with the material, it\u2019s a fantastic resource, and it\u2019s worth noting he won the Pulitzer for this book. National Geographic also made a show of the same name a number of years back, based on the book.","human_ref_B":"The book Civilized to Death just came out on this subject and it's very good. It's by Chris Ryan who I think is an anthropologist. He also has a podcast but the podcast is much less focused and more about life in general","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14220.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"brzrle","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Would Otzi have spoken a PIE language? By the way, have you guys seen the Otzi movie? Its even better than I had hoped. Iceman I only recently became aware of the time frame of the different migrations into Europe. Is this correct?: Hunter gatherers wander Europe from the paleolithic until the first wave of farmers come in from Anatolia. They live relatively peacefully alongside the old populations. These new farmers are the beaker people and they build Stonehenge. The chalcolithic comes about and Yamnaya pastoralists come in from the steppe and raise hell. They spread across Europe and enter neither northern Scandinavia nor Sardinia, leaving their gene pools relatively unchanged. These tribes become both the Celts and the Romans. Is this correct? Thanks","c_root_id_A":"eohxshf","c_root_id_B":"eohwb36","created_at_utc_A":1558602067,"created_at_utc_B":1558599520,"score_A":65,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":">Hunter gatherers wander Europe from the paleolithic until the first wave of farmers come in from Anatolia. More or less correct. It's less wandering, so much as seasonal migration following the resources. Hunter gatherers don't just wander about, they know their landscapes, and would occupy a fairly large range deliberately throughout the year. >They live relatively peacefully alongside the old populations. Mostly? There is certainly some evidence for interbreeding, and some trade during the LBK which would imply some peaceable interaction. But there's also things like the Talheim Death pit, which is more or less the result of a home invasion targetting a mixed family. The nature of farmer\/indigenous relations is certainly a topic for future work. >These new farmers are the beaker people and they build Stonehenge. Absolutely not. The Neolithic farmers come into different bits of Europe between 7000 BC and 4000BC. The Neolithic Reaches Britain around 4000BC, which is fairly late. Once pottery, farming, and cattle arrive monument building kicks off quite sharpish with Dolmens, Long Barrows, Causewayed enclosures etc. The first phase of Stonehenge comes in at 3100BC ish, consisting of a timber circle and the henge. At that point no stones are present. Between 2600BC and 2400BC the stones are set up, in various arrangements. The big stones are local sandstone, and the smaller ones (which are about half the size they where originally), where brought from Wales. The beakers turn up in Britain from around 2500BC, and have some association with the later phases at Stonehenge. The Beakers are a Bronze using peoples, not neolithic farmers. >The chalcolithic comes about and Yamnaya pastoralists come in from the steppe and raise hell. The Yamnaya are associated with Corded Ware, they precede the Beakers by about 500 years. >These tribes become both the Celts and the Romans. You've jumped about 1000 years here. The specifics of modern history are outside my knowledge.","human_ref_B":">They live relatively peacefully alongside the old populations. No evidence of this being the case >These new farmers are the beaker people and they build Stonehenge. No, the beaker people were closer to modern brits. The Levant\/Anatolia farmers were subsequently conquered by the beaker people. Levant + Yamna + indigenous European = Beaker (evolve over 3000 years)> modern northwest euro","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2547.0,"score_ratio":7.2222222222} {"post_id":"brzrle","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Would Otzi have spoken a PIE language? By the way, have you guys seen the Otzi movie? Its even better than I had hoped. Iceman I only recently became aware of the time frame of the different migrations into Europe. Is this correct?: Hunter gatherers wander Europe from the paleolithic until the first wave of farmers come in from Anatolia. They live relatively peacefully alongside the old populations. These new farmers are the beaker people and they build Stonehenge. The chalcolithic comes about and Yamnaya pastoralists come in from the steppe and raise hell. They spread across Europe and enter neither northern Scandinavia nor Sardinia, leaving their gene pools relatively unchanged. These tribes become both the Celts and the Romans. Is this correct? Thanks","c_root_id_A":"eohylls","c_root_id_B":"eohwb36","created_at_utc_A":1558603458,"created_at_utc_B":1558599520,"score_A":18,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"You are right about some things but wrong about others. First of all, the Bell Beaker people weren't really the builders of Stonehenge, they were the ones who killed off the Stonehenge builders. They are the descendants of the Yamnaya, the steppe pastoralists who migrated out of Ukraine. The Yamnaya definitely migrated north into Scandinavia, northern European countries actually have more genetic ancestry from these people than the people in Southern Europe, which makes sense since the colder northern areas would have had a lower population density than in the south. And yes thousands of years later this migration would give birth to the Celtic and Italic peoples, such as the Gauls and the Romans. But not just them, Germanic, Slavic, Greek, Persian and Hindu cultures all come originate from this group of steppe nomads. The Scythians were the people who in antiquity were the most similar to their PIE forebearers. And to answer your question in the title, no \u00d6tzi would not have spoken a PIE language for he was not an Indo-European person. I'm not sure but I think his death predates the spread of the Yamnaya and the Indo-European languages. He might have spoken a language related to Etruscan or something. If you want a decent introduction into the history of the Indo-Europeans, there is a youtube channel called Survive The Jive who makes the best content regarding these peoples in my opinion. There are also plenty of lectures on youtube, plus you can always turn to books, just make sure they aren't outdated since there have been a lot of new findings based on genetic tests.","human_ref_B":">They live relatively peacefully alongside the old populations. No evidence of this being the case >These new farmers are the beaker people and they build Stonehenge. No, the beaker people were closer to modern brits. The Levant\/Anatolia farmers were subsequently conquered by the beaker people. Levant + Yamna + indigenous European = Beaker (evolve over 3000 years)> modern northwest euro","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3938.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"jhpmeg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Book about (ancient) cultures? More as an overview than a specialized one Hey guys, I am looking for books that\u2019s focus on cultures around the globe and give a brief overview. Especially interesting would be a book about old cultures who aren\u2019t always the same.. Roman, Egypt, greek, Sumerian, Aztec, Maya etc What about Harappa, Minoans, Phoenician or maybe even other I don\u2019t know about yet","c_root_id_A":"ga55i19","c_root_id_B":"ga3bspa","created_at_utc_A":1603691603,"created_at_utc_B":1603654298,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*The Making of the Middle Sea* by Cyprian Broodbank is an excellent single-volume overview of Mediterranean archaeology and history through the Iron Age, including not only the commonly discussed eastern Mediterranean civilizations like Egypt and Cyprus but also the western Mediterranean. As a first introduction, however, I recommend starting with the superb exhibition catalogues produced by the Met Museum. * *Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus* (free PDF) * *Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.* (free PDF) * *Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age* Marc Van de Mieroop's *The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II* is far and away the best overview of the Late Bronze Age specifically, although I agree with u\/volumineer that Cline's *1177 BC* is also a fairly good introduction.","human_ref_B":"Maybe not quite ancient, but touches on some ancient topics: I\u2019m in the middle of 1491 by Charles C. Mann and I\u2019m finding it pretty delightful. It\u2019s not a topic I\u2019ve had a ton of interest in, but I\u2019m enjoying it! Edit: ran up to look in my bookshelf. Was assigned The History of The Ancient World: From Earliest Accounts to Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer in undergrad.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":37305.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"1ksa3w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What are some good books on the history of the settlers of the Appalachian Mountains? I've been learning banjo recently, and in my studies I've been reading a little about the \"hillbilly\" culture in Appalachia, how, because of severe isolation, many Scottish and English traditions (musically, linguistically, etc) were fossilized there. I was wondering if there is an authoritative account\/survey of the area's culture.","c_root_id_A":"cbs3uam","c_root_id_B":"cbsi8rn","created_at_utc_A":1377061942,"created_at_utc_B":1377115920,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It's more recent than you're likely interested in, but *They Say in Harlan County* by Alessandro Portelli is maybe the most fantastic oral history I've ever read (Portelli is one of the most prominent oral historians, who interviewed people every summer for something like thirty years). Harlan County is famous for its union fights. The movie *Harlan County USA* (a documentary from 1976) is another one to check out. The title of Portelli's book is, as I suspect you know, from the famous union song \"Which Side Are You On?\", which was written in Harlan County in 1931. Someone else is probably going to recommend the \"Borderlands to the Backcountry\" section of *Albion's Seed*, but I'm not sure how I actually feel about that book yet--as a romantic notion, I love its thesis, as an empirically based explanation, it seems a little too neat.","human_ref_B":"Depending on how far back into the culture you're looking for, I've always enjoyed reading The Foxfire Books. (Here are some links to the first five that are free to download!)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":53978.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"y4pcqc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Need help finding a research paper on Guide to studying New Civilizations So, I'm a writer and I found this old anthropology research paper with some 20 odd chapters about different aspects of a civilization, meant as a guide for anthropologists studying newly discovered civilizations. It was a very comprehensive and concise about every aspect of civilizations and it even had fill in the blanks type spaces where you could write. It was a very helpful tool for me. Now, I've lost the hard copy and forgot the title of the research paper and am not able to find it anywhere. If this rings a bell to anyone, please help me find it.","c_root_id_A":"isf9ecb","c_root_id_B":"isffrny","created_at_utc_A":1665846471,"created_at_utc_B":1665849277,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Hi. I\u2019m a retired library director and librarian. Your local public library probably offers online access to a database. Either Academic Search Premier or Gale General One file or something like those. Give them a call and ask for the adult services reference librarian!","human_ref_B":"Depending on *how* old the paper is, those theories and conclusions are quite likely to be out of date, and some completely incorrect. I'd look for a more recent paper that serves the same purpose.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2806.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"7sjjz8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is there a consensuses amongst anthropologists regarding the legitimacy of the \"cognitive explosion\"?","c_root_id_A":"dt5vg93","c_root_id_B":"dt63nqd","created_at_utc_A":1516797097,"created_at_utc_B":1516807722,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Are you referring to the \"cognitive revolution\" suggested to have happened 40,000 years ago?","human_ref_B":"What exactly about the \"cognitive explosion\" are you wanting to know about, because there is a whole pop science view on it containing a large area of subject matter. Some views on it anthropologists tend to agree with some views that are held on it are considered fairly bunk. For the most part the view of some drastic change in brain structure or drastic increase in intelligence doesn't really hold a ton of support among those of us who study endocasts or try to extrapolate behaviors, but there were changes behaviorally that took place.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10625.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifkz170","c_root_id_B":"ifkvjt7","created_at_utc_A":1657450225,"created_at_utc_B":1657447280,"score_A":24,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"All sorts, but often the animal name isn't the same in English Arthur is Celtic for Bear. Turr is a common Dutch shortening, just like Art in english, still meaning Bear Bjorn is Norse for Bear Orson is latin\/english for bearcub Bernadette - brave as a bear female Bernadine - also brave as a bear Bernard - strong\/brave as a bear male Barrett - bear strength Bruno - brown like a bear, also bruin brown like a bear Ursula - female little bear Winifred - gentle bear (Winnie the Pooh anyone?) Torben - thunder bear, a somewhat common danish name today Leo for Lion Leon, Leonne for lion Lennard, Leonard, Lenard, etc. - Bold like a lion Leander - Lion man Lionel - young lion Napoleon - Lion of Naples Osama - Lion-like Ari\/Ariel - hebrew Lion of God Everett is an english take of Eberhard which is has hard\/brave as a wild boar Eber (or Eofor in old english) Everly - same basic thing, wild boar in a clearing Ebba\/Eberhard - top 10 most common name in Sweden, means fortress\/strength\/wealth of a boar Irwin - boar friend Averill - boar fight Wolf - Wolf. As in Wolf Blitzer the news guy. Wolf alone is a common first name in germany, whereas Wolfgang and Wolfram and Wolfhart are more common in related languages Wolfgang - as in Wolfgang Puck, Wolfgang Amadeus Motzart - traveling wolf Wolfram - same as above, but also raven-wolf Wolfhart - Wolf the hunter. More common in Germany and Poland than English. Rudolph - famous wolf Rudy - diminutive of famous wolf Randolf - red wolf, but also house wolf, protector wolf Randulf - wolf shield Rafe - wolf council Ralph - wolfish Dolph (as in Dolph Lundgren the movie star) Noble Wolf Adolf, Adolph, Adolphus- noble\/honorable wolf (thanks to hitler, no longer used) Adolfina - female of noble wolf Athelwolf - noble wolf - very common old english name now defunct Beowulf - clever\/smart\/cunning wolf Borris - short wolf","human_ref_B":"muslims name boys after names and attributes of god for example: 'Abdelalim' = servant of the all knowing 'Abdallah' = servant of allah there are also several arab names that are lesser used synonyms of 'lion'","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2945.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifl22bz","c_root_id_B":"ifl5zt3","created_at_utc_A":1657452563,"created_at_utc_B":1657455280,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Icelandic has so many nature related names: Askur: Ash tree Arnar\/\u00d6rn: Eagle Birkir: Birch Bjarni\/Bj\u00f6rn: Bear Dagur: Day Dagbjartur: Bright as day Hafsteinn: Ocean and rock Hallur: Stone Hj\u00f6rtur: Stag Hlynur: Maple tree Hrafn\/Krummi: Raven J\u00f6kull: Glacier Logi: Flame M\u00e1ni: Moon Reynir: Rowan (tree) Sm\u00e1ri: Clover Sn\u00e6r: Snow \u00dalfur: Wolf Valur: Hawk And many more..","human_ref_B":"We have a few options in french for flower\/plant boy names : Ambroise : ambrosia, ragweed Antoine\/Antonin : from the ancient greek \"anthos\" which literary means flower C\u00e8dre : cedar Florian : from latin floreus, which means flowery Hyacinthe : like the flower hyacinth Jasmin : from the jasmine flower, we don't pronounce \"meen\" at the end but \u0292asm\u025b\u0303 Lupin : same as jasmin we don't pronounce \"meen\" Narcisse : Narcissus was a guy in the Greek mythology and the flower was named after him :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2717.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifl5zt3","c_root_id_B":"ifl2xje","created_at_utc_A":1657455280,"created_at_utc_B":1657453188,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"We have a few options in french for flower\/plant boy names : Ambroise : ambrosia, ragweed Antoine\/Antonin : from the ancient greek \"anthos\" which literary means flower C\u00e8dre : cedar Florian : from latin floreus, which means flowery Hyacinthe : like the flower hyacinth Jasmin : from the jasmine flower, we don't pronounce \"meen\" at the end but \u0292asm\u025b\u0303 Lupin : same as jasmin we don't pronounce \"meen\" Narcisse : Narcissus was a guy in the Greek mythology and the flower was named after him :)","human_ref_B":"I have a friend named Douglas after the Douglas Fir. He goes by Doug. That's the only one I know of personally that hasn't been mentioned yet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2092.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifl8oao","c_root_id_B":"iflaccw","created_at_utc_A":1657456964,"created_at_utc_B":1657457945,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I can think of a few Portuguese names (that have many variations in other languages): Pedro - means stone, from the Latin petra Jacinto - a flower, hyacinthus Silvestre - means the one who comes from the forest, from de Latin silva (forest) H\u00e9lio - from the greek helios, meaning sun Leonel \/ Leonardo - from the Greek leon, meaning lion","human_ref_B":"I know rocks and minerals used to be more prevalent, as they were strong or important materials that would reflect qualities you'd want in your child. Just in English you have names such as Stone, Flint, Copper, Jasper, Cole (Coal) and more, I imagine other languages likely have some equilivant, if they'd like to chime in.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":981.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"iflaccw","c_root_id_B":"ifl2xje","created_at_utc_A":1657457945,"created_at_utc_B":1657453188,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I know rocks and minerals used to be more prevalent, as they were strong or important materials that would reflect qualities you'd want in your child. Just in English you have names such as Stone, Flint, Copper, Jasper, Cole (Coal) and more, I imagine other languages likely have some equilivant, if they'd like to chime in.","human_ref_B":"I have a friend named Douglas after the Douglas Fir. He goes by Doug. That's the only one I know of personally that hasn't been mentioned yet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4757.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifl8oao","c_root_id_B":"iflm76d","created_at_utc_A":1657456964,"created_at_utc_B":1657463789,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I can think of a few Portuguese names (that have many variations in other languages): Pedro - means stone, from the Latin petra Jacinto - a flower, hyacinthus Silvestre - means the one who comes from the forest, from de Latin silva (forest) H\u00e9lio - from the greek helios, meaning sun Leonel \/ Leonardo - from the Greek leon, meaning lion","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s actually a lot in English (not necessarily English origin but used in English speaking countries) but many aren\u2019t as conventional nowadays. -Ash or Asher -Rowan -Cliff -Flint -Glenn -Forrest -Sky\/Skye\/Skylar -Leif -Leo -Basil -Corey\/Cory -Heath -Jared -Watson -William -Trevor -Alder -Idra -Laurel -Oakley -Oliver -Vernon","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6825.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"iflm76d","c_root_id_B":"ifl2xje","created_at_utc_A":1657463789,"created_at_utc_B":1657453188,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There\u2019s actually a lot in English (not necessarily English origin but used in English speaking countries) but many aren\u2019t as conventional nowadays. -Ash or Asher -Rowan -Cliff -Flint -Glenn -Forrest -Sky\/Skye\/Skylar -Leif -Leo -Basil -Corey\/Cory -Heath -Jared -Watson -William -Trevor -Alder -Idra -Laurel -Oakley -Oliver -Vernon","human_ref_B":"I have a friend named Douglas after the Douglas Fir. He goes by Doug. That's the only one I know of personally that hasn't been mentioned yet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10601.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"vvftz1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Boys equivalent of naming girls after flowers? There are many kinds of flowers which girls are often named after. I\u2019m thinking of names like Rose, Daisy, Lily, Jasmine, Violet etc. My question is this. Is there, or has there ever been in the past, an \u201cequivalent\u201d subject used as a basis boys names? Like, animals, or fish? Trees? The closest thing I could think of would be naming boys after religious figures, but it isn\u2019t really the same kind of category as something from nature like flowers. Any history on the origins of flower names would also be interesting.","c_root_id_A":"ifl8oao","c_root_id_B":"ifl2xje","created_at_utc_A":1657456964,"created_at_utc_B":1657453188,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I can think of a few Portuguese names (that have many variations in other languages): Pedro - means stone, from the Latin petra Jacinto - a flower, hyacinthus Silvestre - means the one who comes from the forest, from de Latin silva (forest) H\u00e9lio - from the greek helios, meaning sun Leonel \/ Leonardo - from the Greek leon, meaning lion","human_ref_B":"I have a friend named Douglas after the Douglas Fir. He goes by Doug. That's the only one I know of personally that hasn't been mentioned yet.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3776.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnuxa92","c_root_id_B":"dnv03z3","created_at_utc_A":1507055543,"created_at_utc_B":1507058492,"score_A":23,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"[It is customary for Icelandic parents to wait several weeks after birth before naming their children.](https:\/\/books.google.it\/books?id=7YSYAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA135&ots=3BFylvFElv&dq=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&hl=it&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&f=false ) [A child must be given a name before the age of six months](https:\/\/www.island.is\/en\/family\/having_a_baby\/name_giving\/ ) ~~Sorry, I'm on mobile, I'll try to edit the link tomorrow~~ Edited","human_ref_B":"Delaying the naming by a few weeks is fairly common in India, at least in subcultures. There are many reasons for this. First, as you said, because infant mortality is (at least was) high, it is considered inauspicious to name the child or buy clothes for it before it is born. Second, naming a child is often held as a ceremony, and as with many things Indian, is held at an auspicious time suggested by an astrologer. What happens is that the parents\/grandparents might decide the name beforehand, (again, at times, an astrologer or numerologist might tell them what letter the name should begin with ), but is announced only during the ceremony. There is also a third reason that usually you don't get to know if it's a boy or a girl, as it is illegal for the doctors to disclose the gender of the fetus, because of the prevalence of female feticide. (Yes, that's a thing in India.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2949.0,"score_ratio":1.1304347826} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnuw8x7","c_root_id_B":"dnv03z3","created_at_utc_A":1507054478,"created_at_utc_B":1507058492,"score_A":12,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"I can't speak to a belief in children not being fully human until some time after birth, but throughout history MANY cultures have certainly delayed infant naming. The two examples I can recall with clarity are Tudor England and 20th century Mali. Numerous church records from Tudor England list both birth date and Christening date. The Christening typically took place within the first week after birth, but sometimes as late as one month after. Factors such as maternal and infant health and weather might have delayed this ceremony. In the book \"Dancing Skeletons,\" the author describes high mortality rates as contributing to a practice of not \"officially\" naming a child until about one year after birth. I think it has much more to do with practicality than a belief in sub-human quality. The ritual of Christening does have some implications of the infant not having a (whole) spirit until the ceremony. I can't say whether the same is true of Mali or any other cultures.","human_ref_B":"Delaying the naming by a few weeks is fairly common in India, at least in subcultures. There are many reasons for this. First, as you said, because infant mortality is (at least was) high, it is considered inauspicious to name the child or buy clothes for it before it is born. Second, naming a child is often held as a ceremony, and as with many things Indian, is held at an auspicious time suggested by an astrologer. What happens is that the parents\/grandparents might decide the name beforehand, (again, at times, an astrologer or numerologist might tell them what letter the name should begin with ), but is announced only during the ceremony. There is also a third reason that usually you don't get to know if it's a boy or a girl, as it is illegal for the doctors to disclose the gender of the fetus, because of the prevalence of female feticide. (Yes, that's a thing in India.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4014.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnux3uj","c_root_id_B":"dnv03z3","created_at_utc_A":1507055362,"created_at_utc_B":1507058492,"score_A":4,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Yes, some cultures in Africa do this. The African philosopher Menkitit (last name- forgot first name) writes about this in his work. He discusses how a name is something that is earned by a child by their behavior, demeanor and ability to contribute to the overall community. Some of his work focuses on the difference between how western cultures emphasize the importance of the individual while African societies emphasize the importance of the collective group or tribe.","human_ref_B":"Delaying the naming by a few weeks is fairly common in India, at least in subcultures. There are many reasons for this. First, as you said, because infant mortality is (at least was) high, it is considered inauspicious to name the child or buy clothes for it before it is born. Second, naming a child is often held as a ceremony, and as with many things Indian, is held at an auspicious time suggested by an astrologer. What happens is that the parents\/grandparents might decide the name beforehand, (again, at times, an astrologer or numerologist might tell them what letter the name should begin with ), but is announced only during the ceremony. There is also a third reason that usually you don't get to know if it's a boy or a girl, as it is illegal for the doctors to disclose the gender of the fetus, because of the prevalence of female feticide. (Yes, that's a thing in India.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3130.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnuxa92","c_root_id_B":"dnuw8x7","created_at_utc_A":1507055543,"created_at_utc_B":1507054478,"score_A":23,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"[It is customary for Icelandic parents to wait several weeks after birth before naming their children.](https:\/\/books.google.it\/books?id=7YSYAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA135&ots=3BFylvFElv&dq=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&hl=it&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&f=false ) [A child must be given a name before the age of six months](https:\/\/www.island.is\/en\/family\/having_a_baby\/name_giving\/ ) ~~Sorry, I'm on mobile, I'll try to edit the link tomorrow~~ Edited","human_ref_B":"I can't speak to a belief in children not being fully human until some time after birth, but throughout history MANY cultures have certainly delayed infant naming. The two examples I can recall with clarity are Tudor England and 20th century Mali. Numerous church records from Tudor England list both birth date and Christening date. The Christening typically took place within the first week after birth, but sometimes as late as one month after. Factors such as maternal and infant health and weather might have delayed this ceremony. In the book \"Dancing Skeletons,\" the author describes high mortality rates as contributing to a practice of not \"officially\" naming a child until about one year after birth. I think it has much more to do with practicality than a belief in sub-human quality. The ritual of Christening does have some implications of the infant not having a (whole) spirit until the ceremony. I can't say whether the same is true of Mali or any other cultures.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1065.0,"score_ratio":1.9166666667} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnuxa92","c_root_id_B":"dnux3uj","created_at_utc_A":1507055543,"created_at_utc_B":1507055362,"score_A":23,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"[It is customary for Icelandic parents to wait several weeks after birth before naming their children.](https:\/\/books.google.it\/books?id=7YSYAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA135&ots=3BFylvFElv&dq=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&hl=it&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q=icelandic%20parents%20naming%20children%20weeks%20after.birth&f=false ) [A child must be given a name before the age of six months](https:\/\/www.island.is\/en\/family\/having_a_baby\/name_giving\/ ) ~~Sorry, I'm on mobile, I'll try to edit the link tomorrow~~ Edited","human_ref_B":"Yes, some cultures in Africa do this. The African philosopher Menkitit (last name- forgot first name) writes about this in his work. He discusses how a name is something that is earned by a child by their behavior, demeanor and ability to contribute to the overall community. Some of his work focuses on the difference between how western cultures emphasize the importance of the individual while African societies emphasize the importance of the collective group or tribe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":181.0,"score_ratio":5.75} {"post_id":"7423y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is or was there a society that had a custom of delayed child naming? I remember reading about this *somewhere*, but it's been hard to google- is there a society that had a custom of not giving a permanent name to children until a certain age, due to a high prevalence of child mortality and belief that a child did not become fully human for some time after birth?","c_root_id_A":"dnzw29l","c_root_id_B":"dnw0f01","created_at_utc_A":1507306092,"created_at_utc_B":1507113595,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"A Greek baby *technically* doesn't have a name until baptism. They just call it \"the baby\" until then. Source: Married to a Greek woman.","human_ref_B":"In Chinese influenced cultures baby's get named at their one month birthday party. In \"old\" Christianity technically a baby doesn't get named until their Baptismal.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":192497.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"7wbu4m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"In what ways (if any) did early Puritanism in American colonies lead to or influence current American \u201cconservative ideas\u201d in comparison to Western Europe? As an American, it seems to be commonly accepted fact (from other Americans but also from visiting Europeans) that Puritanism is the culprit for everything supposedly wrong with U.S.A. culture, from our taboos about bare female breasts in public, to our supposed shaming of most discussions about bodily functions. How much truth is there in this? Were United States culture and laws truly influenced more than European laws. Were Puritan influences really more conservative than Catholic and other influences in Europe of the 1600s? If Puritan culture did not influence conservative politics in the USA then what is considered to be the origin? Thanks in advance.","c_root_id_A":"dtz8xiw","c_root_id_B":"dtzffln","created_at_utc_A":1518170890,"created_at_utc_B":1518183830,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Conservative values and conservative politics are two different things.","human_ref_B":"Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but Lynn Hunt references an interesting argument in *Politics, Class and Culture in the French Revolution* (on page 236 of the Berkeley edition). She makes a brief comparison between 18th century Anglo-American radicalism and French radicalism, writing that Anglo-American political culture had been influenced by common law, religious dissent, and puritanism. French radicalism had more universal ambitions because it did not have a tradition of religious dissent that could carve out particular niches for particular communities (or rather, this tradition had been mostly destroyed by the time of the French Revolution). Compare for instance American federalism with French revolutionary nationalism, which regarded France as an indivisible whole with global significance. But it should be added that it is next to impossible to pinpoint one origin for any political culture, whether conservative, liberal, radical, or socialist. Traditions, classes, local conditions, particular political situations all play a role in the way political values are articulated. For instance, the dominant current form of US conservatism, which marries Christian \"family values\" and free-market rhetoric, arose in the late 1970s under the Reaganite \"Silent Majority\" (sic!). I can look up a reference for that if you're interested.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12940.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"1zcb85","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Where can I learn about the basics of Anthropology? Anthropology as a general topic seems like a very interesting topic. I'm keen to learn the basic ground knowledge an anthropologist has. Obviously anthropology is a wide area and covers a broad range of topics; is there a widely accepted starting point that is normally taught first? If you have any recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cfsewrc","c_root_id_B":"cfsggzj","created_at_utc_A":1393768505,"created_at_utc_B":1393774701,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You could find an entry level anthropology textbook for cheap from your local college. If I knew where mine were, I'd offer to mail them to you","human_ref_B":"There are a number of MIT Open Courseware courses on Anthropology. http:\/\/ocw.mit.edu\/courses\/anthropology\/ Start with one of the two intro courses and move on from there. You'll get a lot more out of it than you would a simple textbook.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6196.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1zcb85","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Where can I learn about the basics of Anthropology? Anthropology as a general topic seems like a very interesting topic. I'm keen to learn the basic ground knowledge an anthropologist has. Obviously anthropology is a wide area and covers a broad range of topics; is there a widely accepted starting point that is normally taught first? If you have any recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cfsggzj","c_root_id_B":"cfsf6zd","created_at_utc_A":1393774701,"created_at_utc_B":1393769862,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There are a number of MIT Open Courseware courses on Anthropology. http:\/\/ocw.mit.edu\/courses\/anthropology\/ Start with one of the two intro courses and move on from there. You'll get a lot more out of it than you would a simple textbook.","human_ref_B":"I know Intro courses usually go over the 'four branches', but they can only do so very generally given the breadth of information in each section. If you already know which branch you're interested it, I could go try to help, but my knowledge mainly consists of cultural\/archeological anthropology. Otherwise I'm sure there are cheap books on amazon, or check the sources used by Wikipedia on the anth page. Hope this helps!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4839.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1zcb85","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Where can I learn about the basics of Anthropology? Anthropology as a general topic seems like a very interesting topic. I'm keen to learn the basic ground knowledge an anthropologist has. Obviously anthropology is a wide area and covers a broad range of topics; is there a widely accepted starting point that is normally taught first? If you have any recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cfsgnqf","c_root_id_B":"cfsewrc","created_at_utc_A":1393775296,"created_at_utc_B":1393768505,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"This textbook is a bit too simplistic for my taste. But, at least from the US amazon website, you can preview most of the content. I'm reviewing multiple anthro books for my department. When we choose one I would have no problem in shipping you one of my personal copies. But, as others have mentioned, you should look for an used version at a local bookstore, specially if you can find a previous version. If you have a particular discipline that you are interested in, you could probably find one cheaper. Edit: I might have one from my undergrad (some time ago) but it can give you a general perspective.","human_ref_B":"You could find an entry level anthropology textbook for cheap from your local college. If I knew where mine were, I'd offer to mail them to you","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6791.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1zcb85","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Where can I learn about the basics of Anthropology? Anthropology as a general topic seems like a very interesting topic. I'm keen to learn the basic ground knowledge an anthropologist has. Obviously anthropology is a wide area and covers a broad range of topics; is there a widely accepted starting point that is normally taught first? If you have any recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cfsf6zd","c_root_id_B":"cfsgnqf","created_at_utc_A":1393769862,"created_at_utc_B":1393775296,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I know Intro courses usually go over the 'four branches', but they can only do so very generally given the breadth of information in each section. If you already know which branch you're interested it, I could go try to help, but my knowledge mainly consists of cultural\/archeological anthropology. Otherwise I'm sure there are cheap books on amazon, or check the sources used by Wikipedia on the anth page. Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"This textbook is a bit too simplistic for my taste. But, at least from the US amazon website, you can preview most of the content. I'm reviewing multiple anthro books for my department. When we choose one I would have no problem in shipping you one of my personal copies. But, as others have mentioned, you should look for an used version at a local bookstore, specially if you can find a previous version. If you have a particular discipline that you are interested in, you could probably find one cheaper. Edit: I might have one from my undergrad (some time ago) but it can give you a general perspective.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5434.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1ixuam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Where on this reddit can I learn more about Western culture? Asking questions on common forums, only gets biased and incorrect answers. I am interested in learning about the culture and society especially the values of the Western world. Where can I get scientific or anthropological answers about the cultures of the West?","c_root_id_A":"cb96xwg","c_root_id_B":"cb96d3f","created_at_utc_A":1374665119,"created_at_utc_B":1374661124,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"We're happy to help you find anthropological answers to specific questions. \/r\/askhistory is a good place for questions about its history. But it is important to remember that \"Western culture\" is incredibly broad and encompasses a wide range of cultures. Just as if you posted asking about Asian culture or African culture you won't get useful responses because very little can meaningfully be said about such a huge group of countries, ethnicities, languages, and cultures. To get good responses here and at other subreddits you'll need to ask very specific questions about a topic and country or ethnic group.","human_ref_B":"this is so vague. what topics do you want to know about specifically? And define what you mean by \"Western culture\"? What era, what locations, demographics, etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3995.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"45tyko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Where can I learn more about \"Primitive Communistic\" societies? Now, I know this probably isn't a popular term but I'm sort of at a lack for decent alternatives. Maybe there is one in the jargon of anthropology that I'm not aware of? I have in mind the sort of non-market egalitarian communities that Marx and Engels wrote about. Even more specifically (and if you're familiar with Marxism maybe this will make my question more clear) I'd like to know about communities that lack the social phenomenon of \"value\" as understood by these philosophers. I've been studying Marx for a few months now and more recently read an article by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called **The Original Affluent Society** which made me think that I should come to this community to get a better understanding of this topic. So what do anthropologists make of Marx's conception of pre-market, egalitarian \"communistic\" society? How does it jive with the anthropological data? And where can I learn more about these communities operating well outside the capitalist mode of production? Articles\/papers\/books\/etc. would be much appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"d008j9i","c_root_id_B":"d00vlkc","created_at_utc_A":1455504496,"created_at_utc_B":1455559952,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you can find a copy, I recommend Davis Thomas's *Order without Government: The Society of the Pemon Indians of Venezuela* (Univ. of Illinois, 1982).","human_ref_B":"I just started taking graduate archaeological theory right now, I'm about to do some Sahlins reading. So, I'm probably not best situated to answer your question today, but in May I'll have lots of thoughts and feels. In the true fashion of the internet, I will try to answer your question even though I haven't done all of my reading: My understanding of the applications of Marxism to modern anthropological theory is that essentially Marx made up a utopian, egalitarian, communistic prehistory that never actually existed. To be fair, I don't engage with Marxist theory in archaeology\/anthropology at all, so I could be way off base. I know that Randall McGuire has done a lot of writing about Marxist archaeology. I actually had a meeting with him recently, we both recognized pretty fast that our theoretical approaches are super divergent. In archaeological theory, hunter-gatherer societies are most often studied through an evolutionary lens than a social\/economic lens. Robert Kelly has written a lot about hunter-gatherers. This doesn't mean there aren't other studies out there, just that the vast majority of references I have encountered in my research of Paleoindian and Early\/Middle Archaic societies of the Eastern Woodlands have an evolutionary bent. If you feel like engaging with anthropology or archaeology theory, here's some of the references for my course so far: M. Johnson 2010 - Archaeological Theory: An Introduction Moore 2012 - Visions of Culture Tim Ingold 1996 - Key Debates in Anthropology Ian Hodder 2012 - Archaeological Theory Today Preucel and Mrozowski 2010 - Contemporary Archaeology in Theory Shankland 2012 - Anthropology and Archaeology: Past, Present and Future I hope that this was remotely helpful...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":55456.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"45tyko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Where can I learn more about \"Primitive Communistic\" societies? Now, I know this probably isn't a popular term but I'm sort of at a lack for decent alternatives. Maybe there is one in the jargon of anthropology that I'm not aware of? I have in mind the sort of non-market egalitarian communities that Marx and Engels wrote about. Even more specifically (and if you're familiar with Marxism maybe this will make my question more clear) I'd like to know about communities that lack the social phenomenon of \"value\" as understood by these philosophers. I've been studying Marx for a few months now and more recently read an article by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called **The Original Affluent Society** which made me think that I should come to this community to get a better understanding of this topic. So what do anthropologists make of Marx's conception of pre-market, egalitarian \"communistic\" society? How does it jive with the anthropological data? And where can I learn more about these communities operating well outside the capitalist mode of production? Articles\/papers\/books\/etc. would be much appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"d00pyu2","c_root_id_B":"d00vlkc","created_at_utc_A":1455551449,"created_at_utc_B":1455559952,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It's a bit outdated but Marcel Maus's the gift may be of interest.","human_ref_B":"I just started taking graduate archaeological theory right now, I'm about to do some Sahlins reading. So, I'm probably not best situated to answer your question today, but in May I'll have lots of thoughts and feels. In the true fashion of the internet, I will try to answer your question even though I haven't done all of my reading: My understanding of the applications of Marxism to modern anthropological theory is that essentially Marx made up a utopian, egalitarian, communistic prehistory that never actually existed. To be fair, I don't engage with Marxist theory in archaeology\/anthropology at all, so I could be way off base. I know that Randall McGuire has done a lot of writing about Marxist archaeology. I actually had a meeting with him recently, we both recognized pretty fast that our theoretical approaches are super divergent. In archaeological theory, hunter-gatherer societies are most often studied through an evolutionary lens than a social\/economic lens. Robert Kelly has written a lot about hunter-gatherers. This doesn't mean there aren't other studies out there, just that the vast majority of references I have encountered in my research of Paleoindian and Early\/Middle Archaic societies of the Eastern Woodlands have an evolutionary bent. If you feel like engaging with anthropology or archaeology theory, here's some of the references for my course so far: M. Johnson 2010 - Archaeological Theory: An Introduction Moore 2012 - Visions of Culture Tim Ingold 1996 - Key Debates in Anthropology Ian Hodder 2012 - Archaeological Theory Today Preucel and Mrozowski 2010 - Contemporary Archaeology in Theory Shankland 2012 - Anthropology and Archaeology: Past, Present and Future I hope that this was remotely helpful...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8503.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"45tyko","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Where can I learn more about \"Primitive Communistic\" societies? Now, I know this probably isn't a popular term but I'm sort of at a lack for decent alternatives. Maybe there is one in the jargon of anthropology that I'm not aware of? I have in mind the sort of non-market egalitarian communities that Marx and Engels wrote about. Even more specifically (and if you're familiar with Marxism maybe this will make my question more clear) I'd like to know about communities that lack the social phenomenon of \"value\" as understood by these philosophers. I've been studying Marx for a few months now and more recently read an article by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called **The Original Affluent Society** which made me think that I should come to this community to get a better understanding of this topic. So what do anthropologists make of Marx's conception of pre-market, egalitarian \"communistic\" society? How does it jive with the anthropological data? And where can I learn more about these communities operating well outside the capitalist mode of production? Articles\/papers\/books\/etc. would be much appreciated. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"d00saoe","c_root_id_B":"d00vlkc","created_at_utc_A":1455555113,"created_at_utc_B":1455559952,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The book Debt: The First 5,000 years by David Graeber addresses this topic. It's not perfect, like everything Graeber writes, but its an engaging argument and definitely touches on this concept.","human_ref_B":"I just started taking graduate archaeological theory right now, I'm about to do some Sahlins reading. So, I'm probably not best situated to answer your question today, but in May I'll have lots of thoughts and feels. In the true fashion of the internet, I will try to answer your question even though I haven't done all of my reading: My understanding of the applications of Marxism to modern anthropological theory is that essentially Marx made up a utopian, egalitarian, communistic prehistory that never actually existed. To be fair, I don't engage with Marxist theory in archaeology\/anthropology at all, so I could be way off base. I know that Randall McGuire has done a lot of writing about Marxist archaeology. I actually had a meeting with him recently, we both recognized pretty fast that our theoretical approaches are super divergent. In archaeological theory, hunter-gatherer societies are most often studied through an evolutionary lens than a social\/economic lens. Robert Kelly has written a lot about hunter-gatherers. This doesn't mean there aren't other studies out there, just that the vast majority of references I have encountered in my research of Paleoindian and Early\/Middle Archaic societies of the Eastern Woodlands have an evolutionary bent. If you feel like engaging with anthropology or archaeology theory, here's some of the references for my course so far: M. Johnson 2010 - Archaeological Theory: An Introduction Moore 2012 - Visions of Culture Tim Ingold 1996 - Key Debates in Anthropology Ian Hodder 2012 - Archaeological Theory Today Preucel and Mrozowski 2010 - Contemporary Archaeology in Theory Shankland 2012 - Anthropology and Archaeology: Past, Present and Future I hope that this was remotely helpful...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4839.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8l61v0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"Homo Carnivorous - Are humans hypercarnivores and how certain is paleoanthropology about this? Hi! I was pleasantly surprised to find that this subreddit existed, I recently followed some paleoanthropologists on Twitter and was watching some CARTA videos about the role of hunting. I come from the r\/ketoscience and r\/zerocarb subreddits \\- which talk about having very low carbohydrate diets of mostly meat and the modern science trying to uncover how these diets effect modern humanity\\(it's positive\\). I was curious about what the consensus positions are in this subreddit. What positions do people take? What kind of drama exists in the field overall as it relates to human nutrition and evolution? Based on my research, it seems that humans shared an ancestor in Africa with other apes 5\\-8 million years ago but became human through eating a meat\\-based diet while relying on hunting and scavenging, and their bodies, minds, community, and metabolism changed to become apex predators. * How long has the evolving human species eaten meat according to the best of our knowledge? * How much meat was eaten as a percentage compared to plants\/fungi and what changed the percentages over time? Evolution and adaptation. * Should we think of ourselves as carnivorous herbivores or herbivorous carnivores? Or to joke: today's carbivorous carnivores? * What big questions still need to be answered? * Is it worth thinking about paleo nutrition to 'fix' modern nutrition? * What specific features did we evolve to become better hunters? Or did we become better hunters by evolving other traits for other reasons? * Did the race evolve in the state of ketosis\\(compared to relying on carbohydrates for energy for long periods of time\/generations\\)? Are there any great books that discuss these topics that I need to read? I know of Wrangham and some of the paleo\/keto doctors but was looking for the hardcore science books \\- for instead a whole book about the evolution of scapulas would be fascinating to me. I can also answer any questions you have for me as they relate to eating an all\\-meat carnivore diet or the science of ketosis and reversing chronic disease by limiting carbohydrates and seed oils. Thanks so much! u\/dem0n0cracy","c_root_id_A":"dzdozes","c_root_id_B":"dze2fkr","created_at_utc_A":1526986221,"created_at_utc_B":1527002521,"score_A":6,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"In regards to the question about ketosis in the diets of human ancestors. In nature ketosis comes about by fasting, that is very low or no calorie availability. It is feesible that humans and archaic humans had to fast during a day or even multiple days. During this time ketosis would deliver the fuel to the brain. But when people today speak about ketosis they usualy hint at a fasting mimicking event, a prolonged period in which los of meat and little carbohydrates are consumed to mimick the effect of true fasting by initiating ketosis. This modern idea of a ketogenic diet would be almost absent from human history as this reflects a true privilge to choose or limit onself to certain foods in the face of calorie scare enviroments. So there was ketosis but it would have come from fasting not from eating certain foods.","human_ref_B":"These aren\u2019t easy questions to answer, because we don\u2019t know what people ate such a long time ago. Feeding behavior hasn\u2019t fossilized well enough to answer the question, and soft tissues (such as the gut) which might help answer it don\u2019t fossilize at all. The increase in our brain size wasn\u2019t a one-step process ascribable to a single cause. It happened in stages. *Australopithecus* had a brain about the same size as that of a chimpanzee. The first small increase came with *Homo habilis*, an increase of only 100 cc, but it represented a 20% jump over *Australopithecus*. Some people have argued that this may have to do with meat eating. *Homo habilis* means \u201chandy man\u201d, thus named because he was supposed to be good with his hands and a tool maker. All those scrapers and choppers were used to butcher animal carcasses and extract marrow, and in general, food with higher caloric density. But this argument doesn\u2019t hold up very well to scrutiny. We now know that *Australopithecus* used tools too, and in fact the oldest animal bones with clear butchery marks on them are 3.4 million years old, from Ethiopia. That\u2019s a million years before the genus *Homo* appeared. Obviously, *Australopithecus* could scavenge the kills of large predators as *Homo* could. There is a trend towards smaller jaws. This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean carnivory, since there are plenty of soft plant parts that can be eaten. And *Australopithecus* also had a gracile form, with lighter jaws. The more direct association is with tools, which externalized the function of the jaws. You can use stones to pound tough plant parts into a more digestible mush. Not only does this relieve the work of the jaws, it does a better job than even heavy jaws could do; and makes more calories available from the same food. The next step up in brain size came with *Homo ergaster* and *Homo erectus*. This was a substantial increase, from about 600 cc to 1,200 cc. But it\u2019s even harder to find a cause for this, for several reasons: First, the increase isn\u2019t quite as dramatic as would appear. It accompanies an increase in total body mass of about 50 \u2013 60%. Proportionately, the brain did grow, but it didn\u2019t double. Second, it wasn\u2019t a one-step process. *Homo erectus* survived for nearly 1.5 million years, and over this huge time span, many different subtypes with brain capacities ranging from 800 cc to 1,200 cc appeared. Indeed, some anthropologists wonder if *Homo erectus* should even be considered a single species. Third, there is no evidence of increased carnivory. The chief tool of this age (and the single tool with the longest sustained use) was the Acheulian hand axe, which we used for 1.2 million years. It has an edge and a point, it certainly makes a better scraper and cutter than anything *Homo habilis* had, but we have no evidence that humans hunted with it. The first spears don\u2019t appear in the record until about 400,000 years ago. It\u2019s important to remember that *Homo erectus* was not an apex predator. Despite leaving Africa and spreading across the old world, populations were pretty low and steady. They were prey to large carnivores, and must have had a high attrition rate. Probably he was an opportunist, foraging, scavenging, eating whatever was available, hunting small game if there was opportunity. So the increase in brain size is a mystery that could be ascribed to many things. You could posit more meat in the diet, but you also posit a wider behavioral range instead. *Homo erectus* spread to many different climates, many different ecosystems. A growing brain can form a self-reinforcing feedback loop with more complex behavior, widening the range of foodstuffs that can be eaten, better processing to increase caloric value, foraging more efficiently. The next step up in brain size was from *Homo erectus* to *neanderthalis\/sapiens* (both with roughly comparable brain sizes), and this seems to have been associated with the development of cooking. Although the oldest use of fire may go back a million years, the widespread use of fire (as evidenced by hearths) only dates to the last half million years, and especially the last 300,000 years. This is concomitant with the appearance of *Homo neanderthalis* and *Homo sapiens*, who had brains about 400 \u2013 500 cc larger than *Homo erectus*. You could make a good argument that this increase was due to the availability of more calories due to cooking. Again, meat eating doesn\u2019t seem to be the key here. Cooking will increase the caloric value of meat slightly, but it can easily double the caloric availability of plants, which have tough cell walls. Of the two, cooking plants offers the greater benefit. In summary: * Human brain size went through an incremental step-wise increase over 2.5 million years. * There is no clear association between meat eating and brain growth at any step. In support of meat eating being the cause, big brains require more calories and meat is exceptionally calorie-dense. * But there is no evidence of increased meat eating at any stage of our development, except very late (such as the big game hunters), by which time we already had large brains. * Increased behavioral complexity and increased brain size can also cause a feedback loop with increased caloric supply. The bigger brain helps you exploit more foods and more environments, process foods you were previously not capable of digesting, increase the efficiency of your foraging. This applies to a whole range of foods, not just meat. * There appears to be a strong correlation between the increase in brain size post-*Homo erectus* and cooking, which greatly increases the caloric value of food.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16300.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"8l61v0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"Homo Carnivorous - Are humans hypercarnivores and how certain is paleoanthropology about this? Hi! I was pleasantly surprised to find that this subreddit existed, I recently followed some paleoanthropologists on Twitter and was watching some CARTA videos about the role of hunting. I come from the r\/ketoscience and r\/zerocarb subreddits \\- which talk about having very low carbohydrate diets of mostly meat and the modern science trying to uncover how these diets effect modern humanity\\(it's positive\\). I was curious about what the consensus positions are in this subreddit. What positions do people take? What kind of drama exists in the field overall as it relates to human nutrition and evolution? Based on my research, it seems that humans shared an ancestor in Africa with other apes 5\\-8 million years ago but became human through eating a meat\\-based diet while relying on hunting and scavenging, and their bodies, minds, community, and metabolism changed to become apex predators. * How long has the evolving human species eaten meat according to the best of our knowledge? * How much meat was eaten as a percentage compared to plants\/fungi and what changed the percentages over time? Evolution and adaptation. * Should we think of ourselves as carnivorous herbivores or herbivorous carnivores? Or to joke: today's carbivorous carnivores? * What big questions still need to be answered? * Is it worth thinking about paleo nutrition to 'fix' modern nutrition? * What specific features did we evolve to become better hunters? Or did we become better hunters by evolving other traits for other reasons? * Did the race evolve in the state of ketosis\\(compared to relying on carbohydrates for energy for long periods of time\/generations\\)? Are there any great books that discuss these topics that I need to read? I know of Wrangham and some of the paleo\/keto doctors but was looking for the hardcore science books \\- for instead a whole book about the evolution of scapulas would be fascinating to me. I can also answer any questions you have for me as they relate to eating an all\\-meat carnivore diet or the science of ketosis and reversing chronic disease by limiting carbohydrates and seed oils. Thanks so much! u\/dem0n0cracy","c_root_id_A":"dzdozes","c_root_id_B":"dzem7zh","created_at_utc_A":1526986221,"created_at_utc_B":1527020071,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In regards to the question about ketosis in the diets of human ancestors. In nature ketosis comes about by fasting, that is very low or no calorie availability. It is feesible that humans and archaic humans had to fast during a day or even multiple days. During this time ketosis would deliver the fuel to the brain. But when people today speak about ketosis they usualy hint at a fasting mimicking event, a prolonged period in which los of meat and little carbohydrates are consumed to mimick the effect of true fasting by initiating ketosis. This modern idea of a ketogenic diet would be almost absent from human history as this reflects a true privilge to choose or limit onself to certain foods in the face of calorie scare enviroments. So there was ketosis but it would have come from fasting not from eating certain foods.","human_ref_B":"To give a little archaeological context, a lot of the image we have of later hunter\\-gather populations, like the Paleo\\-populations of North America and the Mesolithic\/Middle Stone Age hunters comes from archaeological research, which has many biases in material recovery that have shaped the popular imagination of our more recent paleo ancestors. Bones of megafauna and the tools used to take them down preserve well in the archaeological record, while plant remains are less easy to spot, so for a long time it was easier to envision and demonstrate our ancestors were primarily carnivores of big game. With more recent research and greater attention toward the complexities of resource acquisition and diet, however, we are seeing increasingly that our \"big game hunter\" recent ancestors were actually more diverse consumers of many available resources. At the Buttermilk Creek complex in central Texas, for example, we see that our big game hunting ancestors actually made far more use of small game like turtles and rabbits than we conventionally imagined, and lived at the site for long enough periods of the year that they must certainly have been making use of plant remains as well. Techniques like isotope analysis and studies of dental plaques are also showing more plant consumption than we could have known without such techniques. I remember some papers a few years ago studying the dental plaque of later ESA North Africans and showing a larger\\-than\\-expected volume of plant starches; this was compared to the recently recovered remains of charred nut sedges found around contemporary hearths.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33850.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"8l61v0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"Homo Carnivorous - Are humans hypercarnivores and how certain is paleoanthropology about this? Hi! I was pleasantly surprised to find that this subreddit existed, I recently followed some paleoanthropologists on Twitter and was watching some CARTA videos about the role of hunting. I come from the r\/ketoscience and r\/zerocarb subreddits \\- which talk about having very low carbohydrate diets of mostly meat and the modern science trying to uncover how these diets effect modern humanity\\(it's positive\\). I was curious about what the consensus positions are in this subreddit. What positions do people take? What kind of drama exists in the field overall as it relates to human nutrition and evolution? Based on my research, it seems that humans shared an ancestor in Africa with other apes 5\\-8 million years ago but became human through eating a meat\\-based diet while relying on hunting and scavenging, and their bodies, minds, community, and metabolism changed to become apex predators. * How long has the evolving human species eaten meat according to the best of our knowledge? * How much meat was eaten as a percentage compared to plants\/fungi and what changed the percentages over time? Evolution and adaptation. * Should we think of ourselves as carnivorous herbivores or herbivorous carnivores? Or to joke: today's carbivorous carnivores? * What big questions still need to be answered? * Is it worth thinking about paleo nutrition to 'fix' modern nutrition? * What specific features did we evolve to become better hunters? Or did we become better hunters by evolving other traits for other reasons? * Did the race evolve in the state of ketosis\\(compared to relying on carbohydrates for energy for long periods of time\/generations\\)? Are there any great books that discuss these topics that I need to read? I know of Wrangham and some of the paleo\/keto doctors but was looking for the hardcore science books \\- for instead a whole book about the evolution of scapulas would be fascinating to me. I can also answer any questions you have for me as they relate to eating an all\\-meat carnivore diet or the science of ketosis and reversing chronic disease by limiting carbohydrates and seed oils. Thanks so much! u\/dem0n0cracy","c_root_id_A":"dzfkj4p","c_root_id_B":"dzgglqp","created_at_utc_A":1527059151,"created_at_utc_B":1527099168,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"First of all, humans can\u2019t get the majority of their calories from meat, their digestive system is not acidic enough. There were some experiments were they fed males of European decent with lean meat, they developed digestive problems very quickly. Even if this were a problem, long term, vitamin deficiency would have done them in. So how do Eskimos do it? Marrow, fat, and organs are another story. Likewise marine food chains are completely different from terrestrial ones at least when it comes to the fixation of carbon and other elements in primary producers. Even so, the livers (the most nutritious part) of many large animals for example polar bears, are toxic to humans. Early hominids were likely scavengers, in which case the marrow part would have been important. Secondly an adult human male needs about 2500 daily calories to avoid starvation, which comes out to more than a kilogram of meat, that same adult male would have a lot of trouble digesting it. The argument in favor of a ketogenic diet would either be: a)\tCarnivores need certain chemical compounds to function; cat food for example is incredibly complex, and contains a lot of dietary supplements. In the case of humans, they need certain amino acids in certain proportions, which appear in meat and sea creatures, these are otherwise very hard to get. But these requirements can be satisfied with about 80gr a day, a far cry from a completely carnivorous diet. b)\tThe reason people enjoy a ketogenic carnivorous diet is the same reason vegetarians like their diet, caloric deficiency. As we have seen it is very hard to get your daily calories on meat alone. Caloric deficiency, results in thinner bodies, and often in a lower base metabolism, which correlates very highly with longer lifespans in animal studies. While it is not correct to use current hunter gatherers as a proxy for pre historic humans. Prehistoric humans were not homogeneous. And modern hunter gatherers often live in marginal environments, which require different adaptations. It does not hurt to ask the question what do contemporary hunter gatherers eat? Taking the Binford data set, on average modern hunter gatherers consume 34.52 percent gathered food, 33.12% hunted food and 32.29% aquatic foodstuffs (they don\u2019t add to 100, because of rounding errors). As for the causality of it all; suppose there is a mutation or a group of mutations that enable the possibility of a bigger brain or a greater body size, in exchange of an increase in nutrition. If the animal can\u2019t get the extra food, it will starve faster. On the other hand if they get the required nutrients they may have an advantage over other members of the species lacking this mutation. This can probably explain the increase in early hominid size. However, it will probably take quite a bit of time for this to take effect in modern humans, probably a lot more than the time human populations have been separated. Now a poor diet produces poor outcomes, these are not inheritable, but are very useful. Anthropometric measures of poor health, shorter specimens, smaller cranial cavities, lighter bones, etc. correlate with the Neolithic revolution (and the early industrial revolution), when humans transitioned to a cereal based diet.(my internet is slow, but you can probably do a goggle search on anthropometry and Neolithic revolution.) Likewise, cultures in which meat, seafood, or dairy are staples have anthropomorphic measures of good health. And so Aleutian Indians, some Inuit and Mongols had proportionally bigger skulls than Europeans not long ago. Since this is merely a consequence of nutrition, one would expect these parameters to increase as a country develops, up to a certain point. This prediction is true. As for Neanderthals, some were hyper-carnivorous, we can tell because of isotopic signals on tissue. Similar values to Mongols.","human_ref_B":"You\u2019ve gotten some great answers already, just wanted to add, some recent studies of calcified and fossilized dentil plaques form early human ancestors gives a bit of a picture of what they were eating. A study of fossilized phytoliths from Australopithecus sediba teeth suggest a diet based mostly on woody forest plants. Analyzing microwear left on the teeth of H. erectus & H. habilis from a number of sites in Africa show that they were mostly generalists, eating a mixed diet of fruits, seeds & plants as well as meats. And Tooth Plaque analysis from Neanderthal populations shows considerable variability in diet based on different regions. With some populations eating stuff like Mushrooms, nuts, & moss; while others had much more meat in their diet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40017.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cedmxk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"The current estimate of the population of Hunter-Gatherers on planet Earth Good afternoon you lovely beings. Recently, I had heard that Hunter-Gatherer populations remain in pocketed tribes on Earth. Though the Pygamies are not isolated, some others (like that one island tribe who speared a helicopter) are indeed rather isolated - it can be thus assumed that our census figure on these humans are not wholly accurate and subject to some debate. My question is thus; Have we a current estimate on the population of Hunter-Gatherers on Earth? Furthermore, if anyone more learned than I on the subject can entail the known Hunter-Gatherer tribes, it would be appreciated. We, as humans, existed as hunter-gatherers for the longest period of our bipedal history. Parts of the world accelerated in development, whilst others did not. I find it utterly fascinating that, remaining on Earth to this day, are tribes that are wholly akin to who we all were. Any and all indicative answers will be appreciated. Hope you're all well!","c_root_id_A":"eu385s2","c_root_id_B":"eu3bsjk","created_at_utc_A":1563407821,"created_at_utc_B":1563410519,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Thanks \ud83d\ude0a what I didn't say is that I work with her! She also has a TED talk about the Hadza. I'm a student so I have access to a lot of databases - if this is your situation then give some of the resources you have a go! Science Direct is a good place for a lot of free articles as well as Google Scholar. What I do: Find the article you want on their CV and copy-paste into google. Google scholar may have it already or it may be found for free on other links in the search. ResearchGate can sometimes be helpful, too, but not everyone uploads their articles on there. If the article isn't available, I've had a lot of success directly emailing the first author for a copy - academic love that. Long story short, copy and paste it into google and see where that gets you!","human_ref_B":"According to this source, an estimated 5 million over the last few hundred years. I know that's VERY rough and unattested. I'm no expert. But it's a number. I only reply cos I took umbrage at all those people focussing on your use of language. https:\/\/hraf.yale.edu\/ehc\/summaries\/hunter-gatherers Check out survival international, if you haven't already. Kind regards","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2698.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"w5o28c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Did societies with no sexual regulations exist? Where men & women can equally indulge in sex without any shameful consequences","c_root_id_A":"ih9ao0x","c_root_id_B":"ih9d50h","created_at_utc_A":1658533571,"created_at_utc_B":1658534724,"score_A":33,"score_B":104,"human_ref_A":"I understand your question, but I think it's important to note that you're asking to prove a negative, which is fairly difficult when applied to human cultures. Any culture that has any ideas about sex is going to have ideas that are positive and ideas that are considered taboo. Sex sits at the crossroads of reproduction, family, gender, body image, ect; from there it's magnified through material culture, song, dance, myth. . . I would love it if someone could chime in with some examples about a culture with few or no sexual regulations, but it seems far too central to the human condition to not have layers of understanding around it.","human_ref_B":"I can understand the temptation to consider that if a certain rule or set of rules \/ norms exists-- e.g., various social rules regarding sex-- then maybe there exists a circumstance in which such conditions *don't* exist. In other words, if there's a positive, there must be a negative as well, right? Such reasoning, though, usually implies a misunderstanding of the role(s) of those norms within a society, and the way that a society works in the first place. When we look at other social species-- not even just mammalian, but even insects-- what we see is that in *all* of these social species, various rules exist governing sex, sexual access, rights \/ permissions, etc. Sex is, after all, a fundamental part of biological existence. It's what allows species to propagate themselves. And in order for that propagation to result in viable offspring, the development of various behavioral rules was favored. Not every member of a society has or can have sexual access to every other *potential* mate. You simply can't allow that kind of free-for-all, because competition for mates-- and sexual selection-- are two major factors that contribute to adaptive change. Behavioral norms regarding sex are part of what allow animal societies to continue to function. We can see this kind of behavior among all of our close animal kin (great apes and other primates, for example). We see it in bees. We see it in... as I said, practically every social animal species. Humans are somewhat unusual among animals (but not unique) in that we can and do engage in sex for other reasons besides pure procreation. Pair bonding, recreation, etc. But in the end, we still are social animals, and a functional society requires certain norms of behavior-- guidelines, taboos, etc.-- governing what is, at its most basic, a fundamental biological process by which we propagate our species. For most of our existence, sex has had the likely potential outcome of offspring. And since producing viable and competitive offspring constitutes a significant survival advantage, various norms (biological and social) regarding mate selection, access, and restriction have been strongly selected. Coming back to my opening sentences... the existence of a positive (rules governing sexual behavior) might seem to imply the potential for the existence of a negative (no such rules). But simply put, it's not possible to have a functional society under such circumstances. **edit:** It's worth noting that attempts to establish so-called \"free sex\" societies have generally resulted in the fairly rapid establishment of rules governing who does and does not have access.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1153.0,"score_ratio":3.1515151515} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er145ry","c_root_id_B":"er1iid5","created_at_utc_A":1560426535,"created_at_utc_B":1560432329,"score_A":2,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Like not a single person in that society is bigoted or just in general? If it's the latter there's quite a few european countries right now who may fit the bill, even though they do have some bigots here and there. Also, how would you define a society? Would the Roman Empire for instance count as a single society or many societies under the same rule?","human_ref_B":"​ Not sure if this is the kind of thing you're after, but.. ​ The indigenous Khoi pastoralists of the Western Cape originally had quite a good relationship with the Dutch East India Company before the dutch decided to make it a permanent settlement. When Cape Town was just used as a refuelling\/rest stop between Europe and India, relations were quite good because the Khoi could trade their meat. ​ It was only when the Dutch decided to make Cape Town a colony and appropriate Khoi grazing lands at the foot of Table Mountain for agriculture that wars broke out. ​ https:\/\/www.sahistory.org.za\/article\/dutch-and-khoikhoi","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5794.0,"score_ratio":17.5} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er145ry","c_root_id_B":"er48ka7","created_at_utc_A":1560426535,"created_at_utc_B":1560483902,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Like not a single person in that society is bigoted or just in general? If it's the latter there's quite a few european countries right now who may fit the bill, even though they do have some bigots here and there. Also, how would you define a society? Would the Roman Empire for instance count as a single society or many societies under the same rule?","human_ref_B":"An interesting thought in regards to your question...our understanding of early\/ancient societies is greatly skewed by the historians, archaeologists and anthropologists whom present them to us. Take for instance the \"Aryan invasion\" theory of India. Basically, the theory spouted by British (colonial) scholars was that there was a group of Indo-Europeans who entered India from the Punjab region and conquered as they went, eventually gaining significant control over Northern India. But, more and more evidence is showing that no, it wasn't a military invasion but an agricultural expansion. These people were pastoralists and herders and so travelled where their herds went (this is affirmed by their textual\/folk\/primary sources). They ended up entering India and sharing many ideas with the locals at the time, and thus arose the cultures of India we now see. So, British scholars, knowingly or not, put the concept of colonization that was so fundamental to their society (and arguably still is) on this ancient society, when that seems to not have been the the case at all. Interestingly, this narrative led to the concept of a \"greater Indian culture\" that existed before \"all these societies over time\" conquered it. Unfortunately, though this has been essentially disproven by archaeological evidence, it boosted the British narrative of \"going into India to reinstate their ancient greatness from the conquerors\" (namely, the Mughal's were the latest in the line of supposed \"conquerors\") and so \"legitimized\" their colonization. Sadly, this narrative is still used in Indian nationalist circles and causes much violence. I'm not sure there is a black and white answer to your question because everything we know about ancient or past societies is viewed through a historical lens that is inherently tainted by the views of the people telling it. Primary evidence such as archaeological digs and textual sources can give us a better picture into the situation, but even this is potentially skewed by the people gathering it (intentionally or not). Interesting to read the other comments though! And very interesting to think about. Thanks for your question.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":57367.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er3eisx","c_root_id_B":"er48ka7","created_at_utc_A":1560461543,"created_at_utc_B":1560483902,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Well, Columbus mentioned in his own writings how the Arawakans he originally encountered were relatively friendly and helpful","human_ref_B":"An interesting thought in regards to your question...our understanding of early\/ancient societies is greatly skewed by the historians, archaeologists and anthropologists whom present them to us. Take for instance the \"Aryan invasion\" theory of India. Basically, the theory spouted by British (colonial) scholars was that there was a group of Indo-Europeans who entered India from the Punjab region and conquered as they went, eventually gaining significant control over Northern India. But, more and more evidence is showing that no, it wasn't a military invasion but an agricultural expansion. These people were pastoralists and herders and so travelled where their herds went (this is affirmed by their textual\/folk\/primary sources). They ended up entering India and sharing many ideas with the locals at the time, and thus arose the cultures of India we now see. So, British scholars, knowingly or not, put the concept of colonization that was so fundamental to their society (and arguably still is) on this ancient society, when that seems to not have been the the case at all. Interestingly, this narrative led to the concept of a \"greater Indian culture\" that existed before \"all these societies over time\" conquered it. Unfortunately, though this has been essentially disproven by archaeological evidence, it boosted the British narrative of \"going into India to reinstate their ancient greatness from the conquerors\" (namely, the Mughal's were the latest in the line of supposed \"conquerors\") and so \"legitimized\" their colonization. Sadly, this narrative is still used in Indian nationalist circles and causes much violence. I'm not sure there is a black and white answer to your question because everything we know about ancient or past societies is viewed through a historical lens that is inherently tainted by the views of the people telling it. Primary evidence such as archaeological digs and textual sources can give us a better picture into the situation, but even this is potentially skewed by the people gathering it (intentionally or not). Interesting to read the other comments though! And very interesting to think about. Thanks for your question.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22359.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er145ry","c_root_id_B":"erdolg9","created_at_utc_A":1560426535,"created_at_utc_B":1560749888,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Like not a single person in that society is bigoted or just in general? If it's the latter there's quite a few european countries right now who may fit the bill, even though they do have some bigots here and there. Also, how would you define a society? Would the Roman Empire for instance count as a single society or many societies under the same rule?","human_ref_B":"Ancient and Medieval India definitely fits the bill. The Jews facing persecution in their lands reached India in waves, starting 500bce. They settled in various parts of the sub continent and not once have they faced persecution or any form of harassment. Many sects such as there Nagercoil Jews were given 12 villages to use as revenue and follow their faith in peace. They integrated well into society and this community has given India many doctors, actors and then a senior Lt Gen who was responsible for executing the 1971 war. Zoroastrians are another immigrant lot they were welcomed with open arms. In this case though already hit with Islamic invasions the local ruler was slightly more circumspect. He gave them 3 villages to reside in and collect revenue but decreed that they shouldn't proselytize and adapt local speech in public and dressing so as to not stand out. The Parsis who number only about 50-60k have never been persecuted by Hindus (Muslims have targeted them on \/ off over the centuries) have an outsized role in Indian entertainment and business to this day. The biggest Indian conglomerate is in fact Parsi run. Christians. The first Christians apocryphally reached India around 30 AD itself but we do know they for sure established a presence around 100 AD and again not once till the Islamic invasions were they persecuted or even harassed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":323353.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er3eisx","c_root_id_B":"erdolg9","created_at_utc_A":1560461543,"created_at_utc_B":1560749888,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Well, Columbus mentioned in his own writings how the Arawakans he originally encountered were relatively friendly and helpful","human_ref_B":"Ancient and Medieval India definitely fits the bill. The Jews facing persecution in their lands reached India in waves, starting 500bce. They settled in various parts of the sub continent and not once have they faced persecution or any form of harassment. Many sects such as there Nagercoil Jews were given 12 villages to use as revenue and follow their faith in peace. They integrated well into society and this community has given India many doctors, actors and then a senior Lt Gen who was responsible for executing the 1971 war. Zoroastrians are another immigrant lot they were welcomed with open arms. In this case though already hit with Islamic invasions the local ruler was slightly more circumspect. He gave them 3 villages to reside in and collect revenue but decreed that they shouldn't proselytize and adapt local speech in public and dressing so as to not stand out. The Parsis who number only about 50-60k have never been persecuted by Hindus (Muslims have targeted them on \/ off over the centuries) have an outsized role in Indian entertainment and business to this day. The biggest Indian conglomerate is in fact Parsi run. Christians. The first Christians apocryphally reached India around 30 AD itself but we do know they for sure established a presence around 100 AD and again not once till the Islamic invasions were they persecuted or even harassed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":288345.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"c04653","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Did societies that weren't hostile to immigrants or \"the other\" exist? if so, why not?","c_root_id_A":"er3eisx","c_root_id_B":"er145ry","created_at_utc_A":1560461543,"created_at_utc_B":1560426535,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Well, Columbus mentioned in his own writings how the Arawakans he originally encountered were relatively friendly and helpful","human_ref_B":"Like not a single person in that society is bigoted or just in general? If it's the latter there's quite a few european countries right now who may fit the bill, even though they do have some bigots here and there. Also, how would you define a society? Would the Roman Empire for instance count as a single society or many societies under the same rule?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35008.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcgzc","c_root_id_B":"c9kdwyn","created_at_utc_A":1366650357,"created_at_utc_B":1366654404,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Marvin Harris' book Our Kind is what got me interested initially. It's a good introduction that is broad and easily digested by anyone interested. Even after I was hooked, his stuff still had quite a bit to offer. He has his critics, justifiably so, but still pretty influential.","human_ref_B":"Clifford Geertz' definition of religion changed my life, mostly because of one class in which we spent a good two weeks breaking down every phrase and examining it minutely. It could have been anything, I suppose, but it was that, and it's stuck with me ever since.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4047.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kdwyn","c_root_id_B":"c9kcfc2","created_at_utc_A":1366654404,"created_at_utc_B":1366650224,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Clifford Geertz' definition of religion changed my life, mostly because of one class in which we spent a good two weeks breaking down every phrase and examining it minutely. It could have been anything, I suppose, but it was that, and it's stuck with me ever since.","human_ref_B":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4180.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcgzc","c_root_id_B":"c9kcfc2","created_at_utc_A":1366650357,"created_at_utc_B":1366650224,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Marvin Harris' book Our Kind is what got me interested initially. It's a good introduction that is broad and easily digested by anyone interested. Even after I was hooked, his stuff still had quite a bit to offer. He has his critics, justifiably so, but still pretty influential.","human_ref_B":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":133.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9ki1ru","c_root_id_B":"c9kcfc2","created_at_utc_A":1366665377,"created_at_utc_B":1366650224,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Far and away, Paul Farmer has been the most influential for me in relation to the overarching goal of understanding conflict and its relations to suffering. After reading \"Pathologies of Power\" anthropology immediately transformed for me from an interesting field of study I had a knack for, to a fundamentally necessary life purpose.","human_ref_B":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15153.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9ki2gl","c_root_id_B":"c9kiqf1","created_at_utc_A":1366665429,"created_at_utc_B":1366667219,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"arjun appadurai. his writings on globalization, modernity, and transnationalism completely changed the way i think about nation and culture. 'modernity at large' is the best gateway book for those interested.","human_ref_B":"Robert C. Dunnell. His work in the application of biological evolution to prehistory is likely his greatest legacy. But he also broke ground in classification theory with \"Systematics in Prehistory\" and made a major contribution in the development of analysis of functional attributes of lithics. In addition he was a superb educator up until you said something particularly stupid and were immediately described as \"purveying vacuous twaddle\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1790.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9ki2gl","c_root_id_B":"c9kmc7i","created_at_utc_A":1366665429,"created_at_utc_B":1366677343,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"arjun appadurai. his writings on globalization, modernity, and transnationalism completely changed the way i think about nation and culture. 'modernity at large' is the best gateway book for those interested.","human_ref_B":"I gotta throw Eric Wolf in the ring. *Europe and the People Without History* and *Envisioning Power* changed me. *Europe and the People Without History* totally altered the way I looked at history, especially the history of one specific mode of production - capitalism. If that rings of Marx, you're right, but Wolf describes himself as a Marxian rather than a Marxist because he interprets Marx differently than traditional Marxists. Wolf did an amazing job showing how globalization and global cultural trade started way before Europe was calling the shots in many parts of the world. *Envisioning Power* was great for elaborating on many of the implications of his earlier work and how they relate to us today (which was the early 80s but much of it is still quite relevant).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11914.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9ki2gl","c_root_id_B":"c9knst0","created_at_utc_A":1366665429,"created_at_utc_B":1366681379,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"arjun appadurai. his writings on globalization, modernity, and transnationalism completely changed the way i think about nation and culture. 'modernity at large' is the best gateway book for those interested.","human_ref_B":"So far, Franz Boas. But that's because I'm a freshman undergrad and I did a paper on him. I feel like he created the basics for how anthropology as a discipline worked in the twentieth century, and possibly into the twenty-first.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15950.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcfc2","c_root_id_B":"c9ki2gl","created_at_utc_A":1366650224,"created_at_utc_B":1366665429,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","human_ref_B":"arjun appadurai. his writings on globalization, modernity, and transnationalism completely changed the way i think about nation and culture. 'modernity at large' is the best gateway book for those interested.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15205.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcfc2","c_root_id_B":"c9kiqf1","created_at_utc_A":1366650224,"created_at_utc_B":1366667219,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","human_ref_B":"Robert C. Dunnell. His work in the application of biological evolution to prehistory is likely his greatest legacy. But he also broke ground in classification theory with \"Systematics in Prehistory\" and made a major contribution in the development of analysis of functional attributes of lithics. In addition he was a superb educator up until you said something particularly stupid and were immediately described as \"purveying vacuous twaddle\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16995.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcfc2","c_root_id_B":"c9kmc7i","created_at_utc_A":1366650224,"created_at_utc_B":1366677343,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","human_ref_B":"I gotta throw Eric Wolf in the ring. *Europe and the People Without History* and *Envisioning Power* changed me. *Europe and the People Without History* totally altered the way I looked at history, especially the history of one specific mode of production - capitalism. If that rings of Marx, you're right, but Wolf describes himself as a Marxian rather than a Marxist because he interprets Marx differently than traditional Marxists. Wolf did an amazing job showing how globalization and global cultural trade started way before Europe was calling the shots in many parts of the world. *Envisioning Power* was great for elaborating on many of the implications of his earlier work and how they relate to us today (which was the early 80s but much of it is still quite relevant).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27119.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9km1yy","c_root_id_B":"c9kmc7i","created_at_utc_A":1366676545,"created_at_utc_B":1366677343,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Pete Gregory, an anthropologist from Louisiana, a student of James Ford as well as many of the other pivotal US anthropologists\/archaeologists (like Lewis Binford). He told stories about lectures with Leslie White, how freaky Margaret Mead actually was, and left me with a simple and effective definition of culture: \"learned, shared, human behavior.\"","human_ref_B":"I gotta throw Eric Wolf in the ring. *Europe and the People Without History* and *Envisioning Power* changed me. *Europe and the People Without History* totally altered the way I looked at history, especially the history of one specific mode of production - capitalism. If that rings of Marx, you're right, but Wolf describes himself as a Marxian rather than a Marxist because he interprets Marx differently than traditional Marxists. Wolf did an amazing job showing how globalization and global cultural trade started way before Europe was calling the shots in many parts of the world. *Envisioning Power* was great for elaborating on many of the implications of his earlier work and how they relate to us today (which was the early 80s but much of it is still quite relevant).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":798.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9knst0","c_root_id_B":"c9kcfc2","created_at_utc_A":1366681379,"created_at_utc_B":1366650224,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"So far, Franz Boas. But that's because I'm a freshman undergrad and I did a paper on him. I feel like he created the basics for how anthropology as a discipline worked in the twentieth century, and possibly into the twenty-first.","human_ref_B":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31155.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9km1yy","c_root_id_B":"c9knst0","created_at_utc_A":1366676545,"created_at_utc_B":1366681379,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Pete Gregory, an anthropologist from Louisiana, a student of James Ford as well as many of the other pivotal US anthropologists\/archaeologists (like Lewis Binford). He told stories about lectures with Leslie White, how freaky Margaret Mead actually was, and left me with a simple and effective definition of culture: \"learned, shared, human behavior.\"","human_ref_B":"So far, Franz Boas. But that's because I'm a freshman undergrad and I did a paper on him. I feel like he created the basics for how anthropology as a discipline worked in the twentieth century, and possibly into the twenty-first.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4834.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9knst0","c_root_id_B":"c9kmi9x","created_at_utc_A":1366681379,"created_at_utc_B":1366677813,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"So far, Franz Boas. But that's because I'm a freshman undergrad and I did a paper on him. I feel like he created the basics for how anthropology as a discipline worked in the twentieth century, and possibly into the twenty-first.","human_ref_B":"Eric Wolf- specifically Europe and the People Without History and Kathleen Gough. Eye opening.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3566.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kcfc2","c_root_id_B":"c9l2bnw","created_at_utc_A":1366650224,"created_at_utc_B":1366738556,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"He's not strictly an anthropologist, but I would say, Andrew Dugmore. Although nominally he's a physical geographer and probably best known for his work on tephrochronology, much of his research, particularly in Iceland, has been combining archaeology, ethnography, history, and environmental studies to try to paint a complete picture of how environmental change has affected the settlement patterns in Iceland since it was permanently settled ca. AD 870. His students also do really cool work. Streeter, Dugmore, and V\u00e9steinsson 2012 asked if there was an environmental evidence to verify the massive loss of population (thought to be ca. 50%!) during Iceland's plague epidemic in 1402. One of my favourite papers of all time, McKinzey, \u00d3lafsd\u00f3ttir, and Dugmore 2005 used environmental sampling, tephrochronology, historical records, and ethnographic accounts to try to determine glacial maxima and minima at Vatnaj\u00f6kull in southeast Iceland. Beyond Andy Dugmore, I'd also like to give a shout out to Joan Gero -- she taught me in undergrad and, although I am not a South Americanist, her commitment to feminist archaeology has shaped me hugely.","human_ref_B":"Nobody has influenced me as much as my undergraduate advisor. He's not known outside the state, but he's a damn good archaeologist. He taught me the importance of empirical data, and emphasized that to be a good archaeologist you've got to be a good field archaeologist. These are qualities that I've applied to my own research and I think I'm better for it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":88332.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9l2bnw","c_root_id_B":"c9km1yy","created_at_utc_A":1366738556,"created_at_utc_B":1366676545,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Nobody has influenced me as much as my undergraduate advisor. He's not known outside the state, but he's a damn good archaeologist. He taught me the importance of empirical data, and emphasized that to be a good archaeologist you've got to be a good field archaeologist. These are qualities that I've applied to my own research and I think I'm better for it.","human_ref_B":"Pete Gregory, an anthropologist from Louisiana, a student of James Ford as well as many of the other pivotal US anthropologists\/archaeologists (like Lewis Binford). He told stories about lectures with Leslie White, how freaky Margaret Mead actually was, and left me with a simple and effective definition of culture: \"learned, shared, human behavior.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":62011.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1cv9gw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who is the anthropologist that has influenced you the most? Who is the anthropologist, of any subfield, that has influenced you the most? Either in your research or daily life?","c_root_id_A":"c9kmi9x","c_root_id_B":"c9l2bnw","created_at_utc_A":1366677813,"created_at_utc_B":1366738556,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Eric Wolf- specifically Europe and the People Without History and Kathleen Gough. Eye opening.","human_ref_B":"Nobody has influenced me as much as my undergraduate advisor. He's not known outside the state, but he's a damn good archaeologist. He taught me the importance of empirical data, and emphasized that to be a good archaeologist you've got to be a good field archaeologist. These are qualities that I've applied to my own research and I think I'm better for it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":60743.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"87hc6q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"Is this a good place to ask about the ethnicity and intelligence debate? Every forum I try and ask questions about this very fraught debate in gets swarmed by alt-right types, including \/r\/AskScienceDiscussion. I know this is really more an area of psychology but since this an issue of human population differences I felt it might be worth a try. To be upfront, I am a bleeding-heart leftie and I really hope that current population differences in IQ scores and other metrics turn out to be purely environmental, but I'll try and accept the facts no matter how undesirable they may be. So, is this an appropriate and relatively safe place to ask questions about this topic?","c_root_id_A":"dwcuaqv","c_root_id_B":"dwcuxw2","created_at_utc_A":1522147492,"created_at_utc_B":1522148820,"score_A":24,"score_B":64,"human_ref_A":"No. From the sidebar, \"Racism, \"race realism\" and \"human biodiversity\" are not science and will not be tolerated in this subreddit.\"","human_ref_B":"To be honest, if you are trying to avoid this discussion being swarmed by alt-right types, you might have to leave reddit altogether. And especially, I think you would struggle to find an anthropologist who thinks there is a non-environmental explanation to the population differences in IQ scores (since what IQ tests measure is the ability to take IQ tests), coupled with the fact that there is a whole world outside of the United States in which US-specific racial categories do not come into play (and I mean, income inequality explains IQ differences much better than genetic factors do). Thus, as far as I know there is no debate because one side is clearly wrong and the other is not. If you want to read a bit about this subject, this paper is my favourite overview, but also have a look at the Flynn publications cited in its references.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1328.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"87hc6q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"Is this a good place to ask about the ethnicity and intelligence debate? Every forum I try and ask questions about this very fraught debate in gets swarmed by alt-right types, including \/r\/AskScienceDiscussion. I know this is really more an area of psychology but since this an issue of human population differences I felt it might be worth a try. To be upfront, I am a bleeding-heart leftie and I really hope that current population differences in IQ scores and other metrics turn out to be purely environmental, but I'll try and accept the facts no matter how undesirable they may be. So, is this an appropriate and relatively safe place to ask questions about this topic?","c_root_id_A":"dwcxmy0","c_root_id_B":"dwcyvms","created_at_utc_A":1522153313,"created_at_utc_B":1522155012,"score_A":14,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"There is a simple answer which is incredibly deceptive, and then there is the complex answer which will leave you unsatisfied and scratching your head. The simple answer is that the current differences in IQ cannot be fully explained by the currently accounted for environmental differences. A large portion of it most certainly can, in fact probably most of it could, but not all of it by our current data. That being said, that kinda leads into the more complex answer. The more complex answer deals in our understanding of intelligence in general. IQ is a score based on the g-theory of intelligence in which you have one general intelligence that affects all things you do equally. Problem is this theory hasn't been scientifically supported since the 60s, but the tests based around it have been popularized and are seen as the standard of psychometric examination. This leads to more than a little problem in actually talking about intelligence since people are wanting to understand it in terms of a metric (IQ) that actually doesn't give a complete or even fully accurate answer (it's better than some tests, and we have a lot of data on it but still far from complete). We have actually only recently started coming up with and testing using tests based on a CHC model of intelligence without a g score which isn't exactly as easy or accurate to average into an easily understood metric like IQ, but rather comes across as between 3 and 36 different scores (depending on the test). These sorts of scores still from the early data show differences, but actually point MORE towards environment rather than genetics to explain the differences in the idea that different environmental needs lead to the disproportionate development of different forms of intelligence. These environmental factors are less detectable and discernible in single metric tests and thus may better explain the remaining differences in the data averages. As a statistical sidenote to this conversation it's also important to remember averages aren't always great at understanding large data sets (and averages are the most commonly number quoted in IQ conversations). They don't really give you the understanding of where the data lies or the ranges and z scores the data represent, but rather simply where the data averages. We train students to look at averages yet often range and z scores are way more important. Even though averages may differ within IQ tests important to understand that the ranges represented are the same and z scored drastically differ. In other words there are people just as smart and dumb at the high and low ends in the data sets and the z scores tend to show different SD's (often larger for sets with smaller averages) for scores within the data set. To sum up: Answer is complex and we in no way have conclusive data for pretty much anything dealing in intelligence, The current tests are fairly poor at giving detailed data, but differences are represented. These differences cannot fully be explained by either genetics or environment, but tend to lean towards environment in simply that includes many more factors that we don't fully understand and haven't accounted for yet. Science rarely gives you easy answers when working with large simple metric sets of data on multivariable data. Basically we keep realizing how little we know about intelligence and how incomplete our understanding of it is.","human_ref_B":"First, to the matter of IQ tests... There is no as-yet accepted objective measure of intelligence that works equally across people of vastly different cultural backgrounds. IQ tests are incredibly narrow in their applicability, and psychologists rarely work with people from outside fairly specific cultural backgrounds. So performance on an IQ test really is not a good measure of general \/ raw intelligence or intellectual capability. If I was testing you on your ability to fend for yourself in the Outback, and comparing your performance on that test to the performance of someone who grew up in a culture where those skills and the necessary knowledge were taught from a young age, you would come up short. Swap that: someone who grew up in a household where studying, hard work in school, and the value of education were not emphasized might not do well on an aptitude test that focused on things like math and grammar. IQ tests might be good if you control for a whole host of variables that are rarely controlled for. But those variables are almost never controlled for, and so in most cases, IQ tests are terrible measures of general intelligence for people outside of the target population (e.g., the same population as the people who *wrote* the test). Regarding intelligence... Because there is no single accurate metric of intellectual capability that has been developed that can be used to measure intelligence across human cultures, there is no objective way to say that there are differences in intelligence that conform to \"ethnicity\" or \"race\" or any other culturally-constructed categories. As anthropologists, for that reason we generally avoid peoples' efforts to box us in about comparing different populations' absolute intelligence, because \"intelligence\" itself is something of a culturally constructed idea. Say you focus on innovation, then. Maybe independent invention of agriculture? Then Europe loses, because the idea of agriculture was imported to Europe from other regions. Meanwhile, eastern Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East all came up with agriculture independently. You see the problem? It's possible to cherry pick arbitrary attributes and shape your narrative however you want. We see many differences across human cultures, but we see nothing thus far in the study of human cultural diversity that suggests *any* inherent differences in the intellectual capability of modern humans across the world. >To be upfront, I am a bleeding-heart leftie and I really hope that current population differences in IQ scores and other metrics turn out to be purely environmental, but I'll try and accept the facts no matter how undesirable they may be. I see comments like this in posts in this sub and others. It smacks of concern trolling. \"I always thought that the races were equal, but lately I've been reading that they're not and I really don't like what I'm reading, can someone please explain to me if the races are equal?\" ...followed by post after post saying, \"But what about...?\" and trying to justify a position that clearly suggests the poster does *not* hold the views that he or she claims to hold. Color me skeptical of your intentions. I would like to imagine that someone might actually come here seeking information instead of concern trolling. I'd like to be proven wrong about my suspicions of your intent.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1699.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"87hc6q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.65,"history":"Is this a good place to ask about the ethnicity and intelligence debate? Every forum I try and ask questions about this very fraught debate in gets swarmed by alt-right types, including \/r\/AskScienceDiscussion. I know this is really more an area of psychology but since this an issue of human population differences I felt it might be worth a try. To be upfront, I am a bleeding-heart leftie and I really hope that current population differences in IQ scores and other metrics turn out to be purely environmental, but I'll try and accept the facts no matter how undesirable they may be. So, is this an appropriate and relatively safe place to ask questions about this topic?","c_root_id_A":"dwdu4r4","c_root_id_B":"dwd4l5t","created_at_utc_A":1522184213,"created_at_utc_B":1522161385,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There are so many assumptions packed into the question that it's scientifically incoherent and trapped in the obsolete Galtonian nature vs. nurture framework. The short answer is that it's bullshit but the (very) long answer involves understanding some basic biological anthropology. Living Anthropologically has a good easy explainer series on it: https:\/\/www.livinganthropologically.com\/biological-anthropology\/ It's worth reading the original paper from Lance Gravlee in the Race Reconciled post: http:\/\/www.gravlee.org\/files\/pdfs\/Gravlee%202009%20Am%20J%20Phys%20Anthropol.pdf There are tons of conflations and abuse of terminology such as \"heritability\" and \"bias.\" I noted this in my post upthread, but here are some useful things to read on it: https:\/\/scientiasalon.wordpress.com\/2015\/06\/01\/heritability-a-handy-guide-to-what-it-means-what-it-doesnt-mean-and-that-giant-meta-analysis-of-twin-studies\/ https:\/\/www.nyu.edu\/gsas\/dept\/philo\/faculty\/block\/papers\/Heritability.html http:\/\/physanth.org\/about\/position-statements\/biological-aspects-race\/ Panofsky's Misbehaving Science is good if you want an STS take on behavioral genetics: http:\/\/webs.wichita.edu\/depttools\/depttoolsmemberfiles\/psychology\/publications\/Greenberg\/MisbehavingScienceReview.pdf If you want to look into human biological variation more, the neo-eugenicists have conveniently labeled themselves \"human biodiversity\" as opposed to the more commonly used academic term of human biological variation. So the easy rule of thumb is HBD = bullshit, HBV = science.","human_ref_B":"I'm not aware of the current consensus about intelligence differences between populations (although I *do* understand why it's such a political lightning-rod), but here's a recent survey paper of the Top 10 Replicated Findings From Behavioral Genetics. The top finding is that \"All psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic influence\" - including intelligence. Additionally, the discussion for many of these 10 findings talks about intelligence in particular. Another recent item in academic circles is that several psychology professors who specialize in intelligence have complained that even undergrad *textbooks* misrepresent the state of intelligence research - specifically downplaying the validity and importance of IQ.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22828.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"4psunu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Are there any groups of people left that we know of who are untouched by colonisation etc. completely unaware of modern technology and world?","c_root_id_A":"d4nkrdl","c_root_id_B":"d4o2fnw","created_at_utc_A":1466868519,"created_at_utc_B":1466898553,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Here's a Wiki article on uncontacted tribes. There are quite a few in South America.","human_ref_B":"Long ago, I heard i heard from one of my lecturers that, while there are communities that are being left alone, virtually all of them know to a certain degree of the 'modern' world. Even if remote peoples have not had contact with for example Europeans, usually they do have contact with other local communities that had, thereby also learning about said Europeans. Furthermore, Coca Cola bottles travel further than most people imagine...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30034.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"4psunu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Are there any groups of people left that we know of who are untouched by colonisation etc. completely unaware of modern technology and world?","c_root_id_A":"d4o2fnw","c_root_id_B":"d4ntalz","created_at_utc_A":1466898553,"created_at_utc_B":1466882611,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Long ago, I heard i heard from one of my lecturers that, while there are communities that are being left alone, virtually all of them know to a certain degree of the 'modern' world. Even if remote peoples have not had contact with for example Europeans, usually they do have contact with other local communities that had, thereby also learning about said Europeans. Furthermore, Coca Cola bottles travel further than most people imagine...","human_ref_B":"The Kawahiva, supposedly","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15942.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"4psunu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Are there any groups of people left that we know of who are untouched by colonisation etc. completely unaware of modern technology and world?","c_root_id_A":"d4ntalz","c_root_id_B":"d4oaxnn","created_at_utc_A":1466882611,"created_at_utc_B":1466915318,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Kawahiva, supposedly","human_ref_B":"Completely Unaware? No. Even the ones listed Wiki article are likely to have SOME awareness of the outside world. Of course if there were a group of people out on the fringe that had had no contact, how would we know they existed? A few remain effectively unaffected by the modern world, but very few.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32707.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8hijl3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Why did native Peruvians create the Nazca lines more than 1000 years ago? I'm asking WHY rather than HOW they did it. Please, is there any answer other than just that it had some \"religious\" significance? Who did they think was going to see the designs, the pictures of animals and plants? Why did they expend so much time and effort on this work?","c_root_id_A":"dykahir","c_root_id_B":"dykjgny","created_at_utc_A":1525655309,"created_at_utc_B":1525665884,"score_A":9,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"The leading theory now is that the lines are an elaborately decorative system for keeping track of underground water. In such an arid environment, you need wells. There are examples of Nazca wells in other areas, kind of like a reverse terrace or a small strip mine with steps leading to a source below the surface. (edit) As someone else said, these could also be ancient South American versions of early Christian labyrinths designed for meditative prayer or walking, but that's a hard assumption to make because of the lack of religious artifacts at the lines. Pilgrimage site perhaps?","human_ref_B":"I've discussed some of the interpretations here. Which one is correct? Yes. The central problem of \"interpreting\" the lines is there are *so many* and they were built in multiple phases over centuries. They are so simple that interpreting any original use is challenging enough, but even putting multiple lines into the same group is a task in itself.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10575.0,"score_ratio":2.5555555556} {"post_id":"jmmvny","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"how many participants (minimum) do i need to interview\/survey for an ethnographic study?","c_root_id_A":"gaxiwha","c_root_id_B":"gaxz3jt","created_at_utc_A":1604347802,"created_at_utc_B":1604355687,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"it really depends. I mean there are autoethnographies which centre on the author's own experience. there are ethnographies which explicitly follow the life of one or a few key informants. it really depends on what you are trying to do. could you share a little more about what sort of question you are asking and how you are trying to answer it?","human_ref_B":"In agreement with the consensus here, that it just depends. There is no requirement for studies to be representative, especially if you are doing research as an undergrad or grad student, as it sounds like you do. Consider also that interviews need to be recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. That is work! To be slightly more helpful, anything from 5 to 50 can be reasonable for something like a master's thesis. It also depends on the depth of the interviews. Do you do five in depth, two hour long ones? Or 20 shorter half-an hour ones? Do you only have three main interlocutors but interview them repeatedly? The number of interviews must make sense in the framework of your project: what exactly is the question? how specific is it? how much time do you have? As another commenter said, interviews should not be your only data in an ethnographic study. Sometimes it's difficult to do interviews at all, and sometimes they are unreliable. Participant observation is key and just as important. For example, for my master's research I did three months of fieldwork, got a hundred pages of participant observation field notes out of it, notes on a bunch of short informal conversations and ten formal interviews. That was a lot of work to analyze. As long as you frame it correctly and reflect on your methods and data, something in that ballpark should be perfectly fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7885.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"jmmvny","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"how many participants (minimum) do i need to interview\/survey for an ethnographic study?","c_root_id_A":"gaxx16n","c_root_id_B":"gaxiwha","created_at_utc_A":1604354641,"created_at_utc_B":1604347802,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"others have already given great answers about the context-dependency, so i wanted to add that ethnography isn't just interviews. it also entails participant observation and lots of mundane conversation. in my case, these proved to be much more interesting than the interviews. so if you're trying to come up with a plan for methodology, i would highly suggest considering other ethnographic tools as well.","human_ref_B":"it really depends. I mean there are autoethnographies which centre on the author's own experience. there are ethnographies which explicitly follow the life of one or a few key informants. it really depends on what you are trying to do. could you share a little more about what sort of question you are asking and how you are trying to answer it?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6839.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hppw7jf","c_root_id_B":"hpq0kjr","created_at_utc_A":1640288238,"created_at_utc_B":1640290105,"score_A":16,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"I study history in Belgium. We're required to use Chicago 17th edition full note, and I prefer it that way. APA (and any other in-text citation format) is very difficult to use as a reader, as you have to look up author and date in a pages long list of names and dates. Especially annoying when you have to scroll up and down every single time. I agree that APA is much easier for the person writing the paper. When I'm writing, I reference in-text to author and page, and later I go in with Zotero and make the footnotes (and of course delete the temporary in-text references). Doesn't take me too much time. Chicago references clearly in the first footnote, but then shortens to not have a wall of text every single page. It's much more accessible, and still has a full bibliography at the end.","human_ref_B":"Whatever the prof\/institute\/publication\/employer demands. You have to be flexible. Personally I prefer systems with footnotes, this is what I am used to and this seems to work best on papers that are very technical, when you want the readers to have access to the relevant information immediately. When it comes to stuff that's more pop-science, not as serious, or more essayistic, I prefer endnotes, they help the flow of reading and don't distract me with additional information. In no circumstance do I enjoy using in text citations. I'm in Austria btw.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1867.0,"score_ratio":2.4375} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hpq079w","c_root_id_B":"hpq0kjr","created_at_utc_A":1640289942,"created_at_utc_B":1640290105,"score_A":17,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology, USA (I specialize in Mesoamerica). SAA format (Society of American Archaeology) which is a customized variation of APA.","human_ref_B":"Whatever the prof\/institute\/publication\/employer demands. You have to be flexible. Personally I prefer systems with footnotes, this is what I am used to and this seems to work best on papers that are very technical, when you want the readers to have access to the relevant information immediately. When it comes to stuff that's more pop-science, not as serious, or more essayistic, I prefer endnotes, they help the flow of reading and don't distract me with additional information. In no circumstance do I enjoy using in text citations. I'm in Austria btw.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":163.0,"score_ratio":2.2941176471} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hpq0kjr","c_root_id_B":"hppsrqj","created_at_utc_A":1640290105,"created_at_utc_B":1640286765,"score_A":39,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Whatever the prof\/institute\/publication\/employer demands. You have to be flexible. Personally I prefer systems with footnotes, this is what I am used to and this seems to work best on papers that are very technical, when you want the readers to have access to the relevant information immediately. When it comes to stuff that's more pop-science, not as serious, or more essayistic, I prefer endnotes, they help the flow of reading and don't distract me with additional information. In no circumstance do I enjoy using in text citations. I'm in Austria btw.","human_ref_B":"I love Chicago Style, but that was what I was trained in for History. I find it intuitive, useful, and much less ugly than APA, whose information is not as helpful and has requirements which are not intuitive. I do think this is a bit of a metric vs imperial thing, where whatever you are more used to feels \"obviously better\". (I teach in the US, and went to university in the US)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3340.0,"score_ratio":3.5454545455} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hpq079w","c_root_id_B":"hppw7jf","created_at_utc_A":1640289942,"created_at_utc_B":1640288238,"score_A":17,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology, USA (I specialize in Mesoamerica). SAA format (Society of American Archaeology) which is a customized variation of APA.","human_ref_B":"I study history in Belgium. We're required to use Chicago 17th edition full note, and I prefer it that way. APA (and any other in-text citation format) is very difficult to use as a reader, as you have to look up author and date in a pages long list of names and dates. Especially annoying when you have to scroll up and down every single time. I agree that APA is much easier for the person writing the paper. When I'm writing, I reference in-text to author and page, and later I go in with Zotero and make the footnotes (and of course delete the temporary in-text references). Doesn't take me too much time. Chicago references clearly in the first footnote, but then shortens to not have a wall of text every single page. It's much more accessible, and still has a full bibliography at the end.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1704.0,"score_ratio":1.0625} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hppsrqj","c_root_id_B":"hppw7jf","created_at_utc_A":1640286765,"created_at_utc_B":1640288238,"score_A":11,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I love Chicago Style, but that was what I was trained in for History. I find it intuitive, useful, and much less ugly than APA, whose information is not as helpful and has requirements which are not intuitive. I do think this is a bit of a metric vs imperial thing, where whatever you are more used to feels \"obviously better\". (I teach in the US, and went to university in the US)","human_ref_B":"I study history in Belgium. We're required to use Chicago 17th edition full note, and I prefer it that way. APA (and any other in-text citation format) is very difficult to use as a reader, as you have to look up author and date in a pages long list of names and dates. Especially annoying when you have to scroll up and down every single time. I agree that APA is much easier for the person writing the paper. When I'm writing, I reference in-text to author and page, and later I go in with Zotero and make the footnotes (and of course delete the temporary in-text references). Doesn't take me too much time. Chicago references clearly in the first footnote, but then shortens to not have a wall of text every single page. It's much more accessible, and still has a full bibliography at the end.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1473.0,"score_ratio":1.4545454545} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hpq079w","c_root_id_B":"hppsrqj","created_at_utc_A":1640289942,"created_at_utc_B":1640286765,"score_A":17,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology, USA (I specialize in Mesoamerica). SAA format (Society of American Archaeology) which is a customized variation of APA.","human_ref_B":"I love Chicago Style, but that was what I was trained in for History. I find it intuitive, useful, and much less ugly than APA, whose information is not as helpful and has requirements which are not intuitive. I do think this is a bit of a metric vs imperial thing, where whatever you are more used to feels \"obviously better\". (I teach in the US, and went to university in the US)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3177.0,"score_ratio":1.5454545455} {"post_id":"rn2qli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What citation format do you use and why? My question is simple, which citation format do your prefer using and why? Also, if possible, tell me where you study. Example - Citation: APA and ChicagoStudying at: US, Germany I am torn between APA and Chicago style, but I know the AAA has there own format tweaks as well. My faculty here is also pretty torn between the two. One professor uses MLA, but I don't know why. I like Chicago for its footnotes, however, APA works more streamlined for me and my writing. Thanks again!","c_root_id_A":"hpqcxrw","c_root_id_B":"hpq650a","created_at_utc_A":1640295471,"created_at_utc_B":1640292526,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Chicago (author-date) is the standard for north american cultural anthropology in my experience (of working and taking classes at 2 canadian universities and 1 american)","human_ref_B":"I use APA, only because the American Journal of Human Biology and American Journal of Physical (Biological) Anthropology both converted to using APA a while ago. They use to use a modified version of the Council of Biology editors (CBE)\/Council of Science editors (CSE) citation style which I liked because it was pretty streamline and simple, but APA is probably more widely used.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2945.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"7drlim","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Did societies with more nudity have a higher fertility rate? I asked this in the past tense because in the modern era there are far more factors that come into play when discussing fertility. How different were, for example, in this sense European agricultural societies with a tradition of clothing from African agricultural societies with a tradition of nudity (or even a tradition of only covering your genitalia).","c_root_id_A":"dq085js","c_root_id_B":"dq0gir7","created_at_utc_A":1511020077,"created_at_utc_B":1511030477,"score_A":7,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Why would you think this? What led you to this hypothesis? I don't see any logical connection at all.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the problem of separating out variables, the answer is generally \u201cno.\u201d The opposite. In hunter-gatherer and many simple farming societies, there are strict tabus about post-partum sex. Further, in most h-g societies, lactation is an effective birth control method, as the amount of fat on women\u2019s bodies is at the low end (or below) of Western normal. The caloric and nutritional needs of nursing drive the woman\u2019s body fat even lower, suppressing ovulation. Yet one more factor in overall fertility is survival of both mother and infant through labor and delivery. As you can imagine, without c-sections (etc), the mortality rate for both was higher. That\u2019s why we often find very long term evidence of populations staying quite stable in simple societies. They matched their population to the environment in which they found themselves (not always, but frequently enough for various researchers to draw this conclusion), and they did not grow quickly, at all. When farming enters the scenes (first in the Levant) there is an immediate and permanent upswing in fertility (and women are heavier and lactation no longer works and the tabus are forgotten). Which brings us to the current day. Source: Rosaldo and Lamphere, Women, Culture & Society.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10400.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"6lt3l2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Why are the cultures that were most harmed by christianity, the most devout? Is this similar to stockholm syndrome on a cultural level? Right off the bat, there is afro-american culture in the US. So many of that group are devout christians, but... why? Their ancestors were ripped from their very names, given new christian ones. Slavery and their precieved \"racial inferiority\" were also justified by using the bible... Then there is Eastern Europe. Slavs and hungarians had their own culture and religions which they were forced to give up, BEING PRESSURED BY THREAT OF ANNIHILATION, and yet, Polaks and us hungarians are up on the ceiling about how \"supermegahyperchristian we are!\" Then there is central and south america. Christianity bordering on zealotry, yet Cultural genocide was commited by christianity there, on their very ancestors (Even if they are mixed race, Incas, and other mezo-american civilizations WERE their ancestors) Does this work the same as stockholm syndrome? Or more like an abusive relationship, just on a cultural, not a personal level?","c_root_id_A":"djwqmpn","c_root_id_B":"djxv58c","created_at_utc_A":1499446214,"created_at_utc_B":1499503052,"score_A":7,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Talking about Slav countries and \ud83c\udded\ud83c\uddfa specifically, those conversions were made literally a thousand years ago. Christians today are quite proud of their long history of being christian. And even then, the Hungarian kingdom and other Slav kingdoms weren't forced into converting, rather it was the monarchies own choice, which then forced its people to go from pagan to christian. Did these kingdoms feel a strong pressure to convert from the Holy Roman Empire? Certainly. But the way people today look at the Christian conversion was that it was \"their own choice\", and that their King decided to convert for a holy reason from God. Edit: still regarding Eastern Europe, you talk so much about the horrible-ness of the conversions. I have never seen this emphasized anywhere in today's sufficiently unbiased textbooks. My strong impression is that the conversions happened relatively fast and easily. Christianity came from Western Europe. Western Europe always represented progress and Modernization for Eastern Europe. Christianity and Christian orders brought so much profit in education and culture to Eastern Europe Christian orders built universities and libraries. People remember early Christianity for these things more, bringing progress and education for hundreds of years. This is the real reason why Eastern Europe's culture is still religious, and not because of a fairly unrelated event to modern culture a thousand years ago.","human_ref_B":"Okay, my extensive notes on this are actually handwritten in one of my notebooks which I don't have with me (I'm currently in Tanzania), but I'll give you an overview, since this is an area where I've done extensive research as regards the situation in Africa. First, read the comment by \/u\/alanaa92. She raises two really good points, in that Christianity is not a monolithic thing. It has really such a vast variety, not just historically but even at the same time. Where I did my research in Tanzania, even Lutheran missionaries working less than 100 miles from each other in the late 19th century had way different philosophies (Germans had a more romantic and collective view of Christianity than Norwegian and Swedish Lutherans, who had recently had a sort of evangelical revival and were more influenced by Pietists who focused on the idea of individual rather than collective salvation). Klaus Fiedler's work on this is very good. And working among different ethnic groups, there were very different ways in which people understood what the missionaries were presenting. Across Africa there are some broader trends. Contemporary African theologians (John Mbiti is probably the most well-known of them) have often argued that in general, African societies did not really think of any separation between \"religious life\" and \"life in general\". It was not even a separate thing, it was just life. So from a modern-secular point of view, most people would already be considered \"very devout\" but in that context, where to be \"not religious\" is just not possible because it would mean total separation from society - is a distinction between devout, not devout, very devout etc. really that salient? I would argue no. Christianity did not appear into an ethnic, political, or social vacuum, and all those factors influenced how it was or wasn't adopted. Ward and Wildwood discuss how some adherents of religious movements (such as the Balokole in Uganda, which spread to other areas of East Africa) were able to use this momentum to avoid getting involved in partisan politics and to criticise nationalist movements such as the Mau Mau. Adrian Hastings and David Maxwell have written about the importance of public prayer and liturgy for new Christians, especially during independence struggles. It became quite political in areas, giving individuals the conviction they needed to criticise politicians publicly. In many areas, people saw connections between themselves and the stories of the tribes of Israel. According to Maxwell, these narratives lent legitimacy to the concept of tribes organising for social and political causes. Similarly, Githieya describes the Athari movement in Kenya. Once the Bible had been translated into their language, people began to notice that the missionaries both didn't do things that were commanded (like keeping Kosher), and did things that were forbidden (shaving beards and whatnot). They concluded that the missionaries had actually corrupted the original message of the Bible, and so the Athari set about restoring what they thought original Christianity would have been like, and they used this as a way to criticise missionaries, colonialists, *and* traditional Gikuyu practices. Initially it was millenarian in character (i.e. concerned with the end of the world) but when end of world didn\u2019t come about they did become more involved in Gikuyu society to oppose colonial rule. During early missionary periods, in many places local leaders simply saw opportunities in the new religion. Basically they saw that these new arrivals had power, and they saw opportunities to a) try and attain some of that new kind of power themselves, and b) to use the newcomers, particularly in their naivet\u00e9 about local politics, as pawn for their own advancement. Kathleen Stahl's history of the Chagga describes exactly how chiefs befriended colonialists and missionaries both, partly in an attempt to allow them to play for higher stakes in their competition against other area chiefs, and how one particular chief (Marealle of Marangu) came out waaaaay ahead, having been able to use both colonialists and missionaries in his schemes to crush two great rival chiefs. It wasn't only the powerful who saw opportunities, many people who were in marginal positions saw a chance for personal advancement in the coming of the missionaries, whether that was through healthcare or (more often) education. People who had been ostracised from their communities found people that welcomed them. In my research area in Tanzania, middle sons were usually left out of the inheritance (the father would divide his property and give half to the oldest son; the youngest would get the family home when the father died). The middle sons then found opportunities that hadn't previously existed in the church. Finally, lots of people were just genuinely devoted. Plenty of people did conclude that what the missionaries were saying was *right*, even if the way they were saying it wasn't good. And they were able to interpret both their faith and the resulting hierarchical structures of church, mission, schools, etc. in different ways, adopt it for different means, and put it toward different uses. See for example the essays in Spear and Kimambo's volume, there are numerous examples from all over the continent about how people have done just that. Today dozens of African theologians continue to discuss ways of developing African Christianity, in a conscious critique of the ways in which colonial mission was conducted. Now it's been a hundred years or more in many areas of Africa since missionaries first arrived, and many people's families have been Christian for generations. I would argue that Christianity is now a genuinely African religion, and for many people it is part of their identity. Paivi Hasu has also written about the Chagga people of Tanzania, and has stated straight up that \"To be Chagga is to be Christian.\" Maia Green has also discussed the way in which certain geographical areas (and subsequently ethnic groups) became affiliated with denominations based on how missionaries had divided up their work. The Chagga are now strongly associated with Lutheranism (some smaller areas within are strongly Catholic though, and there are various identity politics going on there) while where Green did her research in southern Tanzania there's a strong affiliation with Catholicism, to the point where it's just become wrapped up in ethnic identity. Sources: Fiedler, Klaus. 1996. Christianity and African Culture: Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940. Leiden: Brill. Githieya, Francis Kimani. 1999. \u2018The Church of the Holy Spirit: Biblical Beliefs and Practices of the Arathi of Kenya, 1926-1950\u2019. In East African Expressions of Christianity, edited by Thomas Spear and Isaria Kimambo, 231\u201344. Oxford: James Currey. Green, Maia. 2003. Priests, Witches and Power: Popular Christianity after Mission in Southern Tanzania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hastings, Adrian. 1979. A History of African Christianity, 1950-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hasu, P\u00e4ivi. 1999. Desire and Death: History Through Ritual Practice in Kilimanjaro. Helsinki: Finnish Anthropological Society. Maxwell, David, and Ingrid Lawrie, ed. 2002. Christianity and the African Imagination: Essays in Honour of Adrian Hastings. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Mbiti, John. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann. Spear, Thomas, and Isaria Kimambo. 1999. East African Expressions of Christianity. Oxford: James Currey. Stahl, Kathleen Mary. 1964. History of the Chagga People of Kilimanjaro. London: Mouton. Ward, Kevin, and Emma Wild-Wood. 2012. The East African Revival: History and Legacies. Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":56838.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"6lt3l2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Why are the cultures that were most harmed by christianity, the most devout? Is this similar to stockholm syndrome on a cultural level? Right off the bat, there is afro-american culture in the US. So many of that group are devout christians, but... why? Their ancestors were ripped from their very names, given new christian ones. Slavery and their precieved \"racial inferiority\" were also justified by using the bible... Then there is Eastern Europe. Slavs and hungarians had their own culture and religions which they were forced to give up, BEING PRESSURED BY THREAT OF ANNIHILATION, and yet, Polaks and us hungarians are up on the ceiling about how \"supermegahyperchristian we are!\" Then there is central and south america. Christianity bordering on zealotry, yet Cultural genocide was commited by christianity there, on their very ancestors (Even if they are mixed race, Incas, and other mezo-american civilizations WERE their ancestors) Does this work the same as stockholm syndrome? Or more like an abusive relationship, just on a cultural, not a personal level?","c_root_id_A":"djwy6x5","c_root_id_B":"djxv58c","created_at_utc_A":1499453958,"created_at_utc_B":1499503052,"score_A":3,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"Eastern Europe was converted at a time when the Eastern and Western churches were the greatest cultural forces on the continent, backed up by military and political powers. So conversion was a hard offer to refuse, but it was also an opportunity for rulers to ally themselves for political benefit, and to connect themselves to the cultural traditions of the Roman Empire and Christianity, which had as much international cachet as the concept of democracy has today. The folk religious culture of Eastern Europe also continued in the broader population for many centuries, and did not dwindle into complete obscurity until the 20th.","human_ref_B":"Okay, my extensive notes on this are actually handwritten in one of my notebooks which I don't have with me (I'm currently in Tanzania), but I'll give you an overview, since this is an area where I've done extensive research as regards the situation in Africa. First, read the comment by \/u\/alanaa92. She raises two really good points, in that Christianity is not a monolithic thing. It has really such a vast variety, not just historically but even at the same time. Where I did my research in Tanzania, even Lutheran missionaries working less than 100 miles from each other in the late 19th century had way different philosophies (Germans had a more romantic and collective view of Christianity than Norwegian and Swedish Lutherans, who had recently had a sort of evangelical revival and were more influenced by Pietists who focused on the idea of individual rather than collective salvation). Klaus Fiedler's work on this is very good. And working among different ethnic groups, there were very different ways in which people understood what the missionaries were presenting. Across Africa there are some broader trends. Contemporary African theologians (John Mbiti is probably the most well-known of them) have often argued that in general, African societies did not really think of any separation between \"religious life\" and \"life in general\". It was not even a separate thing, it was just life. So from a modern-secular point of view, most people would already be considered \"very devout\" but in that context, where to be \"not religious\" is just not possible because it would mean total separation from society - is a distinction between devout, not devout, very devout etc. really that salient? I would argue no. Christianity did not appear into an ethnic, political, or social vacuum, and all those factors influenced how it was or wasn't adopted. Ward and Wildwood discuss how some adherents of religious movements (such as the Balokole in Uganda, which spread to other areas of East Africa) were able to use this momentum to avoid getting involved in partisan politics and to criticise nationalist movements such as the Mau Mau. Adrian Hastings and David Maxwell have written about the importance of public prayer and liturgy for new Christians, especially during independence struggles. It became quite political in areas, giving individuals the conviction they needed to criticise politicians publicly. In many areas, people saw connections between themselves and the stories of the tribes of Israel. According to Maxwell, these narratives lent legitimacy to the concept of tribes organising for social and political causes. Similarly, Githieya describes the Athari movement in Kenya. Once the Bible had been translated into their language, people began to notice that the missionaries both didn't do things that were commanded (like keeping Kosher), and did things that were forbidden (shaving beards and whatnot). They concluded that the missionaries had actually corrupted the original message of the Bible, and so the Athari set about restoring what they thought original Christianity would have been like, and they used this as a way to criticise missionaries, colonialists, *and* traditional Gikuyu practices. Initially it was millenarian in character (i.e. concerned with the end of the world) but when end of world didn\u2019t come about they did become more involved in Gikuyu society to oppose colonial rule. During early missionary periods, in many places local leaders simply saw opportunities in the new religion. Basically they saw that these new arrivals had power, and they saw opportunities to a) try and attain some of that new kind of power themselves, and b) to use the newcomers, particularly in their naivet\u00e9 about local politics, as pawn for their own advancement. Kathleen Stahl's history of the Chagga describes exactly how chiefs befriended colonialists and missionaries both, partly in an attempt to allow them to play for higher stakes in their competition against other area chiefs, and how one particular chief (Marealle of Marangu) came out waaaaay ahead, having been able to use both colonialists and missionaries in his schemes to crush two great rival chiefs. It wasn't only the powerful who saw opportunities, many people who were in marginal positions saw a chance for personal advancement in the coming of the missionaries, whether that was through healthcare or (more often) education. People who had been ostracised from their communities found people that welcomed them. In my research area in Tanzania, middle sons were usually left out of the inheritance (the father would divide his property and give half to the oldest son; the youngest would get the family home when the father died). The middle sons then found opportunities that hadn't previously existed in the church. Finally, lots of people were just genuinely devoted. Plenty of people did conclude that what the missionaries were saying was *right*, even if the way they were saying it wasn't good. And they were able to interpret both their faith and the resulting hierarchical structures of church, mission, schools, etc. in different ways, adopt it for different means, and put it toward different uses. See for example the essays in Spear and Kimambo's volume, there are numerous examples from all over the continent about how people have done just that. Today dozens of African theologians continue to discuss ways of developing African Christianity, in a conscious critique of the ways in which colonial mission was conducted. Now it's been a hundred years or more in many areas of Africa since missionaries first arrived, and many people's families have been Christian for generations. I would argue that Christianity is now a genuinely African religion, and for many people it is part of their identity. Paivi Hasu has also written about the Chagga people of Tanzania, and has stated straight up that \"To be Chagga is to be Christian.\" Maia Green has also discussed the way in which certain geographical areas (and subsequently ethnic groups) became affiliated with denominations based on how missionaries had divided up their work. The Chagga are now strongly associated with Lutheranism (some smaller areas within are strongly Catholic though, and there are various identity politics going on there) while where Green did her research in southern Tanzania there's a strong affiliation with Catholicism, to the point where it's just become wrapped up in ethnic identity. Sources: Fiedler, Klaus. 1996. Christianity and African Culture: Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940. Leiden: Brill. Githieya, Francis Kimani. 1999. \u2018The Church of the Holy Spirit: Biblical Beliefs and Practices of the Arathi of Kenya, 1926-1950\u2019. In East African Expressions of Christianity, edited by Thomas Spear and Isaria Kimambo, 231\u201344. Oxford: James Currey. Green, Maia. 2003. Priests, Witches and Power: Popular Christianity after Mission in Southern Tanzania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hastings, Adrian. 1979. A History of African Christianity, 1950-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hasu, P\u00e4ivi. 1999. Desire and Death: History Through Ritual Practice in Kilimanjaro. Helsinki: Finnish Anthropological Society. Maxwell, David, and Ingrid Lawrie, ed. 2002. Christianity and the African Imagination: Essays in Honour of Adrian Hastings. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Mbiti, John. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. London: Heinemann. Spear, Thomas, and Isaria Kimambo. 1999. East African Expressions of Christianity. Oxford: James Currey. Stahl, Kathleen Mary. 1964. History of the Chagga People of Kilimanjaro. London: Mouton. Ward, Kevin, and Emma Wild-Wood. 2012. The East African Revival: History and Legacies. Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":49094.0,"score_ratio":5.6666666667} {"post_id":"2qus7c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why did epicanthic folds develop in East Asian groups while they did not develop in most African groups (where one might expect them to develop)? Folds develop to reduce glare from the Sun, right? If this is true, then one would think most African groups, living in an environment near the equator and therefore exposed to much sunlight, would develop these folds. But instead, it's really only the Khoi who have these folds. Basically I'm wondering why exactly any one group mighy develop folds while another would not, exactly.","c_root_id_A":"cn9saho","c_root_id_B":"cn9qziy","created_at_utc_A":1419981355,"created_at_utc_B":1419978967,"score_A":15,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Be careful with the perception that changes in genotype and phenotype occur *for a reason*. Mutations occur 'randomly', and are subsequently selected (through natural fitness, or sexual preference) or de-selected. I don't know that epicanthic folds help reduce Sun glare, but if that were the case, one might expect African populations to see increasing frequencies of this particular mutation *if the mutation occured in the population*, which is not the case, evidently. It is also possible that these mutations did occur in Africa, or were introduced through gene flow, but that the African populations de-selected the trait through sexual preference (i.e., they didn't find it attractive).","human_ref_B":"Actually you would think people who live in snowy environments would have them because of all the additional reflective sunlight they would have to deal with.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2388.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"1f9omj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What advice does AskAnthropology for those seeking to enter into a career in Anthropology? Personally, I am seeking a degree in Cultural Anthropology. I would like to teach at a college level. Teaching is more important to me than research. So my questions are: What level of degree would you recommend? What are universities looking for in professors? What specific fields of study are in demand? Also for others that might find this information useful if you belong to another subfield, do applied, or commerical work please fill free to help others with advice on entering your area of work. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ca8j1z1","c_root_id_B":"ca88w14","created_at_utc_A":1369878327,"created_at_utc_B":1369849786,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Foreign language, at least two don't skimp. Especially for cultural anthropology. Even if your interests don't require any language but your own: gradschool will require more. If you want to teach it, you're going to have to get a PhD. The field is really competitive. Even with a 4.0, beefy CV, and undergrad experience in teaching and research: you may still not get into grad school the first go. Don't get discouraged, try again. This was me a year ago. I couldn't believe I didn't get into graduate school. The schools couldn't tell me how to improve only that \"my application is incredible, but we just couldn't fit you.\" This sucks, but happened to some other amazing friends of mine. Double major is something unrelated if you can. Sometimes you need to get a paycheck on your way to your career dreams. Having more marketable skills is great. I'm not saying anthropology isn't marketable, but it's more difficult to market than let's say...anything having to do with computers. My best friend, for example, went to school for marine biology and computer programming. He worked a year in computer programing, made an ass-ton of money, and then used it to fuel at two year traveling binge on fishing boats and marine related experiences. It got him into his PhD program. Plan for the possibility that you might not be able to jump from BA to PhD right out of undergrad. Internships, internships, and emails to keep on contact with everyone. Anthropology is fueled on buttkissery and being remembered. Sad, but true. I have burned some bridges and built some through simple emails saying, \"Hey, we talk at X event. I read your new article in Y and loved the part on BLAH. Best wishes!\" What's in demand? Even though there is a hiring freeze and furlough going on in the US, the government wants anthropologists right now. My husband has been trying to push me to take Arabic, Korean or Russian so we can work in government together. Granted, he'd be in an entirely different sector but I can't bash the benefits of working for Uncle Sam. Basically? Study someone we're in conflict with. At the same time, studies on tech culture(video games and the like) is new and at an all time high right now. Bad thing is that there is still little writing on it. Getting sources for papers is a bit tough. I wish I could say studying what you love is the best. However, as a North Atlantic archaeologist who married a US government employee...my dreams have been dashed and kept state side (except during the occasional summer when I am overseas). Limited viking and pictish fun for me. Look up jobs online and see what people are hiring for. I frequently see universities asking for Asian or African focused anthropologists. Non-western studies generally seem to be most marketable in colleges. Heck, even in museums. I hope this helps you a little!","human_ref_B":"Take some vocational classes while you're in college to learn some skills that will provide for future employment in a different career. Even if you end up teaching, you'll probably be needing something to make rent money. Be nice to people. Learn names especially of the people who do grunt work in the offices like secretaries. Start volunteering for your current professors. You need to build a good name now so that when they see jobs coming, they let you know.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28541.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idgflh6","c_root_id_B":"idgj9tz","created_at_utc_A":1656005982,"created_at_utc_B":1656007474,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"My best advice to you is to find something you love where you wouldn't mind doing it for free and figure out a way to make that a career. I got involved in a crisis counseling center as a volunteer and eventually ended up in a training role. That position set me up way more than any anthro class I ever took. That said, anthro and psychology both have a lot of transferable skills for HR if that something you have any interest in. After I graduated I got a job as a recruiter and did that for about 6 years before moving over to Organizational Effectiveness where I do organizational performance and leadership\/talent development and I love it.","human_ref_B":"I was working for a large insurance company. Hated it, decided to go back to school for computer science. Currently a software dev, but I continue to read anthro books in my off time as I love the subject.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1492.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idgflh6","c_root_id_B":"idgweab","created_at_utc_A":1656005982,"created_at_utc_B":1656012866,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"My best advice to you is to find something you love where you wouldn't mind doing it for free and figure out a way to make that a career. I got involved in a crisis counseling center as a volunteer and eventually ended up in a training role. That position set me up way more than any anthro class I ever took. That said, anthro and psychology both have a lot of transferable skills for HR if that something you have any interest in. After I graduated I got a job as a recruiter and did that for about 6 years before moving over to Organizational Effectiveness where I do organizational performance and leadership\/talent development and I love it.","human_ref_B":"With your background, look for qualitative research, UX, etc. places like Bain & Company, Meta, First and First Consulting, National Research Group\u2026 Also, most big banks have qualitative research specialists.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6884.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idgp4dp","c_root_id_B":"idgweab","created_at_utc_A":1656009871,"created_at_utc_B":1656012866,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I second u\/AndJDrake. You\u2019re going to have to try and find a sub field you\u2019re interested in, for me it was museum work. I started volunteering at my local museum and I am now a paid employee. I also have good professional recommendations for when I need them and networking through them. Volunteer work looks good on a CV even if you aren\u2019t getting paid. Either that, or you will need to earn a masters degree or possibly higher if you want. Each degree will open more doors for you. I\u2019m sorry about your prospects so far, it\u2019s really tough out there. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"With your background, look for qualitative research, UX, etc. places like Bain & Company, Meta, First and First Consulting, National Research Group\u2026 Also, most big banks have qualitative research specialists.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2995.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idhkmj5","c_root_id_B":"idgflh6","created_at_utc_A":1656023099,"created_at_utc_B":1656005982,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I took a winding track but ended up climbing the QA\/QI path up to director of a non profit. Anth degrees are all about selling yourself and your education. I got my first job in mental health due to arguing that Anth and soci are basically the same because we both claim Durkheim.","human_ref_B":"My best advice to you is to find something you love where you wouldn't mind doing it for free and figure out a way to make that a career. I got involved in a crisis counseling center as a volunteer and eventually ended up in a training role. That position set me up way more than any anthro class I ever took. That said, anthro and psychology both have a lot of transferable skills for HR if that something you have any interest in. After I graduated I got a job as a recruiter and did that for about 6 years before moving over to Organizational Effectiveness where I do organizational performance and leadership\/talent development and I love it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17117.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idhkmj5","c_root_id_B":"idgp4dp","created_at_utc_A":1656023099,"created_at_utc_B":1656009871,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I took a winding track but ended up climbing the QA\/QI path up to director of a non profit. Anth degrees are all about selling yourself and your education. I got my first job in mental health due to arguing that Anth and soci are basically the same because we both claim Durkheim.","human_ref_B":"I second u\/AndJDrake. You\u2019re going to have to try and find a sub field you\u2019re interested in, for me it was museum work. I started volunteering at my local museum and I am now a paid employee. I also have good professional recommendations for when I need them and networking through them. Volunteer work looks good on a CV even if you aren\u2019t getting paid. Either that, or you will need to earn a masters degree or possibly higher if you want. Each degree will open more doors for you. I\u2019m sorry about your prospects so far, it\u2019s really tough out there. Good luck!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13228.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"vj1jzf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Careers with BA in Anthropology I recently graduated from a top university with a BA in anthropology and psychology. I knew I\u2019d have a hard time with the job search but wow, it\u2019s been more discouraging than I could\u2019ve imagined. I\u2019ve spent most of my time looking at research related positions since my work experience is in research and a little in UX, but have had no luck. For those of you who graduated with a bachelors in anthro, what jobs were you able to get after college?","c_root_id_A":"idh0ow6","c_root_id_B":"idhkmj5","created_at_utc_A":1656014645,"created_at_utc_B":1656023099,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Also double majored in both. Currently working in clinical research as a study coordinator and planning to go back to school for a phd in clinical psych.","human_ref_B":"I took a winding track but ended up climbing the QA\/QI path up to director of a non profit. Anth degrees are all about selling yourself and your education. I got my first job in mental health due to arguing that Anth and soci are basically the same because we both claim Durkheim.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8454.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"7dw44r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Any book suggestion about human history? I am now reading Sapiens: A brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, which is really interesting. However, I found it mediocre. Can anyone suggest a book about human history? I heard \"guns germs and steel\" is also a good book.","c_root_id_A":"dq1pdfy","c_root_id_B":"dq1cuhm","created_at_utc_A":1511106438,"created_at_utc_B":1511075858,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'd like to recommend The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World This audiobook will make you feel what's it's like to be an ordinary person in ancient times. What was it like to be a Persian or ancient Greek or Roman. What daily life was like.","human_ref_B":"*After the Ice* by Steven Mithen, good account of human life and culture on every continent after the last ice age.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30580.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nha7pr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Looking for newly discovered finds that suggest unknown civilizations and\/or one that has very limited archaeological work being done. I'm coming from learning Cuneiform in an attempt to pursue Assyriology, but due to the abundance of Assyriologists in the field, I'm looking for a more specialized field to potentially study without the oversaturation. Nothing in North America, nothing younger than 2000 years old (unless it's South America). Any prospective help is appreciated (please, no issues with money in the field). Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"gyv6sqf","c_root_id_B":"gyvzs59","created_at_utc_A":1621542655,"created_at_utc_B":1621556564,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"What's your current situation, and what's your future education plan?","human_ref_B":"If you want to stay in the region, just back up in the timeline. Check out the BMAC, also known as the Oxus Civilization. It's my personal fav.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13909.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"5nwz5l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did the separation of Germany in the GDR and DDR have a truly significant effect on the German language within Germany? There are significant differences in the German language between Germany, Austria and Switzerland with regard to vocabulary. Within each country, especially Austria but less so in Germany, you have differences in dialects\/accents. There are also a few cases that I know of where words for food, for example Berliner\/Pfannkuchen\/Krapfen, vary quite a lot along the former East\/West border. Are there really significant differences in East\/West German or are some cases pure coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"dcf0gk5","c_root_id_B":"dcez39c","created_at_utc_A":1484403406,"created_at_utc_B":1484400260,"score_A":19,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I wrote an (unpublished) research paper on the difference use situations of Du and Sie in DDR vs BRD, researching it in 1990 just after the fall of the wall, quantitatively and through comparing detective fiction written in the West and East. There was a state-encouraged drift towards using Du in the DDR, I guess because it's more comrade-ly and egalitarian. While this did stick for a bit in work-related situations people seemed to mostly revert to using Du and Sie in a pre-separation way in social and romantic situations.","human_ref_B":"There have always been strong differences between the German regions. For example, between Hamburg (Plattdeutsch) and Stuttgart (Schw\u00e4bisch). The common language, Hochdeutsch, came from near Hannover and that has always been used as the common dialect, even in DDR times. Saxony in East Germany had its own dialect but they would use Hochdeutsch with Berliners. I am unaware of any significant linguistic drift between East and West Berlin where they started with a common dialect. Although another writer here says that the accent is thicker, it wasn't noticeable to me as a non German. Certainly, each side may have had some unique words but not for common items.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3146.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"22uaax","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who were the Ainu, and how did they differ from the Japanese? I understand that the Ainu are considered to be the indigenous peoples of the Japanese islands. But I have also heard that the Japanese\/Okinawans are indigenous to the islands. I have been lead to believe that the Japanese and Ainu languages are related. Am I mistaken? Were the Ainu integrated into the Japanese culture insofar as to make the two cultures indistinguishable? How far apart were they genetically? In what ways were their cultures different, and in what ways were they the same? Is there any trace of Ainu heritage in modern Japanese culture? Sorry if this seems like a lot of questions, but I don't think I've ever really been clear on who the Ainu actually were.","c_root_id_A":"cgqh2yn","c_root_id_B":"cgqil8h","created_at_utc_A":1397292082,"created_at_utc_B":1397302884,"score_A":24,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"I took a course on the Ainu last semester, so I'm kinda running off of my notes from that class. \\(Dr. Chie Sakakibara at the University of Oklahoma\\) The Ainu are the people who inhabited the Japanese islands before the \"Japanese\" migrated there. The Okinawans are related to a group of Ainu who moved south after the Japanese began to migrate to Japan. They intermarried with the Japanese more readily than the Ainu did, and as a result look more like the Japanese. The majority of the Ainu were continually pushed farther and farther northward until they only inhabited northern Hokkaido and a few neighboring islands. Our class did not cover language, so I am not going to even venture a guess on that. Ainu culture and Japanese culture are fairly different from what I understood. The Japanese were much more industrial, while the Ainu were more agricultural and had a more symbiotic relationship with their surroundings. The Ainu had this thing for bears... They were viewed as the physical manifestations of the gods. The Ainu had a festival in mid-winter called Iomante where they would ritually sacrifice a bear cub that had been raised in the village for several years. This was their way of \"sending the bear's soul to the afterlife.\" Japanese integration was in some ways similar to the American \"integration\" of the native americans and different in a few others. Like the Americans, the Ainu were taken and \"reeducated\" by the Japanese. Unlike the Americans though, the Japanese never stated that there were any indigenous groups in Japan. There were no Okinawans or Ainu, just the Japanese people as a whole. (This was changed in the late 90s-early 00s.) Many Ainu practices became outlawed or were extremely frowned upon by the Japanese government. For the longest time, the Ainu confused early (read racist) anthropologists who were attempting to create a racial basis for difference due to their pale skin, \"white people hair,\" and lack of epicanthic folds. \"The white man of the East,\" or something like that... Recently, there has been a huge surge in Ainu Pride and many Ainu are returning to their cultural heritage. The Japanese government has taken this and turned it into a bit of a tourist attraction though... And for the other question... There was never an active effort to destroy the Ainu like the Native Americans were. Mostly it seemed that the Japanese considered them beneath notice. *Disclaimer: It is currently 3:40 AM. Im tired, Ill go through and fix stuff in the morning. The class was called \"Indigenous Peoples and Resources\" and bored me to tears.","human_ref_B":">I have been lead to believe that the Japanese and Ainu languages are related. This is absolutely not the case. Ainu is a language isolate; that is, a language which has no known relatives. Japanese, on the other hand, belongs to a small family of languages called Japonic. Other Japonic languages include Okinawan and a number of other languages which are spoken in the Ry\u016bky\u016bs. Even to the layperson, the lack of a connection should be very obvious: * Ainu: *Nisatta apto as.* |tomorrow rain fall| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' * Japanese: *Ashita ame-ga fur-u.* |tomorrow rain-NOM fall-IPFV| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' * Okinawan: *Achaa ami-nu fu-in.* |tomorrow rain-NOM fall-IPFV| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' And another example, from a Japanese translation of an Ainu folktale: * Ainu: *Apeoy otta a-sir-etara-re wa a-anu hine...* |fire.pit into we-ground-stick-make and we-put and...| 'And we put and stuck them into the fire pit, and...' * Japanese: *ro-ni sash-ite o-ite...* |fire.pit-in stick-and put-and...| 'And we put and stuck them into the fire pit, and...' * Okinawan: *jiiru-nkai sachi uchi...* |fire.pit-in stick.and put.and...| (*n.b.,* The bit in pipes shows glosses, single, word-for-word translations of each of the pieces of the sentences in the given languages. I tried to take out as much of the linguistic jargon as possible.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10802.0,"score_ratio":1.2916666667} {"post_id":"22uaax","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Who were the Ainu, and how did they differ from the Japanese? I understand that the Ainu are considered to be the indigenous peoples of the Japanese islands. But I have also heard that the Japanese\/Okinawans are indigenous to the islands. I have been lead to believe that the Japanese and Ainu languages are related. Am I mistaken? Were the Ainu integrated into the Japanese culture insofar as to make the two cultures indistinguishable? How far apart were they genetically? In what ways were their cultures different, and in what ways were they the same? Is there any trace of Ainu heritage in modern Japanese culture? Sorry if this seems like a lot of questions, but I don't think I've ever really been clear on who the Ainu actually were.","c_root_id_A":"cgqi9st","c_root_id_B":"cgqil8h","created_at_utc_A":1397300764,"created_at_utc_B":1397302884,"score_A":10,"score_B":31,"human_ref_A":"Genetics say that ainu males belong to the haplogroup D, which is also common in Tibet and the Andaman islands. Som 60.000 years ago Haplogroup DE had split into D and E... Somewhere in the Iranian plateau, from there D populated east Asia, while E populated most of Africa, The middle east and Balkans","human_ref_B":">I have been lead to believe that the Japanese and Ainu languages are related. This is absolutely not the case. Ainu is a language isolate; that is, a language which has no known relatives. Japanese, on the other hand, belongs to a small family of languages called Japonic. Other Japonic languages include Okinawan and a number of other languages which are spoken in the Ry\u016bky\u016bs. Even to the layperson, the lack of a connection should be very obvious: * Ainu: *Nisatta apto as.* |tomorrow rain fall| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' * Japanese: *Ashita ame-ga fur-u.* |tomorrow rain-NOM fall-IPFV| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' * Okinawan: *Achaa ami-nu fu-in.* |tomorrow rain-NOM fall-IPFV| 'It'll rain tomorrow.' And another example, from a Japanese translation of an Ainu folktale: * Ainu: *Apeoy otta a-sir-etara-re wa a-anu hine...* |fire.pit into we-ground-stick-make and we-put and...| 'And we put and stuck them into the fire pit, and...' * Japanese: *ro-ni sash-ite o-ite...* |fire.pit-in stick-and put-and...| 'And we put and stuck them into the fire pit, and...' * Okinawan: *jiiru-nkai sachi uchi...* |fire.pit-in stick.and put.and...| (*n.b.,* The bit in pipes shows glosses, single, word-for-word translations of each of the pieces of the sentences in the given languages. I tried to take out as much of the linguistic jargon as possible.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2120.0,"score_ratio":3.1} {"post_id":"22zt0g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"The study of internet culture? Hello, I'm a digital Art student from Plymouth writing my dissertation on online cultures and communities. I would love to be able to read and reference something from a different field of study so I was wondering if anybody knew of any studies, papers or discussions on any online communities. This would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"cgshtd4","c_root_id_B":"cgtbwu6","created_at_utc_A":1397515231,"created_at_utc_B":1397595403,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I agree with the other posters (Yay Sherry Turkle), but if you're interested in something more visual Michael Wesch (Kansas State) and a bunch of his grad students did an ethnography of youtube which included participant observation. You can watch the video on youtube. It's a little cringe-worthy but there you go. I think in general he's into digital ethnography.","human_ref_B":"I started reading stuff by Mizuko Ito when I started getting interested in this topic. Very interesting!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":80172.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5ooh2m","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are anthropologists still coming up with theories like functionalism, evolutionism etc or they've given up on it ? Most of the theories I've read are really old and I've found no mention on new ones, may be because I haven't read much. The last one I read mentioned Post Modernism by Foucault.","c_root_id_A":"dcl80cb","c_root_id_B":"dclarfg","created_at_utc_A":1484758211,"created_at_utc_B":1484761341,"score_A":6,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Not sure I'd consider Foucault the most recent form of postmodernism as he's rather more of being inbetween French structuralism and deconstructionism such as the likes of Derrida. Better examples of postmodern thinkers are the likes of Renato Rosaldo. There hasn't been much \"advancement\" in anthropological thought and sociology in general since postmodernism.","human_ref_B":"I'd check out David Graeber's \"Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value\", which is one of the most notable attempts at an all-encompassing social theory since the rise\/fall of the \"post modern turn\". Also, Sherry Ortner recently wrote a text on the state of anthropological theory since the eighties. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3130.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"d8x2bl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"Why have humans only evolved in Eastern Africa? Why did humans evolve in Eastern Africa? Why didn\u2019t we begin to evolve from MCRA (most common recent ancestor) in Asia or South America or anywhere else in earth? I would like to know what makes Eastern Africa so special? Are there some sort of special conditions there that are optimal for evolution?","c_root_id_A":"f1df457","c_root_id_B":"f1dmhax","created_at_utc_A":1569382071,"created_at_utc_B":1569389716,"score_A":30,"score_B":46,"human_ref_A":"Nothing was \u201cspecial\u201d about the region per say. In a certain sense, that\u2019s just where it happened; that\u2019s where all the right variables and factors aligned to produce the specific outcome. It goes without saying thats where our ancestors were (where they evolved), so that obviously paved the way for humans. Homo sapiens are part of a long chain of the Homo genus, most of which happened to be present in and around Sub-Saharan Africa. Homo sapiens began as a small band that became more successful over time, ultimately outperforming members of its same genus. It would\u2019ve been impossible for groups of sapiens to spawn simultaneously around the globe because the exact same ancestral chain would\u2019ve also had to exist in other continents. All continents, while wildly different, also have many similar climatological and geological characteristics across space, so I\u2019m not sure there are any profound arguments as to what makes that region particularly special (I could be wrong). My understanding of human migration is we originated in East, Sub-Saharan Africa (conducive to any life with its diversity of flora and fauna, as well as the accessibility of water) and subsequently migrated out of Africa to modern day Asia, over the Bering Strait and into the Americas. Although as of late, the Bering Strait Theory has come into major question, newer theories of human migration into the Americas would still follow the same sort of patterns, but would include the use of maritime technology that was previously considered nonexistent for that respective time period. The great thing about Anthropology and Archeology is there are always new discoveries that transform our own history, and who knows, maybe one day we\u2019ll learn how humans actually originated in South America or something. But as far as we know, and as far as the evidence suggests, we have a pretty solid understanding of what happened.","human_ref_B":"Evolution is a random process. Your question seems to kinda assume that every primate lineage would've led to humans, which is not how evolution works. There's no end goal, and no specific reason that we came into being where we did. Evolving in a different location from a different species couldn't happen because whatever that process would result in wouldn't be a human.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7645.0,"score_ratio":1.5333333333} {"post_id":"d8x2bl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"Why have humans only evolved in Eastern Africa? Why did humans evolve in Eastern Africa? Why didn\u2019t we begin to evolve from MCRA (most common recent ancestor) in Asia or South America or anywhere else in earth? I would like to know what makes Eastern Africa so special? Are there some sort of special conditions there that are optimal for evolution?","c_root_id_A":"f1ddfec","c_root_id_B":"f1dmhax","created_at_utc_A":1569380603,"created_at_utc_B":1569389716,"score_A":4,"score_B":46,"human_ref_A":"I believe it to be just a matter of survival of the fittest. The Homo sapiens species that evolved in East Africa was so well adapted to not only that particular environment but nearly all environments that it rapidly expanded across the globe, supplanting other species in the process due to its astounding survival success. It's possible that, in another timeline, the species could have evolved elsewhere, or even experience concurrent evolution in more than one location, but that's not what happened.","human_ref_B":"Evolution is a random process. Your question seems to kinda assume that every primate lineage would've led to humans, which is not how evolution works. There's no end goal, and no specific reason that we came into being where we did. Evolving in a different location from a different species couldn't happen because whatever that process would result in wouldn't be a human.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9113.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"d8x2bl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"Why have humans only evolved in Eastern Africa? Why did humans evolve in Eastern Africa? Why didn\u2019t we begin to evolve from MCRA (most common recent ancestor) in Asia or South America or anywhere else in earth? I would like to know what makes Eastern Africa so special? Are there some sort of special conditions there that are optimal for evolution?","c_root_id_A":"f1df457","c_root_id_B":"f1ddfec","created_at_utc_A":1569382071,"created_at_utc_B":1569380603,"score_A":30,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Nothing was \u201cspecial\u201d about the region per say. In a certain sense, that\u2019s just where it happened; that\u2019s where all the right variables and factors aligned to produce the specific outcome. It goes without saying thats where our ancestors were (where they evolved), so that obviously paved the way for humans. Homo sapiens are part of a long chain of the Homo genus, most of which happened to be present in and around Sub-Saharan Africa. Homo sapiens began as a small band that became more successful over time, ultimately outperforming members of its same genus. It would\u2019ve been impossible for groups of sapiens to spawn simultaneously around the globe because the exact same ancestral chain would\u2019ve also had to exist in other continents. All continents, while wildly different, also have many similar climatological and geological characteristics across space, so I\u2019m not sure there are any profound arguments as to what makes that region particularly special (I could be wrong). My understanding of human migration is we originated in East, Sub-Saharan Africa (conducive to any life with its diversity of flora and fauna, as well as the accessibility of water) and subsequently migrated out of Africa to modern day Asia, over the Bering Strait and into the Americas. Although as of late, the Bering Strait Theory has come into major question, newer theories of human migration into the Americas would still follow the same sort of patterns, but would include the use of maritime technology that was previously considered nonexistent for that respective time period. The great thing about Anthropology and Archeology is there are always new discoveries that transform our own history, and who knows, maybe one day we\u2019ll learn how humans actually originated in South America or something. But as far as we know, and as far as the evidence suggests, we have a pretty solid understanding of what happened.","human_ref_B":"I believe it to be just a matter of survival of the fittest. The Homo sapiens species that evolved in East Africa was so well adapted to not only that particular environment but nearly all environments that it rapidly expanded across the globe, supplanting other species in the process due to its astounding survival success. It's possible that, in another timeline, the species could have evolved elsewhere, or even experience concurrent evolution in more than one location, but that's not what happened.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1468.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"6w0wht","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How rigid or lenient were gender roles in American Indian tribes? Did many tribes really have multiple genders?","c_root_id_A":"dm58nl9","c_root_id_B":"dm53o88","created_at_utc_A":1503733149,"created_at_utc_B":1503721673,"score_A":24,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/Dokugumo's answer is good, though with some problems. I'd just like to say that the two questions you asked don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Just because a culture can have \"multiple genders\" (i.e. more than 'two'), that doesn't mean the culture also has lenient gender roles. The existence of another social category is still an example of a social category. It doesn't mean their understanding of gender is necessarily fluid. Just like in the West, there can be problems if you don't fit into societal categories. Saying that a culture had a \"lenient\" understanding of gender just because they had a social role for some people to fit in is like saying Medieval Europe had a lenient understanding of sexuality because men had the option to practice celibacy in the clergy. Towle and Morgan's \"Romancing the Transgender Native\" explains the problems with the notion of \"third gender\" really well. To answer your question: >How rigid or lenient were gender roles in American Indian tribes? It depends on the tribe. Lenient in relation to what? Even in examples of a \"third gender\" where a previously-labeled man joins womanness, being a woman is still understood in terms of sex with men, female domestic roles, and female clothing. Vladimir Bogoraz observed that, among the Chukchi, members of the \"multiple genders\" (as you call them) were relegated to typical woman's work, and had to have male sexual partners from then on. >Did many tribes really have multiple genders? It's hard to say. Anthropologists observed this in many cases, though there were problems with the way anthropology was conducted then. But there were undeniable reports of gender roles that anthropologists thought were strange. And there were tribes which were unfamiliar (or morally opposed) to such roles. So, this \"multiple genders\" wasn't relegated to one particular region. For example, some tribes in California had such roles, while nearby tribes did not. This may be just indicative of what anthropologists wanted to see, but there were enough cases that the word \"berdache\" (note: not a Native word) was eventually used to describe particular Native people. However, an inherently Native conception of sexuality\/gender was present enough that Native people came up with \"two-spirit\" as an alternative term in the 1990s (the term is a reference to some tribes which describe such people as having both a male and female spirit). tldr: just because a culture has more genders, it doesn't mean their culture is more lenient. Many Native tribes had \"multiple genders,\" but it's impossible to generalize this to all Native cultures. Colonialism's association of Native-ness with sexual perversity may have also played a role in this.","human_ref_B":"In short, gender roles among Native American peoples were and are in most cases significantly more lenient than Western society. The traditional anthropological term used to describe mixed gender Native Americans is berdache, but the term Two Spirit or two-spirit is now more commonly used as the preferred alternative by mixed gender Native Americans themselves. However, both terms are primarily in reference to feminine Native men.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11476.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"91v8o1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Are humans supposed to eat more plant matter than meat? This question is more for biological anthropologists. From what I remember from my bio anth for human evolution class in college, we were told that humans should, and have, eaten more plants than animals. I understand that we are omnivores but we lean more to plants based on our molar shapes, intesines lined with villi, etc.","c_root_id_A":"e310zzw","c_root_id_B":"e314zn1","created_at_utc_A":1532550020,"created_at_utc_B":1532553374,"score_A":17,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"We have traits typical for both carnivores and herbivores. Our intestines are smaller than most herbivores but larger than many carnivores. We have a diverse set of teeth able to both cut, pierce, and crush a wide assortment of potential food sources. Overall we are designed as generalists able to consume a wide variety of products,","human_ref_B":"My specialty isn't in diet, but I worked with a woman who did study this. From her perspective, the ideal human diet is the one that keeps us going to live another day. The foods that our ancestors would have eaten were any foods they could get their hands on and digest. Early human ancestors were not wandering the plains with a notebook tracking their calories of each food type eaten, they were just eating whatever they could find. If that was a lot of meat, they ate it. If they didn't find anything to scavenge or (once tools were available and complex) hunt, they'd forage for roots, fruits, and tubers. Considering that most primates are not fully carnivorous, it does make sense that our organs are adapted in ways that are most similar to other herbivorous creatures, but we have no period of our evolution where we were true herbivores or carnivores, certainly not one long enough to leave us with lasting adaptations to those extremes. The digestive organs of carnivores are highly specialized to prevent sickness from spoiled or contaminated meat, and the digestive organs of true herbivores often include fermentation or more intense processes of digestion to aid in cellulose breakdown. Humans have none of these, indicating that we are adapted to a generalized diet.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3354.0,"score_ratio":1.8823529412} {"post_id":"k9ajwj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Secrets of Saqqara I watched this show on Netflix recently, and I was a little shocked. I'm used to reading about people carefully excavating tiny layers of dirt for pollen analysis, or meticulously noting the exact context of an archaeological find. In this documentary, an archaeologist enters a shaft for example, and he basically rifles through a big pile of mummies, kind of touching them and throwing them aside until he finds one he likes, grabs it, and takes it up to be looked at. Do they just have such a huge volume of fines that they don't need to study the way these animal mummies were laid out? Or maybe they have such good methods of dating that they just don't need to save the context information? It seems like this would be a case of \"if you're not looking for anything specific and you don't plan to record all the data, just bury it and save it for the future.\" Can anyone explain?","c_root_id_A":"gf5kbqu","c_root_id_B":"gf51013","created_at_utc_A":1607507831,"created_at_utc_B":1607490733,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Egyptology is a very different beast to other archaeological\/anthropological work! This is partly due to the geomorphological context of finds and nature of dunes deflating and shifting over time (making fine-grained excavation work a bit pointless). If I'm excavating in Australia then I might go through thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of years in a few centimetres...and ideally I want dateable material from each unit. Dating finds in Egypt tends to be based on other methods (ceramics, coins, art\/building style) which means the methods of excavation can be a bit \"looser\". Source: was an Egyptologist before I switched to Indigenous archaeology.","human_ref_B":"I was thinking the same thing! It seemed like everything was pretty easy to date. They also were able to found thousands of artifacts and had a very strict time limit. I think the main issue is that they needed to find big discoveries in order to keep funding. If they worked meticulously they may not have made as many discoveries as they did.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17098.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"haz24r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Southeast Asian Reading Recommendations? My boyfriend is very interested in learning more about Southeast Asia after travelling across the region for work and pleasure. The countries that are most interesting to him are probably Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. Because he's coming to this like 99% of people do (ie, not from an academic anthropology department), a lot of his understanding of the region is couched in commonly held fallacies relating to \"traditional\" and \"modern\" societies, Orientalism, and a lack of understanding of imperialism. I really want to encourage his interest, but this region has never been my area of study, so I am turning to you guys for books, articles, and reading recommendations. I am not interested in theoretical diatribes or super dense literature debates, but probably something like the following: * History of development of tourism in the region. He is currently reading this book on the development of the tourism industry in Nepal as an idea of what he's interested in. * He has expressed a lot of interest in reading **ethnographies** after I told him about this method of research. He is also in love with the idea of cultural anthropology and would love to read about about SE Asian cultural anthropology. * He is considering a masters in urban studies so I know he would really enjoy an anthropologist writing on the experience of urban life in any major city in these countries Additionally, I think it would be really valuable for him to read some economic anthropology or an overview of the political economy on the region, but I would love to hear what you all think!","c_root_id_A":"fv6sxwu","c_root_id_B":"fv63lq2","created_at_utc_A":1592444634,"created_at_utc_B":1592431141,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott may be what you are looking for, though it is more rural studies than urban.","human_ref_B":"You can\u2019t really go past Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13493.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"haz24r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Southeast Asian Reading Recommendations? My boyfriend is very interested in learning more about Southeast Asia after travelling across the region for work and pleasure. The countries that are most interesting to him are probably Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. Because he's coming to this like 99% of people do (ie, not from an academic anthropology department), a lot of his understanding of the region is couched in commonly held fallacies relating to \"traditional\" and \"modern\" societies, Orientalism, and a lack of understanding of imperialism. I really want to encourage his interest, but this region has never been my area of study, so I am turning to you guys for books, articles, and reading recommendations. I am not interested in theoretical diatribes or super dense literature debates, but probably something like the following: * History of development of tourism in the region. He is currently reading this book on the development of the tourism industry in Nepal as an idea of what he's interested in. * He has expressed a lot of interest in reading **ethnographies** after I told him about this method of research. He is also in love with the idea of cultural anthropology and would love to read about about SE Asian cultural anthropology. * He is considering a masters in urban studies so I know he would really enjoy an anthropologist writing on the experience of urban life in any major city in these countries Additionally, I think it would be really valuable for him to read some economic anthropology or an overview of the political economy on the region, but I would love to hear what you all think!","c_root_id_A":"fv6m6tj","c_root_id_B":"fv6sxwu","created_at_utc_A":1592440730,"created_at_utc_B":1592444634,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"For Nepal, I would recommend Himalayan Traders: Life in Highland Nepal by Christoph von F\u00fcrer-Haimendorf, Trans-Himalayan traders by James Fisher, and Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual, and Exchange Among Nepal's Tamang by David H. Holmberg. I read them as a student of Anthropology few years ago. Great insight about the country. Another great read is Invitations to love by Laura M. Ahearn. Fatalism and Development: Nepal's Struggle for Modernization by one of the founding fathers of anthropology in nepal, who also mysteriously disappeared, Dor Bahadur Bista is also highly recommended.","human_ref_B":"The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott may be what you are looking for, though it is more rural studies than urban.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3904.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"er77iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons?","c_root_id_A":"ff2wy3v","c_root_id_B":"ff2aq14","created_at_utc_A":1579527224,"created_at_utc_B":1579498924,"score_A":18,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"The first school for the Deaf was opened in France in 1760. Students there already had their own version of Sign, though, and preferred to use that style to communicate with each other over what they were being taught in the school. It's not exactly the answer to your question, but here's more history of people being *aware* of the Deaf community - https:\/\/www.startasl.com\/history-of-sign-language Would recommend looking into the Gestural Theory of Language Evolution as well. Cheers! \u270c\ufe0f","human_ref_B":"I think this would be a good question for r\/AskHistorians too","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28300.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"er77iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons?","c_root_id_A":"ff2kybz","c_root_id_B":"ff2wy3v","created_at_utc_A":1579510974,"created_at_utc_B":1579527224,"score_A":13,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"This might be a better question for a linguistics expert. There won\u2019t be much, of any physical evidence. Also, I presume that hominids have been pointing at things since before they were hominids.","human_ref_B":"The first school for the Deaf was opened in France in 1760. Students there already had their own version of Sign, though, and preferred to use that style to communicate with each other over what they were being taught in the school. It's not exactly the answer to your question, but here's more history of people being *aware* of the Deaf community - https:\/\/www.startasl.com\/history-of-sign-language Would recommend looking into the Gestural Theory of Language Evolution as well. Cheers! \u270c\ufe0f","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16250.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"er77iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons?","c_root_id_A":"ff2wy3v","c_root_id_B":"ff2tvpf","created_at_utc_A":1579527224,"created_at_utc_B":1579523964,"score_A":18,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The first school for the Deaf was opened in France in 1760. Students there already had their own version of Sign, though, and preferred to use that style to communicate with each other over what they were being taught in the school. It's not exactly the answer to your question, but here's more history of people being *aware* of the Deaf community - https:\/\/www.startasl.com\/history-of-sign-language Would recommend looking into the Gestural Theory of Language Evolution as well. Cheers! \u270c\ufe0f","human_ref_B":"The question was -- >What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons? That is different than asking what is the earliest evidence for signs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3260.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"er77iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons?","c_root_id_A":"ff2tvpf","c_root_id_B":"ff36loy","created_at_utc_A":1579523964,"created_at_utc_B":1579534918,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The question was -- >What is the earliest evidence for sign language for deaf persons? That is different than asking what is the earliest evidence for signs.","human_ref_B":"Don\u2019t know about the earliest, but here are a couple interesting early examples Don\u2019t know how far it goes back, But Planes Indian Sign Language was reported by the Spanish during early contacts from the mid 1500\u2019s. More of a pidgin or trade lingo then full blown language, but it still allowed for fairly detailed communication. There are also records out of the Ottoman court starting from the 1300\u2019s of the use of Deaf-Mute servants. Seems they could be trusted with certain jobs requiring discretion. Can\u2019t spill secrets if you can\u2019t talk, can\u2019t overhear sensitive conversations if you can\u2019t hear. Apparently, they were also preferred for things like executions & assassinations. As part of this ongoing service, from the somewhere in the 1500\u2019s, a courtly sign language developed, so court officials could communicate with, and pass messages via, the deaf or mute servants.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10954.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"8ifphx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.67,"history":"What is the best free book that describes how contemporary civilization works and how to survive and thrive in it? I am looking for a how-to manual that describes how contemporary civilization works in practical and scientific terms and teaches people how to survive and thrive in it. The book should be free and similar to a \"for dummies\" book or those of the survival genre. Does anyone know of any such book?","c_root_id_A":"dyrhwi8","c_root_id_B":"dyrxxfg","created_at_utc_A":1525971114,"created_at_utc_B":1525986216,"score_A":5,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"*Das Kapital*, by Karl Marx. It's in the public domain so it's free. Recommended pre-reading would be all of Hegel's works and *The Communist Manifesto* (that sounds flippant and intense; it's not flippant, it is intense.). It doesn't really touch on how to thrive much, I doubt any such book exists (at least not one that can be trusted), but it will fully explain the mechanisms of contemporary society, how they arose, and extrapolates how society will evolve from there. For easy-to-read stuff on how to succeed personally I would recommend *Meditations* by Marcus Aurelius, also free. It won't teach you how to be a billionaire, but it will teach you how to be good, and lower your own stresses and strife.","human_ref_B":"You seem to be asking for four things: explaining the contemporary world, explaining how individuals fit in it, explaining these in simple language, free. I can\u2019t think of a book that does more than two of the four. I\u2019ll ignore free because free can be just \u201cgenerally available from libraries or through pirate sites like LibGen\u201d. People have recommended *Das Kapital* but I don\u2019t think that fits any of the characteristics particularly well, other than it\u2019s available free online. The following books should be available from public library systems: * *Why the West Rules\u2014For Now* by historian Ian Morris. This is a big, thick, yet understand book which expains which civilizations come out on top (for now). It starts with agriculture and comes to the present. It doesn\u2019t really explain how individuals fit in. * *Cities in a World Economy* by Saskia Sassen. Sassen is a rare thinker that business school professors and Marxists both seem to love. This book is a simpler version of her *Global Cities* book. It\u2019s mainly about why the world is the way it is today, but you can easily understand how individuals of varying types fit into the global economy in various places. There\u2019s plenty of sociology in there (Sassen is a sociologist) but it\u2019s primarily about people\u2019s economic lives. * *The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life* by Erving Goffman. This book is quite old now (originally published in 1956) but it\u2019s a classic for a reason. Much of contemporary sociology comes out of this book. It\u2019s about, essentially, why people behave the way they do in certain situations. It\u2019s a very broad book, meant to apply as well in the United States as Japan as Ghana, but most of the examples are from the contemporary West. * *Privilege* by Shamus Khan. This thin book is maybe the closest to what you\u2019re looking for. It\u2019s an ethnography of an elite private high school, but Khan really mixes insights from Erving Goffman with Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu helps one understand the social world a lot, but is almost unreadable for non-specialists\u2014I talk about one of his concepts, distinction, here, here, and here, but Bourdieu\u2019s concept of \u201chabitus\u201d (not far from Goffman\u2019s embodiment) is also important and emphasized by Khan\u2019s book. I think Khan does a good job of emphasizing what cultural cues are important for (elite and striving to be elite) young, urban, upwardly mobile professionals need to master but I think this also shows how culturally specific these cues can be. Khan found that over the fifteen or so years between when he was a student at the school and when he came back as a teacher, the several of the elite cues had changed. Khan describes how to thrive as a young person going to elite colleges, but if you\u2019re a 60 year old oil tycoon or someone hoping to land a blue collar job, some of your cues may well be different. In the 1970\u2019s, another ethnographer, Paul Willis, wrote this rad book called *Learning to Labour*, about how working-class \u201clads\u201d learn how to thrive in their environment in 1970\u2019s Manchester (I think Manchester). It\u2019s like Khan\u2019s book, but about the working-class rather than the self-understood cultural elites. It will be of no surprise to most that the cultural habituses described in the two books have relatively little overlap and, indeed, in many ways each group consciously *rejects* and *avoids* the culture of the other (to some degree). At this level of detail, there won\u2019t be one book that could possibly describe how people thrive in a variety of situations in \u201ccontemporary civilization\u201d because social rules and norms can differ so sharply between groups and subcultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15102.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"vml1e9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Is the idea of an 'Agriculture Revolution' outdated? From what I gather, it's already pretty accepted that Humans practiced small scale 'subsistance' or 'proto' farming for thousands of years before the so called 'Agriculture Revolution'. It seems we knew about farming for a LONG time before we decided to form city-states and have surplus farming. Would it be more fair to call the 'Agriculture Revolution' the 'Hierarchy\/State Revolution'? On a side note, from what you know, and gathered from your colleagues in the field, when did this 'proto' farming probably first begin? Thanks a lot (:","c_root_id_A":"ie2jcan","c_root_id_B":"ie2rv4b","created_at_utc_A":1656432591,"created_at_utc_B":1656435885,"score_A":14,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"I can\u2019t comment on changing the name of the agricultural revolution but I do agree that humans have practiced some level of farming for thousands of years beforehand. The earliest found site (to my knowledge) is Ohalo II in modern day Israel. Hundreds of different seeds and evidence of crop harvesting dated to about 23,000 years ago. For context the Neolithic revolution began about 11,000 years ago. With changing sea levels and the propensity for humans to stay near the water it\u2019s possible there are even older sites underwater currently. I think the Neolithic revolution is still an important point in history because it\u2019s when the culture started to spread and change the way humans were living across the globe. The prior 10,000+ years of agriculture didn\u2019t seem to have the same impact on the earlier hunter\/gather societies.","human_ref_B":"You might enjoy the book Against the Grain by James C. Scott. Scott argues that early people got their food in many different ways. Hunting, trapping, fishing, small scale agriculture, small scale aquaculture (growing fish in enclosures) and so on. He said that what makes grain special is that it all becomes ready to harvest at the same time which makes it easier to steal. It's hard to steal potatoes because there's more flexibility in when you dig them up, so you'd have to come and force people to dig the up for you at spear point. But grain all comes ripe and needs to be collected and stored, so it's easy for a thief (aka tax collector sent by a nearby king) to come and take some percentage. He argues that the big transition was that centralized states could emerge that forced nearby populations to raise grain, instead of all of those other foodstuffs, because the grain was easier to steal. In fact, he makes a very interesting argument that the Great Wall of China may have been as much about keeping the peasants in as it was about keeping the barbarians out. Read the very oldest law codes and some of the provisions are about the right of the lord to hunt down and bring back peasants who have run away. I have no idea how well accepted Scott's theories are, but for me the book was definitely mind-blowing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3294.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"gdd50l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Has anyone encountered any ethnographic studies concerning vehicle modification cultures? Came across some stuff on design, parking, and traffic but haven't had luck on finding materials on vehicular modification groups.","c_root_id_A":"fpgkvdr","c_root_id_B":"fpgrvqw","created_at_utc_A":1588604681,"created_at_utc_B":1588608383,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Interesting area. Could certainly include some Kopytoff Biography of Objects on narratives of resuse.","human_ref_B":"There\u2019s only one source I know of that might help you. It\u2019s a book by Daniel Miller called Car Cultures. It\u2019s a little older (2001) and I believe it\u2019s an edited volume. There might be a chapter in there on mod cultures but I only read a chapter out of the book for a class a few years ago. Didn\u2019t have the full text.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3702.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"gdd50l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Has anyone encountered any ethnographic studies concerning vehicle modification cultures? Came across some stuff on design, parking, and traffic but haven't had luck on finding materials on vehicular modification groups.","c_root_id_A":"fpgkvdr","c_root_id_B":"fph7ocn","created_at_utc_A":1588604681,"created_at_utc_B":1588616417,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Interesting area. Could certainly include some Kopytoff Biography of Objects on narratives of resuse.","human_ref_B":"I've seen a few dissertations\/theses on them, but they usually intersect with Latino studies: https:\/\/scholarship.rice.edu\/handle\/1911\/16708 That may help you focus in on other studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11736.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5z8h7v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Has anybody ever done an anthropological study of anthropologists? I mean like live among them, trying to figure out what their customs are, and then published a nice study about it? Or if not anthropologists, then modern scientists?","c_root_id_A":"dexcuiu","c_root_id_B":"dex7fgv","created_at_utc_A":1489518328,"created_at_utc_B":1489512338,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the other writings referenced, Kenyan anthropologist Mwenda Ntarangwi has written an ethnography of his American colleagues.","human_ref_B":"FG Bailey wrote a book about the politics of an academic department. It doesn't say its specifically about an anthro department, but if you start wondering exactly who he might have bee observing and where, you start to suspect that it might have been his home department. https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=iZnsJIv5K-8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=fg+bailey+morality+expediency&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCrYGzwdbSAhUT_WMKHUmvDt0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=fg%20bailey%20morality%20expediency&f=false","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5990.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"8uayik","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Has there been an instance where an archaeologic site has been found several layers above an unrelated palaeontologic site? For example a cliff face has fossilized, articulated dinosaur bones exposed on it, but further on the top of the hill there is a pre-historic\/historic site. Which project would take precedence? If paleontologists are excavating a large portion of the hillside, would the archaeological site become a salvage\/emergency project or would the paleontologists have to put their project on hold until the historically \"newer\" site was excavated? I suppose it all depends on the quality and quantity of finds\/artifacts on either project, so I may have just answered my own hypothetical. But I do wonder if there is record of such an instance happening. This question occurred to me while I was listening to the palaeontology episode of the podcast \"Ologies\" by Allie Ward","c_root_id_A":"e1dxoiy","c_root_id_B":"e1e2ysz","created_at_utc_A":1530117109,"created_at_utc_B":1530121316,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Not exactly the scenario you're describing, but there was a time I was doing an archaeological survey for a road expansion that crossed a river. In the limestone riverbed, we ended up finding dinosaur footprints. So in our archaeological report, we marked it as a paleontological feature that the construction should avoid. Archaeologists and paleontologists got each others' backs, haha. In your scenario, I think it's unlikely there would be much of a conflict. The archaeological site would not be *directly* above the paleontology dig, and both excavations would be careful and slow enough not to interfere with each other, I would imagine. If there still was some sort of conflict, then I guess the priority would be whichever excavation is in the most imminent danger of destruction or erosion. For the most part, these sites have been there for hundreds to thousands of years (archaeology), or millions of years (paleontology), so it's usually not a problem to be patient and wait until conditions are right to dig.","human_ref_B":"A mammoth skeleton was found at the site of the Roman city Viminacium in Serbia. As far as I know it didn't interfere with the archaeological excavation in a significant way and it has been proudly incorporated into the museum, even though it is totally unrelated to the archaeological city. http:\/\/viminacium.org.rs\/en\/mamut-park\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4207.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"2hsdu6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Has there ever been a human culture that primarily communicated through non-verbal means? ...existing at the same time as civilisations with languages.","c_root_id_A":"ckvmvm6","c_root_id_B":"ckvs3mw","created_at_utc_A":1412006546,"created_at_utc_B":1412016590,"score_A":4,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Do internet communities count as cultures? Many online communities - even reddit - communicate thru written rather than verbal means.","human_ref_B":"Martha Vineyard Due to a founders effect (Jonathan Lambert) approx 1 in 155 people where born deaf. Martha vineyard sign language (MVSL) was used by almost the entire population.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10044.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"2hsdu6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Has there ever been a human culture that primarily communicated through non-verbal means? ...existing at the same time as civilisations with languages.","c_root_id_A":"ckwdkq7","c_root_id_B":"ckvmvm6","created_at_utc_A":1412066986,"created_at_utc_B":1412006546,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Pirah\u00e3 is hugely contentious among Linguists due to its supposed violation of Chomsky's universal grammar, but one of the Everetts' most interesting claims about the language is that it can be whistled, hummed, or encoded in instrumental music in addition to being spoken. This may not be exactly what you're looking for, as whistling and humming still utilize the human airway and thus might be considered \"verbal,\" but, if true, it would signify a major break from the traditional understanding of verbal language.","human_ref_B":"Do internet communities count as cultures? Many online communities - even reddit - communicate thru written rather than verbal means.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":60440.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"eve02tg","c_root_id_B":"eve5j6u","created_at_utc_A":1564451903,"created_at_utc_B":1564456166,"score_A":4,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Michael Taussig - Magic of the State","human_ref_B":"In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio for a solid American immigrant ethnography. The The Golden Marshalltown for any up and coming archaeologists. http:\/\/plaza.ufl.edu\/akathy\/(1982)%20Flannery%20-%20Golden%20Marshalltown.pdf","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4263.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"eve5j6u","c_root_id_B":"evdzrw1","created_at_utc_A":1564456166,"created_at_utc_B":1564451675,"score_A":13,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio for a solid American immigrant ethnography. The The Golden Marshalltown for any up and coming archaeologists. http:\/\/plaza.ufl.edu\/akathy\/(1982)%20Flannery%20-%20Golden%20Marshalltown.pdf","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m gonna choose an ethnography by Jay Macleod called \u201cAin\u2019t No Makin It.\u201d It gets to the real explanation of social reproduction.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4491.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"eve5j6u","c_root_id_B":"eve0g4k","created_at_utc_A":1564456166,"created_at_utc_B":1564452177,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio for a solid American immigrant ethnography. 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It is exactly what it sounds like, but it\u2019s a fascinating and much needed analysis of all-male groups and the effects of hyper-masculinity.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9918.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evek935","c_root_id_B":"eve02tg","created_at_utc_A":1564469345,"created_at_utc_B":1564451903,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins.","human_ref_B":"Michael Taussig - Magic of the State","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17442.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evebs8v","c_root_id_B":"evdzrw1","created_at_utc_A":1564461821,"created_at_utc_B":1564451675,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Fraternity Gang Rape by Peggy Reeves Sanday. 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It is exactly what it sounds like, but it\u2019s a fascinating and much needed analysis of all-male groups and the effects of hyper-masculinity.","human_ref_B":"It depends what your interests are but Life Beside Itself by Lisa Stevenson is a beautiful read","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9644.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evearn4","c_root_id_B":"evebs8v","created_at_utc_A":1564460833,"created_at_utc_B":1564461821,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Demonic Males - Richard Wrangham","human_ref_B":"Fraternity Gang Rape by Peggy Reeves Sanday. It is exactly what it sounds like, but it\u2019s a fascinating and much needed analysis of all-male groups and the effects of hyper-masculinity.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":988.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evek935","c_root_id_B":"eve0g4k","created_at_utc_A":1564469345,"created_at_utc_B":1564452177,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins.","human_ref_B":"It depends what your interests are but Life Beside Itself by Lisa Stevenson is a beautiful read","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17168.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evejjzz","c_root_id_B":"evek935","created_at_utc_A":1564468694,"created_at_utc_B":1564469345,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong - Gordon Mathews A book focusing on the most fascinating building in Hong Kong - a place where people from all over the world congregate. It\u2019s basically a book about globalization, and survival, and global trade as well as migration in a nutshell. There are shops, restaurants, sex workers, drugs, everything. It\u2019s a major trade hub, too: 25 % of all mobile phones in use in Subsaharan Africa went through Chungking Mansions at some point.","human_ref_B":"Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":651.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evearn4","c_root_id_B":"evek935","created_at_utc_A":1564460833,"created_at_utc_B":1564469345,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Demonic Males - Richard Wrangham","human_ref_B":"Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8512.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evejjzz","c_root_id_B":"evearn4","created_at_utc_A":1564468694,"created_at_utc_B":1564460833,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong - Gordon Mathews A book focusing on the most fascinating building in Hong Kong - a place where people from all over the world congregate. It\u2019s basically a book about globalization, and survival, and global trade as well as migration in a nutshell. There are shops, restaurants, sex workers, drugs, everything. It\u2019s a major trade hub, too: 25 % of all mobile phones in use in Subsaharan Africa went through Chungking Mansions at some point.","human_ref_B":"Demonic Males - Richard Wrangham","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7861.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evet9h9","c_root_id_B":"evearn4","created_at_utc_A":1564478198,"created_at_utc_B":1564460833,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anything by David Graeber is good, especially \u201cDebt, the first 5000 years.\u201d Also, Eric Wolf has always been a favorite, both for \u201cEurope and the People Without History\u201d (a classic!) and \u201cEnvisioning Power.\u201d","human_ref_B":"Demonic Males - Richard Wrangham","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17365.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evet9h9","c_root_id_B":"evekvhc","created_at_utc_A":1564478198,"created_at_utc_B":1564469915,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anything by David Graeber is good, especially \u201cDebt, the first 5000 years.\u201d Also, Eric Wolf has always been a favorite, both for \u201cEurope and the People Without History\u201d (a classic!) and \u201cEnvisioning Power.\u201d","human_ref_B":"When you need to look as if you\u2019re working, but really just want a bit of enjoyment go for Nigel Barley\u2019s The Innocent Anthropologist!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8283.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"evearn4","c_root_id_B":"eveteez","created_at_utc_A":1564460833,"created_at_utc_B":1564478317,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Demonic Males - Richard Wrangham","human_ref_B":"On the sociology of primitive exchange- Marshall Sahlins (1965) . It's what got me really interested in anthropology, despite having to read it as a product of it's time (overt racism)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17484.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cji6fu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"What is your must read anthropological text?","c_root_id_A":"eveteez","c_root_id_B":"evekvhc","created_at_utc_A":1564478317,"created_at_utc_B":1564469915,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"On the sociology of primitive exchange- Marshall Sahlins (1965) . It's what got me really interested in anthropology, despite having to read it as a product of it's time (overt racism)","human_ref_B":"When you need to look as if you\u2019re working, but really just want a bit of enjoyment go for Nigel Barley\u2019s The Innocent Anthropologist!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8402.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyoqi6p","c_root_id_B":"dyonscq","created_at_utc_A":1525848986,"created_at_utc_B":1525844185,"score_A":12,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. It's 100% fantasy and has a good hefty portion of anthropological themes. Erikson is himself an anthropologist, so he knows his stuff.","human_ref_B":"Check this out: **The Neanderthal Parallax** > It depicts the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the reader, and another where Neanderthals became the dominant intelligent hominid. The societal, spiritual and technological differences between the two worlds form the focus of the story. I read it a long time ago, and its definitely a bit kitchy and offers a likely more outdated take on anthropology - BUT, the book is actually very anthropological in that it engages with the field at the time, grappling with culture, evolutionary history, physiology, and so on. I believe the author actually consulted with Canadian anthropologists and was close friends with one (may have even been trained as one? I don't remember!). It's certainly a particular brand of anthropology, coming from certain theoretical schools, etc. but its fun as hell and funny too! It's also smart in the way it probes questions of race, history, gender etc. warning: potential spoilers on the wiki!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4801.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyoordk","c_root_id_B":"dyoqi6p","created_at_utc_A":1525845803,"created_at_utc_B":1525848986,"score_A":2,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","human_ref_B":"The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. It's 100% fantasy and has a good hefty portion of anthropological themes. Erikson is himself an anthropologist, so he knows his stuff.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3183.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyox74i","c_root_id_B":"dyou2th","created_at_utc_A":1525863826,"created_at_utc_B":1525856920,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anything by LeGuin is good. The Dispossessed is amazing and the first book in the Wizard of Earthsea is great, also. Both combat some of the ethnocentrism common to standard science fiction and fantasy.","human_ref_B":"The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, but only if you like to cry.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6906.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyox74i","c_root_id_B":"dyovykd","created_at_utc_A":1525863826,"created_at_utc_B":1525861321,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Anything by LeGuin is good. The Dispossessed is amazing and the first book in the Wizard of Earthsea is great, also. Both combat some of the ethnocentrism common to standard science fiction and fantasy.","human_ref_B":"The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda. He has an anthropology PhD and took a lot of peyote for research purposes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2505.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyox74i","c_root_id_B":"dyonscq","created_at_utc_A":1525863826,"created_at_utc_B":1525844185,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anything by LeGuin is good. The Dispossessed is amazing and the first book in the Wizard of Earthsea is great, also. Both combat some of the ethnocentrism common to standard science fiction and fantasy.","human_ref_B":"Check this out: **The Neanderthal Parallax** > It depicts the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the reader, and another where Neanderthals became the dominant intelligent hominid. The societal, spiritual and technological differences between the two worlds form the focus of the story. I read it a long time ago, and its definitely a bit kitchy and offers a likely more outdated take on anthropology - BUT, the book is actually very anthropological in that it engages with the field at the time, grappling with culture, evolutionary history, physiology, and so on. I believe the author actually consulted with Canadian anthropologists and was close friends with one (may have even been trained as one? I don't remember!). It's certainly a particular brand of anthropology, coming from certain theoretical schools, etc. but its fun as hell and funny too! It's also smart in the way it probes questions of race, history, gender etc. warning: potential spoilers on the wiki!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19641.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyoordk","c_root_id_B":"dyox74i","created_at_utc_A":1525845803,"created_at_utc_B":1525863826,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","human_ref_B":"Anything by LeGuin is good. The Dispossessed is amazing and the first book in the Wizard of Earthsea is great, also. Both combat some of the ethnocentrism common to standard science fiction and fantasy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18023.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyossic","c_root_id_B":"dyox74i","created_at_utc_A":1525853895,"created_at_utc_B":1525863826,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Love in the time of cholera","human_ref_B":"Anything by LeGuin is good. The Dispossessed is amazing and the first book in the Wizard of Earthsea is great, also. Both combat some of the ethnocentrism common to standard science fiction and fantasy.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9931.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyou2th","c_root_id_B":"dyonscq","created_at_utc_A":1525856920,"created_at_utc_B":1525844185,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, but only if you like to cry.","human_ref_B":"Check this out: **The Neanderthal Parallax** > It depicts the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the reader, and another where Neanderthals became the dominant intelligent hominid. The societal, spiritual and technological differences between the two worlds form the focus of the story. I read it a long time ago, and its definitely a bit kitchy and offers a likely more outdated take on anthropology - BUT, the book is actually very anthropological in that it engages with the field at the time, grappling with culture, evolutionary history, physiology, and so on. I believe the author actually consulted with Canadian anthropologists and was close friends with one (may have even been trained as one? I don't remember!). It's certainly a particular brand of anthropology, coming from certain theoretical schools, etc. but its fun as hell and funny too! It's also smart in the way it probes questions of race, history, gender etc. warning: potential spoilers on the wiki!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12735.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyoordk","c_root_id_B":"dyou2th","created_at_utc_A":1525845803,"created_at_utc_B":1525856920,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","human_ref_B":"The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, but only if you like to cry.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11117.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyou2th","c_root_id_B":"dyossic","created_at_utc_A":1525856920,"created_at_utc_B":1525853895,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, but only if you like to cry.","human_ref_B":"Love in the time of cholera","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3025.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyonscq","c_root_id_B":"dyovykd","created_at_utc_A":1525844185,"created_at_utc_B":1525861321,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Check this out: **The Neanderthal Parallax** > It depicts the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the reader, and another where Neanderthals became the dominant intelligent hominid. The societal, spiritual and technological differences between the two worlds form the focus of the story. I read it a long time ago, and its definitely a bit kitchy and offers a likely more outdated take on anthropology - BUT, the book is actually very anthropological in that it engages with the field at the time, grappling with culture, evolutionary history, physiology, and so on. I believe the author actually consulted with Canadian anthropologists and was close friends with one (may have even been trained as one? I don't remember!). It's certainly a particular brand of anthropology, coming from certain theoretical schools, etc. but its fun as hell and funny too! It's also smart in the way it probes questions of race, history, gender etc. warning: potential spoilers on the wiki!","human_ref_B":"The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda. He has an anthropology PhD and took a lot of peyote for research purposes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17136.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyoordk","c_root_id_B":"dyovykd","created_at_utc_A":1525845803,"created_at_utc_B":1525861321,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","human_ref_B":"The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda. 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It\u2019s partially based on Margaret Mead\u2019s life. I haven\u2019t studied Mead\u2019s work extensively, so I don\u2019t know just how much is elaborated on or outright incorrect, but I liked it as a novel.","human_ref_B":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23304.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyossic","c_root_id_B":"dyp0mvt","created_at_utc_A":1525853895,"created_at_utc_B":1525869107,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Love in the time of cholera","human_ref_B":"I really enjoyed Euphoria by Lily King. It\u2019s partially based on Margaret Mead\u2019s life. I haven\u2019t studied Mead\u2019s work extensively, so I don\u2019t know just how much is elaborated on or outright incorrect, but I liked it as a novel.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15212.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dypjvtf","c_root_id_B":"dyoordk","created_at_utc_A":1525887533,"created_at_utc_B":1525845803,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"[Meta:] are most suggestions here sci-fi or fantasy? If so: what does that say about these genres? Are they more anthropology than the other genres? Why not romance novels?","human_ref_B":"*Evolution* by Stephen Baxter","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41730.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8i26ok","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are your favorite novels with strong anthropological themes?","c_root_id_A":"dyossic","c_root_id_B":"dypjvtf","created_at_utc_A":1525853895,"created_at_utc_B":1525887533,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Love in the time of cholera","human_ref_B":"[Meta:] are most suggestions here sci-fi or fantasy? If so: what does that say about these genres? Are they more anthropology than the other genres? Why not romance novels?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":33638.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ph56m9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is your favourite ethnography and why? Looking for recommendations","c_root_id_A":"hbgn5ih","c_root_id_B":"hbgqgxv","created_at_utc_A":1630685489,"created_at_utc_B":1630686853,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea by Annette B Weiner. (Pronounced Why-ner). A a quintessential and female's perspective on the trobrianders of new guinea. You may be able to find a PDF for this book. My book was used and $65. Hunters and Bureaucrats by Paul Nadasdy. Important relationships between animal and person for when it comes to providing food on the table and sharing with the community. Along with the outline of importance between Anthropologist and ethical standards required when an ethnographer joins their researching community involvement. This includes the relations between research and embassies, government state relations, etc.","human_ref_B":"*The Day of Shelly\u2032s Death - The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief* \\- Renato Rosaldo The beautiful pitch-perfect writing should be reason enough to pick this up, but the circumstances of the ethnography are highly singular and unusually personal (I won't spoil it in case you haven't read it) but I've never read a work where the ethnographer is so intimately tied up with the subject of their study. Turned my world around. There's a shorter chapter floating around titled \"Grief and a Headhunter's Rage,\" which is just the ethnographic bit in case you don't have time for the full book, but I highly recommend reading the whole thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1364.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"ph56m9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is your favourite ethnography and why? Looking for recommendations","c_root_id_A":"hbgn5ih","c_root_id_B":"hbh8its","created_at_utc_A":1630685489,"created_at_utc_B":1630694482,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea by Annette B Weiner. (Pronounced Why-ner). A a quintessential and female's perspective on the trobrianders of new guinea. You may be able to find a PDF for this book. My book was used and $65. Hunters and Bureaucrats by Paul Nadasdy. Important relationships between animal and person for when it comes to providing food on the table and sharing with the community. Along with the outline of importance between Anthropologist and ethical standards required when an ethnographer joins their researching community involvement. This includes the relations between research and embassies, government state relations, etc.","human_ref_B":"I'm not certain it qualifies as an ethnography per se, but in the 1990s a guy named Robert Eisenberg did what I would call, for lack of a better phrase, an ethnographic study of the Haredi\/Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in everywhere from New Jersey, to Ukraine, to Belgium. He focused on urban Ultra-Orthodox communities (which, to be fair, most Haredi communities are urban). It's a fun read! I learned a lot. The book is \"Boychiks in the Hood\". ​ If that doesn't count, another I liked a lot was \"With Respect to Sex\" which focuses on Hijra communities.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8993.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"ph56m9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What is your favourite ethnography and why? Looking for recommendations","c_root_id_A":"hbgn5ih","c_root_id_B":"hbkm5g0","created_at_utc_A":1630685489,"created_at_utc_B":1630765961,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea by Annette B Weiner. (Pronounced Why-ner). A a quintessential and female's perspective on the trobrianders of new guinea. You may be able to find a PDF for this book. My book was used and $65. Hunters and Bureaucrats by Paul Nadasdy. Important relationships between animal and person for when it comes to providing food on the table and sharing with the community. Along with the outline of importance between Anthropologist and ethical standards required when an ethnographer joins their researching community involvement. This includes the relations between research and embassies, government state relations, etc.","human_ref_B":"Since many of the books here seem to be focusing on ethnographies outside the western world, I will recommend you two books that explains English speaking countries that I like. As a Korean person, born and bred, Anglophone world has always been an exotic mystery. No matter how much I think I knew about that world from watching their movies and tv, reading their books, and et cetra, there were always some new stuffs to learn about that culture. So the recommendation, both of these critically acclaimed books are written by the natives themselves so that's as authentic as you can get. \u2022 Watching the English, by Kate Fox \u2022 Gang leader for a day, by Sudhir Venkatesh I see that you are here on English web, I'm guessing you must be either a fellow amateur anthropologist like me who are interested in Anglophone culture or a native English speaker yourself. In case of the latter, I still recommend you to read and learn about your ancestral culture. I haven't had the chance to finish neither of the books but I heard they are great books.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":80472.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"fxkmar","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Have any Ruins been discovered during the lifetime of the original inhabitants? In other words, have any recognised groups of humans lived to see their original settlements left to ruin?","c_root_id_A":"fmv475t","c_root_id_B":"fmv2t2b","created_at_utc_A":1586405659,"created_at_utc_B":1586404663,"score_A":20,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"How are you defining \"ruins?\" How are you deliniating \"recognised groups of humans?\" Language? Self-identification? The answer hinges mostly on how you define these things. Certainly the Maya still exist today- so do we count every single Maya ruin as an answer? When did residents of central Italy descended from the original founders of Rome stop being Roman? Once their Latin started to look more like Italian? When they moved out of Rome and into the countryside? When they were ruled by a new polity? One-hundred years ago, anthropology was very interested in defining groups of people. After decades of trying to do that, it became quite obvious that it was a futile task. What's more interesting is how people define themselves, and how they do so in relation to archaeological sites. It's only so useful for archaeologists to officially say \"Here is this group, and this is their site.\" It's more important that we acknowledge that people will lay claims to heritage sites regardless of what we say, and that understanding how and why they claim these sites as their own is an inquiry in its own right. Consider, for instance, the claim by a man in Catherine Allen's *The Hold Life Has*, an ethnography about a Quechua town near Cusco, Peru, that \"We are all Inca.\" Any archaeologist or historian would say, \"Of course not- the Inca were but a small kingdom that turned into a massive empire through conquest and politics.\" Quechua speakers are no more \"all Inca\" than everyone in Gaul and Britain and Judea were Roman. The belief, however, is widespread due to dozens of unifying Indigenous movements that prioritized solidarity against oppressive leaders. Someone living now in Cusco might be more closely related to a group form the other side of the country, but still find the city's Inca temples powerful sites of their own heritage. Anthropologists aren't going to deny them that. There's been a lot written on this and how archaeological sites are used by modern groups as ways to ground their identity in the past. If you're interested in the topic, I would recommend Clare Sammels work about the site of Tiwanaku in Bolivia, Tim Edensor's and Tapati Guha-Thakurta's work on India, and Helaine Silverman's work on Peru. Each of these authors investigate how archaeological sites are used by current nations and how local groups engage with those interpretations.","human_ref_B":"When the Maya temples were discovered there were still groups in Central America calling themselves Maya. They didn\u2019t die out, they abandoned the cities.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":996.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"5nlt1d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"When was the absolute earliest a complex human civilization could develop? Why could it not have developed before then? I have always wondered about this since I was in high school. On one hand, I know that it is extremely unlikely for civilization to develop, say, between glaciers, but the fact that humans didn't form complex societies until 10,000 years ago minimum has always seemed strange to me. Plus, between rivers like the Shebelle or the Jubba, or even the Nile proper, it seems like there were many places for there to be a proto-Crescent to develop.","c_root_id_A":"dccoahk","c_root_id_B":"dccpwg8","created_at_utc_A":1484261602,"created_at_utc_B":1484263606,"score_A":11,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I read a fantastic book on the evolution of language: The Way We Think by Giles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. Their main thesis is that the acquisition of a construct called a \"counterfactual\" is the **most basic** skill which will allow comparison of two differing ideas of causation. This type of comparison in absolutely necessary to higher-level thought. It's what allows philosophy (and, indeed science) to take place. It sounds complicated when I say it like that but Fauconnier and Turner take their time to lay out the evidence such that it seems intuitive once they spring it on you.","human_ref_B":"Social complexity requires a large population in which to occur. A large population needs to be supported, which means you either need a very productive environment, or you need to fairly quickly develop the ability to produce and store food. An archaeological indicator of this would be evidence of large, sedentary or semi-sedentary settlements \/ villages, as well as evidence of horticulture or even agriculture (domesticated versions of high-producing plants). We simply do not see any of that until sometime between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago in SW Asia, and then appearing elsewhere over time. And that's probably because human populations were simply too small and scattered, and hunting and gathering was more than adequate to keep those small populations going. In SW Asia, it just so happened that hunters and gatherers were gathering, among other things, seed crops in abundance. They no doubt learned fairly early on that it was possible to propagate seed crops by sowing seeds, and so when the Younger Dryas occurred and temperatures dropped and the world became a bit dryer, they were perfectly positioned to begin planting some of those seeds to ensure larger yields. And then when mutations in wild wheat lead to a non-brittle rachis, everything was basically perfectly positioned to allow for the first strains of plant domestication to happen. But in that region, populations were already growing, and so social complexity had a fertile field in which to grow. By contrast, without large populations, you simply don't get that kind of complexity. So the reason that complex societies don't seem to have appeared before about 12,000 years ago or so is probably because they simply couldn't.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2004.0,"score_ratio":2.6363636364} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fae7ovk","c_root_id_B":"fadz2wd","created_at_utc_A":1575995479,"created_at_utc_B":1575989998,"score_A":76,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"I am an archaeologist and not a biological anthropologist, so I can't completely answer all of your questions but: \\- Clothing: no evidence of woven clothes (neither for them nor for the sapiens of the time); no evidence of sewing, the first needles date to the Solutrean, which is much later than the last dated Neanderthal remains. I guess the furs\/skins could be form fitting with the use of some kind of belts, but there's no way to know. They used pigments like ochre, but I don't know if you can really color fur with ochre... Usually it's interpreted as directly put on the skin. \\- Language: every morphological and genetic data on this demonstrate that they could speak and have a complex language, but it's impossible to know if they actually did. \\- Posture: they were fully upright ( recent study: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6421410\/) \\- Social organization: yes they were probably in small groups as you described. \\- Weapons: they could have many things, like spears or bolas, diverse stone tools... There is evidence of hafting so you can imagine a stone tool like a point on top of a spear (sorry if I don't use the right terms, English is not my first language). There has recently been a PhD defense about the possibility that they used bows and arrows but it's still very, very controversial. They could have had war paint, see my ochre comment. \\- Location: yeah they were present in the UK, so no problem. Also, I will add, in answer to a comment that said that the ice sheet would prevent them from being there, that Neanderthals roamed Europe (and Asia) in a diversity of climates, with warmer and colder periods, and one of these periods (Eemian, or Ipswichian, from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago) was as warm as the one we are living in, so no need to imagine them deep in snow all the time. They knew how to adapt to very different environments. I hope it helped you :)","human_ref_B":"* First, fun fact: Neanderthals are human, just a different species of human. * Neanderthal brains are larger than ours. Most Neanderthal may have been more intelligent than most Homo Sapiens. * However, Neanderthals never displayed the level of social organization that early Homo Sapiens did. Homo Sapiens could have three tribes of up to 200 people cooperate in a hunt. Neanderthal \u201cbands\u201d were only from 10-30 individuals. * Neanderthals also exhibited high trauma rates, with 80% dying before the age of 40. [edit: apparently, this might not be right]","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5481.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fae3g3u","c_root_id_B":"fae7ovk","created_at_utc_A":1575992870,"created_at_utc_B":1575995479,"score_A":18,"score_B":76,"human_ref_A":"One of the prevail hypothesis about Neandertals is that they weren't necessarily less intelligent than homo sapiens, but that they were ill suited for the rapidly changing climate surrounding them. Neandertalis were larger and more muscular and they had massive calorie requirements. That's a disadvantage in a world where dense caloric food is hard to come by.","human_ref_B":"I am an archaeologist and not a biological anthropologist, so I can't completely answer all of your questions but: \\- Clothing: no evidence of woven clothes (neither for them nor for the sapiens of the time); no evidence of sewing, the first needles date to the Solutrean, which is much later than the last dated Neanderthal remains. I guess the furs\/skins could be form fitting with the use of some kind of belts, but there's no way to know. They used pigments like ochre, but I don't know if you can really color fur with ochre... Usually it's interpreted as directly put on the skin. \\- Language: every morphological and genetic data on this demonstrate that they could speak and have a complex language, but it's impossible to know if they actually did. \\- Posture: they were fully upright ( recent study: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6421410\/) \\- Social organization: yes they were probably in small groups as you described. \\- Weapons: they could have many things, like spears or bolas, diverse stone tools... There is evidence of hafting so you can imagine a stone tool like a point on top of a spear (sorry if I don't use the right terms, English is not my first language). There has recently been a PhD defense about the possibility that they used bows and arrows but it's still very, very controversial. They could have had war paint, see my ochre comment. \\- Location: yeah they were present in the UK, so no problem. Also, I will add, in answer to a comment that said that the ice sheet would prevent them from being there, that Neanderthals roamed Europe (and Asia) in a diversity of climates, with warmer and colder periods, and one of these periods (Eemian, or Ipswichian, from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago) was as warm as the one we are living in, so no need to imagine them deep in snow all the time. They knew how to adapt to very different environments. I hope it helped you :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2609.0,"score_ratio":4.2222222222} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fadyf25","c_root_id_B":"fae7ovk","created_at_utc_A":1575989530,"created_at_utc_B":1575995479,"score_A":15,"score_B":76,"human_ref_A":"So, I'm going to preface by saying I don't know historical specifics, how ever if you'd like an anthropological author to reference and get ideas from, Jean Auel wrote a series starting with Clan of the Cavebear, and it goes into FANTASTIC detail about mundane detailed of ancient peoples, especially the Neanderthals. The author worked closely with anthropologists and historians and even geologists to write her books, and based some storyline and character ideas off of real anthropological finds! I will say the book is also pretty heavily fantasy too, it compresses something like a thousand years plus of human development into like ten years, but it can be forgiven due to how surprisingly informative the books are. I can't think of a better historical fantasy writer to get ideas from on this particular topic than Jean Auel. *Edit: always take fictional work with a grain of salt, however Jean often includes the names of the historians and scientists she collaborated with, so it gives you the names of, at one time or another, experts in these fields to research, so you can get the information you need directly instead of relying purely on fictional extrapolation, though even her fictional extrapolation is so well detailed that it gives you a really good idea of what questions to research, and what specific information you need to fill in the gaps!","human_ref_B":"I am an archaeologist and not a biological anthropologist, so I can't completely answer all of your questions but: \\- Clothing: no evidence of woven clothes (neither for them nor for the sapiens of the time); no evidence of sewing, the first needles date to the Solutrean, which is much later than the last dated Neanderthal remains. I guess the furs\/skins could be form fitting with the use of some kind of belts, but there's no way to know. They used pigments like ochre, but I don't know if you can really color fur with ochre... Usually it's interpreted as directly put on the skin. \\- Language: every morphological and genetic data on this demonstrate that they could speak and have a complex language, but it's impossible to know if they actually did. \\- Posture: they were fully upright ( recent study: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6421410\/) \\- Social organization: yes they were probably in small groups as you described. \\- Weapons: they could have many things, like spears or bolas, diverse stone tools... There is evidence of hafting so you can imagine a stone tool like a point on top of a spear (sorry if I don't use the right terms, English is not my first language). There has recently been a PhD defense about the possibility that they used bows and arrows but it's still very, very controversial. They could have had war paint, see my ochre comment. \\- Location: yeah they were present in the UK, so no problem. Also, I will add, in answer to a comment that said that the ice sheet would prevent them from being there, that Neanderthals roamed Europe (and Asia) in a diversity of climates, with warmer and colder periods, and one of these periods (Eemian, or Ipswichian, from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago) was as warm as the one we are living in, so no need to imagine them deep in snow all the time. They knew how to adapt to very different environments. I hope it helped you :)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5949.0,"score_ratio":5.0666666667} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fae7ovk","c_root_id_B":"fae3ige","created_at_utc_A":1575995479,"created_at_utc_B":1575992911,"score_A":76,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am an archaeologist and not a biological anthropologist, so I can't completely answer all of your questions but: \\- Clothing: no evidence of woven clothes (neither for them nor for the sapiens of the time); no evidence of sewing, the first needles date to the Solutrean, which is much later than the last dated Neanderthal remains. I guess the furs\/skins could be form fitting with the use of some kind of belts, but there's no way to know. They used pigments like ochre, but I don't know if you can really color fur with ochre... Usually it's interpreted as directly put on the skin. \\- Language: every morphological and genetic data on this demonstrate that they could speak and have a complex language, but it's impossible to know if they actually did. \\- Posture: they were fully upright ( recent study: https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6421410\/) \\- Social organization: yes they were probably in small groups as you described. \\- Weapons: they could have many things, like spears or bolas, diverse stone tools... There is evidence of hafting so you can imagine a stone tool like a point on top of a spear (sorry if I don't use the right terms, English is not my first language). There has recently been a PhD defense about the possibility that they used bows and arrows but it's still very, very controversial. They could have had war paint, see my ochre comment. \\- Location: yeah they were present in the UK, so no problem. Also, I will add, in answer to a comment that said that the ice sheet would prevent them from being there, that Neanderthals roamed Europe (and Asia) in a diversity of climates, with warmer and colder periods, and one of these periods (Eemian, or Ipswichian, from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago) was as warm as the one we are living in, so no need to imagine them deep in snow all the time. They knew how to adapt to very different environments. I hope it helped you :)","human_ref_B":"They didn't have the same range of movement in their shoulders that we do, so throwing spears is out. *They were probably ambush hunters and would have to be near their target if they were fighting with weapons. *Edit: nevermind! I didn't realize this has been retracted","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2568.0,"score_ratio":15.2} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fadyf25","c_root_id_B":"fadz2wd","created_at_utc_A":1575989530,"created_at_utc_B":1575989998,"score_A":15,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"So, I'm going to preface by saying I don't know historical specifics, how ever if you'd like an anthropological author to reference and get ideas from, Jean Auel wrote a series starting with Clan of the Cavebear, and it goes into FANTASTIC detail about mundane detailed of ancient peoples, especially the Neanderthals. The author worked closely with anthropologists and historians and even geologists to write her books, and based some storyline and character ideas off of real anthropological finds! I will say the book is also pretty heavily fantasy too, it compresses something like a thousand years plus of human development into like ten years, but it can be forgiven due to how surprisingly informative the books are. I can't think of a better historical fantasy writer to get ideas from on this particular topic than Jean Auel. *Edit: always take fictional work with a grain of salt, however Jean often includes the names of the historians and scientists she collaborated with, so it gives you the names of, at one time or another, experts in these fields to research, so you can get the information you need directly instead of relying purely on fictional extrapolation, though even her fictional extrapolation is so well detailed that it gives you a really good idea of what questions to research, and what specific information you need to fill in the gaps!","human_ref_B":"* First, fun fact: Neanderthals are human, just a different species of human. * Neanderthal brains are larger than ours. Most Neanderthal may have been more intelligent than most Homo Sapiens. * However, Neanderthals never displayed the level of social organization that early Homo Sapiens did. Homo Sapiens could have three tribes of up to 200 people cooperate in a hunt. Neanderthal \u201cbands\u201d were only from 10-30 individuals. * Neanderthals also exhibited high trauma rates, with 80% dying before the age of 40. [edit: apparently, this might not be right]","labels":0,"seconds_difference":468.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fadyf25","c_root_id_B":"fae3g3u","created_at_utc_A":1575989530,"created_at_utc_B":1575992870,"score_A":15,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"So, I'm going to preface by saying I don't know historical specifics, how ever if you'd like an anthropological author to reference and get ideas from, Jean Auel wrote a series starting with Clan of the Cavebear, and it goes into FANTASTIC detail about mundane detailed of ancient peoples, especially the Neanderthals. The author worked closely with anthropologists and historians and even geologists to write her books, and based some storyline and character ideas off of real anthropological finds! I will say the book is also pretty heavily fantasy too, it compresses something like a thousand years plus of human development into like ten years, but it can be forgiven due to how surprisingly informative the books are. I can't think of a better historical fantasy writer to get ideas from on this particular topic than Jean Auel. *Edit: always take fictional work with a grain of salt, however Jean often includes the names of the historians and scientists she collaborated with, so it gives you the names of, at one time or another, experts in these fields to research, so you can get the information you need directly instead of relying purely on fictional extrapolation, though even her fictional extrapolation is so well detailed that it gives you a really good idea of what questions to research, and what specific information you need to fill in the gaps!","human_ref_B":"One of the prevail hypothesis about Neandertals is that they weren't necessarily less intelligent than homo sapiens, but that they were ill suited for the rapidly changing climate surrounding them. Neandertalis were larger and more muscular and they had massive calorie requirements. That's a disadvantage in a world where dense caloric food is hard to come by.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3340.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"fae3ige","c_root_id_B":"faf2qry","created_at_utc_A":1575992911,"created_at_utc_B":1576013303,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"They didn't have the same range of movement in their shoulders that we do, so throwing spears is out. *They were probably ambush hunters and would have to be near their target if they were fighting with weapons. *Edit: nevermind! I didn't realize this has been retracted","human_ref_B":"There's a really good 2 part BBC documentary called Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors that is very recent. I suggest you watch that for info","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20392.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"faf2qry","c_root_id_B":"faex1fk","created_at_utc_A":1576013303,"created_at_utc_B":1576009930,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There's a really good 2 part BBC documentary called Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors that is very recent. I suggest you watch that for info","human_ref_B":"I suggest that Neanderthals were significantly more advanced than are depicted. Remember they are very recent arrivals in our genetic chain. Probably with minimum clothes, you could not make them apart from the locals in a sports bar.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3373.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"e8q364","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"How advanced could Neanderthals have been? I'm currently writing a story, and Neanderthals play a minor role in the story. I would like the Neanderthals to be as \"modern\" as possible while still being within the realm of scientifically accurate. Clothing: Could they have woven clothes? Or should they be wearing skins and furs? And can the skins and furs be sewn together? Can the clothing be relatively form fitting, with colors? Language: Could they make all the sounds we can make? Can their language sound like a modern human language? Posture: They are often depicted as being hunched over. Is this based on science? Could they stand as straight as modern humans? Social organization: I assume it is reasonable to depict them as being in a small group (10-15 adults, plus kids) with one leader. Is there any reason to believe this couldn't be accurate? Weapons and fighting: At one point in the story a group of Neanderthals charge into battle (the battle ends up not happening). What sorts of weapons would they be carrying to fight humans? Would it be reasonable to give them war paint or some other decoration to indicate they have prepared ahead of time for this battle? Location: Were Neanderthals possibly located in the area that is currently London England? I realize there is a lot we don't know about Neanderthals. But I don't want the depiction of Neanderthals in my story to contradict anything that we do know. Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"faffbdh","c_root_id_B":"faf9tok","created_at_utc_A":1576021323,"created_at_utc_B":1576017659,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hey! Two facts I wanted to add about Neanderthals : 1. Language: they lacked the foxP2 gene that allows us to use our vocal cords the way we do but studies are actually being conducted on beat boxers and how they theirs to make the noises they do. They think this may hunt at how we communicated prior to the foxP2 gene expression. 2. Tool manufacturing: they actually invented the first industrial process where they made their own tar. They used this as an adhesive for spears and other tools. - I only have an undergrad in anthropology and got it a while back so there might be even more information on these topics if you\u2019re looking into it.","human_ref_B":"You didn't specifically inquire about musicality, but it'e entirely possible, although highly speculative, that they may have possessed musical instruments. In terms of behavior, Neanderthal gene variants present in the human genome through admixture are linked to the following modern behaviors: * Smoking addiction * Night Owl chronotypes * Narcolepsy * Mood swings * Eating Disorders * Schizophrenia Keep in mind that these variants may not have resulted in what are perceived as negative behaviors in the ancestral Neanderthal environment, due to differing ecological context.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3664.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"xsh0pj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Are Warm Color Temperature Lights Really Pleasing because of Cavemen Fires? I've seen Internet claims that our attraction to indoor electric lights with a warm color temperature rather than white light could be due to us having evolved with fire for so long. How likely is this to be true?","c_root_id_A":"iqkxbmt","c_root_id_B":"iqkj7cy","created_at_utc_A":1664592482,"created_at_utc_B":1664585156,"score_A":63,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"There's a great word for this kind of thing, coined by the biologist Marlene Zuk: \"Paleofantasies.\" Basically, things people imagine to have been the case in humanity's evolutionary past based on little to no evidence, usually invoked as a behavioral justification.","human_ref_B":"Most claims that have lines to the effect of \"we evolved to\" or \"back in caveman days\" are utter horseshit revealing nothing but the ignorance of the speaker. Don't ever listen to pop evolutionary explanations for anything. At best they're harmless gobbledygook, at worst they are a pernicious way to naturalize oppressive practices and stereotypes with no evolutionary basis at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7326.0,"score_ratio":1.0327868852} {"post_id":"m8mtoq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How did people discover metal? The development of stone tools seems pretty obvious; rocks are all over the place and it\u2019s easy to understand how people started using them and fashioning them into tools. What are the theories of how people started using bronze and iron? I\u2019ve never seen chunks of natural iron or copper laying around on the ground, so how did people figure out that that was a resource they could use? To be honest, I have no idea how modern mining and processing of iron and copper works, so I\u2019m having a hard time imagining how people first started using it.","c_root_id_A":"gridef8","c_root_id_B":"grigba9","created_at_utc_A":1616179514,"created_at_utc_B":1616180855,"score_A":16,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Metallic ore has been eroding from rich deposits around the world for eons. Copper, gold, silver, and lead are all good examples of metals that are deposited (via erosion) into the sediments in bodies of water and are tumbled, eventually winding up as what are usually referred to as \"nuggets\" (type \"gold \/ silver \/ lead \/ copper\" and \"nugget\" into Google and look at the pictures). These metals are quite malleable and ductile, and would have been easy to shape into a variety of forms and shapes simply by hammering or beating them into shape. In regions of the world where they were available, these metals were used for a wide array of decorative and non-utilitarian objects, as well as tools. The Old Copper Culture of the Great Lakes region of North America is known to have used copper extensively. Presumably it was recovered in native form from the shorelines of the lakes and other water bodies, since very pure copper (i.e., that would erode out as nuggets) is a resource in some abundance in that region. Bronze and iron are more difficult, because one-- bronze-- is an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic, and iron requires very hot temperatures to smelt from ore. Most hypotheses about how smelting and alloying of metals began built on what we know generally preceded the development of metallurgy: pottery firing, the use of pigments, heat treatment of stone for tools, and the prior use of native forms of these metals for a variety of objects. And as you develop the ability \/ know-how to smelt one metallic ore, you would both perfect the technology *and* might attempt to do the same thing with other, similar materials. Here's a hypothetical... Pottery firing requires high temperatures. And many pigments can be made from powdered, hydrated forms of metal ores. Malachite, a copper ore, is a good example-- it produces a green pigment. Interestingly enough, one of the easiest ways to extract copper from malachite is to crush \/ powder and heat it in a crucible. What is green malachite pigment on a yet-to-be-fired pottery vessel but a smelting discovery waiting to happen. Although we don't know, because we have no written records of the earliest experimentation with metal smelting, it's entirely possible \/ within the realm of likelihood that someone went heavy on the green paint on their newest pot, and when it was fired, the copper in the malachite had instead migrated out of the material and ended up as tiny beaded droplets on the surface of the pottery vessel. This is what's called a \"just so\" story, in that it fits some of the information we have, but can never be really verified because the details are just not able to be teased out of the archaeological record directly. But we can look at early smelting sites and see where they were located, what other kinds of material culture and technology existed at the time they appeared, and so on. And so we can build a hypothesis to explain one way that metallurgy might have first developed.","human_ref_B":"Very simplistic explication. Native metal, directly in metallic form, of silver, gold and copper could be found in nature. This were the first metals used and the way to worked was cold with tools like hamers to give it shape. That metals are soft enough to allow that. At the same time ceramics technology had developed for long time, so the technology to melt and cast soft metals was already more or less ready. The process of knowing what minerals (ores) could you use to extract the metals is more complex but in the case of copper they could appear in relation with native copper and are really characteristics so rock close to native copper + oven = more copper... And later is only identify the ore copper that people already know. Iron is a little hard to explain because it is possible to find native in nature, but it is only from meteorites and is really rare. It is possible that it develops is related to the advance of copper and bronce (copper + tin) industries because some copper ores had also high iron content. Also until late medieval age in Europe (1.300AC) iron technology was really limited because was blommery iron and not cast iron. Also think that the develop of this technology is not something that happens everywhere at the same time and in a lot of places it was transmitted from original focus to other places. Talking about European prehistory -Chacolithic or copper age when the native metals were used for first time is around 5.000 BC. Bronze age is 3.000 BC and iron age is 1.200 BC. So it is not like one day we discover a gold nugget tomorrow we make bronze and a week later Iron. it is a very long and complex process that also mark our prehistory. Edit: some typos because English is not my mother tongue + dyslexia.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1341.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"5xuofz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Non-academic anthropologists: what is your career? By non-academic I mean anthropologists who aren't working as a professor of anthropology. I know that's probably a confusing term there, but wasn't sure how to phrase it. As a undergrad student in anthro deciding between a masters in anthropology focusing on human rights, and a masters in social work, I am curious about what all there is to do besides entering academia! I'm also excluding archaeology here (sorry) as I've always been interested in cultural anthropology. Everyone says that students of anthropology enter into a huge variety of careers after school, and I've seen the posters in our department with the dozens of options you have after school, but I'm just curious about what people, in reality, are doing after school. So what did you study specifically in school and where that has taken you now? Why did you choose anthropology as the path to get there?","c_root_id_A":"del8rj7","c_root_id_B":"delflbc","created_at_utc_A":1488834201,"created_at_utc_B":1488842349,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I know a guy who did a Masters in Archeology and now does pre-construction site reviews for companies seeking construction permits. He has his own company that does this and makes good money.","human_ref_B":"I washed dishes in a restaurant, cooked for said restaurant, and now am finishing my first year of grad school.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8148.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"5xuofz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Non-academic anthropologists: what is your career? By non-academic I mean anthropologists who aren't working as a professor of anthropology. I know that's probably a confusing term there, but wasn't sure how to phrase it. As a undergrad student in anthro deciding between a masters in anthropology focusing on human rights, and a masters in social work, I am curious about what all there is to do besides entering academia! I'm also excluding archaeology here (sorry) as I've always been interested in cultural anthropology. Everyone says that students of anthropology enter into a huge variety of careers after school, and I've seen the posters in our department with the dozens of options you have after school, but I'm just curious about what people, in reality, are doing after school. So what did you study specifically in school and where that has taken you now? Why did you choose anthropology as the path to get there?","c_root_id_A":"del8rj7","c_root_id_B":"del82fa","created_at_utc_A":1488834201,"created_at_utc_B":1488833416,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I know a guy who did a Masters in Archeology and now does pre-construction site reviews for companies seeking construction permits. He has his own company that does this and makes good money.","human_ref_B":"Great question! In the same boat, so I hope people reply. After undergrad I'm gonna look into jumping into a PhD program, as it allows me to do get a higher degree, get paid (a little bit) to do it, and not have to get a real job for a few more years. But big-boy job wise, I actually don't know what titles people have, and what they do outside of academia. I know consultation firms are a thing, and cultural resource management.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":785.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"5xuofz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Non-academic anthropologists: what is your career? By non-academic I mean anthropologists who aren't working as a professor of anthropology. I know that's probably a confusing term there, but wasn't sure how to phrase it. As a undergrad student in anthro deciding between a masters in anthropology focusing on human rights, and a masters in social work, I am curious about what all there is to do besides entering academia! I'm also excluding archaeology here (sorry) as I've always been interested in cultural anthropology. Everyone says that students of anthropology enter into a huge variety of careers after school, and I've seen the posters in our department with the dozens of options you have after school, but I'm just curious about what people, in reality, are doing after school. So what did you study specifically in school and where that has taken you now? Why did you choose anthropology as the path to get there?","c_root_id_A":"del82fa","c_root_id_B":"delflbc","created_at_utc_A":1488833416,"created_at_utc_B":1488842349,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Great question! In the same boat, so I hope people reply. After undergrad I'm gonna look into jumping into a PhD program, as it allows me to do get a higher degree, get paid (a little bit) to do it, and not have to get a real job for a few more years. But big-boy job wise, I actually don't know what titles people have, and what they do outside of academia. I know consultation firms are a thing, and cultural resource management.","human_ref_B":"I washed dishes in a restaurant, cooked for said restaurant, and now am finishing my first year of grad school.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8933.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"5xuofz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Non-academic anthropologists: what is your career? By non-academic I mean anthropologists who aren't working as a professor of anthropology. I know that's probably a confusing term there, but wasn't sure how to phrase it. As a undergrad student in anthro deciding between a masters in anthropology focusing on human rights, and a masters in social work, I am curious about what all there is to do besides entering academia! I'm also excluding archaeology here (sorry) as I've always been interested in cultural anthropology. Everyone says that students of anthropology enter into a huge variety of careers after school, and I've seen the posters in our department with the dozens of options you have after school, but I'm just curious about what people, in reality, are doing after school. So what did you study specifically in school and where that has taken you now? Why did you choose anthropology as the path to get there?","c_root_id_A":"del9za2","c_root_id_B":"delflbc","created_at_utc_A":1488835584,"created_at_utc_B":1488842349,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Although I'm a prof now, I used to do CRM in the southeastern US. I know a number of folks who still do, although I'll admit, I'm not optimistic about the long term viability of their jobs right at the moment. I did a BA and a master's in anthropology and then started working as a CRM archaeologist. Eventually (after a few years) I decided I wanted to go back for my PhD. When I finished, I did two more years in CRM before getting the job I have now.","human_ref_B":"I washed dishes in a restaurant, cooked for said restaurant, and now am finishing my first year of grad school.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6765.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"9arhnf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.73,"history":"Where the early humans really as \"savage\" and \"barbaric\" as they usually portrayed today? I ask this because honestly, I have a great undying respect and admiration for our early human ancestors, I don't take any luxury we have today for granted because I know(by proxy) the realities of life when we didn't have a single 1 of them besides fire. And I also ask because I honestly think still to this day we are still a barbaric\/savage species, the only difference is we do those same animalistic behaviors only more technologically\/societally advanced. When I see things like cave paintings, ancient art, prehistoric structures\/tools, I see that ok, maybe they didn't have the same tools and luxuries we do now, but they did have that same intellectual\/creative spark that makes us human and separates us from every other animal in the kingdom. It honestly doesn't even surprise me that some clever early humans were curious and exploratory enough to build a primal boat and cross the into the middle east from Africa all those millennia ago because at our core, we're an innovative people, even when we couldn't live past 35(I know that's not really true).","c_root_id_A":"e4xqf33","c_root_id_B":"e4xx47d","created_at_utc_A":1535401838,"created_at_utc_B":1535407760,"score_A":11,"score_B":42,"human_ref_A":"You're not going to get a clear-cut academic answer on this for a couple reasons I can get into if you're interested, but I think it is especially relevant to look at this from a historical, and not exclusively anthropological perspective. By that I mean that *the way people are written about is instrumental to the images we hold about those people, and often the images people hold about themselves*. I know of no example in history of a group of people who had previously been excluded, through some circumstance gaining considerable favour by an influential class, and thus forth being considered (and written about) in a positive light. Stereotypes and cultural exclusion are *incredibly* effective at suppressing upward social mobility. One obvious example from your question is the Barbarians. The history of the use of the word Barbarian to refer to out of context encounters with various groups of cultures that may or may not have been hostile to the Greeks (or the Romans) but nonetheless spoke differently and followed different traditions, speaks more to, I believe, the way that cultures simplify their internal issues by creating scapegoats and shifting blame externally. All communities do this, and it is inherently the larger (and less nomadic) city states that \"get the last word\", literally, in determining who we remember as \"barbaric\". The Greeks and Romans were very literate (relatively speaking), and in the same way that we are now bombarded by images of people through social media that are beautiful, more successful, and living more enviable lives than your average person on the street, literary civilizations project an image of themselves through time as being more sophisticated, intelligent, \"advanced\". But it is as true then as it is now that civilizations were highly dependent on the work, creativity, and intelligence of the \"lower classes\" that the literate often condescended to.","human_ref_B":"Absolutely not. The words \"savage\" and \"barbarian\" are a relic of the European colonial past, and was later codified by evolutionary anthropologists such as Edward B. Tylor: ​ http:\/\/anthropology.ua.edu\/cultures\/cultures.php?culture=Social%20Evolutionism ​ Perhaps all of cultural anthropology has been trying to fix this \"stage-like\" social evolutionism of the 19th century. ​ Honestly it really frustrates me when people in this forum give answers to this like \"there are no clear cut answers to this\". Armchair anthropology that gives labels like \"uncivilized\" to any group of people has no place in academic anthropology. The word \"savage\" did more harm to American Indians then any war ever did. It is dehumanizing, and it begs the question of whether the people that massacred and forcibly assimilated indigenous people are the real \"barbarians\". I suggest reading *The Savage Mind* by Claude Levi-Strauss where he deconstructs how \"primitive\" the \"savage\" really is, and where he coined the term \"ethnoscience\" to describe the varied ingenious practices of tribal peoples. There is no real need to bring up in this context the debate surrounding the level of warfare in the archaeological record, because it is beside the point about the real motivation behind these labels. It is tied to colonialism: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/30036235?seq=1#page\\_scan\\_tab\\_contents ​ Read any history of colonialism in Africa, America, or Australia to understand just how damaging these words are. Life for tribal peoples was not the Hobbesian stereotype: nasty, brutish, and short ​","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5922.0,"score_ratio":3.8181818182} {"post_id":"2j3v7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for recommendations on articles\/books\/theses that use virtual ethnography... Hi all, I've posted something similar in the past but am now looking to concretely choose a topic for my dissertation and am struggling with choosing virtual anthropology for the sole reason that I'm worried I won't be able to find enough solid resources for my 12,000 words. I'm looking to write about social representations of the self online (focusing upon young adults, I think), probably focusing on dating websites\/apps\/methods of getting to know someone online first with the intention of finding someone to meet\/foster a relationship with in real life, too. I want to steer away from stuff like Tinder but am interested in using sites like OKCUPID, etc. I'm based in the UK so it's going to be easier to use sites that us Brits are familiar with. That being said, does anyone have any idea of any resources that might be useful to have a look at? Or even any advice? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cl8am7w","c_root_id_B":"cl8vj60","created_at_utc_A":1413216452,"created_at_utc_B":1413258662,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Part of my PhD qualifying exams were focused on digital\/computational ethnography. On mobile now, but feel free to PM me with an email address and I can send along the citations.","human_ref_B":"Well, if you're interested in OkCupid you have to read Christian Rudder's Dataclysm, even though he isn't an anthropologist, doesn't use ethnography at all and I frankly disagree with some of his conclusions :P. That being said, I have to agree with \/u\/always_wear_pyjamas' reccommendation of Daniel Miller (I'm a big fan of his work). While \"Tales from Facebook\" is good on its own, I prefer \"The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach\", which is less focused on facebook (the book is from 2000, after all), and they (Miller and Don Slater, who also wrote \"Trading sexpics on IRC\" - yes, they're that old) also tread upon online\/offline selves. Both books focuses somewhat on \"liming\", which is a Trini way of interaction which is - when done between people of different sexes - inherently flirtatious. But, if you're trying to study dating websites, I can't really suggest much (I do actually have some bibliography about it, but it's not in English \u00af\\\\\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af). There are some good articles out there (like this one ou this one), and I've heard well of Lori Kendall's \"Hanging in the Virtual Pub\", but haven't actually read it yet. Other than that, I can offer you the generic advice of reading Boellstorff's \"Coming of Age in Second Life\", Christine Hine's \"Virtual Ethnography\" (and danah boyd's response to her), and perhaps Sherry Turkle's \"Alone Together\". Also, try to find recent papers on this subject, and look at their bibliographies. It's a method that has worked wonders for me.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":42210.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2j3v7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for recommendations on articles\/books\/theses that use virtual ethnography... Hi all, I've posted something similar in the past but am now looking to concretely choose a topic for my dissertation and am struggling with choosing virtual anthropology for the sole reason that I'm worried I won't be able to find enough solid resources for my 12,000 words. I'm looking to write about social representations of the self online (focusing upon young adults, I think), probably focusing on dating websites\/apps\/methods of getting to know someone online first with the intention of finding someone to meet\/foster a relationship with in real life, too. I want to steer away from stuff like Tinder but am interested in using sites like OKCUPID, etc. I'm based in the UK so it's going to be easier to use sites that us Brits are familiar with. That being said, does anyone have any idea of any resources that might be useful to have a look at? Or even any advice? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cl8bk56","c_root_id_B":"cl8vj60","created_at_utc_A":1413218368,"created_at_utc_B":1413258662,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm sure you know the work of danah boyd, seeing that you're working pretty much on her phd dissertation topic?","human_ref_B":"Well, if you're interested in OkCupid you have to read Christian Rudder's Dataclysm, even though he isn't an anthropologist, doesn't use ethnography at all and I frankly disagree with some of his conclusions :P. That being said, I have to agree with \/u\/always_wear_pyjamas' reccommendation of Daniel Miller (I'm a big fan of his work). While \"Tales from Facebook\" is good on its own, I prefer \"The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach\", which is less focused on facebook (the book is from 2000, after all), and they (Miller and Don Slater, who also wrote \"Trading sexpics on IRC\" - yes, they're that old) also tread upon online\/offline selves. Both books focuses somewhat on \"liming\", which is a Trini way of interaction which is - when done between people of different sexes - inherently flirtatious. But, if you're trying to study dating websites, I can't really suggest much (I do actually have some bibliography about it, but it's not in English \u00af\\\\\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af). There are some good articles out there (like this one ou this one), and I've heard well of Lori Kendall's \"Hanging in the Virtual Pub\", but haven't actually read it yet. Other than that, I can offer you the generic advice of reading Boellstorff's \"Coming of Age in Second Life\", Christine Hine's \"Virtual Ethnography\" (and danah boyd's response to her), and perhaps Sherry Turkle's \"Alone Together\". Also, try to find recent papers on this subject, and look at their bibliographies. It's a method that has worked wonders for me.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":40294.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2j3v7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for recommendations on articles\/books\/theses that use virtual ethnography... Hi all, I've posted something similar in the past but am now looking to concretely choose a topic for my dissertation and am struggling with choosing virtual anthropology for the sole reason that I'm worried I won't be able to find enough solid resources for my 12,000 words. I'm looking to write about social representations of the self online (focusing upon young adults, I think), probably focusing on dating websites\/apps\/methods of getting to know someone online first with the intention of finding someone to meet\/foster a relationship with in real life, too. I want to steer away from stuff like Tinder but am interested in using sites like OKCUPID, etc. I'm based in the UK so it's going to be easier to use sites that us Brits are familiar with. That being said, does anyone have any idea of any resources that might be useful to have a look at? Or even any advice? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cl8wtru","c_root_id_B":"cl8bk56","created_at_utc_A":1413261856,"created_at_utc_B":1413218368,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bit late, but here's some stuff that's more or less relevant to representations of self online & virtual anthro in general - mostly game\/gender focused 'cause I've just pulled these of my phd ref list, but they might give you some good leads. Also, as others have suggested Boellstorff, Miller & Slater, Hine, and also Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, & T.L Taylor. Chan, P., Whitman, A., & Baumer, A. (2009). Role playing in World of Warcraft as cathartic social performance. In L. Cuddy & N. J. (Eds.), World of Warcraft and philosophy (pp. 132-143). Chicago, IL: Open Court. Consalvo, M., & Harper, T. (2009). The sexi(e)st of all: Avatars, gender, and online games. In N. Panteli (Ed.), Virtual social networks: Mediated, massive, and multiplayer (pp. 98-113). New York: Scribner's. Driscoll, C., & Gregg, M. (2010). My Profile: The ethics of virtual ethnography. Emotion, Society and Space, 3(1), 15-20. doi:10.1016\/j.emospa.2010.01.012 Escobar, A., Hess, D., Licha, I., Sibley, W., Strathern, M., & Sutz, J. (1994). Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture. Current Anthropology, 35(3), 211-231. doi:10.1086\/204266 Evans, L. (2010, March). Authenticity online: Using webnography to address phenomenological concerns. Paper presented at the 5th Global Conference on Cybercultures: Exploring critical issues, Salzburg, Austria Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to Earth. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Marshall, J. P. (2003). The sexual life of cyber-savants. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 14(2), 229-248. doi: 10.1111\/j.1835-9310.2003.tb00232.x Marshall, J. P. (2004, April). Governance, structure and existence: Authenticity, rhetoric, race and gender on an internet mailing list. Paper presented at the Australian Electronic Governance Conference, Melbourne, Australia. Marshall, J. P. (2006). Categories, gender and online community. E-Learning, 3(2), 245-262. doi: 10.2304\/elea.2006.3.2.245 Marshall, J. P. (2007). Living on Cybermind: Categories, communication and control. New York: Peter Lang. Martey, M. R., & Consalvo, M. (2011). Performing the looking-glass self: Avatar appearance and group identity in second life. Popular Communication, 9, 165-180. doi: 10.1080\/15405702.2011.583830","human_ref_B":"I'm sure you know the work of danah boyd, seeing that you're working pretty much on her phd dissertation topic?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":43488.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2j3v7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for recommendations on articles\/books\/theses that use virtual ethnography... Hi all, I've posted something similar in the past but am now looking to concretely choose a topic for my dissertation and am struggling with choosing virtual anthropology for the sole reason that I'm worried I won't be able to find enough solid resources for my 12,000 words. I'm looking to write about social representations of the self online (focusing upon young adults, I think), probably focusing on dating websites\/apps\/methods of getting to know someone online first with the intention of finding someone to meet\/foster a relationship with in real life, too. I want to steer away from stuff like Tinder but am interested in using sites like OKCUPID, etc. I'm based in the UK so it's going to be easier to use sites that us Brits are familiar with. That being said, does anyone have any idea of any resources that might be useful to have a look at? Or even any advice? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cl9bsra","c_root_id_B":"cl8bk56","created_at_utc_A":1413308575,"created_at_utc_B":1413218368,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"While she's not an anthropologist, Aimee Morrison 's work will be of interest to you. She does some cool stuff on Facebook and self-assembly. http:\/\/scholar.google.ca\/citations?user=Fga3NtYAAAAJ&hl=en","human_ref_B":"I'm sure you know the work of danah boyd, seeing that you're working pretty much on her phd dissertation topic?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":90207.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"r1e2bz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"David Graeber of religious studies? Who is David Graeber of religious studies, mythology and history of religion? Who is a savage, revolutionary mind in the field of religious studies and mythology?","c_root_id_A":"hm0r1rh","c_root_id_B":"hm1bays","created_at_utc_A":1637836117,"created_at_utc_B":1637850020,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Actually a good question! Shahab Ahmed and his book What is Islam is pretty good in making a forceful claim that the study of Islam has been resting on many problematic assumptions, but he isnt revolutionary, as he affirms hierarchical structures in Islam itself as far as I understand. Would like to hear from others what authors they would recommend!","human_ref_B":"karen armstrong? her work is less academic than graeber's, and she's less interested in overturning conventional wisdom (although it depends obviously on what the conventional wisdom is in your own environment), but it's similarly erudite and popularist...","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13903.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"aoe1u3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"My 14 yo daughter is reading Lucy by Johanson & wants to know if there are books like that but updated. She\u2019s concerned it\u2019s out of date, but she\u2019s really enjoyed it.","c_root_id_A":"eg0bwhm","c_root_id_B":"eg078hj","created_at_utc_A":1549618531,"created_at_utc_B":1549610755,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I think I may be missing the mark on subject area but if she's after stories of scientific intrigue and controversy told in an engaging way... This is a long-form article rather than a book: The Nastiest Feud in Science, about the mass extinction debate in geology. And again, I don't know if this hits the mark in terms of subject area, but this is an excellent book uncovering the detail of a (disastrous) clash between science and politics: A History of the \u2018Unfortunate Experiment\u2019 at National Women\u2019s Hospital.","human_ref_B":"Its outdated for sure, but its still relevant imo. As long as she understands that its a series of thoughts and analysic made during that particular slice of time and not a modern academic reference book. I havent read it in a long while so I can't attest for any specific innacuracies. Thing is, when they're young you need build the enthusiasm and interest first and worry about academic rigor later. Its a great starter book though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7776.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3njwsp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Have there been any cultures that weren't aware of the link between sex and pregnancy? And if so, how did they explain pregnancy? Did they think sex was just for pleasure? [](\/GNU Terry Pratchett)","c_root_id_A":"cvotsxc","c_root_id_B":"cvp2svl","created_at_utc_A":1444047634,"created_at_utc_B":1444064719,"score_A":14,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"trobriand island natives. Check them out.","human_ref_B":"Not specifically that I know of, but there is a popular theory (which I heard about through Dr. Yuval Harai's macrohistory course from Coursera) that some early humans might not have understood the connection between insemination and parenthood. The theory goes that all of the men would sleep with all of the women, because it was believed that the baby would be stronger if it was nurtured with life force from many individuals. In addition, all of the men of the tribe would see all of the children as \"theirs\" in some small way and share the duties of parenting. It's controversial, and Dr. Harai himself mentions that there are many problems with it (like how such a society would be able to naturally select for superior traits), but it is interesting to think about.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17085.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"8wf1ly","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"If humans evolved in Africa, then why do we blush? Note: I am African American I\u2019ve heard the theories that blushing evolved as a way to show submission or embarrassment before language properly developed. However, we know that humans evolved in sub-Saharan Africa and naturally had very dark brown\/black skin. Therefore, it would be very hard if not impossible to see facial flushing in most early humans. African and African descended people can also blush\/experience facial flushing even if it isn\u2019t visually apparent. This means that the ability to blush\/flush must have developed long before light-skinned pigmentation did. Therefore, there must be some other biological reason for the evolution of blushing.","c_root_id_A":"e1wjh9q","c_root_id_B":"e1vyd7s","created_at_utc_A":1530899426,"created_at_utc_B":1530880484,"score_A":20,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Attaching a modern-day socio-cultural-functional purpose to blushing is (I think) a good example of an *ex post facto* explanation for an existing physiological response to emotional stress. If you think about it, when we blush, it's not just our faces that feel warm \/ flushed, but for most of us, that feeling is extended over much of the body. It's a reflection of increased blood flow to the surface of the skin. One by product of increased blood flow to the skin is increased heat transfer (and heat radiation) to the skin. If your body were, say, preparing itself for an increase in physical exertion, such a response would make a great deal of sense. *Especially* if you were a tropical animal in a relatively warm environment in which radiating excess heat from sudden physical exertion would be beneficial. In combination with sweat glands and a lack of excess body hair, such a response could be pretty adaptive. We interpret blushing as a sign of embarrassment \/ social unease because these things produce a light \"fight or flight\" response in us. After all, in many cases, blushing is what we do when we would rather be removing ourselves from an uncomfortable situation. But interpreting it that way means only that as social creatures we've learned to recognize physiological signs of emotional stress \/ turmoil. It doesn't mean that the reaction itself evolved as a way of letting others know of that turmoil. Take a look at some of these... Google Scholar Search: blushing fight or flight","human_ref_B":"Just a slight correction, there doesn't have to be a reason for it developing, other than people who did it's genetic line didn't die off. The X mother, or Y father may have just had it, and it didn't waste enough energy that it would kill us before we have children.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18942.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"22in4v","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Do all cultures have the concept of evil?","c_root_id_A":"cgnalw5","c_root_id_B":"cgn7iu7","created_at_utc_A":1396977203,"created_at_utc_B":1396971069,"score_A":32,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Pre-Industrial Northern European peasants were not comfortable with the Church-driven concept of good and evil. Conversion did not bring with it this concept, which was imported by the Judeo-Christian world from the Middle East (and especially from the period of the Babylonian captivity). Here are a few paragraphs from an \"Introduction to Folklore\" that I am putting together for release later this year. Perhaps this may help: The peasantry was out of touch with the idea that the world could be divided into good and evil. This concept came from the Middle East with the Bible, which acquired it from ancient Persia. The fact that Dame World [a literary figure] is evil, whereas the forest sprite [a folk figure that inspired Dame World] is simply dangerous, reflects the conservatism of the peasants. The dualism of good and evil, which was the property of the educated of medieval Europe, was too foreign to the peasants of Northern Europe \u2013 or even for the lower clergy \u2013 and so they reacted to it without enthusiasm. This constituted a major obstacle to the long process of Christianization of the peasantry. For the minnesingers, in touch with the more exotic, educated foundations of their religion, it must have seemed rather obvious that the forest sprite, or her medieval German equivalent, was a perfect symbol for the world, enticing and yet fundamentally corrupt and evil as Christian theology viewed the world. This sort of symbolism would no doubt have been lost on the peasantry. It is popular to view European civilization as a synthesis of Classical and Christian worlds with \u201cbarbaric\u201d elements thrown in for flavor. Both the peasantry and the learned repeatedly strove to blend the diverse and often conflicting portions of their complicated heritage. Yet the synthesis, as far as the assimilation of the abstractions of good and evil is concerned, was never really achieved before the Industrial Revolution in Northern Europe. A few examples from both medieval and pre-industrial popular culture suffice to demonstrate this. One of the pressing problems for the European peasant was how to account for the world\u2019s various supernatural beings, entities not mentioned in Christian documents. The folk constantly faced the question of how these creatures fit into the system of the saved and the damned. Educated priests told people, after all, that the strict division between good and evil had universal application. How, then, did the elves and fairies rank in the Divine plan? The peasant was never sure how to answer this question. The educated elite, on the other hand, had no trouble with this problem: elves and fairies were evil. This is the position that the Beowulf-poet took in the ninth century when he suggested that elves, like the monster Grendel, descended from Cain. From him the evil brood were all born, Giants and elves and evil spirits, And also the giants who fought against God For a long time; He paid them retribution for that. This sort of interpretation, however, never caught on with the peasantry although it was acceptable to the higher clergy. Many people were condemned as witches for innocently making sacrifices to elves and similar supernatural beings. Pre-industrial European legends show that peasants until recently thought of elves and fairies as neutral beings, without a definite place in God\u2019s spiritually-dichotomized world. Some legends explain that the elves and fairies were angels who refused to take either side in the great conflict between God and Satan. Other legends suggest these supernatural beings were the souls of pre-Christian people, or that they were the deceased who were not good enough for heaven, but not bad enough for hell. When the peasants did take a stand concerning the position of elves and fairies in relation to God, they generally said that the entities have at least a chance of salvation. Christiansen classifies the stories along this line as Migratory Legend 5050, \u201cThe Fairies\u2019 Prospect of Salvation.\u201d In this legend, someone hears the fairies singing in their mound, and he tells them that they should not be so happy because they have no more chance of salvation than his cane does of sprouting leaves. At this, the music stops, and the fairies begin to weep. When the man awakens the next morning, he finds that his cane has sprouted leaves, and so he hurries back to the mound to tell the fairies that God has sent a sign that they do indeed have a chance of salvation. Upon hearing this, the fairies resume their music. This popular legend shows clearly that if pressed to make a definite judgment, peasants said that the fairies are like men: they are neither good nor evil as a whole, and they have a chance of salvation. The peasants retained a belief in the neutrality of the fairies and at the same time worked them into the Christian cosmology. Here, the synthesis of the Christian concept of good and evil has been tenuously reached. Variants of the legend even incorporate the Biblical motif of the sprouting cane, a sign, which told the Jews that the house of Levi was to be the house of priests. The ultimate failure of the peasants\u2019 attempt to find a synthesis between the concepts of good and evil and their belief in fairies is indicated by two factors. First, the educated elite of Europe and the higher clergy never accepted this judgment, and second, other legends of the peasantry continued to place the fairies in an ambiguous position in relation to good and evil. In fact, still other legends tell of the fairies\u2019 fear of crosses and holy words. The example of the fairy shows how difficult it was for European peasants to place one of their neutral, pre-Christian beliefs into the Christian universe. The treatment of the devil in European folklore illustrates the obstacle peasants faced when assimilating even the most absolute symbol of evil into their belief system. The devil usually appears in the place of the stupid ogre or in the role of a trickster. Although these beings are often the opponents of humanity, and they are certainly dangerous, they are also rather amusing and can be beaten. Peasants clearly understood that the devil wishes to gain human souls, but they could not help thinking of the devil as just one of many dangerous supernatural beings in the world. The pre-industrial folklore of Europe shows the devil as an easily-defeated, sometimes rather pathetic creature who was not as absolutely evil as Christian dogma taught.","human_ref_B":"If you meant something more specific or culture bound you may need to clarify your question beyond just asking if societies have a concept of evil. If you just mean profoundly immoral then yes. All societies have a system of morality, social obligations, accepted behaviors, etc. People who violate that are behaving immorally and can be shunned, shamed, and exiled. Durkheim argued that society is God & moral law and therefore what is moral is intertwined with that society's particular worldviews. However, some anthropologists have pushed back against this a little. The anthropology of morality is an interesting topic and I can give you some suggestions for readings to get you started learning more: * Laidlaw, James (2002) \u2018For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom\u2019, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8(2): 311\u201332. * Parkin, David, ed. (1985) The Anthropology of Evil. Oxford: Blackwell. * Faubion, James D. (2001b) \u2018Toward an Anthropology of Ethics: Foucault and the Pedagogies of Autopoiesis\u2019, Representations 74(spring): 83\u2013104. And of course there are studies of these issues in specific cultural spaces & communities.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6134.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"4kgg7b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why were bras in the early 1900's so pointy? It doesn't look comfortable or well designed at all.","c_root_id_A":"d3f1ozo","c_root_id_B":"d3ex08r","created_at_utc_A":1463910809,"created_at_utc_B":1463894352,"score_A":34,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"From a friend who studies lingerie history and design: \"Couple of reasons: 1) Bra technology wasn't that great yet so all bras had to be made from cut-and-sew patterns (which are usually pointy) with no wires or stretch material (causes more pointiness); 2) Hyper-femininity was the MAJOR fashion because y'know, war and sex and baby making and so pointy projected boobs were part of that; 3) There's a theory that the 'bullet' and 'torpedo' shapes developed from the war propaganda, which is unlikely but a fun thought. The pointy look was really only 40s-mid 60s really - earlier than that they probably only look pointy because of the natural breast shape - bras were barely worn or were basically camisoles with no structure.\"","human_ref_B":"Is there also a technological aspect to it? Could it be that those shapes were easier to manufacture back then?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16457.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"4kgg7b","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Why were bras in the early 1900's so pointy? It doesn't look comfortable or well designed at all.","c_root_id_A":"d3ez9fo","c_root_id_B":"d3f1ozo","created_at_utc_A":1463901243,"created_at_utc_B":1463910809,"score_A":5,"score_B":34,"human_ref_A":"You might try \/r\/askhistorians, I think odds are much better of getting a quality answer there.","human_ref_B":"From a friend who studies lingerie history and design: \"Couple of reasons: 1) Bra technology wasn't that great yet so all bras had to be made from cut-and-sew patterns (which are usually pointy) with no wires or stretch material (causes more pointiness); 2) Hyper-femininity was the MAJOR fashion because y'know, war and sex and baby making and so pointy projected boobs were part of that; 3) There's a theory that the 'bullet' and 'torpedo' shapes developed from the war propaganda, which is unlikely but a fun thought. The pointy look was really only 40s-mid 60s really - earlier than that they probably only look pointy because of the natural breast shape - bras were barely worn or were basically camisoles with no structure.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9566.0,"score_ratio":6.8} {"post_id":"mbwt59","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Can someone please help me? I have a \u201cgrandmother\u201d who is not in good health and won\u2019t be with me much longer. She said that she is part of the Kaagwaantaan tribe, Wolf clan - Eagle Tlingit, but I can\u2019t seem to find anything online about this specific clan, their language, or any sort of artwork, etc. I want to learn more about where she came from. Can anyone help me out please?","c_root_id_A":"gs0xcik","c_root_id_B":"gs0td9t","created_at_utc_A":1616572165,"created_at_utc_B":1616568493,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The clan might have better absorbed into another one. This has happened with many tribes in the Americas due to low population sizes, shifting of communities, etc. So maybe look for the region that her tribe is originally from? There should be a tribal webpage that might have some general information on it. Edit: I found an interesting video about some of their practices and migration if you\u2019re interested! The other information I found was in long peer reviewed papers that I\u2019m unsure if you wanna pick through that. But here\u2019s a lecture on them! https:\/\/youtu.be\/FbFRlskXVVE","human_ref_B":"Tlingit is a broad culture group in Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska. They use totem poles and other wooden art, I think from cedar trees. With a lot of Native tribes the clan has to do with certain bodies of knowledge or skills like physical strength or medicine. Not sure where you\u2019re looking or what you\u2019re looking for but there is basic info on Wikipedia. If you\u2019re trying to make connections to people IRL I would recommend trying to make connections offline. Good luck! And I\u2019m sorry your grandmother isn\u2019t in good health - wishing you all well","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3672.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"4wlklu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Found a tooth, bits of skull and possible a vertebra. Tooth looks human but we don't know about the rest. Thoughts? Like the title says. We know the area it was found used to have pigs and goats so we think it's probably just that. We googled pigs and goats teeth and they certainly don't like like this which we think is definitely a human tooth. Any experts on here who could lend some advice? Thanks! http:\/\/imgur.com\/a\/EjXNR","c_root_id_A":"d685b0f","c_root_id_B":"d68174h","created_at_utc_A":1470600366,"created_at_utc_B":1470594225,"score_A":21,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Hello! Animal bones expert here! So I'm struggling with the skull fragments, as far as I know ( as I rarely encounter human bones) that is the correct thickness for human skull, but also for sheep and sheep sized animals. From the the cross section however the spongey bone looks or animally to me, but it is always hard to tell from pictures. The vertebrae I think is animal...but I don't know human vertebrae. The tooth in the center of the last picture is animal (If I'm guessing the size correctly then it is sheep\/goat). The thing that is a eye socket I'm struggling with, it seems to be very thick and slopes heavily towards the back of the skull, so I think animal. However I don't have any animal skulls on hand to compare. The molar that you are concerned about however is 100% human (pig is very different) TAKE THAT SHIT TO THE POLICE.","human_ref_B":"I can't tell what the bones are, but that looks very much like a human tooth. There are a million ways it could've got there without foul play or a burial site, but you never know. I suggest you contact your county coroner, they will check out the site and either open a criminal investigation if it's recent, or contact a forensic anthropologist if it's old.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6141.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"bxajs4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"I am asking anthropology - for a book recommendation on mental health in primitive man I'm just wondering if there are any good books about how prehistoric man coped with various mental health issues, or how the illnesses they encountered differed from ours? ​ Not sure if this belongs here, but it's also an interesting discussion","c_root_id_A":"eq4wz14","c_root_id_B":"eq596me","created_at_utc_A":1559787969,"created_at_utc_B":1559795465,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm sorry, I don't have book recs, and am not sure this will be considered entirely on topic. If not I apologize. My thought on this is: I don't know whether anyone's going to agree with me, but I have a feeling there wasn't as high a prevalance of mental illness in primitive man, depending upon how primitive you mean. While that may sound like a pat answer, I really think it's valid, for a few reasons: 1. Those who were significantly mentally ill were likely to have been ejected from the group, or else may have died earlier due to less self-care, etc. While some may have been kept around (and even used as conduits - for example, to the spirits), I have to think a fair percentage didn't get anywhere near the fair shake of surviving as today. Depending upon the actual mental illness, with no biochemical resources and no knowledge of psychiatry, I can't see how many would not have come to some bad end or other. 2. Today, when we have upsetting feelings, they have nowhere to go. We can't literally either fight or flee, usually. Back then, there was an actual, physical outlet for what was threatening people. If it was hunger, they actively went on the search for food. If it was an approaching tiger, they could run away, group together to shout it down or whatever. That adrenaline and other hormones was\/were all used up in \"doing\". We don't do that today, it gets bottled up, and we become neurotic. 3. As long as he was at least trying to do his part, I have to imagine primitive man - and primitive woman - felt like life was worth something: survival. Today we wonder what it's all for. I believe ancient man was introspective at times (hence things like religion), but ultimately the bottom line tended to be that surviving and making the young survive was a purpose, a solid one, and probably more than enough. We don't feel that way automatically anymore, and it causes no end of mental woes. 4. A mentally ill person might try to hide it. Even today that's true. 5. Until the Industrial Revolution, we weren't exposed to as many processed things of all kinds, food, environmentally, the gas we burn, contaminants, etc., etc., etc. Before that time things weren't so peachy either, with so many people on the planet and so many concentrated in cities, which might be filthy and disease-ridden. Before \\*that\\*, well before that, let's say prehistory technically (wherever that occured - writing happened at different times in different places), and going back and back and back, people were probably fewer and fewer and fewer. Less people +smaller collections of people per band-chemicals and rampant disease+more or less whole foods, or as close to that as possible given there was cooking=probably less illness of all kinds...including nerological. 6. With all of the above aside, we actually have no way of knowing how many people were born mentally ill or developed mentall illness in prehistory. Who knows - maybe those half-man, half-beast cave paintings were meant to be literal and were painted by some looney who was certain he'd seen them. I mean we really don't know. I have more reasons, but my fingers are getting tired, LOL.","human_ref_B":"Unfortunately, questions of this sort aren\u2019t falsifiable and so fall outside of the purview of anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7496.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"3heg8c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What came first? Toolmaking or control of fire? (x-post from \/r\/history) It seems like it's difficult to assign humankind's control of fire to an approximate date. What I want to know is, was the discovery of fire earlier than stone toolmaking? Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"cu6wnxo","c_root_id_B":"cu70krt","created_at_utc_A":1439895009,"created_at_utc_B":1439905679,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Control of fire would naturally require tools. Utilisation of fire however, would not.","human_ref_B":"Stone toolmaking is about 3 million years old, first evidence of controlled fire is about 500.000 years. However, note that some non-human primates today also carry and modify selected stones, so toolmaking might be even older.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10670.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"aejdny","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Anthropological research methodology I was wondering if anyone could recommend some research methodology texts. Whilst I have studied the subject, methodological field research was excluded, work was mostly archive\/library based research and texts.","c_root_id_A":"edq3f21","c_root_id_B":"edps8xx","created_at_utc_A":1547140518,"created_at_utc_B":1547134093,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"*Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes* by Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw is a pretty solid text and can be had for a few bucks online. It's a little dated, but the nuts and bolts of run-of-the-mill fieldwork haven't changed a ton. I had it assigned in both undergrad and grad school methods courses. Both courses included a bunch of more contemporary papers\/chapters\/books though, so depending on your interests I'd recommend one or more of the following: ​ George Marcus, \"Ethnography In\/Of the World System\" George Marcus, \"Multi-sited Ethnography: Five or Six Things I Know About it Now\" Matsutake Research Group, \"Matsutake Worlds\" Linda Tuhiwai Smith, *Decolonizing Methodologies* Gupta and Ferguson, \"Discipline and Practice: 'The Field' as Site, Method, and Location in Anthropology\" Comaroff and Comaroff, \"Ethnography on an Awkward Scale\" ​ Not an exhaustive list by any means, but might serve as a starting point!","human_ref_B":"I like this one from Angrosino on cultural anthropology and ethnography: link","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6425.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4grpag","c_root_id_B":"e4h34fu","created_at_utc_A":1534692455,"created_at_utc_B":1534703531,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"It kind of depends what you want to specialize in with archaeology. I do geochemistry in grad school and wish I would\u2019ve minored in chemistry in undergrad but that\u2019s not really applicable to everyone. I don\u2019t really know how it would help your employability unless you\u2019re looking for a research position in chem. I would recommend looking into GIS. It\u2019s something I use everyday and employers look for it. Ecology and geology are also solid minors.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ll tell you what I tell my students. Don\u2019t minor. It doesn\u2019t really mean that much. Double major (not dual degree) as it looks much better and it\u2019s only like 3-5 more classes than the minor. If you\u2019re not good at chemistry, I recommend geography with a certificate in GIS if it\u2019s offered. This makes you much more attractive to either employers or grad programs. Everyone needs GIS these days.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11076.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4gypm0","c_root_id_B":"e4h34fu","created_at_utc_A":1534699264,"created_at_utc_B":1534703531,"score_A":5,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Don't bother with the a double major or minor. When I was getting my Anthro degree I struggled with the same question. A few counselors, professors, and professionals set me straight. One of the great things about getting an Anthro degree is the amount of flexibility to take many classes outside of the major. Rather than focusing on another discipline, take a diverse roster of courses. I took economics, botany, history, evolutionary biology, political science, agriculture classes, and many more. I actually wouldn't have it any other way and it worked out so much better than having only focused on a minor subject. Also, Minors\/Double Majors play such a little role in your future career. People aren't going to hire you based on your degree exclusively and every year out of school your degree matters less and less. It's your work history that gets you where you want to go. If I were you? I'd kill it in my Archaeology classes, take some environmental econ & sciences classes, some classes I think were just fun, and try to get an internship at an archaeology firm, environmental firm, or something that relates to that. An internship makes you 10x more employable than a double major or a minor. Don't stress about it! Have fun and learn what you like. If you work hard you'll be hired.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ll tell you what I tell my students. Don\u2019t minor. It doesn\u2019t really mean that much. Double major (not dual degree) as it looks much better and it\u2019s only like 3-5 more classes than the minor. If you\u2019re not good at chemistry, I recommend geography with a certificate in GIS if it\u2019s offered. This makes you much more attractive to either employers or grad programs. Everyone needs GIS these days.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4267.0,"score_ratio":2.8} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4h34fu","c_root_id_B":"e4gszjy","created_at_utc_A":1534703531,"created_at_utc_B":1534693720,"score_A":14,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ll tell you what I tell my students. Don\u2019t minor. It doesn\u2019t really mean that much. Double major (not dual degree) as it looks much better and it\u2019s only like 3-5 more classes than the minor. If you\u2019re not good at chemistry, I recommend geography with a certificate in GIS if it\u2019s offered. This makes you much more attractive to either employers or grad programs. Everyone needs GIS these days.","human_ref_B":"I guess it really depends if your leaning more towards archaeology or conservation, as well as what type of conservation your talking about. Do you mean site preservation or artifact conservation? If you\u2019re thinking artifact conservation and don\u2019t like chemistry... you might want to reconsider. I would suggest taking A chemistry course or something, just to see how you do\/how you like it. If t ends up being awful, you have your answer about that. I have a Ba in archaeology and working in crm, but have volunteered\/interned in a conservation lab and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing right now. I\u2019m taking a chem class as the beginning of prerequisites for a possible master\u2019s, but if I end up hating the chemistry class then it probably isn\u2019t for me... In terms of employability in archaeological fieldwork, having a basic knowledge of chemistry might be helpful in a few random circumstances, but for the most part it\u2019s not really something you need. If chem isn\u2019t something your good at, I would find something related to archaeology that you\u2019re actually interested in. If your looking for more of a science that\u2019s more helpful in archaeology, geology is definitely where I would go.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9811.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4h34fu","c_root_id_B":"e4gy7xn","created_at_utc_A":1534703531,"created_at_utc_B":1534698792,"score_A":14,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019ll tell you what I tell my students. Don\u2019t minor. It doesn\u2019t really mean that much. Double major (not dual degree) as it looks much better and it\u2019s only like 3-5 more classes than the minor. If you\u2019re not good at chemistry, I recommend geography with a certificate in GIS if it\u2019s offered. This makes you much more attractive to either employers or grad programs. Everyone needs GIS these days.","human_ref_B":"I majored in archaeology, anthropology and classical civilizations. It was a great triple major","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4739.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4gypm0","c_root_id_B":"e4gszjy","created_at_utc_A":1534699264,"created_at_utc_B":1534693720,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Don't bother with the a double major or minor. When I was getting my Anthro degree I struggled with the same question. A few counselors, professors, and professionals set me straight. One of the great things about getting an Anthro degree is the amount of flexibility to take many classes outside of the major. Rather than focusing on another discipline, take a diverse roster of courses. I took economics, botany, history, evolutionary biology, political science, agriculture classes, and many more. I actually wouldn't have it any other way and it worked out so much better than having only focused on a minor subject. Also, Minors\/Double Majors play such a little role in your future career. People aren't going to hire you based on your degree exclusively and every year out of school your degree matters less and less. It's your work history that gets you where you want to go. If I were you? I'd kill it in my Archaeology classes, take some environmental econ & sciences classes, some classes I think were just fun, and try to get an internship at an archaeology firm, environmental firm, or something that relates to that. An internship makes you 10x more employable than a double major or a minor. Don't stress about it! Have fun and learn what you like. If you work hard you'll be hired.","human_ref_B":"I guess it really depends if your leaning more towards archaeology or conservation, as well as what type of conservation your talking about. Do you mean site preservation or artifact conservation? If you\u2019re thinking artifact conservation and don\u2019t like chemistry... you might want to reconsider. I would suggest taking A chemistry course or something, just to see how you do\/how you like it. If t ends up being awful, you have your answer about that. I have a Ba in archaeology and working in crm, but have volunteered\/interned in a conservation lab and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing right now. I\u2019m taking a chem class as the beginning of prerequisites for a possible master\u2019s, but if I end up hating the chemistry class then it probably isn\u2019t for me... In terms of employability in archaeological fieldwork, having a basic knowledge of chemistry might be helpful in a few random circumstances, but for the most part it\u2019s not really something you need. If chem isn\u2019t something your good at, I would find something related to archaeology that you\u2019re actually interested in. If your looking for more of a science that\u2019s more helpful in archaeology, geology is definitely where I would go.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5544.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"98kraw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Minor\/Double major with Anthropology? I am in college doing a BA in Anthropology, and want to know what minors\/majors are best to pair with it. My goal is to become an archaeologist or conservationist. My top choices are Chemistry (good for archaeology and field work) or Art History. My only concern is that I am not very good at Chemistry, but It may help my employability after college. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!","c_root_id_A":"e4gypm0","c_root_id_B":"e4gy7xn","created_at_utc_A":1534699264,"created_at_utc_B":1534698792,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Don't bother with the a double major or minor. When I was getting my Anthro degree I struggled with the same question. A few counselors, professors, and professionals set me straight. One of the great things about getting an Anthro degree is the amount of flexibility to take many classes outside of the major. Rather than focusing on another discipline, take a diverse roster of courses. I took economics, botany, history, evolutionary biology, political science, agriculture classes, and many more. I actually wouldn't have it any other way and it worked out so much better than having only focused on a minor subject. Also, Minors\/Double Majors play such a little role in your future career. People aren't going to hire you based on your degree exclusively and every year out of school your degree matters less and less. It's your work history that gets you where you want to go. If I were you? I'd kill it in my Archaeology classes, take some environmental econ & sciences classes, some classes I think were just fun, and try to get an internship at an archaeology firm, environmental firm, or something that relates to that. An internship makes you 10x more employable than a double major or a minor. Don't stress about it! Have fun and learn what you like. If you work hard you'll be hired.","human_ref_B":"I majored in archaeology, anthropology and classical civilizations. It was a great triple major","labels":1,"seconds_difference":472.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1r0cxt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Is there anything I can do with a major in Communications and a minor in Anthropology? I don't know if this is the best place to ask this but there seems to be some smart people who know their shit. But I am about to graduate with my major in communications but almost have a minor in anthropology. Just wondering if it would be worth it to finish it up? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cdibgbn","c_root_id_B":"cdiazhw","created_at_utc_A":1384900822,"created_at_utc_B":1384899811,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You can get any job that requires you to have a BA. Congratulations! If you can finish your minor by all means do so. My BA is in linguistics, not anthropology, and I had a TESL minor. I dropped it because a) I had a terrible case of senioritis, was struggling with the classes in my major, and having to do the rest of the TESL courses especially the practicum would have just done me in; and b) I realised I didn't really want to teach ESL ever. But if you can do it without badly affecting your sanity, go for it.","human_ref_B":"You can learn more about anthropology! But in terms of jobs, not really, no. Unless you want to pursue a graduate degree in anthropology and try to cut it in academia. But go ahead and finish up the minor. You can never have too much education!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1011.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"vm1nbz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I want to study social anthropology I have made this major decision in my senior year that I wanna study social anthropology, culture is something I\u2019m really interested in. Something I\u2019m happy that I figured out, so that\u2019s why I wanna ask the people that maybe already have studied it, how it is and what\u2019s expected from me. Eventually some tips? Dearest an anxious senior from \ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddf4","c_root_id_A":"idz57av","c_root_id_B":"idyviiz","created_at_utc_A":1656362915,"created_at_utc_B":1656358912,"score_A":18,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"i did it for my BA and loved it. youre expected to read a lot, when i say a lot i mean A LOT (and not just anthropological studies), analyse, think critically, and learn to appeal and speak to people for your field work. those are the skills i most developed during my years. if you dont keep up with the readings you wont be able to follow or participate in seminars. however, i think anthropology is worth it if you want to pursue an academic career. otherwise, you dont really know where youll end up, usually in HR\/marketing or something similar.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m an anthropology & sociology major When I decided that I wanted to pursue that major and career I announced it it to my first anthropology professor. He encouraged me but he also warned me that I need to comfortable with the insecurity of unknown. You will not know where you are going to end up. If you think you can handle that I\u2019d say go for it without hesitation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4003.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"vm1nbz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I want to study social anthropology I have made this major decision in my senior year that I wanna study social anthropology, culture is something I\u2019m really interested in. Something I\u2019m happy that I figured out, so that\u2019s why I wanna ask the people that maybe already have studied it, how it is and what\u2019s expected from me. Eventually some tips? Dearest an anxious senior from \ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddf4","c_root_id_A":"idz3vgz","c_root_id_B":"idz57av","created_at_utc_A":1656362371,"created_at_utc_B":1656362915,"score_A":13,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"i\u2019m studying social anthropology at edinburgh university and my whole first year was very introductory. i didn\u2019t know a lot about it before coming in and i didn\u2019t feel behind. i would say that any prior knowledge of colonial history would\u2019ve been helpful because it\u2019s very relevant in anthropology and wasn\u2019t something i learned about in my schooling before then","human_ref_B":"i did it for my BA and loved it. youre expected to read a lot, when i say a lot i mean A LOT (and not just anthropological studies), analyse, think critically, and learn to appeal and speak to people for your field work. those are the skills i most developed during my years. if you dont keep up with the readings you wont be able to follow or participate in seminars. however, i think anthropology is worth it if you want to pursue an academic career. otherwise, you dont really know where youll end up, usually in HR\/marketing or something similar.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":544.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"9h9h5f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"How has the field of anthropology changed? For all the people here who have been on campus studying or teaching in the last few years, have you had any experiences with professors or heads of departments pushing certain conclusions? How much academic freedom is there at your institution? I left early in about 2013 and didn't finish my anthropology degree, so I'm curious how things have changed.","c_root_id_A":"e6an7kb","c_root_id_B":"e6buxj3","created_at_utc_A":1537410810,"created_at_utc_B":1537464870,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm in a pretty large department, so there really is no singular view being pushed by anyone on the department. There's a wide variety of work being done with different approaches in all four subfields. Different people teach the sociocultural theory courses at the graduate level, and there's no one set way to teach it so no one particular view is pushed that way. I do not feel that my academic freedom is restricted at all, or at least I haven't felt it yet.","human_ref_B":"In the US I am finding that more and more subdivisions are being shoved under the umbrella of Anthropology. In the UK Archaeology is it's own discipline but is generally filed under Anthropology here, as well as linguistics to a degree and some forensic studies. There has also been a steady decrease in funding, less free educational programs and little to no job training. I had three internships and four field schools while I was an undergrad more than a decade ago: and I found them all myself by cold emailing professors at other locations. As grim as it sounds, I am not sure it's improved in any way. There were some real shining stars in our department who couldn't get work. I stopped being an alumni speaker as my school because I honestly felt uncomfortable pushing the department's agenda so they could keep majors. I would be singing a different tune at a UK institution as it's works differently and the opportunities are better. Academically, I haven't encountered anyone pushing a specific view. Every professor I have had was supportive of whatever fascination a student had and would encourage it. I once had to change a paper because of my professor giving me a good rebuttal on an ethics issue, but I wouldn't say I was forced to change it but rather I was convinced of another approach.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":54060.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ngbwnt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Seeking Anthropology mentor for advice in pursuing a degree A little about me, I\u2019m 28 yr old Air Force veteran who\u2019s been interested in Anthropology since I was a child. One of my earliest memories was when my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, this was around age four or five. When I said I wanted to be an Archeologist he replied in dismay that they don\u2019t make much money and so I spent the next ten or so years trying to make my dad proud, pursuing baseball and later the military. I\u2019m now done with the sinking ship that is the military, but I don\u2019t know where to begin. Thank you for your time and consideration.","c_root_id_A":"gys1d3l","c_root_id_B":"gysbzt0","created_at_utc_A":1621479617,"created_at_utc_B":1621485612,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Just want to wish you good luck. If it\u2019s something you really want to do, then follow your heart and do it. You\u2019re not too old to enter a PhD program now. You should know of course that PhD programs are very demanding and require a lot of reading and a lot of self-discipline. It\u2019s hard to go back to school but the fact that you\u2019re a vet is an advantage in my opinion because some people just can\u2019t handle going from being a working adult to being a student again, being told what to do, having to follow orders, being tested and examined all the time, etc. Know that if and when you finish your PhD jobs will not be aplenty. You\u2019ll almost certainly have to relocate to where the job is (if you\u2019re seeking an academic job). All that being said, I have several friends who are archaeologists and Anthro professors and they love what they do!","human_ref_B":"I started my undergrad at 34 went straight through a master\u2019s program and have been working in archaeology ever since. You will need a bachelors to get your foot in the door in archaeology. A master\u2019s allows you a lot more career flexibility. I have been working in cultural resources for 6 years and I love it. I am pretty busy, but I am to provide any help that I can.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5995.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ngbwnt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Seeking Anthropology mentor for advice in pursuing a degree A little about me, I\u2019m 28 yr old Air Force veteran who\u2019s been interested in Anthropology since I was a child. One of my earliest memories was when my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, this was around age four or five. When I said I wanted to be an Archeologist he replied in dismay that they don\u2019t make much money and so I spent the next ten or so years trying to make my dad proud, pursuing baseball and later the military. I\u2019m now done with the sinking ship that is the military, but I don\u2019t know where to begin. Thank you for your time and consideration.","c_root_id_A":"gyrz8i3","c_root_id_B":"gysbzt0","created_at_utc_A":1621478527,"created_at_utc_B":1621485612,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"There's been no shortage of vets in my experience. Maybe 20% of my colleagues in school and anthro\/museum work are vets, mixed between those who got out of the armed forces ASAP, XX year vets, and those who went all the way until retirement. The biggest ticker is what draws your curiosity and how do you think you can make that into a lifestyle, or better yet, a living?","human_ref_B":"I started my undergrad at 34 went straight through a master\u2019s program and have been working in archaeology ever since. You will need a bachelors to get your foot in the door in archaeology. A master\u2019s allows you a lot more career flexibility. I have been working in cultural resources for 6 years and I love it. I am pretty busy, but I am to provide any help that I can.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7085.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ngbwnt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Seeking Anthropology mentor for advice in pursuing a degree A little about me, I\u2019m 28 yr old Air Force veteran who\u2019s been interested in Anthropology since I was a child. One of my earliest memories was when my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, this was around age four or five. When I said I wanted to be an Archeologist he replied in dismay that they don\u2019t make much money and so I spent the next ten or so years trying to make my dad proud, pursuing baseball and later the military. I\u2019m now done with the sinking ship that is the military, but I don\u2019t know where to begin. Thank you for your time and consideration.","c_root_id_A":"gyrz8i3","c_root_id_B":"gys1d3l","created_at_utc_A":1621478527,"created_at_utc_B":1621479617,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There's been no shortage of vets in my experience. Maybe 20% of my colleagues in school and anthro\/museum work are vets, mixed between those who got out of the armed forces ASAP, XX year vets, and those who went all the way until retirement. The biggest ticker is what draws your curiosity and how do you think you can make that into a lifestyle, or better yet, a living?","human_ref_B":"Just want to wish you good luck. If it\u2019s something you really want to do, then follow your heart and do it. You\u2019re not too old to enter a PhD program now. You should know of course that PhD programs are very demanding and require a lot of reading and a lot of self-discipline. It\u2019s hard to go back to school but the fact that you\u2019re a vet is an advantage in my opinion because some people just can\u2019t handle going from being a working adult to being a student again, being told what to do, having to follow orders, being tested and examined all the time, etc. Know that if and when you finish your PhD jobs will not be aplenty. You\u2019ll almost certainly have to relocate to where the job is (if you\u2019re seeking an academic job). All that being said, I have several friends who are archaeologists and Anthro professors and they love what they do!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1090.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohghb2","c_root_id_B":"dohhr4q","created_at_utc_A":1508239551,"created_at_utc_B":1508242081,"score_A":32,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"I graduated a year and a half ago and I'm a mailman now. Timing was off to get into Cultural Resource Management because by the time I finished with summer research projects it was mid-October and the digging season was coming to an end. I got the job with Canada Post, and while it's strenuous, stressful, and doesn't have much to do with my field of interest, it pays well and has job security and a pension and all that crap.","human_ref_B":"I was a CRM archaeologist for 9 years and loved every second of it. I had a flexible schedule, interesting coworkers, and an outdoor office, not to mention my job was digging or hiking for artifacts. I moved to New Mexico from the North East and documented more sherds and paleo points than I can remember. I hiked mountains and camped for 8 days at a time with 6 day weekends. I couldn't believe I was getting paid to do it. However, if you stay in CRM long enough, you find yourself asking this question: Will you go all the way and get a master's degree or PhD, will you live the vagabond life forever as a shovel bum, *or* will you change careers and go back to the normal world? I knew before I met my wife I would hang up the trowel and hiking boots someday, and when I decided to leave the career I had been at for nearly a decade, it was an adventure in itself. I now work in the challenging and completely different field of solar PV and it's great, too, but in very different ways. Coming home every night is one major advantage. To all the cynics who say that you can't get a job in anthro or archaeology, you absolutely can, but you must be willing to work hard, network, and relocate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2530.0,"score_ratio":1.5625} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohhk7d","c_root_id_B":"dohhr4q","created_at_utc_A":1508241720,"created_at_utc_B":1508242081,"score_A":20,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"I used to work in marketing, where I definitely used my degree (cultural\/social). I've also done some nonprofit stuff. Now I work with undeserved students in higher ed. If you're unable to apply your degree, you might not be thinking broadly enough. The job description is probably not going to say \"anthropologist.\"","human_ref_B":"I was a CRM archaeologist for 9 years and loved every second of it. I had a flexible schedule, interesting coworkers, and an outdoor office, not to mention my job was digging or hiking for artifacts. I moved to New Mexico from the North East and documented more sherds and paleo points than I can remember. I hiked mountains and camped for 8 days at a time with 6 day weekends. I couldn't believe I was getting paid to do it. However, if you stay in CRM long enough, you find yourself asking this question: Will you go all the way and get a master's degree or PhD, will you live the vagabond life forever as a shovel bum, *or* will you change careers and go back to the normal world? I knew before I met my wife I would hang up the trowel and hiking boots someday, and when I decided to leave the career I had been at for nearly a decade, it was an adventure in itself. I now work in the challenging and completely different field of solar PV and it's great, too, but in very different ways. Coming home every night is one major advantage. To all the cynics who say that you can't get a job in anthro or archaeology, you absolutely can, but you must be willing to work hard, network, and relocate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":361.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohkfnl","c_root_id_B":"dohisz6","created_at_utc_A":1508246288,"created_at_utc_B":1508243864,"score_A":15,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Insurance fraud investigation and construction inspection.","human_ref_B":"I work as a sales representative for a Christian publishing company. Using the \u201csocial\/cultural\u201d side of anthro through interactions with various people, but that\u2019s basic customer service anyways. Haha.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2424.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohjpiz","c_root_id_B":"dohkfnl","created_at_utc_A":1508245250,"created_at_utc_B":1508246288,"score_A":6,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Aircraft Dispatcher","human_ref_B":"Insurance fraud investigation and construction inspection.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1038.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohpie1","c_root_id_B":"dohnav9","created_at_utc_A":1508252418,"created_at_utc_B":1508249930,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","human_ref_B":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2488.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmr2z","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508249280,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":8,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I am a photographer for a local company.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3138.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmlsg","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508249104,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Qualitative researcher and behavior technician for ABA therapy","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3314.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohisz6","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508243864,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I work as a sales representative for a Christian publishing company. Using the \u201csocial\/cultural\u201d side of anthro through interactions with various people, but that\u2019s basic customer service anyways. Haha.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8554.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohjpiz","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508245250,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Aircraft Dispatcher","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7168.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmavg","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508248733,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"IT management in HigherEd.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3685.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmgfc","c_root_id_B":"dohpie1","created_at_utc_A":1508248922,"created_at_utc_B":1508252418,"score_A":3,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Medicine. I took my pre-med courses alongside my major.","human_ref_B":"BA in archaeology and MSc in Social Anthropology. I now work in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Not an easy step to be honest, even after i focused my MSc on humanitarianism, i needed to do internships and short contracts before getting an entry level position.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3496.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohrc26","c_root_id_B":"dohnav9","created_at_utc_A":1508254388,"created_at_utc_B":1508249930,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","human_ref_B":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4458.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohq4ku","c_root_id_B":"dohrc26","created_at_utc_A":1508253087,"created_at_utc_B":1508254388,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'm a SQL developer.","human_ref_B":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1301.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmr2z","c_root_id_B":"dohrc26","created_at_utc_A":1508249280,"created_at_utc_B":1508254388,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I am a photographer for a local company.","human_ref_B":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5108.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohrc26","c_root_id_B":"dohmlsg","created_at_utc_A":1508254388,"created_at_utc_B":1508249104,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","human_ref_B":"Qualitative researcher and behavior technician for ABA therapy","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5284.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohisz6","c_root_id_B":"dohrc26","created_at_utc_A":1508243864,"created_at_utc_B":1508254388,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I work as a sales representative for a Christian publishing company. Using the \u201csocial\/cultural\u201d side of anthro through interactions with various people, but that\u2019s basic customer service anyways. Haha.","human_ref_B":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10524.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohjpiz","c_root_id_B":"dohrc26","created_at_utc_A":1508245250,"created_at_utc_B":1508254388,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Aircraft Dispatcher","human_ref_B":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9138.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmavg","c_root_id_B":"dohrc26","created_at_utc_A":1508248733,"created_at_utc_B":1508254388,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"IT management in HigherEd.","human_ref_B":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5655.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohrc26","c_root_id_B":"dohmgfc","created_at_utc_A":1508254388,"created_at_utc_B":1508248922,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Data analyst\/unix monkey. MA in social anthropology. Never got to use my anthropology for anything but reference\/research\/writing skills.","human_ref_B":"Medicine. I took my pre-med courses alongside my major.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5466.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohnav9","c_root_id_B":"dohmlsg","created_at_utc_A":1508249930,"created_at_utc_B":1508249104,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","human_ref_B":"Qualitative researcher and behavior technician for ABA therapy","labels":1,"seconds_difference":826.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohnav9","c_root_id_B":"dohisz6","created_at_utc_A":1508249930,"created_at_utc_B":1508243864,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","human_ref_B":"I work as a sales representative for a Christian publishing company. Using the \u201csocial\/cultural\u201d side of anthro through interactions with various people, but that\u2019s basic customer service anyways. Haha.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6066.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohnav9","c_root_id_B":"dohjpiz","created_at_utc_A":1508249930,"created_at_utc_B":1508245250,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","human_ref_B":"Aircraft Dispatcher","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4680.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmavg","c_root_id_B":"dohnav9","created_at_utc_A":1508248733,"created_at_utc_B":1508249930,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"IT management in HigherEd.","human_ref_B":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. Oddly enough though, I've found that my doctoral work is pretty much anthropological with an occupational twist - I've come full circle.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1197.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"dohmgfc","c_root_id_B":"dohnav9","created_at_utc_A":1508248922,"created_at_utc_B":1508249930,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Medicine. I took my pre-med courses alongside my major.","human_ref_B":"I'm an occupational therapist and I'm also in a phd program. Anthropology was pretty much the best foundation I could have had when learning to become an OT. 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Hehe","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1179.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doib023","c_root_id_B":"doia0ms","created_at_utc_A":1508274153,"created_at_utc_B":1508273174,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Got my Bachelors in Anth, applied to grad schools. Got one but no financial support. Managed a liquor store for a few years. Got sick of it, went back and got a second bachelors in civil engineering. Now I do that.","human_ref_B":"Human Resources for a major and very ethnically diverse city.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":979.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doib023","c_root_id_B":"doi0on1","created_at_utc_A":1508274153,"created_at_utc_B":1508264005,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got my Bachelors in Anth, applied to grad schools. Got one but no financial support. Managed a liquor store for a few years. Got sick of it, went back and got a second bachelors in civil engineering. Now I do that.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology (and English). I landed a copyediting job at a psychology journal (two of the managing editors at the organization also had backgrounds in anthropology), became a managing editor, then switched over to a fed job in editing and graphics\/production. I also freelance on the side--typically, editing papers for marketing, psych, and economic journals by ESL authors. None of my work has been in the usual anthropology wheelhouse, but to this day I still feel like my undergrad education informs my work and perspective.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10148.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doib023","c_root_id_B":"doi0sdy","created_at_utc_A":1508274153,"created_at_utc_B":1508264111,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got my Bachelors in Anth, applied to grad schools. Got one but no financial support. Managed a liquor store for a few years. Got sick of it, went back and got a second bachelors in civil engineering. Now I do that.","human_ref_B":"I got a second BA in computer science. On my resume the anthro BA tends to get me weird looks haha","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10042.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doib023","c_root_id_B":"doi0ykr","created_at_utc_A":1508274153,"created_at_utc_B":1508264289,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Got my Bachelors in Anth, applied to grad schools. Got one but no financial support. Managed a liquor store for a few years. Got sick of it, went back and got a second bachelors in civil engineering. Now I do that.","human_ref_B":"BS in anthropology, I am special education teacher.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9864.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doi9t91","c_root_id_B":"doi0on1","created_at_utc_A":1508272974,"created_at_utc_B":1508264005,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in a record store & play in a band. Hehe","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology (and English). I landed a copyediting job at a psychology journal (two of the managing editors at the organization also had backgrounds in anthropology), became a managing editor, then switched over to a fed job in editing and graphics\/production. I also freelance on the side--typically, editing papers for marketing, psych, and economic journals by ESL authors. None of my work has been in the usual anthropology wheelhouse, but to this day I still feel like my undergrad education informs my work and perspective.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8969.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doi9t91","c_root_id_B":"doi0sdy","created_at_utc_A":1508272974,"created_at_utc_B":1508264111,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in a record store & play in a band. Hehe","human_ref_B":"I got a second BA in computer science. On my resume the anthro BA tends to get me weird looks haha","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8863.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doi9t91","c_root_id_B":"doi0ykr","created_at_utc_A":1508272974,"created_at_utc_B":1508264289,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I work in a record store & play in a band. Hehe","human_ref_B":"BS in anthropology, I am special education teacher.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8685.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doia0ms","c_root_id_B":"doi0on1","created_at_utc_A":1508273174,"created_at_utc_B":1508264005,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Human Resources for a major and very ethnically diverse city.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthropology (and English). I landed a copyediting job at a psychology journal (two of the managing editors at the organization also had backgrounds in anthropology), became a managing editor, then switched over to a fed job in editing and graphics\/production. I also freelance on the side--typically, editing papers for marketing, psych, and economic journals by ESL authors. None of my work has been in the usual anthropology wheelhouse, but to this day I still feel like my undergrad education informs my work and perspective.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9169.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doia0ms","c_root_id_B":"doi0sdy","created_at_utc_A":1508273174,"created_at_utc_B":1508264111,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Human Resources for a major and very ethnically diverse city.","human_ref_B":"I got a second BA in computer science. On my resume the anthro BA tends to get me weird looks haha","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9063.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"76xf02","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Those who majored in anthropology, what do you do for a living?","c_root_id_A":"doia0ms","c_root_id_B":"doi0ykr","created_at_utc_A":1508273174,"created_at_utc_B":1508264289,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Human Resources for a major and very ethnically diverse city.","human_ref_B":"BS in anthropology, I am special education teacher.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8885.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8j6oyo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"BA in anthropology but now working in a different field? HI, I'm looking for someone that has a bachelors degree in anthropology but now works in a different field. I'm finishing up my undergrad coursework and for a professionalization class I need to interview someone who now works outside of the field. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dyxe4v7","c_root_id_B":"dyxfdpl","created_at_utc_A":1526245882,"created_at_utc_B":1526247171,"score_A":8,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Maybe related. Have my BA in anthropology and I work in a museum with historical collections.","human_ref_B":"BA in anthro from UCSC In 1976. JD from Santa Clara University law school in 1981. Currently semi-retired, working part time out of my home as a research attorney. My anthropology background taught me to read critically, think logically, and write clearly, all skills that served me well in law school and in legal practice.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1289.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"8j6oyo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"BA in anthropology but now working in a different field? HI, I'm looking for someone that has a bachelors degree in anthropology but now works in a different field. I'm finishing up my undergrad coursework and for a professionalization class I need to interview someone who now works outside of the field. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dyxg0mm","c_root_id_B":"dyxe4v7","created_at_utc_A":1526247826,"created_at_utc_B":1526245882,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"BA in Anthro with a concentration in archaeology from the University of Colorado. Worked in marketing for awhile for a big natural foods company, took time off to have a kid, and going back for my Masters in Public Health to work in population health management. You can do just about anything with a BA in Anthro if you frame it right :)","human_ref_B":"Maybe related. Have my BA in anthropology and I work in a museum with historical collections.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1944.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"8j6oyo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"BA in anthropology but now working in a different field? HI, I'm looking for someone that has a bachelors degree in anthropology but now works in a different field. I'm finishing up my undergrad coursework and for a professionalization class I need to interview someone who now works outside of the field. Thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dyxjjn7","c_root_id_B":"dyxjuua","created_at_utc_A":1526251730,"created_at_utc_B":1526252095,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm married to a nurse with a BA in anthropology, I can pass her info along if you like.","human_ref_B":"BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. Worked at startups for a few years, eventually ended up in Sales. I learned a lot from sales but I started to get burned out on the \"always chasing\/hunting\" life. So now I am in the middle of switching to a UX Career. It combines my love of business, technology, and human behavior. Plus I get to be creative, which is very important to me. I can't say enough about how learning Anthropology has helped me in every single aspect of my career whether it was operations, sales, or UX. I understand people in a fundamentally different way than most people I have worked for, and it has given me a the edge in lots of situations. I think qualitatively and interpersonally in a lot of areas where most people only think data.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":365.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"n4c6wq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"body mods in the field of anthropology im sure this has been answered elsewhere, but i figured i would ask anyways. what is the anthropology professional environment like? i currently have four face peircings, and dont really plan on getting more, but also would not like to take them out. i do want a lot of tattoos but i dont think those will be an issue becuase of my plans for placement. because of COVID i have never been to school in person, but i have enough credits to be considered a junior come the fall, so next semester i will begin looking for internships. i have absolutely no connections or networking ability at the moment and just want to get an idea of what the work environment i'm going into is like :)","c_root_id_A":"gwuz4ow","c_root_id_B":"gwv14a7","created_at_utc_A":1620094711,"created_at_utc_B":1620095727,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"so I think depending on what institution.. it'll depend. I interned at an art museum for a year and there was a preparator that had tattoos alllll over his body, on his neck, and he even had really big gauges. Now I'm at a multi-disciplinary museum and there's a collections manager that has tattoos very visible on her arms as well. So me personally, I've gotten more comfortable with having visible tattoos and I only have a nose stud. It just depends so when looking for work communicate that or sort of see how the feelings are on it. not sure if this is helpful but my personal experiences helped me","human_ref_B":"I can only speak from my experience in the US. Within academia body modification isn\u2019t frowned upon, partially because of liability and partially because anthropologists tend to see variations in human bodies and behaviors as inherently interesting. I know one professor who spent years stretching his earlobes out with increasingly large obsidian disks that he knapped himself. Outside of academia it really varies a whole lot depending on industry. In Cultural Resource Management it probably won\u2019t be a problem. In forensics you\u2019re essentially part of the law enforcement world so piercings would likely be a problem. CRM for a federal agency might be somewhere in between. Good luck!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1016.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"n4c6wq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"body mods in the field of anthropology im sure this has been answered elsewhere, but i figured i would ask anyways. what is the anthropology professional environment like? i currently have four face peircings, and dont really plan on getting more, but also would not like to take them out. i do want a lot of tattoos but i dont think those will be an issue becuase of my plans for placement. because of COVID i have never been to school in person, but i have enough credits to be considered a junior come the fall, so next semester i will begin looking for internships. i have absolutely no connections or networking ability at the moment and just want to get an idea of what the work environment i'm going into is like :)","c_root_id_A":"gwuz4ow","c_root_id_B":"gwvczpq","created_at_utc_A":1620094711,"created_at_utc_B":1620102542,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"so I think depending on what institution.. it'll depend. I interned at an art museum for a year and there was a preparator that had tattoos alllll over his body, on his neck, and he even had really big gauges. Now I'm at a multi-disciplinary museum and there's a collections manager that has tattoos very visible on her arms as well. So me personally, I've gotten more comfortable with having visible tattoos and I only have a nose stud. It just depends so when looking for work communicate that or sort of see how the feelings are on it. not sure if this is helpful but my personal experiences helped me","human_ref_B":"Like others said, it totally depends where you are and what you're doing. Chipping away at the ground on a CRM project? Most likely it won't matter. You're a man and you want to interview mothers in the Hofriyati community? Give up now. However, as the famous Tom Wolf said: >\"I have discovered that for me, it is much more effective to arrive in any situation as a man from Mars than to try and fit in,\" he said.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7831.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"8jcpoy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"If humanity had no population bottleneck, what would humans look like today? Hello! I am a trained cultural anthropologist and I\u2019ve always been fascinated with biodiversity especially how it relates to humankind. I am hoping to get opinions from some physical anthropologists on how humans may look today if we did not have a population bottleneck 50,000-100,000 years ago!","c_root_id_A":"dyzphdz","c_root_id_B":"dyzqjo4","created_at_utc_A":1526346780,"created_at_utc_B":1526347869,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Do you mean the black death? I heard a pretty interesting theory that the black death increased worker value, and basically opened up the job market, which was a significant contributing factor for the Renaissance.","human_ref_B":"Are we sure there even was a population bottleneck? My understanding was recent evidence indicates we were more widespread 50-100kya than previously thought making any bottleneck unlikely.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1089.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2a1b8h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Resident Experts, would you care to share any information on your current, and past, research\/work? I have been coming to this sub for a while, and I've often wondered what the backgrounds of the various expert voices here are. The flair gives a little indication, but I've been curious about reading any published work they may have produced, or just a synopsis of their research interests and projects.","c_root_id_A":"ciqnfjw","c_root_id_B":"ciqy4qb","created_at_utc_A":1404744063,"created_at_utc_B":1404764853,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Problem with answering this is it immediately strips away any veneer of anonymity. I think for many of us that veneer is... well, rather thin anyway. But if I describe my research it's pretty much gone. So all I'll say is that my research has involved digging up lost temples; avoiding poisonous snakes, wild elephants, and tripwired shotguns; exploring abandoned islands; living in a monastery; and capsizing a dugout canoe in a crocodile infested* lake... Archaeology really can be awesome sometimes. However, it's also involved thawing out the ground with electric fan heaters in order to excavate; countless hours spent troweling\/sweeping\/hoeing dirt; days lost to labelling photographs; shitty salaries, job instability and an awful lot of aches and pains. Archaeology can also suck royally. *OK, OK, it wasn't really infested, there were just a few large muggers in the lake, but infested just sounds better...","human_ref_B":"Well, I spent the last couple months following a network (~120 people) on twitter (I'd say that's about 200~600 tweets per minute?), reading a lot of blog posts (~15 blogs, amounting to about 20~30 blogs posts per day), \"monitoring\" two large-ish Facebook group\/page (6k+ members\/7k+ likes), listening to ~3 podcasts and watching 3~4 hours on YouTube per week. On the whole, I'm spending close to 16 hours per day on my notebook. In the last two weeks, I've been trying to interview some of them by Skype, but so far I've only managed to get one interview. All of this around one subject: anime and manga reviews (or, rather, the reviewers). I'm interested in how just a few people concentrate enough influence to define what's worth of watching\/reading, and what is not, and how they end up influencing the market as a whole - be it by the consumer side (for instance, when they set \"trends\" of liking\/disliking a certain product, and thus influence the sales of said product) or by the industry side (for instance, by \"hyping\" a series until there's a considerable demand, or even by being \"consultors\" to publishers). They are, in a way, *marchands d'art* (or even curators), as well as critics, for a kind of Japanese art in the West. So far, I have no official publications (although my first peer-reviewed article is supposed to come out this month), since I'm mostly focused on researching (and, in a every-day-nearer-future, writing my Master thesis). But since I don't write in English, this doesn't matter :P","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20790.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"rla1hf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The oldest profession I've often heard of prostitution as the oldest profession or the first profession. Which makes me wonder how far back can we identify prostitution in cultures as a means of making up a significant portion of one's income (if be it through a pimp or some other authoritative figure)? Was is it something that starting appearing with the rise of large permanent settlements? There is evidence to suggest that our closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees, practice a form of prostitution using valuable food as currency. So, would dedicated prostitution be even older than that stage in our development?","c_root_id_A":"hpfxxzc","c_root_id_B":"hpgnb8d","created_at_utc_A":1640105351,"created_at_utc_B":1640115333,"score_A":16,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"The unspoken issue is how we are defining \"profession\". The use of the chimpanzee example seems to define professionalism as any sort of exchange of labor for something else, but that is a pretty easily disputed one. For example, if I help my friend move and they pay for dinner at the end of the day as thanks, would I be a \"professional\" mover? So perhaps professionalism is about subsistence--it is labor by which one subsists, so I am not a professional mover if my friend buys me dinner, but I am a professional mover if that is how I earn the money I use to live. In that case then the oldest profession is forager or something, and the natural world is full of professional hunters in the form of tigers and professional photosynthesizes in the form of oak tress. This is obviously a bad definition, so what if we combine the two--a professional is somebody who subsists via labor done in exchange for payment. There are a couple problems with this one I won't get into, but a major one is that it is too narrow: you can be a professional editor even if you also have a job waiting tables. For that matter many people would consider themselves \"college students\" rather than \"professional waiters\" even if they wait tables for subsistence. Which is all a way of saying that professionalism is about social role, somebody is a professional mover if that is how their labor is socially categorized. So the question then becomes, is prostitute the earliest example of labor as social definition? To which the answer is obviously 1) we have absolutely no way of knowing that, but 2) probably not. After all we remains we can plausibly interpret as \"ritual specialist\" or something before we have evidence for prostitution as a social role. That first point (that we honestly would have no way of knowing) brings what I think to be the more interesting avenue of inquiry here is by asking why, exactly, \"prostitution\" rather than basket weaving or fishing or flint knapping is deemed the \"oldest profession\". The answer, as it so often is, turns out to be the fetishistic orientalism of Rudyard Kipling, or at least that sort of general milieu of late Victorians.^1 When we say \"prostitution is the oldest profession\" we are saying nothing about the past and nothing about prostitution, but we are saying a great deal about current perceptions about prostitution (and, incidentally, gender roles). It is worth noting here that there are less squishy definitions of professionalism, but they rely on either coinage and regularized payment or the existence of labor organized in such a way that it can define its membership, and none would grant the title of \"oldest\" to prostitution] ^1 Forgot to cite [the attribution to Kipling of the earliest designation of the earliest profession, although it is worth noting that Wikipedia has a number of earlier, non prostitution related uses of the phrase).","human_ref_B":"Just to put this out there, the people who call Prostitution the oldest profession, have been mostly men. So...What about midwifery? Or wet nurses... or child care. Are those considered jobs if the people who did them were compensated in some way?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9982.0,"score_ratio":1.3125} {"post_id":"rla1hf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The oldest profession I've often heard of prostitution as the oldest profession or the first profession. Which makes me wonder how far back can we identify prostitution in cultures as a means of making up a significant portion of one's income (if be it through a pimp or some other authoritative figure)? Was is it something that starting appearing with the rise of large permanent settlements? There is evidence to suggest that our closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees, practice a form of prostitution using valuable food as currency. So, would dedicated prostitution be even older than that stage in our development?","c_root_id_A":"hpf2zdo","c_root_id_B":"hpgnb8d","created_at_utc_A":1640090897,"created_at_utc_B":1640115333,"score_A":6,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"But couldn\u2019t you then say that body guard is just as old? Or soldier, or what you want to call it. I\u2019m not at all familiar with chimpansee\u2019s customs, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they reward the ones who defend against other tribes\/ predators. At least I would expect that early humans did that. Also hunters - I\u2019m sure they got some sort of a reward for being useful to the tribe. I\u2019m just guessing here, so anyone who knows better is more than welcome to correct me!","human_ref_B":"Just to put this out there, the people who call Prostitution the oldest profession, have been mostly men. So...What about midwifery? Or wet nurses... or child care. Are those considered jobs if the people who did them were compensated in some way?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24436.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"rla1hf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The oldest profession I've often heard of prostitution as the oldest profession or the first profession. Which makes me wonder how far back can we identify prostitution in cultures as a means of making up a significant portion of one's income (if be it through a pimp or some other authoritative figure)? Was is it something that starting appearing with the rise of large permanent settlements? There is evidence to suggest that our closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees, practice a form of prostitution using valuable food as currency. So, would dedicated prostitution be even older than that stage in our development?","c_root_id_A":"hpf2zdo","c_root_id_B":"hpfxxzc","created_at_utc_A":1640090897,"created_at_utc_B":1640105351,"score_A":6,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"But couldn\u2019t you then say that body guard is just as old? Or soldier, or what you want to call it. I\u2019m not at all familiar with chimpansee\u2019s customs, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they reward the ones who defend against other tribes\/ predators. At least I would expect that early humans did that. Also hunters - I\u2019m sure they got some sort of a reward for being useful to the tribe. I\u2019m just guessing here, so anyone who knows better is more than welcome to correct me!","human_ref_B":"The unspoken issue is how we are defining \"profession\". The use of the chimpanzee example seems to define professionalism as any sort of exchange of labor for something else, but that is a pretty easily disputed one. For example, if I help my friend move and they pay for dinner at the end of the day as thanks, would I be a \"professional\" mover? So perhaps professionalism is about subsistence--it is labor by which one subsists, so I am not a professional mover if my friend buys me dinner, but I am a professional mover if that is how I earn the money I use to live. In that case then the oldest profession is forager or something, and the natural world is full of professional hunters in the form of tigers and professional photosynthesizes in the form of oak tress. This is obviously a bad definition, so what if we combine the two--a professional is somebody who subsists via labor done in exchange for payment. There are a couple problems with this one I won't get into, but a major one is that it is too narrow: you can be a professional editor even if you also have a job waiting tables. For that matter many people would consider themselves \"college students\" rather than \"professional waiters\" even if they wait tables for subsistence. Which is all a way of saying that professionalism is about social role, somebody is a professional mover if that is how their labor is socially categorized. So the question then becomes, is prostitute the earliest example of labor as social definition? To which the answer is obviously 1) we have absolutely no way of knowing that, but 2) probably not. After all we remains we can plausibly interpret as \"ritual specialist\" or something before we have evidence for prostitution as a social role. That first point (that we honestly would have no way of knowing) brings what I think to be the more interesting avenue of inquiry here is by asking why, exactly, \"prostitution\" rather than basket weaving or fishing or flint knapping is deemed the \"oldest profession\". The answer, as it so often is, turns out to be the fetishistic orientalism of Rudyard Kipling, or at least that sort of general milieu of late Victorians.^1 When we say \"prostitution is the oldest profession\" we are saying nothing about the past and nothing about prostitution, but we are saying a great deal about current perceptions about prostitution (and, incidentally, gender roles). It is worth noting here that there are less squishy definitions of professionalism, but they rely on either coinage and regularized payment or the existence of labor organized in such a way that it can define its membership, and none would grant the title of \"oldest\" to prostitution] ^1 Forgot to cite [the attribution to Kipling of the earliest designation of the earliest profession, although it is worth noting that Wikipedia has a number of earlier, non prostitution related uses of the phrase).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14454.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h1jc0uu","c_root_id_B":"gzn21ya","created_at_utc_A":1623520063,"created_at_utc_B":1622125713,"score_A":38,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Is 40 too late to start in Anthropology-Archaeology? I'm 33 and I've just started my Anthropology degree. In my country this would normally take four years but I'm studying part time while working, so I expect to finish it in around six years. In Europe right now it's impossible if you don't get a Masters too, so I guess the whole thing could take me around eight years... I'll be 40 or 41 by then. Too late to start digging ancient ruins? Am I being naive?","human_ref_B":"Anyone ever become some kind of fiction writer? I love the idea of anthropology informing futurist imaginings, for example, fictional afrofuturism. And, does anyone with a longstanding Anthro background find that their careers has evolved\/changed in some kind of \"direction\"? Like did you go from one thing to another because of your former experiences that clarified what you \"needed\" to be doing? I just imagine that my \"endpoint\" might be in diplomatic affairs at a governance level, but my beginnings would be in establishing myself as a credible, reputable, public intellectual. But to be a public intellectual that stands out, thered be a period where i develop my own ideas through some kind of fictional written medium.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1394350.0,"score_ratio":1.027027027} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzn21ya","c_root_id_B":"gzk7mqj","created_at_utc_A":1622125713,"created_at_utc_B":1622062795,"score_A":37,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anyone ever become some kind of fiction writer? I love the idea of anthropology informing futurist imaginings, for example, fictional afrofuturism. And, does anyone with a longstanding Anthro background find that their careers has evolved\/changed in some kind of \"direction\"? Like did you go from one thing to another because of your former experiences that clarified what you \"needed\" to be doing? I just imagine that my \"endpoint\" might be in diplomatic affairs at a governance level, but my beginnings would be in establishing myself as a credible, reputable, public intellectual. But to be a public intellectual that stands out, thered be a period where i develop my own ideas through some kind of fictional written medium.","human_ref_B":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":62918.0,"score_ratio":12.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h1jc0uu","c_root_id_B":"h199kp5","created_at_utc_A":1623520063,"created_at_utc_B":1623312899,"score_A":38,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Is 40 too late to start in Anthropology-Archaeology? I'm 33 and I've just started my Anthropology degree. In my country this would normally take four years but I'm studying part time while working, so I expect to finish it in around six years. In Europe right now it's impossible if you don't get a Masters too, so I guess the whole thing could take me around eight years... I'll be 40 or 41 by then. Too late to start digging ancient ruins? Am I being naive?","human_ref_B":"hi everyone, i need some advice please lol. this fall im going to studying for my bachelor's in sociocultural anthropology at uc davis, and possibly double majoring in something else like psych (or minoring). however, im not particularly going into anthropology in order to work as an anthropologist. during my general ed i realized how passionate i was about anthro and decided to apply as a major in it in hopes to one day go to law school (since you dont need to be in a pre law major\/ poli sci in order to study it). my thing is, (which is what im really worried about) is in the event i end up hating law school, are there any jobs I can get with a bachelors in anthropology still, such as marketing and more, or do I need my masters? im a first gen college student so I kinda have no idea what im doing and I don't want my degree to be a \"waste\" or a \"dead end.\" at the end of the day i just want a stable career after I graduate and was wondering if this is possible still with a bachelors, or should I change my major? sorry if this is a dumb question but i just really need advice, i have no one to rly go to. I absolutely love anthropology and find it the discipline amazing, its just me being insecure that down the road I might regret it if I don't have a guaranteed stable job in the event I don't go to law school \ud83d\ude2d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":207164.0,"score_ratio":2.1111111111} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"h1jc0uu","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1623520063,"score_A":3,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"Is 40 too late to start in Anthropology-Archaeology? I'm 33 and I've just started my Anthropology degree. In my country this would normally take four years but I'm studying part time while working, so I expect to finish it in around six years. In Europe right now it's impossible if you don't get a Masters too, so I guess the whole thing could take me around eight years... I'll be 40 or 41 by then. Too late to start digging ancient ruins? Am I being naive?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1457268.0,"score_ratio":12.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h1jc0uu","c_root_id_B":"gzqgpfj","created_at_utc_A":1623520063,"created_at_utc_B":1622187676,"score_A":38,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Is 40 too late to start in Anthropology-Archaeology? I'm 33 and I've just started my Anthropology degree. In my country this would normally take four years but I'm studying part time while working, so I expect to finish it in around six years. In Europe right now it's impossible if you don't get a Masters too, so I guess the whole thing could take me around eight years... I'll be 40 or 41 by then. Too late to start digging ancient ruins? Am I being naive?","human_ref_B":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1332387.0,"score_ratio":12.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h199kp5","c_root_id_B":"gzk7mqj","created_at_utc_A":1623312899,"created_at_utc_B":1622062795,"score_A":18,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"hi everyone, i need some advice please lol. this fall im going to studying for my bachelor's in sociocultural anthropology at uc davis, and possibly double majoring in something else like psych (or minoring). however, im not particularly going into anthropology in order to work as an anthropologist. during my general ed i realized how passionate i was about anthro and decided to apply as a major in it in hopes to one day go to law school (since you dont need to be in a pre law major\/ poli sci in order to study it). my thing is, (which is what im really worried about) is in the event i end up hating law school, are there any jobs I can get with a bachelors in anthropology still, such as marketing and more, or do I need my masters? im a first gen college student so I kinda have no idea what im doing and I don't want my degree to be a \"waste\" or a \"dead end.\" at the end of the day i just want a stable career after I graduate and was wondering if this is possible still with a bachelors, or should I change my major? sorry if this is a dumb question but i just really need advice, i have no one to rly go to. I absolutely love anthropology and find it the discipline amazing, its just me being insecure that down the road I might regret it if I don't have a guaranteed stable job in the event I don't go to law school \ud83d\ude2d","human_ref_B":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1250104.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzqgpfj","c_root_id_B":"h199kp5","created_at_utc_A":1622187676,"created_at_utc_B":1623312899,"score_A":3,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","human_ref_B":"hi everyone, i need some advice please lol. this fall im going to studying for my bachelor's in sociocultural anthropology at uc davis, and possibly double majoring in something else like psych (or minoring). however, im not particularly going into anthropology in order to work as an anthropologist. during my general ed i realized how passionate i was about anthro and decided to apply as a major in it in hopes to one day go to law school (since you dont need to be in a pre law major\/ poli sci in order to study it). my thing is, (which is what im really worried about) is in the event i end up hating law school, are there any jobs I can get with a bachelors in anthropology still, such as marketing and more, or do I need my masters? im a first gen college student so I kinda have no idea what im doing and I don't want my degree to be a \"waste\" or a \"dead end.\" at the end of the day i just want a stable career after I graduate and was wondering if this is possible still with a bachelors, or should I change my major? sorry if this is a dumb question but i just really need advice, i have no one to rly go to. I absolutely love anthropology and find it the discipline amazing, its just me being insecure that down the road I might regret it if I don't have a guaranteed stable job in the event I don't go to law school \ud83d\ude2d","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1125223.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"h3lhwsp","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1625081838,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"Is it possible to have a career in anthropology (such as archaeology) while simultaneously working in another field as well, like film or animation? I'm approaching 30 but have never been able to narrow down the career fields I am passionate about and am starting to have an early mid-life crisis. I love history, learning about cultures, and travel and took an Intro to Anthropology class during college which I found fascinating and loved. I just took the one class and never pursued it further while I earned a major in digital film and a minor in art. Basically, I'm passionate about the creative fields as well and love coming up with stories and drawing. I can never 100% focus on one because I flip flop so much between them. Would it be possible to devote a few months to the anthropology field if I decided to go back to school and pursue it further and then switch to another field for a few months on the side?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3019043.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h3lhwsp","c_root_id_B":"gzqgpfj","created_at_utc_A":1625081838,"created_at_utc_B":1622187676,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Is it possible to have a career in anthropology (such as archaeology) while simultaneously working in another field as well, like film or animation? I'm approaching 30 but have never been able to narrow down the career fields I am passionate about and am starting to have an early mid-life crisis. I love history, learning about cultures, and travel and took an Intro to Anthropology class during college which I found fascinating and loved. I just took the one class and never pursued it further while I earned a major in digital film and a minor in art. Basically, I'm passionate about the creative fields as well and love coming up with stories and drawing. I can never 100% focus on one because I flip flop so much between them. Would it be possible to devote a few months to the anthropology field if I decided to go back to school and pursue it further and then switch to another field for a few months on the side?","human_ref_B":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2894162.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h2q9l8p","c_root_id_B":"h3lhwsp","created_at_utc_A":1624418863,"created_at_utc_B":1625081838,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","human_ref_B":"Is it possible to have a career in anthropology (such as archaeology) while simultaneously working in another field as well, like film or animation? I'm approaching 30 but have never been able to narrow down the career fields I am passionate about and am starting to have an early mid-life crisis. I love history, learning about cultures, and travel and took an Intro to Anthropology class during college which I found fascinating and loved. I just took the one class and never pursued it further while I earned a major in digital film and a minor in art. Basically, I'm passionate about the creative fields as well and love coming up with stories and drawing. I can never 100% focus on one because I flip flop so much between them. Would it be possible to devote a few months to the anthropology field if I decided to go back to school and pursue it further and then switch to another field for a few months on the side?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":662975.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h4olyi9","c_root_id_B":"gzk7mqj","created_at_utc_A":1625906099,"created_at_utc_B":1622062795,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello everyone. Need some suggestions regarding doing a Masters program. I am confused about doing my Masters in Anthropology or Sociology or History. I am interested in studying society, culture, religion (how different religious beliefs developed and impacted people ), traditions and customs, people behaviour (like how pop culture\/cinema influences society or how people self identify as liberal or conservative (rather than on the basis of religion or class as in the past). I am.not looking at this from career perspective. I have done a post grad degree and am in my early thirties. I am interested to continue learning. I would like to do research later on. Follow up query: How does research methods differ in these three disciplines (Sociology, History and Anthropology)? Thank you. I need to make this decision by July mid. Please help. * The examples that I have put in the brackets are things that make me wonder and would be interested to read more about. Edit: I do not have science background. Will that be problematic?","human_ref_B":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3843304.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzqgpfj","c_root_id_B":"h4olyi9","created_at_utc_A":1622187676,"created_at_utc_B":1625906099,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","human_ref_B":"Hello everyone. Need some suggestions regarding doing a Masters program. I am confused about doing my Masters in Anthropology or Sociology or History. I am interested in studying society, culture, religion (how different religious beliefs developed and impacted people ), traditions and customs, people behaviour (like how pop culture\/cinema influences society or how people self identify as liberal or conservative (rather than on the basis of religion or class as in the past). I am.not looking at this from career perspective. I have done a post grad degree and am in my early thirties. I am interested to continue learning. I would like to do research later on. Follow up query: How does research methods differ in these three disciplines (Sociology, History and Anthropology)? Thank you. I need to make this decision by July mid. Please help. * The examples that I have put in the brackets are things that make me wonder and would be interested to read more about. Edit: I do not have science background. Will that be problematic?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3718423.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h4olyi9","c_root_id_B":"h2q9l8p","created_at_utc_A":1625906099,"created_at_utc_B":1624418863,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello everyone. Need some suggestions regarding doing a Masters program. I am confused about doing my Masters in Anthropology or Sociology or History. I am interested in studying society, culture, religion (how different religious beliefs developed and impacted people ), traditions and customs, people behaviour (like how pop culture\/cinema influences society or how people self identify as liberal or conservative (rather than on the basis of religion or class as in the past). I am.not looking at this from career perspective. I have done a post grad degree and am in my early thirties. I am interested to continue learning. I would like to do research later on. Follow up query: How does research methods differ in these three disciplines (Sociology, History and Anthropology)? Thank you. I need to make this decision by July mid. Please help. * The examples that I have put in the brackets are things that make me wonder and would be interested to read more about. Edit: I do not have science background. Will that be problematic?","human_ref_B":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1487236.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h4olyi9","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1625906099,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello everyone. Need some suggestions regarding doing a Masters program. I am confused about doing my Masters in Anthropology or Sociology or History. I am interested in studying society, culture, religion (how different religious beliefs developed and impacted people ), traditions and customs, people behaviour (like how pop culture\/cinema influences society or how people self identify as liberal or conservative (rather than on the basis of religion or class as in the past). I am.not looking at this from career perspective. I have done a post grad degree and am in my early thirties. I am interested to continue learning. I would like to do research later on. Follow up query: How does research methods differ in these three disciplines (Sociology, History and Anthropology)? Thank you. I need to make this decision by July mid. Please help. * The examples that I have put in the brackets are things that make me wonder and would be interested to read more about. Edit: I do not have science background. Will that be problematic?","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":348750.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6419739.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4414233.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"heqdyfu","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1632929252,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1404286.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12270743.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hgsf1bw","c_root_id_B":"gzqgpfj","created_at_utc_A":1634333538,"created_at_utc_B":1622187676,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","human_ref_B":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12145862.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h2q9l8p","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1624418863,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9914675.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hgsf1bw","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1634333538,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8776189.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hgsf1bw","c_root_id_B":"h67ccks","created_at_utc_A":1634333538,"created_at_utc_B":1627007725,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","human_ref_B":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7325813.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"ha014ti","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1629697094,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4636444.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hcxg12a","c_root_id_B":"hgsf1bw","created_at_utc_A":1631695580,"created_at_utc_B":1634333538,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Hi Everyone! Since a young age, I\u2019ve been drawn to anthropology, culture, spirituality, nature, traditional arts and how they all tie in together. I love textiles and I am especially drawn to traditional embroidery from different cultures. Recently, I\u2019ve had a huge revelation where I realized I want to make this my life\u2019s work. I want to learn about traditional arts, educate others, and help preserve the traditions. I see myself doing research, giving lectures, writing, working with museums, facilitating workshops and retreats. And maybe there\u2019s even more options that I\u2019m not even aware of. I have a vision but I just don\u2019t know where to start. I have a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, traveled a lot, lived in different countries for years, some nonprofit volunteer work. I have foundations, but not much solid experience. Is there anyone here doing this kind of work? I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about your career path and learn more about your experience. Thank you!","human_ref_B":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2637958.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hgsf1bw","c_root_id_B":"hd3c5yj","created_at_utc_A":1634333538,"created_at_utc_B":1631807665,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"What kind of careers can a degree is biological anthropology get me? Human\/primate sexuality and reproductive system inteigues me the most - but what JOB would that even be, if any?","human_ref_B":"Hello, I need some advice. I'm interested in getting my masters in either cultural anthropology, archeology, or history. Every time I think I've are my choice, I read something else that pulls me back into the confusion. I'm wanting to focus on Polynesia, specifically pre-contact. I love to research, I love studying culture, language, history, and religion. I love writing about these things. But I haven't been able to find enough information on job prospects and what kinds of things I would actually be doing with a degree in one of these areas. I would love to pick your brains and get some insight. TIA","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2525873.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"hv8f5jn","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1643775351,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15861552.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"habw22c","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1629919305,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13856046.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"heqdyfu","c_root_id_B":"hv8f5jn","created_at_utc_A":1632929252,"created_at_utc_B":1643775351,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","human_ref_B":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10846099.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"hv8f5jn","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1643775351,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21712556.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"gzqgpfj","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1622187676,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21587675.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"h2q9l8p","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1624418863,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19356488.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hujcy2t","c_root_id_B":"hv8f5jn","created_at_utc_A":1643341964,"created_at_utc_B":1643775351,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","human_ref_B":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","labels":0,"seconds_difference":433387.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18218002.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"h67ccks","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1627007725,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16767626.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"ha014ti","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1629697094,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14078257.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hv8f5jn","c_root_id_B":"hcxg12a","created_at_utc_A":1643775351,"created_at_utc_B":1631695580,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","human_ref_B":"Hi Everyone! Since a young age, I\u2019ve been drawn to anthropology, culture, spirituality, nature, traditional arts and how they all tie in together. I love textiles and I am especially drawn to traditional embroidery from different cultures. Recently, I\u2019ve had a huge revelation where I realized I want to make this my life\u2019s work. I want to learn about traditional arts, educate others, and help preserve the traditions. I see myself doing research, giving lectures, writing, working with museums, facilitating workshops and retreats. And maybe there\u2019s even more options that I\u2019m not even aware of. I have a vision but I just don\u2019t know where to start. I have a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, traveled a lot, lived in different countries for years, some nonprofit volunteer work. I have foundations, but not much solid experience. Is there anyone here doing this kind of work? I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about your career path and learn more about your experience. Thank you!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12079771.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hd3c5yj","c_root_id_B":"hv8f5jn","created_at_utc_A":1631807665,"created_at_utc_B":1643775351,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Hello, I need some advice. I'm interested in getting my masters in either cultural anthropology, archeology, or history. Every time I think I've are my choice, I read something else that pulls me back into the confusion. I'm wanting to focus on Polynesia, specifically pre-contact. I love to research, I love studying culture, language, history, and religion. I love writing about these things. But I haven't been able to find enough information on job prospects and what kinds of things I would actually be doing with a degree in one of these areas. I would love to pick your brains and get some insight. TIA","human_ref_B":"If anyone is looking for an physical (biological) anthropology undergraduate paid summer internship in Cleveland, check out the link: https:\/\/workforcenow.adp.com\/mdf\/recruitment\/recruitment.html?cid=49c26a0f-b438-4d50-910e-e2fca33d6a29&fbclid=IwAR0dX1ZOGcU9o7\\_7Bvh0WOKwUbmhNEhCwprmhjcVQRbtfyKhAW34W9v2OqQ","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11967686.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"habw22c","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1629919305,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2005506.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"gzk7mqj","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1622062795,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5851004.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzqgpfj","c_root_id_B":"h7fjb28","created_at_utc_A":1622187676,"created_at_utc_B":1627913799,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","human_ref_B":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5726123.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"h2q9l8p","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1624418863,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3494936.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h47raa1","c_root_id_B":"h7fjb28","created_at_utc_A":1625557349,"created_at_utc_B":1627913799,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","human_ref_B":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2356450.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h7fjb28","c_root_id_B":"h67ccks","created_at_utc_A":1627913799,"created_at_utc_B":1627007725,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am 35 yo with a background in Journalism. I'm thinking of a career change. I'm interested in exploring romantic relationships; what factors govern our choices, if there's such a thing as an ideal match, how attraction works etc. Would it be wise to get into a PhD. research program? I should mention that I'm a single mom from India and I'm looking at programs in the U.S. What are the opportunities like in the academic field vs. corporates( in my case online dating companies). How difficult is to secure financial assistance\/ scholarships?","human_ref_B":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":906074.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"habw22c","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1629919305,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7856510.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"gzqgpfj","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1622187676,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7731629.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"h2q9l8p","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1624418863,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5500442.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4361956.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"h67ccks","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1627007725,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2911580.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"habw22c","c_root_id_B":"ha014ti","created_at_utc_A":1629919305,"created_at_utc_B":1629697094,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello people! I've been looking at majors and someone told me about folklore studies (UC Berkeley has it), but sadly its a masters and PHD degree. Has anyone dealt with this? Also how can I continue my love for folklore while getting my undergrad in Anthro? I really want to prepare for the folklore major and even study it while getting my bachelors degree.","human_ref_B":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":222211.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzk7mqj","c_root_id_B":"heqdyfu","created_at_utc_A":1622062795,"created_at_utc_B":1632929252,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What are my chances of getting a job in Australia as a Anthropologist without a Masters degree? I'm a US citizen hoping to move to Australia. I'm finishing up my Bachelors degree and need at least a year of related work experience to apply for the Skilled Workers visa since its on the skilled occupations list. I'm hoping to gain my experience in Australia instead of the US. Last resort is I go to grad school in Australia, but want to see if I'll have any luck getting experience with what I have.","human_ref_B":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10866457.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"gzqgpfj","c_root_id_B":"heqdyfu","created_at_utc_A":1622187676,"created_at_utc_B":1632929252,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hi everyone, I hope that y'all are doing alright :) I'm a 1rst year anthropology student (in my university that means studying cultural and bioanthropology + archaeology) and I was wondering if u guys could give me some tips not to be poor (or at least not THAT poor). What subfield of anthropology makes the most money? I'm especially interested in archaeology, forensic anthropology and bioanthropology. I was thinking about pursuing a 2nd degree in classical studies (in my country college is free lol), would that be helpful if I wanted to become an archeologist (or an anthropologist)? What countries are the best to practice archeology\/any subfield of anthropology in terms of salaries and availability of jobs? Any other tip that you guys can give me would be appreciated. Sorry for my English.","human_ref_B":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10741576.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h2q9l8p","c_root_id_B":"heqdyfu","created_at_utc_A":1624418863,"created_at_utc_B":1632929252,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"hey everyone! does anyone know where to look for paid archaeology digs? i\u2019m about to graduate with my bachelor\u2019s in archaeology and am having trouble figuring out where to look for paid digs. i am willing to work anywhere, in the US or abroad! any help would be much appreciated!","human_ref_B":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8510389.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"heqdyfu","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1632929252,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7371903.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"heqdyfu","c_root_id_B":"h67ccks","created_at_utc_A":1632929252,"created_at_utc_B":1627007725,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","human_ref_B":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5921527.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"ha014ti","c_root_id_B":"heqdyfu","created_at_utc_A":1629697094,"created_at_utc_B":1632929252,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","human_ref_B":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3232158.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"heqdyfu","c_root_id_B":"hcxg12a","created_at_utc_A":1632929252,"created_at_utc_B":1631695580,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","human_ref_B":"Hi Everyone! Since a young age, I\u2019ve been drawn to anthropology, culture, spirituality, nature, traditional arts and how they all tie in together. I love textiles and I am especially drawn to traditional embroidery from different cultures. Recently, I\u2019ve had a huge revelation where I realized I want to make this my life\u2019s work. I want to learn about traditional arts, educate others, and help preserve the traditions. I see myself doing research, giving lectures, writing, working with museums, facilitating workshops and retreats. And maybe there\u2019s even more options that I\u2019m not even aware of. I have a vision but I just don\u2019t know where to start. I have a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, traveled a lot, lived in different countries for years, some nonprofit volunteer work. I have foundations, but not much solid experience. Is there anyone here doing this kind of work? I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about your career path and learn more about your experience. Thank you!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1233672.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hd3c5yj","c_root_id_B":"heqdyfu","created_at_utc_A":1631807665,"created_at_utc_B":1632929252,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Hello, I need some advice. I'm interested in getting my masters in either cultural anthropology, archeology, or history. Every time I think I've are my choice, I read something else that pulls me back into the confusion. I'm wanting to focus on Polynesia, specifically pre-contact. I love to research, I love studying culture, language, history, and religion. I love writing about these things. But I haven't been able to find enough information on job prospects and what kinds of things I would actually be doing with a degree in one of these areas. I would love to pick your brains and get some insight. TIA","human_ref_B":"Any tips for someone aiming for an anthropology PHD (In the UK)? So, to get to the meat of things, basically I'm trying to work out how best to go about finding the right course and signing on! Unusually for the people on my course (As most of them were on a combined masters and PHD programme) I didn't go straight into phd after my masters degree in anthropological research, which has left me a little unmoored now covid is winding down and I'm feeling ready to prepare to apply for september 2022, as I don't have any peers around me, or contact with a supervisor. As for what I already know, I know that generally most doctorate programmes should be chosen by professor and their own areas of expertise rather than university. I do have a few ideas for courses (two, in truth) lined up. (Those that match my particular area, neopaganism in online spaces) But other than that, as I said I am pretty unmoored and unsure as to where to go or how to search for good courses, so any advice you can give me would be very appreciated! If you have any more general advice, I'd welcome that as well. Thanks in advance for any help!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1121587.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h47raa1","c_root_id_B":"i2nf1qc","created_at_utc_A":1625557349,"created_at_utc_B":1648597762,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","human_ref_B":"Hello! I have reached the \u201cask Reddit for help\u201d stage of job-finding-crisis! I have a bachelors degree in anthropology from an American university and a master\u2019s degree in archaeology\u2014specifically European prehistory, but, you know, plenty of broadly applicable knowledge\u2014from a prestigious UK university. I have attended field school, but it was in 2016 as an undergrad. My academic focus has been on bones of all kinds, with a dissertation on funerary taphonomy, but I have broad interests and am a fast learner. I had intended to move right into a PhD, but it just didn\u2019t happen, and now I am stagnating hard. I had a promising but deeply disappointing postgrad internship 2019-2020 in which they used me only to scan old excavation photographs and transcribe their photo logs into excel. I left it early due to the pandemic stripping any modicum of usefulness from it as I was ultimately scanning and transcribing from home, which meant I lost out on the benefits of at least existing in a CRM office. That was my last engagement with the professional world of archaeology and I am now at my wits end trying to get my foot in the door in CRM (which I frankly know nothing about despite the internship, and yes I am bitter about that, why do you ask?), archaeological or historical museum work (my number one choice), or even your basic learn-as-you-go field tech job. I am toying with the idea of pursuing a GIS certificate at my local community college because I recognize that\u2019s a big hole in my knowledge, and I hope to hop on a dig as a volunteer this summer if I can work it around a part time job, because my field skills are lacking. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on where to look and how to sell myself for someone overeducated, out of the loop, and panicking? I think I need a career coach and a professional resume writer, but I fear the average coach won\u2019t be able to help me with some of the more niche parts of my situations. Thank you immensely for any input.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23040413.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h67ccks","c_root_id_B":"i2nf1qc","created_at_utc_A":1627007725,"created_at_utc_B":1648597762,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","human_ref_B":"Hello! I have reached the \u201cask Reddit for help\u201d stage of job-finding-crisis! I have a bachelors degree in anthropology from an American university and a master\u2019s degree in archaeology\u2014specifically European prehistory, but, you know, plenty of broadly applicable knowledge\u2014from a prestigious UK university. I have attended field school, but it was in 2016 as an undergrad. My academic focus has been on bones of all kinds, with a dissertation on funerary taphonomy, but I have broad interests and am a fast learner. I had intended to move right into a PhD, but it just didn\u2019t happen, and now I am stagnating hard. I had a promising but deeply disappointing postgrad internship 2019-2020 in which they used me only to scan old excavation photographs and transcribe their photo logs into excel. I left it early due to the pandemic stripping any modicum of usefulness from it as I was ultimately scanning and transcribing from home, which meant I lost out on the benefits of at least existing in a CRM office. That was my last engagement with the professional world of archaeology and I am now at my wits end trying to get my foot in the door in CRM (which I frankly know nothing about despite the internship, and yes I am bitter about that, why do you ask?), archaeological or historical museum work (my number one choice), or even your basic learn-as-you-go field tech job. I am toying with the idea of pursuing a GIS certificate at my local community college because I recognize that\u2019s a big hole in my knowledge, and I hope to hop on a dig as a volunteer this summer if I can work it around a part time job, because my field skills are lacking. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on where to look and how to sell myself for someone overeducated, out of the loop, and panicking? I think I need a career coach and a professional resume writer, but I fear the average coach won\u2019t be able to help me with some of the more niche parts of my situations. Thank you immensely for any input.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21590037.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"ha014ti","c_root_id_B":"i2nf1qc","created_at_utc_A":1629697094,"created_at_utc_B":1648597762,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","human_ref_B":"Hello! I have reached the \u201cask Reddit for help\u201d stage of job-finding-crisis! I have a bachelors degree in anthropology from an American university and a master\u2019s degree in archaeology\u2014specifically European prehistory, but, you know, plenty of broadly applicable knowledge\u2014from a prestigious UK university. I have attended field school, but it was in 2016 as an undergrad. My academic focus has been on bones of all kinds, with a dissertation on funerary taphonomy, but I have broad interests and am a fast learner. I had intended to move right into a PhD, but it just didn\u2019t happen, and now I am stagnating hard. I had a promising but deeply disappointing postgrad internship 2019-2020 in which they used me only to scan old excavation photographs and transcribe their photo logs into excel. I left it early due to the pandemic stripping any modicum of usefulness from it as I was ultimately scanning and transcribing from home, which meant I lost out on the benefits of at least existing in a CRM office. That was my last engagement with the professional world of archaeology and I am now at my wits end trying to get my foot in the door in CRM (which I frankly know nothing about despite the internship, and yes I am bitter about that, why do you ask?), archaeological or historical museum work (my number one choice), or even your basic learn-as-you-go field tech job. I am toying with the idea of pursuing a GIS certificate at my local community college because I recognize that\u2019s a big hole in my knowledge, and I hope to hop on a dig as a volunteer this summer if I can work it around a part time job, because my field skills are lacking. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on where to look and how to sell myself for someone overeducated, out of the loop, and panicking? I think I need a career coach and a professional resume writer, but I fear the average coach won\u2019t be able to help me with some of the more niche parts of my situations. Thank you immensely for any input.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18900668.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"i2nf1qc","c_root_id_B":"hcxg12a","created_at_utc_A":1648597762,"created_at_utc_B":1631695580,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I have reached the \u201cask Reddit for help\u201d stage of job-finding-crisis! I have a bachelors degree in anthropology from an American university and a master\u2019s degree in archaeology\u2014specifically European prehistory, but, you know, plenty of broadly applicable knowledge\u2014from a prestigious UK university. I have attended field school, but it was in 2016 as an undergrad. My academic focus has been on bones of all kinds, with a dissertation on funerary taphonomy, but I have broad interests and am a fast learner. I had intended to move right into a PhD, but it just didn\u2019t happen, and now I am stagnating hard. I had a promising but deeply disappointing postgrad internship 2019-2020 in which they used me only to scan old excavation photographs and transcribe their photo logs into excel. I left it early due to the pandemic stripping any modicum of usefulness from it as I was ultimately scanning and transcribing from home, which meant I lost out on the benefits of at least existing in a CRM office. That was my last engagement with the professional world of archaeology and I am now at my wits end trying to get my foot in the door in CRM (which I frankly know nothing about despite the internship, and yes I am bitter about that, why do you ask?), archaeological or historical museum work (my number one choice), or even your basic learn-as-you-go field tech job. I am toying with the idea of pursuing a GIS certificate at my local community college because I recognize that\u2019s a big hole in my knowledge, and I hope to hop on a dig as a volunteer this summer if I can work it around a part time job, because my field skills are lacking. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on where to look and how to sell myself for someone overeducated, out of the loop, and panicking? I think I need a career coach and a professional resume writer, but I fear the average coach won\u2019t be able to help me with some of the more niche parts of my situations. Thank you immensely for any input.","human_ref_B":"Hi Everyone! Since a young age, I\u2019ve been drawn to anthropology, culture, spirituality, nature, traditional arts and how they all tie in together. I love textiles and I am especially drawn to traditional embroidery from different cultures. Recently, I\u2019ve had a huge revelation where I realized I want to make this my life\u2019s work. I want to learn about traditional arts, educate others, and help preserve the traditions. I see myself doing research, giving lectures, writing, working with museums, facilitating workshops and retreats. And maybe there\u2019s even more options that I\u2019m not even aware of. I have a vision but I just don\u2019t know where to start. I have a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, traveled a lot, lived in different countries for years, some nonprofit volunteer work. I have foundations, but not much solid experience. Is there anyone here doing this kind of work? I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about your career path and learn more about your experience. Thank you!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16902182.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"i2nf1qc","c_root_id_B":"hd3c5yj","created_at_utc_A":1648597762,"created_at_utc_B":1631807665,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I have reached the \u201cask Reddit for help\u201d stage of job-finding-crisis! I have a bachelors degree in anthropology from an American university and a master\u2019s degree in archaeology\u2014specifically European prehistory, but, you know, plenty of broadly applicable knowledge\u2014from a prestigious UK university. I have attended field school, but it was in 2016 as an undergrad. My academic focus has been on bones of all kinds, with a dissertation on funerary taphonomy, but I have broad interests and am a fast learner. I had intended to move right into a PhD, but it just didn\u2019t happen, and now I am stagnating hard. I had a promising but deeply disappointing postgrad internship 2019-2020 in which they used me only to scan old excavation photographs and transcribe their photo logs into excel. I left it early due to the pandemic stripping any modicum of usefulness from it as I was ultimately scanning and transcribing from home, which meant I lost out on the benefits of at least existing in a CRM office. That was my last engagement with the professional world of archaeology and I am now at my wits end trying to get my foot in the door in CRM (which I frankly know nothing about despite the internship, and yes I am bitter about that, why do you ask?), archaeological or historical museum work (my number one choice), or even your basic learn-as-you-go field tech job. I am toying with the idea of pursuing a GIS certificate at my local community college because I recognize that\u2019s a big hole in my knowledge, and I hope to hop on a dig as a volunteer this summer if I can work it around a part time job, because my field skills are lacking. In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on where to look and how to sell myself for someone overeducated, out of the loop, and panicking? I think I need a career coach and a professional resume writer, but I fear the average coach won\u2019t be able to help me with some of the more niche parts of my situations. Thank you immensely for any input.","human_ref_B":"Hello, I need some advice. I'm interested in getting my masters in either cultural anthropology, archeology, or history. Every time I think I've are my choice, I read something else that pulls me back into the confusion. I'm wanting to focus on Polynesia, specifically pre-contact. I love to research, I love studying culture, language, history, and religion. I love writing about these things. But I haven't been able to find enough information on job prospects and what kinds of things I would actually be doing with a degree in one of these areas. I would love to pick your brains and get some insight. TIA","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16790097.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hujcy2t","c_root_id_B":"h47raa1","created_at_utc_A":1643341964,"created_at_utc_B":1625557349,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","human_ref_B":"Hello! So I\u2019ve been in the archeology field for about 4 years now, but I kind of fell into it by accident. I remember taking a CRM class and thinking \u201cwhy would anyone ever want to do this as a career?\u201d The professor who taught the class said I got a good grade and offered me a job, and here we are all this time later. I studied anthropology with an emphasis in Biology and Archaeology, and I always dreamt of doing recovery work on the U.S.\/Mexico border, or doing some kind of work in disaster archaeology where I could help people. I think that\u2019s why we all go into Anth, to understand people and be more empathetic, and try to help make things even just a little bit better. I feel so burnt out on Archaeology, living out of a suitcase and constantly having to leave my partner to drive to a job that doesn\u2019t bring me joy. I began looking into grad school to get deeper into BioAnth, or Forensic Anth, but an old professor of mine kind of gave me a reality check and told me that the field is extremely competitive and a lot of the humanitarian work is unpaid OR you need to be a specialist to get asked to be on those cases. My heart sunk, and now I\u2019m forced to rethink everything. I don\u2019t want to be a teacher, or have to get my PhD to work as a researcher. I honestly just want a simple life where I can help people, work reasonable hours, be able to unpack my suitcase, and maybe get a dog or something. I\u2019ve been thinking about going back to school to be a CSI, or a forensic tech or something but a lot of the programs I\u2019m looking at prefer you to have a BS yet I have a BA\ud83d\ude11 does anyone have any advice or words of wisdom for me? I\u2019m feeling very overwhelmed and just all around lost.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17784615.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"h67ccks","c_root_id_B":"hujcy2t","created_at_utc_A":1627007725,"created_at_utc_B":1643341964,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Howdy resurrecting this thread for a moment to ask about how people fell into their specialties. Did art in college with an anthro minor and I'm feeling the post-pandemic recession and the post-art-degree unemployment rn. I'm heavily considering anthro for grad school and the general advice is to go to schools that have the professors you want to work with. Fine by me but I'm very indecisive. I really loved a war and trauma class I took and i get the impression that there's definately some public service involved. I just struggling to figure out how exactly that would be (zoom university fried my abstract thinking skill and its slowly replenishing). I'm also aware that if i go into something technical like archeology I'll probably be able to get decent work overseeing construction site surveys in metropolitan areas that require.them.by law. I also have archive experience if that means anything, but I'm tired of being trapped alone in the stacks. I think this was a really long winded way to say that i want to do something important to people but not have to give up learning as part of the job. Also I'm going to need to be able to afford life lol. Sorry for dumping an existential crisis on y'all but i guess im wondering your thoughts on me too. Already anticipating that I'm gonna need to gived somewhere but i want to see how the void answers back.","human_ref_B":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16334239.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hujcy2t","c_root_id_B":"ha014ti","created_at_utc_A":1643341964,"created_at_utc_B":1629697094,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","human_ref_B":"help! I\u2019m trying to figure out what program is right for me. I BA\u2019d in Theatre Production with a focus on costume design. I fell in love with writing about other cultures and their cultural dress along with textile and clothing history. I want to eventually pursue a masters in this and I\u2019d love to do research. Obviously, depends on the school\u2019s curriculum but would that typically fall under cultural anthropology? Visual Cultures? Art history? TYIA!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13644870.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hujcy2t","c_root_id_B":"hcxg12a","created_at_utc_A":1643341964,"created_at_utc_B":1631695580,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","human_ref_B":"Hi Everyone! Since a young age, I\u2019ve been drawn to anthropology, culture, spirituality, nature, traditional arts and how they all tie in together. I love textiles and I am especially drawn to traditional embroidery from different cultures. Recently, I\u2019ve had a huge revelation where I realized I want to make this my life\u2019s work. I want to learn about traditional arts, educate others, and help preserve the traditions. I see myself doing research, giving lectures, writing, working with museums, facilitating workshops and retreats. And maybe there\u2019s even more options that I\u2019m not even aware of. I have a vision but I just don\u2019t know where to start. I have a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, traveled a lot, lived in different countries for years, some nonprofit volunteer work. I have foundations, but not much solid experience. Is there anyone here doing this kind of work? I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about your career path and learn more about your experience. Thank you!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11646384.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nlr053","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (2021) \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it. Previous threads can be found here and here.","c_root_id_A":"hujcy2t","c_root_id_B":"hd3c5yj","created_at_utc_A":1643341964,"created_at_utc_B":1631807665,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"With regards to archaeology, how necessary is it to have linguistic knowledge of the area you do work in BEFORE grad school? For instance, if I wanted to study early Greek society or ancient Anatolia would I be expected to be able to speak modern Greek or Turkish? Or would I be expected to have studied ancient languages of the region before hand (ancient Greek, Hittite, etc). I added anthropology a bit late into my undergrad and worry that when I eventually apply for grad school I will be limited in my region of specialty (which I hope to do in the late bronze age). Additionally, does such a requirement apply to everyone who does work in such a region? I'm also really interested in remote sensing and map making; I'm guessing those areas don't require as much language knowledge.","human_ref_B":"Hello, I need some advice. I'm interested in getting my masters in either cultural anthropology, archeology, or history. Every time I think I've are my choice, I read something else that pulls me back into the confusion. I'm wanting to focus on Polynesia, specifically pre-contact. I love to research, I love studying culture, language, history, and religion. I love writing about these things. But I haven't been able to find enough information on job prospects and what kinds of things I would actually be doing with a degree in one of these areas. I would love to pick your brains and get some insight. TIA","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11534299.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5fu26q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Forensic Anthropology Graduate School Question Hi all, I am a recent graduate with my B.S. in anthropology. I also posed this in \/r\/anthropology but haven't received any replies yet. I am applying to graduate school for the second time, and I really want to get it right this time! My apps are pretty much done except for my writing sample. Only one school I am applying to (Boston University) requires a writing sample. Their website asks for a writing sample (e.g. manuscript, skeletal case report, anthropological or related paper). All of my \"good\" papers were written in linguistic anthropology courses, and though I've tried to improve my biological anthropology papers, they still aren't my best work. I was hoping someone could tell me their experience with submitting a writing sample and if they think it has a lot of bearing on the application? Also, do you think it would be unwise to send my linguistic anthropology paper (that has nothing to do with the forensic anthro program I'm applying to, but shows my best writing). The rest of my application highly indicates my interest in forensic anthropology, and my background within it.","c_root_id_A":"dan5ll4","c_root_id_B":"dan5q35","created_at_utc_A":1480565442,"created_at_utc_B":1480565632,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Email them directly to ask this question. I would say one of those papers would be fine, they want to see that you can write, period. But check with them.","human_ref_B":">anthropological or related paper... Your linguistics papers will be fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":190.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"jp8pkh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does anyone have any good reads, or other sources on food and society? I was reading this article earlier and it just got me into a mood to read more about food and social interactions\/society. I have always been interested in this kind of stuff and was wondering if anyone had anything else about it. Short reads, long reads, other suggestions.","c_root_id_A":"gbeu717","c_root_id_B":"gbebere","created_at_utc_A":1604714106,"created_at_utc_B":1604703588,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sidney Mintz\u2019s \u201cSweetness and Power\u201d follows the relationships between sugar\/industry and slavery and early capitalism. Really interesting read and Sidney Mintz is generally one of the biggest names in food studies\/food anthropology","human_ref_B":"You wanna read my thesis? It's about how modern Hawaiian cuisine can be read as a text for their political history and international standing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10518.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"jp8pkh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does anyone have any good reads, or other sources on food and society? I was reading this article earlier and it just got me into a mood to read more about food and social interactions\/society. I have always been interested in this kind of stuff and was wondering if anyone had anything else about it. Short reads, long reads, other suggestions.","c_root_id_A":"gbeu717","c_root_id_B":"gbebfcb","created_at_utc_A":1604714106,"created_at_utc_B":1604703596,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Sidney Mintz\u2019s \u201cSweetness and Power\u201d follows the relationships between sugar\/industry and slavery and early capitalism. Really interesting read and Sidney Mintz is generally one of the biggest names in food studies\/food anthropology","human_ref_B":"Adding to the good recommendations already given, perhaps Melanie Joy's take on carnism as an ideological system: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Why\\_We\\_Love\\_Dogs,\\_Eat\\_Pigs,\\_and\\_Wear\\_Cows","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10510.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"jp8pkh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Does anyone have any good reads, or other sources on food and society? I was reading this article earlier and it just got me into a mood to read more about food and social interactions\/society. I have always been interested in this kind of stuff and was wondering if anyone had anything else about it. Short reads, long reads, other suggestions.","c_root_id_A":"gbep0ij","c_root_id_B":"gbeu717","created_at_utc_A":1604711126,"created_at_utc_B":1604714106,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"If you are perhaps interested in past foodways of various cultures and groups in the area of the southeastern US from an archaeological perspective, check out this recent volume: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Baking-Bourbon-Black-Drink-Archaeology\/dp\/0817319921\/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=baking+bourbon&sr=8-1 (Disclosure: I co-authored a chapter in it on earth ovens).","human_ref_B":"Sidney Mintz\u2019s \u201cSweetness and Power\u201d follows the relationships between sugar\/industry and slavery and early capitalism. Really interesting read and Sidney Mintz is generally one of the biggest names in food studies\/food anthropology","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2980.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"36u3j9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Why does anthropology tend to discourage multi-authored research? I can mostly speak to archaeology but I think the same holds true for the other fields. It's very rare to see a published paper with multiple authors. When you do it tends to be a couple, at most. In other scientific fields it's common for many authors. The paper that announced the Higgs boson had 5300 authors. In archaeology it's common for dozens of people to be involved in excavation and artifact analysis but they rarely, if ever, get co-authorship. I don't see how this is different that lab assistants in a chemistry paper getting co-authorship. What the reason for this? Does anyone know the historical reason? It seems very detrimental in an increasingly competitive publish or perish academic world.","c_root_id_A":"crh707w","c_root_id_B":"crh75vx","created_at_utc_A":1432275590,"created_at_utc_B":1432276083,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It's not true everywhere that there are few multiauthored papers. Which country are you talking about?","human_ref_B":"simply put, sole authorship is considered more prestigious, and as such, it's the most desirable form of publication. The sciences seems to discourage it far less, and so PI's are more likely to extend co-authorship to others. I've heard that when a search (or tenure) committee sees a bunch of papers on a CV with a lot of co-authors, they basically rank them as less valuable since they can't really determine the extent of the applicant's contribution. Interdisciplinary research is similarly punished since the papers sometimes land in journals that straddle disciplines and the search\/tenure committee is often unfamiliar with their impact rankings....or their impact factors are just less impressive (basically nil) since they can be really niche, which, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of scholarship contained therein. All this at the same time that every dean in the land is barking nebulously about \"innovation\" *sigh* . I think it's probably related to how much of a \"book\" discipline anthropology is, especially socio-cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":493.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vbhkq","c_root_id_B":"f5v978v","created_at_utc_A":1572486384,"created_at_utc_B":1572485450,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It really depends on what type of job\/career path you want. As a recent MA grad, I would highly recommend taking more stats courses and maybe some programming. Those will help set you up for jobs in anthropology as well as other fields, in case you can\u2019t find something in anthropology right away. Since you say you are currently leaning towards archaeology, I would definitely recommend some geography and GIS courses. A lot of CRM firms like having people with that type of experience. If you want the more physical route, definitely get some chemistry and biology lab courses. Those will help you look more qualified for lab jobs. I would also highly recommend doing an internship someplace that interests you. It can be difficult getting your foot in the door if you lack the work experience that employers are looking for, even if you have good grades and classes.","human_ref_B":"Evolutionary Biology is an incredible companion to anthropology. It'll place you at the crossroads of the development of both the human body as well as human society. You may also find Evolutionary psychology to be an interesting addition to the mix.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":934.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vc12q","c_root_id_B":"f5vxem2","created_at_utc_A":1572486603,"created_at_utc_B":1572504799,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I would look for something on the History department if you don't already have something like \"historical anthropology\". I'm now doing a PhD in anthropology, and knowledge in historical analysis is something that can really get you into complexifying your take on your subjects, especially if you are going to study archeology latter. History is anthropologists best friend.","human_ref_B":"One skill I highly recommend is rappelling. Relatively few are qualified\/certified and this ability will open doors for you to get included in interesting exploratory projects. It is fun and physically demanding. If you can calmly and safely lower yourself into a buried temple or cave you will be in demand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18196.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vck6e","c_root_id_B":"f5vxem2","created_at_utc_A":1572486827,"created_at_utc_B":1572504799,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Linguistics, Sociology, Social Theory, Language classes in region of interest, History classes in region of interest, Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy. Not all of these are necessary, but there is an argument for each of them. Cheers!","human_ref_B":"One skill I highly recommend is rappelling. Relatively few are qualified\/certified and this ability will open doors for you to get included in interesting exploratory projects. It is fun and physically demanding. If you can calmly and safely lower yourself into a buried temple or cave you will be in demand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17972.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vl3m2","c_root_id_B":"f5vxem2","created_at_utc_A":1572492009,"created_at_utc_B":1572504799,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"If you are looking at terminal masters in the future and not planning a career in academia, I suggest looking for classes that get you the most hands-on experience with software, stats, and field work of any kind. Theory is easier to obtain with interest and classes and internet than the real resume-able experience that employers are gonna want. Communications-related courses (public speaking, storytelling) of adaptable value, and getting some baselines for any foreign languages might serve you better than linguistics if you don't anticipate getting involved in that subfield, though it's interesting AF. Actually, new thought: take whatever the fuck interests you. Even as someone with (almost) a master's it's tricky to know what that magic formula is that someone wants to see, so go live your best life and just learn how to make others appreciate it. I believe in you.","human_ref_B":"One skill I highly recommend is rappelling. Relatively few are qualified\/certified and this ability will open doors for you to get included in interesting exploratory projects. It is fun and physically demanding. If you can calmly and safely lower yourself into a buried temple or cave you will be in demand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12790.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vszsd","c_root_id_B":"f5vxem2","created_at_utc_A":1572498900,"created_at_utc_B":1572504799,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Statistics, and bonus points for R, python or other programming experience. I took a couple a tats course offered by the sociology dept. it was definitely worth any struggle.","human_ref_B":"One skill I highly recommend is rappelling. Relatively few are qualified\/certified and this ability will open doors for you to get included in interesting exploratory projects. It is fun and physically demanding. If you can calmly and safely lower yourself into a buried temple or cave you will be in demand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5899.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vgb8q","c_root_id_B":"f5vxem2","created_at_utc_A":1572488682,"created_at_utc_B":1572504799,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I definitely would take some geology if you\u2019re interested in archaeology at all.","human_ref_B":"One skill I highly recommend is rappelling. Relatively few are qualified\/certified and this ability will open doors for you to get included in interesting exploratory projects. It is fun and physically demanding. If you can calmly and safely lower yourself into a buried temple or cave you will be in demand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16117.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vgb8q","c_root_id_B":"f5w9zu2","created_at_utc_A":1572488682,"created_at_utc_B":1572518576,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I definitely would take some geology if you\u2019re interested in archaeology at all.","human_ref_B":"All great advices. The one thing I tried to do during uni was to always take one course that I really loved during the semester. photography and visual anthropology, sociology of contemporary japan and anthropology of death were a few. they most likely won\u2019t get me any jobs but kept me sane during those four years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29894.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vgb8q","c_root_id_B":"f5vl3m2","created_at_utc_A":1572488682,"created_at_utc_B":1572492009,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I definitely would take some geology if you\u2019re interested in archaeology at all.","human_ref_B":"If you are looking at terminal masters in the future and not planning a career in academia, I suggest looking for classes that get you the most hands-on experience with software, stats, and field work of any kind. Theory is easier to obtain with interest and classes and internet than the real resume-able experience that employers are gonna want. Communications-related courses (public speaking, storytelling) of adaptable value, and getting some baselines for any foreign languages might serve you better than linguistics if you don't anticipate getting involved in that subfield, though it's interesting AF. Actually, new thought: take whatever the fuck interests you. Even as someone with (almost) a master's it's tricky to know what that magic formula is that someone wants to see, so go live your best life and just learn how to make others appreciate it. I believe in you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3327.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5vszsd","c_root_id_B":"f5vgb8q","created_at_utc_A":1572498900,"created_at_utc_B":1572488682,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Statistics, and bonus points for R, python or other programming experience. I took a couple a tats course offered by the sociology dept. it was definitely worth any struggle.","human_ref_B":"I definitely would take some geology if you\u2019re interested in archaeology at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10218.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dpfj8s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What type of non-anthropology classes (electives\/GEs) would you recommend an anthro undergrad to take? I\u2019m currently a freshman majoring in anthropology at Ohio state. I\u2019ve been working on my scheduling for classes for the next four years and I want to be able to maximize my time here at college. I\u2019m planning on getting a BS and masters but will not be going further to a PhD. I have a few questions about what type of classes I should take in order to be prepared to enter the workforce and get good jobs. What type of classes\/skills are useful for careers for anthropologists? I have to take one stats class. Should I think about taking any others? I can\u2019t wait to go to a field school and my ideal job right now would definitely be very archeology related. Should I take any classes to gain knowledge on programming since I know archeology uses a lot of computer and spatial programs? Is it a good idea to take one economics\/business class? Macro\/micro? I have to take chemistry and biology. Should I take anymore \u201chard sciences\u201d if I plan on going more the archeology\/physical anthropology route? I\u2019ve taken one linguistics class. I thought linguistics\/anthropology would be a good mix but I\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s quite a bit of difference and distance between the two fields. Is having linguistics knowledge\/taking any more classes valuable and worth my time? I\u2019m minoring in german and am thinking of minoring in evolution\/ecology if I enjoy the evolution class I have to take next year. How does that look to a job interviewer? Is that a practical minor that will help me stand out and get more interesting\/better jobs? Thanks so much for any answers! I know I have a long way to go before I get a job but I just want to make sure I\u2019m not wasting my money here at osu because osu is very expensive! Im just trying to be practical while getting this degree.","c_root_id_A":"f5w2os1","c_root_id_B":"f5vgb8q","created_at_utc_A":1572512069,"created_at_utc_B":1572488682,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"On top of all the great advice, if you want to work in archaeology\/paleoanthropology in the field, geology classes, and based on where many of the recent hominin finds have been, some caving and rappelling as a side hobby might be very useful.","human_ref_B":"I definitely would take some geology if you\u2019re interested in archaeology at all.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23387.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"359k7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What topics would you all like to see for the reading groups? Don't be shy! Make some recommendations and we'll do our best to facilitate!","c_root_id_A":"cr9rlhc","c_root_id_B":"cr2ni6k","created_at_utc_A":1431670196,"created_at_utc_B":1431101599,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement patterns. With a little bit of human migration stuff thrown in as well!","human_ref_B":"I would love an applied reading group or session, perhaps for each sub-field? I have just obtained a degree with an emphasis in the four-field-approach but have a hard time conceptualizing how to apply arch, bio, and linganth. Critical MedAnth could also be very fun. For my own benefit, I think that a reading group geared towards research methods would be amazing. Edit: Bernard's Research Methods in Anthropology is free online.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":568597.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"359k7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What topics would you all like to see for the reading groups? Don't be shy! Make some recommendations and we'll do our best to facilitate!","c_root_id_A":"cr7g3mc","c_root_id_B":"cr9rlhc","created_at_utc_A":1431491765,"created_at_utc_B":1431670196,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm interested in religious communities living in a seemingly \"unlikely\" places (those who escape the practical popular conception such as \"Christian Europe\", \"Confucian China\", \"Islamic Middle East\", etc). So... if you don't mind I'd love to see something about Christianity in the Levant, Kaifeng Jews in China, or African Christianity. I'm particularly most interested in Christianity in the Levant. I'd like to see some introduction to secularism and mediation of the body too, perhaps.","human_ref_B":"Hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement patterns. With a little bit of human migration stuff thrown in as well!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":178431.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"359k7e","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What topics would you all like to see for the reading groups? Don't be shy! Make some recommendations and we'll do our best to facilitate!","c_root_id_A":"cs2pbpp","c_root_id_B":"cs7g73a","created_at_utc_A":1433998284,"created_at_utc_B":1434393259,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'd really like some intermingling of philosophy and cultural anthropology with some Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.","human_ref_B":"How about an additional idea: volunteering to lead a discussion on a paper you (flaired users only) wrote? You must provide that paper or at least the sources & slides and walk us through the main points. Then we have an open discussion about it. Might be fun too for papers you really did a lot of work for (thesis, big grad school papers, conference papers) but which you never actually published.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":394975.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ecy1cx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Since 2010s is nearing its end, what is the most interesting work you've read (or is published) in this last decade?","c_root_id_A":"fbex27l","c_root_id_B":"fbesr2m","created_at_utc_A":1576795994,"created_at_utc_B":1576793058,"score_A":36,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"*The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins* by Anna Tsing (published by Princeton). Can't keep myself from recommending this to people, even those who don't usually read scholarly work for pleasure.","human_ref_B":"Miranda, M. D. (2015). Forensic analysis of tattoos and tattoo inks. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Miranda, Michelle. (2019). Tattoos and tattoo inks: Forensic considerations. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Forensic Science. 10.1002\/wfs2.1360. I find the idea of using tattoos as a method of identification really interesting. With the news recently that mummy's also had tattoos the knowledge gained in this area may also have impacts on what we know about ancient Egyptian society which is just an added aspect of cool for me.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2936.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"ecy1cx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Since 2010s is nearing its end, what is the most interesting work you've read (or is published) in this last decade?","c_root_id_A":"fbex27l","c_root_id_B":"fbev4vu","created_at_utc_A":1576795994,"created_at_utc_B":1576794678,"score_A":36,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"*The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins* by Anna Tsing (published by Princeton). Can't keep myself from recommending this to people, even those who don't usually read scholarly work for pleasure.","human_ref_B":"\"Effects of gaze\u2010aversion on visual\u2010spatial imagination\" (2011) https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1348\/000712608X371762 Breaking eye contact helps you think, which is why when you're trying to remember something, it helps to \"offload\" it. CogSci, not strictly anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1316.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"ecy1cx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Since 2010s is nearing its end, what is the most interesting work you've read (or is published) in this last decade?","c_root_id_A":"fbexgb1","c_root_id_B":"fbev4vu","created_at_utc_A":1576796268,"created_at_utc_B":1576794678,"score_A":18,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Got to take a class with this guy while he was writing the book... In short Scandinavian women like hooking up with exotic Massai, then they send money, the Massai can have multiple wives so the wives status can be elevated through this, but the man with an extra girlfriend or wife can leverage his new income and this outside money can allow for an ascent into positions of power in his community and beyond >Ethno-erotic Economies explores a fascinating case of tourism focused on sex and culture in coastal Kenya, where young men deploy stereotypes of African warriors to help them establish transactional sexual relationships with European women. In bars and on beaches, young men deliberately cultivate their images as sexually potent African men to attract women, sometimes for a night, in other cases for long-term relationships. >George Paul Meiu uses his deep familiarity with the communities these men come from to explore the long-term effects of markets of ethnic culture and sexuality on a wide range of aspects of life in rural Kenya, including kinship, ritual, gender, intimate affection, and conceptions of aging. What happens to these communities when young men return with such surprising wealth? And how do they use it to improve their social standing locally? By answering these questions, Ethno-erotic Economies offers a complex look at how intimacy and ethnicity come together to shape the pathways of global and local trade in the postcolonial world. https:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/E\/bo26850213.html","human_ref_B":"\"Effects of gaze\u2010aversion on visual\u2010spatial imagination\" (2011) https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1348\/000712608X371762 Breaking eye contact helps you think, which is why when you're trying to remember something, it helps to \"offload\" it. CogSci, not strictly anthro.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1590.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"bsj32h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What underwater or otherwise unavailable sites would you to want to have access to? I have an old prof who was an early proponent of the theory that ancient North America was peopled by populations travelling by boat along the coast of a connected Pacific coastline while the Bering Strait was a land bridge. The Problem is the proof would be under several metres of water, as those populations would have lived on the coast. Is there anything you would prove if you could get access?","c_root_id_A":"eonm0sb","c_root_id_B":"eonwuvy","created_at_utc_A":1558715871,"created_at_utc_B":1558723549,"score_A":21,"score_B":50,"human_ref_A":"It would be amazing to find artifacts which could be dateable from the Bering seafloor but I think it might be impossible to know where to start!","human_ref_B":"I want to study the old world, preferably around the island of Crete and\/or Santorini, the Minoans, sea people and other Bronze Age Mediterranean civilizations fascinate me. I\u2019m off to grad school for maritime archaeology this fall so I will hopefully be able to do this sometime in the future.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7678.0,"score_ratio":2.380952381} {"post_id":"bsj32h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What underwater or otherwise unavailable sites would you to want to have access to? I have an old prof who was an early proponent of the theory that ancient North America was peopled by populations travelling by boat along the coast of a connected Pacific coastline while the Bering Strait was a land bridge. The Problem is the proof would be under several metres of water, as those populations would have lived on the coast. Is there anything you would prove if you could get access?","c_root_id_A":"eonm0sb","c_root_id_B":"eonxgr7","created_at_utc_A":1558715871,"created_at_utc_B":1558723982,"score_A":21,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"It would be amazing to find artifacts which could be dateable from the Bering seafloor but I think it might be impossible to know where to start!","human_ref_B":"If love a better understanding of Doggerland and how Brittain got split off from the main land","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8111.0,"score_ratio":1.1904761905} {"post_id":"bsj32h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What underwater or otherwise unavailable sites would you to want to have access to? I have an old prof who was an early proponent of the theory that ancient North America was peopled by populations travelling by boat along the coast of a connected Pacific coastline while the Bering Strait was a land bridge. The Problem is the proof would be under several metres of water, as those populations would have lived on the coast. Is there anything you would prove if you could get access?","c_root_id_A":"eoob28g","c_root_id_B":"eookvjm","created_at_utc_A":1558734214,"created_at_utc_B":1558741090,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Isn't this the current mainstream theory of how peoples traveled to the Americas? Either via coast down by boat from the Strait or across Pacific islands?","human_ref_B":"Underwater exploration is the untold history of humans and our other genetic peers as coastal dwellers - that said the black sea is amazing. Having recently read \u201cbefore the flood\u201d by the man who found the titanic , the archaeological implications alone set the stage for a terrific story","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6876.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"bsj32h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"What underwater or otherwise unavailable sites would you to want to have access to? I have an old prof who was an early proponent of the theory that ancient North America was peopled by populations travelling by boat along the coast of a connected Pacific coastline while the Bering Strait was a land bridge. The Problem is the proof would be under several metres of water, as those populations would have lived on the coast. Is there anything you would prove if you could get access?","c_root_id_A":"eoob28g","c_root_id_B":"eop1j7m","created_at_utc_A":1558734214,"created_at_utc_B":1558752668,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Isn't this the current mainstream theory of how peoples traveled to the Americas? Either via coast down by boat from the Strait or across Pacific islands?","human_ref_B":"The First Australians crossed the Wallace Line at least 50 thousand years ago. 50 thousand years ago, *Homo floresiensis* was living on the island of Flores. *Homo luzonensis* was on Luzon about 50 thousand years ago. 50 thousand years ago, Java was a mountain peak on the very edge of the Asian mainland and *Homo erectus* was living there around 700 thousand years before that. Where did *H. floresiensis* and *H. luzonensis* come from? How many more hominids now lay beneath the Indonesian waves? *What was happening in Sundaland 50 thousand years ago, when the First Australians crossed the Wallace Line?*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18454.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8cwjg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why are there separate language groups and language isolates? Is it because complex language developed independently in multiple places or because those languages diverged too long ago for us to determine how they're related?","c_root_id_A":"dxiijlb","c_root_id_B":"dxiv80y","created_at_utc_A":1523979075,"created_at_utc_B":1523990107,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"One thing to consider is that there exist languages which are known for a fact to be true isolates and genetically unrelated to any other languages. The best-known example is Nicaraguan Sign Language. Wikipedia also lists a few other examples here","human_ref_B":"Let's put this question into perspective a bit. Languages are constantly evolving and borrowing and changing and dying, but the oldest reconstructed language, proto-Afro-Asiatic, the ancestor of Arabic, Hebrew, and a number of languages in northern Africa, was spoken around 12,000 years ago. Before then, no one has any idea what people were speaking. Anatomically modern humans have been around for some 100,000 years, so assuming our species has always used language, that means that the languages of the world could have evolved entirely beyond recognition 8 different times since the beginning of Homo sapiens. And that's not accounting for the possibility that other hominins may have communicated with something that we would consider language. Couple that with the fact that the soft tissues of the vocal tract and the brain that might give us hints to earlier forms of language quickly decay, and you can see why it is difficult to know anything about the beginnings of language.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11032.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"8cwjg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why are there separate language groups and language isolates? Is it because complex language developed independently in multiple places or because those languages diverged too long ago for us to determine how they're related?","c_root_id_A":"dxiggu0","c_root_id_B":"dxiv80y","created_at_utc_A":1523977197,"created_at_utc_B":1523990107,"score_A":4,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Very good question!! Some one answer please! I also want to know :P","human_ref_B":"Let's put this question into perspective a bit. Languages are constantly evolving and borrowing and changing and dying, but the oldest reconstructed language, proto-Afro-Asiatic, the ancestor of Arabic, Hebrew, and a number of languages in northern Africa, was spoken around 12,000 years ago. Before then, no one has any idea what people were speaking. Anatomically modern humans have been around for some 100,000 years, so assuming our species has always used language, that means that the languages of the world could have evolved entirely beyond recognition 8 different times since the beginning of Homo sapiens. And that's not accounting for the possibility that other hominins may have communicated with something that we would consider language. Couple that with the fact that the soft tissues of the vocal tract and the brain that might give us hints to earlier forms of language quickly decay, and you can see why it is difficult to know anything about the beginnings of language.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12910.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"8cwjg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why are there separate language groups and language isolates? Is it because complex language developed independently in multiple places or because those languages diverged too long ago for us to determine how they're related?","c_root_id_A":"dxiijlb","c_root_id_B":"dxiggu0","created_at_utc_A":1523979075,"created_at_utc_B":1523977197,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"One thing to consider is that there exist languages which are known for a fact to be true isolates and genetically unrelated to any other languages. The best-known example is Nicaraguan Sign Language. Wikipedia also lists a few other examples here","human_ref_B":"Very good question!! Some one answer please! I also want to know :P","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1878.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8cwjg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Why are there separate language groups and language isolates? Is it because complex language developed independently in multiple places or because those languages diverged too long ago for us to determine how they're related?","c_root_id_A":"dxiggu0","c_root_id_B":"dxivhum","created_at_utc_A":1523977197,"created_at_utc_B":1523990346,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Very good question!! Some one answer please! I also want to know :P","human_ref_B":"We say that languages belong to the same language family when we can demonstrate that they descended from a common ancestor: Like how Romance languages descended from Latin (Romance family) or how Latin itself ultimately descended from Proto-Indo-European (Indo-European family). The way that we demonstrate that they have a common ancestor is by looking for systematic correspondences between them - things that they have in common that can't be explained by chance. So, we use *linguistic* evidence. The problem is that all languages change over time, and those correspondences are lost. It's a lot harder to demonstrate that Hindi and English are related than it is to demonstrate that Sanskrit and Ancient Greek are related. So, we can only go back so far - in the best case, only maybe 15,000 years (for Afro-Asiatic, which is really unusually old as far as demonstrated language families go). What this means is that language families really have nothing to tell us about whether language evolved once or not.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13149.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"24or80","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did pre-modern cultures in monkey inhabiting regions tend to imagine a closer relation to animals than cultures in non-monkey inhabiting regions? I was just thinking about this. For a long period of time, there was a strict division between animals and mankind in the Western world. Not knowing much about non-Western pre-modern societies, I was wondering if having an observable 'link' to nature like monkeys or apes removed or lessened this tendency in other cultures.","c_root_id_A":"ch9hhaz","c_root_id_B":"chadxo9","created_at_utc_A":1399235326,"created_at_utc_B":1399324635,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Well lets look at what other cultures call their apes and monkey. For example lets look at the Orang-utan. It literally means forest person in Indonesian acording to etymology. Now, is this something locals alwats called them or just westerners misinterperting something when naming the creature in english. I am sure we can look at how east Asia and south east Asia view other primates, looking at etymology and cultural and religious traditions.","human_ref_B":"There's actually a part of the *Popol Vuh*\u2014a collection of K'iche' Maya mythological texts recorded in the early 18th century\u2014that you might find interesting. Basically, Heart of Sky (the creator god) has created a people fashioned out of wood who have \"nothing in their hearts and nothing in their minds, no memory of their mason and builder.\" For this disrespect, not only towards the creator but also the tools they use and animals they keep, Heart of Sky destroys them in a large cataclysm, after which we read: > *Such was the scattering of the human work, the human design. The people were ground down, overthrown... And it used to be said that the monkeys in the forest today are a sign of this. They were left as a sign because wood alone was used for their flesh by the builder and sculptor. So this is why monkeys look like people: they are a sign of a previous human work, human design\u2014mere manikins, mere woodcarvings.* This is Dennis Tedlock's translation, done in collaboration with Andres Xiloj, a modern K'iche' daykeeper, but I checked a literal translation by Allen J. Christenson that I have and it says something very similar\u2014that the spider monkeys in the forest are the descendants of the \"men of wood.\" If any Mayanists want to weigh in on the extent to which the original Xim\u00e9nez manuscript reflects pre-contact beliefs, that might help answer your original question about pre-modern societies more accurately.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":89309.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1m9k71","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Was there a real difference between character and alphabet languages before written language? I was thinking that much of the east use character based languages, and the west mostly uses alphabet languages. Since at some point humans *must* have used a single language there must be a point where a split occurred. I have also noted that east and west \"split\" long before written language. Were the components that lead to the two language styles somehow already in the populace before the split or is it just a coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"cc74n56","c_root_id_B":"cc77oi5","created_at_utc_A":1379020990,"created_at_utc_B":1379029655,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This theory doesn't really hold water. First, it's not true that most languages of the east use character based languages. At present only China (+HK and Taiwan) uses a logographic script to a full extent. Japan uses them to a limited extent and South Korea to a very limited extent. All other countries in Asia use alphabets, abjads and syllabaries. Other countries used logographic scripts in the past - including Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia, but only in China this rudiment has survived up to the present day. So we certainly can't speak of a \"split\" when logographic scripts were invented independently in several places. Then the Proto-Sinaitic script was invented somewhere in Sinai and this innovation rapidly spread to the point that all alphabets and abjads existing today derive from it (with a few unsubstantial exceptions like Hangul). So Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets derive from it (via the Phoenician script), but also all Indian scripts and even the Thai, Laotian and Khmer scripts. There exist many reasons why the Chinese characters have survived for so long and weren't replaced by a true alphabet, the most important of which is the continuity of the advanced Chinese civilization and the fact that ancient Chinese was monosyllabic and later tonal, so it was well equipped to use a logographic script, whereas other languages had extreme difficulty to adapt these Chinese characters to their national languages, which is why the Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese finally abandoned them in favor of true alphabets (the Japanese only partially).","human_ref_B":">I was thinking that much of the east use character based languages, and the west mostly uses alphabet languages You have already gotten good responses but I want to underline something: *Most* languages either borrowed their writing system or used another writing system as inspiration. Japan, Korea, and Vietnam didn't independently invent the idea of character-based writing systems; they imported it from China, which had tremendous cultural influence in the region. Japan and Korea both invented phonetic scripts later, but their aesthetic was inspired by Chinese characters. (Japanese hiragana and katakana are syllabaries, and Korean hangeul is an alphabet that is arranged into syllabic blocks when you write it.) Vietnam went with an alphabet based on Latin and therefore looks very different than Chinese--but structurally it is more similar to Chinese than either Japanese or Korean. Also, they didn't import Chinese characters because they were well-suited to their languages. Japanese and Korean, for example, have very different rules regarding their sounds and how words can be put together, and it wasn't straightforward or easy to write them with Chinese characters! Now to the \"west.\" Most of the alphabetic systems that you are thinking of also trace back to a common ancestor. They weren't invented independently either. We *could* write English with a character-based system rather than an alphabet, but we don't because we borrowed our writing system from Latin. Latin, and not Chinese, was the lingua franca of Western Europe at the time. All of this is to say *which writing system you use has far more to do with your cultural influences than the properties of your language.* Even if the assumption that the \"west\" uses alphabets and the \"east\" uses characters were true (it's not), you need to pay attention to the common heritage of these writing systems and how they spread before assuming it has to do with the properties of the language. The languages that use characters, and the languages that use alphabets, do not form groups of languages that are similar--i.e. there is nothing about them in common that would make them more suited to one type of system or the other. Chinese characters, for example, encode phonological information at the syllabic level (i.e. the elements that represent sound usually represent whole syllables)^(1). This works better for Chinese than it would for English, because Chinese has a simpler syllable structure than English and therefore fewer possible syllables that need to be represented.^(2) If you designed a character-based writing system similar to Chinese *for English* you would probably want to encode individual sounds (phonemes) rather than entire syllables. But there are many languages with very simple syllable structures that use alphabets and not syllabaries or characters. \/linguist out ^(1) It's a common misconception that Chinese characters are pictograms or that they do not encode any phonemic information. ^(2) Japanese and Korean also have simple syllable structures but this didn't matter all that much for the way that they used Chinese characters.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8665.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"de87er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What field studies the interaction between wild species and humans throughout history? I've been seeking a name for this subset of natural history for a while and thought I found it in Anthrozoology, but I'm not totally sure that best fits the specific topic I want to study. I want to find similar stories of human interaction with wild species like that of the Australian Aboriginal tribes using Remoras to catch Green Sea Turtles. >Accounted here under \"MODE OF CATCHING TURTLE\": >https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/12525\/12525-h\/12525-h.htm#chapter2.1 >A live sucking-fish (Echeneis remora) having previously been secured by a line passed round the tail, is thrown into the water in certain places known to be suitable for the purpose; the fish while swimming about makes fast by its sucker to any turtle of this small kind which it may chance to encounter, and both are hauled in together! Is there a more specific subset of zoology or anthropology that studies the ways humans have cohabited with wild animals or used them as a part of their culture? Stories and accounts like using bears to locate honey hives, using ants to suture wounds, following baboons to water, tying string around a cormorants neck and having them catch fish, etc. I especially prefer non-city interactions, though something like the battle between raccoons and human garbage infrastructure in the current day is also interesting. What study is this? When reading through articles and papers on Anthrozoology I see only discussions of domesticated animals, humans handling species in conservation, and cultures trading in exotics. >Examples of those: https:\/\/www.depauw.edu\/humanimalia\/index.html Do you know of the field I'm seeking, and what is the more specific term for it? Thank you","c_root_id_A":"f2uhkmw","c_root_id_B":"f2uhoup","created_at_utc_A":1570416744,"created_at_utc_B":1570416835,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Human animal relations is a term I have come across more and more often in socio. Semiotics is a way to employ the idea quite successfully to allow animals to have world views like humans shaping and then in the process. Not anthro related but cnn had an article about wild pigs using sticks today.","human_ref_B":"Ethnobiology is the word you're looking for. This covers all kinds of human\/plant, human\/animal, human\/fungi, human\/microbe relations, though the literature on human\/plant relations (i.e., ethnobotany) is probably the most extensive. If you're interested in humans and animals specifically, ethnozoology is the term.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":91.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"300wul","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"r\/askhistory suggested I try my question here. What did couples do historically when the wedding night fell during the woman's period? These days lots of women use birth control, or otherwise make sure that they don't have their period on their wedding night, but what did people do historically? I know in some cultures consummation during menses is a big deal, but in some cultures it isn't.","c_root_id_A":"cpocut1","c_root_id_B":"cpo8ztq","created_at_utc_A":1427144439,"created_at_utc_B":1427138612,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Varied cultures, varied answers. Many cultures throughout history have accepted the practice of separating menstruating women into a common house during these times. This segregation might also extend to marriage rites, though I have not heard any specific examples of this. There is a good deal written about culture and menstruation but, IIRC, much of it is in the context of *menstrual huts* among indigenous populations.","human_ref_B":">I know in some cultures consummation during menses is a big deal, but in some cultures it isn't. Follow up question: Does modern culture make a big deal of it? I know where I stand, but whats the consensus, man?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5827.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9rsort","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"I have a few questions regarding the subject of Anthropology The rules didn\u2019t really state otherwise if I could make a thread about this or not, so I\u2019m going with it. So I\u2019m pretty interested in Anthropology, I plan on getting my degree in it once I get my Associates. The subject is just so fascinating to me and I\u2019m leaning more towards the historical analysis side, although it\u2019s a bit hard to find info sometimes about it, so here I am, asking. 1. I honestly don\u2019t know much about the field, what is it exactly that you do as an Anthropologist? 2. I\u2019d love to learn a lot more about the field, how would I go about pursuing my degree in Anthropology, if you have any advice. 3. What kind of experiences do you get while studying in the field? If you have any stories that you\u2019d like to share that\u2019d be really cool. So yeah, if anyone could shed some light on the topic I\u2019d love to hear it. I\u2019m writing this as just got home from work, so I\u2019m a bit wound up. Thanks for the help, and advice if provided.","c_root_id_A":"e8jf7an","c_root_id_B":"e8jon22","created_at_utc_A":1540629264,"created_at_utc_B":1540647580,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Can I check what country you are in? As studying anthropology can mean different things depending on where you are.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology has 4 main fields: cultural anthropology (participant observation, ethnographies, etc.), archaeology (bones and materials), linguistics, and physical anthropology (morphology, primates, bones, etc.) What an anthropologist does depends on the specific anthropologist. Some can be studying lemurs, some can be environmentalists studying ethnoecology, some can be working in marketing firms. Some can be excavating in Egypt (egyptologists\/archaeologist) while others can simply be using their anthropological perspective and skills learned to apply to a non-anthropology related field, like Real Estate. Medical anthropology is currently the fastest growing field of anthropology and focuses on medicine, global health, marginalized populations and aid, etc. Forensic anthropology seems to be a good career path for many graduates too, from what I've noticed. Anthropology is very diverse and broad so I suggest you find what calls to you and figure out how to fit that interest within anthropology. I did my bachelor's of arts degree in Anthropology. There are more archaeological research opportunities and field school opportunities compared to cultural anthropology opportunities in America, but everything depends on location (and what you're interested in.) I fall under the category of using my degree where I can apply it. Making tons of money was not a reason I pursued a degree in Anthropology but I would do it all over again a second time without question. I find anthropology very rewarding in other ways.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18316.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"4xohtq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"\"non-biased\" or raw evidence for non-binary gender systems in history So a problem I have, when discussing gender systems and sharing historical examples of non binary systems with certain types of people, is that they can easily feel like they are being nicely rational and skeptical by dismissing any evidence that comes from supposedly biased sources such as feminist and gender studies books. To quote one person \"If there were indeed societies in the past which recognised the modern ideas of gender being different from sex, that would be kind of a big deal, so, i imagine, wider, less specific researches on these societies would mention it.\" Now I'm aware that it is a mistake to have an argument over the internet, but sometimes I can't resist, and more importantly sometimes I feel less secure in my position, like perhaps they are right to be skeptical of such sources. (I have very little experience with historical and anthropological methods) For example the references on the page https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gender_systems#Non-European_gender_systems are very \"left-wing\" or \"SJW\" sounding. Similar with google search results asking for such evidence. So my question: where can I find the raw evidence for the existence of such gender systems that its less easy to be skeptical of. Alternatively is MY position wrong and it is in fact correct to be skeptical of such sources. or is there a more subtle point that I'm missing. Thanks very much for any help.","c_root_id_A":"d6h5ont","c_root_id_B":"d6h4fwx","created_at_utc_A":1471190468,"created_at_utc_B":1471188525,"score_A":45,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"So I'm not entirely sure what you mean by \"raw evidence\", but there is a lot of anthropological research on gender. Hell, my master's degree focus is listed as \"gender, ecology, and society\". It should not be too difficult to find peer reviewed articles that discuss the existence\/acceptance of two spirit people, as well as other gender identities outside the binary man\/woman. It seems to me that the person you're speaking with is not very familiar with anthropology either, as calling for evidence from \"less specific studies\" doesn't make a lot of sense. Anthropology is a science, our work is carried out with the intent to address specific questions. In the past (50+ years ago) you find more examples of \"less specific\" research focused more upon codifying particular cultures as a whole unit. Interestingly, even in those situations \"kinship\" is something earlier anthropologists were taught to look into upon arrival, but as a \"tool\" to better understand the \"natives\". \"Two-spirit\", hijra, fa'afafine, and numerous other non-binary and trans gender identities exist and have been studied in great detail. This work is peer reviewed, meaning, much like scientific research in other fields where laboratory work and replicating experiments is simply not possible (ecology, for example), it has been determined to add to our knowledge base about humanity. A free article available that talks about two-spirit people in the past (which seems like it might be helpful given that you're specifically using the word \"SJW\" which is a very contemporary way to attack antisystemic thinking) is available here: http:\/\/www.academia.edu\/8141369\/_Cherokee_Two-Spirits_Gender_Ritual_and_Spirituality_in_the_Native_South_1770s-1840s_Early_American_Studies_12_no._3_Fall_2014_ I'd encourage you, if you're interested beyond this internet argument, to head over to Google Scholar to see if you can find articles that address more specific questions that you might have - by which I don't mean \"just Google it\", rather that there's so much work and so many questions, being able to look for what speaks to you might be useful. (I apologize for formatting, I'm on mobile).","human_ref_B":"You could look into Native American \"Two Spirits\" as well as \"Hijras\" in India. Those two could give you a jumping off point, but I wouldn't expect much to come out of an internet argument","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1943.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"872kfd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Is it true that ther are\/were isolated Peoples who never discovered or forgot how to make fire? Many people claim that the sentinelese and other isolated people don't know how to make fire, but is that true?","c_root_id_A":"dw9rnma","c_root_id_B":"dw9rk8e","created_at_utc_A":1522005382,"created_at_utc_B":1522005279,"score_A":76,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"We don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true because nobody has studied the Sentinelese long enough. Understand that the Sentinelese **do** have fire, but the question is whether they know how to **make** fire, or whether they simply collect it from lightning strikes or other natural sources, and then keep it burning. The story that they can\u2019t make fire comes from a British explorer in the 1880\u2019s, who claimed that they don\u2019t know how to make fire but keep embers burning. The only study in modern times is from an Indian expedition in 1991 led by a guy named Triloki Nath Pandit. He wrote a book which appears to be out of print, but here's an article that mentions an interview with him. When he arrived at North Sentinel Island, he was met by Sentinelese on the shore, who tossed some spears at the boats and then disappeared into the forest. After waiting a while, Pandit and a couple others landed and walked in to the forest where they saw a clearing where some huts and crude shelters had been built. There were fires burning outside each shelter. He didn\u2019t stay long enough to see what kind of toolkit they had, so he still wasn\u2019t able to establish if they can make fire, but he saw enough to know that they use fire routinely. This isn\u2019t very unusual, especially on small islands where flint or metal might not be locally available. Humans used to keep fires burning long before they discovered how to make fire. There\u2019s a historical mention from Alexander\u2019s campaign where they say they on his way back from India they came across fishing villages on the Gujarat\/Sindh\/Baloch coast where the people didn\u2019t have fire. Again, it\u2019s not clear if they meant no fire or no means to make fire. It\u2019s possible that that were people in historical times who didn\u2019t have a fire-making tooklit (and perhaps the Sentinelese are among them), but they still **used** fire. Humans have weak teeth and jaws and a shortened digestive system, which makes them unable to properly utilize uncooked food. While modern people with a fully stocked grocery store nearby can possibly subsist on a raw food diet (though not very well), they are relying on energy rich plant products which are the result of millennia of domestication, and animal flesh certified by food safety agencies. It would be much harder for a hunter-gatherer group to survive on a raw food diet. So at least since the appearance of our own species (and probably for hundreds of thousands of years earlier), humans have used fire for cooking, regardless of whether they had a fire making toolkit or not.","human_ref_B":"We discussed the issue of \"isolated people\" in a lecture last week. Many anthropologists seem to doubt that truly \"uncontacted\" tribes even exist. Though that doesn't mean that knowledge can't be lost. It's entirely possible that a group with little contact to its neighbors and no real need for fire would forget how to start it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":103.0,"score_ratio":10.8571428571} {"post_id":"hg5k6h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Were non-martial tools ever discovered as grave goods? Would prehistoric people - besides warriors - be buried with the tools of their trade? Was a farmer buried with his plough, or a potter with a potter's wheel? Or at least symbolic small-scale recreations of those tools. The wikipedia page is ambiguous in mentioning \"tools\" discovered in graves, with no further specification.","c_root_id_A":"fw3gzhj","c_root_id_B":"fw3j2yj","created_at_utc_A":1593201123,"created_at_utc_B":1593202191,"score_A":10,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"Oh there have been tons of non-martial grave goods found. They vary from food containers, dye pots, and personal grooming tools (like tweezers) to weaving tools, blacksmithing tools, and jewelry. It really depended on the individual, their status within their group, and their occupation or lifestyle. Here's a burial in Western Siberia that had a range of blacksmithing tools: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/figure\/Mound-9-of-the-Timiryazevskij-1-burial-site\\_fig3\\_333994668 Here are some early medieval British burials with personal grooming tools: https:\/\/intarch.ac.uk\/journal\/issue42\/6\/7.cfm A Viking burial featuring weaving tools and woven fabrics: https:\/\/www.shelaghlewins.com\/tablet\\_weaving\/Oseberg\\_tablet\/Oseberg\\_tablet.htm","human_ref_B":"European archaeologist here! This is a great question, and one that brings up the classic question of \"just how much should we be inferring from grave goods?\" Not everyone who was buried with weapons in the past was a warrior. Take Bronze Age, Thy, Denmark, for example: all adults were buried with daggers, and men were very reliably buried with swords. Swords here probably acted more as gendered symbols than literal reflections of occupation in life. Some of these guys may have been warriors, but not all of them, and most would likely not have been career soldiers in the way we think of it. Similarly, ancient noblemen and kings are found with undamaged ceremonial swords all the time. Again, it's part of their culture's trappings of status and masculinity--it doesn't mean he went to battle. Other tools do appear in burials as well. Personal hygiene tools like tweezers are common in graves from cultures all over the world, as part of a personal toolkit. Viking women were sometimes buried with loom weights, wool combs, and other key tools for working textiles, but again, these are inherently gendered items as well, and may have signaled \"woman\" before they signaled \"weaver.\" The long and the short of it is that--though there will be exceptions--grave goods don't necessarily record profession so much as idealized archetypal roles in society. Lazy un-unformatted bibliography: -Medieval Clothing and Textiles 11 (Volume 11), edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker -Local Societies in Bronze Age Northern Europe, by Nils Afinset and M. Wrigglesworth","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1068.0,"score_ratio":2.1} {"post_id":"1d1pjn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Linguistic Anthropology: Why is it that nearly all \"virtue\" names are exclusively feminine? I was reading about naming the other day, and I noticed something. There are tons of virtue\/good trait names for women: Faith, Grace, Hope, Charity, Felicity, Joy, and more. These are all very normal names for women. However, it seems like there isn't an equivalent trend for men. Sure, there's the occasional guy named Noble or Justice, but those names are definitely out of the ordinary. Why is this the case?","c_root_id_A":"c9m38ul","c_root_id_B":"c9m3mzq","created_at_utc_A":1366854263,"created_at_utc_B":1366855296,"score_A":6,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"This is primarily from the Christian tradition, but exactly the origin of this is hard to say (Hebrew names have similar tradition, however both men and women are named after virtues). It goes back at least as far as Dante's Beatrice, and in general relates to the Christian discourse of using the figures of chaste women to embody the holy spirit. There is perhaps a connection to the Jewish conception of what can be broadly termed the Holy Spirit (in Hebrew Shacharit) which embodies the nurturing, feminine aspect of H-shem while the masculine aspect (Tzedekah) embodies the masculine aspect of justice, either of which in order to be a good must be combined.","human_ref_B":"That's just in English though. In Turkish, Erdem (virtue), Faz\u0131l (a different word for virtue), Umut (hope), Umit (also hope) are all male names. Vefa isn't common anymore, but it's a male name for faith (in terms of fidelity more than religious faith, I believe). Saadet (felicity) is unisex. Saadettin (I believe a related word) is male. Names around joy, like Ne\u015fe and Sevin\u00e7, tend to be female names if I recall correctly. (I can't think of equivalents to grace or charity). Adil (justice) is a male name and Adile is the female form. Necip (noble) is also a male name. Onur and \u015eeref are both male names that mean honor. There's also Efe, Yi\u011fit, and Mert which mean \"brave\" and are male. In Turkish, I want to say that women's names are more likely to come from Nature. Ay-, Hilal, Y\u0131ld\u0131z, G\u00f6k-, all relate to celestial things, Selin, Pinar, -su, Deniz, Derya, Damla, all relate to water, Nil\u00fcfer, G\u00fcl, Lale, Filiz, Ba\u015fak, \u00c7i\u011fdem, Yaprak relate to flowers or plants, etc., though there are also male names that refer to natural things, like Kaya (rock or cliff), Demir (iron), Duman (smoke), Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m (lightning), Tayfun (typhoon). One could say this says something about Turkish culture and American culture, but ultimately, I would likely argue, it's as arbitrary as the Germans and French having a Fatherland and the Russians having a Motherland. We shouldn't over read too much into a culture based on these things. Incidentally, Turkey's word, Vatan (which was consciously coined in the 1860's as a translation for the French *Patrie*), is not gendered at all (it's ultimately derives from the Arabic word for \"to reside\" or \"to live in a place]\"). *Edit*: I may have been too hasty dismissing it as arbitrary. \/u\/czela (a name I recognize from \/r\/AskHistorians and am happy to see here) makes the [excellent point that: >I'm not sure where this custom originated, but I don't think the English gave their women such names in the Middle Ages. I *want* to say that this started as a Calvinist\/Puritan custom in English. The Wikipedia for the name Honor, for example, says, \"It was a virtue name in use by the Puritans\" (but then just links to a random naming website). Faith and Hope say similar things with similar links. Grace may be older and Felicity even pre-Christian, though I'd want to attribute their popularity to Puritan naming practices, too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1033.0,"score_ratio":4.1666666667} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscdp9","c_root_id_B":"cmsbj7e","created_at_utc_A":1418344278,"created_at_utc_B":1418342571,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Are you in the USA? If so you should look into cultural resource management work. It's almost always archaeology, but I have heard of smaller private firms doing some cultural anthro work. Almost all federal land-owning agencies (National Parks Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management) hire archaeologists, although these jobs can be kinda hard to get. With a bachelors degree this usually means a temporary job during the summer. Check usajobs.gov regularly (edit: pro-tip, search for \"archeology' as opposed to \"archaeology.\" For some reason they spell it like that in all the federal job listings). There are also private firms that do archaeology. Your State Historic Preservation Office might have a list of registered archaeologists, so that might be the first place to look. There are large, nation-wide firms with offices all over that you can look into. SWCA, ICF International, and HRA are three that come immediately to mind. Try asking your former professors if they have any connections with these companies, as it is usually easier to contact the staff directly. Again, this really only applies to the USA, so I apologize if this is irrelevant to you. Also, I know I focused a lot on archaeology, but that's because it's (a) what I personally do; and (b) where most of the anthropology jobs are in the states.","human_ref_B":"After I finished my BA, I was well chuffed to find a job doing data entry for $10 an hour. YMMV.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1707.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscchd","c_root_id_B":"cmscdp9","created_at_utc_A":1418344215,"created_at_utc_B":1418344278,"score_A":4,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Check out your school's career services, they will often help you find jobs.","human_ref_B":"Are you in the USA? If so you should look into cultural resource management work. It's almost always archaeology, but I have heard of smaller private firms doing some cultural anthro work. Almost all federal land-owning agencies (National Parks Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management) hire archaeologists, although these jobs can be kinda hard to get. With a bachelors degree this usually means a temporary job during the summer. Check usajobs.gov regularly (edit: pro-tip, search for \"archeology' as opposed to \"archaeology.\" For some reason they spell it like that in all the federal job listings). There are also private firms that do archaeology. Your State Historic Preservation Office might have a list of registered archaeologists, so that might be the first place to look. There are large, nation-wide firms with offices all over that you can look into. SWCA, ICF International, and HRA are three that come immediately to mind. Try asking your former professors if they have any connections with these companies, as it is usually easier to contact the staff directly. Again, this really only applies to the USA, so I apologize if this is irrelevant to you. Also, I know I focused a lot on archaeology, but that's because it's (a) what I personally do; and (b) where most of the anthropology jobs are in the states.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":63.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscdp9","c_root_id_B":"cmscb08","created_at_utc_A":1418344278,"created_at_utc_B":1418344134,"score_A":16,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you in the USA? If so you should look into cultural resource management work. It's almost always archaeology, but I have heard of smaller private firms doing some cultural anthro work. Almost all federal land-owning agencies (National Parks Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management) hire archaeologists, although these jobs can be kinda hard to get. With a bachelors degree this usually means a temporary job during the summer. Check usajobs.gov regularly (edit: pro-tip, search for \"archeology' as opposed to \"archaeology.\" For some reason they spell it like that in all the federal job listings). There are also private firms that do archaeology. Your State Historic Preservation Office might have a list of registered archaeologists, so that might be the first place to look. There are large, nation-wide firms with offices all over that you can look into. SWCA, ICF International, and HRA are three that come immediately to mind. Try asking your former professors if they have any connections with these companies, as it is usually easier to contact the staff directly. Again, this really only applies to the USA, so I apologize if this is irrelevant to you. Also, I know I focused a lot on archaeology, but that's because it's (a) what I personally do; and (b) where most of the anthropology jobs are in the states.","human_ref_B":"I would look at an unpaid internship first. Too many Anthropology degrees in a poor economy. I ended up getting a job doing government personnel...but maybe one sweet, glorious day I can transfer to the department of cultural affairs... My cousin whom I can't stand (even less after this) buddied up to her teacher and went with him on an out of the country trip, and has been doing well for herself ever since... at least as far as working in Anthropology goes. As for the rest of her life...heh.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":144.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscchd","c_root_id_B":"cmscsdm","created_at_utc_A":1418344215,"created_at_utc_B":1418345099,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Check out your school's career services, they will often help you find jobs.","human_ref_B":"Starbucks?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":884.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscchd","c_root_id_B":"cmscb08","created_at_utc_A":1418344215,"created_at_utc_B":1418344134,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Check out your school's career services, they will often help you find jobs.","human_ref_B":"I would look at an unpaid internship first. Too many Anthropology degrees in a poor economy. I ended up getting a job doing government personnel...but maybe one sweet, glorious day I can transfer to the department of cultural affairs... My cousin whom I can't stand (even less after this) buddied up to her teacher and went with him on an out of the country trip, and has been doing well for herself ever since... at least as far as working in Anthropology goes. As for the rest of her life...heh.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":81.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmsclji","c_root_id_B":"cmscsdm","created_at_utc_A":1418344720,"created_at_utc_B":1418345099,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Most of my mates are doing freelance for media and big corporations. They're being paid very well. And the lucky ones may work with the governments. And there's a job search engine called www.careerjet.com. You can type 'anthropology' and where do you stay. It helped a lot of my friends so give it a try","human_ref_B":"Starbucks?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":379.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmscsdm","c_root_id_B":"cmscb08","created_at_utc_A":1418345099,"created_at_utc_B":1418344134,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Starbucks?","human_ref_B":"I would look at an unpaid internship first. Too many Anthropology degrees in a poor economy. I ended up getting a job doing government personnel...but maybe one sweet, glorious day I can transfer to the department of cultural affairs... My cousin whom I can't stand (even less after this) buddied up to her teacher and went with him on an out of the country trip, and has been doing well for herself ever since... at least as far as working in Anthropology goes. As for the rest of her life...heh.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":965.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmsclji","c_root_id_B":"cmscb08","created_at_utc_A":1418344720,"created_at_utc_B":1418344134,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Most of my mates are doing freelance for media and big corporations. They're being paid very well. And the lucky ones may work with the governments. And there's a job search engine called www.careerjet.com. You can type 'anthropology' and where do you stay. It helped a lot of my friends so give it a try","human_ref_B":"I would look at an unpaid internship first. Too many Anthropology degrees in a poor economy. I ended up getting a job doing government personnel...but maybe one sweet, glorious day I can transfer to the department of cultural affairs... My cousin whom I can't stand (even less after this) buddied up to her teacher and went with him on an out of the country trip, and has been doing well for herself ever since... at least as far as working in Anthropology goes. As for the rest of her life...heh.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":586.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmspf38","c_root_id_B":"cmsd6dy","created_at_utc_A":1418378408,"created_at_utc_B":1418345863,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You sound like me! I graduated with a bio anth degree last year. It's not an anthropology job per se, but maybe you'd be interested in teaching abroad for a bit? If you're thinking grad school in the future and are interested in exposure to new cultures it's not a bad route to go","human_ref_B":"I'm in the same boat as you at the moment, and I would take crackedchinacup's advice. Look for an internship and if you have any training in ethnography, there are a lot of places looking for user researchers (UX). However, they require you to have some experience in the field, that's where the internship comes in handy. If you're looking at branching out, you could teach ESL overseas. But, in my experience, that's a dead end whenever you come back stateside. You don't have a teaching credential so you won't qualify for a lot of teaching positions and ESL institutions here want you to have a CELTA or masters before they hire you. So, ESL is a good source of non-taxable income (for a year) and experience, but I would have a game plan set up before you even hop on the plane. I wouldn't wait to long to start thinking about a masters degree, if I were you. Anthro, just a general Cultural Antho. degree is not worth that much without experience, imo. If you have experience in ethnography (or UX) then you're more likely to get an interview for a research position, but you're competing against Ph.D's and masters for the same position. If you take a couple more courses and get your Archeology degree (since most of the cultural\/arch courses overlap), almost my entire graduating class that majored in Archeology got jobs right out of college. So, there is an option there. If you're linguistics background, take a gander at Speech Language Pathology. Edit: Try Glassdoor, type in User Research and see what that gets you. Also, take a gander at Linkedin at just kinda peruse profiles for careers that you might be interested in pursuing. You'll notice most people working as a Sr. Researcher started at some small intern position or some small position. I hope that helps, still trying to figure out what to do with my degree myself.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":32545.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2p0vzt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I just got my anthropology degree. Where do I start to look for jobs? I loved anthropology. I just did it because it was what was always going on in my head before anyway, I just can not stop people watching. So I just did the degree because it was so fun, now I have the degree and don't know where to start to look for work. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"cmspf38","c_root_id_B":"cmsnuqj","created_at_utc_A":1418378408,"created_at_utc_B":1418370915,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You sound like me! I graduated with a bio anth degree last year. It's not an anthropology job per se, but maybe you'd be interested in teaching abroad for a bit? If you're thinking grad school in the future and are interested in exposure to new cultures it's not a bad route to go","human_ref_B":"You could work at a museum. If you're in Canberra I'd start volunteering or interning at the NMA in any role and see where that takes you. It's more about what's around you rather than the actual role. I studied biology & animal behaviour at uni and worked in IT for 10 years and now I manage visitor research at a museum and get to dabble with tech. The current cultural collections manager studied anthropology & finance. Heaps of people here started in a menial role and end up doing things like creating exhibitions. You might find that Brisbane or Melbourne Museums have better funding. NSW state arts funding has been pretty poor for a while.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7493.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3d2hhz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"People who have gotten a bachelors in anthropology, what do you do? What should I do? I am about to finish my degree in anthropology and I want to get a masters but I am not sure if I should get a masters in anthropology or something like nursing\/business.","c_root_id_A":"ct1d9px","c_root_id_B":"ct1ffi1","created_at_utc_A":1436759577,"created_at_utc_B":1436764475,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm going to finish my anthropology BS degree next May, and I'm planning on applying to both PA school and accelerated NP schools. Have you taken science prereqs?","human_ref_B":"With a degree like this, and to some extent like mine (english) it's important to put the internship and field work in. You really can do anything if you're willing to take an internship to give you some experience in a particualr field. I knew a kid (remotely, went to my school) who had a history degree who became a wealth manager. He did internships with JP Morgan (i think, iirc) every summer\/year of his studies and after 4 years they really, *really,* wanted him to work there. Obviously that's a little difficult to do after you've graduated. But if you do or did have any experience in anything try and segway that into something. Like I did a journalism internship and using that to get into PR. Something like that. If you've already graduated look for an internship, something 6 months or so for recent grads. The job search can take that long so it isn't the worst idea or way to spend the time. Plus since you already graduated might be able to get one that's paid or has a stipend. I know the U.N. has a bunch of internships available and you def could get into a variety of things with those (there's a lot), potentially travel to work (if that's what you want to do), and definitely help use that to transition into whatever field you want to get into. Or go back for a graduate degree in whatever\/anything (or anthropology and teach). That's always an option.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4898.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"qaz11j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"First Book Recommendations? I\u2019ve been interested in anthropology and early human history recently and I\u2019d like to know if there are any great introductory (but still intriguing and educational) books in the field of anthropology. Any recommendations? Particularly interested in books that present a vastly different idea of society than the western world.","c_root_id_A":"hh6aopk","c_root_id_B":"hh6dj7l","created_at_utc_A":1634602953,"created_at_utc_B":1634604331,"score_A":7,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Close Encounters of the Human Kind by Sang-Hee Lee is a good, contemporaneous work to begin with. She opens up talking about how what we understand about human ancestry is rooted in our own understanding of anthropological growth and development.","human_ref_B":"I recommend The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum by Robert L. Kelly. Even though this is a textbook, I feel like it\u2019s a great starting point in anthropology. It has examples from past and present hunter-gatherer peoples that are really interesting. What I enjoyed most from it is the many connections you can see in daily life and to others by learning about how people live\/used to live in pre-agricultural societies. It talks about how people found food, how they divided people up in their societies, relationships, and other living situations. I used this book for my hunter-gatherer class and it\u2019s been my all-time favorite text to date! book link Edit: spelling","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1378.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"7y8zjw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is there any evidence of Australopithecines caring for the elderly or burying their dead? And if not who were the first early humans to do so?","c_root_id_A":"dueke62","c_root_id_B":"duek9xv","created_at_utc_A":1518900877,"created_at_utc_B":1518900735,"score_A":24,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"As far as I am aware mortuary behavior has only been observed in Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. Homo Naledi, a small brained hominid, may have engaged in caching their dead, but that is still a little contentious. The oldest known human burial is from about 100kya in Israel. Oldest known Neanderthal burial is about 130kya in Croatia. If you accept Berger's claims about Homo Naledi then that pushes back the earliest recorded mortuary behavior back to between 200kya-300kya. I highly recommend Paul Petite's \"The Paleolithic origins of Human Burial. In terms of caring for the elderly, I don't really know as much about. I know that from fossils found of neanderthals that appeared to be from aged individuals we can infer they cared for their elderly, ditto for Homo Saps, but for the early Homo and Australopithecines we don't really have sufficient fossil evidence to make those kinds of claims. Fully intact remains are exceptionally rare and not as much can be inferred about behavior from teeth or partial finger or leg bones. edited to add a \"not\" to the second to last sentence - should not be read as impossible to make inferences from fossil evidence that is available, just limited\/equivocal inferential ability from partial\/fragmentary remains.","human_ref_B":"No, the earliest evidence of either care for the elderly \/ infirm or for intentional burial of the dead is with Neanderthals. You can look at Shanidar Cave for evidence of both.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":142.0,"score_ratio":4.8} {"post_id":"7y8zjw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Is there any evidence of Australopithecines caring for the elderly or burying their dead? And if not who were the first early humans to do so?","c_root_id_A":"duewg65","c_root_id_B":"duf9jyg","created_at_utc_A":1518915271,"created_at_utc_B":1518931871,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"No. There isn't secure evidence of burial until Neanderthals, and even that is a little contentious. While some researchers have suggested the Homo naledi had to have been a deliberate burial most anthropologists aren't convinced yet. We know at least some Homo erectus cared for elderly group members. A skull with all the lower teeth missing and much of the bone resorbed was found at Dmanisi, Georgia, dating to about 1.8 Mya. It takes time for bone to get resorbed after you lose your teeth, which means that individual lived a long time after losing their teeth. That means they had assistance obtaining food. In other primates if you live long enough to lose your teeth or wear them down to the roots that is the end of the line. What is particularly compelling at Dmanisi is that we only have the more primitive Oldowan tools, so it is unlikely the toothless individual could have substituted tools for teeth.","human_ref_B":"Chimpanzees have been observed tending to corpses of family members. It's hard to judge intent and in any case doesn't prove anything about the past, but it seems to suggest to me that some sort of mortuary behavior could be incredibly old.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16600.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"agl8ey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How long does it take to learn a completely unfamiliar language through full immersion without any common language or previous contact. You sometimes hear accounts of sailors, missionaries, anthropologists and such who go to live among people with entirely foreign languages. If there is no common language how long is it likely to take to learn. I recall hearing about a guy by the name of Jack Renton who was a castaway who lived among the Lau at first as a slave but later marrying into them. By the end he apparently knew their language well. Is there any research or accounts on how long this process might take in such a situation where there is no common tongue and what it involves that you could direct me to?. How quickly (weeks months years) is it likely to take to make progress and what factors might be important. Asking as research for a story I am writing.","c_root_id_A":"ee8qbzm","c_root_id_B":"ee811zg","created_at_utc_A":1547689496,"created_at_utc_B":1547672993,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Awesome, something I'm semi-qualified to talk about. In a case of full immersion where you are totally cut off from your native language, you will start to have the basics in a few weeks, be minimally conversant in around a month and should be able to hold a decent conversation in 6-8 weeks. Fluency will depend on your commitment, willingness to study and natural ability but will come in around 4 months to a year, assuming sustained no contact with people who speak a language you speak. ANY contact, even extremely limited (5-10 minutes a day) with a language you speak will delay this schedule. This is because humans are social creatures with an intense desire to communicate, and so in a case of total immersion in a foreign language, that intense need to communicate will highly motivate you to learn. Satisifying that need even a little with your native language (or any language you speak well) will reduce the visceral need to learn the new language, having a huge impact on progress. Strategies to accelerate acquiring a language include: - Learn the 100 most common words in a language. Memorize them, make sure you recognize them when spoken and as quickly as possible, learn to use them including their conjugations. Even better if you do this before arriving. - Learn a semi-complex sentence like, \"I need groceries, so I am going to to the store to buy milk and bread.\" Get a native speaker to help you develop this single sentence into every possible form. Switch the tenses, switch \"I\" to \"you, he, she, they, it\", formal and informal etc. Memorize these forms to build a basic familiarity with the grammar. Refer back to this early on. - Spend as much time around children as possible. This is a big one for two reasons. One, kids tend to talk about the here and now, basic needs and desires and their immediate environment more, generally speak about simple things and thus help you build the basics faster. But actually more important, kids will laugh at you when you make mistakes, and if you ask kids to correct you, they will. Adults will instinctively ignore your mistakes as long as they understand you. (One of the reasons kids learn language so fast is because other kids are better natural teachers.) - Play games that involve speaking with native speakers as much as they'll let you. Card games, board games, dice or domino\/tile games etc. Any game that involves lots of socializing and conversation. (The super bonus ultra secret level is role playing games. If you can find a D&D group in that language to play with, you'll be completely fluent and even reading in 3-4 months or less. I'm not exaggerating here at all.) - Socialize, preferably with alcohol, especially in weeks 3-6. There is a natural phase of language learning that comes as you've started to comprehend well enough to understand a good chunk of what you hear, but it can be hard to start to form sentences. Language teachers often call this \"the silent period\" (and it's worse for shy people). Getting past this and starting to try to speak really helps you learn, and so relaxing (or lowering your inhibitions with a few drinks) can really help you break through this phase. - Finally, and obviously, in the first month or two, do absolutely everything possible to avoid any languages you speak. This includes reading, radio, movies etc. You will start to crave hearing a language you understand. Don't give in, nothing will fuel your development faster than the need to communicate.","human_ref_B":"It's different for everyone. If you look at children you'll see it can take from one year to 2 or 3. For adults it can be different, but being in a situation where you are forced to either learn, or not communicate, is the best case scenario for fast learning.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16503.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"agl8ey","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"How long does it take to learn a completely unfamiliar language through full immersion without any common language or previous contact. You sometimes hear accounts of sailors, missionaries, anthropologists and such who go to live among people with entirely foreign languages. If there is no common language how long is it likely to take to learn. I recall hearing about a guy by the name of Jack Renton who was a castaway who lived among the Lau at first as a slave but later marrying into them. By the end he apparently knew their language well. Is there any research or accounts on how long this process might take in such a situation where there is no common tongue and what it involves that you could direct me to?. How quickly (weeks months years) is it likely to take to make progress and what factors might be important. Asking as research for a story I am writing.","c_root_id_A":"ee850cc","c_root_id_B":"ee8qbzm","created_at_utc_A":1547675527,"created_at_utc_B":1547689496,"score_A":2,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"A lot would depend on the level one would need to achieve. I've had personal experience with French immersion going from zero to a B1 level in 3 months of really dedicated work and practice, but then I speak English, and there's a fair bit of common vocabulary between the two. However it would have likely taken me another 2 years to reach near native proficiency.","human_ref_B":"Awesome, something I'm semi-qualified to talk about. In a case of full immersion where you are totally cut off from your native language, you will start to have the basics in a few weeks, be minimally conversant in around a month and should be able to hold a decent conversation in 6-8 weeks. Fluency will depend on your commitment, willingness to study and natural ability but will come in around 4 months to a year, assuming sustained no contact with people who speak a language you speak. ANY contact, even extremely limited (5-10 minutes a day) with a language you speak will delay this schedule. This is because humans are social creatures with an intense desire to communicate, and so in a case of total immersion in a foreign language, that intense need to communicate will highly motivate you to learn. Satisifying that need even a little with your native language (or any language you speak well) will reduce the visceral need to learn the new language, having a huge impact on progress. Strategies to accelerate acquiring a language include: - Learn the 100 most common words in a language. Memorize them, make sure you recognize them when spoken and as quickly as possible, learn to use them including their conjugations. Even better if you do this before arriving. - Learn a semi-complex sentence like, \"I need groceries, so I am going to to the store to buy milk and bread.\" Get a native speaker to help you develop this single sentence into every possible form. Switch the tenses, switch \"I\" to \"you, he, she, they, it\", formal and informal etc. Memorize these forms to build a basic familiarity with the grammar. Refer back to this early on. - Spend as much time around children as possible. This is a big one for two reasons. One, kids tend to talk about the here and now, basic needs and desires and their immediate environment more, generally speak about simple things and thus help you build the basics faster. But actually more important, kids will laugh at you when you make mistakes, and if you ask kids to correct you, they will. Adults will instinctively ignore your mistakes as long as they understand you. (One of the reasons kids learn language so fast is because other kids are better natural teachers.) - Play games that involve speaking with native speakers as much as they'll let you. Card games, board games, dice or domino\/tile games etc. Any game that involves lots of socializing and conversation. (The super bonus ultra secret level is role playing games. If you can find a D&D group in that language to play with, you'll be completely fluent and even reading in 3-4 months or less. I'm not exaggerating here at all.) - Socialize, preferably with alcohol, especially in weeks 3-6. There is a natural phase of language learning that comes as you've started to comprehend well enough to understand a good chunk of what you hear, but it can be hard to start to form sentences. Language teachers often call this \"the silent period\" (and it's worse for shy people). Getting past this and starting to try to speak really helps you learn, and so relaxing (or lowering your inhibitions with a few drinks) can really help you break through this phase. - Finally, and obviously, in the first month or two, do absolutely everything possible to avoid any languages you speak. This includes reading, radio, movies etc. You will start to crave hearing a language you understand. Don't give in, nothing will fuel your development faster than the need to communicate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13969.0,"score_ratio":8.5} {"post_id":"7w6l0q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where\/when did people get the notion that gods\/a God demands sacrifice? I'm curious about where, how long ago, and why ancient humans got the notion that gods (or eventually, a God) wanted sacrifices, whether they be plants, animals, or human beings. By definition, a god would be all powerful, but why would that god demand the destruction of something precious as appeasement for some anger? I don't subscribe to the idea that ancient cultures were necessarily \"primitive\" in an intellectual sense, so I don't see belief that a god wants a sacrifice as a primitive idea. This is supported by the fact that people still believe it today. (!) If your god loves you, why would that god want you to kill something? Your human father wouldn't ask you to kill your puppy to prove your love, right? (Ok, I'm digressing...) This is a complicated question posed in a space the size of a matchbook cover--hehe. Any thoughts on this? Any books that might help me understand this better? Many thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dty5ith","c_root_id_B":"dtymzj4","created_at_utc_A":1518120597,"created_at_utc_B":1518137937,"score_A":16,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"> If your god loves you, why would that god want you to kill something? Your human father wouldn't ask you to kill your puppy to prove your love, right? (Ok, I'm digressing...) That supposes\/superimposes psychological norms. If you read some Greek or Babylonian mythology (e.g. Homer, Gilgamesh) you will see how gods behave like a set of what would now be termed of very dysfunctional humans. It's quite interesting you question it, as that seems to reveal a facet of being psychologically healthy in a contemporary sense. Soap operas etc used to (not sure if now, hardly seen one for 20 years) show characters regularly saying things like \"if you really loved me you would\/ wouldn't do such and such\" and as such it seemed like something that was fairly normal among some people. Whilst others would find it unacceptable and refuse or walk away. (Religious sacrifice being the same sentiment on a larger scale with a sterner master.) It may depend what circles a person is in, but it does seem like the public discourse about consent and abuse over the past 5 years or so has led to a major de-normalisation of that sort of thing in the English-speaking West. Sacrifice wasn't always about giving something up (which could be associated with a feeling of being purified.. compare with trends like minimalism or veganism today), it could also lead to a feast (community gathers to have a feast of meat from sacrificed animals - Christian communion relates to this) and a feeling of both giving to and receiving from god[s] at the same time. Lots of books on this course list: http:\/\/www.anthro.rutgers.edu\/downloads\/undergraduate\/294-308ghassem-fachandi2008\/file","human_ref_B":"So I think part of the problem is you seem to be looking at ancient religions through the lense of how modern monotheists tend to view their god. Some all powerful father figure who loves them unconditionally. Thats not how polytheistic religions, or even early monotheistic religions viewed their gods, like at all. Most ancient gods honestly didn't give a shit about humans. Look at ancient mythology and humans are depicted more as a mistake or a curiosity to the gods than as children to be loved and groomed and cared for. The gods weren't nice, they weren't kind they were fearful awesome things that had their own lives and issues (seriously look to the greek gods or babylonian mythos to see how true that one is). The only reason ancient gods gave any shit about humans was to play games with them (even the bible has the story of Job which can basically be summed up as the story of God and his drinking buddy the Devil take a bet that the Devil can fuck with this dude's life enough to get him to stop loving God, and God's response is \"go ahead I have that dude so whipped nothing you could do will change him\"). So a sacrifice in their honor was a way to appease these wrathful and often vain and greedy deities. In a religion with sacrifice you didn't sacrifice the whole animal, you would sacrifice the best and most desirable parts of the animal, and then either the priests, the community or your family got to keep the rest. It was a way of inviting the god into, and then bribing the god to take interest and take part in your community (since you know you don't normally want to harm people giving you free good food). Gods weren't things to be loved, they were things to be feared and respected. And you can partially look at that in relation to the environments and conditions these religions evolved in. The Babylonians are a really good example of this when compared to the Egyptians. Though both pantheons are rather dysfunctional in ways they are markedly different in that the Babylonian gods are basically the cause of all the problems in the stories while the egyptian gods are far more pacific by any stretch and mostly keep to themselves. In many ways this is similar to the environments the cultures are in. The Nile is an incredibly predictable river in how an when it floods, and the environment is fairly stable. The Tigris and Euphrates where the Babylonians on the other hand flooded unpredictably in both how high they flood and when. So for the people who lived around these rivers the gods who can be seen as representations of natural forces. So for the Egyptians their religion was strict and needed, but fair and predictable; for the Babylonians the gods were pretty much just unpredictable forces that must be appeased. That sort of HBE approch to religion can also describe how religion today has shaped and changed, today's world is far more predictable and good to live in for it's populace, so gods tend to be seen more loving and caring rather than awesome and awful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17340.0,"score_ratio":1.6875} {"post_id":"7w6l0q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where\/when did people get the notion that gods\/a God demands sacrifice? I'm curious about where, how long ago, and why ancient humans got the notion that gods (or eventually, a God) wanted sacrifices, whether they be plants, animals, or human beings. By definition, a god would be all powerful, but why would that god demand the destruction of something precious as appeasement for some anger? I don't subscribe to the idea that ancient cultures were necessarily \"primitive\" in an intellectual sense, so I don't see belief that a god wants a sacrifice as a primitive idea. This is supported by the fact that people still believe it today. (!) If your god loves you, why would that god want you to kill something? Your human father wouldn't ask you to kill your puppy to prove your love, right? (Ok, I'm digressing...) This is a complicated question posed in a space the size of a matchbook cover--hehe. Any thoughts on this? Any books that might help me understand this better? Many thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dtycq8n","c_root_id_B":"dtymzj4","created_at_utc_A":1518127111,"created_at_utc_B":1518137937,"score_A":4,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"We can't really know any definite date because this sort of data you would need doesn't preserve well. The earliest example of defleshing I am aware of is the Bodo cranium dating from ~600,000 years ago. However, many incidents of defleshing were likely done post-mortem. It's also not really possible to rule out simple cannibalism. As for animal sacrifices, it's also difficult to say. There are animal bones in many Paleolithic burials, but it's not possible to divine whether the animal was sacrificed to be put in the grave or the bones were deposited for some other reason. This may have become more common in the Neolithic as livestock were domesticated as opposed to the hunting of wild animals. Perhaps dogs might have been sacrifices earlier though, as they were domesticated prior to the Neolithic. The meat may be consumed after the sacrifice as well. In any case, Herodotus mentions animal sacrifices in Egypt in the 5th century BC. A third category that would be extremely difficult to demonstrate is sacrificed vegetables or other gathered plants. These are also not necessarily \"sacrificed\" in the way we tend to think of it. They might be burned, but there are cultures where the sacrifice refers to a ritual performed on the food, which is then eaten after the ritual is complete like the meat.","human_ref_B":"So I think part of the problem is you seem to be looking at ancient religions through the lense of how modern monotheists tend to view their god. Some all powerful father figure who loves them unconditionally. Thats not how polytheistic religions, or even early monotheistic religions viewed their gods, like at all. Most ancient gods honestly didn't give a shit about humans. Look at ancient mythology and humans are depicted more as a mistake or a curiosity to the gods than as children to be loved and groomed and cared for. The gods weren't nice, they weren't kind they were fearful awesome things that had their own lives and issues (seriously look to the greek gods or babylonian mythos to see how true that one is). The only reason ancient gods gave any shit about humans was to play games with them (even the bible has the story of Job which can basically be summed up as the story of God and his drinking buddy the Devil take a bet that the Devil can fuck with this dude's life enough to get him to stop loving God, and God's response is \"go ahead I have that dude so whipped nothing you could do will change him\"). So a sacrifice in their honor was a way to appease these wrathful and often vain and greedy deities. In a religion with sacrifice you didn't sacrifice the whole animal, you would sacrifice the best and most desirable parts of the animal, and then either the priests, the community or your family got to keep the rest. It was a way of inviting the god into, and then bribing the god to take interest and take part in your community (since you know you don't normally want to harm people giving you free good food). Gods weren't things to be loved, they were things to be feared and respected. And you can partially look at that in relation to the environments and conditions these religions evolved in. The Babylonians are a really good example of this when compared to the Egyptians. Though both pantheons are rather dysfunctional in ways they are markedly different in that the Babylonian gods are basically the cause of all the problems in the stories while the egyptian gods are far more pacific by any stretch and mostly keep to themselves. In many ways this is similar to the environments the cultures are in. The Nile is an incredibly predictable river in how an when it floods, and the environment is fairly stable. The Tigris and Euphrates where the Babylonians on the other hand flooded unpredictably in both how high they flood and when. So for the people who lived around these rivers the gods who can be seen as representations of natural forces. So for the Egyptians their religion was strict and needed, but fair and predictable; for the Babylonians the gods were pretty much just unpredictable forces that must be appeased. That sort of HBE approch to religion can also describe how religion today has shaped and changed, today's world is far more predictable and good to live in for it's populace, so gods tend to be seen more loving and caring rather than awesome and awful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10826.0,"score_ratio":6.75} {"post_id":"7w6l0q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Where\/when did people get the notion that gods\/a God demands sacrifice? I'm curious about where, how long ago, and why ancient humans got the notion that gods (or eventually, a God) wanted sacrifices, whether they be plants, animals, or human beings. By definition, a god would be all powerful, but why would that god demand the destruction of something precious as appeasement for some anger? I don't subscribe to the idea that ancient cultures were necessarily \"primitive\" in an intellectual sense, so I don't see belief that a god wants a sacrifice as a primitive idea. This is supported by the fact that people still believe it today. (!) If your god loves you, why would that god want you to kill something? Your human father wouldn't ask you to kill your puppy to prove your love, right? (Ok, I'm digressing...) This is a complicated question posed in a space the size of a matchbook cover--hehe. Any thoughts on this? Any books that might help me understand this better? Many thanks.","c_root_id_A":"dtz8tpn","c_root_id_B":"dtz6k7r","created_at_utc_A":1518170610,"created_at_utc_B":1518164948,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Peter Watson's book *The Great Divide* argues that basic religious cultures divide across the New and Old Worlds - Eurasia and the Americas. In Eurasia with the advent of farming the religious impulse latched onto the existing cycles of the monsoon, seasons and animal fertility to create a focus on preserving the fertility and fecundity of the Earth, therefore a sacrifice would be to give something up in order that the cycles of nature continue as they are. While in the Americas where agriculture was more limited or non-existant, the primary focus was on asking that the world *prevent* certain phenomena - it's an accident of geology that the Americas suffer more volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes than Eurasia does. Therefore the focus was always on placating and pleading that things don't happen to the population. Sacrificial rites were more intense and far-reaching under the Aztecs and Mayans for instance. Watson argues that this character comes from the simple fact that worshipping fertility actually works, in that seasons do change, the monsoon does come and animals and crops do grow and reproduce. But pleading with a volcano or El Nino doesn't work and therefore sacrifices became more intense. It's an interesting argument.","human_ref_B":"One thing I want to point out was the gods weren't the only ones who enjoyed sacrifices. Looking at greek culture in particular, hosts would butcher one of the best cows\/goats\/whatever when they had an important visitor, and they would give the visitor the best part to eat. Gods were simply treated like important people. They were given gifts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5662.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1jqnt5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"In cases of female circumcision I assume the ritual is performed on a child most of the time. How do those with type III go on to bear children?","c_root_id_A":"cbhdhel","c_root_id_B":"cbhcz7u","created_at_utc_A":1375717487,"created_at_utc_B":1375716081,"score_A":22,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"For those who don't know, OP is talking about infibulation (AKA pharaonic) female circumcision, which is the most extreme. Scholars have basically classified three different kinds of Female Genital Cutting (FGC). Type 1 removes the clitoris, type 2 removes the clitoris and part of labia and then sews the skin on top together, and type three cuts off almost everything on the outside and sews the opening almost completely closed leaving just enough room for urine and menstruation. You can read more about it and see a diagram here though obviously it is somewhat NSFW. There are photos of women with Type 3 which you can find online if you really want, though some of them are of children which makes me uncomfortable and is one reason why I am not going to link. Type 3 causes a lot of complications and infertility can be one of them. Most infertility is caused by infection and STDs. But scar tissue also builds up making pregnancy difficult. But obviously these communities do continue to have children or else they'd die out. The opening that remains can be tight for sexual intercourse and cause pain, bleeding, tearing, and other complications. This also increases the odds of HIV transmission, which is a big problem. However, despite the pain women get pregnant, the slit heals again, and then they give birth. According to the article I linked above, some doctors reported that women purposefully reduce their caloric intake so that babies will be smaller and less painful to birth. But babies are still too big to fit through a type 3 FGC so it is usually necessary to split the skin prior to childbirth. Of course torn vaginal areas can happen regardless of whether someone has FGC - vaginal tears during childbirth are very common and happen to many women in America. With time and rest most vaginal tears heal on their own, though third and fourth degree ones (when the split tears through the skin separating the vaginal area and anus) usually do require surgery. After a woman with FGC gives birth the area is usually sewn back up. There seems to be no evidence that FGC produces longer labor or more birth complications if modern medical care is available and the women undergo defibulation (they cut the obstructing skin.) If you want to read more, this article discusses the prevalence of certain issues of women in communities where FGC still occurs and compares those who are cut and those who are not.","human_ref_B":"Is type III infibulation? Sealing of the vaginal opening with labia? The labia is cut open by spouse. However, scar tissue lacks flexibility of normal tissues meaning more tearing and scarring. After every child birth the tissue becomes less elastic. If you are talking about the removal of the clitoris. There is no need for the clitoris for fertilization. I don't know if achieving an orgasm increases the likelihood of fertilization. Removal of the clitoral hood can enhance pleasure by exposing the clitoris. Infection is a risk in all these procedures\/rituals that could lead to infertility, especially with infibulation as it leaves a small opening for urine and menstruation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1406.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"c1k6iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some anthropology careers?","c_root_id_A":"erduf28","c_root_id_B":"erduhd6","created_at_utc_A":1560758083,"created_at_utc_B":1560758187,"score_A":9,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Academia or museum work.","human_ref_B":"Like most humanities the list is pretty broad and has more to do with how you can spin your education than what it actually presents as. Tailored careers might include archaeology, field work (ethnographic or shovel bum), cultural resource management, work in museums, galleries, cultural centers, embassies, international relations, professor etc. A lot of these require multiple degrees to be considered though. But remember all the skills you have learned that can be considered unique to anthro. Culture is a huge topic right now and the world is only getting smaller.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":104.0,"score_ratio":4.1111111111} {"post_id":"c1k6iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some anthropology careers?","c_root_id_A":"erdz8bg","c_root_id_B":"ere0g90","created_at_utc_A":1560766230,"created_at_utc_B":1560768120,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I ended up doing graphic design and web design \/ consulting! My Anthropology degree has made me very useful to non-profits and people from different cultural backgrounds - I think I have better sensitivity and communication skills than a lot of people in my field.","human_ref_B":"I work as a community organizer in an anti-poverty ngo.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1890.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"c1k6iu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some anthropology careers?","c_root_id_A":"eredc08","c_root_id_B":"ere0t95","created_at_utc_A":1560781157,"created_at_utc_B":1560768632,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm fascinated by the subject and looked into it before starting undergrad. Turns out, I know 4 people with anthropology degrees. 3 have PhD's. They're all farmers now, and none of them know each other. Now I'm not an anthropologist. I just read about it when I can. This is not commentary. This is food for thought.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019ve always figured that I can go for state work assisting immigrants though my goal is to continue in academia. I\u2019m not done with my bachelors yet though, so we\u2019ll see once the masters are done. Cultural translation work can fit into a lot of different areas.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12525.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8mf9cs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Where do we (and how do we, and can we) draw the line between sociology and anthropology? In this thread I asked the above question. I'm coming from the perspective of an educator in English Literature. In Lit we happily poach ideas and concepts from psych, socio, and anthro, and while the distinction between psychology and the others is (relatively) clear, it struck me that the distinction between anthropology and sociology is (perhaps inevitably) blurred. In response to an assertion that studies of Western cultures are sociology not anthropology, I (semi-jokingly) quipped that \"it's only anthro when it's brown people\". u\/drpeppero pointed out that unfortunately, this is often still a perception of the field, and further, very helpfully, posited that the distinction between anthro and socio is perhaps one of methodology rather than strictly content. I'd be interested to hear further opinions from the community.","c_root_id_A":"dznf7x0","c_root_id_B":"dznefwx","created_at_utc_A":1527411530,"created_at_utc_B":1527409634,"score_A":18,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"First of all, when analysing any academic disciplinary boundary, one has to keep in mind that those boundaries are necessarily unstable, dependent mostly on historical, political, and social contexts than on any \"essential\" difference betweens the fields. With a nod to Marx, it is *not* an attribute of sociology departments to generate sociology, as it is an attribute of pear-trees to bear pears. In fact, to quote one of the most \"interdisciplinary\" social scientists alive (Wolff-Michael Roth): > I tend to think about academic disciplines in terms of Ludwig Wittgenstein\u2019s > language games that not only differ between themselves, but also within > themselves. I have come to understand that there is no such thing as *a* language, > self-identical with itself. One reason was already articulated in the > works of Bakhtin, who insisted on language as a continuously changing phenomenon, > so that it cannot ever be identical with itself because its very exercise > is equivalent to change. Moreover, we know that language translates into > itself, thereby constituting and linking non-equivalencies. For example, when > we say something and our recipient says, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d, we tend to > say \u201cthe same thing,\u201d but in different words (i.e., differently). The recipient > might then say, \u201cOh, I get it!\u201d or \u201cOh, I understand!\u201d We have an instance of > two expressions not being different, but one (the first) is not understood, while > the other (the second) is. Paraphrasing Derrida, I therefore hazard an > impossibility: *1. We only ever have one (academic) discipline. 2. We never have > only one (academic) discipline.* That is, there's no such thing as \"*an* anthropology\" that could be differentiated from \"*a* sociology\". We can see that in this very sub, in fact -- our framing of anthropology as a four-field enterprise is clearly a geographically-based phenomenon, since it is a US-centred tradition, stemming back to Franz Boas and his students. Elsewhere in the world, the suggestion that archaeology, linguistics or osteology are under the \"anthropology\" umbrella will be met with a scoff. The same can be said of sociology, of course, and different national traditions (as well as the rift between quantitative and qualitative) make the discipline considerably unstable when analysed closely. However, I don't think it is *impossible* to draw a line - I am merely aware that this would be where **I**, an anthropologist with a quantitative sociology background, draw the line (rather than a self-evident, hard border). My line is that sociologists, *in general*, do their research with a mindset in which they are solely concerned with studies of \"modern\" peoples (not \"the West\" because there are sociologies of, say, China or Japan). A \"comparative effort\", for a sociologists, would be to put \"US against UK\", \"catholics as compared to protestants\", \"rich and poor\", etc. For all intents and purposes, sociologists theorise as if there was nothing outside the \"modern\" world. However, even when anthropologists do their research in \"modern peoples\" or \"the West\" (like I do), it is very hard to lose track of the fact that there are many peoples who are not \"Western\" or \"moderns\" -- in fact, those are by necessity usually in the background of any anthropological research. Even if one is studying particularly historically, geographically and socially localised phenomena - like science, or the Internet -, one ends up drawing from a plethora of anthropological knowledge that greatly surpasses the phenomenon. Anthropologists compare Twitter users to \"the Ndembu of Northern Rhodesia\", or scientists to \"the Balinese\", and we find that completely normal. In fact, to give an actual example: I have a sociologist colleague who has studied pretty much the same things as me (and actually conducted his research in the same place as I did). His main comparative effort is between \"scientific thinking\" and \"common sense\" - that is, how scientists and laypeople see the world differently. My comparative effort is between \"scientific thinking\" and everything else - I am currently writing a chapter that compares statistical modelling and African divination. Both ways of looking at the world are important, both are complementary, and both are equally difficult IMO. To get back to Roth's linguistic analogy, it is as if sociologists were studying dialects\/accents within the same language, and anthropologists were studying different languages.","human_ref_B":"Whilst the line is certainly harder to call nowadays, the anthropologists in my department would say that the dediction to long\\-term ethnographic fieldwork is the defining practice that seperates anthropology from sociology, political science, or say linguistics. And whilst that is may be with \"brown people,\" it can also encorporate marginalised or alterior communities in any society. Take \"A Space on the Side of the Road,\" an ethnography about Appalachian Cultural Poetics as an example of that. Ethnographic fieldwork can be more than just a methodological practice, lots of groovy 'new materialists' like Martin Holbraad would say that in fieldwork, both method and theory become jumbled up in the flux of things. He asks, for example, in the case of Cuban Diviners who 'claim' the powder they put on their faces to literally be power, not to priviliedge particular Euroamerican understandings in order to show how these diviners became so mistaken, but to flip it and ask what it would take for the ethnographer to come to the same belief as well. So, tl;dr, anthropology is long\\-term ethnographic fieldwork.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1896.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"elw1ln","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Who are anthropologist 'superstars' nowadays? I know Graeber has published some major hits, but who else? Sometimes I hit language barriers reading anthros but for a layperson like me I find Graeber very accessible. I'm thinking more of cultural anthro than archaeo or bio, but that's just because I've never read any archaeo or biological anthro.","c_root_id_A":"fdkxuhk","c_root_id_B":"fdkq03a","created_at_utc_A":1578513390,"created_at_utc_B":1578508746,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Wade Davies maybe? His glory days are perhaps already past, but he is still a known name, I would say.","human_ref_B":"It depends on what conversations you're having but the ontologists are sucking up a lot of oxygen these days. You can think of Descola and Viveiros de Castro there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4644.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"yjzveb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"How has ethnography evolved since Geertz? How has the way anthropologists think about and practice ethnography changed? What critiques exist of Geertz?","c_root_id_A":"iusnu9k","c_root_id_B":"iut5nkt","created_at_utc_A":1667415450,"created_at_utc_B":1667422243,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not super familiar with the full breadth of the conversation, but there are plenty of critiques of Geertz and that entire interpretive school from within a particular tradition of linguistic anthropologists that focuses on verbal art\/performance. I can\u2019t recall any articles off the top of my head, but Keith Basso, Dell Hymes, Richard Bauman, and Anthony Webster are all good names to check out. Particularly \u201cnotes towards a dialogical ethnopoetics\u201d (Webster 2021) and this article by Katherine Hoffman. As far as I understand, critiques are usually centered on the limitations of Geertz\u2019 \u201creading\u201d approach to culture\u2014basically, that it fails to attend to the ways that culture is embodied, performed (and received) orally. I guess it\u2019s part of a shift in American anthro towards more dialogic and self reflexive sort of ethnology.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the things discussed by other users, there have been some interesting developments in multispecies ethnography, such as those outlined by: Lindsay Hamilton and Nik Taylor (*Ethnography After Humanism*) Katharina Ameli (*Multispecies Ethnography*)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6793.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"39g37o","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"How do languages work and evolve? Like the title asks. How did language evolve from a grunt to the complex languages we know today.","c_root_id_A":"cs34tw9","c_root_id_B":"cs3pz1e","created_at_utc_A":1434037994,"created_at_utc_B":1434070245,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"As the other person said, this is too complex a question to easily summarize, but \/r\/asklinguistics might at least be able to help you find introductory texts. Guy Deutscher's *The Unfolding of Language* could also be a good place to begin. **EDIT:** As below, seems like \/r\/linguistics would be a wider choice.","human_ref_B":"You're getting responses that are saying this is too difficult to answer in a Reddit comment. In reality the answer is that we do not know. This is one of the main questions that the field of linguistics is attempting to answer. We just don't know how the first languages evolved, nor do we know if they evolved separately at separate times or just once in human history. We don't know if language is a cultural tool or a biological feature of humanity. All of these things are still being debated and research is still being conducted to try to figure out the answers. But we're just not there yet. It's not that this is too complex to answer on Reddit. It's that the answer is still unknown to science. Also if you do want more in depth discussion on the specific theories, I highly suggest checking out \/r\/linguistics. Someone else pointed you to asklinguistics, but that subs for more basic questions, and filled with a *lot* of layperson speculation as well, so many times the answers you're going to be seeing aren't really reflective of the field of linguistics and the actual science behind the topics. **tl;dr:** We as linguists don't yet know.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32251.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dhyqqz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How does Language affect perception of beauty? A few parts to this question: First, does language drastically affect mouth,jaw, teeth, etc. positions? Enough to where cultures view different facial shapes due to these different positions more desirable than others? Second, do certain objects hold more beauty in one culture than another due to the word for it appearing more beautiful to a native speaker of the first culture? For example, English speakers generally believe a Rose is beautiful, perhaps there is another language that the word for rose is harsh so it is not seen as a beautiful flower? Third, built off the second question, do words for physical traits them more desirable in a culture depending on the connotation and \"beauty\" of how the word for it sounds?","c_root_id_A":"f3u3q89","c_root_id_B":"f3tt9b1","created_at_utc_A":1571152277,"created_at_utc_B":1571145519,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Your second and third questions have been answered well already. > First, does language drastically affect mouth, jaw, teeth, etc. positions? Enough to where cultures view different facial shapes due to these different positions more desirable than others? People certainly hold their mouth and tongue in different positions depending on the language (or even accent\/sub-dialect of a language) they're speaking. Dialect coaches call this \"oral posture\" or \"placement\". I haven't seen studies on whether this changed posture holds true when *not* speaking, though. Diet and food technology, however, certainly has a large and well-documented effect on facial shape. If a society doesn't use utensils, they will tend to develop \"edge to edge\" bite. This significantly changes the look of the face, and I would guess societal beauty standards as well. But to the language question: changing the bite *also* changes the frequency of sounds in a language. It's easier to make sounds like vuh or fuh if you have an overbite vs a edge-to-edge bite. These are called labiodental sounds, meaning lip-teeth sounds, because you use your lips in conjunction with your teeth to make them. Proto-Indo-European, spoken before utensils, didn't have labiodental sounds. Most descended languages do. There was an article in Science about this earlier this year: https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/363\/6432\/eaav3218","human_ref_B":"A note on your question about face and language. I do think there is a noticeable difference between faces based on primary language spoken. When I am in Russia even my resting face changes and I've noticed that my Chinese friends who speak primarily English show it on their faces. I haven't found any research on this yet though I expect some ay some point. Different use means different muscles means different looks, though that difference might be very small.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6758.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"796ez8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"anyone know of any good papers on anarchism in ancient hunter-gatherer societies? I'm a STEM major taking my first philosophy course, and we have recently went over the theories of human nature put forward by Hobbes and Kropotkin. I was wondering if anyone here had any links to any papers talking about what *actually* happens in a state of nature. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"dozyrhf","c_root_id_B":"dozmdjt","created_at_utc_A":1509166392,"created_at_utc_B":1509147822,"score_A":16,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Nothing actually happens in a state of nature, because it never existed. Early modern political philosophers were producing armchair speculation based on either no anthropological data at all or limited colonial accounts of indigenous peoples. Anthropologists, anarchist or not, have debunked this idea for decades.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s been a bit since I was in school, but see if David Graeber has anything that would help. He is a well known anarchist anthropologist.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18570.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"796ez8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"anyone know of any good papers on anarchism in ancient hunter-gatherer societies? I'm a STEM major taking my first philosophy course, and we have recently went over the theories of human nature put forward by Hobbes and Kropotkin. I was wondering if anyone here had any links to any papers talking about what *actually* happens in a state of nature. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"dozo17t","c_root_id_B":"dozyrhf","created_at_utc_A":1509150206,"created_at_utc_B":1509166392,"score_A":7,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"It doesn\u2019t quite fit the bill, but it\u2019s short, readable, and the introduction totally nails why anarchism is so understudied. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, David Graeber.","human_ref_B":"Nothing actually happens in a state of nature, because it never existed. Early modern political philosophers were producing armchair speculation based on either no anthropological data at all or limited colonial accounts of indigenous peoples. Anthropologists, anarchist or not, have debunked this idea for decades.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16186.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"796ez8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"anyone know of any good papers on anarchism in ancient hunter-gatherer societies? I'm a STEM major taking my first philosophy course, and we have recently went over the theories of human nature put forward by Hobbes and Kropotkin. I was wondering if anyone here had any links to any papers talking about what *actually* happens in a state of nature. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"dozyrhf","c_root_id_B":"dozqhby","created_at_utc_A":1509166392,"created_at_utc_B":1509153642,"score_A":16,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Nothing actually happens in a state of nature, because it never existed. Early modern political philosophers were producing armchair speculation based on either no anthropological data at all or limited colonial accounts of indigenous peoples. Anthropologists, anarchist or not, have debunked this idea for decades.","human_ref_B":"You've already gotten recommendations for Graeber-who is definitely well worth reading. I'd also suggest you look at Orderly Anarchy: Sociopolitical Evolution in Aboriginal California, by Robert L. Bettinger. I'd also look at James C. Scott-he has a new book out (that I haven't read yet) titled Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States that would likely be in that vein.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12750.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"5qqt1k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Any recommendations for books (or documentaries if possible) on prehistoric mythology? I'm part way through Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology and while I think it's a great book and I have the utmost respect for him, I can't help wondering if there hasn't been an update or breakthrough in the last 48 years. I feel like I haven't heard much about the mythologies of anything in the last several years, is this field of study not as prevalent to anthropology and archeology as it once was?","c_root_id_A":"dd1x1jd","c_root_id_B":"dd2kjyl","created_at_utc_A":1485686741,"created_at_utc_B":1485725782,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"When I did this in my degree we were recommended Jean Clottes: The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the painted caves. This will probably be the kind of thing you are looking for","human_ref_B":"The core of your question deals with \"prehistoric mythology.\" This is problematic for two reasons. The first is that whatever is prehistoric in this regard is largely unknowable. The period before written documents is undocumented to a large extent. Material cultural remains lend a great deal of information, but they cannot provide much insight into a culture's mythology, whatever that means. Which leads to the second issue here: the term \"mythology\" is problematic because it really is a function of a priestly class seeking to codify if not unify the stories told in relation to a potentially diverse belief system. We need to look with a jaundice eye at the \"mythology\" of the Classical world because the documents in question may draw from the oral traditions of the time, but they may have also been purposefully manipulated to enhance the power structure or at the very least to smooth over contradictions either within a single people's folklore or within the domain of the state, which may have included diverse people. Ethnographers and folklorists have long recognized that oral tradition often includes contradictory stories and beliefs. Belief systems could be fluid and vague, while written mythologies were by necessity monolithic, attempting to codify and unify. The following is, again, an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore, this time dealing with the term \"myth\": >Something also needs to be said here about myth. People use this term awkwardly. In a European context, myths tend to be the artificial constructs of ancient and Classical-era priests or literate people who sought to weave folk traditions into a comprehensive whole. The exercise often had political purposes, designed to provide diverse people with a single set of beliefs and stories. By reconciling similar traditions, the shared culture of these groups could be seen as more important than the differences, justifying the central rule of the king and his priests. Myth is also a way of organizing and reconciling folk traditions, which by their nature can be contradictory and highly localized. Myth tends, however, to make gods of supernatural beings, giving those powerful entities a status \u2013 for modern readers \u2013 similar to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, even when this comparison is not justified. Of course, it is also important to point out that myths were stories that were told \u2013 and then written down \u2013 and they were different from religion itself. Many myths were simply the shared cultural inheritance of a group of people. >In general, the word myth is best set aside when discussing more recent folk traditions, recognizing its proper status as a literary genre. Nonetheless, ancient documents recording myths can assist in understanding the history of various stories and beliefs. The authors of these texts were, after all, the first folklorists, and they were the only ones coming close to practicing the craft at the time. >Some folklorists carelessly use the term myth to denote those legends that deal with a fantastic, remote time. This primal era saw the creation of many familiar things such as day and night, fire, animals, people, mountains, and all other aspects of the present world. Folklorists properly refer to these stories as etiological legends explaining the origin of things. Sometimes, however, people interchange etiological legends with the word myth. The problem with this is that \u201cmyth\u201d can imply something that is inherently wrong, linked to \u201cprimitive\u201d superstitious beliefs. When the term \u201cmyth\u201d is used for the folklore of existing cultures or for the traditions that were viable only a generation or more ago, it can take on an insulting, derogatory tone. It is best to reserve the word \u201cmyth\u201d for ancient and Classical-era texts.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":39041.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"5qqt1k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Any recommendations for books (or documentaries if possible) on prehistoric mythology? I'm part way through Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology and while I think it's a great book and I have the utmost respect for him, I can't help wondering if there hasn't been an update or breakthrough in the last 48 years. I feel like I haven't heard much about the mythologies of anything in the last several years, is this field of study not as prevalent to anthropology and archeology as it once was?","c_root_id_A":"dd2k1ex","c_root_id_B":"dd1x1jd","created_at_utc_A":1485725129,"created_at_utc_B":1485686741,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are two things to consider here. The first being the question of \"prehistoric mythology\" and the second the question of Joseph Campbell. This post takes up Campbell. I'll address the first question in a separate post. The following is an excerpt from my Introduction to Folklore dealing with psychological analysis of mythology and folklore. These approaches tend to seek universal explanations for elements of culture expressed internationally. They are ambitious, but while universal explanations are exciting and fun to think about, they tend to link dots that are either unrelated or less meaningful when placed together than the authors would maintain: >The popularity of one particular approach among non-folklorists warrants a digression. In the last part of the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) created a great deal of interest in mythology and folklore with a series of publications on the subject. This was followed by a 1980s series of television interviews, which propelled Campbell to popularity with the general public, but not necessarily with all folklorists. To a certain extent, Campbell was relying on an older approach that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) developed. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) but later broke with his mentor\u2019s teachings to form his own approach to the study of the human mind. Jung developed the idea of the collective unconscious, maintaining in almost spiritual terms that all of humanity is linked by archetypes that existed in an unconscious common denominator. Ultimately, Jung implied that certain themes are woven into the fabric of the universe. This results, according to Jung, in a shared symbolic vocabulary which manifests in dreams, mythology, folklore, and literature. >Jungian psychology was extremely popular during the upheavals of the 1960s when people looked for mystical explanations of life to unify all existence. In spite of the faddish qualities of the late twentieth-century consumption of Jungian ideas, it is easy to regard Jung as an exceptional thinker with an extraordinary background of diverse reading. Campbell borrowed heavily from Jung, presenting many of these ideas in an easily consumable package that, in its turn, became something of a fad during the 1980s. Campbell drew not only on Jung, but also on Otto Rank\u2019s 1932 publication, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. >There are clearly many good ideas in this literature, but there are problems with the approach of Campbell, Jung, and Rank from the point of view of folklore studies. The first is that they tend to present the concept of tale types in mythology and folklore as though it were a new discovery. In other words, they ignore the highly developed bibliography that the discipline of folklore offers. The second, more serious problem is that this line scholarship makes no distinction between the core of a story and its culturally-specific or narrator-specific variants and variations. The Jungian-Campbell approach treats any variant of a story as an expression of the collective unconscious, regardless of whether its particular form is the product of an individual storyteller\u2019s idiosyncrasies or of the cultural predilections of a region made irrelevant by traveling to the next valley. And with this process, all the other variants are ignored, including ones that may contradict the initial observation. This does not mean that there are no valuable insights in the work of Jung and Campbell. There are, of course, but folklorists regard their approach as removed from their own discipline and flawed, to a certain extent. >Dundes presented a similar critique of Freudian-based psychoanalysis of folktales. In his The Study of Folklore (1965), he wrote that \u201cthe analysis is usually based upon only one version\u2026To comparative folklorists who are accustomed to examining hundreds of versions of a folktale or folksong before arriving at even a tentative conclusion, this apparent cavalier approach to folklore goes very much against the grain. How does the analyst know, for example, whether or not the particular version he is using is typical and representative.\u201d (107) Dundes also pointed out that often the \u201cvariant\u201d presented by the psychological analysis is from \u201ca children\u2019s literature anthology, rather than directly from oral tradition.\u201d","human_ref_B":"When I did this in my degree we were recommended Jean Clottes: The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the painted caves. This will probably be the kind of thing you are looking for","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38388.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dlgdff","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Are there any atheistic primitive nations? Are there any tribes which didn't develop a belief in anything supernatural?","c_root_id_A":"f4s17qn","c_root_id_B":"f4zb7tr","created_at_utc_A":1571773513,"created_at_utc_B":1571902603,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d doubt it. We\u2019re too predisposed to creativity and pattern recognition. No primitive person could inherently understand the invisible forces at work, and I don\u2019t think any society could accept such lack of control, therefore must invent some controls. Edit: I think any primitive human would believe something so superstitious, we would not accept them as atheists.","human_ref_B":"I learned that belief in an afterlife may have developed from dreams. A sleeper dreams of a person that has died and this leads to that sleeper thinking that a spirit has visited him which could lead to thinking of an afterlife and where the spirit would reside.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":129090.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"4wpbl6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are there any permanent pre-Columbian settlements in what is now Brazil? If so, what is the oldest one?","c_root_id_A":"d68xjlk","c_root_id_B":"d69oz1h","created_at_utc_A":1470660198,"created_at_utc_B":1470698593,"score_A":9,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Are you asking if there are settlements that have been continuously occupied since pre Columbian times by communities that claim ancestry back to the pre-Columbian days of the site? Like Cusco in Peru?","human_ref_B":"I'll repost something I wrote about 6 months ago at \/r\/AskHistorians, since it's relevant to your question: The Amazon basin is one (or two if you want to split the northern end \/ Orinoco Basin from the western end) of only a 8-10 epicenters for agriculture in the world. Beginning around 8000 BP, Amazonian peoples began domesticating such notable crops as sweet potatoes, cassava, cotton, yams, cacao, tobacco, pineapple, rocoto pepper, and peanuts. From here, these crops spread throughout most of South America and north into Central America and Mesoamerica, with a few making it ever further. In the case of sweet potatoes, they'd eventually make it all the way to New Zealand before Europeans arrived. Most pottery in the Americas ultimately traces its ancestry back to the Amazon as well. Around 450 BCE, the people of the Amazon made another major agricultural innovation - *terra preta.* This is a man-made soil that vastly increases the fertility of rainforest soil and the longevity of farmland in tropical environments. It's also self-perpetuating, as it creates a micro-ecosystem that slowly converts more soil into more *terra preta* under the right conditions. Unfortunately, the techniques for producing this material have been lost and are still under investigation by modern soil science. In the meantime, we have to make due harvesting small amounts of *terra preta* from the sites that are regenerative. Pockets of *terra preta* can be found throughout the Amazon today, and it's not surprising that where it is most abundant we also see archaeologically evidence for large-scale societies. Many of these large Amazonian societies existed when Europeans arrived. The expedition led by the conquistador Orellana in the 1540s from Andes to the mouth of the Amazon provides our earliest historical look. For example, he encountered the Omagua who controlled a 300-500 mile stretch of the central Amazon. One Omagua town had an estimated 8000 people, while another stretched along the Amazon for 20 continuous miles, and a third had a warehouse full of ceramics waiting to be sent out for trade. As large as Omagua was, the people along the Amazon agreed that the Ica to the north were even larger and stronger. Orellana didn't encounter the Ica and specifically avoided going too far away from the river (he didn't want to split his forces or commit to an overland expedition), but he did chance upon the roads the Ica built through the forest. Further downstream, the vicinity of modern Santar\u00e9m also densely populated by the Tapaj\u00f3s, who were said to be able to dispatch a force of some 60,000 archers in the early post-Columbian period. Archaeologically, this is one of the regions were *terra preta* is at its most abundant. Anna Roosevelt, an archaeologist who specializes in the pre-Columbian societies of the lower Amazon, described the region around Santarem as \"of urban scale and complexity,\" and as part of a highly stratified tributary political system. At the time of Orellana, his contacts in the area said they were led by a queen called Conori who ruled from further up the Tapaj\u00f3s River. Though Orellana never met Conori, it was after this warrior-queen that the Amazon was named. On Marajo Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, there was another large Amazonian society. The largest community there, now the archaeological site known as Camutins, had a population of an estimated 10,000 people. Camutins had declined prior to European contact, but the Marajoara were still numerous on the island and neighboring areas, and divided into several smaller competing polities which resisted Portuguese influence until the mid-1600s (when they were known as the Nheengaibas, an exonym applied to them by the Tupi). Ultimately, these large Amazonian polities were highly disrupted by European diseases and warfare with Europeans and other Amazonians. In this turmoil, the Omagua refugees headed upriver to join with others into a coalescent Cambeba identity. The Marajoara were eventually defeated by a combination of Portuguese invasions from the south and Carib invasions from the north. The Tapaj\u00f3s identity faded away due to a combination of emigration to other communities in the Tapaj\u00f3s and Xingu River valleys, assimilation efforts by Jesuit missionaries, and warfare with neighboring peoples like the Wuy Jugu. Unfortunately, I don't know of an English translation of the chronicle of Orellana's expedition, but River of Darkness is a good substitute if you want a more detailed look into what the earliest Europeans in the area saw. You'll probably also be interested in Handbook of South American Archaeology, which will have the basic archaeological information in a single convenient location.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":38395.0,"score_ratio":1.1111111111} {"post_id":"4wpbl6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are there any permanent pre-Columbian settlements in what is now Brazil? If so, what is the oldest one?","c_root_id_A":"d69fo7e","c_root_id_B":"d69oz1h","created_at_utc_A":1470685989,"created_at_utc_B":1470698593,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The Amazon river basin was most likely the site of a pre-Colombian civilizational complex with thriving riverfront towns and complex and interconnected societies who traded and interacted with each other and with Inca traders. But they all became abandoned with almost no trace by the time later Europeans explorers visited these areas after being reported by a European who visited these areas early on. It is actually believed now that modern-day indigenous peoples in Brazil like the Kayapo and other so called \"uncivilized\" hunter-gatherer indigenous populations in Brazil and South America are descendants of people from these developed and relatively technologically advanced societies who later underwent a loss of knowledge of the technologies, skills, and of maintaing the same lifestyle of their ancestors and instead went back to hunter-gatherering and more primitive subsistence in order to survive when Amazon basin societies and \"civilizations\" underwent a collapse and rapid population loss likely as a result of Old World disease and epidemics.","human_ref_B":"I'll repost something I wrote about 6 months ago at \/r\/AskHistorians, since it's relevant to your question: The Amazon basin is one (or two if you want to split the northern end \/ Orinoco Basin from the western end) of only a 8-10 epicenters for agriculture in the world. Beginning around 8000 BP, Amazonian peoples began domesticating such notable crops as sweet potatoes, cassava, cotton, yams, cacao, tobacco, pineapple, rocoto pepper, and peanuts. From here, these crops spread throughout most of South America and north into Central America and Mesoamerica, with a few making it ever further. In the case of sweet potatoes, they'd eventually make it all the way to New Zealand before Europeans arrived. Most pottery in the Americas ultimately traces its ancestry back to the Amazon as well. Around 450 BCE, the people of the Amazon made another major agricultural innovation - *terra preta.* This is a man-made soil that vastly increases the fertility of rainforest soil and the longevity of farmland in tropical environments. It's also self-perpetuating, as it creates a micro-ecosystem that slowly converts more soil into more *terra preta* under the right conditions. Unfortunately, the techniques for producing this material have been lost and are still under investigation by modern soil science. In the meantime, we have to make due harvesting small amounts of *terra preta* from the sites that are regenerative. Pockets of *terra preta* can be found throughout the Amazon today, and it's not surprising that where it is most abundant we also see archaeologically evidence for large-scale societies. Many of these large Amazonian societies existed when Europeans arrived. The expedition led by the conquistador Orellana in the 1540s from Andes to the mouth of the Amazon provides our earliest historical look. For example, he encountered the Omagua who controlled a 300-500 mile stretch of the central Amazon. One Omagua town had an estimated 8000 people, while another stretched along the Amazon for 20 continuous miles, and a third had a warehouse full of ceramics waiting to be sent out for trade. As large as Omagua was, the people along the Amazon agreed that the Ica to the north were even larger and stronger. Orellana didn't encounter the Ica and specifically avoided going too far away from the river (he didn't want to split his forces or commit to an overland expedition), but he did chance upon the roads the Ica built through the forest. Further downstream, the vicinity of modern Santar\u00e9m also densely populated by the Tapaj\u00f3s, who were said to be able to dispatch a force of some 60,000 archers in the early post-Columbian period. Archaeologically, this is one of the regions were *terra preta* is at its most abundant. Anna Roosevelt, an archaeologist who specializes in the pre-Columbian societies of the lower Amazon, described the region around Santarem as \"of urban scale and complexity,\" and as part of a highly stratified tributary political system. At the time of Orellana, his contacts in the area said they were led by a queen called Conori who ruled from further up the Tapaj\u00f3s River. Though Orellana never met Conori, it was after this warrior-queen that the Amazon was named. On Marajo Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, there was another large Amazonian society. The largest community there, now the archaeological site known as Camutins, had a population of an estimated 10,000 people. Camutins had declined prior to European contact, but the Marajoara were still numerous on the island and neighboring areas, and divided into several smaller competing polities which resisted Portuguese influence until the mid-1600s (when they were known as the Nheengaibas, an exonym applied to them by the Tupi). Ultimately, these large Amazonian polities were highly disrupted by European diseases and warfare with Europeans and other Amazonians. In this turmoil, the Omagua refugees headed upriver to join with others into a coalescent Cambeba identity. The Marajoara were eventually defeated by a combination of Portuguese invasions from the south and Carib invasions from the north. The Tapaj\u00f3s identity faded away due to a combination of emigration to other communities in the Tapaj\u00f3s and Xingu River valleys, assimilation efforts by Jesuit missionaries, and warfare with neighboring peoples like the Wuy Jugu. Unfortunately, I don't know of an English translation of the chronicle of Orellana's expedition, but River of Darkness is a good substitute if you want a more detailed look into what the earliest Europeans in the area saw. You'll probably also be interested in Handbook of South American Archaeology, which will have the basic archaeological information in a single convenient location.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12604.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblgctw","c_root_id_B":"cblj8k8","created_at_utc_A":1376225240,"created_at_utc_B":1376237817,"score_A":6,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Is this connected to someone who posted the same question a couple weeks ago ? http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/1j7snu\/what_is_the_college_and_high_school_life_in_usa\/","human_ref_B":"There's two essential problems with your question. The first is the apparent assumption that there exists a single homogenous teen culture in the USA. The US is a wildly diverse nation, and it's not just about geography. Youth in the USA are so stratified by economy, religion and ethnicity that it's very common to have critically different youth experiences in the same city depending on which neighborhood you live in, or which school you happen to go to. The second problem is that US filmmakers love to mine the youth experience for films, but tend to make them into comedies and write them from the perspective of adults engaging in nostalgia. This tends to leave the films with some authenticity problems. The good news is that there are a number of very good films that do focus on youth experiences in the USA, but tend to focus on specific subcultures. These films are almost always dramas instead of comedies, and so some authenticity problems remain, these problems revolve around issues of dramatic presentation instead of exaggerating for the sense of comedy, which I believe lends a more accurate cultural picture. SLC Punk is a film about the punk scene in Salt Lake City, Utah, a very conservative city in the US. ATL is a film about black working class teens in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a rare film about American black teens that doesn't indulge in the more stereotypical or over dramatic cliches so typical of the film industry. Dazed and Confused is a remarkably accurate portrayal of highschool culture in the American Midwest, but is a period piece set in the late 1970s and is has limited insight into contemporary youth culture, although a number of the themes are still relevant. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist has a tendency to run into the ridiculous, but still manages to portray some of the listlessness and pointlessness of the post high school teen culture. Some people have called it boring and a film that doesn't really go anywhere, but I think that might have been the point. And speaking of films that don't go anywhere, Slacker is a film that focuses more on young adults than teens, and is often times somewhat surreal, but is a good window into the culture of post education Gen Xers in the early 90s.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12577.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblgctw","c_root_id_B":"cblm2l1","created_at_utc_A":1376225240,"created_at_utc_B":1376246647,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Is this connected to someone who posted the same question a couple weeks ago ? http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/1j7snu\/what_is_the_college_and_high_school_life_in_usa\/","human_ref_B":"The Breakfast Club is still relevant after all these years and very much fits your criteria.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21407.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblm2l1","c_root_id_B":"cbljq8b","created_at_utc_A":1376246647,"created_at_utc_B":1376239440,"score_A":9,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The Breakfast Club is still relevant after all these years and very much fits your criteria.","human_ref_B":"I think 'mean girls' is a pretty good example of the way teenage girls fight with each other","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7207.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblm2l1","c_root_id_B":"cbljtvp","created_at_utc_A":1376246647,"created_at_utc_B":1376239759,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The Breakfast Club is still relevant after all these years and very much fits your criteria.","human_ref_B":"Watch the movie \"Kids\" and you have a scary accurate vision of American youth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6888.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblrzpr","c_root_id_B":"cblsk5s","created_at_utc_A":1376264749,"created_at_utc_B":1376266591,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"My aunt and uncle are cultural anthropologists (neither of them work at Nintendo though), and they couldn't say enough good things about Winter's Bone. Although, that movie is a microscope on impoverished rural america and has nothing to do with high school, college, or youth culture.","human_ref_B":"KIDS. An awesome movie about a day in the lives of a group of high schoolers set in New York City. People rag on the acting but it's realistic to the point where some viewers thought it was a documentary. Very chilling, very 90s, should be shown to ninth graders in health class","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1842.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cbljtvp","c_root_id_B":"cblsk5s","created_at_utc_A":1376239759,"created_at_utc_B":1376266591,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Watch the movie \"Kids\" and you have a scary accurate vision of American youth.","human_ref_B":"KIDS. An awesome movie about a day in the lives of a group of high schoolers set in New York City. People rag on the acting but it's realistic to the point where some viewers thought it was a documentary. Very chilling, very 90s, should be shown to ninth graders in health class","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26832.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblu2oz","c_root_id_B":"cblrzpr","created_at_utc_A":1376271360,"created_at_utc_B":1376264749,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have a question in a similar vein and didn't want to obnoxiously create a new post. Are Linklater's films (Slacker in particular) generally considered pretty descriptive\/plausible\/accurate\/etc? I always felt like Slacker absolutely nailed the mien of the small city in which I grew up, but that could easily be confirmation bias.","human_ref_B":"My aunt and uncle are cultural anthropologists (neither of them work at Nintendo though), and they couldn't say enough good things about Winter's Bone. Although, that movie is a microscope on impoverished rural america and has nothing to do with high school, college, or youth culture.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6611.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblrzpr","c_root_id_B":"cbljtvp","created_at_utc_A":1376264749,"created_at_utc_B":1376239759,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"My aunt and uncle are cultural anthropologists (neither of them work at Nintendo though), and they couldn't say enough good things about Winter's Bone. Although, that movie is a microscope on impoverished rural america and has nothing to do with high school, college, or youth culture.","human_ref_B":"Watch the movie \"Kids\" and you have a scary accurate vision of American youth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24990.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1k4zpr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"What are some movies that depict the true culture of USA? The movies should depict the true culture of USA and the movie should be a mainstream popular movie, otherwise it would be impossible to find here in Bangladesh. And downloading is beyond the question, since the internet here is only 126 KBps. The movies should accurately depict: * The life of a teenager: including what they do for fun. * The life of a college student: including what they do for fun. * The youth culture (teenage and college students) Though, its almost impossible to get a general idea of the culture of USA due to its diversity, the movies should at least provide some idea of the general culture.","c_root_id_A":"cblu2oz","c_root_id_B":"cbljtvp","created_at_utc_A":1376271360,"created_at_utc_B":1376239759,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a question in a similar vein and didn't want to obnoxiously create a new post. Are Linklater's films (Slacker in particular) generally considered pretty descriptive\/plausible\/accurate\/etc? I always felt like Slacker absolutely nailed the mien of the small city in which I grew up, but that could easily be confirmation bias.","human_ref_B":"Watch the movie \"Kids\" and you have a scary accurate vision of American youth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31601.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"djss21","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"To what extent were hominid migrations driven by simple curiosity? I assume it's something we can never really know for sure, but it is interesting to speculate on. There are a multitude of proposed reasons that hominids migrated out of Africa and across the world, such as need for resources, but to what extent do you think that migration was driven by basic human curiosity? A need to see what's on the other side of that mountain just because you want to know what's there?","c_root_id_A":"f48wpjs","c_root_id_B":"f497j5p","created_at_utc_A":1571451043,"created_at_utc_B":1571458684,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"All hunters and gatherers obviously must range for resources, and might find things that interest them in looking even further next season, it's no mystery.","human_ref_B":"How would we have scientific evidence for or against this theory? Unless we discover a hominid group that invented writing or some really expressive cave paintings, I don't see how we can do anything more than speculate.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7641.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qlgkdb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"When did light skin evolve for East Asians? I've read an article that Europeans evolved light skin as recent as 9kya, however Europeans and Asians evolved light skin separately. Naturally, I was curious as to when East Asians evolved light skin, I came across a forum that said East Asians evolved light 22kya, is this correct?","c_root_id_A":"hj3qmhc","c_root_id_B":"hj3xemp","created_at_utc_A":1635909725,"created_at_utc_B":1635913059,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Here are two good articles on the subject: https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/mbe\/article\/24\/3\/710\/1240790 https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosgenetics\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pgen.1003912","human_ref_B":"Neanderthals already had light skin, at least some populations based on the study of their genes. Neanderthals lived in Europe, so that 9kya figure is definitely wrong. Your question seems based on the doubtful presumption that there are distinct Asian and European \"races\" with seperate origins. That's not the current understanding, even though some fringe theories postulate it. If you want to talk about the genetics of populations, you first have to define which groups you even want to compare. What do you mean by \"Asian\" and \"European\"?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3334.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ee1x5c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If you had to initiate someone into anthropology, which text(s) would you first give them to read? My best friend has sort of vicariously studied anthropology through me because I was an anthropology major who tended to think out loud. A few years back she asked me to properly introduce her to anthropology by suggesting some reading material. How would you introduce the subject in a way that would get people interested? What readings would you first assign?","c_root_id_A":"fbpkpk3","c_root_id_B":"fbq0nfu","created_at_utc_A":1577022149,"created_at_utc_B":1577027180,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The Nuer by Evans-Pritchards (politics, non-state nations) Never in anger -Portrait of an Eskimo family by Briggs (perhaps what not to do, but so interesting non the less) Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Malinowski really needs to be read, but like the Nuer it is old - but gold. Obviously the female representation is limited, but such is life. First and foremost I\u2019d say - Small places, Large issues by Hylland Eriksen.","human_ref_B":"I've always felt like In Search Of Respect by Philippe Bourgois would be a great intro for people not formally studying anthropology, just because the subject matter is so widely appealing and intriguing, plus the writing isn't overly academic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5031.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ee1x5c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"If you had to initiate someone into anthropology, which text(s) would you first give them to read? My best friend has sort of vicariously studied anthropology through me because I was an anthropology major who tended to think out loud. A few years back she asked me to properly introduce her to anthropology by suggesting some reading material. How would you introduce the subject in a way that would get people interested? What readings would you first assign?","c_root_id_A":"fbpwlpb","c_root_id_B":"fbq0nfu","created_at_utc_A":1577025808,"created_at_utc_B":1577027180,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'd suggest they read Gods of the Upper Air, the new multi-biography of Boas and his inner circle. And pair that with whichever ethnography you find most rewarding. Life in Oil is one of my favorite recent works.","human_ref_B":"I've always felt like In Search Of Respect by Philippe Bourgois would be a great intro for people not formally studying anthropology, just because the subject matter is so widely appealing and intriguing, plus the writing isn't overly academic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1372.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"iturg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology and neuroscience? Hello! I'm a second year college student deciding on my major. I'm most strongly leaning towards a double major in anthropology and neuroscience. I've always loved my biology and psych classes, and I knew coming into college that I had an interest in learning about the science of the brain. However, after taking a few anthropology courses, I fell in love with the subject too. I love both subjects on their own, and I also think the idea of studying culture from a neurobiological standpoint is fascinating! What sorts of career paths would allow me to combine my interests? I have a strong interest in a career in academia. But how would I go about this with a double major? Would I pursue a doctorate in Anthro or in Neuro?","c_root_id_A":"g5gzyp1","c_root_id_B":"g5h8je7","created_at_utc_A":1600265232,"created_at_utc_B":1600269708,"score_A":23,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I think you could certainly find ways to do neuroscientific approaches to anthropology, or at least ones informed by \"cognitive science\", which theoretically should include both anthropology and neuroscience among many other disciplines (though in practice neuroscience is quite dominant). It's definitely doable! If a bit niche. But academia is often about finding your niche so it might work out nicely, who knows!","human_ref_B":"This is absolutely doable. Biological Anthropology is a field you should explore. Off the top of my head Dr. Jeroen Smaers (from my school) and Dr. Zac Cofran study the brain in an anthropological context. You may also enjoy the work of Dr. Robert Sapolsky at Stanford who's a neuroendocrinologist and primatologist. You might like Dr. William von Hippel, an evolutionary pscyhology. Be aware though a lot of ev psych is full of untestable hypotheses and there are many with VERY strong opinions on its merits.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4476.0,"score_ratio":1.2608695652} {"post_id":"iturg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology and neuroscience? Hello! I'm a second year college student deciding on my major. I'm most strongly leaning towards a double major in anthropology and neuroscience. I've always loved my biology and psych classes, and I knew coming into college that I had an interest in learning about the science of the brain. However, after taking a few anthropology courses, I fell in love with the subject too. I love both subjects on their own, and I also think the idea of studying culture from a neurobiological standpoint is fascinating! What sorts of career paths would allow me to combine my interests? I have a strong interest in a career in academia. But how would I go about this with a double major? Would I pursue a doctorate in Anthro or in Neuro?","c_root_id_A":"g5hok9w","c_root_id_B":"g5hylfq","created_at_utc_A":1600277474,"created_at_utc_B":1600282336,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"You might be interested in checking out Terrence Deacon and his 2011 book *Incomplete Nature*. He's a biological anthropologist with some fun ideas.","human_ref_B":"This is 100% doable, did my Master's in this area. Will update this post later with more details. In the meantime, lookup \"cultural neuroscience\" (edited volume by Slaby and Choudhury), \"neuroanthropology\" (blog run by Greg Downey and Daniel Lende, various papers by other people), and maybe look up the book \"Neuro\" (Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4862.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"iturg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology and neuroscience? Hello! I'm a second year college student deciding on my major. I'm most strongly leaning towards a double major in anthropology and neuroscience. I've always loved my biology and psych classes, and I knew coming into college that I had an interest in learning about the science of the brain. However, after taking a few anthropology courses, I fell in love with the subject too. I love both subjects on their own, and I also think the idea of studying culture from a neurobiological standpoint is fascinating! What sorts of career paths would allow me to combine my interests? I have a strong interest in a career in academia. But how would I go about this with a double major? Would I pursue a doctorate in Anthro or in Neuro?","c_root_id_A":"g5hqs61","c_root_id_B":"g5hylfq","created_at_utc_A":1600278529,"created_at_utc_B":1600282336,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Human-centered-design is effectively the merger of those two disciplines. Look up organizations like Doblin and IDEO and see if what they do interests you. It's a great way to apply those skills while having a career in the private sector that compensates accordingly.","human_ref_B":"This is 100% doable, did my Master's in this area. Will update this post later with more details. In the meantime, lookup \"cultural neuroscience\" (edited volume by Slaby and Choudhury), \"neuroanthropology\" (blog run by Greg Downey and Daniel Lende, various papers by other people), and maybe look up the book \"Neuro\" (Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3807.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"iturg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology and neuroscience? Hello! I'm a second year college student deciding on my major. I'm most strongly leaning towards a double major in anthropology and neuroscience. I've always loved my biology and psych classes, and I knew coming into college that I had an interest in learning about the science of the brain. However, after taking a few anthropology courses, I fell in love with the subject too. I love both subjects on their own, and I also think the idea of studying culture from a neurobiological standpoint is fascinating! What sorts of career paths would allow me to combine my interests? I have a strong interest in a career in academia. But how would I go about this with a double major? Would I pursue a doctorate in Anthro or in Neuro?","c_root_id_A":"g5hylfq","c_root_id_B":"g5huf3o","created_at_utc_A":1600282336,"created_at_utc_B":1600280287,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"This is 100% doable, did my Master's in this area. Will update this post later with more details. In the meantime, lookup \"cultural neuroscience\" (edited volume by Slaby and Choudhury), \"neuroanthropology\" (blog run by Greg Downey and Daniel Lende, various papers by other people), and maybe look up the book \"Neuro\" (Nikolas Rose and Joelle M. Abi-Rached).","human_ref_B":"I think there's a subfield called \"cognitive anthropology\", which looks the intersection between culture and, well, cognitive sciences. So I would imagine that a double major in both those fields could work.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2049.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"hh66qs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Leading the Undergraduate Anthropology Club at m University Hello! I have some questions but I am more so looking for advice. If this is the wrong place to ask please let me know. I am the President of the Anthropology Club for undergraduate students and I want to make it fun and inviting for those in and out of the major\/minor. Our last president was great but she did not execute things well and made us buttheads with the archaeology club. We want to collaborate and make our clubs work as one so that students can enjoy the many sides of anthropology the field has to offer. What would you suggest in terms of holding events, trips, and meetings? What are things that you would want undergrad students to look into and learn more about? I could really use advice and guidance since this is my first time being the president of a club. Thank you to those who took the time to read this as well \u2764\ufe0f","c_root_id_A":"fw892at","c_root_id_B":"fw88jvg","created_at_utc_A":1593311909,"created_at_utc_B":1593311576,"score_A":30,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"One of the more helpful things I did with my undergrad anthropology club was host a round table with professors to talk about grad school and the process for getting into grad school! That could be a joint event with the archeology club for sure. Maybe see if you could connect with alumni too to gain a better understanding of what to do with an anthropology degree or see if folks are interested in mentoring students.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m more archaeology based, but I\u2019m in graduate school and can offer some suggestions. Museums offer collaboration of various subfields - ethnographic, archaeological, evolutionary, and primatology. They may be a good starting point for trips. It would also be beneficial to discuss conferences for the different subfields and workshops for papers (research\/classwork or presentation) (faculty invite would be really helpful). I also recommend promoting potential undergraduate research venues or available internships in labs\/museums. Make sure to reach out to your graduate students as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":333.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"4mhsmg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Majoring in Evolutionary Anthropology, what should be my minor? If this post isn't relevant I apologize!! But, I am working toward a degree in Evolutionary Anthropology at my university and in order to graduate, I need a minor. Would minoring in geology be at all helpful to the over all success of my future career in the biological anthropology field? Or should I just minor in cultural anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"d3vwy0q","c_root_id_B":"d3vnqu5","created_at_utc_A":1465062198,"created_at_utc_B":1465043810,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Geology is very useful for paleoanthropology. Archaeology as well, depending which hominins you want to work with. Something medicine-related could also work well with new fields like evolutionary medicine.","human_ref_B":"Do you plan on doing an MA or PHD? I think geology could be an asset. Also you could consider some form of a harder science that would get you comfortable with working in labs as that may make you more attractive to some of the \"better\" uni's from what I have seen as you would maybe have some experience working with fauna etc\u2026","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18388.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"69ujy0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is there evidence of a mythos off of which the Biblical book of Genesis is based? Surely Genesis is just the scribing of a mythology and not a spontaneous conception, right?","c_root_id_A":"dh9vlay","c_root_id_B":"dh9oxvb","created_at_utc_A":1494222836,"created_at_utc_B":1494211443,"score_A":42,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Similar to the way Babylonians and Sumerians believed the world to have begun, emphasis in Genesis 1 is placed over the earth being \"formless and void\" and God being above the waters. Likewise, in Babylonian myths, the world began when salt water (Tiamat) and sweet water (Apsu) came together and begat other deities. Similarities in creation can be seen in the Enuma Elish, whereas inother tablets the flood myth may connect the Biblical Noah with Utnapishtim. My personal favorite connection is that in both tales, the first thing either does after getting off the boat is getting blackout drunk on wine, but I digress. Edit: somehow I forgot about Gilgamesh. Much like in Genesis, Gilgamesh finds a fruit, from which he can gain immortality. Before he can bite from it, a serpent beats him to the punch and eats\/steals it. Gilgamesh was also best friends with another man\/demigod named Enkidu. Through acts too long to describe, the gods have Enkidu killed. Gilgamesh's song of lament over his dead friend is used verbatim by King David over the loss of his friend Jonathan in 1st Samuel(?).","human_ref_B":"r\/academicbiblical","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11393.0,"score_ratio":5.25} {"post_id":"458a1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"If you were to put together a 12-week high school course titled \"Ideas that Changed the World\", what would topics would you include? (X-post \/r\/askhistorians) Hi! First time poster here. I'm currently putting together a 12-week course (2 hours a week) for students 15-18 years old at a supplementary school for (near-)native speakers of English in Tokyo, and the theme is \"Ideas that Changed the World.\" I got the inspiration for the course from seeing a book on Amazon of the title, and I made the pitch to my boss, and, voila, I have 2 weeks to make it! I'm working with my colleague on it this weekend, and I just wanted to see what \/r\/askanthropology and \/r\/askhistory would consider to be the most influential ideas that the age group would be interested in. I'm not exactly sure of the class structure yet, but I was thinking of doing a topic over two weeks, and the class will include readings, discussions and research. I particularly would like the students to be able to connect what they learn in this class to events, movements, and discussions taking place today. Any comment, or advice on my selection and\/or relating reading sources, is highly appreciated. I've selected the following 6 topics: a) Evolution b) The Scientific Method c) Capitalism and Communism d) Democracy e) Bacteria, Diseases, and Vaccination f) Human Rights \/ Feminism If I were to do a topic a week, I was thinking about also include the following: g) Popular Culture \/ Consumerism h) Zero i) Labor Rights j) Nation \/ Nationalism k) Markov Chain l) The Assembly Line Well, let me know what you all think! Thanks in advance for any comments or advice :) Edit: spelling","c_root_id_A":"czvz2oy","c_root_id_B":"czw3ysy","created_at_utc_A":1455198214,"created_at_utc_B":1455206677,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"If this is specifically a history class, you may not be able to do this as its an ongoing phenomena, but Globalization is pretty damn important. It stretches all the way back to I think 1300 ad IIRC, and has been constantly changing since then. It's also an important global force as we have the UN, Nato, World Wars, and the TPP.","human_ref_B":"The idea of the state, absolutely should be on included. We naturalize this idea so much it is really important to have that long-term historical perspective on how most of humanity never actually lived in a society organized into a state. The \"idea\" of a hierarchically organized society is pretty profound.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8463.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"458a1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"If you were to put together a 12-week high school course titled \"Ideas that Changed the World\", what would topics would you include? (X-post \/r\/askhistorians) Hi! First time poster here. I'm currently putting together a 12-week course (2 hours a week) for students 15-18 years old at a supplementary school for (near-)native speakers of English in Tokyo, and the theme is \"Ideas that Changed the World.\" I got the inspiration for the course from seeing a book on Amazon of the title, and I made the pitch to my boss, and, voila, I have 2 weeks to make it! I'm working with my colleague on it this weekend, and I just wanted to see what \/r\/askanthropology and \/r\/askhistory would consider to be the most influential ideas that the age group would be interested in. I'm not exactly sure of the class structure yet, but I was thinking of doing a topic over two weeks, and the class will include readings, discussions and research. I particularly would like the students to be able to connect what they learn in this class to events, movements, and discussions taking place today. Any comment, or advice on my selection and\/or relating reading sources, is highly appreciated. I've selected the following 6 topics: a) Evolution b) The Scientific Method c) Capitalism and Communism d) Democracy e) Bacteria, Diseases, and Vaccination f) Human Rights \/ Feminism If I were to do a topic a week, I was thinking about also include the following: g) Popular Culture \/ Consumerism h) Zero i) Labor Rights j) Nation \/ Nationalism k) Markov Chain l) The Assembly Line Well, let me know what you all think! Thanks in advance for any comments or advice :) Edit: spelling","c_root_id_A":"czw3ysy","c_root_id_B":"czw050p","created_at_utc_A":1455206677,"created_at_utc_B":1455200416,"score_A":14,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"The idea of the state, absolutely should be on included. We naturalize this idea so much it is really important to have that long-term historical perspective on how most of humanity never actually lived in a society organized into a state. The \"idea\" of a hierarchically organized society is pretty profound.","human_ref_B":"Including a bunch of diffrent subject such as: Mythology, Philosophy, Logic, Compartive and philosophy of Religion , Critical thinking 101. Just a few quick examples of subject I'd be sticking to .","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6261.0,"score_ratio":7.0} {"post_id":"458a1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"If you were to put together a 12-week high school course titled \"Ideas that Changed the World\", what would topics would you include? (X-post \/r\/askhistorians) Hi! First time poster here. I'm currently putting together a 12-week course (2 hours a week) for students 15-18 years old at a supplementary school for (near-)native speakers of English in Tokyo, and the theme is \"Ideas that Changed the World.\" I got the inspiration for the course from seeing a book on Amazon of the title, and I made the pitch to my boss, and, voila, I have 2 weeks to make it! I'm working with my colleague on it this weekend, and I just wanted to see what \/r\/askanthropology and \/r\/askhistory would consider to be the most influential ideas that the age group would be interested in. I'm not exactly sure of the class structure yet, but I was thinking of doing a topic over two weeks, and the class will include readings, discussions and research. I particularly would like the students to be able to connect what they learn in this class to events, movements, and discussions taking place today. Any comment, or advice on my selection and\/or relating reading sources, is highly appreciated. I've selected the following 6 topics: a) Evolution b) The Scientific Method c) Capitalism and Communism d) Democracy e) Bacteria, Diseases, and Vaccination f) Human Rights \/ Feminism If I were to do a topic a week, I was thinking about also include the following: g) Popular Culture \/ Consumerism h) Zero i) Labor Rights j) Nation \/ Nationalism k) Markov Chain l) The Assembly Line Well, let me know what you all think! Thanks in advance for any comments or advice :) Edit: spelling","c_root_id_A":"czw8ncg","c_root_id_B":"czw050p","created_at_utc_A":1455213278,"created_at_utc_B":1455200416,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think \"assembly line\" is rather specific, though you do have a point (and interestingly enough it is enshrined upon the back of the \u00a320 note) and it is emblematic of a phenomenon that was a *huge* shift. And to be really nitpicky, it's not an idea in itself, it's a... I don't know, a process. Since I'm a cultural anthropologist though, my nomination for an idea in that vein would be \"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.\" This touches on (c), (g), and (i) as well.","human_ref_B":"Including a bunch of diffrent subject such as: Mythology, Philosophy, Logic, Compartive and philosophy of Religion , Critical thinking 101. Just a few quick examples of subject I'd be sticking to .","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12862.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"458a1l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"If you were to put together a 12-week high school course titled \"Ideas that Changed the World\", what would topics would you include? (X-post \/r\/askhistorians) Hi! First time poster here. I'm currently putting together a 12-week course (2 hours a week) for students 15-18 years old at a supplementary school for (near-)native speakers of English in Tokyo, and the theme is \"Ideas that Changed the World.\" I got the inspiration for the course from seeing a book on Amazon of the title, and I made the pitch to my boss, and, voila, I have 2 weeks to make it! I'm working with my colleague on it this weekend, and I just wanted to see what \/r\/askanthropology and \/r\/askhistory would consider to be the most influential ideas that the age group would be interested in. I'm not exactly sure of the class structure yet, but I was thinking of doing a topic over two weeks, and the class will include readings, discussions and research. I particularly would like the students to be able to connect what they learn in this class to events, movements, and discussions taking place today. Any comment, or advice on my selection and\/or relating reading sources, is highly appreciated. I've selected the following 6 topics: a) Evolution b) The Scientific Method c) Capitalism and Communism d) Democracy e) Bacteria, Diseases, and Vaccination f) Human Rights \/ Feminism If I were to do a topic a week, I was thinking about also include the following: g) Popular Culture \/ Consumerism h) Zero i) Labor Rights j) Nation \/ Nationalism k) Markov Chain l) The Assembly Line Well, let me know what you all think! Thanks in advance for any comments or advice :) Edit: spelling","c_root_id_A":"czw8ncg","c_root_id_B":"czw8bt9","created_at_utc_A":1455213278,"created_at_utc_B":1455212841,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think \"assembly line\" is rather specific, though you do have a point (and interestingly enough it is enshrined upon the back of the \u00a320 note) and it is emblematic of a phenomenon that was a *huge* shift. And to be really nitpicky, it's not an idea in itself, it's a... I don't know, a process. Since I'm a cultural anthropologist though, my nomination for an idea in that vein would be \"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.\" This touches on (c), (g), and (i) as well.","human_ref_B":"This is the first time I've heard of the Markov Chain. After a brief read I now realise how important of an idea it is. We're surrounded by it. From insurance policies, market research and criminology. I feel that it would be a great idea to teach in early school years due to its expansive uses\/importance.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":437.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"u4bix0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books\/authors\/researchers similar to James C. Scott or David Graeber? I've recently finished The Dawn of Everything and Debt the First 5000 years by Graeber. Along with Against the Grain and Seeing Like a State by Scott. Their books are this interesting combo or Anarchism and Anthropology along with human interactions with the environment and how that has effected the development of human cultures. I can't get enough of it and want more. Extra bonus if they're an indigenous writer because I've noticed one critique of their work is that they reference a lot of indigenous cultures without referencing any contemporary indigenous scholars.","c_root_id_A":"i4v5g6u","c_root_id_B":"i4vig9h","created_at_utc_A":1650048534,"created_at_utc_B":1650054093,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Not books but I think you might like the following podcasts: -Fight like an animal (againsttheinternet.com or wherever you find podcasts. especially the ethnogenesis series might be up your alley) -what is politics (on youtube, the last 4 episodes are a great in-depth critique of dawn of everything) Ah, and i forgot: check out http:\/\/radicalanthropologygroup.org\/ they have lots.of lectures on vimeo.","human_ref_B":"> Pierre Clastres (French: [klast\u0281]; 17 May 1934 \u2013 29 July 1977) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist. He is best known for his contributions to the field of political anthropology, with his fieldwork among the Guayaki in Paraguay and his theory of stateless societies. An anarchist seeking an alternative to the hierarchized Western societies, he mostly researched indigenous people in which the power was not considered coercive and chiefs were powerless.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5559.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"u4bix0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Any books\/authors\/researchers similar to James C. Scott or David Graeber? I've recently finished The Dawn of Everything and Debt the First 5000 years by Graeber. Along with Against the Grain and Seeing Like a State by Scott. Their books are this interesting combo or Anarchism and Anthropology along with human interactions with the environment and how that has effected the development of human cultures. I can't get enough of it and want more. Extra bonus if they're an indigenous writer because I've noticed one critique of their work is that they reference a lot of indigenous cultures without referencing any contemporary indigenous scholars.","c_root_id_A":"i4v5g6u","c_root_id_B":"i4v60or","created_at_utc_A":1650048534,"created_at_utc_B":1650048771,"score_A":5,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Not books but I think you might like the following podcasts: -Fight like an animal (againsttheinternet.com or wherever you find podcasts. especially the ethnogenesis series might be up your alley) -what is politics (on youtube, the last 4 episodes are a great in-depth critique of dawn of everything) Ah, and i forgot: check out http:\/\/radicalanthropologygroup.org\/ they have lots.of lectures on vimeo.","human_ref_B":"If you want to go back a bit check out Karl Polanyi\u2019s The Great Transformation and Marcel Mauss (especially The Gift). I see a lot of them in Graeber\u2019s work. They get into alternatives to the market economy by showing examples from a multitude of other cultures.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":237.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"6dr8fl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Have any researchers tested if Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory has predictive power? Not sure if this is the right sub, but the question is if using Campbell's ideas, we can predict anything about previously unknown myths.","c_root_id_A":"di57u8b","c_root_id_B":"di50rkw","created_at_utc_A":1495972935,"created_at_utc_B":1495951921,"score_A":29,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This blog has a nice summary of how folklorists often view Campbell. What it argues, in essence, is that one can predict that when looking for Campbell's archetypes and\/or monomyths, one will fine them because Campbell is all about projecting his conclusions onto traditions of other cultures - whether or not those projections are appropriately applied to indigenous cultures. This is what I wrote in my for-class Introduction to Folklore on Jung and Campbell (which often represents a popularization, easily-digestible version of the complex Jung): >The popularity of one particular approach among non-folklorists warrants a digression. In the last part of the twentieth century, Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) created a great deal of interest in mythology and folklore with a series of publications on the subject. This was followed by a 1980s series of television interviews, which propelled Campbell to popularity with the general public, but not necessarily with all folklorists. To a certain extent, Campbell was relying on an older approach that Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) developed. Jung was a Swiss psychologist who studied with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) but later broke with his mentor\u2019s teachings to form his own approach to the study of the human mind. Jung developed the idea of the collective unconscious, maintaining in almost spiritual terms that all of humanity is linked by archetypes that existed in an unconscious common denominator. Ultimately, Jung implied that certain themes are woven into the fabric of the universe. This results, according to Jung, in a shared symbolic vocabulary which manifests in dreams, mythology, folklore, and literature. >Jungian psychology was extremely popular during the upheavals of the 1960s when people looked for mystical explanations of life to unify all existence. Despite the faddish qualities of the late twentieth-century consumption of Jungian ideas, it is easy to regard Jung as an exceptional thinker with an extraordinary background of diverse reading. Campbell borrowed heavily from Jung, presenting many of these ideas in an easily consumable package that, in its turn, became something of a fad during the 1980s. Campbell drew not only on Jung, but also on Otto Rank\u2019s 1932 publication, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. >There are clearly many good ideas in this literature, but there are problems with the approach of Campbell, Jung, and Rank from the point of view of folklore studies. The first is that they tend to present the concept of tale types in mythology and folklore as though it were a new discovery. In other words, they ignore the highly-developed bibliography that the discipline of folklore offers. The second, more serious problem is that this line scholarship makes no distinction between the core of a story and its culturally-specific or narrator-specific variants and variations. The Jungian-Campbell approach treats any variant of a story as an expression of the collective unconscious, regardless of whether its particular form is the product of an individual storyteller\u2019s idiosyncrasies or of the cultural predilections of a region made irrelevant by traveling to the next valley. And with this process, all the other variants are ignored, including ones that may contradict the initial observation. This does not mean that there are no valuable insights in the work of Jung and Campbell. There are, of course, but folklorists regard their approach as removed from their own discipline and flawed, to a certain extent. >Dundes presented a similar critique of Freudian-based psychoanalysis of folktales. In his The Study of Folklore (1965), he wrote that \u201cthe analysis is usually based upon only one version\u2026To comparative folklorists who are accustomed to examining hundreds of versions of a folktale or folksong before arriving at even a tentative conclusion, this apparent cavalier approach to folklore goes very much against the grain. How does the analyst know, for example, whether or not the particular version he is using is typical and representative.\u201d (107) Dundes also pointed out that often the \u201cvariant\u201d presented by the psychological analysis is from \u201ca children\u2019s literature anthology, rather than directly from oral tradition.\u201d","human_ref_B":"The thing is that Campbell proposes a lot more range in mythology than the term 'monomyth' implies. I think that the major predictive power would be in the toolkit: we expect stories to address this, we expect stories to function that way, and so on.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21014.0,"score_ratio":4.1428571429} {"post_id":"938z1f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What is the earliest evidence of a tally? For how long have humans tallied things? Was it well before writing? Could proto-writing have existed many thousands of years for before actual writing?","c_root_id_A":"e3e7wjl","c_root_id_B":"e3cg9yl","created_at_utc_A":1533097412,"created_at_utc_B":1533038486,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Lebombo Bone is the oldest known - or at least it is older than the Ishango Bone. It was found in S. Africa and is comprised of the same type of bone as the Ishango Bone. It is around 44,000 years old and it had 29 notched lines on it, which may indicate the lunar cycle. It also appears to have sharpened edges which suggest it was some sort of tool.","human_ref_B":"I'd agree that it's more of a historian thing but since the rules here are a bit more lax I can give you a quick and dirty answer here. The oldest known proto-writing methods seem to be used mainly to count things consistently. The earliest forms of cuneiform from the 4th millenium B.C. were mostly used to count things for trade and taxes. To tally you don't really need to write it down and the appearance of proto-writing and writing seem to occur when the old methods of tallying seemed to grow insufficient. In other words it seem extremely probable that tallying predates the few examples of proto-writing tallies we have found.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":58926.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"3s74qe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are there any native tribes that are vegetarian? I was told that there are native tribes in Japan that only eat vegetables but couldn't find any references to it online.","c_root_id_A":"cwuy3aj","c_root_id_B":"cwv0nac","created_at_utc_A":1447126829,"created_at_utc_B":1447131376,"score_A":2,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I have no source but I remember seeing a documentary that mentioned an African tribe that abstained from meat; however, their warriors would eat meat to prepare for battle because they believed it made them stronger.","human_ref_B":"\"Native tribe\" is a weird term, and I'm not sure what you mean by it. Vegetarian practices go back several thousand years, but as far as I know they're always in \"civilizations\" with sophisticated commerce. I personally would be very surprised if there are pre-agricultural cultures where exclusive vegetarianism was a thing. It's very hard to meet your caloric and protein needs without eating animals unless you have very well-developed agriculture going on.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4547.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"jm9uve","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is the multi regional theory dead? Is the Wolpoff multi regional theory of human evolution just out of gas? I'm a lay person, just a curios idiot some might say, but to me the multi regional theory fills alot of holes created by what I read as news headlines. Chinese researchers have always leaned toward showing phenotypical continuity from erectus to modern chinese. Such as attempting to show that the same measurable distinctions of East Asian skulls and skeletons have congruent markers in earlier and earlier versions of Homo. It could be politics, fodder for patriotism, or maybe they are right? I also read about modern human skulls being found outside of Africa, but from before the Sapien Sapien exodus. Multi regional would allow for this. It would also allow for fossil specimens that show transitions, rather that haggle over in group averages just say human. Multi regional would also allow the textbook definition of species to integrate Neanderthals and Denisovans into our own. By that I mean if it mates and produces sexually viable offspring it's of the same species. This would also explain their demise or rather transition? Now I will be the first to say I'm at best an arm chair scientist here, but I think my points have merit. I look at human evolution more like how theories in physics are given weight, when they explain more and more phenomenon. I'm literally basing half my lint on a nova special I saw as a teenager that just stuck with me. Thanks for any input, I'm really excited to hear some opinions on this, I'm open minded.","c_root_id_A":"gaua396","c_root_id_B":"gaueia2","created_at_utc_A":1604271783,"created_at_utc_B":1604274087,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"In a way it went from completely dead with the extreme OOA theory to partly but mostly not true with the evidence of archaic introgression of diverse lineages into ours Genetically it is unquestionable that 90+ percent of our ancestry coalesces around 60K years ago but I\u2019m not so sure genealogically it\u2019s the same story.","human_ref_B":"Back in my day (the early 2000s) there was still some debate, but then Spencer Wells and the Genographic Project (plus others) came along and showed that OOA is the best contender for explaining where we all come from. Later on we got the excitement of sequencing Neanderthal DNA, along with the Denisovans. But still, Africa appears to be the home of us all, no multi regional independent origination. But there's always time for some new discovery \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2304.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"jm9uve","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is the multi regional theory dead? Is the Wolpoff multi regional theory of human evolution just out of gas? I'm a lay person, just a curios idiot some might say, but to me the multi regional theory fills alot of holes created by what I read as news headlines. Chinese researchers have always leaned toward showing phenotypical continuity from erectus to modern chinese. Such as attempting to show that the same measurable distinctions of East Asian skulls and skeletons have congruent markers in earlier and earlier versions of Homo. It could be politics, fodder for patriotism, or maybe they are right? I also read about modern human skulls being found outside of Africa, but from before the Sapien Sapien exodus. Multi regional would allow for this. It would also allow for fossil specimens that show transitions, rather that haggle over in group averages just say human. Multi regional would also allow the textbook definition of species to integrate Neanderthals and Denisovans into our own. By that I mean if it mates and produces sexually viable offspring it's of the same species. This would also explain their demise or rather transition? Now I will be the first to say I'm at best an arm chair scientist here, but I think my points have merit. I look at human evolution more like how theories in physics are given weight, when they explain more and more phenomenon. I'm literally basing half my lint on a nova special I saw as a teenager that just stuck with me. Thanks for any input, I'm really excited to hear some opinions on this, I'm open minded.","c_root_id_A":"gawhpza","c_root_id_B":"gaw8bbi","created_at_utc_A":1604330110,"created_at_utc_B":1604324822,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Chris Stringer has a short piece that discusses introgression from other hominins and why it doesn't mean that we ought to all be multiregionalists now: https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0169534714000470","human_ref_B":"So in the sense that this debate is all over since the genetic testing of the 2010s but both groups were right (we did have multi-regional contributions to modern populations and we did originate in Africa) and the whole idea of species and descent is much more complicated than we used to think. So in a sense, Multi-regionalism anticipated this. We need to think about these things less as species and more of populations and modern features more as trends that occur in various populations over time. So all these \"non-modern species\" of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other unnamed species interbred with modern humans and with each other and the \"hybrids\" with each other. So yes if you are of European descent you almost certainly have a small percentage of Neanderthal genome in your DNA but during the Paleolithic or even Mesolithic modern humans examples had more like 30-10% of their DNA matching Neanderthals with various individuals having variable amounts but with a general trend of those Neanderthal genes decreasing in frequency. None of those archaic human populations was that big so being outcompeted or replaced may also be the wrong way to think about things and we all may be the same \"species\" since H. erectus.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5288.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"41e0sh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Did WW2 have any observable effect on Europe's genetics? I'm wondering if the mass death of so many young men (most of whom, presumably, had not procreated) led to any sort of genetic bottleneck. Are Europeans born after WW2 less genetically diverse than those born before the war? Did this mass dying lead to any observable traits (such as genetic disorders) coming extinct or much less frequent?","c_root_id_A":"cz1ut8i","c_root_id_B":"cz1m9p1","created_at_utc_A":1453062333,"created_at_utc_B":1453049097,"score_A":34,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Children of Holocaust survivors have modified cortisol levels, epigenetic switching where genes are switched on by past trauma and these switches are then inherited. *Transgenerational transmission of cortisol and PTSD risk.* http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/18037011","human_ref_B":"While this war was a mass death event, understand that Europe had a population in the hundreds of million, and the world had a population in the billions. While the loss of roughly 60 million was devastating, it is a marginal loss to the genetic diversity of Europe. Consider that animal populations can decline to the hundreds and still be diverse enough to repopulate without any problems. Europe would have had hundreds of millions of people. So absolutely not, the mass death in WW2 would not have led to anything even close to genetic bottle neck.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13236.0,"score_ratio":1.2142857143} {"post_id":"2onr3j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Did the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan leave a noticeable genetic impact on Afghanistan?","c_root_id_A":"cmp3n69","c_root_id_B":"cmpbr09","created_at_utc_A":1418075067,"created_at_utc_B":1418090497,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Can't speak for the Russians, but I can tell you the American military is not running around the Afghan populace all willy nilly having \"relations\" with anyone. Now the Brits in Iraq back in the early 1900's? I saw a lot of red haired, freckly, pale Iraqis. Just sayin.","human_ref_B":"Whats interesting is that its more likely that some aspects of Western features were in fact SOURCED originally from the Central Asian regions and became more prominent over time in Europe. Now people are going back there and not seeing the 'arabs' they expected and wondering if 'our' looks have been inserted (ahem.. sorry) into the local population by our recent intervention there. You have be careful when discussing 'western looks' as its hard to define or analyse that, but generally what I expect is that you're looking at those the people they way they are naturally, and thats it more likely its your expectations of what they would look like that are false. Genes have been moving around for 10s of thousands of years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15430.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"2onr3j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Did the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan leave a noticeable genetic impact on Afghanistan?","c_root_id_A":"cmp3n69","c_root_id_B":"cmozk1b","created_at_utc_A":1418075067,"created_at_utc_B":1418067914,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Can't speak for the Russians, but I can tell you the American military is not running around the Afghan populace all willy nilly having \"relations\" with anyone. Now the Brits in Iraq back in the early 1900's? I saw a lot of red haired, freckly, pale Iraqis. Just sayin.","human_ref_B":"I'm sorry for my confusion. By genetic impact, what are you asking exactly?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7153.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"2onr3j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Did the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan leave a noticeable genetic impact on Afghanistan?","c_root_id_A":"cmozk1b","c_root_id_B":"cmpbr09","created_at_utc_A":1418067914,"created_at_utc_B":1418090497,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I'm sorry for my confusion. By genetic impact, what are you asking exactly?","human_ref_B":"Whats interesting is that its more likely that some aspects of Western features were in fact SOURCED originally from the Central Asian regions and became more prominent over time in Europe. Now people are going back there and not seeing the 'arabs' they expected and wondering if 'our' looks have been inserted (ahem.. sorry) into the local population by our recent intervention there. You have be careful when discussing 'western looks' as its hard to define or analyse that, but generally what I expect is that you're looking at those the people they way they are naturally, and thats it more likely its your expectations of what they would look like that are false. Genes have been moving around for 10s of thousands of years.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22583.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"qcvigf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Must ethnographic fieldwork be conducted with the blessing and\/or involvement of an academic institution? I am a senior undergrad anthropology student and plan on applying to two graduate programs which would begin fall 2022. Because I will not have graduated by the application deadlines and don't have robust research experiences, I am not necessarily expecting to be accepted. For this reason, I'm considering how I may effectively spend my time between my graduation and the following admittance year (fall 2023). I have considered returning to a region with which I am fairly familiar and have some personal connections, Lago de Atitl\u00e1n in Guatemala. I have a pretty specific research question I want to explore and I know this region would allow me to do just that. If I am able to find a way to financially support myself while living there, I would like to work and perform as much observation as possible, perhaps for a year or more. Would future academic works that I write, which rely on this ethnographic research, be in any way discounted or considered unethical if not having received the blessing or active involvement of an academic institution? I realize this question may be highly variable and I plan on asking some of my advisors the same question, but I thought it would be a good idea to ask this in a forum with an array of experiences. The ethnographic works I have read have been written in a manner that suggests institutional involvement so I don't know if this is a typical occurrence or one that is frowned upon within the field. Thanks so much for any advice, even if it's purely anecdotal!","c_root_id_A":"hhiobo3","c_root_id_B":"hhijdsm","created_at_utc_A":1634839254,"created_at_utc_B":1634837252,"score_A":44,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm going to take this as a practical question, not a philosophical one. Your primary goal is to get into grad school. Your evaluation of your situation is that you are in good standing except you don't have much research experience. When I evaluate a student applicant, I'm looking for research experience that is mentored--so that would be a RA position or senior thesis, as this is commensurate with your point of scholarly development. Research outputs at your level would be posters or presentations or publications in a student journal, or contributions to a multi-authored pub. But there are lots of ways to get into graduate school, and those include having really good grades, having really good test scores, writing an excellent proposal, having support from a faculty member in the program you are applying to and securing some sort of funding for your studies. Indeed, students who secure national funding fellowships for their studies can negotiate admission to programs that originally rejected them. I don't think that doing your own research in Guatemala by yourself, divorced from academic supervisions is going to help you. First, one of the reasons that you see everyone publishing in relation to an institution is that if you do any research involving humans, you can't publish that without ethics board approval. Academic institutions have the ethics boards that offer that approval. You will have a hard time finding an ethics board that has the bandwidth to review your independent project in Guatemala, so whatever you do independently probably can't be published. Second, coming up with your own research and embarking on it without continuous review and input from others is a recipe for doing poor research. No academic does\/can do that because you need other's critiques to do the best work possible. My advice is bring your application to your current mentor and have them evaluate it for you. Spend your time strengthening any weakpoint (e.g. if you have a class that is bringing down your GPA, retake it; if you have to take a standardized test (GRE) and didn't do GREAT, take a study class and retake it). Work on your application essay (this means get your undergraduate mentor to give you feedback) and draft and redraft. Work on fellowship applications so that they are excellent and you get funding. What may improve your application and fellowship essays would be going Guatemala and studying Kaqchikel or Tz'utujil (assuming you already know Spanish), and making connects in whatever town you want to work in and with whatever groups you want to work with. I would also try to give people in Guatemala an opportunity to shape your inquiry. If you can do this and get letters of support, this builds your application.","human_ref_B":"Hey! I'm actually in a pretty similar situation to you, although I'm an archaeologist, not a cultural anthropologist. I'm also applying to programs that will begin in Fall 2022, and I'm actually moving to Peru (where my archaeological focus is) in a week! I might not be able to give the perfect answer, but I hope my thoughts on what I'm doing there might help you think through your situation a bit. I'm going to Peru because I have friends there, know the area I'm moving to, and imagine that living there will help me both in the skills as I will need as an archaeologist (perfecting my Spanish, helping my Quechua, knowing an area better, learning how to act and be in a place more, etc.) and as someone who thinks that the modern people of an area are extremely important for learning and properly treating its archaeology (developing relationships with individuals\/communities, learning local accounts and understandings, etc.). I also think it will be valuable to spend time in the area, and as a semi-normal person, *before* I go to a PhD program and return to it as a researcher. So in all the things I'm talking about, there are a bunch of \"passive\" factors that will be extremely beneficial to a future in anthropology\/ethnography\/archaeology. I think those enough can be a reason to do something like that. But you're more asking whether or not you can conduct a specific ethnographic project. For context, there are definitely excellent and important ethnographic\/anthropologically important books that are written by non-anthropologists; for example, Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. However, the way I understand many anthropologists'\/researchers' work that discusses information they learned while they weren't working through an institution is that it's usually a later reflection on what their experiences mean. For example, the author of Revolt of the Saints lived in Brazil and the area of focus before he was an anthropologist. The relationships, experiences, and learnings from that time become extremely important to how the book operates, and how he learned about the area as a later ethnographer. ​ I rambled a lot. I hope this helps a little; and I'm sorry if it doesn't at all!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2002.0,"score_ratio":11.0} {"post_id":"3eyxtu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How can I accurately portray tribal life to others in an RPG setting? Hello! So this is going to seem quite out of the ordinary. I'm the game master for an RPG my friends and I are playing. They've gone to a planet that has undergone a nuclear holocaust, and all life has been reduced to tribal life, with the descendants of the survivors roaming the burned cities, hunting and gathering what food is left. They're looking for a doctor who has been studying this tribal culture from a much more technological perspective. Ideally, this doctor would be a little more on the fringe side of anthropology, and trying to write her whole thesis on something which will likely later be disproven. Something a little whacky that would get a nobel prize if it were found to be true. I very much would like to avoid the oonga boonga ug ug stereotypes of stone-age cultures, so here's a few questions that hopefully a professional can answer: 1. How would these tribal humans act? This is a culture that, in a few hundred years, has gone from technologically modern to tribal. This has never been observed in anthropology, so speculation is welcome! 2. What could the doctor have been studying about these people specifically? Bearing in mind that her theory might be a far cry away from anthropological orthodoxy. 3. The base culture was originally Spanish, so the players will have some difficulty communicating. How do tribes tend to act with outsiders who don't speak their language? How about those who do? 4. What customs should this doctor observe whilst observing the tribes? Does an anthropologist typically directly interact with a tribe s\/he is studying, or do they avoid contact entirely? Also, what equipment does an anthropologist typically carry to observe a tribe? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"ctjz3eb","c_root_id_B":"ctjw4kj","created_at_utc_A":1438149809,"created_at_utc_B":1438143024,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"In my opinion there is no way to answer this without resorting to stereotypes. Just look at your questions. What in the bloody hell are \"tribal humans\"? It's not my intention to come off as terribly prickly, I mean I understand you want to make your game interesting, but it's just not what anthropology is about anymore. Any direction you end up going is going to be a complete fiction, so just use your imagination and enjoy it. Alternatively you could look up some anthropological works from the 1920s and 1930s since those are quite a lot more like what you're thinking. *Structure and Function in Primitive Society* by Radcliffe-Brown might be interesting to you.","human_ref_B":"This is really interesting, and I hope more learned cultural anthropologists chime in. A couple of thoughts come to mind. Being several generations removed from the holocaust will have a big impact on their relationship with the relics of the former civilization. I'm imagining that the remnants of the first generation after the fall would have been fighting over some of the technological resources left over, depending on how scarce other resources are. Like if food is hard to come by, then the smart phones will probably be forgotten about in order to just focus on being able to eat. Previously wealthy classes might have been able to hold up in secure bunkers or fortifications with the assumption that their technology would still be useful to them, and within a couple of generations they don't know but by oral tradition what the smartphone is supposed to do, but it sure was important so we should stare at it whenever we aren't doing something more important. Another thing to think about is that tribal societies are as varied and complex as the large scale societies that you are more familiar with. My first impulse would be to just make stuff up, roll with it, and avoid the oonga-boonga primitive man myth that you mentioned. Language barriers are interesting things to deal with, and can affect behavior in many different ways depending on the context. Again, tribal societies are varied and complex - you could have one that tends to be more curious and interested in outsiders, and another that is obstinately violent towards them. I think your doctor would try to study the locals remotely, if possible, before making any contact. What kind of technology is at her disposal? Can she covertly spy on them? It might be prudent to try to learn a few words before attempting contact, if spying is an option. Trying to communicate without any prior knowledge of the language, in my experience, amounts to pointing at objects or making a gesture, saying the word, and hoping that the local word is echoed back. The natives might just think you are crazy, especially if they have no concept of other languages existing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6785.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"7667x9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"What is life like on the islands in the Bering sea between Alaska and Russia?","c_root_id_A":"doc1s31","c_root_id_B":"docdrli","created_at_utc_A":1507934404,"created_at_utc_B":1507951577,"score_A":10,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Here is a short film about the American conscripts uncomfortably cold and wet experience trying to live on a couple of Aleutian islands during the 1940's. Places like Kiska and Attu are mostly uninhabitable so there aren't a lot of accounts about anyone living large in those desolate examples of Aleutians. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EKkkJL8fxO0","human_ref_B":"I lived on Adak while I was in the navy. I was there for 18 months. It was awesome. It rained nearly every day. Summer temperatures in the 40s most of the time. We had three days of sunny, 60 degree weather, and got to take \"Sun days\". Winter was cold and windy and blowing snow, and the sun rose at ten am and set around 4 in the afternoon. Always windy. Trees grow along the ground because they couldn't grow up straight. Absolutely fantastic fishing and hunting. I ate more smoked salmon - very fresh salmon - almost every day. We would catch a five fish limit every day, that would kill a half hour or so. Caribou hunting was big too. Otters used to greet us down by the shore or breakwall every time you'd go down there. I learned how to swim in 40 degree water there. The ground is tundra, and if you don't know how to read it you'd think you were just walking into tall grass, and end up in water up to your waist. Our base was a communications station that was very close to the old airfield from world war 2. Old Quonset hits and hangars, we used them as cabins. Lots of drinking and all that, the big naval base was 10 miles away where there was a McDonald's and a bar or two. It was a big deal for us single guys to head down to navsta for the night. It's mostly abandoned now, the navy closed the bases and handed it back to the Inuit, who are trying to make a go of it with some fisheries. Oh and volcanoes on the island next door, earthquakes and super secret monitoring radars so we could track the Russians. Man was it cold and windy, but I'd still go back in a heartbeat.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17173.0,"score_ratio":3.6} {"post_id":"9xnhvb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"What animal wad the last common ancestor of both humans and dogs?","c_root_id_A":"e9tn3uq","c_root_id_B":"e9tvrqw","created_at_utc_A":1542386358,"created_at_utc_B":1542392765,"score_A":23,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Such an animal obviously no longer exists, and there is apparently not a fossilized example. This is an article about trying to flesh out the characteristics of the first placental mammal (older than the species you are looking for, an ancestor of more extant species like anteaters). https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/science\/phenomena\/2013\/02\/07\/meet-the-ancestor-of-every-human-bat-cat-whale-and-mouse\/ If you are interested, The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins is a great book that describes a list of MRCA among human-including clades of increasing size.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boreoeutheria","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6407.0,"score_ratio":1.1739130435} {"post_id":"7fxs2d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are the anthropological ramifications of people\u2019s interest in their ancestors? We see ancestry.com commercials with African Americans who thought their heritage was Haitian, or Americans who thought they were Scottish find out they are German. My question is what does this phonominon mean? Why are people so interested? Why does it matter? Secondly, has anyone studied this?","c_root_id_A":"dqgz4g8","c_root_id_B":"dqfvh5t","created_at_utc_A":1511900665,"created_at_utc_B":1511842215,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Two people who have written extensively on this are Jonathan Marks and Kim Tall Bear. A couple of samples: Scientific and Folk Ideas About Heredity The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing \u201cYour DNA Is Our History\u201d: Genomics, Anthropology, and the Construction of Whiteness as Property You might also find relevant research searching for the concepts of folk biology, folk heredity, or folk taxonomy.","human_ref_B":"It definitely shows how tightly tied things like cultural practices are to genetics in the Western Consciousness. Haven't read any research on it but it seems like a way for people to reconstruct an imagined ancestral tradition and identify with it. Also it's just kinda fun I think.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":58450.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"izd9n0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What are some good \"raw\" ethnographic films to watch? A lot of anthropological video footage of small scale societies suffers from a great deal of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that is to say, the presence of the studier affects behavior. In text, there are wild anecdotes that have caught of behavior we don't see in many modern societies, such as: - A Siriono village leaving behind an elderly member when moving camps because they were too slow to keep up, only for them to die of starvation. - Mothers actively choosing infanticide due to the baby being not ideal for any number of reasons. Are there any ethnographic films that capture such \"raw\" moments? An example would be the famed \"Dead Birds\" which caught supposedly the only footage of pure \"tribal warfare\" with bows and arrows.","c_root_id_A":"g6kfkl4","c_root_id_B":"g6kjwfl","created_at_utc_A":1601063707,"created_at_utc_B":1601066044,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"i would also suggest Robert Flaherty\u2019s Nanook of the north (1922) which wasn\u2019t actually intended as an ethnographic film, but came out beautifully as a classic tale of anthropology and the western gaze towards the exotic way of life of the \u201cother\u201d","human_ref_B":"I do rather question your assertion that \"modern\" (presumably meaning industrial\/post-industrial) societies don't commonly practice infanticide; there's the infamous trend of sex-selective infanticide under Red China's One Child Policy & even today in Iceland nearly 100% of expectant mothers whose children are expected to have Downs Syndrome chose to kill them.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2337.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0pjaxe","c_root_id_B":"e0pkzi5","created_at_utc_A":1529057172,"created_at_utc_B":1529060480,"score_A":20,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"I see that you have read _Hamlet's Mill._ It's an incredibly interesting book but has been discounted by the scientific community for a while now. It would be very nice if a modern author would get to writing an updated version that covered the same ground in a more scientific way.","human_ref_B":"Are you asking if there were particularly intelligent Paleolithic hunter gatherers? Like an Ice Age Socrates or Archemedes? There were probably many, and yes, it's very likely that any bright idea they would have had would have eventually been lost.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3308.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0pjo56","c_root_id_B":"e0pkzi5","created_at_utc_A":1529057937,"created_at_utc_B":1529060480,"score_A":11,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"What do you mean by intellectual? Humans who were non violent? Humans who tried to understand how things worked? Humans who had begun farming? Humans who had technology?","human_ref_B":"Are you asking if there were particularly intelligent Paleolithic hunter gatherers? Like an Ice Age Socrates or Archemedes? There were probably many, and yes, it's very likely that any bright idea they would have had would have eventually been lost.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2543.0,"score_ratio":2.2727272727} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0pgxzd","c_root_id_B":"e0pkzi5","created_at_utc_A":1529051969,"created_at_utc_B":1529060480,"score_A":9,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Yes.","human_ref_B":"Are you asking if there were particularly intelligent Paleolithic hunter gatherers? Like an Ice Age Socrates or Archemedes? There were probably many, and yes, it's very likely that any bright idea they would have had would have eventually been lost.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8511.0,"score_ratio":2.7777777778} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0pjaxe","c_root_id_B":"e0pgxzd","created_at_utc_A":1529057172,"created_at_utc_B":1529051969,"score_A":20,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I see that you have read _Hamlet's Mill._ It's an incredibly interesting book but has been discounted by the scientific community for a while now. It would be very nice if a modern author would get to writing an updated version that covered the same ground in a more scientific way.","human_ref_B":"Yes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5203.0,"score_ratio":2.2222222222} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0po4f1","c_root_id_B":"e0pjo56","created_at_utc_A":1529065348,"created_at_utc_B":1529057937,"score_A":20,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Is it possible? Sure. Lots of things are possible. Is it probable, likely, or even all that plausible? No. Technologically sophisticated cultures leave remains of their activity. The more they make and use, the more they eventually discard. We have plenty of material around the world from cultures that existed 12,000 years ago. We have nothing from that time period (or before) that suggests that there was some technologically super sophisticated society somewhere in the world.","human_ref_B":"What do you mean by intellectual? Humans who were non violent? Humans who tried to understand how things worked? Humans who had begun farming? Humans who had technology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7411.0,"score_ratio":1.8181818182} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0po4f1","c_root_id_B":"e0pgxzd","created_at_utc_A":1529065348,"created_at_utc_B":1529051969,"score_A":20,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Is it possible? Sure. Lots of things are possible. Is it probable, likely, or even all that plausible? No. Technologically sophisticated cultures leave remains of their activity. The more they make and use, the more they eventually discard. We have plenty of material around the world from cultures that existed 12,000 years ago. We have nothing from that time period (or before) that suggests that there was some technologically super sophisticated society somewhere in the world.","human_ref_B":"Yes.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13379.0,"score_ratio":2.2222222222} {"post_id":"8r9d8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.7,"history":"intellectual humans 12 thousand years ago Is it possible intellectual humans lived on earth 10'000 BC and most (if not all) of their knowledge didn't survive the cataclysm when the last ice age faded rapidly and caused multiple catastrophes nobody was prepared for?","c_root_id_A":"e0pgxzd","c_root_id_B":"e0pjo56","created_at_utc_A":1529051969,"created_at_utc_B":1529057937,"score_A":9,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Yes.","human_ref_B":"What do you mean by intellectual? Humans who were non violent? Humans who tried to understand how things worked? Humans who had begun farming? Humans who had technology?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5968.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33fzq3","c_root_id_B":"e339mft","created_at_utc_A":1532642616,"created_at_utc_B":1532636985,"score_A":20,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Seems like it'll depend on your specific field\/location. CRM? Very relaxed, lots of tattoos and piercings. Academia? Definitely still present but probably a little less loved in hiring. Overall, anthropology is much more relaxed about this in general than many other lines of work, though. I've had plenty of professors and crewmates with all kinds of body mods.","human_ref_B":"I am currently working on a crew that has a few heavily tattooed\/pierced individuals. I can\u2019t say for sure it won\u2019t affect your chances, but the crews I\u2019ve met are pretty relaxed about it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5631.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e339mft","c_root_id_B":"e33lwz2","created_at_utc_A":1532636985,"created_at_utc_B":1532648358,"score_A":6,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"I am currently working on a crew that has a few heavily tattooed\/pierced individuals. I can\u2019t say for sure it won\u2019t affect your chances, but the crews I\u2019ve met are pretty relaxed about it.","human_ref_B":"You need to drop by a large Anthropology department; I think tattoos and piercings are now required to be admitted to most graduate programs. Source: heavily tattooed PhD candidate here (before I dropped out ABD)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11373.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33h47y","c_root_id_B":"e33lwz2","created_at_utc_A":1532643674,"created_at_utc_B":1532648358,"score_A":7,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Anthropologists are the least judgemental people of any field I've ever worked in. I've never heard a negative thing about my sleeve, in the field or in academia.","human_ref_B":"You need to drop by a large Anthropology department; I think tattoos and piercings are now required to be admitted to most graduate programs. Source: heavily tattooed PhD candidate here (before I dropped out ABD)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4684.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33h47y","c_root_id_B":"e339mft","created_at_utc_A":1532643674,"created_at_utc_B":1532636985,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Anthropologists are the least judgemental people of any field I've ever worked in. I've never heard a negative thing about my sleeve, in the field or in academia.","human_ref_B":"I am currently working on a crew that has a few heavily tattooed\/pierced individuals. I can\u2019t say for sure it won\u2019t affect your chances, but the crews I\u2019ve met are pretty relaxed about it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6689.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33vwmp","c_root_id_B":"e341sm7","created_at_utc_A":1532658476,"created_at_utc_B":1532665098,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Most of the Anthro PhD students I worked with as an undergrad have an increasing number of tattoos after every field season (usually something super cool related to their fieldwork).","human_ref_B":"I have a lot of visible tattoos, too. No one has ever said anything but my bioarch professor always liked to remind me that some places\/people in the world still associate tattoos with gangs. So, I mean, like always we just have to be aware of where we are and who our audiences are etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6622.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33uxvw","c_root_id_B":"e33vwmp","created_at_utc_A":1532657496,"created_at_utc_B":1532658476,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"i have quite a few tattoos and piercings that are visible (facial, arms, hands, etc) and nobody cares. students, faculty, and other scholars have complimented them. if people don\u2019t like it they tend to keep that to themselves but someday i\u2019m sure someone will say something. ETA: am female","human_ref_B":"Most of the Anthro PhD students I worked with as an undergrad have an increasing number of tattoos after every field season (usually something super cool related to their fieldwork).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":980.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e33stg9","c_root_id_B":"e341sm7","created_at_utc_A":1532655400,"created_at_utc_B":1532665098,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I would agree with the comments here. The field is largely accepting of tattoos and body piercings, and has some of the most open-minded people I have encountered. I remember in my undergraduate years seeing visible tattoos and piercings on students was common place.","human_ref_B":"I have a lot of visible tattoos, too. No one has ever said anything but my bioarch professor always liked to remind me that some places\/people in the world still associate tattoos with gangs. So, I mean, like always we just have to be aware of where we are and who our audiences are etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9698.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e341sm7","c_root_id_B":"e33uxvw","created_at_utc_A":1532665098,"created_at_utc_B":1532657496,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I have a lot of visible tattoos, too. No one has ever said anything but my bioarch professor always liked to remind me that some places\/people in the world still associate tattoos with gangs. So, I mean, like always we just have to be aware of where we are and who our audiences are etc.","human_ref_B":"i have quite a few tattoos and piercings that are visible (facial, arms, hands, etc) and nobody cares. students, faculty, and other scholars have complimented them. if people don\u2019t like it they tend to keep that to themselves but someday i\u2019m sure someone will say something. ETA: am female","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7602.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"925s0f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Are tattoos\/facial piercings accepted in the field? I [25F] am seriously looking into\/ready to start an Anthropology program for my degree, and I am pretty heavily tattooed, have gauged ears and a couple facial piercings. I know in this day and age, most career paths are cool with tattoos and such, but I\u2019m wondering if any tattooed Anthropologists out there have had an issue getting jobs, or being placed on certain projects? All feedback is appreciated! Thank you in advance, everyone.","c_root_id_A":"e356bog","c_root_id_B":"e33uxvw","created_at_utc_A":1532715035,"created_at_utc_B":1532657496,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Definitely accepted. One of my former professors is known for his tattoos, to the point where if you Google things like \u201cacademic tattoos\u201d or \u201cscience tattoos\u201d his art is some of the first that pops up. I have two visible tattoos, a nose ring, and two cartilage piercings and have never gotten flak for them (that said, I\u2019m still in grad school so the bar may be a bit lower). Our annual conference could pass for a tattoo convention some years, especially when its in a warmer place and more skin is showing.","human_ref_B":"i have quite a few tattoos and piercings that are visible (facial, arms, hands, etc) and nobody cares. students, faculty, and other scholars have complimented them. if people don\u2019t like it they tend to keep that to themselves but someday i\u2019m sure someone will say something. ETA: am female","labels":1,"seconds_difference":57539.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"jcdckz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn\u2019t see much about it, but I\u2019m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists? I feel like there will be so much dependent on individual circumstance but my question is mainly aimed at career itself. Is this field friendly in this way? I feel it\u2019s possible, but I don\u2019t know much about the Anthropology world yet. How about you all?","c_root_id_A":"g91aesh","c_root_id_B":"g918i8y","created_at_utc_A":1602878609,"created_at_utc_B":1602877610,"score_A":20,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I started as an archaeological field tech in the southeast and mid-Atlantic, moved up to technical writer via independent research and work. After 5 years I am now a tribal legal advisor\/analyst who works on compliance in California. It takes independence and a LOT of drive.","human_ref_B":"Idk about second career, but the research, critical thinking and social framework skills anth\/soc folks have are sought after in local government, urban planning, recreational planning, private and public environmental sectors and even the army corps of engineers to help in multidisciplinary team projects. In my experience, listing the practical skills of anthropology to help with team cohesion got me a lot of attention while applying for jobs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":999.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"jcdckz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn\u2019t see much about it, but I\u2019m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists? I feel like there will be so much dependent on individual circumstance but my question is mainly aimed at career itself. Is this field friendly in this way? I feel it\u2019s possible, but I don\u2019t know much about the Anthropology world yet. How about you all?","c_root_id_A":"g925mkm","c_root_id_B":"g91tr88","created_at_utc_A":1602895761,"created_at_utc_B":1602888511,"score_A":10,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I went to school for anthropology and also doubled in history, did some fieldwork for like a year after, but then I got a job in healthcare administration when I got home, and now I run a small hospital. I realized I actually really like healthcare and plan on eventually going back to school to get a graduate degree in my actual field now. In the meantime, all my coworkers know me as the guy who always goes off on tangents about history, archaeology, or just other cultures around the world. More than one of my former coworkers have actually left healthcare and went to school for anthropology to do basically the opposite of what I did after meeting me and hearing about this thing called anthropology for the first time, because surprisingly a lot of people have never even heard the word before.","human_ref_B":"Not a success story but hope my story helps. Left the military at 27 to finish an Anthropology Degree. While I did finish, I found the job prospects poor for what I really wanted to do (ethnography). Most of the professors at my school came from really great programs and it felt that if they were coming here to teach, where are all the graduates from our cardinal-direction-named state school going? I think \/u\/DeposeableIronThumb said it best on saying its going to take a lot of work to get what you want out of it, which I was too uncertain to commit to. I will say it worked out for me in the end, I wound up adding a Writing & Rhetoric Minor and, combining my previous skills, wound up finding a good job in a niche, semi-related field and am working on my masters in RhetComp at the same time.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7250.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"jcdckz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn\u2019t see much about it, but I\u2019m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists? I feel like there will be so much dependent on individual circumstance but my question is mainly aimed at career itself. Is this field friendly in this way? I feel it\u2019s possible, but I don\u2019t know much about the Anthropology world yet. How about you all?","c_root_id_A":"g925mkm","c_root_id_B":"g91sujh","created_at_utc_A":1602895761,"created_at_utc_B":1602887975,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I went to school for anthropology and also doubled in history, did some fieldwork for like a year after, but then I got a job in healthcare administration when I got home, and now I run a small hospital. I realized I actually really like healthcare and plan on eventually going back to school to get a graduate degree in my actual field now. In the meantime, all my coworkers know me as the guy who always goes off on tangents about history, archaeology, or just other cultures around the world. More than one of my former coworkers have actually left healthcare and went to school for anthropology to do basically the opposite of what I did after meeting me and hearing about this thing called anthropology for the first time, because surprisingly a lot of people have never even heard the word before.","human_ref_B":"Couple of my degrees are in anthropology\/forensics. It's not really a friendly field to start with. Publishing and funding is incredibly competitive. It has to BE your life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7786.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"jcdckz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn\u2019t see much about it, but I\u2019m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists? I feel like there will be so much dependent on individual circumstance but my question is mainly aimed at career itself. Is this field friendly in this way? I feel it\u2019s possible, but I don\u2019t know much about the Anthropology world yet. How about you all?","c_root_id_A":"g91zv08","c_root_id_B":"g925mkm","created_at_utc_A":1602892179,"created_at_utc_B":1602895761,"score_A":3,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Applied Anthropology by Ervin could have some ideas for you. Our skill set is hugely valuable, but it takes some creativity and hustle to illustrate that to others sometimes","human_ref_B":"I went to school for anthropology and also doubled in history, did some fieldwork for like a year after, but then I got a job in healthcare administration when I got home, and now I run a small hospital. I realized I actually really like healthcare and plan on eventually going back to school to get a graduate degree in my actual field now. In the meantime, all my coworkers know me as the guy who always goes off on tangents about history, archaeology, or just other cultures around the world. More than one of my former coworkers have actually left healthcare and went to school for anthropology to do basically the opposite of what I did after meeting me and hearing about this thing called anthropology for the first time, because surprisingly a lot of people have never even heard the word before.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3582.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"jcdckz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn\u2019t see much about it, but I\u2019m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists? I feel like there will be so much dependent on individual circumstance but my question is mainly aimed at career itself. Is this field friendly in this way? I feel it\u2019s possible, but I don\u2019t know much about the Anthropology world yet. How about you all?","c_root_id_A":"g91tr88","c_root_id_B":"g91sujh","created_at_utc_A":1602888511,"created_at_utc_B":1602887975,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Not a success story but hope my story helps. Left the military at 27 to finish an Anthropology Degree. While I did finish, I found the job prospects poor for what I really wanted to do (ethnography). Most of the professors at my school came from really great programs and it felt that if they were coming here to teach, where are all the graduates from our cardinal-direction-named state school going? I think \/u\/DeposeableIronThumb said it best on saying its going to take a lot of work to get what you want out of it, which I was too uncertain to commit to. I will say it worked out for me in the end, I wound up adding a Writing & Rhetoric Minor and, combining my previous skills, wound up finding a good job in a niche, semi-related field and am working on my masters in RhetComp at the same time.","human_ref_B":"Couple of my degrees are in anthropology\/forensics. It's not really a friendly field to start with. Publishing and funding is incredibly competitive. It has to BE your life.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":536.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqf076m","c_root_id_B":"eqev8ti","created_at_utc_A":1560012847,"created_at_utc_B":1560010273,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"My actual advice would be to give yourself some time between getting a tattoo and doing crm work, don\u2019t want it to get dirty.","human_ref_B":"Go ahead, nobody should care, friend. Worst case scenario where you're not sure if you wanna show them, wear long sleeve shirt for the occassion.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2574.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqfhlvf","c_root_id_B":"eqev8ti","created_at_utc_A":1560020937,"created_at_utc_B":1560010273,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Very few people I know that are archaeologists and don't have tattoos. It is rarer to not have a tattoo among archs 50 and younger and totally acceptable among all ages","human_ref_B":"Go ahead, nobody should care, friend. Worst case scenario where you're not sure if you wanna show them, wear long sleeve shirt for the occassion.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10664.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqfhlvf","c_root_id_B":"eqfae81","created_at_utc_A":1560020937,"created_at_utc_B":1560017641,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Very few people I know that are archaeologists and don't have tattoos. It is rarer to not have a tattoo among archs 50 and younger and totally acceptable among all ages","human_ref_B":"I have multiple friends that are archaeologists, a few of them have tattoos including forearms","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3296.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqfhlvf","c_root_id_B":"eqfcn7f","created_at_utc_A":1560020937,"created_at_utc_B":1560018651,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Very few people I know that are archaeologists and don't have tattoos. It is rarer to not have a tattoo among archs 50 and younger and totally acceptable among all ages","human_ref_B":"I have my MA in Anth and I also have tattoos on both forearms. No one cares. However, my bioarch professor made a decent point: just be situationally aware. In some places around the world, tattoos are associated with gangs. If you find yourself going to conferences abroad, just know whether you should cover up or not. Otherwise, no big deal!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2286.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqev8ti","c_root_id_B":"eqfmoiq","created_at_utc_A":1560010273,"created_at_utc_B":1560023211,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Go ahead, nobody should care, friend. Worst case scenario where you're not sure if you wanna show them, wear long sleeve shirt for the occassion.","human_ref_B":"My Anthro 101 professor had two full sleeves, a giant back tattoo that's went up to his neck, and a Macklemore haircut. I think you'll be fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12938.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqfae81","c_root_id_B":"eqfmoiq","created_at_utc_A":1560017641,"created_at_utc_B":1560023211,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have multiple friends that are archaeologists, a few of them have tattoos including forearms","human_ref_B":"My Anthro 101 professor had two full sleeves, a giant back tattoo that's went up to his neck, and a Macklemore haircut. I think you'll be fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5570.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"by8t1q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Forearm tattoos in Anthropology\/Archaeology. I\u2019m a field tech doing CRM work in the southeast, but I have plans to go to Grad school for a masters in Bioarchaeology and then possibly a PhD if the opportunity is there. With that said, here\u2019s my question. Would it be a bad idea to get a forearm tattoo? It\u2019s just going to be an arrowhead with some detail to it, but I don\u2019t want to get it there if it\u2019ll affect my chances of advancing my academic career.","c_root_id_A":"eqfcn7f","c_root_id_B":"eqfmoiq","created_at_utc_A":1560018651,"created_at_utc_B":1560023211,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have my MA in Anth and I also have tattoos on both forearms. No one cares. However, my bioarch professor made a decent point: just be situationally aware. In some places around the world, tattoos are associated with gangs. If you find yourself going to conferences abroad, just know whether you should cover up or not. Otherwise, no big deal!","human_ref_B":"My Anthro 101 professor had two full sleeves, a giant back tattoo that's went up to his neck, and a Macklemore haircut. I think you'll be fine.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4560.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8xsd5l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Has any society, modern or historical, big or small, ever lived with such an ease as to be well-known for it? I have a friend who I admire greatly that asked me - recently - a question for his next novel. I perused \/r\/AskHistorians for an answer, though upon recommendation I believe \/r\/AskAnthropology to be the more apt place for it. The question was thus: \"**Was there ever a society where life was lived with such an ease as to be legendary for it?**\" His analogy, colorful as it was: a land where men walk barefoot and might lounge anywhere at leisure, where food is readily available without work (\"fruit falls from the trees, and none work in fields to feed the populace\"), and where no feared natural predators exist. (A romantic picture, though obviously built out with slight hyperbole.) Any thoughts on this? I have searched this subreddit's archive for a similar question have have - thus far - found no parallel.","c_root_id_A":"e25xz08","c_root_id_B":"e25t6sw","created_at_utc_A":1531271070,"created_at_utc_B":1531266557,"score_A":16,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The ancient Greek colony of Sybaris, probably located on the ball of the \"foot\" of Italy, was famed in antiquity for its opulence and dissipation. To this day, the English words \"sybarite\" and \"sybaritic\" refer to those who seek extreme pleasure.","human_ref_B":"Shangri-la is the fictional example from \"Lost Horizon\" https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shangri-La?wprov=sfla1 There are archeological studies for those that claim it in China, Pakistan or Tibet I think its referenced in Buddhism and the Abrahamic Garden of Eden. Curious to read the book!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4513.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8xsd5l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Has any society, modern or historical, big or small, ever lived with such an ease as to be well-known for it? I have a friend who I admire greatly that asked me - recently - a question for his next novel. I perused \/r\/AskHistorians for an answer, though upon recommendation I believe \/r\/AskAnthropology to be the more apt place for it. The question was thus: \"**Was there ever a society where life was lived with such an ease as to be legendary for it?**\" His analogy, colorful as it was: a land where men walk barefoot and might lounge anywhere at leisure, where food is readily available without work (\"fruit falls from the trees, and none work in fields to feed the populace\"), and where no feared natural predators exist. (A romantic picture, though obviously built out with slight hyperbole.) Any thoughts on this? I have searched this subreddit's archive for a similar question have have - thus far - found no parallel.","c_root_id_A":"e25t6sw","c_root_id_B":"e261qah","created_at_utc_A":1531266557,"created_at_utc_B":1531274602,"score_A":8,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Shangri-la is the fictional example from \"Lost Horizon\" https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shangri-La?wprov=sfla1 There are archeological studies for those that claim it in China, Pakistan or Tibet I think its referenced in Buddhism and the Abrahamic Garden of Eden. Curious to read the book!","human_ref_B":"I would consider looking at island cultures. The abundance of fish in the water, volcanic islands tend to have amazing vegetation. Modern Carribean has some hints at what you are referring to, although I think calling a full blown culture is more than a stretch: Local fishers can go out and catch enough fish to feed their family with ease. They tend to worry about beer money after that. Jejudo, S. Korea might be close. The island is Korea's breadbasket. Almost everything can be grown disturbingly easily there. The climate is extreme enough to support a wide range, but stable enough to support year round fruit production. Hawaii Might also be a good look.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8045.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"7nx7a1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How would anthropology conduct a fieldwork on micro-celebrities\/social media influencers? Hello \/r\/AskAnthropology! First of all, I'm sorry if the following post is going to be a bit wall of text-ish... I have a number of questions in my mind. Currently I'm planning my thesis in anthro. My plan is to study micro-celebrities\/influencers. This might come off as weird but in my department no professor specializes in digital\/virtual ethnography, including my adviser. In where I live this field seems to be a bit under-studied; I tried to look up some info but most studies seem to be coming from communication and political science which involve little to no ethnography. So I did some digging myself. I've read a few books\/articles that I think might be related (Postill's, Boelstroff's, Hine's, and Markham's), but I'm still scratching my head about how to do this ethnographically. I have done a fieldwork before but it was only for a class; my undergrad was in political science (my few research experiences mostly is on the quantitative side and some interviews) and the fieldwork I did for a class was something more \"traditional\". I was told by my adviser that in order to study influencers I need to live in like anthropologists usually do. Participating in Twitter and blogs (where they spend most of their time in the internet) wouldn't be enough, I need to engage in how they live their life. I did some preliminary - attended influencers gathering, did some interviewing, socialized in the social media - and there are a couple of problems lingering in my head... * Influencer works very individually. Tweeting and\/or writing a blog post is something they do while they're commuting to their work, having a break in the work place, enjoying a time at home, or hanging out with friends. It's something they do in their spare time. How can I get into their life like that - live in their home? Especially considering \"intruding\" into private lives of urban folks seem to be a bit more difficult than in rural areas... * Since I need to build a rapport with a couple of influencers - with different primary jobs, different places of living (still in the same city, but can be located 20 kms away) - what would be the most effective way to engage in their life? Building rapport with one person so that I could get a glimpse of their daily life would already take a lot of time I imagine, what about a several? * They are very mobile. They can commute long distance. As my subjects are travel and lifestyle influencers that means they occasionally travels to other parts in the country too - which would cost plane tickets. Do I need to follow them that far? * This might sound like a really dumb, clueless question, but is doing this traditionally the only way to do it ethnographically? My professor insists that it's the only way but I'm curious if there's an alternative. I have about a year for my study. I'm not in a hurry (I can extend the studying period if needed); but I'm a bit too clueless. My thesis adviser asked me to focus on the relation between man and technology in digital age which I guess why he emphasized the importance of doing this \"traditionally\"... What do anthropologists in this sub think about it? I'm open to any advice. I'd love to know if there's a good books\/articles that can help me too. Sorry if this sounds so amateurish. I'd really appreciate the help!","c_root_id_A":"ds5zijq","c_root_id_B":"ds613bt","created_at_utc_A":1515044351,"created_at_utc_B":1515046999,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure I can contribute to anything here, but I am fascinated by the topic. Do post when the time comes to describe the end results.","human_ref_B":"source: I did my MA on online communities, and have done digital fieldwork. The advice here about swapping your focus to the network of followers is spot on; it's hard to do an ethnography of a person, you can do one on a group of people though. That's not to say that influencer is outside your sphere of research, they're part of that network too! You can analyze their interactions with the network, and then interview them to talk about their approaches, how they fit all this in with the rest of their lives, etc. You might ask if you can \"digitally\" follow them, see how their posting schedules are planned, how they take the needs of their networks\/followers into account with that, etc. If you have really good rapport with them, you could do a \"day in the life\" and not have to do a full on immersive fieldwork with them i.e. months on end. Anthropologists working in industry and business do one-day fieldworks sometimes in order to get that unvarnished experience of the person(s) they're studying. You can also take a more \"historical anthropology\" approach (which is what I ended up doing), analyzing the back catalog of posts\/comments and looking at trends over time or picking out case studies. This is helpful if you can't get any of your influencers to agree to interviews (I could not get anyone from my fieldsite of choice to even answer requests for permission for graphics, let alone interviews). \"Traditional\" fieldwork, where you go live with your subjects for 6-12 months is, well, not totally feasible in digital work. but, you can still immerse yourself in your subject and get good data and write an excellent thesis. When i was in undergrad, i experienced a lot of resistance from professors when i told them what i wanted to do in grad school, most of them telling me i'd never be able to to \"traditional\" fieldwork in this field so no one would agree to advise me. I managed to turn one around to a huge proponent when i did a paper for a research methods class on IRC. She loved the level of detail I got, and told me that she had been wrong in her skepticism. I was lucky enough in grad school to have advisors who \"got it\" and were completely enthusiastic about my choice (they studied the more human interaction with technology side and were excited to have someone focusing on \"the other side of the screen.\" Busier Than Ever! was written by my thesis advisor and one of my other committee members, Cultures@SiliconValley is my thesis advisor's book). This is all a round-about way of saying, you may need to give your advisor some examples, do a sample paper with the methods you're wanting to use, etc. to make your case. Also for your lit review, i'd recommend Christopher Kelty's Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software which is available as a free download. He did a lot of his fieldwork through mailing lists and interviews, which may be useful for you from a methodological standpoint. You may also want to look up Gabriella Coleman's work with Anonymous, again for some other methodological approaches.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2648.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"1j80ot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How universal are mathematical concepts? I've heard of historical cultures without a concept of zero and contemporary cultures, or at least languages, without integers, but are there any known cultures that exist completely without quantitative concepts? Given enough time or just the right impetus, perhaps, could any group of humans invent \"math\"? Or is it ultimately just a cultural phenomenon, albeit a common one? I apologize if this has been asked before, but the search function has thus far failed me.","c_root_id_A":"cbccz62","c_root_id_B":"cbc3qzz","created_at_utc_A":1375069552,"created_at_utc_B":1375040206,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Not about math\/no-math but rather about the diversity of mathematical concepts -- I heard the term \"ethnomathmetics\" once during a lecture. A google search of the term came up with the following: http:\/\/nasgem.rpi.edu\/ Hope that gets you started.","human_ref_B":"I think there is an Amazon tribe that might qualify https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pirah%C3%A3_people I only know of them from a story on NPR a few years ago and I hope someone with some actual knowledge drops by","labels":1,"seconds_difference":29346.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1j80ot","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How universal are mathematical concepts? I've heard of historical cultures without a concept of zero and contemporary cultures, or at least languages, without integers, but are there any known cultures that exist completely without quantitative concepts? Given enough time or just the right impetus, perhaps, could any group of humans invent \"math\"? Or is it ultimately just a cultural phenomenon, albeit a common one? I apologize if this has been asked before, but the search function has thus far failed me.","c_root_id_A":"cbc3qzz","c_root_id_B":"cbcfphz","created_at_utc_A":1375040206,"created_at_utc_B":1375079841,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think there is an Amazon tribe that might qualify https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pirah%C3%A3_people I only know of them from a story on NPR a few years ago and I hope someone with some actual knowledge drops by","human_ref_B":"There are cultures where the count is basically \"One, Two, Many\" (or you know, \"One, Two, Three, Four, A Few, A Whole Lot\" or variations along those lines). Sadly, I know this only from popular articles on the subject, but psychologists are particularly interested in the subject because it can help answer questions relating to language and cognition. From what I can tell, these mostly seem to be small-scale societies and from lists I've seen most notably in the Amazon or Australia. The most famous example, as listed below, is the Pirah\u00e3. That's probably as close as you'll get to people without quantitative concepts. Here's a blog write up on the issue (I simply googled *one, two, many* and this was the first relevant result). On zero, there's a fun history of zero, *Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea* by Charles Seife, that I had to read for a class on Religion in Japan, of all things (we were assigned it to help us understand how new the Buddhist concept of \"emptiness\" was to pre-Buddhist Japan). IIRC Zero wasn't innovated in multiple places but effectively instead diffused out from India (I read this book in 2006, I think, so take my memory with a grain of salt). I wouldn't be surprised if similar innovations in geometry, trigonometry, algebra, etc. followed similar diffusionary trajectories, rather than the norm being multiple, independent innovation--there are of course also examples of independent innovations, most most famously Liebnitz and Newton independently innovating calculus.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":39635.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"27mj4a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What are your thoughts on the term \"primitive communism\"? Do you feel it has a legitimate use in the field of anthropology? http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Primitive_communism","c_root_id_A":"ci2c6h5","c_root_id_B":"ci2bxwq","created_at_utc_A":1402253671,"created_at_utc_B":1402253110,"score_A":15,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It involves applying a very Western, specifically economic and philosophical concept to groups of non-Western people, and most anthropologists try to avoid that. We have other terms to talk about various aspects of economics in the pre-civilized groups of people. Marx and Engels are responsible for the invention and popularization of this term, is my understanding. The difference between any putative \"primitive communism\" and any communisms in the modern world are so vast that the term \"communism\" isn't useful in describing all these very different systems. Since all hunter-gatherer societies are non-anonymous, face-to-face and *kin-based*, it's rather like saying \"familial communism.\" Really, theorists? Just seems like an odd approach to me. (But it still pops up in various places and remains a fundamental part of many neo-Marxist arguments: that we once lived in a harmonious, communistic state - all of us)","human_ref_B":"One can find examples of \"primitive capitalism\", or a \"primitive welfare state\", or a \"primitive monarchy\" just as easily, if that's what you're looking for. But specifically regarding primitive communism: people act differently around those they're closely related to, or those that they know intimately. It's foolhardy to try and extrapolate the proto-economic systems that exist within a tribal culture onto a modern nation-state, made up of millions of strangers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":561.0,"score_ratio":3.75} {"post_id":"27mj4a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What are your thoughts on the term \"primitive communism\"? Do you feel it has a legitimate use in the field of anthropology? http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Primitive_communism","c_root_id_A":"ci2bxwq","c_root_id_B":"ci2mdw8","created_at_utc_A":1402253110,"created_at_utc_B":1402278519,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"One can find examples of \"primitive capitalism\", or a \"primitive welfare state\", or a \"primitive monarchy\" just as easily, if that's what you're looking for. But specifically regarding primitive communism: people act differently around those they're closely related to, or those that they know intimately. It's foolhardy to try and extrapolate the proto-economic systems that exist within a tribal culture onto a modern nation-state, made up of millions of strangers.","human_ref_B":"Actually, I think that when you strip away a lot of the baggage ('communism' is a more loaded term than most) the actual idea is fairly reasonable. The fact that, for many forager populations, resources are difficult to monopolize (or, in Marxist terms, the fact that it is impossible to control the means of production) does tend to make it very difficult for people to try and exercise control over others. You can't accumulate wealth and, as everyone else has the wherewithall to feed themselves, you can't get them to do things for you in exchange for food. If that doesn't sound like a marxist heaven, I'm not sure what does. This is roughly what Lee was arguing when he popularized the term in anthropology and I don't think it is entirely insensible. Hunter gatherers do tend to be among the most egalitarian societies and those foragers that are not egalitarian are often those where the means of production is easily monopolizable (most notably the salmon fishers in the Americas, though see Kelly or Testart for more details). On the other hand I think that trying to draw some sort of link between hunter-gatherers and Marxist style post-revolutionary communism is fairly misguided for a fair number of reasons... Though I have very little patience for revolutionary Marxism... so perhaps I'm biased.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25409.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"27mj4a","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What are your thoughts on the term \"primitive communism\"? Do you feel it has a legitimate use in the field of anthropology? http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Primitive_communism","c_root_id_A":"ci2fs4k","c_root_id_B":"ci2mdw8","created_at_utc_A":1402262199,"created_at_utc_B":1402278519,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Application of the term \"primitive\" in any context related to humans is inappropriate, as far as I'm concerned.","human_ref_B":"Actually, I think that when you strip away a lot of the baggage ('communism' is a more loaded term than most) the actual idea is fairly reasonable. The fact that, for many forager populations, resources are difficult to monopolize (or, in Marxist terms, the fact that it is impossible to control the means of production) does tend to make it very difficult for people to try and exercise control over others. You can't accumulate wealth and, as everyone else has the wherewithall to feed themselves, you can't get them to do things for you in exchange for food. If that doesn't sound like a marxist heaven, I'm not sure what does. This is roughly what Lee was arguing when he popularized the term in anthropology and I don't think it is entirely insensible. Hunter gatherers do tend to be among the most egalitarian societies and those foragers that are not egalitarian are often those where the means of production is easily monopolizable (most notably the salmon fishers in the Americas, though see Kelly or Testart for more details). On the other hand I think that trying to draw some sort of link between hunter-gatherers and Marxist style post-revolutionary communism is fairly misguided for a fair number of reasons... Though I have very little patience for revolutionary Marxism... so perhaps I'm biased.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16320.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctvsrc","c_root_id_B":"dctofze","created_at_utc_A":1485233272,"created_at_utc_B":1485223786,"score_A":9,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","human_ref_B":"I'm really fond of James C. Scott and Renato Rosaldo!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9486.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dct8f1u","c_root_id_B":"dctvsrc","created_at_utc_A":1485204721,"created_at_utc_B":1485233272,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I like Bateson myself. Also Sahlins.","human_ref_B":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":28551.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctazxt","c_root_id_B":"dctvsrc","created_at_utc_A":1485207534,"created_at_utc_B":1485233272,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I'm quite partial to Ian Hodder and the work he's doing at \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck.","human_ref_B":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25738.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctpbzv","c_root_id_B":"dctvsrc","created_at_utc_A":1485224853,"created_at_utc_B":1485233272,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"My favourite is probably Boas, but Nancy Scheper-Hughes is a hero (literally helped take down an international organ-trafficking ring). L\u00e9vi-Strauss also has a cool life story (and Boas died in his arms).","human_ref_B":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8419.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctg3qj","c_root_id_B":"dctvsrc","created_at_utc_A":1485213430,"created_at_utc_B":1485233272,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Look into Paul Farmer.","human_ref_B":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19842.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctqo46","c_root_id_B":"dctvsrc","created_at_utc_A":1485226450,"created_at_utc_B":1485233272,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"It's hard to beat Edmund Leach for sheer drama. While writing about highland Burmese political systems he was also training the locals into militias to fight Japanese invaders during WWII. I heard his original fieldnotes were lost when his convoy was ambushed along a high pass and the pack mule with the trunk containing the notes went tumbling into a ravine. Also, he made some major contributions to political anthropology and anthro theory in general. Michael Taussig would also be fun because you could talk about tripping balls in the Peruvian jungle and share his very unique drawings.","human_ref_B":"Philippe Bourgois, hands down. His ethnography Righteous Dopefiend is what inspired me to go into social science research, which is my career now. In Search of Respect, another of his ethnographies, is also masterful.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6822.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctofze","c_root_id_B":"dct8f1u","created_at_utc_A":1485223786,"created_at_utc_B":1485204721,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm really fond of James C. Scott and Renato Rosaldo!","human_ref_B":"I like Bateson myself. Also Sahlins.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19065.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctofze","c_root_id_B":"dctazxt","created_at_utc_A":1485223786,"created_at_utc_B":1485207534,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm really fond of James C. Scott and Renato Rosaldo!","human_ref_B":"I'm quite partial to Ian Hodder and the work he's doing at \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16252.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctofze","c_root_id_B":"dctg3qj","created_at_utc_A":1485223786,"created_at_utc_B":1485213430,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm really fond of James C. Scott and Renato Rosaldo!","human_ref_B":"Look into Paul Farmer.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10356.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctg3qj","c_root_id_B":"dctpbzv","created_at_utc_A":1485213430,"created_at_utc_B":1485224853,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Look into Paul Farmer.","human_ref_B":"My favourite is probably Boas, but Nancy Scheper-Hughes is a hero (literally helped take down an international organ-trafficking ring). L\u00e9vi-Strauss also has a cool life story (and Boas died in his arms).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11423.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dctqo46","c_root_id_B":"dcu85sv","created_at_utc_A":1485226450,"created_at_utc_B":1485263203,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"It's hard to beat Edmund Leach for sheer drama. While writing about highland Burmese political systems he was also training the locals into militias to fight Japanese invaders during WWII. I heard his original fieldnotes were lost when his convoy was ambushed along a high pass and the pack mule with the trunk containing the notes went tumbling into a ravine. Also, he made some major contributions to political anthropology and anthro theory in general. Michael Taussig would also be fun because you could talk about tripping balls in the Peruvian jungle and share his very unique drawings.","human_ref_B":"Allow me to suggest Alfred Kroeber. Primarily a cultural anthropologist, he is most well-known for his controversial work with Ishi - a story well worth looking into for all of its implications of a fading Native American culture. He also had a really interesting study looking at and analyzing the fashion trends of women's skirt lengths over many years. I have always thought it was a cool example of data that is right in front of us that someone just has to look at the right way to learn something interesting about our culture. Also, as an aside, his daughter is the rather famous science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. (The \"K\" stands for Kroeber.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":36753.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dcu85sv","c_root_id_B":"dcu2k1w","created_at_utc_A":1485263203,"created_at_utc_B":1485247737,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Allow me to suggest Alfred Kroeber. Primarily a cultural anthropologist, he is most well-known for his controversial work with Ishi - a story well worth looking into for all of its implications of a fading Native American culture. He also had a really interesting study looking at and analyzing the fashion trends of women's skirt lengths over many years. I have always thought it was a cool example of data that is right in front of us that someone just has to look at the right way to learn something interesting about our culture. Also, as an aside, his daughter is the rather famous science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. (The \"K\" stands for Kroeber.)","human_ref_B":"Why do people like Franz Boas so much here? I am acquainted with him but I studied in Europe so structuralism was more of a thing in my class, and Boas didn't strike me as overly interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15466.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"5prbg9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is Your Favorite Anthropologist and Why? I've got an assignment coming up in my History of Anthro Theory class wherein I am to create a \"trading card\" for an anthropologist, but I don't want to be one of the 23 people who will be choosing Margaret Mead or Franz Boas- I want someone who is not as well-known and has a unique story or contribution. Any ideas?","c_root_id_A":"dcu0ck0","c_root_id_B":"dctqo46","created_at_utc_A":1485241934,"created_at_utc_B":1485226450,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"She's not a household name, but Dr. Mary Glenn, faculty\/admin at Humboldt State University in Arcata California. I took 26 semester units in her classroom alone (mostly forensic and paleo). Why? Because she's an amazing professor, a working forensic anthropologist (when law enforcement in northwestern California need a forensic anthropologist she's who they call), she's a world class primatologist, and an all around great gal. She's been medevaced out of of the DRC with cerebral malaria (medevaced twice for the same issue, but I don't remember where the second one was). She also did the vast majority of field work on the Cercopithecus mona (old world guenon\/mona monkey) population on the island of Grenada. During archive research she actually found the ship's log from a slave ship whose captain brought a pet monkey from West Africa that turned out to be pregnant and was the single source of genetic material for the population there today). Besides, she is an all around wonderful human being. She is also humble enough that she decided *against* declaring the Grenada\/Caribbean population of guenons a separate species named after her (isolated for 250 years from the African population and would have been Cercopithecus glenni). Dr. Glenn has inspired many folks who went on to Ph.D programs and are working anthopologists\/primatologists today. Dr. Milford Wolpof comes in a very distant second, just for his sense of humor and his claim that he is an extant example of the Homo neanderthalensis phenotype. ;-)","human_ref_B":"It's hard to beat Edmund Leach for sheer drama. While writing about highland Burmese political systems he was also training the locals into militias to fight Japanese invaders during WWII. I heard his original fieldnotes were lost when his convoy was ambushed along a high pass and the pack mule with the trunk containing the notes went tumbling into a ravine. Also, he made some major contributions to political anthropology and anthro theory in general. Michael Taussig would also be fun because you could talk about tripping balls in the Peruvian jungle and share his very unique drawings.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15484.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"5e5zz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Does anyone know about Yakel tribe and Kastom culture in Vanuatu? Hello there! I heard about this indigenous movie called Tanna that is set in Vanuatu and that is set in Yakel. I ask r\/vanuatu but no one answer. It seem very inactive there but it make sense as it is an isolated island country in the Pacific. Some questions: I heard of Yakel village but is Yakel also an indigenous tribe or ethnicity? What is their religion called? Is it some form of Animism? Is the purpose of Kastom village to preserve traditional culture and way of life while rejecting every Western influence like Christianity, education and even Westernized lifestyle? How many ethnicities are there in Vanuatu? Because I cannot find any info about them. I will really appreciate if anyone can answer me.","c_root_id_A":"dabi1ss","c_root_id_B":"daaxtgu","created_at_utc_A":1479848435,"created_at_utc_B":1479822721,"score_A":7,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I visited Tanna including Yakel earlier this year. I did not spend enough time to answer all your questions, but I can say that Yakel is basically a Vanuatu village like any other. The main difference being that within their village, most of them dress traditionally. As soon as they visit neighboring villages they dress in western clothing. Some oft them have cellphones and there is also at least one car belonging to members of the Yakel village. They do not reject Western influence but they do keep the traditional culture alive. Due to their involvement in the Tanna movie, a lot of the Yakel villagers have had a lot of exposure to the rest of the world. I.e. they visited Australia, Europe. I think nowadays one of the main reasons they keep to traditional clothing is to earn money from tourism. Btw the Prince Philip cult is followed by a group in a neighbouring village, Yaohnanen. Outside of Yaohnanen, not very many people believe in it.","human_ref_B":"In the whole of Vanuatu, there are estimated 138 languages and I assume the same number of ethno-linguistic groups attributed to those languages. Here is article that touches on Kastom and at the bottom are some references and further reading. Yakel itself is not a specific ethno-linguistic group. The local language featured in the film 'Tanna' is apparently Nauvhal which is a South-West Tanna language. The religion in Yakel is animism, but with a twist. Tanna is home to a cult called the Prince Philip Movement. An articles here states: > \"Here in Tanna, we believe that Prince Philip is the son of our God, our ancestral God who lives up in the mountain,\" says Nako Nikien, who prefers to go by the name Jimmy Joseph. Joseph said it's become a tradition to talk, or pray, to Philip each evening, when villagers from Yaohnanen and Yakel gather in their meeting places and share an intoxicating brew made from kava plants. For more information on Vanuatu, here is the 2009 National Population and Housing Census.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25714.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"3pauys","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Does anyone know anything about a woman's calendar\/bone with 28 incisions carved in it? I found this on Pinterest - \u201cI remember her holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. \u201cThis is often considered to be man\u2019s first attempt at a calendar\u201d she explained, waiting as we dutifully wrote this down. \u201cMy question to you is this \u2013 what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman\u2019s first attempt at a calendar.\u201d - Sandi Toksvig http:\/\/www.rudemagazine.co.uk\/news-views\/the-womens-equality-party-is-a-force-for-change.php Does anyone know what picture the professor may have been holding up? Why are women carving on bones, not the wall? I can't find any more info about it.","c_root_id_A":"cw4vay0","c_root_id_B":"cw66744","created_at_utc_A":1445231004,"created_at_utc_B":1445327483,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I imagine a bone is easier to carry with you than a wall is. Also, it would likely have been a lunar cycle calendar, though your professors joke about our being a menstrual calendar may not have been wrong.","human_ref_B":"something also noteworthy is regular menstruation only happens in stable populations with access to adequate nutrients. very fit women may see a reduction in menstruation frequency, as well. i sincerely doubt a highly athletic member of a hunter gatherer population has a steady 28 day cycle. im as feminist as they come but this explanation seems far fetched.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":96479.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"4iwl7f","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How can Anthropology help me portray prostitution responsibly \/ where can I go to learn more about prostitution from and Anthropological perspective? A friend of mine is making a game about prostitution and we really want to make sure that we portray\/comment upon prostitution responsibly. What does anthropology have to add to our perceptions of prostitution? Secondary question: what should we be reading to get a better grasp on this subject?","c_root_id_A":"d325q3r","c_root_id_B":"d32ampk","created_at_utc_A":1463017902,"created_at_utc_B":1463026154,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am not an anthropologist so I hope it's OK if I add some thoughts for the secondary questions. I would recommend using some of the websites and forums run by and for sex-workers as a resource. I know of National Ugly Mugs in the UK, which is primarily focused on safety and support. There are also a lot of forums which johns use to make arrangements with sex workers. I don't know any off the top of my head but they should be easy to find. Many of the interactions are deeply unpleasant, but not all and whilst authenticity is necessarily limited in that sort of environment, these interactions have a sort of authenticity (in terms of what interactions the various users are and are not willing to have) which may be quite illuminating. This is a stand-up routine which explores some of the issues around language. Not particularly deep but it is an important point to note (and it is funny). I've linked to the start of the relevant bit.","human_ref_B":"You should look up this new concept called intimate economies. It's an anthropological idea that previously focused on prostitution, but now includes ideas like moonshine production. Really it looks at how these economic systems develop independently as a black market outside of the greater economic system, yet is intertwined and influenced by the larger global market as capitalism and globalism has enhanced its the profitability. It's a small idea developed by Zara Wilson, but a new compiled book is coming out next year which my professor is contributing to with a chapter on moonshine production in the United States.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8252.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cem8v5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"I want to become a subject matter expert in economic anthropology... I know a little bit about anthropology in general. I am a Finance major in my undergrad, with a heavy focus on economics. I have a passion for anthropology, particularly biological anthropology and early economic anthropology. I also find economic anthropology to probably be an immensely important yet woefully under-covered subject. Maybe, one day, I could teach a few community college courses on economic anthropology (or anthro in general) using my subject matter expertise as proof of competence. Maybe upon retiring from my career I will become a high school teacher. There are many possibilities. I use the terminology \"subject matter expert\" because I will likely not be pursuing it in an academic context. I simply want to read lots of books, listen to the thoughts of experts, and perhaps visit some sites around the world. My question: **Do you have any tips for my pursuit, and in particular, do you recommend any books regarding economic anthropology?** Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"eu4ud41","c_root_id_B":"eu4t3wl","created_at_utc_A":1563463400,"created_at_utc_B":1563462570,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The text I found most helpful when I took an economic anthro course in grad school was *Economies and Cultures* by Wilk & Cliggett. I would recommend doing a Google search for \"economic anthropology syllabus\" and going through the results to find more sources (in addition to the ones suggested in this thread). This is the method I use when I'm reading up on a new subject or planning a course and want to see what kinds of materials I might be overlooking or unaware of.","human_ref_B":"Some recommendations in addition to the ones drpeppero listed: The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi was a cornerstone of the \"substantivist\" approach to economics (along with Mauss), and is very important to anthropology. I would also check out more recent stuff on the performativity of markets, starting with Donald MacKenzie. I think you would appreciate it as an economics major. If you haven't read Karen Ho's Liquidated, you should get on that immediately!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":830.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"ku3b1u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do you pick a research topic\/site? I'm currently in the midst of applying for Anthropology master programmes, some of which already require you to submit a rough proposal for your thesis topic\/field research. Conducting research abroad wasn't really possible in my BA, so I'm highly overwhelmed by the option to go more or less wherever I want (depending on Covid of course) and reading through some of the papers of previous graduates makes me wonder how in the world they came up with their topics. I know that you can't always really plan what the ultimate content and focus of your thesis is going to be as you might discover new and more predominant\/interesting aspects while in the field. But how can you go about deciding on a field site and rough topic? Any advice would be appreciated!!","c_root_id_A":"giquns7","c_root_id_B":"gipyhqw","created_at_utc_A":1610265737,"created_at_utc_B":1610244702,"score_A":12,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I think a good idea would be to establish contact with some faculty who are doing work you find interesting. Then, try to discuss with them your areas of interest and how they can help you. A fusion of these can give you a rough idea of the kind of topics you should be looking at. Plus, you can tweak the topic according to your proposed supervisor\u2019s interests when you apply to multiple programmes.","human_ref_B":"What is your goal with an anthropology masters? The degree is fairly useless on its own.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21035.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ku3b1u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do you pick a research topic\/site? I'm currently in the midst of applying for Anthropology master programmes, some of which already require you to submit a rough proposal for your thesis topic\/field research. Conducting research abroad wasn't really possible in my BA, so I'm highly overwhelmed by the option to go more or less wherever I want (depending on Covid of course) and reading through some of the papers of previous graduates makes me wonder how in the world they came up with their topics. I know that you can't always really plan what the ultimate content and focus of your thesis is going to be as you might discover new and more predominant\/interesting aspects while in the field. But how can you go about deciding on a field site and rough topic? Any advice would be appreciated!!","c_root_id_A":"giqumqq","c_root_id_B":"giquns7","created_at_utc_A":1610265710,"created_at_utc_B":1610265737,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"For me before I had to drop it? It was area of interest, accessibility due to my health, and compatibility with the Professor I would be working under. If you're overwhelmed with those options its great but consider application in the future. From there consider difficulty. Yes last. Challenges are the best.","human_ref_B":"I think a good idea would be to establish contact with some faculty who are doing work you find interesting. Then, try to discuss with them your areas of interest and how they can help you. A fusion of these can give you a rough idea of the kind of topics you should be looking at. Plus, you can tweak the topic according to your proposed supervisor\u2019s interests when you apply to multiple programmes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"ku3b1u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do you pick a research topic\/site? I'm currently in the midst of applying for Anthropology master programmes, some of which already require you to submit a rough proposal for your thesis topic\/field research. Conducting research abroad wasn't really possible in my BA, so I'm highly overwhelmed by the option to go more or less wherever I want (depending on Covid of course) and reading through some of the papers of previous graduates makes me wonder how in the world they came up with their topics. I know that you can't always really plan what the ultimate content and focus of your thesis is going to be as you might discover new and more predominant\/interesting aspects while in the field. But how can you go about deciding on a field site and rough topic? Any advice would be appreciated!!","c_root_id_A":"giqumqq","c_root_id_B":"girahvz","created_at_utc_A":1610265710,"created_at_utc_B":1610281603,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"For me before I had to drop it? It was area of interest, accessibility due to my health, and compatibility with the Professor I would be working under. If you're overwhelmed with those options its great but consider application in the future. From there consider difficulty. Yes last. Challenges are the best.","human_ref_B":"In my experience, field sites and topics happen in a contingent fashion usually based on your own life so far, and the networks that you have already. These might come through a prior career, a knowledge of academic networks working within your area, or through institutional connections through your supervisor or university. Even if you have a fieldsite, you might not know what to focus in on until the fieldwork is done and the data is analysed. If you have a topic, access to your fieldsite might be something that is precarious or something you have to keep reinventing ways to have access to. I see ComodoreCoCo has written SA \"its useless on its own\" etc. What I would say is that sociocultural anthropology, and the expertise you will gain from its study, should dovetail with some other area of proffesional development. A holisitic, qualitiative, critical approach is something that can offer you the edge in whatever area it is that your career is drifting towards. It is okay if you don't know at this point where its going and what is going to come of it. In my opinion, these things sort themselves out if you focus on what is right in front of you and you're dedicated to that. And part of being a student enrolled in a masters programme is giving yourself the time and company to ask these questions and not be rushed into an answer. In applying for further study, most anthropology departments are interested in you rather than your particular thing you want to go and do. What classes have you done particularly well in? When you stand back and look at the reading lists you've encountered; what do they all add up to? People don't expect you to show up with a polished thesis or method, because then you wouldn't need to do a Masters. Instead focus on the key anthropological authors who you have spent the most time reading up until now. Return to what fundamental questions they asked about anthropology. If you don't know where to begin with this, you can google for discussion around them. Watch YouTube videos to start with. Think about what you can say about anthropology, where you learned it, and how you would want to move that forwards using your time on the course. I am a doctoral candidate deferred because of COVID-19. If you have any more questions, feel free to message me.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15893.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"ku3b1u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How do you pick a research topic\/site? I'm currently in the midst of applying for Anthropology master programmes, some of which already require you to submit a rough proposal for your thesis topic\/field research. Conducting research abroad wasn't really possible in my BA, so I'm highly overwhelmed by the option to go more or less wherever I want (depending on Covid of course) and reading through some of the papers of previous graduates makes me wonder how in the world they came up with their topics. I know that you can't always really plan what the ultimate content and focus of your thesis is going to be as you might discover new and more predominant\/interesting aspects while in the field. But how can you go about deciding on a field site and rough topic? Any advice would be appreciated!!","c_root_id_A":"giruf17","c_root_id_B":"gis5usa","created_at_utc_A":1610295497,"created_at_utc_B":1610301245,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Read read read. Find articles and books in areas you feel drawn to and be attentive to the kinds of questions that emerge from critical engagement with the works. Think about how these question might be answerable. Find faculty that work in these areas (you could also reach out to articles or books of particularly relevant subjects to you) and do a little background work on them. Shoot them an email with your general ideas (don\u2019t be too specific) and see what they think. It\u2019s also important to note whether they are accepting new students to mentor.","human_ref_B":"Listen for the people who are begging for help! When I first started out, I had a whole bunch of lofty ideas that I wanted to pursue by myself while in the background a small town was sending out asks for researchers to help them. After my ideas went nowhere, I begrudgingly contacted this group and they were so kind, warm, passionate and excited at the prospect of getting help. I felt totally supported with them and their passion was infectious and most importantly, they helped me get the work done. I even got to apply some of my crazy ideas while working on the project and figured out the reality of where my perceptions stand.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5748.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"tp5x65","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How to Pay for Field School? Hello! I finally got accepted to an amazing field school for the first time after having all of my field experiences cancelled due to Covid in the past. Now, however, that I've been accepted, (I wasn't super hopeful), I have to figure out how to fund it! It's several thousand dollars and I was just wondering if you can take out student loans for field schools (I'm out of undergrad so it's not affiliated with a school or credits), or if there is some kind of particular loan type I can receive, or scholarships that would be quick enough to get back to me for a field school this summer with payment due dates in May. I am super excited for this opportunity and don't want my socioeconomic status to once again ruin my chances at good opportunities! Thank you for reading! TL;DR I got into a field school! Now how do I pay for it (several thousand)?","c_root_id_A":"i297eav","c_root_id_B":"i2agf5l","created_at_utc_A":1648339754,"created_at_utc_B":1648367199,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I don't know where the field school is that you've been accepted to, but I'm assuming it's somewhere in Europe or South America. It would be very helpful to have that information so I can make a more informed comment. What I would say though is that often times these foreign field schools will teach you techniques that are used abroad and might not necessarily be the same ones used in your home country. In my case, I had lots of field experience in the Middle East. But, when it came to applying for an archaeology job in the US, I found that some companies were reluctant to hire me because they preferred candidates familier with local archaeology and the techniques used in American commercial archaeology. Eventually I did find something, but when I did, a lot of what I had learned really wasn't applicable at all to the expectations for how we were meant to dig and record things. It was a bit of a learning curve. If my ultimate goal was to be working in archaeology, especially in commericial archaeology, I would really suggest looking into local field schools or opportunities to learn on the job with a commercial archaeology firm. At the end of the day, I've never heard of somebody having a better shot at grad school or getting hired for a job more sucessfully because they participated in some apparently prestigeous multi-thousand dollar field school on the other side of the world. But again, I don't know your specific circumstance, so perhaps none of this is helpful.","human_ref_B":"OP you are around a month late for this i'm afraid, as most opportunities for field school funding shut their doors by 1st of March. But there are still a few that are open for applying, you will have to be quick though. Joan Cogswell Donner Field School Scholarship: They accept applications round the year, but I'd still recommend you to apply asap Vera Campbell Promise Scholarship: They accept until the 8th of next month, so hasten up applying to this American Archaeology Abroad Scholarships: They seem to have been on a hiatus in terms of sponsoring since the last 2 years, but maybe contact someone to ask if its still continuing behind the curtains Fund for Education Abroad Scholarships: This subsumes a no. of scholarships, you'll have to glean through each of them to find those you are eligible for. Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation Grants: Keep in mind they only fund for research in the Andean regions or the Mediterranean. Sacramento Archeological Society Student Scholarships RPA Field School Scholarships SHA Scholarship Program: Their website doesn't seem to have been updated since last intake, maybe try contacting them (and u have to be an SHA member to be considered for this) NAGT and AWG Scholarships for Field Study: They require a geological-oriented field school, so u may or may not qualify Now actually a majority of these require you to be enrolled in an undergrad or grad program, so be heedful of that(I only read about u no more being enrolled in a prog after listing all the above links) And it'd help if u could mention what your subfield is(such as palaeolithic, native american, andean, greco-roman, etc.) and where you'd be attending the field school so it'd be easier to find scholarships that are aimed at you. Really hope you get to attend it, wish you all the very best!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27445.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"a3la1w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Examples of bathing rituals in various cultures throughout history? I'm interested to learn more about the prevalence of bathing rituals in different cultures throughout history. I know that many cultures have bathing rituals that can be both social or religious. For example, Christians practice baptism in several forms, Muslims engage in cleansing rituals (Wudu) prior to prayers, there are flower baths in Sri Lankan puberty rituals, Onsens in Japan encourage meditation and appreciation of one's body, etc. From what I understand, there were baths in Rome that were social centers, but I'm not aware of many other historic examples of ritualistic or ceremonial bathing... I'd love to read about any! ​ I read on a website that bathing rituals go back millennia, but there wasn't a source. Is that true? What archeological evidence do we have regarding bathing rituals, and what is the oldest bathing ritual or ceremonial bathing that we know of?","c_root_id_A":"eb7crnm","c_root_id_B":"eb7dbig","created_at_utc_A":1544090178,"created_at_utc_B":1544091044,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"These are interesting: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Strigil > The strigil (Greek: \u03c3\u03c4\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b3\u03af\u03c2) is a tool for the cleansing of the body by scraping off dirt, perspiration, and oil that was applied before bathing in Ancient Greek and Roman cultures. In these cultures the strigil was primarily used by men, specifically male athletes; however, in Etruscan culture there is evidence of strigils being used by both sexes.[1] The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.[2]","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mikveh I don't know what the oldest would be, but there's much written about the Jewish mikveh going back nearly 2,000 years (the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud describe ritual bathing in great detail). This was a fun section during my Talmud class.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":866.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"davxwn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"The evolutionary reasons for different skin colours make intuitive sense, but what about different hair textures? What good does wavy hair do in Europe, tight curls in Africa, or long straight hair in East Asia? And why do all of these hair textures differ so much from those of other great apes?","c_root_id_A":"f1vorbb","c_root_id_B":"f1xu8vc","created_at_utc_A":1569773867,"created_at_utc_B":1569804178,"score_A":10,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Hair texture has a lot to do with climate. Kinky, curly hair evolved in hot, humid climates to keep people cool, whereas straight hair evolved in cooler climates. Think of the natives people of sub-Saharan Africa. They have extremely curly hair. Now think of the Inuit of Alaska. They have straight hair. Climate has led to the evolution of numerous phenotypes: hair texture, skin color, nose and lip size, etc.","human_ref_B":"Not everything has a clear evolutionary benefit. Some traits just sort of arbitrarily become selected for, either through random chance (genetic drift, founder effect like \/u\/kkokk mentioned) or because people subjectively found them more attractive (sexual selection).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30311.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"njtr62","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Can someone recommend me really good ethnographies on drug abuse? Are there any works similar to Becker's (1953) \"Becoming Marijuana user\" that you would highly reccommend?","c_root_id_A":"gzacpio","c_root_id_B":"gze2p8u","created_at_utc_A":1621873223,"created_at_utc_B":1621950281,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"While it\u2019s not strictly about drug abuse, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh was a good read that may be of interest.","human_ref_B":"I am not familiar with Becker or his study, but I highly recommend the monograph *In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio* by Philippe Bourgois (1995), if the anthropology of drug use interests you. This link takes you to a number of his publications: [\/\/www.philippebourgois.net\/articles.html](\/\/www.philippebourgois.net\/articles.html) All the best,","labels":0,"seconds_difference":77058.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"vz00kq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Uncontacted community in the northern arctic Hey there hoping one of y\u2019all can help me. A little while ago I came across a doc about a group of explorers who came across an isolated arctic tribe that had prior not had any contact with any other humans and believed they were the only in existence. If any of y\u2019all know what I\u2019m talking about and ca link me a wiki or even know what the doc name was that would be amazing. Hoping I didn\u2019t just dream this up.","c_root_id_A":"ig5ho39","c_root_id_B":"ig5ho9l","created_at_utc_A":1657819166,"created_at_utc_B":1657819168,"score_A":52,"score_B":77,"human_ref_A":"I don't know this specific documentary, but they were probably talking about the Inughuit, the indigenous people of far northern Greenland.","human_ref_B":"Did you even try googling \"uncontacted arctic tribe\" and seeing what pops up? https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Inughuit > The Inughuit were first contacted by Europeans in 1818,[2] when John Ross led an expedition into their territory. Ross dubbed them \"Arctic Highlanders\". They are believed to have previously lived in total isolation, to the point of being unaware of other humans","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2.0,"score_ratio":1.4807692308} {"post_id":"4vl6lw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Is it possible that many human diseases are from inbreeding? Inbreeding was probably more common in Homo past since there was probably no taboo against it. Major genetic problems probably killed offspring before they lived long hence they didnt pass it on. but what if late onset disease is from this early inbreeding and it got passed on because people would have kids before it killed them","c_root_id_A":"d5zhi0k","c_root_id_B":"d5zkexd","created_at_utc_A":1470053405,"created_at_utc_B":1470059075,"score_A":10,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"It really depends what you mean by inbreeding... Work there has been work done by Collard that suggests cross cousin marriage is actually not such a big deal particularly when you cross genders (boy marries his mother's brother's daughter). Obviously we know direct incest to be problematic but I think there is a reason nearly all surviving cultures generally have taboos on such relations. That said taboo\/rules don't come out of nowhere. Anyways, you may want to investigate if animals who procreate through parthenogenesis are void of these types of diseases later in life.","human_ref_B":"You might want to go to \/r\/askscience first to ask whether this is even possible. My (non-expert) understanding of genetics is that inbreeding increases the chance of genetic diseases in the short term (i.e. a generation or two), but has no long-term effect on the health of a population.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5670.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"7lf53j","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Is ethnographic analogy usable at all? This on sex positions discusses a bit about ethnographic analogy used as support for theories about past cultures. The flaws in such a thing are obvious, but can it be used accurately? Does it necessarily assume unilineal evolution?","c_root_id_A":"drmx7ru","c_root_id_B":"drm56kf","created_at_utc_A":1513979804,"created_at_utc_B":1513944808,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The answer is \"carefully.\" You could probably group the use of analogies into three broad categories: The direct historical approach, the comparative method\/cross-cultural method, and experimental archaeology. The use of each of these has found periods of disuse and resurgence. The first, direct historical, involves looking at contemporary or historical documentation and working into the past from there. This was rebutted on the grounds that it doesn't take into account changes caused by colonizing forces and modern societies, but is rejected by some on the grounds that it assumes that pre-contact societies are somehow \"pure\" entities that are then \"contaminated\" by contact with others. Nevertheless, this is probably the most widely used variant and you'll find heavy reliance on ethnohistory for the study of proto-historic periods of societies like, say, the Inca or the Iroquois. One of the most explicit recent defenses of this method is found in Severin Fowles' An Archaeology of Doings. The cross-cultural method is probably the most contentious, as it was, besides its origins in linear evolutionism, largely an attempt to discover something akin to physical law in human societies (or \"behavioral generalizations,\" in terms of Binford's processualist middle-range theory). This was considered to be debunked by historical particularists due to the fact that each culture was held to have a unique trajectory. It also suffers from practitioners cherry-picking otherwise arbitrary examples that best fit their theories while leaving out any that don't. The comparative method is still used to look for generalizations or patterns (as opposed to \"laws\"), but it is also used in some sense the opposite way it was previously. A good example of this is Robert L. Kelly's The Foraging Spectrum, which collects a lot of data and generalizations about hunter-gatherer societies, but its main thesis is that there is actually no single hunter-gatherer cultural \"type.\" One of the rules of thumb advocated in Wylie's article is outlining similarities and differences in analogies. Finally, experimental archaeology is different from the previous two because it is not geared toward explaining an entire cultural system. Rather, its goal is to replicate past technology and explore possibilities about how it was made and used. Another difference, and advantage, is that the so-called \"uniformitarian principle\" -- that things are the same now as they were in the past -- is applicable in this field where physical processes are concerned. The fracture mechanics of chert are presumably the same today as they were 1,000 or 100,000 years ago. The main problems are that this only really shows us possibilities -- just because Thor Heyerdahl made it across the Pacific doesn't mean those actual migrations occurred -- and there is a trade-off between a controlled setting and a \"natural\" environment in which people would have made and used tools in history.","human_ref_B":"Analogy can tell us one way that things might have been, but the groups we have access to today (or in the recent past) have histories (like any group) that have shaped their current situation. Because we can't necessarily know the situation \/ history of groups in the distant past, it's difficult to know if the analogy is appropriate. Comparing apples to oranges and such. That's not to say analogy isn't useful at all. Much of Binford's work with the Nunamiut, for example, can't be extrapolated to other groups for obvious reasons. But we might for example cautiously extrapolate the idea of, and his observations of, moving camps based on resources and seasons to other groups, but we need to be fully aware of what we can and cannot extrapolate.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34996.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2ntmbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"How did onions come to be common? How did onions come to be a part of our diet? Uncooked onions are really off-putting and I can't imagine early humans enjoying taking a bite out of raw, whole onions.","c_root_id_A":"cmgtar5","c_root_id_B":"cmgy7yi","created_at_utc_A":1417332342,"created_at_utc_B":1417357720,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Many vegetables are not great whole and raw and eaten as is. Try eating a potato. Hence the introduction of cooking. Have you chopped up raw onions and added them to a salad, in small amounts theyre tangy and delicious. At some time or other EVERY vegetable would have been tested and eaten. As such onions are no different than any other vegetable. Humans have been cooking food since at least 2-250,000 years ago, possibly up to several million, in one form or another. So at some stage people would have realised that Vegetable X, somewhat unpleasant solo, is an entirely different beast once cooked, or used in a salad. Either way I dont think theres going to be any hard evidence of when it was eaten, raw OR cooked.","human_ref_B":"I don't have a source other than my travels. But, onions are commonly eaten raw as an ingredient throughout North America,Mexico, Central, and South America. Perhaps you just aren't overly fond of onions. Edit: And also remember that being a hunter gatherer is extremely labor intensive. Anything plentiful and edible is utilized.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25378.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2ntmbi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"How did onions come to be common? How did onions come to be a part of our diet? Uncooked onions are really off-putting and I can't imagine early humans enjoying taking a bite out of raw, whole onions.","c_root_id_A":"cmgy7yi","c_root_id_B":"cmgxtk4","created_at_utc_A":1417357720,"created_at_utc_B":1417356115,"score_A":8,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't have a source other than my travels. But, onions are commonly eaten raw as an ingredient throughout North America,Mexico, Central, and South America. Perhaps you just aren't overly fond of onions. Edit: And also remember that being a hunter gatherer is extremely labor intensive. Anything plentiful and edible is utilized.","human_ref_B":"Wild onion relatives are common throughout the world. They contain a large amount inulin, a complex carbohydrate (polysaccharide) which, when cooked, converts to sugar. This makes onion and its wild relatives a valuable food commodity. For example, in the Northwest of the US, ancient inhabitants used to gather camas (*Camassia quamash*) in large quantities for baking in large, earthen pit ovens. So, when European explorers introduced onion (*Alium cepa*) while on their travels, it was quickly adopted. The same circumstances hold true for many of the common plants we eat today. An excellent example is the common bean (*Phaseolus vulgaris*) which, while domesticated in Central and South America, travelled to Europe and was quickly accepted due to the European familiarity with the fava bean (*Vicia faba*).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1605.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"2ykkzz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What are the root causes of the cultural divide between Northern\/Protestant and Southern\/Catholic Europe? [x-post \/r\/askhistorians; might be better suited for here, on second thought] *(Note: I'd like to restrict the discussion to \"Western\" Europe, defined here as everything west of the former Iron Curtain, minus Greece and former Yugoslavia but plus the former GDR; the exact boundary isn't all that relevant, though, given the nature of the topic.)* In Western Europe, there is a great variety of national and regional cultures, all with their own specific traits and their own long history. However, there is a pattern to this patchwork \u2013 one that has been identified, and commented on, many, *many* times before: the contrast between \"Northern\" and \"Southern\" European cultures. Countries with Northern-type cultures include Germany, Britain, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands; countries with Southern-type cultures include France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. (There are also countries that are culturally \"in between\", like Austria and Belgium, but let's not make things *too* complicated.) I'm sure most of you are aware of this contrast and what it entails, but allow me to give a rough summary here. (I'm well aware that the following are mostly generalisations and stereotypes, not accurate descriptions of the mindset of every Northern European or every Southern European.) Northern-type cultures tend to be very practical-minded. They value organisation, hard work, and thrift. Emotionally, Northern Europeans practice reserve and restraint. Dishonesty and corruption are strongly condemned. Northern-type cultures also place varying degrees of emphasis on modesty, which, combined with the \"thrift\" aspect, makes them disapprove of conspicious consumption. Northern Europeans, then, are generally hard-working, honest and dependable people, but also boring, uptight and unimaginative. The Southern stereotype is the mirror image of the Northern. Southern Europeans tend to have more trouble running an organisation smoothly or showing up to a meeting in time, and their moral standards \u2013 with regard to corruption or adultery, for example \u2013 are considerably more relaxed. However, they have much more of a taste for the finer side of life. An extravagant lifestyle is encouraged, not condemned. Interpersonal communication is much more affectionate than in the North. Passion \u2013 be it the passion of a lover for his beloved or the passion of a revolutionary for his ideals \u2013 and creativity are celebrated. Food is seen not just as a way to fill the stomach, but almost as a form of art in itself. To put it even more briefly, Northern-type cultures are good at \"work\" but bad at \"play\", and Southern-type cultures are good at \"play\" but bad at \"work\". This is the North-South divide in Western Europe in a nutshell. My question is: *where does it come from?* Cultural norms do not spring up from the ground, nor do they fall from the sky; they are formed, over the centuries, by a combination of different factors. I've thought of several candidates for such factors myself, but I find none of them satisfactory. (I'm not saying I'm 100% sure these can't have played a role, just that they don't seem plausible to me; if you have a compelling argument why one or more of these did contribute significantly to the divide, I'll gladly be convinced.) I've listed them below. * **Religion:** The first association many people have with this divide is \"Protestant vs. Catholic\" (hence why I put this in the question title, for recognisability). Certainly, anyone who has seen the interior of a traditional Protestant church and that of a traditional Catholic church will associate Protestantism with austerity and Catholicism with extravagance. Protestant morality also tends to be stricter and less forgiving. However, I don't see how the *teachings* of the two denominations would inspire these cultural traits. I only know the absolute basics of Protestant vs. Catholic theology, but what I do know is that Catholicism emphasises attaining salvation through doing good, whereas Protestantism leans more towards ideas like \"predestination\" which says your salvation was destined before birth and there's little you can do about it. In that light, I would expect the *Catholics* to be the ones preaching hard work and strict morals. (It should also be noted that the Catholic Church is a vast organisation full of rigorously defined structures, whereas Protestantism is a fractured mess of dozens of denominations, some of which aren't inclined to co-operate with each other at all.) * **Language:** Countries with a Northern-type culture usually speak a Germanic language, whereas countries with a Southern-type culture usually speak a Romance language. If you go to the roots of the language divide, however, it makes no sense as an explanation. Romance languages spread because of the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was *exceptionally* organised and systematic for its time. * **Nobility vs. bourgeoisie:** A very important development in European history was the gradual shift of power from feudal elites of nobles to urban elites of merchants. It seems obvious that noble customs are more suited to a Southern-type culture, and merchant customs are more suited to a Northern-type culture. (A nobleman doesn't have to work to attain high status, and historically the nobility has seen the practical, \"business\" side of life as a silly bourgeois hobby; he *does*, however, spend a great deal of energy on keeping up the mystique around his position, which involves mansions, fine clothes, banquets, and other overt displays of wealth. By contrast, a merchant attains and retains his status through hard work and financial responsibility; hence, as any history book will tell you, the rise of the merchant class brought with it more practical-minded attitudes.) Now, the power shift happened sooner in some places than others: in the Netherlands, for example, it happened very early, whereas France stuck to the feudal hierarchy up until the Revolution. However, for this to work as an explanation, there would have to be a strong correlation between an early \"nobility-to-bourgeoisie shift\" and a Northern-type culture, which seems dubious at best. (For example, Italy, with its famous merchant republics, was even quicker than the Netherlands, and yet it's as culturally Southern as it is possible to be.) * **Environment:** This one sounds too much like sympathetic magic to be taken seriously: as if a warm climate would create \"warm\" temperaments, and a cold climate \"cold\" ones... What seems to speak for it, though, is that subtler degrees of \"Northern-ness\" or \"Southern-ness\" within countries sometimes fit the pattern: in Italy, it has often been observed that the north of the country is more organised and more business-oriented than the south. What speaks against it is that Switzerland, perhaps the most extreme example of a Northern-type culture ('more German than the Germans,' as the saying goes) is farther south than any other Northern-type country. Then again, its mountainous terrain *does* give Switzerland a relatively cold climate... * **Economics:** Southern Europe generally has a lower standard of living, and more economic problems, than Northern Europe. I don't think this pattern has been around for long enough to explain such a deep cultural divide, though. (In the wake of the recent Euro crisis, some have argued that economic differences are the *result*, rather than the cause, of the cultural divide \u2013 but let's not get into that debate.) So, anthropologists of Reddit: what am I missing? Are there any clearly identifiable factors that can be defended as *causing* (rather than just correlating with) this cultural divide between Northern and Southern Europe, and if so, what are they?","c_root_id_A":"cpb4gfj","c_root_id_B":"cpak9f6","created_at_utc_A":1426048437,"created_at_utc_B":1426015224,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In the introduction to *Europe, a History*, Norman Davies suggests getting a different view of Europe by turning a map on its side (Spain up), and viewing left\/right it as a history of \"the sardine peoples\" and \"the herring peoples\" around the two major basins. This was just a colorful image used to start a wide-ranging book, but it *is* a possible theme.","human_ref_B":"I'm going to preemptively remind readers that top level comments must be in-depth and provide sources for your arguments. Common sense, anecdotes, personal feelings, educated guesses, etc. are not academic evidence. Similarly, combative, rude, dismissive, or intolerant comments are not allowed. Comments that do not conform to sub rules will be removed and we ask that you please report bad comments. Thanks!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33213.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"7jp24l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some interesting or unique cultural beauty standards or that you've come across in your work?","c_root_id_A":"dr90vf1","c_root_id_B":"dr89sdh","created_at_utc_A":1513275711,"created_at_utc_B":1513234297,"score_A":41,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"My favorite cultural anth prof lived with a tribe I think in Papua New Guinea, but I could be wrong about that. Somewhere in the South Pacific. He has a story I really like that relates to your question: His house has a little covered area in front with seating and a couple of US magazines, so that locals can flip through them and see something from his culture. One morning two guys come over to meet up with him to go do something, and while they're waiting for him to come out one of them starts just cracking up. Like he's losing his breath laughing. My prof comes out and asks him what's going on. The guy can barely get any words out, he's just pointing at a perfume or jewelry ad that features an attractive woman looking at the camera. So my professor is like, \"What's funny about that?\" \"She looks ridiculous!\" \"Really? In my culture, that's a very pretty woman.\" \"What? No way. Look at this! What the hell is going on here?\" as he points to her earrings. \"That's a type of jewelry that we think looks pretty.\" \"Well, it doesn't. It looks stupid.\" \"In my culture, people might think the same thing about your nose jewelry.\" \"This?\" indicating the boar's tusk jutting out of each nostril, \"No, *this* is beautiful.\"","human_ref_B":"The Chinese would practice foot binding. Many cultural in South America would do skull binding which would be a sign of high status if your skull was misshaped.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":41414.0,"score_ratio":1.9523809524} {"post_id":"7jp24l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some interesting or unique cultural beauty standards or that you've come across in your work?","c_root_id_A":"dr86f2g","c_root_id_B":"dr90vf1","created_at_utc_A":1513228666,"created_at_utc_B":1513275711,"score_A":10,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not an authority by any extent, but a while back I found this Quora thread about different cultures\u2019 beauty standards. I linked here to an answer about Kerala, India, but the rest of the thread is pretty interesting. Hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"My favorite cultural anth prof lived with a tribe I think in Papua New Guinea, but I could be wrong about that. Somewhere in the South Pacific. He has a story I really like that relates to your question: His house has a little covered area in front with seating and a couple of US magazines, so that locals can flip through them and see something from his culture. One morning two guys come over to meet up with him to go do something, and while they're waiting for him to come out one of them starts just cracking up. Like he's losing his breath laughing. My prof comes out and asks him what's going on. The guy can barely get any words out, he's just pointing at a perfume or jewelry ad that features an attractive woman looking at the camera. So my professor is like, \"What's funny about that?\" \"She looks ridiculous!\" \"Really? In my culture, that's a very pretty woman.\" \"What? No way. Look at this! What the hell is going on here?\" as he points to her earrings. \"That's a type of jewelry that we think looks pretty.\" \"Well, it doesn't. It looks stupid.\" \"In my culture, people might think the same thing about your nose jewelry.\" \"This?\" indicating the boar's tusk jutting out of each nostril, \"No, *this* is beautiful.\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":47045.0,"score_ratio":4.1} {"post_id":"7jp24l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some interesting or unique cultural beauty standards or that you've come across in your work?","c_root_id_A":"dr86f2g","c_root_id_B":"dr89sdh","created_at_utc_A":1513228666,"created_at_utc_B":1513234297,"score_A":10,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not an authority by any extent, but a while back I found this Quora thread about different cultures\u2019 beauty standards. I linked here to an answer about Kerala, India, but the rest of the thread is pretty interesting. Hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"The Chinese would practice foot binding. Many cultural in South America would do skull binding which would be a sign of high status if your skull was misshaped.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5631.0,"score_ratio":2.1} {"post_id":"7jp24l","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What are some interesting or unique cultural beauty standards or that you've come across in your work?","c_root_id_A":"dr86f2g","c_root_id_B":"dr95auh","created_at_utc_A":1513228666,"created_at_utc_B":1513279936,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not an authority by any extent, but a while back I found this Quora thread about different cultures\u2019 beauty standards. I linked here to an answer about Kerala, India, but the rest of the thread is pretty interesting. Hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"It's impressive how much cultures vary over time and region in their general consideration of fatness\/thinness as well as paleness\/darkness as attractive. Some cultures, including Western culture historically, greatly favor or have favored zaftig physiques, whereas in the modern West fatness is a mark of shame and attracts mostly abuse and discrimination. European aristocrats used to paint their skin white with toxic lead; now, (though less and less so) people also of European descent expose themselves to highly carcinogenic Ultra-Violet light to tan themselves. A lot of pop science sites like to disseminate studies on attraction focusing on 'attraction universals' or 'genetically linked' 'attractive traits' (people like symmetrical faces! no shit!); but *sooooo* much of attraction is related to signifiers of social ranking and (sub)cultural affiliation and taste. It seems by far the elephant in the room of attraction.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":51270.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"29p9go","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Which fears are prevalent in all\/most cultures and what are some that might surprise us in Western (for lack of a better word) cultures? Reading the Urban Legend thread in Ask Reddit and darkness and blood are typically involved. It makes sense that both of these things signal \"be careful\/weary!\" in all cultures. What are some other commonly feared things throughout the world, but what are some fears that other cultures have that might surprise us? And where does fear come from: experience or evolution\/need for protection?","c_root_id_A":"cin7umx","c_root_id_B":"cin9siz","created_at_utc_A":1404356002,"created_at_utc_B":1404360553,"score_A":18,"score_B":30,"human_ref_A":"This is *globally* not a commonly held fear so it might not match your criteria, but in Korea the fear of fan death is very real. I learned about it while living in South Korea. It's not really the red\/darkness angle, but definitely fits in with the idea of urban legends, so that's why I'm sharing it here. If I've totally missed the mark on your question, let me know and I can delete this. It's something that gets support from the government (and I assume the fan industry). I find it particularly interesting given that there are no shortage of brilliant scientists in Korea, yet the urban legend persists. Not only that, but I can't think of a single other fear like this that's so cleanly limited to one country yet so visibly so. There are competing explanations of how it works, and if you dispel, people fall back on an alternate reason, and lots of people know a guy who knows a guy who died this way. In case you are wondering, it's not actually possible to die this way.","human_ref_B":"On specific hallucinatory drugs all humans will see spiders, predatory cats and snakes. Since hallucinations are culturally influenced this was a big deal to anthropologist about 40 years ago. The theory was these were all things we had to avoid back when we were still arboreal (living in trees). Now which spiders, cats & snakes you saw were specific to your local fauna. Africans saw lions, Asians saw tigers, South Americans saw Jaguars. I want to say the drug is Datura, but my Google-Fu leads me to un-reliable sources and I am not gong to dig out my anthropology notes. On an unrelated note... Your back yard has about a zillion spiders in it, right this very second. You can see them all this very evening, bring the kids! Prepare to have your life ruined. Link 1 Link 2 Google search","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4551.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"3dtb7d","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Little kids like stuffing things in their mouths. How would the parents in nomadic tribes prevent their kids from eating the poison berries, etc?","c_root_id_A":"ct8pbxv","c_root_id_B":"ct8qoyb","created_at_utc_A":1437321243,"created_at_utc_B":1437323995,"score_A":8,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"I would imagine they wouldn't be in situations where the poison berries were present. Kids that are young enough to be putting things in their mouthes probably weren't running around in the bush by themselves.","human_ref_B":"So, it turns out that humans have TONS of workarounds for this. For one thing, the way that language works has a lot of handy lifehacks for helping people learn how to avoid danger. I mean, language in general is huge in this regard. Think about actually being around a toddler, and how often you have to say things like \"don't touch the stove\", \"don't climb the furniture\", etc. People before modern society would be replacing all that with \"don't touch that mushroom\" and \"don't play where there might be snakes\", etc. Secondly, there are a lot of theories that some aspects of human language might have worked as a tool to help people learn and categorize the sheer amount of stuff you have to know about avoiding danger. I'm not sure how accepted this is in modern anthropological scholarship, but back in the 80s linguist George Lakoff theorized that noun classes (for instance when you take French and you have to learn that \"table\" is feminine while \"tree\" is masculine) may have evolved to provide handy linguistic categories that helped people divide dangerous things from safe things, which berries are poisonous, etc. So according to Lakoff, when you're a toddler learning language, you're also getting it packaged with background information that you should never eat Death Cap mushrooms. Also, y'know, we have words like \"Death Cap Mushroom\", \"Poison Ivy\", \"Snakeroot\", etc. which are pretty self-explanatory. Keep in mind, too, that when the majority of what you're doing is gathering and hunting for food in the wild, and you see your parents and siblings doing this pretty much from birth, and you are *with* them as they do it, you learn a lot really quickly. All the information we need to impart to modern children about not playing with matches, not talking to strangers, look both ways when crossing the street, etc. would be replaced with how to behave safely in a hunting\/gathering society. I even have a personal anecdote about this from an adult perspective. I just spent a month living and working on a farm in rural Italy. We used a lot of wild-foraged herbs and greens in the meals we cooked. Most of the people on the farm were city people who don't know how to find wild foods. So someone who had been there awhile would teach us. One thing I learned was how to forage and prepare stinging nettle, which definitely falls into the category of poisonous plants. It was pretty easy to learn to always wear gloves when you pick it, always cut it with scissors rather than trying to pull with your fingers, and always blanch it to remove the sting rather than putting it in a salad or something. I imagine that, in a culture where this was normal everyday life rather than a vacation, you would learn all these things as a small child, in exactly the same way I learned them as an adult.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2752.0,"score_ratio":3.625} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glu42d9","c_root_id_B":"glu5oyg","created_at_utc_A":1612335612,"created_at_utc_B":1612336902,"score_A":32,"score_B":47,"human_ref_A":"Honestly? Not many. You could look more in depth when fence poles are replaced but there\u2019s not many options for you without digging. An examination of google earth photos might be enough to see if there\u2019s a foundation under the ground. If there\u2019s an area of the property prone to erosion you could look around after every rain and likely find some pottery and brick fragments. If your dad is ok with limited digging a metal detector might give you some leads. I can\u2019t think of anything else you could do. A records search might help you turn up more information on who owned the property when, what it was used for, and the number of structures on the property if you want to try learning more about the history that way. Later census records could also tell you how many people lived there in each decade and at least some of their names. If you can find any old maps of the area they might give you more information too, and help you narrow down where to look if you do get to metal detect, or a lead on what part of satellite pictures to study. Edit to add: if you have names of property owners it might also be worth it to look up probate records. Those often record the number of structures on a property, their size, and occasionally information about their material and use.","human_ref_B":"Good advice from your dad to not dig. The difference between archaeology and looting is that archaeology involves a ton of record keeping. Why not reach out to the archaeology department at the college? Perhaps the dept. chair or if any professors have a bio that tells you they have an interest in local archaeology. Also, reach out to your local archaeology club (probably on Facebook). Just be sure you are dealing with professionals and not random hobbyists who want to dig and dash. Edit to add: I did this kind of research in my local community but I'm also graduating with BA in Anthropology and have focused on archaeology and Native American cultures. I don't know your background but always best to just not touch things that don't need to be touched or moved. Context is very important in archaeology and moving artifacts around makes it harder to extract that historical context.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1290.0,"score_ratio":1.46875} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"gluh87d","c_root_id_B":"glufzek","created_at_utc_A":1612347178,"created_at_utc_B":1612346012,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Surveys using magnetometer or Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) are more or less the only way to non-invasively survey an area of archaeological interest. And those don't come cheap, so my guess is, that you're not going to be able to use that kind of tech. So, what are your options for finding out what have previously been on your daddy's house? Well, I think you'll have to partner up with a historian rather than an archaeologist. Seems to me that you're not going to be able to investigate the property archaeologically but you might be able to find some old maps, photographs or the like of the property instead. Finding that kind of stuff is usually more the in historians' ballpark. If your local community college indeed has an arch department, why not start by reaching out to them? Maybe they will know something about the area your dad lives in that you don't. Maybe do the same and reach out to the local museum - that might actually be an even better idea as they have a myriad of different people employed, some of which are bound to be either archaeologists or historians (or historical archaeologists even).","human_ref_B":"Maybe reach out to an environmental consulting firm in your area? They often do assessments of land that is believed to possibly have archaeological significance when someone wants to build on it. They would almost certainly have some useful geophysical equipment (GPR, EM sensors, magnetometers, etc.)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1166.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glv7lt1","c_root_id_B":"glvnk44","created_at_utc_A":1612364167,"created_at_utc_B":1612370793,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Historic maps can be a goldmine of information on stuff like this. If you're lucky you might even be able to figure out exactly where any structures are likely to be just by comparing old and new maps and looking at the surface of the land. Buried walls and foundations might make plants grow differently as well, which you sometimes can't see just standing and looking at it but they are often visible on aerial photos as slightly different shades of green (known in the UK at least as crop marks).","human_ref_B":"\\+1 to everyone talking about historical research here. That's really the primary way that you are able to 'do' archaeology without actually digging, and for most people working in the field, is where we start. A couple of free, public resources that you may find useful are: https:\/\/glorecords.blm.gov\/ \\-- This is a great resource to start looking for land grant patents and early survey documents. Depending on where you are, they may have maps or patents that were filed by the initial colonial landowners. https:\/\/ngmdb.usgs.gov\/topoview\/viewer\/#4\/40.01\/-100.06 or https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/topoexplorer\/index.html \\--- USGS interactive historic map viewers, which allows you to navigate to a specific area, then bring up maps from various periods. Since you mention military action, you can also check the National Archives: https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/research\/military\/veterans\/arc.html to see if there are any documents that talk about the campaigns or military camps in your area. If there was a building there, it should show up on one of these resources, and may point you in the right direction. Hope that helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6626.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glufzek","c_root_id_B":"glvnk44","created_at_utc_A":1612346012,"created_at_utc_B":1612370793,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Maybe reach out to an environmental consulting firm in your area? They often do assessments of land that is believed to possibly have archaeological significance when someone wants to build on it. They would almost certainly have some useful geophysical equipment (GPR, EM sensors, magnetometers, etc.)","human_ref_B":"\\+1 to everyone talking about historical research here. That's really the primary way that you are able to 'do' archaeology without actually digging, and for most people working in the field, is where we start. A couple of free, public resources that you may find useful are: https:\/\/glorecords.blm.gov\/ \\-- This is a great resource to start looking for land grant patents and early survey documents. Depending on where you are, they may have maps or patents that were filed by the initial colonial landowners. https:\/\/ngmdb.usgs.gov\/topoview\/viewer\/#4\/40.01\/-100.06 or https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/topoexplorer\/index.html \\--- USGS interactive historic map viewers, which allows you to navigate to a specific area, then bring up maps from various periods. Since you mention military action, you can also check the National Archives: https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/research\/military\/veterans\/arc.html to see if there are any documents that talk about the campaigns or military camps in your area. If there was a building there, it should show up on one of these resources, and may point you in the right direction. Hope that helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":24781.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glv4nn6","c_root_id_B":"glvnk44","created_at_utc_A":1612362869,"created_at_utc_B":1612370793,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Get a half decent commercial grade UAS (drone, get a DJI Phantom 3 or or over, or a Mavic) or borrow one from a friend. Get a trial version of Pix4D. Fly the property taking a large number of overlapping photos. Use Pix4D to process a DEM. This will produce a highly detailed surface map. Irregularities in the surface from disturbance or features may have a good chance of showing up. I use this all the time on both historic and (some) prehistoric sites, results are fantastic. There's a little bit of knowhow to get a good map, but its learnable.","human_ref_B":"\\+1 to everyone talking about historical research here. That's really the primary way that you are able to 'do' archaeology without actually digging, and for most people working in the field, is where we start. A couple of free, public resources that you may find useful are: https:\/\/glorecords.blm.gov\/ \\-- This is a great resource to start looking for land grant patents and early survey documents. Depending on where you are, they may have maps or patents that were filed by the initial colonial landowners. https:\/\/ngmdb.usgs.gov\/topoview\/viewer\/#4\/40.01\/-100.06 or https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/topoexplorer\/index.html \\--- USGS interactive historic map viewers, which allows you to navigate to a specific area, then bring up maps from various periods. Since you mention military action, you can also check the National Archives: https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/research\/military\/veterans\/arc.html to see if there are any documents that talk about the campaigns or military camps in your area. If there was a building there, it should show up on one of these resources, and may point you in the right direction. Hope that helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7924.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glvnk44","c_root_id_B":"glvi7l5","created_at_utc_A":1612370793,"created_at_utc_B":1612368610,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"\\+1 to everyone talking about historical research here. That's really the primary way that you are able to 'do' archaeology without actually digging, and for most people working in the field, is where we start. A couple of free, public resources that you may find useful are: https:\/\/glorecords.blm.gov\/ \\-- This is a great resource to start looking for land grant patents and early survey documents. Depending on where you are, they may have maps or patents that were filed by the initial colonial landowners. https:\/\/ngmdb.usgs.gov\/topoview\/viewer\/#4\/40.01\/-100.06 or https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/topoexplorer\/index.html \\--- USGS interactive historic map viewers, which allows you to navigate to a specific area, then bring up maps from various periods. Since you mention military action, you can also check the National Archives: https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/research\/military\/veterans\/arc.html to see if there are any documents that talk about the campaigns or military camps in your area. If there was a building there, it should show up on one of these resources, and may point you in the right direction. Hope that helps!","human_ref_B":"I would second all of the comments suggesting you do historical research first. If you can confirm, then reach out to a local archaeology department at a university or a consultancy firm. The issue with excavation is that it often causes more harm than good. Any area that is excavated needs to have surveying done, etc. Additionally, as you are saying this could potentially have American Indian cultural remains, I would tread very carefully. As its on private land, NAGPRA laws could still pertain if there were any human remains and that is a can of worms that you definitely do not want to open.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2183.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glv7lt1","c_root_id_B":"glufzek","created_at_utc_A":1612364167,"created_at_utc_B":1612346012,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Historic maps can be a goldmine of information on stuff like this. If you're lucky you might even be able to figure out exactly where any structures are likely to be just by comparing old and new maps and looking at the surface of the land. Buried walls and foundations might make plants grow differently as well, which you sometimes can't see just standing and looking at it but they are often visible on aerial photos as slightly different shades of green (known in the UK at least as crop marks).","human_ref_B":"Maybe reach out to an environmental consulting firm in your area? They often do assessments of land that is believed to possibly have archaeological significance when someone wants to build on it. They would almost certainly have some useful geophysical equipment (GPR, EM sensors, magnetometers, etc.)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18155.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"lbgp28","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Need help figuring out a noninvasive method for figuring out archaeology in backyard. Hi there. I have a quick question. I live in an area that dates back to before the French and Indian War. Since the land was purchased by Alexander Lindsay Glen from the Mohawk tribe, the area housed two military encampments (one during the French and Indian War, and the other during the war of 1812). Several years ago, my Dad was replacing the fence around our yard. Every few post holes (the posts are around 4 feet apart), a few pieces of white stone ware, and on occasion bright red brick, would come up. I have the feeling that there is more down there, but my Dad at this time doesn't want me to go digging around. My question is what options do I have that are affordable, and noninvasive, all the while allowing me to follow my hunch. It's important to note that my local community college does have an archaeology department (it's one of the few places in our state, where you can be certified to volunteer on archaeological sites.)","c_root_id_A":"glv7lt1","c_root_id_B":"glv4nn6","created_at_utc_A":1612364167,"created_at_utc_B":1612362869,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Historic maps can be a goldmine of information on stuff like this. If you're lucky you might even be able to figure out exactly where any structures are likely to be just by comparing old and new maps and looking at the surface of the land. Buried walls and foundations might make plants grow differently as well, which you sometimes can't see just standing and looking at it but they are often visible on aerial photos as slightly different shades of green (known in the UK at least as crop marks).","human_ref_B":"Get a half decent commercial grade UAS (drone, get a DJI Phantom 3 or or over, or a Mavic) or borrow one from a friend. Get a trial version of Pix4D. Fly the property taking a large number of overlapping photos. Use Pix4D to process a DEM. This will produce a highly detailed surface map. Irregularities in the surface from disturbance or features may have a good chance of showing up. I use this all the time on both historic and (some) prehistoric sites, results are fantastic. There's a little bit of knowhow to get a good map, but its learnable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1298.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bzhvjc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"It shouldn't be THIS hard to figure out a word.. I'm VERY green in the realm of anthropology so this may be dumb question, but what is the more appropriate, preferably succinct term when referring to what most people consider \"western society\" or \"civilization\", aka at least somewhat industrialized and money-based society (vs, for example, a society like that of indigenous tribes still living in the Amazon)? maybe I'm opening up a can of worms here or asking a question with no answer, but I figured I'd try. I'm writing a paper and this isn't even the topic, I just don't want to sound like a moron who thinks that\/talks like indigenous societies aren't civilized","c_root_id_A":"eqsx1tq","c_root_id_B":"eqsva3t","created_at_utc_A":1560296103,"created_at_utc_B":1560294738,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"It's a super tricky issue. I do applied anthropology and development, and for ease we sometimes refer to 'the global north' and 'the global south'. Everything is a minefield. I think as long as you make brief reference to the fact that these are contentious terms you can use them, I sometimes reference the UN and use their categorization, problematic as they are, of LDC (Least Developed Countries) when I talk about countries in which I work.","human_ref_B":"You may be wanting the word \"state\". Books and entire careers have been spent exploring the spectrum, but the idea of bands-tribes-chiefdoms-states is well-trod and \"states\" in this context fits what I think you're looking for. Distribution of labor, \"industry\" of some sort, etc. https:\/\/study.com\/academy\/lesson\/political-organizations-bands-tribes-chiefdoms-states.html Keep in mind, however, that \"states\" have existed in indigenous North and South America, Africa, as well as Asia. So the concept of \"western civilization\" is not synonymous. But yes, Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire are well-known states.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1365.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"bzhvjc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"It shouldn't be THIS hard to figure out a word.. I'm VERY green in the realm of anthropology so this may be dumb question, but what is the more appropriate, preferably succinct term when referring to what most people consider \"western society\" or \"civilization\", aka at least somewhat industrialized and money-based society (vs, for example, a society like that of indigenous tribes still living in the Amazon)? maybe I'm opening up a can of worms here or asking a question with no answer, but I figured I'd try. I'm writing a paper and this isn't even the topic, I just don't want to sound like a moron who thinks that\/talks like indigenous societies aren't civilized","c_root_id_A":"eqsx1tq","c_root_id_B":"eqsucfg","created_at_utc_A":1560296103,"created_at_utc_B":1560294025,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"It's a super tricky issue. I do applied anthropology and development, and for ease we sometimes refer to 'the global north' and 'the global south'. Everything is a minefield. I think as long as you make brief reference to the fact that these are contentious terms you can use them, I sometimes reference the UN and use their categorization, problematic as they are, of LDC (Least Developed Countries) when I talk about countries in which I work.","human_ref_B":"Indigenous peoples in America and (usually?) in Europe are not considered part of Western culture despite physically living in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2078.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"bzhvjc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"It shouldn't be THIS hard to figure out a word.. I'm VERY green in the realm of anthropology so this may be dumb question, but what is the more appropriate, preferably succinct term when referring to what most people consider \"western society\" or \"civilization\", aka at least somewhat industrialized and money-based society (vs, for example, a society like that of indigenous tribes still living in the Amazon)? maybe I'm opening up a can of worms here or asking a question with no answer, but I figured I'd try. I'm writing a paper and this isn't even the topic, I just don't want to sound like a moron who thinks that\/talks like indigenous societies aren't civilized","c_root_id_A":"eqt13c8","c_root_id_B":"eqsucfg","created_at_utc_A":1560299256,"created_at_utc_B":1560294025,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Global North and South may be the terminology you\u2019re looking for.","human_ref_B":"Indigenous peoples in America and (usually?) in Europe are not considered part of Western culture despite physically living in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5231.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"bzhvjc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"It shouldn't be THIS hard to figure out a word.. I'm VERY green in the realm of anthropology so this may be dumb question, but what is the more appropriate, preferably succinct term when referring to what most people consider \"western society\" or \"civilization\", aka at least somewhat industrialized and money-based society (vs, for example, a society like that of indigenous tribes still living in the Amazon)? maybe I'm opening up a can of worms here or asking a question with no answer, but I figured I'd try. I'm writing a paper and this isn't even the topic, I just don't want to sound like a moron who thinks that\/talks like indigenous societies aren't civilized","c_root_id_A":"eqsucfg","c_root_id_B":"eqsva3t","created_at_utc_A":1560294025,"created_at_utc_B":1560294738,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Indigenous peoples in America and (usually?) in Europe are not considered part of Western culture despite physically living in it.","human_ref_B":"You may be wanting the word \"state\". Books and entire careers have been spent exploring the spectrum, but the idea of bands-tribes-chiefdoms-states is well-trod and \"states\" in this context fits what I think you're looking for. Distribution of labor, \"industry\" of some sort, etc. https:\/\/study.com\/academy\/lesson\/political-organizations-bands-tribes-chiefdoms-states.html Keep in mind, however, that \"states\" have existed in indigenous North and South America, Africa, as well as Asia. So the concept of \"western civilization\" is not synonymous. But yes, Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire are well-known states.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":713.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"31mo3q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"Is there, and if so, why is there an affinity between Transgender people and Japanese culture? From personal experience, a little fieldwork and watching documentaries, I can't help but see a large number of people who are both transgender and like Japanese culture. Have any of you guys found a similar link? What reasons do you think cause this?","c_root_id_A":"cq31p78","c_root_id_B":"cq3aw96","created_at_utc_A":1428336612,"created_at_utc_B":1428350872,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure if there's any literature on Western transgendered people liking Japanese culture, but there is quite a bit written on the topic of transgenderism in Japan. Mark McLelland's work and even some of Karen Kelsky's academic stuff might interest you.","human_ref_B":"^((Thanks \/u\/firedrops for pinging me!)^) So, while I haven't specifically studied this, I too have found that LGBTQ people are drawn to Japanese pop culture, and I dare say that the proportion of LGBTQ folks amongst anime fans is higher than among the wider society. And I have some insights on why that is so: 1) Japan has a different approach to non-binary sexes and genders than the West. I'm not saying it's better, but it's different nonetheless. For instance, Japan has plenty of indigenous categories for trans* people, most of which predate the post-war Westernization of the country. Also, > Japan has had virtually no sodomy or obscenity laws regarding homosexuality or gender deviant behaviour, and cabaret clubs featuring transgender performers were never harrassed or raided by police like they were in the USA during the 1960s. ^1] This doesn't mean that Japanese LGBTQ people didn't (and don't) face prejudice, but I think it's fair to say that, as a whole, Japanese society is less gender-normative than most Western societies. As you can see this in this not-so-bad [Wikipedia article, Japan has an antique tradition of accepting the existence of non-cishet people (even if, at some point or other, disapproving them). 2) Because of that, works featuring LGBTQ people are really prevalent in Japan: I literally cannot count how many manga are about male homosexuality, or how many manga feature gender-bending or cross-dressing characters. Even less visible \"categories\", like lesbians or trans-men and -women, have works written about them. This contrast heavily with Western culture, where LGBTQ people aren't protagonists of any pop culture works: if they exist at all, they are coadjuvants, and hardly escape the heteronormative narrative and stereotyping. 3) As \/u\/firedrops said, cosplaying, anime conventions and the anime fan culture, as a whole, can be more welcoming to LGBTQ people (or, at least, have \"pockets of acceptance\"). I think that's because they're less prejudiced (because they read\/watch, or at least are aware of, works featuring LGBTQ people) and because they consider themselves social outcasts, therefore try (even if just a tiny little bit) not to reproduce the prejudices of the wider society. In my own fieldwork I've seen \"important\" (and cis-het) people crusading against the use of homophobic and transphobic slurs in the fandom, so I really think that the anime fandom is less nocive to trans* people than other groups. --- [1] McDermott, Nicola. Resistance and Assimilation: Medical an Legal Transgender Identities in Japan. in: *Manga Girl Seeks Herbivore Boy: Studying Japanese Gender in Cambridge*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14260.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"6wphzv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How different types of \"dwellings\" were developed by cultures based on the environmental challenges they faced? An example would be Kombai tree houses, and the environmental factors that led to this design. Is there a name for this subject? I'd like a relatively comprehensive reference to read over so that I can better understand what types of dwellings should exist in different types of environments. I'm really interested in studying up on this, googling every combination of \"ancient architecture why environment\" hasn't yielded any relevant results. Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"dm9zttw","c_root_id_B":"dmahqtg","created_at_utc_A":1504008390,"created_at_utc_B":1504029428,"score_A":5,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I don't know of any name specifically for this kind of specialization. We often focus on \/ produce comparative studies looking at the effect of different ecological and environmental conditions, and historical trajectories, on cultural practices, technology, and so forth. Architecture is just one aspect of that, though. It's embedded in more than just environment, and while there are certainly influential factors (can't live in a shelter with no walls in sub-Arctic temperatures) any culture's unique history also has to be taken into account. So this kind of interest might fit broadly under the older \"cultural ecology\" approach, or the slightly updated \"historical ecology\" approach.","human_ref_B":"The term you're looking for is Vernacular Architecture. I studied it in college, there's some great books about it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21038.0,"score_ratio":3.8} {"post_id":"6wphzv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How different types of \"dwellings\" were developed by cultures based on the environmental challenges they faced? An example would be Kombai tree houses, and the environmental factors that led to this design. Is there a name for this subject? I'd like a relatively comprehensive reference to read over so that I can better understand what types of dwellings should exist in different types of environments. I'm really interested in studying up on this, googling every combination of \"ancient architecture why environment\" hasn't yielded any relevant results. Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"dmahqtg","c_root_id_B":"dmagqbo","created_at_utc_A":1504029428,"created_at_utc_B":1504028386,"score_A":19,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The term you're looking for is Vernacular Architecture. I studied it in college, there's some great books about it.","human_ref_B":"I suspect that what you are looking for would be found in the general area of Settlement Archaeology. Settlement studies have been an interest of archaeologists since the 1950s. More specifically, I would suggest Community Pattern studies and within that Household Archaeology. I suggest you take a look at this article by Ken Ames about household archaeology in the Northwest. I don't think it is exactly what you are asking about, but I think he discusses many of your interests and has a decent bibliography.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1042.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"6wphzv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How different types of \"dwellings\" were developed by cultures based on the environmental challenges they faced? An example would be Kombai tree houses, and the environmental factors that led to this design. Is there a name for this subject? I'd like a relatively comprehensive reference to read over so that I can better understand what types of dwellings should exist in different types of environments. I'm really interested in studying up on this, googling every combination of \"ancient architecture why environment\" hasn't yielded any relevant results. Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"dmac2cd","c_root_id_B":"dmahqtg","created_at_utc_A":1504023559,"created_at_utc_B":1504029428,"score_A":2,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I also don't know what the name of this field of study would be. I study forager mobility, so my work touches on or has some relation to dwellings, but isn't directly involved in their study. For example- people who are more mobile build structures that are more ephemeral. One specific example from archaeology is the transition to adobe houses in the southwest. As people became more sedentary, they began to invest more in building long-term housing. However, other groups in the same environment stayed mobile and continued to build more ephemeral structures. If you're interested in this example, the structures include wikiups, pit houses, pueblos and adobe brick buildings. You can use those names as search terms. I would recommend using google scholar as a search engine and being selective about what sources you read. Anthropological journals would definitely be relevant, but archaeologists who study past human structures will also have interesting things to say.","human_ref_B":"The term you're looking for is Vernacular Architecture. I studied it in college, there's some great books about it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5869.0,"score_ratio":9.5} {"post_id":"6wphzv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How different types of \"dwellings\" were developed by cultures based on the environmental challenges they faced? An example would be Kombai tree houses, and the environmental factors that led to this design. Is there a name for this subject? I'd like a relatively comprehensive reference to read over so that I can better understand what types of dwellings should exist in different types of environments. I'm really interested in studying up on this, googling every combination of \"ancient architecture why environment\" hasn't yielded any relevant results. Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"dm9zttw","c_root_id_B":"dmagqbo","created_at_utc_A":1504008390,"created_at_utc_B":1504028386,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I don't know of any name specifically for this kind of specialization. We often focus on \/ produce comparative studies looking at the effect of different ecological and environmental conditions, and historical trajectories, on cultural practices, technology, and so forth. Architecture is just one aspect of that, though. It's embedded in more than just environment, and while there are certainly influential factors (can't live in a shelter with no walls in sub-Arctic temperatures) any culture's unique history also has to be taken into account. So this kind of interest might fit broadly under the older \"cultural ecology\" approach, or the slightly updated \"historical ecology\" approach.","human_ref_B":"I suspect that what you are looking for would be found in the general area of Settlement Archaeology. Settlement studies have been an interest of archaeologists since the 1950s. More specifically, I would suggest Community Pattern studies and within that Household Archaeology. I suggest you take a look at this article by Ken Ames about household archaeology in the Northwest. I don't think it is exactly what you are asking about, but I think he discusses many of your interests and has a decent bibliography.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19996.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"6wphzv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"How different types of \"dwellings\" were developed by cultures based on the environmental challenges they faced? An example would be Kombai tree houses, and the environmental factors that led to this design. Is there a name for this subject? I'd like a relatively comprehensive reference to read over so that I can better understand what types of dwellings should exist in different types of environments. I'm really interested in studying up on this, googling every combination of \"ancient architecture why environment\" hasn't yielded any relevant results. Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"dmac2cd","c_root_id_B":"dmagqbo","created_at_utc_A":1504023559,"created_at_utc_B":1504028386,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I also don't know what the name of this field of study would be. I study forager mobility, so my work touches on or has some relation to dwellings, but isn't directly involved in their study. For example- people who are more mobile build structures that are more ephemeral. One specific example from archaeology is the transition to adobe houses in the southwest. As people became more sedentary, they began to invest more in building long-term housing. However, other groups in the same environment stayed mobile and continued to build more ephemeral structures. If you're interested in this example, the structures include wikiups, pit houses, pueblos and adobe brick buildings. You can use those names as search terms. I would recommend using google scholar as a search engine and being selective about what sources you read. Anthropological journals would definitely be relevant, but archaeologists who study past human structures will also have interesting things to say.","human_ref_B":"I suspect that what you are looking for would be found in the general area of Settlement Archaeology. Settlement studies have been an interest of archaeologists since the 1950s. More specifically, I would suggest Community Pattern studies and within that Household Archaeology. I suggest you take a look at this article by Ken Ames about household archaeology in the Northwest. I don't think it is exactly what you are asking about, but I think he discusses many of your interests and has a decent bibliography.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4827.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"2y4ont","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Does Anthropology still have the racial classification system for humans based on physical characteristics? If yes, what are the racial groups? First of all, excuse my grammar and political incorrectness. English is not my native language. I understand that with a lot of interbreeding the borders between each racial groups are becoming more and more blur. Still, if you take a look around you will find that there are people who can be easily grouped into East Asian, European race etcetera to name a few. * Does Anthropology still have the racial classification system for humans based on physical characteristics? If yes, what are the racial groups?","c_root_id_A":"cp67bzo","c_root_id_B":"cp678df","created_at_utc_A":1425647784,"created_at_utc_B":1425647465,"score_A":34,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Short answer: no. While forensic anthropologists do use certain markers to indicate heritage, and we recognize those concepts link to local understandings of race, the AAA and every anthropologist I know argue that race is not a biologically sound system of classification. People don't group neatly into taxonomies. We do utilize population genetics to see how certain groups adapted to certain conditions such as lactase persistence developing independently in Europe, Ethiopia, and Tibet. Or sickle cell as a defense against malaria. But those population groupings don't map directly onto racial categories. So at best you'll find some population genetics attempts to describe migrations and adaptations. But we don't try to create systems of classification like you're describing because they 1) don't work and 2) get coopted by racists. For more see the race link in the side bar. I believe Bill Nye (not an anthropologist) has recently explained the issue for non experts as well.","human_ref_B":"Race is recognized neither by Anthropology nor Science in general. It is not biological nor traceable, except as a social construct. It is simply a belief, not a fact.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":319.0,"score_ratio":8.5} {"post_id":"2y4ont","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Does Anthropology still have the racial classification system for humans based on physical characteristics? If yes, what are the racial groups? First of all, excuse my grammar and political incorrectness. English is not my native language. I understand that with a lot of interbreeding the borders between each racial groups are becoming more and more blur. Still, if you take a look around you will find that there are people who can be easily grouped into East Asian, European race etcetera to name a few. * Does Anthropology still have the racial classification system for humans based on physical characteristics? If yes, what are the racial groups?","c_root_id_A":"cp678df","c_root_id_B":"cp67w9w","created_at_utc_A":1425647465,"created_at_utc_B":1425649471,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Race is recognized neither by Anthropology nor Science in general. It is not biological nor traceable, except as a social construct. It is simply a belief, not a fact.","human_ref_B":"No. The closest you come to that is found in forensic anthropology (I used to work for a forensic anthropologist). There are some skeletal features, like the width of the nasal aperture and shovel shaped incisors, that can be correlated to human populations in certain *geographical areas* (wide nasal aperture can indicate African ancestry, shovel shaped incisors can indicate Asian or Native American\/First Nation ancestry), and this *can* indicate the socially constructed 'race' of the individual, *However*, this is not 100% reliable, especially in a melting pot like the US. So while a forensic anthropologist might use several different skeletal features to make an educated supposition about the 'race' of a particular individual, these features are not hard and fast rules and can be misleading. This can cause some consternation on the part of law enforcement, some of whom do not have the nuanced understanding of 'race' that anthropologists and scientists do and want a hard answer on who the skeletal remains belong to, but there's not much one can do but explain that skeletal features sometimes tell you more about an individual's ancestors than it does about the skin color of the individual themselves.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2006.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"x99han","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"How did property originate? What's the first known instance of property ownership in early humans? Were there vastly different definitions of property across different societies?","c_root_id_A":"inpxvxr","c_root_id_B":"inpso72","created_at_utc_A":1662727660,"created_at_utc_B":1662724990,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Keep in mind that what we don\u2019t know about the history of property ownership is bigger than what we do know. It is also skewed by both the availability of historical and archaeological data, and biases in where we look for that data. (Note that I am not using the term bias in a judgmental way here, sometimes you can only dig near home, sometimes politics and war interfere, etc).","human_ref_B":"We find evidence of inequality - which is essentially congruent with property -- well before historical records (which begin 5,000 years ago). Property and inequality seems to have occurred with the development of agriculture, farming, cattle, its present in the early Bronze age and most likely much earlier. So \"earliest evidence we can find\" isn't likely to be \"earliest there was We get durable evidence of inequality long before writing in grave goods -- some decedents are buried with a lot, others buried with little -- and architecture, house size for example. See: Pringle, Heather. \"The ancient roots of the 1%.\" (2014): 822-825. Science DOI: 10.1126\/science.344.6186.822 Mittnik, Alissa, et al. \"Kinship-based social inequality in Bronze Age Europe.\" Science 366.6466 (2019): 731-734. DOI: 10.1126\/science.aax6219","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2670.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2nydn7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What's the most current standard work on Orientalism\/East-West Dichotomy? I come from a literature background, and I'm currently trying to research some of the literary ties between English and Japanese literature. Specifically Orientalism and the whole East-West divide comes up a lot. I've already read some anthropological works, and am currently rereading Edward Said's *Orientalism*. But, I still feel a bit out of my depth when it comes to where to place various views within the field of anthropology as a whole. That is, I can understand the works on their own, but I lack a larger context in which to place them (are this author's views mainstream? are they really off the wall? I don't feel able to differentiate). I was wondering if perhaps someone here could recommend something that can help a person from a neighbouring field get a firmer grasp on how anthropologists are currently looking at these issues. In theory articles are fine, but I'd prefer a book as they tend to be more comprehensive. Something more specifically aimed at the far east, as opposed to Said's near east, would be great as well. Either way, my deepest gratitude to anyone who can answer this question!","c_root_id_A":"cmi9rm4","c_root_id_B":"cmi42aa","created_at_utc_A":1417471186,"created_at_utc_B":1417461149,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hey there! I hope I understood your question, but feel free to correct me otherwise. First of all: yes, Said's work and theory is highly regarded in contemporary anthropological thought. He's been criticized, of course, but who doesn't? All in all, he's still very influent in some parts of anthropology, and is read in some grad school classes. This stems, in part (and this is my second point), from the fact that Said inaugurated a important tradition in social thought: postcolonialism (edit: also called subaltern studies). Many anthropologists are part of this tradition, and were influenced by Said, such as Lila Abu-Lughod, Talal Asad and Homi Bhabha (who edited a book called *Edward Said: Continuing the Conversation*). However, postcolonialism fails in the same way orientalism does: it (almost completely) ignores Japan and East Asia\u00b9, focusing on the \"nearer\" east (the arab world + the indian subcontinent, mainly), while adding to its scope the global south (especially africa and south america). But there's no denying, IMO, that nowadays the postcolonialists are pretty much the main heirs of Said in anthropology (cultural studies come in a close second place, though). This doesn't mean, however, that you're *completely* out of luck. There's some good things to be read, even if not strictly in Said's stead. My main recommendation is Ian Buruma (who is in fact influenced by Said). He (and Avishai Margalit) published a book called *Occidentalism*, in which they invert the perspective on Said's work, and it's really good - and, while not focused on Japan, it has a good spotlight in the book. Buruma has published extensively on Japan and East Asia, and I highly recommend his *Inventing Japan*. Aside from Buruma, I recommend Sheila Johnson's *The Japanese Through American Eyes*. While I honestly do not remember if she ever cited Said, she does a amazing job of showing how american media depicts Japan. Last, but not least, I know for a fact that Said's work was heavily discussed in Japan, but pretty much nothing of that discussion got to the West (as is the case with pretty much anything published in Japan). If you are a fluent reader of Japanese, I've heard very well of Kang Sang-Jung's *Orientarizumu no Kanata-e*\u00b2, and I know that Nobukuni Koyasu has published a book called *\"Ajia\" wa d\u014d katararete kita ka: kindai Nihon no Orientarizumu*\u00b3. But if, after all, you're not intending to do a deep dive in the area (which is perfectly OK), you can rely entirely on Said. His thought has not been outdated as much as improved in the last 50 years, so you should be fine :) ------- \u00b9 For instance, the chapter \"Japan and East Asia\" in the *Companion to Postcolonial Studies* has only 12 pages, among the 600 of the book (which I highly recommend if you're thinking about getting closer to postcolonial thought). \u00b2 \u30aa\u30ea\u30a8\u30f3\u30bf\u30ea\u30ba\u30e0\u306e\u5f7c\u65b9\u3078 (usually translated to \"Beyond Orientalism\", but it should not be confused with Dallmayr's *Beyond Orientalism*, which is about India) \u00b3 \u300c\u30a2\u30b8\u30a2\u300d\u306f\u3069\u3046\u8a9e\u3089\u308c\u3066\u304d\u305f\u304b:\u8fd1\u4ee3\u65e5\u672c\u306e\u30aa\u30ea\u30a8\u30f3\u30bf\u30ea\u30ba\u30e0 (\"How \"Asia\" was depicted: The Orientalism of modern Japan\")","human_ref_B":"Are you more interested in a general history of the cultural exchange between East and West, or more interested in concepts like the Great Divergence? I am not all too familiar with Said's work and can't quite see his relevance in regards to Japanese-English literary ties.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10037.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ryw3jw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How to be a biz\/tech Anthropologist I got a full ride scholarship for a Masters in Anthro and I got a full term of electives. 4 courses. What courses\/majors should I choose to get me closer to my goal? I want to work as a business\/tech anthropologist?","c_root_id_A":"hrrtwx9","c_root_id_B":"hrrr0ml","created_at_utc_A":1641647095,"created_at_utc_B":1641645231,"score_A":16,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Biggest area in tech employing anthropologists by far is UI\/UX research. So look into what skills are expected in hiring for those positions and work to acquire practical experience in them that you can show on a resume and as part of a portfolio. Am degreed anthropologist that worked toward a career in data science, landed somewhere nearby.","human_ref_B":"Not sure what you mean with tech anthropologist. I studied in Copenhagen where I took a masters called Techno-Anthropology during which we studied a lot of science and technology studies (STS), philosophy of technology and some stuff about design. I would say that it definitely makes me competent when it comes to talking about science and technology from a socio-cultural point of view, but I don't know if that's what you mean. As for business anthropology, this is a sub-field in itself within the discipline, so I guess that there should be courses at your university that do go that way? Otherwise, if possible, combining stuff like economic anthropology, UX research, critical marketing studies and things like that could also do the trick. But again, it depends on what is that you want to able to do afterwards.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1864.0,"score_ratio":3.2} {"post_id":"ryw3jw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"How to be a biz\/tech Anthropologist I got a full ride scholarship for a Masters in Anthro and I got a full term of electives. 4 courses. What courses\/majors should I choose to get me closer to my goal? I want to work as a business\/tech anthropologist?","c_root_id_A":"hrsaub1","c_root_id_B":"hrtdj9k","created_at_utc_A":1641655632,"created_at_utc_B":1641671051,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Seems like you might have to invent your own profession a little bit. If I was you I'd be reaching out to tech companies on my own looking for internships and job shadows and stuff.","human_ref_B":"You should read *Studying Those Who Study Us; An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence* by Diana Foresythe. It's a great read and similar to the work you're describing. I second other people who are talking about STS. Go read some Latour, Pickering, Bijker, etc. All great stuff (Bijker and Latour in particular are close to my heart). See if you like that sort of stuff and then look for a program that will let you dive into similar works.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15419.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"44o2sm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Homo erectus skin color (Please don't drag any ideas about anatomically modern humans into this) I am trying to draw a Homo erectus woman for a roleplay that I am thinking of participating in. I'm thinking of having her be from the northern Chinese area (like Peking man) so I am wondering how this would effect her skin color. Unfortunately, when I try to look up skin color for Homo erectus, all the results end up being at such sites like Stormfront, obviously not good places to get information. Basically what I am asking (without any racist connotations) is would all Homo erectus be dark-skinned or can I get away with a lighter-skinned individual?","c_root_id_A":"czvmw0f","c_root_id_B":"czxn9ej","created_at_utc_A":1455162362,"created_at_utc_B":1455305151,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Image google \"skin pigmentation latitude.\" You'll get a map of the world that shows general human skin pigmentation according to latitude across the globe for indigenous tribes. Things we know: skin color in human populations changes relatively quickly based on latitude and sunlight. Tens of thousands of years would be enough. In this case, the debate about whether it would take 10,000 years or 50,000 years to change a population's skin pigmentation from darkest to lightest doesn't matter, because *Homo erectus* was around for a million years, meaning plenty of time for climate to effect great change even with the most conservative estimates. So any color across the range of colors for apes is conceivably possible, and we simply do not have enough data to know what actually was the case. Things we don't know: how much hair they had, and in what pattern. You can feel free to use your imagination regarding amount of hair and skin pigmentation. Many anthropologists used to think that modern humans evolved from *Homo erectus* throughout the world in parallel, because, due to the length of time that *Homo erectus* were around, they show a great deal of regional variation, with their facial structure having some similarities to what modern humans from those areas look like. If *H. erectus* evolved to be adapted to their local climate in those ways that are seen in their skeletal structure, it's reasonable to assume that they evolved in other ways to be adapted to their local climate.","human_ref_B":"Going for most likely, realistic case? Go with a medium brown skin tone. The genes that have to do with demelanization likely appeared way after H. erectus. Last I read (on Deineke) the range for their appearance in northern Eurasia was a mere 8,000-28,000 years ago. H. erectus was pretty much gone by then.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":142789.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"qdd6qt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Books recommendation on humans's spread around the world I need books about how human evolved from an ape to homo sapiens, and how humans spread around the world from Arica, how they changed the nomadic life to settled lifestyle, how and where they began to form first communities, then societies and civilizations. How and when they began to speak, write and practise spiritual\/ religious rituals.","c_root_id_A":"hhm5wss","c_root_id_B":"hhm0xcr","created_at_utc_A":1634908073,"created_at_utc_B":1634905542,"score_A":32,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have yet to read it, but the book *The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity* recently came out, and given David Graeber's influence I suspect I'm not the only here who has it on their reading list. In lieu of personal experience I'll offer this review.","human_ref_B":"Look into *\"Catching Fire: How Cooking Mad Us Human\"* by British primatologist Richard Wrangham. I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, that's your call.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2531.0,"score_ratio":4.5714285714} {"post_id":"qdd6qt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Books recommendation on humans's spread around the world I need books about how human evolved from an ape to homo sapiens, and how humans spread around the world from Arica, how they changed the nomadic life to settled lifestyle, how and where they began to form first communities, then societies and civilizations. How and when they began to speak, write and practise spiritual\/ religious rituals.","c_root_id_A":"hhn1blc","c_root_id_B":"hhm0xcr","created_at_utc_A":1634921058,"created_at_utc_B":1634905542,"score_A":14,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"David Reich's \"Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past\" 2018 is a good place to start. Note that older works without reference to ancient DNA may have been superceded- this is a fast moving field - even 2018 means that there's been a ton of stuff since then","human_ref_B":"Look into *\"Catching Fire: How Cooking Mad Us Human\"* by British primatologist Richard Wrangham. I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, that's your call.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15516.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"qdd6qt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Books recommendation on humans's spread around the world I need books about how human evolved from an ape to homo sapiens, and how humans spread around the world from Arica, how they changed the nomadic life to settled lifestyle, how and where they began to form first communities, then societies and civilizations. How and when they began to speak, write and practise spiritual\/ religious rituals.","c_root_id_A":"hhpwgpj","c_root_id_B":"hhnq0re","created_at_utc_A":1634974103,"created_at_utc_B":1634931136,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m not even close to being an anthropologist, but I thoroughly enjoyed Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Hariri. Although it may not provide as much info as you might be looking for, it\u2019s a great read. Im curious to know what anthropologists have to say about the book. I\u2019ll leave it to the professionals to give a \u2018yay\u2019 or \u2018nay\u2019 on it. So, professionals, what are your thoughts?","human_ref_B":"I think the best introduction to the story of hominins and humans is Alice Roberts, Evolution: The Human Story (2nd edition). It is very well written and beautifully illustrated.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":42967.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"33c3c6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Are ancient tombs ever dangerous (and potentially booby-trapped) and what is the actual procedure to ensure harm is minimised? Sorry if wrong subreddit but it seems a little too juvenile for askScience. I was just wondering if tombs are ever actually booby-trapped and what is procedure to find any interesting relics, under the assumption that Indiana Jones-ing it probably isn't the best way to go about it.","c_root_id_A":"cqjgtbv","c_root_id_B":"cqjv5rf","created_at_utc_A":1429607440,"created_at_utc_B":1429639182,"score_A":8,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"This is a popular question in r\/AskHistorians, you can find a lot of links to previous discussions there.","human_ref_B":"To some extent they are. You open the tomb and out jumps a lawsuit. To minimize this issue people take precautions like clearance with national antiquities programs, enlist the help of local leadership, indigenous scholars, and other proper state authorities. Otherwise, you really will be cursed.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31742.0,"score_ratio":2.875} {"post_id":"ibfnuf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Social Sciences major interested in Physical Anthropology. Anthropology as a subject has intrigued me a lot and I plan to do my Masters in Social Anthropology. Lately, I've started taking an interest in Physical Anthropology particularly the aspects that an MSc in Anthropology would entail. I am confused as to where to start and what the pre-requisites are if I need to get a grasp of the subject. Can someone help?","c_root_id_A":"g1vu008","c_root_id_B":"g1w019a","created_at_utc_A":1597684775,"created_at_utc_B":1597687524,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I did a BA hons Social Anthropology and Archaeology undergraduate and have been accepted to study an Msc in Osteology and Palaeopathology! If you\u2019re doing Social Anthropology like I did just make sure to select modules that focus more on the physical body or the the anthropological theories surrounding the body for example medical anthropology. If you haven\u2019t completed your course then try to tailor the rest of your studies to focus more on physical anthropology if you can- if you get the chance to write your own title for an essay\/hand in\/paper focus it more on osteology, pathology, genetics\/genetic deviancy in relation to anthropology! Before writing my dissertation I knew I wanted to go into more forensic\/ physical archaeology and anthropology so I chose to do my dissertation on genetic and pathological deviancy in both prehistory and contemporary anthropology groupings which massively helped me get a place at university to do a masters! This allows you to discuss what you have learned when applying for further education and shows you have the knowledge necessary to transfer to such a course","human_ref_B":"I work in Bioarchaeology in Europe, mainly with human remains. I also came from a social sciences undergrad (history and linguistics). Took a masters in Bioarchaeology. Ask me anything if you have questions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2749.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ibfnuf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Social Sciences major interested in Physical Anthropology. Anthropology as a subject has intrigued me a lot and I plan to do my Masters in Social Anthropology. Lately, I've started taking an interest in Physical Anthropology particularly the aspects that an MSc in Anthropology would entail. I am confused as to where to start and what the pre-requisites are if I need to get a grasp of the subject. Can someone help?","c_root_id_A":"g1vu008","c_root_id_B":"g1wnyy7","created_at_utc_A":1597684775,"created_at_utc_B":1597696725,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I did a BA hons Social Anthropology and Archaeology undergraduate and have been accepted to study an Msc in Osteology and Palaeopathology! If you\u2019re doing Social Anthropology like I did just make sure to select modules that focus more on the physical body or the the anthropological theories surrounding the body for example medical anthropology. If you haven\u2019t completed your course then try to tailor the rest of your studies to focus more on physical anthropology if you can- if you get the chance to write your own title for an essay\/hand in\/paper focus it more on osteology, pathology, genetics\/genetic deviancy in relation to anthropology! Before writing my dissertation I knew I wanted to go into more forensic\/ physical archaeology and anthropology so I chose to do my dissertation on genetic and pathological deviancy in both prehistory and contemporary anthropology groupings which massively helped me get a place at university to do a masters! This allows you to discuss what you have learned when applying for further education and shows you have the knowledge necessary to transfer to such a course","human_ref_B":"Just to clarify: you\u2019re about to do a Social Anth MA - are you wondering how to switch to a Bio Anth degree? Or just do some reading around about Bio Anth and you\u2019re mostly planning to focus on Social Anth?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11950.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"354ros","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why some numbers are considered \"magical\" and have special meaning in human cultures? I'm especially interested in 40#In_religion), 7, and 3, but it would be interesting to know about others as well. How and why did they become \"special\"? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"cr1a35u","c_root_id_B":"cr19mbs","created_at_utc_A":1430998852,"created_at_utc_B":1430997212,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"So, I'm hoping this doesn't go against the rules of the sub, but RadioLab did a really interesting short on the character of numbers and some of the theories as to why we associate meaning with them. They specifically address 7 and 11 (11 herbs and spices).","human_ref_B":"Human thinking patterns that are vulnerable to false validation, for example, bias confirmation. Eg - once you have a bias (for any reason, good or bad) you will tend to notice things that confirm it, thus validating it in your perception of reality and not notice things that invalidate it. This works on all humans and explains why people believe in things like homeopathy and young earth creation.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1640.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"6f4vyr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Is it really true that the genetic IQ of humanity is decreasing? This is something I hear a lot, but I haven't seen any scientific studies that back it up. The logic is that, as the uneducated tend to have more children than the educated, the population of \"intelligent\" humans is becoming outnumbered by \"dumb\" humans. Apparently, the best predictor of a person's IQ is their parents' IQ, so there may be a strong genetic component to this. This question becomes complicated because both upbringing and inherited talent contribute to intelligence. Global IQ has been increasing for decades because of poverty reduction and improvements to public education -- but this might be masking a decline in genetic IQ. I've heard people say that, genetically, Ancient Romans were measurably smarter than modern humans. Is any of this true?","c_root_id_A":"difisay","c_root_id_B":"difsul6","created_at_utc_A":1496545862,"created_at_utc_B":1496568696,"score_A":20,"score_B":61,"human_ref_A":"\"IQ\" isn't a real thing. These tests are culturally loaded and depend on factors which can't be measured, such as penmanship and handedness. Here's an example. Q: What's a Duece and a Quarter? A: Two dollars and 25 cents. Middle-class white student in the 60s. Marked as \"correct\". A: *A Buick Electra 225\u2122* Almost any classic American auto enthusiast, in the Seventies or Eighties. Marked as \"wrong\". I use this example, because I had one of those. It passed everything, except for the gas station. We called it the \"Red Sled\". I could pop the trunk and sleep on the foamy in the back when water-skiing. Can you see that these tests are based on specific experience and not any intellectual ability? Tester takers with anxiety or physical disabilities would inevitably score lower.","human_ref_B":"This is a claim usually linked to the book \"The Bell Curve\", which is notable for being one of the most refuted books in the social sciences. > Apparently, the best predictor of a person's IQ is their parents' IQ It's actually parental education and maternal IQ. Both of which point to the widely accepted hypothesis that it's the upbringing, rather than the breeding, that matters. > The logic is that, as the uneducated tend to have more children than the educated, the population of \"intelligent\" humans is becoming outnumbered by \"dumb\" humans. Ah, the *Idiocracy* argument. It never gets old, except it did 10 years ago. The thing is, \"educated\" is not a genetic trait - although again it *is* inheritable, but socially - so if a child of uneducated parents is brought up in an environment that affords them the same opportunities that a child of educated parents would have, this supposed effect would be negated. Thus, no \"genetic IQ decline\" so far. > this might be masking a decline in genetic IQ Or it just might be that IQ - or, as people have pointed out, scoring in IQ tests - is overwhelmingly socially determined. Maybe we, as a species, are becoming better at taking IQ tests. James Flynn himself - the psychologist after which the term \"Flynn effect\" was coined - has said that \"IQ tests do not measure intelligence but rather a correlate with a weak causal link to intelligence\" and once said that measuring intelligence by IQ tests is like measuring height by looking at shadows - it might be very accurate or very innacurate, and you never really know. > Ancient Romans were measurably smarter than modern humans This claim is so silly and unfounded, and has absolutely no piece of evidence behind it (that I managed to find it, that is - I'd be happy to be enlightened), that I feel no qualms on dismissing it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22834.0,"score_ratio":3.05} {"post_id":"4v43v7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Did Neanderthals and early humans have names? When did humans start naming each other, and what were some of the earliest names?","c_root_id_A":"d5vgbtq","c_root_id_B":"d5w44qj","created_at_utc_A":1469763899,"created_at_utc_B":1469812258,"score_A":10,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"In other words, to add to beloitpipers post re the earliest written name, we dont know. There are a vast array of things we dont know and will never know because there was no way to record it. The only way we can know if something of an intangible nature was done for the first time is if it occurred AFTER writing was invented, someone bothered to write it down, and its been lucky enough to be preserved.","human_ref_B":"We will never know with certainty what names have been used that weren't written down. Writing started around 3,000BCE in Mesopotamia (5,000 yrs ago). It is suggested language was present 100,000 yrs ago. I personally think names existed at this time or slightly before a fully developed language. Dolphins have unique calls for individuals. Homo erectus might of communicated via gestures and could have had unique representations for individuals. With high degree of socialization in humans if we had calls, gestures, or words I have to believe we used them to mark people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":48359.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"4v43v7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Did Neanderthals and early humans have names? When did humans start naming each other, and what were some of the earliest names?","c_root_id_A":"d5vy3gn","c_root_id_B":"d5w44qj","created_at_utc_A":1469804532,"created_at_utc_B":1469812258,"score_A":7,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"OK, so maybe lingustic anthropology might help here? It would be interesting to compare a study that lets us trace languages to the earliest common ancestors, by recording the main shifts in languages, (http:\/\/www.santafe.edu\/news\/item\/bhattacharya-pagel-sound-shifts\/) to the earliest phonemes ever pronounced and, probably among them, the earliest \"names\" to indicate an individual. Sorry, english is not my main language !","human_ref_B":"We will never know with certainty what names have been used that weren't written down. Writing started around 3,000BCE in Mesopotamia (5,000 yrs ago). It is suggested language was present 100,000 yrs ago. I personally think names existed at this time or slightly before a fully developed language. Dolphins have unique calls for individuals. Homo erectus might of communicated via gestures and could have had unique representations for individuals. With high degree of socialization in humans if we had calls, gestures, or words I have to believe we used them to mark people.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7726.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"9qjmm0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How early on did humans pickle or ferment their food? I'm reading \"Against the Grain\" by James C. Scott and ran into this sentence: >Even before the advent of cooking, Homo sapiens was a broad-spectrum omnivore, pounding, grinding, mashing, fermenting, and pickling raw meat and plants... The fermenting and pickling bit surprised me - if it was happening before fire, Scott must mean this was occurring hundreds of thousands of years ago. I looked online a little but the earliest evidence for fermentation I could find was around 8,000 years ago in China. Anyone have any insights into fermenting\/pickling happening an order of magnitude earlier than that?","c_root_id_A":"e8a82d7","c_root_id_B":"e8ae7u3","created_at_utc_A":1540275479,"created_at_utc_B":1540288479,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I don't think we have a single shred of evidence that early (intentionally) H. sapiens was pickling anything \"before the advent of cooking\". To my (limited) knowledge, pickling and fermenting came around (at least in Denmark) during the Bronze Age. Edit: clarified that I'm talking about intentional pickling and fermentation.","human_ref_B":"There is strong evidence that the hunting-foraging Natufians were fermenting beer with wild grains at least 13,000 years ago. I'd guess the practice goes back earlier, but I can't think of any reason to assume it predated cooking with fire. In any case, it's impossible to find direct evidence of fermentation without some form of food residue or pottery that has been used for fermentation.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13000.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"3ngj57","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"\u00bfWhat are the differences between sign, symbol and meaning? And how does this apply to cinematographic analysis","c_root_id_A":"cvoq073","c_root_id_B":"cvo14ky","created_at_utc_A":1444031428,"created_at_utc_B":1443984084,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sounds like a homework question.","human_ref_B":"A lot of this distinction comes out of linguistics (particularly Saussure) and the field of semiotics. Other notable semioticians which may be particularly helpful for applying this to cinematography would be Roland Barthes and Christian Metz. A helpful overview of sign, signifier, signified.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":47344.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"7e4sgm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Are humans great apes? My girlfriend said humans aren't apes humans are primates. I want to know is she right or am I wrong in thinking humans are great apes.","c_root_id_A":"dq3d49y","c_root_id_B":"dq393gb","created_at_utc_A":1511191131,"created_at_utc_B":1511185871,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I highly recommend the book \u201cTales of the Ex-Apes\u201d by Jonathan Marks. For people saying hominid = great apes, this is incorrect. \u201cGreat ape\u201d is a paraphyletic category that includes chimps, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas. It functions more as a morphological category than evolutionary one, which is what hominoid-hominid-hominin does. Yes, humans are primates, but we are distinct from the great apes both behaviorally and morphologically which is why linguistically differentiating ourselves is prudent. It also reflects how we view ourselves in relation to our closest extant relatives. This shouldn\u2019t be surprising given we\u2019re the ones making up the classificatory system.","human_ref_B":"Think of it as circles within circles The \u201chumans\u201d circle is contained entirely within the \u201capes\u201d circle, and the \u201capes\u201d circle is inside the \u201cold world monkeys and apes\u201d circle, and the \u201cold world monkeys and apes\u201d circle is inside the \u201cmonkeys\u201d circle which itself is inside the \u201cprimates\u201d circle, and so on and so forth down the family tree, through mammals, tetrapods, vertebrates, etc... All humans are apes. All apes are monkeys. All monkeys are primates. Etcetera...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5260.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"60o523","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Why do we perceive pink and gray as unique colors, and not just light red or light black? Is this social or physiological? Do any cultures identify light blue, light yellow, or light green as separate colors?","c_root_id_A":"df852xf","c_root_id_B":"df829jc","created_at_utc_A":1490119086,"created_at_utc_B":1490116010,"score_A":43,"score_B":38,"human_ref_A":"Anecdotal: some relevant stories relating to your question. The color of a tennis ball is pretty controversial among my friends. Some insist green, others yellow, and some adamantly say it is fluorescent yellow (distinctly different from yellow apparently). This friends group is pretty diverse, but even within less cultural or ethnically diverse groups you'll find disagreement about colors. I had a professor that did an exercise with paint chips from Home Depot. She would give you a random amount of different and similar colors and shades, and give you a number ranging from 4-10. We then had to divide the color chips into that many groups of colors, and maybe name the new groups. The resulting groups were very interesting. Some put green in the same group as yellow, and others put yellow with orange. Color division into groups is largely culturally arbitrary, and dependent on where one is from. I agree with u\/siipis. I'm fascinated by the environmental reasons for grouping certain colors, and specifically why some cultures don't differentiate between colors that we may perceive as very different.","human_ref_B":"It's mainly social. English used not to have a separate word for orange. Some languages lack a separate word for a given colour, or have additional ones not present in English. In Swedish and Finnish, for example, pink is referred to as light red. A much more interesting question, in my opinion, is how these vocabularies develop, i.e. what motivates people to choose one word (or lack thereof) over another. Without the orange fruit, would English still use red or brown to describe the colour? Perhaps we only give names to things we care about -- like with the story that northern cultures have hundreds of variations for \"ice\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3076.0,"score_ratio":1.1315789474} {"post_id":"3b89az","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What are some ways societies have dealt with crime humanely and without police? As in rehabilitation rather than a severe punishment.","c_root_id_A":"csk531u","c_root_id_B":"cskeru4","created_at_utc_A":1435372799,"created_at_utc_B":1435405021,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Maybe \/r\/asksocialscience could help?","human_ref_B":"If you have laws or rules you must have enforcers of those rules because there will be social deviants. In civilized society, enforcement is formalized as police. In simple societies the community does the enforcing. Regardless, enforcement must take place or the structure will break down.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":32222.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"lj1yzl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"History of Patriarchal Society This question is not intended to be a commentary on the morals or implications of a patriarchal society. I was just thinking of ancient cultures and societies, and noticed that, regardless of the country or time period, most societies that we hear of had a patriarchal society. All the major religions, except Buddhism (to most extents) call for one. Even in Buddhist societies such as China, where the popular religion does not call for it, culture and tradition does. Where did this come from? How did, seemingly, the entire world decide that one gender is lesser than the other? Across the religions and cultures, there appears to be a reoccurring theme of expectation of sexual celibacy, limited areas of power, and expectation of a life relegated to the home for women. Do we know how this came about, or does it seem to be more of a strange coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"gna0x22","c_root_id_B":"gn96ff1","created_at_utc_A":1613246569,"created_at_utc_B":1613239227,"score_A":41,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"You might be interested in looking into works that deal with feminist archeology\/anthropology (Conkey & Specter, 1984 broke it down for archeology). They address and critique the way that a lot of Western scholarship has projected modern notions of gender (patriarchy) onto other cultures. Basic things like when a researcher finds a statue of a female figure with a belly , it automatically get labelled a fertility goddess. Or when archeologists dug up a Viking grave in Sweden in the 1900s with all the weapons and finery befitting a revered warrior; they refused to believe it was the skeleton of a woman and declared it to be a man. DNA just confirmed the skeleton to be female. There are also some contemporaneous historical records of female vikings, but they have previously been dismissed as poetic exaggeration. It's also important to note that the extreme separation of labor that we think of under patriarchy (women at home, men at work) did not really exist before industrialization. When the majority of laboring people worked in or around their homes work was split among family members regardless of gender. And it was after this industrialization gender separation that we started to see the scholarly research on the history of humanity as hunter\/gatherers really gain popularity (really hit it's stride in the 1950s\/60s).","human_ref_B":"Can\u2019t give any sort of full answer without opening a can of worms and making a lot of assumptions. But you may want to look at Engels\u2019 \u2018Origin of the Family\u2019 which follows earlier work by Lewis Morgan wherein the emergence of inheritable private property starts to pass down the male line (and because the male line is harder to check in comparison to women this requires men to start confining women to the home) but then Gerder Lerner takes issue with this. And this thesis is still VERY contested. Nonetheless, some such as Sylvia Federici have found this analysis useful and expanded it. I\u2019m afraid that\u2019s all I can contribute and it\u2019s a Marxist Feminist perspective which is definitely not everyone\u2019s cup of tea. Even more beyond the pale to some is the Feminist Psychoanalytic perspective that is influenced by Levi-Strauss\u2019 structuralism. They suggest that the \u2018fraternity\u2019 (not necessarily with reference to actual brothers) enabled by the male-male bond between father and son is the first \u2018political\u2019 and not \u2018familial\u2019 bond which powerfully restructures early societies to be patrilineal while relegating women to objects of exchange. But don\u2019t take any of the above as fact. They\u2019re interesting and maybe even worthwhile perspectives to exploring this conundrum. Wait and read other answers for a more rounded approach.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7342.0,"score_ratio":1.5769230769} {"post_id":"lj1yzl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"History of Patriarchal Society This question is not intended to be a commentary on the morals or implications of a patriarchal society. I was just thinking of ancient cultures and societies, and noticed that, regardless of the country or time period, most societies that we hear of had a patriarchal society. All the major religions, except Buddhism (to most extents) call for one. Even in Buddhist societies such as China, where the popular religion does not call for it, culture and tradition does. Where did this come from? How did, seemingly, the entire world decide that one gender is lesser than the other? Across the religions and cultures, there appears to be a reoccurring theme of expectation of sexual celibacy, limited areas of power, and expectation of a life relegated to the home for women. Do we know how this came about, or does it seem to be more of a strange coincidence?","c_root_id_A":"gn9lrsu","c_root_id_B":"gna0x22","created_at_utc_A":1613242612,"created_at_utc_B":1613246569,"score_A":8,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"You might find what you're looking for by studying the transition from gathering, nomadic lifestyles to more sedentary, agricultural lifestyles. I found *Against the Grain: A deep history of the earliest states,* by James C. Scott to be an accessible read about the long back-and-forth period.","human_ref_B":"You might be interested in looking into works that deal with feminist archeology\/anthropology (Conkey & Specter, 1984 broke it down for archeology). They address and critique the way that a lot of Western scholarship has projected modern notions of gender (patriarchy) onto other cultures. Basic things like when a researcher finds a statue of a female figure with a belly , it automatically get labelled a fertility goddess. Or when archeologists dug up a Viking grave in Sweden in the 1900s with all the weapons and finery befitting a revered warrior; they refused to believe it was the skeleton of a woman and declared it to be a man. DNA just confirmed the skeleton to be female. There are also some contemporaneous historical records of female vikings, but they have previously been dismissed as poetic exaggeration. It's also important to note that the extreme separation of labor that we think of under patriarchy (women at home, men at work) did not really exist before industrialization. When the majority of laboring people worked in or around their homes work was split among family members regardless of gender. And it was after this industrialization gender separation that we started to see the scholarly research on the history of humanity as hunter\/gatherers really gain popularity (really hit it's stride in the 1950s\/60s).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3957.0,"score_ratio":5.125} {"post_id":"2y1zl2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Can anyone help me identify this culture with unique funeral rites? I remember studying a group of people a few years back that for their funeral rites had a primary funeral, which consisted of the body being tied up (sort of crucified) for weeks until it decomposed. After this there'd be a secondary funeral where they would I think bury the body. I think the reason they did it was because it was believed the spirit would get trapped in the physical body if it was buried before hand. Sorry I don't remember many other details, but I found them really interesting and I'd like to go back and read up on them more so if you know of anything like this, I'd appreciate the help!","c_root_id_A":"cp5ogow","c_root_id_B":"cp5wb99","created_at_utc_A":1425597163,"created_at_utc_B":1425611831,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"That kind of sounds like what I remember reading about traditional practices in Papua New Guinea. But I don't think it was universally practiced, and I'm not sure this behavior continues today. Not an expert of the area so I could be completely wrong.","human_ref_B":"I believe you're talking about secondary burial, not sky burial as some have suggested. I'm fairly confident you're talking specifically about Ngaju Dayaks, as they're the most famous example of secondary burial among contemporary groups (I think it's common in other Dayak groups, as well as a few other places). \/u\/whatsthisplace I think was right: Dayaks live in Central Borneo. The first one to study the Ngaju was Hans Sch\u00e4rer, and I bet you're thinking of his book *Ngaju Religion: The Conception of God among a South Borneo People*; translated by Rodney Needham (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), which I think is his only one in English (I think there are two more in German). Alternatively, you could have encountered this concept from one of the others who studied the Dayak, like Robert Hertz (a student of Durkheim's who died tragically young), who wrote about them in his *Death and the Right Hand* before dying at age 33 in World War I (I don't think Hertz ever visited Borneo). Waldemar Stohr also wrote early works on the Dayak, but I don't think those are available in English. So I think your probably encountered Scharer, unless you heard about it through some lecture, anthology, or a more recent work. If you're interested in more than Scharer's work, check out Anne Louise Schiller, specifically her book *Small sacrifices: Religious change and cultural identity among the Ngaju of Indonesia* (she also has one or two articles on the Dayak if you want to go even further). Her book is really cool because she finds the same main informant who Scharer used decades earlier, but she focuses on the change the Dayak have undergone since then. The coolest moment in Schiller's book is her first day with this guy, Scharer's primary informant, and he just like starts her into it, starts chanting to her all these elaborate and long mystical song sung as part of ceremonies and she's just trekked out to meet him in rural Borneo, she barely speaks the language at this point, never mind the archaic register he's singing in, so she's just furiously trying to keep up and then suddenly, the dude stops because he's forgotten a bit. He gets up, goes to his shelf, pulls down his copy of one of Sch\u00e4rer's books (!), looks up the appropriate next line, puts the book back, goes over to Schiller and continues reciting where he left off. This is not word for word, but basically, in her book she's like, holy shit, I wasn't sure these people even knew Scharer had written books, but it never occurred to me that they actually had his books here, and it never ever occurred that it was now being used as this urtext of the original pristine version of all these chants! It's one of my favorite tid bits from the field: anthropology becomes theology. Also, Schiller was pretty sure this informant had been trained as a traditional Dayak religious specialist as a young man, and had at various times practiced both Christianity and Islam, before returning to more traditinal Dayak practice as an older man.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14668.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"5cerdy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"The 9 levels of the underworld in Mesoamerica and 9 rings of hell in Dante's Christianity... Coincidence? Any other instances of 9? I'm particularly interested in cultural concepts of the underworld, cosmograms, and numerical alignments. I'm wondering whether the notion of partitioning the underworld\/hell into 9 divisions is something that is particularly prevalent cross-culturally, or an interesting coincidence in the Old and New World.","c_root_id_A":"d9wnc7d","c_root_id_B":"d9wm21p","created_at_utc_A":1478914044,"created_at_utc_B":1478912015,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The nine realms are the nine spheres that were said to encase the earth: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Stars, God If there were nine rings of the underworld, there were probably nine rings of paradise, which is where Dante would have derived the nine rings of hell, because, as above, so below. Nine realms of Norse mythology and 9 levels of mesoamerican underworld would probably follow similar logic.","human_ref_B":"Yes, it is a coincidence.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2029.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"471a47","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"What are the most widely accepted theories in anthropology today? Tried to ask in r\/anthropology and got downvoted.","c_root_id_A":"d0a3i2t","c_root_id_B":"d0ahs0g","created_at_utc_A":1456193891,"created_at_utc_B":1456229885,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Some great comments in this thread OP.","human_ref_B":"Like a few others have mentioned, you might have had more luck substituting \"fashionable\" for \"wideley accepted\". Ontology had a few more than 15 minutes of fame recently, but that seems to be moving on - I mean, some anthropologists are writing about ontology still, but it's not got the \"so hot right now\" glow about it, and other anthropologists are busy organising conference panels about \"what's next now that ontology's a dead horse\". I think recently I saw a call for papers on returning to Foucault... actually, I might as well post the cfp since it's still active. Here you go. Here's the conference abstract though by way of summary: > A decade ago, the ubiquity of Foucault\u2019s terms in anthropological conferences, books, and journal articles prompted some to credit him with providing the discipline\u2019s lingua franca (e.g. Boyer 2003). But now, much has changed as an explicit concern with ontology has come to overshadow Foucault\u2019s focus on life. Yet, as scholars of what has come to be called the \u201contological turn\u201d shed light on different aspects of materiality, the question of species life and the effect of what sense we make of it keeps resurfacing. At this moment in which anthropology makes an explicit \u201cturn\u201d to take up new apparatuses revealing other areas of concern, we find it timely to push back and to reflect upon how we can read Foucault against this trend. Now, with the last of Foucault\u2019s formerly unpublished lectures in the Coll\u00e8ge de France finally available in the English-speaking world, it seems necessary to think back on his ideas as a way to push anthropological entanglements with power, knowledge, and technologies of seeing forward. So different trends come up, some people like them, some people don't, some people think we should return to a previous trend, others look for new ones. And some theoretical traditions are kind of like a stylistic choice almost - someone might look at topic X using Marxist theory, or feminist theory, or theories from literary criticism; someone else might read all three of those for the breadth of perspectives.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35994.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1mv5wx","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Is there such thing as digital archaeology? Do researchers ever go back and look through abandoned MySpace pages or old computers?","c_root_id_A":"ccd6mum","c_root_id_B":"ccd1o1m","created_at_utc_A":1379861650,"created_at_utc_B":1379827945,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"We do! Old GeoCities pages are some of the best representatives of the state and nature of 'net interactions. Doing a comparison is in line with longitudinal studies and generational-type information. The data we collect reflects changes in not only coding capabilities but also stylistic changes as well. I would love to do a comparison of portable computing but just haven't been able to find the time. I still own my first ever \"portable\" computer, an old PC that ran WordStar for document creation, the type about which Bill Gates said (and this is a paraphrase) that no one would ever need more than 64k of memory :) Some of the stuff saved onto true floppy disks is hilarious, some ingenious. ASCII art!","human_ref_B":"Probably, although the latter will be more complicated given the rapid changes in technology. The Domesday Project is an interesting example of a possible future digital dark age.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":33705.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"3xv0i1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Where do you find reputable ethnographies? For example, if I wanted to find an ethnography about a particular group or culture, where would be the best place to look? I can Google search for things, but how does one know if the publication holds any real merit with other anthropologists?","c_root_id_A":"cy87hj5","c_root_id_B":"cy885ma","created_at_utc_A":1450819091,"created_at_utc_B":1450820084,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Look for university publishers (e.g., Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press) -- they generally have to be peer-reviewed compared to some random trade paperback that will probably never get fact-checked.","human_ref_B":"I bet \/u\/firedrops can help with poverty and Africa diaspora!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":993.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3xv0i1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Where do you find reputable ethnographies? For example, if I wanted to find an ethnography about a particular group or culture, where would be the best place to look? I can Google search for things, but how does one know if the publication holds any real merit with other anthropologists?","c_root_id_A":"cy885ma","c_root_id_B":"cy884h9","created_at_utc_A":1450820084,"created_at_utc_B":1450820033,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I bet \/u\/firedrops can help with poverty and Africa diaspora!","human_ref_B":"This book deals with music, community, and economics in post Katrina New Orleans: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Roll-With-It-Refiguring-American\/dp\/0822355671","labels":1,"seconds_difference":51.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cna3e6l","c_root_id_B":"cnaaqrf","created_at_utc_A":1420004331,"created_at_utc_B":1420033907,"score_A":17,"score_B":40,"human_ref_A":"Kitchen fires still happen - in which a new husband will take the dowry from the new wives family, marry her, and then tie her down to something in the kitchen and light it on fire. The husband keeps the dowry and moves on to acquire a new one. This can sometimes happen with whole families and even whole villages (where the wife is brought in as an outsider) where they will beat and abuse the new wife until it is so severe that she dies.","human_ref_B":"Unrelated domestic animals share 'domestic' traits. E.g. Domestic dogs and pigs both have shorter,wider skulls. Nearly all domestic animals come in a wide variety of colours (dogs, cats, pigs, horses, chickens). This goes on with changes in pregnancy length, maturation rates, brain sizes (more variable), floppy ears, behaviour (reduced aggression, increased inquisitiveness) and more. The real crazy thing is that we still don't know *why* There's lots of theories, but we're still working it out.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":29576.0,"score_ratio":2.3529411765} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cnaaqrf","c_root_id_B":"cn9zi06","created_at_utc_A":1420033907,"created_at_utc_B":1419995725,"score_A":40,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Unrelated domestic animals share 'domestic' traits. E.g. Domestic dogs and pigs both have shorter,wider skulls. Nearly all domestic animals come in a wide variety of colours (dogs, cats, pigs, horses, chickens). This goes on with changes in pregnancy length, maturation rates, brain sizes (more variable), floppy ears, behaviour (reduced aggression, increased inquisitiveness) and more. The real crazy thing is that we still don't know *why* There's lots of theories, but we're still working it out.","human_ref_B":"People in Europe once believed that ceramic sherds from past civilizations naturally formed in the earth and emerged from the ground on their own. Or fairies made them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":38182.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cnaaqrf","c_root_id_B":"cna7nia","created_at_utc_A":1420033907,"created_at_utc_B":1420018762,"score_A":40,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Unrelated domestic animals share 'domestic' traits. E.g. Domestic dogs and pigs both have shorter,wider skulls. Nearly all domestic animals come in a wide variety of colours (dogs, cats, pigs, horses, chickens). This goes on with changes in pregnancy length, maturation rates, brain sizes (more variable), floppy ears, behaviour (reduced aggression, increased inquisitiveness) and more. The real crazy thing is that we still don't know *why* There's lots of theories, but we're still working it out.","human_ref_B":"There was no equivalent to the word \"religion\" as we mean it today before the rise of secularism a few hundred years ago. Etymologically, the ancestral word \"religio\" had straightforward meanings such as \"taking monastic vows,\" and lacked many of the connotations we now consider essential. Examples of these connotations include the concept of \"belief\" as a fundamental attribute, or the ability to use the terms \"a religion\" or \"religions.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15145.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cna3e6l","c_root_id_B":"cnachn8","created_at_utc_A":1420004331,"created_at_utc_B":1420038925,"score_A":17,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Kitchen fires still happen - in which a new husband will take the dowry from the new wives family, marry her, and then tie her down to something in the kitchen and light it on fire. The husband keeps the dowry and moves on to acquire a new one. This can sometimes happen with whole families and even whole villages (where the wife is brought in as an outsider) where they will beat and abuse the new wife until it is so severe that she dies.","human_ref_B":"There are cultures without the concept of opportunity cost that perceive time in terms of events, not minutes. An example are the Tswana.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34594.0,"score_ratio":1.2941176471} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cn9zi06","c_root_id_B":"cnachn8","created_at_utc_A":1419995725,"created_at_utc_B":1420038925,"score_A":16,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"People in Europe once believed that ceramic sherds from past civilizations naturally formed in the earth and emerged from the ground on their own. Or fairies made them.","human_ref_B":"There are cultures without the concept of opportunity cost that perceive time in terms of events, not minutes. An example are the Tswana.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":43200.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cna7nia","c_root_id_B":"cnachn8","created_at_utc_A":1420018762,"created_at_utc_B":1420038925,"score_A":16,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"There was no equivalent to the word \"religion\" as we mean it today before the rise of secularism a few hundred years ago. Etymologically, the ancestral word \"religio\" had straightforward meanings such as \"taking monastic vows,\" and lacked many of the connotations we now consider essential. Examples of these connotations include the concept of \"belief\" as a fundamental attribute, or the ability to use the terms \"a religion\" or \"religions.\"","human_ref_B":"There are cultures without the concept of opportunity cost that perceive time in terms of events, not minutes. An example are the Tswana.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20163.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"2qtxq7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"What's the most interesting anthropological\/archaeological fact that you know?","c_root_id_A":"cna3e6l","c_root_id_B":"cn9zi06","created_at_utc_A":1420004331,"created_at_utc_B":1419995725,"score_A":17,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Kitchen fires still happen - in which a new husband will take the dowry from the new wives family, marry her, and then tie her down to something in the kitchen and light it on fire. The husband keeps the dowry and moves on to acquire a new one. This can sometimes happen with whole families and even whole villages (where the wife is brought in as an outsider) where they will beat and abuse the new wife until it is so severe that she dies.","human_ref_B":"People in Europe once believed that ceramic sherds from past civilizations naturally formed in the earth and emerged from the ground on their own. Or fairies made them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8606.0,"score_ratio":1.0625} {"post_id":"1nyghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Were hunter and gather societies truly egalitarian? I'm asking the experts because I just don't buy it given our nature and the difficulties of limited resources in a threatening environment. Not that I don't think it would've been possible with some groups but I find it hard to believe that it would be universal. What does the evidence say?","c_root_id_A":"ccnijle","c_root_id_B":"ccn8fxh","created_at_utc_A":1381247827,"created_at_utc_B":1381201898,"score_A":26,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Okay! Woh! I got this! SO!! FIRST, your use of the past tense is quite telling! We know VERY little about the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups in the past. It is possible to extrapolate quite a bit from archaeological bits and bobs, but it is difficult to say much about the many aspects of behaviour that do not fossilize. Most of what we know about hunter gatherers comes from STILL-LIVING, still-foraging populations or populations who have only 'recently' (within the last 10-150 years) stopped hunting and gathering. From these groups we know that hunter gatherers tend to have plenty of food-sharing and MUCH LESS inequality with regards to wealth, 'social status' and reproductive skew than many agricultural or pastoralist societies. This is empirically true for most hunter gatherers, depending on exactly what measures you are using to define 'egalitarianism'. There is not absolute equality, of course... some people are better hunters or foragers... some people are more well-liked... but there are usually stark differences in levels of social inequality between foragers and other societies. For more, please have a dip into one of the many Hunter-Gatherer encyclopaedias. This is such a strong trend in RECENT hunter-gatherer groups, that we also assume that most hunter gatherer groups (read: all humans before 10,000 years ago) were similarly egalitarian. This is quite a sweeping assumption and is probably not true across the board, but lets move onto WHY we think Hunter-Gatherers are so egalitarian. Hunter-Gatherers seem to be egalitarian for a few reasons. Firstly, without the accumulation of food, it is very difficult to control other people. To gloss-over a few hundred years of economic and philosophical debate, if you are able to accumulate food, you can pay people to do things, to put yourself in a position of power. Without food accumulation, it is much more difficult to do this. Secondly, hunter-gatherers tend to be very mobile. This is not true in all cases. However, mobility means that if someone DOES try to control you, or put themselves in a position of power, people can simply move away from them. If you're neighbour, lets call him George, decided that he was the divine king and had power over all people, you could simply leave George and live somewhere else. Lastly, there is the effect of deadly weaponry. Many hunter gatherer populations use bows and deadly poison. This means that, unlike most animals, any individual has the power to kill any other with extreme ease at a distance without putting themselves in much danger. You do not want to start bossing other people around if they have the power to easily end your life in under a minute with little risk to themselves. Think of it as a cold war. Mutually assured destruction. If everyone has similar but deadly technology, it is in everyone's best interests not to annoy each other too much. For a really wonderful article on egalitarianism, please look up James Woodburn. He only wrote a few papers but they are really spot-on and also available for free. Also, please make sure to properly define your terms. What do you mean by 'egalitarianism' (Food? Social differentiation? Reproductive skew? Rights to land? Rights to boss other people about?). It's fairly apparent, I think, but to be on the safe side, always be specific. As for your comment about 'nature', although I would have phrased this differently, I do not think it is unfair to say that humans often try to boss each other about. A sweeping generalisation, but one that I think is fairly empirically valid. Even working under this assumption, I hope I have demonstrated that it is difficult for hunter-gatherers to boss each other about too much! Libert\u00e9! \u00e9galit\u00e9! fraternit\u00e9! **TL;DR: Based on studies of contemporary populations, it is difficult for foragers to be anything but egalitarian. High mobility, an absence of accumulated wealth and lethal weaponry make it very difficult for people to exert control over one another.**","human_ref_B":"It depends on the degree of egalitarianism you're talking about. There may not be any specific titles or outwardly identifiable hierarchy, but if you put any group of people together there are going to be some (those with more skills, natural leaders, etc.) that are held in higher esteem. Hunter gatherers are about as close to egalitarian as humans get but but all animals engage in some sort of power exchange. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)","labels":1,"seconds_difference":45929.0,"score_ratio":2.3636363636} {"post_id":"1nyghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Were hunter and gather societies truly egalitarian? I'm asking the experts because I just don't buy it given our nature and the difficulties of limited resources in a threatening environment. Not that I don't think it would've been possible with some groups but I find it hard to believe that it would be universal. What does the evidence say?","c_root_id_A":"ccnijle","c_root_id_B":"ccnemx9","created_at_utc_A":1381247827,"created_at_utc_B":1381234200,"score_A":26,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Okay! Woh! I got this! SO!! FIRST, your use of the past tense is quite telling! We know VERY little about the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups in the past. It is possible to extrapolate quite a bit from archaeological bits and bobs, but it is difficult to say much about the many aspects of behaviour that do not fossilize. Most of what we know about hunter gatherers comes from STILL-LIVING, still-foraging populations or populations who have only 'recently' (within the last 10-150 years) stopped hunting and gathering. From these groups we know that hunter gatherers tend to have plenty of food-sharing and MUCH LESS inequality with regards to wealth, 'social status' and reproductive skew than many agricultural or pastoralist societies. This is empirically true for most hunter gatherers, depending on exactly what measures you are using to define 'egalitarianism'. There is not absolute equality, of course... some people are better hunters or foragers... some people are more well-liked... but there are usually stark differences in levels of social inequality between foragers and other societies. For more, please have a dip into one of the many Hunter-Gatherer encyclopaedias. This is such a strong trend in RECENT hunter-gatherer groups, that we also assume that most hunter gatherer groups (read: all humans before 10,000 years ago) were similarly egalitarian. This is quite a sweeping assumption and is probably not true across the board, but lets move onto WHY we think Hunter-Gatherers are so egalitarian. Hunter-Gatherers seem to be egalitarian for a few reasons. Firstly, without the accumulation of food, it is very difficult to control other people. To gloss-over a few hundred years of economic and philosophical debate, if you are able to accumulate food, you can pay people to do things, to put yourself in a position of power. Without food accumulation, it is much more difficult to do this. Secondly, hunter-gatherers tend to be very mobile. This is not true in all cases. However, mobility means that if someone DOES try to control you, or put themselves in a position of power, people can simply move away from them. If you're neighbour, lets call him George, decided that he was the divine king and had power over all people, you could simply leave George and live somewhere else. Lastly, there is the effect of deadly weaponry. Many hunter gatherer populations use bows and deadly poison. This means that, unlike most animals, any individual has the power to kill any other with extreme ease at a distance without putting themselves in much danger. You do not want to start bossing other people around if they have the power to easily end your life in under a minute with little risk to themselves. Think of it as a cold war. Mutually assured destruction. If everyone has similar but deadly technology, it is in everyone's best interests not to annoy each other too much. For a really wonderful article on egalitarianism, please look up James Woodburn. He only wrote a few papers but they are really spot-on and also available for free. Also, please make sure to properly define your terms. What do you mean by 'egalitarianism' (Food? Social differentiation? Reproductive skew? Rights to land? Rights to boss other people about?). It's fairly apparent, I think, but to be on the safe side, always be specific. As for your comment about 'nature', although I would have phrased this differently, I do not think it is unfair to say that humans often try to boss each other about. A sweeping generalisation, but one that I think is fairly empirically valid. Even working under this assumption, I hope I have demonstrated that it is difficult for hunter-gatherers to boss each other about too much! Libert\u00e9! \u00e9galit\u00e9! fraternit\u00e9! **TL;DR: Based on studies of contemporary populations, it is difficult for foragers to be anything but egalitarian. High mobility, an absence of accumulated wealth and lethal weaponry make it very difficult for people to exert control over one another.**","human_ref_B":"Like \/u\/CatGotNoTail points out, hunter gather societies still have differences of power, voice, and access among members (usually due to age and gender) it is just reduced significantly compared to other kinds of social arrangements. They are as egalitarian as humans seem able to be probably because it is beneficial to their survival. I realize it does seem somewhat counter to how we often think about human behavior, but cooperation was very important for our evolution so it isn't surprising that in small-scale hunter gatherer groups there are efforts to ensure everyone is as equal as possible. Everyone relies very heavily on the cooperative work of the community, so this reduces the odds that someone feels put out as well as encourages sharing of resources. Without money or ability to hoard resources to trade, you need a system like this. Especially since activities like hunting often involve group efforts and can fail or not bring in as much meat as they hoped. This means reciprocal altruism is needed to offset the cost of hunting for little or no gain to make the gamble a safe bet. And it is needed to ensure that all participants in the hunt get food to take home and that those who do important non-hunting work are fed too. They aren't some utopian fantasy of a perfect human ideal. Not everyone is entirely equal. People get bullied, ostracized, or left out. And sharing and equal treatment has to sometimes be social enforced because individuals don't want to do it. Even then sometimes people don't all get the exact same amount or they secretly hoard. It also isn't as if they are somehow ethically or spiritually better than other humans - egalitarianism & reciprocity are important for their survival and functioning of their social system.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13627.0,"score_ratio":5.2} {"post_id":"1nyghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Were hunter and gather societies truly egalitarian? I'm asking the experts because I just don't buy it given our nature and the difficulties of limited resources in a threatening environment. Not that I don't think it would've been possible with some groups but I find it hard to believe that it would be universal. What does the evidence say?","c_root_id_A":"ccnijle","c_root_id_B":"ccnb8rb","created_at_utc_A":1381247827,"created_at_utc_B":1381210600,"score_A":26,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Okay! Woh! I got this! SO!! FIRST, your use of the past tense is quite telling! We know VERY little about the egalitarianism of hunter-gatherer groups in the past. It is possible to extrapolate quite a bit from archaeological bits and bobs, but it is difficult to say much about the many aspects of behaviour that do not fossilize. Most of what we know about hunter gatherers comes from STILL-LIVING, still-foraging populations or populations who have only 'recently' (within the last 10-150 years) stopped hunting and gathering. From these groups we know that hunter gatherers tend to have plenty of food-sharing and MUCH LESS inequality with regards to wealth, 'social status' and reproductive skew than many agricultural or pastoralist societies. This is empirically true for most hunter gatherers, depending on exactly what measures you are using to define 'egalitarianism'. There is not absolute equality, of course... some people are better hunters or foragers... some people are more well-liked... but there are usually stark differences in levels of social inequality between foragers and other societies. For more, please have a dip into one of the many Hunter-Gatherer encyclopaedias. This is such a strong trend in RECENT hunter-gatherer groups, that we also assume that most hunter gatherer groups (read: all humans before 10,000 years ago) were similarly egalitarian. This is quite a sweeping assumption and is probably not true across the board, but lets move onto WHY we think Hunter-Gatherers are so egalitarian. Hunter-Gatherers seem to be egalitarian for a few reasons. Firstly, without the accumulation of food, it is very difficult to control other people. To gloss-over a few hundred years of economic and philosophical debate, if you are able to accumulate food, you can pay people to do things, to put yourself in a position of power. Without food accumulation, it is much more difficult to do this. Secondly, hunter-gatherers tend to be very mobile. This is not true in all cases. However, mobility means that if someone DOES try to control you, or put themselves in a position of power, people can simply move away from them. If you're neighbour, lets call him George, decided that he was the divine king and had power over all people, you could simply leave George and live somewhere else. Lastly, there is the effect of deadly weaponry. Many hunter gatherer populations use bows and deadly poison. This means that, unlike most animals, any individual has the power to kill any other with extreme ease at a distance without putting themselves in much danger. You do not want to start bossing other people around if they have the power to easily end your life in under a minute with little risk to themselves. Think of it as a cold war. Mutually assured destruction. If everyone has similar but deadly technology, it is in everyone's best interests not to annoy each other too much. For a really wonderful article on egalitarianism, please look up James Woodburn. He only wrote a few papers but they are really spot-on and also available for free. Also, please make sure to properly define your terms. What do you mean by 'egalitarianism' (Food? Social differentiation? Reproductive skew? Rights to land? Rights to boss other people about?). It's fairly apparent, I think, but to be on the safe side, always be specific. As for your comment about 'nature', although I would have phrased this differently, I do not think it is unfair to say that humans often try to boss each other about. A sweeping generalisation, but one that I think is fairly empirically valid. Even working under this assumption, I hope I have demonstrated that it is difficult for hunter-gatherers to boss each other about too much! Libert\u00e9! \u00e9galit\u00e9! fraternit\u00e9! **TL;DR: Based on studies of contemporary populations, it is difficult for foragers to be anything but egalitarian. High mobility, an absence of accumulated wealth and lethal weaponry make it very difficult for people to exert control over one another.**","human_ref_B":">I just don't buy it given our nature I apologize if it's not a relevant question, but what exactly is our nature? My nature right now means I go to an air-conditioned college, sleep eight to twelve consecutive hours a night, eat two or three sizable meals a day and spend most of my time sitting (in front of a glowing rectangle of one or another type). This \"nature\" has pretty much nothing in common with the way prehistoric humans would have lived. I doubt any modern experience in the post-industrial capitalist first world could be cited to define human nature in pre-agriculture tribal societies. As far as distribution of resources go, simply the fact of scarcity could mean that some societies do not have the material to develop a noticeably imbalanced distribution of wealth. There were certainly some social 'hierarchies' based mostly on what is demanded by one or another situation. A strong hunter in the tribe might be looked to as a leader for a hunt, there might be clan matriarchs or patriarchs depending on the tribe, and certainly shamans held very high regard across many nomadic cultures. I don't have any extensive formal education on the topic, but the extent of hierarchy in *most* nomadic tribes would be limited to what you see within a family structure, extended through clans. I think the nature of property or resource management is a topic for someone much more well versed in prehistoric and hunter-gatherer societies, but I would guess that they were something similar to how you might treat property within a house with family. Everyone has possessions, and a sense of what's whos, but you wouldn't ask your brother or cousin to pay for their food at the dinner table. Similarly I doubt that there would be any societies of that scale who did not have at least that level of egalitarianism, or humans would have died out.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":37227.0,"score_ratio":13.0} {"post_id":"1nyghu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Were hunter and gather societies truly egalitarian? I'm asking the experts because I just don't buy it given our nature and the difficulties of limited resources in a threatening environment. Not that I don't think it would've been possible with some groups but I find it hard to believe that it would be universal. What does the evidence say?","c_root_id_A":"ccnb8rb","c_root_id_B":"ccnemx9","created_at_utc_A":1381210600,"created_at_utc_B":1381234200,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":">I just don't buy it given our nature I apologize if it's not a relevant question, but what exactly is our nature? My nature right now means I go to an air-conditioned college, sleep eight to twelve consecutive hours a night, eat two or three sizable meals a day and spend most of my time sitting (in front of a glowing rectangle of one or another type). This \"nature\" has pretty much nothing in common with the way prehistoric humans would have lived. I doubt any modern experience in the post-industrial capitalist first world could be cited to define human nature in pre-agriculture tribal societies. As far as distribution of resources go, simply the fact of scarcity could mean that some societies do not have the material to develop a noticeably imbalanced distribution of wealth. There were certainly some social 'hierarchies' based mostly on what is demanded by one or another situation. A strong hunter in the tribe might be looked to as a leader for a hunt, there might be clan matriarchs or patriarchs depending on the tribe, and certainly shamans held very high regard across many nomadic cultures. I don't have any extensive formal education on the topic, but the extent of hierarchy in *most* nomadic tribes would be limited to what you see within a family structure, extended through clans. I think the nature of property or resource management is a topic for someone much more well versed in prehistoric and hunter-gatherer societies, but I would guess that they were something similar to how you might treat property within a house with family. Everyone has possessions, and a sense of what's whos, but you wouldn't ask your brother or cousin to pay for their food at the dinner table. Similarly I doubt that there would be any societies of that scale who did not have at least that level of egalitarianism, or humans would have died out.","human_ref_B":"Like \/u\/CatGotNoTail points out, hunter gather societies still have differences of power, voice, and access among members (usually due to age and gender) it is just reduced significantly compared to other kinds of social arrangements. They are as egalitarian as humans seem able to be probably because it is beneficial to their survival. I realize it does seem somewhat counter to how we often think about human behavior, but cooperation was very important for our evolution so it isn't surprising that in small-scale hunter gatherer groups there are efforts to ensure everyone is as equal as possible. Everyone relies very heavily on the cooperative work of the community, so this reduces the odds that someone feels put out as well as encourages sharing of resources. Without money or ability to hoard resources to trade, you need a system like this. Especially since activities like hunting often involve group efforts and can fail or not bring in as much meat as they hoped. This means reciprocal altruism is needed to offset the cost of hunting for little or no gain to make the gamble a safe bet. And it is needed to ensure that all participants in the hunt get food to take home and that those who do important non-hunting work are fed too. They aren't some utopian fantasy of a perfect human ideal. Not everyone is entirely equal. People get bullied, ostracized, or left out. And sharing and equal treatment has to sometimes be social enforced because individuals don't want to do it. Even then sometimes people don't all get the exact same amount or they secretly hoard. It also isn't as if they are somehow ethically or spiritually better than other humans - egalitarianism & reciprocity are important for their survival and functioning of their social system.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23600.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"4ylukp","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Resources for Teaching High Schoolers about Race Hi everyone! So I'm a social scientist at heart, but am a teacher at the moment. I have a really great class about African American history that I'm teaching and I want to explain the concept of race to students, specifically how it's been constructed in the US. Now, I know the line that race is socially constructed. BUT. I haven't been able to find much that explains it and what seem to me to be \"FAQs\" beyond that. Like, my students will hear me say that and look around at each other--the \"hispanics,\" \"blacks,\" \"asians\"--and say yeah but look we're different from each other. And there's not much to argue about--they do. Are there any books, resources, etc that explain the \"social construction\" in depth? Like where's the proof? How do we know for sure. Concrete sources that I can fall back on are best, preferably with examples or analogies too, if possible. Like I saw someone on here explain it once as there are lots of different colors of golden retrievers but they all have the same intelligence. I don't think that's the best analogy though because I feel like the response is \"ok, but we're like different breeds of dogs.\" And I know the one-drop rule starts to get at it in America, but that's not enough for the kids to really *get* it. Thanks!!","c_root_id_A":"d6outw8","c_root_id_B":"d6p12my","created_at_utc_A":1471656186,"created_at_utc_B":1471666973,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I've had pretty good success using this \"race test\" with college Freshman, so probably would work with High Schoolers. It is put together by a geneticist and an anthropologist. When you administer it, really emphasize that they need to use physical features to categorize people, not how they are dressed, or hair style, or anything \"cultural\". After they are done, have someone else \"grade\" it for them and see how close they got. Whenever I do this, thankfully, people usually have pretty abysmal accuracy. That can be your first point, that their ability to categorize people based on physical characteristics is not as perfect as they might suspect. Also talk with them about how difficult it was or was not for them to group people without looking at how they were dressed and other cultural features. This can be a segue into talking about race as a social institution, how our ideas about race are ideas about appearance and behavior that go beyond just biological appearance. Hope that helps as another tool in your arsenal.","human_ref_B":"http:\/\/www.understandingrace.org\/home.html It's a site that's put together by the AAA, but meant to be accessible to the public. Also has resources for teachers here: http:\/\/www.understandingrace.org\/resources\/for_teachers.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10787.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"djnv9s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Is there actual academic literature that supports xenophobia in humans coming from the hunter-gatherer era? An allegation that is thrown around frequently on debates about xenophobia is that we as a species developed our xenophobic instincts from our time as a hunter-gatherer species. The idea is that since a newcomer who is not from the local tribe or community could either bring diseases or be a spy from a rival group, humans developed a tendency to be suspicious or even outright aggressive towards people who are not from the local community or look different. Of course, this sounds reasonable, but is it supported by our current academic understanding? Does this theory is a consensus between academic anthropologists, or at least have a sizeable and credible school of thought behind it? Is there actual academic literature that has been peer-reviewed and published by a respectful institution that somewhat supports that allegation? Or is this just one of those smart-sounding idea promoted by people who don't have any actual expert knowledge in the subject?","c_root_id_A":"f476cj4","c_root_id_B":"f475d24","created_at_utc_A":1571417925,"created_at_utc_B":1571417558,"score_A":53,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"We know almost nothing about pre-historical people. Anyone who claims to know something this detailed is making up stories that go way beyond the data. All we have is bones and stones. Someone else might provide more detail about the actual archeological record, but all of the stories you hear are speculations people make up based on: (1) observations of contemporary tribal societies; (2) observations of other primates; (3) ancient bones showing evidence of death by violence. You can make up all kinds of contradictory stories by selecting various combinations of data from these 3 sources -- ancient humans were peace loving hippies, they were blood thirsty maniacs, they were gender egalitarian, they were patriarchal, and so on and so on.","human_ref_B":"I'm not by any means an expert in any of this, but it is a hobby of mine (paleoanthropology specifically). ... I'd suggest that the integration of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA into our genome would be the first evidence to contradict this idea. On top of that, we have genetic evidence of multiple migrations, as well as, linguistic evidence for subsequent migration\/integration. I would argue that there is more evidence for xenophobia as a late development, occurring sometime in the neolithic or early bronze age, after local population and resources became more confined, or rather post agrarianism and pastoralism societal creation. Even later would be a more refined approach of xenophobic response after outbreaks of disease in certain areas. Even this late period development could be argued against considering the volume of evidence to support significant trade routes existing during the bronze age.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":367.0,"score_ratio":5.3} {"post_id":"djnv9s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Is there actual academic literature that supports xenophobia in humans coming from the hunter-gatherer era? An allegation that is thrown around frequently on debates about xenophobia is that we as a species developed our xenophobic instincts from our time as a hunter-gatherer species. The idea is that since a newcomer who is not from the local tribe or community could either bring diseases or be a spy from a rival group, humans developed a tendency to be suspicious or even outright aggressive towards people who are not from the local community or look different. Of course, this sounds reasonable, but is it supported by our current academic understanding? Does this theory is a consensus between academic anthropologists, or at least have a sizeable and credible school of thought behind it? Is there actual academic literature that has been peer-reviewed and published by a respectful institution that somewhat supports that allegation? Or is this just one of those smart-sounding idea promoted by people who don't have any actual expert knowledge in the subject?","c_root_id_A":"f475d24","c_root_id_B":"f47r06h","created_at_utc_A":1571417558,"created_at_utc_B":1571426636,"score_A":10,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"I'm not by any means an expert in any of this, but it is a hobby of mine (paleoanthropology specifically). ... I'd suggest that the integration of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA into our genome would be the first evidence to contradict this idea. On top of that, we have genetic evidence of multiple migrations, as well as, linguistic evidence for subsequent migration\/integration. I would argue that there is more evidence for xenophobia as a late development, occurring sometime in the neolithic or early bronze age, after local population and resources became more confined, or rather post agrarianism and pastoralism societal creation. Even later would be a more refined approach of xenophobic response after outbreaks of disease in certain areas. Even this late period development could be argued against considering the volume of evidence to support significant trade routes existing during the bronze age.","human_ref_B":"So much bullshit in these evo psych just-so stories. It's all conjecture of course, as the other poster says. I don't think anyone whose scholarship is reliable would make a sweeping claim like that. In looking at \\*contemporary\\* hunter-gatherer communities, there are at least a few books and anthologies that argue exactly the opposite, at least for certain communities in certain geographical regions, for example: \\- *Anarchic Solidarity*: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia On the subject of historical conjecture, Scott's excellent *Against the Grain* as well as (more polemical and maybe less academically sober) predecessors like Barclay's *People without Government* argue that there is evidence that sedenterizing Neolithic states led to more aggressive warlike behavior and widespread enslavement than was probable among loose bands of hunter-gatherers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9078.0,"score_ratio":1.9} {"post_id":"djnv9s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Is there actual academic literature that supports xenophobia in humans coming from the hunter-gatherer era? An allegation that is thrown around frequently on debates about xenophobia is that we as a species developed our xenophobic instincts from our time as a hunter-gatherer species. The idea is that since a newcomer who is not from the local tribe or community could either bring diseases or be a spy from a rival group, humans developed a tendency to be suspicious or even outright aggressive towards people who are not from the local community or look different. Of course, this sounds reasonable, but is it supported by our current academic understanding? Does this theory is a consensus between academic anthropologists, or at least have a sizeable and credible school of thought behind it? Is there actual academic literature that has been peer-reviewed and published by a respectful institution that somewhat supports that allegation? Or is this just one of those smart-sounding idea promoted by people who don't have any actual expert knowledge in the subject?","c_root_id_A":"f48h1fz","c_root_id_B":"f48q4tm","created_at_utc_A":1571439083,"created_at_utc_B":1571445737,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There is one example of this that has one side of the story fairly well documented: https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/nov\/21\/american-killed-isolated-indian-tribe-north-sentinel-island 'Anthropologists have evidence human life existed on the Andamans at least 2,000 years ago, while genome studies suggest the four native tribes on the islands \u2013 of which the Sentinelese are the most isolated \u2013 are at least 30,000 years old. The Sentinelese people violently resist contact with outsiders. In 2006, two Indian fishermen who moored their boat to sleep were killed when the vessel broke loose and drifted on to the shore, according to Survival International, a tribal rights advocacy group. The tribe fired a volley of arrows at a helicopter sent to retrieve the men\u2019s bodies.'","human_ref_B":"Like with most human behavior, sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. I believe that this idea comes from earlier anthropological views of hunter-gatherers as always being small, isolated bands. I wrote a post on the concept of \"tribalism\" earlier which I can quote relevant sections of: >So from the beginning we have the concept of \"tribalism,\" which is really more accurately called in-group\/out-group effects. The idea is in some part derived from old ideas that pre-historic hunter gatherers lived in small isolated tribes composed mostly of kin. This was probably not the case in most instances. The ethnographic data collected by Hill et al shows that substantial portions of the studied hunter-gatherer populations are non-related. Kinship systems (patrilocal, matrilocal, etc.) often require one of the spouses to move to the others' residence, so some intermixing of populations is to be expected. >Furthermore, there is integration at various scales. While contemporary small-scale societies are far more integrated into world-systems of nation-states and global capitalism, there is evidence of integration of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers into larger networks. McBrearty and Brooks, in their re-evaluation of the concept of behavioral modernity, find evidence of long-distance exchange networks going back to ~140,000 years ago. >Fusion and fission of social groups is also frequently a characteristic of these societies. Isolated grouping is in fact more characteristic of Neanderthals than humans. One of the theories of Neanderthal extinction is that humans outcompeted Neanderthals by having more adaptable group sizes and structure. As Graeber and Wengrow show, this can happen quite rapidly on a seasonal basis, and for ritual purposes as well as resource acquisition. Many \"tribes\" frequently have internal differentiations, for instance, there isn't just one group called O'odham, but Tohono O'odham, Akimel O'odham, and C-ed O'odham. I use \"tribes\" advisedly because political entities were often constructed by colonists needing a go-between in the form of a chief to deal with numerous smaller groups. Sometimes they are also defined through linguistic groupings rather than political unity. >So we have a bunch of social psychology experiments like Tajfel's coin-flipping that demonstrate in-group\/out-group effects. We also see this frequently throughout history in wars, conflicts, etc. but even in naming conventions. Many tribes' names translate to something like \"The People\" while their names for other tribes translate to \"Other\" or \"Enemy.\" This is one reason for tribal name-changes in law and scholarly literature today -- their names were often recorded as \"enemy\" or some other pejorative from neighboring rival tribes. >The problem with the pop sci version is that it assumes you have a tribe and you're just kind of stuck with it. However, the scale can be extremely variable and change over time -- what's your tribe? Ethnicity? Nationality? Race? Political party? Religious affiliation? The thing is, identities have to constantly be constructed and reconstructed, so none of them are really \"organic\" in that sense. https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/792zhh\/how_accurate_is_the_popular_definition_of\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6654.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"x3o0uz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Recomendations for Ethnographies of Scientists Im looking to compile a list of ethnographies of scientists to study. My main interest is in figuring out how to do science better, and so am more interested in thick descriptions of how scientific practice is actually conducted, rather than platitudes about the oppressions and relativisms of science.","c_root_id_A":"imrwrg8","c_root_id_B":"imsyva7","created_at_utc_A":1662110395,"created_at_utc_B":1662130776,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Along with Latour, who has already been noted, look at the works of Paul Rabinow on biotech. What kind of \u201cscience\u201d are you talking about, however? Somewhat of a vague query, although well-intended.","human_ref_B":"This might be a good place to start. Here are some sociological citations. I like this article on doing ethnography in lab settings. You might be interested in CLEAR which is a group of scientists using ethnography to explore their own scientific practices.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20381.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"x3o0uz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":1.0,"history":"Recomendations for Ethnographies of Scientists Im looking to compile a list of ethnographies of scientists to study. My main interest is in figuring out how to do science better, and so am more interested in thick descriptions of how scientific practice is actually conducted, rather than platitudes about the oppressions and relativisms of science.","c_root_id_A":"imtojfo","c_root_id_B":"imrwrg8","created_at_utc_A":1662140738,"created_at_utc_B":1662110395,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As others said Bruno Latour (and others) started a genre of this type of work (Science and Technology Studies). In fact he argues there are only technoscientific practices in which we produce knowledge about the world alongside the world (e.g., with other material and technologies). It\u2019s become a very big and exciting field! I recently did an ethnography studying sea turtle researchers although haven\u2019t published it yet. There are lots of ways to look. Science is practiced lots of different ways not just in labs. If you can follow up with a little more specificity about the kinds of ethnographies you are interested in that would be more helpful E.g., how physicists make sense in a lab? How scientists work with public policy makers to produce useful information? Etc. I suspect since the question is broad you may not know yet. I would start with Latour (laboratory life, following engineers through society, or pandoras hope).","human_ref_B":"Along with Latour, who has already been noted, look at the works of Paul Rabinow on biotech. What kind of \u201cscience\u201d are you talking about, however? Somewhat of a vague query, although well-intended.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30343.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ivu6rs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Looking for ethnographies about France and England Hi, I'm interested in reading ethnographies about France, England, and possibly other European countries. I found one about Naples, Italy (The Broken Fountain) but that's it. Does what I'm looking for even exist? Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"g5u1ly1","c_root_id_B":"g5tzfq3","created_at_utc_A":1600535316,"created_at_utc_B":1600534117,"score_A":11,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Where are you looking? There's a lot of ethnographic literature on western Europe, including France, England, Italy, Spain, etc. This bibliography might be a good place to start: https:\/\/www.oxfordbibliographies.com\/view\/document\/obo-9780199766567\/obo-9780199766567-0145.xml You might also take a look at the scholars affiliate with the Society for the Anthropology of Europe: http:\/\/sae.americananthro.org\/ Or, the contributors to \"companion\" volumes like this: https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/book\/10.1002\/9781118257203","human_ref_B":"I've always thought that the real deficit in Anthropology is ethnographies of WEIRD societies by people that would usually be anthropological subjects.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1199.0,"score_ratio":1.1} {"post_id":"ivu6rs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Looking for ethnographies about France and England Hi, I'm interested in reading ethnographies about France, England, and possibly other European countries. I found one about Naples, Italy (The Broken Fountain) but that's it. Does what I'm looking for even exist? Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"g5ut2h4","c_root_id_B":"g5ut86v","created_at_utc_A":1600545828,"created_at_utc_B":1600545899,"score_A":5,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"*Akenfield: Portrait of ann English Village* by Ronald Blythe. A little unconventional but a great read.","human_ref_B":"Not sure if this counts, but TR Luhrmann\u2019s Persuasions of the Witch\u2019s Craft is an ethnography about neopaganism in 1980s England.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":71.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"ivu6rs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Looking for ethnographies about France and England Hi, I'm interested in reading ethnographies about France, England, and possibly other European countries. I found one about Naples, Italy (The Broken Fountain) but that's it. Does what I'm looking for even exist? Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"g5ut2h4","c_root_id_B":"g5u8jlq","created_at_utc_A":1600545828,"created_at_utc_B":1600538378,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"*Akenfield: Portrait of ann English Village* by Ronald Blythe. A little unconventional but a great read.","human_ref_B":"Have you tried the Royal anthropology institute?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7450.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ivu6rs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Looking for ethnographies about France and England Hi, I'm interested in reading ethnographies about France, England, and possibly other European countries. I found one about Naples, Italy (The Broken Fountain) but that's it. Does what I'm looking for even exist? Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"g5u8jlq","c_root_id_B":"g5ut86v","created_at_utc_A":1600538378,"created_at_utc_B":1600545899,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Have you tried the Royal anthropology institute?","human_ref_B":"Not sure if this counts, but TR Luhrmann\u2019s Persuasions of the Witch\u2019s Craft is an ethnography about neopaganism in 1980s England.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7521.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ftked6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Good books on propertyless\/moneyless societies? Hi. I'm interested in learning more about societies that do or did not make use of property relationships and\/or money in their economy. I was wondering if there are any books that you would recommend that discuss a handful of examples, their history and the way they have organised their economies successfully without these things. Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"fm7x1v3","c_root_id_B":"fm82qrs","created_at_utc_A":1585838533,"created_at_utc_B":1585841700,"score_A":8,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"A few years ago we read The Living World: Plants and Animals of the Kwakwaka'wakw. They were a Native American population of the PNW that held really cool ideals about food and how it tied into their community. Not exactly what you're looking for, but it's a fascinating book, definitely worth a read!","human_ref_B":"There are several books that deal with the topic. I'd start with something easy to read, like *Debt: The First 5000 Years* by Graeber. Thinking of Graeber, you should read one of his mentors as well-famed anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. It's a bit dated, but most people (in this sub) should have read *The Original Affluent Society* by now (which is one essay from his book *Stone Age Economics* . The bibliographies from those should help you find additional sources.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3167.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ftked6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Good books on propertyless\/moneyless societies? Hi. I'm interested in learning more about societies that do or did not make use of property relationships and\/or money in their economy. I was wondering if there are any books that you would recommend that discuss a handful of examples, their history and the way they have organised their economies successfully without these things. Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"fm809mm","c_root_id_B":"fm82qrs","created_at_utc_A":1585840328,"created_at_utc_B":1585841700,"score_A":2,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Debt by Graeber is a great resource on these concepts.","human_ref_B":"There are several books that deal with the topic. I'd start with something easy to read, like *Debt: The First 5000 Years* by Graeber. Thinking of Graeber, you should read one of his mentors as well-famed anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. It's a bit dated, but most people (in this sub) should have read *The Original Affluent Society* by now (which is one essay from his book *Stone Age Economics* . The bibliographies from those should help you find additional sources.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1372.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"ftked6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Good books on propertyless\/moneyless societies? Hi. I'm interested in learning more about societies that do or did not make use of property relationships and\/or money in their economy. I was wondering if there are any books that you would recommend that discuss a handful of examples, their history and the way they have organised their economies successfully without these things. Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"fm83usv","c_root_id_B":"fm920qb","created_at_utc_A":1585842306,"created_at_utc_B":1585860223,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you could get a copy, you should read Wisdom from a Rainforest by Stuart Schlegel. They are not perfectly propertyless but the Teduray have only touched money when bartering with other tribes or in the cities and even then they grt rid of it as soon as possible. The book itself is an ethnography about the Teduray, unfortunately they have been wiped out in the Philippines.","human_ref_B":"Follow-up: Are there actually any propertyless societies? I've never heard of one. And most of the comments so far are saying things like, \"Well, this society isn't exactly propertyless ....\" Add to that the fact that most two-year-olds seem to have an intuitive grasp of the idea of property (\"Mine!\"), and I have to wonder.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17917.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ftked6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Good books on propertyless\/moneyless societies? Hi. I'm interested in learning more about societies that do or did not make use of property relationships and\/or money in their economy. I was wondering if there are any books that you would recommend that discuss a handful of examples, their history and the way they have organised their economies successfully without these things. Thanks for any help.","c_root_id_A":"fm809mm","c_root_id_B":"fm920qb","created_at_utc_A":1585840328,"created_at_utc_B":1585860223,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Debt by Graeber is a great resource on these concepts.","human_ref_B":"Follow-up: Are there actually any propertyless societies? I've never heard of one. And most of the comments so far are saying things like, \"Well, this society isn't exactly propertyless ....\" Add to that the fact that most two-year-olds seem to have an intuitive grasp of the idea of property (\"Mine!\"), and I have to wonder.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19895.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1yn1dt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Why doesn't the English language have gender? Alternatively, why did the Indo-European languages develop gender? I've studied Old English and contemporary French (admittedly not the medieval Norman French that influenced English). Like most European languages, Old English had gendered nouns, but by the time of Chaucer if not earlier, they had disappeared from the language. Why is that the case? It's not as if gendered nouns are an exclusively Romance language phenomenon, as contemporary German has them. Alternatively, many languages around the world *do not* have gendered nouns, though they are common to European languages. Why is that? Were the speakers of Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European, wherever they were, in a position in which the gender of a noun (especially describing a non-biological object) be important?","c_root_id_A":"cflz0uj","c_root_id_B":"cfmdlty","created_at_utc_A":1393096566,"created_at_utc_B":1393136038,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/asklinguistics ?","human_ref_B":"Two quick partial answers (and asklinguistics can give you more): (1) Lots of world languages divide nouns into categories that each have a characteristic set of suffixes, or articles, etc. It's just that people writing grammars don't tend to _call_ those 'genders' unless there are only two or three, and they're vaguely keyed to biological sex or lack thereof. The general term is just \"noun classes.\" So you don't hear about 'feminine nouns' in Bantu languages, but that's partly because Bantu languages typically use more noun classes (eight, for example). (2) Instead of thinking about these systems as being mainly about recognizing tables or campfires as 'feminine', etc., think of them as just letting you keep classes of items separate so they're easier to track in a discourse. Sure, nouns referring to females may tend to go in Class A and nouns referring to males may tend to go in Class B (along with a whole bunch of inanimate objects), but A and B aren't really \"about\" gender. They're like subscripts that help you keep variables apart. Three sentences in, you're using pronouns instead of noun phrases, but you can still track everything because the \"feminine\" pronoun must still link up to the \"feminine\" tree you mentioned in the first sentence. You could have density-based noun classes, and they'd work the same way. In short, most of the questions about gender in languages end up leading to the realization that grammarians really should have picked different labels than the ones they stuck us with. 'Gender' was originally meant more as 'genus' or 'sort' or 'type', but the modern sense of the word does all the wrong things when it gets near grammar.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":39472.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g78crs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How does one approach a castle from an anthropological perspective?","c_root_id_A":"fog0bwc","c_root_id_B":"fofr669","created_at_utc_A":1587745934,"created_at_utc_B":1587741361,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Check out Matthew Johnson's research into medieval castles. He's currently a professor at Northwestern University. He focuses on landscapes and spaces but he's done very interesting work looking at castles in different perspectives other than military fortresses.","human_ref_B":"There is not a single \"anthropological perspective.\" An archaeologist might study how castles collapse and how to extrapolate their original shape, an ethnographer might study modern tourists to castles, and a linguist might study how people use the word itself. Could you clarify what about castles you're interested in?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4573.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"6nipue","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Is there any proof of a belief system with the first few eras of humans? (X-post from r\/AskHistorians) Religion hasn't been around forever. Are there any clues as to what or who, if they did, was worshiped then as some worship the gods of today?","c_root_id_A":"dk9zlbh","c_root_id_B":"dka38qg","created_at_utc_A":1500171277,"created_at_utc_B":1500177255,"score_A":12,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"The problem with identifying early religions is just that, the proof. We have Venus figurines from 40,000BC but we're not entirely sure they are religious in nature, They probably are some early form of animism\/shamanism based on their creation and the context theyve been found in (in graves etc). After the first accepted evidence is perhaps G\u00f6bekli Tepe in Turkey which appears to have religious sites within it, at 8-10k BC. As to WHO or what they worshipped, we have no idea. This is just within Europe-Asia. Around the world we have found rock art of various forms but it would be pure guesswork to suggest theyre religious in nature. However one could speculate that people back then didnt wander deep deep into unlit caves to paint their landscape for purely practical reasons, some spiritual elements were possibly involved, and they are the first wellsprings of religion.","human_ref_B":"We have evidence of the first ceremonial burials in Qafzeh and Skhul (modern-day Israel) dating back to ~90,000+ years ago. This suggests some kind of concept of the afterlife or possibly ancestor worship, or ancestor spirits of some type. That is about all we can say about the first pieces of evidence for religion.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5978.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"zxsiam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"ISO: detailed map of Pleistocene coastlines, Americas What sub do you suggest? Reading Kindred and getting into the peopling of the Americas. How good is our modeling of the west coast of N America? The Mediterranean? Should I be asking a cartography sub? - Thanks","c_root_id_A":"j226zg3","c_root_id_B":"j231wpb","created_at_utc_A":1672282321,"created_at_utc_B":1672300199,"score_A":9,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"With a sufficiently accurate sea level curve, sufficiently high resolution bathymetry of the submerged continental shelf, and GIS, you can do this. I have no idea if the West Coast of North America has a suitably precise curve, which is the key.","human_ref_B":"What sea levels are you interested in? I've been working on a project making global and detail sea level maps of various times. Here's an album that has the sea levels 200 meters lower (this is actually lower by quite a bit than the lowest sea levels, which were 120 meters lower, but the difference at even small scales is surprisingly little between the 200 meter point and the 120 meter point). I started with this as 200 meters is the continental shelf and I needed that level for another project. -\thttps:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/7leagueboots\/albums\/72157714255851533 Here\u2019s one at 40 meters lower, which coincides to around 10,000 years ago. I haven\u2019t done the detail maps for this yet, so this is just a high-rez global map. -\thttps:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/7leagueboots\/52543519197\/in\/dateposted-public\/ As an aside, none of the maps take into account things like isostatic rebound (which only plays a part after the LGM, and in other interglacial periods), and the way GIS software analyses terrain for rivers is a bit wonky at times. The west coast of North America, specifically the SE Alaska to Washington coast, is a bit difficult to model 100% accurately as it's extremely active and has gone through a lot of up and down movement due to glaciers on and off of it, not all equally. Some areas that 'should' be underwater due to sea level rises are currently above water, and other areas are not only underwater, but have eroded enormously. In any event, let me know what time-periods and sea levels you're interested in. As a final note, Beringia persists until around the -50m sea level point. After the -40m sea level point it's a water channel and much of Beringia is under water.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17878.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"zxsiam","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"ISO: detailed map of Pleistocene coastlines, Americas What sub do you suggest? Reading Kindred and getting into the peopling of the Americas. How good is our modeling of the west coast of N America? The Mediterranean? Should I be asking a cartography sub? - Thanks","c_root_id_A":"j226zg3","c_root_id_B":"j2347y4","created_at_utc_A":1672282321,"created_at_utc_B":1672302017,"score_A":9,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"With a sufficiently accurate sea level curve, sufficiently high resolution bathymetry of the submerged continental shelf, and GIS, you can do this. I have no idea if the West Coast of North America has a suitably precise curve, which is the key.","human_ref_B":"As someone who is involved with this kind of research on the west coast of North America (focused in BC, Canada), this is unfortunately a difficult question to answer succinctly. The real answer is that we don't really have enough data to produce accurate models of Pleistocene coastlines in many areas. This is due to highly variable relative sea level histories as a result of global eustatic sea level change (which lowered sea level) combined with regional isostatic depression (which raised sea level) and associated forebulge effects (which lowered sea level) resulting from nearby glaciers. In areas where there was little or no isostasy resulting from ice, the shorelines are more predictable based on global eustatic curves (e.g. Lambeck et al. 2014) If you want an overall review of sea level histories on the west coast of North America, Shugar et al. \\(2014\\) is a good start. Shugar et al. do quite a bit of \"lumping\" of sea level information to present curves that they apply to broad areas, which may lose important variation and details that may have resulted from local glacial activity. To that end, I recommend refining Shugar's curves by looking more closely at certain areas (e.g., McLaren et al. 2014, Fedje et al. 2018, James et al. 2009, Letham et al. 2016, among others). If you want to refine this even further, you can examine the micro-scale impacts of glacial meltwater pulses and other events on local sea level histories (e.g. Fedje et al. 2021). Our research group is currently working on detailed sea level curves for northern Vancouver Island in BC, but these are not yet published. I think that in the coming years as we gather more data, it may be possible to synthesize everything into a reasonably accurate model of shoreline positions at specific time slices, but for the moment there's still a lot of handwaving when talking about things at a broader scale. There will be more to say soon! Happy to answer more questions if I can!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19696.0,"score_ratio":1.4444444444} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"highak4","c_root_id_B":"higjd2k","created_at_utc_A":1635470745,"created_at_utc_B":1635471662,"score_A":15,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Sociology. They have an overlap in social thinkers but have an arguably different approach to societies. You can stand to benefit from exposing yourself to both if you come from a society in Western Europe and North America. Plus, from my experience, some sociology classes will touch on psychological theories (e.g. deviance), so you won't be OOTL for psychology.","human_ref_B":"As an archaeologist who has a BA in anthropology I feel like it\u2019s easy to say sociology, but it totally depends on what you want to do. Do you want to help individuals on a deeper more personal level? Or do you want to look at bigger pictures for broader research?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":917.0,"score_ratio":1.7333333333} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hig9zlj","c_root_id_B":"higjd2k","created_at_utc_A":1635467371,"created_at_utc_B":1635471662,"score_A":14,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"Well, anthropologists should be expected to be fairly well-versed in at least the foundational readings from both fields, so you can\u2019t really go wrong. You\u2019ll probably get more reading material crossing over into sociology than psychology in your anthropology courses. You could argue that sociologists\u2019 field methods resemble those of anthropologists more so than those of psychologists. However, there are plenty of psychological anthropologists too, and while psychology can be a sub-discipline of anthropology, sociology can not.","human_ref_B":"As an archaeologist who has a BA in anthropology I feel like it\u2019s easy to say sociology, but it totally depends on what you want to do. Do you want to help individuals on a deeper more personal level? Or do you want to look at bigger pictures for broader research?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4291.0,"score_ratio":1.8571428571} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"higjd2k","c_root_id_B":"hig9bcp","created_at_utc_A":1635471662,"created_at_utc_B":1635467049,"score_A":26,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"As an archaeologist who has a BA in anthropology I feel like it\u2019s easy to say sociology, but it totally depends on what you want to do. Do you want to help individuals on a deeper more personal level? Or do you want to look at bigger pictures for broader research?","human_ref_B":"Well, it ultimately depends on what your main interest is. Anthropology deals heavily with sociology but mainly focuses on human evolution\/civilization evolution as well as culture. Sociology focuses mainly on social life within cultures. Psychology is the mind and how it can be impacted by culture and environment. All play very well together, so if you choose a certain program you can always take other courses (given there's no pre-requisite) to boost your education. I'm a 5th year anthropology student and I'm just about to finish my degree. I took a few sociology classes in order to get a grasp on society as a whole and to see an \"outsider's\" perspective on information not inherently rooted in classic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4613.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hig9zlj","c_root_id_B":"highak4","created_at_utc_A":1635467371,"created_at_utc_B":1635470745,"score_A":14,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Well, anthropologists should be expected to be fairly well-versed in at least the foundational readings from both fields, so you can\u2019t really go wrong. You\u2019ll probably get more reading material crossing over into sociology than psychology in your anthropology courses. You could argue that sociologists\u2019 field methods resemble those of anthropologists more so than those of psychologists. However, there are plenty of psychological anthropologists too, and while psychology can be a sub-discipline of anthropology, sociology can not.","human_ref_B":"Sociology. They have an overlap in social thinkers but have an arguably different approach to societies. You can stand to benefit from exposing yourself to both if you come from a society in Western Europe and North America. Plus, from my experience, some sociology classes will touch on psychological theories (e.g. deviance), so you won't be OOTL for psychology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3374.0,"score_ratio":1.0714285714} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hig9bcp","c_root_id_B":"highak4","created_at_utc_A":1635467049,"created_at_utc_B":1635470745,"score_A":8,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Well, it ultimately depends on what your main interest is. Anthropology deals heavily with sociology but mainly focuses on human evolution\/civilization evolution as well as culture. Sociology focuses mainly on social life within cultures. Psychology is the mind and how it can be impacted by culture and environment. All play very well together, so if you choose a certain program you can always take other courses (given there's no pre-requisite) to boost your education. I'm a 5th year anthropology student and I'm just about to finish my degree. I took a few sociology classes in order to get a grasp on society as a whole and to see an \"outsider's\" perspective on information not inherently rooted in classic anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Sociology. They have an overlap in social thinkers but have an arguably different approach to societies. You can stand to benefit from exposing yourself to both if you come from a society in Western Europe and North America. Plus, from my experience, some sociology classes will touch on psychological theories (e.g. deviance), so you won't be OOTL for psychology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3696.0,"score_ratio":1.875} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hig9zlj","c_root_id_B":"hig9bcp","created_at_utc_A":1635467371,"created_at_utc_B":1635467049,"score_A":14,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Well, anthropologists should be expected to be fairly well-versed in at least the foundational readings from both fields, so you can\u2019t really go wrong. You\u2019ll probably get more reading material crossing over into sociology than psychology in your anthropology courses. You could argue that sociologists\u2019 field methods resemble those of anthropologists more so than those of psychologists. However, there are plenty of psychological anthropologists too, and while psychology can be a sub-discipline of anthropology, sociology can not.","human_ref_B":"Well, it ultimately depends on what your main interest is. Anthropology deals heavily with sociology but mainly focuses on human evolution\/civilization evolution as well as culture. Sociology focuses mainly on social life within cultures. Psychology is the mind and how it can be impacted by culture and environment. All play very well together, so if you choose a certain program you can always take other courses (given there's no pre-requisite) to boost your education. I'm a 5th year anthropology student and I'm just about to finish my degree. I took a few sociology classes in order to get a grasp on society as a whole and to see an \"outsider's\" perspective on information not inherently rooted in classic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":322.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"higtq58","c_root_id_B":"hig9bcp","created_at_utc_A":1635476476,"created_at_utc_B":1635467049,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently doing both anthropology and sociology and I find that there\u2019s some interesting overlap in my classes sometimes. I feel I\u2019m able to bring a interdisciplinary perspective to classroom discussions which is pretty cool. I\u2019ve also had that with history classes. I\u2019ve only ever taken one psychology class so I can\u2019t speak to how they compare but from my *very* limited experience, psychology was less applicable to anthropology than sociology was. It wouldn\u2019t hurt to try a class or two from each field to see which discipline resonates with you more.","human_ref_B":"Well, it ultimately depends on what your main interest is. Anthropology deals heavily with sociology but mainly focuses on human evolution\/civilization evolution as well as culture. Sociology focuses mainly on social life within cultures. Psychology is the mind and how it can be impacted by culture and environment. All play very well together, so if you choose a certain program you can always take other courses (given there's no pre-requisite) to boost your education. I'm a 5th year anthropology student and I'm just about to finish my degree. I took a few sociology classes in order to get a grasp on society as a whole and to see an \"outsider's\" perspective on information not inherently rooted in classic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9427.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hihnzjc","c_root_id_B":"hihg7ay","created_at_utc_A":1635497396,"created_at_utc_B":1635490653,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As per Henrich 2000, psychology frequently abstracts from culture and\/or assumes young western university students are a good enough sample of universal behavoir. Psych's methods are also quite different from Anthropology. Choose psych if you want something new and challenging. Sociology and Anthropology are basically brother and sister. Originally, the split was based on qualitative research on industrial or non-industrial people. Today sociology is trying to be more quantitative and anthropology studies industrialized people. Sociology will be easier and familiar.","human_ref_B":"All I gotta say is if your interested in the human evolution side of things, stay away from physiology. At least evolutionary physiology. If you more interested in the cultural anthropology side than both would be beneficial, although sociology is the more conventional pairing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6743.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"qi043u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Which goes better with anthropology, sociology or psychology? I'm an undergrad finishing up GenEd courses and working on some major courses. I'm going to have to choose some major electives soon, and I'm wondering which would go better with anthropology: psychology or sociology? I'm kind of interested in both, but I think I'd like to focus on one or the other rather than just dip my toes in each, if that makes sense...I feel like I'll get a more in depth education if I concentrate on just one.","c_root_id_A":"hihonfp","c_root_id_B":"hihg7ay","created_at_utc_A":1635497997,"created_at_utc_B":1635490653,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Sociology if you plan on pursuing cultural anthropology. Psychology if you\u2019re interested in biological anthropology. Also, if you plan on focusing, try to get a minor. You can\u2019t go back and do it later. I was like one or two classes from a Latin American studies minors, and its a huge regret to this day.","human_ref_B":"All I gotta say is if your interested in the human evolution side of things, stay away from physiology. At least evolutionary physiology. If you more interested in the cultural anthropology side than both would be beneficial, although sociology is the more conventional pairing.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7344.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"diodbg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Why do human population studies still use outdated data sets and genetic visualisation software? Reading many academic papers on human population genetics ive noticed PLENTY of studies use old, outdated data sets. Studies regularly regurgitate human data sets, some of which are clearly biased and narrow in size. Also, when studying genetic relationships and closeness between certain peoples, why are studies still using HLA to determine genetic relationships? Finally, why haven't chromosome painting and other advanced genetics visualizations caught on? Thank you","c_root_id_A":"f3ybxu2","c_root_id_B":"f3y2nxn","created_at_utc_A":1571251678,"created_at_utc_B":1571247691,"score_A":24,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":">Finally, why haven't chromosome painting and other advanced genetics visualizations caught on? Because chromosome paintings are incapable of visualizing large numbers of individuals, which is what population genetics is about. IIRC either 23andme or ancestry.com (or both) use chromosome painting for their clients. Both services have huge fundamental bias issues in the way they interpret data, but the quality of their techniques is not one of them. The specific chromosome where a German has Middle Eastern vs. European ancestry is not really consequential; it's going to be completely randomized on various segments throughout the population. What matters is the total amounts of these ancestries, so we can say that \"Germans are 35% this and 65% that\". This is best accomplished by doing a K cluster. K clustering has problems, mainly due to different interpretations based on input data. However, two measures basically solve this: 1) using a very large and rigorous spectrum of populations and 2) using ancient DNA populations Often on older studies you will see a limited or very specific K cluster, and they will all show different things based on which populations tested--for example, if we test Europeans vs. South Africans, we will get 2 genetic clusters, meaning that both of these populations are \"genetically pure\". Obviously this is wrong, and the issue can be easily resolved by adding in more Eurasian samples, which will tease out the Middle Eastern and East Asian ancestry from the European set. More African samples will tease out the San-like ancestry from the African set. If you omit these samples from the analysis, you get only 2 clusters, because EAsians\/MEs\/Euros form a cluster together comparative to Bantus\/San. In other words, the EAsian component is genetically closer to the Euro component than to anything in Africa, and San\/Bantus are closer to each other than anything in Eurasia.","human_ref_B":"This would be a lot easier to answer if you could link to the specific studies in mind.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3987.0,"score_ratio":1.4117647059} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvn9ccb","c_root_id_B":"dvn9o74","created_at_utc_A":1520970132,"created_at_utc_B":1520970427,"score_A":4,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"I started in anthro and switched to archaeology this year.","human_ref_B":"I certainly do, as well as most of our flaired users","labels":0,"seconds_difference":295.0,"score_ratio":8.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvn9ktf","c_root_id_B":"dvn9o74","created_at_utc_A":1520970343,"created_at_utc_B":1520970427,"score_A":3,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"I do, as far as \"actual anthropology\" applies to a university in New Zealand.","human_ref_B":"I certainly do, as well as most of our flaired users","labels":0,"seconds_difference":84.0,"score_ratio":10.6666666667} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnifjx","c_root_id_B":"dvnodh5","created_at_utc_A":1520978786,"created_at_utc_B":1520984698,"score_A":9,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Well, I hope I do. Otherwise I just wrote that exam for nothing...","human_ref_B":"I don't. I'm here to learn!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5912.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnodh5","c_root_id_B":"dvnfsdj","created_at_utc_A":1520984698,"created_at_utc_B":1520976418,"score_A":24,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I don't. I'm here to learn!","human_ref_B":"Archaeology grad student\/lab rat\/field tech","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8280.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvncops","c_root_id_B":"dvnodh5","created_at_utc_A":1520973646,"created_at_utc_B":1520984698,"score_A":7,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I got my BA in 2014 and did some CRM shovel bumming jobs for a year or so.","human_ref_B":"I don't. I'm here to learn!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11052.0,"score_ratio":3.4285714286} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvne3o8","c_root_id_B":"dvnodh5","created_at_utc_A":1520974926,"created_at_utc_B":1520984698,"score_A":7,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"Current PhD student here with a BA and MA in four-fields and a sociocultural focus! I'm from Canada but am currently in the US, so I have a broad understanding of the field and its current layout or landscape in North America. I always get the urge to answer questions here but I'm just too busy sometimes! Always a pleasure to practice punching out answers though - good practice for teaching.","human_ref_B":"I don't. I'm here to learn!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9772.0,"score_ratio":3.4285714286} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnodh5","c_root_id_B":"dvnhj4h","created_at_utc_A":1520984698,"created_at_utc_B":1520977958,"score_A":24,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I don't. I'm here to learn!","human_ref_B":"I'm retired, but worked in Archy\/CRM for 25 years. Masters level training. I still do a little research. My current preoccupation is J.P. 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Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","human_ref_B":"BA student here with focus on archaeology and medical anthropology. Minoring in museum studies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12248.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvn9ktf","c_root_id_B":"dvnv2qr","created_at_utc_A":1520970343,"created_at_utc_B":1520991414,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I do, as far as \"actual anthropology\" applies to a university in New Zealand.","human_ref_B":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21071.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnklt0","c_root_id_B":"dvnv2qr","created_at_utc_A":1520980882,"created_at_utc_B":1520991414,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"In progress bachelors degree in Anthro and Public Health","human_ref_B":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10532.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnlxay","c_root_id_B":"dvnv2qr","created_at_utc_A":1520982193,"created_at_utc_B":1520991414,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I do!","human_ref_B":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9221.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnv2qr","c_root_id_B":"dvnmu7p","created_at_utc_A":1520991414,"created_at_utc_B":1520983122,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","human_ref_B":"BA last century.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8292.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnv2qr","c_root_id_B":"dvnrfut","created_at_utc_A":1520991414,"created_at_utc_B":1520987827,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","human_ref_B":"I'm a systems engineer, anthropology is one if my hobbies. I always had a pull to archeology (Indiana Jones influence), but I became more interested in paleoanthropology when I unexpectedly happened to see Lucy on display. As I settled in to my job (I have a dynamic work schedule, that has several consecutive days of inactivity), I realized it was the perfect opportunity to expand on my interests.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3587.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnuzg0","c_root_id_B":"dvnv2qr","created_at_utc_A":1520991328,"created_at_utc_B":1520991414,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I know next to nothing about anthropology. Studied Math\/CS. The sub is full of interesting reading though, similar to \/r\/askHistorians I don't try to answer anything of course.","human_ref_B":"PhD in cultural anthropology. Of course, anthro has very porous overlapping boundaries so people may study other fields but still have a lot to add. Folklore, regional studies, linguistics, history, sociology, art, music, genetics, nutrition, reproduction, etc might all be relevant at various times and valuable perspectives","labels":0,"seconds_difference":86.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvn9ktf","c_root_id_B":"dvnbqze","created_at_utc_A":1520970343,"created_at_utc_B":1520972312,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I do, as far as \"actual anthropology\" applies to a university in New Zealand.","human_ref_B":"Just switched to Anthropology a while ago.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1969.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvn9ktf","c_root_id_B":"dvniu58","created_at_utc_A":1520970343,"created_at_utc_B":1520979166,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I do, as far as \"actual anthropology\" applies to a university in New Zealand.","human_ref_B":"BA student here with focus on archaeology and medical anthropology. Minoring in museum studies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8823.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvo7vqw","c_root_id_B":"dvn9ktf","created_at_utc_A":1521006177,"created_at_utc_B":1520970343,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I do, as far as \"actual anthropology\" applies to a university in New Zealand.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":35834.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnklt0","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520980882,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"In progress bachelors degree in Anthro and Public Health","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25295.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnlxay","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520982193,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I do!","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23984.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnmu7p","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520983122,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"BA last century.","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":23055.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnrfut","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520987827,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm a systems engineer, anthropology is one if my hobbies. I always had a pull to archeology (Indiana Jones influence), but I became more interested in paleoanthropology when I unexpectedly happened to see Lucy on display. As I settled in to my job (I have a dynamic work schedule, that has several consecutive days of inactivity), I realized it was the perfect opportunity to expand on my interests.","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":18350.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvo7vqw","c_root_id_B":"dvnuzg0","created_at_utc_A":1521006177,"created_at_utc_B":1520991328,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","human_ref_B":"I know next to nothing about anthropology. Studied Math\/CS. The sub is full of interesting reading though, similar to \/r\/askHistorians I don't try to answer anything of course.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14849.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnw4vh","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520992427,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm an evolutionary biologist. I occasionally look at primates and human evolution and nearly had a history minor.","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13750.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnx4vy","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520993389,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I do but I'm only an undergraduate so I don't often answer any questions here.","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12788.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvnzpm8","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520996044,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I do too, a Bachelor of Science in anthropology, covering biological and social anthropology and primatology, as well as archeology and human and physical geography. In the UK if you\u2019re wondering, and I finish in May","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10133.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvo7vqw","c_root_id_B":"dvo06cz","created_at_utc_A":1521006177,"created_at_utc_B":1520996525,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Currently finishing my M.S. in applied anthropology and have been admitted to the MPH program. Waiting to see if I got distinction to stay in my PhD program or if another application comes through. My focus is in cultural with a subfocus on applied medical anthropology specifically Reproductive Justice.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9652.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvo1bvs","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520997752,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently finishing my bachelor's degree and will soon apply for a master","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8425.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"8472cz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"How many ppl on this subreddit actually study anthropology? In an actual university with an actual anthropology degree program? No offense, just curious.","c_root_id_A":"dvo2j3f","c_root_id_B":"dvo7vqw","created_at_utc_A":1520999098,"created_at_utc_B":1521006177,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Finishing a Master's degree in Historical Archaeology. Been an archaeologist for 4 years.","human_ref_B":"I have a PhD in cultural anthropology.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7079.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1ssfcu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Maybe Tacitus was wrong - is there any proof of pre-modern tribes that punished homosexuality by death? I recently quote Tacitus' *Germania* and got criticized by someone who believed Tacitus was wrong and pre-Christian Europeans were actually pro-gay. According to that person, pre-modern punishments of homosexuality by death were very rare - limited to Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). I had assumed that there were various pre-modern tribes that forbade homosexuality, and other pre-modern tribes that didn't. But specifically, I'd like to know if there's any good evidence for a non-Abrahamic, pre-modern civilization that punished homosexuality by death. (Wikipedia claims that Zimbabwe and some other modern countries often kill gays for being gay, but I can't find any info on pre-modern cultures, other than *Germania*, the accuracy of which is disputed.) https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Homophobia Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ce10g8h","c_root_id_B":"ce0rrjs","created_at_utc_A":1386961689,"created_at_utc_B":1386936870,"score_A":16,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Norse sagas imply that the passive role in homosexual sex was stigmatized, but the active role was not. So having sex in a \"manly\" way was more important than desiring the right sort of person. http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ergi \"at first stigmatization did not extend to active male homosexuality. To take revenge on the disloyal priest Bjorn and the mistress Thorunnr in the Gudmundar Saga it was decided to put Thorunnr into bed with every buffon, and to do that to Bjorn the priest, which was considered no less dishonorable, dishonorable to Bjorn, not to his rapists. In the Edda, Sinfjotli insults Gudmundr by asserting that all the einherjar (Odin\u2019s warriors in Valhalla) fought with each other to win the love of Gudmundr (who was male). Certainly he intended no aspersions on the honor of the einherjar. Then Sinfjotli boasts that Gundmundr was pregnant with nine wolf cubs and he, Sinfjotli, was the father. Had the active, male homosexual role been stigmatized, Sinfjotli would hardly have boasted on it.\" My understanding from undergrad courses is that Tacitus is not considered an accurate source on Germanic tribes' cultures. He was using the opportunity to hold them up as a counterpoint to Rome. Sort of an ancient world's version of \"noble savage\" myths, or Orientalism. That's just one example; in general you're going to run into the problem that \"homosexual\" is a modern category.","human_ref_B":"A cross post to \/r\/askhistorians might be fruitful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24819.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"8fzlvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did premodern subsistence farmers do with their time? Farming is seasonal work, and there is a gap of time between planting and harvesting crops. What did early agricultural peoples do with their time once the crops we're planted? Did they continue to work the fields, pulling weeds and managing pests?","c_root_id_A":"dy81138","c_root_id_B":"dy7ov8n","created_at_utc_A":1525110007,"created_at_utc_B":1525098655,"score_A":23,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an authority on the subject but... Not all crops are planted or harvested at the same time, nor do they grow at the same rates. Assuming they would grow a variety of crops, it's possible to stagger planting and harvesting times. Tending crops is not the only task needed to subsist. Other needed tasks might include maintaining a shelter, fashioning and mending clothes, creating tools, hunting for additional food & materials, processing crops & materials, trading, etc.","human_ref_B":"There are evidences of different Art forms, in different periods from Neolithic age to the pre industrial age. After farm subsistence, especially during and after Neolithic age, there has been a revolution in socio- cultural lives of Human beings which gave rise to the present form of social lives. It may be difficult to compare it with present modern and technological developments, But Humans have hardly changes from that age in a genetical or biological way, But we have improved quite a lot of handy tools to help our lives. Chit chatting would have developed Language and literature, Village social systems have given rise to formal education, Occupying other village lands have given rise to political establishments etc.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11352.0,"score_ratio":1.3529411765} {"post_id":"8fzlvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did premodern subsistence farmers do with their time? Farming is seasonal work, and there is a gap of time between planting and harvesting crops. What did early agricultural peoples do with their time once the crops we're planted? Did they continue to work the fields, pulling weeds and managing pests?","c_root_id_A":"dy7ssik","c_root_id_B":"dy81138","created_at_utc_A":1525102443,"created_at_utc_B":1525110007,"score_A":2,"score_B":23,"human_ref_A":"I would ask this on r\/askhistorians.","human_ref_B":"I'm not an authority on the subject but... Not all crops are planted or harvested at the same time, nor do they grow at the same rates. Assuming they would grow a variety of crops, it's possible to stagger planting and harvesting times. Tending crops is not the only task needed to subsist. Other needed tasks might include maintaining a shelter, fashioning and mending clothes, creating tools, hunting for additional food & materials, processing crops & materials, trading, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7564.0,"score_ratio":11.5} {"post_id":"8fzlvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did premodern subsistence farmers do with their time? Farming is seasonal work, and there is a gap of time between planting and harvesting crops. What did early agricultural peoples do with their time once the crops we're planted? Did they continue to work the fields, pulling weeds and managing pests?","c_root_id_A":"dy7ssik","c_root_id_B":"dy8e7hc","created_at_utc_A":1525102443,"created_at_utc_B":1525122203,"score_A":2,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"I would ask this on r\/askhistorians.","human_ref_B":"> Farming is seasonal work Not in equatorial subsistence farming. I do fieldwork in island Melanesia and they farm year round. That said, farming and village work usually really only takes a few hours a day. The rest of the time is spent living life. If people always had to work as much as they do now, they likely would not have had to innovate. In my experience, people work until the sun is too hot and then they find a cool spot in the shade to rest or chat (or perhaps tinker, thus leading to innovation). In the afternoon some village life picks back up and the family units come back together for dinner. The major social time happens after dinner because there is relief from the heat. What did pre-modern people do with their time? Socialize and tinker. Thus today we have advanced technologies, literature, cultural features, etc.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19760.0,"score_ratio":7.5} {"post_id":"8fzlvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What did premodern subsistence farmers do with their time? Farming is seasonal work, and there is a gap of time between planting and harvesting crops. What did early agricultural peoples do with their time once the crops we're planted? Did they continue to work the fields, pulling weeds and managing pests?","c_root_id_A":"dy7ssik","c_root_id_B":"dy8g2o2","created_at_utc_A":1525102443,"created_at_utc_B":1525124034,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I would ask this on r\/askhistorians.","human_ref_B":"I recently read an article on what medieval peasants did with their free time. Obviously it's not directly applicable to your question as a lot of society, religion, and general culture had changed drastically by that point, but you can draw some estimates about how much free time may have been available and what kinds of activities the people filled their lives with. https:\/\/www.ranker.com\/list\/free-time-for-medieval-peasants\/kathy-benjamin http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/great-debate\/2013\/08\/29\/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21591.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ektnnl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What sort of food would European hunter-gatherers gather? What did their diet look like? Do we know the specific plants they ate? (Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I previously posted on r\/AskHistorians but didn't get any responses and thought I might try my luck here.)","c_root_id_A":"fde0j0l","c_root_id_B":"fde0lt8","created_at_utc_A":1578328420,"created_at_utc_B":1578328473,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hey I'm curious as to why you asked your question. It's very interesting. I know of we followed our ancestors diet wherever we're from, we should be pretty healthy right? I've also read some Zerzan on how healthy Hunter gatherers were compared to us today. That's why your question intrigued me","human_ref_B":"It's a really difficult question to answer. I'm just a student, so my expertise is limited but I'm going to try to explain how we could detect different food stuffs and what the problem with them is. The easiest and most obvious is meat. And depending on the environment, it may be the most important food source. Bones usually preserve relatively well and if they're not fragmented too much, they can be assigned to a specific animal. The telltale signs that the animal was hunted for food are cut marks and charred bones. What animals specifically were hunted varies wildly depending on time and place. During cold periods, when the land was open, animals often lived in large herds and those would be easy prey. In southwestern France during the Last Glacial Maximum, that meant wild horses. Further north, it could be reindeer. Further south, it could be gazelles. The problem is that those might not be the only meat animals. It's not unlikely that people also caught or hunted small game, like birds or rabbits or ate the meat of animals primarily hunted for their fur, like foxes. Those smaller bones are harder to find, you might have to sieve and\/or was the sediment, then have someone who can correctly identify those bones and then make sure they weren't just deposited by a random animal thst died in a abandoned camp. That problem is exasperated for fish. Fish bones and scales preserve surprisingly well but are tiny. You have to find them first, then have somebody available who can identify them. Although I would be surprised if any humans living close to any body of water didn't take advantage of this fairly plentfuyl food source. A mear-rich diet can also be detected in teeth or bone. The specifics are a bit complicated to explain but basically the isotope signature of teeth and bones can tell you if an animal or human primarily ate meat. Plants are much harder to detect because they don't preserve particularly well. Or at all, really. The only way for plant remains to preserve is if they're charred. And there's little reason why you should expose most plants to fire. You're not going to roast a peach, are you, you're just going to eat it raw, but at least you might toss the stone into the fire. Berries you'd just eat whole, leaving nothing to be found, unless you're insane enough to dissolve a coprolite and try to find microscopic seeds in the remains. Same with tubers, they don't even have seeds and as far as I know, we haven't yet found a complete charred tuber that was forgotten in a fire. There are examples of remains of fruits and other plant matter from paleolithic sites but they're rare and difficult to compare. And I don't even know how you'd get about detecting mushrooms in someone's diet... With that said, it would be strange if people hadn't at least supplemented their diet with plants and mushrooms if they were available. What specifically was available obviously varied. Aside from direct remains, you can also look for secondary traces. An interesting source is stone tool use-wear analysis. Basically, if you cut different things, it will leave different traces on a stone tool. I'm not quite up to date with current results and can't really research it on my phone but cutting tubers or wild grasses would leave very different marks than cutting meat. Tldr: What our ancestors ate varied hugely, depending on time and location. The problem with answering that question is that some foodstuffs preserve relatively well and may be easy to find, while others don't preserve at all and\/or are hard to find. This skews any possible answer. However, while it is difficult to prove, it is not unreasonable to assume that people just ate whatever was available (which needn't necessarily be the same things we today would consider edible or palatable). In cold climates, diet may primarily be animal based. Fish, large and small game, eggs, etc. In temperate climate, diet would have been supplemented by whatever else there was. Fruit, tubers, edible leaves, mushrooms. Sorry I couldn't give you a more definite answer. I lack the expertise and can't really do proper literary research right now (and may also be too lazy). But maybe it gives you an idea anyway.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":53.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"ektnnl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What sort of food would European hunter-gatherers gather? What did their diet look like? Do we know the specific plants they ate? (Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I previously posted on r\/AskHistorians but didn't get any responses and thought I might try my luck here.)","c_root_id_A":"fdegyzi","c_root_id_B":"fde0j0l","created_at_utc_A":1578338809,"created_at_utc_B":1578328420,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Even if we limit ourselves to anatomically modern humans, we have to remember that this is something like 40K years over multiple geographical, ecological and climactic regions. There is certainly not even a simple answer for one area at one specific times; diets vary between groups and individuals. Here is a list of sources from a project I did on upper paleolithic diet recently. I hope some of them can be useful. Bello, Silvia M., Rosalind Wallduck, Simon A. Parfitt, and Chris B. Stringer. \u2018An Upper Palaeolithic Engraved Human Bone Associated with Ritualistic Cannibalism\u2019. PLOS ONE 12, no. 8 (9 August 2017): e0182127. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0182127. Demay, La\u00ebtitia, St\u00e9phane P\u00e9an, and Maryl\u00e8ne Patou-Mathis. \u2018Mammoths Used as Food and Building Resources by Neanderthals: Zooarchaeological Study Applied to Layer 4, Molodova I (Ukraine)\u2019. Quaternary International, Mammoths and their Relatives 2: Biotopes, Evolution and Human Impact V International Conference, Le Puy-en-Velay, 2010, 276\u2013277 (25 October 2012): 212\u201326. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.quaint.2011.11.019. Morin, E., J. Meier, K. El Guennouni, A.-M. Moigne, L. Lebreton, L. Rusch, P. Valensi, J. Conolly, and D. Cochard. \u2018New Evidence of Broader Diets for Archaic Homo Populations in the Northwestern Mediterranean\u2019. Science Advances 5, no. 3 (1 March 2019): eaav9106. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/sciadv.aav9106. Pettitt, P. B., M. Richards, R. Maggi, and V. Formicola. \u2018The Gravettian Burial Known as the Prince (\u201cIl Principe\u201d): New Evidence for His Age and Diet\u2019. Antiquity 77, no. 295 (March 2003): 15\u201319. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0003598X00061305. Power, Robert C., Domingo C. Salazar-Garc\u00eda, Lawrence G. Straus, Manuel R. Gonz\u00e1lez Morales, and Amanda G. Henry. \u2018Microremains from El Mir\u00f3n Cave Human Dental Calculus Suggest a Mixed Plant\u2013Animal Subsistence Economy during the Magdalenian in Northern Iberia\u2019. Journal of Archaeological Science, \u2018The Red Lady of El Mir\u00f3n Cave\u2019: Lower Magdalenian Human Burial in Cantabrian Spain, 60 (1 August 2015): 39\u201346. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jas.2015.04.003. Riel-Salvatore, Julien. \u2018A Niche Construction Perspective on the Middle\u2013Upper Paleolithic Transition in Italy\u2019. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 17, no. 4 (1 December 2010): 323\u201355. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10816-010-9093-9. Sanz, Montserrat, Florent Rivals, David Garc\u00eda, and Jo\u00e3o Zilh\u00e3o. \u2018Hunting Strategy and Seasonality in the Last Interglacial Occupation of Cueva Ant\u00f3n (Murcia, Spain)\u2019. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, no. 7 (1 July 2019): 3577\u201394. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s12520-018-0768-6. Trinkaus, Erik. The People of Sunghir: Burials, Bodies, and Behavior in the Earlier Upper Paleolithic, 2014. Villa, Paola, Paolo Boscato, Filomena Ranaldo, and Annamaria Ronchitelli. \u2018Stone Tools for the Hunt: Points with Impact Scars from a Middle Paleolithic Site in Southern Italy\u2019. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, no. 3 (1 March 2009): 850\u201359. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jas.2008.11.012. Wilczy\u0144ski, Jaros\u0142aw, Piotr Wojtal, Martina Robli\u010dkov\u00e1, and Martin Oliva. \u2018Doln\u00ed V\u011bstonice I (Pavlovian, the Czech Republic) \u2013 Results of Zooarchaeological Studies of the Animal Remains Discovered on the Campsite (Excavation 1924\u201352)\u2019. Quaternary International, Mammoths and their Relatives: VIth International Conference, Grevena-Siatista, Greece, part 1, 379 (27 August 2015): 58\u201370. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.quaint.2015.05.059. Wojtal, Piotr, Gary Haynes, Janis Klimowicz, Krzysztof Sobczyk, Jacek Tarasiuk, Sebastian Wro\u0144ski, and Jaros\u0142aw Wilczy\u0144ski. \u2018The Earliest Direct Evidence of Mammoth Hunting in Central Europe\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The Krak\u00f3w Spadzista Site (Poland)\u2019. Quaternary Science Reviews, 22 April 2019. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.quascirev.2019.04.004.","human_ref_B":"Hey I'm curious as to why you asked your question. It's very interesting. I know of we followed our ancestors diet wherever we're from, we should be pretty healthy right? I've also read some Zerzan on how healthy Hunter gatherers were compared to us today. That's why your question intrigued me","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10389.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"8o6nr4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How does Geertz hold up today? Has the shelf life of his ideas expired or is he still viable today, how does the community regard Geertz? I like that guy.","c_root_id_A":"e01cvtx","c_root_id_B":"e01jqvb","created_at_utc_A":1528027337,"created_at_utc_B":1528037741,"score_A":4,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I still like Geertz and I think his ideas still hold up today, largely because being able to interpret symbols is something that never really becomes meaningless due to how culture is so built on symbols.","human_ref_B":"From my perspective, Geertz is still essential to interpretive anthropology. His concept of thick description is one of the pithiest metaphors we have for ethnographic writing. Of course, there are critiques of Geertz that have to be taken into account when you read him. For example, his model of ethnographic description assumes a holistic, stable, and closed cultural context, whereas today's ethnographers are often trying to understand phenomena that are not located in one site or cultural world. His approach also isn't always great for understanding material relations or forms of social practice that try to transform those relations.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10404.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"8o6nr4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How does Geertz hold up today? Has the shelf life of his ideas expired or is he still viable today, how does the community regard Geertz? I like that guy.","c_root_id_A":"e01h16m","c_root_id_B":"e01jqvb","created_at_utc_A":1528034215,"created_at_utc_B":1528037741,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"His reduction of the anthropologist's work to \"deep\" description and (a pretty much free) interpretation coupled with his fame and impact in the discipline is the number one reason we don't get taken seriously today. All the people that followed him were ok with anthropology basically becoming literature with some ethnic stuff in the background. Still a key piece of you want to understand the history of the discipline and as any other author he has some interesting insights every now and then. So worth it, but take with huge pinch of salt and keep low on priority list depending on what you have or haven't read at this point.","human_ref_B":"From my perspective, Geertz is still essential to interpretive anthropology. His concept of thick description is one of the pithiest metaphors we have for ethnographic writing. Of course, there are critiques of Geertz that have to be taken into account when you read him. For example, his model of ethnographic description assumes a holistic, stable, and closed cultural context, whereas today's ethnographers are often trying to understand phenomena that are not located in one site or cultural world. His approach also isn't always great for understanding material relations or forms of social practice that try to transform those relations.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3526.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"8o6nr4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How does Geertz hold up today? Has the shelf life of his ideas expired or is he still viable today, how does the community regard Geertz? I like that guy.","c_root_id_A":"e01cvtx","c_root_id_B":"e01l7ot","created_at_utc_A":1528027337,"created_at_utc_B":1528039563,"score_A":4,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I still like Geertz and I think his ideas still hold up today, largely because being able to interpret symbols is something that never really becomes meaningless due to how culture is so built on symbols.","human_ref_B":"There are people who strongly don\u2019t like Geertz, and people who still see him as elemental to anthropology. Geertz\u2019s star has declined somewhat because it\u2019s hard for any academic to each that kind of height (he was important not only in anthropology, but cause anthropology to become a net-exporter of ideas, briefly, as cultural history, cultural sociology, ethnography across disciplines, cultural studies, and even some parts of political science eagerly gobbled up Geertz\u2019s words). The main criticism I\u2019ve heard of Geertz is that he doesn\u2019t deal with *power* properly. In the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s anthropology had to deal with its colonialist heritage and took a hard left swing. This is where we get a lot more talk about \u201chegemony\u201d and \u201cresistance\u201d and all of that. One criticism that I think is fair is that Geertz often paid attention to how symbols are made, without paying attention to how they are used. Many people, most noticeably Talal Asad, have taken genealogy from Foucault and used it to look at the origin of symbols. This is common in what is broadly called \u201cpost-modernist thought\u201d, for example, Derrida\u2019s deconstructionism which looked to \u201cdeconstruct\u201d the power relations behind meta narratives (we can think of these \u201cmeta-narratives\u201d as culturally specific ideas, like \u201cfamily\u201d, or \u201cscience\u201d, or most relevant to Geertz \u201creligion). Now, Asad insists always that he was an *interlocutor* of Geertz, and not his *critic*, and until the end of his life expressed deep admiration and respect for Geertz, but well, Geertz didn\u2019t see it that way and much of this respect didn\u2019t end up in articles. Asad, for instance, claimed that Geertz\u2019s famous definition of religion was \u201cethnocentric\u201d. I think that is in some ways right. I think Geertz didn\u2019t always pay enough attention to history and institutions and, well, power, but I think that Asad and others sometimes go overboard in their criticisms. Geertz was trying to define religion as term of art, a technical term, and while certainly the term religion as its commonly used has a specific genealogy (Jonathan Z. Smith\u2019s z\u2019tl] work is better than Asad\u2019s, see Smith\u2019s East essay \u201cReligion, Religions, Religious\u201d), I think Asad misses how much Geertz is trying to separate his technical definition from the common definition\u2014note, for instance, that Geertz\u2019s definition of religion makes no reference to the divine, the holy, the otherworldly, the sacred, or anything else like that. A lot of Asad\u2019s followers seem to have gone down a route that is, in the view of their critics, \u201ccritical theory with ethnography\u201d. Here\u2019s a little bit from [an interview from late in Geertz\u2019s life (it obviously doesn\u2019t present Asad\u2019s side but I think you can get some contours of their disagreement). >**Micheelsen**: [...] Talal Asad has focused on the construction of meaning and power from a historical and institutional perspective, which is a subject he feels you fail to attend to in your work (Asad 1983). How do you respond to this? >**Geertz**: Well, I do not agree with their critique. If I did, I would change what I am doing. [...] Asad is a more significant figure, and here I think there is a real disagreement. I think I have used a historical constitutional framework in my work, which he says I have not. To be honest, I think he is a power-reductionist. He thinks that it is power that really matters and not belief. His notion of definition and his following critique just ignores what I was doing (Asad 1993: 29). I suspect Asad is a Marxist who cannot be material-reductionist anymore, so instead he is a power-reductionist. >**Micheelsen**: Do you, in opposition to Asad, view meaning as being before power? >**Geertz**: No. I just do not think that power has any independent existence outside of a cultural or historical context. Moreover, I think there is a tendency nowadays to view human phenomena as a power struggle. From that perspective, any kind of meaning is a cover for a power struggle. Nevertheless, to say that meaning is before power would make me a meaning realist and idealist, which I am not. I just do not think that all significance comes down to the distribution of power. I think in general the critiques of Geertz have had something to them, but they do not mean we should throw out Geertz, but rather use Geertz as a base to build on. There are topics and areas that Geertz is less good addressing, and I recognize that too, but I think Geertz remains important to undergraduate classes for good reasons. Like Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in my own home field of sociology, we\u2019ve built upon him, but haven\u2019t moved passed him. But, again like the multiplicity of influences that exist within sociology from our multiple forefathers, all anthropology doesn\u2019t have to be based on Geertzian thick description anymore than all sociology has to be based on Marxian class relations, just because Marx is one of our fathers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12226.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"8o6nr4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How does Geertz hold up today? Has the shelf life of his ideas expired or is he still viable today, how does the community regard Geertz? I like that guy.","c_root_id_A":"e01l7ot","c_root_id_B":"e01h16m","created_at_utc_A":1528039563,"created_at_utc_B":1528034215,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"There are people who strongly don\u2019t like Geertz, and people who still see him as elemental to anthropology. Geertz\u2019s star has declined somewhat because it\u2019s hard for any academic to each that kind of height (he was important not only in anthropology, but cause anthropology to become a net-exporter of ideas, briefly, as cultural history, cultural sociology, ethnography across disciplines, cultural studies, and even some parts of political science eagerly gobbled up Geertz\u2019s words). The main criticism I\u2019ve heard of Geertz is that he doesn\u2019t deal with *power* properly. In the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s anthropology had to deal with its colonialist heritage and took a hard left swing. This is where we get a lot more talk about \u201chegemony\u201d and \u201cresistance\u201d and all of that. One criticism that I think is fair is that Geertz often paid attention to how symbols are made, without paying attention to how they are used. Many people, most noticeably Talal Asad, have taken genealogy from Foucault and used it to look at the origin of symbols. This is common in what is broadly called \u201cpost-modernist thought\u201d, for example, Derrida\u2019s deconstructionism which looked to \u201cdeconstruct\u201d the power relations behind meta narratives (we can think of these \u201cmeta-narratives\u201d as culturally specific ideas, like \u201cfamily\u201d, or \u201cscience\u201d, or most relevant to Geertz \u201creligion). Now, Asad insists always that he was an *interlocutor* of Geertz, and not his *critic*, and until the end of his life expressed deep admiration and respect for Geertz, but well, Geertz didn\u2019t see it that way and much of this respect didn\u2019t end up in articles. Asad, for instance, claimed that Geertz\u2019s famous definition of religion was \u201cethnocentric\u201d. I think that is in some ways right. I think Geertz didn\u2019t always pay enough attention to history and institutions and, well, power, but I think that Asad and others sometimes go overboard in their criticisms. Geertz was trying to define religion as term of art, a technical term, and while certainly the term religion as its commonly used has a specific genealogy (Jonathan Z. Smith\u2019s z\u2019tl] work is better than Asad\u2019s, see Smith\u2019s East essay \u201cReligion, Religions, Religious\u201d), I think Asad misses how much Geertz is trying to separate his technical definition from the common definition\u2014note, for instance, that Geertz\u2019s definition of religion makes no reference to the divine, the holy, the otherworldly, the sacred, or anything else like that. A lot of Asad\u2019s followers seem to have gone down a route that is, in the view of their critics, \u201ccritical theory with ethnography\u201d. Here\u2019s a little bit from [an interview from late in Geertz\u2019s life (it obviously doesn\u2019t present Asad\u2019s side but I think you can get some contours of their disagreement). >**Micheelsen**: [...] Talal Asad has focused on the construction of meaning and power from a historical and institutional perspective, which is a subject he feels you fail to attend to in your work (Asad 1983). How do you respond to this? >**Geertz**: Well, I do not agree with their critique. If I did, I would change what I am doing. [...] Asad is a more significant figure, and here I think there is a real disagreement. I think I have used a historical constitutional framework in my work, which he says I have not. To be honest, I think he is a power-reductionist. He thinks that it is power that really matters and not belief. His notion of definition and his following critique just ignores what I was doing (Asad 1993: 29). I suspect Asad is a Marxist who cannot be material-reductionist anymore, so instead he is a power-reductionist. >**Micheelsen**: Do you, in opposition to Asad, view meaning as being before power? >**Geertz**: No. I just do not think that power has any independent existence outside of a cultural or historical context. Moreover, I think there is a tendency nowadays to view human phenomena as a power struggle. From that perspective, any kind of meaning is a cover for a power struggle. Nevertheless, to say that meaning is before power would make me a meaning realist and idealist, which I am not. I just do not think that all significance comes down to the distribution of power. I think in general the critiques of Geertz have had something to them, but they do not mean we should throw out Geertz, but rather use Geertz as a base to build on. There are topics and areas that Geertz is less good addressing, and I recognize that too, but I think Geertz remains important to undergraduate classes for good reasons. Like Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in my own home field of sociology, we\u2019ve built upon him, but haven\u2019t moved passed him. But, again like the multiplicity of influences that exist within sociology from our multiple forefathers, all anthropology doesn\u2019t have to be based on Geertzian thick description anymore than all sociology has to be based on Marxian class relations, just because Marx is one of our fathers.","human_ref_B":"His reduction of the anthropologist's work to \"deep\" description and (a pretty much free) interpretation coupled with his fame and impact in the discipline is the number one reason we don't get taken seriously today. All the people that followed him were ok with anthropology basically becoming literature with some ethnic stuff in the background. Still a key piece of you want to understand the history of the discipline and as any other author he has some interesting insights every now and then. So worth it, but take with huge pinch of salt and keep low on priority list depending on what you have or haven't read at this point.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5348.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"3mprli","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Can you establish whether a community is descended from an ancient one by their dental morphology? I am just curious because I was briefly reading something and it didn't seem that they used genetic studies, but they were comparing a modern ethnic group to an ancient one they claim direct descent from. They used the dental remains of the ancient population and compared it to that of the modern community. They found differences between the two groups teeth and concluded they are not very related. Can you really establish if two populations are related or if one is descended from another through the structure of their teeth? If so, why and how?","c_root_id_A":"cvh4yfk","c_root_id_B":"cvh1nhf","created_at_utc_A":1443464413,"created_at_utc_B":1443459475,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Arg, I just wrote out a huge comment and then my browser crashed. So, please excuse my short answer due to my frustration, haha. The TLDR; is this: It depends on that study (e.g., how long of time between the ancient vs. modern communities, the dental traits being used, the amount of isolation of the community, if they're looking at the entire population vs. specific family lineages, etc.). Many dental traits are extremely highly heritable, so it is possible to trace family lineages\/relatedness in populations using them. To be able to trace relatedness of an entire modern population to an ancient population, the dental trait would have to be extremely unique to the population (e.g., shovel-shaped incisors in Native Americans). A quick google for \"dental anthropology\" should bring up plenty of books, articles, and websites that might be of interest to you.","human_ref_B":"Can you perhaps clarify the question a bit? Every modern group is descended from an ancient one, but I'm sure you realized that and are trying to get at something else with your question.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4938.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"1xb2y8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Do humans instinctively cup their hands to drink or is it a learned behavior?","c_root_id_A":"cfa6rre","c_root_id_B":"cfa8nov","created_at_utc_A":1391871512,"created_at_utc_B":1391877340,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I believe there is a biblical story where a commander is letting his best men leave before the battle to show faith in The Lord. One of his tests is he lets men who cup their hands to drink leave and the people who drink like animals are viewed as less intelligent and they stay. So both are possible and used but I think cupping hands is just a more efficient method.","human_ref_B":"There is probably a bit of both going on. There may also be areas where it would be taboo because water is limited and sticking your hand in it could contaminate it. For example, this study suggests some castes won't use the cupped hand method. * Mayer, Adrian C. \"Some hierarchical aspects of caste.\" Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1956): 117-144. Interestingly, chimpanzees cup their hands to carry water in addition to just drinking straight from it or using leaf sponges. * Colell, Montserrat, M. Dolores Segarra, and Jordi Sabater Pi. \"Hand preferences in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) in food-reaching and other daily activities.\" International Journal of Primatology 16.3 (1995): 413-434. Lemurs have also been observed cupping their hands to drink water. * Hosey, Geoffrey R., Marie Jacques, and Angela Pitts. \"Drinking from tails: social learning of a novel behaviour in a group of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta).\" Primates 38.4 (1997): 415-422. However, primates often learn behaviors like the article above which discusses a lemur population that learned to drink utilizing their tails. Chimpanzees also learn behaviors like the leaf sponge and termite fishing. And of course so do humans.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5828.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"drrou1","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"What historical records, artifacts, or primary sources exist to shed light on interactions between Neanderthals and humans? Given the myriad of mythological humanoids and beast-like men that exist throughout ancient cultures, I\u2019ve wondered to what extent such accounts could possibly have been the result of humans interacting with late-surviving Neanderthals. If people mythologized all sorts of things for which they had no reasonable explanation, perhaps then they also mistook what we\u2019d identify as a Neanderthal as some mythological being.","c_root_id_A":"f6kxljk","c_root_id_B":"f6kva1v","created_at_utc_A":1572923271,"created_at_utc_B":1572921573,"score_A":38,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"There's a lot to unpack here, so let's begin with oral tradition. It has been observed that oral stories of mythology and history can remain consistent over thousands of years. This National Geographic article is one example of an oral history passed down over several thousand years that was shown to be based in fact through geological evidence. Oral histories can certainly remain consistent for long durations of time but the extent of that time is hard to quantify. It is difficult to definitively determine how long oral traditions can remain consistent. Neanderthals became extinct around 40k years ago, although it is possible some remnant populations persisted longer than that. Sapiens.org has an excellent deep dive into Neanderthals and details the differences that homo Sapiens had or didn't have with our evolutionary cousin. It spans several articles featuring the cognitive and physical differences between Neanderthals and homo Sapiens. The crux of the question might lie in how different Neanderthals really were from homo Sapiens. Many modern humans, particularly those from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, possess around 2-4% Neanderthal DNA. This is clear evidence that both lineages were close enough to interbreed. Neanderthals were also stronger and more robust than our ancestors and had larger brains. Neanderthals, like modern humans, had the FOXP2 gene and a hyoid bone, both necessary for speech. They also had the capacity to create symbolic art and some evidence suggests that they had ritual funerary practices. Some paleoanthropologists argue that they may have been a subspecies of homo Sapiens rather than a separate species. This is where things veer sharply into opinion and educated guesses. There are unfortunately many things which the archaeological record will never be able to confirm nor deny, despite it's best efforts. Religions, tradition, and beliefs are something that, especially prior to the advent of written language, are incredibly difficult, some would argue impossible, to discern from the archaeological record alone. It is possible, though highly unlikely, that interactions with Neanderthals could persist over tens of thousands of years and make their way into written records. It is more likely that stories of superhuman figures arose from our own fantasies and desires.","human_ref_B":"Considering there is a thirty or forty thousand year gap between neanderthal extinction and the advent of the written word, historical records and primary sources really don't exist.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1698.0,"score_ratio":1.1875} {"post_id":"hz1par","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"People who studied antropology, what is your job? I'm thinking of studying anthropology in college, but I'm a little bit worried about the professional aspect of it. Once I finish, what could I work as? As an anthropologist, what is your job?","c_root_id_A":"fzgzi1b","c_root_id_B":"fzgxiq2","created_at_utc_A":1595902407,"created_at_utc_B":1595901254,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I studied cultural anthropology, and before COVID lead to my position being terminated I worked at a Fortune 50 company as a fleet repair coordinator overseeing maintenance of 30,000 vehicles. There are very few jobs where you \"do anthropology\" in that you're not being paid to research and write ethnographies and study \"exotic\" people and cultures. However, in the work and career I was able to build for myself, I have utilized many concepts and approaches that you find in anthropology and have been able to build a holistic worldview that makes me adaptable to many situations. I did sales and marketing to get to where I am, and you have to be able to understand people from lots of different backgrounds and understand how people think and where they come from. You need to be able to build and foster relationships. You need to be able to think critically and analyze situations to come up with sometimes creative solutions. Anthropology has helped me look for the \"big picture\" to see how many different and sometimes seemingly unrelated parts come together to make a cohesive hole. It has allowed me to deal with difficult people and situations with respect and understanding, while navigating sometimes strange spaces with tact and dignity. Everyone's experiences will be different, but when you really get into theory and understand the world through the lense of anthropology, you begin to strip away a lot of the bullshit and pretense and see things for how they are, not just how they are presented or wish to be. I would recommend the field because of the various soft skills you learn and the worldview you'll adapt, but I'd also recommend having something else that you can *apply* those teachings to and supplement that education with statistics and\/or data analysis, as those are very needed and desirable skills to have in the modern job marketplace. That's about as classic \"anthropology\" as you can get in data, marketing, and business analysis, but anything that you are passionate about and can pursue will be useful with the anthropological perspective.","human_ref_B":"Housing Case Manager, working to end homelessness in my community. Most of my coworkers went to school for social work, but they appreciate the perspective I bring to the team.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1153.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"dr5m7g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"Recommendable anthropology\/archaeology podcasts? Listening to interesting podcasts is about the only activity that gets me through my day job right now, so recommendations for good material are appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"f6fed5a","c_root_id_B":"f6fwvdw","created_at_utc_A":1572813433,"created_at_utc_B":1572819072,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Arch and anth podcast!","human_ref_B":"Anything from the Archaeology podcast network, Archaeology and anthropology podcast, go dig a hole, women in archaeology, archyfantasies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5639.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"873g80","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is there any good anthropology podcasts? (title)","c_root_id_A":"dwag4fr","c_root_id_B":"dwa4kfd","created_at_utc_A":1522032342,"created_at_utc_B":1522019315,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"New Books in Anthropology: http:\/\/newbooksnetwork.com\/category\/politics-society\/anthropology\/ Other New Books podcasts sometimes have anthropology related material as well, e.g. New Books in Religion sometimes has episodes on anthropology of religion.","human_ref_B":"If you have an interest in the archaeological branch of anthropology the Archaeology Podcast Network puts out several quality shows.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13027.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1omuyj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Does anybody know of any anthropology-related podcasts? There's quite a few podcasts in different fields, just wondering if anybody knows of any anthropology-related ones?","c_root_id_A":"ccto33y","c_root_id_B":"cctqhlq","created_at_utc_A":1382028585,"created_at_utc_B":1382034445,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"The AAA has a podcast but I think they could be better... sometimes interesting interviews with anthropologists about their work...","human_ref_B":"The University of Oxford has several podcasts, including from their Anthropology and Archaeology departments, available on Itunes through the Itunes U project.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5860.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1omuyj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Does anybody know of any anthropology-related podcasts? There's quite a few podcasts in different fields, just wondering if anybody knows of any anthropology-related ones?","c_root_id_A":"cctq2ud","c_root_id_B":"cctqhlq","created_at_utc_A":1382033466,"created_at_utc_B":1382034445,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There was one called The Naked Anthropologist, but I just can't seem to find it. Honestly, if someone else can do a better job finding it than me, please post! I haven't listened to it in years but I remember really enjoying it while still in college.","human_ref_B":"The University of Oxford has several podcasts, including from their Anthropology and Archaeology departments, available on Itunes through the Itunes U project.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":979.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1omuyj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Does anybody know of any anthropology-related podcasts? There's quite a few podcasts in different fields, just wondering if anybody knows of any anthropology-related ones?","c_root_id_A":"ccu9hxu","c_root_id_B":"ccu3io9","created_at_utc_A":1382097776,"created_at_utc_B":1382066831,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the ones already mentioned, some universities randomly have a few like Kentucky. But usually they aren't updated regularly. Some of the professional organizations have podcasts aside from just the AAA. The one that does the best job providing frequent & interesting podcasts is SFAA (applied anthropology). But SFAA isn't necessarily what most anthropologists or the interested public is looking for when they ask for anthro podcasts. Most of the more general focused ones suffer from a lack of regular updating and aren't always terribly interesting. Someday if this sub was ever big enough it would be fun to have a weekly podcast where we took the most upvoted question each week and invited some of the top voted contributors to that post to discuss their answers in the podcast.","human_ref_B":"This American Life isn't exactly anthropological, but I imagine an anthropologist or someone with an interest in anthropology would certainly enjoy it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30945.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1omuyj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Does anybody know of any anthropology-related podcasts? There's quite a few podcasts in different fields, just wondering if anybody knows of any anthropology-related ones?","c_root_id_A":"ccu9hxu","c_root_id_B":"ccto33y","created_at_utc_A":1382097776,"created_at_utc_B":1382028585,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the ones already mentioned, some universities randomly have a few like Kentucky. But usually they aren't updated regularly. Some of the professional organizations have podcasts aside from just the AAA. The one that does the best job providing frequent & interesting podcasts is SFAA (applied anthropology). But SFAA isn't necessarily what most anthropologists or the interested public is looking for when they ask for anthro podcasts. Most of the more general focused ones suffer from a lack of regular updating and aren't always terribly interesting. Someday if this sub was ever big enough it would be fun to have a weekly podcast where we took the most upvoted question each week and invited some of the top voted contributors to that post to discuss their answers in the podcast.","human_ref_B":"The AAA has a podcast but I think they could be better... sometimes interesting interviews with anthropologists about their work...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":69191.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1omuyj","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Does anybody know of any anthropology-related podcasts? There's quite a few podcasts in different fields, just wondering if anybody knows of any anthropology-related ones?","c_root_id_A":"ccu9hxu","c_root_id_B":"cctq2ud","created_at_utc_A":1382097776,"created_at_utc_B":1382033466,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In addition to the ones already mentioned, some universities randomly have a few like Kentucky. But usually they aren't updated regularly. Some of the professional organizations have podcasts aside from just the AAA. The one that does the best job providing frequent & interesting podcasts is SFAA (applied anthropology). But SFAA isn't necessarily what most anthropologists or the interested public is looking for when they ask for anthro podcasts. Most of the more general focused ones suffer from a lack of regular updating and aren't always terribly interesting. Someday if this sub was ever big enough it would be fun to have a weekly podcast where we took the most upvoted question each week and invited some of the top voted contributors to that post to discuss their answers in the podcast.","human_ref_B":"There was one called The Naked Anthropologist, but I just can't seem to find it. Honestly, if someone else can do a better job finding it than me, please post! I haven't listened to it in years but I remember really enjoying it while still in college.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":64310.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9pvkcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Recommended Reading Sources for Aboriginal History and Beliefs Remove if needed, but I couldn't find the weekly thread, and I wasn't sure where else to turn. Sorry! I'm gaining quite an interest more and more with the history of the Aboriginal people especially with their spiritual beliefs. I have been looking around for possible books to read, but I am having a difficult time on deciding as I would like a deep dive and not a complete introduction, and also prefer it to be a little updated. I'm trying to avoid the New Age stuff as well and have a decent unbiased view. Do any of you here have any recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"e852pqj","c_root_id_B":"e88obdc","created_at_utc_A":1540070651,"created_at_utc_B":1540223248,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"There's always \"American Indian Stories\" by Zitkala-Sa, a Dakota Cree woman who wrote down her cultural stories and experiences growing up on the plains and in residential schools in 1900. If you can find an editors edition there will be ample amount of historical context and evidence provided along with the stories.","human_ref_B":"I can recommend Sylvie Poirier and Fred Myers, both of whom are scholars of Australia's Indigenous peoples, but touch upon different themes. Poirier has written about the Dreaming, which is the origin 'myth' observed across indigenous Australia. She has a keen interest in ontology, ontology being (excuse the pun) the philosophical study of *being*. As such, she sees the study of Aboriginal (and presumably, all other) ways of life as 'dealing not so much with different world views as with different ways of being-in-the-world'. See this book chapter of hers for more. Myers has written about value-systems and things in Aboriginal societies, especially about Aboriginal acrylic finger-painting. I'd recommend ch.4 of this book about 'materiality', where he studies how Aboriginal artists respond to their artworks entering exchange systems other than their own (e.g. Western art markets), and how this raises problems in their notions of exchange, ownership and authority. If you're also interested in Maori culture, I'm aware of: * Marshall Sahlins' paper on how their mythology informed their early interactions with the British (PDF WARNING), and * David Graeber, who compares Maori philosophy with that of the Kwakiutl of America's Northwest coast in ch.6 of his book on anthropological value theory (PDF WARNING) Hope this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":152597.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9pvkcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Recommended Reading Sources for Aboriginal History and Beliefs Remove if needed, but I couldn't find the weekly thread, and I wasn't sure where else to turn. Sorry! I'm gaining quite an interest more and more with the history of the Aboriginal people especially with their spiritual beliefs. I have been looking around for possible books to read, but I am having a difficult time on deciding as I would like a deep dive and not a complete introduction, and also prefer it to be a little updated. I'm trying to avoid the New Age stuff as well and have a decent unbiased view. Do any of you here have any recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"e88obdc","c_root_id_B":"e865tcp","created_at_utc_A":1540223248,"created_at_utc_B":1540120653,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I can recommend Sylvie Poirier and Fred Myers, both of whom are scholars of Australia's Indigenous peoples, but touch upon different themes. Poirier has written about the Dreaming, which is the origin 'myth' observed across indigenous Australia. She has a keen interest in ontology, ontology being (excuse the pun) the philosophical study of *being*. As such, she sees the study of Aboriginal (and presumably, all other) ways of life as 'dealing not so much with different world views as with different ways of being-in-the-world'. See this book chapter of hers for more. Myers has written about value-systems and things in Aboriginal societies, especially about Aboriginal acrylic finger-painting. I'd recommend ch.4 of this book about 'materiality', where he studies how Aboriginal artists respond to their artworks entering exchange systems other than their own (e.g. Western art markets), and how this raises problems in their notions of exchange, ownership and authority. If you're also interested in Maori culture, I'm aware of: * Marshall Sahlins' paper on how their mythology informed their early interactions with the British (PDF WARNING), and * David Graeber, who compares Maori philosophy with that of the Kwakiutl of America's Northwest coast in ch.6 of his book on anthropological value theory (PDF WARNING) Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"Would recommend Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu for an Aboriginal view of precolonial society. Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth covers similar territory in great detail. For the 60 000 years of Australian history before European colonisation, check out the documentary First Footprints and the companion book of the same name by Scott Cane. For post-invasion history check out the documentary series First Australians, which I think is on Youtube. The books of Henry Reynolds are also a good place to start for frontier conflict history. For contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander opinion, check out IndigenousX (https:\/\/indigenousx.com.au\/), also check out Nayuka Gorrie and Celeste Liddle. Is there any aspect of Aboriginal society or culture you're particularly interested in? (Or a particular group! There were over 250 language groups alone pre-1788 - a hugely diverse continent) Can give more recommendations if I have more of an idea of what you're looking for!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":102595.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"9pvkcg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Recommended Reading Sources for Aboriginal History and Beliefs Remove if needed, but I couldn't find the weekly thread, and I wasn't sure where else to turn. Sorry! I'm gaining quite an interest more and more with the history of the Aboriginal people especially with their spiritual beliefs. I have been looking around for possible books to read, but I am having a difficult time on deciding as I would like a deep dive and not a complete introduction, and also prefer it to be a little updated. I'm trying to avoid the New Age stuff as well and have a decent unbiased view. Do any of you here have any recommendations?","c_root_id_A":"e87zud0","c_root_id_B":"e88obdc","created_at_utc_A":1540188059,"created_at_utc_B":1540223248,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"unsure whether you're talking about Aboriginal Australians or First Nations of Canada (mostly are called Aboriginal)","human_ref_B":"I can recommend Sylvie Poirier and Fred Myers, both of whom are scholars of Australia's Indigenous peoples, but touch upon different themes. Poirier has written about the Dreaming, which is the origin 'myth' observed across indigenous Australia. She has a keen interest in ontology, ontology being (excuse the pun) the philosophical study of *being*. As such, she sees the study of Aboriginal (and presumably, all other) ways of life as 'dealing not so much with different world views as with different ways of being-in-the-world'. See this book chapter of hers for more. Myers has written about value-systems and things in Aboriginal societies, especially about Aboriginal acrylic finger-painting. I'd recommend ch.4 of this book about 'materiality', where he studies how Aboriginal artists respond to their artworks entering exchange systems other than their own (e.g. Western art markets), and how this raises problems in their notions of exchange, ownership and authority. If you're also interested in Maori culture, I'm aware of: * Marshall Sahlins' paper on how their mythology informed their early interactions with the British (PDF WARNING), and * David Graeber, who compares Maori philosophy with that of the Kwakiutl of America's Northwest coast in ch.6 of his book on anthropological value theory (PDF WARNING) Hope this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35189.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1e63jo","c_root_id_B":"f1e6sho","created_at_utc_A":1569413873,"created_at_utc_B":1569414474,"score_A":13,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"Thank you for making me aware of this issue! I had not thought about this before. But I'm going to offer my opinion anyway, because I have experience as a language learner and in living in a culture with a language that was not the dominant one. It sounds like from your perspective there is a new dialect of your language developing: \"hearing people (xxx) sign language\". Language is a product of the context of its speakers, and as long as ableism exists, the mainstream\/hearing population is going to end up having their version of your language. Which sucks. I can only think of this by analogy with Quebec in my country. Quebecois has a lot of English loan words compared to MetroFrech (Paris French); but they have taken on a few conspicuous non-loan words as identity markers (fin du semain vs le week-end; stationment vs le parking) They also refer to the loan words imposed by the dominant position of Anglos in Canada as \"Franglais\" If it were me? I would refer to anyone using these new coinages as having a \"thick hearing accent\" (what do you call the sign language equivalent of an accent? Like signing unclearly or haltingly); coin a term that's maybe even a little bit pejorative for the loan words as a whole (since you say they do it because of a poor command of grammar, something like \"baby sign\"); and constantly refer to the coinages as \"unnatural\", \"awkward\", or \"non-native\" Mocking the powerful is an excellent mechanism of resistance, and in my experience as a language learner, getting rid of my accent and awkward grammar was something I tried very hard to do.","human_ref_B":"If the language is yours then they wouldn't be able to change it. I always have a problem with some group claiming ownership over culture, culture belongs to everyone. There is no way for them to make you use their invented words, so I don't understand you gripe. It would be like old people having a problem with jargon use... If you can communicate your thoughts without using their words than you are golden, if you can't then it's obvious why they were invented. On the other hand I also hate the grammar argument, just because something has been written down as a correct way to say something doesn't mean it will stay like that forever, languages are living, evolving things, some things fall out of use, and new ways of saying stuff always pop up. Grammar should follow the evolution of language, not dictate it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":601.0,"score_ratio":2.6923076923} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1e63jo","c_root_id_B":"f1efcc3","created_at_utc_A":1569413873,"created_at_utc_B":1569420929,"score_A":13,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Thank you for making me aware of this issue! I had not thought about this before. But I'm going to offer my opinion anyway, because I have experience as a language learner and in living in a culture with a language that was not the dominant one. It sounds like from your perspective there is a new dialect of your language developing: \"hearing people (xxx) sign language\". Language is a product of the context of its speakers, and as long as ableism exists, the mainstream\/hearing population is going to end up having their version of your language. Which sucks. I can only think of this by analogy with Quebec in my country. Quebecois has a lot of English loan words compared to MetroFrech (Paris French); but they have taken on a few conspicuous non-loan words as identity markers (fin du semain vs le week-end; stationment vs le parking) They also refer to the loan words imposed by the dominant position of Anglos in Canada as \"Franglais\" If it were me? I would refer to anyone using these new coinages as having a \"thick hearing accent\" (what do you call the sign language equivalent of an accent? Like signing unclearly or haltingly); coin a term that's maybe even a little bit pejorative for the loan words as a whole (since you say they do it because of a poor command of grammar, something like \"baby sign\"); and constantly refer to the coinages as \"unnatural\", \"awkward\", or \"non-native\" Mocking the powerful is an excellent mechanism of resistance, and in my experience as a language learner, getting rid of my accent and awkward grammar was something I tried very hard to do.","human_ref_B":"The thing that many of us native English speakers may not understand is that some languages have \"governing\" bodies that attempt to regulate what is or isn't part of the language. In Spain it's the Real Academia which tries to lump usage in Spain into \"real Spanish\" and usage and pronunciation from other parts of the world as \"not Spanish.\" Does that have racist implications when you look at European Spain vs the rest of the Spanish-speaking world? You betcha. I'll never forget the time a Spanish teacher in Spain tried to correct us American exchange students for pronouncing our c's and z's the way they're pronounced in Latin America instead of how they do in Spain. She insisted it was just incorrect. We're American so we had the luxury of brushing it off. Imagine what that would feel like if you were a poor South American immigrant trying to get a job or legal residency, and you were told that your native accent or dialect is \"wrong.\" And you're barred from jobs or other opportunities because you \"don't speak Spanish.\" French is worse I think, because the language authorities actively try to seek and destroy loanwords. That's all I know about how it works in French though. And so, to get back to OP's situation, now imagine that in your own home country you are a minority community with your own language. And then somehow the language authorities infiltrate your own language and try to tell you that you're wrong. They take the tool that you and your community have relied on, perhaps in the absence of any other support or resources or inclusion in the society at large, and try to take control of it and say that you're wrong. You don't actually speak this sign language that is an integral part of your community. We English speakers don't really get this because English refuses to follow rules and I think at some point the would-be language authorities just gave up. For us, any attempt at regulating the language would fail laughably before the ink dried. It's a bigger deal in other places.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7056.0,"score_ratio":1.4615384615} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1efcc3","c_root_id_B":"f1eaukj","created_at_utc_A":1569420929,"created_at_utc_B":1569417695,"score_A":19,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The thing that many of us native English speakers may not understand is that some languages have \"governing\" bodies that attempt to regulate what is or isn't part of the language. In Spain it's the Real Academia which tries to lump usage in Spain into \"real Spanish\" and usage and pronunciation from other parts of the world as \"not Spanish.\" Does that have racist implications when you look at European Spain vs the rest of the Spanish-speaking world? You betcha. I'll never forget the time a Spanish teacher in Spain tried to correct us American exchange students for pronouncing our c's and z's the way they're pronounced in Latin America instead of how they do in Spain. She insisted it was just incorrect. We're American so we had the luxury of brushing it off. Imagine what that would feel like if you were a poor South American immigrant trying to get a job or legal residency, and you were told that your native accent or dialect is \"wrong.\" And you're barred from jobs or other opportunities because you \"don't speak Spanish.\" French is worse I think, because the language authorities actively try to seek and destroy loanwords. That's all I know about how it works in French though. And so, to get back to OP's situation, now imagine that in your own home country you are a minority community with your own language. And then somehow the language authorities infiltrate your own language and try to tell you that you're wrong. They take the tool that you and your community have relied on, perhaps in the absence of any other support or resources or inclusion in the society at large, and try to take control of it and say that you're wrong. You don't actually speak this sign language that is an integral part of your community. We English speakers don't really get this because English refuses to follow rules and I think at some point the would-be language authorities just gave up. For us, any attempt at regulating the language would fail laughably before the ink dried. It's a bigger deal in other places.","human_ref_B":"a lot of comments here seem to have a very limited appreciation for languages as merely collections of words that are equal to counter-part words in other languages. despite supposedly having read the o.p. themselves, they fail to comprehend that knowing and using a language is much more meaningful, and they argue with the o.p., that to put a language through a allegorical meat-grinder like that is not destructive. it is an attack on the collective unconscious of deaf people as a whole.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3234.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1eadjx","c_root_id_B":"f1efcc3","created_at_utc_A":1569417338,"created_at_utc_B":1569420929,"score_A":7,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"You're right. Your language is beautiful and doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. And this happens in other signed languages, and minority languages in the world, too. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to address your concern constructively, because, as you say, there are many more hearing than there are deaf and the oppression of your unique dialect is not well understood outside of your community. I think it is important to speak about these issues with your community and be clear about the phrases, and distinctions that you love the most about your language. This is so that, if you ever have the chance, you can educate non-deaf signers of how important these things are to you. I think you will probably have to accept that a \"poorly signed\" version of your language is going to stay. Think of it like a foreign accent, strange and clumsy, but try to remember that the people who sign it are more important than the powers that corrupt it.","human_ref_B":"The thing that many of us native English speakers may not understand is that some languages have \"governing\" bodies that attempt to regulate what is or isn't part of the language. In Spain it's the Real Academia which tries to lump usage in Spain into \"real Spanish\" and usage and pronunciation from other parts of the world as \"not Spanish.\" Does that have racist implications when you look at European Spain vs the rest of the Spanish-speaking world? You betcha. I'll never forget the time a Spanish teacher in Spain tried to correct us American exchange students for pronouncing our c's and z's the way they're pronounced in Latin America instead of how they do in Spain. She insisted it was just incorrect. We're American so we had the luxury of brushing it off. Imagine what that would feel like if you were a poor South American immigrant trying to get a job or legal residency, and you were told that your native accent or dialect is \"wrong.\" And you're barred from jobs or other opportunities because you \"don't speak Spanish.\" French is worse I think, because the language authorities actively try to seek and destroy loanwords. That's all I know about how it works in French though. And so, to get back to OP's situation, now imagine that in your own home country you are a minority community with your own language. And then somehow the language authorities infiltrate your own language and try to tell you that you're wrong. They take the tool that you and your community have relied on, perhaps in the absence of any other support or resources or inclusion in the society at large, and try to take control of it and say that you're wrong. You don't actually speak this sign language that is an integral part of your community. We English speakers don't really get this because English refuses to follow rules and I think at some point the would-be language authorities just gave up. For us, any attempt at regulating the language would fail laughably before the ink dried. It's a bigger deal in other places.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3591.0,"score_ratio":2.7142857143} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1es32e","c_root_id_B":"f1ehsm9","created_at_utc_A":1569429022,"created_at_utc_B":1569422551,"score_A":18,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"I grew up in Hawaii, where the language sprinkled in through general education classes but definitely \"belongs\" to native Hawaiians. It's an at-risk language for an at-risk group whose language has a history of being suppressed and nearly obliterated. Yet when faced with something that their language does not cover, they just adapt the word. Pencils were completely foreign objects and had no role in a culture with an oral tradition. Hawaiian had no written language, therefore no need for writing implements. It was white people who were using pencils, not Hawaiians. Yet they adapted the word into \"penikala\", because it was more efficient than \"Long wood thing that leaves marks on the sheets that are similar to tapa cloth\". I knew the word for a long long time before I realized \"Holy shit, early Hawaiians wouldn't have a word for that!\"","human_ref_B":"OP, you're asking people to give their opinions, and the majority opinion here is that languages are flexible and should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Keep in mind it's also a very amateur, not academic, subreddit. (For example, I got a BA in anthropology approximately 10,000 years ago, which is probably about the level of certification you'll find in here.) I think a lot of the people posting here do not understand the special circumstances around the Deaf community, and the years of repression of the culture. I absolutely believe (again, my opinion) that you have a right to preserve your language. Freedom of language is related to freedom of thought, and it is a bit shocking to me that so many posters here are opposed to you, OP. You may find more understanding at a place like r\/slp or a related Deaf community. I agree with you; I see what you're describing as analogous to white girls showing up to music festivals in Sioux feather headresses (reddit has a libertarian bent, so many people here also don't have a problem with this). A great example that comes to mind of the conflict you're talking about is stuff like the invention of \"sign language gloves\". To hearing people, sign language is hand movements. So they pat themselves on the back for developing a way for hand movements to be translated, while totally missing the aspects of body language and facial expression. Here is an article about this nuance, when people outside the community are needlessly ignorant to the needs of the community: https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2017\/11\/why-sign-language-gloves-dont-help-deaf-people\/545441\/ I'm a speech language pathologist, and I had to be educated about the finer aspects of this. For example, a professor pointing out that hearing people should not choose their own sign name. It's considered disrespectful. Or the fact that Deaf parents may not choose to get their child cochlear implants, which seems unfathomable to many hearing people, but they are not catching the gravity of the cultural divide between hearing and Deaf communities.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6471.0,"score_ratio":1.0588235294} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ektj9","c_root_id_B":"f1es32e","created_at_utc_A":1569424501,"created_at_utc_B":1569429022,"score_A":16,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"> In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language? As many commentators already indicated: I don't expect any linguist to agree with you here because language is always evolving and no group has the monopoly on this. However, you feel strongly about the involvement of deaf people in the development of this language now that non-deaf people are taking interest. However, why not adopt a pragmatic approach? For example, forming committees or task forces for the development of sign language, involving people that are deaf to make sure their voices are heard, and including non-deaf people who take a special interest in the development of sign language for their own interest (including words that you wouldn't normally use). This way you're actively participating in the development instead of standing on the sideline.","human_ref_B":"I grew up in Hawaii, where the language sprinkled in through general education classes but definitely \"belongs\" to native Hawaiians. It's an at-risk language for an at-risk group whose language has a history of being suppressed and nearly obliterated. Yet when faced with something that their language does not cover, they just adapt the word. Pencils were completely foreign objects and had no role in a culture with an oral tradition. Hawaiian had no written language, therefore no need for writing implements. It was white people who were using pencils, not Hawaiians. Yet they adapted the word into \"penikala\", because it was more efficient than \"Long wood thing that leaves marks on the sheets that are similar to tapa cloth\". I knew the word for a long long time before I realized \"Holy shit, early Hawaiians wouldn't have a word for that!\"","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4521.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1es32e","c_root_id_B":"f1e63jo","created_at_utc_A":1569429022,"created_at_utc_B":1569413873,"score_A":18,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I grew up in Hawaii, where the language sprinkled in through general education classes but definitely \"belongs\" to native Hawaiians. It's an at-risk language for an at-risk group whose language has a history of being suppressed and nearly obliterated. Yet when faced with something that their language does not cover, they just adapt the word. Pencils were completely foreign objects and had no role in a culture with an oral tradition. Hawaiian had no written language, therefore no need for writing implements. It was white people who were using pencils, not Hawaiians. Yet they adapted the word into \"penikala\", because it was more efficient than \"Long wood thing that leaves marks on the sheets that are similar to tapa cloth\". I knew the word for a long long time before I realized \"Holy shit, early Hawaiians wouldn't have a word for that!\"","human_ref_B":"Thank you for making me aware of this issue! I had not thought about this before. But I'm going to offer my opinion anyway, because I have experience as a language learner and in living in a culture with a language that was not the dominant one. It sounds like from your perspective there is a new dialect of your language developing: \"hearing people (xxx) sign language\". Language is a product of the context of its speakers, and as long as ableism exists, the mainstream\/hearing population is going to end up having their version of your language. Which sucks. I can only think of this by analogy with Quebec in my country. Quebecois has a lot of English loan words compared to MetroFrech (Paris French); but they have taken on a few conspicuous non-loan words as identity markers (fin du semain vs le week-end; stationment vs le parking) They also refer to the loan words imposed by the dominant position of Anglos in Canada as \"Franglais\" If it were me? I would refer to anyone using these new coinages as having a \"thick hearing accent\" (what do you call the sign language equivalent of an accent? Like signing unclearly or haltingly); coin a term that's maybe even a little bit pejorative for the loan words as a whole (since you say they do it because of a poor command of grammar, something like \"baby sign\"); and constantly refer to the coinages as \"unnatural\", \"awkward\", or \"non-native\" Mocking the powerful is an excellent mechanism of resistance, and in my experience as a language learner, getting rid of my accent and awkward grammar was something I tried very hard to do.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15149.0,"score_ratio":1.3846153846} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1es32e","c_root_id_B":"f1eaukj","created_at_utc_A":1569429022,"created_at_utc_B":1569417695,"score_A":18,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I grew up in Hawaii, where the language sprinkled in through general education classes but definitely \"belongs\" to native Hawaiians. It's an at-risk language for an at-risk group whose language has a history of being suppressed and nearly obliterated. Yet when faced with something that their language does not cover, they just adapt the word. Pencils were completely foreign objects and had no role in a culture with an oral tradition. Hawaiian had no written language, therefore no need for writing implements. It was white people who were using pencils, not Hawaiians. Yet they adapted the word into \"penikala\", because it was more efficient than \"Long wood thing that leaves marks on the sheets that are similar to tapa cloth\". I knew the word for a long long time before I realized \"Holy shit, early Hawaiians wouldn't have a word for that!\"","human_ref_B":"a lot of comments here seem to have a very limited appreciation for languages as merely collections of words that are equal to counter-part words in other languages. despite supposedly having read the o.p. themselves, they fail to comprehend that knowing and using a language is much more meaningful, and they argue with the o.p., that to put a language through a allegorical meat-grinder like that is not destructive. it is an attack on the collective unconscious of deaf people as a whole.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11327.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1es32e","c_root_id_B":"f1eadjx","created_at_utc_A":1569429022,"created_at_utc_B":1569417338,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I grew up in Hawaii, where the language sprinkled in through general education classes but definitely \"belongs\" to native Hawaiians. It's an at-risk language for an at-risk group whose language has a history of being suppressed and nearly obliterated. Yet when faced with something that their language does not cover, they just adapt the word. Pencils were completely foreign objects and had no role in a culture with an oral tradition. Hawaiian had no written language, therefore no need for writing implements. It was white people who were using pencils, not Hawaiians. Yet they adapted the word into \"penikala\", because it was more efficient than \"Long wood thing that leaves marks on the sheets that are similar to tapa cloth\". I knew the word for a long long time before I realized \"Holy shit, early Hawaiians wouldn't have a word for that!\"","human_ref_B":"You're right. Your language is beautiful and doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. And this happens in other signed languages, and minority languages in the world, too. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to address your concern constructively, because, as you say, there are many more hearing than there are deaf and the oppression of your unique dialect is not well understood outside of your community. I think it is important to speak about these issues with your community and be clear about the phrases, and distinctions that you love the most about your language. This is so that, if you ever have the chance, you can educate non-deaf signers of how important these things are to you. I think you will probably have to accept that a \"poorly signed\" version of your language is going to stay. Think of it like a foreign accent, strange and clumsy, but try to remember that the people who sign it are more important than the powers that corrupt it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11684.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ehsm9","c_root_id_B":"f1e63jo","created_at_utc_A":1569422551,"created_at_utc_B":1569413873,"score_A":17,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"OP, you're asking people to give their opinions, and the majority opinion here is that languages are flexible and should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Keep in mind it's also a very amateur, not academic, subreddit. (For example, I got a BA in anthropology approximately 10,000 years ago, which is probably about the level of certification you'll find in here.) I think a lot of the people posting here do not understand the special circumstances around the Deaf community, and the years of repression of the culture. I absolutely believe (again, my opinion) that you have a right to preserve your language. Freedom of language is related to freedom of thought, and it is a bit shocking to me that so many posters here are opposed to you, OP. You may find more understanding at a place like r\/slp or a related Deaf community. I agree with you; I see what you're describing as analogous to white girls showing up to music festivals in Sioux feather headresses (reddit has a libertarian bent, so many people here also don't have a problem with this). A great example that comes to mind of the conflict you're talking about is stuff like the invention of \"sign language gloves\". To hearing people, sign language is hand movements. So they pat themselves on the back for developing a way for hand movements to be translated, while totally missing the aspects of body language and facial expression. Here is an article about this nuance, when people outside the community are needlessly ignorant to the needs of the community: https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2017\/11\/why-sign-language-gloves-dont-help-deaf-people\/545441\/ I'm a speech language pathologist, and I had to be educated about the finer aspects of this. For example, a professor pointing out that hearing people should not choose their own sign name. It's considered disrespectful. Or the fact that Deaf parents may not choose to get their child cochlear implants, which seems unfathomable to many hearing people, but they are not catching the gravity of the cultural divide between hearing and Deaf communities.","human_ref_B":"Thank you for making me aware of this issue! I had not thought about this before. But I'm going to offer my opinion anyway, because I have experience as a language learner and in living in a culture with a language that was not the dominant one. It sounds like from your perspective there is a new dialect of your language developing: \"hearing people (xxx) sign language\". Language is a product of the context of its speakers, and as long as ableism exists, the mainstream\/hearing population is going to end up having their version of your language. Which sucks. I can only think of this by analogy with Quebec in my country. Quebecois has a lot of English loan words compared to MetroFrech (Paris French); but they have taken on a few conspicuous non-loan words as identity markers (fin du semain vs le week-end; stationment vs le parking) They also refer to the loan words imposed by the dominant position of Anglos in Canada as \"Franglais\" If it were me? I would refer to anyone using these new coinages as having a \"thick hearing accent\" (what do you call the sign language equivalent of an accent? Like signing unclearly or haltingly); coin a term that's maybe even a little bit pejorative for the loan words as a whole (since you say they do it because of a poor command of grammar, something like \"baby sign\"); and constantly refer to the coinages as \"unnatural\", \"awkward\", or \"non-native\" Mocking the powerful is an excellent mechanism of resistance, and in my experience as a language learner, getting rid of my accent and awkward grammar was something I tried very hard to do.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8678.0,"score_ratio":1.3076923077} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ehsm9","c_root_id_B":"f1eaukj","created_at_utc_A":1569422551,"created_at_utc_B":1569417695,"score_A":17,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"OP, you're asking people to give their opinions, and the majority opinion here is that languages are flexible and should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Keep in mind it's also a very amateur, not academic, subreddit. (For example, I got a BA in anthropology approximately 10,000 years ago, which is probably about the level of certification you'll find in here.) I think a lot of the people posting here do not understand the special circumstances around the Deaf community, and the years of repression of the culture. I absolutely believe (again, my opinion) that you have a right to preserve your language. Freedom of language is related to freedom of thought, and it is a bit shocking to me that so many posters here are opposed to you, OP. You may find more understanding at a place like r\/slp or a related Deaf community. I agree with you; I see what you're describing as analogous to white girls showing up to music festivals in Sioux feather headresses (reddit has a libertarian bent, so many people here also don't have a problem with this). A great example that comes to mind of the conflict you're talking about is stuff like the invention of \"sign language gloves\". To hearing people, sign language is hand movements. So they pat themselves on the back for developing a way for hand movements to be translated, while totally missing the aspects of body language and facial expression. Here is an article about this nuance, when people outside the community are needlessly ignorant to the needs of the community: https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2017\/11\/why-sign-language-gloves-dont-help-deaf-people\/545441\/ I'm a speech language pathologist, and I had to be educated about the finer aspects of this. For example, a professor pointing out that hearing people should not choose their own sign name. It's considered disrespectful. Or the fact that Deaf parents may not choose to get their child cochlear implants, which seems unfathomable to many hearing people, but they are not catching the gravity of the cultural divide between hearing and Deaf communities.","human_ref_B":"a lot of comments here seem to have a very limited appreciation for languages as merely collections of words that are equal to counter-part words in other languages. despite supposedly having read the o.p. themselves, they fail to comprehend that knowing and using a language is much more meaningful, and they argue with the o.p., that to put a language through a allegorical meat-grinder like that is not destructive. it is an attack on the collective unconscious of deaf people as a whole.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4856.0,"score_ratio":2.125} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1eadjx","c_root_id_B":"f1ehsm9","created_at_utc_A":1569417338,"created_at_utc_B":1569422551,"score_A":7,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"You're right. Your language is beautiful and doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. And this happens in other signed languages, and minority languages in the world, too. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to address your concern constructively, because, as you say, there are many more hearing than there are deaf and the oppression of your unique dialect is not well understood outside of your community. I think it is important to speak about these issues with your community and be clear about the phrases, and distinctions that you love the most about your language. This is so that, if you ever have the chance, you can educate non-deaf signers of how important these things are to you. I think you will probably have to accept that a \"poorly signed\" version of your language is going to stay. Think of it like a foreign accent, strange and clumsy, but try to remember that the people who sign it are more important than the powers that corrupt it.","human_ref_B":"OP, you're asking people to give their opinions, and the majority opinion here is that languages are flexible and should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Keep in mind it's also a very amateur, not academic, subreddit. (For example, I got a BA in anthropology approximately 10,000 years ago, which is probably about the level of certification you'll find in here.) I think a lot of the people posting here do not understand the special circumstances around the Deaf community, and the years of repression of the culture. I absolutely believe (again, my opinion) that you have a right to preserve your language. Freedom of language is related to freedom of thought, and it is a bit shocking to me that so many posters here are opposed to you, OP. You may find more understanding at a place like r\/slp or a related Deaf community. I agree with you; I see what you're describing as analogous to white girls showing up to music festivals in Sioux feather headresses (reddit has a libertarian bent, so many people here also don't have a problem with this). A great example that comes to mind of the conflict you're talking about is stuff like the invention of \"sign language gloves\". To hearing people, sign language is hand movements. So they pat themselves on the back for developing a way for hand movements to be translated, while totally missing the aspects of body language and facial expression. Here is an article about this nuance, when people outside the community are needlessly ignorant to the needs of the community: https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2017\/11\/why-sign-language-gloves-dont-help-deaf-people\/545441\/ I'm a speech language pathologist, and I had to be educated about the finer aspects of this. For example, a professor pointing out that hearing people should not choose their own sign name. It's considered disrespectful. Or the fact that Deaf parents may not choose to get their child cochlear implants, which seems unfathomable to many hearing people, but they are not catching the gravity of the cultural divide between hearing and Deaf communities.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5213.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ektj9","c_root_id_B":"f1e63jo","created_at_utc_A":1569424501,"created_at_utc_B":1569413873,"score_A":16,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"> In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language? As many commentators already indicated: I don't expect any linguist to agree with you here because language is always evolving and no group has the monopoly on this. However, you feel strongly about the involvement of deaf people in the development of this language now that non-deaf people are taking interest. However, why not adopt a pragmatic approach? For example, forming committees or task forces for the development of sign language, involving people that are deaf to make sure their voices are heard, and including non-deaf people who take a special interest in the development of sign language for their own interest (including words that you wouldn't normally use). This way you're actively participating in the development instead of standing on the sideline.","human_ref_B":"Thank you for making me aware of this issue! I had not thought about this before. But I'm going to offer my opinion anyway, because I have experience as a language learner and in living in a culture with a language that was not the dominant one. It sounds like from your perspective there is a new dialect of your language developing: \"hearing people (xxx) sign language\". Language is a product of the context of its speakers, and as long as ableism exists, the mainstream\/hearing population is going to end up having their version of your language. Which sucks. I can only think of this by analogy with Quebec in my country. Quebecois has a lot of English loan words compared to MetroFrech (Paris French); but they have taken on a few conspicuous non-loan words as identity markers (fin du semain vs le week-end; stationment vs le parking) They also refer to the loan words imposed by the dominant position of Anglos in Canada as \"Franglais\" If it were me? I would refer to anyone using these new coinages as having a \"thick hearing accent\" (what do you call the sign language equivalent of an accent? Like signing unclearly or haltingly); coin a term that's maybe even a little bit pejorative for the loan words as a whole (since you say they do it because of a poor command of grammar, something like \"baby sign\"); and constantly refer to the coinages as \"unnatural\", \"awkward\", or \"non-native\" Mocking the powerful is an excellent mechanism of resistance, and in my experience as a language learner, getting rid of my accent and awkward grammar was something I tried very hard to do.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10628.0,"score_ratio":1.2307692308} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1eaukj","c_root_id_B":"f1ektj9","created_at_utc_A":1569417695,"created_at_utc_B":1569424501,"score_A":8,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"a lot of comments here seem to have a very limited appreciation for languages as merely collections of words that are equal to counter-part words in other languages. despite supposedly having read the o.p. themselves, they fail to comprehend that knowing and using a language is much more meaningful, and they argue with the o.p., that to put a language through a allegorical meat-grinder like that is not destructive. it is an attack on the collective unconscious of deaf people as a whole.","human_ref_B":"> In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language? As many commentators already indicated: I don't expect any linguist to agree with you here because language is always evolving and no group has the monopoly on this. However, you feel strongly about the involvement of deaf people in the development of this language now that non-deaf people are taking interest. However, why not adopt a pragmatic approach? For example, forming committees or task forces for the development of sign language, involving people that are deaf to make sure their voices are heard, and including non-deaf people who take a special interest in the development of sign language for their own interest (including words that you wouldn't normally use). This way you're actively participating in the development instead of standing on the sideline.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6806.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ektj9","c_root_id_B":"f1eadjx","created_at_utc_A":1569424501,"created_at_utc_B":1569417338,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"> In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language? As many commentators already indicated: I don't expect any linguist to agree with you here because language is always evolving and no group has the monopoly on this. However, you feel strongly about the involvement of deaf people in the development of this language now that non-deaf people are taking interest. However, why not adopt a pragmatic approach? For example, forming committees or task forces for the development of sign language, involving people that are deaf to make sure their voices are heard, and including non-deaf people who take a special interest in the development of sign language for their own interest (including words that you wouldn't normally use). This way you're actively participating in the development instead of standing on the sideline.","human_ref_B":"You're right. Your language is beautiful and doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. And this happens in other signed languages, and minority languages in the world, too. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to address your concern constructively, because, as you say, there are many more hearing than there are deaf and the oppression of your unique dialect is not well understood outside of your community. I think it is important to speak about these issues with your community and be clear about the phrases, and distinctions that you love the most about your language. This is so that, if you ever have the chance, you can educate non-deaf signers of how important these things are to you. I think you will probably have to accept that a \"poorly signed\" version of your language is going to stay. Think of it like a foreign accent, strange and clumsy, but try to remember that the people who sign it are more important than the powers that corrupt it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7163.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1eaukj","c_root_id_B":"f1eadjx","created_at_utc_A":1569417695,"created_at_utc_B":1569417338,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"a lot of comments here seem to have a very limited appreciation for languages as merely collections of words that are equal to counter-part words in other languages. despite supposedly having read the o.p. themselves, they fail to comprehend that knowing and using a language is much more meaningful, and they argue with the o.p., that to put a language through a allegorical meat-grinder like that is not destructive. it is an attack on the collective unconscious of deaf people as a whole.","human_ref_B":"You're right. Your language is beautiful and doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. And this happens in other signed languages, and minority languages in the world, too. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to address your concern constructively, because, as you say, there are many more hearing than there are deaf and the oppression of your unique dialect is not well understood outside of your community. I think it is important to speak about these issues with your community and be clear about the phrases, and distinctions that you love the most about your language. This is so that, if you ever have the chance, you can educate non-deaf signers of how important these things are to you. I think you will probably have to accept that a \"poorly signed\" version of your language is going to stay. Think of it like a foreign accent, strange and clumsy, but try to remember that the people who sign it are more important than the powers that corrupt it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":357.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1evbzo","c_root_id_B":"f1g1gi5","created_at_utc_A":1569431071,"created_at_utc_B":1569457778,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"So to clarify-is this a case of specific terminology that's not in common use(technical vocabulary, say) being \"translated\" by coining a new sign as opposed to fingerspelling the terms, or trying to use terms that just don't make sense in the grammatical structure of your sign language(say, making up a different sign for \"go\" and \"went\" when your sl doesn't require separate signs because of the way tense works)? Those seem like pretty substantially different situations even if they're equally problematic. The big problem IMO is that non-native speakers are coming up with terminology and claiming it is \"part of the language\" when it may not be accessible to or known to native signers-imagine a bunch of English speakers learning a language that doesn't use a definite article or declines nouns for definiteness rather than having a standalone article and deciding there must be a word for \"the\", then going around insisting on using some made-up equivalent when talking to native speakers.","human_ref_B":"I do not think that the majority of people answering this question are anthropologists or linguists. Keep that in mind.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26707.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1g1gi5","c_root_id_B":"f1f1bgv","created_at_utc_A":1569457778,"created_at_utc_B":1569434915,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I do not think that the majority of people answering this question are anthropologists or linguists. Keep that in mind.","human_ref_B":"OP, you are absolutely correct. This isn't a linguistics issue, but an ableism issue. It's similar to accommodations and healthcare for disabled people being designed and implemented with no input from the people who will be using them, such as wheelchair ramps being designed without consulting wheelchair users. (I'm not suggesting that sign language is \"just\" an accommodation, and I know it's part of Deaf culture, but I hope this analogy is helpful.) There's a saying in the US disability community, \"Nothing about us without us.\" That seems to be exactly the problem you're facing here.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22863.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1g1gi5","c_root_id_B":"f1ezy70","created_at_utc_A":1569457778,"created_at_utc_B":1569434050,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I do not think that the majority of people answering this question are anthropologists or linguists. Keep that in mind.","human_ref_B":"I'm having trouble conceiving of a \"word\" that the hearing users of your language might want to use that the deaf users have no use for. Do you mean a sign for something like the sound of an alarm?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23728.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1evbzo","c_root_id_B":"f1f1bgv","created_at_utc_A":1569431071,"created_at_utc_B":1569434915,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"So to clarify-is this a case of specific terminology that's not in common use(technical vocabulary, say) being \"translated\" by coining a new sign as opposed to fingerspelling the terms, or trying to use terms that just don't make sense in the grammatical structure of your sign language(say, making up a different sign for \"go\" and \"went\" when your sl doesn't require separate signs because of the way tense works)? Those seem like pretty substantially different situations even if they're equally problematic. The big problem IMO is that non-native speakers are coming up with terminology and claiming it is \"part of the language\" when it may not be accessible to or known to native signers-imagine a bunch of English speakers learning a language that doesn't use a definite article or declines nouns for definiteness rather than having a standalone article and deciding there must be a word for \"the\", then going around insisting on using some made-up equivalent when talking to native speakers.","human_ref_B":"OP, you are absolutely correct. This isn't a linguistics issue, but an ableism issue. It's similar to accommodations and healthcare for disabled people being designed and implemented with no input from the people who will be using them, such as wheelchair ramps being designed without consulting wheelchair users. (I'm not suggesting that sign language is \"just\" an accommodation, and I know it's part of Deaf culture, but I hope this analogy is helpful.) There's a saying in the US disability community, \"Nothing about us without us.\" That seems to be exactly the problem you're facing here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3844.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"d90op2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Interfering with the deaf community's sign language - is it acceptable? I'd like to seek advice from linguists and anthropologists in general. I am deaf myself therefore English is not my first language. Please bear with my English. Many thanks in advance! :-) It is about some people who keep interfering with this language used by a minority group. It is not even their mother tongue (for the ones who interfere). Right now I am talking about this specific sign language used in a specific European country. This language is not that old but it is growing, maturing...let's say 300 year old? My language is finally recognised as a real language by my country in many ways however the people, from the majority language group, decided to jump on the bandwagon, learning my language. And now the shit has hit the fan. My country has decided that my language, this sign language, can be taught outside my community. To other people who are not deaf, but hearing. That is fine with us. More accessibility, the better for us deafies. Then they go to university to study my language, where they are taught by native signers, the users who use my sign language as their mother language. Then once graduated, they go and teach sign language to other people. Nice thought there, yeah. Here comes this problem. With this, comes with some more problems. Hearing teachers of my language: they now have the feeling that there must be a sign for every word that exists in their own language. But we deaf people try and stop them by saying, \"Hold on, we DO not use this word! You may need a specific word in your language but there are other ways to express the same concept in our sign language without the need to use words borrowed from your language!\" It is perfectly possible for sign languages to have their own strategy to describe the same thing, using a few signs but yet it is understood with no difficulty. Our language has its own visual grammar with its own rules, iconicity and all that. You might say it is a three-dimensional language even though sign linguists won't use that term! If hearing people still want to express themselves using specific words (from their language), they can always fingerspell it. We have a finger-spelling alphabet in our sign language for that. But hearing people are bleating, \"No, finger-spelling is way too hard for us to understand!\" but in this case for us deafies, we don't have a problem with it! Now hearing people are saying, fingerspelling is way too hard. \"So please create new signs for the words right now!\" But, with every language, there are never a case of having fully perfect translations from one language to other language. But, hark! Hearing teachers continue insisting that deaf people have to create new signs or the teachers will go create the \"needed signs\" themselves which will be taught to their hearing students. To me and for my deaf community, it blandly shows the lack of respect for us. However our hearing peers has trouble understanding this act of insensitivity. Unfortunately, the hearing world is a lot bigger than the deaf community. We have an increasing number of hearing people graduating from University, \"qualified\" in teaching our sign language even if they do not have the fluency needed. We have a very unique sitaution where the hearing group overshadows the group of deaf teachers. There is a huge shift of power. I feel that is harmful and not respectful for the deaf community. It is our language. Hearing teachers are now saying, \"Ah, if there are no signs for that and this, let's create this new sign!\" and now they are developing an online discussion group where they discuss new signs etc...without any input from deaf teachers, never mind the deaf community! I have shown my concerns to them, saying that they need to stop. Sign language can only be developed further by the deaf community, especially by deafies whose first\/preferred language is sign language. Yet they claimed innocence, ignoring my concerns (and the deaf community's concerns). In general, minority languages should be respected and developed by native speakers, no matter what. Do you think that sounds about right? What will I say to the people who are interfering with our language, not showing us respect? Especially when it is not their native language?","c_root_id_A":"f1ezy70","c_root_id_B":"f1f1bgv","created_at_utc_A":1569434050,"created_at_utc_B":1569434915,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I'm having trouble conceiving of a \"word\" that the hearing users of your language might want to use that the deaf users have no use for. Do you mean a sign for something like the sound of an alarm?","human_ref_B":"OP, you are absolutely correct. This isn't a linguistics issue, but an ableism issue. It's similar to accommodations and healthcare for disabled people being designed and implemented with no input from the people who will be using them, such as wheelchair ramps being designed without consulting wheelchair users. (I'm not suggesting that sign language is \"just\" an accommodation, and I know it's part of Deaf culture, but I hope this analogy is helpful.) There's a saying in the US disability community, \"Nothing about us without us.\" That seems to be exactly the problem you're facing here.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":865.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8n5mnb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"When did human consciousness emerge and evidence is most indicative of it? Modern humans have an undeniably different consciousness than modern Chimpanzees. Human consciousness is unique and uniquely capable. Six or seven million years ago our ancestral species was the same as the ancestral species of the Chimpanzees. We were the same. So our modern human consciousness must have arisen sometime during the past six to seven million years. But what evidence is most indicative of this: the first stone tools - 3m years ago?, control of fire - 750,000 years ago, intentional human burial - 100,000 years ago, cave paintings - 40,000 years ago? the shift to agriculture and living in towns - 11,000 years ago? the emergence of writing - 3-4,000 years ago. Julian Jaynes famously claimed it was just 3-4,000 years ago, in 1976. Others believe it has been with us as long as our species. What do you think and which evidence best supports it?","c_root_id_A":"dztdxc6","c_root_id_B":"dzt1k1w","created_at_utc_A":1527679323,"created_at_utc_B":1527655809,"score_A":7,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"OP it might help to define what you're looking for. Consciousness is something that psychologists study but often are trying to look at brain activity (think coma, brain trauma, etc.) , which we clearly cannot measure from fossils. In that context, most animals would have consciousness. So it might help to think about the discreet pieces of thought that might indicate what you're curious about. Symbolic behavior and abstract thought, perhaps?","human_ref_B":"The premise of your first sentence is false.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23514.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"6j6fmz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The anthropology of death? I'm looking for any literature I can get. It can be medical, spiritual, bereavement practices, rituals, cosmologies, anything surrounding the topic of death. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"djch7c6","c_root_id_B":"djc1nva","created_at_utc_A":1498322989,"created_at_utc_B":1498292066,"score_A":13,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"You could look up funerary archaeology. The biggest book in the field is probably The Archaeology of Death and Burial by Michael Parker Pearson.","human_ref_B":"You can have a look at Beth Conklin's 2001 title Consuming Grief. There's also a somewhat standard upper college division reading, Nancy Scheper-Hughes's Death Without Weeping.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30923.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"6j6fmz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The anthropology of death? I'm looking for any literature I can get. It can be medical, spiritual, bereavement practices, rituals, cosmologies, anything surrounding the topic of death. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"djcailr","c_root_id_B":"djch7c6","created_at_utc_A":1498313615,"created_at_utc_B":1498322989,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Death to Dust: What Happens To Dead Bodies by Kenneth Iserson","human_ref_B":"You could look up funerary archaeology. The biggest book in the field is probably The Archaeology of Death and Burial by Michael Parker Pearson.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9374.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"6j6fmz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The anthropology of death? I'm looking for any literature I can get. It can be medical, spiritual, bereavement practices, rituals, cosmologies, anything surrounding the topic of death. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"djc0hms","c_root_id_B":"djch7c6","created_at_utc_A":1498288922,"created_at_utc_B":1498322989,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I find the Torajan of Indonesia pretty fascinating. Here's an article. I haven't read any specific books on them, but there is some ethnographic work in them. They incorporate the dead into their daily lives, and cultural traditions. Very interesting and unique.","human_ref_B":"You could look up funerary archaeology. The biggest book in the field is probably The Archaeology of Death and Burial by Michael Parker Pearson.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":34067.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"6j6fmz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The anthropology of death? I'm looking for any literature I can get. It can be medical, spiritual, bereavement practices, rituals, cosmologies, anything surrounding the topic of death. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"djc0hms","c_root_id_B":"djc1nva","created_at_utc_A":1498288922,"created_at_utc_B":1498292066,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I find the Torajan of Indonesia pretty fascinating. Here's an article. I haven't read any specific books on them, but there is some ethnographic work in them. They incorporate the dead into their daily lives, and cultural traditions. Very interesting and unique.","human_ref_B":"You can have a look at Beth Conklin's 2001 title Consuming Grief. There's also a somewhat standard upper college division reading, Nancy Scheper-Hughes's Death Without Weeping.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3144.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"6j6fmz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"The anthropology of death? I'm looking for any literature I can get. It can be medical, spiritual, bereavement practices, rituals, cosmologies, anything surrounding the topic of death. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"djcailr","c_root_id_B":"djc0hms","created_at_utc_A":1498313615,"created_at_utc_B":1498288922,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Death to Dust: What Happens To Dead Bodies by Kenneth Iserson","human_ref_B":"I find the Torajan of Indonesia pretty fascinating. Here's an article. I haven't read any specific books on them, but there is some ethnographic work in them. They incorporate the dead into their daily lives, and cultural traditions. Very interesting and unique.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":24693.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"82gu86","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"What gave rise to the \"weeaboo?\" How come there is such a noticeable amount of Americans obsessed with escapism through superficial Japanese culture?","c_root_id_A":"dvbdxqh","c_root_id_B":"dvad4tb","created_at_utc_A":1520422752,"created_at_utc_B":1520371838,"score_A":12,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Coming late to the thread, but let's correct loads of the information going around here. Unfortunately I've left most of my books on *otaku studies* in my home country, so most of this is from memory. Fist of all, \/u\/Pale_Chapter is entirely correct in their interpretation. Anime has, in its origins, a deep influence from the West, but also from Japanese traditional art. Osamu Tezuka, \"the God of anime\", was deeply influenced by **both** Walt Disney and *takarazuka* theatre, just to give two examples. And as they said, how anime came to the West is a history on itself -- the short version is that the sucess of Japanese media in the West is due to many reasons, one of which was the existence of the Comics Code Authority, which lowkey censored U.S. comics and, consequently, cartoons. So during some decades, U.S. children and teenagers grew up in a culture in which drawn images were seen as childish, and could not portray graphic violence, death, sexual motifs, and sometimes even political themes. Although of course there were countermovements to this (particularly in the niche of adult graphic novels), the general *zeitgeist* in U.S. culture was that cartoons were made for children, **and** children-focused media had to be sanitised otherwise the youth would fall into depravation, degeneracy, and delinquency. Thus, when Japanese media started to spread into the U.S. -- firstly, as far as I can assess, through imported VHS and Betamax tapes distributed through the Japanese diaspora, although there are early cases of anime being broadcasted in Hawaii -- *before* commercial enterprises such as dubbed or subbed anime, U.S. audiences were exposed to stuff they had quite literally never seen before. It was such a fever that it wasn't uncommon for anime to be exhibited without any translation whatsoever -- people would distribute leaflets with a general synopsis of the episode, or even cases such as this (in the early days of the Cornell Japanese Animation Society): > Masaki and Kay would decide what to show (mostly from Masaki\u2019s large collection), and Masaki would do real-time verbal translation of what was being shown, since most of his collection was raw, untranslated anime. [1] And even when companies started to officially bring anime to the U.S. (either butchered up and dubbed, such as Robotech, or released as-is and subbed, such as Madox-01 and Gunbuster), this feeling of novelty regarding anime was widely spread -- and reinforced with happenings such as the theatrical exhibition of *Akira* in the late 80s\/early 90s. Anime was considered to be a new kind of media, unlike any other seen before in U.S. soil. (and this is the limit of my historical knowledge of *otaku* culture in the U.S. -- as my own research was based in Brazil, the phenomenon happened differently there). -------------------------------------- Going for the second part of your question -- which you weirdly framed as > Americans obsessed with escapism through superficial Japanese culture In more contemporary times, anime's widespread popularity inserts itself within broader movements of media engagement -- the steep rise of \"fandoms\" in the 80s, coupled with the increasing popularity of fan conventions, made it easier for people to acquire or access media, but most of all created the kind of **sociability** that allowed this phenomenon to thrive. This sociability only increased with things such as BBS\/Usenet (I believe alt.anime was an early example), and of course the Internet. I say this because, now directly tackling your question, *anime fandom in the West was always somewhat subversive* -- in the sense that the kind of person that was drawn to anime was usually the kind of person that eschewed mainstream Western media. Maybe they did so because they were outcasts, or they were outcasts because they did so. But nevertheless, the otaku community -- and similar communities such as SciFi, D&D, and other \"freaks and geeks\" -- *tended* to be a place in which these people were allowed to be themselves without judgements. Or, rather, they had *more leeway* to be themselves, with *less* judgment than among broader society. People could be fat, socially awkward, and generally weird, without it being an issue to their peers -- something almost unheard of in the previous decades. (caveat: although the anime fandom was also *easier on* non-hegemonic sexualities, and sometimes gave people the possibility to discover themselves, the sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny was, and is, still an issue) In any case, what most scholars consider to be the reasons for the success of the anime fandom is this double-pronged characteristic: aside from the allure of the media itself (which is a highly vibrant and innovative media, in many aspects unparalleled elsewhere), the socio-historical-cultural moment in which the fandom appeared allowed it to foster a sense of community for people that had otherwise no such outlet. And I'd personally argue that there's nothing particularly \"escapist\" or \"superficial\" about that. ---------------------------- #Sources and further reading Lawrence ENG. *Otaku engagements: Subcultural appropriation of science and technology* Patrick GALBRAITH. *The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan* ________________ et al. (eds.) *Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan: Historical Perspectives and New Horizons* Mimi ITO et al (eds.) *Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World* Frederik L. SCHODT. *Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics* _______________. *Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga*","human_ref_B":"So my opinion not back by any study is that it's just a general fascination with martial or semi martial cultures. I've noticed a lot of simarity with people who are all about the wild west and guns vs people who are into katana and Japan vs people who are into Vikings and such. I think we just take more notice of weebs because it's \"not their culture\" but honestly it's not any more removed from your general American then the wild west.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":50914.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"81lxkw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Need help identifying bones found in an abandoned graveyard Hello, I found these bones in an abandoned graveyard, where some human remains have been known to surface. If anyone could help identify them as human or not, so that I know if this is worth notifying anyone about, I'd be very grateful. The longest long bone is around four inches long, and there are people of all different ages buried in the graveyard, if that helps. * Overview * Closeup of long bones * Another overview Thank you very kindly in advance.","c_root_id_A":"dv3y7n1","c_root_id_B":"dv3uai5","created_at_utc_A":1520054552,"created_at_utc_B":1520048813,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Likely nonhuman. Looks like the foot bones of some animal based on what look like metatarsals (the \"long bones\") and possibly tarsals (?). I'm studying human osteo, so animals aren't my forte. Straight on pictures with some sort of scale would be appreciated!","human_ref_B":"A scale would be nice, but I see an astragalus in the second overview photo, which is a nonhuman bone.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5739.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"32okhk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Why didn't South-East Asian (Like Indonesians) colonize Australia. The Aborigines reached Australia around 40 000 years ago, but after their arrival, it seems they became completely isolated from South-East Asia (I know that sea-levels at this time were a lot lower). Looking on a map though, it seems that the top of Australia and the rest of the South-East Asian islands are roughly in equal distance from each other. Why didn't Southeast Asians from any era (lets say for this question the middle-ages) spread further down to Australia? Or did they?","c_root_id_A":"cqd4uf3","c_root_id_B":"cqd4im2","created_at_utc_A":1429107472,"created_at_utc_B":1429106880,"score_A":24,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"a\/ theres no definitively stated reason, but.. b\/I'd largely agree with nothomwhenaway. You leave tropical Indonesia and sail by the most direct route to Australia and you're faced with thousands of miles of scrubby desert. The people there probably just failed to see any incentive in expanding. Part of this is that its easy to forget that not ALL nations have an expansionary mindset, this was largely a European thing. Secondly the areas that ARE suitable for settlement are still thousands of miles from Indonesia and required, at first, a capable transport capacity. So, a non-expansionary people with a very limited technology set probably felt there was no benefit in the colonisation. However an industrial era expansionist colonistic culture comes a country that appears largely empty, and it has the capacity to settle it and support it, and hello Australia. Of course in Britains case they needed somewhere to dump their criminals as their previous dumping ground had inconveniently gone independent a few years back","human_ref_B":"According to Jarrod Diamonds Guns, Germs and Steel (http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies\/dp\/0393317552) There was continuous contact between people on the Australian continent and other tribes\\peoples living in what is today Papua New-Guinea across the Torres Strait also after the initial crossing of Aborigines. Trade was conducted indirectly trough various tribes that lived on the islands that lie in the strait. But the peoples living on New-Guinea where not adapted to life on the Australian continent. The carrying capacity of the Australian continent was low and life there was only possible for a relatively small number of people that where specially adapted to it conditions, in terms of technology and lifestyle. People that live across the Torres Strait did not have plants or animals that could sustain them easily on the other side of the strait, or the knowledge of how to live of the land there. If they did cross they would have no particular advantage over the Aborigines that might let them out compete them.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":592.0,"score_ratio":1.7142857143} {"post_id":"91nztq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are some interesting theories that can today be corroborated using genomics?","c_root_id_A":"e2zwugx","c_root_id_B":"e2zh8lq","created_at_utc_A":1532510229,"created_at_utc_B":1532487069,"score_A":16,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"That we are more closely related to archaea than bacteria, for one.","human_ref_B":"This is a very broad question. You might be able to get better responses by narrowing it down a little bit. What sort of theories are you potentially interested in?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":23160.0,"score_ratio":3.2} {"post_id":"91nztq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"What are some interesting theories that can today be corroborated using genomics?","c_root_id_A":"e2zh8lq","c_root_id_B":"e30bil2","created_at_utc_A":1532487069,"created_at_utc_B":1532529715,"score_A":5,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"This is a very broad question. You might be able to get better responses by narrowing it down a little bit. What sort of theories are you potentially interested in?","human_ref_B":"The Indo Ayran (not Nazi Aryan) invasion of India, plus the expansion of the Yamna culture from the steppes about 4.5k. It looks like Indo European languages were from the steppes, and were brought into India by horse riding invaders who now make up a lot of the ancestry of the upper castes. You can tell this from the Y chr ancestry in Europe and India, a lot of it comes from the Yamna. Also it looks like Chadic languages (the oldest branch of Afro Asiatic) originated in the Anatolia, because the Y chr of Chadic speaking men is a variant of R1b and that is not native to Africa. It's approx. date of entry matches the Neolithic expansion. Which does an awful lot to support Afro Asiatic as a west Asian language group that spread into Africa. Languages tend to follow Y chromosomes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":42646.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"nx9jjs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Ethnography situated in a sanatorium\/ prison\/ rehab Hello! I'm looking for an ethnography that's situated in either a sanatorium, prison or rehabilitation centre, or maybe an amalgamation of the three. Basically, any institutional corrective facility in the broader sense. I'm sure there are many, but I'm a bit new to anthropology, so I don't know where to begin. Books, documentaries, research papers and links to the same are all appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"h1dxkwy","c_root_id_B":"h1dpjqy","created_at_utc_A":1623406456,"created_at_utc_B":1623399020,"score_A":6,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Madness and civilisation by Foucault isn't so much an ethnography but a good bit of theory when it comes to othering of people and locking them away, might be a helpful reference https:\/\/b-ok.cc\/book\/638522\/9049b7","human_ref_B":"If you can get hold of a copy, Institutional Neurosis by Russel Barton is a fascinating read. It dates back to the 1950s and looks at the effects of institutionalisation on behavior.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7436.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"nx9jjs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Ethnography situated in a sanatorium\/ prison\/ rehab Hello! I'm looking for an ethnography that's situated in either a sanatorium, prison or rehabilitation centre, or maybe an amalgamation of the three. Basically, any institutional corrective facility in the broader sense. I'm sure there are many, but I'm a bit new to anthropology, so I don't know where to begin. Books, documentaries, research papers and links to the same are all appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"h1e623a","c_root_id_B":"h1dpjqy","created_at_utc_A":1623412714,"created_at_utc_B":1623399020,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Jo\u00e3o Biehl's \"Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment\" is definitely an interesting one, though it's a bit unorthodox. Here's a review.","human_ref_B":"If you can get hold of a copy, Institutional Neurosis by Russel Barton is a fascinating read. It dates back to the 1950s and looks at the effects of institutionalisation on behavior.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13694.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"nx9jjs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Ethnography situated in a sanatorium\/ prison\/ rehab Hello! I'm looking for an ethnography that's situated in either a sanatorium, prison or rehabilitation centre, or maybe an amalgamation of the three. Basically, any institutional corrective facility in the broader sense. I'm sure there are many, but I'm a bit new to anthropology, so I don't know where to begin. Books, documentaries, research papers and links to the same are all appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"h1dpjqy","c_root_id_B":"h1ed3mi","created_at_utc_A":1623399020,"created_at_utc_B":1623416798,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you can get hold of a copy, Institutional Neurosis by Russel Barton is a fascinating read. It dates back to the 1950s and looks at the effects of institutionalisation on behavior.","human_ref_B":"Louix Theroux has done a whole series on prisons (or jails, actually??) in the US I think, and then some more episodes on different institutions for different programs. Also I definitely second Goffman's Asylums!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17778.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2dbn5c","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.69,"history":"Why do people believe religion ala cafeteria? I.e. they select specific doctrine they will follow and will not. On the negative side we have many Islamist countries like Pakistan and Iran not following Archtiname of Muhammad which instructs all Muslims to protect churches and monasteries and allow freedom of religion. On the positive side we have gay devout Christians and Muslims even though traditionally homosexuality is deemed inappropriate by the religion.","c_root_id_A":"cjo4c0h","c_root_id_B":"cjo4i7t","created_at_utc_A":1407857751,"created_at_utc_B":1407858077,"score_A":5,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"1. Their religion, as described to them via their parents & educators, is not the same as that religion, as described in scholarly literature. They usually have more than one source for their religious belief, and those sources likely presented the religious ideas inconsistently. Everyone's \"religion\", in the sense of \"what they've been taught to believe\", is different. It usually includes some, but not all, of the official orthodoxy. 2. That orthodoxy is inconsistent or incomplete, by logical necessity, as are all logical systems. 3. What \/u\/winjer said. More e.g. here (as theological evaluation--heavy on the prescription!)","human_ref_B":"This is a very complex thing to answer. It is important to remember that all religion is lived religion (AKA vernacular religion.) In other words, Islam is about more than the Qur'an, hadiths, and mosque. Muslims carry their faith with them as they walk out of the mosque and then have the interpret the world around them based upon their religious teachings, ethics, personal relationships, desires, politics, economic situations, etc. Despite attempts by certain groups to recreate the time of the Prophet (or Jesus or any other charismatic leader) the faith group can never actually go back to that. Thus, the life and teachings of the prophet and\/or text are always historically situated and must be interpreted for the constantly changing reality of the followers. Religion is not a thing that is static or constant. To talk about it as such is to reify it. Instead, religion is a set of ideas and beliefs that are often based upon texts and prophets\/leaders but which by their nature must always adapt to be meaningful to the lives of the people that practice them. This means that at times people will inevitably disagree about interpretations or ways to apply that faith to the world around them. You can't live the life of the prophet because that world no longer exists. So people have to choose what is still relevant or applicable. They have to interpret larger meanings or intentions of those teachings. Sometimes, practitioners might feel that certain teachings or rules really only applied to that historic context and aren't relevant anymore, while others disagree. Personal desires and politics also come into play and influence how this occurs. Clifford Geertz's classic example was a Javanese funeral. A young man named Paidjan suddenly died, but due to the deceased\u2019s affiliations with Permai (a political and mysticism movement) the local Muslim leader refused at first to bury him according to traditional Islamic methods. In Java, bodies are usually buried quickly and with iklas, which is the lack of emotional distress, in a communal setting. However, without the option of the traditional method of Islamic burial, the friends and family of the deceased were at a loss for how to treat the dead and became greatly distraught. They were forced to throw together a funeral that lacked the symbols, consensus, and authority typically used for such an event. This is because the social and political climate of Java had changed, where members of the community no longer shared a unified religious belief, but the practical matters of issues such as funerals had not yet adjusted to the change. In sum, the disruption of Paidjan\u2019s funeral may be traced to a single source: \u201can incongruity between the cultural framework of meaning and the patterning of social interaction, an incongruity due to the persistence in an urban environment of a religious symbol system adjusted to peasant social structure\" (1973:169). This incongruity meant the ritual failed to synthesize ethos and worldview. Geertz uses this Javanese example in an attempt to deal with what happens when culture is not just reinforced in a stagnant manner. He introduces the concept of intellectual systematizers which are individuals who attempt to forge new and more self-conscious systems of cultural meanings in the face of changed social realities. Yet, if alterations to rituals make it a failure, how do intellectual systematizers create new and still successful rites? It is worth asking whether there is ever a ritual where every individual\u2019s personal system of symbols map perfectly onto the collective expression. Almost all rituals contain the possibility for variations that do not disqualify the rite from social acceptance. Would the funeral have been a disaster if the imam had agreed to hold the funeral but added a warning about the political and religious dangers of Permai? Or, if the imam had held the funeral in the traditional Javanese Muslim fashion, would Permai attendees who do not hold Muslim beliefs have ruined the funeral even if they participated appropriately? Most cultures provide a range of acceptable responses to a situation. I suggest that while some cultural shifts do occur through self-conscious action, many also change slowly over time through small adjustments that are not seen as important enough to alter a ritual\u2019s efficacy. In sum, all religions have to adapt and change in order to remain relevant to the lives of the people who practice them. But those shifts require downplaying certain aspects, emphasizing others, and creating new ones. Over time this means that not only will the religion change from how it was initially practiced but divisions may occur.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":326.0,"score_ratio":7.4} {"post_id":"8yf4lv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I'm gay, I'm wondering why evolution would allow that when it's so difficult to reproduce? I'd really like an anthropological perspective on this.","c_root_id_A":"e2aipll","c_root_id_B":"e2agi42","created_at_utc_A":1531444730,"created_at_utc_B":1531442625,"score_A":106,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Why would homosexuality necessarily have anything to do with evolution? Not every single trait is adaptive or has arisen through natural or sexual selection. Trying to figure out an etiology of homosexuality in order to fit it into an evolutionary narrative will only result in just-so stories that support a particular view of the order of things. Also, being gay is a historically-recent identity category. Gay men and lesbians can still physically reproduce--being gay does not remove one's biological ability to reproduce, especially given the rise of reproductive medical technologies over the last few decades.","human_ref_B":"A gay person could still contribute to a group without increasing the numbers. This would have some benefit, right? You're increasing productivity without increasing the population. Also, sex is a biologically driven function, right? Too much successful breeding means too many mouths, so wouldn't bisexuality help prevent that?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2105.0,"score_ratio":10.6} {"post_id":"8yf4lv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I'm gay, I'm wondering why evolution would allow that when it's so difficult to reproduce? I'd really like an anthropological perspective on this.","c_root_id_A":"e2ajhmo","c_root_id_B":"e2agi42","created_at_utc_A":1531445483,"created_at_utc_B":1531442625,"score_A":71,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"A trait doesn't have to specifically improve your individual changes for reproduction. Of you being gay improves the fitness of your group (by providing additional care or protection to the children of your relatives without the distraction if your own offspring) it is functional. It it could be, at I've read, that being gay might be detrimental to you, but might have a greater benefit to your female relatives.","human_ref_B":"A gay person could still contribute to a group without increasing the numbers. This would have some benefit, right? You're increasing productivity without increasing the population. Also, sex is a biologically driven function, right? Too much successful breeding means too many mouths, so wouldn't bisexuality help prevent that?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2858.0,"score_ratio":7.1} {"post_id":"8yf4lv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I'm gay, I'm wondering why evolution would allow that when it's so difficult to reproduce? I'd really like an anthropological perspective on this.","c_root_id_A":"e2alxuv","c_root_id_B":"e2agi42","created_at_utc_A":1531447846,"created_at_utc_B":1531442625,"score_A":25,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"\/u\/anthrowill gave an excellent answer, not adding my 2 cents as a reply because it's not a really a reply to anything he said. Being gay doesn't appear to be coded by a single gene or set of genes. While it's possible advancements in medical science might develop a perfect genetic test that predicts being gay, the best current evidence appears to indicate that it's not likely, and there will never be a \"gay gene\". But, being gay does come from something, and because it does appear to run in families somewhat, there might be genetic factors that make it more likely. So, what could be going on genetically is that certain genes, which may or may not confer advantages in completely unrelated ways, might also increase the likelihood of being gay. So the genetic selection, if that's happening at all, is happening for a completely different trait, and the occasional gay person popping up is just a secondary effect.","human_ref_B":"A gay person could still contribute to a group without increasing the numbers. This would have some benefit, right? You're increasing productivity without increasing the population. Also, sex is a biologically driven function, right? Too much successful breeding means too many mouths, so wouldn't bisexuality help prevent that?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5221.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"8yf4lv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"I'm gay, I'm wondering why evolution would allow that when it's so difficult to reproduce? I'd really like an anthropological perspective on this.","c_root_id_A":"e2amiem","c_root_id_B":"e2agi42","created_at_utc_A":1531448413,"created_at_utc_B":1531442625,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Google keyword search: gay man straight marriage There are plenty of accounts online of men who are gay and either are, or were, married and had one or more children. This is not a new phenomenon. People who are attracted to members of their own gender have been procreating since pretty much forever. Being gay isn't stopping people from procreating. And if it doesn't stop people from procreating, it's not a negative trait, and natural selection can't see it and it won't be weeded out.","human_ref_B":"A gay person could still contribute to a group without increasing the numbers. This would have some benefit, right? You're increasing productivity without increasing the population. Also, sex is a biologically driven function, right? Too much successful breeding means too many mouths, so wouldn't bisexuality help prevent that?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5788.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"4d1vca","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Can you guys give me some tips for my presentation on conspiracy theories? I'm preparing a presentation on conspiracy theories for my Social anthropology class. Can you guys just give me some tips on: How to present and what should I avoid and what should I include. Presentation should last from 9-13 minutes. I have a basic idea of how it should look like. I'm gonna skip the intro (what are conspiracy theories) and go straight into the subject at hand. I'm gonna present barebones theory about the most famous and the most ridiculous conspiracy theories and talk about the cultural background and the effect on society and culture. I'm just not sure what should my \"POINT\" be at the end and how to intertwine it properly with culture. And that's where I need you help. Every tip is appreciated.","c_root_id_A":"d1n2jpn","c_root_id_B":"d1n7ot6","created_at_utc_A":1459613324,"created_at_utc_B":1459621903,"score_A":5,"score_B":22,"human_ref_A":"Perhaps the point should be that, commonly, people who subscribe to conspiracy theories are suffering from a desire to be a part of something greater than themselves, for one reason or another.","human_ref_B":"Here are some of my observations on conspiracy theories, hope it helps: First off, conspiracy theories are generally not \"positive\" theories, they aren't based on the scientific method, they don't involve developing a theory that fits the evidence best. Rather, they are almost always based on an uncomfortableness with the status quo explanation of something. They feed off the existence of counter-intuitive, non-obvious, or uncomfortable aspects of the accepted explanation of events. They gain strength not by proving themselves but by disproving the competing theory. Consider the WTC collapse, for example. The conspiracy theory there is that the buildings were destroyed using implosive demolition via chemical explosives. That theory involves a couple of key elements, such as the ability to place so many explosives in a very open building that had lots of people in it, the use of explosives that are seemingly very quiet, and the use of explosives in a way that somehow hides their bright flash. Yet you don't see a lot of investigation into these elements, into finding, say, the remnants of kevlar blankets in the debris, or evidence of workers entering the buildings overnight, or anything of that sort. Because it doesn't matter. The strength of the theory rests on the discomfort with the accepted explanation alone, so the focus is always on nit picking the accepted explanation, not in strengthening the competing theory. Additionally, a big part of the reason why people believe in conspiracy theories is because they want to feel sophisticated and knowledgeable, that they know something that the public at large doesn't know or that they are too smart to be deceived by authority. There's a deep well here in terms of the sociology involved. The very idea that going against the status quo is empowering and indicative of individual sophistication, worldliness, and knowledge is significant and relates to cultural changes over the last several centuries. Also, there's an element of biology at play. A lot of this is rooted in various aspects related to the fight or flight response. We as a species have a tendency to make up elaborate scary stories with a low likelihood of being true, but this developed as a survival trait. If you're out walking in the savannah and you hear a rustle from under a nearby bush you might become startled and you're likely to go into the fight or flight response. And your brain is likely to spend some time \"telling stories\" about potential threats. You might jump to the conclusion that the noise came from a leopard, and then you'll either run away or prepare for a fight for your life. And because of the fight or flight response your brain is actually less rational than normal, because in these circumstances doubt and insecurity are often unhelpful. If there was a leopard then running away at full tilt at the first hint of movement could give you an edge. Just as being geared up to fight to the utmost of your ability and not back down could give you an edge. While the embarrassment of running away or being startled by something that turned out not to be dangerous is comparatively less important. Though those reflexes are now much less useful than they used to be. When we \"tell stories\" related to potential threats in interpersonal relationships (maybe my significant other is cheating on me, doesn't really care about me, is doing that thing out of spite; maybe my boss doesn't like me and is setting me up to fail; etc.) more often than not they're actively harmful to our lives. And this extends to conspiracy theories as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8579.0,"score_ratio":4.4} {"post_id":"fz96u5","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How do we determine the age of death for ancient remains? For example if a skeleton is determined to have died at age 40 is that conclusion drawn because it compares to a 40 year old skeleton of a modern human in terms of aging markers or is there something more precise like counting the rings on a tree?","c_root_id_A":"fn4dxp6","c_root_id_B":"fn48rpp","created_at_utc_A":1586639400,"created_at_utc_B":1586636372,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Assuming the bones aren't severely damaged, the process of age assessment for ancient remains is fairly similar to age assessment of human bones in a modern forensic context. So by studying completion of growth of various bones, the appearance of various surfaces (like the pubic symphasis and auricular surface), visibility of ossified sutures (the line where two previously separate bones grow together will fade predictably over time), and age ossociated pathologies like osteoarthritis and loss of bone density. Should bones be too badly damaged, I imagine it might also be possible to make microscope slides and use histological examination to estimate age at death as well. (If you'd like to learn more on this I recommend \"human osteology\" by white, black, and folkens. The book may also answer any other general osteological questions you might have). I'm not a specialist though, so people with more first hand experience please correct me if I'm wrong. I only have an undergraduate degree. It hasn't always been that way though, it's likely that many archaeological remains that haven't been reexamined in recent years may have been misidentified as male. In the earlier days of archaeology, it's possible many remains were mistakenly identified as male based off of simply the grave goods found in association with the remains. Until recent decades, archaeology was a largely male dominated field, which also added another bias to how remains were interpreted. I remember a number of years ago reading an article by Bettina Arnold on an iron age burial that examined this topic. If I can find the article I will edit this comment with a link. Edit: found it! It's an interesting read if you are interested in biases in sex and gender in archaeology. https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/1578229\/The_Vix_Princess_Redux_a_retrospective_on_European_Iron_Age_gender_and_mortuary_studies","human_ref_B":"It is difficult to age skeletons, especially those of adults. You may find this recent overview of methods and practices useful: Clark, Melissa A., Allyson Simon, and Mark Hubbe. \u2018Aging Methods and Age-at-Death Distributions: Does Transition Analysis Call for a Re-Examination of Bioarchaeological Data?\u2019 International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 30, no. 2 (13 December 2019): 206\u201317. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/oa.2848.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3028.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"398h9k","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Can white Americans (especially descendants of 17th century migrants) be considered an archaic European population? I've heard it argued that many Austronesian peoples should be considered \"archaic Asians\", in that they represent the population of East Asia as existed centuries ago, because these peoples have not experienced the same generic changes. White settlers in the Americas did not have as much time to diverge from the parent population than peoples like Sumatrans did, but do they represent the European population of the 17th century? Are there any genetic changes that modern Europeans, but not diaspora Europeans, were subject to?","c_root_id_A":"cs1kzrd","c_root_id_B":"cs1kc9l","created_at_utc_A":1433924152,"created_at_utc_B":1433921564,"score_A":27,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"You need to consider that although there are people who have heritage from 17th century immigrants, there are extremely few people (if any at all) who descend *exclusively* from 17th century immigrants. Take into account that while family names are traditionally inherited from the father, the DNA is 50%\/50% from both parents. So while you can have the family name of your father's father's father's [...] father's immigrant father from the 17th century, you have as much his DNA as you have from your mother's mother's mother's [...] mother's mother from the 17th century, who you know nothing about. Consider the period of 1615-2015, that's 400 years. Assuming an average child-bearing age (generation age difference) of 25 years, that's 16 generations. A person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, etc. Going all the way back in this way we can count that there are 65536 ancestors in the generation that is 16 generations above in the family tree. Yes, for some people living now some of those 65536 ancestors actually were 17th century immigrants. But were *all* their 65536 ancestors 17th century immigrants? Or were just some, and other ancestors are from families that immigrated much later?","human_ref_B":"I've read a bit on Austronesian populations and I have never heard of them referred to as archaic Asians. Is the work you ate getting that from very (very very) old? For those who don't know, Austronesian is a language group spread across the Indian and Pacific oceans, from Madagascar to Easter Island. The issue of genetic population movement is still a big thorny.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2588.0,"score_ratio":2.4545454545} {"post_id":"1kfd3g","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"How did ancient cultures view fossils? I know we have anecdotal record of the Chinese use of \"dragon bones,\" which were found to be dinosaur bones being used in tonic and medicinal use. What did, for instance, Native Americans think when they came across a fossilized sea shell or trilobite? Did any early cultures have a theory for what they were or how they were formed?","c_root_id_A":"cbog0wb","c_root_id_B":"cboh3m2","created_at_utc_A":1376592184,"created_at_utc_B":1376594802,"score_A":8,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Any number of mythical beasts can most likely be attributed to fossils. Dragons are obvious. Some people have suggested that mammoth skulls were the basis for the cyclops myth. As for fossilized shells or leaves or something, my gut reaction would be to check if a given early culture has a mythical beast or being with the power to petrify (your medusas or basilisks or cockatrice) which might have been used to explain away such things.","human_ref_B":"There's a medieval chronicler (I believe it was Joinville but it may have been Villehardouin) who talks about fossils--to him, they were evidence of God's creative impulse, which permeated the world so deeply that even stones took the shape of fish.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2618.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"cyelfd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"\"If you were hungry, you'd eat anything\" Really? My dad would say this when I was being picky. There is certainly historical evidence pointing towards believing that. People have hunted rats and cats during wars and famines, have cooked leather and roots and have eaten fellow humans to survive. But one people I've lived by for a year, the Turkana people, would beg to differ. Up to this day, they remain vulnerable to famines and droughts and have been dependent on humanitarian aid to feed their population. (I find it interesting although irrelevant to this thread that their population has increased eighth-fold since humanitarian aid has begun to arrive a few decades ago and has increased the demographic pressure and vulnerability to famines and droughts) Many\/most Turkana today are still chronically malnourished, but yet they have developed in the face of such hardships in their culture an aversion to insects and snakes. Now insects and snakes are the only prolific natural resource that Turkana has been blessed with (not true... what is now an arid semi-desert was not so long ago a lush savannah where plenty of game would be found. Today the land is desertifying and the biannual fresh growths after the two rainy seasons are grazed by millions of goats (main source of capital wealth in currency in Turkana) not allowing for more trees to grow and for the land to regenerate.) Back to insects and snakes. They're everywhere. Everyday an average family kills a snake in or around their manyatas, or branch-woven hovels. We'd often find some in the mission's confines where I was living. We'd cooked them every now and then and the meat tastes pretty good. Granted my team was a bit crazier than your average lot, as we had plenty of food otherwise, but it made for fun nights. As far as I know, all snakes are edible as long as basic precautions are taken. Edible insects such as crickets and other grubs are prolific in Turkana as well. Yet the Turkana DO NOT feed on them, even though they're hungry. To give you an idea of how much hunger is a part of this culture, when greeting \"Ejokha\" and asking how are things going \"Nyai?\" or \"Nyanjokhon?\" the most common response heard by and large is \"Akoro\" (hungry) Yet somehow along the ages, a revulsion to snakes and insects appeared in that culture, which we know to be vulnerable to droughts and famines. This is so counter-intuitive to me. **TLDR: Some people go hungry instead of eating plentiful, relatively tasty food.** This raises questions in my mind. Does anyone have any other examples of such oddities, of people who'd rather starve than eat what's available? What do you think about that? Source: have been there for a year for an agriculture introduction project. The project aims to introduce agriculture to Turkana to help alleviate their dependency on humanitarian aid and fight undernourishment. I've had plenty of time to learn from the missionaries, project managers and English speaking Turkana folk (of which there are admittedly very few, fewer than the rare Swahili babblers) about their lifestyle and many Turkana have corroborated they are disgusted by snakes and insects and would never eat them. ​ As a side note, the missionaries were somewhat guilty of the same phenomenon. One plant that grows beautifully well in those regions is purslane and lonely plants can be found in the most arid, inhospitable areas. I've grown a whole bed of just purslane for the kicks and I regret not having taken a photo. With the same irrigation water that struggled to grow tomatoes, onions and peppers, it became a whole bush. I'd clip loads of it everyday for fresh salads. It's loaded with vitamin C and Omega 3 fatty acids. A blessing in the desert. Yet despite my cry to make it as much of a crop as the other plants we'd grow, the idea was never really supported. IT GROWS WELL WITH NO CARE, LITTLE WATER AND FERTILIZING. As opposed to all the other plants we grow. Too bad cause I feel it would have made a difference.","c_root_id_A":"eyt5xnf","c_root_id_B":"eyt11ol","created_at_utc_A":1567426315,"created_at_utc_B":1567419776,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"There are plenty of types of (nature, polytheistic, ancestor worship, spiritual) religions that include the belief in greater and lesser gods and nature spirits, and spirits of the dead (ancestors) that have to be kept either satisfied and happy, or in the case of evil ones, at bay. Offending them will you get you and often your family\/property\/lifestock punished or cursed by these beings. If eating these creatures is a religious offence, there's immense religious and social pressure not to do it. That, or its culturally taboo. Perhaps several generations ago eating these creatures was connected to disease and other misfortune, or used to punish or humiliate criminals, or this group was forced to eat these things by invaders\/slavers\/opressors (this happened with Surinam slaves who, after being freed, stopped eating certain things they were forced to eat under slavery), or something like that.","human_ref_B":"Send me a pm, would love to talk to you about your project. I've been doing agriculture development over here in Uganda for about a year and would love to pick your brain about your experience dealing with indigenous folk over on your side.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6539.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"hpwlof","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Who is studying the Anthropologist? I recently earned my undergraduate degree in Anthropology and this question has stuck in my mind throughout the years. I felt often times there has been a romanticization of studying and researching \u201cthe other\u201d, people outside of academia especially people of non western countries. Due to this habit of western anthropologist sometimes seeking far away places to research far away problems I have concerns that this practice creates the potential for a lot of problematic assumptions of these different culture that come from our own western academic biases. This has been a concern for me because I encountered many students and even professors who were more interested in the aspect of adventure rather than considering how their research will impact the community. Was it just in my department that it seemed the practices of unintended neocolonialism went unchecked? What Anthropologists or academics are actually researching Anthropology itself? Who is analyzing the cannon to see what is missing\/problematic\/misused, who is researching the departments where students are taught, who is discussing the accessibility of our knowledge, and who is challenging the assumptions and biases that are harbored and passed down to other anthropologist?","c_root_id_A":"fxx782v","c_root_id_B":"fxv4hj3","created_at_utc_A":1594642162,"created_at_utc_B":1594587077,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In my experience this push towards 'exotic' locations, or at least locations\/cultural groups 'far from home' is much more pervasive in the US than in many other places. This is especially true of the kinds of advice I've heard given to grad students. At my uni in Australia, we were hugely encouraged to think about doing ethnography 'at home' - to critically reflect on how and why we might study things *close* to us geographically or culturally instead, and whether we could actually justify our interest in the 'other' as anything but neocolonialism. We literally had to write a paper about anthropology-as-neocolonialism as undergrads; it was part of our course on ethnographic theory and methodology. From what I've heard from anthropologists from other unis in Australia, and from attending conferences here, this kind of institutionalised reflexivity is pretty common. It's an accepted part of teaching\/learning anthropology. That said, I think anthropology in Australia is maybe *exceptionally* self-conscious due to how damaging is has been here with regards to Indigenous peoples. (Not that this isn't universal, but it's very close to the surface, here). My uni didn't offer a single Indigenous Anthropology class (which is problematic in itself), you had to go to the Indigenous Studies department. To do research that involved Indigenous communities required a separate ethics process to any other human research, in which you had to provide a guarantee of direct benefit to the people you were studying, and you usually had to have a written request by the elders of that community that specifically said, \"We want this person to do this project\". (This is obviously imperfect, but it's notable that the universities are here *requiring* the departments to be reflexive ~~even if it's mainly to avoid lawsuits and bad press~~). The department I was part of in the UK has a similar kind of self-consciousness about 'exotic' fieldwork, which I think is common-ish in the UK. But there it's usually due to the fact that it would be British scholars going to countries that literally used to be British colonies, which makes it very hard to ignore the ringing alarms of (neo)colonialism. The British anthropologists got their Indiana Jonesing out of the way 60 years ago, and now they tend to cringe at it. It's a kind of colonial embarrassment that the US has never really (universally) developed. (I'm not by any means claiming any of this is universal, just trying to reassure you that your experience is also not universal, and you'll find many departments that are extremely conscious of this!) tl;dr Don't worry, it's not universal! Most grad students I know were actively encouraged to first consider doing fieldwork 'at home' (geographically and\/or culturally), unless their chosen topic *specifically* required being somewhere else. That is, to choose a theoretical basis for your question long before you ever think of a field site, and to justify your choice of field site(s) extremely thoroughly. ETA: In terms of other people studying anthropologists, I'm not sure. Mostly, I've heard of anthropologists ensuring that they are held accountable *by the people they're studying*. Universities also try to hold people accountable by the use of ethics boards and so on, but those are... only so useful, and often more of a hindrance than anything.","human_ref_B":"I agree it's important to study anthropology itself and the repercussions of \"bad anthropology\" in my University program every teacher was very focused in that and beat cultural relativism and ethnocentrism into our heads with every class. Critically engaging with not only your own work but the work of others and understanding where your biases lie and how they effect the overall research. If you aren't \"essentially\" researching yourself while you conduct your actual work then you aren't conducting and anthropological experiment anyways.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":55085.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nxc36t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Can somebody suggest me ethnographic works on nomadic communities. Other than Fredrik Barth, Evans Pritchard and Philip Salzman.","c_root_id_A":"h1e7dmr","c_root_id_B":"h1eavgl","created_at_utc_A":1623413551,"created_at_utc_B":1623415598,"score_A":18,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"\"The End of Nomadism?\" by Humphrey & Sneath (1999) mainly discuss inner Asian nomads (\"mobile pastoralists\") in Siberia, Mongolia and parts of China. I think adding pastoralism to your search terms in general is a good way to find more material on the topic of nomadism.","human_ref_B":"I've always been fond of Veiled Sentiments, which is extremely focused in scope on gender and oral poetry in among the Bedouins.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2047.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"nxc36t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Can somebody suggest me ethnographic works on nomadic communities. Other than Fredrik Barth, Evans Pritchard and Philip Salzman.","c_root_id_A":"h1gntt4","c_root_id_B":"h1g9qun","created_at_utc_A":1623455349,"created_at_utc_B":1623447622,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Only semi-ethnographical and semi-nomadic, but Tim Ingold, \"Hunters, Pastoralists and Ranchers: Reindeer Economies and their Transformations\" is a good one.","human_ref_B":"When men are women: Manhood among Gabra nomads of East Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000 A couple I had to read during my studies: \u201cRoads to nowhere: nomadic understandings of place, space, and ethnicity,\u201d in Changing Identifications and Alliances in Northeast Africa, Gunther Schlee and Elizabeth Watson, eds. London: Berghahn, 2009","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7727.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"y9cki9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Does animal herding precede agriculture? Question is in the topic, did hunter gatherer tribes herd animals?","c_root_id_A":"it5lvn6","c_root_id_B":"it4x365","created_at_utc_A":1666319493,"created_at_utc_B":1666308479,"score_A":32,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"All of these things are long and drawn-out processes (some are arguably ongoing) with roots in the Pleistocene and which took off in the early Holocene. Animal herding, niche construction\/expansion for wild plants, deliberate cultivation of others...all those things were contemporaneous processes. Many were carried out by people occupying different landscapes in the same regions who would have known and interacted with one another.","human_ref_B":"Very much appreciate this question. I\u2019d expand it: did they herd them, did they tame them, did they domesticate them? Did all this then precede soil agriculture, and thus, make animal husbandry the first true foray into agriculture?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11014.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"ffdv3u","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"What are some of the new sub fields that people have started to explore? I\u2019ve been seeing a lot of mixed methods and interdisciplinary works of late from a whole social sciences viewpoint. It has me wondering how so much of undergraduate studies focus in Strauss and Brown (just as examples) but in real world applications\/ graduate and above work those constructs really don\u2019t play much importance. Instead we\u2019re looking more for the modern interpretations of what role anthropology places in the importance of social science. We\u2019re not trying to understand the people\u2019s that the British empire rule over through conquest (one if the original reasons for the veranda anthropology) but nw we\u2019re trying to understand what drove people to their specific actions during the great plague in WOW and how that can relate to the real world versus online interactions. So the question is what areas have caught your eye and what ways is anthropology playing a role in the understanding of that area? Are there other disciplines involved too?","c_root_id_A":"fjzuf2j","c_root_id_B":"fjz3u87","created_at_utc_A":1583729742,"created_at_utc_B":1583710751,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Real World Problems. I finished my undergrad and am living abroad atm gathering ideas for my next project. In Uni I focused on labor migration, homelessness, drug abuse, minorities, and gender roles. I used a variety of methodologies and even studied how art can educate the general populace on certain topics. The biggest thing that was different for my research wasn\u2019t why labor migration\/homelessness\/drug abuse\/etc. was a problem, but rather how society is failing to support these communities when populations engage in these non-normative lifestyles. I would use cross-cultural comparisons, government program comparisons, and ethnographic field research to better understand fringe groups. After wards I would highlight the historical context to why these lifestyles have developed, what laws have helped or harmed them, and discuss what programs work effectively or are counter productive. It has led me down a lot of rabbit holes and has been very interesting to see how many sub categories there are. It has even inspired me to make my own art, write my own fiction-based stories from cultural cyrptids to sci-fi showing how good\/how bad the world can become. My advice, don\u2019t be afraid to go outside of \u2018traditional\u2019 anthropology. There are a billion of ways to do research. And there will never be \u2018one-way\u2019 to do it.","human_ref_B":"My primary interest is in anthropological (rather than psychological) approaches to Human Factors. My own personal focus is with regard to mass transportation systems. HCI and UX have started to open up more for anthro, but it's still not ubiquitous. In undergrad I did a senior thesis on this, and while grad school isn't financially in the cards for me any time soon, this is the direction I'd go if it were. I think there's a gaping hole in this field that anthro can easily fill.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":18991.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"6vail4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Which is a good introduction to Islamic thought? I watched a Vice doc about al-\u00c1sad (5x01) and the relationship I see between the western reporters and the local looks like absurd to me. Trying to explain the Syrian situation with Occidental concepts results in a non sense doc where I find myself more confused at the end than in the start. I am fully aware of the media mission in our societies, and I've seen some people on the al-\u00c1sad side using that, telling that what we see here is what our hypocrite politicians want we to see. It made me thought of neoliberalist managing media, but then I also saw a lot of wealthy people enjoying in the Syrian beaches. They didn't look like socialists, so... Are the al-\u00c1sad supporters neoliberalists? This is the kind of confusion I find. I'm saying this because one of the government guys defended themselves saying they were the more secular Arabic state. So I ask, which a good start to Islamic theory, in the sense of understanding them with their theoric concepts?","c_root_id_A":"dlzaxto","c_root_id_B":"dlz77g6","created_at_utc_A":1503427944,"created_at_utc_B":1503423995,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Are you specifically asking about modern Islamic political theory? Because your question is incredibly broad, but your description suggests a narrower question.","human_ref_B":"I am not an anthropologist and I think this may be the wrong sub for this. However here are three authors for you John Esposito, Karen Armstrong and Marshal Hodgeson. Look them up. Also look for Malise Ruthven's work for a more modern update of what is going on. Also you need to look up all the books on Pan Arabism and the Ba'ath Party , or Arab Socialism. Nasih Ayoubi's \"Overstating the Arab State\" and \"Political Islam: religion and politics in the Arab world\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3949.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"1da5qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"I'm thinking of returning to school for anthropology: should I bother? Here's the situation: I'm in my 30's, single mom, work full time. I like my job (I work in a college library), but I feel like I can do more with my life. I want to go back to school, and I want to major in something I'm passionate about, not necessarily something practical (and if I stick with library science, my undergrad can be in anything). I love anthropology, particularly archaeology, and have decided that will be my undergrad; perhaps I'll even get my Master's. I know job prospects are low, but as I said, I want to follow my passion. My question is, given I have full-time obligations, is there a chance that I'll end up frozen out of opportunities because I can't devote as much time outside of school as other students? I don't have a lot of time to go to conferences or work in the field. I'm afraid I'll get through school and end up without any connections or enough work in the field to be taken seriously. tl\/dr: is there hope for an older adult returning to school to find a career in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"c9ogyf3","c_root_id_B":"c9oea55","created_at_utc_A":1367182784,"created_at_utc_B":1367174393,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you want to do it to simply do it then nothing should stop you. You should follow your passions and not give them up for anything. However, as I read this I wonder if you truly want to do this as it's a passion or if you're wanting to do this to end up working in the field. On the one hand you talk about you not needing something practical but then go on to say you're worried about later opportunities and how serious you'll be taken. You need to decide if it's just to follow a passion or if you're truly hoping to do more. That said, there are a few things to consider. There are limited job opportunities beyond teaching for those with degrees in anthropology or archaeology. There are many corporate companies that hire anthropologists to do market research and as an archaeologists you could also end up doing CRM work. Have you considered looking into historical archaeology? You might find some really interesting options here that combines history, archiving and the insitu fieldwork. I am also in my 30's, I have 4 children and I'm currently on the last leg of my PhD (will be defending in the fall). I also work full-time in a very demanding job. I have found that due to this I am not able to devote as much time or energy to doing 'extras' like conference attendance, writing papers or even networking with other in the field. This has absolutely hurt me as it's been a bit of a struggle to get as far as I have in the field and to be taken seriously. At this point though I don't have any grandeur to be a 'top anthropologist' or even a professor. What I have found is that my skills in anthropology have given me a huge boost in my current position. However, I could have also gone straight into my field without getting more than a BA or even an MA and probably would be making more money had I not gone on to further graduate school. tl\/dr: If you are truly doing this for your own sense of accomplishment and to follow your passion, then go for it. If you are doing it with the hopes of getting a 'career in anthropology' (whatever that is...) then I would rethink what you're really looking for.","human_ref_B":"Are you living in america? If so, most tuitions are extremely expensive. To dodge this issue you could try going to a community college for the first two years with the mission of getting really good grades and then transferring to your local university; this way, if you are passionate and determined enough to get the grades you need to transfer, you'll make it in, and if you're not then you won't have wasted much money. I give this advice because although it is probably possible to get into the field with another full-time job, it will be much harder and put you at a disadvantage over other young graduates. You might be able to overcome the adversity but you would have to be really determined to do it. The suggestion I gave you is an attempt to sort of 'test' your ability to go beyond the minimum requirements at your college and push yourself to be in the top 20% or 10%.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8391.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"1da5qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"I'm thinking of returning to school for anthropology: should I bother? Here's the situation: I'm in my 30's, single mom, work full time. I like my job (I work in a college library), but I feel like I can do more with my life. I want to go back to school, and I want to major in something I'm passionate about, not necessarily something practical (and if I stick with library science, my undergrad can be in anything). I love anthropology, particularly archaeology, and have decided that will be my undergrad; perhaps I'll even get my Master's. I know job prospects are low, but as I said, I want to follow my passion. My question is, given I have full-time obligations, is there a chance that I'll end up frozen out of opportunities because I can't devote as much time outside of school as other students? I don't have a lot of time to go to conferences or work in the field. I'm afraid I'll get through school and end up without any connections or enough work in the field to be taken seriously. tl\/dr: is there hope for an older adult returning to school to find a career in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"c9oe8wu","c_root_id_B":"c9ogyf3","created_at_utc_A":1367174279,"created_at_utc_B":1367182784,"score_A":2,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology is a very broad field and, like most liberal arts degrees, equips students with a general set of skills rather than training for a specific occupation. Very few people who study anthropology ever end up with a job title that says \"anthropologist;\" they are social workers, educators, administrators, grant writers, organic farmers, well-educated baristas, and about a million other things. A lot of it comes down to how you choose to apply your anthropological knowledge--and you might do this very conveniently by tying it to your job within a library. I actually have a friend who majored in anthropology who has become a librarian because she likes the opportunities it provides her to be a part of public education programs. You can truly go in a lot of directions; I studied anthropology and work in international education, but I have also worked on a community needs assessment, did office work for my department, curated museum exhibits, did archaeology field school, taught English overseas, and researched support group sub-cultures, among other thing. It all appears very random, but my experiences and knowledge have tied together quite nicely. My time doing collections management with museum databases was actually a big selling point in getting my current job, which requires a lot of database usage. So, yes, I believe there are many opportunities available to you within the field. Archaeology might be a bit tougher because you may not have the time to do things like field school while working full-time (if your aim is to become an archaeologist), but as an anthropology undergraduate you will probably receive a topical education in the cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological sub-fields, with likely one area that you are more specialized in.","human_ref_B":"If you want to do it to simply do it then nothing should stop you. You should follow your passions and not give them up for anything. However, as I read this I wonder if you truly want to do this as it's a passion or if you're wanting to do this to end up working in the field. On the one hand you talk about you not needing something practical but then go on to say you're worried about later opportunities and how serious you'll be taken. You need to decide if it's just to follow a passion or if you're truly hoping to do more. That said, there are a few things to consider. There are limited job opportunities beyond teaching for those with degrees in anthropology or archaeology. There are many corporate companies that hire anthropologists to do market research and as an archaeologists you could also end up doing CRM work. Have you considered looking into historical archaeology? You might find some really interesting options here that combines history, archiving and the insitu fieldwork. I am also in my 30's, I have 4 children and I'm currently on the last leg of my PhD (will be defending in the fall). I also work full-time in a very demanding job. I have found that due to this I am not able to devote as much time or energy to doing 'extras' like conference attendance, writing papers or even networking with other in the field. This has absolutely hurt me as it's been a bit of a struggle to get as far as I have in the field and to be taken seriously. At this point though I don't have any grandeur to be a 'top anthropologist' or even a professor. What I have found is that my skills in anthropology have given me a huge boost in my current position. However, I could have also gone straight into my field without getting more than a BA or even an MA and probably would be making more money had I not gone on to further graduate school. tl\/dr: If you are truly doing this for your own sense of accomplishment and to follow your passion, then go for it. If you are doing it with the hopes of getting a 'career in anthropology' (whatever that is...) then I would rethink what you're really looking for.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8505.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"1da5qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"I'm thinking of returning to school for anthropology: should I bother? Here's the situation: I'm in my 30's, single mom, work full time. I like my job (I work in a college library), but I feel like I can do more with my life. I want to go back to school, and I want to major in something I'm passionate about, not necessarily something practical (and if I stick with library science, my undergrad can be in anything). I love anthropology, particularly archaeology, and have decided that will be my undergrad; perhaps I'll even get my Master's. I know job prospects are low, but as I said, I want to follow my passion. My question is, given I have full-time obligations, is there a chance that I'll end up frozen out of opportunities because I can't devote as much time outside of school as other students? I don't have a lot of time to go to conferences or work in the field. I'm afraid I'll get through school and end up without any connections or enough work in the field to be taken seriously. tl\/dr: is there hope for an older adult returning to school to find a career in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"c9oe8wu","c_root_id_B":"c9oea55","created_at_utc_A":1367174279,"created_at_utc_B":1367174393,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology is a very broad field and, like most liberal arts degrees, equips students with a general set of skills rather than training for a specific occupation. Very few people who study anthropology ever end up with a job title that says \"anthropologist;\" they are social workers, educators, administrators, grant writers, organic farmers, well-educated baristas, and about a million other things. A lot of it comes down to how you choose to apply your anthropological knowledge--and you might do this very conveniently by tying it to your job within a library. I actually have a friend who majored in anthropology who has become a librarian because she likes the opportunities it provides her to be a part of public education programs. You can truly go in a lot of directions; I studied anthropology and work in international education, but I have also worked on a community needs assessment, did office work for my department, curated museum exhibits, did archaeology field school, taught English overseas, and researched support group sub-cultures, among other thing. It all appears very random, but my experiences and knowledge have tied together quite nicely. My time doing collections management with museum databases was actually a big selling point in getting my current job, which requires a lot of database usage. So, yes, I believe there are many opportunities available to you within the field. Archaeology might be a bit tougher because you may not have the time to do things like field school while working full-time (if your aim is to become an archaeologist), but as an anthropology undergraduate you will probably receive a topical education in the cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological sub-fields, with likely one area that you are more specialized in.","human_ref_B":"Are you living in america? If so, most tuitions are extremely expensive. To dodge this issue you could try going to a community college for the first two years with the mission of getting really good grades and then transferring to your local university; this way, if you are passionate and determined enough to get the grades you need to transfer, you'll make it in, and if you're not then you won't have wasted much money. I give this advice because although it is probably possible to get into the field with another full-time job, it will be much harder and put you at a disadvantage over other young graduates. You might be able to overcome the adversity but you would have to be really determined to do it. The suggestion I gave you is an attempt to sort of 'test' your ability to go beyond the minimum requirements at your college and push yourself to be in the top 20% or 10%.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":114.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1da5qo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"I'm thinking of returning to school for anthropology: should I bother? Here's the situation: I'm in my 30's, single mom, work full time. I like my job (I work in a college library), but I feel like I can do more with my life. I want to go back to school, and I want to major in something I'm passionate about, not necessarily something practical (and if I stick with library science, my undergrad can be in anything). I love anthropology, particularly archaeology, and have decided that will be my undergrad; perhaps I'll even get my Master's. I know job prospects are low, but as I said, I want to follow my passion. My question is, given I have full-time obligations, is there a chance that I'll end up frozen out of opportunities because I can't devote as much time outside of school as other students? I don't have a lot of time to go to conferences or work in the field. I'm afraid I'll get through school and end up without any connections or enough work in the field to be taken seriously. tl\/dr: is there hope for an older adult returning to school to find a career in anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"c9p6gct","c_root_id_B":"c9oe8wu","created_at_utc_A":1367272390,"created_at_utc_B":1367174279,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm in my early 30's, single mom, work full time, go to school full time. I decided to go back to grad school for a MS in anthropology after I got divorced. You can certainly do all of those things, but there are things you will end up giving up. Time with my son has been one of those things. He's 5, and it's hard for him to understand why school takes up so much of my time. My ex has primary placement which helps. Given the extra time constraints, there are limitations on what I can do extra at school. I have a weaker connection to the department, don't participate in campus groups, etc. While that's somewhat less of a concern since I'm at grad school, it might be a concern if you're intending to continue on. I also don't have the funding to go to academic conferences like the AAAs, or skip work to attend or give talks in the department, which probably will hurt me professionally if I continue into a PhD. I'm in cultural anthropology. The time devoted by my archaeology colleagues can be significant in terms of field school, excavations, lab work, etc. Not that cultural anthropology doesn't have its own fieldwork, but that tends to be more in bursts of a few months where the hands-on archaeology courses I've taken tend to consistently take up more outside of class time. And if you're looking at archaeology you'll want as much hands on, time intensive experience as you can get. All that said when my students ask me if they should get a degree in anthropology, I usually tell them it's a field where few people ever end up with a job title \"anthropologist.\" Most people without advanced degrees end up doing applied anthropology at best, so I tell them to pair it with another major. The ability to work with diverse cultures is great for a variety of fields. You might be able to do some fun cross overs with text preservation, linguistics, etc. since you're working in a library, for example. Cultural resource management, historical societies, things like that are also other things you might be interested in. But in general if you want to do anthropology or archaeology as a dedicated profession, you're looking at a PhD rather than just a master's degree. Some fields you can skip the master's and go right to a PhD, but anthropology generally isn't one of them. Funding for master's students is lower, and depending on the institution you may not get much funding at all. (Packages for PhD programs can be a lot sexier in terms of financing, or so I'm told.) I'm graduating with my master's in a few weeks without a solid job prospect and a significant amount of student loan debt. It's something to keep in mind.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology is a very broad field and, like most liberal arts degrees, equips students with a general set of skills rather than training for a specific occupation. Very few people who study anthropology ever end up with a job title that says \"anthropologist;\" they are social workers, educators, administrators, grant writers, organic farmers, well-educated baristas, and about a million other things. A lot of it comes down to how you choose to apply your anthropological knowledge--and you might do this very conveniently by tying it to your job within a library. I actually have a friend who majored in anthropology who has become a librarian because she likes the opportunities it provides her to be a part of public education programs. You can truly go in a lot of directions; I studied anthropology and work in international education, but I have also worked on a community needs assessment, did office work for my department, curated museum exhibits, did archaeology field school, taught English overseas, and researched support group sub-cultures, among other thing. It all appears very random, but my experiences and knowledge have tied together quite nicely. My time doing collections management with museum databases was actually a big selling point in getting my current job, which requires a lot of database usage. So, yes, I believe there are many opportunities available to you within the field. Archaeology might be a bit tougher because you may not have the time to do things like field school while working full-time (if your aim is to become an archaeologist), but as an anthropology undergraduate you will probably receive a topical education in the cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological sub-fields, with likely one area that you are more specialized in.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":98111.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1qqqtg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is the Hobbesian BS about \"nasty, brutish, and short\" still so prevalent outside of Anthropology? Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? I recently found this sub and was browsing through the \"top\" section and whenever something like that comes up, it's just a given, between anthropologists, that, for example > \"Many hunter gatherer societies - especially the less complex ones - have as close to social equality as our species seems capable. This includes gender. \" I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but *he had a point*\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. So the people that professionally study people have one view of people and the rest of the world has another? And are angry and dismissive about it. Sorry I don't know what my question is actually.","c_root_id_A":"cdfnqdt","c_root_id_B":"cdfniyw","created_at_utc_A":1384611300,"created_at_utc_B":1384610199,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm not a professional anthropologist. My background is theatre history. I often think of this anti-early-society bias when considering popular historical recreations of bronze age societies or the medieval period. Sometimes these are depicted as so inherently violent or unjust as to be unlivable. (This applies to many plays and movies; *Game of Thrones* is a good example) I accept that in simpler societies, moral philosophy was less thoroughly deconstructed and reconstructed than it is now, but that doesn't mean it was less fruitful for the average person. There wasn't *complete* disregard for rights and life and limb in people's daily lives. When a culture becomes like that, folk don't stick around. Not for hundreds of years. They become refugees and move on. Cruel people didn't have total free reign. There was the burgher system, there were mechanisms for justice and redress...cultures can go awry but they mostly, in general, evolve to keep people alive and hale and contributing to the commonweal. Your post brought this to mind. I think the Hobbesian quip is ingrained in part because it makes good theatre. It has been reinforced by a hundred filmmakers who use mud and misery\" as a shorthand for \"a long time ago on a continent far far away\" and who have a narrative need to heighten the desperation of their characters. It makes a good narrative, in general, in our understanding of history as well; it's a flattering bias for us modern folk to imagine that philosophy and morality are on a simple timeline with the clumsy stuff at the distant end, and the refined stuff, the better people, available to us only here and now, like the best smartphones or whatever. It's like the view that considers evolution as a directed process with modern homo sapiens as the *ultimate* result. The anthropic principle makes it appear as if we are inevitable, but it's an illusion. We are one currently-effective iteration, which views history, and other \"iterations\" through a biased mirror mirror on the wall that tells us we are the fairest ones of all. tldr: i am pre-coffee and apparently wrote a Sunday-newspaper's length screed","human_ref_B":">Sorry I don't know what my question is actually. I can't quite tell, either. If you're asking why it is that the popular perception of these things is different from how they are conceptualized \/ discussed by people who study them, the answer is: the popular perception is rarely correct or nuanced. If you're asking why anthropologists are dismissive of the popular perception, I'd say your question is assuming that all anthropologists behave like the small number that you may or may not have been exposed to. Most of us are willing and happy to talk to the public about these things. The only time we become dismissive is when people who don't study these things insist that they are right simply because they once read a book by Jared Diamond and so are now experts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1101.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1qqqtg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is the Hobbesian BS about \"nasty, brutish, and short\" still so prevalent outside of Anthropology? Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? I recently found this sub and was browsing through the \"top\" section and whenever something like that comes up, it's just a given, between anthropologists, that, for example > \"Many hunter gatherer societies - especially the less complex ones - have as close to social equality as our species seems capable. This includes gender. \" I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but *he had a point*\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. So the people that professionally study people have one view of people and the rest of the world has another? And are angry and dismissive about it. Sorry I don't know what my question is actually.","c_root_id_A":"cdfrd1o","c_root_id_B":"cdfniyw","created_at_utc_A":1384623955,"created_at_utc_B":1384610199,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think you may be taking Hobbes' famous quote somewhat out of context. He was suggesting absent political community, *\" there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.\"* Hobbes was arguing for social contracts, from the perspective of a learned man of his times. Had he been presented with what we now know of social contracts at familial, tribal and village levels, he might well have pointed to them as proof of the necessity of the tradition of social contracts. His argument was of the human natural self-interest in cooperation. I've never really seen him as arguing against hunter gathers as arguing for stronger, better tribes (nations). On a related tangent, if you want a fascinating look at how recently \"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short\" accurately describe some segments of rural France right up to WWI, I'd suggest reading *\"The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War\"* by Graham Rob. In one sense, it's tangential to the assumption of what you are asking. In another sense, it's astonishing to see how recently denizens of one of the most civilized ancient countries on the planet lived tribally and in isolation, simply waiting to be released from their miserable existences at a time when their aristocrats were fabulously wealthy.","human_ref_B":">Sorry I don't know what my question is actually. I can't quite tell, either. If you're asking why it is that the popular perception of these things is different from how they are conceptualized \/ discussed by people who study them, the answer is: the popular perception is rarely correct or nuanced. If you're asking why anthropologists are dismissive of the popular perception, I'd say your question is assuming that all anthropologists behave like the small number that you may or may not have been exposed to. Most of us are willing and happy to talk to the public about these things. The only time we become dismissive is when people who don't study these things insist that they are right simply because they once read a book by Jared Diamond and so are now experts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13756.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1qqqtg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is the Hobbesian BS about \"nasty, brutish, and short\" still so prevalent outside of Anthropology? Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? I recently found this sub and was browsing through the \"top\" section and whenever something like that comes up, it's just a given, between anthropologists, that, for example > \"Many hunter gatherer societies - especially the less complex ones - have as close to social equality as our species seems capable. This includes gender. \" I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but *he had a point*\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. So the people that professionally study people have one view of people and the rest of the world has another? And are angry and dismissive about it. Sorry I don't know what my question is actually.","c_root_id_A":"cdfrd1o","c_root_id_B":"cdfq6ck","created_at_utc_A":1384623955,"created_at_utc_B":1384620443,"score_A":7,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think you may be taking Hobbes' famous quote somewhat out of context. He was suggesting absent political community, *\" there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.\"* Hobbes was arguing for social contracts, from the perspective of a learned man of his times. Had he been presented with what we now know of social contracts at familial, tribal and village levels, he might well have pointed to them as proof of the necessity of the tradition of social contracts. His argument was of the human natural self-interest in cooperation. I've never really seen him as arguing against hunter gathers as arguing for stronger, better tribes (nations). On a related tangent, if you want a fascinating look at how recently \"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short\" accurately describe some segments of rural France right up to WWI, I'd suggest reading *\"The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War\"* by Graham Rob. In one sense, it's tangential to the assumption of what you are asking. In another sense, it's astonishing to see how recently denizens of one of the most civilized ancient countries on the planet lived tribally and in isolation, simply waiting to be released from their miserable existences at a time when their aristocrats were fabulously wealthy.","human_ref_B":"I've often wondered the same thing and its a misconception that can really anger me, especially when people simply refuse to believe the anthropological data\/archaeological data you provide them. I've come to believe that this clinging among the wide populace to the notion of a linear Mankind-wide progression from 'undeveloped', warlike, savage and low-quality-of-life to 'advanced', civilized and high-quality-of-life stems from psychological reasons. Its essentially very comforting to believe that we \"did the right thing\" by developing agriculture, nation-states and a so-called 'civilized' world. Having to be faced with the possibility that people 12.000 years before us had more leisure time, were more peaceful (thats ofcourse a contentious one) and were egalitarian forces us to call into question our own way of life. We'd like to think that the grass is greener on our side.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3512.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"1qqqtg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is the Hobbesian BS about \"nasty, brutish, and short\" still so prevalent outside of Anthropology? Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? I recently found this sub and was browsing through the \"top\" section and whenever something like that comes up, it's just a given, between anthropologists, that, for example > \"Many hunter gatherer societies - especially the less complex ones - have as close to social equality as our species seems capable. This includes gender. \" I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but *he had a point*\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. So the people that professionally study people have one view of people and the rest of the world has another? And are angry and dismissive about it. Sorry I don't know what my question is actually.","c_root_id_A":"cdftlq9","c_root_id_B":"cdfniyw","created_at_utc_A":1384630165,"created_at_utc_B":1384610199,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm not an anthropologist but I know some things. I'll take a stab. >Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? First of all you're committing exactly the same fallacy that you're accusing other people of, which is generalizing groups that have almost nothing in common with each other except being non-Western. So, there's that. Secondly, being \"egalitarian\" is a vague label, but no matter what definition you use, it is not at all mutually exclusive with serial rape and starvation. You have to realize that there's a bit of a selective bias in the hunter-gatherer societies we have the privilege of reading about. All the others died out, either due to warfare, starvation, disease, or whatever else. We generally are able to read only about the most successful ones, the ones that survived into modernity. With agricultural societies we have the luxury of reading about any that left writing or any other kind of physical evidence behind, so we see every example. Thus we see evidence of famine in urban areas very easily, but it's very hard to tell how many hunter-gatherer groups died out from starvation; they simply did not leave enough evidence behind. Egalitarianism is comparatively rare as a value in agricultural societies. It's really only made a comeback as a value in the last few centuries, alongside the rise of democracy in industrial nation-states. Before that, to very broadly generalize across hundreds if not thousands of agricultural societies that have come and gone, one common trend is the concept of society being split roughly into three castes: the sacred, the military, and the economic. This is far from universally accepted, but anyway, it's known as the trifunctional hypothesis. The hypothesis basically suggests that Indo-European civilizations as a whole descend from this kind of society, which is why Hindu civilization, ancient Greek, Roman, Norman, et cetera, all have common themes and caste structures. The point being that, yes, sure, we can probably grant that egalitarianism is more commonly a feature of hunter-gatherers than agriculturalists, but so what? It's very rare for agricultural societies to consider that a good thing. >I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but he had a point\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. Unfortunately the whole debate really misses the point about the main difference between agricultural societies and hunter-gatherers. It's not about calories or hours of free time. Let's assume those arguing in favor of hunter-gatherer societies are completely right about those things. Hunter-gatherers until recently ate more food and had more free time, sure, why not. So what? Agriculturalism has numerous other benefits. Security, division of labor, stores of wealth, trade, larger social groups, et cetera.","human_ref_B":">Sorry I don't know what my question is actually. I can't quite tell, either. If you're asking why it is that the popular perception of these things is different from how they are conceptualized \/ discussed by people who study them, the answer is: the popular perception is rarely correct or nuanced. If you're asking why anthropologists are dismissive of the popular perception, I'd say your question is assuming that all anthropologists behave like the small number that you may or may not have been exposed to. Most of us are willing and happy to talk to the public about these things. The only time we become dismissive is when people who don't study these things insist that they are right simply because they once read a book by Jared Diamond and so are now experts.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19966.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1qqqtg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is the Hobbesian BS about \"nasty, brutish, and short\" still so prevalent outside of Anthropology? Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? I recently found this sub and was browsing through the \"top\" section and whenever something like that comes up, it's just a given, between anthropologists, that, for example > \"Many hunter gatherer societies - especially the less complex ones - have as close to social equality as our species seems capable. This includes gender. \" I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but *he had a point*\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. So the people that professionally study people have one view of people and the rest of the world has another? And are angry and dismissive about it. Sorry I don't know what my question is actually.","c_root_id_A":"cdfq6ck","c_root_id_B":"cdftlq9","created_at_utc_A":1384620443,"created_at_utc_B":1384630165,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I've often wondered the same thing and its a misconception that can really anger me, especially when people simply refuse to believe the anthropological data\/archaeological data you provide them. I've come to believe that this clinging among the wide populace to the notion of a linear Mankind-wide progression from 'undeveloped', warlike, savage and low-quality-of-life to 'advanced', civilized and high-quality-of-life stems from psychological reasons. Its essentially very comforting to believe that we \"did the right thing\" by developing agriculture, nation-states and a so-called 'civilized' world. Having to be faced with the possibility that people 12.000 years before us had more leisure time, were more peaceful (thats ofcourse a contentious one) and were egalitarian forces us to call into question our own way of life. We'd like to think that the grass is greener on our side.","human_ref_B":"I'm not an anthropologist but I know some things. I'll take a stab. >Have you ever gone on the internet and tried to suggest to someone that \"uncivilized\" people (especially hunter-gatherer, non-domesticators) were\/are egalitarian, not serial rapists, not in a constant state of hunger, had longer lives than anybody else except the most recent, high tech people,... what else? First of all you're committing exactly the same fallacy that you're accusing other people of, which is generalizing groups that have almost nothing in common with each other except being non-Western. So, there's that. Secondly, being \"egalitarian\" is a vague label, but no matter what definition you use, it is not at all mutually exclusive with serial rape and starvation. You have to realize that there's a bit of a selective bias in the hunter-gatherer societies we have the privilege of reading about. All the others died out, either due to warfare, starvation, disease, or whatever else. We generally are able to read only about the most successful ones, the ones that survived into modernity. With agricultural societies we have the luxury of reading about any that left writing or any other kind of physical evidence behind, so we see every example. Thus we see evidence of famine in urban areas very easily, but it's very hard to tell how many hunter-gatherer groups died out from starvation; they simply did not leave enough evidence behind. Egalitarianism is comparatively rare as a value in agricultural societies. It's really only made a comeback as a value in the last few centuries, alongside the rise of democracy in industrial nation-states. Before that, to very broadly generalize across hundreds if not thousands of agricultural societies that have come and gone, one common trend is the concept of society being split roughly into three castes: the sacred, the military, and the economic. This is far from universally accepted, but anyway, it's known as the trifunctional hypothesis. The hypothesis basically suggests that Indo-European civilizations as a whole descend from this kind of society, which is why Hindu civilization, ancient Greek, Roman, Norman, et cetera, all have common themes and caste structures. The point being that, yes, sure, we can probably grant that egalitarianism is more commonly a feature of hunter-gatherers than agriculturalists, but so what? It's very rare for agricultural societies to consider that a good thing. >I'm not an anthropologist, but I did a little reading a while ago of Sahlin's Original Affluent Society and then a handful of responses\/critiques of it since then, and the gist of what I got was \"he may have over stated some things, but he had a point\" and now I find this sub and it seems like you 2013 grad-students have the same view, from what I can read. I'm probably biased. I'm sure there are nuances, but in general. Like is there any debate about the basics of this? Maybe I shouldn't use a subreddit to get the pulse of a whole field. Unfortunately the whole debate really misses the point about the main difference between agricultural societies and hunter-gatherers. It's not about calories or hours of free time. Let's assume those arguing in favor of hunter-gatherer societies are completely right about those things. Hunter-gatherers until recently ate more food and had more free time, sure, why not. So what? Agriculturalism has numerous other benefits. Security, division of labor, stores of wealth, trade, larger social groups, et cetera.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9722.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"gaxhiq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where should I start with anthropological theory? I'm a first-year anthropology student, and while some of my introductory classes have brushed on theory, it was all pretty basic, while on my own time I've read a lot of ethnographic work, but not a lot of theory (to the extent that practice and theory are separable). Who are the most important theorists and what do they argue? How important are theoretical considers in general when conducting fieldwork of one's own?","c_root_id_A":"fp2tra8","c_root_id_B":"fp34vmn","created_at_utc_A":1588267743,"created_at_utc_B":1588273124,"score_A":8,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"Got my first degree in Anthrpology, and my second (and third, and working on my fourth) in Nursing. We see Bandura a lot in all my nursing work.","human_ref_B":"Bourdieu, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Taussig, Mead, Boaz, Benedict, and Marx are very influential in the field of cultural anthropology... But may not arrive in ethnographies explicitly. Anthropology is the least disciplined of disciplines; depending on the topic or subject of study, you can source\/build a theoretical framework from outside the canon with ease. There's a big push to move beyond the canon in some circles, and generally there's a pretty radical move towards interdisciplinary uses and applications of theory. I work with performance studies, sensory studies, and affect theory a lot. Not much of the theory I draw on\/rely on is \"anthropological\". Rather, the way I play with such theories, and the questions I end up asking (as well as methodological considerations) are what make it anthropological. For my fieldwork, theory played a heavy role in the preparations and then again in the analysis\/synthesis phases. Theory structured how I made meaning of the phenomena experienced. Theory also framed the questions I was asking going into the field. Theory gave me some stability (ontologically\/epistemologically) for how I approached the community and the activities therein. Fieldwork totally blows theory out of the water - fieldwork as being-on-the-ground seeks to make theory lived and livable... Does this make sense??","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5381.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"gaxhiq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Where should I start with anthropological theory? I'm a first-year anthropology student, and while some of my introductory classes have brushed on theory, it was all pretty basic, while on my own time I've read a lot of ethnographic work, but not a lot of theory (to the extent that practice and theory are separable). Who are the most important theorists and what do they argue? How important are theoretical considers in general when conducting fieldwork of one's own?","c_root_id_A":"fp466rw","c_root_id_B":"fp4knc7","created_at_utc_A":1588292481,"created_at_utc_B":1588301137,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"My personal favorite is one for archaeology called \"archaeological theory in a nutshell\" by praetzellis. Its very easy to read and you can build off this for other disciplines.","human_ref_B":"The thing about anthropological theory is that main, canonical theory focuses on a few theorists like Morgan, Tylor, Boas, White, Steward, Wolf, Geertz... to name a few. They really vary from evolutionists, relativists, functionalists, structuralists, interpretivists, and the postmodernists and post structuralists. But in short, perspectives range in the extent to which scholars propose a more materialist or idealist perspectives (a dichotomy stemming from traditions that people usually relegate to Durkheim and Weber). But if you want a quick, but lengthy crash course into really classic anthropological theory, Sherry Ortner has written a pair of articles that anyone interested in theory ought to read. The first is called Anthropological theory since the Sixties, and it really outlines some of the positions and orientations in anthropology between 1960-80. In this article, she does a fantastic job in adequately articulating the tensions within the discipline. You can find the article free here: https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Sherry_Ortner\/publication\/248071710_Theory_in_Anthropology_since_the_Sixties\/links\/55eda95408ae199d47bd685b.pdf In a much more recent article, Ortner updates her theoretical musings in contrasting \u201cdark anthropology,\u201d which takes a more political economic (materialist) perspective with \u201canthropology of the good,\u201d which articulated how ethnography as a method can help us interpret people\u2019s experiences in a more nuanced way. Find it free online here: https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/pdfplus\/10.14318\/hau6.1.004 But for your purposes, these are especially great because she outlines theorists that you should do more research on, and so you can definitely loot her references. Aside from that, Erickson and Murphy\u2019s books on anthro theory are spectacular and take one approach to writing about theory. But I\u2019m partial to Jerry Moore\u2019s Visions of Culture, which provides really great descriptions and historical biographies of each theorist he covers. I personally first learned about theory under Moore during my undergrad and have kept in touch with him ever since. He constantly updates his books and is a real admirer of theory. Either way, both of these two volumes take a similar approach: one book for explaining theory in their own terms, and a second book with that theorist\u2019s actual selected work(s). Really great for grasping theory. I recommend giving Ortner\u2019s articles a read and then delving into these. Good luck!! Edit: sorry about all the typos. I clearly really don\u2019t care, and my papers during this final week of class reflect that as well.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8656.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2e6oim","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What was the penis size of a Neandertal? This is a serious question. Lately I've read a lot of news about Neandertal and Human interbreeding and in the comment section of one of those texts (I don't remember which) someone said that that shouldn't be possible since the human penis would be too large for a neandertal woman. I went to google and got a lot of controversy about that, some texts said europeans should be thankful to neandertals for their big penises, other said they were probably small, since in other primates it is really small in comparison to the humans. So, I come to you, so you can solve this weird question. :D","c_root_id_A":"cjwnipo","c_root_id_B":"cjworgi","created_at_utc_A":1408640985,"created_at_utc_B":1408643274,"score_A":8,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"hmmm....well, it'd probably be easier and more reliable to consider their testicles (T). Let's use apes - gorillas tend to smaller T's because of their social hierarchy. The silver-back big daddy doesn't tend to have reproductive competition until someone is trying to remove him from power, so to speak. Gorillas have harems - one male has reproductive access to all the females = no need for big ol' T's. Chimps, on the other hand, have big nuts. They run in a group - more like a democracy than a dictatorship (like gorillas). So, if you want to reproduce like a good little biological creature - you're going to need to compete. Massive T's = massive loads = best chance at the offspring being yours. Even further to that in chimps is the sperm plug, where the sperm will create a barrier inside the female that makes it impossible\/difficult for other males sperm to break through. As far as wangs go...probably just like everyone else - large continuum. They're shorter and stockier, which would suggest - inferring from recent studies - that Neanderthals weren't working with a very impressive piece. I wouldn't hang my hat on that guess, but considering how little Neanderthal DNA comprises our own, I don't think it had a huge influence on us now. Interesting question though. Fun to think about (PSA: I am not a homo-paleo-necrophiliac).","human_ref_B":"We have no idea. Penises didn't fossilize. By the time Neanderthals came on the scene our ancestors had lost their penile spines (we know this from DNA) so they had smooth penises like modern humans. But we don't know anything about size.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2289.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"2e6oim","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"What was the penis size of a Neandertal? This is a serious question. Lately I've read a lot of news about Neandertal and Human interbreeding and in the comment section of one of those texts (I don't remember which) someone said that that shouldn't be possible since the human penis would be too large for a neandertal woman. I went to google and got a lot of controversy about that, some texts said europeans should be thankful to neandertals for their big penises, other said they were probably small, since in other primates it is really small in comparison to the humans. So, I come to you, so you can solve this weird question. :D","c_root_id_A":"cjx5sa1","c_root_id_B":"cjxa8ji","created_at_utc_A":1408678351,"created_at_utc_B":1408692126,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Somewhat related: The reason so many old statues of naked men have small penises was because large penises were considered barbaric.","human_ref_B":">I went to google and got a lot of controversy about that, some texts said europeans should be thankful to neandertals for their big penises East Asians have more Neanderthal ancestry than Europeans, so by that logic East Asians should have larger penises than Europeans. But they don't.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13775.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cpfljr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Why is egalitarianism and equality pretty much nonexistent in communities? There are some kinds of egalitarianism among nomadic peoples but formal civilzations always seem to have classes or castes of people where some are seen as lesser. Power is usually in the hands of very small amounts of people and they're usually related by blood.","c_root_id_A":"ewpg1jk","c_root_id_B":"ewppgvy","created_at_utc_A":1565640400,"created_at_utc_B":1565646315,"score_A":2,"score_B":60,"human_ref_A":"The simple answer is that cultures and societies that have had a ruling class, have been much more successful than societies that have been egalitarian. Peter Turchin has written about this concept a lot in his books, \"War and Peace and War\" as well as \"Ages of Discord\" . The idea is that culture evolves in a similar dynamic as your genes and natural selection does. It's best to do this in terms of war and economics because those are the two things that have driven most of the competition among human societies. For example, Native American societies were much more egalitarian than the Christian settlers that they were in competition with. Christian society (with more hierarchy) overwhelmed the Native American societies and replaced them in the North American continent. As a result, the people who now live in North America (us), have a more top-down system than the people that used to live here (Native Americans). This is a vast over simplification of the idea, but it's a pretty simple concept. More successful societies replaced and exterminated societies who were more egalitarian. The reasons why top-down societies seem to be more successful than egalitarian ones is a difficult question to answer, yet, it's quite clear than a society with a ruling elite class that uses familial connections to maintain their elite status is better at organizing society in terms of war and economics than a society that is more egalitarian. All the information I have here was from Turchin's articles and books.","human_ref_B":"Anthropologically speaking, these \"nomadic\" (what you're probably referring to are tribal\/band and hunter-gatherer societies) are not considered to be \"less than\" societies of \"civilization\" and nation-states. However, egalitarianism is\/was a central facet of human society for over 200,000 years (much longer than the timeline of modern civilization at roughly 10,000 years) and into the present day. You can see broad examples of everyday egalitarianism even in hyper-modern communities by examining any social dynamics with no clear rulers or hierarchies and where those within such dynamics come to general consensus on decisions without dictation (many friend groups do this). There is a catch in the semantics you use, as the very term \"formal civilization\" is\/was defined by the very people (us) who both exist within and define \"civilization\" to begin with. Again, anthropologically speaking, we can examine multiple forms of human society and without coloring our language needlessly with terms like \"formal\" in regards to assigning values of success or legitimacy. That being said, egalitarian tribal\/band societies have proven both successful and legitimate throughout the entirety of human history and into the present. There is something to be said about the rise of civilization being prompted by the advent of intensive agriculture (high-energy\/low-nutrient monocrops) and carried on a wave of subsequent population growth (due to the nature and abundance of this food) that has, both intentionally and unintentionally, eclipsed other indigenous human societies and manifested hierarchies of competition and conquest (generally for resources, including power). In essence, \"civilized\" societies were more numerous, voracious, and ruthlessly competitive (as the nature of such society necessitates such expansion) and thus have annihilated or drowned-out other societies. These other societies, however, still exist and, more\/less, quite successfully despite their struggles.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5915.0,"score_ratio":30.0} {"post_id":"3ye92n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"When did humans start fighting for control of territory? Has this been something inherent in humans since the 'start' or were there certain societal and other precursors? For example, were hunter gatherers fighting for control of land (I would have thought not since they were not sedentary), or did it start after farming or only once cities and states came into being?","c_root_id_A":"cycu9u9","c_root_id_B":"cycum6n","created_at_utc_A":1451236303,"created_at_utc_B":1451236986,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Bonobos (one of our closest living relatives) exhibit a very different form of territoriality. I do not think it is enough to simply describe territoriality in humans as an ancestral trait. Some posit that human territoriality is linked to the origins of agriculture. Search the terms 'territoriality humans agriculture' in google scholar and you'll see there is a lot on this topic.","human_ref_B":"Most animals will squabble among themselves for access to the best resources. Where human society differs is that it has understood territory as a concept, as a way of dividing the world. If you look at the creation myths of earlier civilisations you can see how a connectedness with the physical earth is a recurring trope. An example would be the Athenian belief in autochthony, that men were born fully formed out of the earth giving their ancestors legitimacy over the territory they understood as their spiritual homeland.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":683.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"3ye92n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"When did humans start fighting for control of territory? Has this been something inherent in humans since the 'start' or were there certain societal and other precursors? For example, were hunter gatherers fighting for control of land (I would have thought not since they were not sedentary), or did it start after farming or only once cities and states came into being?","c_root_id_A":"cyctkw8","c_root_id_B":"cycum6n","created_at_utc_A":1451234874,"created_at_utc_B":1451236986,"score_A":4,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Most or all species of ape display the same basic pattern, so we must conclude that the same behavior independently evolved in dozens of species (unlikely) or that it was present in a common ancestor and disseminated to all of its descendants (more likely).","human_ref_B":"Most animals will squabble among themselves for access to the best resources. Where human society differs is that it has understood territory as a concept, as a way of dividing the world. If you look at the creation myths of earlier civilisations you can see how a connectedness with the physical earth is a recurring trope. An example would be the Athenian belief in autochthony, that men were born fully formed out of the earth giving their ancestors legitimacy over the territory they understood as their spiritual homeland.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2112.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"3ye92n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"When did humans start fighting for control of territory? Has this been something inherent in humans since the 'start' or were there certain societal and other precursors? For example, were hunter gatherers fighting for control of land (I would have thought not since they were not sedentary), or did it start after farming or only once cities and states came into being?","c_root_id_A":"cycu9u9","c_root_id_B":"cyctkw8","created_at_utc_A":1451236303,"created_at_utc_B":1451234874,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Bonobos (one of our closest living relatives) exhibit a very different form of territoriality. I do not think it is enough to simply describe territoriality in humans as an ancestral trait. Some posit that human territoriality is linked to the origins of agriculture. Search the terms 'territoriality humans agriculture' in google scholar and you'll see there is a lot on this topic.","human_ref_B":"Most or all species of ape display the same basic pattern, so we must conclude that the same behavior independently evolved in dozens of species (unlikely) or that it was present in a common ancestor and disseminated to all of its descendants (more likely).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1429.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"h7hjki","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did any of you learn photography skills for your fieldwork? This is something that i'm genuinely curious about since I'm trying to learn at least basic photography skills (I hate it though it's so technical and my focus regarding photography is almost non-existent) as a hobby but will probably take photos of my subjects during my fieldwork later on in the year. I'm reading one of my professors' ethnographies and just noticed that his photography is really good and better than others I've seen.","c_root_id_A":"full07u","c_root_id_B":"fulavm5","created_at_utc_A":1591971460,"created_at_utc_B":1591965211,"score_A":20,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Part of photography is technical, but I think the harder thing to master is the philosophical underpinnings that separate good photographers from average\/mediocre ones. Just be careful about the ethical boundaries and how you convey your subjects. In Western photography, a propensity emerges in Western photography to highlight or focus on \"otherness\" - to exotify subjects within their context, or for photographers to superimpose their vision\/interpretation of the culture onto the culture itself. I speak on this from my experience as a hobbyist photographer and as a returned Peace Corps volunteer. Engaging with cultures is not easy and how your portray your subjects fairly, in my opinion, is critical. This is not even really about international contexts - any time you're confronted with something alien, even within your own national borders, you're imposing your worldview\/understanding onto your subject(s). This is easier said than done, although I think some photographers like Steve McCurry have been able to straddle the line quite well. This is not to say that you shouldn't take pictures - just be cognizant of your own privileges as an observer and how that translates into your photography. To do it effectively means, in my opinion, to understand and participate in the culture you're observing as an equal to the extent possible... but this can affect the outcomes of your anthropological work.","human_ref_B":"You should talk to your professor about it. Visual storytelling is a skill in it's own right and there are a lot of YouTube videos about how to tell a story specifically for documentary photography (Sean Tucker immediately comes to mind as does James Popsys, though his work is more landscape oriented), which is where I think most visual anthropology aligns most closely. A lot of art photography is focused on learning technical aspects first, but documentary is about capturing a moment. As a result, a lot of documentary photographers will use auto settings. I personally use auto-ISO and aperture priority auto mode to ensure I don't miss a shot. Ironically, I worked as a professional photographer for years before going to college and didn't even bring a camera (besides my phone) with me while I was in the field for the first time. Now I carry a little Sony nex-6 with a 16mm f2.8 and a 50mm f1.8 when I visit.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6249.0,"score_ratio":2.8571428571} {"post_id":"h7hjki","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did any of you learn photography skills for your fieldwork? This is something that i'm genuinely curious about since I'm trying to learn at least basic photography skills (I hate it though it's so technical and my focus regarding photography is almost non-existent) as a hobby but will probably take photos of my subjects during my fieldwork later on in the year. I'm reading one of my professors' ethnographies and just noticed that his photography is really good and better than others I've seen.","c_root_id_A":"full07u","c_root_id_B":"fulg9zf","created_at_utc_A":1591971460,"created_at_utc_B":1591968728,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Part of photography is technical, but I think the harder thing to master is the philosophical underpinnings that separate good photographers from average\/mediocre ones. Just be careful about the ethical boundaries and how you convey your subjects. In Western photography, a propensity emerges in Western photography to highlight or focus on \"otherness\" - to exotify subjects within their context, or for photographers to superimpose their vision\/interpretation of the culture onto the culture itself. I speak on this from my experience as a hobbyist photographer and as a returned Peace Corps volunteer. Engaging with cultures is not easy and how your portray your subjects fairly, in my opinion, is critical. This is not even really about international contexts - any time you're confronted with something alien, even within your own national borders, you're imposing your worldview\/understanding onto your subject(s). This is easier said than done, although I think some photographers like Steve McCurry have been able to straddle the line quite well. This is not to say that you shouldn't take pictures - just be cognizant of your own privileges as an observer and how that translates into your photography. To do it effectively means, in my opinion, to understand and participate in the culture you're observing as an equal to the extent possible... but this can affect the outcomes of your anthropological work.","human_ref_B":"I had photojournalism experience before I got into archaeology. I'm a bit rusty but it's come in handy when I've had to do field and artifact photography. Youtube is a wonderful resource for beginner photographers. There's also a [subreddit] (https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Beginning_Photography\/) for new photographers. Honestly, the best thing to do is learn the fundamental skills and then get out there and shoot. It helps you become familiar with your equipment, the principles of photography, and develop your own style.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2732.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"h7hjki","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Did any of you learn photography skills for your fieldwork? This is something that i'm genuinely curious about since I'm trying to learn at least basic photography skills (I hate it though it's so technical and my focus regarding photography is almost non-existent) as a hobby but will probably take photos of my subjects during my fieldwork later on in the year. I'm reading one of my professors' ethnographies and just noticed that his photography is really good and better than others I've seen.","c_root_id_A":"full07u","c_root_id_B":"fulk5fk","created_at_utc_A":1591971460,"created_at_utc_B":1591970984,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Part of photography is technical, but I think the harder thing to master is the philosophical underpinnings that separate good photographers from average\/mediocre ones. Just be careful about the ethical boundaries and how you convey your subjects. In Western photography, a propensity emerges in Western photography to highlight or focus on \"otherness\" - to exotify subjects within their context, or for photographers to superimpose their vision\/interpretation of the culture onto the culture itself. I speak on this from my experience as a hobbyist photographer and as a returned Peace Corps volunteer. Engaging with cultures is not easy and how your portray your subjects fairly, in my opinion, is critical. This is not even really about international contexts - any time you're confronted with something alien, even within your own national borders, you're imposing your worldview\/understanding onto your subject(s). This is easier said than done, although I think some photographers like Steve McCurry have been able to straddle the line quite well. This is not to say that you shouldn't take pictures - just be cognizant of your own privileges as an observer and how that translates into your photography. To do it effectively means, in my opinion, to understand and participate in the culture you're observing as an equal to the extent possible... but this can affect the outcomes of your anthropological work.","human_ref_B":"Yes! During the 4th semester of my bachelor's in cultural anthro we had a visual anthropology course and for the first part we've only talked photography and videography, as in to do it from scratch. IMO you should really know your basic photo video stuff, at least how to take (or make, as my prof put it) a good pic because it really opens up another dimension in fieldwork.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":476.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"bb7ttf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are the principles of the study of ethnogenesis? At what point does a community become a separate ethnic identity of its own? Are there hallmarks that every ethnic group goes through as it develops into a cohesive identity? Or is it different for each ethnic group - for example, could a particular ethnic group can develop over a century, whereas a nearby one might take millennia? Is the study of ethnogenesis difficult or divisive amongst scholars due to a lack of data as a fledgling ethnic group is unlikely to have extensive records or archeological remains? Does nationalism and folklore play into discussions of ethnogenesis and ethnic origins? Finally, any good books on the theories as to how ethnogenesis occurs?","c_root_id_A":"ekh5ufo","c_root_id_B":"ekh94o9","created_at_utc_A":1554824782,"created_at_utc_B":1554826864,"score_A":5,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"\"Ethnicity\" does not have a particularly strong universality or specificity. It often does not particularly correspond to how people think about themselves, nor does it have a scientific power that would lead us to insist on it. The academic idea comes to us from Europeans, who knew European social history and saw everything through the lens of Greek writings.","human_ref_B":"This question arguably belongs to history more than anthropology. I think the answer you will probably get if you ask historians is that there is no general principal of ethnogenesis because ethnicity itself is a nebulous concept. (If you can't clearly define something then you can't say when it began either.) What's more, contemporary historians tend not to believe in grand universal theories about how history happens. Narratives of ethnogenesis have tended to be motivated by political ends (i.e. to justify or deny the existence of nation-states) rather than being purely descriptive. It's difficult to separate the idea from nationalism, which is a modern ideology. A classic book on the topic of nationalism is Benedict Anderson's *Imagined Communities*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2082.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"bb7ttf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are the principles of the study of ethnogenesis? At what point does a community become a separate ethnic identity of its own? Are there hallmarks that every ethnic group goes through as it develops into a cohesive identity? Or is it different for each ethnic group - for example, could a particular ethnic group can develop over a century, whereas a nearby one might take millennia? Is the study of ethnogenesis difficult or divisive amongst scholars due to a lack of data as a fledgling ethnic group is unlikely to have extensive records or archeological remains? Does nationalism and folklore play into discussions of ethnogenesis and ethnic origins? Finally, any good books on the theories as to how ethnogenesis occurs?","c_root_id_A":"ekh44qr","c_root_id_B":"ekh94o9","created_at_utc_A":1554823713,"created_at_utc_B":1554826864,"score_A":3,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I personally hear the term ethnolinguistic group more often.","human_ref_B":"This question arguably belongs to history more than anthropology. I think the answer you will probably get if you ask historians is that there is no general principal of ethnogenesis because ethnicity itself is a nebulous concept. (If you can't clearly define something then you can't say when it began either.) What's more, contemporary historians tend not to believe in grand universal theories about how history happens. Narratives of ethnogenesis have tended to be motivated by political ends (i.e. to justify or deny the existence of nation-states) rather than being purely descriptive. It's difficult to separate the idea from nationalism, which is a modern ideology. A classic book on the topic of nationalism is Benedict Anderson's *Imagined Communities*.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3151.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"bb7ttf","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"What are the principles of the study of ethnogenesis? At what point does a community become a separate ethnic identity of its own? Are there hallmarks that every ethnic group goes through as it develops into a cohesive identity? Or is it different for each ethnic group - for example, could a particular ethnic group can develop over a century, whereas a nearby one might take millennia? Is the study of ethnogenesis difficult or divisive amongst scholars due to a lack of data as a fledgling ethnic group is unlikely to have extensive records or archeological remains? Does nationalism and folklore play into discussions of ethnogenesis and ethnic origins? Finally, any good books on the theories as to how ethnogenesis occurs?","c_root_id_A":"ekh5ufo","c_root_id_B":"ekh44qr","created_at_utc_A":1554824782,"created_at_utc_B":1554823713,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"\"Ethnicity\" does not have a particularly strong universality or specificity. It often does not particularly correspond to how people think about themselves, nor does it have a scientific power that would lead us to insist on it. The academic idea comes to us from Europeans, who knew European social history and saw everything through the lens of Greek writings.","human_ref_B":"I personally hear the term ethnolinguistic group more often.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1069.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"8c8jq3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Looking for a free book or resource on mastering the Western social world and assimilating into it I am looking for a free book or website or other free informational resources to learn how to fit in with Western culture\/society. That means knowing the norms, how to talk to people, make friends, find romance etc. Basically a book for total assimilation (fitting in) and mastering the Western social world. I am from Bangladesh and because of my mental illness, I do have trouble with social concepts like relationships, boundaries, what to say and so on; even in my society. So I need such an information even more. Here's an example of an article that provides practical guidance. It has examples that I often made myself in my real life only to learn now that its against the norms. Link: https:\/\/cn.hujiang.com\/new\/p410587\/ Any suggestions for such a free resource?","c_root_id_A":"dxdd331","c_root_id_B":"dxdd4wx","created_at_utc_A":1523740596,"created_at_utc_B":1523740651,"score_A":5,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Have you any particular country or region in mind? The Western world is quite a big and varied place and even within countries there are differences between regions. I know as a Brit living in the north of England the social customs can be very different to the south for instance.","human_ref_B":"Honestly, \"practical guidance\" in the form of words and facts may do more harm than good. I understand it can feel comfortable to have such a resource, and being comfortable in social situations is important, but it will mean nothing if you feel comfortable acting like a robot, which is often what happens when people \"go by the book\". I have had social issues in the past, and when I lived overseas in a country where nobody spoke English, I learned a lot from watching local situational comedy shows. The situations presented are often ridiculous, but the personalities they present, and the ideas behind the stories are often *very* relevant to being a healthy functioning adult in modern society. Watch character based shows that appeal to your intellect. Try to understand why the jokes are jokes. I speak two languages and I rarely laugh at \"jokes\" in my second language, or I laugh at different types of jokes than native speakers do, because the sensibility is different, but I believe I understand *why* they think the jokes are funny. Understanding why jokes are funny in a particular culture teaches you *a lot* about the culture and its personality quirks. At the same time you will be learning about having fun, light-hearted conversations, which language materials are HORRIBLE at doing. You don't want to be the guy that sounds like he learned English from a textbook. Also, consider that racism (or cultural insensitivity) is probably a barrier to your education as well. Try to find an actor or a comedian who you identify with. I don't know of any popular western Bengladeshi celebrities but there are quite a few from the Middle East and Southern Asia that may share some of your cultural background, and may also have faced the same kind of difficulties that you face. Recently there have been a lot more high-quality shows with cast members from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, though there is a lot more work to be done here. Hope this helps!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":55.0,"score_ratio":2.4} {"post_id":"9g6vqn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What evidence of homosexuality is there in early societies?","c_root_id_A":"e62b5zl","c_root_id_B":"e623lgu","created_at_utc_A":1537082540,"created_at_utc_B":1537070606,"score_A":49,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Loads. Go read an ancient epic story, there's probably dudes who love each other in there. The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving has Gilgamesh and Enkidu as close friends, and Gilgamesh is told he will love his friend as he would a wife. When Enikdu dies, Gilagamesh is extremely upset. It's not necessarily an easily question to answer definitively though, because what a culture thinks is erotic, what counts as platonic love, etc is difficult to define. People tended not to write about things like that, especially not in the kind of surviving texts we have. As soon as we get to Greek mythology though, things get real gay! Pretty definitively. There's even transgendered gods. So yeah, there is really loads of evidence for some form of same sex love in early societies. Outside of Europe you find it, China, Africa.","human_ref_B":"In the height of the Roman Empire taking men as sex slaves was the norm for emperor's. But you had to be the giver not the taker, otherwise that's not masculine. One of the emperors I forget which one now, was considered a little odd, because he refused to take a man like that and exclusively slept with women.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11934.0,"score_ratio":1.3611111111} {"post_id":"9g6vqn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"What evidence of homosexuality is there in early societies?","c_root_id_A":"e629ndy","c_root_id_B":"e62b5zl","created_at_utc_A":1537079623,"created_at_utc_B":1537082540,"score_A":23,"score_B":49,"human_ref_A":"\"Homosexuality\" (and for that matter heterosexuality) is an identifier that would have been completely alien to any society prior to 19th century europe. Reading that designation into sexual behaviors of earlier societies, particularly dominating penetration, is irresponsibly ahistorical. The landmark text for this is of course the very readable *History of Sexuality* by Foucault.","human_ref_B":"Loads. Go read an ancient epic story, there's probably dudes who love each other in there. The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving has Gilgamesh and Enkidu as close friends, and Gilgamesh is told he will love his friend as he would a wife. When Enikdu dies, Gilagamesh is extremely upset. It's not necessarily an easily question to answer definitively though, because what a culture thinks is erotic, what counts as platonic love, etc is difficult to define. People tended not to write about things like that, especially not in the kind of surviving texts we have. As soon as we get to Greek mythology though, things get real gay! Pretty definitively. There's even transgendered gods. So yeah, there is really loads of evidence for some form of same sex love in early societies. Outside of Europe you find it, China, Africa.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2917.0,"score_ratio":2.1304347826} {"post_id":"6tje1y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"When news breaks about a \"lost tribe\", has contact truly never been made before? Or were they found and their existence just never spoken about? Crossposted from r\/askhistorians. You sometimes hear on the news about recently discovered tribes. Are they truly just being discovered? Do these \"lost tribes\" become a tourist attraction for the rich? Does exploitation take place by those who \"found\" them and does it change these different tribes' culture? Thank you in advance for answering my questions!","c_root_id_A":"dllporb","c_root_id_B":"dllcniz","created_at_utc_A":1502716150,"created_at_utc_B":1502687466,"score_A":12,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I doubt any groups think of themselves as 'lost.' Most western news media is very ethnocentric. \"We didn't know these people existed before we found them! How lucky now we can evangelize\/tame\/save them!\"","human_ref_B":"Its late I hope this reads alright... At this point, the news stories that come to mind are usually tribes that we know about but have managed to choose not to make contact with us which in some respects is a very smart decision. Granted we do not know the decision making process necessarily but one can assume they are aware of what happened to other tribes who made contact. It may also be that they are a tribe who have never depended much on trade with others. I believe the news stories you have heard of are either an island off of Vienam (I think) where people who approach are greeted with spears and the other story that pops up every couple of years and the other is in Brazil where the government of Brazil does a census from helicopter to monitor their population and the land this specific tribe is using. Is there a news story you care to link? In regards to your questions... I think I answered the second one already which is these tribes deliberately don't want outsiders in out of fear their culture may be changed drastically through imported disease. As far as tourism goes I would love to have a helicopter ride in brazil and am sure people would pay handsomely for it. Lastly, there are some interesting reads out there on tourism in indigenous communities. One that comes to mind is land in Kenya owned by third generation white people who allow the Maori to live on the land in exchange for dances at tea time for tourists. Pretty interesting to think of the forging of Britain and Maori culture over such practices...","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28684.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"3ld7h9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Do you think Homo Naledi was buried? I know this isn't the typical kind of question on this sub, but I wanted some other opinions on this. Since the news came out about the discovery of Homo Naledi, a lot of discussion has been around their supposed burial. Having read a number of articles about it, I'm not terribly convinced this was the case. From my understanding, the only things found in this cave were the bones themselves, with no surrounding context. Who's to say they weren't placed there by more recent people? What I'm basically asking is that, if you think this was in fact some sort of ritual burial, why do you believe this to be the case?","c_root_id_A":"cv5o23w","c_root_id_B":"cv61bdq","created_at_utc_A":1442565129,"created_at_utc_B":1442595692,"score_A":4,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Yes. The instant I heard about where they were discovered I thought them to have been 'buried'. I guess 'laid to rest' in a ritualistic way is more accurate, and of the most primitive kind. Why? All these bones appear to be of a similiar 'kind' and of a similar age. They were found underground in a small cave which has an extremely narrow entrance. Scientists believe there has been no other entrance apart from that narrow one. So there appears to be no way that a bunch of bodies could have been carried down into that hole unless it was by intention and design. Theres no sign that other 'people' took them down there long after the deaths nor a reason why it should have been done. Would these people have dug up a dozen+ bodies to take them down there? Why? Where did they find a dozen+ bodies? Either they were recent, in which case someone of great antiquity did it, the very accusation we're making. Or it was someone more recent, in which case how did they find a dozen+ similar aged long dead skeletons lying around and then why did they take them down there? If you were in Africa and I said to you 'find me 15 Chimpanzee corpses so I can take them down a cave and hide them' you'd struggle to even find them. To be honest your statement \" Who's to say they weren't placed there by more recent people?\" is way more ridiculous a concept than that they were placed there deliberately, or went there deliberately before their death, whilst in the same community they came from. The simplest solution is that around their death they went or were taken down into that narrow narrow cave, something a 'mere' animal would, in our experience, never think of doing. The only real answer is that it was a concious choice to carry out an 'illogical' act and that denotes some degree of perceived ritual or abstract thought.","human_ref_B":"No, not at all, and I don't know any palaeoanthropologists who do believe that. The strongest pro-burial position I've heard is along the lines of \"It might be true, and would be very cool if it is\". I have found it weird that this is pretty much the exact opposite of the popular media portrayal, but then again I shouldn't be surprised by that any more. Anyway, most of the arguments for intentional burial seem to be of the variety \"I don't see why\/how this would have happened otherwise\", but I really do not think that's good enough. Intentional burial is a positive claim, and you need evidence for it. Gargett (1999) published what I think is a pretty good, albeit incomplete list of criteria that would need to be met to confirm the presence of an intentional Middle Palaeolithic burial. We have no idea if *H. naledi* is from the Middle Palaeolithic or not, but I think the criteria are still applicable. The questions to answer include: are there new and distinct geological strata indicating burial, are there complete skeletons, are there articulated skeletons, are the skeletal elements preserved relatively equally, are the remains fragmented, what is the position of the skeletons, is there evidence of trampling or other peri\/post mortem disturbance, what are the bedrock characteristics of the area, what was the depositional environment, and what other evidence of taphonomic processes is present? It's certainly possible to argue against some of these criteria, but it's also easy to see that *H. naledi* does not satisfy a lot of them. And this list was developed for Middle Palaeolithic humans and Neanderthals, not an undated species from any time in the past few million years, for which we have no evidence of any cultural development. The proof required in this case should be more stringent, not less, and yet the only argument for intentional burial is \"why would they be there otherwise?\" It's just not good enough. If the skeletons were articulated, maybe, but they aren't. If they were buried in a consistent pattern, maybe, but they aren't. If there were any other indication of any sort of cultural development, maybe, but there isn't. If we knew when these individuals lived, we'd have a better idea, but we don't. I understand the appeal, believe me I do, but I can honestly say that I don't know anyone in palaeoanthropology (who wasn't an author on the paper) who would actually argue that they were buried intentionally, myself included. Maybe some new evidence will be published that'll change our minds, but until then I just don't believe it at all. You can even see in \/u\/Thecna2's post, which did a very good job summing up the popular press arguments for intentional burial, the only real argument is that it's hard to imagine how the remains got there unintentionally. But that's just not enough evidence to make a huge claim like this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":30563.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"3ld7h9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Do you think Homo Naledi was buried? I know this isn't the typical kind of question on this sub, but I wanted some other opinions on this. Since the news came out about the discovery of Homo Naledi, a lot of discussion has been around their supposed burial. Having read a number of articles about it, I'm not terribly convinced this was the case. From my understanding, the only things found in this cave were the bones themselves, with no surrounding context. Who's to say they weren't placed there by more recent people? What I'm basically asking is that, if you think this was in fact some sort of ritual burial, why do you believe this to be the case?","c_root_id_A":"cv61bdq","c_root_id_B":"cv5j0uq","created_at_utc_A":1442595692,"created_at_utc_B":1442549045,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"No, not at all, and I don't know any palaeoanthropologists who do believe that. The strongest pro-burial position I've heard is along the lines of \"It might be true, and would be very cool if it is\". I have found it weird that this is pretty much the exact opposite of the popular media portrayal, but then again I shouldn't be surprised by that any more. Anyway, most of the arguments for intentional burial seem to be of the variety \"I don't see why\/how this would have happened otherwise\", but I really do not think that's good enough. Intentional burial is a positive claim, and you need evidence for it. Gargett (1999) published what I think is a pretty good, albeit incomplete list of criteria that would need to be met to confirm the presence of an intentional Middle Palaeolithic burial. We have no idea if *H. naledi* is from the Middle Palaeolithic or not, but I think the criteria are still applicable. The questions to answer include: are there new and distinct geological strata indicating burial, are there complete skeletons, are there articulated skeletons, are the skeletal elements preserved relatively equally, are the remains fragmented, what is the position of the skeletons, is there evidence of trampling or other peri\/post mortem disturbance, what are the bedrock characteristics of the area, what was the depositional environment, and what other evidence of taphonomic processes is present? It's certainly possible to argue against some of these criteria, but it's also easy to see that *H. naledi* does not satisfy a lot of them. And this list was developed for Middle Palaeolithic humans and Neanderthals, not an undated species from any time in the past few million years, for which we have no evidence of any cultural development. The proof required in this case should be more stringent, not less, and yet the only argument for intentional burial is \"why would they be there otherwise?\" It's just not good enough. If the skeletons were articulated, maybe, but they aren't. If they were buried in a consistent pattern, maybe, but they aren't. If there were any other indication of any sort of cultural development, maybe, but there isn't. If we knew when these individuals lived, we'd have a better idea, but we don't. I understand the appeal, believe me I do, but I can honestly say that I don't know anyone in palaeoanthropology (who wasn't an author on the paper) who would actually argue that they were buried intentionally, myself included. Maybe some new evidence will be published that'll change our minds, but until then I just don't believe it at all. You can even see in \/u\/Thecna2's post, which did a very good job summing up the popular press arguments for intentional burial, the only real argument is that it's hard to imagine how the remains got there unintentionally. But that's just not enough evidence to make a huge claim like this.","human_ref_B":"To my layman mind, why would that many wander that deep into a pitch black cave?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":46647.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"3ld7h9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Do you think Homo Naledi was buried? I know this isn't the typical kind of question on this sub, but I wanted some other opinions on this. Since the news came out about the discovery of Homo Naledi, a lot of discussion has been around their supposed burial. Having read a number of articles about it, I'm not terribly convinced this was the case. From my understanding, the only things found in this cave were the bones themselves, with no surrounding context. Who's to say they weren't placed there by more recent people? What I'm basically asking is that, if you think this was in fact some sort of ritual burial, why do you believe this to be the case?","c_root_id_A":"cv5o23w","c_root_id_B":"cv5j0uq","created_at_utc_A":1442565129,"created_at_utc_B":1442549045,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Yes. The instant I heard about where they were discovered I thought them to have been 'buried'. I guess 'laid to rest' in a ritualistic way is more accurate, and of the most primitive kind. Why? All these bones appear to be of a similiar 'kind' and of a similar age. They were found underground in a small cave which has an extremely narrow entrance. Scientists believe there has been no other entrance apart from that narrow one. So there appears to be no way that a bunch of bodies could have been carried down into that hole unless it was by intention and design. Theres no sign that other 'people' took them down there long after the deaths nor a reason why it should have been done. Would these people have dug up a dozen+ bodies to take them down there? Why? Where did they find a dozen+ bodies? Either they were recent, in which case someone of great antiquity did it, the very accusation we're making. Or it was someone more recent, in which case how did they find a dozen+ similar aged long dead skeletons lying around and then why did they take them down there? If you were in Africa and I said to you 'find me 15 Chimpanzee corpses so I can take them down a cave and hide them' you'd struggle to even find them. To be honest your statement \" Who's to say they weren't placed there by more recent people?\" is way more ridiculous a concept than that they were placed there deliberately, or went there deliberately before their death, whilst in the same community they came from. The simplest solution is that around their death they went or were taken down into that narrow narrow cave, something a 'mere' animal would, in our experience, never think of doing. The only real answer is that it was a concious choice to carry out an 'illogical' act and that denotes some degree of perceived ritual or abstract thought.","human_ref_B":"To my layman mind, why would that many wander that deep into a pitch black cave?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16084.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2lmotl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"(X-post from AskHistorians) Which happened first, the Axe or the Wheel? Any other information on the earliest known usages of simple machines would be great as well.","c_root_id_A":"clwbdj5","c_root_id_B":"clwdaa4","created_at_utc_A":1415413691,"created_at_utc_B":1415418569,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"This is just off the top of my head, but I'm gonna say that hand axes predate the wheel.","human_ref_B":"For certain values of 'axe' macaques carefully selecting stone to use as tools already has that technology. By that definition axe use predates the creation of edged stone tools. But even if we require deliberately shaping said stones into a recognisably axe form, we still need those tools to shape wood into rollers and sleds which is used before the creation of wheels.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4878.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmhp43","c_root_id_B":"emmhhw2","created_at_utc_A":1557123336,"created_at_utc_B":1557123164,"score_A":19,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"I took an Anthropology of Religion class that focused on Thai Buddhism, we read a pretty good book in there, I\u2019m gonna look around to see if I can find it EDIT: Found it, it\u2019s \u201cThe Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand\u201d by Justin McDaniel. It focuses on the story of Mae Nak and the monk Somdet To, but also looks at other aspects of Thai Buddhism and the culture surrounding it. P.S. There\u2019s also the like, textbook-y book, \u201cMagic, Witchcraft and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion 9th edition\u201d by Pamela A. Moro, if that\u2019s more your thing.","human_ref_B":"A good starting point might be to consider \u00c9mile Durkheim: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life","labels":1,"seconds_difference":172.0,"score_ratio":1.4615384615} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmhp43","c_root_id_B":"emmfdhn","created_at_utc_A":1557123336,"created_at_utc_B":1557121110,"score_A":19,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I took an Anthropology of Religion class that focused on Thai Buddhism, we read a pretty good book in there, I\u2019m gonna look around to see if I can find it EDIT: Found it, it\u2019s \u201cThe Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand\u201d by Justin McDaniel. It focuses on the story of Mae Nak and the monk Somdet To, but also looks at other aspects of Thai Buddhism and the culture surrounding it. P.S. There\u2019s also the like, textbook-y book, \u201cMagic, Witchcraft and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion 9th edition\u201d by Pamela A. Moro, if that\u2019s more your thing.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s a pretty huge field. Anything you\u2019re looking to learn about specifically? Either particular religions or particular aspects of religion or how religions interface with culture and society? Or are you looking for a general textbook? Also, how technical or non-technical would you want the writing to be? There\u2019s really a ton out there, so it might help to narrow things down a bit so we can suggest things that would interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2226.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmg19f","c_root_id_B":"emmhp43","created_at_utc_A":1557121734,"created_at_utc_B":1557123336,"score_A":6,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"A book I have on my shelf I haven't been able to get around to is \"Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power\" by Donovan Schafer. From Amazon: >In *Religious Affects* Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and poststructuralist theory, Schaefer builds on the recent materialist shift in religious studies to relocate religious practices in the affective realm\u2014an insight that helps us better understand how religion is lived in conjunction with systems of power. To demonstrate religion's animality and how it works affectively, Schaefer turns to a series of case studies, including the documentary *Jesus Camp* and contemporary American Islamophobia. Placing affect theory in conversation with post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Schaefer explores the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In this compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics. ​ ​ Best of luck in your studies.","human_ref_B":"I took an Anthropology of Religion class that focused on Thai Buddhism, we read a pretty good book in there, I\u2019m gonna look around to see if I can find it EDIT: Found it, it\u2019s \u201cThe Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand\u201d by Justin McDaniel. It focuses on the story of Mae Nak and the monk Somdet To, but also looks at other aspects of Thai Buddhism and the culture surrounding it. P.S. There\u2019s also the like, textbook-y book, \u201cMagic, Witchcraft and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion 9th edition\u201d by Pamela A. Moro, if that\u2019s more your thing.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1602.0,"score_ratio":3.1666666667} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmfdhn","c_root_id_B":"emmhhw2","created_at_utc_A":1557121110,"created_at_utc_B":1557123164,"score_A":8,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s a pretty huge field. Anything you\u2019re looking to learn about specifically? Either particular religions or particular aspects of religion or how religions interface with culture and society? Or are you looking for a general textbook? Also, how technical or non-technical would you want the writing to be? There\u2019s really a ton out there, so it might help to narrow things down a bit so we can suggest things that would interest you.","human_ref_B":"A good starting point might be to consider \u00c9mile Durkheim: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2054.0,"score_ratio":1.625} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmg19f","c_root_id_B":"emmhhw2","created_at_utc_A":1557121734,"created_at_utc_B":1557123164,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"A book I have on my shelf I haven't been able to get around to is \"Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power\" by Donovan Schafer. From Amazon: >In *Religious Affects* Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and poststructuralist theory, Schaefer builds on the recent materialist shift in religious studies to relocate religious practices in the affective realm\u2014an insight that helps us better understand how religion is lived in conjunction with systems of power. To demonstrate religion's animality and how it works affectively, Schaefer turns to a series of case studies, including the documentary *Jesus Camp* and contemporary American Islamophobia. Placing affect theory in conversation with post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Schaefer explores the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In this compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics. ​ ​ Best of luck in your studies.","human_ref_B":"A good starting point might be to consider \u00c9mile Durkheim: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1430.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emn5h1h","c_root_id_B":"emmfdhn","created_at_utc_A":1557148008,"created_at_utc_B":1557121110,"score_A":11,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s a pretty huge field. Anything you\u2019re looking to learn about specifically? Either particular religions or particular aspects of religion or how religions interface with culture and society? Or are you looking for a general textbook? Also, how technical or non-technical would you want the writing to be? There\u2019s really a ton out there, so it might help to narrow things down a bit so we can suggest things that would interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26898.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emn5h1h","c_root_id_B":"emmjhj9","created_at_utc_A":1557148008,"created_at_utc_B":1557125250,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","human_ref_B":"The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer and here's a nice, long list: https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/shelf\/show\/anthropology-of-religion","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22758.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emn5h1h","c_root_id_B":"emmg19f","created_at_utc_A":1557148008,"created_at_utc_B":1557121734,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","human_ref_B":"A book I have on my shelf I haven't been able to get around to is \"Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power\" by Donovan Schafer. From Amazon: >In *Religious Affects* Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and poststructuralist theory, Schaefer builds on the recent materialist shift in religious studies to relocate religious practices in the affective realm\u2014an insight that helps us better understand how religion is lived in conjunction with systems of power. To demonstrate religion's animality and how it works affectively, Schaefer turns to a series of case studies, including the documentary *Jesus Camp* and contemporary American Islamophobia. Placing affect theory in conversation with post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Schaefer explores the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In this compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics. ​ ​ Best of luck in your studies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":26274.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emn5h1h","c_root_id_B":"emmpcwx","created_at_utc_A":1557148008,"created_at_utc_B":1557132282,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","human_ref_B":"Any interest in specific theory or something more broad? Something like \"The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft\" by P. L. & R. L. Stein is a good introductory text, pricey if new but not too bad second hand. I can recommend some more specific ethnographies if thats more what you're after.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15726.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emn5h1h","c_root_id_B":"emmkraf","created_at_utc_A":1557148008,"created_at_utc_B":1557126620,"score_A":11,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","human_ref_B":"Sorry to branch off, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for books involving religion, and culture and examining these through the lens of folklore and myth? Thanks!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21388.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmnmb5","c_root_id_B":"emn5h1h","created_at_utc_A":1557130228,"created_at_utc_B":1557148008,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=HlzAmkcZQbc What does archaeology tell us about religion? Dr. Lars Foeglin of the University of Arizona introduces how academics who study ancient societies and artifacts approach religion and what it means for people's lives.","human_ref_B":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17780.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmuchy","c_root_id_B":"emn5h1h","created_at_utc_A":1557138121,"created_at_utc_B":1557148008,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Books by the German philosopher Feuerbach -- he pretty much started the concept of religion as anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Saba Mahmood, \u201cPolitics of Piety\u201d (2004) is a great, well-written ethnography of Islamism and women in Egypt before the revolution and her husband Charles Hirschkind\u2019s \u201cEthical Soundscape\u201d (2006) is a really fascinating look at affect and sound in Islam, especially through the mode of cassette tape sermons playing in the background of everyday life. Message me if you want more recommendations on the anthropology of Islam - there\u2019s a lot of great stuff out there!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9887.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emncts6","c_root_id_B":"emmfdhn","created_at_utc_A":1557152863,"created_at_utc_B":1557121110,"score_A":9,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","human_ref_B":"It\u2019s a pretty huge field. Anything you\u2019re looking to learn about specifically? Either particular religions or particular aspects of religion or how religions interface with culture and society? Or are you looking for a general textbook? Also, how technical or non-technical would you want the writing to be? There\u2019s really a ton out there, so it might help to narrow things down a bit so we can suggest things that would interest you.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31753.0,"score_ratio":1.125} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmjhj9","c_root_id_B":"emncts6","created_at_utc_A":1557125250,"created_at_utc_B":1557152863,"score_A":4,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer and here's a nice, long list: https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/shelf\/show\/anthropology-of-religion","human_ref_B":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":27613.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emncts6","c_root_id_B":"emmg19f","created_at_utc_A":1557152863,"created_at_utc_B":1557121734,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","human_ref_B":"A book I have on my shelf I haven't been able to get around to is \"Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power\" by Donovan Schafer. From Amazon: >In *Religious Affects* Donovan O. Schaefer challenges the notion that religion is inextricably linked to language and belief, proposing instead that it is primarily driven by affects. Drawing on affect theory, evolutionary biology, and poststructuralist theory, Schaefer builds on the recent materialist shift in religious studies to relocate religious practices in the affective realm\u2014an insight that helps us better understand how religion is lived in conjunction with systems of power. To demonstrate religion's animality and how it works affectively, Schaefer turns to a series of case studies, including the documentary *Jesus Camp* and contemporary American Islamophobia. Placing affect theory in conversation with post-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Schaefer explores the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In this compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics. ​ ​ Best of luck in your studies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31129.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emncts6","c_root_id_B":"emmpcwx","created_at_utc_A":1557152863,"created_at_utc_B":1557132282,"score_A":9,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","human_ref_B":"Any interest in specific theory or something more broad? Something like \"The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft\" by P. L. & R. L. Stein is a good introductory text, pricey if new but not too bad second hand. I can recommend some more specific ethnographies if thats more what you're after.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20581.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmkraf","c_root_id_B":"emncts6","created_at_utc_A":1557126620,"created_at_utc_B":1557152863,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Sorry to branch off, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for books involving religion, and culture and examining these through the lens of folklore and myth? Thanks!","human_ref_B":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26243.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emncts6","c_root_id_B":"emmnmb5","created_at_utc_A":1557152863,"created_at_utc_B":1557130228,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=HlzAmkcZQbc What does archaeology tell us about religion? Dr. Lars Foeglin of the University of Arizona introduces how academics who study ancient societies and artifacts approach religion and what it means for people's lives.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":22635.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmuchy","c_root_id_B":"emncts6","created_at_utc_A":1557138121,"created_at_utc_B":1557152863,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Books by the German philosopher Feuerbach -- he pretty much started the concept of religion as anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Some good ethnographies: - Mama Lola (Karen McCarthy Brown) - Politics of Piety (Saba Mahmood) - The Problem of Presence (Matthew Engelke) - Dreams that Matter (Amira Mittermaier) - The Book of Jerry Falwell (Susan Harding) - When God Talks Back (Tanya Luhrmann) - Our Bodies Belong to God (Sherine Hamdy) (This list is heavy on Islam and Christianity, sorry for that.) Some folks here are recommending the old classics, which you can certainly delve into but please understand that while those texts are still influential, they have a lot of problems and are *not* representative of how anthropologists today think about religion. That would be folks like: - James Frazer - E.B. Tylor - Lucien Levi-Bruhl - Bronislaw Malinowski - E.E. Evans-Pritchard - Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) - Max Weber (sociologist again) - Claude Levi-Strauss - Mary Douglas - Victor Turner - Clifford Geertz (also read Talal Asad's critique in \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\") This stuff gives you a history of theory, but I'd recommend, if you're just starting to explore how anthropology is useful for understanding religion, that you start with more recent ethnographies.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":14742.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmkraf","c_root_id_B":"emmpcwx","created_at_utc_A":1557126620,"created_at_utc_B":1557132282,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sorry to branch off, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for books involving religion, and culture and examining these through the lens of folklore and myth? Thanks!","human_ref_B":"Any interest in specific theory or something more broad? Something like \"The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft\" by P. L. & R. L. Stein is a good introductory text, pricey if new but not too bad second hand. I can recommend some more specific ethnographies if thats more what you're after.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5662.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emmnmb5","c_root_id_B":"emmpcwx","created_at_utc_A":1557130228,"created_at_utc_B":1557132282,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=HlzAmkcZQbc What does archaeology tell us about religion? Dr. Lars Foeglin of the University of Arizona introduces how academics who study ancient societies and artifacts approach religion and what it means for people's lives.","human_ref_B":"Any interest in specific theory or something more broad? Something like \"The Anthropology of Religion, Magic and Witchcraft\" by P. L. & R. L. Stein is a good introductory text, pricey if new but not too bad second hand. I can recommend some more specific ethnographies if thats more what you're after.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2054.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emnk8uk","c_root_id_B":"emmkraf","created_at_utc_A":1557157437,"created_at_utc_B":1557126620,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/atheism] [Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"Sorry to branch off, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for books involving religion, and culture and examining these through the lens of folklore and myth? Thanks!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":30817.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emnk8uk","c_root_id_B":"emmnmb5","created_at_utc_A":1557157437,"created_at_utc_B":1557130228,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/atheism] [Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=HlzAmkcZQbc What does archaeology tell us about religion? Dr. Lars Foeglin of the University of Arizona introduces how academics who study ancient societies and artifacts approach religion and what it means for people's lives.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27209.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bl759q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books I am interested in learning more about religions within the context of anthropology, and was hoping for some book recommendations.","c_root_id_A":"emnk8uk","c_root_id_B":"emmuchy","created_at_utc_A":1557157437,"created_at_utc_B":1557138121,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: - \/r\/atheism] [Anthropology of Religion: Recommended Books  *^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\\([Info](\/r\/TotesMessenger) ^\/ ^[Contact](\/message\/compose?to=\/r\/TotesMessenger))*","human_ref_B":"Books by the German philosopher Feuerbach -- he pretty much started the concept of religion as anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":19316.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dcjyuw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Anthropology of Religion Hi, guys could you let me know of any good sources pertaining to the anthropology of religion and how religion shapes different cultures.","c_root_id_A":"f2a07q3","c_root_id_B":"f29gft5","created_at_utc_A":1570106740,"created_at_utc_B":1570096685,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"On a different note, could someone explain to me that how do we make a distinction between Theology and Anthropology of Religion?","human_ref_B":"Richard Sosis has published a lot on the topic.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10055.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"hw0hdc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Any books on anthropology of religion? Are there any books which explains the evolution of religion like from animism, shamanism to polytheism and monotheism.","c_root_id_A":"fywmay5","c_root_id_B":"fyx11vn","created_at_utc_A":1595447300,"created_at_utc_B":1595454257,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"There are a ton of great books on the anthropology of religion. You won\u2019t find a contemporary book that argues for the exact idea you\u2019re asking about as this kind of evolutionary view of religion isn\u2019t held by anthropologists. That said, for a primer on religious anthropology, the Blackwell reader on the anthropology of religion is an excellent resource. I like Atran\u2019s work on religion as a side effect of human cognition as well, though mostly as a thought exercise. You might also enjoy Talal Asad\u2019s Genealogy of Religion as a historical primer on religion, though he\u2019s a tough read.","human_ref_B":"One clarification first - Many early (pre-1890s) anthropologists and philologists presumed that religion (and culture generally) progressed on a linear path from animism to monotheism. This was politically useful to justify colonialism and white supremacy, and some anthropologists, like Madison Grant, were politcally active white supremacists as well. Late 19th and early 20th century anthropologists like Malinowski, Boas, Rivers, Radcliffe-Brown, (and sociologists like Durkheim and Mauss) departed from this view as there was, and currently is, little to no evidence to suggest unilinear development of religion or culture. So it's not really empirically accurate, as far as we know, to say that monotheism develops out of animism. Some foundational works for a general overview\/history of the anthropology of religion, which is a pretty complicated and broad field: Durkheim's *The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life*; Geertz's article \"Religion as a Cultural System\" in *The Interpretation of Cultures*; *Purity and Danger* by Mary Douglas; for a more current perspective, much of Talal Asad's work including *Anthropological Concepts of Religion*, *Genealogies of Religion*, and *Formations of the Secular*. I would start with the Geertz essay if you want something short and pretty readable.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6957.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"78o048","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Did neanderthals speak ? My take , i'll say they were capable to speak and had some kind of language . Although not as complex as the human one , but still more developed than that of other Homo species . What do you think ?","c_root_id_A":"dovufju","c_root_id_B":"dovxh9x","created_at_utc_A":1508963363,"created_at_utc_B":1508966527,"score_A":8,"score_B":19,"human_ref_A":"Steven Mithen would definetly argue that they sang! http:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674025592&content=reviews In brief as I saw Paul Mellars explain at a conference with my quotations in drunk history fashion: essentially the idea is that early hominids exhaled quite heavy in the process of tool making. \"GAH! GAH!\" They would exclaim as they knapped away! They were expressing sound as their youth watched. Knowledge was passed down and a new form of culturual knowledge was created! Ok I really deviated by the way it was explained to me.","human_ref_B":"Genetic studies put the common ancestor of human populations around the world somewhere between 50-80 kya. All modern human populations have language, so we either assume that all developed it independantly or that our species possessed it prior to that common ancestor population splitting. There's also evidence of significant (although small) contributions of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA to our genes and although individuals may not have more than 2-3% of the genetic code from Neanderthals, around 30% of the entire Neanderthal genome is present globally. We can either conclude that interbreeding was voluntary or involuntary (ie rape). If breeding was voluntary, I think we can assume that Neanderthals possessed communication skills on par with ancient homo sapiens, as far as being able to develop a relationship or form a family unit with each other across the species barrier.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3164.0,"score_ratio":2.375} {"post_id":"24w0er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are you an expert on Ask Anthropology? Would you like do to an AMA? After our awesome AMA last week, we would love to see more AMAs happening here. We need you, our flaired users, to volunteer to spend a few hours answering questions about your area of expertise. Please message the mods if you would like to do so -- we'd love to have you! If you think you should have flair here and have a graduate-level education in anthropology or other qualification for it, please send us a mod message to request it.","c_root_id_A":"chdh60c","c_root_id_B":"chtsq6t","created_at_utc_A":1399620504,"created_at_utc_B":1401342364,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I am kind of interested but I also still feel like i don't know anything! I also worry there won't be enough interest in my ultra specific area of study.","human_ref_B":"I am also flairless but am beginning my Ph.D. dissertation in Ethnomusicology and my BA was in Sociocultural Anthropology and Biology. I currently teach courses on World Music in NYC. I would be overjoyed to do an AMA on Ethnomusicology, which, in my view anyway, is a sister discipline to four-field anthropology. Any interest?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1721860.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"24w0er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are you an expert on Ask Anthropology? Would you like do to an AMA? After our awesome AMA last week, we would love to see more AMAs happening here. We need you, our flaired users, to volunteer to spend a few hours answering questions about your area of expertise. Please message the mods if you would like to do so -- we'd love to have you! If you think you should have flair here and have a graduate-level education in anthropology or other qualification for it, please send us a mod message to request it.","c_root_id_A":"chtsq6t","c_root_id_B":"che2dgf","created_at_utc_A":1401342364,"created_at_utc_B":1399679114,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am also flairless but am beginning my Ph.D. dissertation in Ethnomusicology and my BA was in Sociocultural Anthropology and Biology. I currently teach courses on World Music in NYC. I would be overjoyed to do an AMA on Ethnomusicology, which, in my view anyway, is a sister discipline to four-field anthropology. Any interest?","human_ref_B":"I am a flairless folklorist, and although I lack color, I would be willing to do an AMA on folklore at some point. I hope to e-publish my Introduction to Folklore later this year, so that may be the time. But perhaps \/r\/askhistorians would be better (since I have color over there).","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1663250.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"24w0er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are you an expert on Ask Anthropology? Would you like do to an AMA? After our awesome AMA last week, we would love to see more AMAs happening here. We need you, our flaired users, to volunteer to spend a few hours answering questions about your area of expertise. Please message the mods if you would like to do so -- we'd love to have you! If you think you should have flair here and have a graduate-level education in anthropology or other qualification for it, please send us a mod message to request it.","c_root_id_A":"cia0scg","c_root_id_B":"chdh60c","created_at_utc_A":1403030770,"created_at_utc_B":1399620504,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a forensic anthropologist who is wrapping up a phd in 3D visualisation for the courtroom of trauma, I teach and work at occasional crime scenes. - I'd be interested if anyone finds this area interesting?","human_ref_B":"I am kind of interested but I also still feel like i don't know anything! I also worry there won't be enough interest in my ultra specific area of study.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3410266.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"24w0er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are you an expert on Ask Anthropology? Would you like do to an AMA? After our awesome AMA last week, we would love to see more AMAs happening here. We need you, our flaired users, to volunteer to spend a few hours answering questions about your area of expertise. Please message the mods if you would like to do so -- we'd love to have you! If you think you should have flair here and have a graduate-level education in anthropology or other qualification for it, please send us a mod message to request it.","c_root_id_A":"che2dgf","c_root_id_B":"cia0scg","created_at_utc_A":1399679114,"created_at_utc_B":1403030770,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am a flairless folklorist, and although I lack color, I would be willing to do an AMA on folklore at some point. I hope to e-publish my Introduction to Folklore later this year, so that may be the time. But perhaps \/r\/askhistorians would be better (since I have color over there).","human_ref_B":"I'm a forensic anthropologist who is wrapping up a phd in 3D visualisation for the courtroom of trauma, I teach and work at occasional crime scenes. - I'd be interested if anyone finds this area interesting?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3351656.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"24w0er","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Are you an expert on Ask Anthropology? Would you like do to an AMA? After our awesome AMA last week, we would love to see more AMAs happening here. We need you, our flaired users, to volunteer to spend a few hours answering questions about your area of expertise. Please message the mods if you would like to do so -- we'd love to have you! If you think you should have flair here and have a graduate-level education in anthropology or other qualification for it, please send us a mod message to request it.","c_root_id_A":"chzgl4k","c_root_id_B":"cia0scg","created_at_utc_A":1401932895,"created_at_utc_B":1403030770,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"If you think people would be interested in contemporary border studies\/political anthropology, I'll do an AMA! My specific research is on (er... well, full disclosure: I'm taking a \"break\" from academia as of a few months ago) airport anthropology and security; so things like smuggling, immigration issues, surveillance\/biometric policy and how they affect people in airports, as well as how we study \"airport cultures\". I'd also be happy to answer questions about other anthropologists who do awesome fieldwork in border areas and what it's all about!","human_ref_B":"I'm a forensic anthropologist who is wrapping up a phd in 3D visualisation for the courtroom of trauma, I teach and work at occasional crime scenes. - I'd be interested if anyone finds this area interesting?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1097875.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1ifwuq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Is there any link between giant myths and our early encounters with Neanderthals? I was reading an article about Neanderthals bulding structures out of mammoth bones, and it reminded me of how giants often ride\/herd\/farm mammoths in fantasy literature and games. And Neanderthals were stockier than our homo sapien ancestors. Are Neanderthals the origin of giant myths, or have recent giant stories perhaps incoporated what we know of Neandethals to ground themselves in reality somewhat?","c_root_id_A":"cb42fze","c_root_id_B":"cb451k3","created_at_utc_A":1374012678,"created_at_utc_B":1374019943,"score_A":13,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"While Neanderthals were stronger than humans, they were about the same size. Average height for males were about 5'4 and females 5'0. I'm not sure what from that would lead them to be considered giants.","human_ref_B":"To put it simply, probably not. Let's say Neanderthals ceased to exist 30 kya (they could have been very very sparse by this time--a better date might be 50 kya but I'm not a physical anthropologist). Even with that generous date, that's a long time for stories to remain oral and unchanged in essential meaning. Earliest parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed, maximally, 3,000 to 3,500 years ago. This was a written text, which is one of the reasons it was able to survive so long. Think of all the contemporary *written* texts that have more or less disappeared entirely (that we only know from archeology)--Mesopotamian legends, Egyptian legends, Hurrian legends, etc. We don't have stories about a deity creating the pickaxe so that man can dig irrigation trenches for the gods (this was a common trope in Mesopotamian legends). Now think of how many stories disappeared entirely from this period because they were never written down. So this knowledge of neanderthals or anything else would have to last roughly 10 times as long as that. Even the text of the Hebrew Bible seems to contain two different creation stories from two different traditions (one starting at Gen 1:1 and the older one starting at Gen 2:4b). Maybe over a couple hundred more years, someone could have a new creation story, completely different. As the now three stories get told and retold, they change, but some likely disappear completely. Ever have an acquaintance that something cool happened to, but you never got the story directly from the source? Maybe someone has a nickname, and you heard three different explanations for the nickname. Eventually, you just settle on the one that you like and that becomes your version of the story, and you don't really repeat the other two versions you heard. Our story would have survive that kind of process (\"...and then, they were attacked by giants.\" \"No, the attackers were dwarves!\" \"No, it was fairies who attacked them!\"). Agriculture probably arrived about 10 kya. So three times that. And let's just say most of our myths of discovering agriculture, which was a pretty big deal, do not seem to be particularly scientifically accurate (in all cultures I know, at least). Likewise, no New World people seems to preserve the memory of crossing over the Bering Strait, even in the form of \"we came from a cold place--but now we live in the jungle\/plains\/woodlands, it's awesome!\". Generally, creation myths are \"We were created right here, and we've always been here--we sprang from the earth itself, right over there in those mountains in fact.\" Further, to my knowledge, giant legends are frequent all over the world--while Neanderthals mostly lived around the Mediterranean Basin. This part of the world was affected by an ice age. I don't hear echoes of an ice age in many European myths. Some people claim the Near Eastern Flood stories (like Noah, Gilgamesh) are memories of the Black Sea flood. This strikes me as highly unlikely, though. There just isn't clear records in most mythologies of big things that we know for a fact happened just a couple of hundred years (or less) before the story was told. Keep in mind how much languages themselves have changed over the longue dur\u00e9e. We can understand English written 400 years ago (Shakespeare's early Modern English) with some difficulty, but can make guesses at English from 700 years ago (Chaucer's Middle English) and English from 1000 years ago (Beowolf's Old English\/Anglo-Saxon) looks more like a foreign language than it looks like our language. All the diversity of the Indo-European languages (everything from English, French, German, Latin, Albanian, Armenian, Hindi, Persian, Russian and Romanian) emerged from a roughly common source between 5 and 9 kya. I believe that the consensus is glottochronology (examining how language sounds change over time through comparison of vocabulary and grammar) can only go back about 10,000, because after that there's just too much noise to try to figure out any kind of signal. And that's just with *sounds*, think about how much the actual content of message changes over that same period. Imagine millions of people playing hundreds of thousands of simultaneous games of telephone (telephone is called \"Chinese whispers\" in more backwards parts of the world) and think about how many generations of people it would take before each of the thousands of original messages is lost entirely in the mass of accidental changes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7265.0,"score_ratio":2.0769230769} {"post_id":"1ifwuq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Is there any link between giant myths and our early encounters with Neanderthals? I was reading an article about Neanderthals bulding structures out of mammoth bones, and it reminded me of how giants often ride\/herd\/farm mammoths in fantasy literature and games. And Neanderthals were stockier than our homo sapien ancestors. Are Neanderthals the origin of giant myths, or have recent giant stories perhaps incoporated what we know of Neandethals to ground themselves in reality somewhat?","c_root_id_A":"cb44n49","c_root_id_B":"cb451k3","created_at_utc_A":1374018793,"created_at_utc_B":1374019943,"score_A":7,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Unlikely. If you were to see a neanderthal on the street unless you know their morphology I doubt you'd know. That being said Gigantopithecus blackii was an early hominin that existed until around 25kya. This hominin was the biggest of all apes and matches such descriptions of giants. It is a faint possibility that many of those stories are based in truth at some point in time. This hominin lived in Asia, but died out as the climate changed. Now it is probably impossible that such a creature exists or ever existed in North America.","human_ref_B":"To put it simply, probably not. Let's say Neanderthals ceased to exist 30 kya (they could have been very very sparse by this time--a better date might be 50 kya but I'm not a physical anthropologist). Even with that generous date, that's a long time for stories to remain oral and unchanged in essential meaning. Earliest parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed, maximally, 3,000 to 3,500 years ago. This was a written text, which is one of the reasons it was able to survive so long. Think of all the contemporary *written* texts that have more or less disappeared entirely (that we only know from archeology)--Mesopotamian legends, Egyptian legends, Hurrian legends, etc. We don't have stories about a deity creating the pickaxe so that man can dig irrigation trenches for the gods (this was a common trope in Mesopotamian legends). Now think of how many stories disappeared entirely from this period because they were never written down. So this knowledge of neanderthals or anything else would have to last roughly 10 times as long as that. Even the text of the Hebrew Bible seems to contain two different creation stories from two different traditions (one starting at Gen 1:1 and the older one starting at Gen 2:4b). Maybe over a couple hundred more years, someone could have a new creation story, completely different. As the now three stories get told and retold, they change, but some likely disappear completely. Ever have an acquaintance that something cool happened to, but you never got the story directly from the source? Maybe someone has a nickname, and you heard three different explanations for the nickname. Eventually, you just settle on the one that you like and that becomes your version of the story, and you don't really repeat the other two versions you heard. Our story would have survive that kind of process (\"...and then, they were attacked by giants.\" \"No, the attackers were dwarves!\" \"No, it was fairies who attacked them!\"). Agriculture probably arrived about 10 kya. So three times that. And let's just say most of our myths of discovering agriculture, which was a pretty big deal, do not seem to be particularly scientifically accurate (in all cultures I know, at least). Likewise, no New World people seems to preserve the memory of crossing over the Bering Strait, even in the form of \"we came from a cold place--but now we live in the jungle\/plains\/woodlands, it's awesome!\". Generally, creation myths are \"We were created right here, and we've always been here--we sprang from the earth itself, right over there in those mountains in fact.\" Further, to my knowledge, giant legends are frequent all over the world--while Neanderthals mostly lived around the Mediterranean Basin. This part of the world was affected by an ice age. I don't hear echoes of an ice age in many European myths. Some people claim the Near Eastern Flood stories (like Noah, Gilgamesh) are memories of the Black Sea flood. This strikes me as highly unlikely, though. There just isn't clear records in most mythologies of big things that we know for a fact happened just a couple of hundred years (or less) before the story was told. Keep in mind how much languages themselves have changed over the longue dur\u00e9e. We can understand English written 400 years ago (Shakespeare's early Modern English) with some difficulty, but can make guesses at English from 700 years ago (Chaucer's Middle English) and English from 1000 years ago (Beowolf's Old English\/Anglo-Saxon) looks more like a foreign language than it looks like our language. All the diversity of the Indo-European languages (everything from English, French, German, Latin, Albanian, Armenian, Hindi, Persian, Russian and Romanian) emerged from a roughly common source between 5 and 9 kya. I believe that the consensus is glottochronology (examining how language sounds change over time through comparison of vocabulary and grammar) can only go back about 10,000, because after that there's just too much noise to try to figure out any kind of signal. And that's just with *sounds*, think about how much the actual content of message changes over that same period. Imagine millions of people playing hundreds of thousands of simultaneous games of telephone (telephone is called \"Chinese whispers\" in more backwards parts of the world) and think about how many generations of people it would take before each of the thousands of original messages is lost entirely in the mass of accidental changes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1150.0,"score_ratio":3.8571428571} {"post_id":"1ifwuq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Is there any link between giant myths and our early encounters with Neanderthals? I was reading an article about Neanderthals bulding structures out of mammoth bones, and it reminded me of how giants often ride\/herd\/farm mammoths in fantasy literature and games. And Neanderthals were stockier than our homo sapien ancestors. Are Neanderthals the origin of giant myths, or have recent giant stories perhaps incoporated what we know of Neandethals to ground themselves in reality somewhat?","c_root_id_A":"cb46r9e","c_root_id_B":"cb44n49","created_at_utc_A":1374025044,"created_at_utc_B":1374018793,"score_A":11,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I have to agree with other posters here that it is unlikely that Neanderthals are the sources of giant myths. Even if they just found their skeletons their bones just aren't big enough to suggest unusually giant people. Some scholars have suggested that *Gigantopithecus* could be a source of some regional giant myths, however. And perhaps the stories of big foot\/yetis. You can see more here at U Iowa's bioanth site about the species and see a recreation of it next to an average human male. Adult Gigantopithecus males were 10 feet tall and about 1,200 pounds, which is about the size of an adult male polar bear. However, while some conspiracy theorists think it is still alive and well running around as big foot, more likely if the species had any influence on our ideas about ancient giant people it was just because we found some fossils\/bones. In fact, Gigantopithecus was first discovered when a paleoanthropologist saw one of its fossils for sale as a medical remedy in Hong Kong. However, it is important to remember that even if this is the case they were very regional. Native Americans, Africans, Europeans, and most societies also have myths about giants. So it is unlikely that this is the ultimate source and everything else diffusion. Alternatively, you may have also heard about *Homo floresiensis* and perhaps the theories that it inspired the myth of ebu gogo - a tiny humanish creature that supposedly used to live on the island. I think John Hawke's post about it describes that debate well and honestly. He echos a lot of \/u\/yodatsracist 's points about memory, myth, and conflicting narratives. I think those same debates apply to any arguments that gigantopithecus or neanderthals or any other ancient cousin could be the source of a particular myth.","human_ref_B":"Unlikely. If you were to see a neanderthal on the street unless you know their morphology I doubt you'd know. That being said Gigantopithecus blackii was an early hominin that existed until around 25kya. This hominin was the biggest of all apes and matches such descriptions of giants. It is a faint possibility that many of those stories are based in truth at some point in time. This hominin lived in Asia, but died out as the climate changed. Now it is probably impossible that such a creature exists or ever existed in North America.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6251.0,"score_ratio":1.5714285714} {"post_id":"8ivmi2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"What do you think of Marx's works? Do they stand the test of time in modern anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"dyuws2v","c_root_id_B":"dyuxadq","created_at_utc_A":1526127537,"created_at_utc_B":1526128453,"score_A":35,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"It depends \"which work\" but broadly, sure, they're fine for when they were written. Something like Capital I think its absolutely invaluable to understanding exchange systems. Marx is essential if you do western anthropology or political anthropology. I know with my research I couldn't work without Marx (but granted I do study Marxist groups). I remember the head of anthropology at my undergraduate university telling us \"If you do one thing before you graduate, read Capital\" at least once a year. Other texts like Origin of the Family (Written by Engels but based on the notes of Marx) are kind of racist trash. But, still useful to look at in order to understand ideology.","human_ref_B":"Actually a secondary comment. I think it also depends what part of Anthropology, I always forget this is a mainly American sub. So for Archaeology, Marx is VITAL. Materialist relations are basically all of Arch. Originally Arch was a fascist field with people like Kossina using it to spread race science, until Gordon Childe (bae) was like \"hey, how about we use a mixture of science and marxist economics?\". For the cultural\/social side. Marx (as I said below) is useful, but he needs to be used more. There are so many ethnographies I've read that fail to acknowledge materiality. I know people who have done stuff in rainforests in Papua New Guinea but not even considered the effect of the rainforest upon the phenomena they look at. Whereas people like Alfred Gell, Stephen Feld, etc utilise materiality and environmental conditions in order to describe social phenomena","labels":0,"seconds_difference":916.0,"score_ratio":1.6571428571} {"post_id":"2gohxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have you ever come across a people's practice that, despite your being a cultural relativist and open-minded, truly horrified or disgusted you? What was it?","c_root_id_A":"ckl9d6x","c_root_id_B":"ckl2n63","created_at_utc_A":1410991808,"created_at_utc_B":1410979714,"score_A":63,"score_B":27,"human_ref_A":"Poverty. I don't really know if this is what you're looking for but encountering abject poverty and starving children is just heartbreaking. Tent cities, babies with kwashiorkor, very sick people who cannot access treatments, and the despair that goes along with it are very hard to witness. In Haiti, a common practice is restavek which is when poor families give a child to a richer family who promises to educate, feed, and clothe the child in return for the kid doing chores. In some cases it turns out fine but it can be heavily abused. When I was last down there I met an adorable little girl who was about 2 1\/2 and her mother. They were staying at the temple because the mother was handing off the child to another woman there. The girl had a medical condition that cost $20 USD a month to treat, which is just an astronomical sum for a poor Haitian mother. She clearly loved her child but could not afford to care for her. So she was giving her up to a woman that lived in another city which likely meant she'd almost never see her daughter. I knew the woman taking her and I'm pretty sure the child went to a good home and a safe situation. But it was still sad and difficult to watch a mother have to give up her child due to poverty. The women involved didn't horrify or disgust me. But the structural violence that led to this system and lack of options did.","human_ref_B":"Circumcision and other unnecessary genital mutilations. I'm circumcised and I'm a little bitter about the fact that I had no say in the matter.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12094.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"2gohxz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Have you ever come across a people's practice that, despite your being a cultural relativist and open-minded, truly horrified or disgusted you? What was it?","c_root_id_A":"ckl2n63","c_root_id_B":"ckla436","created_at_utc_A":1410979714,"created_at_utc_B":1410993314,"score_A":27,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"Circumcision and other unnecessary genital mutilations. I'm circumcised and I'm a little bitter about the fact that I had no say in the matter.","human_ref_B":"Women being burned alive during their husband's funeral... I know it's becoming less common, but it still makes me feel so sick.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13600.0,"score_ratio":1.0740740741} {"post_id":"2mc4bc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Is there anyone here that still use pencil sketch instead of camera for your Ethnographic work? I was wondering if I could use the old pencil and paper again because sometimes there are times when I couldn't use my camera. If anyone here still doing ethnographic sketch, could ypu please share about it?","c_root_id_A":"cm3tsny","c_root_id_B":"cm4e2ab","created_at_utc_A":1416113854,"created_at_utc_B":1416174768,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I recommend the book \"I Swear I Saw This\" by Michael Taussig, about the nature of sketches in ethnographic work. It starts out describing the frustrating feeling that, the more words you write, the further you are getting away from your subject \u2013\u00a0and how drawings can bring you back.","human_ref_B":"If stick figures and poorly drawn maps count then yes. Plenty of times it is inappropriate for me to take a photo or even sketch in the moment. So I'll try to mentally take note of layouts, designs, movements, etc and as soon as I can I'll sketch it. I'm no artist but it lets me record that kind of visual data much easier than writing it down. I doubt I'd ever add them to a publication but maybe if I were a better artist I would.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":60914.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"24h5zv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.78,"history":"If not having surplus makes you egalitarian, why also all the traditions\/practices\/customs that promote egalitarianism? I hope reddit will let me edit the title later when I figure out a better one. When you read about simpler societies, sometimes it seems like hunter-gatherers are egalitarian because they couldn't be any other way, based on the way they get food and move around a lot. But then you also see that they are \"fiercely egalitarian\" and have all these customs that re-enforce equality. Like: * Arrow Sharing :: Owner of arrow owns the meat * Gambling :: Redistributes wealth * Insulting the meat :: Keep good hunters from getting a big head * Elaborate meat sharing rules I feel like there's some tension between these two things. Maybe someone could talk about it?","c_root_id_A":"ch7fza0","c_root_id_B":"ch7j62k","created_at_utc_A":1398999840,"created_at_utc_B":1399008424,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Great question. I'm a biological anthropologist, but this is my take on it. I don't think the causality is such that no surplus available -> egalitarian, but rather egalitarian -> no surplus allowed (because of environmental constraints, which the cultural practices that promote egalitarianism function to protect). In other words, groups who have limited resources and know it may use egalitarian practices to ensure the stability of the group. Although there are limited resources, it is technically possible that a few individuals could accrue \"surplus\", but this would be at the expense of the survival and flourishing of the rest of the group members because the resources are so limited. Therefore, the economic system of reciprocity (this includes redistribution of wealth, sharing, etc.) functions as an \"insurance\" system. This economic system, in addition to criticizing successful hunters, functions to decrease certain individuals from gaining power. I hope that's clear!","human_ref_B":"There are societies that adhere to egalitarian principles and also accrue surplus. Economic relationships are much, much more complicated than \"egalitarian = subsistence with no surplus\" and \"hierarchical = obtains surplus\". Sahlins, Graeber, and Mauss are great sources for a basic exploration of different forms of reciprocity. What it seems most people tend to associate with egalitarian societies is \"beneficial reciprocity\" - an exchange which each party walks away having gained something of roughly equal value to what they lost. A fair trade. With capitalism and \"primitive accumulation\" (pre-capitalist consumption of resources with the intent to gain wealth and power through holding necessary goods) what prevails is a form of negative reciprocity more or less designed to leave one party in an exchange the \"winner\" and the other the loser. But a negative exchange is not purely the hallmark of a hierarchical system. Debt, as Graeber elegantly describes in his book *Debt: The First 5,000 Years*, can be an integral part of maintaining human relationships. In some communities, a circuit of debt is a means of continually reaffirming communal ties. This sometimes takes the form of neighbours trading eggs, sugar, milk, or other needed goods back and forth (never quite exactly what they gave you, because to repay in full would end the relationship). The idea here of course is that the debt is never so great that it cannot be repaid, thus no party ever truly has an upper hand (or creates a hierarchy). This seems to me to get directly at what you are asking about. The circuit of exchange and rituals that reaffirm community are not just habits of egalitarian societies, but maybe they seem more apparent there? I think this may be a good point of entry to reexamine your question. At the same time, there is a difference between surplus and an economy predicated on the importance of surplus. An egalitarian farming community might end up with a surplus, but that is not the goal of their subsistence scheme. This gets into some pretty involved economics, but essentially the idea of surplus as profit leads to scenarios in which the profit becomes the end goal, rather than the mutual survival of those in the community. Surplus in an egalitarian context means it can be traded for communal goods, or maybe so that Mary down the street can send her son to school in the city. Surplus in the hierarchical context of capitalism means that farmers will be vying to get the most in trade from their own personal surplus, and ensure that they have access to the largest share of the market. Then, there are also communities which are more or less egalitarian (meritocratic with equal chances all around, let's say? Without valorizing one placement over another) that actively participate in the circuit of capital (the exchange of surplus) yet do so as a community. Mondragon is an excellent example of such an experiment. I hope that didn't get too tangential. This is a topic I find really interesting, alternative economics are one of my secondary research interests.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8584.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"2ngrr3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"How did early man deal with childbirth? More specifically, how did they deal with the umbilical cord that was still attached to the child? Did they leave it on, did they remove it, or was it non-existent until later along the evolutionary trail? I am also curious about how they handled children born with deformities. I do apologize if this is not the correct subreddit, and would greatly appreciate it if someone would direct me to the correct one.","c_root_id_A":"cmdhk8z","c_root_id_B":"cmdrqjs","created_at_utc_A":1417001834,"created_at_utc_B":1417027750,"score_A":8,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I think it is important to define what you mean by \"early man\". It probably differs strongly between different time periods and different groups of people.","human_ref_B":"Other mammals have umbilical cords so it isn't something that appeared recently on our evolutionary history. Mammals either bite the cord or just let it dry up. Without written records of course we don't know exactly what ancient humans did. But we can look cross culturally today and see a wide range of practices. For example, in Zambia a study found \" For home deliveries, cords were cut with non-sterile razor blades or local grass. Cord applications included drying agents (e.g., charcoal, baby powder, dust), lubricating agents (e.g., Vaseline, cooking oil, used motor oil) and agents intended for medicinal\/protective purposes (e.g., breast milk, cow dung, chicken feces).\" We find all kinds of practices around the world. And recently in the US a new trend of not cutting it at all had emerged. Modeled on Balinese practices, you carry the attached placenta around until it just naturally dries up and all falls off. So ancient humans could have done any of this and probably been just fine although obviously some practices aren't sterile. BTW WHO recommends dry cord treatment meaning you clamp the cord, cut it, and then just leave the stump alone until it falls off. This is what most american hospitals do.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25916.0,"score_ratio":2.625} {"post_id":"8lxhdm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Has anyone here tried some combination of psychology and anthropology? So hi! I took a lot of social anthropology classes as an undergrad and I loved them. I loved how every week my expectations of what \"human nature\" was would get wrecked, week after week, by the endless examples of social diversity, thought and ritual. It was a very broadening experience and I loved it so much. But I'm having difficulty finding a job with just my Bachelors in anthropology, and I'd like a career with a bit of a more defined career path, and I'd like to be able to offer services to everyday people who don't understand how great anthropology is. I've been thinking about becoming a psychologist, but aren't anthropology and psychology at each other's throats when it comes to theory? Psychology wants to reduce all human thought and behavior to a universal pattern, and anthropology wants to explode universal rules like that, at least post-modern anthropology does. Am I so lucky that there's someone out there trying to walk this line in between universal rules and cultural differences too? How do you get psychology to play nice with anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"dzj78fx","c_root_id_B":"dzj8xrl","created_at_utc_A":1527208568,"created_at_utc_B":1527210511,"score_A":3,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"I did a BSc in Psychology and now I'm doing a PhD in Social Anthropology. Although there was a 14 year gap between my BSc and my Anthro MA, where I worked mainly in IT so not sure how relevent that is to you, lol. I have no interest in being a psychologist. I don't think you need to see the two at odds with one another, more in conversation with each other. Or they should be. I think your characterisation of the two disciplines as universal vs post-modern is problematic. Not that it's your fault. Most academics are too entrenched in their own fields and epistemologies, so it may be true. There are plenty of points where the two disciplines intersect. If you look, for instance, at the cultural variations in conditions like schizophrenia. Human beings are egos interacting within specific cultural milieux. Webs of significance etc... Personally (although arguably because of my educational background) I find it difficult to conceive of being much cop at one discipline, without reasonable consideration of the other.","human_ref_B":"There is a subdiscipline of anthropology called psychological anthropology, and there are a lot of medical anthropologists who focus on psychology and psychiatry (for example, doing cross-cultural psychiatry). There is an academic interest group called The Society for Psychological Anthropology, and there are departments that have psychological anthropology concentrations for undergraduates and graduates. There are many convergences between these disciplines even if it may not seem like it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1943.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"8lxhdm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"Has anyone here tried some combination of psychology and anthropology? So hi! I took a lot of social anthropology classes as an undergrad and I loved them. I loved how every week my expectations of what \"human nature\" was would get wrecked, week after week, by the endless examples of social diversity, thought and ritual. It was a very broadening experience and I loved it so much. But I'm having difficulty finding a job with just my Bachelors in anthropology, and I'd like a career with a bit of a more defined career path, and I'd like to be able to offer services to everyday people who don't understand how great anthropology is. I've been thinking about becoming a psychologist, but aren't anthropology and psychology at each other's throats when it comes to theory? Psychology wants to reduce all human thought and behavior to a universal pattern, and anthropology wants to explode universal rules like that, at least post-modern anthropology does. Am I so lucky that there's someone out there trying to walk this line in between universal rules and cultural differences too? How do you get psychology to play nice with anthropology?","c_root_id_A":"dzj78fx","c_root_id_B":"dzjbtu0","created_at_utc_A":1527208568,"created_at_utc_B":1527213641,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I did a BSc in Psychology and now I'm doing a PhD in Social Anthropology. Although there was a 14 year gap between my BSc and my Anthro MA, where I worked mainly in IT so not sure how relevent that is to you, lol. I have no interest in being a psychologist. I don't think you need to see the two at odds with one another, more in conversation with each other. Or they should be. I think your characterisation of the two disciplines as universal vs post-modern is problematic. Not that it's your fault. Most academics are too entrenched in their own fields and epistemologies, so it may be true. There are plenty of points where the two disciplines intersect. If you look, for instance, at the cultural variations in conditions like schizophrenia. Human beings are egos interacting within specific cultural milieux. Webs of significance etc... Personally (although arguably because of my educational background) I find it difficult to conceive of being much cop at one discipline, without reasonable consideration of the other.","human_ref_B":"I have my BA in anthropology and like you, I found it hard to make a career in. I ultimately decided to go with my interest in psychology and move into that field. I have an MSW in social work. While I have made my career in psychotherapy, with my MSW I was able to pursue a lot of my interests from anthropology. This included study on the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of the late 1980's and early 1990's, because that featured false memory syndrome and often Dissociative Identity Disorder \\( formerly known as multiple personality disorder\\), and it looked at the role of mental health care workers in that time period. Ultimately I did my master's thesis on what was essentially a psycho\\-anthropological revisiting of psychosurgery in the first half of the last century. While my work on lobotomies really never comes up in my day\\-to\\-day life, it was still really rewarding to pursue during my education, and I absolutely use an anthropological lens as a practitioner, something my field encourages. The way I got psychology to play nice with anthropology was by passing on an MS in psychology and instead choosing social work. Social work is very much grounded in boots on the ground, in the trenches work with humans and human psychology. I was able to pursue these psycho\\-anthropological interests because that's what I asked to do, and my program was happy to oblige because that explosion of universal rules is something social workers have to do on a daily basis. Social work is really a marriage of psychology and anthropology \\(in my opinion anyway\\). In the end, whether you choose psychology vs. social work, I don't think that there is much conflict with anthropology. I think all psychologists and social workers are aware of what anthropology has to offer. And with a degree in either psychology or social work you are absolutely prepared for a career with lots of job opportunities. Honestly, you'll never want for a job if you choose social work and\/or mental health care \\(assuming you do pursue this avenue\\), there are never enough of us.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5073.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"homfei","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Does anthropology say anything about digital literacy? I've been reading literature on digital literacy. Curios that during my search I don't find anything from anthropology but I got some from sociology. Does anyone happen to know anything about it?","c_root_id_A":"fxio7zc","c_root_id_B":"fxje0o5","created_at_utc_A":1594377515,"created_at_utc_B":1594394418,"score_A":5,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"What kind of information or sources are you after?","human_ref_B":"Slightly relevant but I took a class in my master\u2019s program about literacy and the instructor taught a lot on game theory, digital literacy and technological literacy as a necessary evolution in society. James Paul Gee is a prominent scholar on the subject of literacy, I think his more recent work involves digital literacy. Look at his paper titled \u201cA Situated Sociocultural Approach to Literacy and Technology\u201d. The New London Group published a paper called \u201cA Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures\u201d. Constance Steinkuehler published \u201cMassive Multiplayer Online Gaming as a Constellation of Literacy Practices.\u201d I hope some of these are relevant. Some of the papers are old, so maybe look at newer research by these authors?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16903.0,"score_ratio":2.6} {"post_id":"80xs17","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Looking for a study on whether the world views Buddhism as a religion or philosophy? Hi, I am currently writing a research paper for my history of Zen Buddhism class and am hoping to find a study showing how views of Buddhism have changed from viewing it as a religion to a philosophy. Specifically after 1893, but any study would help. I have found many articles asking whether it is a religion or a philosophy but no data. A western centric study could work as well. Thanks if anyone can help!","c_root_id_A":"duzinz3","c_root_id_B":"duz039c","created_at_utc_A":1519858593,"created_at_utc_B":1519841712,"score_A":9,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"To be honest, I think it's a very western idea that says that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion. Of course, Zen Buddhism might be an exception ... Of course, we could also find forms of Christianity that focus far more on philosophical elements than on religion. I agree with other posters here that you need to define what you mean by religion. I think it's also important to remember the difference between religious texts and those who study them, versus what Buddhism in all of its myriad forms is to everyday practitioners around the world. Good sources are Donald Lopez, ed., Buddhism in Practice; and Lopez was one of the inspirations for work by Susan Darlington. If your goal is to study whether Americans think Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, I am no help to you, alas.","human_ref_B":"I know Pew has polling on Japanese religiosity and Buddhism is considered a religion in Japan (\u5b97\u6559), comparable with Christianity and Islam. That is contrasted with Shinto where very few practitioners consider themselves to belong to a religion.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16881.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"80xs17","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Looking for a study on whether the world views Buddhism as a religion or philosophy? Hi, I am currently writing a research paper for my history of Zen Buddhism class and am hoping to find a study showing how views of Buddhism have changed from viewing it as a religion to a philosophy. Specifically after 1893, but any study would help. I have found many articles asking whether it is a religion or a philosophy but no data. A western centric study could work as well. Thanks if anyone can help!","c_root_id_A":"duz5mjp","c_root_id_B":"duzinz3","created_at_utc_A":1519846663,"created_at_utc_B":1519858593,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Depends on how you define religion and how you want to translate certain words.","human_ref_B":"To be honest, I think it's a very western idea that says that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion. Of course, Zen Buddhism might be an exception ... Of course, we could also find forms of Christianity that focus far more on philosophical elements than on religion. I agree with other posters here that you need to define what you mean by religion. I think it's also important to remember the difference between religious texts and those who study them, versus what Buddhism in all of its myriad forms is to everyday practitioners around the world. Good sources are Donald Lopez, ed., Buddhism in Practice; and Lopez was one of the inspirations for work by Susan Darlington. If your goal is to study whether Americans think Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, I am no help to you, alas.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11930.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"r96egm","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Malagasy possessed wanderers Hi all. Im sorry if this does not fit the forum, but... A few years back I heard a story from a girl I knew that went to madagascar, and came back with some kind of horror story. She stayed in this village where at night time some possessed wanderers would come and claw and knock on your doors. And if you opened or even acknowledged them being there, they would try their darndest to try and come in and there would be dire consequences. And she even told me that some of the locals warned her about this, and told her the \"rules\". Apparently she even lived through one of these 'beings' knocking and clawing on her door. My question for this forum is now : is there truth to this? If so, do these \"zombies\" have names? I'd like to know more about this phenomenon, but sadly I've lost all contact with said girl and Google is no help at all. Thank you","c_root_id_A":"hnberkd","c_root_id_B":"hnbbqrn","created_at_utc_A":1638706936,"created_at_utc_B":1638704539,"score_A":43,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The story you heard may be this Sharp, Lesley A. \"Wayward pastoral ghosts and regional xenophobia in a northern Madagascar town.\" Africa 71.1 (2001): 38-81.https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3366\/afr.2001.71.1.38 \\[nb really wonderful paper, compelling both for the story and the political cultural interpretation, deserves a bigger audience. The author, Prof Lesley Sharp of Barnard has gained renown as medical anthropologist, but earlier in her career she did this fieldwork in Madagascar, and it's great read\\] The story you're relating appears to be this, a form of the \"wandering, hungry ghost\" story >\"In a prosperous plantation region of northern Madagascar, the ghosts of Tandroy men lurk, living hidden in forests in close-knit communities that mirror those dear to them at home in the distant south. The lolo angatra and lolo vokatra are corpses that have risen from the dead, the now animated bodies of migrant labourers who have travelled l,200 km or more 'to seek their fortunes' (hitady harena, te mahita vola) in the lush Sambirano valley of a northern Sakalava kingdom. Tandroy migrants are tolerated locally as a necessary aspect of life in a plantation economy where indigenous Sakalava have long shunned wage labour. As this article will show, the spirits of Tandroy dead haunt this locale in the form of animated and troublesome zombies who threaten to undermine the economic and social stability of the living corrupt the integrity of indigenous Sakalava identity.\" Sharp has extensive interpretation and context for this story, >\"Finally, as noted earlier, Sakalava informants stress that Antandroy typically do not send migrants' bodies home, especially if they die outside Tandroy territory. This is verified by data collected by other anthropologists working with Antandroy. As Fee's informants explain, it is indeed prohibitively expensive to transport a body back to its southern ancestral land; some also state that this practice is taboo (T. faly). Fee reports that she knows of no case where a body had been shipped home from more than 50 km away, and such cases involved those who had occupied transhumant settlements within Tandroy territory. As is customary in many parts of Madagascar, a wooden or stone marker (T. aloalo or tsangam-bato) is placed at the edge of a village in memory of a migrant who died far from home (Benolo, 1992: 85). As Fee stresses, 'the \\[southern\\] landscape is sprinkled with these markers. Of the many migrant men \\[from the village where she works\\] who have died up north, none of the bodies were returned' (personal communication, 31 January 1997). And, thus, the corpses of migrant Antandroy essentially remain abandoned in the alien territory of the Sambirano, where they are unwelcome, restless, and feared.\" The entire article is worth reading the whole way through. Wonderful as folklore, and revealing for the political and cultural interpretation of where this story is coming from. These kinds of stories, of wandering ghosts, appear in many other geographies, particularly in Asia-- often with a similar thread of workers who've died somewhere that they can't be peaceably buried; the migration and death abroad of rural workers is a story that shows up in a lot of places Toulson, Ruth E. \"The anthropology of a necessary mistake: The unsettled dead and the imagined state in contemporary Singapore.\" Southeast Asian perspectives on power. Routledge, 2012. 107-120. Fang, I-Chieh. \"When Ghosts Appear: Migrant Workers, Fears of Haunting, and Moral Negotiation in a Chinese Electronics Factory.\" The China Journal 85.1 (2021): 121-142. Delaplace, Gr\u00e9gory. \"Parasitic Chinese, vengeful Russians: ghosts, strangers, and reciprocity in Mongolia.\" Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18 (2012): S131-S144. Should also mention -- the late David Graeber, best known to the general public for \"Debt: The First 5000 Years\" and \"Bullshit Jobs\" -- his academic fieldwork as an anthropologist was in Madagascar, and has a much cited paper on how this culture works with the bodies of the deceased: Graeber, David. \"Dancing with corpses reconsidered: an interpretation of famadihana (in Arivonimamo, Madagascar).\" American Ethnologist 22.2 (1995): 258-278.","human_ref_B":"I've heard of this. While in Madagascar I learned that some people there strongly believe in zombies and that it is typically young women that are zombies and that they crave a lot of meat. The people I talked with insist that it's a current phenomenon and not just a story. Unsure about the aspect of them trying to get into your home but Madagascar is a big country so it's possible there are regional variations on zombies.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2397.0,"score_ratio":3.9090909091} {"post_id":"1tp466","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Does the story of Genesis come from herders or from farmers? I'm not versed in biblical anthropology, but I was always under the impression that the entirety of the stories in the Old Testament came from a dominant agricultural perspective. However, Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael spends a chapter (chapter nine) convincingly explaining that the story of The Fall makes more sense if it came from the perspective of the displaced herders than from the displacing farmers. Quinn asserts that the story is a jab at the agrarian way of playing God, suggesting that the fruit of knowledge only gives man the illusion that he knows best for himself and the world. In that context, the story is an insult and condemnation of the farmers as they expanded their territories and practices. Unfortunately, Quinn doesn't make it super clear how such a detrimental tale switched sides. If history is written by the victor, why would the origin story of the displaced make its way into the canon of the displacer? Is this interpretation of the origin of Genesis a popular or unpopular idea? Where can I find more info on this?","c_root_id_A":"cea4az3","c_root_id_B":"ceak3d6","created_at_utc_A":1388013331,"created_at_utc_B":1388079155,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"I haven't read this, but it sounds interesting. What does Quinn make of the herder\/farmer dichotomy between the Cain\/Abel and Esau\/Jacob figures?","human_ref_B":"The article \"Winged Disks and Sacred Trees at Nuzi\" by Diana Stein (2009) argues that the idea of a knowledge-giving forbidden food came into Genesis from Mesopotamia, where it was translated from ideas about psychedelic plants giving religious clarity or experiences. She talks about a dichotomy in northern Mesopotamia between rural people and urban dwellers. Rural people, who tended to be herders, would consume cannabis and psychedelic plants for rituals, essentially to gain knowledge about the divine. The priestly caste which arose with urban populations in Mesopotamian cities felt threatened by people would could give divine experiences without needing a centralized religious system, so they banned the consumption of psychedelic substances in order to monopolize control over divine knowledge. This ban on \"food to gain wisdom\", Stein argues, translated into God's ban on eating the forbidden fruit in the garden. It seems a bit far-fetched, but Diana Stein is no pseudo-scientist, she's a professor at University of Chicago and well respected. The article is very well researched.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":65824.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"c5o5az","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Looking for an specific participant observation for an ethnography Hello, I m in search for authors. I would like to find observers with an identity in opposition (politically, sociologically or because of wars) with the group studied, like a Palestinian studying a jewish group, a black South African studying a white south african. If you can thing of any antagonistic situation of that kind, I m interested. Sorry for been vague, I still didnt frame properly my study. Thanks a lot!","c_root_id_A":"es3d8ww","c_root_id_B":"es3d8i3","created_at_utc_A":1561559839,"created_at_utc_B":1561559832,"score_A":10,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm commenting because I'm on mobile and I'll update later but BDSM communities observed by non-participants in ethnographies are common and come across as biased to a fault.","human_ref_B":"I don\u2019t recall who it is, but I know there is a study out there of Asians and Hispanics in (I want to say California?). The author of the study says that there is a lot of racial tension between the two groups, and mentions that he is a member of one of the groups. I\u2019m also not sure why there would be that type of racial tension, not having been to California (or the place mentioned). So when I read the article, I had to take it on faith that the author was being truthful. The article centered around interactions in convenience stores, if that helps you any.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ba24yb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What are some Egalitarian Societies that existed?","c_root_id_A":"ek90l4u","c_root_id_B":"ek8od3g","created_at_utc_A":1554562808,"created_at_utc_B":1554549032,"score_A":22,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"The Batek of penninsular Malaysia are egalitarian (and still exist), but that's not uncommon for hunter-gatherer societies","human_ref_B":"http:\/\/www.kibbutz-samar.com\/ I met a Swedish anthropology student while visiting this place who told me he chose that kibbutz as a focus for his thesis as it was unique as far as he knew from an anthropological perspective. I haven't the time to go into detail right now, but apparently the make-up of the place if fairly unique in that it was founded by members of other kibbutzim who were disillusioned with the movement and wanted to start anew. The whole organizational and decision making structure is horizontal allowing for any member who feels like it to have a say. I think they still have an open treasury members can discreetly tap into up to a certain amount every month. Not everyone takes their share from the treasury as money is hardly needed in the kibbutz.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13776.0,"score_ratio":1.375} {"post_id":"ba24yb","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"What are some Egalitarian Societies that existed?","c_root_id_A":"ek90l4u","c_root_id_B":"ek8w1v9","created_at_utc_A":1554562808,"created_at_utc_B":1554558658,"score_A":22,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The Batek of penninsular Malaysia are egalitarian (and still exist), but that's not uncommon for hunter-gatherer societies","human_ref_B":"The Hazda and !Kung. Read further in \"Egalitarian societies\" of James Woodburn","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4150.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"oshblr","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Has the family as an institution always existed? were there (pre historic or non) communities in which family ties were mostly ignore to favor the well being of the community as a whole, thus negating the existence of the family as an institution?","c_root_id_A":"h6ol777","c_root_id_B":"h6pf9hs","created_at_utc_A":1627371267,"created_at_utc_B":1627393226,"score_A":28,"score_B":36,"human_ref_A":"Primeval Kinship by Bernard Chapais explores the subject of reproduction and how it changed social structures throughout human evolution, definitely check it out.","human_ref_B":"Can you expand on what you mean by family? Just mom, dad, siblings (nuclear family)? Or are we including aunts, uncles, cousins etc? I ask because there's always the minimal familial unit of mother and child because newborn humans need breastfeeding (prior to bottles & formula this was always needed) and extensive care for years and years. [edit: or another caregiver who can breastfeed]. But there are situations where the father plays less of a role such as the Mosou. While fathers do sometimes play a role in their kids' lives it isn't required and they still typically aren't part of the family household. You can learn more here: https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/photography\/article\/portraits-of-chinese-Mosuo-matriarchs But the Mosou stand out as unusual. Typically there are more extended family including father(s) in the household. To what extent that idea of family extends beyond the nuclear family varies. Kinship and who we're related to culturally is something that varies cross-culturally. Genetically you are equally related to mom and dad and their sides of the family. But culturally kinship dynamics can be complicated and sometimes you're viewed as only being related to Mom's side or Dad's side and\/or ideal marriage partners might be cousins and so on. Here's a good primer on kinship systems: https:\/\/www2.palomar.edu\/anthro\/kinship\/kinship_5.htm Those kinship systems also impact emphasis on levels of family. The Hawaiian system has the same name for people of the same generation of the same gender. Mom and aunts all get the same name. Brothers and boy cousins of the same generation are all the the same name. And so on. As such, cross cousin marriage is usually discouraged. However, just because the formal kin terms are the same that doesn't mean you treat the mom who breastfed you and raised you in her home the same as your auntie. But the cultural emphasis on same terms for generations reflects ideas about families extending beyond the nuclear family and being pretty broad. Here's a good primer on families: https:\/\/perspectives.pressbooks.com\/chapter\/family-and-marriage\/ These links might help you understand what is being discussed with genetically unrelated people being found buried together in \u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck. It's not that they lack kinship systems but changes in subsistence and interactions with other groups meant a plurality of such systems. And kinship is more than genetics. Practical kinship as it is sometimes called means you find family where you find it, adopting kids and living with friends and remarrying. Things might be more fluid but that doesn't mean kinship doesn't exist at all. I also want to caution that being buried together doesn't necessarily tell us about living ideas of relatives. My dad is buried in a huge graveyard where as far as I know there isn't a single relative buried. That doesn't really tell you anything about my ideas about kinship. Maybe there were spiritual or practical reasons people were buried together that aren't about kinship at all. https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0960982221004231 https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/116\/26\/12615 https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/21590748\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21959.0,"score_ratio":1.2857142857} {"post_id":"2m274s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"[META] Why do we keep seeing subpar answers in this sub? A few from latest threads... http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lwvq6\/is_gender_a_universal_concept\/clz1jcy http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lungb\/eventually_robotics_and_ai_will_advance_far\/clybg0v http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lw1mi\/why_is_mexico_not_able_to_bust_the_corruption\/clzo6hq http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lkt3z\/is_the_man_expected_to_ask_the_woman_out_on_a\/clvth7l Those are all excellent questions, but they all received, with all respect, subpar answers. According to rules in sidebar... * Top level comments must be informed, in-depth answers to the question. * Cite your sources. But those examples are not in-depth and not sourced. I always report every answers not fitting with the sub's standards but I keep seeing such answers again and again. Do people really think anthropology is just about common sense? Do the mods need a helping hand?","c_root_id_A":"cm0hq92","c_root_id_B":"cm0bpwj","created_at_utc_A":1415811591,"created_at_utc_B":1415798186,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I agree with \/u\/simonask, a lot of questions are really subpar. Or more accurately, probably just not aware of what exactly it is anthropology (especially cultural) does. My area of expertise is African Christianity but I never see questions on that. I'm also well versed in anthropology of development, which is probably more of a public interest than African Christianity, but I don't see questions on that either. Instead there are questions like does every culture in the history of time do X, or has there ever been a culture that didn't do Y, or questions about taxonomies, or wanting wholesale explanations of \"a culture\" in an easily digestible format, or my favourite, how did\/do primitive people do Z. Basically questions that reflect a view of anthropology like 70+ years out of date. Occasionally I answer a question with a question to sort of get at why this isn't a productive question for anthropology, but mostly I just kind of sigh and shrug my shoulders and I imagine the other anthropologists do as well, leaving the hobbyists to write subpar answers. Just a guess though.","human_ref_B":"\/u\/MortRouge and \/u\/simonask make two excellent points. 1. We do need stronger moderation, specially for unsourced and joke responses. 2. We need to establish what constitutes an in-depth response. Anthropology is a complicated subject. I think this sub should do what anthropology does, encourage discussion. Although a reply like: \"quite often it is the parents asking for their kids\" should probably be downvoted and\/or reported, a follow-up on cultures where parents or a third party is doing the matchmaking should be encouraged. Unfortunately, most would rather not get into it. Like the gender question. I just saw that the only comment has been removed. I feel like I should answer it, but do I want to get into it? Actually, I just forced myself to give an answer. Which is not in-depth, for the sake of brevity, and has no citations. So, now I'm guilty of 1 and 2!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13405.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"2m274s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"[META] Why do we keep seeing subpar answers in this sub? A few from latest threads... http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lwvq6\/is_gender_a_universal_concept\/clz1jcy http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lungb\/eventually_robotics_and_ai_will_advance_far\/clybg0v http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lw1mi\/why_is_mexico_not_able_to_bust_the_corruption\/clzo6hq http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskAnthropology\/comments\/2lkt3z\/is_the_man_expected_to_ask_the_woman_out_on_a\/clvth7l Those are all excellent questions, but they all received, with all respect, subpar answers. According to rules in sidebar... * Top level comments must be informed, in-depth answers to the question. * Cite your sources. But those examples are not in-depth and not sourced. I always report every answers not fitting with the sub's standards but I keep seeing such answers again and again. Do people really think anthropology is just about common sense? Do the mods need a helping hand?","c_root_id_A":"cm0cg5m","c_root_id_B":"cm0bpwj","created_at_utc_A":1415800517,"created_at_utc_B":1415798186,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I feel like with a small sub like this, we are just going to get a lot of unanswered questions until we can attract enough qualified answerers.","human_ref_B":"\/u\/MortRouge and \/u\/simonask make two excellent points. 1. We do need stronger moderation, specially for unsourced and joke responses. 2. We need to establish what constitutes an in-depth response. Anthropology is a complicated subject. I think this sub should do what anthropology does, encourage discussion. Although a reply like: \"quite often it is the parents asking for their kids\" should probably be downvoted and\/or reported, a follow-up on cultures where parents or a third party is doing the matchmaking should be encouraged. Unfortunately, most would rather not get into it. Like the gender question. I just saw that the only comment has been removed. I feel like I should answer it, but do I want to get into it? Actually, I just forced myself to give an answer. Which is not in-depth, for the sake of brevity, and has no citations. So, now I'm guilty of 1 and 2!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2331.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"1tyl1y","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Is there evidence of a vegan society at any point in history? I have a couple vegan friends who are convinced that eating animal products is unnatural and the \"the healthiest cultures in history have been vegan.\" I studied anthropology as an undergrad and told them I couldn't think of a single vegan society at all (as far as I know the closest ethically would be the Jains but they eat dairy) and that I wasn't sure how the health of historical societies could be accurately measured and compared. Could anthropologists of reddit shed some light?","c_root_id_A":"cecqxlf","c_root_id_B":"cecqp2t","created_at_utc_A":1388348802,"created_at_utc_B":1388348236,"score_A":52,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Given how strict the current definition of veganism is, it's nigh impossible to find a society that existed strictly on a vegan diet. No honey, milk, eggs--honey will often be the one that gets you. We live in a time where this is sustainable, but how many cultures had the luxury of denying proteins like meat\/dairy? Even meat-less\/vegetarian societies usually rely on dairy of some sort. Jains, Brokpa, Buddhists, the vegetarian swaths of India, etc all have some facet of their diet that does not qualify them as vegan. I believe there's some that come very, very close but there will always be something that squeaks through. No offense to your vegan friends, but ask them for real, solid sources. I doubt they could provide a single one that follows through to a real vegan diet that stands by the modern definition. Also, the idea of \"healthiest cultures\" is incredibly nebulous and not something you could reasonably quantify without an insane amount of data... which, considering that many of these societies are long-gone, we obviously don't have.","human_ref_B":"This would be a good question for \/r\/AskHistorians.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":566.0,"score_ratio":5.2} {"post_id":"1ctdpv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there an evolutionary explanation for left-handedness?","c_root_id_A":"c9jxmv3","c_root_id_B":"c9k33e5","created_at_utc_A":1366590283,"created_at_utc_B":1366606302,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"An informative paper I'm reading as part of my degree: http:\/\/rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/364\/1519\/881.full","human_ref_B":"I've seen two theories: 1) frequency dependency advantages and 2) specialization for tool use. 1) The frequency dependency theory is best illustrated with a sports analogy and would likely be under strong selective pressure in times of intense violence. If you're a boxer, you spend most of your time learning how to box people who are right handed. While boxers throw punches from both fist, certain patterns will emerge with handedness and subconsciously these would be incorporated into your style as well. If all of a sudden you sparred against a left handed boxer, a lot of that training and psychological conditioning might not be as effective. This gives an edge to left-handed boxers (same idea with pitchers in baseball). If this also applies to hand-to-hand combat, then in times where much of the population was involved in combat, left handedness should be selected for because of the fitness advantage it confers. However, as left handedness increases in frequency, this advantage starts to diminish as the likelyhood of encountering another southpaw also increases. Added to this, if there are some disadvantages to being left-handed in a predominantly right-handed world (watch a left-handed person use right handed scissors or a notebook to get the idea) then left-handedness might spread until it hits a frequency dependent sweet-spot: mixed evolutionary stable equilibrium (mixed ESS). Basically ;eft handedness could increase in frequency until the chances of encountering another left handed person (which negates the advantage) gets too high coupled with the constant disadvantage of being in a world of technology designed by other-handed individuals stops that ESS from ever reaching 50%. 2) I'm less informed on paleoarchaeology but summarized in Richard Klein's Human Career (the bible of human evolution, pages 256-260) lithic tools production might have been an impetus for handedness. Lithic experts see indications of handedness as early as the Oldowan tool complex (contemporary with Homo habilis) about 2.6 to around 1.8 when H. ergaster and the Acheulean tradition take over. Modern humans observed making stone tools often hold their tool stone in their non-dominant hand while holding the striker in their dominant hand. If you've ever tried to make stone tools or have seen an expert at work, it's easy to see how precise both the force and angle of the striking element have to be to in order to produce the desired flake (something I rarely can do). This is in contrast to chimpanzees who do not have a dominant hand. They also don't have the right hand morphology for making tools either. Kanzi, a modern bonobo who has been taught some pretty amazing skills, demonstrates that he understands the concept of producing stone tools but is unable to flake them in experiments. Instead he had much better success by chance through just throwing the rocks against the floor and then trying to find a fragment with a sharp edge (usually the motivation was to slice a rope or membrane to get into a box that had food). A lot of people suspect that even if he had the right hand morphology (smaller fingers, longer thumb, apical tuffs, greater wrist dexterity) he still might not have the neurological coordination that is required to produce the precision needed to effectively wield a striking element to make tools. The Oldowan tools are crude, and rather undifferentiated compared to later tool traditions but still show a remarkable amount of dexterity when compared to Kanzi's efforts (or some of mine). The fact that they emerge with the start of the Homo genus implies something unique happened at that time. Besides the necessary hand morphology (which was present as in some later forms of Australopiths and Paranthropus) it may have been the evolution of handedness. *grammar. Also, I had to look up if Kanzi was a female or male. Surprisingly, male. There is a relevant Radio Lab episode on kanzi that is pretty interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":16019.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"1ctdpv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Is there an evolutionary explanation for left-handedness?","c_root_id_A":"c9k0d1j","c_root_id_B":"c9k33e5","created_at_utc_A":1366598204,"created_at_utc_B":1366606302,"score_A":2,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"This is just a theory, but could it possibly go back to Spartan fighting styles(or other culture)? Every shield had to be held on the same side for the fighting formation to work. Shield in left hand striking with the right.","human_ref_B":"I've seen two theories: 1) frequency dependency advantages and 2) specialization for tool use. 1) The frequency dependency theory is best illustrated with a sports analogy and would likely be under strong selective pressure in times of intense violence. If you're a boxer, you spend most of your time learning how to box people who are right handed. While boxers throw punches from both fist, certain patterns will emerge with handedness and subconsciously these would be incorporated into your style as well. If all of a sudden you sparred against a left handed boxer, a lot of that training and psychological conditioning might not be as effective. This gives an edge to left-handed boxers (same idea with pitchers in baseball). If this also applies to hand-to-hand combat, then in times where much of the population was involved in combat, left handedness should be selected for because of the fitness advantage it confers. However, as left handedness increases in frequency, this advantage starts to diminish as the likelyhood of encountering another southpaw also increases. Added to this, if there are some disadvantages to being left-handed in a predominantly right-handed world (watch a left-handed person use right handed scissors or a notebook to get the idea) then left-handedness might spread until it hits a frequency dependent sweet-spot: mixed evolutionary stable equilibrium (mixed ESS). Basically ;eft handedness could increase in frequency until the chances of encountering another left handed person (which negates the advantage) gets too high coupled with the constant disadvantage of being in a world of technology designed by other-handed individuals stops that ESS from ever reaching 50%. 2) I'm less informed on paleoarchaeology but summarized in Richard Klein's Human Career (the bible of human evolution, pages 256-260) lithic tools production might have been an impetus for handedness. Lithic experts see indications of handedness as early as the Oldowan tool complex (contemporary with Homo habilis) about 2.6 to around 1.8 when H. ergaster and the Acheulean tradition take over. Modern humans observed making stone tools often hold their tool stone in their non-dominant hand while holding the striker in their dominant hand. If you've ever tried to make stone tools or have seen an expert at work, it's easy to see how precise both the force and angle of the striking element have to be to in order to produce the desired flake (something I rarely can do). This is in contrast to chimpanzees who do not have a dominant hand. They also don't have the right hand morphology for making tools either. Kanzi, a modern bonobo who has been taught some pretty amazing skills, demonstrates that he understands the concept of producing stone tools but is unable to flake them in experiments. Instead he had much better success by chance through just throwing the rocks against the floor and then trying to find a fragment with a sharp edge (usually the motivation was to slice a rope or membrane to get into a box that had food). A lot of people suspect that even if he had the right hand morphology (smaller fingers, longer thumb, apical tuffs, greater wrist dexterity) he still might not have the neurological coordination that is required to produce the precision needed to effectively wield a striking element to make tools. The Oldowan tools are crude, and rather undifferentiated compared to later tool traditions but still show a remarkable amount of dexterity when compared to Kanzi's efforts (or some of mine). The fact that they emerge with the start of the Homo genus implies something unique happened at that time. Besides the necessary hand morphology (which was present as in some later forms of Australopiths and Paranthropus) it may have been the evolution of handedness. *grammar. Also, I had to look up if Kanzi was a female or male. Surprisingly, male. There is a relevant Radio Lab episode on kanzi that is pretty interesting.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8098.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"1xvlav","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.68,"history":"Is the 'caveman'\/'paleo' diet optimal for modern people, or have we evolved to benefit from agricultural diets?","c_root_id_A":"cff8any","c_root_id_B":"cff2r34","created_at_utc_A":1392392653,"created_at_utc_B":1392367578,"score_A":12,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'll echo what everyone else has said so far. Although I'm not a nutritionist either, one thing that anthropology can show us is that humans are *really good* at forming a stable diet on **a lot** of different foods. Even when processed grain is the major staple of a humans diet during its adult life, the downside of is mostly just dental problems, which you can probably avoid with modern dental care. Seeing the highly variable diets that have sustained populations throughout time tells me that settling on something and getting good exercise is the best baseline of advice we have. My roommate was on the paleo for a couple years. It eventually turned into me walking into the kitchen and regularly seeing him eating butter off of a plate, which apparently his body can metabolize into energy when you aren't eating grains.... Hmmm...","human_ref_B":"Why would you ask an anthropologist rather than a dietician? I mean you got the right answer anyway (it's nonsense), but it's not exactly within the field is it?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":25075.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"1yk76r","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Are we still living in a post-modern society or have we move on to something different? I've been hearing people talk about something called neo-modernism, I've tried searching for information on it but haven't been able to find anything useful. Have we really left post-modernism, if so what has replaced it and how is it different from what came before it? I would also welcome any books or journal articles on the subject.","c_root_id_A":"cflbxfh","c_root_id_B":"cflbo70","created_at_utc_A":1393018902,"created_at_utc_B":1393018365,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I have to admit this question is a difficult one to answer because with it's emphasis on subjectivity and plurality, postmodernism is not a monolithic entity. Taken as a whole, it is rather shambolic. It is probably a bit of an oversimplification but i would say that many Postmodernist theories are a direct response to modernism and thus they can only makes sense when juxtaposed against it. I suppose what this means is that postmodernism did not supplant modernism as much as it has been synthesized into it. The impact of postmodernist thought varies from department to department but in general many people have taken to accepting the fact that their interpretations are subjective and simply taken care to limit the scope of their conclusions. Speaking from the perspective of an archaeology student, I can honestly say that many of the (admittedly valid) criticisms of postmodernism have been disregarded by many archaeologists because it is actually impossible to make any objective contributions to the study of the past if your initial premise is that the past is produced in the present. In short, postmodernism's emphasis on subjectivity and the production of reality is somewhat self-defeating because these very same criticisms can be applied to postmodernism as well. This fact has led various philosophers to attempt to formulate alternatives to it an attempt to circumvent this problem. Alan Kirby has coined the term pseudo modernism to describe what he sees as trends of selective ignorance cultural vacuity that dominate the post 911 world. A more oblique attempt would probably be Manuel De Landa's a thousand years of nonlinear history. It is a particularly salient example of the kind of pragmatic idealism that kirby describes because it attempts to craft an objective materialistic interpretation of history while overtly ejecting any kind of teleology that might come along with it.","human_ref_B":"The burgeoning theories about theory in this field are pretty obsolete as far as functionality goes. You get tangled up in thinking about them, whereas in all reality they don't exist. That's just if we're trying to take a dynamic viewpoint on things - or say that there never really was such a thing as modernism. The funny thing is, that's actually a characteristic of post-postmodernism \/ neo-modernism \/ meta-modernism. It's just a static name for a dynamic viewpoint. Anyway, the further we get into the future, the better we'll be able to define what happened in the past. Post-modernism might acknowledge power-struggles (as proposed by Foucault - even though he didn't identify as postmodernist he did identify as a person who critiqued modernism.) Since we are beginning to be able to critique postmodernism, or at least the idea of it - that puts us in a new era of thought. This'll send you around in circles all day, though.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":537.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"3l2qd0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How can anthropology be useful to others ? Hello world\u2019s people ! I am currently into a big deal with myself. I quicked my studies of anthropology last year mostly because I didn\u2019t understand concretely the utility of this discipline. But now and ever since, I keep thinking about anthropology, reading and listening, and I am still eager to do anthropology. I want to be useful for others and for the society but I can not figure out how I can use anthropology for that. How can I use anthropology to give happiness to people, to do things concretely and to bring something to others. Still I have the instinct that anthropology is the way, that I can do something with it but maybe you could help me to have a better understanding of this feeling... Maybe you folks had already thought about it and had to deal with the same issue...I would be glad if you help me in my search... Because not only I don't deeply understand anthropology but this means also that I don't understand deeply myself, my desire and my utility. PS : sorry for the english that is not perfect...","c_root_id_A":"cv2ueze","c_root_id_B":"cv39530","created_at_utc_A":1442354742,"created_at_utc_B":1442385812,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"If I may, I'd like to use my own experience as an anecdote? My main research is on LGBT2SQ+ experiences of post secondary. One project I worked on was an accessibility audit for a post-secondary institution. This audit will assist the institution in modifying its structures and its physical campus so as to be more accessible to LGBT2SQ+ students, staff, faculty, and administrators; such measures include gender-inclusive washrooms, having instructors ask for preferred pronouns in a sensitive manner, having counselling intake forms be non-heteronormative, and other such measures. I have also been brought on to work on a documentary about LGBT2SQ+ experiences of post-secondary. I see this as a major potential means of aiding many who face discrimination, intentional or not, in a broad stroke fashion. I do this work to help others be able to get through life, especially during our vulnerable times of change that so often happen during our time in post-secondary, with fewer barriers impeding us. Anthropology provides me with a means to conduct this research; with a means to help others. It provides a methodology, and it provides many ways of interpreting what the methodology reveals. With that, I can get the work out and into peoples hands, and perhaps more importantly into their heads.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology has considerable value in its ability to de-center or de-normalize our own cultures and our positions within those cultures. Being aware of one's own positions, biases, blindspots, tendencies, etc. is no easy task (in fact, some level of self-centering is pretty much intrinsic to human existence as we know it). Anthropology, while still subject to this same tendency toward normalization of one's own cultures and one's own positions within those cultures, can expose us to what are the normal experiences of people in other cultures as well as other people in our own culture. It can also de-center or elucidate elements of our own experiences which have gone unnoticed by us. **So, in the greater scheme of the practice of science, anthropology can be one tool in strengthening the self-awareness of the thinker\/scholar\/researcher\/scientist.**","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31070.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"3l2qd0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"How can anthropology be useful to others ? Hello world\u2019s people ! I am currently into a big deal with myself. I quicked my studies of anthropology last year mostly because I didn\u2019t understand concretely the utility of this discipline. But now and ever since, I keep thinking about anthropology, reading and listening, and I am still eager to do anthropology. I want to be useful for others and for the society but I can not figure out how I can use anthropology for that. How can I use anthropology to give happiness to people, to do things concretely and to bring something to others. Still I have the instinct that anthropology is the way, that I can do something with it but maybe you could help me to have a better understanding of this feeling... Maybe you folks had already thought about it and had to deal with the same issue...I would be glad if you help me in my search... Because not only I don't deeply understand anthropology but this means also that I don't understand deeply myself, my desire and my utility. PS : sorry for the english that is not perfect...","c_root_id_A":"cv38sfu","c_root_id_B":"cv39530","created_at_utc_A":1442384599,"created_at_utc_B":1442385812,"score_A":2,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Hey there! I'm mostly a lurker on Reddit but your post caught my attention because I can relate to what you said. I have always been interested in Anthropology but I never saw it as a career. However, anthropology can have many applications in many different professions. Maybe business, psychology, social work, advertising, management, the list goes on. I am currently preparing for a career in advertising-- particularly the market\/consumer research. My job is to understand people and cultures and help my ad agency develop creative ad campaigns that connect with people. Many people, including my family (lol), criticize me for following such a 'materialistic' profession. However, I think the advertising industry has the talent, resources and insight to make a positive impact. For example: providing marketing expertise to non-profit charity organizations; developing campaigns that bring humanitarian issues to light... I developed marketing strategy to spread awareness in rural Kentucky about oral health. In Dubai, I worked on a project to motivate people to help laborers who worked in 50C heat. My point is, if you have an instinct for anthropology, DONT LET IT GO TO WASTE! You can help people in so many ways-- through so many paths! I hope this helps! :)","human_ref_B":"Anthropology has considerable value in its ability to de-center or de-normalize our own cultures and our positions within those cultures. Being aware of one's own positions, biases, blindspots, tendencies, etc. is no easy task (in fact, some level of self-centering is pretty much intrinsic to human existence as we know it). Anthropology, while still subject to this same tendency toward normalization of one's own cultures and one's own positions within those cultures, can expose us to what are the normal experiences of people in other cultures as well as other people in our own culture. It can also de-center or elucidate elements of our own experiences which have gone unnoticed by us. **So, in the greater scheme of the practice of science, anthropology can be one tool in strengthening the self-awareness of the thinker\/scholar\/researcher\/scientist.**","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1213.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"bj2uyy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Acceptance of forced religions? I've always been very curious about people's acceptance of religions that have been forced on them, usually after conquest or just through politics (usually of the old days). Why people didn't pay \"lip service\" and secretly practice their own religions, or go back to their old religions once they have the opportunity (assuming enough generations haven't passed and they can find this information). Why they didn't hate and reject these religions the first chance they got. Has anyone read anything on this topic? I'd like to learn about it. I'm not sure what to look for in search terms, though. I'm not even sure if this isn't sociology rather than anthropology.","c_root_id_A":"em53g2y","c_root_id_B":"em57icl","created_at_utc_A":1556635548,"created_at_utc_B":1556638185,"score_A":12,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"In Al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, and following the Reconquista there where various forms of forced conversion. Under Islamic rule most people were not forced to convert through violence but through other forms of pressure. You were excluded from being involved in politics and you were taxed more heavily than Muslims. Muslim rule in Iberia actually took on a practice of Arabicization rather than Italicization; they were to become known as Mozarabs. Although churches were destroyed and converted to mosques. People were harassed if they were seen as defacing Islam or Muhammad. After the reconquista the Christian population put in a program to convert people to Christianity some were economic but others were violent. The inquisition and other forms of scrutiny made sure that the Jewish people who 'converted' would be truly Catholic. Same with the Arabicized Christians, because for the Reconquistadors religion and culture were deeply tied. They saw those Arabicized Christians as being false in some way, either not truly being Christian or not truly being Spanish (in a sense). The Jewish people were also set to be forcibly converted in the 1100s (they would be known as conversos) but after a few centuries it was shown that the conversions hadn't been effective. But this touches on a point that a lot of people converted whether they wanted to or not. There were tons of people who converted either to protect themselves such as the Jews in Christian rule who converted out of fear but then perhaps secretly practised Judaism still. Those that didn't truly convert either eventually fled, kept it a secret well enough, or were persecuted. During Muslim rule the predominately Christian population were pressured to convert either in culture or religion, but most were both. Those that managed to keep their Christian faith passed it down. What is something to be mindful of is that these conversion processes took hundred of years. Perhaps the first generation to convert just did it to survive and in fact were secret Christians or Jews or Muslims, but for the Muslim rule the conversions of the Christians happened over 800 years. Likewise for the Christian rulers when first generation converts were 'tested' by the inquisition they found that many Jewish converts were not truly following the Christian faith but over time the effects of forced conversion would have been lost in the generational memories. Sources on request.","human_ref_B":"There's a lot of good answers here. Just to add on a little, there's a lot of factors to consider, as the processes\/histories you are referring to are diverse and difficult to generalize. Some thoughts: - sometimes, practicing local religions was persecuted for generations until knowledge was lost - sometimes the things\/places needed to practice local religions were destroyed - many people did practice old ways secretly, or combine them with the new ones (this is what people call syncretism, which is a framework I don't personally care for, but this isn't the place for that conversation). You might be interested in the book Mama Lola, it's a very fun read and explains a lot about Haitian religion which can be seen as an example of syncretism. It's not the most recent book at this point, and there are critiques of it, of course, but it's a great place to start - converting could have direct material or political benefits, access to schools\/literacy, access to government positions, etc etc - converting could be helpful in asserting also-humanness to your colonizers, and demanding rights on that basis - similarly, converting can be seen by converts as a way of entering into and taking part in a bigger\/newer world, being part of a global community, being modern, etc. (Robin Horton famously thought that it made sense to change to the big monotheistic theology when your world gets bigger. His argument is deeply problematic and widely dismissed now. But that doesn't mean some converts don't feel global religions are more appropriate to their current circumstances for a variety of reasons.) - some people actually like the teachings or find them true or effective (eg they got better after being prayed for at church). A lot of scholars of religion want the sociological reason for conversion but I think it's actually really important to take people seriously when they say their belief is genuine and that they like their religion - this is connected to several points above, but the association of religions like Christianity and Islam with literacy and education was really important in many ways - religion is not ever static and people were never isolated, so while forced conversion was qualitatively different in some ways from the spread of ideas from your neighbors, for example, don't assume there was some static thing that had no history - finally, the category of religion is itself a product of a particular history, and the way Western scholars think about it is particularly connected to the history of Protestantism. Talal Asad's essay \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\" is useful here. In the community where I do my research, people are quite insistent that there was no religion until Christianity and Islam showed up. At first, this confused me but I understand now that putting older practices in the category of \"tradition\" instead of religion makes a lot of sense in this context. Then, the conversation becomes not, \"which religion should we follow, Christianity [or Islam] or our local religion?\" It becomes \"are tradition and religion compatible?\", which is an ongoing debate -- many people feel religion opposes or forbids some aspects of tradition but which ones and how strictly is a matter of widespread debate. (Conversion in this area was never totally forced, but it was coercive in many ways.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2637.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"bj2uyy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Acceptance of forced religions? I've always been very curious about people's acceptance of religions that have been forced on them, usually after conquest or just through politics (usually of the old days). Why people didn't pay \"lip service\" and secretly practice their own religions, or go back to their old religions once they have the opportunity (assuming enough generations haven't passed and they can find this information). Why they didn't hate and reject these religions the first chance they got. Has anyone read anything on this topic? I'd like to learn about it. I'm not sure what to look for in search terms, though. I'm not even sure if this isn't sociology rather than anthropology.","c_root_id_A":"em576ov","c_root_id_B":"em57icl","created_at_utc_A":1556637982,"created_at_utc_B":1556638185,"score_A":6,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"Others have brought up a few good points. I wanted to point out some convert because they felt christians were more powerful. If you see a group come with amazing tech, able to cure diseases, and do other miraculous things (to you) it would make sense you start to follow their religion not your own. I know many times missionaries would also tell the people that the only way to succeed in life was to become christian, and in many ways this was probably true but more because of being denied a place in society for not being christian and not because christianity made you better.","human_ref_B":"There's a lot of good answers here. Just to add on a little, there's a lot of factors to consider, as the processes\/histories you are referring to are diverse and difficult to generalize. Some thoughts: - sometimes, practicing local religions was persecuted for generations until knowledge was lost - sometimes the things\/places needed to practice local religions were destroyed - many people did practice old ways secretly, or combine them with the new ones (this is what people call syncretism, which is a framework I don't personally care for, but this isn't the place for that conversation). You might be interested in the book Mama Lola, it's a very fun read and explains a lot about Haitian religion which can be seen as an example of syncretism. It's not the most recent book at this point, and there are critiques of it, of course, but it's a great place to start - converting could have direct material or political benefits, access to schools\/literacy, access to government positions, etc etc - converting could be helpful in asserting also-humanness to your colonizers, and demanding rights on that basis - similarly, converting can be seen by converts as a way of entering into and taking part in a bigger\/newer world, being part of a global community, being modern, etc. (Robin Horton famously thought that it made sense to change to the big monotheistic theology when your world gets bigger. His argument is deeply problematic and widely dismissed now. But that doesn't mean some converts don't feel global religions are more appropriate to their current circumstances for a variety of reasons.) - some people actually like the teachings or find them true or effective (eg they got better after being prayed for at church). A lot of scholars of religion want the sociological reason for conversion but I think it's actually really important to take people seriously when they say their belief is genuine and that they like their religion - this is connected to several points above, but the association of religions like Christianity and Islam with literacy and education was really important in many ways - religion is not ever static and people were never isolated, so while forced conversion was qualitatively different in some ways from the spread of ideas from your neighbors, for example, don't assume there was some static thing that had no history - finally, the category of religion is itself a product of a particular history, and the way Western scholars think about it is particularly connected to the history of Protestantism. Talal Asad's essay \"Anthropological Conceptions of Religion\" is useful here. In the community where I do my research, people are quite insistent that there was no religion until Christianity and Islam showed up. At first, this confused me but I understand now that putting older practices in the category of \"tradition\" instead of religion makes a lot of sense in this context. Then, the conversation becomes not, \"which religion should we follow, Christianity [or Islam] or our local religion?\" It becomes \"are tradition and religion compatible?\", which is an ongoing debate -- many people feel religion opposes or forbids some aspects of tradition but which ones and how strictly is a matter of widespread debate. (Conversion in this area was never totally forced, but it was coercive in many ways.)","labels":0,"seconds_difference":203.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"25zh7w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Favorite ethnographies? I'm looking to do some do some pleasure reading while I take some time off from school (though I'm really not afraid of dense material). I used to love my anthropology classes, so I was hoping to work in some recent ethnographic work. Does anyone have favorites they think everyone should read?","c_root_id_A":"chmekk7","c_root_id_B":"chm9api","created_at_utc_A":1400561906,"created_at_utc_B":1400549378,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Bourgois (1995) *In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio* is probably my favorite and most recommended to others ethnography. As the title implies, it focuses on low-level drug dealers and neighborhood of East Harlem during the crack epidemic. Abu-Lughod (1999) *Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society* is another excellent text, and I've particularly enjoyed how carries forward the ideas of Scott (1985) *Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance*. Finally, a couple great ones from Brazil, Gregg (2003) *Virtually Virgins: Sexual Strategies and Cervical Cancer in Recife, Brazil* and Goldstein (2003) *Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown*. I'd also recommend Scheper-Hughes (1993) *Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil*, if you'd like a trio of tear-jerkers.","human_ref_B":"While doing research for a Roman history paper I really enjoyed reading [Germania]( http:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Germania_(book) by Tacitus. It's an account of Germanic tribes in the early Roman Empire period. It's interesting to see the Romans' opinions on the peoples bordering their Empire.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12528.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"25zh7w","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Favorite ethnographies? I'm looking to do some do some pleasure reading while I take some time off from school (though I'm really not afraid of dense material). I used to love my anthropology classes, so I was hoping to work in some recent ethnographic work. Does anyone have favorites they think everyone should read?","c_root_id_A":"chmekk7","c_root_id_B":"chmc2qq","created_at_utc_A":1400561906,"created_at_utc_B":1400555514,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Bourgois (1995) *In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio* is probably my favorite and most recommended to others ethnography. As the title implies, it focuses on low-level drug dealers and neighborhood of East Harlem during the crack epidemic. Abu-Lughod (1999) *Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society* is another excellent text, and I've particularly enjoyed how carries forward the ideas of Scott (1985) *Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance*. Finally, a couple great ones from Brazil, Gregg (2003) *Virtually Virgins: Sexual Strategies and Cervical Cancer in Recife, Brazil* and Goldstein (2003) *Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown*. I'd also recommend Scheper-Hughes (1993) *Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil*, if you'd like a trio of tear-jerkers.","human_ref_B":"It's not recent, but Anthony Seeger's *Why Suya Sing* is a must-read.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6392.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"52oi51","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"What is a good short ethnography? I am wondering if you know any short ethnographies I can read..","c_root_id_A":"d7m6xfc","c_root_id_B":"d7m1dly","created_at_utc_A":1473845221,"created_at_utc_B":1473828425,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"3 of my favourites from my course: - Baseball Magic: http:\/\/www.anth.ucsb.edu\/faculty\/ptaber\/VC%20Fall%202016web\/Gmelch%20Baseball%20Magic.pdf A deconstruction of the rituals that baseball players use to be successful, and how they're very similar to other cultures' use of magic - Shakespeare in the Bush: http:\/\/www.naturalhistorymag.com\/picks-from-the-past\/12476\/shakespeare-in-the-bush Narrative brilliance is universal, right? An anthropologist sets out to prove this with hilarious and enlightening results - How to ask for a drink at Brady's by Spradley and Mann. Can't find a link on Scholar for this one, sorry The language - and non verbal communication - that people use to order a drink in a 90s Bar in New York. Super interesting, close look at performance communication","human_ref_B":"What are your interests?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16796.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"6n2552","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"How were diseases treated in Cavemen times?","c_root_id_A":"dk6fiwk","c_root_id_B":"dk6hybo","created_at_utc_A":1499970504,"created_at_utc_B":1499973112,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I believe they had a rudimentary (or maybe better) knowledge of herbs. Source","human_ref_B":"It's a difficult question to answer because so many afflictions would affect soft tissue and presumably be treated with organic compounds, neither of which tend to preserve well from the Paleolithic (the more scientific term than \"caveman times\"). Of course we also lack things like writing from this period that in other times might shed light on your question. Archaeologists have recently found two examples of dentistry from the Upper Paleolithic dating to near the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e. the end of the last Ice Age). [The older] (https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2015\/07\/20\/scientists-discover-14000-year-old-evidence-of-dental-work-and-it-sounds-miserable\/?utm_term=.af49b7d37157), from about 14,000 years before present shows evidence of tooth drilling with a stone bit, presumably to remove a cavity. Only a millennium or so later, [another individual's skeleton] (https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2017-04-ancient-teeth-evidence-ice-age.html) was recovered with similar holes now filled with bitumen (naturally occurring tar), hair, and plant remains. It's reasonable to speculate the plant remains may have been thought to have some medical benefits, though I don't believe they have been identified yet. In Kurdistan, at a site called Shanidar Cave IV, a Neanderthal body dated to about 60,000 BC (I think - you may want to confirm this yourself) was recovered. Analysis of the soil around the body showed high levels of pollen from plants known to have long histories in traditional medicine. It's hotly debated whether the pollen came from flowers intentionally interred with the deceased or were introduced by burrowing rodents, wind, or other natural forces, however. As one of my students pointed out in a research paper, we don't find a lot of direct evidence of medical practice in the Paleolithic, but we find quite a bit in the early Iron Age when writing becomes more ubiquitous and we find more and better-preserved remains. That many early writers like Pliney resort to myths to explain the origins of different medical practices and herbal treatments suggests such treatments have long histories that predate collective memory. Furthermore, even though many treatments were bogus or counterproductive, many were also surprisingly effective given their limited resources, suggesting that people must have been experimenting with plants and treatments for generations to determine what worked and what didn't. So, it is very likely that a lot of remedies and medical practices we know from the more recent ancient past may have had some precursors in the Paleolithic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2608.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"8jczz6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"When did you know anthropology was going to be your career?","c_root_id_A":"dyyq2y5","c_root_id_B":"dyyyozq","created_at_utc_A":1526312945,"created_at_utc_B":1526320641,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm still not sure if anthropology is going to be my career, and I'm starting my first full time professor job in September (it is not a permanent position and I have no idea what I'll be doing in September 2019). But really, it was pretty early in undergrad that I learned that anthropology was amazing, and I was thinking about grad school pretty quickly (by 2nd year). I began university having a vague idea of what career trajectory to take (I was thinking journalist or high school history teacher, after a last minute application change from engineering when I discovered that I actually wasn't that good at math). I thought archaeology would be an interesting minor, but thought anthropology sounded boring. I took the four-field first year courses (so that I could minor in archaeology) and found it all super interesting. I also quickly realized I was good at it and thought that being a university prof would be way less annoying than being a high school teacher (plus getting to do fieldwork is great), so I settled on anthropology pretty quickly in undergrad. And over a decade later I'm staring to get somewhere. Don't do a Ph.D. unless you're really in it for the long-haul.","human_ref_B":"It felt like falling in love. I jumped around from major to major, never really feeling motivated to delve into the details; constantly getting disenchanted. But the first time I took an introduction to anthropology course, I knew. It was challenging, exciting and inspiring. But most importantly, I connected with the anthropological perspective, and it\u2019s approach to the world. The more courses I took, the more I wanted to learn. I wanted to read everything ever written, and eventually contribute my own research. I was as enchanted then, as I am now- even as I endure the difficulties of writing my dissertation. Despite the other challenges: difficult job market, low-paying work, family disapproval, nothing could dissuade me from pursuing a career in this field. I wouldn\u2019t want a future without anthropology, and that\u2019s when I knew. There are few things in this world that have that effect on me, but I\u2019m glad it did.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7696.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"2sagu8","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Should Anthropolgists respond to behaviour they find immoral in studied cultures? I was wondering about this after reading several anecdotes related by Jared Diamond about instances of abusive or immoral behaviour he had witnessed. In particular, he recalls an incident in which a pregnant woman was left to die alone when complications arose in her childbirth. Diamond stated that he attempted to approach the woman, but was dissuaded from doing so by other members of her tribe and she died alone whilst screaming for help. Diamond essentially witnessed this and did nothing to help. As a layman, I found this rather shocking. So my question is: Is there an agreed upon code of conduct that Anthropologists generally adhere to when viewing behaviour that would be regarded as abusive or immoral in their parent society?","c_root_id_A":"cnntuhz","c_root_id_B":"cnnvg5f","created_at_utc_A":1421176533,"created_at_utc_B":1421179000,"score_A":5,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Honestly, if they want to be researchers than that's what they should do. Adding ones one thoughts and opinions is further proof of Ruth Benedict's \"rose tinted glasses\". While there may be and likely are practices that will shock and take you off guard, it's your own egocentrism that makes them so, assuming you believe in cultural relativism. I have a feeling this will be an unpopular opinion, but in order to be impartial in your research it's what should happen, but that only matters if you value your research more than the instance and\/or the values that cause you to have such strong opposition to a practice.","human_ref_B":"There are many different types of research, and many different kinds of researcher. Critical anthropology is a field in which (obviously) critique with the intent to change is intrinsic to the field. Socio-cultural anthropologists in general are fairly adamant about the reality that trying to claim impartiality in our research would be grossly fallacious. Nancy Scheper-Hughes is a well-known example. Her intervention has lead to a rapid decrease in illegal\/black-market organ trading. For some reading on anthropological research ethics: \"The Primacy of the Ethical: Propositions for a Militant Anthropology\" Scheper-Hughes (1995). \"Confronting the Ethics of Ethnography: Lessons from Fieldwork in Central America\" Bourgois (1991). Both authors (in these texts and others) demonstrate a commitment to rigorous research as well as critical anthropological ethics. I'd also just like to state that Jared Diamond is not an anthropologist, and anything he has to say about a field in which he has no methodological or theoretical training should be taken in the same light as if I were to write a book about black holes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2467.0,"score_ratio":5.6} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq7smz6","c_root_id_B":"fq8iqib","created_at_utc_A":1589151380,"created_at_utc_B":1589167131,"score_A":8,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"My area of interest is primarily Polynesia so I can give a couple of recommendations: *Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands*, Robert I. Levy *We the Tikopia: A sociological study of kinship in primitive Polynesia*,\u00a0Raymond Firth","human_ref_B":"I read *Righteous Dopefiends* in my anthro theory course in undergrad which followed IV drug addicts in San Fransisco. It's a fascinating, powerful ethnography that deals significantly with social stratification\/class divides in the US. I'd highly recommend it.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15751.0,"score_ratio":2.25} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8iqib","c_root_id_B":"fq8epgz","created_at_utc_A":1589167131,"created_at_utc_B":1589164519,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I read *Righteous Dopefiends* in my anthro theory course in undergrad which followed IV drug addicts in San Fransisco. It's a fascinating, powerful ethnography that deals significantly with social stratification\/class divides in the US. I'd highly recommend it.","human_ref_B":"I would personally recommend Margaret Mead: sex and temperament in three primitive societies for starters, since it provides a good research on the overall aspects of the three New Guinea cultures she studied in this piece. She entails how others are perceived in their societies and the two others, as well as how they handle family decisions, which I think goes straight with your interests.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2612.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8iqib","c_root_id_B":"fq8ipf9","created_at_utc_A":1589167131,"created_at_utc_B":1589167111,"score_A":18,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I read *Righteous Dopefiends* in my anthro theory course in undergrad which followed IV drug addicts in San Fransisco. It's a fascinating, powerful ethnography that deals significantly with social stratification\/class divides in the US. I'd highly recommend it.","human_ref_B":"I actually had to read this for a class but I really enjoyed it: \u201cWriting Women\u2019s Worlds: Bedouin Stories\u201d by Lila Abu-Lughod It gives a really interesting perspective that a lot of people (in the West at least) don\u2019t know much about. It also challenges your assumptions about gender relations in the context of Islam and the Middle East. It\u2019s easy to read and the stories and songs documented are really entertaining!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":20.0,"score_ratio":2.5714285714} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8iqib","c_root_id_B":"fq80iyx","created_at_utc_A":1589167131,"created_at_utc_B":1589156022,"score_A":18,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I read *Righteous Dopefiends* in my anthro theory course in undergrad which followed IV drug addicts in San Fransisco. It's a fascinating, powerful ethnography that deals significantly with social stratification\/class divides in the US. I'd highly recommend it.","human_ref_B":"For a class, I had to read Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs by Cathy Smalls and I really enjoyed it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11109.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8epgz","c_root_id_B":"fq8nx43","created_at_utc_A":1589164519,"created_at_utc_B":1589170756,"score_A":7,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I would personally recommend Margaret Mead: sex and temperament in three primitive societies for starters, since it provides a good research on the overall aspects of the three New Guinea cultures she studied in this piece. She entails how others are perceived in their societies and the two others, as well as how they handle family decisions, which I think goes straight with your interests.","human_ref_B":"If you want something a little political and closer to home (assuming you\u2019re in the US), I absolutely loved reading Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail by Jason De Le\u00f3n. Discusses the history of the US\/Mexico border and offers the perspective of the migrants. Definitely a tough, heart-wrenching read at some points, but really great.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6237.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8nx43","c_root_id_B":"fq8ipf9","created_at_utc_A":1589170756,"created_at_utc_B":1589167111,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"If you want something a little political and closer to home (assuming you\u2019re in the US), I absolutely loved reading Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail by Jason De Le\u00f3n. Discusses the history of the US\/Mexico border and offers the perspective of the migrants. Definitely a tough, heart-wrenching read at some points, but really great.","human_ref_B":"I actually had to read this for a class but I really enjoyed it: \u201cWriting Women\u2019s Worlds: Bedouin Stories\u201d by Lila Abu-Lughod It gives a really interesting perspective that a lot of people (in the West at least) don\u2019t know much about. It also challenges your assumptions about gender relations in the context of Islam and the Middle East. It\u2019s easy to read and the stories and songs documented are really entertaining!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3645.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8nx43","c_root_id_B":"fq80iyx","created_at_utc_A":1589170756,"created_at_utc_B":1589156022,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"If you want something a little political and closer to home (assuming you\u2019re in the US), I absolutely loved reading Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail by Jason De Le\u00f3n. Discusses the history of the US\/Mexico border and offers the perspective of the migrants. Definitely a tough, heart-wrenching read at some points, but really great.","human_ref_B":"For a class, I had to read Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs by Cathy Smalls and I really enjoyed it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14734.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8nx43","c_root_id_B":"fq8n722","created_at_utc_A":1589170756,"created_at_utc_B":1589170224,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"If you want something a little political and closer to home (assuming you\u2019re in the US), I absolutely loved reading Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail by Jason De Le\u00f3n. Discusses the history of the US\/Mexico border and offers the perspective of the migrants. Definitely a tough, heart-wrenching read at some points, but really great.","human_ref_B":"shelter blues. about homeless shelter residents In Boston. won an award for humanist anthropology and the author is a UPenn professor. great book. Edit; btw, I have a NYPL card which allowed me access to a free pdf of the book. I can email it to you if you\u2019d like","labels":1,"seconds_difference":532.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq80iyx","c_root_id_B":"fq8epgz","created_at_utc_A":1589156022,"created_at_utc_B":1589164519,"score_A":6,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"For a class, I had to read Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs by Cathy Smalls and I really enjoyed it","human_ref_B":"I would personally recommend Margaret Mead: sex and temperament in three primitive societies for starters, since it provides a good research on the overall aspects of the three New Guinea cultures she studied in this piece. She entails how others are perceived in their societies and the two others, as well as how they handle family decisions, which I think goes straight with your interests.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8497.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq8ipf9","c_root_id_B":"fq80iyx","created_at_utc_A":1589167111,"created_at_utc_B":1589156022,"score_A":7,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I actually had to read this for a class but I really enjoyed it: \u201cWriting Women\u2019s Worlds: Bedouin Stories\u201d by Lila Abu-Lughod It gives a really interesting perspective that a lot of people (in the West at least) don\u2019t know much about. It also challenges your assumptions about gender relations in the context of Islam and the Middle East. It\u2019s easy to read and the stories and songs documented are really entertaining!","human_ref_B":"For a class, I had to read Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs by Cathy Smalls and I really enjoyed it","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11089.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq92dad","c_root_id_B":"fq8u7mj","created_at_utc_A":1589183116,"created_at_utc_B":1589175656,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Soul Hunter, by Rune Willerslev (might be spelling that wrong) Fresh fruit, Broken Bodies (can't recall the author) Aaand just about anything by Geertz, i love his thick description.","human_ref_B":"I dont know if it's *exactly* what you want but there's definitely a lot about the social relations in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea and how the coffee industry has shaped the area since the early 1900s. Paige West - From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7460.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ghb3rv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"Any ethnography recommendations? Hello! I have a bachelors in anthro and lately, I've been trying to find good ethnographies related to cultural anthro. I'm specifically interested in anything that speaks about social strata. How familial situations are decided, how certain individuals are perceived by others in their local society, etc. No preference on what part of the world or what era. Thanks in advance for the help!","c_root_id_A":"fq92dad","c_root_id_B":"fq8vpwq","created_at_utc_A":1589183116,"created_at_utc_B":1589176910,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Soul Hunter, by Rune Willerslev (might be spelling that wrong) Fresh fruit, Broken Bodies (can't recall the author) Aaand just about anything by Geertz, i love his thick description.","human_ref_B":"I remember reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down in my Med Anthropology\/Sociology class. As someone who lives in a Hmong diaspora (Twin Cities, Minnesota), it was enlightening to get a glimpse at Hmong culture, shamanism and their way of life. know it was published a bit ago (in 1997) but it\u2019s had a lasting impact and I should re-read it with all the time I have being at home!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6206.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howj0x8","c_root_id_B":"howk526","created_at_utc_A":1639738394,"created_at_utc_B":1639739204,"score_A":13,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"In the US there have traditional been \"four-fields\" associated with anthropology: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archeology, and linguistic anthropology. European anthropology doesn't follow the same schema. Biological anthropology or physical anthropology is just what it sounded like: it's the study of the evolutionary biology of humans. I wonder if the \"anthropology\" program of your Swedish university tends to focus on this. Forensics is sometimes attached to this. I don't know precisely if your \"anthropology\" department focuses only on this or if it also includes socio-cultural anthropology, but departments websites should make it pretty clear. Anthropology is the \"study of man\" and so this kind of anthropology tends to study our physical and biological characteristics, beginning with primates and continuing on up to modern crime scenes. There's a lot of bones involved, very little talking with people from different cultures. Cultural anthropology is the study of the customs, habits, behaviors, beliefs, and traditions of various cultures, typically contemporary cultures though there is historical cultural anthropology as well. Traditionally (maybe 70 years ago), anthropology studied \"them\" and sociology studied \"us\", anthropology studied the rural and sociology studied the urban. This distinction has broken down and now you see anthropologist studying everything from online games to Wall Street. Ethnography is the core methodology (though far from the only one) as well as barely contacted groups in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea. In Europe, a similar subject is known as \"social anthropology\". Traditionally, European social anthropology wasn't as averse to numbers as American cultural anthropology but I don't think that's much of a distinction anymore. European social anthropology also was a little bit less ardently left wing after the 60's as American anthropology, but I don't know if that's still the case. European anthropology also has a longer tradition of looking at European peasants. American cultural anthropology and European social anthropology aren't really that different so people frequently talk about them as \"socio-cultural anthropology\". Very few bones, much more ethnography. Archeology in the American context was, initially, archeology of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It made sense to group it with the people who studied indigenous peoples, the anthropologists. Today even as they study distant Mesopotamia as well as nearby Meso-America, you still tend to find it in the Anthropology department. Plus, physical anthropologists are already looking at bones, lets throw more people who like to play in the dirt together, the universities thought. Archeology in the Europe context tended to be of the classical world, the Greeks, the Romans, and perhaps the Egyptians, so European archeology had a stronger relationships with classics departments and limited relationships with anthropology departments. Linguistic anthropology I know the least about in Europe, but I believe it never really developed into a separate field in Europe and tended to be either covered by social anthropologists or in the linguistics department. It is in general the smallest of the American fields, as well.","human_ref_B":"As an addition to the paths described by \/u\/overthreeweeksago, we can identify three strands of socio\/cultural anthropology as a simplified account, but one which might be helpful to think with. Firstly, American or cultural anthropology: This is inspired by the legacies of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead and such, and prompts us to study the specifities of cultural systems, that is systems of meaning. It entails a recognition of the fact that human experience of the world is through systems of cultural meaning. Also that we can't and shouldn't hierarchize cultures but treat them as relative. Boas was very driven by recording and cataloging different human cultures before they \"disappeared\". This is not really the interest anymore. Secondly, British or Structural-functionalist anthropology, also called Social-anthropology: This is inspired mostly by the work of Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown. Here we are interested not so much in cultural systems of meaning, but in social structures and how they persist\/reproduce\/evolve over time. The individuals in a given society matter less than the social relations they partake in, in order to reproduce social structures. We are interested in why systems of marrriage for example are structured the way they are and persist to be, not as much in what meaning people ascribe to them. Thirdly, French or Structuralist anthropology: This is based almost solely on the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, and is itself inspired by linguistic structuralism. Here we are interested in meaning and cultural myths in a certain way. Not in what their substance tell us about how people experience and perceive the world, but in what the relation between any given society's cultural practices and storytellings tell us about the subconcious structure of society so to speak. We operate here on the basis that the human mind perceive the world in binaries, and that we can understand both local cultures and what it is to be human in general by searching for these cultural binaries. This is a very simplified account, and of course there exist many different schools of anthropology that merge these historical trends, alter them, critique them, use them in different ways and so on. With that said, you will probably find that anthropology today is mostly inspired by the old American tradition for various clear and unclear reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":810.0,"score_ratio":3.1538461538} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howjnfy","c_root_id_B":"howk526","created_at_utc_A":1639738852,"created_at_utc_B":1639739204,"score_A":5,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"Hey! Swedish anthropology student here! Social anthropology is the same as cultural anthropology. The word Social anthropology is used by some universities due to how vague the word culture is. I can recommend studying it, you really get an insight to other people's perspective and way of life. Interviews and cultural analysis gives you a new perspective on your own life and why you do the things you do. It's an interesting field and it has helped me in my personal life and in my master studies (i am studying a different subject now). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!","human_ref_B":"As an addition to the paths described by \/u\/overthreeweeksago, we can identify three strands of socio\/cultural anthropology as a simplified account, but one which might be helpful to think with. Firstly, American or cultural anthropology: This is inspired by the legacies of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead and such, and prompts us to study the specifities of cultural systems, that is systems of meaning. It entails a recognition of the fact that human experience of the world is through systems of cultural meaning. Also that we can't and shouldn't hierarchize cultures but treat them as relative. Boas was very driven by recording and cataloging different human cultures before they \"disappeared\". This is not really the interest anymore. Secondly, British or Structural-functionalist anthropology, also called Social-anthropology: This is inspired mostly by the work of Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown. Here we are interested not so much in cultural systems of meaning, but in social structures and how they persist\/reproduce\/evolve over time. The individuals in a given society matter less than the social relations they partake in, in order to reproduce social structures. We are interested in why systems of marrriage for example are structured the way they are and persist to be, not as much in what meaning people ascribe to them. Thirdly, French or Structuralist anthropology: This is based almost solely on the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, and is itself inspired by linguistic structuralism. Here we are interested in meaning and cultural myths in a certain way. Not in what their substance tell us about how people experience and perceive the world, but in what the relation between any given society's cultural practices and storytellings tell us about the subconcious structure of society so to speak. We operate here on the basis that the human mind perceive the world in binaries, and that we can understand both local cultures and what it is to be human in general by searching for these cultural binaries. This is a very simplified account, and of course there exist many different schools of anthropology that merge these historical trends, alter them, critique them, use them in different ways and so on. With that said, you will probably find that anthropology today is mostly inspired by the old American tradition for various clear and unclear reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":352.0,"score_ratio":8.2} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howk526","c_root_id_B":"howdao1","created_at_utc_A":1639739204,"created_at_utc_B":1639734023,"score_A":41,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As an addition to the paths described by \/u\/overthreeweeksago, we can identify three strands of socio\/cultural anthropology as a simplified account, but one which might be helpful to think with. Firstly, American or cultural anthropology: This is inspired by the legacies of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead and such, and prompts us to study the specifities of cultural systems, that is systems of meaning. It entails a recognition of the fact that human experience of the world is through systems of cultural meaning. Also that we can't and shouldn't hierarchize cultures but treat them as relative. Boas was very driven by recording and cataloging different human cultures before they \"disappeared\". This is not really the interest anymore. Secondly, British or Structural-functionalist anthropology, also called Social-anthropology: This is inspired mostly by the work of Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown. Here we are interested not so much in cultural systems of meaning, but in social structures and how they persist\/reproduce\/evolve over time. The individuals in a given society matter less than the social relations they partake in, in order to reproduce social structures. We are interested in why systems of marrriage for example are structured the way they are and persist to be, not as much in what meaning people ascribe to them. Thirdly, French or Structuralist anthropology: This is based almost solely on the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, and is itself inspired by linguistic structuralism. Here we are interested in meaning and cultural myths in a certain way. Not in what their substance tell us about how people experience and perceive the world, but in what the relation between any given society's cultural practices and storytellings tell us about the subconcious structure of society so to speak. We operate here on the basis that the human mind perceive the world in binaries, and that we can understand both local cultures and what it is to be human in general by searching for these cultural binaries. This is a very simplified account, and of course there exist many different schools of anthropology that merge these historical trends, alter them, critique them, use them in different ways and so on. With that said, you will probably find that anthropology today is mostly inspired by the old American tradition for various clear and unclear reasons.","human_ref_B":"The four major paths of anthropology that I'm familiar with are physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Social anthropology could fall into either cultural or linguistic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5181.0,"score_ratio":20.5} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howit1s","c_root_id_B":"howk526","created_at_utc_A":1639738237,"created_at_utc_B":1639739204,"score_A":3,"score_B":41,"human_ref_A":"If I'm not mistaken anthropology as such is a very broad term. In the US tradition it's divided into archeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. In the British tradition that dominates in Sweden is just called social anthropology but it has more in common with cultural anthropology in an USAmerican context. Beyond this you have for example french ethnologie that's closer to social\/cultural anthropology than the Swedish etnologi that has more in common with physical anthropology and folklore studies. To summarise the differences in name and the scope of the fields has its origin in distinct national traditions studying subaltern or colonised people.","human_ref_B":"As an addition to the paths described by \/u\/overthreeweeksago, we can identify three strands of socio\/cultural anthropology as a simplified account, but one which might be helpful to think with. Firstly, American or cultural anthropology: This is inspired by the legacies of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead and such, and prompts us to study the specifities of cultural systems, that is systems of meaning. It entails a recognition of the fact that human experience of the world is through systems of cultural meaning. Also that we can't and shouldn't hierarchize cultures but treat them as relative. Boas was very driven by recording and cataloging different human cultures before they \"disappeared\". This is not really the interest anymore. Secondly, British or Structural-functionalist anthropology, also called Social-anthropology: This is inspired mostly by the work of Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Radcliffe-Brown. Here we are interested not so much in cultural systems of meaning, but in social structures and how they persist\/reproduce\/evolve over time. The individuals in a given society matter less than the social relations they partake in, in order to reproduce social structures. We are interested in why systems of marrriage for example are structured the way they are and persist to be, not as much in what meaning people ascribe to them. Thirdly, French or Structuralist anthropology: This is based almost solely on the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, and is itself inspired by linguistic structuralism. Here we are interested in meaning and cultural myths in a certain way. Not in what their substance tell us about how people experience and perceive the world, but in what the relation between any given society's cultural practices and storytellings tell us about the subconcious structure of society so to speak. We operate here on the basis that the human mind perceive the world in binaries, and that we can understand both local cultures and what it is to be human in general by searching for these cultural binaries. This is a very simplified account, and of course there exist many different schools of anthropology that merge these historical trends, alter them, critique them, use them in different ways and so on. With that said, you will probably find that anthropology today is mostly inspired by the old American tradition for various clear and unclear reasons.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":967.0,"score_ratio":13.6666666667} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howj0x8","c_root_id_B":"howdao1","created_at_utc_A":1639738394,"created_at_utc_B":1639734023,"score_A":13,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"In the US there have traditional been \"four-fields\" associated with anthropology: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archeology, and linguistic anthropology. European anthropology doesn't follow the same schema. Biological anthropology or physical anthropology is just what it sounded like: it's the study of the evolutionary biology of humans. I wonder if the \"anthropology\" program of your Swedish university tends to focus on this. Forensics is sometimes attached to this. I don't know precisely if your \"anthropology\" department focuses only on this or if it also includes socio-cultural anthropology, but departments websites should make it pretty clear. Anthropology is the \"study of man\" and so this kind of anthropology tends to study our physical and biological characteristics, beginning with primates and continuing on up to modern crime scenes. There's a lot of bones involved, very little talking with people from different cultures. Cultural anthropology is the study of the customs, habits, behaviors, beliefs, and traditions of various cultures, typically contemporary cultures though there is historical cultural anthropology as well. Traditionally (maybe 70 years ago), anthropology studied \"them\" and sociology studied \"us\", anthropology studied the rural and sociology studied the urban. This distinction has broken down and now you see anthropologist studying everything from online games to Wall Street. Ethnography is the core methodology (though far from the only one) as well as barely contacted groups in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea. In Europe, a similar subject is known as \"social anthropology\". Traditionally, European social anthropology wasn't as averse to numbers as American cultural anthropology but I don't think that's much of a distinction anymore. European social anthropology also was a little bit less ardently left wing after the 60's as American anthropology, but I don't know if that's still the case. European anthropology also has a longer tradition of looking at European peasants. American cultural anthropology and European social anthropology aren't really that different so people frequently talk about them as \"socio-cultural anthropology\". Very few bones, much more ethnography. Archeology in the American context was, initially, archeology of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It made sense to group it with the people who studied indigenous peoples, the anthropologists. Today even as they study distant Mesopotamia as well as nearby Meso-America, you still tend to find it in the Anthropology department. Plus, physical anthropologists are already looking at bones, lets throw more people who like to play in the dirt together, the universities thought. Archeology in the Europe context tended to be of the classical world, the Greeks, the Romans, and perhaps the Egyptians, so European archeology had a stronger relationships with classics departments and limited relationships with anthropology departments. Linguistic anthropology I know the least about in Europe, but I believe it never really developed into a separate field in Europe and tended to be either covered by social anthropologists or in the linguistics department. It is in general the smallest of the American fields, as well.","human_ref_B":"The four major paths of anthropology that I'm familiar with are physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Social anthropology could fall into either cultural or linguistic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4371.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howj0x8","c_root_id_B":"howit1s","created_at_utc_A":1639738394,"created_at_utc_B":1639738237,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"In the US there have traditional been \"four-fields\" associated with anthropology: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archeology, and linguistic anthropology. European anthropology doesn't follow the same schema. Biological anthropology or physical anthropology is just what it sounded like: it's the study of the evolutionary biology of humans. I wonder if the \"anthropology\" program of your Swedish university tends to focus on this. Forensics is sometimes attached to this. I don't know precisely if your \"anthropology\" department focuses only on this or if it also includes socio-cultural anthropology, but departments websites should make it pretty clear. Anthropology is the \"study of man\" and so this kind of anthropology tends to study our physical and biological characteristics, beginning with primates and continuing on up to modern crime scenes. There's a lot of bones involved, very little talking with people from different cultures. Cultural anthropology is the study of the customs, habits, behaviors, beliefs, and traditions of various cultures, typically contemporary cultures though there is historical cultural anthropology as well. Traditionally (maybe 70 years ago), anthropology studied \"them\" and sociology studied \"us\", anthropology studied the rural and sociology studied the urban. This distinction has broken down and now you see anthropologist studying everything from online games to Wall Street. Ethnography is the core methodology (though far from the only one) as well as barely contacted groups in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea. In Europe, a similar subject is known as \"social anthropology\". Traditionally, European social anthropology wasn't as averse to numbers as American cultural anthropology but I don't think that's much of a distinction anymore. European social anthropology also was a little bit less ardently left wing after the 60's as American anthropology, but I don't know if that's still the case. European anthropology also has a longer tradition of looking at European peasants. American cultural anthropology and European social anthropology aren't really that different so people frequently talk about them as \"socio-cultural anthropology\". Very few bones, much more ethnography. Archeology in the American context was, initially, archeology of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It made sense to group it with the people who studied indigenous peoples, the anthropologists. Today even as they study distant Mesopotamia as well as nearby Meso-America, you still tend to find it in the Anthropology department. Plus, physical anthropologists are already looking at bones, lets throw more people who like to play in the dirt together, the universities thought. Archeology in the Europe context tended to be of the classical world, the Greeks, the Romans, and perhaps the Egyptians, so European archeology had a stronger relationships with classics departments and limited relationships with anthropology departments. Linguistic anthropology I know the least about in Europe, but I believe it never really developed into a separate field in Europe and tended to be either covered by social anthropologists or in the linguistics department. It is in general the smallest of the American fields, as well.","human_ref_B":"If I'm not mistaken anthropology as such is a very broad term. In the US tradition it's divided into archeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. In the British tradition that dominates in Sweden is just called social anthropology but it has more in common with cultural anthropology in an USAmerican context. Beyond this you have for example french ethnologie that's closer to social\/cultural anthropology than the Swedish etnologi that has more in common with physical anthropology and folklore studies. To summarise the differences in name and the scope of the fields has its origin in distinct national traditions studying subaltern or colonised people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":157.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howdao1","c_root_id_B":"howjnfy","created_at_utc_A":1639734023,"created_at_utc_B":1639738852,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"The four major paths of anthropology that I'm familiar with are physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Social anthropology could fall into either cultural or linguistic anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Hey! Swedish anthropology student here! Social anthropology is the same as cultural anthropology. The word Social anthropology is used by some universities due to how vague the word culture is. I can recommend studying it, you really get an insight to other people's perspective and way of life. Interviews and cultural analysis gives you a new perspective on your own life and why you do the things you do. It's an interesting field and it has helped me in my personal life and in my master studies (i am studying a different subject now). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4829.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howjnfy","c_root_id_B":"howit1s","created_at_utc_A":1639738852,"created_at_utc_B":1639738237,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hey! Swedish anthropology student here! Social anthropology is the same as cultural anthropology. The word Social anthropology is used by some universities due to how vague the word culture is. I can recommend studying it, you really get an insight to other people's perspective and way of life. Interviews and cultural analysis gives you a new perspective on your own life and why you do the things you do. It's an interesting field and it has helped me in my personal life and in my master studies (i am studying a different subject now). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!","human_ref_B":"If I'm not mistaken anthropology as such is a very broad term. In the US tradition it's divided into archeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. In the British tradition that dominates in Sweden is just called social anthropology but it has more in common with cultural anthropology in an USAmerican context. Beyond this you have for example french ethnologie that's closer to social\/cultural anthropology than the Swedish etnologi that has more in common with physical anthropology and folklore studies. To summarise the differences in name and the scope of the fields has its origin in distinct national traditions studying subaltern or colonised people.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":615.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"ridt8q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Social anthropology compared to anthropology I'm strongly considering going to study anthropology (I live in Sweden) but I'm a bit confused on the exact differences between social anthropology and anthropology. Are these distinctions that are broadly recognised as two different academic studies or is it a distinction specific to the university\/to Sweden?","c_root_id_A":"howit1s","c_root_id_B":"howdao1","created_at_utc_A":1639738237,"created_at_utc_B":1639734023,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"If I'm not mistaken anthropology as such is a very broad term. In the US tradition it's divided into archeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. In the British tradition that dominates in Sweden is just called social anthropology but it has more in common with cultural anthropology in an USAmerican context. Beyond this you have for example french ethnologie that's closer to social\/cultural anthropology than the Swedish etnologi that has more in common with physical anthropology and folklore studies. To summarise the differences in name and the scope of the fields has its origin in distinct national traditions studying subaltern or colonised people.","human_ref_B":"The four major paths of anthropology that I'm familiar with are physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Social anthropology could fall into either cultural or linguistic anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4214.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g1kbfa","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Relations with Zoroastrianism and Hinduism? Recently, I read a thread on similarities between the two ancient eastern religions of Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. People in it talked mainly about how Zoroastrianism was a hybrid-branch off of ancient Avestan religion and Hinduism since some of their terminologies are similar and some are different. Also on how Zoroastrianism flipped their deities eg. Devas were the \"fake gods\" and Ahuras were the ones to be praised. Also, their garments and holy fire and stuff are pretty much similar? Any explanation would be greatly appreciated. Also, is the ancient Avestan religion the same as Mazdaism? Eg. the pre-Zoroastrian Indo Iranian\/Aryan religions? (I hope I didn't butcher any terminologies :( ) ​ Unrelated: If someone could please give me a reliable source on what the ancient Avestan religion was I would greatly appreciate it.","c_root_id_A":"fnh1at5","c_root_id_B":"fnhdk8g","created_at_utc_A":1586952088,"created_at_utc_B":1586960344,"score_A":3,"score_B":25,"human_ref_A":"Clarification request: Are you asking about the relations between eh Parsis and Hindu people today, are are you asking about the relationship between the two religions in some historical past, and if so any particular period of time?","human_ref_B":"Ok, some clarification here. Zoroastrianism *is* the Avestan religion. The oldest sections of the *Avesta*, dated to c.1200 BCE by historical linguists, are the *Gathas* and are generally considered considered consistent enough in style to have one creator. This is generally identified as the prophet Zoroaster. Mazdaism, or *Mazdayasna* in Avestan, is the more correct name for Zoroastrianism. They are worshipers of Ahura Mazda, via the words of Zoroaster. It's a bit like the distinction between \"Muslim\" and \"Muhammedean\" without the offensive context of the latter. When exactly Zoroastrianism became the dominant religion in Iran is unclear, but any information about that earlier Iranian religion has to be reconstructed from later Zoroastrian, Scythian, and Vedic literature. Modern Hinduism's connection to Zoroastrian goes through the Vedas - the early Sanskrit hymns\/epics traced back to the Indo-Aryan (also called Vedic) people that migrated into India c. 1500-1000. Over generations, the Vedic religion mixed with other religious traditions in India (both pre-existing and those created after the arrival of the Vedic people) to form what we now recognize as Hinduism. Both the Avesta and the Vedas (most importantly the oldest Veda, the Rigveda) were maintained as oral traditions for centuries before they were written down, but linguists think they were preserved remarkably well and preserve the archaic features of their original composition. Both sets of texts are very important for reconstructing the history of the proto-Indo-Iranian language and the culture around it (often identified with the BMAC and Andronovo physical cultures). At this very ancient point, the Vedic elements of Hinduism and early components of the Zoroastrian *Avesta* share a common religious root (a root also shared by the now extinct cultures of the Mittani in Syria and the Scythians on the Eurasian steppe). This explains the similarities of some traditions, like the connection between Asura\/Ahura and Deva\/Daiva or the reverence for fire and horses. Other similarities, like traditional clothing, are the product of much more recent events. As Iran was Islamized after the 8th century, Zoroastrians became a minority facing varying degrees of oppression. Many Zoroastrians migrated to India, joining a smaller, pre-existing diaspora there. This became the Parsi community, which is now one of the two major traditions of modern Zoroastrianims (the other being based in Iran, mostly around the city of Yazd). If you're interested in more information about the ancient connection between the two and details about ancient Zoroastriansim, there are a few good threads over on r\/AskHistorians, many from u\/lcnielsen, but a few from myself and others. From me: * What religions were practiced in India prior to Hinduism? * Was the role reversal of Asuras and Daevas casused by conflict between what would become the Iranian and Indian tribes during their migration ? From lcnielsen: * How does Zoroastrianism fit into the old Indo-European traditions? * How old is Zoroastrianism? * Do the Gathas predate the Rigveda? For sources and more information about ancient Zoroastrianism and the Avesta I recommend: * Encyclopaedia Iranica * Avesta.org * The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism edited by Mihcael Stausber, Yuhan Sohrab-Nishaw Vevaina, and Anna Tessman * Zoroastrianism: An Introduction by Jenny Rose * Zoroastrians: Their Beliefs and Practices by Mary Boyce (Note: Boyce is an older source and some of her theories and ideas are a little outdated in modern scholarship. I recommend Rose's book above for a more up to date review). * A History of Zoroastrianism Volume 1: The Early Period by Mary Boyce * ~~When Zarathustra Spoke: The Reformation Of Neolithic Culture And Religion by Mary Settegast~~ Not that one Edit, this was the intended last book: The Spirit of Zoroastrianism\u00a0by Prods Oktor Skj\u00e6rv\u00f8","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8256.0,"score_ratio":8.3333333333} {"post_id":"8flcv3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Masters thesis: explosion of the self-help and life coaching industry Hi all, I'm trying to do some initial exploration for my masters thesis. I am interested in understanding self cultivation and overall the ever\\-expanding industry of life coaching but I am having a very hard time finding literature within anthropology on such a topic. I recently attended a Tony Robbins event and found that it has an incredibly strong collective\/group element in terms of ensuring people take care to improve themselves, but again, don't really have anything academic to back it up. Any advice or tips would be very helpful! Thanks! :\\)","c_root_id_A":"dy515bd","c_root_id_B":"dy4tnzy","created_at_utc_A":1524961422,"created_at_utc_B":1524952400,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Foucault's Technologies of the Self might be helpful. Anthropological work on modern cults might also be a useful foil to your thinking. A cursory search over on Anthrosource turned up some promising-looking results. Good luck with this! It sounds really interesting - I'd certainly read it.","human_ref_B":"You should read Daromir Rudnyckyj's article on \"Spiritual Development Programs\" in Indonesia. I think the article is called \"Spiritual economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia.\" It talks about how as Indonesia opens to the global market, they bring in Spiritual Development experts to reform the workers into pious and productive employees. I think this would be good for your lit review.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9022.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"8flcv3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Masters thesis: explosion of the self-help and life coaching industry Hi all, I'm trying to do some initial exploration for my masters thesis. I am interested in understanding self cultivation and overall the ever\\-expanding industry of life coaching but I am having a very hard time finding literature within anthropology on such a topic. I recently attended a Tony Robbins event and found that it has an incredibly strong collective\/group element in terms of ensuring people take care to improve themselves, but again, don't really have anything academic to back it up. Any advice or tips would be very helpful! Thanks! :\\)","c_root_id_A":"dy515bd","c_root_id_B":"dy4qpaj","created_at_utc_A":1524961422,"created_at_utc_B":1524949070,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Foucault's Technologies of the Self might be helpful. Anthropological work on modern cults might also be a useful foil to your thinking. A cursory search over on Anthrosource turned up some promising-looking results. Good luck with this! It sounds really interesting - I'd certainly read it.","human_ref_B":"Hope it's not a red herring, but some years back I had a textbook for school called \"beyond the body proper\", it had all sorts of essays on how our bodies are sculpted and trained to better suit the systems of production, it really made me think of all these life-coaches, but there was nothing about that in there. There was lots of stuff, some lesser known stuff from Mauss, something on Malay workers in tech factories, those clock things in factories where you clock in and out of work, etc. Something in there might make a good theoretical background if you need it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12352.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"8flcv3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Masters thesis: explosion of the self-help and life coaching industry Hi all, I'm trying to do some initial exploration for my masters thesis. I am interested in understanding self cultivation and overall the ever\\-expanding industry of life coaching but I am having a very hard time finding literature within anthropology on such a topic. I recently attended a Tony Robbins event and found that it has an incredibly strong collective\/group element in terms of ensuring people take care to improve themselves, but again, don't really have anything academic to back it up. Any advice or tips would be very helpful! Thanks! :\\)","c_root_id_A":"dy4tnzy","c_root_id_B":"dy4qpaj","created_at_utc_A":1524952400,"created_at_utc_B":1524949070,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"You should read Daromir Rudnyckyj's article on \"Spiritual Development Programs\" in Indonesia. I think the article is called \"Spiritual economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia.\" It talks about how as Indonesia opens to the global market, they bring in Spiritual Development experts to reform the workers into pious and productive employees. I think this would be good for your lit review.","human_ref_B":"Hope it's not a red herring, but some years back I had a textbook for school called \"beyond the body proper\", it had all sorts of essays on how our bodies are sculpted and trained to better suit the systems of production, it really made me think of all these life-coaches, but there was nothing about that in there. There was lots of stuff, some lesser known stuff from Mauss, something on Malay workers in tech factories, those clock things in factories where you clock in and out of work, etc. Something in there might make a good theoretical background if you need it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3330.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8flcv3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Masters thesis: explosion of the self-help and life coaching industry Hi all, I'm trying to do some initial exploration for my masters thesis. I am interested in understanding self cultivation and overall the ever\\-expanding industry of life coaching but I am having a very hard time finding literature within anthropology on such a topic. I recently attended a Tony Robbins event and found that it has an incredibly strong collective\/group element in terms of ensuring people take care to improve themselves, but again, don't really have anything academic to back it up. Any advice or tips would be very helpful! Thanks! :\\)","c_root_id_A":"dy4qpaj","c_root_id_B":"dy57mqf","created_at_utc_A":1524949070,"created_at_utc_B":1524969128,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hope it's not a red herring, but some years back I had a textbook for school called \"beyond the body proper\", it had all sorts of essays on how our bodies are sculpted and trained to better suit the systems of production, it really made me think of all these life-coaches, but there was nothing about that in there. There was lots of stuff, some lesser known stuff from Mauss, something on Malay workers in tech factories, those clock things in factories where you clock in and out of work, etc. Something in there might make a good theoretical background if you need it.","human_ref_B":"I like what the other poster said abt filling a void left by religion. Do you have any question\/hypothesis yet? There must be some literature on anthropology and sociology of religion and the modern version of therapeutic and self centered religion?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20058.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"iyziw0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Career advice please! I'm 31 years old and graduating with two degrees in May: a BA in History and a BA in Anthropology. I have ADHD and am very interested in most subjects, so I have spent my 20s changing majors, universities, and career choices which has led me to be a server\/bartender for seven years... Finally about two years ago I decided to just make a decision and stick to it so I can at least get a degree. I still ended up deciding on two. I live in the Phoenix area, and I know there is a lot to be done in the realm of archaeology in my region. I've been bent on the idea of chasing that pipe dream of being involved with archaeology but I'm only recently being faced with the daunting realities: little pay, very competitive, not good for married folks (which I am). I also love the idea of working in a (history, or anthropology) museum, but as with Archaeology it's very competitive. At the end of the day, I want to do something that is seeking truth for the betterment of mankind, *possibly* even education. I work hard, and know I *can* do anything but I just need to choose a direction and continue sticking with it. Is Archaeology a career you guys would recommend? Or should I \"get out while I can\" as I've seen other Reddit posts say? Do any of you guys work in museums? Would you recommend that line of work? Are there other career paths that I'm not even thinking of that you guys think I would enjoy? I love people, especially helping people, and discussing psychology, sociology, philosophy, biology, anthropology, history, and astronomy. Any advice would be much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g6gloe4","c_root_id_B":"g6go93l","created_at_utc_A":1600977527,"created_at_utc_B":1600978607,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I finished my undergrad with a triple degree in cultural anthropology, history, & museology. So hi, I get it. The harsh reality is this: it will be very hard to get, and keep, a decently well-paying job in any of these fields without a graduate degree. Not to say it isn't possible, it's just a lot harder. If you're not already, I recommend getting involved with ongoing arch digs. Given the current condition of the world there may not be active digs going on but you can reach out to coordinators and see if there's anything going on that you can help with. It'll probably be volunteer-based but if you don't have any experience under your belt already you're going to have to start somewhere. I've worked in small historic house museums and large national institutions. There's possibility there, too. However, the smaller the museum the more likely you'll need to start as a volunteer (get your foot in the door). Check the job postings for museums in your area if you're interested in that. I loved working in them but it's entirely up to you and the vibes the museum is going for. Depending on the school districts near you, you can see if there are sub positions available for humanities\/social science\/social studies\/anthro track positions.","human_ref_B":"So I have my BA in anthro and I\u2019ve worked in 2 museums the last few years. 3 years at an anthro museum and coming up on 2 years at a history museum. I worked in education for both museums. During college, I told myself that I would NEVER work in a museum. Museums just weren\u2019t my \u201cthing\u201d as I found most of them boring and stuffy. However, when I graduated I realized I had no experience in the field and really no contacts. As much as I didn\u2019t want to give my time for free, I decided I\u2019d try volunteering at the anthro museum just to have something on my resume. It only took a few shifts to realize how wrong I was about museum work. I can\u2019t remember how long exactly, but a few months into it a position opened up and they asked if I was interested in applying. I would highly recommend volunteering if no position is open yet. That way the people in the department get to know you and see your work ethic. Volunteers (with the right qualifications) will always be prioritized. I moved on from the anthro museum because of personal reasons and was able to get a job at the history museum through my connections. Through museums you can be connected to professors\/archaeological associations\/ etc. I feel like working at a museum opened up a lot of opportunities for me and I have countless connections when\/if I\u2019m ready to move on. Hope that helps! Also i apologize for spelling\/grammar errors. Using my phone.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1080.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"iyziw0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Career advice please! I'm 31 years old and graduating with two degrees in May: a BA in History and a BA in Anthropology. I have ADHD and am very interested in most subjects, so I have spent my 20s changing majors, universities, and career choices which has led me to be a server\/bartender for seven years... Finally about two years ago I decided to just make a decision and stick to it so I can at least get a degree. I still ended up deciding on two. I live in the Phoenix area, and I know there is a lot to be done in the realm of archaeology in my region. I've been bent on the idea of chasing that pipe dream of being involved with archaeology but I'm only recently being faced with the daunting realities: little pay, very competitive, not good for married folks (which I am). I also love the idea of working in a (history, or anthropology) museum, but as with Archaeology it's very competitive. At the end of the day, I want to do something that is seeking truth for the betterment of mankind, *possibly* even education. I work hard, and know I *can* do anything but I just need to choose a direction and continue sticking with it. Is Archaeology a career you guys would recommend? Or should I \"get out while I can\" as I've seen other Reddit posts say? Do any of you guys work in museums? Would you recommend that line of work? Are there other career paths that I'm not even thinking of that you guys think I would enjoy? I love people, especially helping people, and discussing psychology, sociology, philosophy, biology, anthropology, history, and astronomy. Any advice would be much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g6go93l","c_root_id_B":"g6gk7xn","created_at_utc_A":1600978607,"created_at_utc_B":1600976946,"score_A":10,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"So I have my BA in anthro and I\u2019ve worked in 2 museums the last few years. 3 years at an anthro museum and coming up on 2 years at a history museum. I worked in education for both museums. During college, I told myself that I would NEVER work in a museum. Museums just weren\u2019t my \u201cthing\u201d as I found most of them boring and stuffy. However, when I graduated I realized I had no experience in the field and really no contacts. As much as I didn\u2019t want to give my time for free, I decided I\u2019d try volunteering at the anthro museum just to have something on my resume. It only took a few shifts to realize how wrong I was about museum work. I can\u2019t remember how long exactly, but a few months into it a position opened up and they asked if I was interested in applying. I would highly recommend volunteering if no position is open yet. That way the people in the department get to know you and see your work ethic. Volunteers (with the right qualifications) will always be prioritized. I moved on from the anthro museum because of personal reasons and was able to get a job at the history museum through my connections. Through museums you can be connected to professors\/archaeological associations\/ etc. I feel like working at a museum opened up a lot of opportunities for me and I have countless connections when\/if I\u2019m ready to move on. Hope that helps! Also i apologize for spelling\/grammar errors. Using my phone.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m in the same exact position as you expect I graduate in two semesters. I am becoming very depressed because while I love my subjects. Career prospects seem extremely bleak.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1661.0,"score_ratio":5.0} {"post_id":"iyziw0","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Career advice please! I'm 31 years old and graduating with two degrees in May: a BA in History and a BA in Anthropology. I have ADHD and am very interested in most subjects, so I have spent my 20s changing majors, universities, and career choices which has led me to be a server\/bartender for seven years... Finally about two years ago I decided to just make a decision and stick to it so I can at least get a degree. I still ended up deciding on two. I live in the Phoenix area, and I know there is a lot to be done in the realm of archaeology in my region. I've been bent on the idea of chasing that pipe dream of being involved with archaeology but I'm only recently being faced with the daunting realities: little pay, very competitive, not good for married folks (which I am). I also love the idea of working in a (history, or anthropology) museum, but as with Archaeology it's very competitive. At the end of the day, I want to do something that is seeking truth for the betterment of mankind, *possibly* even education. I work hard, and know I *can* do anything but I just need to choose a direction and continue sticking with it. Is Archaeology a career you guys would recommend? Or should I \"get out while I can\" as I've seen other Reddit posts say? Do any of you guys work in museums? Would you recommend that line of work? Are there other career paths that I'm not even thinking of that you guys think I would enjoy? I love people, especially helping people, and discussing psychology, sociology, philosophy, biology, anthropology, history, and astronomy. Any advice would be much appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"g6gloe4","c_root_id_B":"g6gk7xn","created_at_utc_A":1600977527,"created_at_utc_B":1600976946,"score_A":5,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I finished my undergrad with a triple degree in cultural anthropology, history, & museology. So hi, I get it. The harsh reality is this: it will be very hard to get, and keep, a decently well-paying job in any of these fields without a graduate degree. Not to say it isn't possible, it's just a lot harder. If you're not already, I recommend getting involved with ongoing arch digs. Given the current condition of the world there may not be active digs going on but you can reach out to coordinators and see if there's anything going on that you can help with. It'll probably be volunteer-based but if you don't have any experience under your belt already you're going to have to start somewhere. I've worked in small historic house museums and large national institutions. There's possibility there, too. However, the smaller the museum the more likely you'll need to start as a volunteer (get your foot in the door). Check the job postings for museums in your area if you're interested in that. I loved working in them but it's entirely up to you and the vibes the museum is going for. Depending on the school districts near you, you can see if there are sub positions available for humanities\/social science\/social studies\/anthro track positions.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m in the same exact position as you expect I graduate in two semesters. I am becoming very depressed because while I love my subjects. Career prospects seem extremely bleak.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":581.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"gi1a77","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"PhD programs in medical anthropology Hello everyone, I have a PhD in nursing and teach full time at a university in nursing. Recently I heard Philippe Bourgois speak and I feel in love with the subject of medical anthropology. I live in the Los Angeles area but I'm willing to take a program online. If anyone could give me some ideas where to look for programs I'd appreciate it!","c_root_id_A":"fqe1lqj","c_root_id_B":"fqdmfsp","created_at_utc_A":1589300263,"created_at_utc_B":1589292654,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Before investing time and money in a formalized program, I would recommend reading some of the major books that are covered in medical anthropology intro classes. This list includes the books from the intro course I took: https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/shelf\/show\/medical-anthropology Reading through some of these fascinating (and often heartbreaking!) books on your own might give you an idea of how much time you want to devote to this field and what elements in particular are interesting to you. Good luck!","human_ref_B":"Hello! I'm not sure about programs online but I have a friend in a Anth PhD program who is a full-time nursing instructor whilst she is in school for her PhD! Most of our classes are in the afternoon so it isn't too difficult for her to schedule the classes she teaches around that. What are your interests in Med Anth?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7609.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ev1x110","c_root_id_B":"euxxtlz","created_at_utc_A":1564166612,"created_at_utc_B":1564093041,"score_A":18,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Basically I think it would be cool if people that were\/are anthropology majors tell what jobs they have now and how their Anthropology degree applies. So if anyone wants could they please list jobs or job types they have? I think that could help people that are looking for jobs or for people who are or want to be anthropology majors and be in the field and have no idea what to they can do with it. Thanks for any responses!","human_ref_B":"I'm currently an anthropolgy undergraduate student and I hope to one day become a field archaeologist. I was doing some casual reading and googling on subjects that interest me when I stumbled upon arctic anthropology and archaeology. I have always had a fascination with the arctic, and want to know more about these fields, but they seem uncommon and hard to find information on. Thant being said, I have a couple questions: Does anyone here have experience in the arctic, or know the best way to build that specialisation? Are there specific field schools\/extra training needed for arctic digs? Will I be able to find employment if I specialise in something so niche? Thank you all for your responses!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":73571.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ey1g8qn","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1566698842,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I know it may sound demotivating but at least there is hope! I have quitted Social Sciences in the 2nd year and now I'm finishing Economics Sciences. In my university Anthropology comes together with Sociology and Political Science. You can apply for a degree in one of these or get a degree in Social Sciences in general. Most students apply to the general one as it makes better teachers. So most are employed in High Schools as Social Science teachers. At least in my university, Universidade Federal do Paran\u00e1, southern Brazil. The main reason to study anthropology is for the mindset, after I changed the course to Economics it was really helpful but quite sad as well. It was frustrating to hear phrases with \"human nature\", with anachronisms and\/or with ethnocentrisms in other areas of Social Sciences... It's like they're trying to study engineering without studying physics lol ​ Here in Brazil, most public services require an academic degree. So if you want to be a state (provincial) or federal police agent, you can apply the test. The same for social services and bureaucracy services in general. Most of people in Brazil seeks academic degree to make these exams, as the job pays better and is stable.Some areas require specific degrees, like law school. Surprisingly some jobs like field agent in the environmental institution doesn't require a degree in nature sciences, just an academic degree. Fields for Archaeology there are lots, but most unexplored and unfunded. Some lucky men still found treasure and relics from the colonial era. But mostly work for themselves. **TLDR** Anthropology still is a good field to make good professionals and academics, sadly it's mostly in other areas of knowledge =\/","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3879933.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f31lyom","c_root_id_B":"eyd8cfp","created_at_utc_A":1570578775,"created_at_utc_B":1567013340,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","human_ref_B":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3565435.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eylf6gk","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1567183081,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3395694.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":59495.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"evvo53l","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1564842876,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5735899.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f31lyom","c_root_id_B":"ex55yba","created_at_utc_A":1570578775,"created_at_utc_B":1566017295,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","human_ref_B":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4561480.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"exkurn2","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1566399401,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4179374.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eyd6yd1","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1567012432,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3566343.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f31lyom","c_root_id_B":"eylfr8i","created_at_utc_A":1570578775,"created_at_utc_B":1567183457,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","human_ref_B":"I am interested in a project about the manufacture of certain drugs. What are some good anthropology (or allied) programs that incorporate both medical and economic anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3395318.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ezh2wit","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1567904835,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What kind of degrees mix well with anthropology? Any good universities in Canada for ANTH? Would knowledge of programming be useful?","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2673940.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ezmkk54","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1567993423,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Any anthropologists studying weapons in any capacity?","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2585352.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f09v93e","c_root_id_B":"f31lyom","created_at_utc_A":1568507388,"created_at_utc_B":1570578775,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got my undergrad in Anthropology and graduated in 2013. I haven't really done anything with it due to not finding anything that deals with anthropology with just a BS. I'm not interested in Archeology. Should I go back and get my Masters or will I run into the same issue? I love cultural anthropology but I'm feeling discouraged as it's been all this time and I have done nothing with it. Currently working in the tech field because that's what I have experience in outside of my degree. I don't know if I have what it takes to get a phd and compete with everyone in the academic world. Is this the only way you can work in Anthropology?","human_ref_B":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2071387.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f31lyom","c_root_id_B":"f20y1d8","created_at_utc_A":1570578775,"created_at_utc_B":1569865449,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I'm a senior undergraduate student in anthropology. I plan on attending grad school, but in searching for programs I've come up with more questions than answers, it seems. I'm looking into M.A.\/M.S. programs more, because a) application requirements for PhD programs seem to be a bit steep for me, i.e. having research in mind already. Second, as a transfer student from an A.A. in General Studies (nice name, very... generic) I jumped straight into upper-level undergraduate classes and feel I could stand to learn more before going into a PhD program. I'm a high-achieving student so far, and hopefully my GRE scores will reflect as much. My primary interests are in medical and environmental anthropology, but I also have some interest in social justice and deviance\/criminality. I'm working up to writing a critical analysis of a rehabilitation program as a writing sample. I've found only a few schools which offer Master's in Anthropology, but so many of them are strictly sociocultural and more geared towards postcolonialism, queer studies, racial justice, etc., or otherwise in physical anth or archaeology. Ideally my end goal would be a PhD, and as for work I'd love to either teach or work in consulting for NGOs, GOs, the UN and the like. But honestly anything which would be of a benefit to others would be welcome. Any advice on paths, unis, or just general suggestions would be really appreciated!","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor\u2019s degree in English and was looking into getting my master\u2019s in Linguistics, until I found out about the existence of Linguistic Anthropology. I was wondering if anyone has any information about this field or knows of some universities that offer a good program in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":713326.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"ey1g8qn","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1566698842,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I know it may sound demotivating but at least there is hope! I have quitted Social Sciences in the 2nd year and now I'm finishing Economics Sciences. In my university Anthropology comes together with Sociology and Political Science. You can apply for a degree in one of these or get a degree in Social Sciences in general. Most students apply to the general one as it makes better teachers. So most are employed in High Schools as Social Science teachers. At least in my university, Universidade Federal do Paran\u00e1, southern Brazil. The main reason to study anthropology is for the mindset, after I changed the course to Economics it was really helpful but quite sad as well. It was frustrating to hear phrases with \"human nature\", with anachronisms and\/or with ethnocentrisms in other areas of Social Sciences... It's like they're trying to study engineering without studying physics lol ​ Here in Brazil, most public services require an academic degree. So if you want to be a state (provincial) or federal police agent, you can apply the test. The same for social services and bureaucracy services in general. Most of people in Brazil seeks academic degree to make these exams, as the job pays better and is stable.Some areas require specific degrees, like law school. Surprisingly some jobs like field agent in the environmental institution doesn't require a degree in nature sciences, just an academic degree. Fields for Archaeology there are lots, but most unexplored and unfunded. Some lucky men still found treasure and relics from the colonial era. But mostly work for themselves. **TLDR** Anthropology still is a good field to make good professionals and academics, sadly it's mostly in other areas of knowledge =\/","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4237893.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"eyd8cfp","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567013340,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3923395.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"eylf6gk","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567183081,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3753654.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"f2zfpk4","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1570519280,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":417455.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"f3d3fv2","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1570831405,"score_A":4,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","labels":1,"seconds_difference":105330.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"evvo53l","c_root_id_B":"f3ihnag","created_at_utc_A":1564842876,"created_at_utc_B":1570936735,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","human_ref_B":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6093859.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"ex55yba","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1566017295,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4919440.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"exkurn2","c_root_id_B":"f3ihnag","created_at_utc_A":1566399401,"created_at_utc_B":1570936735,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","human_ref_B":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4537334.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"eyd6yd1","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567012432,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3924303.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"eylfr8i","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567183457,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I am interested in a project about the manufacture of certain drugs. What are some good anthropology (or allied) programs that incorporate both medical and economic anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3753278.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"ezh2wit","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567904835,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"What kind of degrees mix well with anthropology? Any good universities in Canada for ANTH? Would knowledge of programming be useful?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3031900.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"ezmkk54","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1567993423,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"Any anthropologists studying weapons in any capacity?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2943312.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"f09v93e","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1568507388,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in Anthropology and graduated in 2013. I haven't really done anything with it due to not finding anything that deals with anthropology with just a BS. I'm not interested in Archeology. Should I go back and get my Masters or will I run into the same issue? I love cultural anthropology but I'm feeling discouraged as it's been all this time and I have done nothing with it. Currently working in the tech field because that's what I have experience in outside of my degree. I don't know if I have what it takes to get a phd and compete with everyone in the academic world. Is this the only way you can work in Anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2429347.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3ihnag","c_root_id_B":"f20y1d8","created_at_utc_A":1570936735,"created_at_utc_B":1569865449,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello anthro friends! I had a question about persuing a masters in anthropology and how hard it is to break into the field. I am currently working in GIS (about 2.5 years tech\/analyst govt. Exp) with my Bs. in Geography\/minor in Geology. I have been accepted into a library science masters program, and enjoy that work, but the more I think about it, anthropology is more of a passion of mine. That and the arts. Ive taken courses in many fields (I changed majors alot since I took my time doing my undergrad) psych, sociology, anthro, geography, sciences, and arts. I am 32 years old and nervous about taking graduate classes because i know this is pretty much the last time I can afford to go, and am trying to put alot of thought into it. Any advice is appriciated. Ive been researching job openings to see what employers look for, and I've gathered the following: -GIS and Geology pair well (I've got this down) -photography (Ive been a photographer for years and years) -drawing\/measuring\/recording data (I have experience doing this, and I'm not a bad artist) -being pretty poor (i make 45k now and I am doing fine) -travelling > I am a great traveller and have camped and backpacked most of my life in different capacities and terrain -writing > I am a good technical writer and thoroughly enjoy research and writing. I suppose I'm just kind of looking for reassurance, I don't mind working in education or in the field, as I have education experience, but I do love field and research work even if intermittently. I like working with GIS and have been doing it for awhile now, but I am honestly tired of the repetitive office cubicle life, since I thought it was going to be much more, well, researchy. I also would like to add I don't have kids (or plans to) and do have a long term partner, little school loans, and the ability to relocate. So with those things in mind would this be a feasible career path? Should I stick with the library masters program? Do most steady positions require a PhD?","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor\u2019s degree in English and was looking into getting my master\u2019s in Linguistics, until I found out about the existence of Linguistic Anthropology. I was wondering if anyone has any information about this field or knows of some universities that offer a good program in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1071286.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ey1g8qn","c_root_id_B":"evvo53l","created_at_utc_A":1566698842,"created_at_utc_B":1564842876,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I know it may sound demotivating but at least there is hope! I have quitted Social Sciences in the 2nd year and now I'm finishing Economics Sciences. In my university Anthropology comes together with Sociology and Political Science. You can apply for a degree in one of these or get a degree in Social Sciences in general. Most students apply to the general one as it makes better teachers. So most are employed in High Schools as Social Science teachers. At least in my university, Universidade Federal do Paran\u00e1, southern Brazil. The main reason to study anthropology is for the mindset, after I changed the course to Economics it was really helpful but quite sad as well. It was frustrating to hear phrases with \"human nature\", with anachronisms and\/or with ethnocentrisms in other areas of Social Sciences... It's like they're trying to study engineering without studying physics lol ​ Here in Brazil, most public services require an academic degree. So if you want to be a state (provincial) or federal police agent, you can apply the test. The same for social services and bureaucracy services in general. Most of people in Brazil seeks academic degree to make these exams, as the job pays better and is stable.Some areas require specific degrees, like law school. Surprisingly some jobs like field agent in the environmental institution doesn't require a degree in nature sciences, just an academic degree. Fields for Archaeology there are lots, but most unexplored and unfunded. Some lucky men still found treasure and relics from the colonial era. But mostly work for themselves. **TLDR** Anthropology still is a good field to make good professionals and academics, sadly it's mostly in other areas of knowledge =\/","human_ref_B":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1855966.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ey1g8qn","c_root_id_B":"ex55yba","created_at_utc_A":1566698842,"created_at_utc_B":1566017295,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I know it may sound demotivating but at least there is hope! I have quitted Social Sciences in the 2nd year and now I'm finishing Economics Sciences. In my university Anthropology comes together with Sociology and Political Science. You can apply for a degree in one of these or get a degree in Social Sciences in general. Most students apply to the general one as it makes better teachers. So most are employed in High Schools as Social Science teachers. At least in my university, Universidade Federal do Paran\u00e1, southern Brazil. The main reason to study anthropology is for the mindset, after I changed the course to Economics it was really helpful but quite sad as well. It was frustrating to hear phrases with \"human nature\", with anachronisms and\/or with ethnocentrisms in other areas of Social Sciences... It's like they're trying to study engineering without studying physics lol ​ Here in Brazil, most public services require an academic degree. So if you want to be a state (provincial) or federal police agent, you can apply the test. The same for social services and bureaucracy services in general. Most of people in Brazil seeks academic degree to make these exams, as the job pays better and is stable.Some areas require specific degrees, like law school. Surprisingly some jobs like field agent in the environmental institution doesn't require a degree in nature sciences, just an academic degree. Fields for Archaeology there are lots, but most unexplored and unfunded. Some lucky men still found treasure and relics from the colonial era. But mostly work for themselves. **TLDR** Anthropology still is a good field to make good professionals and academics, sadly it's mostly in other areas of knowledge =\/","human_ref_B":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":681547.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"exkurn2","c_root_id_B":"ey1g8qn","created_at_utc_A":1566399401,"created_at_utc_B":1566698842,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","human_ref_B":"I know it may sound demotivating but at least there is hope! I have quitted Social Sciences in the 2nd year and now I'm finishing Economics Sciences. In my university Anthropology comes together with Sociology and Political Science. You can apply for a degree in one of these or get a degree in Social Sciences in general. Most students apply to the general one as it makes better teachers. So most are employed in High Schools as Social Science teachers. At least in my university, Universidade Federal do Paran\u00e1, southern Brazil. The main reason to study anthropology is for the mindset, after I changed the course to Economics it was really helpful but quite sad as well. It was frustrating to hear phrases with \"human nature\", with anachronisms and\/or with ethnocentrisms in other areas of Social Sciences... It's like they're trying to study engineering without studying physics lol ​ Here in Brazil, most public services require an academic degree. So if you want to be a state (provincial) or federal police agent, you can apply the test. The same for social services and bureaucracy services in general. Most of people in Brazil seeks academic degree to make these exams, as the job pays better and is stable.Some areas require specific degrees, like law school. Surprisingly some jobs like field agent in the environmental institution doesn't require a degree in nature sciences, just an academic degree. Fields for Archaeology there are lots, but most unexplored and unfunded. Some lucky men still found treasure and relics from the colonial era. But mostly work for themselves. **TLDR** Anthropology still is a good field to make good professionals and academics, sadly it's mostly in other areas of knowledge =\/","labels":0,"seconds_difference":299441.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"evvo53l","c_root_id_B":"eyd8cfp","created_at_utc_A":1564842876,"created_at_utc_B":1567013340,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","human_ref_B":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2170464.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eyd8cfp","c_root_id_B":"ex55yba","created_at_utc_A":1567013340,"created_at_utc_B":1566017295,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","human_ref_B":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":996045.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eyd8cfp","c_root_id_B":"exkurn2","created_at_utc_A":1567013340,"created_at_utc_B":1566399401,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","human_ref_B":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":613939.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eyd6yd1","c_root_id_B":"eyd8cfp","created_at_utc_A":1567012432,"created_at_utc_B":1567013340,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","human_ref_B":"I am very interested in climate change and the effects it is having on people and the changes and migrations it may be causing. Any anthropologists know of a good way to use anthropology to get involved in this area of study\/application to the business world?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":908.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"evvo53l","c_root_id_B":"eylf6gk","created_at_utc_A":1564842876,"created_at_utc_B":1567183081,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2340205.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ex55yba","c_root_id_B":"eylf6gk","created_at_utc_A":1566017295,"created_at_utc_B":1567183081,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1165786.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eylf6gk","c_root_id_B":"exkurn2","created_at_utc_A":1567183081,"created_at_utc_B":1566399401,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","human_ref_B":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":783680.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eylf6gk","c_root_id_B":"eyd6yd1","created_at_utc_A":1567183081,"created_at_utc_B":1567012432,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m currently an Anthropology major and nowadays there are some thoughts on going back to the thing that I liked way waaaaaay back (which is Computer Programming) but before on giving up entirely to my major is, is there a way to connect Anthropology to Computer Programming? Like what are the possible jobs or career opportunities? Sincerely, a kid who\u2019s lost","human_ref_B":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":170649.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"evvo53l","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1564842876,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5676404.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ex55yba","c_root_id_B":"f2zfpk4","created_at_utc_A":1566017295,"created_at_utc_B":1570519280,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","human_ref_B":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4501985.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"exkurn2","c_root_id_B":"f2zfpk4","created_at_utc_A":1566399401,"created_at_utc_B":1570519280,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","human_ref_B":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4119879.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"eyd6yd1","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1567012432,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3506848.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"eylfr8i","c_root_id_B":"f2zfpk4","created_at_utc_A":1567183457,"created_at_utc_B":1570519280,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am interested in a project about the manufacture of certain drugs. What are some good anthropology (or allied) programs that incorporate both medical and economic anthropology?","human_ref_B":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3335823.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"ezh2wit","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1567904835,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"What kind of degrees mix well with anthropology? Any good universities in Canada for ANTH? Would knowledge of programming be useful?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2614445.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"ezmkk54","c_root_id_B":"f2zfpk4","created_at_utc_A":1567993423,"created_at_utc_B":1570519280,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Any anthropologists studying weapons in any capacity?","human_ref_B":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2525857.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"f09v93e","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1568507388,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in Anthropology and graduated in 2013. I haven't really done anything with it due to not finding anything that deals with anthropology with just a BS. I'm not interested in Archeology. Should I go back and get my Masters or will I run into the same issue? I love cultural anthropology but I'm feeling discouraged as it's been all this time and I have done nothing with it. Currently working in the tech field because that's what I have experience in outside of my degree. I don't know if I have what it takes to get a phd and compete with everyone in the academic world. Is this the only way you can work in Anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2011892.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f2zfpk4","c_root_id_B":"f20y1d8","created_at_utc_A":1570519280,"created_at_utc_B":1569865449,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I studied anthropology and work as a sustainable investment analyst at a well known private bank. Don\u2019t let your degree determine what you will do with your life. I studied anthropology because I loved the subject, and had a fascinating 3 years at uni.","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor\u2019s degree in English and was looking into getting my master\u2019s in Linguistics, until I found out about the existence of Linguistic Anthropology. I was wondering if anyone has any information about this field or knows of some universities that offer a good program in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":653831.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"evvo53l","c_root_id_B":"f3d3fv2","created_at_utc_A":1564842876,"created_at_utc_B":1570831405,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Where should I turn to for application counseling? I graduated from undergrad in a different field many moons ago. My masters was in African studies, but in the UK, and also a while ago. I am planning to apply for PhDs in social anthro, but with a different geographical (and thematic) focus than my masters. I plan on working on environmental activism in Japan. I would need someone to advise me on narrowing down programs, writing samples, and statement of purpose. Where would I find this someone? Cheers.","human_ref_B":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5988529.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"ex55yba","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1566017295,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"Hi guys. I was on track to get an AS in geology but because of a recent injury, I can\u2019t get my degree this semester. I have a BA in psychology and I was planning on getting an MS in paleontology. At this point I\u2019m open to studying paleoanthropology as well. I just want to get to graduate school in one of these fields the fastest. I was told from senior paleontologists that they work closely with paleoanthropology folks and it\u2019s essentially the same field, just focusing solely on humans. I\u2019d eventually like to work in museums as a collections manager or as one of those field technicians for construction sites. Will it matter if I go to school for paleontology vs paleoanthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4814110.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"exkurn2","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1566399401,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"What are some good options for studying political and\/or development anthropology for a semester? I'm a second-year student doing anthropology and I have the opportunity to do a semester abroad.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4432004.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"eyd6yd1","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1567012432,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"Cultural anthro. and international business - or Cultural anthro. and a foreign language. Could these be lucrative?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3818973.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"eylfr8i","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1567183457,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"I am interested in a project about the manufacture of certain drugs. What are some good anthropology (or allied) programs that incorporate both medical and economic anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3647948.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"ezh2wit","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1567904835,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"What kind of degrees mix well with anthropology? Any good universities in Canada for ANTH? Would knowledge of programming be useful?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2926570.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"ezmkk54","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1567993423,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"Any anthropologists studying weapons in any capacity?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2837982.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"f09v93e","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1568507388,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"I got my undergrad in Anthropology and graduated in 2013. I haven't really done anything with it due to not finding anything that deals with anthropology with just a BS. I'm not interested in Archeology. Should I go back and get my Masters or will I run into the same issue? I love cultural anthropology but I'm feeling discouraged as it's been all this time and I have done nothing with it. Currently working in the tech field because that's what I have experience in outside of my degree. I don't know if I have what it takes to get a phd and compete with everyone in the academic world. Is this the only way you can work in Anthropology?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2324017.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"chrowd","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"The AskAnthropology Career Thread (July 2019) **The AskAnthropology Career Thread** ___ \u201cWhat should I do with my life?\u201d \u201cIs anthropology right for me?\u201d \u201cWhat jobs can my degree get me?\u201d These are the questions ~~that keep me awake at night~~ that start every anthropologist\u2019s career, and this is the place to ask them. Discussion in this thread should be limited to discussion of academic and professional careers, but will otherwise be less moderated. **Before asking your question, please scroll through earlier responses.** Your question may have already been addressed, or you might find a better way to phrase it.","c_root_id_A":"f3d3fv2","c_root_id_B":"f20y1d8","created_at_utc_A":1570831405,"created_at_utc_B":1569865449,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Hello! I'm an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology. My primary focus is biological anthropology with an interest in archaeology. I've been interested in forensic anthropology, but when I really try to dig into exactly what forensic anthropologists are doing, it's hard to find answers outside of police-type forensic work. I'm curious to know what any forensic anthropologists are up to. I also know that just a BA in anthropology isn't going to get me very far. So I'm also hoping for some suggestions on things I could do while I'm in school to help possibly land a job in my desired field upon graduation? I have the full summers to fill with whatever I can, but life costs money so I can't just dedicate myself to volunteering, either. Thanks! Edit for wording","human_ref_B":"I have a bachelor\u2019s degree in English and was looking into getting my master\u2019s in Linguistics, until I found out about the existence of Linguistic Anthropology. I was wondering if anyone has any information about this field or knows of some universities that offer a good program in it.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":965956.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cozzut","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Anthropology fiction books Hi\u2014I\u2019m a neuropsychologist by trade but am looking to get back into my anthropologically-interested roots. Growing up my favorite books were fiction set in a prehistoric\/tribal context and included lots of description of the culture (family structure, day-to-day activities, traditions, religion, political structure etc.). I ask for fiction books b\/c it makes it easier to absorb this info than reading it dryly in nonfiction or a textbook, especially for a non-anthropologist like me. I\u2019m looking for something with a gripping-enough story, set in a cultural context. For instance, I loved Nancy Farmer\u2019s books when I was younger, especially the ones set in Africa. Bonus points if the book contains something on shamanism\/mysticism. I study the actions of psychedelic drugs in my day job, so to understand more about how they were used in a traditional context would be interesting. Again\u2014that\u2019s not a necessity, and I\u2019m better off finding that specific info in a textbook. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ewnbc7s","c_root_id_B":"ewn4j3d","created_at_utc_A":1565573604,"created_at_utc_B":1565568347,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell. Hands down excellent and written by an anthropologist!","human_ref_B":"Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand. It\u2019s a story about the creation myth. It\u2019s a very beautiful book.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5257.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"cozzut","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Anthropology fiction books Hi\u2014I\u2019m a neuropsychologist by trade but am looking to get back into my anthropologically-interested roots. Growing up my favorite books were fiction set in a prehistoric\/tribal context and included lots of description of the culture (family structure, day-to-day activities, traditions, religion, political structure etc.). I ask for fiction books b\/c it makes it easier to absorb this info than reading it dryly in nonfiction or a textbook, especially for a non-anthropologist like me. I\u2019m looking for something with a gripping-enough story, set in a cultural context. For instance, I loved Nancy Farmer\u2019s books when I was younger, especially the ones set in Africa. Bonus points if the book contains something on shamanism\/mysticism. I study the actions of psychedelic drugs in my day job, so to understand more about how they were used in a traditional context would be interesting. Again\u2014that\u2019s not a necessity, and I\u2019m better off finding that specific info in a textbook. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ewnbw0g","c_root_id_B":"ewnm1x2","created_at_utc_A":1565574029,"created_at_utc_B":1565582319,"score_A":5,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"You Shall Know Them is a great read that really wrestles with what it means to be human. It's a little dated, but the science isn't critical to the story or the questions it raises. The premise is that a previously unknown group of living hominins is discovered.","human_ref_B":"Steven Erikson's background is in anthropology and archaeology. It really shows in his Malazan series (so many ochre potsherds) and they are excellent besides.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8290.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"cozzut","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Anthropology fiction books Hi\u2014I\u2019m a neuropsychologist by trade but am looking to get back into my anthropologically-interested roots. Growing up my favorite books were fiction set in a prehistoric\/tribal context and included lots of description of the culture (family structure, day-to-day activities, traditions, religion, political structure etc.). I ask for fiction books b\/c it makes it easier to absorb this info than reading it dryly in nonfiction or a textbook, especially for a non-anthropologist like me. I\u2019m looking for something with a gripping-enough story, set in a cultural context. For instance, I loved Nancy Farmer\u2019s books when I was younger, especially the ones set in Africa. Bonus points if the book contains something on shamanism\/mysticism. I study the actions of psychedelic drugs in my day job, so to understand more about how they were used in a traditional context would be interesting. Again\u2014that\u2019s not a necessity, and I\u2019m better off finding that specific info in a textbook. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ewnm1x2","c_root_id_B":"ewn4j3d","created_at_utc_A":1565582319,"created_at_utc_B":1565568347,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Steven Erikson's background is in anthropology and archaeology. It really shows in his Malazan series (so many ochre potsherds) and they are excellent besides.","human_ref_B":"Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand. It\u2019s a story about the creation myth. It\u2019s a very beautiful book.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13972.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"cozzut","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Anthropology fiction books Hi\u2014I\u2019m a neuropsychologist by trade but am looking to get back into my anthropologically-interested roots. Growing up my favorite books were fiction set in a prehistoric\/tribal context and included lots of description of the culture (family structure, day-to-day activities, traditions, religion, political structure etc.). I ask for fiction books b\/c it makes it easier to absorb this info than reading it dryly in nonfiction or a textbook, especially for a non-anthropologist like me. I\u2019m looking for something with a gripping-enough story, set in a cultural context. For instance, I loved Nancy Farmer\u2019s books when I was younger, especially the ones set in Africa. Bonus points if the book contains something on shamanism\/mysticism. I study the actions of psychedelic drugs in my day job, so to understand more about how they were used in a traditional context would be interesting. Again\u2014that\u2019s not a necessity, and I\u2019m better off finding that specific info in a textbook. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"ewnbw0g","c_root_id_B":"ewn4j3d","created_at_utc_A":1565574029,"created_at_utc_B":1565568347,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You Shall Know Them is a great read that really wrestles with what it means to be human. It's a little dated, but the science isn't critical to the story or the questions it raises. The premise is that a previously unknown group of living hominins is discovered.","human_ref_B":"Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand. It\u2019s a story about the creation myth. It\u2019s a very beautiful book.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5682.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"az24by","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Any books on Anarchist\/egalitarian societies to recommend? I've been reading the works of David Graeber and I'm really interested in reading more about primitive human anarchist or socialist societies in modern times, as well as the remote past.","c_root_id_A":"ei55nwh","c_root_id_B":"ei5gxom","created_at_utc_A":1552144832,"created_at_utc_B":1552153160,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"While I personally have never been bog on primitivism, here is a bunch of info that might be helpful? https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/various-authors-reconsidering-primitivism-technology-the-wild","human_ref_B":"I recently started \"The rise of urbanization and the decline of citizenship\" by Murray bookchin. Sounds like it's up your alley","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8328.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"az24by","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Any books on Anarchist\/egalitarian societies to recommend? I've been reading the works of David Graeber and I'm really interested in reading more about primitive human anarchist or socialist societies in modern times, as well as the remote past.","c_root_id_A":"ei5gxom","c_root_id_B":"ei55or3","created_at_utc_A":1552153160,"created_at_utc_B":1552144852,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I recently started \"The rise of urbanization and the decline of citizenship\" by Murray bookchin. Sounds like it's up your alley","human_ref_B":"Western Washington had several utopian\/communist\/anarchist communities around 1900. Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915 by Charles Pierce Lewarne is the one I read, I think. There's also Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound. There's also George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, about his experience in the Spanish Civil War. If you're interested in more primary sources, TheAnarchistLibrary.org has a ton of stuff, but it's all pro-anarchism of course.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8308.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"az24by","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Any books on Anarchist\/egalitarian societies to recommend? I've been reading the works of David Graeber and I'm really interested in reading more about primitive human anarchist or socialist societies in modern times, as well as the remote past.","c_root_id_A":"ei5i6rn","c_root_id_B":"ei55nwh","created_at_utc_A":1552154057,"created_at_utc_B":1552144832,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Egalitarian societies - J. Woodburn That is what you need","human_ref_B":"While I personally have never been bog on primitivism, here is a bunch of info that might be helpful? https:\/\/theanarchistlibrary.org\/library\/various-authors-reconsidering-primitivism-technology-the-wild","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9225.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"az24by","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Any books on Anarchist\/egalitarian societies to recommend? I've been reading the works of David Graeber and I'm really interested in reading more about primitive human anarchist or socialist societies in modern times, as well as the remote past.","c_root_id_A":"ei55or3","c_root_id_B":"ei5i6rn","created_at_utc_A":1552144852,"created_at_utc_B":1552154057,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Western Washington had several utopian\/communist\/anarchist communities around 1900. Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915 by Charles Pierce Lewarne is the one I read, I think. There's also Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound. There's also George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, about his experience in the Spanish Civil War. If you're interested in more primary sources, TheAnarchistLibrary.org has a ton of stuff, but it's all pro-anarchism of course.","human_ref_B":"Egalitarian societies - J. Woodburn That is what you need","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9205.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3dwk95","c_root_id_B":"d3dxb5s","created_at_utc_A":1463813927,"created_at_utc_B":1463816621,"score_A":11,"score_B":35,"human_ref_A":"I have Japanese friends who do this to their cats or dogs, yes. Can't rule out them learning the behavior from Hollywood, though. Few cultures exist in a vacuum anymore. \/anecdotal","human_ref_B":"Turkish: Yes. I haven't heard the exact equivalent of \"who's a good dog?\" per se but we direct diminutive forms of normal questions to our pets all the time. Could be any kind of question really, doesn't even have to make much sense, just uttered (usually) in a playful manner. And I don't think it's due to Hollywood influence either, because older people who haven't been really exposed to Hollywood do it too. My mother and other village elders used to talk to their cows in much the same manner, for instance.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2694.0,"score_ratio":3.1818181818} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3e71wa","c_root_id_B":"d3dwk95","created_at_utc_A":1463845849,"created_at_utc_B":1463813927,"score_A":14,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Russian: absolutely. My grandma routinely asks her cats if they are ready to have their dinner, and my parents ask my dog who the good boy is. My dog hasn't yet replied, I don't think he knows the answer to their questions.","human_ref_B":"I have Japanese friends who do this to their cats or dogs, yes. Can't rule out them learning the behavior from Hollywood, though. Few cultures exist in a vacuum anymore. \/anecdotal","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31922.0,"score_ratio":1.2727272727} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3e71wa","c_root_id_B":"d3dza0z","created_at_utc_A":1463845849,"created_at_utc_B":1463824837,"score_A":14,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Russian: absolutely. My grandma routinely asks her cats if they are ready to have their dinner, and my parents ask my dog who the good boy is. My dog hasn't yet replied, I don't think he knows the answer to their questions.","human_ref_B":"I'm Norwegian and yeah kinda, but my cat responds via our mental connection so *rhetorical*? Not really.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":21012.0,"score_ratio":1.1666666667} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3e5vaa","c_root_id_B":"d3e71wa","created_at_utc_A":1463843658,"created_at_utc_B":1463845849,"score_A":4,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Dutch: yes, very similar to English.","human_ref_B":"Russian: absolutely. My grandma routinely asks her cats if they are ready to have their dinner, and my parents ask my dog who the good boy is. My dog hasn't yet replied, I don't think he knows the answer to their questions.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2191.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3dza0z","c_root_id_B":"d3dwk95","created_at_utc_A":1463824837,"created_at_utc_B":1463813927,"score_A":12,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"I'm Norwegian and yeah kinda, but my cat responds via our mental connection so *rhetorical*? Not really.","human_ref_B":"I have Japanese friends who do this to their cats or dogs, yes. Can't rule out them learning the behavior from Hollywood, though. Few cultures exist in a vacuum anymore. \/anecdotal","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10910.0,"score_ratio":1.0909090909} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3ef4yc","c_root_id_B":"d3dwk95","created_at_utc_A":1463859627,"created_at_utc_B":1463813927,"score_A":13,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"Portuguese: my mother likes to ask any dog\/cat \"tu \u00e9 pequenino, \u00e9?\" (\"you're tiny, aren't you?\"), even if said dog is a huge Weimareiner.","human_ref_B":"I have Japanese friends who do this to their cats or dogs, yes. Can't rule out them learning the behavior from Hollywood, though. Few cultures exist in a vacuum anymore. \/anecdotal","labels":1,"seconds_difference":45700.0,"score_ratio":1.1818181818} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3ef4yc","c_root_id_B":"d3dza0z","created_at_utc_A":1463859627,"created_at_utc_B":1463824837,"score_A":13,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"Portuguese: my mother likes to ask any dog\/cat \"tu \u00e9 pequenino, \u00e9?\" (\"you're tiny, aren't you?\"), even if said dog is a huge Weimareiner.","human_ref_B":"I'm Norwegian and yeah kinda, but my cat responds via our mental connection so *rhetorical*? Not really.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":34790.0,"score_ratio":1.0833333333} {"post_id":"4kbq7h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Do contemporary non-English speaking cultures ask their pets rhetorical questions? Who's a good anthropologist? Is it you? Yes. Yes you are.","c_root_id_A":"d3ef4yc","c_root_id_B":"d3e5vaa","created_at_utc_A":1463859627,"created_at_utc_B":1463843658,"score_A":13,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Portuguese: my mother likes to ask any dog\/cat \"tu \u00e9 pequenino, \u00e9?\" (\"you're tiny, aren't you?\"), even if said dog is a huge Weimareiner.","human_ref_B":"Dutch: yes, very similar to English.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15969.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"en12do","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Looking for studies on non-industrialised, sustainable agricultural systems Hello, I am trying to find studies\/research\/PHDs\/books that have been conducted on sustainable, low-input, pre-industrial agricultural systems (i.e. systems which don't rely on motorisation, petrochemicals, etc) It could be contemporary (perhaps amongst the peasantry in the rural south) or a study of how agriculture was conducted in pre-industrial times. I'd like it to be as \\*detailed\\* as possible! What specific labour tasks are there? How much food was\/is produced? How do they fertilise and renew fertility? What is grown? etc etc I have access to university online article database, so the title of an article\/thesis would be sufficient. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"fdvub9i","c_root_id_B":"fdz6hsl","created_at_utc_A":1578751606,"created_at_utc_B":1578787144,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Harold Conklin's *The Study of Shifting Cultivation* (both the 1961 Current Anthropology article and the 1963 technical report of the same name) is pretty extensively detailed. Depending on your regional interests, there's a lot to be found in Mexico. Isabel T. Kelly and \u00c1ngel Palerm's *The Taj\u00edn Totonac* of 1952 is a good example of an old-school community study. If you're interested, Erve Chambers and Philip Young have a useful (though dated) 1979 review of \"Mesoamerican Community Studies: The Past Decade\" in the *Annual Review of Anthropology.* Otherwise, I'd suggest looking into archaeology and ethnoarchaeology more specifically. Archaeologists often use these kinds of studies to better theorize subsistence in the past. See, for example, the experimental milpa at Chich\u00e9n Izt\u00e1 discussed in Emerson's \"A Preliminary Survey of the Milpa System of Maize Culture as Practiced by the Maya Indians of the Northern Part of the Yucatan Peninsula\" of 1953.","human_ref_B":"Some things from my library you might be interested in: Kolata, Alan L. 1986. \u201cThe Agricultural Foundations of the Tiwanaku State: A View from the Heartland.\u201d *American Antiquity* 51 (4): 748\u201362. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/280863. Narv\u00e1ez, Jos\u00e9. 2014. \u201cPre-Colonial Irrigation and Settlement Patterns in Three Artificial Valleys in Lima \u2013 Peru,\u201d January. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.11575\/PRISM\/27399. Perry, Linda, Daniel H. Sandweiss, Dolores R. Piperno, Kurt Rademaker, Michael A. Malpass, Ad\u00e1n Umire, and Pablo de la Vera. 2006. \u201cEarly Maize Agriculture and Interzonal Interaction in Southern Peru.\u201d *Nature* 440 (7080): 76\u201379. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/nature04294. Szpak, Paul, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millaire, Christine D. White, and Fred J. Longstaffe. 2012. \u201cInfluence of Seabird Guano and Camelid Dung Fertilization on the Nitrogen Isotopic Composition of Field-Grown Maize (Zea Mays).\u201d *Journal of Archaeological Science* 39 (12): 3721\u201340. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jas.2012.06.035. Rumold, Claudia Ursula, and Mark S. Aldenderfer. 2016. \u201cLate Archaic\u2013Early Formative Period Microbotanical Evidence for Potato at Jiskairumoko in the Titicaca Basin of Southern Peru.\u201d *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* 113 (48): 13672\u201377. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.1604265113. ​ Wernke, Steven A. 2010. \u201cA Reduced Landscape: Toward a Multi-Causal Understanding of Historic Period Agricultural Deintensification in Highland Peru.\u201d *Journal of Latin American Geography* 9 (3): 51\u201383. Wienhold, Michelle L. 2013. \u201cPrehistoric Land Use and Hydrology: A Multi-Scalar Spatial Analysis in Central Arizona.\u201d *Journal of Archaeological Science* 40 (2): 850\u201359. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jas.2012.10.010. Lane, Kevin. 2006. \u201cThrough the Looking Glass: Re-Assessing the Role of Agro-Pastoralism in the North-Central Andean Highlands.\u201d *World Archaeology* 38 (3): 493\u2013510.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":35538.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bp0yvt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Any good books about tribal Europeans? I want to make this summer a summer of learning about the world I live in and expanding my knowledge of anthropology and human history. We hear a lot about the tribal peoples of Africa or the Indigenous Americas, but almost nothing about tribal Europe. What are the best books about the Celtics, Vikings the native inhabitants of Britian and Ireland before Roman conquest?","c_root_id_A":"ennhd11","c_root_id_B":"enng6nx","created_at_utc_A":1557946787,"created_at_utc_B":1557946361,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Tacitus\u2019s writings about the Germanic tribes is fascinating. I\u2019d check that out. And these aren\u2019t books, but Dan Carlin does two really interesting podcasts on the Germanic tribes and Caesar\u2019s conquests in Gaul, in which he talks a lot about the Celtic cultures. He\u2019s not an actual historian, but his quality of work is excellent, and you could find some really good books on his resources list. I think the podcasts are called Thor\u2019s Angels and Celtic Holocaust. Also, keep in mind that these cultures didn\u2019t have a written history so a lot of what we know about them has been filtered down by the Romans so a lot of what we think we know about these tribal cultures in Europe may very well be pure propaganda, or in Tacitus\u2019s case, romanticism\u2014similar to the way a lot of Europeans perceived the various Native American cultures. Also, tribes might not actually be a good label for some of these peoples, especially with some of the Gaulish tribes within close proximity to Rome. Some of these Celtic tribes had their own elected magistrates for example. Also check out Caesar\u2019s autobiography about the Gaullic Wars. Again it very well could be propaganda but it\u2019s still an interesting read.","human_ref_B":"Check out Neil Oliver for early Britons. He\u2019s also written about Scotland and Vikings. He\u2019s a TV presenter so very readable.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":426.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"y6u4hs","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Information on the Potawatomi? I\u2019m writing a research paper on the Potawatomi and keep running into dead ends on who they where. I know they where apart of the \u201cThree Fires\u201d but can\u2019t find much of any information about what that is. I am also having trouble finding any information about them in Michigan at all. Like celebrations, villages, religion, farming, and hunting. Any information would be appreciated as well as any links to peer reviewed essays as well.","c_root_id_A":"isuwwfa","c_root_id_B":"isvdefd","created_at_utc_A":1666129524,"created_at_utc_B":1666136684,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You can always use Google Scholar for this kind of thing. \"Potawatomi history\" or \"Potawatomi culture\" brings up quite a few results.","human_ref_B":"Long shot, but as a kid in the 80s in St Joseph MI they sent reps to give presentations and even demonstrations to public elementary school kids. Maybe reach out to the school system and see if there's any archived material from that?","labels":0,"seconds_difference":7160.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"dhb48x","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Recommendations: Ritual, Rites of Passage, Liminality Greetings to the anthropological community, Context is I'm a doctoral student but in the humanities. My reading has led me to some interesting anthropological texts which I wanted to follow up into the state of the art. I've read the relevant parts of a few of Victor Turner's works which deal with rites of passage\/liminality (*The Ritual Process*, *Dramas, Fields and Metaphors*), and am particularly interested in his discussion of structure vs. *communitas*, etc. However, these texts are from the 1970's, so I am interested in what is happening in a contemporary context. So, knowing little more about anthropology, I come here to ask for recommendations in general around this topic: * How is Turner's work viewed in the anthropological community? * Are there more recent anthropologists developing this line of research? Any and all recommendations welcome * Particularly, related to the above, with relation to contemporary western cultures? (i.e. if this sort of structure\/anti-structure transition is important, how does it manifest in secular, capitalist culture?) Thanks in advance","c_root_id_A":"f3o6a91","c_root_id_B":"f3ocxos","created_at_utc_A":1571009425,"created_at_utc_B":1571014544,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Catherine Bell has written two solid books on ritual theory.","human_ref_B":"It's definitely not a contemporary perspective, but Arthur van Gennep's *The Rites of Passage* is the OG work on this. I'm very glad I had to read it despite it barely being ethnographic. It's fallen out of the canon of Anglophone anthropology for some reason.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5119.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"9xbkyi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why did most cultures adopt the sword as a status symbol?","c_root_id_A":"e9r1dj0","c_root_id_B":"e9r2qiz","created_at_utc_A":1542295227,"created_at_utc_B":1542296253,"score_A":7,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"Compared to other weapons, the sword is more expensive (since it is solid metal). Moreover, it is somewhat impractical for infantry warfare since it is hard to use in formation, but it is very effective in mounted warfare and is an excellent dueling weapon. The combination of these two factors meant that swords were generally used by aristocracy, causing it to be a status symbol. Even in a society like Japan, where the samurai nobles usually fought as cavalry archers, the sword (which was a mere sidearm) was more of a status symbol because the bow was also used by commoners.","human_ref_B":"1) For most of history, swords were *very* expensive. Swords took a *lot* of expensive metal and a *lot* of highly-skilled labor to make, unlike spears, knives and axes. The expense meant that only the wealthy, the nobility or someone sponsored by the same could afford to commission a sword... Or someone was badass enough to take a sword from a fallen enemy on the battlefield. For example, in one of the Viking Sagas, a sword (albeit a gift from a king) was valued at the equivalent of 15 milk cows, when a single milk cow would keep your family from starving during the winter. In Anglo-Saxon England, a sword was valued at the modern equivalent of about $10,000. 2) swords take *a lot* of training to be effective, meaning someone with a sword has the time to train with it, meaning they probably dont have to grub in the dirt for a living. Anybody can pick up a spear and be reasonbly effective as a combatant. The same cannot be said for a sword. Please note that in Europe, when the blast furnace was developed in the 12th century or so, steel became easier and cheaper to manufacture and therefore swords became more available to the general populace. The average soldier could now afford a (cheap and rather shite) sword for combat use as a sidearm, but they remained a status symbol due to their association with officers, due to the \"modern\" officer corps of most armies descending rather directly from medieval nobility.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1026.0,"score_ratio":8.2857142857} {"post_id":"9xbkyi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why did most cultures adopt the sword as a status symbol?","c_root_id_A":"e9r2ozw","c_root_id_B":"e9r2qiz","created_at_utc_A":1542296222,"created_at_utc_B":1542296253,"score_A":6,"score_B":58,"human_ref_A":"\u201cMost cultures\u201d didn\u2019t. Most cultures never had swords at all.","human_ref_B":"1) For most of history, swords were *very* expensive. Swords took a *lot* of expensive metal and a *lot* of highly-skilled labor to make, unlike spears, knives and axes. The expense meant that only the wealthy, the nobility or someone sponsored by the same could afford to commission a sword... Or someone was badass enough to take a sword from a fallen enemy on the battlefield. For example, in one of the Viking Sagas, a sword (albeit a gift from a king) was valued at the equivalent of 15 milk cows, when a single milk cow would keep your family from starving during the winter. In Anglo-Saxon England, a sword was valued at the modern equivalent of about $10,000. 2) swords take *a lot* of training to be effective, meaning someone with a sword has the time to train with it, meaning they probably dont have to grub in the dirt for a living. Anybody can pick up a spear and be reasonbly effective as a combatant. The same cannot be said for a sword. Please note that in Europe, when the blast furnace was developed in the 12th century or so, steel became easier and cheaper to manufacture and therefore swords became more available to the general populace. The average soldier could now afford a (cheap and rather shite) sword for combat use as a sidearm, but they remained a status symbol due to their association with officers, due to the \"modern\" officer corps of most armies descending rather directly from medieval nobility.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":31.0,"score_ratio":9.6666666667} {"post_id":"5041s9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How do anthropologists study online activities: gaming\/Internet? Hi all, I was curious how anthropologists can physically study virtual worlds - games or social media - non-physical entities (obviously they exist!, you get what I mean) when people are online? I remember taking anthropology a few years ago in my undergrad course and remember reading Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski, Geertz, Mead etc. How does anthropology apply to these fields when they cant study a physcial culture? How is games for example, a culture you can study? Maybe as a community or something, surely not a culture. Furthermore, wouldn't fieldwork be self-defeating, it seems more like qualitative research and theoretical highly than compared to fieldwork? It crossed my mind becasue of all these Virtual Reality headsets that have the potential to be something interesting to study, I jsut couldnt work out how practicable it would be? Theoretically Yes, Physically - ? Can it be argued that studying something online is not a culture? Sorry for so many questions, I am very curious! Regards,","c_root_id_A":"d72tqts","c_root_id_B":"d716sj0","created_at_utc_A":1472577393,"created_at_utc_B":1472479022,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Coming in late, but i wrote a master's thesis on online communities, i may be able to help :D I've got some examples, and happy to explain how I did my own fieldwork online (and how i'm continuing to do so currently. Believe it or not, i actually work for reddit as an anthropologist in digital culture) In a nutshell, yes i had to fight the stereotype (especially early on in my undergrad career) that online cultures aren't \"real,\" and that going out to do fieldwork in an online setting isn't as real as going into the bush and living with natives for a year. Once i started doing some digging around and working on my own research, it was very easy to prove that yes, you can do this! i actually turned one of my professors in undergrad around; she was very anti-online research at the beginning of my quarter-long project, but by the time I turned it in she was fully on board. My grad advisors were nothing but supportive and very excited for my thesis project. As to some additional resources: WoW has been mined pretty thoroughly; a name that hasn't popped up here is Alex Golub, he's at U Hawaii Manoa and has written several articles around WoW. There's another book called The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World which was... meh, it was okay. i had some issues around it iirc, but probably because he's not an anthropologist and i was looking for that more than the sociologist tactic he used. (so that's a me thing haha) Nardi's book is also great. Seconding the recommendation of Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life. SL is one of those places beloved by academics and advertisers and... not much of anyone else. But there's some interesting work that has come out of it. And yes, he chose that title deliberately to reference Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa! That book helped me a lot to center my own research. On the flip side is Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life by Thomas Malaby which is an ethnography of Linden Lab itself, and how it dealt with creating the game\/world of Second Life. I have some recommendations of stuff that isn't game related: Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (note: link goes to a PDF of the entire book!) was the book that told me i really could do this online research business. Take a look at First Monday, which is an online peer reviewed journal dedicated to internet\/online research. There's a good amount of anthropology\/sociology there! There's some classics not mentioned here, Annette Markham's Life Online (which actually drove me to drink with its reflexivity), Christine Hine's Virtual Ethnography, Miller & Slater's The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach, etc. danah boyd does ethnographic research around teens and online behaviors. Electronic Tribes is a great collection of papers around online communities. Currently getting a lot of press is This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things which, while an ethnography of sorts, was not written by an anthropologist. Still, it does show how you can do fieldwork online more-or-less successfully, even when you're dealing with trolls. Gabriella Coleman's work with Anonymous is also not to be missed. Her more-for-the-masses book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is fairly new and pretty good so far (i'm currently reading this one and the above trolling book) Phew. Anyway. Don't know if this answers your questions or not, but happy to answer any you may have as someone who's been there, done that, and am still doing it :)","human_ref_B":"I don't have much expertise in this area, but Daniel Miller from UCL has been heading a large research project on the impact of social media on specific communities, such as towns and cities, the world over. I've read Nell Haynes' part of the project, which you can download for free, and though I'm not fully satisfied with its accuracy (being a Chilean who uses social media), it could offer you some insight into how this kind of research plays out.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":98371.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"470em7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What did we laugh about in the stoneage? Laughter is an ancient social mechanism and we have been doing it since the dawn of man for a multitude of reasons. What kind of events or stories do you believe made neolithic people laugh?","c_root_id_A":"d09mmo9","c_root_id_B":"d0a4xuh","created_at_utc_A":1456170073,"created_at_utc_B":1456196031,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The same things we laugh about now, but without the trappings of modern technology and large-scale society.","human_ref_B":"Guys getting hit in the junk is humor that transcends culture and language.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":25958.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"aeezg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Clothing and gear for field school? I am starting field school this semester and am curious what others wear\/use to make field work manageable. I will be out in swampy areas in a humid, coastal climate. We've been warned that the bugs are bad, it is common to have to use a machete to get to the dig sites, etc. I am a female and female \"cargo\" pants suck in terms of pockets. We'll be out on site all day, so I'd like to be able to carry what I can in pants pockets or a small, cheap backpack. So far, I know I need: -sunscreen -repellent -water -food (snacks and lunch) -hand sanitizer -phone (to be stored carefully in a protective case) -sunglasses -hat -buff (to cover hair\/neck) -mini first aid kit -wallet -toilet paper\/wet wipes (because this is a very primitive site and there are no facilities.....considering a Shewee or something similar) The site director is providing dig kits with tools, paperwork, and writing implements (he is very particular). What other items or clothes make it easier to be out in the field? What type of shoes do you use? Boots? Combat or hiking? Low top or high top? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"edoqcav","c_root_id_B":"edox2xf","created_at_utc_A":1547091986,"created_at_utc_B":1547098107,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Here to shout out Duluth Trading Company for having durable women's work pants with POCKETS. They are expensive but absolutely worth the investment.","human_ref_B":"I'm a shill for Columbia's PFG shirts. I bought some in 2011 and they show no wear after 8 field seasons and several months CRM. The ventilated back is great for hot stuff, and I work at crazy high altitudes so the sun-blocking is super helpful. Buffs are great. High socks, high socks, high socks. Even if it's hot, high socks. ALL the wet wipes. I've \"showered\" with those bois during some very unfortunate months in the field and it was such a relief.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6121.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"aeezg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Clothing and gear for field school? I am starting field school this semester and am curious what others wear\/use to make field work manageable. I will be out in swampy areas in a humid, coastal climate. We've been warned that the bugs are bad, it is common to have to use a machete to get to the dig sites, etc. I am a female and female \"cargo\" pants suck in terms of pockets. We'll be out on site all day, so I'd like to be able to carry what I can in pants pockets or a small, cheap backpack. So far, I know I need: -sunscreen -repellent -water -food (snacks and lunch) -hand sanitizer -phone (to be stored carefully in a protective case) -sunglasses -hat -buff (to cover hair\/neck) -mini first aid kit -wallet -toilet paper\/wet wipes (because this is a very primitive site and there are no facilities.....considering a Shewee or something similar) The site director is providing dig kits with tools, paperwork, and writing implements (he is very particular). What other items or clothes make it easier to be out in the field? What type of shoes do you use? Boots? Combat or hiking? Low top or high top? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"edoqgya","c_root_id_B":"edox2xf","created_at_utc_A":1547092090,"created_at_utc_B":1547098107,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Not an archaeologist but my ex was \/ is a shovel bum. She would normally wear lowtop (over the ankle) workboots or sneakers while digging. Water and mud was a problem on sites that she was working, as well. I helped her shop for new footwear but we broke up, so I have no idea what she ended up with. Do you have an approximate budget for boots? I could offer specific suggestions if you want. Generally I'd recommend over the ankle boots with rubberized lowers and light wool socks for breathability. Goretex might work better to keep the water out while letting your skin breathe, but it's a tough problem either way. If you do not own cats, you may want to consider treating your hat \/ buff \/ outer field clothes with Permethrin. It's known to be very good at repelling ticks, remains effective on clothing for multiple washings depending on the product you use, and is safe for humans according to the EPA. I would **not** use it if you have or will frequently be around cats, as Permethrin is **highly** toxic to cats. Good luck at field school!","human_ref_B":"I'm a shill for Columbia's PFG shirts. I bought some in 2011 and they show no wear after 8 field seasons and several months CRM. The ventilated back is great for hot stuff, and I work at crazy high altitudes so the sun-blocking is super helpful. Buffs are great. High socks, high socks, high socks. Even if it's hot, high socks. ALL the wet wipes. I've \"showered\" with those bois during some very unfortunate months in the field and it was such a relief.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6017.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"aeezg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Clothing and gear for field school? I am starting field school this semester and am curious what others wear\/use to make field work manageable. I will be out in swampy areas in a humid, coastal climate. We've been warned that the bugs are bad, it is common to have to use a machete to get to the dig sites, etc. I am a female and female \"cargo\" pants suck in terms of pockets. We'll be out on site all day, so I'd like to be able to carry what I can in pants pockets or a small, cheap backpack. So far, I know I need: -sunscreen -repellent -water -food (snacks and lunch) -hand sanitizer -phone (to be stored carefully in a protective case) -sunglasses -hat -buff (to cover hair\/neck) -mini first aid kit -wallet -toilet paper\/wet wipes (because this is a very primitive site and there are no facilities.....considering a Shewee or something similar) The site director is providing dig kits with tools, paperwork, and writing implements (he is very particular). What other items or clothes make it easier to be out in the field? What type of shoes do you use? Boots? Combat or hiking? Low top or high top? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"edox2xf","c_root_id_B":"edowo41","created_at_utc_A":1547098107,"created_at_utc_B":1547097663,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm a shill for Columbia's PFG shirts. I bought some in 2011 and they show no wear after 8 field seasons and several months CRM. The ventilated back is great for hot stuff, and I work at crazy high altitudes so the sun-blocking is super helpful. Buffs are great. High socks, high socks, high socks. Even if it's hot, high socks. ALL the wet wipes. I've \"showered\" with those bois during some very unfortunate months in the field and it was such a relief.","human_ref_B":"> swampy areas Not what you really need, but in passing swamp is perfect hammock country. Even if only used as a lounge for lunch. Warbonnet Blackbird is great, integrated net and off-set foot-well so you can lay sideways.. > We've been warned that the bugs are bad DEET is very effective at stopping landings (they'll still buzz your ears but not land and bit). You only need a tiny, tiny amount spread very thinly. It eats some plastic. > pants Nylon pants for hiking and general quick-dryness are pretty nice. A little bit *swishy* but you get used to that and they wear that down a little over time. > toilet paper\/wet wipes Wet wipes are a bit of a luxury, though not very degradable. You'll want a trowel to go with that though I guess you have those tools for the job. These water-bottle bidets are pretty neat idea. https:\/\/hygienna.myshopify.com\/ Can also go like they do in India with the *\"Backwoods Bidet\"* with some hand-sanitiser. https:\/\/andrewskurka.com\/2016\/pooping-in-the-outdoors-part-4-the-backcountry-bidet\/ > considering a Shewee or something similar [Lady Hike clothing system makes it easy to pee standing up!]( https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iSu8PcNqm-k) https:\/\/www.thruhikethepct.com\/plan-your-thru-hike\/women\/pee-standing-up\/ https:\/\/www.backpacker.com\/gear\/the-complete-guide-to-female-urination-devices There is even the idea of *pee-rag\/pee-cloth*, it's only a few drops and sunlight is disinfectant. https:\/\/thetrek.co\/pee-rag\/ https:\/\/kulacloth.com\/pages\/faqs A great sub for getting light with your hiking gear: \/r\/Ultralight","labels":1,"seconds_difference":444.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"aeezg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Clothing and gear for field school? I am starting field school this semester and am curious what others wear\/use to make field work manageable. I will be out in swampy areas in a humid, coastal climate. We've been warned that the bugs are bad, it is common to have to use a machete to get to the dig sites, etc. I am a female and female \"cargo\" pants suck in terms of pockets. We'll be out on site all day, so I'd like to be able to carry what I can in pants pockets or a small, cheap backpack. So far, I know I need: -sunscreen -repellent -water -food (snacks and lunch) -hand sanitizer -phone (to be stored carefully in a protective case) -sunglasses -hat -buff (to cover hair\/neck) -mini first aid kit -wallet -toilet paper\/wet wipes (because this is a very primitive site and there are no facilities.....considering a Shewee or something similar) The site director is providing dig kits with tools, paperwork, and writing implements (he is very particular). What other items or clothes make it easier to be out in the field? What type of shoes do you use? Boots? Combat or hiking? Low top or high top? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"edoroh7","c_root_id_B":"edox2xf","created_at_utc_A":1547093072,"created_at_utc_B":1547098107,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I work as a professional archaeologist for a consulting firm. Anything to treat against ticks is a must, and I would recommend a camelbak for water, especially if you are hiking a ways out to the site. For boots, just make sure they have a good, aggressive tread and fit your foot well. You can get waterproofer easily and seal boots for much more cheaply than buying them waterproofed already. I\u2019m kind of lucky that I am more narrow-waisted, so I can get things in men\u2019s sizes. If you can get your waist and inseam measurements, I swear by desert weight tactical pants that you can get on amazon. So many useful pockets and links for things, and they\u2019ve stood up for four years working professionally. You can look them up on amazon, I tend to favor LA Police Gear pants. Last thing, gloves. Don\u2019t need to be pricey or leather but having multiple pairs will make your life so much easier when you\u2019re screening tons of dirt or any damp soil. Feel free to message me if you want any more specific suggestions!","human_ref_B":"I'm a shill for Columbia's PFG shirts. I bought some in 2011 and they show no wear after 8 field seasons and several months CRM. The ventilated back is great for hot stuff, and I work at crazy high altitudes so the sun-blocking is super helpful. Buffs are great. High socks, high socks, high socks. Even if it's hot, high socks. ALL the wet wipes. I've \"showered\" with those bois during some very unfortunate months in the field and it was such a relief.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5035.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"aeezg7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.75,"history":"Clothing and gear for field school? I am starting field school this semester and am curious what others wear\/use to make field work manageable. I will be out in swampy areas in a humid, coastal climate. We've been warned that the bugs are bad, it is common to have to use a machete to get to the dig sites, etc. I am a female and female \"cargo\" pants suck in terms of pockets. We'll be out on site all day, so I'd like to be able to carry what I can in pants pockets or a small, cheap backpack. So far, I know I need: -sunscreen -repellent -water -food (snacks and lunch) -hand sanitizer -phone (to be stored carefully in a protective case) -sunglasses -hat -buff (to cover hair\/neck) -mini first aid kit -wallet -toilet paper\/wet wipes (because this is a very primitive site and there are no facilities.....considering a Shewee or something similar) The site director is providing dig kits with tools, paperwork, and writing implements (he is very particular). What other items or clothes make it easier to be out in the field? What type of shoes do you use? Boots? Combat or hiking? Low top or high top? Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"edowo41","c_root_id_B":"edoroh7","created_at_utc_A":1547097663,"created_at_utc_B":1547093072,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"> swampy areas Not what you really need, but in passing swamp is perfect hammock country. Even if only used as a lounge for lunch. Warbonnet Blackbird is great, integrated net and off-set foot-well so you can lay sideways.. > We've been warned that the bugs are bad DEET is very effective at stopping landings (they'll still buzz your ears but not land and bit). You only need a tiny, tiny amount spread very thinly. It eats some plastic. > pants Nylon pants for hiking and general quick-dryness are pretty nice. A little bit *swishy* but you get used to that and they wear that down a little over time. > toilet paper\/wet wipes Wet wipes are a bit of a luxury, though not very degradable. You'll want a trowel to go with that though I guess you have those tools for the job. These water-bottle bidets are pretty neat idea. https:\/\/hygienna.myshopify.com\/ Can also go like they do in India with the *\"Backwoods Bidet\"* with some hand-sanitiser. https:\/\/andrewskurka.com\/2016\/pooping-in-the-outdoors-part-4-the-backcountry-bidet\/ > considering a Shewee or something similar [Lady Hike clothing system makes it easy to pee standing up!]( https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iSu8PcNqm-k) https:\/\/www.thruhikethepct.com\/plan-your-thru-hike\/women\/pee-standing-up\/ https:\/\/www.backpacker.com\/gear\/the-complete-guide-to-female-urination-devices There is even the idea of *pee-rag\/pee-cloth*, it's only a few drops and sunlight is disinfectant. https:\/\/thetrek.co\/pee-rag\/ https:\/\/kulacloth.com\/pages\/faqs A great sub for getting light with your hiking gear: \/r\/Ultralight","human_ref_B":"I work as a professional archaeologist for a consulting firm. Anything to treat against ticks is a must, and I would recommend a camelbak for water, especially if you are hiking a ways out to the site. For boots, just make sure they have a good, aggressive tread and fit your foot well. You can get waterproofer easily and seal boots for much more cheaply than buying them waterproofed already. I\u2019m kind of lucky that I am more narrow-waisted, so I can get things in men\u2019s sizes. If you can get your waist and inseam measurements, I swear by desert weight tactical pants that you can get on amazon. So many useful pockets and links for things, and they\u2019ve stood up for four years working professionally. You can look them up on amazon, I tend to favor LA Police Gear pants. Last thing, gloves. Don\u2019t need to be pricey or leather but having multiple pairs will make your life so much easier when you\u2019re screening tons of dirt or any damp soil. Feel free to message me if you want any more specific suggestions!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4591.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"b3vq8z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Field school advice Hello everyone! If this has been asked or if it is not allowed, I\u2019m sorry! I checked around and could not find anything similar to my question so here I go... I graduated with a BA in Anth about 1\/2 a year ago and got sucked into a job at a recruiting firm. I have found some interesting job postings around me but they require a field school. At my uni I took \u201cfield methods\u201d (my counselor said it was basically an unofficial requirement) but I was not aware of the importance of a good field school. I chose not to apply to one for a myriad of reasons (cost, time, etc) but I want to know- Is it too late for me to take one? Is there something I can do instead? I\u2019m paying off my loans for grad school but I absolutely hate my job and I can\u2019t do it anymore. Thanks in advance for any advice! If there\u2019s another thread about this I would also appreciate being pointed in the right direction.","c_root_id_A":"ej3bq8k","c_root_id_B":"ej2saii","created_at_utc_A":1553223939,"created_at_utc_B":1553208514,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Assuming you are talking about archae here... A few of my friends came back after they graduated with their BA to volunteer on digs. They had a good relationship before with the professor, so it wasn't out of the blue. So, if you have any connections with your old institution, maybe see if any profs or grad students need any volunteers for summer work. Alumi associations, depending on the school, might also sometimes connect people with volunteer positions in digs; I have known a few retired folk (ie they had not been students for a long time) find positions helping out for some summer work.","human_ref_B":"In addition to the advice given here: are you in the states? Look for organizations like Florida Public Archaeology Network. They might have some minor training available and it is a good way to network. For my particular experience I could not participate in the field school my uni did during my BA, but I was able to latch on as a volunteer through an already established project.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15425.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5ixmfi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Looking for information on CRM? Hi all! I'm looking for more information on Cultural Resource Management? My University offers a Master's focus in CRM, but before I consider going down that road, I'd love to hear people's input on it. Yes, I have google-fu'ed the technical information, but I'd rather hear actual people's experiences in the field. Can anyone provide some input? Thank you all for your assistance and have a great day :)","c_root_id_A":"dbbw04x","c_root_id_B":"dbbu19m","created_at_utc_A":1482031706,"created_at_utc_B":1482028591,"score_A":13,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Archaeology field tech here (as you might be able to guess). What do you want to know? Here's a little bit about what my week was like: I'm working on an excavation, it's a little bit cold and snowy out. Overall, it's not a bad project, the site hasn't turned out to be super interesting yet, but we're at the beginning stage of excavation. We had a couple of short days this week due to the cold. The dirt is freezing in large clods in the screen. It was also so cold and windy that the field director was concerned about safety. A few years ago: I was working in the desert and recording a lot of lithic scatters. Pretty fun stuff, lots of hiking, but also very hot out. In general: Lots of travel, lots of hotel points, not a lot of job stability. Recommendations: Get some experience as a field technician before you pursue a master's degree. A master's degree will be a waste of time and money if you get into the field and realize you don't like archaeology as much as you thought you did. You **really** have to love archaeology in order to put up with some of the downsides to working as a field tech.","human_ref_B":"Do you have any experience with CRM in the field or elsewhere?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3115.0,"score_ratio":4.3333333333} {"post_id":"9mjgv6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"Recommendations for Cameras for Fieldwork? I am an archaeologist in the middle of applying for dissertation fieldwork grants and definitely need to include a camera. Looking at all of the options online has me overwhelmed and unsure of exactly what I need. My department has a $500 equipment grant that I would like to put towards a new camera if possible. Does anyone have any suggestions for cameras? I am leaning towards Nikkon because they are more within my budget than Cannon, but have no idea what models would be best.","c_root_id_A":"e7fdcix","c_root_id_B":"e7f9gmu","created_at_utc_A":1539048318,"created_at_utc_B":1539044709,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I am an Air Force photographer and just returned from an excavation in Southeast Asia for DPAA (worth googling). I worked as the team's forensic photographer during the dig, and also being an Anthropology major, I brought way more gear than I needed so that I could geek out. I shot Nikon primarily since it was easiest to clean, my mirrorless Sony A6300 over heated with video, and my cell phone was good fun...but not great for what you'll need. With all that said if I were to go back, knowing that field cameras get the hell beat out of them, I would roll in with a Conan T3i with a 35mm lens. All the best!","human_ref_B":"I would also consider Olympus (The PEN E-PL8) as it is mirrorless and tends to be a bit smaller and compact but also has some very versatile lenses which also tend to be a bit smaller. Or even one of their tough models (Tough TG-5), might be useful in case you drop it, also has GPS too , which is in your budget range.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3609.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"sghiv6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"historical evidence of progressive culture first post in this very cool sub: it seems that only a relatively large, stable society with adequate resources has the privilege of taking care of less successful, less healthy, or marginalized individuals or groups i've done a bunch of internet searches for the history of manifestations of progressive culture - but it always leads me back to the last few centuries in the west. i know i'm missing things. are there terms or places or eras or books anyone could point me towards to help me understand how progressive behavior manifests on a cultural\/societal level for homo sapiens? (i don't even know if i'm using the right word there - progressive? liberal? obviously modern terms like socialism don't apply)","c_root_id_A":"huxfqed","c_root_id_B":"huy7gxi","created_at_utc_A":1643589614,"created_at_utc_B":1643601045,"score_A":4,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure it's easy to classify societies as progressive or not. I'm not sure how you want to define progressivism in a way that we can compare modern societies, much less historic or pre-historic societies. Your definition seems to center around ideas of charity, and ideas of there are successful people and everyone else. Are plumbers less successful than hedge fund managers? Who do you thnk is most essential to have in a society? It's interesting to consider societies that have structural or institutional progressivism (however we choose to define it) and those who don't. I am curious about contrasting progressivism vs. conservatism. Willingness to change and solve problems and a reluctance to change from the purported \"old ways\".","human_ref_B":"The Windover archaeological site in Florida is a bog where, between 9000 and 6000 years ago, local hunter-gatherers would wrap their dead in blankets and bury them. The qualities of the bog meant the remains were remarkably well-preserved when they were unearthed in the late 20th century. Among the 168 remains uncovered and studied were those of an approximately 15-year old boy who had been born with a condition that prevented his spine from fusing. Despite living within a hunter-gatherer society in which he could do little to contribute, the boy was cared for enough to live to fifteen, and he was buried with a rich arrangement of grave goods. Similarly, there was an older woman found who had clearly suffered an injury that would have prevented her from walking. Despite that, she appears to have survived for several years after the injury in the care of her loved ones. I\u2019m not sure if this is exactly what you\u2019re looking for, but it is the first thing that came to mind.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11431.0,"score_ratio":1.75} {"post_id":"1e3mfe","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How did music originate? (I originally asked this in \/r\/AskHistorians, but it's been suggested that this subreddit is more appropriate.) I'm a working musician who loves what he does. I'd like to know how what we consider \"music\" (melody and rhythm) originated. What do we know with reasonable certainty? Are there any general theories that are considered credible? Or is any answer to this utter guesswork? The origins of spoken language are shrouded in mystery, and I strongly suspect the origins of music (a sort of language in of itself) are cloaked in guesswork. Do we even know enough about prehistoric times to make reasoned guesses at the answers here? Suggestions for further reading would be welcome, of course, but I think at this point I need to know just enough so I can pose some interesting questions about the origins of what I hold dear.","c_root_id_A":"c9wlt5h","c_root_id_B":"c9wjexp","created_at_utc_A":1368247736,"created_at_utc_B":1368239090,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Daniel Levitin, a neurobiologist (and musician!) has some really interesting perspectives in his book, *This is your Brain on Music*. My more detailed answer would be that your statement has an assumption that is problematic to answering your question: who is the *we* that defines \"music\" as melodies and rhythms? \"Music\" means a lot of things in a lot of places (and famously, doesn't mean anything at all in some places). Music is just as social as it is sonic--since you're a musician, I don't even need to explain that--and therefore the answer becomes more complicated. For a reading about the social dimension of music-making, a fundamental book to read is anthropologist John Blacking's *How Musical Is Man*.","human_ref_B":"Since archaeology and fossils cant capture internal thoughts and spoken words we cant have hard evidence of a true origin date. But if you're interested there are some scholars who have tried to work out the origins of music from an evolutionary, psychological, and cultural perspective. A lot of it is educated guesses. But it is an interesting read. *The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body* by Steven Mithen. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8646.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"b4wwzh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.92,"history":"Best Introductory Books for Anthropology? Hi all, I\u2019m an incoming college freshman, majoring in Anthropology. I hope to continue on to grad school and pursue Egyptology. I\u2019m especially interested in the areas of language and art. That being said, I know that I know practically nothing, so a general exposure to Anthropology as a whole field and Egytpology specifically would be great. Thank you so much!","c_root_id_A":"eja2hoe","c_root_id_B":"ejaxy62","created_at_utc_A":1553449542,"created_at_utc_B":1553472452,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"*Language, Culture, and Society* by Salzmann, Stanlaw and Adachi is an excellent introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. So are *Linguistic Anthropology* and *A Companion to Linguistic Antropology*, respectively written and edited by Alessandro Duranti.","human_ref_B":"Anthropology: why it matters by Tim ingold","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22910.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1vgup7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Are modern humans evolving, and if so, in what ways?","c_root_id_A":"ces5lmg","c_root_id_B":"cesppbe","created_at_utc_A":1389990294,"created_at_utc_B":1390060247,"score_A":6,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Anything that still prevents living to reproductive age and reproduction itself are still negatively selecting, so there's that. Medicine hasn't stopped this, only slowed it down. It's a rough label, because if it turns out that the same gene that gives you childhood fatal leukemia in two copies is incredibly beneficial or crucial in one copy, then it might not be selected against still. There can also be negative selection that is increased by modern selections affecting some more than others. I'm thinking specifically of environmental factors for infertility. On the other hand, there is definitely positive selection happening as well. It's possible that psychopathic traits originally worked only when there were few psychopaths. Too many would cause the necessary social cohesion of a tribe to collapse or at least make the rest of us much more wary and better at dealing with them through practice. Now that we don't need the tribal cohesion, men with no moral qualms can and do convince many women to bear his children and simply move to new targets if his game is discovered (also, it's much easier to hide extra girlfriends in modern times). While this doesn't remove any traits from the population, it can make certain traits more common in the population, which is still evolution. See evolutionary explanations for psychopathy.","human_ref_B":"Yes, we're still evolving. We're always evolving even if it is just minor shifts in allele percentages in a population. But John Hawks argues we're actually evolving even faster. If more people means more mutations then there is more variation to act upon. A few examples of recent evolutionary changes: * Lactase persistence, which has independently evolved a couple of times. * High altitude adaptations as \/u\/HeathenEarthling pointed out in Tibetan populations. We've actually found evidence for this adaptation in other populations too - specifically Andean peoples and some Ethiopian peoples. * Our third molars are no longer necessary and sometimes they don't even fit in our jaws any longer - which is why a fair amount of people are now born without one or more of their wisdom teeth. * Blue eyes appeared around 6,000-10,000 years ago from a mutation and have been retained & spread due to sexual selection.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":69953.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"iph0ww","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Resources on hunter-gatherers? Hi Everyone! After reading \u201cSapiens\u201d and \u201cCivilized to Death\u201d I am interested in books and resources that focus on the daily lives of hunter-gatherers. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"g4kcn5g","c_root_id_B":"g4k98y2","created_at_utc_A":1599672117,"created_at_utc_B":1599670474,"score_A":11,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"u\/TheDisposessed Already mentioned The Foraging Spectrum by Robert Kelly, which is a bit on the technically side, but still a very good book. I'm currently re-reading it and considering using it for an upper division anthro class. I would also recommend Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins, and Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Studies edited by Burch and Ellanna. If you are interested in South American, an old book that you could probably find for cheap is \"Native South Americans: Ethnology of the least known continent\" by Patricia Lyon. And of course, specific ethnographies of groups can be found in the Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology series found here: https:\/\/www.librarything.com\/series\/Case+Studies+in+Cultural+Anthropology.","human_ref_B":"So glad these books are sparking curiosity for a deeper dive into literature. In some ways they are problematic pop-anthro type stuff but it's so good to see people hungry for more.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1643.0,"score_ratio":1.2222222222} {"post_id":"iph0ww","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Resources on hunter-gatherers? Hi Everyone! After reading \u201cSapiens\u201d and \u201cCivilized to Death\u201d I am interested in books and resources that focus on the daily lives of hunter-gatherers. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"g4kcn5g","c_root_id_B":"g4k06ym","created_at_utc_A":1599672117,"created_at_utc_B":1599666033,"score_A":11,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"u\/TheDisposessed Already mentioned The Foraging Spectrum by Robert Kelly, which is a bit on the technically side, but still a very good book. I'm currently re-reading it and considering using it for an upper division anthro class. I would also recommend Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins, and Key Issues in Hunter-Gatherer Studies edited by Burch and Ellanna. If you are interested in South American, an old book that you could probably find for cheap is \"Native South Americans: Ethnology of the least known continent\" by Patricia Lyon. And of course, specific ethnographies of groups can be found in the Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology series found here: https:\/\/www.librarything.com\/series\/Case+Studies+in+Cultural+Anthropology.","human_ref_B":"Here are the two I remember from my undergrad days, 30+ yrs ago: \"Nisa\" by Shostak & Nisa. Very conversational. \"Never in Anger\" by Briggs.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6084.0,"score_ratio":2.2} {"post_id":"iph0ww","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Resources on hunter-gatherers? Hi Everyone! After reading \u201cSapiens\u201d and \u201cCivilized to Death\u201d I am interested in books and resources that focus on the daily lives of hunter-gatherers. Do you have any recommendations? Thank you!","c_root_id_A":"g4k06ym","c_root_id_B":"g4k98y2","created_at_utc_A":1599666033,"created_at_utc_B":1599670474,"score_A":5,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"Here are the two I remember from my undergrad days, 30+ yrs ago: \"Nisa\" by Shostak & Nisa. Very conversational. \"Never in Anger\" by Briggs.","human_ref_B":"So glad these books are sparking curiosity for a deeper dive into literature. In some ways they are problematic pop-anthro type stuff but it's so good to see people hungry for more.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4441.0,"score_ratio":1.8} {"post_id":"eenhow","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"Trouble with the interdiscipinary nature of Sociocultral Antrhopology, History and Archaeology, help? So, from my understanding Sociocultral anthropology is the study of a society via their culture, however, history and archaeology do very similar things as they can still result in the evaluation of a culture? Via archaeological finds we can better understand the culture. Via historical texts we can better understand culture and society. So, what I am asking is, are these all interlinked and if I am to consider anthropology as a inter-disciplinary field which I can not view in isolation, should I understand sociocultrual anthropology as a venn diagram with many overlapping areas, and if I was to try and focus just on sociocultrual anthropology, how is it different to history or archaeological studies? Could I use archaeology and historical texts in an explaination of anthropologly? I am not sure how clear I am being, as I am quite confused how to understand this in the wider academic world. However, any clarity would be greaterly appreciated!","c_root_id_A":"fbvolpv","c_root_id_B":"fbvc8a8","created_at_utc_A":1577133818,"created_at_utc_B":1577128719,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"My training is very interdisciplinary or maybe cross-disciplinary -- I have MA's in Comparative Culture and Social Science, and PhD in Social Relations with a Certificate in Feminist Theory. No one knows what any of that means (I can explain if anyone is interested), but basically it means I went to a grad school that had a long history of interdisciplinary programs. Originally they had no majors, just a School of Social Science. While I was there they were in the process of finalizing the separation of disciplines. So I have seen the good and the bad of both models. In my mind, scholarship is better when it is interdisciplinary -- for all the reasons you point out and more. But as another commenter noted, the benefit of disciplines is that they tend to organize our methodologies for research. So if you want to be a good historian you need to know how to actually do history -- how to use historical sources, gather evidence, and put together strong arguments. So I talk a lot about history when I am teaching sociology, and there is no contemporary topic that I could imagine understanding without understanding its history, but I would never consider myself a historian. I can do ethnography and qualitative research and even content analysis, but I have no real understanding of historiography. So interdisciplinary work often has a disciplinary methodology. Professionally disciplines are important because that's how programs and professors get reputations. Being interdisciplinary can mean there are few people who can truly evaluate your scholarship. Personally I could care less about bureaucratic and professional notions of status and hierarchy, but they are important in our world. Disciplines also tend to have different world views or ways of framing questions. I find having training across disciplines very useful because it helps me reflect on the blind spots of each -- mainly sociology and anthropology but also social sciences and humanities. The difference between focusing on culture and structure, seeing how power works through ideas but also materially. But that might be more about being cross-disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary. I don't know, I guess what I am saying is its all socially constructed, but for some legitimate reasons.","human_ref_B":"Another difference lies in the research methods. Social and Cultural Anthropology largely gather data through ethnographic field research, with methods such as participant observation, interviewing, focus groups and lately also more creative methods employing a variety of media (the most conventional would be film and photography). It also depends on the topic one is studying. It's true that anthropology, archeology and history study the same phenomena and through the cultural and social lense. Same is true for sociology, literary studies, etc. The vital difference is methodology and the theory which informs analysis, which usually mostly stays within the discipline but can draw from others as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5099.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"aswi0p","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Self-learning Archaeology, other ways to learn besides reading? I have really gotten into archaeology and paleoanthropology books. Are there any other ways to self teach archaeology besides reading or online courses? Anyway to to hands on learning?","c_root_id_A":"egxu886","c_root_id_B":"egxg3ne","created_at_utc_A":1550733237,"created_at_utc_B":1550719065,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I think this is what you are looking for https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/archeology\/public\/archvol.htm","human_ref_B":"Check to see if there is a local archaeological society. Usually they won't work on digs, just visits to sites and lectures, but often many of the older members are very experienced volunteers. And they will often have professional archaeologists in for lectures. In my local group many of the retirement age members volunteer at the university cataloging for the Anthro department. A good place to network and perhaps find some volunteer opportunities in your area. When I did field school, we had ~15 students, 4 GAs, but a couple of volunteers (no class credit) in exchange for some extra work. Setting up the mess tent, running into town for food\/ice, keeping camp clean, one or two days a week, etc. Rest of the time they were in the field with us.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14172.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1z60p6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Did Inuits not chastise their children? I was reading a novel called The Terror by Dan Simmons. It takes place in the Northern Arctic during the mid 1800's, and it mentions a couple of time that Inuits do not chastise their children. According to the novel they believe that their children are their ancestors reborn, and so it would not be fitting for a parent to reprimand the soul of their elder or something like that. While I realize that this is fiction and novelists often take liberties, I was just wondering whether there was anything in the literature of something like this actually taking place. Some googling led me to this reference but it hardly seems credible.","c_root_id_A":"cfqx9f7","c_root_id_B":"cfr0uu1","created_at_utc_A":1393597064,"created_at_utc_B":1393606214,"score_A":7,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"From what I have read\/ heard regarding Inuit parenting it has more to do with children making mistakes for themselves and then parents guiding them to a solution to the problem as opposed to removing the child from it altogether.","human_ref_B":"From what I know from my studies, at least in traditional Lakota culture, \"discipline\" wasn't practiced. Young children were asked, not told, what to do. There were lectures and stories but no physical discipline. The extended family, especially the aunts and uncles, played some part in this too. \"Gossip\" was a huge factor to stay in line, as cultural taboos were strong. Another factor that seems to play a huge part in making children behave is apparent in more than just the Lakota. The use of a \"scary\" figure in Lakota culture it is the owl, the cici-man (basically the boogey man), and the wasicu (white man) were used to basically scare children into behaving. In the Pueblo culture, Kashare (sacred clowns) were also used to \"scare\" the children into behaving. I'm sure there is a chance that the Inuit used some of these methods too, but I lack sources for it right now (I have a big binder full of source stuff but its packed away). Sources at least for the Lakota bit, besides my own education: *The Sioux, Royal B. Hassrick, 315-328.* Edit: Found a bit on Inuit family life\/discipline. It states that young children were allowed to behave badly because they were so young but teaching was in the form of modeling correct adult behavior. As in other cultures, taboos\/gossip was another form of keeping people in line. Children weren't usually denied their wishes, positive behavior was rewarded and negative behavior was indeed punished, such as withdrawing affection from the child. *Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family By Jean L. Briggs.* *http:\/\/www.learnalberta.ca\/content\/ssognc\/inuitLifestyle\/#child_rearing* *http:\/\/www.uqar.ca\/files\/boreas\/inuitway_e.pdf page 15 (p20 on the pdf)*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9150.0,"score_ratio":3.4285714286} {"post_id":"5dj3ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Where did traditional Inuit go to the bathroom during the Arctic winter? I'd be interested to know about other northern indigenous groups as well. Where\/how did they relieve themselves when it was -40 degrees and howling Arctic winds? Especially the more settled portion of the group, e.g. elders, women with young children who were not going out hunting and stayed put through the worst of the winter. I imagine they'd want to have a semi-permanent latrine - would they have dug pit toilets? Would they have erected some kind of shelter over the pit? How far might they have had to walk to use the bathroom while it was dangerously cold and stormy at night with no flashlights? I'm very curious and I hope someone can shed some light here. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"da5t0m0","c_root_id_B":"da5nhhi","created_at_utc_A":1479486657,"created_at_utc_B":1479479020,"score_A":8,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I believe they would have used a honey bucket. It looks as though there are some places where this is still in use today. https:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/~ota\/disk1\/1994\/9401\/940104.PDF","human_ref_B":"Check with r\/inuit as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7637.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"5dj3ir","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Where did traditional Inuit go to the bathroom during the Arctic winter? I'd be interested to know about other northern indigenous groups as well. Where\/how did they relieve themselves when it was -40 degrees and howling Arctic winds? Especially the more settled portion of the group, e.g. elders, women with young children who were not going out hunting and stayed put through the worst of the winter. I imagine they'd want to have a semi-permanent latrine - would they have dug pit toilets? Would they have erected some kind of shelter over the pit? How far might they have had to walk to use the bathroom while it was dangerously cold and stormy at night with no flashlights? I'm very curious and I hope someone can shed some light here. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"da699zu","c_root_id_B":"da5nhhi","created_at_utc_A":1479507476,"created_at_utc_B":1479479020,"score_A":4,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"As far as disposal goes, cold dogs will happily eat warm human feces, making for a sanitary living site. Any missed scraps will be frozen solid, identifiable, and not a hazard, as such. A small snow wall, or the lee of an igloo is adequate shelter for brief business. A prolonged blizzard might necessitate excavation of a dedicated snow cave for ablution in the accumulating snow.","human_ref_B":"Check with r\/inuit as well.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28456.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"4xqx18","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Currently, do masses dying get replenished quicker than normal population growth? How quickly? Not sure if this is the right place to ask, please feel free to point me in the right direction. God forbid, 50,000 people in Kenya die tomorrow in an earthquake. Does Kenya's rate of population growth increase until that \"hole\" is filled? What about if that happened in a first world country? This is a question about current times, not historically.","c_root_id_A":"d6i7rkt","c_root_id_B":"d6i86m6","created_at_utc_A":1471264524,"created_at_utc_B":1471265454,"score_A":5,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"In modern human populations, probably not. Just because 50,000 people die in doesnt make all the other people decide to have one more child than they planned. And its this 'decision' (or lack of) which differentiates us from animals This spurt in reproductive activity of individuals, which is really what you're asking about, is what we seen in animal populations where the limiting factor on all growth is predation and resources. Remove some competition for resources and the population will boom because juvenile survival rates will go up. This isnt true for humans because there are, currently, other factors in place. Even Kenyans (who would be insulted by the idea) arent limited by resources these days, so freeing some up shouldnt affect things.","human_ref_B":"There will be a slight uptick in fertility among women who lost a child in the earthquake as they engage it what we demographers call \"replacement fertility.\" A similar phenomenon happened after the 2004 tsunami: http:\/\/www.nber.org\/digest\/dec14\/w20448.html But it will not be enough to replace that 'hole' in the population.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":930.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"1gmvmi","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"How has the use of drugs affected our evolution as a species\/society? So I read \/u\/Trigorin's informative post on medieval drug use and this line caught my attention, emphasis mine: >Pre-Contemporary societies, **almost without exception (and I say almost even though I know of none)** used mind-altering substance of one kind or another habitually and usually without societal condemnation. Such widespread use of psychoactive substances would presumably have a cumulative evolutionary impact. Now I know for a fact from previous research that there are very real genetic differences possibly attributable to differential patterns of drug use in modern populations (copy number variation in dehydrogenases\/other detoxifying enzymes). I am asking this here for some insight into how deep our co-evolution with psychotropic substances goes, and what facets of modern human society, cognition and perhaps gross anatomy have been molded by our (ab)use of such substances. If anyone else is interested and wants to read a copy of the undergraduate report I submitted on this topic let me know, it's a topic that has fascinated me for years now.","c_root_id_A":"calwglh","c_root_id_B":"calx0f3","created_at_utc_A":1371647804,"created_at_utc_B":1371649929,"score_A":3,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"As an alternative to genetic impact, I like to ponder about memetic impact. If we see the memes that make up a culture as (roughly) analogous to genes, then we might consider that it is important for a large variety of memes to be available in the memetic pool such that a culture is capable of surviving environmental change. That is, much as a genetic mutation allows some members of a population to exhibit a unique trait that will give them a greater chance of surviving a change to their environment, new ideas (mutated memes) would allow some sections of a culture to better survive change or even advance and spread their culture. Of course, such new ideas have always been developed my great\/creative minds, coupled with observations of reality. The intake of drugs is another route via which humans can and do create new ideas. Many great musicians and artist have claimed to have been inspired by the use of drugs. James Watson was under the influence of LSD when he first visualized the double helix shape of DNA. It is believable that psychoactive substances may be the inspiration for beliefs that would eventually develop into modern day (and very influential) religions; there are many examples of tribes that use substances in religious ritual. As u\/dogdickafternoon mentioned, unless a substances is widely use it is unlikely to have substantial genetic evolutionary impact. However, a powerful new idea is easily spread by word of mouth to much of a population. It only requires one creator. Consequently, it stands to reason that substance use could have generated memes that have had a profound affect on the development of our culture. I'm very interested in the potential genetic evolutionary impacts too and would love to read a copy of your report.","human_ref_B":"There have been theories that the cultivation of plants for medicinal, religious, and fun purposes spurred agriculture. It may be important that we don't separate fun-time\/hallucinogenic drugs from medicinal ones because they are all substances consumed in order to alter our physical states. Health, mental condition, mood, physical capability, etc. aren't separate categories in many societies. After all, when you're sick from a virus you may also become depressed, tired, foggy, and irritable. Even drugs prescribed by American doctors can be used for enjoyment\/spiritual purposes. So perhaps a better way to look at this is to think about how consuming drugs have altered our evolution. We do know that chimpanzees may use the leaf aspilia for medicinal purposes. The leaves contain antibiotic, antifungal, and antiparasitic properties and chimps seem to only use them when they feel ill. It might be interesting to think about how the use of drugs to counteract certain illnesses might prevent the need for evolving a genetic defense against them. However, it is only one population of chimpanzees that have access to it. So while the population may indeed have its own path, it remains to be seen whether this will have long-term big impact on the species as a whole (if that species even survives long enough into the future to observe that.) And this is an issue with substance (ab)use all over. Populations utilize certain chemical substances for a variety of reasons but as \/u\/dogdickafternoon points out it isn't constant, it isn't the exact same all over the world, and not every person within those populations uses them. It is also important to note that the potency of drugs has increased dramatically very recently due to modern chemistry and understanding of plant genetics. In other words, psychoactive drugs on average hit you harder today than they would have in the past. This makes it very complicated to talk about evolution beyond very specific populations. In other words, it may have influenced the success of particular genes in very localized environments but it is difficult to make an argument that it changed us as a species. That being said, it hasn't stopped some people from making arguments. Cannabis, alcohol, shrooms, and opiates are some of the oldest recorded substances used for medicinal, spiritual, and fun purposes. In this article, McKenna argues that shrooms may have been accidentally consumed but that they might explain many of our \"human\" traits like language. Personally, it sounds like a lot of bunk to me. Jared Diamond argued in *The Third Chimpanzee* that drug use was linked to sexual selection due to the handicap hypothesis. In other words, \"look how much I can do and still survive!\" proved fitness in some way. Of course take a trip over to \/r\/anthropology and you'll quickly find that Diamond is not well respected among anthropologists. Plus, this argument completely ignores women who consume psychoactive substances. However, this argument falls in line with biologists who argue the handicap hypothesis for males that have colorful plumage. Lial Koefed argued that alcohol might be part of a cheating strategy of fitness for people with antisocial personality disorders. Apparently alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder often occur hand in hand. And it is true that cheating and deception are recognized by biologists as common mating techniques for non-dominant males. But of course this could all be pleitropy - a byproduct of the selection for another gene that also by chance produces this effect. Another approach can be seen in *Trevathan, Wenda, Euclid O. Smith, and James Joseph McKenna, eds. Evolutionary medicine and health: new perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008*, which also covers some other theories and might be of interest to you. In the section about drugs and alcohol, they point out that even within a population there is a fair amount of variation in how individuals process substances like alcohol. But by separating humans into ethnic populations with a shared genetic ancestry, the population differences might be revealing. The best way they currently have to measure the effects of psychoactive drugs in relation to evolution is fitness. For most of these drugs there are fitness benefits and costs. They look at alcohol in particular for the fitness costs of aggression, disease, suicide, risky behavior, etc. So getting drunk might increase your odds of getting laid but if continued alcohol consumption produces a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome and a mother who is not a good parent then the odds of that child being fit are lowered. People who are alcoholics and other kinds of drug addicts are not evolutionarily fit because their children have less chances of being healthy and reproducing regardless of how much the initial addict reproduces. In this sense, we as a species will likely seek out things that make us feel good or produce effects that benefit us socially, mentally, and spiritually. But it seems likely that if evolution plays a role in this what it would really select for is moderation. When a substance is first introduced into a population there will be no cultural or genetic safeguards for coping with it. But over time those who survive & produce offspring that also reproduces (i.e. who are evolutionarily fit) are going to be the ones who can avoid the extremes of addiction and side effects.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2125.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"fppq0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Best books or articles analyzing the changing perceptions of work (as economic exchange, as career, as craft, etc.) I'm looking for books or articles on the idea of work or labor. Pretty broad topic I know, but an analysis of how the idea of it has changed from ancient to modern times would be amazing. Or if you know any anthropologist\/historian\/philosopher\/sociologist that talks about work in general that would be helpful too. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"flmgioy","c_root_id_B":"flmgvyy","created_at_utc_A":1585283003,"created_at_utc_B":1585283301,"score_A":3,"score_B":18,"human_ref_A":"The book you are looking for is: Appelbaum, Herbert. 1992. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Albany: SUNY Press.","human_ref_B":"I would recommend Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber as a primer on how a large portion of jobs today are bullshit, created simply for the capitalist need to appear productive.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":298.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"fppq0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Best books or articles analyzing the changing perceptions of work (as economic exchange, as career, as craft, etc.) I'm looking for books or articles on the idea of work or labor. Pretty broad topic I know, but an analysis of how the idea of it has changed from ancient to modern times would be amazing. Or if you know any anthropologist\/historian\/philosopher\/sociologist that talks about work in general that would be helpful too. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"flmht8f","c_root_id_B":"flmgioy","created_at_utc_A":1585284048,"created_at_utc_B":1585283003,"score_A":11,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I've been really enjoying Kathi Weeks 'The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries'. Really puts a perspective on the centrality of work in our lives, especially from a woman's perspective (often missing in Marxist analyses of labour).","human_ref_B":"The book you are looking for is: Appelbaum, Herbert. 1992. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Albany: SUNY Press.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1045.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"fppq0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Best books or articles analyzing the changing perceptions of work (as economic exchange, as career, as craft, etc.) I'm looking for books or articles on the idea of work or labor. Pretty broad topic I know, but an analysis of how the idea of it has changed from ancient to modern times would be amazing. Or if you know any anthropologist\/historian\/philosopher\/sociologist that talks about work in general that would be helpful too. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"flmq0mq","c_root_id_B":"flmgioy","created_at_utc_A":1585291963,"created_at_utc_B":1585283003,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019d recommend \u201cCities: The First 6,000 Years\u201d by Monica L Smith (you might like her other works also), and potentially some publications by Akhil Gupta might interest you. Hope this helps!","human_ref_B":"The book you are looking for is: Appelbaum, Herbert. 1992. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Albany: SUNY Press.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8960.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"fppq0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Best books or articles analyzing the changing perceptions of work (as economic exchange, as career, as craft, etc.) I'm looking for books or articles on the idea of work or labor. Pretty broad topic I know, but an analysis of how the idea of it has changed from ancient to modern times would be amazing. Or if you know any anthropologist\/historian\/philosopher\/sociologist that talks about work in general that would be helpful too. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"flmtirw","c_root_id_B":"flmgioy","created_at_utc_A":1585296002,"created_at_utc_B":1585283003,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Sahlin's thoughts on the 'original affluent society' are interesting when thinking about work hours and 'efficiency' over different modes of production. For youth and work, the Birmingham school did some great stuff, not least Paul Willis \"learning to labor: how working class kids get working class jobs\". As a marxist: Capital. Maybe follow David Harvey's lectures chapter by chapter as you read. One of the major categories of work throughout history has been slavery of different kinds, still so today of course. Maybe someone else can help us with a good reference on that subject.","human_ref_B":"The book you are looking for is: Appelbaum, Herbert. 1992. The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Albany: SUNY Press.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12999.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"fppq0s","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Best books or articles analyzing the changing perceptions of work (as economic exchange, as career, as craft, etc.) I'm looking for books or articles on the idea of work or labor. Pretty broad topic I know, but an analysis of how the idea of it has changed from ancient to modern times would be amazing. Or if you know any anthropologist\/historian\/philosopher\/sociologist that talks about work in general that would be helpful too. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"flmqbp6","c_root_id_B":"flmtirw","created_at_utc_A":1585292301,"created_at_utc_B":1585296002,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Kapital by Karl Marx","human_ref_B":"Sahlin's thoughts on the 'original affluent society' are interesting when thinking about work hours and 'efficiency' over different modes of production. For youth and work, the Birmingham school did some great stuff, not least Paul Willis \"learning to labor: how working class kids get working class jobs\". As a marxist: Capital. Maybe follow David Harvey's lectures chapter by chapter as you read. One of the major categories of work throughout history has been slavery of different kinds, still so today of course. Maybe someone else can help us with a good reference on that subject.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3701.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"gyoy62","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology career for adult students - how to navigate? Hi! I wanted to know if any of you went back to school to pursue a degree in anthropology as an adult & how you managed it? If you have any tips for starting the process as an adult student? I'm having difficulty navigating resources or even just guides for non traditional adult students, in general, who don't already have a graduate degree. Also, I'm not certain how to search for programs that offer classes where I could focus on some of my interests. (Sumer, Mesopotamia & Egyptian relations, Scythians & other steppe tribes, Aboriginal culture, Minoa & Mycenae, The Celts, ancient Polynesia, precolonial Caribbean.) I only earned a few prerequisite college credits before I left because I didn't have a set idea on what type of degree I wanted when it came time to declare a major.","c_root_id_A":"ftddhif","c_root_id_B":"ftcunll","created_at_utc_A":1591625919,"created_at_utc_B":1591611852,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I\u2019m an older undergraduate student currently studying anthropology with a focus in archaeology (I changed my career path serveral times before i finally figured out i want to study anthro). An academic advisor should be able to help explain the process to you and direct you to available resources. Looking at various Uni programs is tedious but it isn\u2019t hard, just find a one with an anthro dept that appeals to your interests. Look at Professor\u2019s research. See if the college has any cool study abroad opportunities. Stuff like that. Aside from that, the best resources for anthropological\/archaeological work is through colleges, state\/national parks, and museums. I\u2019ve noticed that the most archaeological work for undergraduates is volunteer work and research, a serious career in archaeology usually requires a graduate degree. If you aren\u2019t looking to make money and you just want some extra experience under your belt, i\u2019d suggest doing IFR\/other field schools or see if there are any local projects that you could help with. (I spent a few months cataloguing artifacts for a project through my college, and although it was monotonous at times, i learned so much and the experience on my resume has already opened doors for me.) Your local state park website may have some jobs available too. Here are some non-university related resources to check out: IFR Shovel Bums One more thing\u2014and i cannot stress this enough\u2014FINANCIAL AID AND SCHOLARSHIPS WILL SET YOU FREE! Best of luck!!!","human_ref_B":"I did\/still do, but I'm not sure what you mean by \"how you managed it\". However, I am enrolled in Germany, and the system here is possibly vastly different from the US system. There is an online platform (this is the same for all programs, not just mine) by the university where you can search for courses according to your interests and look up which modules you can complete with which courses. You do not need a student account to look at the courses and that allows an overview of the direction the program is going, even before enrolling. Usually, universities also offer a rough description of the direction of a program on their websites.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14067.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gyoy62","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anthropology career for adult students - how to navigate? Hi! I wanted to know if any of you went back to school to pursue a degree in anthropology as an adult & how you managed it? If you have any tips for starting the process as an adult student? I'm having difficulty navigating resources or even just guides for non traditional adult students, in general, who don't already have a graduate degree. Also, I'm not certain how to search for programs that offer classes where I could focus on some of my interests. (Sumer, Mesopotamia & Egyptian relations, Scythians & other steppe tribes, Aboriginal culture, Minoa & Mycenae, The Celts, ancient Polynesia, precolonial Caribbean.) I only earned a few prerequisite college credits before I left because I didn't have a set idea on what type of degree I wanted when it came time to declare a major.","c_root_id_A":"ftdja2d","c_root_id_B":"ftcunll","created_at_utc_A":1591629042,"created_at_utc_B":1591611852,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"I went back to school much later on to go into Anthropology. My best advice is to get all of your introductory classes out of the way via a junior college, and while you have access to research journals through them do some searches for research articles in the area of your expertise (try to look for more recent ones) and look at the names of those who are publishing and what institutions they are associated with. That can narrow down what universities you might be interested in going to. Then you can further look at the classes offered by that university to see if they specialize some of their classes in what you want to take. Make sure to keep an eye open at the art, history and religious studies programs because sometimes they have classes that overlap in what you want to do. When you are at a four year institution, talk to your Professors and ask if you can volunteer on any of their projects for credit. At my university we have a class dedicated to units of hours worked on such projects. Not only do you get experience and training and can put it on your resume, you get actual credit. There usually are journals that specialize in your topic of choice and you can become a member of their society and have access to the latest publications. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with your area of study and if you want to make a career out of it, do as much reading as you can. One of the best things to do once you are back to school is create a group of people who are passionate about the subject who are willing to study together and help each other. Having others who are excited and passionate about a subject as you are to bounce ideas off of and grind out classes together is one of the things I loved most about my undergrad. Many of the people I have formed bonds with as an undergrad are ones I still have while applying and (hopefully soon) going to graduate school; even though some are way younger than me we are after the same goal and age hasn\u2019t really prevented me from connecting with my peers. Also talk to the graduate students, they are usually filled with tons of advice and can even help you with really useful resources.","human_ref_B":"I did\/still do, but I'm not sure what you mean by \"how you managed it\". However, I am enrolled in Germany, and the system here is possibly vastly different from the US system. There is an online platform (this is the same for all programs, not just mine) by the university where you can search for courses according to your interests and look up which modules you can complete with which courses. You do not need a student account to look at the courses and that allows an overview of the direction the program is going, even before enrolling. Usually, universities also offer a rough description of the direction of a program on their websites.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17190.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"akytjk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Could a large united society have formed under atheist beliefs? I have been pondering this question for a while. As an atheist, I have been doing research to discover information about ancient examples of atheism, and found a great deal. Most of it was rooted in classical buddhist and hindu societies (with many greek philosophers having an atheist belief), but there was a brief mention of isolated African tribes that had no discernible rituals, totems or supernatural beliefs. But none of these societies ever formed into an organized body, such as that of the caliphates or papacy. I was wondering if there was any particular feature of organized religion that directly leads to states, and if not, could an atheist united state have formed given the correct circumstances? One of the features of religion I have seen that support the idea of a unified state, is that in Europe and the west religion was used as the basis for right to rule. Kings would declare their right to the throne often for religious reasons, though this is less present in the Asian atheist societies. Also for clarification, what I mean by atheist beliefs is more in line with not only the disbelief in gods, but also the disbelief in the supernatural and the concept of the spirit. If any of this is wrong, please correct me :D","c_root_id_A":"ef94yod","c_root_id_B":"ef9y1cx","created_at_utc_A":1548762241,"created_at_utc_B":1548781936,"score_A":6,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":">but also the disbelief in the supernatural and the concept of the spirit. The closest you'd have to that are probably the Mayans, they were hardcore materialists metaphysically. But they also had their rituals and their beliefs. The problem is what you mean by supernatural. If it's \"beyond this world\", then the mayans had no supernatural beliefs because they believed everything that existed existed within this world as a thing, not as spirits or anything. ​ We, nowadays, probably believe in a lot of things that in a few hundred years will sound strange or incredible, but we are also probably completely blind to certain things people in a few hundred years will take as obvious and \"it was already there, how didn't they see it?\". You don't need religious beliefs to create a culture, but you need some certain set of beliefs to function. So, if your question is: could societies have come into fruition without beliefs of supernatural beings? then yes, of course. But they would need an alternative source of morality for social order, and you can't learn anything about morality from looking into the physical world.","human_ref_B":"I think the statement \"under\" atheist belief doesn't really make sense. \"with\" atheist belief makes a lot more sense, as of course there have been many cultures without beliefs in the supernatural. The other challenge is that, as another commenter pointed out, disbelief in the supernatural is not the same as atheism - many cultures have no beliefs in the supernatural, as they just believe that everything is \"natural\" and this is an approach someone can take to even Christianity - i.e. angels\/God all exist, but they exist within the realm of nature perhaps with some abilities that we don't yet understand. Looking at your question in another way, I don't see the connection between organized religion and strong societies to be that clear. There have been a lot of very multi-ethnic multi-faith empires where the dominant structure had everything to do with money and power, or defense, and very little to do with religion. The Assyrians glued their empire together not with worship of the king, but with terror, which is hardly a religious belief, and might even be more successful in an atheistic context.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":19695.0,"score_ratio":2.1666666667} {"post_id":"akytjk","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Could a large united society have formed under atheist beliefs? I have been pondering this question for a while. As an atheist, I have been doing research to discover information about ancient examples of atheism, and found a great deal. Most of it was rooted in classical buddhist and hindu societies (with many greek philosophers having an atheist belief), but there was a brief mention of isolated African tribes that had no discernible rituals, totems or supernatural beliefs. But none of these societies ever formed into an organized body, such as that of the caliphates or papacy. I was wondering if there was any particular feature of organized religion that directly leads to states, and if not, could an atheist united state have formed given the correct circumstances? One of the features of religion I have seen that support the idea of a unified state, is that in Europe and the west religion was used as the basis for right to rule. Kings would declare their right to the throne often for religious reasons, though this is less present in the Asian atheist societies. Also for clarification, what I mean by atheist beliefs is more in line with not only the disbelief in gods, but also the disbelief in the supernatural and the concept of the spirit. If any of this is wrong, please correct me :D","c_root_id_A":"ef97dsr","c_root_id_B":"ef9y1cx","created_at_utc_A":1548764875,"created_at_utc_B":1548781936,"score_A":2,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Pretty sure that communist China, the largest state ever by population, was founded as an atheist state and is largely atheist to this day. In fact, during the Cultural Revolution, it was actively anti-theist and religious people were persecuted.","human_ref_B":"I think the statement \"under\" atheist belief doesn't really make sense. \"with\" atheist belief makes a lot more sense, as of course there have been many cultures without beliefs in the supernatural. The other challenge is that, as another commenter pointed out, disbelief in the supernatural is not the same as atheism - many cultures have no beliefs in the supernatural, as they just believe that everything is \"natural\" and this is an approach someone can take to even Christianity - i.e. angels\/God all exist, but they exist within the realm of nature perhaps with some abilities that we don't yet understand. Looking at your question in another way, I don't see the connection between organized religion and strong societies to be that clear. There have been a lot of very multi-ethnic multi-faith empires where the dominant structure had everything to do with money and power, or defense, and very little to do with religion. The Assyrians glued their empire together not with worship of the king, but with terror, which is hardly a religious belief, and might even be more successful in an atheistic context.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17061.0,"score_ratio":6.5} {"post_id":"1khmdy","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Was there any culture or point in time where people preferred having female children?","c_root_id_A":"cbp4nk3","c_root_id_B":"cbp5nry","created_at_utc_A":1376675572,"created_at_utc_B":1376678076,"score_A":21,"score_B":89,"human_ref_A":"Current USA","human_ref_B":"There have been a number of studies in the Caribbean surrounding matrifocality (a society where mother and children are the primarily familial unit) and how this may impact daughter preference. In many areas of the Caribbean men have less economic opportunities than women. This means that men are often itinerant traveling around the region doing odd jobs, working on sugar cane plantations (which are usually horrible almost slave like working conditions), and spending lots of time unemployed and drunk. Women, on the other hand, have more money making opportunities through selling at markets, cooking, cleaning, and other jobs that may require they go into the city for a day or two but do not require that they leave their family for long periods. Culturally, there are also attitudes that permit men to have multiple women who they (in the ideal) support financially. However, because men rarely have steady work most women know they will need to rely only upon themselves for economic stability. Men come and go but women and children stay put. And children are the most important thing in life for most Caribbean women - they are the reason you live. Eventually sons grow up and follow a similar path, but daughters are more likely to stay behind and help. Daughters have higher earning power locally so they are more likely to provide economic support to an aging parent. This plays out strongly where I do fieldwork in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora (Haitians living in the US.) You can look at this study results here to see gender preference for children in 50 \"less developed\" countries. In Haiti 7.4% said they wanted a son while 23.2% said they wanted a daughter. (Most wanted a mix of sons and daughters). There is similar daughter preference bias for other Caribbean societies mentioned in the study. I can also give you a couple of examples from my fieldwork. First, I recall a maid working in a hotel in Petionville (this is a nice neighborhood of Port-au-Prince where she worked but did not live.) I asked her about who she voted for in the most recent presidential election and she proudly mentioned one of the female candidates. I asked why this candidate and she said (rough translation), \"Because women know what it is to work! Men! Men do not work! They do not raise children! They do not know anything about the world! But women do all the work and raise the children. Women know how to make things happen.\" My second example comes from a Vodou priestess living in the US but who was born and raised in Haiti. She was divorced and had already had children. But one night Ezili Dantor (a Vodou spirit who is a fiercely protective mother being) came to her in a dream. Dantor told her that she wanted her to have a kid. The priestess resisted saying that she had no husband and was not serious about the guy she was dating. Dantor told her that the man did not matter. She would give the priestess a daughter and make sure she was able to provide for her. In turn the daughter would care for the priestess and provide for her when she got older. She did end up having a daughter whom everyone describes as being just like Dantor. Below are some articles you can read about matrifocality and daughter preference in the Caribbean. It is important to note that many men still want sons and certainly sons are loved and adored. Men also still hold most social and political power in the Caribbean. But there has been a shift towards daughter preference from mothers. * Quinlan, Robert J. \"Gender and risk in a matrifocal Caribbean community: A view from behavioral ecology.\" American Anthropologist 108, no. 3 \\(2006\\): 464-479. - about the Dominican Republic * Sargent, Carolyn, and Michael Harris. \"Bad boys and good girls: the implications of gender ideology for child health in Jamaica.\" Small Wars. The Cultural Politics of Childhood (1998). * Sargent, Carolyn, and Michael Harris. \"Gender ideology, childrearing, and child health in Jamaica.\" American Ethnologist 19, no. 3 (1992): 523-537. (Both pieces by these authors suggest mothers have a marked preference for daughters that can negatively impact sons' health.) Edit: Please note that I chose \"many areas\" carefully rather than saying \"all of\" because the Caribbean is a huge area with many, many subcultures within it. I was never trying to make a blanket statement for all of the Caribbean. Matrifocality is well documented in *many areas* of the Caribbean and in some particular cases this leads to daughter preference. Daughter preference is *not* infanticide - it is merely what sex of the child parents say they want to have. It also does *not* mean women have more power in society. Economic opportunities are also not necessarily the same as 9-5 jobs. Most paid middle class and up positions are male dominated. Economic opportunities includes the informal economy meaning selling in the streets, in the market, and doing jobs under the table. Many women who participate in the informal economy probably show up as unemployed on a census, but they are still doing work to feed their families. When I say men travel for work this does also not mean they travel to other countries - traveling to another city is enough to disrupt family life. However, regardless of the legality of it many people *do* travel abroad. Again I am not talking about formal job positions but migrant workers, farmhands, tourism industry, etc. where their presence is poorly documented by the government. This has become a problem for many local governments. For example, the Turks and Caicos recently contacted the Haitian government about the influx of illegal Haitians and Brazil declared an emergency regarding illegal Haitian immigrants. Because this is poorly documented by governments, human rights organizations have paid attention to the intra-Caribbean movement and report that most come from Haiti, the DR, Guyana, and Jamaica and most go to the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, and TCI. For an interesting read about matrifocality, gender, and economy I suggest: Lindsay, Keisha. \"Caribbean Male: An Endangered Species?.\" Gendered realities: Essays in Caribbean feminist thought (2002): 56-82. If anyone wants references for particular points I'm also happy to provide those.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2504.0,"score_ratio":4.2380952381} {"post_id":"4r3teo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"What is anthropologies problem with mimicry? I have seen anti imperialists (arguably Marxists) argue that mimicry is a way to force the other to embrace the colonizer as a means of soft power. I have seen visual anthropologists get mad that recreating a style of film or photograph means asserting a western gaze. And the functional or diffusionism would suggest this was a matter of environment meets ingenuity. So what is the hang up in our post modern? Why is it a sin to create material objects that seem to replicate a method that works? (Sorry this is a bit of a rant but I do not see why we are so concerned about 'mimicry' when it seems from a defusionist, Marxist, functionalist view as a near inherent part of humanity. Maybe not the best part of humanity but please help me come to terms with this).","c_root_id_A":"d4yjsx2","c_root_id_B":"d4yft54","created_at_utc_A":1467615357,"created_at_utc_B":1467605395,"score_A":9,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology as a science does not have a problem with anything. It's merely a way of study, and an area of focus. It may be that some anthropologists use anthropological data to independently conclude one thing or another. But evaluation of evidence is always subjective to a point. Anthropology, as a discipline, is objective (or at least, as objective as any science can get when humans are involved.)","human_ref_B":"For my money, it's not mimicry itself that's problematic. Rather, it's a matter of intent.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":9962.0,"score_ratio":4.5} {"post_id":"4r3teo","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.72,"history":"What is anthropologies problem with mimicry? I have seen anti imperialists (arguably Marxists) argue that mimicry is a way to force the other to embrace the colonizer as a means of soft power. I have seen visual anthropologists get mad that recreating a style of film or photograph means asserting a western gaze. And the functional or diffusionism would suggest this was a matter of environment meets ingenuity. So what is the hang up in our post modern? Why is it a sin to create material objects that seem to replicate a method that works? (Sorry this is a bit of a rant but I do not see why we are so concerned about 'mimicry' when it seems from a defusionist, Marxist, functionalist view as a near inherent part of humanity. Maybe not the best part of humanity but please help me come to terms with this).","c_root_id_A":"d4yft54","c_root_id_B":"d4yz4uo","created_at_utc_A":1467605395,"created_at_utc_B":1467652558,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For my money, it's not mimicry itself that's problematic. Rather, it's a matter of intent.","human_ref_B":"Can you give an example? Mimesis and imitation is considered an important aspect of cultural transmission, so I don't really know what you're referring to.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":47163.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"a37jri","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why is it that when exposed to new foods, different cultures take on different foods? I admit the title is a bit rough; I couldn't think of a way to phrase it. What comes to mind is particularly the humongous influx of new foods when Europeans started travelling the world, particularly taking food from the Americas everywhere. Some examples of what I mean are: ​ Chilli: Korea took on chilli with a love the Japanese never really did Tomato: the Mediterranean loves tomatoes while northern Europe uses them a fair bit less Citrus: While the Middle East seems to like sour food (yoghurt, pomegranate), it never seemed to love lemons as much as the Greeks Corn: Northern Italy uses corn for polenta, while Southern Italy doesn't seem to use it at all Noodles (not the Americas but still an example): Central Asia and Europe have grown to love noodles\/pasta yet the Middle East has only a passing fancy for it in niche circumstances Spices: Europe had all of India's spices at its disposal, but the only spices you'll ever really see in European cooking are black and white pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. If other spices are used it's more exotic e.g. cumin, turmeric. The exception for this is Spain\/Portugal\/Hungary which have a crazy appetite for pimenton\/paprika. Hungary's appetite for paprika is also a strange phenomenon given the cuisines of everyone else around it. ​ Any ideas on how it is that different cultures picked up different cuisines differently other than exposure? Naturally Portugal and Spain would have had more chilli in their food given they were the ones selling it everywhere.","c_root_id_A":"eb4al9r","c_root_id_B":"eb45x3f","created_at_utc_A":1543984631,"created_at_utc_B":1543980344,"score_A":33,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"I think you\u2019ve over simplified all of the cuisines into regions. Many cultures even within the same country have different cuisine styles and preferred flavors. Food is particularly difficult to discern by cultures based on the fact some edible product simply do not grow in some regions, this goes for edible vegetation as well as livestock. Also food has a lot to do with enculturation, such as foods that are religiously permitted, or that have historically been food of enemies, association with poverty or wealth and plenty of other factors.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not an expert, but for tomatoes at least, I\u2019d venture to guess that the climate of Southern Europe is more conducive to growing tomatoes than that of Northern Europe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4287.0,"score_ratio":1.65} {"post_id":"a37jri","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"Why is it that when exposed to new foods, different cultures take on different foods? I admit the title is a bit rough; I couldn't think of a way to phrase it. What comes to mind is particularly the humongous influx of new foods when Europeans started travelling the world, particularly taking food from the Americas everywhere. Some examples of what I mean are: ​ Chilli: Korea took on chilli with a love the Japanese never really did Tomato: the Mediterranean loves tomatoes while northern Europe uses them a fair bit less Citrus: While the Middle East seems to like sour food (yoghurt, pomegranate), it never seemed to love lemons as much as the Greeks Corn: Northern Italy uses corn for polenta, while Southern Italy doesn't seem to use it at all Noodles (not the Americas but still an example): Central Asia and Europe have grown to love noodles\/pasta yet the Middle East has only a passing fancy for it in niche circumstances Spices: Europe had all of India's spices at its disposal, but the only spices you'll ever really see in European cooking are black and white pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. If other spices are used it's more exotic e.g. cumin, turmeric. The exception for this is Spain\/Portugal\/Hungary which have a crazy appetite for pimenton\/paprika. Hungary's appetite for paprika is also a strange phenomenon given the cuisines of everyone else around it. ​ Any ideas on how it is that different cultures picked up different cuisines differently other than exposure? Naturally Portugal and Spain would have had more chilli in their food given they were the ones selling it everywhere.","c_root_id_A":"eb4b0mi","c_root_id_B":"eb45x3f","created_at_utc_A":1543985031,"created_at_utc_B":1543980344,"score_A":24,"score_B":20,"human_ref_A":"Paprika is a pepper, which comes from the Americas, not India. Also, youre leaving out the entire mediterranian spice palate, garlic, rosemary, basil, oregano, and thyme. I think a lot of the breakdown comes from what grew well where. Most of Europe is too far north to get a good crop of chilies in. Tomatoes need a relatively long growing season as well.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m not an expert, but for tomatoes at least, I\u2019d venture to guess that the climate of Southern Europe is more conducive to growing tomatoes than that of Northern Europe.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4687.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"1kqd6t","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"What are the mating rituals and tendencies of your culture of interest? Including child-rearing, mating for life or temporarily, and how societal factors affect coupling. Thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"cbrwf69","c_root_id_B":"cbrk60k","created_at_utc_A":1377040064,"created_at_utc_B":1377009022,"score_A":47,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"In Louisiana, where I grew up, there are some traditions that I've always found interesting. I was born and raised there but none of my family was from there so I was always a bit of an insider-outsider. I'll do my best to split the traditions up by the different subcultures that exist in Louisiana. If you aren't aware, it is a very multicultural place with some groups maintaining a separate identity since the French colonial period. **Cajuns (Acadians)** Cajuns were the peasant French who first moved to Acadia (modern day Nova Scotia) before being forcibly exiled by the English and settling in large numbers in the rural swamps of Louisiana between 1765 and 1785. Ostracized by the elite French who owned the plantations and ran New Orleans, and despite the Carpetbag Constitution of 1868 had banned French as an official language, Cajuns maintained a rich culture of art, folklore, music, language and dance that was transmitted orally through Cajun French from generation to generation. Endogamy is still common with people preferring to marry another Cajun rather than an American. Living out in the bayous meant that many areas were not accessible by roads until the 1960s. People used pirogues (Native American style wooden boats) to get around, which meant big church weddings were hard. People often jumped the broom (something many rural black families also did) until the rural priest got around to their area. Oral traditions also suggest that in the 1800s Cajun families would indicate their daughter was of marriagable age by hanging a white sheet from their house and marriages were negotiated with exchanges of goods. Today, of course, people have big Catholic church weddings with long services, lots of family and friends, and lots of dancing and drinking. Commonly the new couple will have what is called a Money Dance at the reception. This has become so popular that most people in South Louisiana have incorporated it into their traditions Cajun or not. Basically, the new couple are the only ones dancing on the floor and family and friends safteypin cash onto their clothing. I've had friends make enough from this to pay for their honeymoon. Many towns and villages also have their own traditions. For example, in Mamou, if a younger sibling marries first the older one(s) have to dance in a bucket of water with a mop. You can read more about Cajun wedding traditions here **Old Families in New Orleans** Old New Orleans families trace their heritage back to the French colonial period. Most no longer speak French, but they are very proud of their ancestry and traditions. New Orleans is also incredibly multicultural (see a great essay about that here) so I'll stick to this group though it is important to note that descendants of the Free People of Color were not only once a separate race but many Creoles were deeply linked to these old families through formalized mistress systems and so share some of these traditions. When girls reach about the age of 16 their families typically hold a debutante ball. This indicates to the community that they have come of age and are ready to be married (though obviously today families don't allow their daughters to marry quite so young.) It is also her formal introduction as a member of the aristocratic society. You can see pictures of recent debutantes here and note how they are dressed like brides and\/or princesses (some debutante societies do provide royal titles.) Young men also have organizations such as the Bachelors Club, which hosts many activities for the debutantes. These activities allow young men and women the opportunity to get to know members of the opposite sex their families might approve of for marriage partners. Most families still send their children to private single sex schools. (It also allows them to build their resumes for potentially being royalty in an old Mardi Gras krewe.) **General New Orleans Traditions** These are shared by many groups within New Orleans and often incorporated by new comers as well. Weddings usually happen at one of the older Catholic churches such as St. Louis Cathedral or a historic home or plantation. But younger generations are playing with that like everywhere else in the US. At the reception, a unique New Orleans tradition is the ribbon pull. Women in the wedding party each grab a ribbon that is connected to a charm buried within the cake. The charm at the end is supposed to reveal something about their future. (You can see some examples for sale online). What is interesting is that this tradition probably derives from Irish immigrants who changed the face of New Orleans in a variety of ways. Of course we also hide prizes in King Cakes, which are traditional sweet cakes served during Carnival season. Second Line Parades are another tradition worth mentioning. It has Afro-Creole heritage (I've seen them in Haiti too, which makes sense considering Haiti and New Orleans have a long history) and refers to a brass band followed by formal members of the procession who are often wearing costumes and dancing with parasols and waving napkins. But the public often joins in to dance for a while too. Second lines happen at a variety of special occasions (jazz funerals, coming out the door for social & pleasure club parades, Mardi Gras, and weddings.) In the case of weddings you often second line from the wedding local to the reception. You can read more about their history here from Helen Regis, one of my MA committee members. Music frames everything in New Orleans. **Mating Patterns** In general, Louisiana is heavily Catholic in culture though now there are many faith paths. People intend to mate for life and tend to marry within their cultural group if they are particularly proud of said cultural group (Cajun or high class New Orleans are good examples.) In the past, I mentioned that there was a formal mistress arrangement. This was called the Pla\u00e7age System. Basically if a white French man was well off enough he would often keep a Creole woman (free woman of color) as a mistress in New Orleans but it was also technically illegal to marry a woman of color so monogamous interracial relationships fell under this category too. The Haitian revolution had doubled New Orleans with people fleeing the violence but the population was imbalanced with more free women of color than men. The relationships usually lasted a number of years and produced children - the pla\u00e7age system was a serious one so that even while it was on the side or not a formal marriage it was not a casual encounter. Today, interracial couplings in New Orleans are complex and not a simple issue to explain. Class and ethnic heritage have as much to do with it as concepts of race.","human_ref_B":"Iranians look for marriage. Pre-marital relationships are limited to the purpose of finding a spouse. Parents can be controlling, intrusive, interfering in their children's lives. Children are taken care of as long as they live at home where they usually live until they get married (unless they have gone away for college etc.) Family members don't hold back criticism or advice from each other. They are pretty honest and open.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":31042.0,"score_ratio":5.2222222222} {"post_id":"k73hbq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for Sources Related to Expectations Placed on Students Hello, I'm writing a paper on the relationship between ADHD, \"gifted students\" and the diagnosis of psychopathology. Specifically, I want to explore how the fulfillment of expectations within school by gifted students may reduce the detection of or importance placed on psychological disorders gifted students may have. I conducted an interview of a female individual with high academic performance who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and one of the explanations for the late diagnosis the interviewee gave was that because she was high-performing and didn't cause trouble, teachers weren't concerned with her and didn't give much attention to signs that there were underlying problems she was facing due to ADHD. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look or good sources for starting points? I hope this request isn't too broad.","c_root_id_A":"geqexyj","c_root_id_B":"geqg7xr","created_at_utc_A":1607200874,"created_at_utc_B":1607201455,"score_A":3,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"The r\/adhd subreddit may be able to help you with suggestions for resources as well. Or if you ever do need to conduct your own surveys\/research or collect more personal stories- women being diagnosed as adults after being a \u201cgifted\u201d student is fairly common issue that\u2019s discussed pretty frequently over there. There are way too many of us.","human_ref_B":"I'd start with Russell Barkley. He's one of the leading ADHD experts, having been an active researcher since the 70s and published a ton of studies, worked on DSM committees for ADHD, and has been successfully pushing for more recognition of adult ADHD. His books on adult ADHD might be a good place to start. In particular, he's written books on managing ADHD, which should by their nature discuss the expectations put on us. They should also have references to studies and papers you can dig into. Also check out Thomas Brown and J. Russell Ramsay.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":581.0,"score_ratio":3.6666666667} {"post_id":"k73hbq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for Sources Related to Expectations Placed on Students Hello, I'm writing a paper on the relationship between ADHD, \"gifted students\" and the diagnosis of psychopathology. Specifically, I want to explore how the fulfillment of expectations within school by gifted students may reduce the detection of or importance placed on psychological disorders gifted students may have. I conducted an interview of a female individual with high academic performance who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and one of the explanations for the late diagnosis the interviewee gave was that because she was high-performing and didn't cause trouble, teachers weren't concerned with her and didn't give much attention to signs that there were underlying problems she was facing due to ADHD. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look or good sources for starting points? I hope this request isn't too broad.","c_root_id_A":"ger5xvc","c_root_id_B":"geqgtpi","created_at_utc_A":1607213240,"created_at_utc_B":1607201738,"score_A":8,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"ADHD is one of the big contemporary case studies in the literature on \"medicalization\", which as one sociologist puts it is the reclassification of social problems into treatable disorders. In fact, that's the subtitle of the book I'm going to recommend to you: Peter Conrad's *The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders* (an earlier book of his had an even pithier subtitle\u2014Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness). ADHD as a case study of medicalization of particular interest to Conrad, who's been studying AD(H)D since it was still being referred to as \"hyperkinesis\". In *the Medicalization of Society*, you want chapter 3, which focuses on ADHD and how it's now been extended into adult ADHD, but you might want to also read the introduction and perhaps skim the last three chapters. Your school's library should have it, but if you are struggling to find it, I may be able to help. There's also an edited volume *Global Perspectives on ADHD* that looks at how ADHD is diagnosed and treated in 16 different countries (the second chapter is about the US). There's also a lot in the educational literature about structure and agency. I'm *sure* there are more recent books than this, but my entry point into the literature was Diego Gambetta's *Were They Pushed or Did They Jump? Individual Decision Mechanisms in Education*. There's a rich literature on gifted students in particular. Probably the best place to start would be the *Annual Review of Psychology*'s 2019 article \"Gifted Students\".","human_ref_B":"I hope I didn't go overboard here but I get really excited researching things I can relate to personally. Did a quick search and found these things. Maybe they'll be useful to you. I've never thought to look into medical anthropology surrounding adhd diagnosis and treatment but I love that you're looking into it. You may have to sift through a lot of information because there doesn't appear to be tons of content on your subject specifically, however using anthropological sources on psychology and combining that with psychology sources, may give you the resources you want. I wrote a mock-research proposal on bilingualism and adhd when I was an undergrad and ended up using a combination of psychology sources and psycholinguistic sources that focused on executive functions (even if those specific studies focused more on executive functions in degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's and not adhd). Sometimes you have to use broader searches for sources for more niche topics. I dont know your experience level so forgive me if this is patronizing, but if you're not familiar already with using jstor, play around with advanced searches on jstor. Jstor paired with occasional Google scholar searches was how I found 99% of my sources for undergrad research. If you're a university student you likely have access to everything on jstor using your university credentials. Here's some articles for you to skim that seemed to maybe have potential: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3655375 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3196091 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/684203 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3655390 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/25166659 These are what drew my attention when searching for anthropological articles related to your topic. I dont know if any of these articles will be of use to you but maybe skimming the abstracts will at least give you ideas of things to search for. Good luck with your research! Finding useful sources was sometimes the hardest part with niche topics for me. When there's not tons of research on a very specific topic you sometimes have to expand your search. If you expand your research to looking at psychiatric diagnoses of other disorders of \"gifted\" students in general, perhaps you'll find something useful. You may find psychology sources useful as well. This particular article is rather old but Russel Barkley is fairly influential when it comes to scholarly adhd material, and he's frequently referenced, so this article is worth skimming: https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-2909.121.1.65 Good luck with your research and I hope I was potentially a little helpful.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11502.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"k73hbq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for Sources Related to Expectations Placed on Students Hello, I'm writing a paper on the relationship between ADHD, \"gifted students\" and the diagnosis of psychopathology. Specifically, I want to explore how the fulfillment of expectations within school by gifted students may reduce the detection of or importance placed on psychological disorders gifted students may have. I conducted an interview of a female individual with high academic performance who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and one of the explanations for the late diagnosis the interviewee gave was that because she was high-performing and didn't cause trouble, teachers weren't concerned with her and didn't give much attention to signs that there were underlying problems she was facing due to ADHD. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look or good sources for starting points? I hope this request isn't too broad.","c_root_id_A":"geqexyj","c_root_id_B":"ger5xvc","created_at_utc_A":1607200874,"created_at_utc_B":1607213240,"score_A":3,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"The r\/adhd subreddit may be able to help you with suggestions for resources as well. Or if you ever do need to conduct your own surveys\/research or collect more personal stories- women being diagnosed as adults after being a \u201cgifted\u201d student is fairly common issue that\u2019s discussed pretty frequently over there. There are way too many of us.","human_ref_B":"ADHD is one of the big contemporary case studies in the literature on \"medicalization\", which as one sociologist puts it is the reclassification of social problems into treatable disorders. In fact, that's the subtitle of the book I'm going to recommend to you: Peter Conrad's *The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders* (an earlier book of his had an even pithier subtitle\u2014Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness). ADHD as a case study of medicalization of particular interest to Conrad, who's been studying AD(H)D since it was still being referred to as \"hyperkinesis\". In *the Medicalization of Society*, you want chapter 3, which focuses on ADHD and how it's now been extended into adult ADHD, but you might want to also read the introduction and perhaps skim the last three chapters. Your school's library should have it, but if you are struggling to find it, I may be able to help. There's also an edited volume *Global Perspectives on ADHD* that looks at how ADHD is diagnosed and treated in 16 different countries (the second chapter is about the US). There's also a lot in the educational literature about structure and agency. I'm *sure* there are more recent books than this, but my entry point into the literature was Diego Gambetta's *Were They Pushed or Did They Jump? Individual Decision Mechanisms in Education*. There's a rich literature on gifted students in particular. Probably the best place to start would be the *Annual Review of Psychology*'s 2019 article \"Gifted Students\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":12366.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"k73hbq","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Looking for Sources Related to Expectations Placed on Students Hello, I'm writing a paper on the relationship between ADHD, \"gifted students\" and the diagnosis of psychopathology. Specifically, I want to explore how the fulfillment of expectations within school by gifted students may reduce the detection of or importance placed on psychological disorders gifted students may have. I conducted an interview of a female individual with high academic performance who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and one of the explanations for the late diagnosis the interviewee gave was that because she was high-performing and didn't cause trouble, teachers weren't concerned with her and didn't give much attention to signs that there were underlying problems she was facing due to ADHD. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look or good sources for starting points? I hope this request isn't too broad.","c_root_id_A":"geqgtpi","c_root_id_B":"geqexyj","created_at_utc_A":1607201738,"created_at_utc_B":1607200874,"score_A":6,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I hope I didn't go overboard here but I get really excited researching things I can relate to personally. Did a quick search and found these things. Maybe they'll be useful to you. I've never thought to look into medical anthropology surrounding adhd diagnosis and treatment but I love that you're looking into it. You may have to sift through a lot of information because there doesn't appear to be tons of content on your subject specifically, however using anthropological sources on psychology and combining that with psychology sources, may give you the resources you want. I wrote a mock-research proposal on bilingualism and adhd when I was an undergrad and ended up using a combination of psychology sources and psycholinguistic sources that focused on executive functions (even if those specific studies focused more on executive functions in degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's and not adhd). Sometimes you have to use broader searches for sources for more niche topics. I dont know your experience level so forgive me if this is patronizing, but if you're not familiar already with using jstor, play around with advanced searches on jstor. Jstor paired with occasional Google scholar searches was how I found 99% of my sources for undergrad research. If you're a university student you likely have access to everything on jstor using your university credentials. Here's some articles for you to skim that seemed to maybe have potential: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3655375 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3196091 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/684203 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3655390 https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/25166659 These are what drew my attention when searching for anthropological articles related to your topic. I dont know if any of these articles will be of use to you but maybe skimming the abstracts will at least give you ideas of things to search for. Good luck with your research! Finding useful sources was sometimes the hardest part with niche topics for me. When there's not tons of research on a very specific topic you sometimes have to expand your search. If you expand your research to looking at psychiatric diagnoses of other disorders of \"gifted\" students in general, perhaps you'll find something useful. You may find psychology sources useful as well. This particular article is rather old but Russel Barkley is fairly influential when it comes to scholarly adhd material, and he's frequently referenced, so this article is worth skimming: https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-2909.121.1.65 Good luck with your research and I hope I was potentially a little helpful.","human_ref_B":"The r\/adhd subreddit may be able to help you with suggestions for resources as well. Or if you ever do need to conduct your own surveys\/research or collect more personal stories- women being diagnosed as adults after being a \u201cgifted\u201d student is fairly common issue that\u2019s discussed pretty frequently over there. There are way too many of us.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":864.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"4alhgt","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"Any resume buzz words for BA in Cultural Anthopology with no internships seeking general employment? Several years ago I was able to graduate with a BA in cultural anthropology with very good grades, but never took an internship or gained the skills for employment outside the ivory tower. Or maybe I did and my brain is just foggy. As I look back, It looks like a general liberal arts degree that says I'm good at book reports. Just bums me out because I've been in retail for several years and Im looking for a career change. Critical thinking is a good buzz word, but I don't think any productive citizen lacks critical thinking, or wants to hear that they lack critical thinking, or have someone look down their nose at them. Im probably just fucked, am I fucked?","c_root_id_A":"d11tnqf","c_root_id_B":"d11u0pv","created_at_utc_A":1458126998,"created_at_utc_B":1458128165,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"- Explaining complex ideas simply to ordinary people - An excellent grasp of the English language","human_ref_B":"- Ability to synthesize large bodies of text into coherent narratives - Cross cultural understanding - Holistic problem solving mind set - Collaboration. I gave an interview back to my university about the transition from University to the workplace and what Anthropology can contribute if you want some more inspiration: http:\/\/www.anthsisters.com\/2015\/08\/anthropology-what-kind-of-job-will-you_31.html","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1167.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"2zyj57","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Oral mythology of American Street Gangs? Especially People and Folk Nations. I've searched off and on for a few years trying to track down so stories I was told by someone associated with either the People or Folk Nations street gangs. It was almost biblical in scope, and in my fuzzy recollection had some parallels to some of the Nation of Islam mythology (although I could be mixing the two). I also seem to recall that the significance of the 6 and 5 pointed stars were part of this (People Nation uses 5 pointed star, Folk uses 6), and the up and down pointed pitchforks. I would have heard these stories in the late 1980s in Indianapolis. My questions are, has anyone ever documented the lore of American street gangs, especially the more mythological lore. And does anyone know of this type of lore for the People\/Folk Nations? I'm not even sure if I'm in the right place.","c_root_id_A":"cpngx3k","c_root_id_B":"cpnidmo","created_at_utc_A":1427071222,"created_at_utc_B":1427073988,"score_A":2,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"It's not exactly what you're looking for, but check out *Gang Leader for a Day*. Really good read.","human_ref_B":"You are certainly in the right place. I feel post industrial cultures and *local* societies are under studied in anthropology. There are so many interesting facets to our various subcultures. I am glad contemporary ethnography is shifting away from imperialist roots. Multiculturalism will always be an important part of anthropology, but I like the self reflective nature of it too.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2766.0,"score_ratio":5.5} {"post_id":"9hlyh7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Early human ancestors and eyesight Is there evidence that points to our early human ancestors of having poor eyesight? If so wouldn't that affect their lifestyle (such as bad eyesight would mean that you weren't as good a hunter or were unable to spot predators in time to get away) and thus would have been selected against and poor eyesight would have probably been an eliminated trait? Does this affect living primates as well? This question is always in my head as I look around and almost always see many others with some sort of corrective lenses such as myself.","c_root_id_A":"e6d15f0","c_root_id_B":"e6dfuny","created_at_utc_A":1537503432,"created_at_utc_B":1537529976,"score_A":6,"score_B":17,"human_ref_A":"\"Poor eyesight\" is defined relative to the average and standard deviation of quality of eyesight among the population. Some people will always have the worst eyesight....its not a situation that evolution can correct (except if a species goes extinct, in which case everyone has equally good\/bad eyesight). I wouldn't expect evolution to produce a situation where everyone's eyesight is equally good. If your question is more about how maladaptive traits can persist in a population, you might find some answers by reading about genetic disorders with both adaptive and maladaptive consequences (sickle cell for instance)....or if you dare, search \"homosexuality and evolution\" in this sub.","human_ref_B":"This is only tangential to your question but the eyesight of children who grow up spending a significant amount of time outside in full daylight is statistically much better than the eyesight of children who grow up spending a significant amount of time indoors using artificial light, suggesting that modern humans growing up under modern conditions probably have, on average, worse eyesight than our pre-modern ancestors. Read more: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/the-myopia-boom-1.17120","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26544.0,"score_ratio":2.8333333333} {"post_id":"9hlyh7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Early human ancestors and eyesight Is there evidence that points to our early human ancestors of having poor eyesight? If so wouldn't that affect their lifestyle (such as bad eyesight would mean that you weren't as good a hunter or were unable to spot predators in time to get away) and thus would have been selected against and poor eyesight would have probably been an eliminated trait? Does this affect living primates as well? This question is always in my head as I look around and almost always see many others with some sort of corrective lenses such as myself.","c_root_id_A":"e6dfuny","c_root_id_B":"e6d8045","created_at_utc_A":1537529976,"created_at_utc_B":1537514290,"score_A":17,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"This is only tangential to your question but the eyesight of children who grow up spending a significant amount of time outside in full daylight is statistically much better than the eyesight of children who grow up spending a significant amount of time indoors using artificial light, suggesting that modern humans growing up under modern conditions probably have, on average, worse eyesight than our pre-modern ancestors. Read more: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/the-myopia-boom-1.17120","human_ref_B":"I recommend the book \"Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes.\" By Nathan H. Lents.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":15686.0,"score_ratio":3.4} {"post_id":"akiqju","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"Essential works of anthropology (cultural or biological (evo. Of genus Homo)) Hello, which books should I read? I have one by Marvin Harris, but I want to expand my knowledge on this science. Im interested in the evolution of the genus Homo and also cultural anthropology.","c_root_id_A":"ef5eje8","c_root_id_B":"ef5xuc9","created_at_utc_A":1548648800,"created_at_utc_B":1548671053,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Robert Martin has a fantastic book on the evolution of human sexual behaviors called How We Do It, which is my go-to recommendation of anthropology books for non-anthropologists.","human_ref_B":"Cultural: Argonauts of the Western Pacific - Malinowski Distinction - Bourdiue The Mushroom at the end of the world - Anna Tsing I'd say these are a good mix without being overwheling. THE classic text, a very outstanding theory text, and a contemporary ethnography that goes beyond the traditional","labels":0,"seconds_difference":22253.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"5zzhzn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.91,"history":"When did people begin to sleep in individual, personal rooms? X-Post r\/AskHistorians] I'm wondering if someone out there can offer some perspective on humanity's sleeping habits, particularly sleeping habits that are different from our own here in the modern, developed world. I know that as recently as The Depression families were forced to sleep in the same space for economic reasons. Has there ever been a society in which people chose to sleep in the same room without this being driven by poverty? [I tried asking this question on \/r\/AskHistorians, but they couldn't come up with an answer, so I'm trying here instead!","c_root_id_A":"df3frap","c_root_id_B":"df3id28","created_at_utc_A":1489852962,"created_at_utc_B":1489856572,"score_A":3,"score_B":9,"human_ref_A":"there is an amazing book by Bill Bryson called 'At Home' that charts the evolution of living spaces. educational and enjoyable in that inimitable Bryson style","human_ref_B":"You've gotten two really good sources already. You could try a little research, through life histories. You'd be surprised at the number of people around you who have rarely or never had a room of their own. In my lower middle class neighborhood, very few of us have households where everyone has a room of their own and some houses are positively packed. My parents never once, in their whole lives, had a room to themselves. All four girls and the baby boy slept in one room in my mom's house. Her brother (the oldest boy) got the privilege of sleeping on the back porch by himself. Mom went from that house to a one room apartment with my dad (who had been living on the back porch with Mom's brother) Many of cousins never had their own rooms (same sex kids shared bedrooms) and got married and lived in small places (and some still do). There are tons of novels from various cultures and times that give vivid pictures of how non-private life was for most of written history.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3610.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"5bf28n","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.88,"history":"Can you direct me to some reading which might talk about community building through shared activities? I'm particularly interested in finding out whether (and if so which) anthropologists have written about shared activities and community building, so say building a barn (if that's not too stereotypical) and presumably also through shared rituals. Apologies if I'm barking up the wrong tree, and thanks in advance!","c_root_id_A":"d9ocniy","c_root_id_B":"d9odhm7","created_at_utc_A":1478453756,"created_at_utc_B":1478454956,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You might try Situated Learning by Lave & Wenger. It's written from an educational angle, but that's because their argument is essentially that learning *is* building participation in a community of practice.","human_ref_B":"Many of the first anthropologist spent time looking at this phenomena. \u00c9mile Durkheim discusses religion in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Price, M. (2003). Pro-community altruism and social status in a Shuar village. Human Nature, 14, 191-208. Other keywords to search for: free rider problem and costly sacrifice","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1200.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"8scpo7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Do you have a favourite anthropologist? If so, who is it and why? Not necessarily in a competitive sense but someone who has had a big impact on you and the way you see humanity. Maybe the first one that comes to your head when you read this question. Mine would be without a doubt Edwin Hutchins. For me he really blew life into the concept of Culture and put it, in a very concrete manner, not only in individual's heads but articulated very elegantly how it is something that is necessarily shared. Others had of course discussed this from Durkheim to Geertz, but no one, in my opinion, made it as solid as Hutchins. When I read Bloch's Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge I could not think of anyone who was more succesful in linking culture and cognition in a way that makes both so susceptible to study through ethnography, by anyone.","c_root_id_A":"e10ttia","c_root_id_B":"e0zyw8q","created_at_utc_A":1529541855,"created_at_utc_B":1529514357,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"They might be considered folklorists more than anthropologists, but Americo Paredes and Maria Herrera-Sobek are some of my favorites that I have heavily relied on in my own research.","human_ref_B":"While I don\u2019t have a favorite Anthropologist for their research or their fieldwork, I have a particular author who has a special place in my heart. H. Russell Bernard\u2019s book Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology was one of my first real academic books entering my bachelor\u2019s degree. I got it cause it was needed for an Anthropology class I was taking at the time (before I had an interest to pursue an education in anthropology). I read it, skimmed it, thought it was \u2018neat\u2019, and before long was on to the next assignment. The book was dirt cheap, so i held onto it. After finishing the class I thought I would try to do something with it. I was lucky enough to get into a field work program in south america, and pack my bags having basic anthropological interests, my main study was labour migration and global politics. I end up in the anthropology program and I swear on that book today, it was my Bible. I read, and I read, and I read. I learned as much as I could from that book and applied it. Before long I greatly improved my ability to retain information, conduct interviews, and prep future questions. So whenever I meet someone who has an interest in anthropology I always recommend to get a good methods book, favoring Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27498.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"1og282","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"\"Jared Diamond is racist.\" -- Why? When I was a naive freshman (six years ago) and watched the GG&S documentary my mind was blown and I thought it was the most anti-racist thing ever. Before then, I never knew *why* Europeans dominated the world and other groups didn't. \"Was it genetics? But that's racist!\" was how I thought. But then GG&S said that it was *geography* that played a role, not genes. \"Perfect!\" I thought, genes have nothing to do with it. GG&S effectively killed any racist ideas. But then I came across somebody saying this Diamond *is* racist, which confused the Hell out of me. How could the most anti-racist person ever be racist? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"ccrmmhy","c_root_id_B":"ccroxh1","created_at_utc_A":1381779982,"created_at_utc_B":1381786084,"score_A":28,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"Usually people object to his removal of agency from individuals and groups throughout history due to his overwhelming ideas regarding geographic determinacy. Or it might just be that a lot of people, especially in anthropology, reject his argument as naive and incorrect and just throw in racism as an afterthought while debunking his theories.","human_ref_B":"There's a lot of hatred for Diamond in Anthropology. Some of it's justified - yes, he oversimplified things. Some of it isn't - oversimplifying things in a popular science book is probably ok. I think the charges of racism have come about because, over the last few decades, Anthropology has moved away from *comparison* seeing it as wrong because it implicitly *judges* the things compared. You can see how Diamond's explicit comparison of Europe with New Guinea triggers this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":6102.0,"score_ratio":1.3928571429} {"post_id":"1og282","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"\"Jared Diamond is racist.\" -- Why? When I was a naive freshman (six years ago) and watched the GG&S documentary my mind was blown and I thought it was the most anti-racist thing ever. Before then, I never knew *why* Europeans dominated the world and other groups didn't. \"Was it genetics? But that's racist!\" was how I thought. But then GG&S said that it was *geography* that played a role, not genes. \"Perfect!\" I thought, genes have nothing to do with it. GG&S effectively killed any racist ideas. But then I came across somebody saying this Diamond *is* racist, which confused the Hell out of me. How could the most anti-racist person ever be racist? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"ccroxh1","c_root_id_B":"ccrnfib","created_at_utc_A":1381786084,"created_at_utc_B":1381782130,"score_A":39,"score_B":12,"human_ref_A":"There's a lot of hatred for Diamond in Anthropology. Some of it's justified - yes, he oversimplified things. Some of it isn't - oversimplifying things in a popular science book is probably ok. I think the charges of racism have come about because, over the last few decades, Anthropology has moved away from *comparison* seeing it as wrong because it implicitly *judges* the things compared. You can see how Diamond's explicit comparison of Europe with New Guinea triggers this.","human_ref_B":"I remember when I was a freshman in college and took my first anthropology class. First day the professor did was ask everyone to say something about their background and any anthropological works we've read. I told him I read GG&S, he was not impressed.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3954.0,"score_ratio":3.25} {"post_id":"1og282","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"\"Jared Diamond is racist.\" -- Why? When I was a naive freshman (six years ago) and watched the GG&S documentary my mind was blown and I thought it was the most anti-racist thing ever. Before then, I never knew *why* Europeans dominated the world and other groups didn't. \"Was it genetics? But that's racist!\" was how I thought. But then GG&S said that it was *geography* that played a role, not genes. \"Perfect!\" I thought, genes have nothing to do with it. GG&S effectively killed any racist ideas. But then I came across somebody saying this Diamond *is* racist, which confused the Hell out of me. How could the most anti-racist person ever be racist? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"ccrng0j","c_root_id_B":"ccroxh1","created_at_utc_A":1381782170,"created_at_utc_B":1381786084,"score_A":10,"score_B":39,"human_ref_A":"At the heart of this, this debate is going to go nowhere because nobody is defining what they even mean by \"racist\".","human_ref_B":"There's a lot of hatred for Diamond in Anthropology. Some of it's justified - yes, he oversimplified things. Some of it isn't - oversimplifying things in a popular science book is probably ok. I think the charges of racism have come about because, over the last few decades, Anthropology has moved away from *comparison* seeing it as wrong because it implicitly *judges* the things compared. You can see how Diamond's explicit comparison of Europe with New Guinea triggers this.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3914.0,"score_ratio":3.9} {"post_id":"1og282","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.87,"history":"\"Jared Diamond is racist.\" -- Why? When I was a naive freshman (six years ago) and watched the GG&S documentary my mind was blown and I thought it was the most anti-racist thing ever. Before then, I never knew *why* Europeans dominated the world and other groups didn't. \"Was it genetics? But that's racist!\" was how I thought. But then GG&S said that it was *geography* that played a role, not genes. \"Perfect!\" I thought, genes have nothing to do with it. GG&S effectively killed any racist ideas. But then I came across somebody saying this Diamond *is* racist, which confused the Hell out of me. How could the most anti-racist person ever be racist? Thank you.","c_root_id_A":"ccrss6b","c_root_id_B":"ccrng0j","created_at_utc_A":1381797093,"created_at_utc_B":1381782170,"score_A":12,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Right or wrong, you could probably write a whole anthropology textbook just on the reactions of other anthropologists to Jared Diamond becoming so successful.","human_ref_B":"At the heart of this, this debate is going to go nowhere because nobody is defining what they even mean by \"racist\".","labels":1,"seconds_difference":14923.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"sbvzvz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.82,"history":"Anthropology Career and Family life, Going to college at 35. Forgive me if this has bee posted, I couldn't find anything. I am about to be 35 and I am considering going back to school. Right now I am at a point in my life that I am able to go to school nd pursue a career doing something that I love, history and research. I am married and I have no children, Adoption is under consideration some day. My wife has a great career operating heavy equipment and supports me going to school 100%. My problem that I am trying get over is if this is the right choice. My background is military, I joined the Navy out of high school, got out during the recession and I have had bad luck since. (get a job only to be laid off or hurt). I feel this is my last chance to do something with my life and leave a lasting legacy. So this is what I want to know from this that are in school or are in the field of anthropology. How is your home life working in anthropology? Is it difficult to balance working in the field and having a family? If your my age (35) what is it like competing with the younger generation? I know that I am behind the bar when it comes to time left to do anything important. If there is anything you think is important to know before making a decision as big as this, please feel free to let me know, no criticism will be given by me. ​ Thank you very much.","c_root_id_A":"hu42zpv","c_root_id_B":"hu4dqsp","created_at_utc_A":1643085119,"created_at_utc_B":1643091116,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I started my bachelor\u2019s degree at a traditional age, but I started my PhD relatively late after a decade long career. I\u2019m also a cultural\/linguistic anthologist, if that context matters to you. You\u2019re absolutely not behind the bar; your experience gives you a set of advantages as well! I found that being an older student gave me a good set of life experiences to apply my learning to, and it also gave me the confidence to set good working boundaries. Is this something you\u2019re thinking of for undergraduate or graduate education?","human_ref_B":"There really isn't much of a job market specifically for folks with an undergrad anthro degree. A good strategy is to search in indeed.com and see what kinds of jobs pop up (most will be open to anyone with a humanities\/social science degree would be eligible or will require a masters degree). Also a great way to work backwards if you find a job you are interested in to figure out how to use your time in undergrad to prepare to become a competitive candidate. If the goal is to just get an undergrad, antrho is a great choice. If you are hoping to directly leverage your degree to get a career, I'd suggest going with something else (marketing, data science, etc.). I think you are awesome and brave for getting out of your comfort zone and going back to school. Keep in mind lots of folks change their majors in college, so take advantage of your university's career center!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5997.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"7xbsrl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.8,"history":"Question regarding unethical acts during field work I am reading Colin M Turnbulls book, The Mountain People. On page 132 he tries to save a child that is about to starve to death. The mother and father then kills her after some days. But is this an unethical and selfish act on Turnbulls side? isn\u00b4t his job to passively note and observe the cultural phenomenons?","c_root_id_A":"du79jzv","c_root_id_B":"du7jsra","created_at_utc_A":1518557723,"created_at_utc_B":1518568408,"score_A":20,"score_B":32,"human_ref_A":"Anthropology (to my knowledge and belief) recognizes that it cannot be entirely objective in its description of people. The anthropologist is a person too and thus carries ideas of fundamental rights and wrongs with them. I believe an anthropologist should intervene when they experience something so ethically wrong as a starving child. Anthropologists shouldn't just step back from the world and observe it. Then we lose our humanity.","human_ref_B":"This is one of the most common\u2014and most misguided\u2014notions that I find new students of anthropology bring in with them. This belief that anthropologists must somehow strive to uphold Star Trek\u2019s Prime Directive seems to come at least in part from the idea that any \u201cinterference\u201d by a researcher will corrupt the data. I am here to tell you: if there is a choice between saving a life and preserving your precious data, the answer should almost always be to save the life. _That_ is how an anthropologist behaves ethically.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10685.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"lz5mv9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Graduate School Future Hey all, I'm currently a Senior Undergraduate Forensic Science Major with a Minor in Biochemistry, although I'm currently set to graduate next spring. I have been deciding on my future for the past couple of months and have finally settled on the desire to continue my education in Graduate school, and am heavily leaning towards going for a PhD instead of just a master's. I took a forensic anthropology class during my undergraduate sophomore year and found the field to be very interesting, and thoroughly enjoyed that class. Over my junior year and into my senior year, I declared a Biochemistry minor thinking I might pursue Medical School, but have since then sidelined that idea. Over the past few weeks I began looking at various PhD programs and was attracted to various anthropology programs throughout the States. Over the past week I was reading through various academic journals for the various anthropological subfields, and was attracted to biological anthropology, particularly paleopathology. I come to y'all today just asking what it would be like for someone who didn't get an anthropology degree in their undergrad, and if it's possible to pursue such a field without that prior education. I've got another whole year to figure this out but really find this field fascinating, and am just concerned I won't excel because of what I did in my undergraduate degree. My transcript would show a good GPA and various physical sciences and biochemistry experience, as well as some general statistics, but a lack of that anthropology background, other than the field methods I learned in that Forensic Anthropology class.","c_root_id_A":"gpzo6mt","c_root_id_B":"gpzy2k7","created_at_utc_A":1615053752,"created_at_utc_B":1615057345,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You could also think about specializing in conservation. Conservators are in high demand and generally have chemistry\/science backgrounds. There is also FAR if you are in the US. You might consider reaching out to them and letting them know your interests.","human_ref_B":"It is possible to get into an anthro PhD program without a degree in anthropology. Off the top of my head, there are at least two people in my program with degrees in related-but-non-anthro fields - although I both have MAs in those fields. Of these, one is similar to you, with a hard science background and a lot of experience in methods relevant to his anthropological subfield, but without much prior grounding in anthropological theory. I'm not a physical anthropologist, so I can't talk the specifics of your particular qualifications, but I would give you the advice I would give to anyone thinking of applying to a PhD program: read a bunch of articles and figure out what sort of research specifically you're interested in doing. Get in touch with the authors of those papers -- just shoot them an email explaining your interest in their work, a little bit about your background, and ask if they are currently taking grad students and if they might be willing to talk to you. (Don't be offended if you don't hear back!) If you want to get back in touch with your old forensic anth professor and see if they can give you some recommendations and contacts, that would also be helpful. And then see what they say. The key to remember is that while the application process makes it seem like you're applying to a program, in most cases you're really applying to work with a particular professor. Applying for PhD programs is therefore not very standardized, since what someone is looking for in a PhD student can differ pretty widely depending on their own priorities and research interests. It's all about finding the person who is the right fit for you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3593.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lz5mv9","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Graduate School Future Hey all, I'm currently a Senior Undergraduate Forensic Science Major with a Minor in Biochemistry, although I'm currently set to graduate next spring. I have been deciding on my future for the past couple of months and have finally settled on the desire to continue my education in Graduate school, and am heavily leaning towards going for a PhD instead of just a master's. I took a forensic anthropology class during my undergraduate sophomore year and found the field to be very interesting, and thoroughly enjoyed that class. Over my junior year and into my senior year, I declared a Biochemistry minor thinking I might pursue Medical School, but have since then sidelined that idea. Over the past few weeks I began looking at various PhD programs and was attracted to various anthropology programs throughout the States. Over the past week I was reading through various academic journals for the various anthropological subfields, and was attracted to biological anthropology, particularly paleopathology. I come to y'all today just asking what it would be like for someone who didn't get an anthropology degree in their undergrad, and if it's possible to pursue such a field without that prior education. I've got another whole year to figure this out but really find this field fascinating, and am just concerned I won't excel because of what I did in my undergraduate degree. My transcript would show a good GPA and various physical sciences and biochemistry experience, as well as some general statistics, but a lack of that anthropology background, other than the field methods I learned in that Forensic Anthropology class.","c_root_id_A":"gpzo6mt","c_root_id_B":"gq0f7sn","created_at_utc_A":1615053752,"created_at_utc_B":1615062717,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You could also think about specializing in conservation. Conservators are in high demand and generally have chemistry\/science backgrounds. There is also FAR if you are in the US. You might consider reaching out to them and letting them know your interests.","human_ref_B":"I think it\u2019s wayyyyy better that you have a hard science background as opposed to the other way around, forensic anthropology specifically paleopathology is going to be heavy with the hard sciences like O chem and biochem etc youd probably do well to take a human osteology class or any faunal remains analysis sort of classes. Though i assume youre more interested in human paleopathology? If you can, find a combined ma\/phd program that is perfect for you, and go for it! Applying is a whole separate learning experience. Tour campuses\/facilities virtually or physically if you can (i know the pandemic limits this, but youre guna want to like where you live and go to school) And lastly, if you can this summer or between school terms (idk if you have semesters or quarters) I suggest taking internships either near where you want go to grad school or just a field\/lab practicum type of class. For me in archaeology, that meant field schools and it made such a huge difference in my education to have that hands on experience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8965.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"extmpg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anxiety about careers... Hi everyone, Sorry this isn't posted in the careers thread, I just found that things get a bit buried there and there's another thread about careers that has really made me anxious but has also generated some discussion. Some background: I am a second-year student studying anthropology and I am also pursuing a degree in international relations. I study at a fairly well known small research university, not for anthropology specifically but it has a large endowment and churns out a lot of research across most departments. I have good to excellent grades and have a couple research projects that I am beginning to pursue, hopefully they are successful and productive and can get published somewhere. If things continue to move along like they have, I will most likely pursue an honors degree and thesis. I would love to do something in a job related to anthropology, I love love love studying it and doing it based on the little mini field assignments I've had in previous classes, and I don't see why I won't stop loving it. However, from what I've heard the academic job market is absolutely hopeless, and it's really the only path that I'm well-aware of. The idea of pursuing my own, even more thorough and challenging research in graduate school sounds thrilling, I also love studying in general, but if I'm going to graduate with debt (unless I find some funding) and a \"what now?\" gaze, then I don't see a point in continuing my studies. Outside of academia, what kind of anthropology-related jobs are there for someone with an advanced degree in anthropology? Are there demands for anthropologists in other fields, like IR or public health? Is there any overlap between anthropology and IR that I could look into? Can anthropologists work for something like a think tank? An NGO? A non-profit? An international institution? Or are those still just as hopeless as trying to become a professor? And if there is any hope, then what in the world would I do about graduate school? Apply for a full doctoral program, or just a master's? Take time off in between undergrad and grad? ... Sorry for the questions\/rambling, but I can't stop thinking about it and maybe posting will make me less anxious.","c_root_id_A":"fgeu2l1","c_root_id_B":"fgen0v3","created_at_utc_A":1580710023,"created_at_utc_B":1580703666,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I was an anthropologist in the private sector, as well. And like my colleague above, I can also say that the work was genuinely fun and I was able to make it a real career: a great wage, afforded a house and a family, 401k, health benefits. A real grown-up job! That being said, I fully realize that I won the proverbial lottery and that I could count on one hand people with similar positions. In fact, in the company of 10,000 employees, there were 3 of us. And one was my boss. And the other person was struggling in a different region of the country. My advice to you would be to commit now, mentally, to going to graduate school. This may be frustrating, but please think of your undergrad work similar to your friends in pre-law or pre-med. This is a particularly strong argument when you talk to parents. I will also agree that you should not have to pay for graduate school; I agree that any department worth its salt will provide you with a work-study or some other arrangement. If you have excellent grades, a few good internships, and a senior project that genuinely worked hard on, you should have a fine application to graduate school. Some things to maybe think about as you work through undergrad: Take a statistics class, get fluent or near-fluent in a language in an area you want to work (if you're American, I would recommend Spanish or, if you're interested in development in Africa, French), and take a GIS class. Even with my career in anthropology, I found that maybe only 50% of my time was doing \"anthropology.\" The rest of my day was doing work that could arguably have been done by people with backgrounds in sociology, international relations, geography, ecology, or planning. Any job you get may not say \"anthropologist\" in the title, but an anthropological approach to your work will give you a certain edge, imo. As for becoming a professor, I don't know if things are as dire as you describe. It would be nice to hear about that from others. I can only say that everyone from my graduate program who graduated (a big caveat!) are gainfully employed as professors, in government, or in the private sector. No one who worked hard and doesn't have some other kind of major problem in their life (untreated mental health issues, major addiction problems, etc.) are destitute and they all have rich, fulfilling lives and careers.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m in my final year and have done an internship that specifically asked for anthropology students. The internship I had was part of a startup that operates like a consulting firm... so clients came to us with problems, we do some qualitative research about their issue and target group and we come up with \u201csolutions\u201d based on what we\u2019re observing and hearing from stakeholders. Not sure if this is common but there are definitely opportunities out there that demand anthropology graduates and our skills.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6357.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"extmpg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anxiety about careers... Hi everyone, Sorry this isn't posted in the careers thread, I just found that things get a bit buried there and there's another thread about careers that has really made me anxious but has also generated some discussion. Some background: I am a second-year student studying anthropology and I am also pursuing a degree in international relations. I study at a fairly well known small research university, not for anthropology specifically but it has a large endowment and churns out a lot of research across most departments. I have good to excellent grades and have a couple research projects that I am beginning to pursue, hopefully they are successful and productive and can get published somewhere. If things continue to move along like they have, I will most likely pursue an honors degree and thesis. I would love to do something in a job related to anthropology, I love love love studying it and doing it based on the little mini field assignments I've had in previous classes, and I don't see why I won't stop loving it. However, from what I've heard the academic job market is absolutely hopeless, and it's really the only path that I'm well-aware of. The idea of pursuing my own, even more thorough and challenging research in graduate school sounds thrilling, I also love studying in general, but if I'm going to graduate with debt (unless I find some funding) and a \"what now?\" gaze, then I don't see a point in continuing my studies. Outside of academia, what kind of anthropology-related jobs are there for someone with an advanced degree in anthropology? Are there demands for anthropologists in other fields, like IR or public health? Is there any overlap between anthropology and IR that I could look into? Can anthropologists work for something like a think tank? An NGO? A non-profit? An international institution? Or are those still just as hopeless as trying to become a professor? And if there is any hope, then what in the world would I do about graduate school? Apply for a full doctoral program, or just a master's? Take time off in between undergrad and grad? ... Sorry for the questions\/rambling, but I can't stop thinking about it and maybe posting will make me less anxious.","c_root_id_A":"fgekoa3","c_root_id_B":"fgeu2l1","created_at_utc_A":1580701858,"created_at_utc_B":1580710023,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's 2 and a half years ago. A couple months ago I started working at a mental hospital. Not sure where to go from here. Hope that helps.","human_ref_B":"I was an anthropologist in the private sector, as well. And like my colleague above, I can also say that the work was genuinely fun and I was able to make it a real career: a great wage, afforded a house and a family, 401k, health benefits. A real grown-up job! That being said, I fully realize that I won the proverbial lottery and that I could count on one hand people with similar positions. In fact, in the company of 10,000 employees, there were 3 of us. And one was my boss. And the other person was struggling in a different region of the country. My advice to you would be to commit now, mentally, to going to graduate school. This may be frustrating, but please think of your undergrad work similar to your friends in pre-law or pre-med. This is a particularly strong argument when you talk to parents. I will also agree that you should not have to pay for graduate school; I agree that any department worth its salt will provide you with a work-study or some other arrangement. If you have excellent grades, a few good internships, and a senior project that genuinely worked hard on, you should have a fine application to graduate school. Some things to maybe think about as you work through undergrad: Take a statistics class, get fluent or near-fluent in a language in an area you want to work (if you're American, I would recommend Spanish or, if you're interested in development in Africa, French), and take a GIS class. Even with my career in anthropology, I found that maybe only 50% of my time was doing \"anthropology.\" The rest of my day was doing work that could arguably have been done by people with backgrounds in sociology, international relations, geography, ecology, or planning. Any job you get may not say \"anthropologist\" in the title, but an anthropological approach to your work will give you a certain edge, imo. As for becoming a professor, I don't know if things are as dire as you describe. It would be nice to hear about that from others. I can only say that everyone from my graduate program who graduated (a big caveat!) are gainfully employed as professors, in government, or in the private sector. No one who worked hard and doesn't have some other kind of major problem in their life (untreated mental health issues, major addiction problems, etc.) are destitute and they all have rich, fulfilling lives and careers.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":8165.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"extmpg","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"Anxiety about careers... Hi everyone, Sorry this isn't posted in the careers thread, I just found that things get a bit buried there and there's another thread about careers that has really made me anxious but has also generated some discussion. Some background: I am a second-year student studying anthropology and I am also pursuing a degree in international relations. I study at a fairly well known small research university, not for anthropology specifically but it has a large endowment and churns out a lot of research across most departments. I have good to excellent grades and have a couple research projects that I am beginning to pursue, hopefully they are successful and productive and can get published somewhere. If things continue to move along like they have, I will most likely pursue an honors degree and thesis. I would love to do something in a job related to anthropology, I love love love studying it and doing it based on the little mini field assignments I've had in previous classes, and I don't see why I won't stop loving it. However, from what I've heard the academic job market is absolutely hopeless, and it's really the only path that I'm well-aware of. The idea of pursuing my own, even more thorough and challenging research in graduate school sounds thrilling, I also love studying in general, but if I'm going to graduate with debt (unless I find some funding) and a \"what now?\" gaze, then I don't see a point in continuing my studies. Outside of academia, what kind of anthropology-related jobs are there for someone with an advanced degree in anthropology? Are there demands for anthropologists in other fields, like IR or public health? Is there any overlap between anthropology and IR that I could look into? Can anthropologists work for something like a think tank? An NGO? A non-profit? An international institution? Or are those still just as hopeless as trying to become a professor? And if there is any hope, then what in the world would I do about graduate school? Apply for a full doctoral program, or just a master's? Take time off in between undergrad and grad? ... Sorry for the questions\/rambling, but I can't stop thinking about it and maybe posting will make me less anxious.","c_root_id_A":"fgekoa3","c_root_id_B":"fgen0v3","created_at_utc_A":1580701858,"created_at_utc_B":1580703666,"score_A":3,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I got a bachelor's 2 and a half years ago. A couple months ago I started working at a mental hospital. Not sure where to go from here. Hope that helps.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019m in my final year and have done an internship that specifically asked for anthropology students. The internship I had was part of a startup that operates like a consulting firm... so clients came to us with problems, we do some qualitative research about their issue and target group and we come up with \u201csolutions\u201d based on what we\u2019re observing and hearing from stakeholders. Not sure if this is common but there are definitely opportunities out there that demand anthropology graduates and our skills.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1808.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"hqk5zc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Anthropology Major vs Cultural Studies Major I want to study Anthropology (concentration on culture) in college, however, this school that I'm interested in only offers Cultural Studies. Can Anthropology and Cultural Studies be interchangeable? And were I to major in Cultural Studies, how would that degree as opposed to an actual Anthropology degree affect my job prospects when I enter the workforce?","c_root_id_A":"fxypxog","c_root_id_B":"fxysvho","created_at_utc_A":1594670937,"created_at_utc_B":1594672334,"score_A":10,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"In the United States at least, Cultural Studies is pretty niche, and to my knowledge doesn't have a core set of methodologies that are persistent across the discipline and institutions. For example, UCDavis has not been taking cultural track students much if at all the last few years because they have a backlog of PhD students\/don't have enough funding for more, and have offered the largely unfunded CS grad program as an alternative. While some people make fun of cultural anthropology, anthropology PhD students get training, at minimum, across 2 of the fields if not all four (I *strongly* recommend you take all the core seminars in the subfields at the very least!). Cultural Anthropologists are trained in ethnographic fieldwork, which means real-world immersive long term experience in the community(ies) they study. For myself, I supplement my work with literature\/media study and digital ethnography. But the core of cultural remains ethnography. Cultural Studies may use a variety of techniques, but my experience suggests this is more of a field in the UK or Europe. In the US, I've seen it as a ~~prestigious revenue stream for most institutions~~ fancier way of saying \"Liberal Arts PhD\" when students are not accepted into their target program and\/or want to make their own customized interdisciplinary program of study.","human_ref_B":"As someone else said on this sub recently, your undergrad degree won't get you a job. Either you will be up against people with the same degree, thus cancelling them out, or you will be up against a swath of degrees, making them all noise. Your practical and related experience will mean way more to the people that hire you. Imagine two resumes: one says \"degree x\" and the other says \"degree y\" but also has a list of interesting and practical projects related to the job opening. Which is more hireable? That said, I find that it is easier to *access* opportunities that will let you develop job related skills in anthropology, particularly if you want a job in research, where methods like ethnography, interviews, contextual inquiry, etc are important. But it will be your responsibility to take those opportunities and act on them. Similarly, given that culture studies is often so open-ended, you could use every chance to develop work with interesting research methods or that answers practical questions and do just as well. In both cases, it's up to you to take (or even create) the opportunities in front of you.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1397.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew7q53l","c_root_id_B":"ew7lhkj","created_at_utc_A":1565195571,"created_at_utc_B":1565193611,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Nice easy fun survey. I would have liked a text box at the end for general comments.","human_ref_B":"Ive taken the survey and found it very interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1960.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew8cnqt","c_root_id_B":"ew7xtd5","created_at_utc_A":1565207585,"created_at_utc_B":1565199369,"score_A":6,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"You should consider posting this to \/r\/SampleSize, although you might need to provide more explanation of the intended audience.","human_ref_B":"One of my early memories from childhood (age 3 or 4) is of a visit to the Egyptian section of the British Museum, where I was amazed by the wrapped and painted \"mommies\" I saw there.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8216.0,"score_ratio":1.2} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew7lhkj","c_root_id_B":"ew7xtd5","created_at_utc_A":1565193611,"created_at_utc_B":1565199369,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Ive taken the survey and found it very interesting.","human_ref_B":"One of my early memories from childhood (age 3 or 4) is of a visit to the Egyptian section of the British Museum, where I was amazed by the wrapped and painted \"mommies\" I saw there.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5758.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew7xtd5","c_root_id_B":"ew7w687","created_at_utc_A":1565199369,"created_at_utc_B":1565198408,"score_A":5,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"One of my early memories from childhood (age 3 or 4) is of a visit to the Egyptian section of the British Museum, where I was amazed by the wrapped and painted \"mommies\" I saw there.","human_ref_B":"Fantastic and well written survey. Interesting topic, good luck with your diss!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":961.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew8cnqt","c_root_id_B":"ew7lhkj","created_at_utc_A":1565207585,"created_at_utc_B":1565193611,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"You should consider posting this to \/r\/SampleSize, although you might need to provide more explanation of the intended audience.","human_ref_B":"Ive taken the survey and found it very interesting.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":13974.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew7w687","c_root_id_B":"ew8cnqt","created_at_utc_A":1565198408,"created_at_utc_B":1565207585,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Fantastic and well written survey. Interesting topic, good luck with your diss!","human_ref_B":"You should consider posting this to \/r\/SampleSize, although you might need to provide more explanation of the intended audience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":9177.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew88ukj","c_root_id_B":"ew8cnqt","created_at_utc_A":1565205644,"created_at_utc_B":1565207585,"score_A":2,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Did the survey.","human_ref_B":"You should consider posting this to \/r\/SampleSize, although you might need to provide more explanation of the intended audience.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1941.0,"score_ratio":3.0} {"post_id":"cn5644","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"Display of Death in Museums Hi! I am an undergraduate student of Social Anthropology and I am currently doing research for my dissertation, which is focused on the Display of Death. My research is focusing on three museums, Body Worlds London, Bart's Pathology Museum (London - Private) and the Takabuti Display in the Ulster Museum (Belfast, Northern Ireland). I have created a very short, very simple survey to cover general attitudes towards displaying death and would greatly appreciate any responses: https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.co.uk\/r\/YLZYSC2 Also, if anyone has any ideas\/opinions on the three displays I have mentioned, or on the more general topic, please do share, that would be amazing.","c_root_id_A":"ew88ukj","c_root_id_B":"ew8d0se","created_at_utc_A":1565205644,"created_at_utc_B":1565207737,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Did the survey.","human_ref_B":"You may be interested in Bristol Museum's exhibition 'death the human experience' https:\/\/www.bristolmuseums.org.uk\/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery\/whats-on\/death-human-experience\/ The physical exhibition is gone now but they still have the online version","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2093.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"m1iv3h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures is Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cRite of Spring\u201d based on? I just recently watched Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cThe rite of Spring\u201d and I am very intrigued by it. I would love to know which cultures Stravinsky (possibly) drew his inspiration from for this piece? I was also very curious about the costume design. The women seemed to wear loose clothing, tied at the waist with bold designs. Their make up reminded me of the \u2018gelina\u201d face paint done on Pomak brides, which in turn reminds me of the plaster Mycanean head depicting a woman\u2019s face in make up. I know this all sounds very random and I\u2019m probably seeing connections where there\u2019s are none. Google didn\u2019t turn out much, except for the name of the creators involved. This is why I thought maybe this was the right place to ask. Thanks!","c_root_id_A":"gqfc313","c_root_id_B":"gqf28qq","created_at_utc_A":1615363920,"created_at_utc_B":1615355379,"score_A":28,"score_B":14,"human_ref_A":"Hi! I\u2019m a music theorist and yes absolutely Russian folklore. It\u2019s quite common for composers to take inspiration from their own cultures, folk tunes and the like. Bart\u00f3k is the first that came to mind. Chopin\u2019s mazurkas too. I would not say that the complexity of the meter or bitonality suggests this is not based on folklore\/folkune. Sure this makes it harder to hear, but if you were Russian, you would likely have recognized the themes. In fact, many were quite upset. At the premier, there were people actually yelling. It\u2019s said at the end you couldn\u2019t tell if people were standing in protest or ovation. It was very controversial. If you google like, Rite of Spring riot im sure some articles will come up and I bet you\u2019d be interested to read them. The piece really marks the end of Russian primitivism and the beginning of neoclassicism, which Stravinsky is the pillar of, and many of his scores take influence from Russian culture and folk tunes. You should look into Najinsky, there are a couple traditional Russian dances in the ballet I believe. Absolutely fascinating person. You should check out Debussy\u2019s L\u2019apr\u00e8s midi d\u2019un faune, too if you havent. I think you would really enjoy it! Maybe take a look at Rousseau\u2019s Jungles while you\u2019re listening ;). Also choreographed by Najinsky. The costume design was actually by Roerich. Diaghilev was the founder of the ballet russe and was largely known as a critic.","human_ref_B":"While you may search for inspiration source of Stravinsky, I want to point out that if you are interested by the costumes, the make up and even the moves on the scene, it's the sources of the director for that representation that you want.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":8541.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"re3mqv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Do higher birthrates promote poorer education? I'm specifically discussing the US. We've all heard: \"the public education system sucks, they never teach anything useful, school's boring, etc.\". People point to curricula, funding, culture, practices, policies, etc. These are all important, but I'm wondering how birthrate may factor in. Assuming a consistent proportion of teachers, It should be logical that birthrate over a period directly determines class sizes, whereas twice the birthrate would lead to twice the student-to-teacher ratio. By this idea, the population explosion should've led to an unprecedented increase in class sizes (Unfortunately, I can't find a chart atm). This would be very concerning because teachers could spend less than half as much time per student, which I'd assume lead to poorer teaching environments. Could the population explosion have afflicted the US education system so? Since the birth rate is decelerating, will education become more individualized and improve, and apprenticeships reemerge in practice?","c_root_id_A":"ho5hgsa","c_root_id_B":"ho558ud","created_at_utc_A":1639248875,"created_at_utc_B":1639243774,"score_A":20,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"A lot of the problems people currently associate with having too many people (i.e. population explosion) are really about having an unequal distribution of resources. This is part of the problem here, class size isn't evenly distributed. People in poorer schools have higher pupil\/teacher ratio, while people that can afford to pay more (who live in wealthier areas) have a lower pupil\/teacher ratio. Even if birth rates fall, they don't necessarily fall evenly across socioeconomic classes. If they fall more in the wealthy, it could further exacerbate the existing inequalities.","human_ref_B":"Idk tbh I'm not an expert but to me this seems kind of a logical fallacy? My country has abysmal birthrate yet there are too many students per teacher, as there are always been. I don't think it's related to birthrate at all. I think it's simply because nobody wants to invest on schools so nobody wants to hire teachers. Therefore there are too many students and not enough teachers. Edit: I also want to add that if there aren't enough students at least here you can't make a class, so they unite different classes (so students have different ages) and students have to follow different curricula and they also won't learn anything. It's not people, it's that there's not enough money. Believe me that even if birthrate in the US where to decline they'll still found a way to underfund education and students still won't learn anything.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5101.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"re3mqv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.74,"history":"Do higher birthrates promote poorer education? I'm specifically discussing the US. We've all heard: \"the public education system sucks, they never teach anything useful, school's boring, etc.\". People point to curricula, funding, culture, practices, policies, etc. These are all important, but I'm wondering how birthrate may factor in. Assuming a consistent proportion of teachers, It should be logical that birthrate over a period directly determines class sizes, whereas twice the birthrate would lead to twice the student-to-teacher ratio. By this idea, the population explosion should've led to an unprecedented increase in class sizes (Unfortunately, I can't find a chart atm). This would be very concerning because teachers could spend less than half as much time per student, which I'd assume lead to poorer teaching environments. Could the population explosion have afflicted the US education system so? Since the birth rate is decelerating, will education become more individualized and improve, and apprenticeships reemerge in practice?","c_root_id_A":"ho5hgsa","c_root_id_B":"ho5f0vo","created_at_utc_A":1639248875,"created_at_utc_B":1639247834,"score_A":20,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"A lot of the problems people currently associate with having too many people (i.e. population explosion) are really about having an unequal distribution of resources. This is part of the problem here, class size isn't evenly distributed. People in poorer schools have higher pupil\/teacher ratio, while people that can afford to pay more (who live in wealthier areas) have a lower pupil\/teacher ratio. Even if birth rates fall, they don't necessarily fall evenly across socioeconomic classes. If they fall more in the wealthy, it could further exacerbate the existing inequalities.","human_ref_B":"Not sure I am buying it. Schools get X amount of money per pupil Double the number of pupils because of a boom in birthrate and the school would get double the money. The problem is that funding tends to lag. In poor areas where you have people leaving you can actually get very small class sizes. In areas where there are a lot of students pouring in, you can run out of rooms, so rather than have two rooms of 25 kids you have 1 room where you are cramming in 50 kids. In theory if you knew the birth rates and influx rates you could account for all that, but it's not like you can build a new schoolbuilding overnight nor double the number of teachers. An additional wrinkle is that not all funding comes from the state. Schools can get money locally through property taxes. Wealthy people tend to have less children. So deeper pockets for extra money for their schools. So it's more of a correlation. The key is areas that have wealthy parents have both low birth rates and good schools. But it's wealthy parents whose wealth means they have more money to give to schools not low birth rates.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1041.0,"score_ratio":6.6666666667} {"post_id":"89vaj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Tips for Archaeology Fieldwork? I'm going to be going to Florida for some fieldwork with one of my archaeology professors in the Saint Johns area on an Archaic Indian site this summer. This is my first experience doing fieldwork. What should I bring with me while I'm out in the field and has anyone actually done fieldwork in Florida before?","c_root_id_A":"dww3pl0","c_root_id_B":"dwu3e1x","created_at_utc_A":1522981622,"created_at_utc_B":1522901069,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"On top of the others, a line level, measuring tape or stick, and string. Also, if you think you have enough water, you need more water.","human_ref_B":"Running through my head first preparing for fieldwork packing: Long, strong pants, preferably with some pockets, sturdy socks and shoes; a good, comfortable backpack you can travel with all day suited to your fieldwork situation (will you need to carry water, tools, artifacts, etc..; will you be surveying\/walking mostly?); a hat and handkerchiefs are never not useful; the strongest bug spray you can find (though don't expect it to work). Some field basics: trowel, sighting compass, swiss army knife or multitool, a ton of extra pens, pencils, permanent markers, a notebook, and a camera (your cell phone). edit: And ask if you will be provided, or even need, snake guards in that part of FL","labels":1,"seconds_difference":80553.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"89vaj2","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.71,"history":"Tips for Archaeology Fieldwork? I'm going to be going to Florida for some fieldwork with one of my archaeology professors in the Saint Johns area on an Archaic Indian site this summer. This is my first experience doing fieldwork. What should I bring with me while I'm out in the field and has anyone actually done fieldwork in Florida before?","c_root_id_A":"dww3pl0","c_root_id_B":"dwufcua","created_at_utc_A":1522981622,"created_at_utc_B":1522922745,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"On top of the others, a line level, measuring tape or stick, and string. Also, if you think you have enough water, you need more water.","human_ref_B":"Talk to Dr. Randall, he can give you some excellent advice about what to bring.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":58877.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"bb2ko3","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.85,"history":"Survey of human tribe-scale organization and governance? I\u2019m looking for a survey\/description\/discussion of forms of organization and governance for human groups of up to a few hundred people. Across as many cultures and time periods as possible. I figure somebody must have researched this and produced an overview, but as this is not my field, I don\u2019t quite know where to start looking. Any\/all pointers appreciated. I\u2019m not looking for large-group (say, nation-wide) or \u201cpolitical\u201d (say \u201cmonarchy\u201d) organizations, but practical day to day stuff. Some example questions: * if some Native American tribe is governed by a council of elders, how are Elders selected? How do they deal with conflicts of interest? ... * if a hunting band kills the bear, who gets the best meat? How is a dispute resolved about whether to track the deer right or left? * if a modern climbing group loses confidence in their leader, what happens? I figure there are only so many ways of doing this kind of thing, and hoping that somebody has catalogued and discussed them all...","c_root_id_A":"ekg3xkx","c_root_id_B":"ekggbng","created_at_utc_A":1554782818,"created_at_utc_B":1554800396,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"That would be so helpful if someone did, but I have yet to hear about such a compilation of research during my undergrad classes. Due to all the effort that has to go into the research, most anthropologists just focus on one particular group, and a compilation of such research might run into copyright territory, even with proper sourcing and credit given. What exactly do you need it for? If it's a research paper comparing differences in culture among various tribes\/groups throughout the ages, I would recommend just using a few groups within the same time period.","human_ref_B":"There are terms, trends, and patterns to aid in examining and discussing the things that you seem to be interested in. If we're looking at human groups as small as you describe, then we need to start with kinship, probably, to understand what makes particular social institutions not only shared, but shared to the point of being impactful. So we can look to the various ways in which people go about defining how they view their kin, or family. Bilateral vs. unilateral descent, for instance, has implications for how cultural groups will go about forming institutions, both formal and informal, which could eventually, in aggregate, be taken to constitute a system of governance. https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/14\/Kinship_Systems_vertical.svg\/350px-Kinship_Systems_vertical.svg.png Here's an example of kinship terminology systems. The fundaments of how we form the family unit can be extrapolated and examined, maybe, to understand the larger institutions of a small society, to a degree. So goes the theory, anyway. However, cataloging modes and types of human organization and behavior is not really the approach of anthropology. Our approach is to examine from the specific to the general, or from the ground to the sky, as they say. e.g., we look to the diversity of societies not in order to try to find a limit of the number of possible types of societies that might exist, but to provide us with examples of what are now simply realized possible societies out of the infinite number of cultural patterns which could be exhibited. This will quickly become very postmodern, so hopefully you are at least a little comfortable with that, because the argument I will put forward is that anthropologists aren't at-ease enough with even the idea of \"a society\" to try to create an exhaustive list of the society-types that could exist. Obviously we are in the business of cataloging things, because how else could we begin to examine or discuss them? but the anthropologist should see this merely as a means to a much greater end. In the outlook of the field of contemporary anthropology, to try to list the possible configurations of how symbols, bodies, and power all interact in all possible \"societies\" is ultimately to attempt to compile all knowledge, and indeed, all of existence, in one work. Obviously I know that you're asking for some generalization to be done, but the point of my argument is to illustrate that the more we generalize, the more we lose the specific, and that the specific is what the anthropological approach actually cares most about. If we strip away an understanding or appreciation of the specifics within a group, then we eventually end up with a work not too different from a dictionary. Such compilation is neither practical nor helpful towards understanding how cultural groups function.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":17578.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"lg0pjl","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.76,"history":"Seggs Workers during Covid 19 I've started an ethnography module in which we can choose any topic and plan fieldwork and eventually conduct participant observation, interviews, etc to be written up. And I want to write about Seggs workers in the time of Corona. How they moved online, how people started during covid, sites like only flans etc. I was wondering if people more experienced than myself could give me some pointers? \\- Do you know any papers relating to this? \\- Advise on where I might find informants? \\- Advise about note taking? \\- Advice about interviewing? I'm a complete noob so any advice would be welcomed.","c_root_id_A":"gmozbal","c_root_id_B":"gmox82f","created_at_utc_A":1612876299,"created_at_utc_B":1612874902,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"However you decide to do it, I recommend field work. If you are only approaching sex workers with an internet connection you are only seeing a small and not very representative subsection of the profession. Maybe ask your local subreddit where they hang out if you don't already know. Also there are a lot of male sex workers out there too, so don't forget about them. Good luck, sounds like interesting work.","human_ref_B":"I\u2019d recommend figuring out your state\u2019s unemployment eligibility rules, too. My understanding is that a lot of erotic dancers are considered contractors, not employees, so they were probably less likely to receive any assistance for unemployment when the clubs closed in the lockdown.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":1397.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqr8ai","c_root_id_B":"etqrors","created_at_utc_A":1563098870,"created_at_utc_B":1563099400,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I don't know much about the field but can recommend two books that definitely argue for the relevance of life on the internet for anthropology. They make the argument that communication and practices on the internet are just as socially made as \"real life\" and therefore necessary (and potentially sufficient, depending on the case) subjects for anthropology. Here are the titles that I looked at: Hine, Christine. 2015. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic. Horst, Heather A. und Daniel Miller, Hg. 2014. Digital Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.","human_ref_B":"I'm currently a candidate for a master's in Digital Anthropology, so I should say it's a pretty relevant field. The basics of internet ethnography and internet study is trying to understand where the boundaries for those communities are, and how 'real life' affects or influences those communities. Boellstorff's work on Second Life is pretty foundational for the field, but it is a bit outdated at this point. If you want a more recent work on internet community, T.L. Taylor is a sociologist but she just released a book on Twitch, which I highly recommend. Daniel Miller is just finished up a project called Why We Post, which looked at facebook uses in 10 (?) different communities around the world, and is working on a similar project about smartphone usage. I'm pretty sure those are all free to access unless you want a physical copy. Boellstorf, Taylor, Nardi, and Pearce collaborated on a book called Ethnography and Virtual Worlds which I am currently using for dissertation methods and it is quite solid, even including advice on how to convince your IRB that internet and game studies are valid. As you can probably tell from the suggestions that I work mostly on games and game communities, virtual and otherwise so maybe other Anthro friends can help with other aspects of internet community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":530.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqrors","c_root_id_B":"etqp96z","created_at_utc_A":1563099400,"created_at_utc_B":1563096032,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently a candidate for a master's in Digital Anthropology, so I should say it's a pretty relevant field. The basics of internet ethnography and internet study is trying to understand where the boundaries for those communities are, and how 'real life' affects or influences those communities. Boellstorff's work on Second Life is pretty foundational for the field, but it is a bit outdated at this point. If you want a more recent work on internet community, T.L. Taylor is a sociologist but she just released a book on Twitch, which I highly recommend. Daniel Miller is just finished up a project called Why We Post, which looked at facebook uses in 10 (?) different communities around the world, and is working on a similar project about smartphone usage. I'm pretty sure those are all free to access unless you want a physical copy. Boellstorf, Taylor, Nardi, and Pearce collaborated on a book called Ethnography and Virtual Worlds which I am currently using for dissertation methods and it is quite solid, even including advice on how to convince your IRB that internet and game studies are valid. As you can probably tell from the suggestions that I work mostly on games and game communities, virtual and otherwise so maybe other Anthro friends can help with other aspects of internet community.","human_ref_B":"Yes they are. Also, was the Warcraft one by Alex Golub by any chance?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3368.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqq05t","c_root_id_B":"etqrors","created_at_utc_A":1563097167,"created_at_utc_B":1563099400,"score_A":6,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"I'd say so 100% (Or at least I hope so, given I just finished my undergrad degree by writing a dissertation on the topic) I ended up encountering a lot of the same issues you were talking about, with outdated sources from mostly non-anthropological sources. Managed to find some pretty good sources as a basis though, sherry turkle's behind the screen was particularly useful for example, but I wish I had found some of the books listed in other comments, that would have been rather handy. I certainly think its an important and valid site of research though, I am certainly planning to research it more if given the chance. I think a lot of the issues I came across in the older sources (usually early 2000's) was that the people writing them were not of a generation that grew up with technology and so did not have the familiarity with it that I think could lead to more depth and understanding of the topic that comes from basically growing up on the internet, being an \"internet native\" or whichever term is preferred.","human_ref_B":"I'm currently a candidate for a master's in Digital Anthropology, so I should say it's a pretty relevant field. The basics of internet ethnography and internet study is trying to understand where the boundaries for those communities are, and how 'real life' affects or influences those communities. Boellstorff's work on Second Life is pretty foundational for the field, but it is a bit outdated at this point. If you want a more recent work on internet community, T.L. Taylor is a sociologist but she just released a book on Twitch, which I highly recommend. Daniel Miller is just finished up a project called Why We Post, which looked at facebook uses in 10 (?) different communities around the world, and is working on a similar project about smartphone usage. I'm pretty sure those are all free to access unless you want a physical copy. Boellstorf, Taylor, Nardi, and Pearce collaborated on a book called Ethnography and Virtual Worlds which I am currently using for dissertation methods and it is quite solid, even including advice on how to convince your IRB that internet and game studies are valid. As you can probably tell from the suggestions that I work mostly on games and game communities, virtual and otherwise so maybe other Anthro friends can help with other aspects of internet community.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2233.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqp96z","c_root_id_B":"etqr8ai","created_at_utc_A":1563096032,"created_at_utc_B":1563098870,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"Yes they are. Also, was the Warcraft one by Alex Golub by any chance?","human_ref_B":"I don't know much about the field but can recommend two books that definitely argue for the relevance of life on the internet for anthropology. They make the argument that communication and practices on the internet are just as socially made as \"real life\" and therefore necessary (and potentially sufficient, depending on the case) subjects for anthropology. Here are the titles that I looked at: Hine, Christine. 2015. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic. Horst, Heather A. und Daniel Miller, Hg. 2014. Digital Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2838.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqq05t","c_root_id_B":"etqr8ai","created_at_utc_A":1563097167,"created_at_utc_B":1563098870,"score_A":6,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"I'd say so 100% (Or at least I hope so, given I just finished my undergrad degree by writing a dissertation on the topic) I ended up encountering a lot of the same issues you were talking about, with outdated sources from mostly non-anthropological sources. Managed to find some pretty good sources as a basis though, sherry turkle's behind the screen was particularly useful for example, but I wish I had found some of the books listed in other comments, that would have been rather handy. I certainly think its an important and valid site of research though, I am certainly planning to research it more if given the chance. I think a lot of the issues I came across in the older sources (usually early 2000's) was that the people writing them were not of a generation that grew up with technology and so did not have the familiarity with it that I think could lead to more depth and understanding of the topic that comes from basically growing up on the internet, being an \"internet native\" or whichever term is preferred.","human_ref_B":"I don't know much about the field but can recommend two books that definitely argue for the relevance of life on the internet for anthropology. They make the argument that communication and practices on the internet are just as socially made as \"real life\" and therefore necessary (and potentially sufficient, depending on the case) subjects for anthropology. Here are the titles that I looked at: Hine, Christine. 2015. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic. Horst, Heather A. und Daniel Miller, Hg. 2014. Digital Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1703.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etr5vu8","c_root_id_B":"etqp96z","created_at_utc_A":1563113163,"created_at_utc_B":1563096032,"score_A":8,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"I always thought the old phpBB forums were fascinating. These little micro-communities that have been replaced by much larger services like Reddit and Facebook. 100 years from now, folks will gloss over the internet culture from 1995-2005 that was just full of these small groups of people connecting on a more intimate level than they do now.","human_ref_B":"Yes they are. Also, was the Warcraft one by Alex Golub by any chance?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":17131.0,"score_ratio":1.1428571429} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etqq05t","c_root_id_B":"etr5vu8","created_at_utc_A":1563097167,"created_at_utc_B":1563113163,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'd say so 100% (Or at least I hope so, given I just finished my undergrad degree by writing a dissertation on the topic) I ended up encountering a lot of the same issues you were talking about, with outdated sources from mostly non-anthropological sources. Managed to find some pretty good sources as a basis though, sherry turkle's behind the screen was particularly useful for example, but I wish I had found some of the books listed in other comments, that would have been rather handy. I certainly think its an important and valid site of research though, I am certainly planning to research it more if given the chance. I think a lot of the issues I came across in the older sources (usually early 2000's) was that the people writing them were not of a generation that grew up with technology and so did not have the familiarity with it that I think could lead to more depth and understanding of the topic that comes from basically growing up on the internet, being an \"internet native\" or whichever term is preferred.","human_ref_B":"I always thought the old phpBB forums were fascinating. These little micro-communities that have been replaced by much larger services like Reddit and Facebook. 100 years from now, folks will gloss over the internet culture from 1995-2005 that was just full of these small groups of people connecting on a more intimate level than they do now.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":15996.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etr5vu8","c_root_id_B":"etqxo18","created_at_utc_A":1563113163,"created_at_utc_B":1563106236,"score_A":8,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I always thought the old phpBB forums were fascinating. These little micro-communities that have been replaced by much larger services like Reddit and Facebook. 100 years from now, folks will gloss over the internet culture from 1995-2005 that was just full of these small groups of people connecting on a more intimate level than they do now.","human_ref_B":"Aonymous in 2007 triggered a few sociologists and anthropologists writing about them. It was project chanology that kicked it off. Gabriella Coleman is an anthropologist who studied them in detail.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":6927.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cd0yoh","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Are internet communities valid field sites and if so, why is the field so empty? Internet communities seem to be becoming extremely prevalent in many areas of life. Even going so far as to be an identity for many individuals. Some currently influential examples being incels and anti-vax communities that have caused real world and even international consequences. So much of our lives are spent on the internet and very tight-knit communities have been formed but it appears that the anthropological community is ignoring it as a focus group. Most articles I have been able to find on the subject of internet anthropology are hypothetical and seem to be directed towards the validity of researching currently studied ethnic groups. The only ethnographies I have been able to find on specific online communities were focused on Second Life and World of Warcraft, which although were important platforms, have not been relevant for many years. Are internet communities valid areas of study, if not what are the arguments against it? If they are\/ are becoming valid areas of study, why is it being neglected by anthropologists? ​ tl;dr Why is no one writing about online communities if they are so relevant in modern society?","c_root_id_A":"etrntmj","c_root_id_B":"etrvz47","created_at_utc_A":1563125226,"created_at_utc_B":1563130312,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I just wanted to add that I read Lev Manovich's book about Instagram which I really liked https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/34706553\/Instagram_and_Contemporary_Image. Its media studies instead of anthropology but if the one who reads this is interested in digital culture, anthropholical or not, I would suggest media studies where a lot has been written about the internet.","human_ref_B":"It's a rapidly increasing field for sure, especially as those of us who have been a part of these communities are now finally publishing research. I too have bemoaned the ubiquity of Second Life in digital anthropology. While the early studies on WoW have a longer shelf life because MMO games are still relevant, that kind of \"chat room\" space has since been replaced by social media. But literature on these internet environments outlasts the environments themselves because the people familiar enough with them to write about them academically likely gained that familiarity years before they were in academia. At the same time, theory in pre-2010 digital studies is ill-suited to understand social media. It poorly predicts the ubiquity of single platforms like Facebook- two months into its life, Instagram had as many users as Second Life did at it's 2013 peak, 8 years after launch. It's filled with words like \"avatar\" that overlook the two-way street of modern cyber identities. I recently completed a paper on tourist photography on Instagram. There's plenty of lit on travel photos, very very little on social media and tourism, and practically none on how social media affects the practice of tourist photography. Those that exist are generally unsure if stalwart concepts in tourism studies (the \"tourist gaze,\" the \"souvenir\") retain the same meaning in the social media era. An Instagrammer's audience is so much more immediately present when a traveler is photographing themselves at Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal that we have to understand their lens as not just the singular tourist gaze but as the gaze of a whole audience of followers who are partners in the photographic act. Can we study this audience as a community? They wouldn't necessarily consider themselves such, but certainly they form a linguistic community at the very least. Sadly, the best anthropologists to approach this also lack an understanding of how to use Instagram, at the very least. One thing to consider while looking for research is that a lot of the literature is still caught up in Masters and PhD theses. Take \/u\/SarahAGilbert and her dissertation involving Ask Historians. I would also encourage looking more towards \"area studies:\" gender studies, political science, Latin America studies, etc. Their literature deals more with \"what does it look like to be female\/politically involved\/Mexican on the internet,\" and so has had an easier launching point than \"born digital\" studies. I was also able to find a lot of research directed at Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) on how social media affects consumers' destination image. Though indirectly related, these researchers did show a better understanding of how\/why people post. I'm sure similar stuff could be found on any topic.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":5086.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"a0r3fn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Questions about the Sentinelese What kind of information do we have about the Sentinelese? I'm curious if the following questions can be answered with what evidence we have: - Is either sex treated subordinately to the other in terms of decision-making? Basically what I'm asking if there is \"political\" or \"social\" \"equality of the sexes\" (for lack of better terms). - Are they hierarchical or egalitarian? - Is there a special reason for their hostility towards strangers compared to, say, the Kalahari Bushmen? Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"eajw3j2","c_root_id_B":"eajyopk","created_at_utc_A":1543294679,"created_at_utc_B":1543297843,"score_A":7,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"It's hard to study them due to the legal aspects around them as well as the fact that them being separated from the world for so long, direct contact could be catastrophic, but I have heard that they are in the equivalent of the Neolithic era? They're a hunter-gatherer society which would imply some sort of division of labor between men and women, so one would assume they are relatively egalitarian and divisions of labor would be split between the men and the women. There's no real way to know why they are so hostile (correct me if I'm wrong) but they have vehemently protested (as we've seen) all forms of contact - that goes back hundreds of years, seeing as colonialism was annihilating all nearby tribes (I assume). The Sentinelese may've seen this and used what info they had on the matter and decided to take an aggressive stance to outsiders, which could've been carried throughout the generations by word of mouth.","human_ref_B":">Is there a special reason for their hostility towards strangers.... Throughout history various island peoples in Oceania and Asia have taken a lot of abuse from strangers who suddenly appeared on their shores in force. If the island dwellers were lucky, the strangers only demanded food and water (European explorers were one such group of strangers; another was peoples from neighboring island regions.) If the island dwellers were unlucky they got raided: men killed; women taken into captivity. Raiding was also conducted for the purpose of headhunting in some island regions. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Headhunting It is possible the Sentinelese had some very negative experiences in their history and adopted to practice of extreme hostility to outsiders as a defensive measure.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3164.0,"score_ratio":5.2857142857} {"post_id":"a0r3fn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Questions about the Sentinelese What kind of information do we have about the Sentinelese? I'm curious if the following questions can be answered with what evidence we have: - Is either sex treated subordinately to the other in terms of decision-making? Basically what I'm asking if there is \"political\" or \"social\" \"equality of the sexes\" (for lack of better terms). - Are they hierarchical or egalitarian? - Is there a special reason for their hostility towards strangers compared to, say, the Kalahari Bushmen? Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"eak1ow2","c_root_id_B":"eak3ygb","created_at_utc_A":1543302129,"created_at_utc_B":1543305915,"score_A":15,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s interesting, and it seems that a series of things have led the Sentinelese to to have become very mysterious in nature. Namely the dense canopy of trees covering the island, leading outsiders to have very little idea of what goes on inside, as well as the great isolation of the island. What sort of structures have they created for their community? Do people live in makeshift homes? Are they a monogamous culture? What\u2019s their primary diet? In all the images and videos of the island, the armed men are the ones who come to the shores. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a baby or child on the images. What are estimates of the islands population? This group of people are extremely enigmatic and there seem to be more questions than answers.","human_ref_B":"On reasons for hostility, there's a good Twitter thread (now turned into a 'Moment') with some of the history: There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3786.0,"score_ratio":1.9333333333} {"post_id":"a0r3fn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Questions about the Sentinelese What kind of information do we have about the Sentinelese? I'm curious if the following questions can be answered with what evidence we have: - Is either sex treated subordinately to the other in terms of decision-making? Basically what I'm asking if there is \"political\" or \"social\" \"equality of the sexes\" (for lack of better terms). - Are they hierarchical or egalitarian? - Is there a special reason for their hostility towards strangers compared to, say, the Kalahari Bushmen? Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"eajw3j2","c_root_id_B":"eak3ygb","created_at_utc_A":1543294679,"created_at_utc_B":1543305915,"score_A":7,"score_B":29,"human_ref_A":"It's hard to study them due to the legal aspects around them as well as the fact that them being separated from the world for so long, direct contact could be catastrophic, but I have heard that they are in the equivalent of the Neolithic era? They're a hunter-gatherer society which would imply some sort of division of labor between men and women, so one would assume they are relatively egalitarian and divisions of labor would be split between the men and the women. There's no real way to know why they are so hostile (correct me if I'm wrong) but they have vehemently protested (as we've seen) all forms of contact - that goes back hundreds of years, seeing as colonialism was annihilating all nearby tribes (I assume). The Sentinelese may've seen this and used what info they had on the matter and decided to take an aggressive stance to outsiders, which could've been carried throughout the generations by word of mouth.","human_ref_B":"On reasons for hostility, there's a good Twitter thread (now turned into a 'Moment') with some of the history: There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":11236.0,"score_ratio":4.1428571429} {"post_id":"a0r3fn","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.81,"history":"Questions about the Sentinelese What kind of information do we have about the Sentinelese? I'm curious if the following questions can be answered with what evidence we have: - Is either sex treated subordinately to the other in terms of decision-making? Basically what I'm asking if there is \"political\" or \"social\" \"equality of the sexes\" (for lack of better terms). - Are they hierarchical or egalitarian? - Is there a special reason for their hostility towards strangers compared to, say, the Kalahari Bushmen? Thank you in advance!","c_root_id_A":"eak1ow2","c_root_id_B":"eajw3j2","created_at_utc_A":1543302129,"created_at_utc_B":1543294679,"score_A":15,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"It\u2019s interesting, and it seems that a series of things have led the Sentinelese to to have become very mysterious in nature. Namely the dense canopy of trees covering the island, leading outsiders to have very little idea of what goes on inside, as well as the great isolation of the island. What sort of structures have they created for their community? Do people live in makeshift homes? Are they a monogamous culture? What\u2019s their primary diet? In all the images and videos of the island, the armed men are the ones who come to the shores. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a baby or child on the images. What are estimates of the islands population? This group of people are extremely enigmatic and there seem to be more questions than answers.","human_ref_B":"It's hard to study them due to the legal aspects around them as well as the fact that them being separated from the world for so long, direct contact could be catastrophic, but I have heard that they are in the equivalent of the Neolithic era? They're a hunter-gatherer society which would imply some sort of division of labor between men and women, so one would assume they are relatively egalitarian and divisions of labor would be split between the men and the women. There's no real way to know why they are so hostile (correct me if I'm wrong) but they have vehemently protested (as we've seen) all forms of contact - that goes back hundreds of years, seeing as colonialism was annihilating all nearby tribes (I assume). The Sentinelese may've seen this and used what info they had on the matter and decided to take an aggressive stance to outsiders, which could've been carried throughout the generations by word of mouth.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":7450.0,"score_ratio":2.1428571429} {"post_id":"2poqp6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Books or other resources on cultural anthropology? I am very interested to start learning, so if anyone can give some suggestions that would be awesome.","c_root_id_A":"cmyq9dj","c_root_id_B":"cmyxzpp","created_at_utc_A":1418924109,"created_at_utc_B":1418937625,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest Small Places, Large Issues (Eriksen, T. H.), Patterns of Culture (Benedict, R.) or The Interpretation of Cultures (Geertz, C.). I found these books easy to read, good place to start. :)","human_ref_B":"I was absolutely enthralled by Marvin Harris' *Cannibals and Kings* when I first read it around 1990. I have no more than a layman's interest in anthropology, and I don't know how well it's aged, but the book opened up a whole explanatory vista for me of \"stuff that had previously seemed utterly arbitrary and inexplicable\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":13516.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"2poqp6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"Books or other resources on cultural anthropology? I am very interested to start learning, so if anyone can give some suggestions that would be awesome.","c_root_id_A":"cmyq9dj","c_root_id_B":"cmz1v2o","created_at_utc_A":1418924109,"created_at_utc_B":1418944718,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I would suggest Small Places, Large Issues (Eriksen, T. H.), Patterns of Culture (Benedict, R.) or The Interpretation of Cultures (Geertz, C.). I found these books easy to read, good place to start. :)","human_ref_B":"Eric Wolfe's Europe and the People Without History is a little like macro-history and cultural studies combined but is great for a big picture \/ intro to concepts of culture, space and time. http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520268180","labels":0,"seconds_difference":20609.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"394kt6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.84,"history":"Do all societies have \"name words\". By this I mean that in western culture (and all others I know of) names are generally selected from a pool of words that are dedicated to being names. Peter and Jill would be recognizable names while Dillnas would not be. Do all societies have words that are considered names or do some simply select a random word with a nice sound?","c_root_id_A":"cs0h0c9","c_root_id_B":"cs17y2w","created_at_utc_A":1433850219,"created_at_utc_B":1433895797,"score_A":2,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"> that in western culture (and all others I know of) names are generally selected from a pool of words that are dedicated to being names. Not sure about that. I recommend you to read Plato's Kratylos for further investigation.","human_ref_B":"In Chinese culture, there is not a standard list of given names to choose from. Parents choose regular characters based on their meaning. For instance, my Chinese name contains the characters for \"wisdom\" and \"vast\".","labels":0,"seconds_difference":45578.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"87qcw4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What does it mean for a civilization to collapse? When people think about their own civilization collapsing, often they think of apocalyptic events completely obliterating everything. In reality, it seems like this isn't how things go. Civilizations instead split up, get conquered (but even when they're conquered that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is dead, just that cities, etc. are taken over). For example, when Rome collapsed it didn't actually disappear off the face of the earth. What does it mean for a civilization to collapse?","c_root_id_A":"dwf84qf","c_root_id_B":"dwexvng","created_at_utc_A":1522250679,"created_at_utc_B":1522239672,"score_A":21,"score_B":15,"human_ref_A":"Someone has already mentioned 'Collapse' by Diamond. But the book 'Questioning Collapse' is far superior. For a society to collapse, we must first identify what that society is. Society collapses when the tenets and functions of that society ceases. Revitalization theory says that societies continually push from crises to reform, to stability and back. Furthermore, the reflexive movement question whether things like culture exist beyond anything more than thought experiments. So in my experience cultures collapse continually, and reform into new units (if we accept culture to exist at all).","human_ref_B":"Some books very broadly summarised: Diamond, 'Collapse' - unsustainable use of the environment destroys physical basis of society, leading to starvation and civil war. Tainter, 'Collapse of Complex Societies' - society increases complexity of its subsistence system with rising population, but also with falling marginal returns, until disasters damage over-complex system and precipitate collapse back to simpler, smaller society. Goldstone, 'Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World' - rising population leads to inequality, corruption and conflicts within the elite that cause violent revolutions and civil wars.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11007.0,"score_ratio":1.4} {"post_id":"87qcw4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What does it mean for a civilization to collapse? When people think about their own civilization collapsing, often they think of apocalyptic events completely obliterating everything. In reality, it seems like this isn't how things go. Civilizations instead split up, get conquered (but even when they're conquered that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is dead, just that cities, etc. are taken over). For example, when Rome collapsed it didn't actually disappear off the face of the earth. What does it mean for a civilization to collapse?","c_root_id_A":"dwey2kt","c_root_id_B":"dwf84qf","created_at_utc_A":1522239942,"created_at_utc_B":1522250679,"score_A":6,"score_B":21,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure I understand the question. 'Civilizations', as in cultures, generally don't collapse. As per your example, the roman state may have collapsed but roman culture is still very much embedded into european culture to this day. If you're looking to understand how exactly specific states collapse you're better off asking in \/r\/AskHistorians.","human_ref_B":"Someone has already mentioned 'Collapse' by Diamond. But the book 'Questioning Collapse' is far superior. For a society to collapse, we must first identify what that society is. Society collapses when the tenets and functions of that society ceases. Revitalization theory says that societies continually push from crises to reform, to stability and back. Furthermore, the reflexive movement question whether things like culture exist beyond anything more than thought experiments. So in my experience cultures collapse continually, and reform into new units (if we accept culture to exist at all).","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10737.0,"score_ratio":3.5} {"post_id":"87qcw4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What does it mean for a civilization to collapse? When people think about their own civilization collapsing, often they think of apocalyptic events completely obliterating everything. In reality, it seems like this isn't how things go. Civilizations instead split up, get conquered (but even when they're conquered that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is dead, just that cities, etc. are taken over). For example, when Rome collapsed it didn't actually disappear off the face of the earth. What does it mean for a civilization to collapse?","c_root_id_A":"dwey2kt","c_root_id_B":"dwfki5u","created_at_utc_A":1522239942,"created_at_utc_B":1522261620,"score_A":6,"score_B":8,"human_ref_A":"I'm not sure I understand the question. 'Civilizations', as in cultures, generally don't collapse. As per your example, the roman state may have collapsed but roman culture is still very much embedded into european culture to this day. If you're looking to understand how exactly specific states collapse you're better off asking in \/r\/AskHistorians.","human_ref_B":"I'm currently reading a book, \"Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States\" by James C. Scott, which might interest you. He looks at early state formation, and how we only ever hear about what happened from *inside* the state, and never from those who lived outside it. So he examines what it meant to live both inside and outside a state, how long it took for states to develop, what limited them, and where everybody else was while that happened, along with a different take on what's meant by 'collapse.'","labels":0,"seconds_difference":21678.0,"score_ratio":1.3333333333} {"post_id":"87qcw4","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.97,"history":"What does it mean for a civilization to collapse? When people think about their own civilization collapsing, often they think of apocalyptic events completely obliterating everything. In reality, it seems like this isn't how things go. Civilizations instead split up, get conquered (but even when they're conquered that doesn't necessarily mean everyone is dead, just that cities, etc. are taken over). For example, when Rome collapsed it didn't actually disappear off the face of the earth. What does it mean for a civilization to collapse?","c_root_id_A":"dwfki5u","c_root_id_B":"dwfg3vx","created_at_utc_A":1522261620,"created_at_utc_B":1522257749,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I'm currently reading a book, \"Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States\" by James C. Scott, which might interest you. He looks at early state formation, and how we only ever hear about what happened from *inside* the state, and never from those who lived outside it. So he examines what it meant to live both inside and outside a state, how long it took for states to develop, what limited them, and where everybody else was while that happened, along with a different take on what's meant by 'collapse.'","human_ref_B":"Turnbull wrote a book about a hunter gatherer group in east Africa he called the \u201cik\u201d the book is not without its critics, rightly, but is a powerful read. It describes the collapse of a hunter gatherer. Called \u201cthe mountain people.\u201d","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3871.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"sji8ic","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Question about physical anthropology I'm a sociocultural anthropologist student so i don't know too much of that area. I'd like to know what subdivisions of physical anthropology exists. I was searching and i found for example bioarcheology, forensic anthropology, paleopathology, primatology. I don't know if there are a determinated number of this subdivisions, but to be more precisely i prefer to ask someone who work on this.","c_root_id_A":"hvf5er0","c_root_id_B":"hvf3rz2","created_at_utc_A":1643897089,"created_at_utc_B":1643896342,"score_A":12,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"Physical anthropology is mostly an outdated term, although, it is still used by some to refer to the study of physical elements of human biology (i.e., bones). Biological anthropology is used more often in my neck of the woods. It encompasses various subdisciplines and foci within those subdisciplines. Broad subdisiciplines include paloanthropology, primatology, human biology, and forensic anthroplogy. You also have hybrid subdisiciplines like bioarchaeology and biocultural anthropology. People in these disciplines might have expertise in non-human primate behavior, human evolution, osteology, genetics, energetics, and public health\/disease, among, many, many other possibilities. That's all to say that boundaries of biological anthropology are blurred, especially in the U.S., where the four-field approach to anthropology has been championed. Personally, I describe myself as a biological anthropologist (since my work involves studying stress biomarkers), a medical anthropologist (since I study health), or a biocultural anthropologist (since I factor the role of historical context, local culture, and political economy into my analyses).","human_ref_B":"Human Population Biology (or just Human Biology), primatology, paleoanthropology, human osteology, genetics are some major ones, but there are a lot of smaller areas of specialization.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":747.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"sji8ic","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Question about physical anthropology I'm a sociocultural anthropologist student so i don't know too much of that area. I'd like to know what subdivisions of physical anthropology exists. I was searching and i found for example bioarcheology, forensic anthropology, paleopathology, primatology. I don't know if there are a determinated number of this subdivisions, but to be more precisely i prefer to ask someone who work on this.","c_root_id_A":"hvf3rz2","c_root_id_B":"hvf5ly6","created_at_utc_A":1643896342,"created_at_utc_B":1643897178,"score_A":2,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Human Population Biology (or just Human Biology), primatology, paleoanthropology, human osteology, genetics are some major ones, but there are a lot of smaller areas of specialization.","human_ref_B":"It really depends on where you are talking about and what specific University. Please don't get hung up too much on terminology. People are generally studying the same stuff but like to get in big arguments about what term should be applied. Many discussions\/arguments on this sub devolve into stupid arguments about terminology. *A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.*","labels":0,"seconds_difference":836.0,"score_ratio":2.5} {"post_id":"1j7snu","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.77,"history":"What is the college and high school life in USA really like? I am looking to learn about the college and high school life in western countries, specially USA. * Which reddit can I find \"correct\" answers to this? * Which movies, books or any other media to watch to get the \"accurate\" idea? I posted it here, since most reddits only answer in humor and cannot give an accurate idea of the culture.","c_root_id_A":"cbbzk7m","c_root_id_B":"cbbzkg9","created_at_utc_A":1375026407,"created_at_utc_B":1375026433,"score_A":3,"score_B":26,"human_ref_A":"\/r\/teenagers maybe?","human_ref_B":"First off, I do not think this question is misplaced. It is a question very much within the realm of anthropology IMO. I can only give anecdotal evidence though. Its a rather vague question. \"What is it like?\" Is quite difficult to answer because you have put *all* the burden of understanding what you would consider different on the answerer. How can they know what to talk about specifically when they dont know what you know? In that spirit, could you attempt to ask more specific question, or just cite stereotypes you know as to see if they are accurate. That said, no single answer is going to be accurate. America is HUGE. And schools differ from place to place. For example, I got to the University of South Alabama. Unlike the western stereotype of lots of parties and lots of people living on campus we have a dry campus (no alcohol) and very few live on campus. Many are also older than the average college student and have jobs as well as class. As for high school experiences, there is commonality between the social interactions across the country, teenagers are teenagers, but the educational quality varies widely. Even two schools in my own county differ quite a bit in quality and frequency of violent crimes.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":26.0,"score_ratio":8.6666666667} {"post_id":"3uh1py","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a natural human fighting style? The question occurred to me when thinking about the difference between the Roman legionaries with their short stabbing swords and the Hellenic phalangites with their long pikes. Might it be that it is more psychologically comfortable to keep an enemy at a distance with a long spear or pike, than to engage him close up with a sword? In the absence of martial arts training or cultural influences, is there a fighting style that humans will naturally adopt in a confrontation with another human? Are their some forms of fighting and warfare that are easier for humans to master than others? Are there any weapons that humans will naturally tend to favour? Tightly packed formations of men have been common throughout history, and I'm sure they confer many advantages on the battlefield, but might there also be a natural human tendency to huddle together in the face of danger? My thoughts above are pure uneducated speculation of course, I would very much appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could shed some light on the topic.","c_root_id_A":"cxezdh4","c_root_id_B":"cxey8lu","created_at_utc_A":1448653723,"created_at_utc_B":1448651634,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"For what it's worth, the main difference between physiologically modern man and Neanderthals in our hunting and fighting is that Neanderthals used short, heavier, stronger weapons--and they were themselves more heavily built than us. We by contrast were thinner and better runners, more often relying on long spears to keep danger farther away, or on throwing spears at the target. As far as I know we are the only animal to develop any kind of missile launcher, like the atlatl and sling (and of course much later, the bow and arrow).","human_ref_B":"Ranged weapons are our natural style. The atlatl, the dart, the bow and arrow, all well-prehistoric... It is indeed more psychologically comfortable to keep an enemy at a distance but a spear just isn't long enough. An answer above me suggests that the handaxe was the first weapon, and it probably was, but we quickly switched to ranged weapons upon their development and they remained dominant for hundreds of thousands of years - and are dominant again. We like range. Edit: downvoted :( So expanding. Melee weapons were only relevant before the advent of ranged weapons tens of thousands of years ago and for a couple thousand years after the rise of civilizations. Points: chariot archers. Ruled for a couple thousand years. I don't remember what took them down, it may have been combat horses (horses with sufficient forelimb strength to support a rider in the command position; this wasn't always possible). Then the Macedonians and Romans had their day. Why now in particular? I think it's societal; they're both able to force soldiers to enter melee combat, which is normally difficult, and these civilizations can afford the losses found with closing to the enemy. Melee combat tends to kill more, but at a larger cost. The Romans lost 86,000 men at Cannae and won the war. This lasted a while. I don't know what early post-Roman combat looked like in Europe, unfortunately. It didn't last forever. Let's look at 1200: the Mongol empire. They conquered the planet using horse archers. Or 1400: the Hundreds Years War. The English lost, but they did make spectacular use of ranged weaponry. They had 4 longbowmen per man-at-arms by the end of it. Around this time was the beginning of the final end of melee warfare: the advent of the firearm. Bayonets screw with things a little (and are noteworthy for requiring incredible discipline to use), but dedicated melee weapons went obsolete with the pike in the 18th century. And now we're at nothing but guns. I'm going to put chariot archers' obsolescence around 1000 BC, and by 1800 AD, melee weapons were completely phased out. 2800 years of dominance for melee weapons. Does this sound \"natural\"?","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2089.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"3uh1py","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a natural human fighting style? The question occurred to me when thinking about the difference between the Roman legionaries with their short stabbing swords and the Hellenic phalangites with their long pikes. Might it be that it is more psychologically comfortable to keep an enemy at a distance with a long spear or pike, than to engage him close up with a sword? In the absence of martial arts training or cultural influences, is there a fighting style that humans will naturally adopt in a confrontation with another human? Are their some forms of fighting and warfare that are easier for humans to master than others? Are there any weapons that humans will naturally tend to favour? Tightly packed formations of men have been common throughout history, and I'm sure they confer many advantages on the battlefield, but might there also be a natural human tendency to huddle together in the face of danger? My thoughts above are pure uneducated speculation of course, I would very much appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could shed some light on the topic.","c_root_id_A":"cxf0f6i","c_root_id_B":"cxf0t79","created_at_utc_A":1448655658,"created_at_utc_B":1448656386,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"The technology of even pre-historic weaponry is so diverse and complex that there is no reason to assume that humans have a genetic predisposition towards any particular 'style' (i.e. ranged\/sloe quarters). The genetic predisposition is almost certainly towards efficient utilisation of available resources (so making weapons best suited for the materials at hand, and exploiting the environment in warfare\/hunting), and organisation into groups. The capacity for group warfare has obvious evolutionary advantages for homo sapiens (it may have done for some of the neanderthals), but there is no reason to think that differing styles are not entirely explicable by cultural and historical factors.","human_ref_B":"It depends on what we mean by \"natural\". It's more than just a semantic argument; how we define \"natural\" in this case gives us wildly different answers to the question. For example, in many small-scale societies, such as small-scale pastoralists, horticulturalists, and those forager societies that practice warfare, the most common form that deadly fighting takes is ambush attacks, usually by a team of young men against a smaller number of enemies (more rarely as an ambush attack on an enemy settlement) and usually using ranged weapons- bows & arrows or spear-throwers. The reason this pops up so frequently is simple. Whether you want to kill people from a rival social group or not, it's in your best interest to not be killed yourself. Coordinated ambush attacks with ranged weapons give you a decent probability of killing your rivals with very little risk to yourself. It turns out that chimpanzee warfare takes the same form minus the ranged weapons. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist who's studied chimp warfare, is the guy to read when it comes to small-scale warfare; though I don't agree with him about everything, he's still essential reading if you're interested in the subject. So: are ambush attacks \"natural\"? If by \"natural\" you mean that there's a specific innate instinct in young men to team up and ambush and kill people, probably not. Even if ambush warfare exerted a strong selective pressure on us, an instinct that divides the human world into ingroups and outgroups, a self-preservation instinct, strong social bonds, a bit of reasoning power, and the ability to make ranged weapons would all be selected for and result in the pattern of ambush attacks we see without any specific \"ambush instinct\". If, like me, you doubt warfare was a strong selective pressure in the Pleistocene, those same psychological characteristics would still form for other reasons (they're pretty useful for lots of things) and produce the same pattern we see now once the Holocene began and ecological conditions changed and favored warfare, which would mean that ambush warfare isn't \"natural\". However, you could still call ambush warfare \"natural\" if you loosen the definition a bit (without watering it down too much). If it turns out that warfare wasn't a selective force in the Pleistocene, then small-scale warfare based around ambush attacks could still be seen as a \"natural\" consequence of our psychology in ecological conditions that favor warfare, even though it wasn't directly selected for in the past.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":728.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"3uh1py","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Is there a natural human fighting style? The question occurred to me when thinking about the difference between the Roman legionaries with their short stabbing swords and the Hellenic phalangites with their long pikes. Might it be that it is more psychologically comfortable to keep an enemy at a distance with a long spear or pike, than to engage him close up with a sword? In the absence of martial arts training or cultural influences, is there a fighting style that humans will naturally adopt in a confrontation with another human? Are their some forms of fighting and warfare that are easier for humans to master than others? Are there any weapons that humans will naturally tend to favour? Tightly packed formations of men have been common throughout history, and I'm sure they confer many advantages on the battlefield, but might there also be a natural human tendency to huddle together in the face of danger? My thoughts above are pure uneducated speculation of course, I would very much appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could shed some light on the topic.","c_root_id_A":"cxey8lu","c_root_id_B":"cxf0t79","created_at_utc_A":1448651634,"created_at_utc_B":1448656386,"score_A":3,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"Ranged weapons are our natural style. The atlatl, the dart, the bow and arrow, all well-prehistoric... It is indeed more psychologically comfortable to keep an enemy at a distance but a spear just isn't long enough. An answer above me suggests that the handaxe was the first weapon, and it probably was, but we quickly switched to ranged weapons upon their development and they remained dominant for hundreds of thousands of years - and are dominant again. We like range. Edit: downvoted :( So expanding. Melee weapons were only relevant before the advent of ranged weapons tens of thousands of years ago and for a couple thousand years after the rise of civilizations. Points: chariot archers. Ruled for a couple thousand years. I don't remember what took them down, it may have been combat horses (horses with sufficient forelimb strength to support a rider in the command position; this wasn't always possible). Then the Macedonians and Romans had their day. Why now in particular? I think it's societal; they're both able to force soldiers to enter melee combat, which is normally difficult, and these civilizations can afford the losses found with closing to the enemy. Melee combat tends to kill more, but at a larger cost. The Romans lost 86,000 men at Cannae and won the war. This lasted a while. I don't know what early post-Roman combat looked like in Europe, unfortunately. It didn't last forever. Let's look at 1200: the Mongol empire. They conquered the planet using horse archers. Or 1400: the Hundreds Years War. The English lost, but they did make spectacular use of ranged weaponry. They had 4 longbowmen per man-at-arms by the end of it. Around this time was the beginning of the final end of melee warfare: the advent of the firearm. Bayonets screw with things a little (and are noteworthy for requiring incredible discipline to use), but dedicated melee weapons went obsolete with the pike in the 18th century. And now we're at nothing but guns. I'm going to put chariot archers' obsolescence around 1000 BC, and by 1800 AD, melee weapons were completely phased out. 2800 years of dominance for melee weapons. Does this sound \"natural\"?","human_ref_B":"It depends on what we mean by \"natural\". It's more than just a semantic argument; how we define \"natural\" in this case gives us wildly different answers to the question. For example, in many small-scale societies, such as small-scale pastoralists, horticulturalists, and those forager societies that practice warfare, the most common form that deadly fighting takes is ambush attacks, usually by a team of young men against a smaller number of enemies (more rarely as an ambush attack on an enemy settlement) and usually using ranged weapons- bows & arrows or spear-throwers. The reason this pops up so frequently is simple. Whether you want to kill people from a rival social group or not, it's in your best interest to not be killed yourself. Coordinated ambush attacks with ranged weapons give you a decent probability of killing your rivals with very little risk to yourself. It turns out that chimpanzee warfare takes the same form minus the ranged weapons. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist who's studied chimp warfare, is the guy to read when it comes to small-scale warfare; though I don't agree with him about everything, he's still essential reading if you're interested in the subject. So: are ambush attacks \"natural\"? If by \"natural\" you mean that there's a specific innate instinct in young men to team up and ambush and kill people, probably not. Even if ambush warfare exerted a strong selective pressure on us, an instinct that divides the human world into ingroups and outgroups, a self-preservation instinct, strong social bonds, a bit of reasoning power, and the ability to make ranged weapons would all be selected for and result in the pattern of ambush attacks we see without any specific \"ambush instinct\". If, like me, you doubt warfare was a strong selective pressure in the Pleistocene, those same psychological characteristics would still form for other reasons (they're pretty useful for lots of things) and produce the same pattern we see now once the Holocene began and ecological conditions changed and favored warfare, which would mean that ambush warfare isn't \"natural\". However, you could still call ambush warfare \"natural\" if you loosen the definition a bit (without watering it down too much). If it turns out that warfare wasn't a selective force in the Pleistocene, then small-scale warfare based around ambush attacks could still be seen as a \"natural\" consequence of our psychology in ecological conditions that favor warfare, even though it wasn't directly selected for in the past.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4752.0,"score_ratio":2.0} {"post_id":"cvoi8z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Book recommendations on the Fremont Culture, Puebloan Culture, Anasazi, Navajo, and Utes? Greetings r\/askanthropology ! I asked this question in r\/askhistorians and have so far received no replies so I figured this may be a good spot to ask. I'm interested in pre-columbian books on the US Southwest cultures. I'd like to learn more about the Fremont Culture, as well as the other tribes such as the Anasazi, Puebloan culture, Navajo, and Utes that inhabited the US Southwest in the 18th century and earlier. Does anyone have any recommended reading on these subjects? I've just finished David Robert's \"Escalante's Dream\", and while I thought the book was a mess, it further piqued my curiosity. With all of my travelling in the US Southwest, and my interest in these historical cultures and their archaeological sites, I would like to get a good primer on the distinct cultures and maybe get a little more advanced into their histories and just who they were. Cheers!","c_root_id_A":"ey6nu4k","c_root_id_B":"ey675c4","created_at_utc_A":1566859925,"created_at_utc_B":1566848942,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Check out House of Rain by Craig Childs. Childs weaves this story in a way that follows the migrations of these cultural groups as they followed the shifting climate. He explores the religious practices, architectural accomplishments, connections to Mesoamerica, and warfare of the ancient people in a way that makes nuanced connections and evokes the imagery of the area.","human_ref_B":"If you're interested in food\/food history\/nutrition of the Southwest cultures and the connection to identity you should give Lois Ellen Frank a try, especially \"The discourse and practice of Native American cuisine: Native American chefs and Native American cooks in contemporary Southwest kitchens\". Have fun reading all those awesome books!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":10983.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"cvoi8z","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.98,"history":"Book recommendations on the Fremont Culture, Puebloan Culture, Anasazi, Navajo, and Utes? Greetings r\/askanthropology ! I asked this question in r\/askhistorians and have so far received no replies so I figured this may be a good spot to ask. I'm interested in pre-columbian books on the US Southwest cultures. I'd like to learn more about the Fremont Culture, as well as the other tribes such as the Anasazi, Puebloan culture, Navajo, and Utes that inhabited the US Southwest in the 18th century and earlier. Does anyone have any recommended reading on these subjects? I've just finished David Robert's \"Escalante's Dream\", and while I thought the book was a mess, it further piqued my curiosity. With all of my travelling in the US Southwest, and my interest in these historical cultures and their archaeological sites, I would like to get a good primer on the distinct cultures and maybe get a little more advanced into their histories and just who they were. Cheers!","c_root_id_A":"ey6igud","c_root_id_B":"ey6nu4k","created_at_utc_A":1566856367,"created_at_utc_B":1566859925,"score_A":3,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"For my tribe, there's a book called \"*The Book of the Navajo*\" you could look into.","human_ref_B":"Check out House of Rain by Craig Childs. Childs weaves this story in a way that follows the migrations of these cultural groups as they followed the shifting climate. He explores the religious practices, architectural accomplishments, connections to Mesoamerica, and warfare of the ancient people in a way that makes nuanced connections and evokes the imagery of the area.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3558.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"et5nxc","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.94,"history":"Do cultures that inhabit more extreme environments agree that Hawaii-style tropical weather is \u201cideal\u201d? Obviously individual people have specific preferences, but there seems to be broad agreement in US culture that tropical weather is \u201cideal\u201d \u2014 warm bit not extremely hot, rare truly cold weather, mild seasonal variations, relatively warm overnights. Is this \u201cideal weather\u201d something shared by, say, Inuits or other cultures who live in cold environments? Or by desert peoples, who live in harsher, hotter climates? If not, what would they consider an ideal environment? What\u2019s their idea of paradise on earth?","c_root_id_A":"ffjz15n","c_root_id_B":"ffiudm2","created_at_utc_A":1580010874,"created_at_utc_B":1579982957,"score_A":5,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":">broad agreement in US culture that tropical weather is \u201cideal\u201d \u2014 warm bit not extremely hot, rare truly cold weather, mild seasonal variations, relatively warm overnights. In order to have an \"ideal\" you need to have experienced other climates. Which 99% of these indigenous people have not done. Pretty much zero Bedouins have experienced a mild European summer. The value judgement of \"ideal\" is only relevant for a short time. A place like the European plain, or rich-soiled US Midwest, is clearly easier to live in than the Sahel or Siberia. But because it's easier to live in, people have higher birthrates, and eventually population rises to meet available resources, and human competition becomes a more annoying thing than environmental harshness.","human_ref_B":"One of the better books on Inuit worldview and existential ponderings is Jean Briggs *Never in Anger.* She supports the notion that the Inuit like their own environment, do not ponder others' environments much or at all, and regard whining or discontent as serious character flaws. They are not looking for \"better\" or \"ideal,\" they want to live harmoniously and happily where they are. Everything else I've read in Inuit ethnography supports the same view. Similar results are obtained by reading interviews\/ethnographies from the Chukchi and other Siberian peoples. There is no \"ideal weather.\"","labels":1,"seconds_difference":27917.0,"score_ratio":1.6666666667} {"post_id":"1n5my7","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.83,"history":"What exactly is the criticism of Jared Diamond's \"Collapse?\" Currently, I'm borrowing Jared Diamond's \"Collapse\" from a friend who read it for AP World History, and it's a fascinating read. Among this subreddit, internet anthropology circles, and anywhere else it's mentioned, I get the impression that Jared Diamond's works are decent introductions to the topic, but are heavily criticised and overly simplistic. What exactly are people saying about \"Collapse\" in particular?","c_root_id_A":"ccfvxv0","c_root_id_B":"ccfoug8","created_at_utc_A":1380217568,"created_at_utc_B":1380189066,"score_A":17,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"The general answer is the same as most responses to Jared Diamond's books: he simplifies, skews, ignores important data, and cherry picks to make his arguments. For his most recent book, for example, the a Papua New Guinea tribe was so pissed off at how they were misrepresented - something which actually lead to the police investigating them for crimes - that they sued Diamond. I am not a historian or archaeologist so I can't speak definitively to the entire book. But I can say that his treatment of why Haiti is poor is so incredibly narrow, simplistic, and misleading that it is shocking. He ignores so much it is impossible to even know where to start. Deforestation is a huge problem but is a product of history, economics, and global politics. Nor is it the primary reason that Haiti is in such dire straights. Or even the full reason why there are so few arable regions - when the US set up the Peligre Dam they flooded Haiti's breadbasket and destroyed one of its most important sources of food (and never did become a source of electricity for the people). But somehow that doesn't make it into Diamond's book. And his discussion of how the French helped is just... well it makes anyone with a passing knowledge of Haitian history pretty darn angry.","human_ref_B":"I'm guessing you're not in college yet or don't have access to JSTOR or a College Library? The best way to find out what people are saying is to do a search at your University Library, Google Scholar, JSTOR, etc for \"Collapse Diamond Review\" you're getting all three key words in your search and you're not looking for the book itself or excerpts but specifically critical reviews. Here's one that might interest you, it's titled \"Are we Collapsing? A Review of Jared Diamond's *Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed*.\" by Scott E. Page found in the Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XLIII (December 2005), pp. 1049-1062. And I'll quote you the introductory paragraph it is as follows: *Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking Penguin, 2005), tells the dramatic decline of past civilizations -- the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi in the Southwestern United States, the Mayans in Central America, the Norse Vinland settlement in Greenland. These civilizations did not slowly fall apart; they suffered drastic reduction in population and productivity. In Diamond's account, their collapses result from mismanaged resources, lost friends, gained enemies, climate changes, and most tellingly, their cultures and beliefs. Diamond provides captivating histories and an engaging explanation of the sciences required to piece those histories together, but his logic and his prescriptions would benefit from greater familiarity with some basic principles of economics and a richer understanding of human nature.*","labels":1,"seconds_difference":28502.0,"score_ratio":2.4285714286} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpod08z","c_root_id_B":"fpo74to","created_at_utc_A":1588782415,"created_at_utc_B":1588779539,"score_A":24,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I left Tech in 2003 after 7 years full-time in the industry to move completely into social sciences\/humanities. I hated what I did in tech, although I was competent and decently paid for what I did, I was painfully bored. I moved to Europe, studied and graduated from a well-regarded and ancient university. I went full in - every friend and acquaintance was an academic, we studied in 17th Century stone buildings and had fancy scarves and everything. I did some tech consulting here and there to pay bills, but threw myself at my interests for the next 6-7 years. I enjoyed the subject matter, but I found working for institutions absolutely maddening. Ultimately, I found that in any job I took as a non-engineer I was a \u201ccost center\u201d who needed to constantly justify or create funding for my work. This leads to an employee-employer dynamic that most tech folks really just have never experienced and which is not my favorite. I went back to tech in 2010, taking some of the skills developed in the 7 year interstitial to modify my career track, it\u2019s worked out well. I\u2019m glad I pursued my interests, but I am so glad I kept enough of a hand in tech to be able to jump back in quickly. Soft sciences (especially) and Institutions are wildly different political and social creatures to technology companies or the cultural climate in most technological groups. Do you know many college professors? Grad students? Do you have a real sense for what they \u201cHATE\u201d about the jobs? You may be surprised. I think my life as a Software Engineer today is closer to monasticism or the academy from the late 19th to mid 20th Centuries, when it comes to one\u2019s ability to spend time learning and practicing a wide range of interests. I am pretty much allowed to do novel research on anything that crawls up my trouser leg. I\u2019d say commit to a couple actual courses, set deadlines, do the degree (if you value degrees), but don\u2019t quit your job or anything - it sounds like your plan here is really to become an expert in your interests, which is great...that plan does not necessitate chopping your income potential by 70% or changing your career path.","human_ref_B":"I'lI leave my 2c here. I'm a computational social scientist, an umbrella term for researchers that are qualified to work with data and social sciences, currently doing a MA in political science. I had the opportunity to take many anthropology classes during my bachelor with very good PhD professors and I can say it is most definitely a very exciting field, at least if you like to understand other societies and cultures from the past and the present. It is also a very exciting field for philosophers, as anthropologists need to be open-minded when studying other cultures, or else they will fail in comprehending other human understandings of the cosmos and will just mistranslate their meanings. Don't let the comments here discourage you; if you get the feeling you should get into it, then do it. Whatever comes out ot this, you at least will have tried your best. If you would like some suggestions for reading, I'd say Levi-Strauss, Roy Wagner, Viveiros de Castro and Marco Valentim. The last two are Brazilians, but you can probably find texts in English from them as well, since they are among the most cited and well known contemporary researchers in the field right now. Wish you all the best!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":2876.0,"score_ratio":4.0} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpoakrt","c_root_id_B":"fpod08z","created_at_utc_A":1588781223,"created_at_utc_B":1588782415,"score_A":4,"score_B":24,"human_ref_A":"I would just like to drop in and say I\u2019m NOT an anthropologist - But I do work with many anthropologists and archaeologists in my work. One reason I was able to get my foot in the door, so to speak, with the group I am working with; is because they are always looking for people who have knowledge of new technologies - whether that is social media or GIS, or lidar. You mentioned that you have many related skills already, and maybe you can start exploring how this can connect you to your passion. I had a passion for archaeology, but I also didn\u2019t see myself making a career of it. I have a bachelors in Environmental Studies and I did my undergrad research in Mexico with an archaeological group, assessing the sustainability of different tourism management frameworks to help protect cultural heritage. In this way I was able to use my degree in a field that I was interested in.","human_ref_B":"I left Tech in 2003 after 7 years full-time in the industry to move completely into social sciences\/humanities. I hated what I did in tech, although I was competent and decently paid for what I did, I was painfully bored. I moved to Europe, studied and graduated from a well-regarded and ancient university. I went full in - every friend and acquaintance was an academic, we studied in 17th Century stone buildings and had fancy scarves and everything. I did some tech consulting here and there to pay bills, but threw myself at my interests for the next 6-7 years. I enjoyed the subject matter, but I found working for institutions absolutely maddening. Ultimately, I found that in any job I took as a non-engineer I was a \u201ccost center\u201d who needed to constantly justify or create funding for my work. This leads to an employee-employer dynamic that most tech folks really just have never experienced and which is not my favorite. I went back to tech in 2010, taking some of the skills developed in the 7 year interstitial to modify my career track, it\u2019s worked out well. I\u2019m glad I pursued my interests, but I am so glad I kept enough of a hand in tech to be able to jump back in quickly. Soft sciences (especially) and Institutions are wildly different political and social creatures to technology companies or the cultural climate in most technological groups. Do you know many college professors? Grad students? Do you have a real sense for what they \u201cHATE\u201d about the jobs? You may be surprised. I think my life as a Software Engineer today is closer to monasticism or the academy from the late 19th to mid 20th Centuries, when it comes to one\u2019s ability to spend time learning and practicing a wide range of interests. I am pretty much allowed to do novel research on anything that crawls up my trouser leg. I\u2019d say commit to a couple actual courses, set deadlines, do the degree (if you value degrees), but don\u2019t quit your job or anything - it sounds like your plan here is really to become an expert in your interests, which is great...that plan does not necessitate chopping your income potential by 70% or changing your career path.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1192.0,"score_ratio":6.0} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpo2pw3","c_root_id_B":"fpo7zyc","created_at_utc_A":1588777309,"created_at_utc_B":1588779960,"score_A":25,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"Follow your passion, but your passion is maybe better destined to be a hobby. Consider instead an anthropology book\/research club? GENERALLY, there are a lot of opportunities to help out with digs, museums, etc. Maybe revisit this once COVID is less of an issue. (I have an undergrad degree in anth, and lord was I happy to stumble into speech therapy 8 years later.)","human_ref_B":"I'm a tenure track anthropology professor, and I'm planning to learn software development for additional income because I don't earn enough to support my family. Frankly, our society doesn't value academia or expertise in general right now. Many people are actively hostile toward knowledge production, and they currently control the purse strings. You're better off sticking with your financial security and looking for a face to face opportunity to study anthropology part-time before you rush into anything.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2651.0,"score_ratio":1.12} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpo7zyc","c_root_id_B":"fpo74to","created_at_utc_A":1588779960,"created_at_utc_B":1588779539,"score_A":28,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm a tenure track anthropology professor, and I'm planning to learn software development for additional income because I don't earn enough to support my family. Frankly, our society doesn't value academia or expertise in general right now. Many people are actively hostile toward knowledge production, and they currently control the purse strings. You're better off sticking with your financial security and looking for a face to face opportunity to study anthropology part-time before you rush into anything.","human_ref_B":"I'lI leave my 2c here. I'm a computational social scientist, an umbrella term for researchers that are qualified to work with data and social sciences, currently doing a MA in political science. I had the opportunity to take many anthropology classes during my bachelor with very good PhD professors and I can say it is most definitely a very exciting field, at least if you like to understand other societies and cultures from the past and the present. It is also a very exciting field for philosophers, as anthropologists need to be open-minded when studying other cultures, or else they will fail in comprehending other human understandings of the cosmos and will just mistranslate their meanings. Don't let the comments here discourage you; if you get the feeling you should get into it, then do it. Whatever comes out ot this, you at least will have tried your best. If you would like some suggestions for reading, I'd say Levi-Strauss, Roy Wagner, Viveiros de Castro and Marco Valentim. The last two are Brazilians, but you can probably find texts in English from them as well, since they are among the most cited and well known contemporary researchers in the field right now. Wish you all the best!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":421.0,"score_ratio":4.6666666667} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpoi5eh","c_root_id_B":"fpo74to","created_at_utc_A":1588784902,"created_at_utc_B":1588779539,"score_A":11,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I'm in the reverse situation of you, anthropology professional with a B.S. currently learning programming and switching careers in my early 30s. Don't do it. I worked as an archaeologist in both private and government for 8 years. Definitely regret getting my degree in anthroplogy. Absolutely loved my work and what I got to see\/experience in my 20s because of it, but always got paid like shit for the amount of knowledge required in the field as a scientist and was always traveling around the country or getting laid off in the winter. Now I'm here in my 30s, broke as fuck, pinning everything on learning programming to be able to settle down finally like \"normal folk\". With anthropology you can go academic, find a job in it after getting a PhD or possibly a masters, and then put up with academia politics and circle jerks your whole life. Or, you can get a masters and get hired in government\/private work year long (hopefully), but your pay will always be low compared to the amount of knowledge and work you put into your your degree\/job, and you will be near bottom of the food chain at work when compared to other fields. The public just doesn't see much value in the field of anthropology, and such is the reflection in the job market. More public outreach needs to be done in the U.S. instead of everything being kept up in academic journals that a layman has no interest in reading or understanding why it is important. The only real money and normal job security in anthropology is within physical anthropology doing forensics. Which was a route I initially worked in before going archaeolgy, but I just didn't want to take the details of murders home with me mentally, especially when you start talking about child cases. Of course there are always outliers and your mileage may vary, but this is the general theme with anthropology careers currently. It's better left as an interesting hobby. But, if money isn't a concern, by all means go at it!","human_ref_B":"I'lI leave my 2c here. I'm a computational social scientist, an umbrella term for researchers that are qualified to work with data and social sciences, currently doing a MA in political science. I had the opportunity to take many anthropology classes during my bachelor with very good PhD professors and I can say it is most definitely a very exciting field, at least if you like to understand other societies and cultures from the past and the present. It is also a very exciting field for philosophers, as anthropologists need to be open-minded when studying other cultures, or else they will fail in comprehending other human understandings of the cosmos and will just mistranslate their meanings. Don't let the comments here discourage you; if you get the feeling you should get into it, then do it. Whatever comes out ot this, you at least will have tried your best. If you would like some suggestions for reading, I'd say Levi-Strauss, Roy Wagner, Viveiros de Castro and Marco Valentim. The last two are Brazilians, but you can probably find texts in English from them as well, since they are among the most cited and well known contemporary researchers in the field right now. Wish you all the best!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5363.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpofwks","c_root_id_B":"fpoi5eh","created_at_utc_A":1588783816,"created_at_utc_B":1588784902,"score_A":6,"score_B":11,"human_ref_A":"you know I would definitely encourage you to do some kind of studies in anthropology, not necessarily at a full bachelor's degree level. don't know if they have something smaller at colleges in your area, but colleges in my area often provide smaller certificate programs in social sciences\/humanities. it's also just possible to take however many courses you like at my university as a non-degree student. you could try to integrate together what you *already* know and what you want to learn, rather than making a \"full break\" between disciplines. with your knowledge of software & technology you have something valuable to digital ethnography, to studies of human\/tech relationships, the tech culture itself and so on, and maybe you can reach out to nearby scholars who cover those topics and ask how you could integrate yourself into their field of research as an engineer. I know why you might want to leave behind engineering altogether ... my partner was pushed into it, never had the chance to change programs and HATES it still, and he wishes he was doing something with more room for creativity. but maybe what you know now can be applied in a different way than what you have been doing so far. Arturo Escobar did his Bachelor's in engineering before becoming an anthropologist, and he calls on that in his works on the design of development\/social programs. we read an excerpt from his book *Designs for the Pluriverse* in one of my 3rd year courses. but ... as others have said, a anthropology degree has a lot less of a \"career guarantee\". if you are comfortable with that, I respect that, and I think it's absolutely valid to choose fulfillment over the financial promise\/security of your previous field. I think there are lots of jobs where you could integrate anthropology knowledge, but to be \"an anthropologist\" most people stay into grad school and so on and so forth. you could do freelance writing based on anthropology at any level, though, as long as you're good. again, I would encourage you to reach out to anthropologists who cover the topics that interest you\/that are relevant to what you already know and ask how a person with your academic background could integrate themselves. there could be Master's programs available in sort of hybrid social science\/humanities disciplines *focused* on tech and they might be more open to taking on someone without a formal social science background, especially if you can demonstrate knowledge of anthropology in your statement, or have some extra studies on your academic record (from certificate programs, non degree study etc). in those programs you may end up reading and learning anthropology\/ethnography even if the name of your program is not \"anthropology\", especially if you find professors who are explicitly interested in doing the \"ethnography of ____\" (and so on). I wish I could give you more specific suggestions about professors or books, but hope this helps.","human_ref_B":"I'm in the reverse situation of you, anthropology professional with a B.S. currently learning programming and switching careers in my early 30s. Don't do it. I worked as an archaeologist in both private and government for 8 years. Definitely regret getting my degree in anthroplogy. Absolutely loved my work and what I got to see\/experience in my 20s because of it, but always got paid like shit for the amount of knowledge required in the field as a scientist and was always traveling around the country or getting laid off in the winter. Now I'm here in my 30s, broke as fuck, pinning everything on learning programming to be able to settle down finally like \"normal folk\". With anthropology you can go academic, find a job in it after getting a PhD or possibly a masters, and then put up with academia politics and circle jerks your whole life. Or, you can get a masters and get hired in government\/private work year long (hopefully), but your pay will always be low compared to the amount of knowledge and work you put into your your degree\/job, and you will be near bottom of the food chain at work when compared to other fields. The public just doesn't see much value in the field of anthropology, and such is the reflection in the job market. More public outreach needs to be done in the U.S. instead of everything being kept up in academic journals that a layman has no interest in reading or understanding why it is important. The only real money and normal job security in anthropology is within physical anthropology doing forensics. Which was a route I initially worked in before going archaeolgy, but I just didn't want to take the details of murders home with me mentally, especially when you start talking about child cases. Of course there are always outliers and your mileage may vary, but this is the general theme with anthropology careers currently. It's better left as an interesting hobby. But, if money isn't a concern, by all means go at it!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1086.0,"score_ratio":1.8333333333} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpoi5eh","c_root_id_B":"fpoakrt","created_at_utc_A":1588784902,"created_at_utc_B":1588781223,"score_A":11,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"I'm in the reverse situation of you, anthropology professional with a B.S. currently learning programming and switching careers in my early 30s. Don't do it. I worked as an archaeologist in both private and government for 8 years. Definitely regret getting my degree in anthroplogy. Absolutely loved my work and what I got to see\/experience in my 20s because of it, but always got paid like shit for the amount of knowledge required in the field as a scientist and was always traveling around the country or getting laid off in the winter. Now I'm here in my 30s, broke as fuck, pinning everything on learning programming to be able to settle down finally like \"normal folk\". With anthropology you can go academic, find a job in it after getting a PhD or possibly a masters, and then put up with academia politics and circle jerks your whole life. Or, you can get a masters and get hired in government\/private work year long (hopefully), but your pay will always be low compared to the amount of knowledge and work you put into your your degree\/job, and you will be near bottom of the food chain at work when compared to other fields. The public just doesn't see much value in the field of anthropology, and such is the reflection in the job market. More public outreach needs to be done in the U.S. instead of everything being kept up in academic journals that a layman has no interest in reading or understanding why it is important. The only real money and normal job security in anthropology is within physical anthropology doing forensics. Which was a route I initially worked in before going archaeolgy, but I just didn't want to take the details of murders home with me mentally, especially when you start talking about child cases. Of course there are always outliers and your mileage may vary, but this is the general theme with anthropology careers currently. It's better left as an interesting hobby. But, if money isn't a concern, by all means go at it!","human_ref_B":"I would just like to drop in and say I\u2019m NOT an anthropologist - But I do work with many anthropologists and archaeologists in my work. One reason I was able to get my foot in the door, so to speak, with the group I am working with; is because they are always looking for people who have knowledge of new technologies - whether that is social media or GIS, or lidar. You mentioned that you have many related skills already, and maybe you can start exploring how this can connect you to your passion. I had a passion for archaeology, but I also didn\u2019t see myself making a career of it. I have a bachelors in Environmental Studies and I did my undergrad research in Mexico with an archaeological group, assessing the sustainability of different tourism management frameworks to help protect cultural heritage. In this way I was able to use my degree in a field that I was interested in.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3679.0,"score_ratio":2.75} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpoakrt","c_root_id_B":"fpofwks","created_at_utc_A":1588781223,"created_at_utc_B":1588783816,"score_A":4,"score_B":6,"human_ref_A":"I would just like to drop in and say I\u2019m NOT an anthropologist - But I do work with many anthropologists and archaeologists in my work. One reason I was able to get my foot in the door, so to speak, with the group I am working with; is because they are always looking for people who have knowledge of new technologies - whether that is social media or GIS, or lidar. You mentioned that you have many related skills already, and maybe you can start exploring how this can connect you to your passion. I had a passion for archaeology, but I also didn\u2019t see myself making a career of it. I have a bachelors in Environmental Studies and I did my undergrad research in Mexico with an archaeological group, assessing the sustainability of different tourism management frameworks to help protect cultural heritage. In this way I was able to use my degree in a field that I was interested in.","human_ref_B":"you know I would definitely encourage you to do some kind of studies in anthropology, not necessarily at a full bachelor's degree level. don't know if they have something smaller at colleges in your area, but colleges in my area often provide smaller certificate programs in social sciences\/humanities. it's also just possible to take however many courses you like at my university as a non-degree student. you could try to integrate together what you *already* know and what you want to learn, rather than making a \"full break\" between disciplines. with your knowledge of software & technology you have something valuable to digital ethnography, to studies of human\/tech relationships, the tech culture itself and so on, and maybe you can reach out to nearby scholars who cover those topics and ask how you could integrate yourself into their field of research as an engineer. I know why you might want to leave behind engineering altogether ... my partner was pushed into it, never had the chance to change programs and HATES it still, and he wishes he was doing something with more room for creativity. but maybe what you know now can be applied in a different way than what you have been doing so far. Arturo Escobar did his Bachelor's in engineering before becoming an anthropologist, and he calls on that in his works on the design of development\/social programs. we read an excerpt from his book *Designs for the Pluriverse* in one of my 3rd year courses. but ... as others have said, a anthropology degree has a lot less of a \"career guarantee\". if you are comfortable with that, I respect that, and I think it's absolutely valid to choose fulfillment over the financial promise\/security of your previous field. I think there are lots of jobs where you could integrate anthropology knowledge, but to be \"an anthropologist\" most people stay into grad school and so on and so forth. you could do freelance writing based on anthropology at any level, though, as long as you're good. again, I would encourage you to reach out to anthropologists who cover the topics that interest you\/that are relevant to what you already know and ask how a person with your academic background could integrate themselves. there could be Master's programs available in sort of hybrid social science\/humanities disciplines *focused* on tech and they might be more open to taking on someone without a formal social science background, especially if you can demonstrate knowledge of anthropology in your statement, or have some extra studies on your academic record (from certificate programs, non degree study etc). in those programs you may end up reading and learning anthropology\/ethnography even if the name of your program is not \"anthropology\", especially if you find professors who are explicitly interested in doing the \"ethnography of ____\" (and so on). I wish I could give you more specific suggestions about professors or books, but hope this helps.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":2593.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fppfxjq","c_root_id_B":"fpp7boh","created_at_utc_A":1588801550,"created_at_utc_B":1588797220,"score_A":3,"score_B":2,"human_ref_A":"It's really sad that the response to questions like this on reddit or stackexchange is always \"It's impossible, and even if you succeed it will be horrible.\" I'm not disagreeing with the other posters here, just saying it's sad. There are *so* many people like you with the capability and motivation to contribute intellectually to society, and they just can't do it because of the messed-up incentives. Just to give my story. I did an undergrad degree with a significant anthropology component and then moved into software. Software was interesting at first, and I think CS has a great deal of interesting stuff in it, but commercial web programming is utterly boring. I'm now working in policy and mostly enjoying it, so that could be a route for you. Policy has the advantage of having jobs while also having a significant intellectual component relating to the social sciences. You could also build on your tech experience by going into tech policy, and combining that with some understanding of social science could be valuable. Below is some speculative advice based on my thinking about how to do something like research outside academia, but it's not based on any experience. It might be worth considering what is the closest thing to academia that's not academia, because academia honestly sounds awful at the moment. Policy, especially in think tanks, is one option. Another would be nonfiction writing or investigative journalism, although both are hard to get into, and journalism is probably as messed up as academia. Some forms of strategy consulting can be interesting, although probably at smaller more specialist firms rather than the big ones. Also think about what things you could do better than academics can. That's probably not going to be pure research in cultural anthropology, but is there an angle you can take, e.g. drawing on your tech knowledge, that could generate an interesting research\/writing\/programming direction? The goal shouldn't to be an academic, it should be to find where you can make a significant intellectual contribution. Find those few places where those don't go together. Also, look out for people who have made intellectual contributions outside academia and see what they did. For example, Jane Jacobs wrote a highly influential book in urban planning and only had 2 years of university study. Anne Fadiman wrote the medical anthropology book *The spirit catches you and you fall down*, but she's a journalist, not an academic. The kind of people who win the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction are probably interesting to look at. You can also look to the past, where there were more amateur contributors. Obviously there are good reasons why this is rarer now. But, for example, how did JS Mill become one of the greatest philosophers of the 19th century while having a job as a colonial administrator in the East India Company? Or Marx, who made his contributions from outside academia. Is there anything we can learn from these sorts of people? On a more minor level, in every field there are people who publish books and give talks on intellectual topics relating to that field who aren't academics. Perhaps become one of them, and try to be less bullshit than these people usually are. Whatever path you go for, it's unlikely to succeed completely. Make sure that, whatever level of success you have, you'll still enjoy life, otherwise you could be chasing a dream until you die.","human_ref_B":"I don't have any advice, but wanted to comment cause I'm living in the reverse! 30 year old software developer who went to uni for anthropology originally! I loved it and found it so interesting, but didn't wanna spend the rest of my life begging for grant money so I never pursued it. But honestly it's the coolest field imo. Good luck, OP!","labels":1,"seconds_difference":4330.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"gegvaz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.96,"history":"Career shift to anthropology I am a 30 years old Software engineer , I finished my bachelor's in Computer Science 8 years ago , was doing my master's in Data engineering , dropped out , I am really skilled at my job and it is making my finincially secured. However I don't see my self doing this for the rest of my life , I have a huge interest in anthropology and would like study anthropology and to specialize in cultural anthropology, I work as a free lancer so I can manage my own time . I'm thinking about doing an online bachelor's degree and then go from there , what are your thoughts and advice?! Tldr: Software engineer would like to make a career shift to anthropology, needs advice","c_root_id_A":"fpp7boh","c_root_id_B":"fppfwzr","created_at_utc_A":1588797220,"created_at_utc_B":1588801543,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I don't have any advice, but wanted to comment cause I'm living in the reverse! 30 year old software developer who went to uni for anthropology originally! I loved it and found it so interesting, but didn't wanna spend the rest of my life begging for grant money so I never pursued it. But honestly it's the coolest field imo. Good luck, OP!","human_ref_B":"I disagree with most of the commenters. Anthropology has crossover with almost all other fields, and anthropology as a field benefits from the input of other disciplines. UX is a common crossover. In finance, anthropology can be of a lot of benefit for actuaries. I\u2019m academia, your options are endless. From a cultural perspective you could investigate how conceptions of economy vary and evolve in different cultures. I totally support your transition and people in similar positions (moving to Anthro from an unrelated discipline) have made great contributions to the field! Edit: links you might enjoy from engineering and design to anthropology Anthro and tech computers and cultural anthro digital anthro physics and anthro this is just an example of how mixing different disciplines with anthropology can lead to some really cool research!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":4323.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"86kll6","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.9,"history":"How does a student gain work experience? I\u2019m about to start university (18y\/o) and i was wondering what kind of jobs or internships would you recommend to an anthropology student. I\u2019m fascinated by this field of study and i want to gain as much work experiences as possible before I graduate. Thanks in advance! (Sorry for bad english)","c_root_id_A":"dw695vj","c_root_id_B":"dw5vn9i","created_at_utc_A":1521829448,"created_at_utc_B":1521817380,"score_A":6,"score_B":4,"human_ref_A":"Get to know a professor and see if you can become his or her research assistant. Undergrad research assistants usually do stuff like getting stuff from the library, making photocopies, filing papers, and other clerical stuff, but as you get more experienced you may have the chance to do some real research yourself. To do this, go to a professor\u2019s office hours and chat with them. If you don\u2019t know what to talk about, a good way to start the conversation is something like, \u201cI was really interested in XYZ topic that you discussed in your lecture in class this week. Could you recommend any more books on the topic?\u201d Usually professors are thrilled when students take a sincere interest in their subject beyond being only focused on getting a good grade.","human_ref_B":"In a perfect world, you classes should have you be doing things that you can point to on a resume and be like \"look I can do that\" -- projects, research, etc. In cases where that isn't there or enough, you should spend extra non-class time doing things related to your fiend. Volunteer at organizations. Try to make something tangible of your own. And of course, look for internships early and often. That's often what screws people -- waiting til the last second.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":12068.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuh91b","c_root_id_B":"ckuk1u2","created_at_utc_A":1411878582,"created_at_utc_B":1411889280,"score_A":10,"score_B":16,"human_ref_A":"You might try trickster deities as well. Hermes Odin Legba and Edshu from Africa might be useful as well as the Monkey king from India","human_ref_B":"Within the Orthodox Christian tradition of monasticism, there is an ascetic discipline called the fool-for-Christ first demonstrated by Saint Andrew of Constantinople in the 10th century. This is essentially the monk who battles the root of sin by purging himself of all pride. In doing so he becomes the source of mockery and ridicule to guard himself from its temptation. This freedom provides the opportunity to expose evil in the world. Often the contrast demonstrates profound wisdom. http:\/\/orthodoxwiki.org\/Fool-for-Christ There is a wonderful Russian film called Ostrov in which the main character evolves into the fool for Christ. A fascinating concept!","labels":0,"seconds_difference":10698.0,"score_ratio":1.6} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuk1u2","c_root_id_B":"ckuh1ls","created_at_utc_A":1411889280,"created_at_utc_B":1411877990,"score_A":16,"score_B":7,"human_ref_A":"Within the Orthodox Christian tradition of monasticism, there is an ascetic discipline called the fool-for-Christ first demonstrated by Saint Andrew of Constantinople in the 10th century. This is essentially the monk who battles the root of sin by purging himself of all pride. In doing so he becomes the source of mockery and ridicule to guard himself from its temptation. This freedom provides the opportunity to expose evil in the world. Often the contrast demonstrates profound wisdom. http:\/\/orthodoxwiki.org\/Fool-for-Christ There is a wonderful Russian film called Ostrov in which the main character evolves into the fool for Christ. A fascinating concept!","human_ref_B":"The pueblo have what are called mudheads (my interpretation is shit heads) which were sacred clowns to balance the ideas of sacred vs profane. http:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sacred\u2013profane_dichotomy Other books that might help are trickster makes this world by Lewis Hyde or the Essential crazy wisdom by Wes Nisker which provide examples such as zen monks as tricksters.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":11290.0,"score_ratio":2.2857142857} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuk1u2","c_root_id_B":"ckuf53l","created_at_utc_A":1411889280,"created_at_utc_B":1411872785,"score_A":16,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Within the Orthodox Christian tradition of monasticism, there is an ascetic discipline called the fool-for-Christ first demonstrated by Saint Andrew of Constantinople in the 10th century. This is essentially the monk who battles the root of sin by purging himself of all pride. In doing so he becomes the source of mockery and ridicule to guard himself from its temptation. This freedom provides the opportunity to expose evil in the world. Often the contrast demonstrates profound wisdom. http:\/\/orthodoxwiki.org\/Fool-for-Christ There is a wonderful Russian film called Ostrov in which the main character evolves into the fool for Christ. A fascinating concept!","human_ref_B":"Interesting topic. I Wiki-ed a little bit and came up with the name Jean Cazenuve who \"is highly regarded for his illuminating contribution to the study the ritual clowns.\" But none of his works make reference to the subject in their titles. If anyone knows a particular book of his that touches on this idea, I'd be more than interested. His works","labels":1,"seconds_difference":16495.0,"score_ratio":5.3333333333} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuh1ls","c_root_id_B":"ckuh91b","created_at_utc_A":1411877990,"created_at_utc_B":1411878582,"score_A":7,"score_B":10,"human_ref_A":"The pueblo have what are called mudheads (my interpretation is shit heads) which were sacred clowns to balance the ideas of sacred vs profane. http:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sacred\u2013profane_dichotomy Other books that might help are trickster makes this world by Lewis Hyde or the Essential crazy wisdom by Wes Nisker which provide examples such as zen monks as tricksters.","human_ref_B":"You might try trickster deities as well. Hermes Odin Legba and Edshu from Africa might be useful as well as the Monkey king from India","labels":0,"seconds_difference":592.0,"score_ratio":1.4285714286} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuh91b","c_root_id_B":"ckuf53l","created_at_utc_A":1411878582,"created_at_utc_B":1411872785,"score_A":10,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"You might try trickster deities as well. Hermes Odin Legba and Edshu from Africa might be useful as well as the Monkey king from India","human_ref_B":"Interesting topic. I Wiki-ed a little bit and came up with the name Jean Cazenuve who \"is highly regarded for his illuminating contribution to the study the ritual clowns.\" But none of his works make reference to the subject in their titles. If anyone knows a particular book of his that touches on this idea, I'd be more than interested. His works","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5797.0,"score_ratio":3.3333333333} {"post_id":"2hnogv","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.95,"history":"Which cultures had a strong reverence for the importance of a \"sacred clown\"? Comedy and satire are ubiquitous human traits and are used to great effect as entertainment but I'm extremely interested in the history of comedy\/satire as an essential counterpoint to the human condition, specifically as a palatable way to highlight pressing issues. I'd like to know more about cultures that recognised the necessity of a sacred clown as a balance to serious issues and a means of highlighting societal problems, such as the Lakota with their \"heyoka\", who seemed to be regarded more as religious figures than entertainment. Is this a sacred clown a common cultural phenomenon? (In contrast to someone such as Aristophenes who although serving the same function essentially, was first an entertainer and then a social commentator, as opposed to the other way around.)","c_root_id_A":"ckuh1ls","c_root_id_B":"ckuf53l","created_at_utc_A":1411877990,"created_at_utc_B":1411872785,"score_A":7,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"The pueblo have what are called mudheads (my interpretation is shit heads) which were sacred clowns to balance the ideas of sacred vs profane. http:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sacred\u2013profane_dichotomy Other books that might help are trickster makes this world by Lewis Hyde or the Essential crazy wisdom by Wes Nisker which provide examples such as zen monks as tricksters.","human_ref_B":"Interesting topic. I Wiki-ed a little bit and came up with the name Jean Cazenuve who \"is highly regarded for his illuminating contribution to the study the ritual clowns.\" But none of his works make reference to the subject in their titles. If anyone knows a particular book of his that touches on this idea, I'd be more than interested. His works","labels":1,"seconds_difference":5205.0,"score_ratio":2.3333333333} {"post_id":"1zsmmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Is it accurate to describe Indians as a single culture, race, ethnicity or civilization? I recently got into an argument with someone on reddit about what constitutes 'Indian' culture and 'Indian people'. I maintained that the term was misleading, as I believed it really only applies to people living within the modern state of India which as we all know came about very recently, and India is composed of a great number of different and disparate cultural\/ethnic\/linguistic groups. I thought I would look for a more definitive and better-sourced answer to the question - is it accurate to describe Indians as a unified group?","c_root_id_A":"cfwohhi","c_root_id_B":"cfwpn2d","created_at_utc_A":1394199738,"created_at_utc_B":1394203411,"score_A":8,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"Full disclosure, I'm British with no Indian ancestory, but a lot of my academic research focusses upon South Asia, or the \"Indian subcontinent\". This is something I've run into quite a lot - including an interesting argument with a friend over the \"peacefullness\" of South Asia. He argued that India had never invaded another territory, unlike the empires of Europe, the Middle East or East Asia. When I pointed out that Indian history was full of warring kingdoms and empires he responded that they were all Indian (including polities in what is now Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal or Bangladesh) so it wasn't the same. I would personally disagree. There is a lot of cultural continuity across South Asia, and a number of empires have ruled very large parts of it at times - contributing to that sense of continutity. However, there's also a huge degree of variation; linguistically (this map shows the different families of languages - in particular note the north-south divide bewteen Dravidian and Indo-European), ethnically, culturally, religously etc.. As a result I feel that treating the societies of South Asia as monolithically Indian is both false and massively oversimplistic. This is even more true for areas such as Sri Lanka which appear to be simply lumped in because of geography, ignoring over two millennia of quite distinct cultural development","human_ref_B":"No country is homogeneous and the bigger the country the more regional and ethnic variation you're likely to encounter. India is no exception. What you may be running into is an issue my advisor ran into when I was his grader for his Hinduism course. He researches a number of ethnic groups and folk forms of Hinduism. Most of the students in the course were Indian but they'd been raised mostly in the US and had a very homogenized concept of India and Hinduism that was frequently contradicted by the course. Students were not always thrilled to learn about historical Hinduism, variations in Hinduism, and folk Hinduism. All of this is compounded by recent political trends in India too. Currently there is a Hindu nationalism movement (specifically political groups like the BJP) that is trying to bring together the disparate groups into one unified concept of religion and national identity.^^1 There is significant push back, though, from ethnic groups and non-Hindus. ^^2 Within India there are many, many cultural groups, languages, religions, castes, tribal groups that exist outside the caste system, regional differences, etc. James Manor calls it the most heterogeneous and complex society on earth. ^^3 There are 750 languages spoken in India and 250 more than died out within just the past 50 years. ^^4 There are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, and local \"tribal\" religions. Missionaries have also brought Christianity in various forms and there are even Jewish groups. ^^5 Sometimes, these identities have fueled ethnic and religious conflicts & insurgencies. In 1947 there was an attempt in Bengal to break off into their own country called the United Independent Bengal, which would be separate from both India & Pakistan. ^^6 The Khalistan movement in the Punjab region seeks to create a Sikh nation state and reached the height of its influence\/popularity in the 1970s-80s. The situation is no longer violent, but there are still proponents of Khalistan both in India and among the diaspora. ^^7 Northeast India in general has been home to numerous so called ethnic or tribal insurgencies that still pop up from time to time creating instability in the region 60 years after becoming an independent state. ^^8 ^^9 Hindu and Muslim conflict - regardless of ethnicity - has also been a major problem especially as different political factions have tried to silence people who are not members of their faith. ^^10 This is not to say that India is a hotbed of violence but clearly separatist movements indicate that members do not feel they are a part of the mainstream socio-political power. Even within the same ethnic groups and regions, there are lots of variations due to class and jati. Caste is sometimes taught as a fairly simplistic system with four main categories plus the dalits (who exist outside the caste system.) But within are thousands of jatis, which each have their own set of religious and social ideals and obligations. There can be inter and intra conflict regarding jatis that can lead to divisions among communities all living in the same space and whom identify with the same ethnicity. ^^11 And all of this is contemporary India. As you mention, historically there were tons of small kingdoms, tribal groups, languages, etc. that no longer exist but which added to the diversity of India. Now, there are going to be some shared values and concepts in any nation state. Even if local ethnic groups reject them, they may be presenting their own views in contrast to what they see as the national norm. Mass media, Bollywood, education systems, etc. all help fold disparate groups into some sense of shared identity. Just like the US you can point to some aspects of an American identity even as you point to all of the variation, regional differences, and huge range of ethnic and religious identities. There are shared ideas of what it means to be Indian. But Indians are not all one homoegeneous identity. 1. Chandra, Kanchan. \"The transformation of ethnic politics in India: The decline of Congress and the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Hoshiarpur.\" The journal of Asian studies 59, no. 01 (2000): 26-61. 2. Bannerji, Himani. \"Making India Hindu and Male Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India.\" Ethnicities 6, no. 3 (2006): 362-390. 3. Manor, James. \"'Ethnicity'and politics in India.\" International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) (1996): 459-475. 4. http:\/\/peopleslinguisticsurvey.org\/ and article in Hindustan Times 5. Katz, Nathan. Who are the Jews of India?. Univ of California Press, 2000. 5. Alavi, Hamza. \"Politics of ethnicity in India and Pakistan.\" Perspectives on Modern South Asia: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation (2011): 87. 6. Fair, C. Christine. \"Diaspora involvement in insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam movements.\" Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11, no. 1 \\(2005\\): 125-156. 7. Bhaumik, Subir. \"Insurgencies in India\u2019s Northeast: Conflict.\" Co-option and Change, East West Center, Washington \\(2007\\). 8. Nardi, Dominic J. \"Cross-border chaos: A critique of India's attempts to secure its Northeast tribal areas through cooperation with Myanmar.\" SAIS Review 28, no. 1 (2008): 161-171. 9. Varshney, Ashutosh. Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India. Yale University Press, 2003. 10. Fukunaga, Masaaki. Society, caste and factional politics: conflict and continuity in rural India. Manohar Publications, 1993.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3673.0,"score_ratio":4.625} {"post_id":"1zsmmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Is it accurate to describe Indians as a single culture, race, ethnicity or civilization? I recently got into an argument with someone on reddit about what constitutes 'Indian' culture and 'Indian people'. I maintained that the term was misleading, as I believed it really only applies to people living within the modern state of India which as we all know came about very recently, and India is composed of a great number of different and disparate cultural\/ethnic\/linguistic groups. I thought I would look for a more definitive and better-sourced answer to the question - is it accurate to describe Indians as a unified group?","c_root_id_A":"cfwojoz","c_root_id_B":"cfwpn2d","created_at_utc_A":1394199965,"created_at_utc_B":1394203411,"score_A":2,"score_B":37,"human_ref_A":"I think the question basically applies to any nationality. Any nation is composed of a large number of different groups: classes, regions, urban\/rural distinctions etc. Each of these groups (and the endless \"sub\"-groups) can be regarded as having its own \"culture\", with accompanying customs, codes of behavior, and shared symbols. It is therefore interesting to analyze how different nationalities are constructed or \"imagined\" by their constituents, and how they set criteria for inclusion and exclusion to \"their\" national communities. Benedict Anderson's \"Imagined Communities\" is the classic text on this subject (and it's actually really readable and not jargon-heavy at all!). India is certainly an interesting case in nation-construction. Although you should probably ask someone with more specific expertise on the history of India, I think its national identity was for a large part created in the anti-colonial struggle. In the rhetoric of the Indian National Congress, the various religious and linguistic groups present in British India were conflated into a single national identity. During the final years before independence this rhetoric was in direct competition with the religious definitions of nation endorsed by Jinnah and the Muslim League, eventually leading to the partition of India and Pakistan. Thus there is nothing that is essentially \"Indian.\" The concept depends on the specific historical context, and has been influenced by many different social forces, interests, and media over time.","human_ref_B":"No country is homogeneous and the bigger the country the more regional and ethnic variation you're likely to encounter. India is no exception. What you may be running into is an issue my advisor ran into when I was his grader for his Hinduism course. He researches a number of ethnic groups and folk forms of Hinduism. Most of the students in the course were Indian but they'd been raised mostly in the US and had a very homogenized concept of India and Hinduism that was frequently contradicted by the course. Students were not always thrilled to learn about historical Hinduism, variations in Hinduism, and folk Hinduism. All of this is compounded by recent political trends in India too. Currently there is a Hindu nationalism movement (specifically political groups like the BJP) that is trying to bring together the disparate groups into one unified concept of religion and national identity.^^1 There is significant push back, though, from ethnic groups and non-Hindus. ^^2 Within India there are many, many cultural groups, languages, religions, castes, tribal groups that exist outside the caste system, regional differences, etc. James Manor calls it the most heterogeneous and complex society on earth. ^^3 There are 750 languages spoken in India and 250 more than died out within just the past 50 years. ^^4 There are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, and local \"tribal\" religions. Missionaries have also brought Christianity in various forms and there are even Jewish groups. ^^5 Sometimes, these identities have fueled ethnic and religious conflicts & insurgencies. In 1947 there was an attempt in Bengal to break off into their own country called the United Independent Bengal, which would be separate from both India & Pakistan. ^^6 The Khalistan movement in the Punjab region seeks to create a Sikh nation state and reached the height of its influence\/popularity in the 1970s-80s. The situation is no longer violent, but there are still proponents of Khalistan both in India and among the diaspora. ^^7 Northeast India in general has been home to numerous so called ethnic or tribal insurgencies that still pop up from time to time creating instability in the region 60 years after becoming an independent state. ^^8 ^^9 Hindu and Muslim conflict - regardless of ethnicity - has also been a major problem especially as different political factions have tried to silence people who are not members of their faith. ^^10 This is not to say that India is a hotbed of violence but clearly separatist movements indicate that members do not feel they are a part of the mainstream socio-political power. Even within the same ethnic groups and regions, there are lots of variations due to class and jati. Caste is sometimes taught as a fairly simplistic system with four main categories plus the dalits (who exist outside the caste system.) But within are thousands of jatis, which each have their own set of religious and social ideals and obligations. There can be inter and intra conflict regarding jatis that can lead to divisions among communities all living in the same space and whom identify with the same ethnicity. ^^11 And all of this is contemporary India. As you mention, historically there were tons of small kingdoms, tribal groups, languages, etc. that no longer exist but which added to the diversity of India. Now, there are going to be some shared values and concepts in any nation state. Even if local ethnic groups reject them, they may be presenting their own views in contrast to what they see as the national norm. Mass media, Bollywood, education systems, etc. all help fold disparate groups into some sense of shared identity. Just like the US you can point to some aspects of an American identity even as you point to all of the variation, regional differences, and huge range of ethnic and religious identities. There are shared ideas of what it means to be Indian. But Indians are not all one homoegeneous identity. 1. Chandra, Kanchan. \"The transformation of ethnic politics in India: The decline of Congress and the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Hoshiarpur.\" The journal of Asian studies 59, no. 01 (2000): 26-61. 2. Bannerji, Himani. \"Making India Hindu and Male Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India.\" Ethnicities 6, no. 3 (2006): 362-390. 3. Manor, James. \"'Ethnicity'and politics in India.\" International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) (1996): 459-475. 4. http:\/\/peopleslinguisticsurvey.org\/ and article in Hindustan Times 5. Katz, Nathan. Who are the Jews of India?. Univ of California Press, 2000. 5. Alavi, Hamza. \"Politics of ethnicity in India and Pakistan.\" Perspectives on Modern South Asia: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation (2011): 87. 6. Fair, C. Christine. \"Diaspora involvement in insurgencies: Insights from the Khalistan and Tamil Eelam movements.\" Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11, no. 1 \\(2005\\): 125-156. 7. Bhaumik, Subir. \"Insurgencies in India\u2019s Northeast: Conflict.\" Co-option and Change, East West Center, Washington \\(2007\\). 8. Nardi, Dominic J. \"Cross-border chaos: A critique of India's attempts to secure its Northeast tribal areas through cooperation with Myanmar.\" SAIS Review 28, no. 1 (2008): 161-171. 9. Varshney, Ashutosh. Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India. Yale University Press, 2003. 10. Fukunaga, Masaaki. Society, caste and factional politics: conflict and continuity in rural India. Manohar Publications, 1993.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3446.0,"score_ratio":18.5} {"post_id":"1zsmmw","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.79,"history":"Is it accurate to describe Indians as a single culture, race, ethnicity or civilization? I recently got into an argument with someone on reddit about what constitutes 'Indian' culture and 'Indian people'. I maintained that the term was misleading, as I believed it really only applies to people living within the modern state of India which as we all know came about very recently, and India is composed of a great number of different and disparate cultural\/ethnic\/linguistic groups. I thought I would look for a more definitive and better-sourced answer to the question - is it accurate to describe Indians as a unified group?","c_root_id_A":"cfwojoz","c_root_id_B":"cfwpsjw","created_at_utc_A":1394199965,"created_at_utc_B":1394203830,"score_A":2,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"I think the question basically applies to any nationality. Any nation is composed of a large number of different groups: classes, regions, urban\/rural distinctions etc. Each of these groups (and the endless \"sub\"-groups) can be regarded as having its own \"culture\", with accompanying customs, codes of behavior, and shared symbols. It is therefore interesting to analyze how different nationalities are constructed or \"imagined\" by their constituents, and how they set criteria for inclusion and exclusion to \"their\" national communities. Benedict Anderson's \"Imagined Communities\" is the classic text on this subject (and it's actually really readable and not jargon-heavy at all!). India is certainly an interesting case in nation-construction. Although you should probably ask someone with more specific expertise on the history of India, I think its national identity was for a large part created in the anti-colonial struggle. In the rhetoric of the Indian National Congress, the various religious and linguistic groups present in British India were conflated into a single national identity. During the final years before independence this rhetoric was in direct competition with the religious definitions of nation endorsed by Jinnah and the Muslim League, eventually leading to the partition of India and Pakistan. Thus there is nothing that is essentially \"Indian.\" The concept depends on the specific historical context, and has been influenced by many different social forces, interests, and media over time.","human_ref_B":"When my neighbor lost her passport visiting her fiancees' family she had to first identity people of her class, then people connected to her family linage (hometown on the other end of the subcontinent) to get a new passport. SO even with routine matters of administration\/bureaucracy, India doesn't seem nearly as \"unified\" as what we expect in the West. Institutionalized class disparity is still a huge deal. There are affirmative action style programs, but it still exists. Skin tone is different in the south than the north, So are cultural values & food. If you live near a bunch of Indian ex-pats, you'll learn they might self-select along these food\/cultural differences, in order to live near each other in the new country. You can see it in East or South Africa, you can see it in Queens. And lets not forget Muslim\/Hindu strife, or the fact that what used to be just \"India\" is now several countries, two of whom have *NUKES* pointed at each other. Do you consider Sri Lanka \"indian\"? what about their recent civil war? that wasn't \"unified\". Tl;Dr: Someone could same similar things about China or the USA, too - you *can* describe these huge populations as similar, but you can also see a great many differences. Depends on your focus.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":3865.0,"score_ratio":1.5} {"post_id":"g1cuql","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.93,"history":"Field Research Issues due to Covid-19 I was due to undergo my master's field research in South America, however the current Covid-19 pandemic has made this plan somewhat difficult. Firstly, I was wondering how others are approaching their fieldwork during the pandemic? Secondly, I was considering deferring my thesis a year in order to carry out my fieldwork next summer, post-pandemic. What do people think of this idea?","c_root_id_A":"fng0wcs","c_root_id_B":"fnfvae6","created_at_utc_A":1586919737,"created_at_utc_B":1586916218,"score_A":8,"score_B":3,"human_ref_A":"Echoing the others that you are best off if you consult your advisor, and then other people in the department. However, make sure you also read up on your school's COVID-19 policies. It's possible that, for example, they will not give ethical approval, or their insurance will not cover you. It's also worth looking at the rules of the country\/ies that you are travelling to. Are there travel prohibitions in place? Finally, I think it's worth thinking about it ethically from your *own* perspective. If there are still high rates of infection of COVID-19 when you begin your fieldwork (which is fairly likely, although I don't know the exact stats on SA), there's a few questions worth asking. Will your fieldwork require a lot of travel for you or your participants which might increase people's risk of infection with COVID-19? Are you entering people's lives at an unusually stressful and chaotic time? Are you working with immunocompromised people or other risk groups? Whether any of this is detrimental to your research will depend on your field site\/s and research topics, how the pandemic progresses in the next few months in your own city\/country and your field sites, as well as your own risk perception. (For example, if you are studying access to healthcare in Rio, this might be a great time; if you are studying ayahuasca tourism in Cusco, this might not be the best time - or you might have to alter your approach; if you are cataloguing storerooms of Nasca pottery, it probably won't make much of a difference). **tl;dr** 1) ***ask your advisor*** and other faculty 2) check your school, country, and fieldwork countries' COVID-19 policies 3) do a quick risk assessment for both yourself and your contacts and participants.","human_ref_B":"Not in grad school myself but one of my friends is working on her PhD. She's been doing a ethnography on youth for while and has switched field interviews to Skype calls. Surprisingly everyone has been available for her calls. I think your decision to hold off until we're in a post-pandemic stage is good. Can't imagine conducting fieldwork without a bunch of extra hurdles in these conditions.","labels":1,"seconds_difference":3519.0,"score_ratio":2.6666666667} {"post_id":"8b3r4q","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.86,"history":"What would the development of a society of highly intelligent aquatic organisms be like? I know this is at best tangentially related to anthropology, and that it's entirely speculative, but I can't think of anyone more qualified to answer this question than anthropologists. If an aquatic species evolved to have human-like intelligence (syntactic\/symbolic language, tool crafting, advanced problem solving, etc), what would their societies and path of cultural evolution look like? For example, they couldn't really work metal underwater (to the best of my knowledge), and agriculture might be possible, but would likely be radically different than our path to civilization. Do you think this is even possible, or do you think only terrestrial animals are able to form advanced societies?","c_root_id_A":"dx46bdo","c_root_id_B":"dx5f1qv","created_at_utc_A":1523343427,"created_at_utc_B":1523395775,"score_A":4,"score_B":5,"human_ref_A":"Well, it would look a lot like a society of highly intelligent airquatic organisms, except less effected by gravity and more effected by aerodynamic drag.","human_ref_B":"I think that a number of aquatic animals already possess human-like intelligence. I think people often believe humans are so much smarter because of our technology, but we've been accumulating our collective knowledge over very many generations, and only the smartest humans made the discoveries that really pushed us forward. There are also features other than intelligence that contribute to civilization. Things like opposable thumbs, and environments capable of combustion, and stuff like that. So, I'd say you are looking at human-like intelligent species in our oceans already. Now if you're wondering what *civilization* of aquatic animals would be like, then that's different. I personally believe that an aquatic civilization would be very difficult to create, which is likely a big reason why there isn't one on earth. I'm not sure what such a species would look like. Being under water makes a lot of things difficult, and there isn't much in terms of resources, aside from in shallow waters. At depth there is a lot of pressure and lack of light on earth. One thing you could try imagining, is what if humans could suddenly didn't need to breathe, and the whole planet was flooded? What sort of civilization would we have? Well, a lot of technology we have doesn't work well under water. I would imagine that given the choice, we might create dry environments to live in. We might continue to use similar things, but be force to waterproof everything. The way species and societies evolve though, don't work well like that. It would be difficult to invent smelting and electricity under water. I mean some society exploring with access to the surface, might try to harness air and explore its properties, but that would be easy at all, and getting to smelting and electricity without easy access to ore and air and stuff like that would be tough. So, you could more easily imagine a species that can manipulate it's environment, build weapons out of easily accessible materials. I'm not sure how necessary shelter would be. Maybe defenses against predators, and ways to keep food sources contained for farming. I'm not sure there is much of a motivator other than that. Keeping stuff dry and warm is a big motivator for shelter for us, and idk how much that would matter in the ocean. Especially if you would love in the open ocean. There wouldn't really be a need to own anything, devise anything, defend anything or acquire anything anyone else has. You just so your thing and eat when food comes along. But, I could see how intelligent species might prefer being in shallow waters, and would have preferred hunting spots, and there is always motivation for farming. But if you're a dolphin, for example, you probably would never invent a spear. You have no way to work that, or throw it, and drag in water is so bad, you are probably a better spear already anyway. Aquatic animals tend bro have flippers and stuff like that. Octopuses are a bit different, and they could absolutely wield tools, and they are smart enough to make them also, but their life spans are short. Human beings learn very little in 5 years of life, even today, and we try hard to teach them generations worth of information as quickly as we can. If Einstein only lived until 5, he probably wouldn't have figured much out, and then whatever he did figure out would have died with him, since no language or writing exists. But I think it's plausible that an octopus type species could develop some sort of primitive civilization. I think just the fact they live in water though, would greatly hinder its progress and shape how it evolves. Its hard to know exactly how, but it would usually come from needs and observations. I would imagine some sorts of weapons or traps for catching prey more easily and defending themselves from predators. The ocean is also tough in the sense that if you dig a hole, it will want to fill itself more than on land, which makes mining and excavation difficult. And so much stuff dissolves in water. Making clay would be tough, and you couldn't sun bake it. Even if you collected clay, it would errode away so fast. Indoor spaces would also be dark, and basic primitive light sources would be tough without the ability to create fire. A lot more things float in water also, which makes things more difficult. Its not at all ideal, imo. I think it would be very difficult to progress too much further than the level our apes are currently at. If we had the choice, being on land is the much better option, as far as civilization is concerned. Water is cool, because you can basically fly around, but it is very limiting, even if we could breathe there and see no problem, etcetera. We wouldn't choose to live on an aquatic world as a species always wearing scuba suits. We would build large dry areas. On the other hand, if we needed to breathe water and be immersed in it, we may very well prefer to live in suits on land, most of the time.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":52348.0,"score_ratio":1.25} {"post_id":"9lupkz","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.89,"history":"How did alphabets start? It makes more sense to me that people would have used symbols to mean words not sounds. Did phonetic alphabets start off as symbols being words and somehow change? Or did someone just make up a phonetic sounding alphabet in the whole?","c_root_id_A":"e79y27o","c_root_id_B":"e79xpf3","created_at_utc_A":1538838555,"created_at_utc_B":1538838201,"score_A":34,"score_B":13,"human_ref_A":"Most of the world's alphabets derive from an alphabet originating on the sina\u00ef peninsula. The Latin alphabet, greek and Cyrillic alphabets, Hebrew alphabet, derive from it (fairly obviously) and maybe more surprising the Arabic script as well. It gets even more surprising because Indian writing systems such as the Devanagari and even the Thai writing system (technically not alphabets anymore) are descendants of the sinaitic alphabet. Now how did that writing system look like? The letter A of the Latin alphabet is fairly interesting in that respect. Its ancestor was a pictogram of a cows head. So basically the sina\u00ef people used pictograms as mnemonics for sounds. Have a look at how it looked like here http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/protosinaitc.htm","human_ref_B":"I know it's always been under debate, however there is a reason we use the word phonics... The Phoenicians (modern day Lebanon) were considered to have created the first alphabet. The popularity of this alphabet spread easily throughout Western Civilization as the Phoenicians would trade throughout the Mediterranean, as well as starting colonies (such as Carthage). It is roughly dated to around 1,100 BC, and it grew in popularity due to its simplicity of using only 22 letters. This was much easier than the other writing methods of hieroglyphics or cuneiform at that time. link","labels":1,"seconds_difference":354.0,"score_ratio":2.6153846154} {"post_id":"qmy03h","domain":"askanthropology_train","upvote_ratio":0.99,"history":"The culture of mental institutions I just saw a post here today where someone was asking about cross-cultural studies regarding psychiatry, and the view of mental illnesses cross culturally. It made me think of a book (or study) that we read during undergrad that was about the cultures that form within psychological institutions. I've been trying so hard to remember what the author or reference was. The theory was about how psych wards\/ institutions become their own mini culture, and then the people of the institution actually *don't* want to get \"better.\" The idea being: getting better means leaving the institution... which means leaving your established home group... i.e.: your 'tribe.' I believe the study took place in the United States, or at very least it was a Western cultural study. It was so compelling. I just can't remember the details. Does anyone recall reading anything similar to this?","c_root_id_A":"hjcp1le","c_root_id_B":"hjctkxe","created_at_utc_A":1636070572,"created_at_utc_B":1636072567,"score_A":16,"score_B":28,"human_ref_A":"*Making it Crazy: an Ethnography of Psychiatry Patients in an American Community* by Sue Estroff, 1985 Not sure if that is what you were looking for but it fits the bill. Not sure if it is considered dated these days, but this was my main area of focus in graduate school in the 90s and I work in mental health now, and I can say that her description and analysis (as far as I recall them) I think were valid for the time.","human_ref_B":"You may be think of Erving Goffman \"Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates\"; this is a very influential collection of essays from 1961 by Goffman, a well known sociologist - it is (or was) a frequent entry into sociology syllabi.","labels":0,"seconds_difference":1995.0,"score_ratio":1.75}