I was debating whether or not to post this over at Primatology.net because it involves orangutans and the research of them. But, I decided not to because the topic, bipedalism, is almost uniquely human in the mammalian world. We are exclusively bipedal, except for that brief period of our lives where we crawl. Bipedialism, as [...]
My colleague, Dr. Pedram Khosronejad of the Society of Iranian Anthropology, sent me this call for contributions. I thought I’d help him out and spread the word.
The content will eventually be published in an edited book, from what I understand. Here is what Pedram is looking for,
“The aim of this volume is to broaden the [...]
Vincenzo Formicola, of the University of Pisa in Italy, has studied three different European burial sites dating to between 26,000 and 8,000 B.C. These dates fall smack dab in the Stone Age and offer a unique insight into the behaviors of early Europeans, because the graves,
“include the remains of physically disabled people hint at ritual [...]
I want to share with you news about some yet to be released research on the role of two genes, ASPM & Microcephalin, in language tone, which has just hit the press releases. ASPM & Microcephalin are known to play a role in brain development of primates. The role of these two genes in language [...]
There’s a lotta anthropology goodness surfacing on the internets today, and I’ll try to share some of the ones that sparked my interests. The first is an application of archaeology, specifically geoarchaeology, in solving the mystery on how Alexander the Great conquered the island of Tyre.
I’m assuming everyone knows who Alexander the Great was. In [...]
Cultural anthropology specializes in many aspects of explaining who, what, where, why, and how people live the ways they do. Cultural anthropologists identify unique traits of a certain culture, or way of life. We as a public usually draw the lines between the similarities and differences to our own cultures and the ones introduced to [...]
Of course I am biased when I say that I consider anthropology one of the coolest disciplines. But I have reasons as to why I hold this opinion. One of the reasons is that anthropology has and will always be a discipline that integrates and applies methods from other disciplines. The following new research I [...]
If I tickle or play with my daughter, I’m immediately attacked (playfully) by the family dog that will defend her to the end. With the exception of dinosaurs, my daughter’s favorite two animals are dogs and horses and it’s reflected in her movies, toys and play. She loves to watch movies like Shaggy Dog, the [...]
So let’s get back to the basics here and answer the above question. Why? Because, I’ve been asked this question far too many times and decided that I’ll be proactive about it and put out a little summary post on what neolithic means, when did it happen, and what exactly happened.
Etymologically speaking, neolithic can be [...]
I don’t quite know how to categorize the following post, because while it is fundamentally more physical anthropology, the whole issue that is being addressed is cultural. See, geneticists have been shifting the number of human genes for some time now. A good estimate is that humans have a little under or around 30,000 genes. [...]
