Anthropology.net

John Hawks shares with us news of a new hominid discovery. Similar to the post from a couple days ago, this is news of mandible of Homo erectus. Unlike the Serbian mandibular fragment, this is a complete jaw and was discovered at the Thomas I quarry near Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by CRNS research Jean-Paul Raynal.

The Thomas quarries are part of a series of quarries in a suburb of Casablanca called Hay Hassani. Thomas I has already yielded hominid remains. In 1969 another jaw was discovered, but it was only the left mandible and since then four human teeth were excavated. Other quarries nearby, such as Oulad J’mel and Sidi Abderhamane have also yielded interesting Acheulian archaeological finds in the past.

If you want more information about the Thomas, Oulad J’mel, and Sidi Abderhamane localities, I found this link pariticularly useful. The importance of Thomas 1 is also mentioned several times in Desmond Clark’s ‘History of Africa‘ text, which is offered by Google Books — so check it out. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait until a full analysis is done and submitted to a journal to know more about the the specimen and the geological context it came from.

Update July 2nd, 2008: Bram shared a link with a photo of the forementioned fossil. Here it is, click to see the original news (in French).

I stumbled upon this list of 10 ‘extraordinary’ burial ceremonies that I want to pass onto you. Since we’re a anthropology focused community, it is very possible that you’ve heard of most of these rituals. I knew of several of them, but learned some new things as well.

The following are ones I found particularly noteworthy:

1. Air Sacrifice – Mongolia
   The lama, the spiritual leader of the community is,

   “the only one allowed to touch the corpse, and a white silk veil is placed over the face. The naked body is flanked by men on the right side of the yurt while women are placed on the left. Both have their respective right or left hand placed under their heads, and are situated in the fetal position…

   …The body is taken away from the village and laid on the open ground. A stone outline is placed around it, and then the village dogs that have been penned up and not fed for days are released to consume the remains. What is left goes to the local predators.

   The stone outline remains as a reminder of the person. If any step of the ceremony is left out, no matter how trivial, bad karma is believed to ensue.”

2. Sky Burial – Tibet
   

   “The deceased is dismembered by a rogyapa, or body breaker, and left outside away from any occupied dwellings to be consumed by nature…

   …The ceremony represents the perfect Buddhist act, known as Jhator. The worthless body provides sustenance to the birds of prey that are the primary consumers of its flesh.”

3. Pit Burial – Pacific Northwest Haida
   The Haida of the American northwest coast,

   “…Simply cast their dead into a large open pit behind the village.

   Their flesh was left to the animals. But if one was a chief, shaman, or warrior, things were quite different.

   The body was crushed with clubs until it fit into a small wooden box about the size of a piece of modern luggage. It was then fitted atop a totem pole in front of the longhouse of the man’s tribe where the various icons of the totem acted as guardians for the spirits’ journey to the next world.”

4. Predator Burial – Maasai Tribe
   The Maasai of East Africa, perform traditional burials but are reserved for only chief.

   “The common people are simply left outdoors for predators to dispose of, since Maasai believe dead bodies are harmful to the earth.”

5. Skull Burial – Kiribati
   The inhabitants of the tiny island Kiribati, in the South Pacific, lay out the dead in the house for as long as twelve days, they then bury the dead.

   “Several months after internment the body is exhumed and the skull removed, oiled, polished, and offered tobacco and food. After the remainder of the body is re-interred, traditional islanders keep the skull on a shelf in their home and believe the native god Nakaa welcomes the dead person’s spirit in the northern end of the islands.”

Clearly, there’s a theme to the ones I found interesting. I’m very curious to with how others view the body as a vessel. In contrast to many Judeo-Christian burials, these ones I’ve outlined don’t adorn their dead with fancy gravestones and a $6,000 coffin. Instead, they believe the body should be returned into the ecosystem.

Some of the commenters in the original post added some more interesting burial practices not mentioned, such as the Hanging Coffins in the Philipines. I’ve got one to add that is similar with the ones I plucked from the Brave New Traveler post, the Zoroastrian burial rites.

Being Iranian, Zoroastrian culture is pretty deeply engrained. I’ve known for sometime that Zoroastrian people used to present the corpse to a dog, preferably a dog with a spot above each eye which is thought to have increased the efficacy of its gaze. This ritual is repeated five times a day. Since Zoroastrian religion revolves around light and fire, after the first rite, a fire is brought into the room and is kept burning until three days after the removal of the corpse to the Tower of Silence during daytime.

The Tower of Silence is composed of three areas, one for men, women, and children respectively. The corpses are exposed there naked and presented to vultures. Once the vultures do their thing, the remains are dried by the sun and then are buried into the central well.

I’m very curious to know the origin of this ritual, because of the remarkable similarity between the Mongolian and Tibetan practices. As you know the Mongols control Persia and Tibet for quite sometime, where I suspect these practices were exchanged, amongst other memes.

Do you have any interesting burial practices to share with us?

Introduction

Before I dive into the concept of race, I just want to thank Kambiz for this opportunity to broaden not only my perspectives but everyone else’s as well. I am very excited to discuss subjects that interest me and make people think critically about culture and society. I am looking forward to this personal challenge to hold my own writing with an anthropological community. I humbly thank you all in advance!

Historical Context

All the history books that I have read suggest that race was first recognized when the Europeans came over to America and saw the Native Americans. But what did the Europeans think of the peoples on their trade routes? What was different about the Native Americans that sparked a racial hierarchy to begin? Or is it our history books that are flawed due to being written by either by Americans or Europeans and are therefore biased?

The main concern of the Europeans was religion and how people of different colors fit into that scheme. Were they also “Children of God or soulless creatures that needed to be saved? The discussion of the “conversion” of “savages” is an entirely different bag of issues, so to speak. But this is, nevertheless, the beginning of the mistreatment of people for their skin color…in theory.

Definition

The definitions that I am referencing are from “The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality” with Tracey E. Ore describing race as “a group of people who perceive themselves and are perceived by others as possessing distinctive hereditary traits.” Whereas ethnicity would be “having cultural traits such as language, religion, family customs, and food preferences.” I state the definition of ethnicity because the two can be confused with one another but they can also be intertwined.

Reason for Race, Not Justification

It is human nature to categorize things to make our reality more palatable. Also, it is a coping mechanism for status. Something as simple as the color of one’s skin can denote their position in a hierarchy and can save a conversation. One does not have to talk to someone to figure out their status if they can just look at them and know according to their skin color, hypothetically speaking. Now, I am not saying we all do this, but realize that ingrained within each one of us is our culture that society has presented to us since birth. I believe, no matter who you are looking at, you will make some sort of assumption or employ some sort of stereotype to that person. This may include race but more importantly hierarchy or status judgment.

Construction through Society

Race is a very dynamic human category. It is not the same anywhere at any given time due to the different constructs set up within a society and the personal translation of that construct. The construction is solely based upon the “recipe” for race throughout the society’s history. In America, race started out by the decision of whether or not the peoples of darker skin were animals or men. That is a pretty intense construct to break out of after years of this type of thinking and teaching! It has taken decades…no centuries to even come face to face with the equal rights issues because people are just stuck in society’s cultural mind of oppression!

Not only sociocultural factors are involved but a more “exact” science as well: biology. Scientists justified oppression due to skin color by coming up with biological factors that proved “they” were inferior to them. We have outgrown this phase (for the most part), though, which is relieving. There is still a commanding argument on whether or not biology has anything to do the color of skin of anyone. Yes, the color of skin varies but does it make someone biologically different to the point of them being inferior or superior?

Conclusion

The conception of race is truly in the eyes of the beholder. It depends on who is looking, judging, assuming and has little or nothing to do with biology but the history of a society that makes assumptions or stereotypes of people of darker skin to create a social hierarchy that is visible or easily identified. There is variation of skin colors depending on the region of one’s origin. But the emphasis put behind the skin is the creation of race. The emphasis that is put in place by a sociocultural system is where the interpretation and conception of race stems from. Race is just an idea and not a fact of inferiority.